History weve made here. When all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Today what was officially day one of the general election race after Hillary Clinton solidified her claim on the democratic nomination clinching a majority of pledged delegates with big wins last night making history as the first woman to be the presumptive nominee of a major u. S. Political party. Tonights victory is not about one person. At the belongs to generations of women and men who struggled and sacrificed and made this moment possible. We all owe so much to those who came before and tonight belongs to all of you. Now clinton is wasting no time turning her attention to november. Shes scheduled to Campaign Next week in ohio and pennsylvania, two key Battle Ground states. Tonight in an interview with Lester Holt Clinton discussed her strategy for taking on donald trump. What did you learn from his primary race as you go forward and face him oneonone. I think that there is several lessons from his primary race. Number one, a lot of his primary issues because they were somewhat close to what he was saying. They were not ready to embrace comprehensive immigration reform, even those who had in the past. They were not ready to take him on on the economy and his absurd ideas of what he would do for billionaires while leaving everybody else behind because they want to cut taxes on the wealthy too and you can go down the issues that trump has been trumpeting and the republicans couldnt figure out how to address those. When it came to the personal attacks because they didnt have any strong issue position to contrast with him, they really couldnt come back on the personal side either because in so many instances he was insulting them and insulting their families. They got caught up in that because there was no larger there was no larger message that they were promoting and i think that in many ways made it possible for him to succeed. You haven about on the end already of some of those more personal attacks. Is this going to be the Nastiest Campaign ever . Will you respond insulttoinsult. No, absolutely not. He can run a campaign of insults. Im running a campaign of issues that are going to produce results for the American People. Im going to talk about why hes unqualified to be president based on his own words an deeds and im going to continue to make the case he is temperament alley unfit to be commander in chief. We need to unify our country. He is determined apparently to continue to divide americans between and among ourselves and that is not tollerable. Look how hes attacked this judge over seeing the case against Trump University claiming he cannot be impartial of his mexican heritage. He was born in indiana. That kind of racist attack has no place in president ial politics and i think youve seen a lot of republicans who just can no longer sit by and tolerate what hes doing to their party speak out against him. He has of course shown his hands on your issues regarding email. Are you vulnerable there Going Forward . No, im not. Again, he is saying whatever he chooses regardless of the facts and thats his prerogative but were going to stay focussed on what matters to the American People and i think thats a winning strategy. Starting today a super pac supporting clinton is launching 20 million worth of antitrump ads. Thats a big buy set to run in seven swing states. One of those ads was posted online earlier this week. I remember being in the ultrasound room and finding out our daughter was going to be born with a disability. She was born 20 weeks later and she is a total blessing in our lives. When i saw donald trump mock a disabled person i was shocked. You got to see this guy, i dont know what i said. I dont remember. That reporter he is talking about suffers from a chronic condition that impairs movement of his arms. The children at graces school all know never to mock her and so for an adult to mock someone with a disability is shocking. When i saw donald trump mock somebody with a disability, it showed me his soul. It showed me his heart and i didnt like what i saw. Those new attacks come at a vulnerable moment for donald trump who is trying to reassure leaders after drawing condemnation after his remarks against the judge in the case against Trump University. Trump sought to deliver on his promised pivot to president ial behavior and using a teleprompter, a device he has mocked in the past. I understand the responsibility of carrying the mantle and i will never, ever let you down. Too much work, too many people, blood, sweat and tears. Never going to let you down. I will make you proud of your party and our movement. The subdued performance drew high marks from Reince Priebus who tweeted great victory speech from donald trump tonight, exactly the right approach and perfectly delivered. The Clinton Campaign couldnt tell trolling trumps style. Hillary clinton used Public Office for the enrichment of the family, thats something he said hes going to be talking about. This is classic donald trump. We know hes a bully although last night he was low energy as a result of using a teleprompter. Joining me now is the Senior Strategic Communications advisor to the Clinton Campaign. Two ways to think about this race as i think its sort of day one properly of this race. This is a race that is going to be fought in between sort of the normal contested Battle Ground states and the normal kind of between 45 or this race is Something Different that we havent seen that trump because of who he is and the way hes behaved is this x factor. What is the belief of this campaign about how much this will be a normal general election. I think you heard it directly from hillary herself. I think were all prepared