Donald said that he had his lawyers look at this from every which way. There was no issue there. Nothing to this birther issue. Were you raising this issue now . Now he is doing a little bit better. [laughter] there is a big . On your head. You cannot do that to the party. My entire life defending the constitution before the u. S. Supreme court and i will tell you im not going to be taking legal advice and donald trump. You very kindly just a moment ago offered me the vp slot. [laughter] if thisell you what, all works out, i will be happy to consider naming you as vp so if you happen to be right you can get the top job at the end of the day. Not a lot of conservatives come out of manhattan. Conservatives actually do come out of manhattan. Including William F Buckley and others. He insulted a lot of people. Ive had more calls on that statement. When the World Trade Center came down, i saw something that no place on earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than new york. That was a very insulting statement. Mark this morning donald trump took issue with my semiofficial or poor credit valuations of how he did at the debate. He also this morning took exception with how i scored ted cruzs performance. Are you still willing to say that ted cruz is a nice guy like you have in the past after last night . I dont know about being a nice guy. Im not sure. He came at me last night it was inappropriate. I had him very hard. I do not think you would take it that way. He is a job is a problem, he needs to sort that out. He may have had a couple of suits filed against him yesterday against him running. I do not know if he is a nice guy. Hes a good debater debater but he is very strident. Not a lot of people would like that. I thought ted cruz hurt himself last night very badly because he looked very strident, to me. I think people are not going to like him based on that performance. Mark here are all of my grades. You can see the candidates at the top. Donald trump and ted cruz and and so on and so forth. Chris christie with a b. Marco rubio with the same. John, focusing on the front runners, do you agree with donald trump that i should have bumped his grade up to a clean a, and that i gave ted cruz too high a great . John no and no. I do not agree with donald trump. Neither of this course. Partly because i thought that on the question of ted cruzs birth and eligibility, i thought that ted cruz is very strong on that. I thought donald trump looked a little discombobulated and on that basis alone, i think he cannot get a clean a. I also do not think that you overrated ted cruz. I think he should have been higher in your grading than you gave it. I would square those guys both a. I might have given crews a. Mark you might have given ted cruz a pure a . John probably not. I would have given him mark heres the thing. Toeave myself open misunderstanding because my grades are based both on performance and how it affects the candidates chances. Ted cruz did not leave North Charleston with a better chance of beating donald trump and when he came in. His performance was good in many ways, but i do not think that you could say that tonight ted cruz has a better chance of being the nominee than he did last night. John really . I do. Only because of this, i believe that this birth eligibility was starting to her ted cruz little bit. I thought he seemed a little discombobulated himself about that issue for the last week and i thought that last night he clearly dispensed with it. Mark he did not clearly dispensed with it. He had a long highprofile discussion about with donald trump and donald trump is more right than wrong when he says that this is not a settled issue. John well, i do not disagree with donald trump on that. Until it has been adjudicated, it is not a settled issue. I think as a political matter, ted cruz did a very nice job mark if you are scoring at the princeton debate club. John im a charter member of that debate club. Mark they set an extended highprofile time talking about an issue which by your own account is not good for ted cruz. John there was no way around that, mark. The issue would be a big part of the debate mark crews made it higher profile. John he handled it well. Mark ted cruz made it higher profile by attacking. That is my last word on the matter. John moving on now. Republican National Committee met in North Charleston around last nights debate at in the hallways, all the talk was about the degree of the parties discomfort with where the nomination contest now stands. That is a twoperson race basically, involving two people whom the Party Establishment kate is probably too strong a word, but probably not too strong. Is there anything to republican establishment can do to change the unpleasant reality that they currently confront . Mark nothing right now. The moment of truth will come either right before right after New Hampshire when there will have to be some way for the establishment to pick one or maybe even two of the four establishment governors or former governors and say, we are all in with this guy or these two guys. It will be hard to get that done unless one or two of them can come out of iowa and or new therese as head until above the rest. I think that is possible. You could say that Chris Christie a marco rubio or marco rubio and jeb bush or a combination of the two of them where establishment can say, we have to go all in because you have a lot of voices including people at paul ryan who say, i will be for donald trump who is if youve the nominee. I think he would step in and try to stop donald trump. John i think it is possible that there will be an establishment consensus, mainstream conservative that emerges. I think that is possible. It is a slightly different thing than rather the