Good evening, everyone. Im tamron hall in new york, in for chuck todd. And brace yourself for a wild hour. The Republican Party is reeling after last nights debate in detroit. Donald trump has abruptly pulled out of the conservative movements largest gathering called cpac, which is underway as we speak, just outside of washington, d. C. Just moments ago, senator ted cruz ripped into trump at that gathering. So donald trump is skipping cpac. I think somebody told him megyn kelly was going to be here. Or even worse, he was told there were conservatives that were going to be here well, weve got hundreds of delegates up for grabs this weekend in the 2016 race. Mitt romney and paul ryan both making headlines about their possible roles in a contested convention. And ben carson is expected to officially announce his exit from the race. He speaks at cpac in just a few moments. But we begin with last nights spectacle in detroit. This little guy has lied so much here we go about my record. Here we go. The personal attacks. He has lied i have a policy question for you, sir. Lets see if he answers it. I dont worry about it, little marco, i will. Lets see, big donald. Dont worry about it, little marco. Gentleman, gentleman, youve got to do better than this. Breathe, breathe, breathe lying ted. Breathe you can do it lying ted. You can breathe. I know its hard. I know its hard. When theyre done with the yoga, can i answer a question . You cannot. He referred to my hands, if theyre small, Something Else must be small. I guarantee you theres no problem, i guarantee you. Okay. Moving on. The reaction inside the Republican Party says it all. Quote, the spectacle made me ill, said matthew contineti, a writer for the free bacon, my party is committing suicide on national tv said nick johnson. And gop implosion accelerates in motor city wreck was the headline in the National Review today. And gop breaks down in motor city blared the headline on fox news. All that was missing was Jerry Springer said the christian broadcasting snerk. Trump rivals also seemed to undermine their own cause last night, and this may be a big headline. After two hours of Bashing Trump as a disaster and a fraud, then came this. Can you definitively say you will support the republican nominee, even if that nominee is donald j. Trump . Senator rubio, yes or no . Ill support the republican nominee. Mr. Trump . Ill support donald if hes the republican nominee. Yes or no, youll support donald trump if hes the nominee . Yes, because i gave my word that i would. Yeah, but i and i kind of think that before its all said and done, ill be the nominee. Yet today, the candidates trotted out their doomsday scenarios regarding trump and once again heres what marco rubio had to say. If hes our nominee, it will split the Republican Party. And it will be the end of the modern conservative movement. The conservative movement is not built on anger, it is built on ideas and on principles. And john kasich spoke to crowds at cpac right after the chairman of the Republican Party, reince priebus, dismissed the idea of a convention fight with trump over the nominations. Thats not how kasich saw it when he spoke to sean hannity and nbcs Hallie Jackson. Could you think of anything cooler than a convention . The key is, whos got the record and the vision . And not just political gibberish, like, oh, im going to do this, im going to do that. I doubt that donalds going to get enough votes, enough delegates. So its likely were going to head to a convention. And why would we not think so, as wacky as this year has been, that somebody will probably not have enough votes to clinch the nomination. And throw this into the pot. Trump is also under fire for what appears to be an abrupt change on his stance on immigration and torture over the past 24 hours. Well speak to one of trumps state Campaign Chairs in just a moment. And mitt romney is facing his own revolt after trashing trump as a phony and a fraud during a major address yesterday in salt lake city. Now, some republicans say romney may have inadvertently helped trump by giving him an establishment punching bag. Then theres the speculation that romney is eyeing a potential entry into the race. Romney addressed those questions earlier today in an interview with nbcs matt lauer. Under any circumstances would you be a part of this president ial race as a candidate . There are no circumstances i can foresee where that would possibly happen. But let me say Something Else i can foresee . No reasonable scenario i can imagine. Just slam the door on it, close the door, unambiguous, you will not run for president . Im not running for president and i wont run for president. Msnbc has a special interview with mitt romney and a possible contested convention coming up at 6 00 p. M. Eastern. You will not want to miss that. And today Republican House speaker paul ryan, who was romneys running mate, you know that, four years ago, and who is also the chairman of this summers convention, is trying to tamp down on a draft ryan movement being spearheaded by a new super pac. Ryans lawyers issued a quote saying former disavow of the organization today. And all of this as we gear up for another wild weekend at the polls. Tomorrow, democrats have contests in three states, toting more than 120 delegates. Republicans have contests in four states. That total, 150 delegates. Then on sunday, democrats held a primary in maine, republicans hold their primary in puerto rico in a tight race, every delegate matters. And im joined now by Arizona State treasurer, jeff dueette. The chairman of Trumps Campaign in arizona. Mr. Duette, thanks for joining us. Lets start with this cpac cancellation. Why is trump out . Basically, theres the opportunity to have a very big event in witchta, kansas. As you pointed out tomorrow, more than 125 total delegates are up for grabs and kansas is one of those four states and the opportunity was too good to pass up. Marco rubio is on the ropes, hes been losing the gop establishment