was there was blood pouring out of her eyes and there was blood -- then i said, you know what? i want to get on to the next sentence because, frankly, i don't have to talk about the blood coming out of her earors nose, a very common statement.w let's go. i got onto the next statement. then all of a sudden the next day i wake up and i hear that somebody took it as something else. only a deviant would think that. i went to worton school of business. i don't talk that way. >> here we go. >> welcome to "morning joe." we're back here in new york city. top of the hour. with us on set, we have mike halperin and we have kristen back on board. kasie hunt is coming up. a lot to talk about. i want to start the morning with getting your sentence of where things stand right now with the

whole political campaign and the donald trump factor. >> i said it on wednesday or thursday. the world is upside down. the political world is upside down. and you have donald trump who is sort of this madhatter of american politics. he may be mad but he's driving everybody else in this process mad, too. or at least driving them wildly off their game in a way that feeds right into his strengths. take "the washington post." mark halperin, i'm going to be talking now about people whom i love and respect. papers that i love and respect. journalists that i love and respect. but this is a diagnosis the mainstream media better pick up

on fast because they're getting it wrong time and time again. "the washington post" wrote an article yesterday morning where you could cut and paste the gop establishment names and the quotes and the predictions of donald trump's imminent doom from the identical john mccain story that they wrote two, three weeks ago. two or three sundays ago. identical. they go to lindsey graham to predict that donald trump's campaign is going to end. i mean, we talked about this. we could not believe the headline. >> "wall street journal" today same idea saying this is it. trump's demise is finally coming. they rely on the chief executive of the conservative group concerned women for america as their expert to say this is it.

this shows you trump is about to decline. >> this is not even going to the substance of the remarks, which we'll get to in a second. how many times are they going to predict the imminent decline of donald trump. >> you have these conservative activists who want trump to decline. you have 2016 candidates who want trump to decline. and the media as you say, some people we like and respect who just seem to have decided they want to write his obituary now. >> let's go to "the new york times" and "the new york times" lead yesterday and now we get on a little -- >> perfect morning television topic. >> it's disgusting. just to talk about it this early. there was a stunning lead in "the new york times" yesterday morning that stated as fact that donald trump was talking about megyn kelly's menstruation cycle. i talked to people that happened

to see it live. some people that you know very well. some people in media. some people out of media. i have yet to talk to one person live -- i sure didn't get the e-mails. i sure didn't get the texts. when they saw it said my gosh, donald trump is talking about megyn kelly's menstruation cycle. but yet by the next morning it was a stated fact. >> in the lead. >> that that's what he was talking about. again, assume the worst of trump if you want to assume the worst of trump. if you know what he was thinking, if you want to say after he told that very bad joke about john mccain, and then say for five days that he doubted his war hero status when he called him a war hero 15 times, you can do it. we're not here carrying donald trump's brief. we're not here defending donald trump but the media is jumping

to conclusions that feed into donald trump's supporters worst beliefs about the media that assume the very worst and write it as if that's the case and you only help donald trump. >> that all said, and let's -- we can't resolve what was in donald trump's mind when he made that comment. >> you would agree that editors should not write it as lead that that is what donald trump is talking about because you don't know, i don't know, they don't know what was in his head. >> we don't know. let's look at it this way. do you think sitting here today on monday morning 3 1/2 days or whatever it is since that debate, do you think donald trump is in better shape than he was 3 1/2 days ago or in worst shape? >> i think after being on the sunday news shows and once again you have media overreacting and republican establishment in washington overreacting and iron triangle, i think he's probably

in as good of shape. i know this, it wasn't donald trump who was hurt by the debate. it was jeb bush who was hurt by the debate. it was scott walker who was hurt by the debate. it was the republican establishment that was hurt by the debate. look at people that went up. add up donald trump's numbers, ben carson's numbers, and ted cruz's numbers. you're approaching 50% of three guys who are just anti-washington. who was the bigge efgest winner? probably carly fiorina. >> she was. it's not just the media. there is a whole list of entities that have not only taken just a side at donald trump but aimed at him and they misfired and it's not just the media, it's elite circles, it's fox news itself, it's the republican party. they've all completely overreached and what they need to be looking at is not donald

trump but the mood of the country. >> by the way, let's just state i think donald trump did a terrible job on the debate thursday night. i think most of us did. he bumbled through questions. he should have been better prepared. i thought it was a bad night for him. it is though the media overreacting to donald trump that once again feeds into donald trump. i saw a quote that i think i sent to you. only the republican establishment and mainstream media by overreaching could make one of the biggest bullies in america a sympathetic figure. and speaking of which, let's talk about my friends at fox news. i don't know megyn kelly that well. i can't have anymore respect for the three and for chris wallace. i just love bret.

