As scary prospect for democrats, they could be hurdling toward a contested matt, first ive got talk about your new reporting that i touched on at the top. It demonstrates just how high the stakes are for democrats for grappling. Heres your headline. Two words democrats dont want to hear, contested convention, what are you hearing . Reporter thats right. Bernie sanders its consensus hell may be headed for a contested scenario. So theres a feeling that the field is just still very fractured, theres not a clear alternative to Bernie Sanders at the moment. And as you pointed out in the intro, hes in california today. Hes already looking forward to super tuesday and these other states where he can amass a large delegate lead. As a member of Hillary Clintons campaign in 2016, you dealt with the bernie factor. He didnt even say, if i recall connect correctly, he didnt say hed vote for clinton until the end of june and he didnt formally withdraw from the race, whats your case on a drawnout primary fight . Reporter well, look, i dont think any of us who are in this process, any democrat out there wants to have a pro freedom of information acted fight on the Convention Floor over the nomination process a lot of it depends on the amount of delegates that Bernie Sanders amasses. Weve got four candidates that are competing for that moderate space in the Democratic Party. And its keeping, frankly, a lot of candidates from hitting that 15 threshold that is required in order to qualify for delegates. So, sure, especially going to super tuesday when youve got four candidates competing for the moderate vote on one side and youve got Bernie Sanders who pretty much has the entire lane and has consolidated the liberal more progressive base of the Democratic Party on his side, its going to be that much harder for some of the other candidates to catch up. We do know some of the campaigns are calling super delegates because they will play a role in the second ballot should this go to the Convention Floor, unlike 2016 where the super delegates had a say in the first round. And well see what happens. I mean, nobody wants this fight, but given that weve got a split, a fourway split among moderates on one side of the party, i think a lot of it depends on how the next few weeks play out. Its going to be an intention couple of weeks. Stick with us. I want to turn to our road warrior, Shaquille Brewster and Josh Letterman has been on the bloomberg beat. Reporter today is all about the long game for senator sanders, who is spending most of the day here in this delegate rich super tuesday state. He has the money on his side. We know from fec reports released yesterday he ended the month with 17 million in the bank and then he also had the polling. Just look at this monmouth poll of california democrats. It shows him leading 24 , only one other candidate gettinger in percentage to get delegates in this state. So hes feeling good about what he sees here and you have to hit the 15 threshold. So right now the only people who would get delegates, can we put that graphic back up of the california race, the only two, sanders and biden, who meet that 15 threshold so they would essentially be apportioning the delegates between the two of them. They dont get divided between everybody who gets votes. Go ahead. Exactly. And when you have over 400 pledged delegates, that can be a Real Advantage senator sanders. And in that poll he was boosted by latino voters and latino support. Theres also signs hes doing better among africanamericans nationally. So if you look at polling, hes feeling really good about where he is right now. Thats why youre starting to see attacks escalate from the rest of the field. You hear Vice President biden going after him on his previous history with guns. Theres a line of attack we heard from secretary clinton of his previous support for a liability shield for gun manufacturers. Mayor bloomberg hitting him on guns Elizabeth Warren when asked what is a key distinction between herself and senator sanders, she said she gets stuff done, she gets hard things done. You see these other candidates willing to draw those distinctions and escalate their attacks because they know senator sanders has some momentum. The other guy who got a lot of attention at the debate but not in a good way, Michael Bloomberg, hes not even on the campaign trail today. Whats that about . I think the Bloomberg Campaign knows they have regrouping to do after a debate performance that did not portray him in the light he wanted to be seen in on his first time on the debate stage. Hes really been focused on super tuesday. He was in utah, he had Campaign Meetings in california last night. But now hes back in new york meeting with advisers and figuring out how to move forward. Bloomberg Campaign Officials have also been very attuned to this concern that he is being perceived as very isolated in this campaign. Hes got all of these ads on tv and does these rallies where he speaks for about 15 minutes but he hasnt been getting down and dirty with the voters, shaking hands, answering questions on the tray and he g the trail. We just got word hes going to do a cnn town hall early next week in South Carolina after declining to do a town hall with cnn during the nevada phase of the race. However, a cnn town hall is not down and dirty with the voters. Thats not getting out there and campaigning and meeting people. Reporter this is a fine balance theyll have to draw. Retail politicking is not Michael Bloombergs strength. Its not how he was as new yorks mayor. They dont necessarily think that will be the best venue for him. At the end of the day voters do want to interact with candidates theyre being asked to support. We