his own caucus for the job of speaker which should be his. he performed an unforced error and gave the clinton s a talking point, and the clinton s are taking the ball and running with it, they should. it s the first bit of good luck they ve had in a long time. and let s turn around and look at what s happening on the republican candidate side. donald trump leading in polls but he s slipping. this as others make gains. how concerned should the trump camp be right now? reporter: the trump camp is always working under the assumption that they would have a limit for how much support they could achieve inside the republican caucus without breaking into the larger mainstream audience. they ve failed to do so. that s a major problem for the campaign. this was always going to be a long race. trump has said he s in it for the long haul. he doesn t have a money problem, but there s a growing
they can t tell him he can t be part of the republican presidential race. they are just an organization. it is really going to be down to the voters. we will see whether this has really hurt donald trump. i can t imagine it will help him. you are probably going to see him slip in the polls. all they can ask is for an apology. the big concern amongst republicans is that if donald trump leaves the republican party and launches a third party bid, it allows the next president to be a democrat, perhaps hillary clinton. i want to bring in two more people into this conversation, jason johnson, a political science professor and cnn political commentator here. anna, the trump camp has released yet another statement. you have all these tweets coming from donald trump himself. now, you have the camp saying, mr. trump made megyn kelly look really bad. she was a mess with her anger
final minute. thanks for that. good afternoon, i m steve kornacki live here in new york. day 36 of the first 100 days. topping our agenda right now, the hostile takeover. the core conviction of our movement is that we are a nation that put and will put it s own citizens first. [ applause ] the president president trump returning today to cpac with a new definition of conservatism and a vow to deliver. also on the agenda, correcting the record. there s always a level strong independence and the department of justice to manage investigations. there has to be a separation from the white house and guardrails to not discuss things inappropriately. white house officials telling nbc news that reince priebus asked the fbi to push back against a new story on the trump camp s ties to russia.
we haven t heard from the trump camp and the pence sources are not elaborating. you can read this a very specific way. you said avalanche, i say wave, you can use any number of descriptions here. this is adding to a very, very problematic afternoon for trump. fred, this really ups the ante for tomorrow night for donald trump here at this debate and in st. louis. he absolutely has a huge, huge victory tomorrow night or not a major stumble because if he does stumble, it s going to get worse for him politically. more people abandoned him. he can turn the tide around if he takes it to hillary clinton. how? how? that shows very good question. a good performance from donald trump after this. this is a gigantic distraction. it will put him on the spot about the question about the
you support us or do you not support us. the fact is that, you know, some of the leaders have been very wishy washy. i think that paul ryan has a job to do to keep the majority in congress. reporter: conway held a private call with gop lawmakers who support trump today, with several telling her to encourage trump to focus his fire on clinton, not his own party. trump did focus most of his attacks on his democratic rival today, citing the ongoing release of hacked clinton campaign staff e-mails published by wikileaks and clinton s own e-mail controversy from her time as secretary of state. this is the most heinous, the most serious thing that i have ever seen involving justice in the united states in the history of the united states. we have a person that has committed crimes that is now running for the presidency. reporter: the trump camp further stepping up its attacks on clinton releasing a new ad