There seem to be a lot of black artists making very good videos that im surprised arent used on mtv. All in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. A shocking new poll shows the democratic president ial nomination is more up for grabs than its been at any point since the candidates declared. And with the Iowa Caucuses now just three weeks away the gloves are coming off. A new nbc news wall street journal marist poll of likely voters in iowa Shows Hillary clinton and Bernie Sanders in a statistical dead heat with clinton ahead by just three points within the margin of error. Its the first time clinton has seen her lead in the Hawkeye State challenged since the fall, when sanders was able to parlay his summer momentum into a brief iowa surge. Meanwhile, sanders seems to be narrowly maintaining his edge in New Hampshire, beating Hillary Clinton 50 to 46 among likely primary voters. Likewise within the margin of error. In that same polling from iowa and New Hampshire sanders even manages to outperform clinton in general election matchups, beating out the republican candidates by wider margins. All of which raises a possibility that until now has been ruled out by everyone but the most fervent Bernie Sanders fans. Hillary clinton could actually lose the first two nominating contests of 2016 to the democratic socialist from vermont. And if that were to happen, it is hard to overstate how much it would upend Democratic Party politics in this country. With the race tightening, clinton has stepped up her attacks on sanders policies, slamming his position on gun safety. President obama and i and senator sanders were all in the senate at the same time. Two of us voted against what the nra says was the most important piece of legislation in 20 years for the gun lobby. Senator sanders voted with them and through this morning has been unwilling to join the president and me in saying that this should be repealed. Campaigning today in iowa, clinton unveiled a new line of attack on sanders over his health care plan. I dont believe, number one, we should be starting over. We had enough of a fight just to get to the Affordable Care act. So i dont want to rip it up and start over. But i sure dont want to turn over health care to republican governors, for heavens sakes. I dont think that is a good deal for america. I think its a risky deal and it could hurt more than help a lot of families. Sanders campaign responded in a statement, secretary clinton is inaccurate in suggesting republican governors will be able to circumvent the law and deny implementation in their states, referring to sanders bill that would create national universal health care. On a Campaign Stop in iowa today sanders himself offered an explanation for clintons criticism. Secretary clinton and her campaign now know that she is in serious trouble. So obviously, in that scenario what people do is start attacking. Suddenly Bernie Sanders is no longer a nice guy and hes wrong on this and hes wrong on that and hes wrong on that. That is not surprising when you have a Clinton Campaign that is now in trouble and now understands that they can lose. Hillary clinton is expanding her efforts to challenge Bernie Sanders on his signature issue. That would be economic inequality. Rolling in a brand new plan to impose what shes calling a fair share surcharge. A 4 tax on people making over 5 million a year. I got a chance to speak earlier with secretary clinton, who joined me by phone from iowa. We discussed everything from the electability question to what Bernie Sanders said today about her campaign. But i started by asking about her proposed tax hikes for the highest earners. You know, chris, right now the super wealthy and big corporations are using every trick in the book to game the system to avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes. And thats just not right. So today i am proposing adding what im calling a new fair share surcharge on multimillionaires and closing loopholes to make it harder to game the system. Im also pushing for the buffett rule, which sets a minimum rate for those at the top and other reforms like closing the carried interest loophole that allows some Hedge Fund Managers to pay a lower rate than teachers or nurses. Im proposing every idea i can, finally to make those at the top actually pay their fair share. And thats going to be a big difference in this campaign. When you compare what the republicans are proposing, its unbelievable. They want trillions of dollars in new tax breaks for those at the top. Its trickledown economics on steroids and im going to sit idly by and let them make these claims. And on the democratic side im the only one whos committed to raising middleclass income, not middleclass taxes. Secretary clinton, let me ask you this. You said youre sort of thinking of every idea you can to get at those higher earners. My sense from the reporting in the New York Times that opened a lot of peoples eyes to the low rates, effective rates those earners are payings a lot of it has to do with what the Capital Gains rate is. Your husband quite famously cut Capital Gains tax rates from 28 to i think 20 . Should we be doing things more broadly like raising Capital Gains rates, raising the top marginal rates, adding another bracket . Well, chris, i think that weve got to do a lot of different things. Ive also proposed a different Capital Gains structure. You would pay ordinary income tax for holding an asset for less than two years, and then it would drop until