but as i said, the former neurosurgeon is suddenly accelerating, quadrupling his number in just two months. well, today, trump and carson are making the big news today by administering a shellacking to the establishment republican party we all grew up with. all other candidates remain in the anemic single digits. jeb bush dropped seven points since july according to the times. he's now tied with marco rubios and ted cruz. i'm joined now with steve schitd, a smart guy. the washington bureau chief for "usa today," susan page. and we have ron reagan with us, msnbc analyst. first of all, i've got to go to schmidt. i've got to go to you on this. you're one of the really smart guys out there on the republican party. is your party coming apart? these are just pissant numbers that the republican numbers are greating. it's less than 1 in 16 republicans saying yes to bush. and there's carson with no political history or apparent political skills, a good guy, a smart guy with no ability in this field, way up there, both of them together wipie ining it for the republican establishment. what's going on in your party? is it coming apart? >> it's an expression of absolute and total con tempt from the base of the republican party towards the political establishment of the country, which includes the leadership of the republican party. if you look, chris, in aggregate, the trump numbers, the carson numbers, cruz, the elected anti-establishmentarian and add in huckabee and santorum, two previous winners at the iowa caucuses, you have a number that approaches 60% of republican primary voters, much larger number than the typical establishment elected official side, which is about 40% of the electorate. >> last night, trump drew a big crowd. he's not just getting the good news on television, he's getting crowds in person that can sit home and watch him. here's 15,000 people in dallas last night, a large part of the hour-long speech focused on the topic of him, donald trump. >> the polls come out and we're really killing it. we are killing it! the silent majority. it's back and it's not silent. so, the debate. i hear they're all going after me. whatever. whatever. you know, i hear it. you know, the beginning, three, four months ago, well, he's just doing this for fun. he's doing this for his brand. i need this like for my brand, okay? i have tremendous energy. tremendous, to a point where it's almost ridiculous when you think about it. now it's time to really start. because this is going to happen. i'm telling you. i'm not going anywhere. >> well, trump returned to a major thing of his campaign, right down there on the border, illegal immigration. that's what got the biggest applause last night, like it or not. >> we have to stop illegal immigration. we have to do it. we have to do it. we are a dumping ground for the rest of the world. we are. a dumping ground. i don't mean to be disrespectful, but when a man has a problem and he's got his wife or his girlfriend and they move her over to the border for one day, has the baby on the other side of the border -- our side -- now that baby is a citizen of our country for however long the baby lives. hopefully a long -- it's wrong! it's wrong. >> clearly, trump isn't dying. he may be challenged right now by ben carson, another outsider, but nobody on the republican establishment side. i agree with steve. the republican establishment has brown it on illegal immigration. they've never passed a law. they don't want to agree on anything. all people want is some fair treatment, i think most people in this country have been here, illegally or not, for some years, and they want the illegal immigration stopped. they want both things to happen. but that takes two parties to come together and day don't do it, so this is going on. >> so immigration has been the launching pan for donald trump, but it's not the reason he's become the leadership of all these polls in iowa and new hampshire and nationally. that's a more general feeling that -- >> what steve said? >> yeah. >> the political establishment? >> he's used to working, but i think that's right. contempt for the way things worked, so why not elect somebody who seems outrageous, who will shake things up more than anybody else. >> ron, i don't know whether it is a republican party, as we've learned it, even when it went to the right with your father, even when it became a conservative party, be that rockefeller plus goldwater, just ended up being goldwater reagan party. it was always a political party that had moderate elements and suburban elements. it seems to he those elements, the bush crowd, the bush family and what it represents have been dismissed. 6% for jeb, right now. >> yeah, it is. and that's really the big story. it's not so much donald trump on the rise. i mean, i can't believe, and i don't think steve schmidt or anybody else sitting around here believes that donald trump is actually going to get the nomination and actually be elected president. but the story really is that nobody who's from the establishment, jeb bush on down, has been able to find any traction. so you've got donald trump, you've got ben carson. and you've got to ask yourself, what happens if these guys, let's say trump, actually starts winning primaries? actually starts getting delegates amassing to him? what is the republican party going to do if donald trump, inescapably, does, somehow, takes the nomination? i think it's really the end of the republican party, in a way. >> let's talk about ben carson, the other guy who's taken the establishment to the cleaners. he has a history of making some pretty wild statements himself about obama, the president, about race, generally, and other topics. let's watch his, what you might call a gag reel, but this is what he believes, apparently. >> obamacare is really, i think, the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. >> i've been told that he said we're living this a gestapo age. what do you mean by that? >> i mean like nazi germany. i know you're not supposed to say that, but i don't care about political correctness. >> i would ewe the bully pulpit to help people realize what we have in common. what it's been used for for the last several years is to create wars. a war on women, race wars, any kind of anything involving people of two different races. >> do you think being gay is a choice? >> absolutely. >> why do you say that? >> because a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight and when they come out they're gay. >> obama, you refer to him as a psychopath. what do you mean by that? >> i said he reminds you of a