Good evening from new york. Moments ago a group of black lives matter protesters has a tense confrontation with trump supporters. Get that guy out of here, please. Thank you. Get them out. Lets go. Get them out fast. Hes swinging and hes hitting people. If we hit back, we end up on the front page of the paper. Its a disgrace. Get him out. Get him out. Get him out. It did not appear to be the case. Were trying to track down what happened. After another protester disrupted the rally, trump fully lost his cool. Oh, no. Not another one. Get out of here. Get out. Troublemakers. Real troublemakers. This is a wild evening. Now this comes as the country is still recovering tonight from its collective hangover after last nights Republican Debate in detroit. An event that seemed to mark the absolute rock bottom of american political culture. More like the Jerry Springer show. Candidates calling each other name and a rowdy audience booing and heckling them. Viewers from across the political spectrum expressed their disgust including the participants in a highly Unfocused Group held on fox news. I want a word or phrase to describe tonights debate. Embarrassment. Disappointing. Shameful. Angering. Low on substance. Disgusting. Schoolyard brawl. Jamie johnston tweeted, my party is committing suicide on national television. To the extent that policy came up at all, it was in a series of fact checks on Donald Trumps budget proposals and clips showing him contradicting himself on war in afghanistan. Im changing. We need highly skilled people in this country. We do need. One exchange captured the state of race and the modern Republican Party. It had to be this one. He hit my hands. Ive never heard of this. Look at those hands. Are they small hands. He referred to if theyre small, Something Else is small. I guarantee you theres no problem. Remain to be seen if any of this will have the slightest impact on trump supporters. Theyre gathering outside washington, d. C. At the annual conservative Political Action conference. The decision to give donald trump tomorrow prompted a backlash from conservatives making an attempt to stop him. It probably shouldnt have come as a surprise when trump announced he is cancelling his speech to campaign in kansas. Cpac couldnt resist taking a shot. Very disappointed real donald trump has decided to decline. His choice sends a message to clear conservatives. The organization played major role in validating trump in the first place. They given him prime speaking slots four times since 2011. They cultivated the brand. Peace begins with courageous leaders who willing to identify and define our objectives. Political correctness has no place in our National Security strategy. Liberals say the word lazy is a racist code word as is chicago. The word apartment. Mentioning that obama golfs. These are all according to liberals racist dog whistles which is why maybe only Debbie Wasserman schultz, Rachel Maddow can hear them. In case you get to be president of the United States, make sure you carry your bible with you and your woman. Trumps employing the same tactics without sticking to conservative ideology and a lot of republicans dont care much. Donald trump doesnt need cpac anymore. It was Something Else the frontrunner said last night that shows how dangerous, indeed, the mans impulses are. He was asked about his past comments on expanding torture and targeting the families, presumably including children, of terrorists. What would you do as commander in chief if the u. S. Military refused to carry out the orders . They wont refuse. They wont refuse me. Im a leader. Ive never had any problem leading me. If i say do it, theyre going to do it. Thats what leadership is all about. The Trump Campaign backed off the statement telling the wall street journal he wouldnt order the military to break law. At a rally the candidate repeated the usual line about going much farther than waterboarding. After calling him a con man and frauds and hearing him endorse war crimes and threaten a showdown with military on the debate stage, trumps rivals had the same response when asked if they would support him. I would support him. Yes because i gave my word that i would. If he ends up as the nominee, sometimes he makes it hard, but you know. I will support whoever is the republican nominee for president. Joining me now charlie pierce, writer at large, publisher of the federalist. Ben, let me start with you. What happened to never trump . Ive been watching this deflowering of never trump. I have been genuinely impressed with the conservative move m thats tried to draw this line in the sand that this guy is over this line. Question not support him. They say hes a complete con artist but if he gets the nomination, ill support him. What was up with that . There are people who are signing onto that hashtag. Theres one issue you didnt mention thats the critical moment of the debate. That was trump backing off the h1b visas comment. The comment you played talking about changing and softening his position on that. I think theres been some significant blow back from the sort of very hard core immigration crowd. We saw people going after him on that issue. Basically saying can we trust him. This is the one thing thats been the core element to this campaign since day one. I think that is one of the things that prompted him to dismiss cpac in the way he did. He knew had he shown up there there would be a lot of people questioning him on that immigration issue and demanding answers. We would much rather play to the crowd in louisiana. To bens point, hes now on both sides of every issue. To the extent theres any issue, he wants to build the wall. Mexico will pay for it. Order torture, war crimes. Make the military obey his illegal orders and maybe hell be flexible. Its unclear what the heck this thing is that is this phenomenon and yet it still continues to mow