on the sixth year it would be 20 . Back when it dropped from 28 to 20 that was part of the budget deal and there were tradeoffs made. So middleclass folks, poor people got something for it. And then when the Bush Administration came in obviously, you know, they lowered the top rates and thankfully that expired. So we are now in a position i think where we can go after some of these schemes that you did read about, the kind of misclassifying of income, trying to make it look like its a capital gain when its really ordinary income. Going ahead and routing income through the bahamas or the Cayman Islands or wherever. So i want to have a surcharge so wherever the income comes from, whatever the income is, it would be on the adjusted gross income and it would give us a chance to try to get around and end some of these abuses that are taking place in the tax system. You talked about not growing middleclass incomes, not taxes, raising taxes on the middle class. And theres a little bit of a debate right now on what the definition of middle class is. My understanding is your campaign is essentially saying no taxes on households earning less than 250,000. But thats still that gets people all the way up to if im not mistaken the 90th, 95th percentile of income. Isnt middle class a narrower category than the category of people youre pledging not to raise taxes on . Well, in fact, this was the pledge that president obama made, that my husband made. And it is based on a lot of the expenses and costs that people face. Clearly, the Median Income is much less than that. But a lot of the people who are in the, say, 50,000 to 250,000 bracket are twoincome families. Theyre working at jobs that are not, you know, jobs that produce great wealth. They might produce a comfortable middle class lifestyle or upper middleclass lifestyle. But when we talk about people who are really doing well, a Million Dollars or more, and the surcharge on 5 million or more, thats a relatively small number of families but their wealth has increased so much that holding them accountable with this surcharge would bring a lot of revenues into the treasury. And i think we should be focused on the people who are really at the top. Because if you look at a lot of the work that progressive economists, that the Obama Administration and before that the Clinton Administration did, ending up there makes a lot of sense when youre looking at all the other costs people are facing. Let me ask you about politics for a moment. It relates to this. Theres new polling out showing essentially a statistical dead heat in iowa. Senator sanders today said your candidacy is in trouble. And theres a perception, and its been pushed by that campaign a bit i think, that some of the attacks, which have been substantive, theyve been policy attacks on senator sanders, whether its been on guns, whether its single payer, whether its todays proposal about taxing high income, is being motivated out of a concern that this is a very, very tight race, youre attempting to distinguish yourself from him. Is that an accurate perception . No, its really not, chris, for two reasons. I always thought this would be a close race p ive been around the track a few times, as you know. And it always closes. Iowas famously unpredictable. So i am very pleased with my organization, where we are in planning for the caucuses, which are three weeks from tonight. But the other part of that is i have been laying out specific proposals over the course of my campaign. And i always said i was going to be laying out additional elements of my tax proposal, which i have. Now, its interesting because senator sanders promised to be providing his tax plan before the iowa caucus. And yet i dont think weve seen those. So i think im telling the voters what i will do, where i will get the revenues from. You can see, you know, what im proposing, how much it will cost. I think thats what voters deserve to have before they make their decision. All right. Final question. You know, i had someone whos an adviser of yours, a friend, david brock, on this program. It must have been a few months ago. And we talked about electability, which has become something you and senator sanders have been talking about on the trail. And i asked him is Bernie Sanders electable in a general election . And he paused and said no, i dont think he is. Do you agree with him . Well, im not going to speak for anybody but myself. I will leave that to the voters to decide about who is or who isnt. But i can tell you this. Im battle tested. I know how to go up against the republicans. Theres hardly anything you and the voters dont know about me. So there wont be a lot of new information coming out or new labeling coming out. I think thats a big advantage. I think going up against the republicans this year, where there is so much at stake, where every one of them is literally wanting to turn the clock back to trickledown economics, to repeal the Affordable Care act, to go after a womans right to make her health care decisions, defund planned parenthood, try to do what they can to derail marriage equality, on and on and on, i think its important for voters to understand that if they dont want to see a republican going back into the white house then i think its fair to say im the most prepared and ready person not only to win the election but to be president. All right. Democratic president ial candidate Hillary Clinton, great pleasure. Come back again soon. Thanks a lot. Good to talk to you. All right. Byebye. Im