Has beaten, and can beat, donald trump. For me the state of South Carolina will always be the place of new beginning, and fresh starts. If you are a conservative, this is where you belong, because only one strong conservative is in a position to win this race. It was a big, winning machine. You aint first, youre last. You know . That phrase is trademarked. Wasnt this wonderful . Yes. A wonderful day. It is really this is great. Its beautiful. We took these kids outside, they race around the block. Yes, they do. Do you know who the winner is . Here you go, children. You won. You won. Yay. You won. Oh, my gosh. Of course willie. Everybodys a winner. And you won. So, kids, you all won. Yay exactly. You will never learn anything in life. Exactly. Boy its something to live, grow up in the age of millennials. Where there are no winners. There are no losers. Everybody wins, willie. Its very exciting. It was great to have the charleston childrens theater with us this morning. Yes, it was. Very excited. I think i know where youre headed with this, joe. Wheres that . A lot of people declaring that they won last night when donald trump won by 11 points. And they lost. He actually crushed them. And they lost. Donald trump easily won in yesterdays South Carolina republican primary. But dont tell that to marco rubio or ted cruz. From the sound of their speeches the two senators locked in a virtual second place tie seem to be taking a victory lap, too. When has this ever happened . Trumps victory here is potentially a pivotal one as every candidate who has won in both New Hampshire and South Carolina has gone on to the nomination. In either party. Gop turnout in South Carolina was historic. Up by 134,000 from 2012 and nearly 300,000 from 2008. Trump won with 33 of the vote. Followed by a tight race for second between narco rubio and ted cruz at 23 and 22 of the vote, a virtual tie. Separated by less than 1100 votes. Lets stop right there. Big news, john obviously with jeb bush well get to in a second. But the participation in iowa. The participation in New Hampshire. The participation here. Just off the charts. It is. So if the question is, is donald trump going to bring more people in to vote . The answer through the first three contests appear to be yes. Well, i dont know. I wouldnt quite go that far. In the sense that youve got a really big field that a lot of interest in this race in general. So how much of that you attribute just to trump versus how much you attribute it to a very competitive republican field, again, trump is obviously a huge part of that. Look the party is also incredibly, incredibly engaged in this election. Because after two consecutive terms of barack obama a lot of republicans are desperate to win the white house. And so, some combination of big field, that enthusiasm, that desperation has created a moment for the Republican Party, no matter what happens, whoever ultimately gets the nomination, the party should feel good about the fact that its electorate is jazzed. Willie geist well talk more about that. And donald up there is going to be on in 10 or 15 mints or so. Willie, by any traditional standard this past week has been disastrous for donald trump. He had what most republicans thought was a meltdown last saturday night in the debate. He insulted the last republican president by saying he lied about wmds. I could go through the entire week. But he even got into a fight, a brawl, with the pope. And he won by over ten points. You could put out a laundry list that would take the whole show of mistakes, alleged mistakes he made over the past week. Misdeeds. He talked about planned parenthood in relatively glowing terms during that debate. Except for the abortions they do great stuff. He basically blamed bush for 9 11. He blamed bush for the iraq war. On and on. Things you dont say in republican primaries and win in the state of South Carolina. Well he did last night. Its not just the general turnout number its the makeup of those voters. 75 of them said they were evangelicals. Donald trump, weve talked about who he is, and yes, hes presbyterian and all those things, but i dont think anyone would mistake him for an evangelical candidate winning in this state by ten points, three quarters of those voters evangelical. Im going to turn ricky bobby on its head. Said if you dont whip, you lose. Talledega. I said yesterday one of five candidates. Basically everybody but kasich, could either win big or lose. Rudy giuliani, we had him on earlier, we asked him what it was about donald trump that made him different. He said everybody that goes in and negotiates they want something for them and want something for everybody else. Donald trump wants to go into a room and lead where hes the winner and everybody else is the loser. Except for john kasich yesterday, that seems to be exactly what happened. Marco rubio had every endorsement you could have. Right. They were bragging all day yesterday along with the chamber that rubio was going to finish a very strong second. Ted cruz, this should have been his state. Yeah. Request all the evangelicals. He was beaten by donald trump. Among evangelicals. 50 of the population that voted, very conservative. 