And that what goes down doesnt always come back up. [ toilet flushes ] so when you need a plumber, i get started today at angies list, because your home is where our heart is. The reason theres tension at my rallies is that these speak are sick and tired of this
country being run by incompetent people that dont know what theyre doing. The people are angry at that. Theyre not angry about something im saying. Im just a messenger. Would you support him as the nominee if hes the nominee . I dont know. I mean, i already talked about the fact that i think Hillary Clinton would be terrible for this country but the fact that youre even asking me that question i still at this moment continue to intend to support the republican nominee but its getting harder everyday. The protesters are behaving abusively and wrong but at the end of the day in any campaign responsibility starts at the top and its not beneficial when you have a president ial candidate like donald trump telling his supporters punch that guy in the face. I think when people around the world see images of americans clocking each other at a Campaign Rally theyre like were in disarray. It will be used as a propaganda tool. Well, good morning,
everyone. Good morning. How was your weekend . Its monday, march 14. Welcome to morning joe. With us we have former Communications Director for president george w. Bush, nicolle wallace, chair of the department of africanamerican studies at Princeton University, eddy cloud, jr. , veteran columnist in and msnbc contributor Mike Barnicle, great piece in the daily beast out right now. In San Francisco, managing editor of bloomberg politics, Mark Halperin, in nashville, tennessee, historian jon meacham along with willie, joe, and me. Willie, a great town meeting with john kasich. Thank you. Hes leading in the nbc wall street journal not the state of ohio. He believes if he wins ho he has a way to chip away at the delegates enough to get in a one on one with donald trump. You know him so well, so smart, prickly when he wants to be. Fun to joust with. I love the guy and ive made no secret of the fact after jeb left he would have my vote. If hes still around and hes looking like hes doing well. Nicolle, its all of this money, millions and millions of dollars poured into florida to stop trump. Once again donald trump has made republican donors waste tens of millions of dollars having no effect. He is destroying by every poll ive seen destroying all comers but in ohio its the candidate, the guy they like, john kasich, whos actually winning the day there. Right, and you look at the stop Trump Movement as a movement and it really doesnt exist as a National Movement and i wonder if at some point i think after tomorrow there will have to be a layer of intellectual honesty put on it. Does it become a republicans for Hillary Clinton movement . What does its become if you dont have enough delegates deprived on tuesday. An interesting moment on the republican side. We want to look at what happened over the weekend. We had the honor of going toNancy Reagans funeral. It was a stage backdrop to be watching what happened across the country. Violence, protests and arrested marred the 2016 campaign this weekend beginning with the ugly scenes at Donald TrumpsCampaign Rally in chicago as protesters and supporters hurled insults and at times clashed. Fallout from the rally which the Trump Campaign canceled out of safety concerns heightened attention on his events the rest of the weekend, putting the candidate, attendees and the rest of security on edge like in dayton, ohio, saturday where the secret service formed a protective ring around him when a protester attempted to rush the stage during his speech. Most events passed by with minor interruptions but no arrests while some protesters were pepper sprayed in kansas city and trump addressed the unruliness in different ways. Theyll never do it again. It will destroy their record. Theyll have to explain to mom
and dad why they have a Police Record and why they cant get a job and im going to start pressing charges against all these people. [ cheers and applause ] and then we wont have a problem. Mr. Trump, its terrible. You know how many people have been injured at our shows . Nobody. Nobody. We have protestors, some of whom are so mean, so loud, so vicious they stop us from really our First Amendment rights, right . Freedom of speech, you cant talk, theyre screaming there are very few of them but they are bad. Now, you hear about a couple of one in particular vicious, swinging. Well, guess what happened . Our people started swinging back. 90 of the time im telling the police take it easy, dont hurt them, just take it easy, dont hurt them, and, you know, its one of those things but were not provoking. We all want peace. This group is that true or what . We dont want trouble. One of your supporters decided to sucker punch a protester. Do you accept any responsibility for creating this atmosphere . I dont accept responsibility. I do not condone violence in any shape and i will tell you from what i saw the young man stuck his finger up in the air and the other man sort of just had it. But i still i dont condone violence. He talked about his shows, willie geist. I mean, its still hes still in entertainment mode here. They he thinks of them not political events or rallies but shows. We picked up on the same thing. Our eyebrows raised. He says he doesnt condone the violence like the 78yearold man but then went on to say i will pick up his legal fees. Thats condoning the violence. Supporting it, actually. Putting all this into context and digesting it, you best put it into a piece that just popped on the washingtonpost. Com web site. Fridays freak show was as prepackaged as a rerun of celebrity apprentice. The only difference was that donald trump delivered his lines on the phone from a hotel room in the windy city instead of on the set of his made for tv board room. It was all a scam. Has anyone noticed that Trumps Campaign now regularly stages media events designed to eclipse any negative coverage that predictably follows republican debates . As has been the case throughout the entire 2016 cycle, trump thrives on the political chaos that he helps create. If it is true that opportunity and chaos are the same word in mandarin, trump should stamp that word on a poster and sell it at his next scheduled event. For the manhattan billionaire, manufactured chaos is just as profitable for his brand as