joined now by jeff weaver, Campaign Manager for democratic president ial candidate Bernie Sanders. Jeff, let me start with the last thing Hillary Clinton said about electability. And the case as far as i can understand it is Hillary Clinton is probably the most scrutinized and vetted figure in American Public life and thats almost certainly true or shes in the top tier of that. Absolutely. Whats that . I said absolutely. Go ahead. And that with Bernie Sanders there might be you know, with Bernie Sanders you might get some surprises, that theres a long voting record. She talked about labels coming up. What do you think of that . Look, senator sanders has been in public life now for decades. He is a wellknown person in washington, d. C. Hes been a United States senator since 2006. Hes been in the house since 1991. He was mayor of burlington before that. He has been in many very, very difficult campaigns against republicans. And he has really been through the sort of been put through the ringer. So if theres a suggestion people dont know who senator sanders is i think is really not fair. The truth of the matter about electability is if democrats want to win you have to be able to win democrats and you have to be able to win the lions share of independence. And the truth of matter is if we look at the polls, im not just making this up, if you look at polling he consistently does better with independents than secretary clinton does. If you look at the recent polls coming out of iowa and New Hampshire, in headtoheads against the republicans he does far better than secretary clinton than every single one of them. In ham these ahead of trump by 19 points. Shes only ahead by one point. Do you think democrats want to be spending money in a general election to defend New Hampshire . Do you think honestly now. Do you think headtohead polling this far out from the election i mean, i remember six weeks ago ben carson was going to beat everyone in the field in headtohead polling. That seems like pretty shaky data. Look, thats one proof point. Right . His strength with independence is consistent and has been consistent throughout this campaign and thats something you cant deny. And democrats are not going to win. The number of people who selfidentify as independents is far greater than republicans or democrats. I think you have to acknowledge a democrat cant win a federal election without winning independents. He definitely does better with independents. I will say this about electability. The truth of the matter democrats win when you have large voter turnouts. We saw that with president obama. When he won states that democrats never thought they had a shot in like indiana, north carolina. Because he expanded the base of the party. He brought out young people. He excited a lot of people who dont traditionally vote. And thats, if you look at senator Sanders Campaign and whats going on on the ground in iowa and New Hampshire thats exactly whats going on here. Hes exciting a lot of young people, a lot of people who dont traditionally vote, and if you look at secretary clintons campaign, im not with all due respect i think youll find theres a lot less enthusiasm in that campaign. Theyre not sort of motivating the same type of voters that senator sanders is. I think for democrats to win not only the white house, because we dont just want to win the white house, we also want to make gains in the congress and the state houses, weve got to bring out a large number of people who dont traditionally come out. That means young people, nontraditional voters. And those people are being energized and excited by senator Sanders Campaign. Let me ask you about the substance of todays announcement. I recognize youre running this campaign and not an Economic Policy adviser to the senator. But i wonder, on the point of releasing a tax plan, are we going to see a sort of fully formed tax plan from the senator before iowa . Absolutely. Hes made that pledge and he certainly will. I will say hes already released a number of components of his tax plan. For instance he wants to put a tax on wall street speculation to fund his program to create tuitionfree public colleges and universities and to lower student debt. Hes released a plan to tax income thats hidden in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens in order to fund his plan to rebuild the infrastructure of america and create 2 million jobs. He plans to lift the cap on Social Security starting at 250,000 so we can extend the life of Social Security for 50 years, expand benefits for seniors many of whom are trying to get by on 12,000 or 13,000 a year. So he has offered major pieces of his tax plan. He will be offering up the part that deals with individual income taxes before the Iowa Caucuses. Okay. And do you think that senator sanders i mean, what is the game plan here . Obviously things have tightened quite a bit in iowa. Theyre very tight in New Hampshire. You guys have a lot of money. So the question now becomes what are you going to do with all that money in the next three weeks . Well, look, you know, were very gratified to have the resources that we have. I mean, one of the things thats different about senator sanders insurgent campaign thats different than many other such campaigns in the past is that we have the resources to go the distance. We have over a million individual contributors, 2. 