Love that opening. Good evening. Im chris matthews. Donald trumps final opponent, john kasich suspended his campaign this evening bringing to a close the republican race for the white house. Its over. Donald trump, a reality tv star and businessman from new york with no political background is the new standard bearer of the Republican Party, like it or not. With that reality comes a moment of truth for the Republican Party itself. Can they back him . A growing list of republicans are saying yes, they can. Governor nikki haley of south carolina. Mike huckabee. Senator Susan Collins of maine. A spokeswoman for senator john mccain told nbc, as john mccain said he will support the nominee of the Republican Party who is now presumptively donald trump. Hes opposed to the continuation of failed policies of president obama that will occur under pill ri clinton and have led to a world more volatile and less safe than any time since world war ii. Theres also a number of activists who say they refuse to back trump even though hes won the nomination. George w. Bush and George Herbert walker bush say they will stay out of it. Donald trump told lester holt that his negative numbers will calm down. Lets watch the latest. This is a few minutes old. Negatives are staggering. Disapproval, 69 , women. Africanamerican, 80. How much of that is selfinflicted by some of the rhetoric from the primary campaign and how do you heal that while still respecting those who got you here . The highly respected rasmussen poll came out. I havent started on Hillary Clinton yet. I dont know what youre talking about with the negatives. I will say, i think ill do well with women and in the last seven state, which i won in land slid, i won in women, africanamerican, hispanics. I won at every single level. You disacard all these numbers . I dont discard anything. I just got it not even 24 hours ago. Howard fineman, global editorial director. Its limited in its accuracy and its also a republican poll. Theres a staggering gap. Poll after poll after poll shows him losing to Hillary Clinton. Thats the fact. He never acknowledges it. Today, we should just take a minute to think about what happened in the last 24 hours. The Republican Party, today, is like rome on the morning after the night when the barbarians came through the gate. I was going to saby berlin. The city has been sacked. Theres a lot of running around. Theres a lot of screaming, wailing. People are trying to figure out what to do. And, so, its maybe not the best day to make confident predictions as to whats going to happen two weeks from now, four weeks from now or whatever. Will the resistance manage to
gather itself. I was in budapest and one of the more cynical people said the road to damascus is crowded these days. Theres a lot of converts. Look at this, john mccain support for trump. Its a surprise to some given the very personal attack trump levelled at him last summer. Just to remind ourselves of how vicious it got. Lets watch trump on john mccain opinion. I supported him. He lost. He let us down. I never liked him as much after that because i dont like losers. Frank, let me get to it. Hes not war hero. Hes a war hero. Hes a war hero because he was captured. I like people that werent capture preponderance of the evidence i hate to tell you. John mccain is on base. I think thats very interesting. I agree that sometimes the road to damascus is crowded. Right now its eerily sparse. Theres some thats creeping forward to say i will support trump. The senator said this morning in an interview that she would support but not endorse. What does that mean . I have no idea. Its like the mideast peace the other women in the party nikki haley. Everybody is making a big deal last night. His former aide and speech writer said he would never vote for trump. If youre donald trump, youll take john mccain over mark salter. He said hes going with hillary. Give us a sense of how this will shake out. How many people will scatter and how many will salute. Im sitting here shaking my head. The same people who told me i would have go and vote for romney, i was going to have to vote for john mccain are saying that theyre not going to vote for donald trump. Yet i still went in and theyre not taking their own piece of advice. Today has shown the adults from the children within the Republican Party and the ones that put the party ahead of their egos. Those guys that holding onto im not going to vote for him, a lot of them are probably sour grapes and they have to face the fact that their word is not as strong as their mommy gave them credit for. Theyre saying im going to put unity ahead because were going to have to go against this major machine that was created before barack obama that will be headed up for Hillary Clinton and it will be something well take. Everybody will have to be part of it if well be able to defeat. Reince priebus agrees with you. Lets watch the chair of the Republican National committee. We got to unify. We need time to unify. We will unify. This is what today starts, which is this unification process. In his interview with lester holt a couple of minutes ago, trump didnt try to back way from his calls to ban muslims
and deport 11 Million People here illegally. Lets watch him go at it again. Do you stand by them . Do you stand by the idea of a ban against foreign muslims coming here . I do. We have to be vigilant. We have to be strong. Theres a big problem in the world. You look at whats happening with the migration in europe. You promised to deport those in this country illegally . And come back. Theyll be deported. We need to have a country. We have many illegals in the country. We have to get them out and go through a process, go through a system. Ones that have done well and have really achieved, we want to bring them back in. Back to where we start tonight. Joining here scotty, the quickness with which this came. Up until last night, we had a sense that although trump would win, indiana, that cruz would stick to the fight. This thing would go on for a while. I think thats what stunned us last night, the end so quick. Looked like trump was going
