citizen. so from your perspective, what is it? i think this is less about giving legal advice and more about giving pr advice. listen, donald trump is all about the preemptive strike, taking out the person s artillery he s about to fight. i think he s literally thinks he s going to make this conversation happen and regardless whoever s one and two this is something that will not be used against either one of them if they happen to become closer friends down the campaign trail. just to clarify that for a moment, scottie, what do you mean he wants this to come up now because he wants to help, are you saying, ted cruz? i actually think this might be a part of it because he knows this is something that whether the establishment republicans might use or the democrats eventually could use against ted cruz. he knows this is an issue. whether right or wrong this brings up a pr nightmare and distracts people from the issues whether it s something senator cruz is talking about or what the
didn t hear it at the first couple of stops. so as long as that continues, and he doesn t have to explain himself to voters, then maybe he ll continue to be on top here in iowa, which is where he is right now, wolf. according to the latest polls. we ll see what happens less than four weeks to go until the caucuses. dana, thank you very much. joining us now republican strategist ana navarro, democratic strategist donna brazile and scottie hughes. ana, so john mccain is actually siding with donald trump now on this whole so-called birther issue involving senator cruz. oh, i don t think so s, wolf. i spoke to john mccain about five minutes ago, asked him about this. he said, look, i got asked about it on a talk show. i m not bringing it up. and i think that when you re running for president, everything is fair game. and everything gets looked at. he reminded me that in his case in 2008 there was a legal complaint filed in the gold water case there was a case that
even if he were to lose iowa to cruz, they are very loyal supporters and i don t think donald trump collapses. it is a real number. not only did he have a good debate performance, which we discussed last week. now i think this pivot to taking on hillary clinton, this is exactly what republican voters want to see. not just donald trump supporters. more broad republican voters want to see their front-runner showing how you take the fight to their collective enemy. that s what he s doing right now. the other candidates would love to be focusing on hillary clinton but they have other concerns. they need to take care of donald trump first. a very important point brought on by doug, and i compliment you very sparingly, scottie says the outrage du jour.
u.s. also note that trump appears to be doing poorly in head-to-head match-ups. clinton, for example, beating him by seven points. bernie sanders by 13. so, a lot to digest there. you re right, it doesn t look as good right now in this poll for donald trump has some of the others have shown. trump is still up. ted cruz, though, not unhappy about these poll numbers out today. joe johns, thanks. let s discuss this. as joe said, there s a lot to dissect so let s do that. former communication director for the rnc doug high as well as dav david, scottie hughes and donna brazile. everybody is here, the gang is back together. doug, let s take a look at the top line. ted cruz nipping at donald trump s heels. should donald trump be shaking in his boots? a lot of us thought that for a long time.
microeconomics in a one-minute sound bite. i don t know if america wants to hear about microeconomics. some of it, yes, people want substance and perhaps people want more from mr. trump. but there was a discussion, we talked immigration, but there was a discussion on minimum wage, scottie. trump said he would leave everything the way it is. here s donald trump. taxes too high, wages too high. we re not going to be able to compete against the world. i hate to say it, but we have to leave it the way it is. people have to go out. they have to work really hard. and they have to get into that upper stratum. but we cannot do this if we are going to compete with the rest of the world. we just can t do it. leave everything the way it is. i mean, this is a man who touts the slogan, wears the ball cap, make america great. how does that jive with that slogan? it jives with it perfectly.