He will hold two rallies this afternoon seeking to surge ahead in a very tight race with gop rival ted cruz. Trumps camp teasing ahead to a quote, major announcement and theres buzz not confirmed by nbc that this major announcement could be the endorsement of onetime vp candidate, former Alaska Governor sarah palin. Here was trump earlier today in iowa. We have a tremendous event planned in a little while that will be a very big event that i think you will be very impressed. I am a big fan of sarah palin but im not saying who it is. Stay with us. Coming up i will speak with Bernie Sanders campaign manager, jeff weaver. I want to start with our team of correspondents covering the 2016 race. We kick off our coverage, nbcs Hallie Jackson is in New Hampshire. Ted cruzs bus tour making a stop this hour. Let me show everybody this irngs to individuiphone video of trum palin on capitol hill. Sarah [ inaudible ]. Bye, sweetheart. You have spoken to cruzs people. They are already responding to the buzz about palin. What are they saying . Reporter yeah. First, they are cautioning that this endorsement hasnt happened yet, right, and in the words of a campaign spokesperson, trump can be reliably unpredictable when it comes to these kind of things. That said, if in fact its true that sarah palin will endorse donald trump tonight, as you noted not confirmed by nbc, a spokesman for the campaign tells me it would be a deep disappointment given that palin has been a champion of conservative causes and in the cruz teams view, donald trump is simply not conservative enough. So thats some of the early reaction and perhaps a preview of what we might hear from ted cruz later on today when he heads on his bus tour here in New Hampshire. We should note that Bristol Palin got wind of some of these comments and issued this what you might call diatribe on facebook that her mother retweeted a couple minutes ago asking, Bristol Palin asking if this is the reason people didnt like ted cruz because his campaign was so quick to jump to these kind of conclusions. Some drama on the campaign trail for sure. We are all looking ahead to what happens at 6 00 tonight out in iowa. Meantime, we have a lot of folks here supporting ted cruz. In fact, there is one gentleman in the corner, i would bring you to him but hes pretty far away, who says he has already voted via absentee ballot for ted cruz. The sleeping baby making it through just to your left reporter she is so cute. She had her big puffy coat on when she walked in. Its like 12 degrees out. A true supporter there. Hallie, thanks so much. We will talk again shortly. A new nbc news wall street journal poll shows the nominating contest is taking a toll on the gop. 42 of voters feeling less favorable about the party. 19 are saying less favorable. For more on the feud between trump and cruz, lets turn to msnbc host and Political Correspondent steve kornacki. How is this playing out in conservative media . Well, this is the reason if, and this is a big if, but if sarah palin is endorsing donald trump tonight, it is coming at a particularly good and particularly important time for donald trump, because you think of sarah palin, you think of the credibility, the support, the good will she has among tea party conservatives. You look at whats happening to donald trump right now on conservative radio, another major source of information for tea party conservatives. Conservative radio has been very friendly to donald trump the last six months. Its also been very friendly to ted cruz. Some people would say longer term, maybe more of a natural home to ted cruz. Now that donald trump is going after ted cruz conservative radio is in some circles turning on donald trump. Let me give you a couple examples. Heres mark levine, conservative radio host, saying to his audience that Donald Trumps attacks on ted cruz are an attack on us. Two months ago, three months ago, six months ago, two years ago, four years ago, ted cruz was considered mr. Conservative and he still is. Hes one of the most prominent conservatives in america. Hes one of the most prominent conservatives, period. Whats different right now is that the attack on cruz in many ways is an attack on us. Thats the problem. Hes nasty, nasty, nasty, donald says. Why, because Mitch Mcconnell thinks hes nasty . Because bob dole thinks hes nasty . Because the dugin ruling elite republicans think hes nasty . Then there was rush limbaugh, king of conservative radio. He responded to reports that some in the Party Establishment might be ready to make peace with donald trump. This was what he said about that. Establishment say yeah, yeah, yeah, we can make deals with trump. We can coexist with trump. What they mean by that is that they think they can peacefully coexist with trump because they can moderate trump or make deals with him that are not ideological in nature but they know, they are fairly certain that cruz is not going to compromise what he believes in order to strike deals or have a peaceful relation with them relationship. That scares them. So talk radio has really given donald trump cover in this race so far. If talk radio is now turning on donald trump, it would be more important than ever they get an endorsement like sarah palin. A lot of people would suspect it will be an interesting endorsement if it comes through because of her political gravitas. We wonder if its peaked. We will see. Steve kornacki, thank you. Joining me, Bernie Sanders campaign manager, jeff weaver of