Everybody else in the field will look back, including Chris Christie who famously said, dont worry, my time is coming to attack donald trump. I heard him say that. It doesnt seem like it was that long ago. All right, Washington Post newsroom. Well have to take a pause. Well do it. All right, ruth, chris, jennifer, i appreciate it. Well be back monday, mtp daily sunday, meet the press on your local nbc station and coming up right now, with all due respect. Im john helemann. And im mark halperin. With all due respect to everything else. Texas, im here to proudly say im endorsing donald trump for president of the United States. Dallas texas, where everything, including endorsements is bigger. This has been a very dramatic
day on the campaign trail. Where to start . How about with this huge and surprising endorsement, former new jersey, christiec todd wittman, backing donald trump. Fort worth, announced his own new jersey endorsement, governor Chris Christie. Why would a high profile member of the establishment throw his support now behind donald j. Trump. Here is how christie explained his decision. I am proud to be here to endorse donald trump for president of the United States. We sat down family. Do we want to play any role in the campaign, or not. I concluded, along with mary pat and the children support it, that we wanted to be with the person that could provide the strongest leadership for america and the person that could best make sure that Hillary Clinton never gets within ten mielles o the white house. It was clear, the only choice was donald trump. The best choice was donald trump. The last thing is, our family is
one that prides loyalty. And the fact is, weve been good presents with donald and his family for many years. I dont send smoke signals. Im endorsing the person i believe is the best person to defeat Hillary Clintonc and restore american jobs, restore american prestige around the world, and restore the faith and confidence of the American People again. We are an exceptional and great nate e nation. Were going to breakdown the extraordinary tag Team Press Conference late near the program. But nor, why did Chris Christie do the endorsement and how does it change the republican race . All right, we have a lot of time to talk about this mark. Well have a start with the first part. Why . Chris christie has made it clear throughout the race that he thought the freshmen centers, ted cruz, marco rubio are not ready to be president , and cant beat Hillary Clinton. That kind of ruled them out as endorsements, especially since
christie took rubio out in the debate. John kasich and donald trump, and i think Chris Christie quite reasonably looked at the race and said im going to back the winner, the most likely republican nominee and the row hibt prohibitive favorite. Who in some ways is similar to executive experience and on somc issues. I also think temperamentally, he is like me, a brawler, political beast. And he stands the best chance of beating Hillary Clinton as he said in the press conference and thats the guy he wanted to be paired up with. This is an extraordinary event. I was in the room when christie endorsement was unveiled. They kept it a secret until they walked inside by side. Almost a silence and then kind of a gasp in the room. When you think about it, its not surprising. Theyre friends. Chris christie is one of the calculators in the party. I he thinks the chance for
anyone else is small. You get on board. I think revolutionizes the race, i dont think anyone else now can go into super tuesday with momentum, barring some huge event. Christie confers a huge amount of credibility within the establishment, a huge amount of momentum and a lot of other establishment types on board. Maybe not between now and super tuesday, but if trump does as well as i think he will, christie will have been on the ground floor of what is going to bec a flood of endorsements. Right, you know, christie is already out trying to wrestle them up. I think, look, theyre both republicans. A lot of conservatives dont like donald trump. They dont like christie for the same reasons. I think youre right about the revolutionary nature of this. A guy who has been making the argument now for some number of days that the establishment had to get behind him, coalesce
behind him and now one of the biggest figures has not only got behind marco rubio, leading the march into the column for donald trump. It totally blows his political rationale and what he was trying to set out to do between now and march 15th or so when florida votes. Bad for rubio, bad for john kasich as well, the only g governor in the race saying i choose trump over kasich. Think people will speculate about these guys being a ticket, the model of clinton gore tweeming up. Coming andc making a strong te. Northeastern tough guys. If i were Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, i would be worried about running against trump christie ticket. Theyre potentially very potent. It would be a lot of speculation about that already. You know, we both tried oy not
indulge in that too much. It will be unconventional in the same kind of way that donald trump has run his whole campaign. Yeah, all right. Before the christie bombshell, everybody in the political world thought this day would be driven through the news cycle by what marco rubio said this morning. At an event in dallas, he followed up on his aggressive debate performance, pulled the gloves off and ridiculed mr. Trumps tweets, his backstage makeover and a lot more. Grab your personal water bottle, because were going to play it at length. Its time to pull his mask off so that people can see what we are dealing with here. What we are dealing with chere my friends, are a con artist. He is is a con artist. What has donald trump do when things go wrong, he takes to twi twitter. Lets read some. Youll have fun. All right, number one, here is
