In the gop establishment consider the only hope of stopping donald trump used his last events to tell voters they are running out of time and that we cannot nominate someone who cannot win if they cant unite us. Despite rubios urgency and the urgency of many in the party, it might be too little too late. Listen to this donald trump remarked the donald trump made at this rally. Trump heres a guy throwing punches screaming and everything else. The guards are very gentle with them. Smiling and laughing. I would like to punch him in the face. Mark ive been to a lot of donald trump rallies and that is not even in the top 10 of newsworthy things have heard him say. Look at how much that one remark dominated the news cycle today. Donald trump unloaded on a heckler at a las vegas rally. He wanted to hit a protester who interrupted him. This is what happens with donald trump dictating our culture. Mark News Coverage for the other republican candidates was pretty meager. Marco rubios getting some coverage for his endorsements. Kasichy headline john was for some comments about women leaving their kitchens to vote for him years ago. He got mostly unfair coverage. Are the candidates not trying to fight trump . Or is it just impossible to trump donald trump . You cant resist the man was about to give another man a punch in the lunch. So crazily done. When you think about the things that her genuine provocations. Wanting to ban muslims. Some of the things he has said about immigrants. Donald trump saying in a flip way i would like to punch that guy, if that is going to dominate news that there is nothing those of the candidates can do it isnt going to break through. The news cycle is just too much Donald Trumps plaything. Mark the only way to dominate the news is to get up in his face. If they let donald trump do what it wont get any coverage actually go to the National Primaries next tuesday they will be lost. And nowhere because it will all be trump. Cruz if Marco Rubio Ted wanted to push on trump in the face, without the coverage . Mark particularly if they flew where he is and do that his event. John because they are in the voting might not finish up until around midnight eastern time this evening. Entirely possible that results might not be tabulated until the wee hours of the morning. Most of america likely wont untilho one and placed they wake up on wednesday. If all the Morning Headlines are about trump being the winner in nevada, second and let alone third place, does it even matter . Mark i think secondplace matters if it is a strong second. Especially for marco rubio. Extend that narrative that ted cruz is a dead man walking. Second for rubio would be a boost for him. Second for ted cruz would be important but not as big. How close marco rubio comes in this contest it seems to me matters. I have been getting messages all when people said Marco Rubio Might finish second. Ive had people suggesting to me that marco rubio could win the nevada caucuses. I have no idea. If rubio somehow did that it would be huge news. Even coming close to trump in second would help rubios cause in making that case that it is a twoman race and he is the only one who can take on donald trump. The consolidation you are seeing in fundraising make a big difference even though the results will come in late. I suspect, despite what the rubio people are saying, the trump will win by a big margin. John yet another full week before there is another republican contest. These results can sink in. Mark if that conventional wisdom holds that there is no one who slows donald trump down, that leaves a very narrow window for ted cruz and marco rubio to make any dent in the teflon don until the next voting. This week the campaigns of both senators put out competing memos with Lessons Learned from the South Carolina primary. They list reasons why only their guy can be trump. They criticize each other more than the republican frontrunner. They are pretending john kasich doesnt even exist. John you suggested that the only thing that can take trump down all of these republican candidates not taking on the front runner. I do think that in rubios case at least the argument that ted cruz is making that you cant take out donald trump from the left is far weaker than the argument rubio is making which is the donald trump is havectable and you need to a mainstream candidate like me. I think marco rubios making the better messaging argument. Polling suggests that the best decision for ted cruz is ahead in texas. Anywhere at this point is big news. The message of ted cruz to say i can beat him again i am the only one who was beaten them. A new poll in ohio today shows hasek is now behind trump and that is not good. He is popular in his home state and the fact that he is not ahead of trump there is bad news for him. Florida votes later on. Rubio seems to be behind there. Thing toifficult to t say where somebody is going to be trump. This ismessage is that a mistake for the party but is not being delivered very urgently or broadly or specifically in ways that will actually do much to slow donald trump down. John it is the right message for the kind of people that marco rubio needs. It is well tailored to people that are on the fence. Some of jeb bushs people. Soontobe former supporters of john kasich. Singing a song to them that they can hear. Cruzst sure the ted message is falling on the ears favorable to anyone who doesnt already support ted cruz. When we come back Bernie Sanders new message. Gitmoent obamas plan for. After this. John this week were seeing a more aggressive Bernie Sanders. Strongly inaw more contrast with Hillary Clinton. Issues Like Campaign finance, trade and her speeches to wall street firms. He was a heart of these issues a few months ago that sort of stopped. Featuring phil maker