75 were evangelicals. A higher share of evangelicals in South Carolina than iowa voted. Everybody lost yesterday except donald trump and maybe john kasich, right . I would agree with that. And the interesting thing, when you look at the map from last night, it just its blood red. I mean he has every county. Every area of the map covered in a state like you said where ted cruz is supposed to play hard and effective. Marco rubio had the establishment endorsements behind him. He had his tail wind kind of pushing him along and donald trump just stayed his course. He started the week getting beat up by the president. He ended the week going toetotoe with the pope and yet he comes out on top. And the reason for that is despite everything else, you made the point, donald trump goes in the room, and people know he goes in that room and he comes out hes going to come out fighting for them. And they still dont get that sense from all these other players. Thats how 245i feel. And thats an important connection. By the time you get to march 15th. I did the math last night. Youre talking about 1100 of the delegates, half the delegates will be selected by march 15th. When we then go to winner take all. Donald trump could have out of that 1100, 800 of those delegates. Okay. At some point this party is going to have to recognize this guy is on his way to the nomination. I want to show these exit polls to all of you, including Mark Halperin who is standing by. Well get to him. But for a look inside this South Carolina victory, the nbc news exit polls show white evangelicals made up their biggest share of the electorate in years. 67 compared to 64 in 2012. And 55 in 2008. And they had a larger share in South Carolina than in any other early state. With 62 of the vote in iowa. And 23 of the vote in New Hampshire. Among them, trump won white evangelicals 34 to cruzs 26 with rubio taking 21 . Thats absolutely stunning. And again, i just got to stop right there. Willie, remember all the people that have said, you know, weve been making this joke since august. Donald trump, this is the end for donald trump. This is the end. Just go back over the past week. Since the debate, since he said that vulgarity in New Hampshire, all the people who said, the same thing that weve been making fun of them saying for the past six, seven not because were voting for donald trump. Ill be honest the guy i was going to vote for, he got out last night. But, because theyre always wrong about him and they were wrong again. I think the question you have to ask now, and this goes off what michael just said about the numbers is, going back it was how can donald trump win the nomination . How can this possibly be . There was enthusiasm for him. People said but once they get in the booths theyre not actually going to pull the lever for him. I think the question now is how cant he win . What will happen between now and march 15th, and beyond, that prevents him from getting the nomination . I talked to a very smart friend of ours, republican we all know, who said at this point, its a convention fight or nothing. Yeah. And again, what weve been saying, when people come on our set over the past six, seven, eight months, is theyve been saying oh, youre saying donald trump could win it. All were saying is show us the data that suggests he cant. Not that he will. But that suggests he cant. Yeah. And for some reason that has enraged a lot of people in the media. Were just asking for data. And right now, there is none suggesting he cannot win this nomination. So on what issues, the south carolinians who voted yesterday believe are most important to the country. 32 said terrorism. 29 said the economy. 26 said government spending. And 10 said immigration. And strongs strongest performance came among voters who were looking for a candidate who tells it like it is, taking 78 of that group and trump dominated from voters who said they wanted the next president to come from outside the political establishment. That is 63 . So Mark Halperin, as always, we start getting exit polls around 4 00 in the afternoon, 5 00 in the afternoon. When i saw the makeup, which of course did it said it was 74 evangelical. This has the number a little bit lower, 67 . When i started seeing that almost half the voters were very conservative, and now saying 67 evangelicals, i actually thought that cruz, or rubio, were going to be very close and possibly beat donald trump. Im pretty blown away that, as Michael Steele said, anybody that knows the state of South Carolina knows its three states. And when i started seeing trump winning greenville, spartanburg, i just sat there going, oh, my god. Everything we have ever known about republican politics has just been turned on its head by a guy who supported Hillary Clinton eight years ago. With all due respect to what all yall have said so far i think youve understated both trumps achievements to date and his commanding position right now. Its a crazy cycle. Something could change but trump has now proven hes anything but a regional candidate. He couldnt find electorates more different within the republican context than New Hampshire and South Carolina. You look not just at the exit poll but at the upcoming math. The fact that you still have three other candidates who think theyre the ones who can stop trump. Trump, i think, at this point would probably win every state on super tuesday. Not just accumulating delegates but more momentum. None of the candidates, even cruz, have the ability to spend money to try to match trumps command of the media and slow down his momentum. And, there are two kinds of people in the Republican Party right now at the elite level. There are those who say we cant stop trump, unless we find something new and different. We have to do something different. We need to get someone else in the race. We need a convention strategy. We need a super pac to go after him. And there are those who are still in denial who think somehow just letting this four person race go forward will somehow stop trumps inexorable march to the nomination. John