the first one. Lightweight marco rubio was working hard last night. This is true. The problem is, he is a chalker. And once a chalker, always a choker, i guess thats what he meant to say. He spelled choker chalker. He called me mr. Meltdown. Let me tell you something, last night in the debate during one of the breaks, two of the breaks, he went backstage, he was having a meltdown. First, he had this little makeup thing applying, like makeup around his mustache, because he had one of those sweat mustaches, then he asked for a fulllength mirror, i dont know why. But he wanted a fulllength mirror. Maybe to make sure his pants werent wet. I dont know. Then so as i suggested, on any other day in this race, that
here is what trump said. He is not president ial material that. That i can tell you. He doesnt have the demeanor. He is a nervous nellie. I watch him backstage. He is a mess. A total mess. You know, i joked recently about can you imagine putin sitting there waiting for a meeting and he walks in and totally drenched. I dont know what it is. Ive never seen a human being sweat like this man sweats. All right, thats not all. Moments later, after trump and christie took after him in the press conference, the two tough guys held a joint rally, and honestly, i thought he was going to die, rubio. He was so scared, like a little frightened puppy. And he kept saying the obama c
phrase, over and. So then i heard it once. And i said thats fine. Big deal. Im standing here. He is right here. Chris is over here. And chris was sort of cool, because he was like this. I couldnt do that. I wanted to stand up straight, i dont know. But this looked like peri mason. Thats what it was. And chris started going into him. So he said the obama phrase once, that was fine. Twice, i said he just said that. That was strange. But thats okay, right. Twice. Then a third time. And i said, it was like a robot. And then a fourth time and fifth time, i said this guy is cracking up on us. And he was sweating so badly, i have never seen anything like it. It looked like he just jumped into a Swimming Pool with his clothing on. Here is what we dont need. We dont need another washington politician in the white house, do we . Do we need a first term united
states senator in the white house . Do we need a United States state aj let me tell something to marco rubio. President of the United States is not a no show job, like you treated the United States senate. Its rubio. Trump has been in a lot of fights obviously, but rubio versus trump is already pretty incredible, and at this point, who is winning . I dont want to mark, i want to pause for a moment. Its not incredible. Its like oh, my god, oh mierks god, oh my god. The nuttest thing. The whackiest thing. I thought rubio was great last night on the debate stage. I wondered what effect it would have on trump. This morning, rubio performance that he gave, i thought rubio was funnier and more loose,
almost on a roll. Then you see the nasty. When he is in full wrecking ball mode, it was an unprecedented take down on rubio. He is, you might call him a thug, youc might call him a bully, you might like it when he does it, but when he goes into full attack dog mode, stand back. He took marco rubio and tore him to shreds. Thank goodness another Republican Debate next week, because assuming marco rubio and donald trump are both still in the race, its going to be fascinating to see them on the stage. My hats off to rubio in the sense that he kept at it. I think the problem with his attacks in the debate and attack today is he is not driving a frame on trump. You know, saying that the guy is, you know, he said a million things about him. His phrase using, slipping my mind, con artist, saying he is a con artist, i get where he is coming from on that, but he is not really restricting himself to that. He is raising all sorts of other issues. You know, i think its fair to
say that rubio looked at his chances of doing well on super tuesday, look where he stood in florida and decided he needed to radically shape up the race with a stand up routine. Right. Here is the thing about trump. Weve talked about a hundred times before. Part of the reason he is powerful when going negative, c offense, is because he finds something that really resonates in very simple, third grade level with everybody. Calling jeb bush a low energy candidate. Thats thats thats on the money. Calling cruz a liar. With rubio, its basically is he a small, lightweight guy. A baby, right. One of the things thats true about rubio, questions about whether he has the experience. Trump takes that one nugget of real critique and then blows it out and makes it cartoonish, and makes it effective, because it rings a bell of resne. Trump has had a lot of strength in his campaign. He hasnt had heavyweight surrogates. A few spokes people, but not a lot of people that could command the national stage, the way john snunan did. He has a specialty in that has trump was, so i suspect while trump will certainly not need backup, you know, on any given day, there are times when it would be greatc for trump to l christie go out and hit rubio. I suspect if rubio is in the race for the next couple of weeks you will see that happen. When we come back, the lines of attack against donald trump. Which ones might work, after this. Y back pain i couldnt sleep. So i couldnt get up in time. Then i found aleve pm. Aleve pm is the only one to combine a sleep aid plus the 12 hour pain relieving strength of aleve. And now. Im back. Aleve pm for a better am. Fill you with optimism . Presentation then you might be gearcentric. Right now, get 25 back in rewards on hp ink, toner, and paper office depot officemax. Gear up for great ®. Whfight back fastts tums smoothies starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue and neutralizes stomach acid at the source tum, tum, tum, tum smoothies only from tums
marco rubio and ted cruz hurled attack after attack after attack at donald trump at the debate in houston. There were some new attacks and classic oldies. The list of them included that