have two candidates, obviously Michael Bloomberg but to some extent Bernie Sanders who has this amazing list of donors that dont have to worry about money heading into super tuesday. Everybody else is looking at where their money is going to come from. Warren just got a big boost from her campaign performance, but she spent 2 for every dollar she took in in january. Whats it like for some of these candidates who are struggling with money . Can they be real players on super tuesday without the cash . Reporter well, its really tough, chris, because if you dont have cash, you simply cannot go on. For many of these candidates, super tuesday is the firewall. Going back to that 15 threshold that we talked about, i think it going to be very difficult for some of the candidates to convince their donors that it worth staying in this race if they dont hit 15 and get a decent apartment of delegates coming out of super tuesday. 40 of the delegates that are awarded in the democratic primary process will be awarded after the polls closed and all the votes are tabulated on super tuesday. Thats why candidates have to drop out at a certain point, they cant make a viable case to their donors to stay in this race. And theres two parts of this, one part, which is you have to have the money to pay your staff to put ads on the other. The other part is the perception game. This headline from nbc news says in nevada caucusgoers are torn between who they believe can beat trump and who they believe in and part of who they believe can beat trump does tie into money. Who can afford to go up against him . I think thats been one of the challenges for Elizabeth Warren, for example. Shes trying to show those people who believe in her she can beat trump. The question was whether her thats why she decided stheefs going to take ac money. Now shes saying its not a level playing field. If its only two people who arent taking that money and the rest are. If everybody does it, ill do it, but right now shes going to accept that help. Its a dramatic shift for her and her campaign who always said privately theyre going to run the race they are going to run win or lose and they are shifting given the conditions to the financial conditions. I think thats one reason, though, too, the money, why blewhy bloomberg is still a major factor. He has the Financial Resources independently that these other candidates need to raise. It creates this dynamic that is very hard to predict heading into the next phase of the race, which will be much more national, much less votertovoter contact and more Television Ad driven. Adrienne, every time youre running against the incumbent president , obviously its about the incumbent president. Its a referendum on him. Im not sure weve ever seen anything quite like this. I want to quote somebody you mention in your article, matt, a kentucky dnc number who said i dont see how this is not going to be a brokered convention, lets be honest, its a madefortv event. Thats what stuck out to me, donald trump the way he ran has campaigns and the way he runs his presidency have informed what the democrats have to do. Reporter yeah, i mean, its kind of i dont know what the right adjective is to describe dnc super delegate making that comment. Its disappointing because this shouldnt be a theatrical event, this should be about democracy and making sure we have the best candidate to put forward and take on and defeat donald trump. Again, a lot of it goes back to the number of delegates that Bernie Sanders has amassed. If he hits 1,991 pledged delegates, were not going to have a contested vengs. I can see a viable argument for some moderates to take this to the floor if theyre a lot lower than that. Super tuesday, there havent very many that have cleared that magic threshold. Which means Bernie Sanders can walk away with a lot of delegates on super tuesday, and thats going to make him harder to defeat in this primary process. Back to the guy that you talked to, it really is about how do you compete in a world where the other guy is donald trump. And i think weve seen that throughout this campaign, where the democratic primary contest has been overshadowed by all these various events that are trump driven, including impeachment. Now i think people are really starting to tune in in a different way and the drama of who the nominee is going to be has ratcheted up. And the idea of a contested convention i think for some, its exciting in a way. I think the party theres apprehension over the divisions within the party, but i think theres also sort of the element of surprise and not sort of knowing where this is going to head. And voters and super delegates are still undecided and dont know exactly which candidate may emerge. Theres a lot of super delegates, by the way, who were Bernie Sanders supporters in 2016. I think that dynamic is going to be fascinating to watch over the next couple weeks. It is going to be amazinamaz heading over to vegas after this show so ill see you guys there. Thank you so much. The pressure is on to prevent caucus chaos in nevada. The steps being taken to prevent it. And shocking new details about why the president fired his acting director of National Intelligence and what russia had do with it. Sleep this amazing . Thats a zzzquil pure zzzs sleep. Our liquid has a unique botanical blend, while an optimal melatonin level means no nextday grogginess. Zzzquil pure zzzs. Naturally superior sleep. That sofa on tv is iexactly what they need. And now, they know it too. Thats the power of targeted tv advertising. Its smart. It grabs peoples attention. Then they come to my store. Buy that sofa. And leave happy its easy, and its effective. And its why Comcast Spotlight is