paris hiltons sex tape was for hers. Wow. Im upset at my editor because i said cat poster, specifically cat poster. A cat hanging from something and then the word right there and they took cat poster out. Nicolle, think about it. Rubio launches a vicious attack against donald trump in houston the day after Chris Christie endorses him stops the bleeding. And consumes all press coverage. Nobody talks about the debate the rest of the weekend. No one talks about anything else. And then they knew they had another debate coming up so they leaked news before the debate started of ben carson, announced a press conference the next morning and then suddenly come on, you can read through the rest of the piece. There cease many things lined up that show they knew exactly what they were doing. They knew theyd get more press coverage this way. They knew theyd charge up their
supporters. It was all a made for tv protest. I think thats right and his performance in those phoners is the performance he gets decent reviews for. People find him a calming presence but the irony is hes calm ago crisis he created. Was there a meeting with the Chicago Police where they were told please dont have this rally . Did the Chicago Police tell them there was too dangerous . Was there a meeting with the Chicago Police. No. He has a security consortium. Yes, but Law Enforcement officials, real people. Did anybody tell him it was too dangerous to hold the rally . The Chicago Police said they did not. Eddie, bill daley said he certainly selected a very strange place for a rally in the center of a city thats had one Party Democratic rule longer than the soviets had one party rule, literally. Since before fdr was is elected president of the United States and on a College Campus thats 25 hispanic, 25 asian and 10 black. As bill daley said, it was as if they knew what was coming and that they were intentionally stirring the pot there. I like your phrase manufactured chaos. This is trumps political theater but the interesting thing about it is his manufactured chaos but there are real harms, real injury that follows from it. One of the things we do know is that hes been saying all along one thing and the fact that he takes it to uic where you have communities already organizing, people have already been struggling over laquan mcdonald, people have already been struggling over the closing of Public Schools so teachers, Chicago Public school systems, people have been challenging rahm emanuel. So to bring it into that powder
keg and to light the match, youre going to get president chaos we saw. But the interesting thing about it, though, is that in the midst of the theeteater, theres real harm here, theres real injury here, people are really responding to the rhetoric. And im not talking about his supporters, im talk act the folk who bear the brunt of what hes saying. So what we saw at the chicago rally were people responding viscerally and passionately. Viscerally and Mike Barnicle, you also look at whats not manufactured but what certainly a lot of people have been focusing on have been Donald Trumps words over the past like when he said in las vegas id like to punch him in the face. Or when he declared that in the good old days protesters used to be carried out in stretchers. Or when he told his audience not knock the crap out of them, would you . It is manufactured chaos but i would argue its Donald Trumps own supporters that are going to his rallies to see that i mean are going to bear the biggest brunt of their champions abusive language. I think were going to see more and more protesters pour in until he starts calming things down and stops talking this way. Well, joe, look, this is now both dangerous and depressing, his rallies. Donald trump entered this campaign known by most people for two words youre fired on tv. Now hes known by a multitude of people for a few more words. Get them out of here. And its the way says it. And a candidate at a minimum level has an obligation not to use his presence or her presence, his or her words on the stump to incite a riot. And thats whats happening each and everyday, multiple times a
day at trump rallies, and he has an obligation to say pump the brakes here, folks, lets all calm down. This is politics, this is not a riot. But he hasnt done it yet. He has an obligation, obviously, he also has massive opportunity to do something amazing and instead of taking that opportunity and that platform and pivoting and running with it and urging not only peace but something beyond that, hes the wizard of oz, hes just the man behind the curtain doing nothing, really, with no heart and no brain. And he has so much potential here. He could do so much with this. I know everybody has strong feelings about trump or especially people that come in and out of this room but he has a massive following. He could do so much with this. Mark halperin, the thing is, hes been playing the short game for a very long time. The ive been calling him a political day trader because