donald trump defrauded students at his business seminars, that he hired Foreign Workers to build his hotels, and that he wouldnt be successful without getting a lot of money from his father. Mitt romney continued trolling the donald on twitter last night, after trump said he wouldnt release his tax returns under going an audit. Romney tweeted, quote, at real donald trump, cant release returns while being audited, but if scared, release earlier returns. In another tweet, more hashtag bombshells where he should release them. Trying out different things, trying to figure out what sticks. Which of the lines raised last night and the tax return line, which is raised last night and by romney, could actually do damage if picked up by the press against donald trump . Well, i think the tax return line, the taxes thing is actually, to cme, the one thats most promising, right. Both because it has mitt romney
as a high profile advocate of that line, and romney can speak from a certain kind of experience about that. But also, because there really are questions. Questions of what is in those tax returns, questions of why trump, who is being so open with the press in so many ways, why so elusive about this. The irs says no reason he cant while under audit. Even if you believe, people wouldnt want to put their tax returns under those circumstances. Why cant he release past years. And the idea is trump says you dont learn something from someones tax returns is ridiculous. Wf . Tk[ this is a story the press understands. Not just from romney, but from tradition president ial campaigns going back and the press unders well enough and seized on it again and put pressure in this area. Trump was asked a couple of times today during the press conference about releasing past years and ignored the question. I suspect it will come up again
and hard to answer. The otherc thing that came up last night about this question about israel. He wants to remain neutral. Not a very popular position within the republican party. I think trump, this is one where i think trump is takingment position on the merits. No political upside to say it, but he is saying it, and i think to the extent there is something they can put him on the defensive, its that. Yeah, i think thats right. I think thats right. Again, to go to the return of the taxes, trump has made this argument that, you know, you couldnt really find these are not it is not a way to look at my net worth, you couldnt find anything. I thought it was ridiculous, and ill say why. Its true, your tax returns dont, even complicated, you cant determine someones net worth on that basis, but there is also the fact if you looked at enough of his returns, you could come to a pretty good idea about what kind of financial state he is in. And if it turns out that donald trump is not worth anything like
what he has claimed, he it could be a real problem for his credibility. The last thing ill say is this Foreign Worker thing, if there is real real substance to that charge and the press gets on top of that, that could also hurt him, because it could make him like the one thing he cant afford to look like, is a hypocrite. I disagree with what youre saying about tax returns. You have to go back a lot of years to flush that out. I believe the business stuff is not going to go any where. I dont think Trump Supporters will care. They can say all they want, bankruptcies, the vodka, et cetera, although he said he is still making the vodka for his clubs. The reality is he is a billionaire, whether its two or ten, he is a billionaire. People are not going to say he is unsuccessful. He gained the system, paid a low tax rate and he has been honest about that. Ive talked about how they want to stop trump. These are all things that could
do some damage and nick him, i dont think they could stop him. If theyre all over the map, they dont go other one unifying frame on him. Right. All right. Well see. The taxes go ahead. All right, when we come back we have to go to break, the democratic race in South Carolina, and more, after this word from our sponsors. It relies without raising Blood Pressure. So look for powerful Cold Medicine with a heart. Coricidin® hbp. Unless you have allergies. , then your eyes may see it differently. Only flonase is approved to relieve both itchy, watery eyes and congestion. No other nasal allergy spray ca. When we breathe in allergens our bodies react by over producing six key inflammatory substances that cause our symptoms. Most allergy pills only control one substance. Flonase controls six. And six is greater than one. Complete allergy relief or incomplete. Let your eyes decide. Flonase. 61 changes everything. That just tastes better. Fresher. More flavorful. Delicious. Only one egg with better nutrition. Like more vitamins d, e, and omega 3s. And 25 less saturated fat. Only one egg good enough for my family. Because why have ordinary when you can have the best. Egglands best. The only egg that gives you so much more better taste. Better nutrition. Better eggs. 80 but up to 90 fall short in getting key nutrients from food alone. Lets do more. Add one a day womens 50 complete multivitamin. With vitamin d and calcium to help support bone health. One a day. Eve of the South Carolina primary, the entire Clinton Family in the state trying to run up the score anticipating a huge win when the polls close tomorrow at 7 00 p. M. Eastern time. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders who spoke at the university of chicago last night, hitting clinton harder than ever. I just wanted to take a moment to talk a little bit about some of the differences that she and i have on some important issues. I am very proud to tell you i do not have a super pac. I do not receive many millions of dollars from wall street. And i have not given speeches forc hundreds of thousands of dolla dollars for wall street. We raise our Campaign Funds very differently. I voted against the war. My opponent, secretary clinton, voted for the war. Back in 1996, gay rights was not all that popular. I voted against this homophobic legislation. Secretary clinton, then supported it. Sanders is going to be in sak campaigning this evening, but he wont be in the