nikki haley's turn in the barrel. she was the target of attacks from the men around her on the debate stage last night. she says they are just jealous as she wants new endorsements and climbs in polls. it's all relative. haley may be in second place in states like new hampshire and south carolina, but she is still 20 or 30 points behind donald trump. trump was once again not on the debate stage. he was where you see him now, new york city, particularly in a courtroom in manhattan. that's where he is as we speak. listen to what he said just before going into the courtroom. it's for a civil trial threatening his buzz. >> nobody has ever seen the case. there's not a judge in the country that wouldn't have given it. this is a witch hunt. it's a very corrupt trial. >> jeff zeleny is still in tusc tuscaloosa, alabama, where i left you last night. good to see you. trump once again was not at the debate. what do you make of how he made out at that debate given the fact that he was the target of at least one of his opponents. >> reporter: things are a lot more calm than they were last night than when you were here. but i think you have to say that former president trump was a sempt point of the discussion, but there were no new attacks on him. we are seeing again today another example of this split screen moment where he will be spending time in the courtroom as his rivals are on the campaign trail. chris christie trying to make the case, trying to shake republican voters to i think about the possibility of him next year as a convicted felon. let's watch. >> these three asking after if the race is between the four of us. the fifth guy, who doesn't have the guts to show up and stand here, he's the one who is way ahead in the polls. and yet i've got these three guys who are all seemingly to compete with he who shall not be named. >> let me make it clear. his conduct is unacceptable. he's unfate. >> so chris christie really the only one bluntly making that args that he's unfit for office. he being the former president. he tried to bring ron desantis into that conversation as well. but at the end of this series of debates, there's no doubt that donald trump's decision to skip them has not hurt him at all. in fact, it may have even helped him some. >> i want to ask about nikki haley. she is responding this morning to the fact that she had all that incoming on the stage last night. >> reporter: we watched her together. she was biting her tongue at some points, perhaps unsure how to answer at other points, but not the og to get in the fray. but this morning in an interview, she pushed back and defended her conservative credentials. >> they know i'm tough on china. they saw the work i did as governor. last night it was very clear we're surging in the polls. every one of these guys sees it. they showed it we're picking and choosing our the battles. >> reporter: picking and choosing our the battles, so it was a bit of strategy. now it's in the hands of the voters. all the candidates making a beeline back to the campaign trail, particularly ron desantis flying to iowa. he will have two events today. you can see the schedule there. vivek ramaswamy also going to iowa. he has had more campaign events. nikki haley arrives this tomorrow. chris christie boing to new hampshire. and donald trump i in that courtroom in new york. but talking to some republican operatives and voters in iowa, it was a strong night for ron desantis. it wasn't as slick as some other candidates we have seen, but he got a lot of his conservative record out there. that is music to the ears of iowa social conservatives. not a single vote has been cast. voters have a few weeks to think about this. 39 days until the first votes of this campaign. >> i agree with you about ron desantis. both heard from it his team that they were quite happy. see you soon. we're talking about ron desantis. he is continuing today to attack nikki haley. here's what he said on fox. >> they are spending millions of dollars trying to attack me. we're going to fight back. the surge is more of a media thing. you're not seeing it on the ground with conservative voters. in fact, conservative voters don't support her. that's just the reality. but notice shefts really bragging about the wall street donors. these are people that supported hillary clinton. these are people that opposed donald trump in the past. >> let's talk more about this with our great panel. david chalian, eva mcend and jonah goldberg of the dispatch. hi, everybody. had a little. nap last nugt. it's nice to be back. what was your take away of the debate? >> picking up an who you just played, one of the things when i watched the debate stage they kept asking myself was desantis was unloading the opposition research book on to nikki haley. he was trying to get out every single piece of research they had on her. which shows they see her as a real threat in this moment of the campaign, and i wonner if he's going to press that on the campaign trail in a way we haven't seen as much, or is he going to leave this to the high profile moment in the debate stalk. we'll see in iowa. he continued it in the fox news interview. notice he said he loves to tie the donor thing, the fact that she has some wall street donors and koch brothers to people who supported hillary clinton. this is while a superpac is up with an add. not one of us, not meaning conservative and tried and true conservative the way the base is in iowa that's going to show up to the caucuses. that's going to be his mission for the next several weeks to other her as something that is establishment, more democratic leaning and not really one of us. and i thought that was an interesting approach. >> he had some help from vivek ramaswamy. let's listen to a bit more of the dynamic you're talking about. >> the only person more fascist is nikki haley. she should come nowhere near the levers of power. i don't have a woman problem. you have a corruption problem. i think that's what people need to know. nikki haley is corrupt. >> it's not worth my time to respond to him. >> nikki haley, she caves any time the left comes after her. she will cave to the donors. she is will not stand up for you. >> i love all the attention, fellas, thank you for that. >> i agree with david on almost all of that. you can make the case with vivek ramaswamy unless he was going into it, make a claim to have won last night. nikki haley had her worst performance, but that's from a high bar and she is also last night was clear ly the front runner, which is a good place to be on a debate stage. chris christie dom the nated the stage. and