hes known what he has to do to win the day, to win the hour, to win the media cycle and he knows what hes had to do to cut out a plurality of Republican Voters. And hes done it brilliantly, hes done it by himself and hes going to win the republican nomination, hes probably going to lock it down for the most part tomorrow. But at this point, this sort of day trading may help him in the short run with the trades that are right in front of him on the computer moving quickly but will destroy him at the end of the day. And maybe our country. Im just saying just politically. Forget about all the hyperbole, forget about blood running in the streets. Just politically this is a dead end. You get your 35 , 40 of republican primary voters which only make up onethird, people who vote in primaries make up onethird of who vote in the
actual general election among republicans. And the world expands so much. The voting world expands so much going into the fall that he is for every one of these primary voters hes pulling this way, hes losing three, four, five general election voters. Do you have any evidence that theres an understanding in the Trump Campaign that they need to shift gears and stop playing this short game, stop engaging in this day trading . Well, the day trading analogy is a good one and im not as sure as you that hes going to be the nominee right now. Well see after tomorrow what happens if, as i expect, well be down into a threeway race. Friday i said he was being cavalier about reacting to whats going on at his events. Its gone beyond that. As mika suggested, he has a huge responsibility which he did not live up to on the shows
yesterday and friday night. Even if hes not the nominee, even if hes not president , hes a National Leader now and hes not even close to living up to the responsibility he has to try to be a more calming presence and to explain what is happening at his own events, which he called shows. But lets see if hes if he doesnt gate majority of the delegates, i think between what happened this weekend and what happened when he was asked to respond to david duke i think its going to be easier for the establishment to take the nomination away from him. The im not saying they will, but if he doesnt gate majority, this weekends make it harder for him to win the votes at the convention. We predicted trump could win the republican nomination. We predicted that marco rubio at least i dont want to associate too many people with me because it made people angry but i predicted that marco rubios campaign was never going to go anywhere. And predicted about a month ago that donald trump could actually, if you look at the industrial midwest, trump could actually win the general election. That prediction is pulled off
the table for me. You look at the david duke de r demurral, you look at another attack saying islam is the enemy and now you look at friday, i cant begin to tell you how many swing voters, how many independent voters, how many moderate republicans, how many conservative democrats, how and i know that the phone calls that are pouring in to america i cant tell you how many people over the past three weeks have gone, you know what . I was thinking about it, im not thinking about it anymore. Thats not to say hes not going to do well, hes just not going to win the general election in this mode. Not even close. Ive heard people say the same thing, he was an interesting candidate, hes different, he shakes things up, after the kkk thing, i think people have gotten off the middle ground where they thought they perhaps could vote for him but youre right in the short game analogy, he thinks this is god for america im dividing
these people up, im showing theyre coming to our rallies and disrupting us, it helps him, maybe he wins illinois because of it, maybe hes going to blow out in florida but maybe he creeps up and wins ohio but playing this long game, its not going to work for him. There are too many people who dont want to see it. Lets bring in jon meacham, hes been waiting patiently. Jon, i think people were waiting friday night to see what donald trump was going to say and do in reaction to what we saw in chicago. He got on the phone with Chris Matthews and basically did what i just said which is to blame the protesters and say this is why we have to keep fight p because of people like this. Right. Anger is a great starter, its not very good finisher. Well put. I think joes afanalogy is a good one on the day trading. A lot of us have said this is almost analogy proof, the whole trump phenomenon, because you had the case of a protest candidate in the midst of taking over a major party. It was like a hijacking that passengers joined the hijacker and were all in favor of it for a while. Now its feeling more like george wallace. Its feeling more like a traditional protest candidacy that plays to extremes in order to drive both Media Attention and the passion of a disaffected minority. And president s of the United States cannot simply be the embodiment of the disaffections of a minor. They have to represent the aspirations of a majority and thats the jump that trump has failed to make. Eddie, you want to chime in before we go to break. Im interested in what made him an interesting candidate for a while. Simple. It seems to me hes been saying a lot of this since day one. Well, it was refreshing at first and it wasnt as piercing as first and it wasnt causing situations like this at first. So it was coated in the
beginning, there were dog whistles and now hes being explicit . Hes been explicit the whole time. Hes been explicit about mexicans, about muslim, et cetera, et cetera. But the people hes been reaching out to are people the Republican Party have left behind on Economic Issues time and time again. Now, i can only speak for people i know that support trump, theyre bothered by the dog whistles, theyve been bothered by this other stuff but the Republican Party has gotten it wrong for working class voters on Economic Issues, on trade, on so many things and you have seen through the years st