the sanders campaign. Nice to see you. Good to talk to you. Your candidate is enjoying these huge crowds in alabama last night. It surprised some but youre not surprised by this because you have seen thousands of folks turning out north, south and now west. But i want to play this new line your candidate was using against the inevitability of a clinton candidacy. Take a listen. When i began the cam ppaign people said youre running against an inevitable indiana dat candidate. When we started we were 50 points behind. Today the inevitable candidate does not look quite so inevitable as she did eight and a half months ago. Jeff, explain why you think the folks in iowa, we are less than two weeks out, why do you think folks in iowa were willing to give their vote to a person who calls himself a democratic socialist . Well, they are willing to give him their vote, willing to caucus for him, because hes speaking to the reality they see in their lives. They understand that the system is rigged. That the economy is rigged against them. That its held up by a corrupt system of Campaign Finance and they want change. They want to be able to afford to send their kids to college. They want to be able to afford health care. They dont want to see wall street running the congress. They want a country that belongs to everyone, not just to a few. We look at the new polls about the state of the race. We have the new poll from Monmouth University today, has your candidate really cutting into the lead of Hillary Clinton, the National Lead in half now. The latest nbc news wall street journal polls still put Hillary Clinton ahead by about 25 . So we know that senator sanders is winning the hearts of a lot of people in the grassroots, but how are establishment democrats opening up to the possibility that he can win nationally . Well, i think what you are going to see as he performs well in the caucuses and primaries, the early ones, as he demonstrates, as he is demonstrating in polls he is the strongest candidate against the republicans, that not only does he do well in general election matchups with democratic voters, but he is the overwhelming favorite with independent voters. We saw in a recent gallop poll that 42 of americans call themselves independents and democrats cant win the white house, they cant win the congress, they cant win all over this country if they dont bring independent voters with them. Thats something that senator sanders can do. I think as we go along, the establishment democrats are going to see more and more that he is in fact the best candidate, not only to keep the white house, but to make gains in the congress and at the state level as well. When we talk about establishment democrats, fill me in on where the lawsuit with the dnc currently stands. Is the financial portion of that still something that you are mediating . Well, no, what we are doing is we are working with the dnc in a cooperative way to get a full understanding of what happened and thats where it sits right now. The lawsuit has been filed but its all pending while we deal with this some people would say you are trying to use this as political leverage to keep them in check. Are you doing that, by holding them hostage, so to speak, to the fact that well, thats a pretty unfair characterization. Why not mediate it and close it out . Well, we are mediating it. We are mediating with them and we are working very closely with them and thats what ill say about it. Okay. Jeff weaver, great to have you on. We really appreciate your time. Look forward to having you back. Thank you, sir. Thanks. Take care. The democratic race for the white house is the topic of todays pulse question. Now, it is can Hillary Clinton win over Bernie Sanders voters . Go ahead and vote. The pulse is live. Pulse. Msnbc. Com. We will bring you the results through the show. We are following breaking news from germany this hour. One of the americans freed from a prison in iran speaking out for the first time. We take you live to landstuhl next. I just know that everyone from the president , the congress, even the iranian officials who were our captors essentially were amazed and asked us why is it that they are working so hard for you . Welcome to the world 2116, you can fly across town in minutes or across the globe in under an hour. 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Tell em cedric sent you. My name is jamir dixon and im a locafor pg e. Rk fieldman most people in the community recognize the blue trucks as pg e. My truck is something new. Its an 811 truck. When you call 811, i come out to your house and i mark out our gas lines and our electric lines to make sure that you dont hit them when youre digging. 