changing its name to effectv. Because being effective means getting results. Its our most dangerous addiction. So we took our worst vice, and turned it into the dna for a better system. We created bionic and put the word out with godaddy. What will you change . Make the world you want. This morning former cia director john brenen says we are in a fullblown National Security crisis after President Trump pushed out the man in charge of our nations entire intelligence system. B kr nbc n angry that adam schiff was briefed on plans of russia to interfere with the president ial election to help the president against. That is a virtual decapitation of the Intelligence Community. Now who is going in there . Someone who has no experience no, credentials as far as the nl intelligence concerned is concerned, richard grenell. The Intelligence Community can see this as one more example that they are not be allowed to do their job. Ken dilanian is reporting this story and al elise jordan. Bring us up to date. What do we know . The notion that intelligence officials would be essentially fired for speaking truth to power and doing their jobs and reporting on the threats they see facing the nation is kind of the Worst Nightmare of intelligence officials under donald trump. We all know that donald trump is not interested in this question of foreign election interference. He sees it as a threat to his legitimacy in the 2016 election, but to date he has let the Intel Community do its job and work on those threats. One of the things they did was appoint an official named shelby pierceon to be in charge of coordinating the intelligence on election threats and shes the one that briefed Congress Last week and apparently during this briefing she said russia thhad developed a preference for trump. She said that, it got back to trump through devin nunez, the ranking republican, and trump was furious. And the next day he lit into maguire and ended up resulting in maguire not being named perm nengt permanent dni. In a will have a Chilling Effect across the community. Right or wrong, this ehave a right to brief members of congress on intelligence as they see fit. John brennan said i worked under since president s, three republicans, three democrats, sometimes you disagree with them but he never had the impression that they didnt understand that it was the role of the intelligence agencies to give the information to the executive branch and to the legislative branch. Thats why he says this is an intelligence crisis and by extension a National Security crisis. Is it . Well, the dni should not be acting as a coms director of sort, making the truth and molding it to what the president wants. What happens, weve seen the disastrous wlults intelligence is shaped for the eye of the beholder who wants a given outcome. So the idea that top officials of our National Security agencies are not supposed to tell the truth as they see it when they are reporting to congress, who has by law congressional oversight and funds them and by law. And is allocating the money and has the right to oversight is really quite an interference into the role of the house and the senate. We just got a tweet from the president in the last 20 minutes or so, ken. It reads four great candidates are under consideration at dni. We have no idea whats in his head. Pete hoekstra was formerly the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee when he was in congress. Ive heard representative Chris Stewart of utah, a member of the House Intelligence Committee and katy tur has been hearing about steve feinberg, the chairman of an external intelligence advisory board. That would be an interesting pi pick. So fair to say that one thing that sort of keeps them all together is theyre trump loyalists . Thats 100 fair. Thats what has got everybody very worried. At least these people have some kind of intelligence experience, unlike rick grenell, the person that trump wants to name as the acting director, who has none whatsoever and is the ambassador to germany. Grenell doesnt know anything about intelligence and how it operates. I dont know why we should expect something markedly different, but we need to talk bus because we are in the middle of a highly contested campaign about the impact this could have given that the intelligence seems to suggest not only that russia wants to interfere in the 2020 election but also the democratic primaries and who actually gets the nomination. Big picture, President Donald Trump has made it painical ical clear he does not mind any election interference, he will go out of his way to court is publicly. He has asked other nations to interfere on his behalf in the election in front of reporters. Hes done this publicly. That is what this is all about at the end of the day. At the same time he says i dont want this out there because it makes it look like independent not going to be a legitimate winner. Hes still very sore it was out there at all about his last win. He makes it clear he courts this help and he just doesnt want anyone to talk about what might be happening behind the scenes to help and aid his campaign. I think saying his sore is an understatement but youve always been very polite. Ken dilanian, appreciate your reporting as well. And advisers want President Trump to weight until after the election if these going to pardon roger stone. Im not going to do anything in terms of the great powers bestowed upon a president of the United States. I want the process to play out. I think thats the best thing to do because id love to see roger exxonerated and id love to see it happen because i personally think he was treated very unfairly. Joining me now, paul butler, a former federal prosecut