psychopath. block tell a lie to your face with complete -- looks like sincerity. zpr steve, i don't know what to make of him. his strength is that he's a doctor, a man of medicine. and there he is throwing the term "psychopath" out. i'm not sure where he stands on firm ground anymore. but he's getting votes. explain. >> chris, we're at this moment in time where there's severability between issues and conservatism. and now how we define conservatism within the republican party is who has the most insecendiary rhetoric. and the test of who is a true conservative is who has the most incendiary rhetoric. you've had votes play fighting, kabuki theater repealing obamacare. the republican party's voters thinks the whole system is not on the level. by the way, you look at the democratic party and see this expression in the form of bernie sanders' candidacy. but, look, one thing i would disagree a little bit with susan is, donald trump is not running on immigration. donald trump is running on making america great again. >> she said that! you agree? that's what she said! she said it wasn't about immigration. it started on immigration and it's a much wider charge. >> what he's saying is what republican voters believe. that barack obama has succeeded in transforming the country, fundamentally changing it. he has wrecked the country. the country is no longer great. but it can be again, if it has the right leadership. and everything that donald trump does is an expression of strength, in his day-to-day actions. whether it's fighting with roger ailes, whether it's not backing down, and instead doubling down, when he lost all of his corporate sponsorships. and i would say to ron and his point, i actually do believe at this moment in time, none of these other candidate of 4, 5, 6% have their destinies within their control. donald trump can be donald trump, but none of these other candidates can beat him at this point. he is in complete, absolute complete control of the republican battle space. >> what does that mean for the republican party, to have donald trump as the potential standard-bear standard-bearer. >> and what stops him -- susan, you covered this for the front page of your newspaper and your bureau. and later in the show, we taped this a few minutes ago, an our ago with bill mauer, i decide we let the people decide. i want to know when this act's going to die. because it's certainly not dying, donald trump. >> and we keep predicting. we've predicted over and over again -- >> how does he keep doing this? >> this is too much. the last debate, we thought, he went too far after the debate in the feud with megyn kelly, not true, right? he continued to gain ground. although i think -- >> what is the grossout point? you say what he said about women's menstrual cycles or what everybody thinks he meant and you talk about the president being a psychopath, running a gestapo operation, steve says you have to one-up the other -- how do you one-up that? >> i think we all assume there is a point where it's gone too far. >> what would it be, conceptu conceptually? >> we've been wrong so far, so how would we know. >> i think one of the reasons he does well is our family time is watching "curb your enthusiasm" with larry david. because it's so outrageous, the guy's political incorrectitude, but it is a comedy show. it's not a big broadcast, it's something you have to go looking forward and get on tape and enjoy it. but it seems like trump says all the things your mom tells you flood to do growing up. don't brag about money, don't say rich, and he does it. and people are eating it up. >> they are. and it's important to note that we're still very early in the campaign season here and trump is, what, at 27% of a minority party here. so this is not -- doesn't bode well for him ending up in the wlous. white house. >> bush is at 6! 6! brother and son of presidents, 6. >> but let's not all fall for the trump strongman act here. at a certain point, you know, the field is going to fair. he's going to have to answer some real questions, and the media will start taking him seriously enough to start posing some real questions to him. and that's when he starts to -- >> well, chris christie learned from us, we cover you on the way up and we cover you on the way down. anyway, many of the republican candidates in 2016 have tried, now that i have you here, to make the case that they are the rightful heirs of ronald reagan, for the library tomorrow night. let's watch them all try to be ronald reagan. >> ronald reagan was a democrat and he was sort of liberal. and i knew him. i didn't know him then, quite. but i knew him and i knew him well. he liked me and i liked him. he was this great guy. >> with respect, my views are very much the views of ronald reagan, which i would suggest is a third point on the triangle. >> i can think of no three better words to describe my political philosophy, i'm a reagan constitutional conservative. i will remain a reagan constitutional conservative. >> i often joke that i -- i know ronald reagan's birthday because it's my wedding anniversary. but truth be told, i know our wedding anniversary, because it's ronald reagan's birth date. >> ron, do you know what a hermit crab is? that's a being that doesn't have an identity, so it hides in a shell and pretends it's something. these guys are all pretending they are your dad. >> and they've been doing that -- you've been having this conversation with me since i think at least the year 2000 election cycle. >> and i'll keep it up. >> every time these guys want to be my father. i don't remember my father ever trying to be somebody else, first of all. and besides that, it's kind of ridiculous. he left office over a quarter of a century ago. we don't even know what ronald reagan would really be now as a politician, 25 years later. so i don't know what these people are claiming to be in the first place. >> well, i will say this about your dad, and of course, i disagree with a lot of what he said, you did too. he brought peace between east and west jubs like jimmy carter did between egypt and israel and roosevelt did. thank you, steve schmidt. thank you, susan page, my friend, and ron reagan, of course. and i'll be at the ron reagan presidential library tomorrow night for full coverage before and after the big debate. lots of coverage coming here tomorrow night. coming up tonight, the one and only bill maher is with us tonight. you'll want to hear what he has to say about trump and this whole 2016 crazy race on the republican side. plus, trump's success has the republican establishment running scared, as i