for this to be not so normal which was part of what i think she was communicating in her speech last thursday, kind of going through various point, certainly talking on substance about Foreign Policy and National Security but they were using trumps words against him, just using those words in and of itself. Its going to be a little bit not so normal but we are still going to find ways to make sure that we are both talking about what Hillary Clinton wants to do in terms of how we are stronger together in this country and i want to say i think one of the things about this race that will be somewhat maybe more normal than usual, the differences could not be more stark. I think weve seen that certainly over the course of the last week. Obviously Hillary Clinton has been articulating some of those differences but i think at the end of the day people are going to see a choice. Hillary is putting forward a positive vision and how we come together and keep doing the work of this country to make sure we are lifting people up and we keep our country safe versus donald trump who is playing into is fear and bigotry and thats a very different vision for america and as she pointed out last night that would take us backwards. I dont think anybody in this country certainly i believe a majority of people in this country dont want to go back. They want to keep our country moving forward. So there was a line last night in the speech where she said and she repeated it today in several of the interviews she conducted including with Lester Holt Donald trump is temperamentally unfit to commander in chief. Thats essentially the version of the case. This will campaign be a referendum on the suitability of this man to occupy the highest office. I think there were a couple of things. I think certainly when were talking about being the commander in chief, your temperament actually really matters and it was sort of funny when she was giving the speech and talking about him drafting tweets, right on queu he was drafting a tweet. Going beyond that its funny but its serious and hillary was the first person to start to call these points out. The attitude showed the couple talking about their child who is disabled, i think part of what the father was talking about is donald trump is a fraud. He presents himself as some kind of popularist hero and thats not. We learned that from the Trump University documents that are coming forward and we learned that from some of the practices hes done where in housing markets kind of admitting he was hoping for a crash so he could make money. That is someone who is in it for himself. I think thats part of it. I think the other part of it is that he is both dangerous and divisive. The fact that if you dont have the temperament, if you dont have the temperament to have your finger anywhere near the Nuclear Codes that is a danger to this country. Theres some reporting suggesting that Elizabeth Warren will make an endorsement of secretary clinton in the next week or two and the president said hes hoping do it in the next week or two. What is the message right now to Bernie Sanders supporters over this next sort of crucial period in which your campaign and your candidate clearly hope to unify the party . I think you heard it from her yesterday and a bit today and that message is thank you for all of the work that you have done. We honor that. We honor the work thats senator sanders has done to bring certain issues not just into this race but them front and center of this race. I think thats been a good thing for the party and the country in terms of the conversations that were having now. I would say secondly we want you to join us. We all need to come together because we cannot let donald trump be president. Thats something that senator sanders has said hes committed to and thats a value we share so were going to share those values and work hard to move forward together. Thank you. Im joined by Bruce Bartlett and howard dean former chairman of the dnc. Bruce, let me start with you. You tweeted something yesterday saying i wanted to destroy the Current Republican Party for years and now donald trump is doing it for me. What did you mean by that . Well, ive thought for a long time that there was a deep deep rot inside the Republican Party, a cult of stupidity, bigotry, racism, craziness et cetera that had gotten control of the tea party and was really the driving force in the party and trump really brought all that to a head. Now people can see it very much more clearly i think and theres no getting around it. So i think that now finally its like a fever coming to its final pitch and i think its just wonderful and i noticed today that tom freedman of the New York Times was echoing what i have been saying for years, the party must die so a new sane party can live. When you watch the reaction of the leadership of the Republican Party who have been twisting themselves into pretles. Ive watched people who dole out those second and fourth and third chances hoping they change. Every time trump does something he gets this round of applause and this fingers crossed hope from the leadership that its going to stick. I agree with bruce. My analysis is the same. I want the republicans to lose for two reasons. First of all, i think hillary will be a great president and secondly we need a Republican Party thats functioning. This party is dependent on race baiting, gay baiting, muslim baiting for too damn long and weve got to have its a healthy thing to have two strong parties, a conservative party and a more liberal party. The economics is important. The we want to have the conservatives in the debate. They havent been in the debate. Weve been pursuing these things and like these voter