Host begins right now. E msnb host begins right now. Good evening. Welcome to tonight Special Coverage. Im Rachel Maddow here at the msnbc mothership with my colleagues joy reid and Lawrence Odonnell and jen psaki and ari melber. I friends chris hayes and alex wagner and Stephanie Ruhle or are gonna be joining us later. Its going to be fun. Were less than a week out from the republican president ial caucuses in iowa. Theast eye or a public can debate is underway tonight with oddly a sort of random selection of two of the remaining five republican president ial candidates. Taking part in that debate. If you can, right now, name all five remaining republican president ial candidates at the top of your head without looking anything up, congratulations. And ill say you need to get out more. Two are debating tonight. Nikki haley and ron desantis. Also tonight, two miles away from that iowa debate, fox news conducted a live town hall with the front running republican candidate, who, of course, her refute has refused to participate in any debates at all this year but who has been very busy appearing in court rooms in the many many many cases in which he is currently a criminal or civil defendant. The biggest news of our tonight, both in iowa and in the u. S. And large, is that the republican field trying tonight from six candidates to five, with the surprising but not shocking news that Chris Christie has dropped out of the race. Governor christie is the only republican candidate who has been running his president ial campaign directly and explicitly against the frontrunner, against donald trump. Governor christie is now out. His Farewell Speech tonight or New Hampshire was really something. It was worth hearing, but the way he talked about the candidates still in the race and also for the way he described his own decision to get out. I made a political decision eight years ago, when i dropped out of the race in 2016. I looked at the polls, and i decided that donald trump was gonna be the nominee. And since i had known and for 15 years, but i could make him a better candidate, if he won maybe a better president. I knew his flaws. But he also knew he was going to win the nomination. So i decided that i would get behind him and support him. I let the ambition get ahead of the control of the decisionmaking. And after i figure that out, i promised myself and i promised my wife that i would never ever do that again. Its clear to me tonight that there isnt a path for me to win the nomination. This is why i am suspending my campaign tonight for president to the native states. I want to promise you this. Im going to make sure that in no way to i enable donald trump to ever be president of the late states again. That is more important than my own personal ambition. Chris christie getting out of the race for president tonight. He was bluntly critical of republican front runner donald trump in his final campaign speech. But he also seemed to tap A Deep Well Of Disdain for the other republican candidates who he says are not standing up to trump at all. If donald trump becomes the nominee of this party, the moment that it happens whereas where nikki haley and ron desantis and tim scott and mike pence and doug burgum are, and Vivek Ramaswamy stood on that stage in milwaukee in august and when we were asked, would you support someone with a convicted of a convicted felon to be president if United States. They raised their hands. Given credit, he had to look at Everybody Else first. But then he raised his hand. They raised their hands. And i did not. And i will not. And i cannot countenance that behavior. I want you to imagine for a Second Jefferson and hamilton and adams and washington and franklin were sitting here tonight, do you think they could imagine that the country they risked their lives to create would actually be having a conversation about whether a convicted criminal should be president of United States. I cant tell you how many people in New Hampshire have asked me, why isnt there a law against that . The answer is because nobody ever thought that someone would have the audacity to run for president as a criminal. And they never found that any american electorate would actually support it. Its not their fault that they didnt push in the constitution, along with 35 years old the natural born american citizen. They didnt think, lets throw in here, and not a criminal. They thought maybe we get that park. Were gonna show them now whether we do or we dont. They thought maybe we would get that part for reduce Chris Christie ending his camp New Hampshire tonight. Were going to talk with our numbers viewers Steve Kornacki tonight about what may shift in the polling on the prospects for the other candidates know theyre christie is giving out. Well also speak with an important figure in president or bidens orbit, jim clyburn, mr. South carolina, about what this means for the president s reelection effort in the state of his campaign. But even as we bid a cheer to governor Chris Christie, two republican candidates who are still in the race are debating in des moines, nikki haley and ron desantis, are the only republicans left in the race who left the Polling Threshold. The Polling Threshold said they need to have at least 10 in three national or iowa polls. That brings it down to just haley and desantis at this point. If Chris Christie was hoping that the remaining two candidates might train their fire on donald trump tonight instead of on each other, lets just say that the way things have gone tonight, he presumably will be disappointed. Rather than have ongoing tell you all these lies, you can go to desantis lies. Com and look at all those. Theres at least two dozen lies that he has told about