ron desantis had his best performance so far. i don't know how many persuadable voters were watching last night. even though vivek ramaswamy's attacks were grotesque and deranged, i don't think they matter that much because no one is going to be replaying them a lot except in the context of look at what a jerk this guy and how the well nikki haley handled it. when you don't have trump on the stage, this is a pretty reagan party. hnikki haley and ron desantis don't disagree on very much. they just say the other one is laying about what their positions are and here's sop research to prove it opinion on the actual things they are campaigning on, there's not lot of daylight between them. >> that's interest an interesting point. chris christie dominated the stage. i said to him it was like a fourth moderator in that debate. let's listen to what he did to defend nikki haley. >> he has insulted nikki haley's basic intelligence. if you want to disagree on issues, that's fine. while we disagree about some issues and disagree about who should be president, what we don't is this is a smart, accomplished woman and you should stop insulting her. >> it seemed like he was on the verge of an endorsement right then and there. but listen, chris christie knows his audience. he is really competing for the new hampshire voters. and he knows that's a more mod moderate electorate so there was some political strategy as well. i was texting with a pastor earlier this morning and he shared that he was really adisappointed in you personal the attacks were on that stage last night. chris christie is speaking directly to that. trying to hone in on that. i do think that as we get closer to new hampshire, if he's still many this game, he's going to be more aggressive with her. >> i actually asked the former new jersey governor about whether or not he was -- i didn't use the word endorsement, but pretty close. let's listen to our conversation. >> it seemed as though you were forming a bit of an alliance with her. >> no, it's not me forming an alliance with nikki haley. wait until you see what's going to happen over the next seven weeks. we're going to be competing against each other hard to win new hampshire, i suspect is. >> david chalian, you speak new jersey. can you translate? >> i do. probably so. you can expect there's going to be an aggressive campaign from crust crist against nikki haley. to eva's point, he's put all his eggs in that new hampshire basket. that's his launch pad, if he's going to have any kind of staying power in this race. the initial question that cr christie got in this debate last night was why are you still here if republicans don't like you? >> which is a good question. >> totally fair question about his political stand ing in the race, but the answer is, i'm trying to carve out a possibility here in new hampshire where independents can vote in the race. what is he doing today? he's launching a college tour in new hampshire trying to get to some young voters. he's trying to piece together a potential coaligs in the new hampshire republican primary electorate where he can overtake nikki haley's stance there and perhaps stand one-on-one with trump. not for the duration, but on that night. that will change the calculous for people of their understanding of him in this race. obviously, he's a long shot for the nomination. but he's not somebody who is apparently going to go and acknowledge the reality of the polls. he's going to fight this out from what he's committed to doing. that means taking nikki haley down a peg in new hampshire. >> i agree with that. more broadly about the debate performance last night. i'm pretty passionate what our politics doesn't need is more lawyers. but one of the things that christie does better than anybody else in politics is and what he did to marco rubio is he breaks the fourth wall with the audience. he actually does this thing that only trial lawyer who is have to listen to hostile witnesses can do. he listens to what the other people says to the audience. see what he did there? he was reading from a script. and he can repeat that. that's very effective in a way. >> that's such a good way to put it. i couldn't articulate it until you did so well. i have to ask before we take a break. i have been thinking about this since last night. the way that nikki haley uses her femininity, the fact that she is the only woman up there, it's very intentional. it's very -- it's subtle, but it's not so subtle. >> it isn't. she use it is to her benefit. i think she says she's not interested in engaging in identity politics, but she plays off the fact she's the only woman on that stage. >> calling everybody fell wills. >> what we saw from her, some people say this wasn't her strongest, but i think that we saw from her a quiet confidence that really illustrated that she knows she's winning. she didn't have to engage in some of the fights because she's doing well. so why even get in the gutter? >> that's kind of a mom move, i think. everybody, we have some breaking news on capitol hill. the house just voted to cent sure jamal bowman for triggering the fire alarm in an office building where there was not an emergency. >> the adoption of house resolution 914, the house has resolved that the house of representatives censures jamal bowman of new york, that representative jamal bowman present himself in the house of representatives for the pronouncement of censure and that representative be censured with the public reading of this resolution by the speaker. >> the gop-led censure passed by 214-191. up next, vivek ramaswamy unleashes conspiracy theories on the stage. hear how he responded when i talked to him about it after the debate. vivek ramaswamy was spewing some dangerous conspiracy t theories on the debate stage last night. he claimed the horrifying january 6th insurrection was an inside job and pushed the white nationalist great repolicement theory. i spoke to him about it after the debate. >> when you use the term repolicement theory -- do you understand that that term is something that invokes anti-semitism. >> i'm against anti-semitism. >> but people who have looked at that. >> it's not -- this is being used for killings in buffalo, for killing in california. >> if it was a republican saying the same things that biden said ten years ago. >> do you understand how dangerous it is? it's not even a conspiracy theory. it's dangerous. >> i disagree. what's dangerous is the suppression of open dialogue. we need to have more open dialogue in this country. >> our great reporters are back with us. jonah, i'm going to start with