its way forward. Let me be clear. The moderate republican position on torture now is let the cia do it. Thats right. Just so we know. Ive been reading and rereading mark twains the man that corrupted hadley burg. I look at cpac as that. They are Donald Trumps last suckers. He doesnt need them. He said im going to wichita. They are the last they are the prime cut of trump steaks now. They are the high end trump vodka. Theyre the last students at trump university. Hes played them all for suckers and played them all for fools. Theres no going back from it right now. Ben, youre nodding your head. I want to get your response. The big question is this is the same thing we get at every debate. I thought last night there was an interesting moment where it felt and maybe it was the joke about his endowment, partly it was the crowd that was so bizarrely raucus and lusty. It had this feel of like this is how the empire falls kind of way with the crowd rooting them on. It did feel like we were watching collectively some sort of low point. The debates may have outlived their usefulness because they were not discussing policy issues. There are very serious policy issues to be discussed. They were right outside flint, michigan and you didnt hear too much about the water crisis when theres a republican governor in that state. You have made a point he doesnt need cpac anymore. I think thats correct. He does need the votes of kansas. Ted cruz won both iowa and oklahoma. Donald trump could find himself in a situation had he not been visiting caucus sites like planning ted cruz could have snuck up on him and posted a higher delegate count. Now hes used them and hes leaving which is charlie pierces point. Theres a lot of people feel that way. Cpac really is a conservative conference first. Most of the people, i talked to today, were ted cruz supporters and passionate about him. He had a great reception within that context. I think this is a situation where the people kind of holding onto that cruz faction asking whether theres any way to block donald trump, i think that trump knows that as well. I think his reception would not have been as positive for all the mainstream moderate republican who is are coming out and supporting him within all these different huge rallies, as you saw today. Let me say this. Theres nothing monolithic. I think cpac has demonstrated theyre two different establishments. The sort of conservative establishment. More the Republican Party establishment as representative by mitt romney coming out and then theres the base going out and voting in these actual elections who dont seem to care at all about whatever donald trump is spouting or policy in any remote sense. They are looking for enemies to blame. Hes feeding them enemies to blame. I remember seeing video of i remember seeing video of delegates to the 1964 republican convention, goldwater delegates trying to climb into the network sky boxes. Things are getting real in the campaign trail. If they try to stop donald trump and take it over at the convention, i dont want to know the kind of spectacle youll see there. That idea, the never trump hashtag. You had marco rubio saying never trump and today the Kentucky Sports Radio interview, he said ill never vote for him in the republican primary. Hes like yeah, thats what i mean. Thats meaningless. If all of this is the normal posturing everyone will endorse the guy. They were floating contested convention and talking never trump. After last night it seems all hes got to do is get the most delegates and no one will try to stop him. If he were to win florida and ohio, it becomes very difficult for any of the remaining candidates in this race to camp up with him. As far as supporting him polls show if he ran as an independent against a republican and if Hillary Clinton were the democrat in the race then he would split votes with the republican in the race. If marco rubio or john kasich or ted cruz were able to wrestle that nomination, it would make it very difficult for them, in november, to win the election. There are sore loser laws that make it difficult to get on the ballot. Thank you very much. Still to come, how it came to be that one of the first questions at the Republican Debate in the 2016 president ial election was about the kkk. Later, a preview of this weekends democratic fight. Can Bernie Sanders overcome the grip Hillary Clinton has on southern states. First, the story of this man who said he voted against president obama twice, condemned the Affordable Care act and now thanks barack obama for savoring his life. That story is next. Rds so doctors provide more personalized care. Cheese . Cheese patient care can work better. With xerox. Thats it. How was your commute . Good. Yours . Good. Xerox real time analytics make transit systems run more smoothly. And morning chitchat. Less interesting. Transportation can work better. With xerox. Unless you have allergies. , then your eyes may see it differently. Only flonase is approved to relieve both itchy, watery eyes and congestion. No other nasal allergy spray can say that. When we breathe in allergens our bodies react by over producing six key inflammatory substances that cause our symptoms. Most allergy pills only control one substance. Flonase controls six. And six is greater than one. Complete allergy relief or incomplete. Let your eyes decide. Flonase. 