5 million contributions. Average contribution 27. This is a Campaign Funded at the grassroots. And these donors are available to give to us again if they choose. None of our donors are maxed out. We will have the resources to go all the way. We are obviously running ads on television and radio. We have Digital Advertising running. But were also running a very, very aggressive grassroots campaign, knocking on doortodoor. We have thousands of volunteers in iowa. Literally hundreds of thousands of volunteers nationwide. On any given weekend theres over 1,000 bernie events across the country being organized at the grassroots level. And all that takes money to do that. We are funding this grassroots campaign. And we are talking to voters through the media. Jeff, thank you very much. Happy to be here. Still to come meet the White Nationalist who wants you to vote for trump. At least if youre in iowa. Meanwhile, as he prepares for his final state of the Union President obama makes an announcement about endorsing a 2016 kidnap. What he says. And later the life of the incomparable cultural icon, david bowie. A final gift he left behind. Those stories and more. Coming up. One crest 3d white smile. Is all it takes. To turn the tables. Crest 3d white toothpaste. Removes 5 times more stains. Than the red box. For a smile like that, crest 3d white. Is the way to whiten. Today president ial candidate Chris Christie defended his friend, maine governor paul lepage, whos endorsed him, campaigned with him, and who also said this about drug traffickers last week. Now, the traffickers, these arent people that take drugs, these are guys that are named dmoney, smoothie, shifty. These type of guys. They come from connecticut and new york. They come up here, they sell their heroin, then they go back home. Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave. After the firestorm that created lepage stepped out to the mike to ramble through a nonapology apology. Heres just a slice of it. I was going impromptu and my brain didnt catch up do my mouth. And im not going to apologize to the maine women for that because if you go to maine you will see that we are essentially 95 white. Christie referred to lepage today as a friend who had apologized. I heard pauls remarks, and frankly, hes apologized for them. We cant judge people by one set of remarks they make, especially when those people apologize and genuinely apologize afterwards. I agree with the government about one set of remarks. But in case governor christie wants to do a little bit of googling he would find his buddy up in maine is a compulsive repeat offender. At a certain point slips of the tongue start to look a lot more like moments of unintended honesty. New polls today bring more good news for donald trump as a White Supremacist Group plans a new wave of robo calls in support of the gop frontrunner. In iowa where the caucuses will be held in 21 days a new quinnipiac poll shows trump retaking the lead from ted cruz though his advantage is within the polls margin of error. Meanwhile in New Hampshire a new monmouth poll finds that trump continues to dominate the field with more than double the support of his closest competitors. In both states it looks pretty grim for the socalled establishment. Marco rubio, whos polling a distant third nationally, has not been rising in either early state and is running out of time to surge. And jeb bush. Jeb bush remains utterly unable to get any sort of traction. Those new polls have bush at just 3 in iowa, at 4 in New Hampshire. Despite 50 million in ad spending on bushs behalf. In New Hampshire today trump continued to raise questions about whether his closest rifle, the canadianborn ted cruz, his mother is american, whether hes a naturally born citizen and is constitutionally eligible to serve as president. Cruz maintains the answer is settled. Lawrence tribe at harvard whos a constitutional expert, one of the best in the country, said, and i wrote it down, this is not a settled matter. Its wrong to say it is a settled matter because its absolutely not. Its not a settled matter. That means that a lot of people think you have to be born here, you have to be born on this land. In iowa this weekend meanwhile voters reportedly received a robo call from a White Nationalist super pac urging them to support trump. Im jared taylor with american renaissance. I urge you to vote for donald trump because he is the one candidate who points out that we should support immigrants who are good for america. We dont need muslims. We need smart, welleducated white people who will assimilate to our culture. Vote trump. Smart, welleducated white people. The founder of the super pac that paid for these ads told talking point memo today he plans a new wave of protrump robocalls in early voting states, adding that america needed to have a separate white ethnostate. This follows a report from a muslim woman who was ejected from a trump rally in South Carolina with other voters. The woman was wearing a hijab. She told cnn cher she experienced a hateful crowd mentality as she was being escorted out including from one man who questioned whether she had a bomb. She had a tshirt that said i come in peace. And over the weekend a cnn News Reporter tweeted if a trump supporter asked if he was taking pictures for isis and then began filming him. It wasnt the first time this has happened. At a trump rally last month deb said a man came up to him and said go back to iraq. Deb says he has never even been. Joining me now, olivia nuzzi, political reporter for the daily beast. Heres my first question. People talk about, you know, the Iowa