i love him. known him a long time. he's a great guy. let's talk about that for a second and overreaction of that. priebus decided to -- things are changing really quickly this network but a year ago, never. i understand that. but the idea was to get news outlets that would ask legitimate questions about policy instead of gotcha questions. there wasn't a single question asked of the republican front runner that dealt with jobs, that dealt with iran, that dealt with isis, that dealt with the economy at large, that dealt with foreign policy. you had three questions. first one was -- i was stunned. i guess you told me rush limbaugh talked about this for a long time.

the first question was on donald trump's insult of rosie o'donnell and his insults of reality show contestants. were they crude and crass? yes. would i ever say it? no. would any republican candidate say it? no. that's your first question and then the next question was asking this billionaire about four deals that failed and then the third was really a political speech that was veiled as a question with a zinger at the end saying tell me when did you become a republican? i thought this is what we as republicans were trying to avoid. people that used front runners as theater and it was political theater on thursday night starting with the first question. >> a lot of the questions they did ask about the iran deal at one point.

that's the only foreign policy they did ask about. a lot of people criticized not just rush limbaugh for talking about the war on women and for trying to take down the front runner as you said in a theatrical way. he could have handled it better. there is someone coming to his defense though. >> who is that. >> the north koreans on their twitter account. that's a strong coalition. they went after him and he didn't do all that well. i think you and i agree, mika probably agrees, i don't know about steve, he's still standing and he's still being defiant and if he's so weak, the question i have this morning is why isn't any republican just overtaking him? if it's such a strong field and he's so weak, why is it that they can't get traction in the

polls? why can't they move up? >> following my twitter feed yesterday throughout the day when there was a poll showing donald trump in first place comfortably again. it was as if there was a disconnect from the republican establishment and the mainstream media and the candidates, this iron triangle that you're talking about. and i'm not sitting here saying he debated well. i'm not saying he would be a good president. i'm not saying that he doesn't say offensive things all the time. i'm not saying that at all. i'm just saying this denial of reality by the mainstream media is actually feeding into donald trump's strength. when you see leads that state as fact things that should only be stated as fact on the opinion page because we don't know. you see the same story written over and over again talking about donald trump's imminent demise, it's just feeding in

again to his strength and that's a lot of people that would say that's not good for the republican party and not good for american politics. >> we'll talk about it more. i thought the question about women was fraught with lots of different problems all around for him and for the whole scene actually. >> what was wrong with the question about women? >> nothing was wrong except for you have to make sure that, you know, would fox news not love to put their hosts on "the apprenti apprentice" it's like asking howard stern -- he's a performer. these are comments taken from his show. i would have rather found some other things that might have been disturbing if there are any, and i don't know of any, where he said something serious about women. that shows what his policies would reflect. >> why would you not ask him a question about jobs?

how do you get america back to work? why would you not ask him questions about isis? i'm not talking about you. >> i don't necessarily disagree with you about that debate and what should or shouldn't have been asked but donald trump has been asked those questions in other places and he doesn't answer them. trust me. >> all the more reason to ask at the debate. >> i think that's what i don't understand because he was weak on policy. so if they were so busy trying to play gotcha like liberals usually do with conservatives, that they couldn't see past the end of their nose that the way to get donald trump is to ask him about policy on iraq. how do you balance sunnis and shias and what's the biggest problem bringing kurds into -- >> equal pay. contraception. >> instead this was the sort of

thing and the questions that the moderators asked were questions that if asked by a broadcast network or any other network other than fox news, the reaction would have been so volcanic that conservatives would all together be trashing those networks and the mainstream media for months to come, which brings up a much bigger point and we'll go to this poll. the whole idea people out there cheering is fox news going to win this or donald trump going to win this? no. this is not a zero sum game. fox news wins when it's fox news and the conservative movement against the world. against liberal bias. against media bias. you now have 25% of the republican party. you now have the gop front runner at war with fox news. now, i think that's not smart for the republican front runner.