61 changes everything. Woman man yes. A newspaper . Woman its quaint. Man did you read about this latest cyber attack . Woman yeah, i read it on my watch. Man funny. Woman they took out the whole network. Man they had to hand out pens and paper. Woman yeah. Man could it happen to us . Woman no. Were okay. Man we are . Woman yeah, we brought in some new guys. Man what do they know that we dont . Woman that you cant run a country with pens and paper. Its not just security. Its defense. Bae systems. I last nights debate was a low point, there was win republican who sounded like the antidote. His name, brent brown. While attending college i was diagnosed with a serious autoimmune disease. Devastation. Now labeled with a preexisting condition im disqualified from any and all Health Insurance options. More devastation. I feel. I watch my body tearing itself apart but i dont go to the hospital until i can barely move. It cost too much. After numerous hospital stays i drain all my savings. Bankrupt. I cannot afford the surgeries i need to save my life. Literally, a dead man walking. Hope, gone. Then this guy signs this bill. Now i have access to Health Insurance and i receive the care that i do desperately need. Over the last several months [ applause ] thank you. Over the last several months, and several surgeries later i can now say i had a serious autoimmune disease. [ applause ] youre too kind. The Affordable Care act saved my life. I want to repeat that. The Affordable Care act saved my life. [ applause ] to be clear, i have never voted for president obama. Ever. I am a republican who cursed his name, who falsely accused him and someone who zealously worked to ensure he would never be my president. Thanks to him fortitude, thanks to his unwaivering vision of mercy, even towards me, this chump gets a second shot at life. [ applause ] to the republicans who wish to repeal the Affordable Care act, i plead with you to reconsider. Swallow your pride, as i am doing right now, in front of what i assume are Many Democrats and do what is right. Do what is right for the people. [ applause ] what you saw on display at the debate last night represents one side of american politics. Brent brown represents another. Hes going to join me, next. Only those who dare. Drive the world forward. Introducing the firstever cadillac ct6. We agree, brent and i, that the Affordable Care act is helping a whole lot of people like him. [ applause ] that is why we fought so hard to fix a broken Health Care System in the first place. It wasnt about democrats or republicans. It was about our values as americans and making sure that hard working americans like brent are no longer locked out of Health Insurance through no fault of their own. Joining me is brent brown. I want to thank you very much. Its kind of hard in the very politically polarized times we live in to admit to friends that you changed your mind about something. Take me through the process you have coming around on this specific act, obama care, coming around to seeing it as a good thing rather than a threat. Right. Youre very correct in your assessment. It was difficult and it really didnt happen, unfortunately, until i was personally impacted. When i got terribly sick, when i did not have Health Insurance. Then all of a sudden i did have Health Insurance. I could get care. The main thing that changed my mind is also something that i regret in that it is the empathy that i found for people, but it was only empathy i found after having a major and serious disease ravaging my body. Do you remember following the obama care debate and what you thought about it when it was talked about as this abstraction . Initially . Yeah. Republican good. Democrat, bad. That is that was my thought process. It is going to be very expensive and there are going to be many loafers that will take advantage of the system, and that its not an okay thing to back if you are a conservative. Well, brent, my understanding is your health is good right now. I just want to say i really admire what you did a tremendous amount. I dont say that because i feel the same about the Affordable Care act, but its very courageous thing to do. Thank you very much. Thank you. I want to bring in john who is former director of speech writing for president obama. John, i saw you sort of reacting in realtime last night to this Republican Debate. I just felt like there was a contrast between what was happening on the stage and what was happening not that far away in milwaukee at the same time. Do you guys think there would be more brent browns by now when you were fighting so hard on this bill . Yeah, we did. I can remember so many stories like brents as we were trying to pass the law and the president campaigning in 2008. Youd hear the republicans say i dont agree with the president but i have this story about needing health care and needing to get covered, so im going to give it a try. I was trying to imagine as i watched the debate if they debated the merits of kicking 18, 20 million off their health care instead of talking about the size of Donald Trumps penis then i realized i guess thats fantasy land at this point. Heres the uninsured rate in the u. S. Which has fell to 12 in the First Quarter in 2016. Its more or less disappeared. Theres this sort of phantom idea they will replace it. Its moved from the center of this campaign or the last campaign to the margins. Right. I watched the entire debate. I dont remember them bringing it up because its like a throw away line. Obviously, were going to get rid of obama care. Its the biggest job killer, which theres no proof of that at all. They dont talk about it now. None of their websites have a plan. They just dont care. You were part of the speech writing apparatus in Obama Campaign and the white house. A lot of thought goes into president ial communication. A million different people editing. Its a good time. As someone who did that, what is your reaction to watching the kind of political communication that is happening in the Republican Party right now. Makes me want to cry. Its sad. Theyre using communication the way it shouldnt be, which is in the most manipulative way possible. Obama has foughts and made mistakes, but he would try to tell us to be as real as possible and describe policy, to get into the details. Sometimes we didnt want him to get into as much details because he would get down into the weeds on