Republican caucusgoers are not necessarily representative of the national party. But ive got to think, ive got to think even among them people dont like a White Nationalist calling them up and saying we need more i mean, it it just seems like maybe theres going to be a backlash when like explicitly white they call themselves White Nationalists. I will call them White Supremacist Groups. Are cheering on a candidate. Im not as confident of that as you seem to be. I think donald trump may be the only candidate who is not going to be would not be negatively affected by White Nationalists coming out to support him. I mean, anecdotally back in october i covered a White National involvement convention here in washington and i saw people coming in with make America Great again hats on. Anytime i talk to Trump Supporters pretty much whether its in person or on the phone, theyre very preoccupied with whether or not im a muslim, if im a christian, if i have encountered jesus christ. I think that there is a large faction of donald Trump Supporters who are sympathetic to these types of views. So today that we got the we got the fox news fox Business News saying who theyre going to have on the undercard and who theyre going to have on the main stage. They have demoted Carly Fiorina and rand paul to the undercard debate. Theyll be joining Mike Huckabee and rick santorum. The others will be left in the main event. Paul basically saying hes going to boycott this. You wonder how much longer pauls going to be able to hang on at this point. Yeah. Rand paul also has a senate race he needs to run. He needs to be able to fund that senate race and continue funding this president ial race. I dont know how he can manage to do that. His message obviously after the terror attack in paris seems a lot less attractive than it used to seem, this message of noninterventionism. People dont want to hear it. Republicans dont want to hear it it even if the general public does. Let me say this. I think this is an interesting point. Ted cruz actually has tried to kind of carve out this path in which he sort of rhetorically as bellicose and militant and rabid as you can get but substantively doesnt seem to want to do a lot of military commitments, which actually seems to be in an odd way the perfect sweet spot for the republican primary voter. Well, its sort of what donald trump has said at times too. He sounds a little like rand paul frankly. He sounds like a noninterventionist. He never really says hes going to put boots on the ground but hes going to bomb the hell out of isis so its okay. Hes sort of having it both ways. But i really do believe rand paul, what hes selling is not as attractive as it used to be and i think ted cruz has a way of talking about these things that sound more patriotic, if you will, to the average republican voter than they do when rand paul talks about them. He says hes going to carpet bomb them, were going to see if sand is going to glow in the dark. You dont really hear rand paul talking that way in a convincing manner. If you want to get a sense of what register the Cruz Campaign is playing in, check out this super pac mailer. I should say not the campaign. Allied super pac. If we dont defend our borders they will keep on coming. Pics of terrorists and drug lord convicted felon. You can draw your conclusions about what that visually is supposed to communicate to the iowa voter. But cruz and trump are pretty much playing on the same terrain at this point and it shows in the polls. It does. But if you look at the average of polls, the real clear politics average of polls, donald trump is still behind ted cruz in iowa and i think thats really important to remember. We cant put too much stake in any one poll. I think until he i dont know if its possible hes really going to retake his lead there. And theres a lot of pressure now. This is another interesting thing. Ted cruz has not faced pressure. He now has pressure in iowa because i think not winning iowa today the Supreme Court heard a case that has the potential to decimate the way that Public Sector unions function and by extension all of the American Labor movement. Heres what it states. A system established by a 1977 Supreme Court case that found that even if you opt out of joining a Public Sector union, if youre a janitor or a teacher, you can still be required to pay a fee. Now, that fee would cover the costs of the Union Bargaining on your behalf because youre included in their overall contract. And that 1977 case meant that no one would get essentially a free ride. You know, receiving the benefits of collective bargaining without having to pay for it. Now, that fee is not as large as union dues. Youre not still a union member. And it does not go to things like ads for political candidates. But in the case before the justices today, a case backed by a conservative group called the center for individual rights, ten teachers in california claim their free speech rights under the First Amendment are being violated merely by paying that fee for collective bargaining. The argument for overturning nearly 40 years of precedent is that the act of collective bargaining itself when bargaining with the State Government is itself inherently political, that its speech and its enough to draw it under the umbrella of the First Amendment. Today Justice Roberts said the effect of undoing the system would be insignificant because the majority of teachers appear to favor collective bargaining anyway. The compelling counterargument