me and you can see where factcheckers say exactly whats going to happen and exactly why its wrong. So it will cover the fact that he has only mad about the donors because the donors used to be with him but theyre no longer with him now. And thats because hes upset about the fact [applause] that his campaign is exploding. Youre going to see the fact that he has switched his policies multiple times and we will call that out tonight. But every time he lies, drake university, dont turn this into a drink game because you will be over served by the end of the night. I think its interesting because you can go door understands dot com because nikki haley has this tactic. If you hold her accountable to her record, first youll say i never said that. Well, what a good Rule Of Thumb is, she said she has never said something, that definitely means you said it. And then shell say youre lying youre lying, that means not only did you say it, but shes on videotape saying it. Doesnt it just will your heart with patriotism. Thats how that is going. But although nikki haley and ron desantis are polling well enough to make tonights last a why iowa debate, they are both pulling more than 30 points behind front runner donald trump in iowa. Trump of course is refusing to debate it all this year. Tonight is no exception. And vanity has just wrapped up his own competing event, also in des moines, a town hall on the fox news channel. This town hall here in des moines was a bit of an aberration for the republican front runner. Just a quick trip to iowa for him even though the caucuses are only five days away. He has basically not been campaigning in iowa. Instead he has opted to spend his time, including this week, attending hearings in various legal cases that he is embroiled in. Hes been attending those proceedings even though legally he does not have to. While mostly ignoring iowa. In the week before the iowa caucuses. Its a weird year. Its a weird time. But thats where we are is a 2024 contest gets underway. The First American president ial election in which the front runner for me is feasting multiple criminal indictments, when the actual little roll meaning of the word, thats unprecedented, and of course the stakes could not be higher. Course the sta but here we g. Can i just say, in terms of the haley and desantis, we have a lot to talk about, but i was surprised, joy, to see them come out immediately, horns locked immediately, kill, kill, kill, unrelenting lee. Theres obviously a lot of personal antipathy between the two of them. Theres no mutual respect, youre the loyal opposition kind of thing. But they clearly hate each other, and from the very first syllable, were just out to destroy each other and not blaming it on trump it. All i have to see the note that i took on the debate and on watching them battle each other as you said and not donald trump is that it felt like this debate was taking place on a different planet from the planet we live on. Because the planet we livon is the one in which the attorney for the former president of United States said that he had the Legal Authority to kill a man, to order a hit. A political opponent. Killer political rival. To me that is such a Show Stopping stop the university we need to talk this moment. I was shocked that wasnt the first question to be honest. That the first question was why should iowa voters choose you . But that is such an existential threat to our democracy that is shocking to me that it didnt come up. And neither of them brought it up. Chris christie brought it up on his own. Because remember, mark esper said donald trump did tell him to shoot people. So its not as if this is theoretical for trump. For the guy of irresponsibly running against, he did tell his Defense Secretary, why cant you shoot those protesters . So thats not for something for him thats theoretical. But it didnt exist in this debate. So everything they talked about felt so irrelevant, so small. It felt like they were just nip picking. The criticism, the substantive criticism that they Leavitt Trump was that he added to the deficit and didnt build a wall. Over and over. And thats the craziest. The walls not finished. And the gas tax. I think todays biggest news as we started the show saying is about governor christie dropping out of the race, and his presence at this debate, or his lack of presence, i should say, his absence, was very noticeable. He is the person who would have, in the first hour that debate, we are just washed, so not raised his hand and lately, maybe, maybe not and said what are we drawing here . I mean we just heard the former Defense Secretary say the former president told me he would shoot people in the street. And that was absent and instead, ive done a lot of campaigns. This reminded me of a senate or a Gubernatorial Debate a little bit where the each have the Opposition Research book that you have on the campaign we have every vote in every detail of your opponent and theyre just spitting it out. Nikki haley a little bit more gracefully than juan desantis. Android and i talked about this a bit, if youre at home youre still trying to get votes from these debates. And your home and watching in your thinking what are they talking about . Why should i vote for these two losers . Its gonna be minus ten. Lets see, well, i guess ill go to desantis lies. Whatever. And that will be how decide whether or not im gonna one of the pieces of advice, you never had to say allied candidates, until i guess, now, is when youre out there, do try to be likable. I mean, that isnt even a factor now in Republican Campaigns for the presidency. Maybe theyre taking that from trump, who, by all normal Human Observations is the most unlikable person who has ever