Tonight, donald trump was forced to endure listening to a trumplike incoherent political speech. And this one was from one of America Politics biggest loser, and certainly the biggest quitter. Can i get a hallelujah . Ive never been a huge fan of endorsements. Thank you so much, its so great to be in iowa. Im a big fan of sarah palin. The triumph of of reality television. You betcha. Palin was a cruz gal before she was a trump gal. Heads are spinning. Media heads are spinning. Youll see more of these odd ball endorsements. He picked up the endorsement of john waynes family. I love john wayne. This is fun for trump, and people can tell. People are talking about his temperament. Like two tarantulas in a bowl in iowa. Its no surprise the establishment is in full panic mode. I would believe it would be a big mistake for iowa to support him. Our next president of the United States donald j. Tufrp. Ask yourself this, what would you do the day after your 26yearold son who lives at home with you is arrested in your home after assaulting his girlfriend and threatening to commit suicide, using one of these, an ar15 Assault Rifle that is kept in your home . And, yes, he was drunk. What would you do . You would have your arms around him right now, right . You would be getting him all the help he needs right now. Right . According to police reports, all of that happened at sarah pay lips home last night in wasilla, alaska. But sarah palin wasnt home. She and her husband todd were on their way to a big event b in iowa. On nights like this, its worth pausing to consider that if barack obama had not run the flawless campaign that he did in 2008 and won the presidency, sarah palin might tonight still be serving as the Vice President of the United States of america instead of joe biden. And what happened in her home last night might have happened in the Vice President s presence. Heres why todd and sarah palin are not home tonight, giving their troubled 26yearold son, who is the divorced father of a 4yearold daughter, the loving parental guidance that he so obviously needs now, as much as he ever has. You ready for a commanderinchief that will let our warriors do their job and kick isis ass . Ready for someone who with will secure our borders, secure our jobs and secure our homes . Ready to make america again, are you ready to stump for trump . Im here to support the next president of the United States, donald trump. There were actually very few applause lines like that in sarah palins 20minute speech. It was the quiet audience reaction we have seen at any trump event. What happened in the donald trump last night didnt happen tonight. Heres her answer to donald trump not being a real conservative. Now theyre wailing, well, trump and his trum eters, well, theyre not conservative enough. E o, my goodness gracious. What the heck would the establishment know about conservatism . Tell me, is this conservative . Gop authorities handing obama a blank check to Fund Obama Care and planned parenthood and illegal immigration that competes for your jobs . How about the rest of us, right wing and bitter clinging proud klinglers of our guns our god and our religions and our constitutional. Tell us that were not red enough. Yeah, coming from the accomplishment. As she clings to her wreckage of her unsuccessful attempts of tv stardom, sarah palin delivered her endorsement to the candidate that could guarantee her the biggest audience, the candidate who would best stoke the dying embers of her fan. Joining us now are david frum, Senior Editor of the Atlantic Jonathan klein and sam stein, an msnbc cohost. Are there any sarah palin true believers who are not already donald trump troou believers . Are there any still sarah palin true believers . You can start there then. Her star power has greatly diminished. I just dont get the sense that the draw is there like it was in the early obama years. I do think youre right. I think theres a strategic reason she attached her herself to donald trump and she craves that type of attention . I watched how much the rhetoric has changed. I watched when she was stumping for john mccain, and we were all very alarmed at what was happening at her specific rallies. I look back at that. I look and its almost quantity. What we witnessed in 2008 specifically. Really wasnt as alarming as what were seeing now. I think he highlighted something that sorch has been underanalyzed in trumpism. Trumpism has trumped cheneyism. When was the last time we had cheney come out and tell us how to think about Foreign Policy . Lets listen to palin on Foreign Policy tonight. Let me Say Something really positive about one of those individuals, rand paul. Im going to tell you about that libertarian streak in him that is healthy, because he knows, you only go to war if youre determined to win the war. And you quit footing the bill for these were paying for some of kwar squirmishes that have been going on for centuries, where theyre fighting each other. As ive said before. She did say squirmishes. Cheneyisms has disappeared under this cloud of trumpism which is now combined with some form of pay lippism. The palin endorsement is about the choice of donald trump over ted cruz is a contest over what is conservatism anyway. Ted cruz insists its an ideology, a set of answers to political questions. And donald trump has offered conservatism as an identity. Sarah palin is one of the great pioneers of that idea. Conservatism is an identity. Its not what you are, its not what you think, its not a set of answers. Its who you are. Must remember first and second place in iowa were separated by 34 vote fps sarah palin can move a few hundred or couple of thousand votes from the cruz column into the trump