establishment can stop donald trump or ted cruz. I think the big stories of this last year have been how powerful the antiestablishment wing is and also how weak the establishment, whatever that means, is. The atrophy of their public and establishment is on display for all to see. I do not think theres anybody in a smokefilled room or any set of people at the rnc who can do anything to stop donald trump or ted cruz, for that matter, if they get on a roll or when the nomination contest or it they will be the nominee and the Party Establishment will have to swallow it. Mark what we can put to rest is that the establishment fund, that is done. I do believe that one or two of these guys is going to emerge and they will get a chance to rally the establishment and it might be too late, but at least they will try. Comingads are sure to be fast and furious over the next two weeks with the run up to iowa. Every day will bring you the ones that can make a difference in the contest. Outcome or at least that struck our fancy. Today we will start with Donald Trump New tv ad. It is only the second tv commercial of his entire political career. We are going to take our country and we are going to fix it. We are going to make it great again. We are going to fix our. Were going to take care of our veterans. We are going to fix our military. We are going to strengthen our borders. We are going to build a wall, but we are going to strengthen our borders. We are going to make a great again. Were going to make it greater than ever before. Thank you. Mark that is a good advertisement. Then another one we want to show you today. Marco rubio a new ads. It is defending himself against attacks from jeb bush is super pac. We all see what is happening. Jeb bush is desperate and spending millions on false attacks. Do not fall for it. When im president , there will be no amnesty. I will cancel obamas unconstitutional executive orders. I will cut century student funding and a poor criminal aliens. Border agents,000 and finish all 700 miles of the border wall. If youre not 100 sure who you are and why youre coming to america, you are not getting in. Im marco rubio, i approve this message. To keep america safe. Two big ads, john, what do you think the significance of them are . John the donald trump at, angry with you is very strong. Strong offensively saw the first donald trump ad which was kind of a dark vision of america which was very much on message at the beginning of his closing argument. This one now is the Positive Side of it, the make America Great part. It is dumb dumb simple, but i think that is a virtue in some sense. I think that is important. The rubio ad says one thing, the immigration stuff is hurting him and jeb bush is getting to him. They the donald trump ad, are bringing the rally experience onto the tv set. People in the early states his performance there. All bc they can choose which clips to use. Marco rubio last night yet again, even know he engage with ted cruz on immigration, yet again, he did not have to give an accounting of his actions with a gain of eight on immigration. This advertisement is an attempt for him to take a position in which he will be on defense and make it kind of an offense thing. I think mattel is still going to be told. You look at marco rubio, Chris Christie, and john kasich, the ascension is that any of the three have success, they will be slammed by an onslaught of negative advertisements from all directions. Marco rubio asserted to face that in a starting to fight back. John do you think its strange look, i think the Jeb Bush Campaign is basically dead. Because it is so much money, i do not think it is dead in one sense, which is a can inflict damage and other people. That rubio is responding to bush, who was a say right now, most of the party thinks its pretty much not in contention for the spot that marco rubio had it seems to me that indicates a kind of weird defensiveness. Of all the things he could be responding to, it would be jeb bush a super pac . Mark the other campaigns think that once rubio has success, he will be dead with a gain of eight. Well see if they are right. John coming up, well talk about the other debates. The democratic debate. What we watching for in that matchup on sunday, next. Mark next in a credit debate will take place on sunday night. John a confrontation likely to be framed around economics. Consider these new bullets from the past week. Joe saying that Bernie Sanders is more authentic than Hillary Clinton on economic issues. Bernie sanders putting out an ad without mentioning Hillary Clintons name is greater as softer on wall street reform that he is. And Hillary Clintons Campaign Calling a Conference Call with reporters to describe that tb spot as negative, even though her name was not mentioned. To understand why the debate over economic populism matter so much and has gotten so hot, take a look at our latest Bloomberg Politics and morning register iowa poll which shows just how far left the partys base is on this topic. With 44 describing himself as iwall street and poorly 43 described themselves a socialist. Today, Hillary Clinton showed that she is supersensitive to the base field as she tried to frame herself as the candidate who cares the most about economic inequality. Line, is the bottom have been working against inequality since i was right out of law school. I have worked hard to try and level the odds for people who are often left behind and left how. That is why i have devoted a lot of my time and attention to trying to into the inequality of opportunity that poor kids face. Why i have worked hard to level the Playing Field for women. I could go on and on, i have a long, long record of tackling all kinds of inequality. So, mark, lets did you the following, then no one