said. wall street starting to panic. the money boys. the club for growth is launching a huge attack against trump. the hawkish bill kristol is promising to vote third party if trump wins the nomination. does he really want hillary to win? can anybody slow this guy, trump, down. and which republican candidate is most likely to succeed tomorrow night? who's going to throw the biggest punch at trump and who will be the most desperate and look that way. we'll preview the big fight at the reagan library tomorrow night, we'll do it tonight. finally, let me finish tonight with the nasty divorce we're watching in the republican party. they're going through it right now between the establishment ring and the wild guys. this is "hardball," the place for politics. but it is not the device that is mobile, it is you. real madrid have about 450 million fans. we're trying to give them all the feeling of being at the stadium. the microsoft cloud gives us the scalability to communicate exactly the content that people want to see. it will help people connect to their passion of living real madrid. well, there's more troubling the numbers out today for hillary clinton in new hampshire. let's check the "hardball" scoreboard. a new monmouth university poll shows bernie sanders now leading clinton by seven points among likely democratic voters. it's sandered 43, clinton, 36, biden just 13. and according to monmouth, sanders is winning there among both men and women. that's interesting. we'll be right back. shopping online is as easy as it gets. wouldn't it be great if hiring plumbers, carpenters and piano tuners were just as simple? thanks to angie's list, now it is. we're making hiring anyone from a handyman to a dog walker as simple as a few clicks. you don't have to be a member to buy their services directly at angieslist.com but members save more on special offers. angie's list is revolutionizing local service again. visit angieslist.com today. misswill turn anan asphalt parking lot into a new neighborhood for san franciscans. a vote for "yes" on "d" is definitely a vote for more parks and open space. a vote on proposition "d" is a vote for jobs. campos: no one is being displaced. it's 40% affordable units near the waterfront for regular people. this is just a win-win for our city. i'm behind it 100%. voting yes on "d" is so helpful to so many families in our city. have you detected what's going on here tonight? i am trying to avoid talking about donald trump. that's really what this is all about so far. and yet, it's impossible. cnn could not be anymore obsessed with donald trump if that missing plane turned up in his hair. >> welcome back to "hardball." that was bill maher, of course, conceding last month that donald trump is tell infant in the room who can't be ignored. as an entertainer and political satirist himself, mahr has made a career of skewering candidates. he says, i don't agree with anything that he says politically, but i do find refreshing as a lot of people do, a gwho comes along and says whatever he thinks. if any other politician, if anybody complains about anything, they have to walk it back and say they're sorry or that they misspoke. this guy never misspeaks. he never says anything that's true. but he never misspeaks. i'm joined now by the great host of realtime on hbo with bill maher. bill, it's great not to be employed by anybody, right? it's like ann coulter, if you don't work for anybody, nobody can fire you, say what you want. is that the trump secret? >> that's the best part of him. you know, that quote you just read there. talking about how he never has to apologize and never does apologize. i do find that attractive. because i've been in that position myself many times. i mean, i don't agree with much of what donald trump says, but sometimes, when i see him, i think he and i are a little like the detective and the serial killer when the serial killer says, you know, we're not so different, you and i. and the great thing about having your own money is that you don't have to appeal to the donors. the one good thing donald trump is saying is that he's going to raise his own taxes. and he's going to go after hedge fund managers and stuff like that. that's actually popular, even with republicans. it's the donor class that hates that. that's why you won't hear from the other guys. >> you mean going after carried interest on the equity market. >> yeah. >> i think it's more to the message -- i think the medium is wonderful. you're the expert. you worked at big houses. you've got 5,000 people on a saturday night. this guy is drawing 20,000 people last night in a dallas basketball stadium. what is that about? is there more there than the message? i think there's the show? >> well, also, we have to look a little bit in the moisture irro one, chris. your network cover ed it from beginning end to last night. why are you doing that? >> because people -- well, the same reason people went out to see him, knowing he'd be on tv. they still make the effort to go see him. >> but why cover it, like he's churchill giving an important speech? have you listened to these speeches? trump is always saying other countries are laughing at us. this is why they're laughing at us, because of what he says and how we are taking it seriously. i mean, he talks about how we shouldn't have teleprompters. please, let's bring back teleprompters, because these are just the brain farts, the stream of conscious ramblings of a guy who over the course of his life has breathed in too much construction debris. it goes from one thing, it's not have been a speech, yet people, i think, what they're responding to is this message that the country has been losing, which is insane, because we're not losing. we're winning, and we have to restore america to what? what it was before obama came along? so we should be restoring america back to where we had 10% unemployment and the stock market was 1,000 points lower? who is beating us? china? they're beating us? why? because their kids make our iphones? japan? they've been in a recession for like three decades. mexico? this is insane. we're the only country that did well after the financial collapse. >> all that may be true, and i think it is, but i think the reason -- to answer your question why i put him on, why we keep him on, and most networks, is because we're waiting to see how long it's going to last. it's almost like a character on "survivor" or the old 21, how long can herb stemple survive? how long can he go with new material every minute? soon he'll run out of material and begin to sweat. i think we're waiting for tha