column, that could potentially mean a trump win in iowa. And given that everyone was expecting him not to win iowa, two back to back wins, a week apart, that could be kind of a seismic event. Ted cruz now going after donald trump on policy. Lets listen to what ted cruz had to say about that today. Mr. Trump enthusiastically supported the tarp big bank bailouts. I disagree with him. We should have no bailouts of wall street banks. Mr. Trump enthusiastically supported president obamas stimulus plan and said the only problem was it should have been bigger. I dont think we should have a massive payoff to lobbyists from taxpayers. And you want to demonstrate that youre willing to stand up. Trumps response is basically ted cruz is mean. Hes not engaged yet on the policy debate with ted cruz. I think theres a fascinating difference between the two. Theres a dimension of ideology, what do they believe. It includes policy or philosophical question. Theres no one more purely conservative than ted cruz. Then theres what david calls identity. Its a kind of approach to the establishment, a level of how confrontational are your politics, how willing are you to compromise. And thats where donald trump generally dominates. Cruz is pretty far along with that as well. But nobody is more confrontational as front. If people need to decide whether they prefer trump or cruz, cruz has a lot of policies in his program. Theres a huge sales tax. It would mean the lower and middle class paid much, much higher taxes than they are now. Donald trump, because he doesnt care that much about policy, he squirms his way to whatever he thinks is popular at that time. And so in that way, he is much more willing to try to target the median voter than cruz is, and that way might end up actually being more electable than cruz if republicans end up carrying about that more than they care about keeping trump off the top of their ticket. Lets listen to the calmest guy in the field talking about that temperamental ted cruz. When you talk about temperament, hes got a tough temperament. You cant call people liars on the senate floor when theyre your leader. Its not a good thing to do when you want to get the positive votes later on down. Ted is worried about his temperament and people are talking about his temperament. He has to be careful. You did hear the sentence, i havent talked about his temperament. That was the end of the paragraph. Sam stein, i havent talked about his temperament either. There, were even. Hes a terrible person. Not that i would say that. But ive heard. But this is again to piggy back on what my two esteemed copanelists have said, this is sort of quintessentially identity politics. Its visceral reaction. I would add one thing. When you talk to people who are in the establishment, whatever you want to call the establishment, lets say theyre Party Insiders among republicans, its part of the reason why youre starting to get a sense that theyre a little more comfortable with the idea of donald trump winning this thing. Than they are ted cruz. They think donald trump is ideological mallable. Hes basically worked in washington as a businessman before. He knows how it gets done. And so youre starting to see a bit of chatter, i would say, from establishment types saying okay, if it comes down to these two, we would probably prefer trump over cruz for precisely those reasons. Columnists today said cruz and trump are the worst thing that can happen to the Republican Party, but are you hearing what sam is hearing, if they were forced to choose, more types would go with trump because he doesnt actually mean anything . I dont know what establishment means any more. I think because people in washington know cruz better. There are some personal animosities that are maybe blinding them about what is the better choice. Notice something cruz did in that statement you quoted a minute ago. I think this gets to the problem. Ted cruz attacked president obamas stimulus and t. A. R. P. What Washington Republicans remember is that t. A. R. P. Was a president bush measure. A third of americans know that. About half of americans identify t. A. R. P. As an obama measure, but it was a bush measure. It was one of the most difficult votes that many, many republicans cast in their career. And many were unhappy about it. But it was something that they were leaned on to do, that they felt was necessary, and that probably did save the world from much more terrible recession than even the one that was experienced. They were on the line then. And here is ted cruz arriving from texas after its all over, condemning them and not even giving them the courtesy of acknowledging this was a republican bill done for republican reasons. Quick break here. Sam stein, thank you for joining us for the return of sarah palin. Thank you, sam. Gladly. Coming up, a new poll shows how republican president ial candidates are hurting the Republican Party. And in the rewrite tonight, how a dead man endorsed donald trump today. What john wayne and donald trump really have in common. And later, triumph, the insult comic dog is back on the campaign trail. He will join us live from the campaign trail in New Hampshire. [ music ] defiance is in our bones. Citracal pearls. Delicious berries and cream. 