base, hes been losing his donors, and hes dropped below 20 in a lot of the polls, which keeps him out in some states, of getting delegates. So the opportunity to deliver a to becomeout punch and really knock him down a peg here over this weekend was too good to pass up. So, really, we love cpac, its a great event, donald trump has spoken there many, many times and he plans on being back in the future, but right now to get 15,000 or 20,000 people in witchta, kansas, tomorrow right before the caucus was a great opportunity we had to take. And right after that, going to orlando, florida, for another 20,000 people lining up for that one a few days later. But you know that optics matter here and there was a choice that the campaign made here and you have now ted cruz on stage saying that you avoided it because there are real conservatives there. He said and well show some of these moments from the debate where your candidate has flipflopped on a number of core conservative principles. We saw it in the debate prior, as it relates to planned parenthood. So was he avoiding potential boos in that crowd known for certainly expressing their thoughts . Donald trump has the highest support of any republican candidate. In fact, hes just under 50 total support in the latest poll. Hes at 49 , well over, you know, cruz and rubio are below 20 . So he would get the biggest cheers at cpac of anybody. But he still doesnt have the majority of votes in the Republican Party. You can point to where hes leading, but you can also point to a potential problem later down the line, where he does not have that magic number needed to go into that convention, and where every vote counts, including the conservative voters, im asking you flatout, was trump dodging the voters there today . No, thats the problem. There arent voters there. There are a lot of people at cpac in states that have already voted. And so were in the middle of a hotly contested president ial primary. We have the leading candidate, by far, who leads with a great lead in the delegate count, and is going to pick up a lot more delegates tomorrow, and its purely, where do we maximize our resources . And doing two big events tomorrow, one of them in witchta, kansas, right before the caucus, thats called great campaigning. And im surprised that marco rubio isnt taking you know, yesterday, he canceled two events, because his turnout is down. Hes canceling events because people arent showing up anymore. Im surprised hes not youve said marco rubios name a couple of times, youve not said ted cruz. Are you focused on marco rubio because he potentially is that threat in florida, which could be the firewall to keep trump from taking this . No, were up about 16 points in the polls against marco rubio but thats less than you were. That is closing in and marco rubio points to what he says are flawed polls. And we saw in iowa, you cant always bank on what you see in the polling. What hes basically staking his entire candidacy on florida. Because if you cannot win your own state, you cannot expect to be the president of the United States. If the people who have already elected you to go and serve them wont come out and show up to vote for you, they dont have the confidence in you, as rubio looks like will happen in florida, so hes staking everything on there. And so were concentrating a little bit on rubio, just because this is an opportunity to deliver a knockout punch and get another candidate out of the race. 23 ben carson truly does pull out of the race today, then we could be down within ten days to three candidates or less. All right. Thank you, jeff dewit. And were seeing a lastditch effort from hewlettpackard ceo meg whitman, who are raising money for a super pac called our principles, which is going to flood the air waves with antitrump ads. Whitman spoke earlier today on cnbc. I do think donald trump is a dishonest demagogue. Look at the comments hes made about women, muslims, disabled people, reporters. It is just repugnant. His economic policies, i think theyre incredibly dangerous. Im joined now by katie packer, the our principles pac. Weve talked before about this effort to flood the airwaves. When you look at mitt romneys speech yesterday, he laid out a case that weve heard from ted cruz, ive heard from you and heard from plamarco rubio. Yet we see donald trump the next day with thousands of people at yet another rally. What is he saying to your base, those same people who supported mitt romney, that for some reason is not sticking i dont know about that. Well, listen, some of them did and we know they did. Theyre angry and they may not be the ideal of what the Republican Party wants to present, but right now your frontrunner is donald trump. Well, absolutely hes the frontrunner. I dont think that there can be an assumption that the base is who is showing up at these rallies. We dont know that. We know that he tends to do well in states that have open primaries, that allow democrats and nonrepublicans to vote in their process. And time and time again, you know, you hear from people like jeff and others, donald trump himself, they never talk about issues. Their entire campaign is based on where they are in the polls and how big their crowds are. You never hear from them in terms of, you know, all of the conservative issues that donald trump is at odds with republicans on, you never hear them talking about, you know, explaining what went on at all of the failed Business Ventures that mr. Trump has presented, trump university, where thousands of people are suing him for fraud and where hes going to be standing trial this summer. On trying to defend himself from this fraud situation. And i think yesterday mitt romney laid out a pretty serious indictment against this guy. And you can agree with him or not disagree with him in terms of policy, but theres nothing he said in that speech yesterday, that you cant agree, this is a person whos very dangerous for our party. Hes very dangerous for our country, should