Brouhaha of the day. Mitt romney and a comprehensively scathing rebuke of donald trump this morning in salt lake city. The attempt of the Republican Partys last nominee to kill the candidacy of this cycles most likely nominee seemed like the equivalent of a celebrity roast. He tore into policy proposals, character, and temperament. In short, he stated the new york billionaire was unworthy of president of the united states. Take a look. Miit romney here is what i know. Donald trump is a phony, a fraud. His promises are as worthless as a degree from trump university. He is playing the American Public for suckers. He gets a free ride to the white house, and all we get is a lousy hat. Trump supporter sarah palin went on social media and urged donald trump to not take the bait. Later at a rally in portland, maine, donald trump dismissed romney as irrelevant. He fired back. Doanld trump mitt is a failed candidate. He failed horribly. That was a race i have to say that should have been won. I dont know what happened to him. He disappeared. I am not a fan of barack obama, and that was a race when i backed mitt romney. You can see how loyal he is. He was begging for my endorsement. I could have said, drop to your knees, and he would have dropped to his knees. Many of the conservative medias loudest voices also took after mitt romney for being a profoundly flawed messenger. I always liked mitt romney. Why . Hes always doing this. I cannot for the life of me give you any explanation. I am more shocked and disappointed than anything else. This is so hurtful. At the end of the day, if trump becomes the nominee it appears to me that the establishment in washington, that whatever is happening out there, is temporary. That it is a fever. That it is a tantrum. That it is a child. A child that has gone astray, and a lecture will straighten him out. The way this is going to be heard is, why are you trying to destroy your own base over and over again. He is a smart man. This showed bad character. It was embarrassing, humiliating, and he had no credibility to speak on this. It is like a coach who lost the super bowl 420 telling the winning coach what plays to call. Also, an interview with ben carson criticized mitt romneys speech saying, i dont see how that is helpful. John mccain said he could not agree with mitt romney more and said he wants voters to think long and hard about who they want our next commander in chief to be. Will this have an impact on the race . John if mitt romney wanted to lay out a thorough, wideranging, rigorous, get it all in one place, laundry list in the best sense of the word, then he has done that. He laid it all on the table, every possible argument against trump. Will that affect the race . I doubt it because the republican establishment will not change much. Mark seeing sean hannity and Rush Limbaugh and fox analysts rally to Donald Trumps side is not what mitt romney had in mind. On the other hand if there is a , way to stop donald trump from getting the majority of delegates, and thats what were talking about, that mitt romneys intellectual case using his prestige, perhaps inspiring donors to give money, can be an important part of trying to get the pieces in place to stop him. I still believe tax returns, right . Donald trump got a lot of questions and did not answer. What is your effective tax rate . Did you give money to charity . I think romney goaded him, throwing out all these things. Lets see if the press picks up on it. It is the only way to stop donald trump. The only way he will be slowed is if the press picks up on some of the things that mitt romney laid out. John all these things are failures, it became too late. He could have endorsed somebody, got into the race himself. Theres a lot that you can say about how this is too little too late. If it turns out that john kasich beats him in ohio and marco rubio beats him in florida and they keep him from getting to the majority of delegates, this speech will be an important thing. This speech will be a moment that you put in the history if you are writing it. I just think it will not work. Mark mitt romney has a big following in the Republican Party. Especially in the years after he lost, more so. He left himself vulnerable. The fact is i dont think trump is a failed business leader. He may exaggerate, but he is not a failed business leader. He inherited a Family Business worth millions and now he is a billionaire. John he has a mixed record. What romney is right about is that Donald Trumps boastful claims of being a Business Success have not been challenged. Were only now hearing about Donald Trump University and the failures. Its crazy that it has taken so long to raise it. Mark the antitrump Movement Needs to think about voters. What mitt romney did was talk about this from the point of view of the voters and citizenry. John when we come back we will talk more about trump and have our detroit preview, and Hillary Clinton, who woke up this morning to some headlines about those emails. We will talk to you about that after this. Mark welcome back to the place we like to call hitsville, usa. Downtown detroit. This will be the most intimate debate yet, only four candidates. Ben carson sent his last minutes regrets. If this one is anything like the two hours of crosstalk in the houston debate, it will be another rough night for the rnc transcriber. Dont you think the moderates might want to ratchet down expectations of a schoolyard brawl . Moderators did exactly the opposite in an interview with the New York Times. He sees his role tonight as a boxing referee who will not get in the way of flying fists. Everybody seems inclined to gang up on donald trump tonight. Do you think he will be the president ial conciliator he was on tuesday night or the counterpunching Trumposaurus Rex . John he tried to exhibit