heilemann, what those who think that they can stop trump now dont understand, their best chance to stop trump were in these early states. Now, as i said yesterday, this is a campaign, the pace quickens, and its all about airport hangars, its all about arena speeches, its all about 30second ads. Nobody can come close. We are now going in to Donald Trumps strength. And heres the key thing that mark said just now which is that the field is still so fragmented. You know, in a world where we were waking up today, and there was one candidate, against donald trump, you could theoretically say, hey, trumps gotten in the mid 30s so far in these states. You look at iowa, you look at New Hampshire. Hes in the mid 30s. Hes not over 40. Hes not over 50. In theory. In theory a single oneonone matchup with trump, maybe john kasich could beat him. Maybe marco rubio could beat him. Maybe ted cruz could beat him oneonone. But fouronone, threeonone because ben carson is still in the race, so fouronone against donald trump theres no way to beat donald trump in a fouronone race and the point about the calendar, as long as theres all those alternatives still in the race through march 1st, and maybe all the way to march 15th, youve got a fragmented antitrump vote and trump at 35 or 40 wins everything. Thats the daunting part of this. And also, kind of daunting is are these next facts. 150 Million Dollars. And three states later, jeb bush ending his run in the republican president ial primary. Despite a giant operation. A powerful super pac. And a campaign helped from two former president s and two former first ladies all sharing the same last name, the former Florida Governor suspended his campaign after coming in fourth last night. His campaign and allies spent 81 million on tv ads but he never fully gained traction. After he declared for president he briefly led in the polls. He says he wasnt worried but his polling average never reached above 18 in the early states. According to real clear politics he peaked over the summer before the rise of donald trump. Here is jeb bush addressing supporters last night. But the people of iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina have spoken. And i really respect their decision. So tonight, i am suspending my campaign. No. Yeah, yeah. We put forward detailed, innovative, conservative plans to address the mounting challenges that we face. Because, despite what you might have heard, ideas matter, policy matters. That was hard to watch. Yeah. We were all in this some of us were watching it together. It was you looked stricken. Its hard to watch a guys political career end. Stepping off the stage for the last time in politics, anyway. Yes. A good man, an incredibly smart man. A man who knows the issues better than most people i would argue in this race. But at the wrong time. This is Donald Trumps time. Donald trump came in and very early on punched jeb bush, punched him hard. Jeb didnt think initially he had to punch back. By the time he realized it, i think it was too late. Even more so than the punch was the definition. He defined jeb bush out of the gate and jeb was thrown back on his heels and his campaign, the interesting thing, they thought they could spin their way to a solution with donald trump. And this was not a money campaign. This was really something visceral for the voters and he never connected to it. Ive never seen a candidate defined in a way that donald trump defined jeb bush repeatedly by calling him a low energy candidate, and theres so many things to untangle here. I mean, go back nine months, and tell people that on the same day that jeb bush would get out of the race when all the smart money said jeb was the next nominee. Youre saying that donald trump is going to become, move strongly into first place. Its shocking. But also you look at those numbers were in a new era now where a 20 second instagram posting can undercut 100 million of television ads. Wow. Ill just say one other thing which is true, i think trump did a lot to define jeb bush. But mark and i went around the country last year and did focus groups in iowa and New Hampshire, every couple months republicans, probably talked to 150 republicans over the course of the year. We couldnt find a republican who was interested in jeb bush. Even before donald trump got in the race. The bush brand for one reason or another, either people thought he wasnt conservative enough, thought he couldnt win a general election. The Republican Party did not want a guy named bush as its nominee. From day one. In the end, mika, barbara bush was right. And that is a mom knows, there just, you know what, there was bush fatigue. 1 hurnd . And he could never get out of the gate. When he started looking at this field closely, he was one of the best candidates. Still ahead on morning joe, we have the winner of the South Carolina primary, joining us. Donald trump joins us live when we continue from charleston, South Carolina. man hmm. What do you think . stranger good mornin store p. A. attention shoppers, theres a lost couple in the mens department. vo theres a great big unkhaki world out there. Explore it in a subaru crosstrek. Love. Its what makes a subaru, a subaru. Hey liquid wart remover . Could take weeks to treat. Embarrassing wart . Dr. Scholls freeze away wipes em out fast with as few as one treatment. Freeze away dr. Scholls. The 1 selling freeze brand. To folks out there whose diabetic nerve pain. Shoots and burns its way into your day, i hear you. To everyone with this pain that makes ordinary tasks extraordinarily painful, i hear you. 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