outpost there in afghanistan. but soldiers who were there and other military officials remind us that when he left that base decreasing the number of trigger pullers, those who protect the fellow soldiers at that base by one, he, in fact, put his fellow soldiers at risk and put them at greater risk when they conducted operations in an attempt to find him so this is a hard, tough trial for all of those involved. jim miklaszewski at the pentagon, thank you jur pentagon, thank you. we have a new challenger to the trump juggernaut emerging. ted cruz. he is up in the the latest poll. one point we hind donald trump. willen to this, though. donald trump had some words for cruz on sunday. i don t think he s qualified
to get them sharper, smarter, faster for not just the primary season but for what comes in the general? no. i think bernie s provided a very good challenge to hillary, made her a better candidate. i can tell you that they re so focused on the states. with unthing hi one thing hillary is doing is the organization. she is used this time to be on the ground talking to people and be in iowa this week. she s been in new hampshire i think 18 or 20 times. you know? having not so much attention in the immediate why s not a bad thing getting to do the work you re suppose to among voters and connect with voters and what they re all about. thank you for your time. thank you for having me on. absolutely. with a deep dive, i want to check in with steve kornacki standing by and i understand donald trump not pleased with the latest polls and likes being at the top. that is putting it mildly,
isolationi isolationi isolationists. i want to start with katy tur in las vegas, the site of the debate for tomorrow night. before talking about that debate, i understand you have some new information about trump and his medical records, that release. reporter: his sterling medical records as donald trump would say. his doctor released a short report and no issues in the past year. in fact, lost 15 pounds. the physical strength is, quote, his physical strength and stamina, quote, extraordinary and will be the healthiest person ever elected to the presidency. he fulfilled that promise just a few minutes ago. is that a health record, katy? reporter: well, it is a summary from his doctor. frankly, sounds almost like donald trump wrote it himself. yes. so let s talk about what we expect tomorrow from the debate. donald trump right in the middle but ted cruz is going to be on his side.
weight loss. reporter: we don t have blood pressure or anything. you re right. but it s strength and stamina. katy tur in las vegas, appreciate that. i want to go to political correspondent steve kornacki joining us and trump received, steve, a lot of blowback on the comments of ted cruz and what are you hearing? her s a new development worth keeping an eye on just in the last hour. someone who s been one of trump s most influential allies as he s risen to the top of the polls, may now be turning on him because of his attacks on ted cruz and talking about the radio host rush limbaugh. rush limbaugh s show is going on as we speak. he made some comments just a few minutes ago about donald trump and working to turn the audio around on that and i can fill you in on the basics of what he said. basically limbaugh listened to trump about cruz over the weekend and very upset with it. he said what trump said in saying that cruz didn t know how
i have heard people supporting trump make the comparison to barack obama in iowa and the total number of par tis paints almost doubled in iowa and you guys picked up on that. that s right. we picked up on it. nobody could believe it at the time and then it turned out to be true. we are using the same method. same method of august when trump led our poll. so, to the extent we are not introducing any change that would have biassed in a particular way. so tell us when s behind the cruz surge then. i guess from your last poll to the new one at 31% in first place now, that s a record for you guys and haven t seen a 21-point jump like that before. when s the key to ted cruz s surge in iowa? that s right. unprecedented in the caucus polling. what i observe is putting together the pieces of a puzzle and things are starting to coa les.