i would never do it in a million years. that's what i'm saying. they're going to make up and the reason they're going to make up is because at the end of the day it's about business. roger said that when he attacked msnbc one of numerous times. it's about what's good television and bad television. donald trump brought in 24 million people to watch this debate. fox news knows that. it's not good having megyn kelly out front who is the new superstar. she's the superstar over there. it gets amazing numbers. she is just a talent who is extraordinarily important to them. she doesn't need to be at war with the front runner and playing victim. she's not playing victim. but people say she should play victim. no. that's not good for fox. it's not good to have the conservative base split. it's not good for the republican party. that's one other thing that my son said last night over dinner. he said they're just dividing

the party. they're just inviting donald trump to run as an independent. somebody out there has to have the sense to try to bring everybody together. >> the demographics of fox news leadership is in line with what trump is talking about on policy. >> despite controversy and headlines, a new poll finds donald trump is still on top with republican voters. an nbc survey poll shows trump with 23% ten points ahead of senator ted cruz. ben carson, carly fiorina, and senator marco rubio make up the top five. >> who is missing? >> jeb bush. >> that's stunning to me. >> and by the way, scott walker. >> the two people that were national front runners look like establishment candidates. look again at the top. actually the top four people in the republican party. this is a headline, not donald

trump, not comments on friday night on cnn, the top four. that is your national headline. >> three of whom never held elected office. >> the fourth has been running against the republican party from the second he started running for senate in 2010. >> there are questions raised about this poll. it was a surveymonkey poll. it's not from a group across america. it's from a group people respond to surveymonkey polls -- >> we can have chuck todd who talked about this. they were the most effective pollsters in the british races and have a great track record. and chuck todd spent most of yesterday talking about their success. >> in your heart of hearts, do you seriously think that's the lineup right now in terms of who is where? >> could be. >> the poll is good news for cruz and fiorina. more than one in five voters say

fiorina won the debate with trump not far behind. fiorina says fund-raising has increased after her performance and she's confident she will soon become a top tier candidate. >> i would also remind you that at this time in previous presidential elections, the polls, pundits and money said that jimmy carter couldn't win. ronald reagan couldn't win. bill clinton couldn't win and barack obama couldn't win. the truth is this race has just gotten started and game on. we're going to talk to as many people as we can through every medium there is. i will continue to do what i've done from day one. i'll answer any question. i'll talk to anyone. i'm not afraid to talk about anything. the more people get to know me, the more people support me. that's what we're going to keep doing. >> meanwhile, donald trump came in second in the poll for who won the debate. he's also topped the poll for who lost it. nearly 30% said donald trump. 14% believe senator rand paul did the worst followed by jeb

bush and 54% of trump supporters say they would still vote for him even he ran as an independent candidate. i want your thoughts before we go to break on all of this including these poll results. >> the best analogy i ever heard to describe this whole donald trump phenomenon is reality tv analogy that he's the character on the show that is kind of the villain that everybody loves to hate but the producers want to keep him around because he makes for great television. what i think you saw over the weekend is producers deciding maybe it's time to get this character off the show. that's what you've seen a bit with this feud with fox. eric erickson at the red state gathering, uninvited trump from a major gathering of conservative activists and a lot of activists there were okay with this and this may have been the point -- i don't think this is the thing that pushes him too far. frankly it's weird that we're so focused about this question about blood and i'm more

concerned about him retweet of calling women bimbos. i'm also not donald trump's intended demographic. i'm not the person he's trying to win over. i think joe may be right. i think of the 23% or so that support trump, i think some of it may have been people who they just like that he's ticking off the establishment and they don't care what he says because they are just sort of blind to the reality that he's probably not going to be commander in chief. they just like that he's causing trouble. >> all right. coming up on "morning joe," presidential candidate donald trump will join us and breaking news on the anniversary of all of the unrest in ferguson, gunshots fired. one person shot. three police officers injured. we'll go live to missouri. is chuck schumer's shot at leading democrats on the line? we remember football and television legend frank gifford who suddenly passed away over

