Hardball with Chris Matthews is next. Would trump dump ryan . Lets play hardball. Good evening. Im Chris Matthews in california where ill speak at the institute for public policy. Did donald trump say ill fight every man in the house for a dollar . Not yet but hes ready to fight the speaker of the house and not worried about party unity. Does the party have to be together . Im different perhaps than anybody thats run for office. I dont think so. I have to stay true to my principles, also and im a conservative but dont forget, there are conservative parties. Republican leaders whether to
support trump among those who jumped on board are his former prima pry march opponents and senator land paul and rick perry together with the trump group also includes senator john mccain, bob doll, dick cheney, Mitch Mcconnell and Republican NationalCommittee ChairReince Priebus with trump. Senator Lindsey Graham, jeb bush and nebraska mitt romney, two former president s George Herbert walker bush and george w. Bush and paul ryan says hes not ready to back trump yet. While speaker ryan is the chair of the repub connecticut venlicd trump didnt rule out from being the chair. If he cant endorse you, do you think he should be chair of the convention . I dont want to mention now. Ill see after. I will give you a very solid answer if that happens about one minute after that. Okay . Fair in. No reason to give it now. It sounds like i know well today speaker ryan told the milwaukee journal he would step down. Thats definitive there. Meanwhile key trump supporter sarah palin went further against reince and said she would back the primary opponent. Here she is. I think paul ryan is soon to be cantored. His political career is over but for a miracle because hes disrespected the will of the people. As the leader of the gop, the convention certainly he is to remain neutral and for him to already come out and say who he will not support was not a wise decision of his. Wow. Jeremy peters is the political reporter for the New York Times writing a lot about this and msnbc contributor and chairman of the union and Jennifer Ruben is an opinion writer for the washington post. Great group to have on to discuss this state of play. Jeremy, youve written about it. I failed to give you credit for another piece. I gave it to pay tritrick haile. It seems when most people get a job, when most people get a job they try to fit in, most people and try to learn the rules and get comfortable and do what they are told. Trump has this job. Hes the nominee. Its going to happen and getting used to the situation hes going to worry again. He gets ryan. And he says i may not be able to keep you on the party. Part of this is trump being trump and a modest humble guy
who will go along to get along. Part of this is also there is a deeply held indignity. They view him as an illegitimate enter loop. I think its easy to see why thats the case because he was a democrat. He has not been republican for very long and all of a sudden, now hes going to be the partys nominee. Imagine the horror of being priebus or those who seized control of the party who may not be a true conservative and what they want is for trump to validate the sincerity and that will be a hard thing for trump to do in a lot of cases on a lot of issues. Its a little late for a vetting process. Hes won the nomination. They are asking questions that should have been asked ayear
ago. We know trump does. We agree he stays on offense and doesnt go on television and attacking number two he always wants to master the current opponent and look like a bully or master and also has to keep the role of outsider up front about himself. He never wants to look like one of the club and be in a back room coming out of a back room how we got along. He doesnt want private deals privately agreed upon. He wants to be donald trump against these guys. Let me go, whats this thing about as the Republican Party not conservative. What is he up to saying an amazing thing like that in 2016 . I kind of dont know. I try to unpack that but i do think that there is a difference between for myself, i consider myself a conservative first and republican second and i think part of him is saying look, i ran on conservative themes but i ran under the mantle of republican. I didnt have to run as republican and all of a sudden, you have republicans that made him sign a pledge and not keeping their pledge they would
support the eventual no, mamin. These are people that believe they should be able to over rule what the voters did. Hes gotten a million more votes today than mitt romney got. He is going to break all the records on the gop side for the number of votes in the republican primaries. Our turnout is up over 60 so i mean, theres a lot of facts, which is a clear message is being said to the party elites, we want to try something new. Thats old hat, matt. You can do better than that. There are people who are elite, grass root people including your Organization Called the american conservative union. A lot of your comrades and members are appalled by this because lets jennifer, youre the one who has comrades at the washington post. Right. Let me get back to jennifer can i ask you a question. Sure. First of all, what is a republican today . Are you a republican . You know republican i dont know because what i am is a reformed conservative so i dont know the answer. Im the reason why this fight has come up because trump does have an advantage and nobody knows because is a republican free trader, i always thought republicans are free traders. He is definitely not. Apparently the people that voted for him are not. Generally middle east or anywhere in the world he definitely talk as big game against the iraq war and doesnt like the aggressive politics taking down governments over there. Regime changes, against the whole thing. Whats a real republican for regime change, Foreign Policy or someone against it like trump . Whats a republican. Let me tell you what is not. Somebody that decides every day what he wants to say about anything. Its not that hes a republican or not. Hes a lunatic and wants to give Nuclear Weapons to south korea and japan and one day says hes not going to stand by the United States and next day says it