to win in the end but cruz could stick in for a while. Kasich would stick in for a while. How did their situation change. The antitrump in the faction that found itself with no contenders. Exactly. What do they do now in you cant beat somebody with nobody. They didnt have much of somebody in the first place. Now they literally have nobody. I want to hear scotty. What happened so fast . Do you know why the opposition to trump crumbled last night, guess early in the day yesterday. They got word that the exit poll, i dont know how they got the exit numbers earlying but they got some polling that said cruz would get hammered. I guess kasich already knew he was down in the Single Digits and it wasnt going to happen for him ever. They could have still fought for a while. Sometimes reality bites for president ial candidates. We saw that yesterday. I think the polling came back that in new jersey trump was leading by double digits, west
virginia, california. There was no sense of a brokered convention where the idea its resonating with the people this is a rigged system that keep politicians in power. You have senator ted cruz who still has a hopeful, political future. He wanted to cut off his losses to see if he could escape unscathed. Why is it so surprised that mr. Trump, i guess were used to politicians flipflopping on what the position is. Those points that mr. Trump made are the same thing hes said consistently all along. Nfair enough. Why would he flipflop because hes the candidate . They do when they say inflammatory things. I think you have a fair point. Thats the one thing about mr. Trump. Whether you might not like every word he says, you have trust is what he says is what he will stand by. You like some things. What were missing in Politics Today is truth and trust. Thats why hes appealing to so many. Do you think its right to take 11 Million People living as americans and send them to mexico or anywhere else they came from . Do you think thats a reasonable u. S. Policy . I think we have a broken system and a Ronald Reagan thought thats not what hes saying. It did not solve it. We need to look at our immigration system. We know that. I dont know that. Thats not what hes saying. Hes saying send back 11 Million People. We should we do that . Let them come back legally. We need to know who is within or borders. The same thing goes with muslims. Not saying hes going to ban all muslims from america. Hes saying all american muslims will continue to flow back and forth freely. We need know who is within our
borders. How do we tell their religion . How can we detect, honestly and truthfully the religion of someone applying to come in on any entry into the country . How do you detect that . Were trying. Were asking the question. Just how would we do it . Thats the great thing about technology. You can ask them. Theres screening processes we can use thats are not in place now. Our system is broken. All hes asking for can we detect through any electronic ability, can we screen for religion . I didnt know we would. As american citizens we have the right to know who is coming within our country too. I have to sit there and say im going to defend america first. Kind of like what his Foreign Policy is. I think its fair we know who it is. Lets get the system fixed and well bring people in and out and freely. At least our american families
are safe. Thank you very much. Thank you howard fineman. You got pushed aside there. Donald trump said he will focus on Hillary Clintons past, not her ideas for the future. Its going to be a scorched Earth Campaign like weve not seen before. Are clintons and the democrats ready for whats coming from trump. Why cant Hillary Clinton shake Bernie Sanders loose from her. Shes still chasing her. Hes helping trump by staying in the race thats virtually impossible for him to win. Can clinton battle trump with sanders still on her left flank . With cruz and skasich out o race, donald trump is in. Given all hes said and done, its an earth shaking moment many people said could never happen. The hardball round table will be
with us. The false claim that ted cruz father was connected to john f. Kennedy assassination. Well speak with his secret Service Agent tonight. Real is making new friends. Amazing is getting this close. Real is an animal rescue. Amazing is over twentyseven thousand of them. There is only one place where real and amazing live. Seaworld. Real. Amazing on top of your health . Ay ahh. Ahh. Cigna customers have plan choices and tools to take control. So theyre more engaged, with fewer high health risks and lower medical costs. Take control of your health at cigna dot com slash take control. Put under a microscope, we can see all the bacteria that still exists. Polidents unique micro clean formula works in just 3 minutes,
killing 99. 99 of odor causing bacteria. For a cleaner, fresher, brighter denture every day. President obama visited flint, michigan earlier today. His first trip since it was hit by a tainted water crisis that sickened thousands of people. He met with local state, federal officials where he was briefed on the ongoing response and recovery efforts. He drank from a glass of water and proclaimed the tap water to be drinkable with a use of a filter. He delivered remarks to a crowd at the local high school where he assured the people of flint that the government has their back. I will not rest, and im going to make sure that the leaders at every level of government dont rest, until every drop of water that flows to your homes is safe to drink and safe to cook with it and