is that workers will stop paying for collective bargaining once they realize they will get the benefits of it whether they pay or not. That is why unions are so invested in this case. If the Roberts Court overturns this decadeslong precedent, Public Sector unions in 20 states could be affected and could face something that looks a lot like a death spiral. And there is a much broader point to be made about what the court might do this term and the case they heard today. When the Supreme Court overturns itself, when it rejects precedent and just comes up with a new interpretation, it is usually an indicator of something changing outside the court. Brown versus board of education overturned plessy v. Ferguson not only because separate but equal was no longer constitutionally tenable but also because of the broad social changes happening in the country. In this case if decades of precedent is thrown out in the case before the court today, it is much more of a testament to the power of antilabor forces outside the court than it is about the arguments made inside the Supreme Court today. I want us to be able when we walk out this door to say we couldnt think of anything else that we didnt try to do, that we didnt shy away from a challenge because it was hard, that we werent timid or got tired or somehow were thinking about the next thing, because there is no next thing. This is it. Tomorrow night the president will deliver his final state of the union, a speech that in some ways is a victory lap. After all, lets keep in mind this is a man that with a name like Barack Hussein obama had the cards politically stacked against him from the beginning. On top of that he inherited the worst economic crisis since the great depression, the most polarized nation since the civil war and of course an implacable opposition. His second term much like the first was supposed to usher in a series of dystopic scenarios according to his critics. Gas prices could skyrocket. America would undergo another greecestyle financial crisis, runaway inflation would make a return, record interest rates. Obamacare would kill job growth, according to the president s many foes. Instead right now under obama gas is hovering around 2 per gallon, inflation has remained remarkably historically low and so far the United States has not become greece. Say whatever you want about barack obama but he has just presided over a recordbreaking 70 straight months of private sector job growth. Perhaps this is why Hillary Clinton, who has been said many times over the campaign to be distancing herself from the president , is quite clearly attempting to bring him closer. Even as the white house confirms that the president will not endorse a candidate in the democratic primary. That did not stop Hillary Clinton from today using the president to contrast her record with Bernie Sanders on guns. I was very proud of president obama when he put out the plan he just did about what he thinks would help save lives. I agree with everything he said. There was a vote in the congress, do we give the gun lobby, the manufacturers and the sellers, absolute immunity from my liability or accountability . President obama and i were both in the senate, and we voted no. Senator sanders voted yes. Joining me now, sam seder. Hes msnbc contributor and host of the podcast majority report with sam seder. I think as you know, today felt like a landmark day in the democratic primary because it was like really okay, like this is real. Right. These two candidates are within the margin of error in both the early states. You can feel with the Clinton Campaign they recognize they have to make the case, and they are making it and theyre making it in a substantive way. This is not like smearing Bernie Sanders. But it strikes me that the battle over who is closest to president obamas going to be very key in the next three weeks. Yeah, i think. So first off, its really real, and its sort of amazing, right . Yes. That weve got two of these races that are so close. No one predicted this race would be this close. No one predicted this a year ago. Certainly not in any of the establishment circles. Certainly not in the Democratic Party circles. So this is i think even in lefty progressive circles to be honest. I think 1 out of 2 maybe would see a tight race but youd be surprised. I think thats a big part of it. I dont know how much that makes a difference in iowa and New Hampshire but it certainly makes a difference once you leave iowa and New Hampshire in terms of that proximity to president obama. And i think certainly thats also where Bernie Sanders has a lot of place to make up amongst africanamerican voters and against a lot of the sort of Traditional Democratic base. Not necessarily this socalled wine track as we used to call it on some level. But i think were going to see more of that and i think president obamas going to come out there tomorrow night and i think theres going to be a lot of soaring rhetoric and i think its going to be a little bit more partisan than 2004 that is the big question. Right . If he comes out there, look, hes got nothing left to lose. Right. Hes got an opportunity in some ways frankly to frame some of the debate about the campaign tomorrow night. Really ultimately no one its very rare that a speech like this is going to be remembered. His legacy will be remembered longer than the speech will. So in terms of what rhetorical function its going to play, thats what he can do in the short term. I think thats true. But right