asked for a vote. And he got the votes of republicans. And so maybe they think this audience wants to see nasty. Im here to do nasty. On the politics they have to convince people through this debate and in the little time they have left that there is an alternative to trump that they can unify behind. And you just showed, rachel, Chris Christie behind that, but instead of Offering Opposition to trump, theyre offering websites. That kind of small fall. In watching the trump town hall tonight, because we kind of split up, if i can speak about the reporting assignments. We split up what we were watching. Im sorry. We know, now america knows. It was all short straws. Watching that i have bad news and good news but also more bad news. The bad news is as joy said, we are seeing the unvarnished, under oath, in court reality of how you build towards an autocratic regime. Whatever you thought the first tunewise it is measurably on evidence looking worse if theres a second trump term, and we saw that the courtroom yesterday. The slice of good news on the perspective of pr or lies would be, even donald trump didnt want to stand by what his lawyer said, today, Toward The Fox audience. So i just wrote it down. Pretty early on and came up and donald trump claims, tonight, on fox, then his position is Political Violence is unacceptable. And thats not true to him. Not to the insurrection, not true at the lies in defending, and that lies after, that serve to protect and care for and possibly he moves he muses about pardonings insurrectionists. So the sliver of good news is he still feels the right to lie about that in on fox. Which i think is politically interesting. The further bad news is neither in the forum or in the debate and we see any meaningful oppositional rebuke to. This and there is no legal or dare i say and i use this word often, patriotic difference between whether a foreign terrorist or domestic terrorists triaged over Thrower Governed Assassinate the Vice President or anyone else. And yet what when you would expect to hear from him about foreign terrorists, you did hear from the enemy within. Lawrence, in terms of christie getting out tonight, i feel like he gave a good spinal speeches he was leaving. We know the terms in which he campaign, the terms he debated, he was all in all the debates before tonight. But he wasnt making a difference in the numbers. It wasnt making a difference on the polling. He didnt pose a threat to anybody in any state. What do you think the impact will be of him leaving given the fact that he was really taking trump on indifferent way than the other candidates were . Any impact is marginal in the Republican Campaign against the inevitable trump nomination. But its going to be a marginal difference in november. And so what i was watching tonight, and ive watched Chris Christies entire political career, ive never seen a Chris Christie speech that i liked. Ive never seen a christy Chris Christie speech that i respected or had anything i admired until tonight. It was virtually the entirety of it that was good. And not just good but exactly what republicanleaning voters need to hear. Forget about trump voters. They are gone. They are lost to a cult. They wont be back until there is no trump on the ballot. He is speaking to voters who are not sure about biden, they are independent, they normally vote republican but they really dont want to vote for trump. He can hold on to them. He is not voting for donald trump in november. He may never say that he is voting for joe biden and he might not vote for joe biden in new jersey. He might just write in somebody else. Thats fine. That will be very helpful. Because every republican who doesnt vote for Donald Trump Holds donald trump down from victory. And he has a way of speaking to republicans that no democrat can do that joe biden will never be able to do, that barack obama wont be able to do. There wont be any surrogate on the democratic side who could speak to the republicans the way Chris Christie did tonight. And he used the most forceful language that i have ever heard in this space. Its even more forceful and effective than what joe biden has been saying in his first two speeches. Will it be enough to get republicans to vote for him in big enough numbers but he depresses anyone whos holding that trump ballot in their hand. He really depresses them. He brings up people like george washington. How dare you . How do you bring up george watching ten . The figures are supposed to wear admire what im trying to vote for this horrible person who believes that he is allowed to assassinate as many people, not just a man, but as many senators as it takes to make sure he is not convicted in the senate on impeachment. Hes allowed to kill that many senators. Thats what his lawyer said in court. And thats what christie brought up in a way that only he can. And by the way, i agree with you. Chris christie, there was a little selfreflection in the way he spoke to. You could see a little guilt because he said ive known this guy longer than anybody else. I know we know him. I supported him, and i thought i could make a move at a president. But he said, and i thought this was an important line, if you think for one second that donald trump is gonna do anything for you rather than for himself, that he cares about you, and he speaks in such a plainspoken regular guy way that really joe biden kind of does but not like that. And he sounds like a regular republican. And he is standing in for people like liz cheney who they see is an elite, people like Adam Kinzinger who theyve thrown away. Its hard to throw him away. Hes the regular guy but close the bridge. He said something in there that were so important to me personally because