safe to bathe in because thats part of the basic responsibilities of a government in the United States of america. Well be right back. The call just came in. Shes about to arrive. And with her, a flood of potential patients. A deluge of digital records. Xrays, mris. All on account. Of penelope. But with the help of at t, and a network that scales up and down ondemand, this hospital can be ready. Giving them the agility to be flexible reliable. Because no one knows like at t. Since 2001, more than 700,000 comcast Nbc Universal volunteers have lent a hand to their communities. This year, were extending our partnership with our friends at red nose day and global citizen. Making it our most rewarding day ever. Hands down. Welcome back. With a general election matchup between clinton and trump, a new head to head poll shows clinton with a this is the news, 5441. This is an election that will get closer but pretty wide apart now. Clinton ties trump with support among men and leads by 26 points among women. Remember that number. In a preview of what kind of campaign we can expect, trump says he hasnt started in on clinton. He said her past is really the thing. Her past, rather than what she plans to do in future. Her past has a lot of problems. Like the way he phrases that. Shes got a past to put it bluntly. Here is what he said on morning joe. Bernie sanders said shes got poor judgment. He also said shes unqualified, but i wont even go there. Bernie sanders said shes got poor judgment, and she does. You look at the email scandal. She wouldnt be allowed to run. You know that. Joe knows that and Everybody Knows that. Shes only being protected by the democrats. She should not be allowed to run. She should suffer like other people who have suffered who have done far less. Team clinton is already preparing for this kind of attack. Her strategist said republican attacks go unanswered. When he does this, well be aggressive. The Clinton Campaign is using the republicans own words against trump. Here it wbr id wbr11331 is. I am a unifier. Were going to be a unified party. Hes a con artist. b a phony. Donald trump is the no nothing candidate. Hes a bully. He mocked a disabled reporter. I dont remember. Who attributed a reporters questions to her menstrual cycle. The most vulgar person to aspire to the presidency. He only feels big when hes trying to make people feel small. Dont worry about it little marco. The bullying, greed, the showing off. He needs therapy. Needs therapy. Stewart steveson said hes about to basic into a 1 billion dollar buzz saw. I guess hes talking about the campaign for clinton. Thank you carolyn. Erin is the National Political reporter for the washington post. Let me, what do you think knowing what you know about the clinton armor . How good is it . How strong is her armor . Strike back at this incoming. Its two things at once. It is defensive and offensive. It is built to continue the wbrid wbr12111 military, the marshal analogy. It is built that way. From the start the clintons, plural, have expected assault on them. On everything about them. On the entire architecture of the clinton political franchise starting with bill clinton, good and bad, and continuing through hillary. They have designed ways, they think, are effective to protect that and project and try to get through. What was great about that was instant retaliation. They would follow the news cycle the way trump follows it, which is every second. Theyre up against the guy in the news cycle and able to hit
back so fast. They learned the lesson from dukakis in 88. He didnt respond. The question is how she can fulfill the role. Smiling is a weird thing in politics. People smile the most aggressive smiles. Its not like im happy. Its like i can take it or you think youre so smart, youre not. All smiles seem to Say Something about aggression these days. How does she laugh her way through or chuckle her way through what looks to be a storm of attack . I think she feels like shes got a pretty stealy spine and been through all kinds of humiliation and attacks. Shes going to have an interesting and powerful weapon at her side this time in barack obama. Theyre campaign, the Clinton Campaign want to unleash barack obama. If you recall during the white
house Correspondence Dinner, how much she enjoys going after trump. Hes chomping at the bit to make the case. She will have two president s at her side sort of buffering her. I dont think the campaign wants her directly going oneonone at trump but they want to create a megaphone around her to deflect and go after him. Do you think barack obama is cool enough because he has to be able to take these shots down. When you shoot down, its dangerous. That pulls you down into the fight. How does he keep his dignity in match with trump that is good at destroying the other guys dignity . How does he keep from being part of the problem . I think hes master of it. He has an ability to stay aloof. Trump went after his citizenship, the birther campaign. It was very personal. The way that obama responded at
that white house Correspondence Dinner was mocking, joking, but did not lose his cool and he never really did over that issue. Hes very eager to be part of this campaign. He is very eager to make the case against trump. The one area where i think the clintons know they have a problem and thinking about how to address it is social media and personality. Trump has shown that is a powerful platform in a modern campaign. The clintons dont have anything that matches his eight million followers and the personality that drives social media. Its not just on television. Its on twitter. They are trying to figure out if they can create something to be a counter force there. I think trump will grab all the available stuff. He will start with the three speeches for goldman sachs. Hes going to trump it, everybody bernie said. Hes going to say just release the transcripts and for whatever reason she doesnt want to
release, it would be bad chatter. Theyre going to say you took the 600,000 and keep pounding that. I can see him doing that because it makes her the incumbent that cay. Sure. Im not sure he totally needs it. One of his great strengths so far, which one would expect to be a strength against him, against hillary going forward, is his ability to change the conv