disputes Bernie Sanders when it comes to economic populism. That is a given. The question is, is there anyway that clinton can possibly hope to compete with him on that score . Mark i dont than she wants to or should want to can he with him compete with them. I think she should could be with him on Economic Vision of the country that would appeal to the wider nation. Is,ink the problem for her she was asked what her messages and what irrational the running is, and she gave would send it to my ear a pretty rambling answer rather than something tight in syria and what you and i would call a theory of the case on the economy. I think that Hillary Clinton would like to outflank Bernie Sanders on the right on some ways in the economy and the left in others. She cannot have populist. She cannot let it happen and shes not wanted to happen. John i agree with that. As you play now, there are two different issues with the theory of the case. One, whether she has one, or why she wants to be president and another is if she has economic. The case and obviously one of the things that was strongest about bill clinton when he ran in 1992 and 1996 is that he had one. Very clear and concise and compelling and forwardlooking. Hillary clinton has a lot of proposals and a lot of really strong policies. A great policy shop. What she has not done is knit those things together into a coherent vision. Either to the left or to the right or some third way. Aint no such thing as a theory of the case about wanting to be president that does not include a hefty dose of the economy. John i know, its a subset though. Mark i will say that right now, it is not unfair to the Clinton Campaign to say that they have had a week of scramble in. Heading into this debate, Bernie Sanders is now as good a justdential candidate, athletes skills, political athletes goes, as he has ever been. His understanding on how to do pay Hillary Clinton is better than it has ever been. You see him now possibly poised as much as and maybe more than in the first debate to really present her a challenge on sunday night with Martin Omalley on the stage beside them. John i will tell you right now, im in burlington, vermont, and eyes and sometime around the Hotel Vermont this afternoon where the sender campaign is doing debate prep. I have run across senator sanders and most of his high command over the course of the day and they are a confident group right now. They have looked at all of these attacks coming from the Clinton Campaign over the course of this week on economics and Everything Else and they look at and say, man, this is a good sign for us. We are making progress as they are behaving this way. Senator sanders and his habit of this debate is for him and he spent a lot of time cramming today. Coming up, what you should be doing for real on sunday night, now watching the debate, but something is much more important. Well talk about that after this. Mark that is a scene from his upcoming show that we will talk to about now. That you many things can experience on the campaign trail, speeches, voters, good fried food, the media, and one more thing, cameras. All of those things together, deep fry them, and you have yourself a greater show on earth, and that is why we here at blumer politics are partnering with showtime to show what it is like to be on the campaign trial. The program is called the circus. It starts this sunday night, one mingle, to get up close to reveal what the president of candidates and those around them are really like. Heres a look at part of the First Episode of the circus featuring Bernie Sanders in iowa. [applause] your hair is looking good this morning. [laughter] what we are trying to do, as you know, with this campaign, is to make a Political Revolution. Donald trump and i say this publicly, is a pathological liar. The answer is, we will raise taxes for millionaires and billionaires and for the largest corporations. On caucus night, were going to win. Obviously, that is something were working very hard to do. The clinton people are getting very nervous. Here in iowa, in New Hampshire, nationally, almost all instances, we do a lot better against donald trump and the other republicans, sometimes a bit i very, very big numbers and she does for a variety of reasons. If people raise the issue, i do not want to see donald trump or ted cruz become president , that is good. That is a better reason to vote for Bernie Sanders. [applause] let me thank all of you for coming. An incredible turnout. Bottom line, today the United States of america is the wealthiest country in the history of the world, but most people in our country do not know it. They do not know it because they are too busy working two jobs or three jobs and they do not know because in many instances, really inflation adjusted for dollars, they are earning less than they used to. Make it happen. [indiscernible] [applause] [applause] we have the opportunity, here, and iowa, on caucus night, you have that special and unique opportunity to move this country forward and make a Political Revolution which demands that Government Works for all of us and not just a few. [applause] im am, and i say this probably, the son of an immigrant. [applause] [indiscernible] its up to you, sir. You have and your guy right now, not that theres a good chance, but that in your hearts, im going to win this thing . We will have had meetings with close to 50,000 people coming out. That is a decent percentage of the total number people who are going to vote. I also understand i am up against a very, very formidable opponent who has a great organization, who is spending a whole lot of money. So, i do not take her for granted. Based on my feelings of the crowds and the enthusiasm and energy that is out there, based on my sense of u