doesnt matter because we can print money. This is not a man with principal as you said on offense. Okay. Its not no, he hasnt. And from the beginning fact checked six ways prom sunday and thats wrong. Thats a high. For the voter whose voted for him, the question is what is a republican. Thats what im trying to get to. This definition of who is in and outcomes down to a pushing match between him and ryan and the question is, ryan was so quick to say today or very recently the last several hours im willing to walk if he tells me to. I thought that was profoundly important to acknowledge the guy that won the nomination, won the nomination. Some other people arent going to say that. Its two things. What you were referring to ryan is recognizing the legitimacy
and the true feelings and a lot of the Republican Party now they want to see change. But its also ryan creating distance and thats what he needs, distance from the top of the ticket so republicans, if, you know, it comes to this dont get totally clobbered in november and if youre paul ryan or Mitch Mcconnell, thats what youre worried about because some numbers show a cruz ticket fairing worse. So right now, they are with trump at the top of the ticket, looking at a better situation but still pretty spooked. Trump continues going after detractors this weekend he attacked mitt romney, jeb bush and Lindsey Graham. All of them. Lets watch that attack. Im never going to get romneys endorsement. He choked. Ill never get that. You know, i wont talk about jeb bush. I will not say i will not say hes low energy. Ly i will not say it. I will not say it. And i wont talk about Lindsey Graham who had like one point. He fails with his campaign horribly. He then endorses somebody else and then he endorses everybody. Hes like bad luck as soon as he endorses. Im not a fan of jeb and focus. Jeb coming to the convention. Votes. The match slap. It seems and lunatic and say fair game and he does say things that dont add up. Agree with that it is consistent of any political persuasion but he does have votes and my question is i think hes going to get at least 45 in the general. Which means 90 of the way he has to go. 90 there. He only needs 5 more percent and he won. Is it your sense that he has another 5 to get to win the general election matt, can he be president . Look, i think there is a plausible path for him to be president , which is i think why you have many more republicans coming on board than are staying away and, you know, i think if you look at the fact he says look, about half of america doesnt vote and we got a lot of people that feel unplugged from the economy and dont feel hopeful about the sally and wages they had and dont feel hopeful about changes in the economy and dont like where america is overseas and maybe hell convince more of those to come back into the game into vote. I think he also realizes he can make end roads with voters who maybe arent that tend to be on the left that feel like economically they have been left behind. Those are voters Bernie Sanders are speaking to and i dont think they like clinton incorporated. I think hes looking and belt
states on the map and i wouldnt say hes got hes got a path. Okay. Thank you so much. Jeremy peters, jennifer. Thank you for being crystal clear. Coming up, donald trump is stepping up on bill and Hillary Clinton. The clintons are fighting back a bit, not clearly not in the way hes fighting and new polls show Hillary Clinton running strong in states where democrats dont usually do well like georgia. Shes very close right there. Did trump, beating republican in georgia. Is donald trump at war with everyone to keep his campaign interesting . Is he worried people will tune out if he acts more president ial . I think thats part of it. He wants to keep the show going and hardball round table. Something you may not know and finally, let me finish tonight with a guy that shoots the moon. We know who that is. This is hardball the place for politics live from caramel, california, tonight. Take a screen control room. Who do we have . Go mike bennett. Mike, im not sure what road this is. Im north of still water. We drove right to it. It got to be the most violent, had a code to the ground. You saw it. Right now weve lost it in the trees and the hills and were on route to highway 177. Well be blasting north or highway 70 blasted north and
well be back on. Got cars pulls out in front of me. Bear with me. Lets briefly go to the Storm Tracker down to the southeast and get an update here. Large tornado on the ground near atoka. Were getting an outbreak going on. Large tornado on the ground and east of durant tornado there, as well. This is southeast, oklahoma. Lets go to kevin and linda at the news desk. Thank you. Weve been showing you great pictures from the sky as wisers move through that is kofr. Well keep an eye and bring you any more news as it develops. I. I. No ones ever said that. But id like to keep being terrible at golf for as long as i can. Hes just happier when hes playing. But hes terrible. For the strength and energy to keep doing what you love, try new ensure enlive. Only patented ensure enlive has hmb, plus 20 grams of protein to help reild muscle. And its clinically proven formula helps you stay you. Oh. Nice shot. New ensure enlive. Always be you. Unless you have allergies. Flonase is the first and only nasal spray approved to relieve both itchy, watery eyes and congestion. No other nasal allergy spray can say that. Go ahead, embrace those beautiful moments. Flonase changes everything. But cigna is there for you. Health isnt easy. Literally. Just