a more president ial the meaner. Demeanor. In the face of ted cruz and marco rubio, and maybe john kasich, now that they realize the only game in town is not about trying to produce a message of their own, but to take donald trump down. I cant imagine that donald trump will withstand three guys attacking him for two hours without going into trump counterpunch mode. Mark i will make a prediction. I never make predictions. John you make a prediction at least once a day. Mark one of the three candidates or moderators will Ask Donald Trump a question that he is totally unprepared for, and it will be a real test. It will be a substantive question or a personal thing that has never come up before and it will be the moment of the night. John because it is so clear and focused what everyone was trying to do, it means everyones preparations have been different. Every other debate, and sometimes to their detriment, the candidates have been trying to take each other out rather than donald trump. All three guys have done nothing this week to get under his skin, contrast with trump, and the preparation might lead to the kind of question you are trying to talk about. Mark he will try to stay above the fray as much as possible and then step in, but the question is, are you relevant . John he interestingly today said, he didnt attack romney, then he said i dont think the way to take donald trump out is by attacking him. Those were the candidates. There are a bunch of other people, outsiders, who have the same goal to take donald trump down. 50 conservative policy experts have called donald trump unfit for the office, calling his trade position a recipe for economic disaster, and calls his hateful antimuslim rhetoric undercuts the seriousness combating islamic radicalism. Meanwhile, donald trump is trying to reframe his candidacy. Which includes making overtures to the national community. Listen when he was asked about it on morning joe this morning. Who do you respect on Foreign Policy . I respect richard haas. Hes on your show a lot. I like him a lot. I have a few people i really like and respect. Kane is a fantastic guy. I respect many of the people, not only on your shows, but many people i have dealings with that dont go on television and wont do television, and that are great thinkers, but ultimately it is my thought more than anybody elses, where i see the policy of some of these people in our government, we will be in the middle east for another 15 years if we dont end up losing, because our country is disintegrating. We are spending trillions of dollars in the middle east, and the infrastructure of our country is disintegrating. We should never have gotten into iraq. It was a disaster. It never ends. We have to beat isis, take them out. They are chopping off heads. We cant allow that to happen. I have great people and will let you know at the appropriate time very soon. John there is donald trump trying to talk about Foreign Policy. Its not just Foreign Policy people are attacking him on. There are a lot of people in the donor class. Tim miller was vague about how much money his super pac has raised. Some of the people doing the fundraising could write multimillion dollar checks themselves pretty easily. My question for you, mark, is how are the attempts of the elites to try to stop trump, how are they going . Mark my taxicab driver was obsessed with the scholars denouncing trump. I think the foreignpolicy elites, financial elites, who want to stop donald trump can be a part of it. The lack of focus on voters is kind of insane. You will stop him with a candidate, and most of these people are not engaged with any other candidate. Youre going to stop them with votes. As you said, if donald trump is stopped, people can look back and the foreignpolicy scholars as part of the victory, but i dont think it will have much impact. Regarding fundraising, i dont understand this. The clock is ticking. Florida is less than two weeks away. You have billionaires and multimillionaires soliciting money from others. John the National Review went after donald trump weeks ago. However long ago it was. Mark my taxicab driver mentioned that as well. John im sure he did. The intellectual panjandrums had no effect. They would have had it months ago. The money could have an effect. A guy like paul singer mark write a 40 million check and put some advertising on the air. He is a rich guy. I dont get it. John they could make a difference if they open their checkbook. They have not done it yet, that we know of. Mark Hillary Clinton took a day off the campaign trail. Her rival Bernie Sanders had events in kansas and nebraska. Before he left he held a press conference on Clintons Campaign rhetoric. Bernie sanders secretary clintons views and mine are different. She has supported nafta. I opposed nafta. She supported permanent normal trade relations with china. I vigorously opposed it. She supported normal trade relations with vietnam. I oppose that. She suported the columbia trade agreement. I opposed that. She supported the korean freetrade agreement. I opposed that. Mark the Washington Post dropped a bombshell, reporting that the Justice Department has granted immunity to a former clinton staffer, and that the fbi will question clinton and her closest aides in the coming weeks. Something we have long said would happen. Do the democratic elites and voters have recourse now . Or do they have to tough it out . John they will always have recourse. As Bernie Sanders would tell you, they still have a lot of primaries and caucuses to come. It is true the delegate math is daunting, if not completely impassable, for Bernie Sanders. If a serious thing happens in Hillary Clintons life in the realm of the email probe and scandal, they could still turn to Bernie Sanders in terms of the National Narrative and these contests