spike seeking africanamerican votes. A swipe Hillary Clinton. Spike lee when bernie gets in the white house he will do the right thing. He marched on washington with dr. King. Was arrested a protest against segregation. Fought for education equality throughout his whole career. No flipping, no flopping. Enough talk. Time for action. John why is sanders starting to a little more negative on hillary . Mark the campaign is not stupid. They executed their first part strongly to come out of New Hampshire with the momentum in the money in the message. Here and they out lost almost all of their momentum. They still have a message and they still have money. What they need to do now is to change the narrative. They need to convince the press and the Democratic Party that there is still a chance for Bernie Sanders. That requires getting attention. He has dropped off a lot of News Coverage. He has dropped off the ability to shape a National Message. This contest is going to go wide after South Carolina. Dont like to usurp the voters prerogative i think it will be hard because this tosage is somewhat similar what hes been saying. Not different enough to break through. John after not ever going after hillary, he got a little sharper. It worked for him pretty well. And he does well in iowa wins in New Hampshire. As the clintons are starting to hit him, he got annoyed by them attacking him and went back to his kind of pieinthesky messaging. To come back now and do contrasts is the right move but he would have to go further than where he was in november october. Im not sure hes going to do that. If he doesnt go further he will get the coverage. Mark the Clinton Campaign is extraordinarily sophisticated. They study how barack obama used various methods of pr to drive hillary effectively out of the race in 2008. Theyre going to use all the same techniques and they have learned well. After some fundraising in california hillary is back in the palmetto state. She has a commanding lead in the polls. For scheduled Campaign Events and george on friday, she spending almost the entire week campaigning in South Carolina. Her rival Bernie Sanders is in South Carolina tonight but then he is headed off to other states. Kansas, oklahoma, ohio, michigan. Is hillary trying to run up the score in South Carolina or is she worried that sanders connection to the gap . Could close the gap . John well the same tactics work for both. The sanders people say they think it is the latter that she is worried that he might close the gap. I think she is trying to run up the score. She would love to just clobber him here. Capitalize on her momentum coming out of nevada and demonstrate her dominance particularly with the africanamerican vote. Has a daunting advantage going into these march 1 states. A big punch to land on saturday. Going for a tko on saturday. Only focus on the next election, never look past that. All the National Media on the democratic side is down in South Carolina so she can get a National Message out. Dominating the africanamerican vote. Running up the score not just in a primary but with africanamericans. That will be gigantic for her these upcoming contest. Shes is not taking any votes for granted. John i think that is correct. The sanders people say they have a much more sophisticated field operation. More volunteers on the ground. Everything that i can feel is that hillary can land a big punch and she is going to swing hard. Today president obama unveiled a plan to close down what time of day in cuba sending congress a proposal to transfer detainees to prisons here on domestic soil. Toublicans were quick criticize this move. Marco rubio announced he is cosponsoring a bill to prevent gitmo from being transferred to cuban control without the approval of congress. Declined to rule out the possibility of executive action. Why is president obama doing this . Mark this is one of the important legacy issues. He thinks is always on this issue if he does the right thing in terms of Public Policy if he runs the numbers and looks at the law everything will come out just fine. I think he is very proud of the plan. The political reality is it is opposed bye pr republicans but also many democrats. Including Michael Bennet of colorado. A metaphor for those aspects of president obamas original legacy that is not going to pass. Not of consultation, not enough building of a bipartisan coalition, putting something out that just becomes a political football. He is not going to time obey even if he tries to do it by executive order. Hes going to hand it off to the next president. John i commend the guy for trying to make good on his campaign promise. He has failed utterly to deliver on that. Part of the reason is because of congress. Is not so much a failure of consultation as it is a failure to make a big public effort for this. We have to convince americans especially in states where those detainees are going to be going to convince them. Not just play the inside game but play outside game. There is not enough time or that he really wants to do that. I have to have a commitment to really go big on this. Mark good luck after paris and San Bernardino to convince people in colorado that they should have terrorist detainees. Barbour coming up next. And stuart stevens. Well talk about donald trump and after these messages. More after these messages. Mark plenty of questions remaining about her public and raised but the big one is is donald trump stoppable . Romneyrked on the campaign. Stuart stevens joins us from quebec. And Henry Barbour who has endorsed rubio. Did you work on the Romney Campaign . Henry barbour i was a volunteer helper. Mark stuart levy start with you. Appraise the state of the race right now. Talk to me about the other three guys. What are their chances . Stewart this is a