now what hes doing is building his legacy. Absolutely. That i completely agree with. Podcasts i mean, honestly theres a lot of that going on. I think this is very important in terms of setting the terms of the debate and basically saying like look, heres if you want to attach yourself to me this is where you go. And heres the choice and heres the trajectory i want to follow. That know is going to be really interesting, him sort of laying out for the country what the choice is going to be coming down in the next nine or ten months. And i think youre right about the vindication. He could actually do mitt romneys highlight reel from 2012 all the things just play it on the screen and go that, no. That, sorry. Its true. All those things you promised, did it. And you know, i had my disagreements with president obama. But he has a very strong case to make. And if he wants to sort of push it to the future he has the opportunity to do that too. People forget that summer before the financial crisis happened with him and mccain going head to head gas prices were all anyone tied about. It was a 90 gas price driven news cycle. Sam seder, thanks for joining me. Still ahead kurt loder joins me to talk about the genius of david bowie. Mick jagger to vatican city, whenever i try to grow out my hair, strands always break off. But pantene is making my. Hair practically unbreakable. The new prov formula makes every inch stronger. So i can love my hair longer. Strong is beautiful. Pantene. When a moment turns romantic why pause to take a pill . Or stop to find a bathroom . Cialis for daily use is approved to treat both erectile dysfunction and the urinary symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently, day or night. Tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medicines, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. Do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, as it may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. Do not drink alcohol in excess. Side effects may include headache, upset stomach, delayed backache or muscle ache. To avoid longterm injury, get medical help right away for an erection lasting more than four hours. If you have any sudden decrease or loss in hearing or vision, or any symptoms of an allergic reaction, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. Ask your doctor about cialis and a 200 savings card. Mick jagger to vatican city, friends and family are paying tribute to david bowie today. 9 Rolling Stones frontman called bowie an inspiration and a true original. As the vaticans official newspaper says he was never banal. British Prime MinisterDavid Cameron dubbed bowie a genius while Germanys Foreign Ministry thanked him for helping to bring down the berlin wall. Madonna wrote that bowie was the first person she saw in concert and it changed the course of her life. More on david bowies legacy, next. He was a rock god, a musical innovator, larger than Life Cultural icon, at once enduringly strange and exotic but also somehow charming. And tonight generations of fans are mourning the loss of david bowie, who died last night following an 18monthlong and largely private battle with cancer. The career that spanned over six decades, david bowie was a master of reinvention. Visually, musically. Launching his first hit the same year of the moon landing with space oddity to constructing his glam rock alter ego ziggy stardust to a slew of pop hits. Fame was his first number one in the u. S. Bowie fans delighted in his ability to surprise, whether it was singing Christmas Carols with bing crosby or poking fun at Ricky Gervais on extras. Please look that up on google. But his parting gift to the world was one final album released last friday on his 69th birthday. Tributes have been pouring in from around the globe from flowers laid near his birthplace in london to his apartment in manhattan. His fans remember the man not only for his music but for social causes. Bowie recorded three albums in berlin in the late 70s, performing the song heroes in the divided city in 1987 and telling the crowd, we send our wishes to all our friends who are on the other side of the wall. Earlier that decade david bowie took on the apparent racial divide on mtv asking vj mark goodman why the network was not highlighting the work of black musicians. It occurred to me having watched mtv over the last few months that its a solid enterprise. Its got a lot going for it. Im just floored by the fact that there are so many so few black artists featured on it. Why is that . I think that were trying to move in that direction. We want to play artists that seem to be doing music that fits into what we want to play for mtv. The companys thinking in terms of narrowcasting. Thats evident. Its evident in the fact that the only few black artists that one does see are on about 2 30 in the morning or till around 6 00. Very few are featured predominantly during the day. No. Thats ill say that over the last couple of weeks these things have been changing but its a slow process. I know its funny. I think people have different perceptions. When you wind up watching, lets say you watch an hour or two or even three a day, people somehow come away with different ideas about what we are doing. We dont have any kind of day parting for anything, let alone a black artist day parted out of what would be, quote unquote, prime time. We dont have that. Because one sees a lot theres one Black Station on television that i keep picking up. Im not sure which station