he prevail, i dont think thats going to happen. I think its going to be a disaster for republicans in the fall should he be the nominee. And i think thats why so many people are coming together and trying to prevent that train wreck from happening. So many people are coming together, but on that stage, katie, you saw the moment at the end of the debate, and i actually said something to the effect of, this may be why people say they quote unquote hate politics. At the end of this brawl, you have all of Donald Trumps rivals, who then say they would support him if hes the nominee. How bold of a moment would that have been to perhaps put the country before the party and take a stand . Why didnt we see that moment, if he is, in fact, the danger you and other republicans say that he is . Well, i i have to be honest, i was disappointed to hear from the other candidates that they would articulate that. The only thing i can imagine, is that that would allow them to extend some sort of olive branch to the Trump Supporters should these candidates or somebody else prevail at the convention. But i think weve heard very strong words from all of these candidates with concern that, you know, this guy is very, very dangerous. And in some ways, i think its an unfair question to ask candidates, when theyre working very, very hard to try to secure the nomination themselves, none of them can imagine endorsing anybody else at this point in time, because theyre fighting for the nomination themselves. So i was disappointed to hear that. I dont disagree with that. But, you know, im just, you know, in terms of, you know, understand wrg theing where the are, i dont think anybody really believes that donald trump represents whats best for our country, and certainly doesnt represent the brand that the Republican Party upholds. Katie packer, thank you so much for your time. I great appreciate you joining us again. And you can see Mark Halperin and john heilemanns full interview with mitt romney with all due respect tonight at can have 6 00 p. M. Eastern. And mitt romney will join chuck todd this sunday on meet the press. Up next, Hillary Clinton sits down with Cnbcs John Harwood to talk about her economic plan. He joins me with the latest. And well have new reaction from the clinton and sanders camps. Stay tuned. Were always looking for ways to speed up your Car Insurance search. Heres the latest. Problem is, we havent figured out how to reverse it. For now, just log on to compare. Com. Plug in some simple info and get up to 50 free quotes. Choose the lowest and hit purchase. Now. If youll excuse me, im late for an important function. Compare. Com. Saving humanity from high insurance rates. We have new information on the knife being examined by the lapd today. Investigators are doing forensic tests to determine whether it could be connected to the 1994 murders of o. J. Simpsons exwife, nicole brown simpson, and her friend, ron goldman. This afternoon, multiple Law Enforcement sources familiar with the investigation tell nbc news this knife is not consistent with the murder weapon. In fact, they say, it is a small utility blade commonly used for yard work or construction. However, lab tests must be conducted before the knife can be ruled out a personal murder weapon. Simpson was acquitted of the murders in 1995. He is currently serving time on a 2008 robbery and kidnapping conviction. This weekend, you can catch a dateline special with a candid interview with marcia clarke. The people versus o. J. Simpson what the jury never heard airs this sunday on your local nbc station. Well be back with more mtp daily next. For your retirement, you want to celebrate the little things, because theyre big to you. And that is why you invest. The best returns arent just measured in dollars. Td ameritrade®. Hi im kristie. And im jess. And we are the bug chicks. Were a nanobusiness. Windows 10 really helps us get the word out about how awesome bugs are. Kids learn to be brave and curious and all kids speak the language of bug. Hey cortana, find my katydid video. Oh this is so good. If youre trying to teach a kid about a proboscis. Just sketch it on the screen. I dont have a touch screen on my mac, im jealous of that. You put a big bug in a kids hands and change their world view. [ laugh ]. Hillary clinton delivered a speech on job creation and the economy in detroit today, speaking a manufacturing plant ahead of sundays democratic debate in flint, clinton laid out her proposals to keep the countrys economic gains going. And it comes on the same day as a strong jobs report showed a better than expected labor market. Clinton sat down with Cnbcs John Harwood in the last hour following her speech and heres part of what she said. When the republicans came back in, we got the same Old Snake Oil of trickledown economics. And even now when you listen to the republicans who are vying for their nomination, its the same thing. Its cut taxes on the wealthy. In fact, trump says, wages are tie high in america. The others are all playing the same game, appealing to special interests, appealing to their donors. They dont have an agenda for the middle class, working people, poor people trying to get ahead. So i think its imperative that i do everything i can in this election to make the case that we can get back to a growing, vital middle class. And joining me now, cnbc chief washington correspondent, john harwood. John, its good to see you this afternoon, early evening. Lets talk about this interview. It seemed to be wideranging, and many have made the assumption that Hillary Clinton has shifted her strategy to a general election. What did she say . Well, i think in significant part, she is doing that. She was still mindful of Bernie Sanders and she wanted to criticize him, saying he would raise taxes on the middle class. There was the new Tax Policy Center report out today that said 4,700 per family in the middle of the income scale. But she was trying to draw contrast with republicans and say if republic