come. hold onto your breeches because here they come. they're coming back. congratulations. >> that was just part of donald trump's anti-immigrant messaging yesterday as he hit the campaign trail for the first time in weeks. we'll bring you more from his stops in michigan and wisconsin. also ahead we'll go through brand new polling on president biden and his predecessor in the states that will likely decide november's election. meanwhile, president biden has more sharp criticism of israel following an air strike that killed several humanitarian workers in gaza. we'll have the latest on that deadly strike and the growing international outrage. good morning and welcome to "way too early" on this wednesday, april 3rd. i'm jonathan lemire. thanks for starting your day with us. and we'll begin this morning in the midwest where donald trump appeared on the campaign trail yesterday for the first time in nearly a month. in grand rapids, michigan, trump fear mongered about migrants while discussing what the campaign is now calling biden's border bloodbath. >> it's a border bloodbath and it's destroying our country, it's a very bad thing happening. we'll stop the plunlder, rape, slaughter, and destruction of our american suburb, cities, and towns. thore not humans. they're animals. we don't want them coming into our country with contagious diseases and they have have it. and all of a sudden you see these contagious diseases spreading and everyone is saying i kwunder where they came from. i can tell you where this came from. this is country changing, country threatened, and country reckoned. they have wrecked our country. we are not for you a great country. we are a country in serious decline. if we don't win on november 5th our think our country is going to cease to exist. >> first let's recall the faux outrage a couple weeks ago when those in the media and trump seized upon using the word bloodbath. and let's not let slip by the rhetoric here about migrants, calling them not human. following that michigan event, trump headed for snoert speech. trump delivered another message in a far less coherent way. he also claimed to have stopped the border situation back in to16 when you'll recall it was barack obama who was president. >> you have illegal aliens invading your home, we will deport you. there's never been a border so bad, never been corruption and rape and pillage and loss. so when i fixed it in 2016, i believe this could be like 100 times worse. that was a bad border, that was bad, understandably bad. this was at a level nobody's ever seen a border like this. the treasury will be raped, plundered, and robbed bare to pay for welfare, free health care, free housing, food stamps, medicaid, and countless other public benefits. we are actually becoming if you think about it a third world country. >> very little of that is true. also yesterday voters were voting and donald trump and biden both won primaries, but there were warning signs for both campaigns. in the key battleground of wisconsin more than 40,000 democratic voters cast a ballot for uninstruct said as part of the movement to protest the president's handling of the war in gaza. oerlgers doubled their goal of 20,000 votes, which represented biden's margin of victory over trump in that state four years ago. on the gop side, trump won wisconsin with 79% of the vote last night, but more than 95,000 voters cast a ballot for either nikki haley and ron desantis, both of whom of course dropped out of the race weeks ago. at his rally in green bay yesterday, trump falsely claimed that he won wisconsin in 2020. >> we won this state. we won this state by a lot. and it came out that we won the statement actually. >> it did not come out he won that state. we turn now to new polling that shows bidesen and trump neck and neck in every key state. trump does lead biden in arizona, michigan, north carolina, nevada, and pennsylvania. however, all of his margins are within the poll's margin of error. these leads of only 2, 3 points or so. in wisconsin the survey showed the two candidates are tied at 46 points each. the poll also finds negative perceptions about the economy do remain a problem if the incumbent. 63% of swing state voters say the kmaus u.s. economy is in not so good or poor condition while just 36% say it's an excellent or good condition. but when asked to write the economic conditions in their own states, the majority of voters in five of the seven swing states that were surveyed say it's actually there excellent or in good shape. joining us now reporter and editor at "the wall street journal" who's going to dive into these numbers for us. aaron, good to see you. let's talk about some trend lines here and what you're seeing behind these top line numbers particularly on the economy. give us some take-aways for both men. >> well, overall the polls shows -- let me give you three take-aways. one, joe biden is very unpopular across all seven of these seven states. you're showing the head to head numbers where he's trailing. we also tell used a ballot with third party candidates. people aren't going to see a ballot that just has trump and biden. there's going to be a green party candidate, a libertarian candidate possibly rfk on some of these ballots, and we test that as well. again, biden is losing as of now in six of the seven states. second point, it is close as you said. it's only a couple of points that separates these candidates in most of these states. but the third point to keep in mind is that the electorate is really unsettled. people don't like either of their choices. both of these men are unpopular in battle grnld states. and between a third of the electorate hadn't settled on a candidate. 