you. >> so i really it's difficult to exaggerate the low esteem i have for vivek ramaswamy. he knows when he's doing. your question is absolutely appropriate. great replacement theory, as a phrase, references the cincinnati antiset mettic conspiracy theortheories. it has its roots in france. it's incredibly dumb and stupid. it's paranoid. he knowst that's how it rings. it's sort of like the hamas militant type who speaks about peace in english to the west and then at home talks about murder. he knows husband audience. understand that term for what it is. and then they love to hear him sort of play this, oh, you're crazy for thinking it's anti-semitic. everyone knows what it is. had does the same thing with the january 6th stuff. whether he knows better or not, he's trying to essentially monetize the dregs of the very online alex jones crowd. that's a constituency now for parts of the right. and he wants to be their standard bearer. >> it is a constituency for parts of the right. it's important to call ittous bought it has for a long time lived on the fringe online in particular in recent years. it has become part of the manifesto of the mass shooter in new zealand and here in buffalo. it is not justen anti-semitic, it's racist. i wonder how woe engage in this. when you speak toment some voters, he's speaking to the anxieties of some white conservatives who are do feel as though the democrats are on a mission through voters of color to replace them, who feel as though that many of the january 6th defendants were set up or overcharged. so vivek ramaswamy is representing some of what you hear from republican voters. so for as much as he's getting today, we can't forget that those voices exist and those voters exist. i don't know how we grapple with that. >> such an important, interesting, very difficult conversation, unfortunately, one that he brought into the mainstream. i do the to turn back to the guy who is a front runner in this case race, donald trump. and what ron desantis saud last night about what trump said this past week about the notion of being a dictator. >> the immemedia is making a bi deal. i would remind people, that is not how he governed. he didn't fire dr. fauci. he didn't clean up the swamp. he said he was going to drain it. he did not drain it. he said he was going to build a wall. we don't have the wall. i will go in and wreak havoc on this bureaucracy. you will see people fired. >> he's leaving out a piece of his record because at the end of his term of governing, he attempted to overturn a le legitimate election. i think this whole conversation is whether he was offering some dark proverse joke and talking about the issues of drilling and energy and the like, he refused to rule out when asked by the friendliest questioner multiple times whether or not he would abuse the power of his office. he refused to rule out the notion he could. end of story there. it's really an indefensible position but he sees an opportunity to hit the media here, an opportunity to make an rgt argument against trump that is based on not being trumpy enough. that's part of the failure thus far of his salesmanship of his position in this race. >> that's one of the things that sent chris christie through the roof because he wasn't absenteeing the question about his failure to say i i will not abuse my power if i'm in office again. everybody, standby. up next instead of spending today on the campaign trail, the man we were just talking about donald trump is back inside a new york city courtroom. he says he's the not happy about it. dear moms and dads, what you have achieved here today is going to help us and our futures. it is why we're coming up on stage to collect your diplomas. mom, love you always. vo: when you graduate, they graduate. visit finishyourdiploma.org to find free and supportive adult education centers near you. donald trump spoke on his way into the courtroom today calling the $250 million civil fraud trial against his trump organization a witch hunt. >> when you value a place like mar-a-lago, $18 million what it's worth, this case should be over. this case should have never been brought. this was a witch hunt by a general who is out of control. >> senior justice correspondent evan perez joins me along with national correspondent kristen holmes. it's "inside politics." let's start with the politics. you have been reporting for some time along with our team, about the collision between donald trump, the defendant, and donald trump the candidate. >> it's certainly getting more and more closely knit. what we're seeing now is donald trump did not have to be in court today. he. ed to sit through some of the testimony. part of that is because these are his witnesses. the people are going to say what he wants to hear. but the other part of that is that we have seen him really use these court appearances as campaign events. he had nothing on his schedule. and now we are taking sound from him at a courtroom because he's talking to cameras, talking about his legal cases. they are really trying to seek to amp up these events, as campaign rallies. as we know, donald trump is anded to testify on monday. you can expect he's going to try to take control of the narrative then as well 37. >> today, he had a witness in there who is an expert for the defense. who makes the case that, look, people make different calls on real estate all the time. it doesn't mean that you're try ing to defraud. it means that people have different ways to value things. that's a very good case he's trying to make. one way to do that is by showing up in court one way to draw attention to what his lawyers were trying to doed is by having donald trump show up in court. there's a strategy. i think there was a strategy. but for the former president, one of the things that gets more complicated is how does he navigate the campaign trail ask all these trial dates that have come up. >> you mentioned he's going to be testifying. we believe on monday. can you remind people because there's a lot of news about a the lot of different trials and a lot of different legal battles that he's waging, this particular case and what it could mean for his company. >> beyond the $250 million that is at stake, it's also whether his company can continue to do business in the state of new york. it really calls into question the viability of his company. that's one of the reasons why he's fighting so hard. one of the things he's trying to do is seize the trial calendar, the calendar and turn it to his advantage for his political benefit. this is not really going to be the guy out there kis