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if you haven't heard, i disinvited donald trump. i've got my wife here. i've got my daughter here. i've got 800 friends of mine here. it's a family friendly program. if he's not going to clarify this isn't what he meant, i don't think i want him at at my event. >> i don't think those were all cheers. what do you think? >> i think this is a great example of how this is not in the best interest of the republican party, conservative movement, fox news, anybody that wants to see a republican elected in 2016. eric is a friend of mine. been a friend of mine for a long time. so he obviously saw something -- i don't know if he saw it live but we saw something in that friday night clip that a lot of people that i saw that watch it

didn't. it's just another example of there's this division. when you have rush limbaugh attacking fox news and you have fox people seeming to go into different corners, again, this is a dustup. think it's a dustup that has to be cleaned up because it's in everybody's best interest on the right. >> everyone is trying to get their take on it. the candidates' words should speak for themselves. let's bring in kasie hunt. what was the reaction at the red state gathering? >> mika and joe, i would say if donald trump is the madhatter, the red state gathering was a lot like wonderland. it was supposed to be a chance for conservative candidates to shine but it turned out to be next to impossible. >> i'm pretty sure not a single person in the debate stood up and said i'm an establishment moderate squish. i stand for nothing. have you noticed that they run

as us. >> this group of conservative activists would usually be ted cruz's crowd. >> god bless red state. >> like everything else in the gop race right now, the red state gathering turned into donald trump's show even without him there. >> i don't want my daughter in the room with donald trump tomorrow night so he's not invited. >> on stage, jeb bush called on trump to apologize. >> do we want to win? do we want to insult 53% of all voters? >> many conservative activists think trump has taken things too far. >> what he said was just over the top. i can see him as president picking up that red phone saying he wasn't nice to me. you can bomb him now. >> you can't act like a spoiled child and throw a temper tantrum and say what you want to. >> erick erickson took to the podium to read from the avalanche of e-mails he received from angry trump supporters. >> i've had e-mails referring to

me as gay and donald trump is standing up to all of us. shame on you. she very clearly was on her period. he's a great american. f you. >> in the room, trump had plenty of defenders. i'm a woman. we're playing into the hands of political correctness when we silence someone. >> i wish the other candidates would take his attitude of being who they are instead of being who everybody wants them to be. >> that sentiment might help explain why some of trump's opponents refused to denounce him. >> should donald trump apologize to megyn kelly? >> i'll have to leave that up to him. >> was it right to ban donald trump from this conference? >> that's the decision that red state made. there's plenty of people that can talk about donald trump. i'm the only person that can talk about what mike huckabee is doing running for president. >> and huckabee is not the only one who feels that way.

marco rubio in an interview with chuck todd over the weekend said that he was going to stop commenting on what donald trump had to say because he would spend all of his time talking about donald trump if that was the case. >> kasie hunt, nice job. thank you very much. >> mark, i was just looking at that package there. i've been saying what the establishment has been doing in media by overreaching, i'll be the first to say i don't get it. i have been saying for some time the political world is upside down. it's remarkable that you have all of these candidates all of these mainstream candidates that can get no oxygen. rand paul, marco rubio, down the list. they can't get oxygen. >> again, presidential campaigns are about challenges. the challenge now for all of these candidates how to succeed and how to be ready to take on trump and in case trump ends up falling, i don't see any of them doing anything but trying to avoid the problems. you see jeb bush or somebody take him on. this is the challenge currently

facing the other 16 candidates who's rising to the occasion. i don't see anybody doing it right now. >> let's turn to breaking news in ferguson, missouri, where demonstrations turned violent overnight. news cameras were rolling when the gunshots rang out. >> this is a good area to be in. you can step over here. >> get down! >> there's a million shots going off. >> we got to go. >> get down! >> anybody hit? anybody hit? >> we're okay. we're okay. we're okay. >> what did you guys hear? what happened? >> a lot of shots. a lot of gunshots.