10% say they're undecided. another 15% say they're voting third party. and we believe most of these people will come home to the major parties, and another few percent say they're likely to vote for trump or biden but not definite. we have seven months of campaign messages to come out, and about a third of the electorate has yet to be persuaded who they're going to pick. >> yeah, it does seem for large portions of of americans they're just now coming to termwise the idea it is going to be biden versus trump again. as you say two men both pretty unpopular, you know, in broad terms. what are some of -- you mentioned the economy there as a potential real obstacle for president biden. what are some other concerns that voters have expressed about both biden and trump? >> yeah, it's interesting to see your setup with trump talking immigration, immigration, immigration. there's a battle i would say on right now for salience. there are a lot of issues in people's minds, and the campaigns are going to try to elevate in the voters minds the issues that they think are most favorable to them. on biden's side it'll be abortion. trump is playing on immigration. but what we found is when you look at these battleground states and compare them to the electorate at large, the whole nation, the voters in these battleground states are really more focused on the economy and more sour on the economy than our voters at large you'll see in national polls. and immigration is a little less salient for them. so, you know, i would say this poll suggests that the battle is going to be over trying to persuade people whether the economy is good and that things are headed in the right direction economically more than some of these other issues. >> and the polls suggest that voters say they trust trump to handle the economy more than biden by 54% to 34%. that's a significant margin. tell us more about why you believe that is and any other under the hood numbers we should be aware of here in this important snapshot of where the race stands. >> well, this poll like many polls finds people think the national economy is terrible. and that's a real puzzle because by objective measures the economy is very good. we have the best labor market we've had since the 1960s by many measures. inflation has come down, consumers are spending. that's a measure of actual behavior. people aren't spending like we're in a bad economy and headed into recession. they're spending as if things are good, and yet people tell us in polls that the economy is bad. and one thing we have to ask ourselves is when we ask these questions are people really answering about the economy, or do they just feel bad about things in general? and there's a lot of evidence that that's what's going on. look, covid scared a lot of people. it shook up everyone's lives. inflation seemed untamable, and there's kind of a general you could almost say malaise and people are being asked to pick a choice at a time when the world seemed unsteady and uncertain and neither of these candidates seemed surefooted and able to guide us into the future, at least that's what we hear from many people. >> real case content. fascinating stuff. thank you for bringing this polling to us. we appreciate it. still ahead here on "way too early," we've learned some new details about how donald trump was able to secure the $175 million bond in his new york civil fraud case. plus, why the former president has taken legal action against the founders of his social media site. we'll get into those stories, the morning's other top headlines as well as check on sports and weather when we come right back. sports and weather when we come right back no, my denture's uncomfortable! dracula, let's fight back against discomfort. with new poligrip power max hold & comfort. it has superior hold plus keeps us comfy all day with it's pressure absording layer. time for a bite! if your mouth could talk it would ask for... poligrip. -remember when i said we need to screen for colon cancer? -was that after i texted the age to screen was now 45? 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all choose the advanced network solutions and round the clock partnership from comcast business. see why comcast business powers more small businesses than anyone else. get started for $49.99 a month plus ask how to get up to an $800 prepaid card. don't wait- call today. welcome back as we turn to some of the morning's other top headlines. donald trump's legal team has launched yet another effort to get the judge overseeing his hush money trial off the case. attorneys for the former president want to file a motion to have the judge recuse himself arguing that his daughter's political work poses a conflict of interest. trump's team made a very similar request a year ago. prosecutors from the manhattan's d.a.'s office says the judge who denied the request arguing trump's team has identified no circumstances that would warrant to seek another recusal. trump's hush money trial is set to begin in less than two weeks. that start date april 15th. meanwhile, we have some new details about how trump posted the $175 million bond in his new york civil fraud case and the billionaire trump supporter behind it. nbc news has now learned that negotiations were under way to post the initial $557 million bond when an appeals court reduced it. that's according to california billionaire don hank, chairman of knight insurance group, which is the company that posted the reduced bond. hank who made his fortune providing high