811 is a free service. Im passionate about it because every time i go on the street i think about my own kids. Theyre the reason that i want to protect our community and our environment, and if me driving a that truck means that somebody gets to go home safer, then ill drive it every day of the week. Together, were building a better california. We have been following this breaking news from germany where moments ago we heard from former u. S. Marine amir hekmati. He is one of three americans who were treated in landstuhl after being freed from iran over the weekend. Hekmati says hes healthy and hopes to be home very soon. How does it feel to be back, amir . It feels great. I feel very lucky. Like i said, i feel alive for the first time. Its like being born again and i just really feel proud to be an american. Four americans in total were released as part of that prisoner swap. A fifth was released separately. This morning, the son of Robert Levinson spoke about his father still being among the missing. If theyre okay with leaving him behind, someone who has been dedicating his life to this country, what does that say for other people who are serving our country and how are they ever going to expect to have their Government Support them . Its a very big problem for this country if my dads left behind. Nbcs keir simmons is live in landstuhl, germany and was there when hekmati spoke to reporters. So we are also going to speak to Ayman Mohyeldin in a second. Let me start with you about what does hekmati say about when hes coming back . How quickly is he characterizing the stay in landstuhl before returning to the states . Reporter yeah, he will be able to head home whenever he is good and ready is the honest answer. We dont know when that is. He did look incredibly well when he came out here to speak. It was quite a moment of celebration and sadness on our air, actually, when he came out because of course, he came out and talked about the moment that they flew out of iranian air space, the fact that there was champagne popping, they were eating veal, they were celebrating how good it feels, he said, to be free, to be an american, while at the same time, the son of bob levinson was watching that statement from the msnbc studio and he was, as you can imagine, delighted for the hekmati family but at the same time, heartbroken because his father was not on that plane. Bob levinson still missing. The iranians say they dont know where he is and that they are peepd prepared to help in the search for him, the family saying he has been abandoned. Amir hekmati saying that for him, it was incredibly tense. He had been told many times he would be released. Right until the last minute he wasnt certain it was really going to happen. When it comes to hekmati, we know this is amazing as he was surrounded by family, his brotherinlaw with him in landstuhl, and you were asking him questions, as you pointed out, levinsons son was here watching this. It had to be terribly hard. While supportive of these people being freed. What is the state department saying about levinson . What do they characterize his status right now . Reporter well, as we understand it, bob levinson was part of the negotiation right up to the release of the u. S. Prisoners, but the state Department Spokesman john kirby had this to say a little while ago. We are going to continue to work just as hard Going Forward to try to ascertain the whereabouts of mr. Levinson and bring him home where he belongs. Reporter meanwhile, jason rezaian, another of the three who are here, im told is great, im told, in good spirits and physically well. Last night, thomas, apparently over dinner with his brother and family he was talking about sports, about baseball and his favorite basketball team. It will be a slow return to normal but so many people, happy about their freedom returned. Keir simmons, thank you. Coming up in our next hour, i will speak with congressman dan kildee, democrat from michigan who was in germany yesterday meeting with amir hekmati. Nbc Foreign CorrespondentAyman Mohyeldin joins me at 30 rock. Theres a different story we have been following and this is about the americans that have been kidnapped, contract workers. Whats the story there and their status . Yeah, the information is sketchy, to say it politely. What we are getting confirmation from the state department and u. S. Embassy in baghdad confirming that several americans are missing in iraq. They are not providing any more official information on their whereabouts, part of that because they know that right now Iraqi Security forces are engaged in a large manhunt, or large operation to try to recover them. What we are hearing from iraqi sources particularly the police in baghdad is that late friday night or saturday morning, at least three americans were kidnapped in a neighborhood south of baghdad. Now, they are saying these three americans were contractors, working in iraq at the time. They dont know who is responsible for that kidnapping. There has been no official claim of responsibility for it. But right now, they are confirming that a large security operation is under way in this neighborhood and elsewhere in baghdad to try to locate these three americans. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Ayman mohyeldin. We have breaking news from the u. S. Supreme court. Justices will be taking up the president s executive actions on immigration. We will unpack what the court could be deciding and the impact this case could have on millions that are facing deportation. Nbcs Pete Williams and ari melber will join me next. Check this out, bro. Whats that, broheim . I switched to geico and got more. More savings on Car Insurance . Yeah brofessor, and more. Like renters insurance. More ways to save. Nice, brotato chip. Thats not all, brotein shake. Geico has motorcycle and rv insurance, too. Oh, thats a lot more. Oh yeah, im all about more, teddy brosevelt. Geico. Expect great savings and a whole lot more. Bis committed to truth on the label. When we say real meat is the first ingredient, it is always number one. We leave out poultry byproduct meal, corn, wheat and soy. And, we own where our dry food is made 100 . Can other brands say all that . 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