straight up cage fight and whoever is the most aggressive contender taking on trump is the most likely to win. It is not very complicated. Has ay is ahead and he bunch of roads. You have to go out there and tell people why you should have those votes and he shouldnt have them. Has been therace most peculiar where people of been competing to see the order that they could lose in. Instead of trying to win. Guess what, the guy who has been trying to win has won the primaries. Ted cruz was able to stop them and iowa and when the guy was stumbling out of iowa nobody took them on. Hermann. On. Donald trump had a terrible week in South Carolina and yet nobody took advantage of it. You see this as a twoperson race of using think i can senator cruz are also in the mix . Henry senator cruz has bet really big on march 1. He needs to dominate on march 1 to prove his campaign strategy. If he doesnt do that it doesnt see mike senator cruz has a path. If he does dominate than he is in the game. Governor kasich has got a tougher task. He needs to do better in nevada today and he needs to find somewhere on march 1 to get at least in second place. For him to think that he can wait until michigan or ohio just doesnt seem viable to me. Can we stop trump . The key part of that is getting behind a conservative candidate who can win both the primary and the general. That is marco rubio. Mark if marco rubio doesnt win tonight and doesnt win any state on march 1 is that a problem . Henry this is about getting to 1237 delegates. Not just about did you win that state of this state . He has to stay just where he has been. I was in second place in south. Arolina these next few states dont necessarily play to his strengths. He needs to stay in that range. Within range of donald trump. Stewart is right. Marco needs to go after donald trump. Make this contrast very plain. Where rubios big opportunities the fieldome is as thins he has a lot of upside. He has high favorable numbers he is the second choice for a lot of people. Whereas donald trump is not. When we get into florida and and the North Carolina 15th of march. Most of those states become winner take all. That is when marco has an opportunity to pull away from donald trump. We will talk more when we come back. ,hat could stop donald trump one of the actual tactics that would be required . Too jenny glover will talk us about his support for Bernie Sanders. In washington you can listen to us on the radio. Fm. Right after this. Mark were back with Henry Barbour and stuart stevens. Engaged in a multipronk tactical assault. There was paid media. You sent surrogates to his advance. Are you suggesting that taking trump on requires that kind of effort . Stuart is the only way to be trump. It is the only way to run a modern campaign. It is how you win races today. When robbie got trounced by the in South Carolina, he didnt pretend that he won. He adjusted and the campaign and they put together a really Good Conference of plan. Is a much easier candidate to beat ben newt gingrich. He response to everything. I have never seen a candidate where was so easy to get inside his head. I dont understand why these campaigns arent having fun with teams going at donald trump. I can promise you, it is how you will take control of the race and get him responding to you. Mark what stuart says makes a lot of sense to me. Henry i think it is a given that he is going to win tonight. Hes probably going to have a very good day on super tuesday as well. Stuart and i have worked on some campaigns together. We usually agree. I dont disagree with him here. But i dont think that you have to decapitate donald trump today or tomorrow or next week. He needs to hang in there close enough. Where trump is wrong he needs to make a very plain. It would be smart for us to foreshadow what the democrats might do at their national convention. You can imagine that if donald trump is our nominee, the first they will talk about people with disabilities. Then they will talk about donald trump hating women. And that it is casino night. Mark i spent the day after South Carolina with your candidate. He did not mention donald trump. I dont think even referred to him. Why is senator rubio sitting back and saying i will stay close . Why not go directly at trump . Henry marco rubio has strong favorable numbers and a lot of room to grow. He needs the field to win no to pass them or youve got to decapitate them. Take your pick. Mark it seems to make sense to me. Why is it that smart people working for these other campaigns arent saying what youre saying . Stewart i suspect that they are in denial. Im a guy that thought the donald trump would lose. He lost in iowa. Candidate, look at what he did in South Carolina. He called george bush a war criminal. And he attacks the pope. In one of the most religious states in the country. Running in ay republican primary whose accommodation of Michael Moore and christopher hitchens. That is an opportunity. You should be organizing faith leaders to go out and attack him for not respecting the role of faith in the public square. You should be sending iraq war vets to his rallies to confront him for calling george bush a war criminal and a liar. Hes not going to selfdestruct. You have to go in and frame the arguments. People will listen. Has idea that donald trump 35 or whatever and most people are going to move. I dont buy that. He had 10 a few months ago. There is nothing magical about this. People will listen to arguments and whoever makes the most aggressive logical compelling passionate argument is going to win this thing. Name three states were you think marco rubio can win. Henry midwestern states he could do well. Florida, virginia, colorado is a state where he can win. There are three for you. Mark who is the second most likely nominee now .