interest car loans to people with poor credit told nbc news he'd been following trump's struggle securing the original amount, and he reached out to an acquaintance who had ties to trump to let them know the massive bond was something they could consider. after the bond was then reduced, his company covered it with trump putting up cash as collateral. hanky is also the largest investor of axos bank which refinanced loans on trump tower and his doral property back in 2022. he insists covering the baumd was a business decision not a political one adding he'd be happy to do it for a democrat. trump is suing the cofounders of truth social in order to prevent from keeping shares in the company's stock. he claims they made a series of costly mistakes that delayed the company from going public. trump's legal team asked the judge to strip both men of their shares in the company, this after they filed a lawsuit in february claiming that trump and other leaders schemed to dilute their shares prior to merger which would allow the company to then go public. truth social debuted on nasdaq last week resulting in a surge in stock price, but it has fallen substantially after the company disclosed it lost $58 million last year. still ahead, we'll turn to sports and reigning mvp joel embiid's return to the court after knee surgery. we'll show you if he's back in superstar form. and bryce harper who busted out of a slump in grand fashion. those highlights and a check on the forecast when we come right back. ck on the forecast when we come right back bladder leak 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helped the dodgers to their third victory in a row. their 5-4 win over their rival. scoreless in the first six innings of arizona's 7-0 win over the bronx. this marks the first time they've out the ng yankees since game 2 of 2001, one of my favorites. it also knocks the yankees from the rank of unbeaten. a return to action for reigning mvp joel empede. exactly eight weeks after undergoing knee surgery, embiid was back on the court at home in philadelphia last night. he scored 24 points in the game to help philly to 109-105 win and restore hope so the sixers can salvage their season. phillies had slumped to 14 to 17 record. includest last night's victory the team was 27 and 8 when he plays. the team currently sits at number 8 in the eastern conference, 1 1/2 games behind the miami heat. meanwhile iowa's win over lsu in the elite eight a couple days ago was a most watched women's college basketball game of all-time averaging a whopping 12.3 million viewers monday night. according to nielsen data that is all but one nba finals game last season, every major league baseball contest in 2023, and compared to college football last year only rivalled by the sec championship game and the college football playoff game between michigan and ohio state. only one men's ncaa tournament game this year had a larger viewership. that was was nc states pft win over duke in the elite eight. time now for the weather and let's go to meteorologist angie lassman for the forecast. pretty soggy out there. >> pretty soggy indeed. this is going to be something we deal with over the next couple of days. we've still got potential for strong storms to develop particularly over the southeast where right now tornado warnings remain in effect. haefby warning for parts of the midatlantic and north east and, yes, of course the snow across parts of the great lakes. still dealing with that. the severe weather today, it's going to be less of a chance for us to see some of these tornados but still possible. the strong wind gusts, the damaging hail, and that's more than 20 million people indeluded in that in parts of the midatlantic down to the south. we've got 46 million people under flood alerts as we gear up for heavy rain and winter alerts as we expect more snow here for the next couple of days. the winds are going to be difficult, too, not only for travel but also power outage across the region. you can see 40, 50 mile per hour winds across the north east and great lake. we have flooding concerns along the coast. this is going to be something we'll deal with the strong onshore winds even as we get into tomorrow. and there's the rainfall total, 1 to 2 inches, isolated amounts up to 3 inches. not hard to see flooding especially in areas you often see flooding. ponding on the roadways is something to deal with and significant snow maybe a foot, a foot and a half in northern elevations and on top of that those winds is going to create blizzard conditions and this is why we're concerned about the travel, the roads, of course air travel will be difficult and those power outages i mentioned. >> in early april a major storm. thank you as always. next up on "way too early," president joe biden expresses outrage after an israeli strike kills seven humanitarian aid workers in gaza. it's some of the president's strongest criticism of israel to date. we'll dive into it when "way too early" returns. date we'll dive into it when "way too early" returns and stabbing pain in my hands, so i use nervive. nervive's clinical dose of ala reduces nerve discomfort in as little as 14 days. now i can help again. feel the difference with nervive. do you have a life insurance policy you no longer need? now you can sell your policy - even a term policy - for an immediate cash payment. we thought we had planned carefully for our retirement. but we quickly realized we needed a way to supplement our income. if you have $100,000 or more of life insurance, you may qualify to sell your 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