we just ran back here immediately. >> people were running before the shots were fired. it wasn't even just that. >> how many shots do you think you heard? >> a ton. at least 15 to 20. >> one man is in critical condition shot by officers multiple times after officials say he opened fire on an unmarked police vehicle. the department tweeted out photos showing at least two unmarked police cars with bullet holes. three officers were injured. two pepper sprayed by protesters and plenty of other tense moments overnight. at one point officers deployed tear gas to break up the crowds. a photo journalist was assaulted and robbed in a nearby parking lot and had to be hospitalized. nbc's ron allen joins us live from ferguson with the latest. ron? >> reporter: good morning, mika. it was absolutely stunning night because things had been so

peaceful here during the weekend and in the days leading up to the anniversary of the michael brown shooting at the hand of darren wilson. it happened not right where protesters were squaring off with police but down the street. out of nowhere. nobody could get a fix of where it was coming from and where it was going. police would say that it started off as two groups of gunmen targeting each other, undetermined amount of people. and there were plain clothes officers near them because they were tracking some of these suspects. the police believe that and have said for a long time that there is a criminal element out there that seems intent on disrupting peace here and blame them for what happened last night and for problems here a long time ago as well and they're apparently back out on the streets. they were targeting and tracking one individual or several in the crowd. there was a bit of a chase.

again, the suspect fired back at them. the detectives opened fire killing that individual who is now in the hospital in critical condition and what they described as unstable condition after surgery. here's how the chief of the st. louis county police described the suspect. >> while this is a tragedy for the family of this man and certainly for the officers involved and it is truly a tragedy, there is a small group of people out there that are intent on making sure that we don't have peace that prevails. i don't know how else to say that. that's just the bottom line on this. and that's unfortunate. >> reporter: the question is where does ferguson go from here? there has been a lot of work over the past year and a lot of groups trying to move this community forward and now the concern is whether last night moves it a big step backwards. back to you guys. >> ron allen, thank you. we'll be following that. coming up, the must read opinion

pages. who oddsmaker are now favoring in the race for 2016. keep it here on "morning joe." how much protein does your dog food have?

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it's 36 past the hour. online prediction markets, steve, where is safe money today when it comes to the republican race for president? >> well, what's interesting is that the online prediction markets are open 24/7. it's possible during this whole period of commotion since thursday night to actually track what's been going on among the various candidates and so we'll give you a little bit of a before and after and show you according to betting markets who won the debate and who lost the debate and where everybody stands. you can see that the big losers were scott walker and donald trump. we can agree with that or not. jeb bush was a smaller loser. and then you can look at the winners and you can see winners were marco rubio who had a huge jump almost equal to scott market in these marke walker in these markets. and john kasich had a good night

and carly fiorina had quite a good night. when you look at the overall situation, the market believes that jeb bush notwithstanding everything else that's been said is still far and away the front runner among the republicans but that scott walker and marco rubio are now the two who are closest to vying for second place in that world. >> so now i see that carly fiorina jumped. i notice on friday's show she had the most google searches of anybody during the debate across the country. she generated a lot of interest. i think jeb bush is an interesting story here. it feels like from watching the debate that he didn't get a lot of the buzz. >> jeb and scott walker. if you look at the poll that came out, you look at other indicators, it looked like jeb and scott walker had problems and while we're talking about that, i'm curious what your take is on -- you talk about

millennials is a good bet, what were millennials thinking about -- i ask this as a guy that probably had 100% pro life rating when i was in congress. what do they make of a guy that is even against abortion where the life of the mother is at risk. i mean, no exceptions, no nothing. and marco has been struggling to clarify his position because it seemed like marco and scott both were against abortion even in the case of rape, incest, life of the mother, marco has been trying to clean that up. >> with marco's case it was more about rape and incest than the life of the mother. the fact that we're having the debate is troubling. public opinion shows if you ask people a four part question do you think abortion should be legal in all cases, no cases and legal in most cases, illegal in

most cases, people cluster in the middle. they don't think it should be an all or nothing proposition. this may not affect the primary but if one of the men become a nominee it may have an effect in the general. to your question about scott walker and jeb bush, both of them had just okay performances. as you mentioned, it was hard for anybody to get oxygen. both of them went into the debate just trying not to lose to make it out alive and not say anything because you knew that donald trump was going to be this wild card on the stage. i think for them they were just looking for kind of survive and i think that they did that. >> maybe the answer to this is obvious. you say that being opposed to abortion even in cases of rape and incest could be a problem in the general election. why? >> i think in part because the way they view it is are you using abortion as a form of birth control. there's another study that asks people do you think abortion should be legal in six different