repressuren bills. This defeat i think they are going to lose and that will cause them to restructure and come back and be stronger and thats good for the country. Republicans would say paul ryan has a vision for the country. He was at an antipoverty event where he was which he went down to in black limousines and everybody dressed in a coat and tie. Bruce, what do you say to folks that say there is an agenda, trump is this figure thats kind of pulled off this hostile takeover and put these Republican Leaders in an impossible position because hes the nominee of the party and they have to support him. They dont have to support him. There are lots of honorable republicans out there who dont. People that have been going along with the party and looking the other way have been enabling those people and now theyre looking in the mirror and they see trumps face and they suddenly realize that the lowest common denominator in our country is their party. I think what they are really afraid of is that he is going to lose so badly hes going to drag down the entire ticket, governors will lose and congressmen will lose because of trump and theres nothing they can do about it. Theres one senator the senator of illinois who is the most endangered republican encouple bent in the country. Hes going to have to face a president ial electorate in that state, he has unendorsed trump. Do you expect to see more of that as this unfolds. Probably not. The problem is thats not going to help. Right. So i mean we must hang together or we will hang separately. It almost makes it worse when you do that because the base is mad at you and the democrats arent going to embrace you anyway. You think the logic of it bruce said there are honorable people doing it. Jeff is doing it for a different reason. Hes not up for election. Hes saying what he thinks and you respect that. But you think the folks theyre not going to follow the lead because theres no upside for them. They may but its a mistake. Thank you both. Appreciate it. Thank you. Still to come what is the end game for the Bernie Sanders campaign after last night. Ill talk with a Sanders Super delegate who is urging the candidate to step aside and what the president said moments ago and republicans are urn itting on donald trump receiving his first unendorsement, is there still life in the Never Trump Movement . Well talk about that next. Jake reese, day to feel alive jake reese, day to feel alive jake reese, day to feel alive republican lawmakers have gone from taking a stand against donald trump to supporting the businessman but trumps claim that federal judge Gonzalez Curiel cannot oversee trumps case because of his mexican heritage has some questioning trump. The senator resend nid his support for trump yesterday saying he is too racist and bigoted for me. Far too many republicans share that kind of racism. A poll out today that shows when asked do you think what donald trump said about the judge was racist, 65 of republicans said it was not. Joining any now is the former Deputy Campaign manager for Carly Fiorina and political consultant. I want to enter in the record here here is paul ryan, and here is him describing these comments. Take a listen. Claiming a person cant do their job because of their race is like the textbook definition of a racist comment. I think that should be disavowed. Its absolutely unacceptable but do i believe that Hillary Clinton is the answer . No i do not. I believe we have more Common Ground on the policy issues of the day and we have more likelihood of getting our policies enacted with him than we do with her. When i saw this i thought to myself here is in a nutshell why donald trump won this race because youve got all these gop leaders saying this is textbook racism and you have Lindsey Graham saying this, you cant this about a federal judge, 65 of republicans are saying thats not a racist comment. That is the gap between the Party Leadership and the base that has created the trump phenomenon i think. I think whats terrifying the Party Leadership, hes like the ike turner of the Republican Party now. I had to slap you to teach a lesson. This is a guy that terrifies these people and paul ryan who is a wonderful and brilliant thnger who i admire needs to tear the band aid off and said this guy is unacceptable and hes not qualified to be president or our nominee and were done. Reince priebus needs to man up and say to donald trump you may have the delegates but you dont have the moral standing to represent our party in this country and were done. Its going to be tough and these guys are going to take more beatings before the lesson sinks in but at some point you cant make excuses anymore for this kind of behavior and at some point trump is going to have to trump is going to have to attack every republican who walks away from. Hes going to be busy with republicans who are headed for the tall grass with every single crazy statement he makes. To ricks point about the idea of some kind of rebellion some sort of no more, this is being reported today the former candidate ted cruz who you were supporting suggested a convention coo is possible. Everything has to be on the table. Do you think theres any possibility if there were to continue, if he were to behave the way he has over the past week for the next four or five weeks Something Like that could happen in cleveland. I think it would be tauf for that to happen. Ive never seen so many republicans grateful for the teleprompter as they were last night. The teleprompter was the star coming out of that speech. Well done. But i really question whether its a practical thought that were going to change the rules of the convention and kick out donald trump as much as i wish it were a real