its on. But there seem to be a lot of black artists making very good videos that im surprised arent used on mtv. Of course also we have to try and do what we think not only in new york and los angeles will appreciate but also poughkeepsie or midwest, pick some town in the midwest that will be scared to death by prince, which were playing, or a string of other black faces. Thats very interesting. Isnt that interesting . Next, an mtv legend, the great kurt loder will join me to discuss that moment, to remember the genius of david bowie. Starman waiting in the sky cause he knows hed blow our minds theres a crowd gathered in london earlier singing starman to honor the late david bowie. Im joined by kurt loder, previously of mtv news. Current film and music critic at reason. One of the most striking things to me, we talked about he reinvented himself, his persona, his fashion. The guy was a musical genius. He was an incredible musician. I think people forget about that. They say well, these costumes, and he had this cultural impact. Like this was shtick. Hes an astonishing musician. His voice was just unbelievable. He could play you know, guitar player, played keyboards, played saxophone. He was an allaround musician. If you talked to him, you could really talk about the history of black music especially and r b and go way back in it and also know whats happening in germany or whats happening in japan. He just soaked all this stuff up. He was an amazing guy. Someone had this line today, i thought it was interesting because i was doing this this morning, trying to noodle around with my kids playing some bowie songs. Someone said theres a lot of people right now trying to do bowie singalongs encountering how complex his songwriting was. Its true. I wouldnt want to have to try to sing like him. But people forget that. I think theyre sort of dazzled by all the other stuff, the costumes and the way he changed the way people felt about clothing and men wearing dresses and things like that. He also seems to have its such a hard thing for artists, particularly when they have you success at a certain age, to not be pegged to that age forever. Its true. Its hard to have second, third, fourth acts. He never seems you dont look back at him and say oh, that was that you say that was that period. But he kept moving on from it. He never seemed like he was a relic of some old age. He was always here right now. Because he was doing his stuff. Yeah, and he also i was seeing today that hes four years younger than mick jagger. And yet i think of him in such a different generation. In a way, yeah. Partly because it felt like what he ushered in felt like a break with what sort of that era of late 60s rock had been. And i think the Rolling Stones are an example of that. God bless the Rolling Stones. But theyre sort of leek a greatest hits band in concert. Youre hearing stuff that was big for them in the 60s, 70s, 80s, whereas bowie could keep doing stuff all night and all week probably. I think his last album, which was just released last friday, is one of his most experimental records. I mean, heres a guy whos going to be 69 years old and hes put this record out, that has some jazz guys on it youve never heard of and he put a video out thats just astonishing to me. He was doing some of his strongest work at the end. I want to ask but that clip we played, a fascinating look at the early days of mtv. Where he is pressing them on the diversity of what theyre showing and mtv actually tweeted that out today. Im sure they did. It was an interesting moment because you know, there was a moment when mtv had such profound cultural power and i wonder how much that resonated there. I dont know. That was five years before i arrived there. I was still at rolling stone. But i think everyone on the outside looking at mtv saw that tragic lack of blackness. Whats wrong here . And Michael Jackson came in and just blew that all away because you couldnt deny Michael Jackson. That is really interesting. I wonder i wonder what the sort of eulogy will ultimately be when 100 years hence we look back at this sort of mtv era. If theres anyone looking back. Thats right. If there is anyone looking back or were all stored in some great machines brain. Kurt loder, great thanks. My pleasure. That is all in for this evening. The Rachel Maddow show starts right now. Good evening, rachel. Good evening, chris. Thanks, my friend. Thank you. And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Happy monday. Happy state of the union eve. If other holidays get eves, state of the union eve should be a thing for political nerds. It always feels like a holiday for me. So heres the news today out of the president ial race. At least in New HampshireRepublican Voters turns out they like their choices. They like their candidates a lot. The polling is coming in fast and furious now from the early states now that were three weeks exactly away from iowa, roughly four weeks away from New Hampshire. But in addition to polling voters on the big bottom line number that everybody wants, right . In addition to asking voters who theyre going to caucus for, who theyre going to vote for, some pollsters are now just asking iowa and New Hampshire voters who they like. Not necessarily who are you going to vote for but who do you like, what are your overall impressions of these candidates. And it turns out it is not at all what i at least expected. And i think its super striking. New hampshire, it turns out, really is pretty happy in terms