that sanders has to win by a big margin. If voters get scared enough, he could do that. Mark a lot of democratic elites and voters think that even a weak Hillary Clinton under investigation could be donald trump. There is this weird mass psychology. They were hammering over this, then they were obsessed with Bernie Sanders. Now they are relieved. The bar is at a different place. She would have to be indicted. I think she can now survive the interview by the fbi without much damage to her. Before that would have been cataclysmic. John democrats are hand wringers and will hand wring about Hillary Clinton until she wins or loses on election day in november. Coming up, the state of the republican race in the state of michigan, and we will talk to the states gop chair when we come back. John joining us now is the state gop chair of the Republican Party. Thank you for joining us. Give us an overview of the Michigan Republican party. What is this a electorate and party that these candidates are vying for the favor of heading into next tuesdays primary . Our electorate is engaged and excited and concerned and passionate about this election. I have seen it for the past year as candidates have come through our state. We have had over 30 visits in the past year, and the crowds have been enormous. They really want to see a change in the white house. They are concerned about the direction of this country. They are paying attention. They are ready to vote on march 8. Mark you think your candidate should be the nominee, or not necessarily . I think the rules are clear that 1237 delegates, that is the way it should work. Everybody knows the rules. If that candidate meets the threshhold, they should be the the nominee of our party. John if you had 1235, would it be fine in your conception for that person to not get in nominee . I think that threshold is 1237. Everybody knows it. Everybody agrees to it. I think we should follow the rules and think we will have a candidate who meets at threshold. John if someone fell short, your view is the rules allow for a contested convention . We have had contested conventions before. That is the process. Everybody knows 1237, you dont reach it, we are bound on the first vote. The second vote is unbound and you can vote for whoever you choose. That is fair. Mark a lot of your friends supporting donald trump . I have family members in all the camps. One of my relatives is the biggest donald trump fan in the world. She lives in michigan. My son likes ted cruz. My daughter likes john kasich. I am switzerland. I am neutral. I have to bring them all together. Mark whats does she like about trump . She has been engaged from the beginning. She calls me. She wants to go to every event. She feels like he is speaking for her, and thats wonderful. She is engaged in the process. It has been wonderful to have so many people in our state engaged. Mark how old is your son . He is 10 years old. He thinks ted cruz is cool. Maybe the name. John the tea party and evangelical conservatives, give me a sense relative to the bulk of the party how this plays here. Many evangelical conservatives are with ted cruz in our state. John is that a big part of the Michigan Republican party, evangelicals . It is. Absolutely. There is a tea party split and that Libertarian Group leaning more towards donald trump, and then i think the traditional republicans are more in the john kasichmarco rubio camp. Everybody i have talked to is committed to getting behind our nominee. We have to get behind our nominee. If we are splintered or fractured, then we lose the white house. That is unacceptable to put Hillary Clinton in the white house for basically a third term for barack obama. Mark leave electability aside and issues like outsider aside, like Foreign Policy and economy, what are people talking about . Economy is always important. We are talking about jobs. People are concerned about wages. We have seen the middle class struggling. Their incomes have not risen. National security is the second issue. Isis, terrorist attacks we have seen on our own soil in san bernardino, that is an issue i hear at every town hall i do. Mark are any of the candidates talking specifically enough about how michigan could create more jobs . I hope we see more of that tonight. I am glad we will have only four candidates. We will get to hear a lot more about their specific plans to stimulate our economy. Mark thank you. John thank you very much. It is great to see you. Up next, more on mitt romneys speech. That is after these words from our sponsors. Frankly, the only series policy proposals that deal with a broad range of challenges come from ted cruz, marco rubio, and john kasich. One of these men should be our nominee. Mark that was mitt romney today at the university of utah. We talked about earlier, he took on the man who backed him in 2012, donald trump. Well break down parts of the speech now starting with one argument that romney made that trump would lose the general election. Last three decades, the clintons have lived at the intersection of money and politics trading their political , influence to enrich their personal finances. They embody the term crony capitalism. Disgustss the American People and causes them to lose faith in our political process. A person so untrustworthy and dishonest as Hillary Clinton must not become president. A trump nomination enables her victory. Mark he was scathing about Hillary Clinton. He said that we cant let trump be our nominee because hed lose to clinton. John there is an element that is tactical here. Theres no way romney could make the argument doing this thing of being the past nominee attacking the nominee without demonstrating that he is partisan. That Hillary Clinton is the ultimate foe. If he didnt say that, he would have attacking more than he was by many