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Even the iranian officials who were our captors were amazed. They asked us, why is it that theyre working so hard for you . And i just say, well, thats america and they love their citizens. Up next, how the Republican Party has, according to one republican, accepted its own selfdestruction. Jake reese, day to feel alive jake reese, day to feel alive jake reese, day to feel alive hes got the guts to wear the issues that need to be spoken about and debated on his sleeve. Whereas the rest of some of these establishment candidates want to duck and hide. They didnt want to talk about these issues until he brought them up. In fact, theyve been wearing this Political Correctness kind of like a suicide vest. And enough is enough. These issues that donald trump talks about had to be debated. And he brought them to the forefront, and thats why we are where we are today, with good discussion, a good, heated and very competitive primary is where we are. That was the point in the speech where donald trump was getting really tired up there. A new poll shows the frufrp agenda is not helping the Republican Party, unlike what sarah palin just said. 42 of the registered voters say what they have seen, read and heard during the republican nominating process has made them feel less favorable toward the Republican Party compared with 19 , only 19 who said it made them feel more favorable toward the Republican Party. Joining us now, e. J. Dionne and msnbc political analyst. Hes the author of the timely new book, why the right went wrong. And back with us, ezra klein and david frum. This happens to be what your new book is about, that section of sarah palins speech. And that poll showing this isnt whats working for republicans. We have david brooks in the New York Times today and his column saying he rarely has a party so passively accepted its own selfdestruction. He said nominating either ted cruz or donald trump would lead to a party decimating general election, just to wipe out the republicans. E. J. , how did it come to this . You now have 30 seconds. Okay. Somebody tweeted tonight that i have arranged pay lips endorsement of trump as a brilliant marketing ploy from the launch of new book. I want to categorically deny that. The Republican Party since goldwater has shed all of the elements of who might have seen who stood up against this tide towards trump and cruz. There used to be a lot of liberal republicans, if you remember. Now most of the moderates have left the republican primary electorate. It was a very long process. Now when the socalled establishment types, and i agree with dpaifd, its not clear what that means anymore, when theyre looking around for votes to stop this, those voters arent in the party anymore. They embraced ir rationalism in the tea party period. A lot of republicans are now complaining correctly that trump or cruz would be a dpi saser for the party. David frum in my book wrote back in 2014 for the past five years said the american right veered towards a reactionary radicalism unlike anything seen in america in many years. And now youre seeing that fully play out. Is this the way you expected it to play out. Ive been writing about this for a while. Weve had extraordinary neglect by the former leadership of the Republican Party the autopsy that said theres nothing wrong with taking away the medicare guarantee for people under 55. Nothing wrong with not having a wage agenda, the only thing thats wrong is the party needed to undo the one thing the big governors never liked anyway, which is mitt romneys noises about immigration. That unsurprisingly triggered a rebellion. Do you agree with e. J. s tracings of this over the arc of time that has led to where we are now. The Republican Party has been in a cycle for years now. Of course you cant do any harm there and she becomes a free radical in the party. They sort of indulged the tea party into the establishment and then it overruns the establishment. And john boehner is gone and ted cruz is leading in the polls. Remember, mitt romney flying to accept Donald Trumps endorsement during the 2012 campaign. It was another guy of celebrity, rich, can donate money, can get some attention in the media. They thought they could bring him just enough in the party and he was able to storm through the gates. The insurgents are too deep into the city center and theres no establishment left to fight. I dont know if theres a power to be able to do it at all even if they were capable of mobilizing. The recommendation that there was somehow an establishment that could band together and do something about this. E. J. , did you find that establishment in going out there and researching this book . They wrote a very important piece called establishment tea. And essentially what they argued is that in order to hold power in the party, the establishment had essentially gone over to the tea partys views, parroting their views. They were kind of celebrating it as a kind of party unity, but i think youre seeing the kooss now. One of my favorite john f. Kennedy quotes is from his inaugural address where he said he who rides to power on the back of the tiger usually ends up inside. And that is exactly what has happened to the Republican Leadership now. The funny thing is if you go all the way back to the goldwater period, there were people after goldwater won the nomination and conservatives essentially took over the Republican Party who asked the same questions david brooks asked in his column. Why arent they fighting. Why didnt we do anything . This has been a moderate conservative refrain for 50 years. And no less an establishmentarian mockingly tweeted today the return of sarah palin. This is a talent scout that went up to alaska and discovered her and david frum came back with this very possible report. Shes a star, we have to elevate her. He pushed her towards where we are now. I remember 2008 when i caught the rumor. I watched then their three hours of sarah palin video available on youtube. I watched them. And i was alarmed. And wrote about it in 2008. But, you know, david brook, hes a good friend, a wise person. But what could the establi