download our free coach by cigna app. For personalized proams from a teamf Health Coaches to help you achieve your wellness goals. Cigna. Together, all the way. Welcome back to hardball. Donald trump launched a series of attacks against hillary and bill clinton at Campaign Stops this weekend. In oregon and washington state. And im saying to myself, but nobody in this country and maybe in the history of the country politically was worse than bill clinton with women. He was a disaster. He was a disaster. I mean, there has never been anybody like this and she was a total enabler. She would go after these women and destroy their lives. Have you read what Hillary Clinton did to the women . Shes hamarried to a man thats the worst abuser in politics. Shes married to a man that hurt many women and hillary, if you look and study, hillary hurt many women. The women that he abused. Shes married to a man who got impeached for lying. Bill clinton was the worst in history and i have to listen to her talking about it and just
remember this, she was an unbelievably nasty, mean enabler and what she did to a lot of those women is disgraceful. So put that in her bonnet and lets see what happens, okay . Lets see what happens. Hillary clintons press secretary released a statement saying quote, in a week in which donald trump casually suggested destabilizing the entire u. S. Economy and sited his attendance at the Miss Universe pageant of course he wants to change the subject. Hillary clinton doesnt care what he says about her. Shell continue to call him out for outrageous positions and comments. Hillary clinton herself said shes not going to fight on this line. Lets watch. Im not going to run an ugly race. Im going to run a race based on issues and what my agaen da is for the american people. I dont really feel like im running against donald trump. I feel like im running for my
vision of what our country can be. Well, john is an opinion writer and msnbc political analyst and covers the Clinton Campaign for the boston globe. Thank you for joining us. Lets talk about tactics and strategy. Clearly, it is probably going to be part of the strategy of donald trump to bring the clintons tonight, two for the price of one. The whole clinton era of the 1990s, i think he wants people to think of them as incumbents. Not about sex, although hell use that. The main message i think hes trying to get across is they are in, im out. Lets change the picture. Im the changed candidate. They are what is going on and has been going on for 20 or 30 years. What do you think of the strategy . I think thats right. I think that donald trump does really well what hes the outsider and an outsider year and Hillary Clinton is sort of the insider and its a reminder when you talk about the 90s,
these clintons have been around for 20 years for 25 years and what has changed . This is the argument donald trump makes. She has had power. Shes had her hands on the levers of power in washington for so long and were still in this what he would describe as a mess. So i do think thats sort of the effort hes trying to make and Hillary Clinton, you know, she was asked about acquisitions today in virginia and she says shes not going to talk about them which i think is clearly a smart move on her part. Let me go back to john. His opponents used that before. I get the feeling that hes not stupid. I never thought trump was stupid and everybody makes mistakes. This may be a mistake. To win this election, hes got to change it around from so the mou moderates and liberals, women like the clintons if you look at the numbers. Hes got a problem with women. He has to do something radical to shift that around and this is his to do so. What do you think hes up to . Chris, in order for him to win, hes got to open up, hes got to open his base of support beyond the people who already dont like Hillary Clinton. That rift that you just showed is stuff that his crowd has been feeding on for probably the entire 30 years that the clintons have been in public life and certainly since the impeachment days. So i dont see what it buys him. If donald trump wants to become president of the United States, hes going to have to Start Talking in a way and putting policies out there that appeal to people who arent talk about. Okay. Okay. Thats the hillary argument. I know. They dont like this top pick area. Im asking you politically. The top pick area of going after Hillary Clinton. What is it about . Is he trying to do blaming her, not bill, her . Hes trying to tear her down and what i dont this is the reason why i dont think its going to work. This worked very well for him
when he was in the primaries and up against 16 other people. When his oneliners republicans. And oneliners could be the only thing that he says from the debate stage and hes not pressed on other key pressing issues. Can you think of a debate that all of all the debates we watched during the republican primary season where more than 50 of the debater, shoot, even more than 8 oc0 wasnt just a series of one liners. Because Republican Party sits around talking and said anything about her. And democrats say and i dont know. Honestly he thinks so. You have to sit from a position where it could work and
quite frankly, it has worked for the last nine months and we have sat here time and time again and said oh, this is something that, you know, he has a ceiling with republicans. He can now its turned to oh, trump can only win republicans, not independents and make an impact on the coalition that hillary se hillary seems to have. I think that is sort of a washington way of looking at the electret and trump is coming at it from a different perspective and i think we have to be very careful sitting in washington and dicing up the way we have been for the last year and certain groups are going to react to expect from comments because the bottom line is it hasnt worked that way and its worth thinking about. Maybe