circumstances? ones are things like mother doesn't want to raise a child. the mother can't really -- already has kids of her own. people tend to not think that's acceptable. when it's not being used as a form of birth control and something where there is a threat to the life of the mother, or something that was sort of outside of her control is when people feel a little more open to the idea that perhaps there should be openings in the law for this. i think that's why you see this big debate over exceptions and where should the line be drawn. i don't think most americans are at either extreme. frankly, we've been talking a lot about the republican side of this. hillary clinton hasn't been totally pushed on it as well about where she thinks the line could be drawn. i think that could wind up to extent she ever gets asked that question, could wind up being very interesting as it plays out in politics of the democratic party as well. >> it's important to remember it was four years ago at this exact time that rick santorum said

things about contraception he had to play down the rest of the campaign. >> and turned off a lot of republican women. >> yeah. very conservative pro-life republican women and i guarantee you there are a lot of conservative pro-life women right now that are scratching their heads saying, wait a second, not even an exception for life of the mother? >> scott walker's answer to that question put him in a different place. >> bush supporters think this will be a huge electability issue. >> the world will be lucky to go 70 years without another hiroshima and iran may not be the next nuclear threat and he joins us next to tell us which country is.

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i would say that what we can do is summarize it as a tradeoff. consistent with what general hayden said, the agreement places significant limits on what iran is permitted to do in the nuclear sphere for 10 to 15 years but these limits even if respected in full come at a steep price. >> that was impressive. >> that was halfway through the speech he took off his shoe. >> i missed that part. >> before we get to richard quickly, so we're talking about -- we're trying to sort through marco rubio and his position on these abortion exceptions. someone from his campaign e-mailed me saying he supports exception for life of the mother. if you look at the language he used in "meet the press," he said that exception makes sense to him but he's been hard to

nail down would be a polite way to say it on these exceptions. >> it would be great if he or his campaign would say what is his preference and not what he supports in individual legislation but what's his preference as to what the law should be. >> yes or no. he won't say that. >> scott walker is now on record as saying he doesn't support any of those exceptions. says that's the intellectually consistent position. there are bush supporters who believe this will be a hard position. john mccain, mitt romney, george w. bush, all of them support it. >> as an attorney that's spent a lot of time reading case law and looking through depositions and dissecting language, i can tell you i have read what marco said about the exceptions and he is talking in circles. he is running around in circles. they need to clarify that. >> we'll get back to a lot of these debate related topics as well. onto iran, richard, let's talk about senator chuck schumer and his future as next leader of

senate democrats could be in jeopardy baecause of his opposition to the iran nuclear deal. they believe the white house leaked on thursday night that he will vote against the deal. a former senior adviser to obama david axelrod said he made a decision based on politics and not fact. the only person schumer told was president obama and that the senator asked him to keep it quiet until friday. white house press secretary josh earnest refused to say democrats should still support schumer as harry reid's successor. take a look. >> this is a question for democratic senators. this is a vote they will cast in early 2017. i certainly wouldn't be surprised if there are individual members of the senate democratic caucus that will consider the voting record of those who say they would like to lead the caucus. >> i guess the question is this a real threat to his ascension

to leadership but also you saw the white house -- you could call this scrambling or maybe this was part of the plan. they had a huge list of nuclear scientists come out in support of the deal over the weekend. >> i don't think my views on science are really worth talking about and i'm not sure the political views of scientists are all that significant. the schumer thing is interesting. the white house has been trying to delegitimatize opposition to the iran agreement. i find that offensive. there are legitimate grounds for having real concerns. the president said this is an easy call. no way. this is a tough, tough call. >> we talked about this in washington where this president actually compared republicans to the hardliners in iran chanting "death to america." he keeps saying this is such an easy call to make. you have king who came out in support saying it was a single

toughest decision he has ever made. and the vilification of chuck schumer over the weekend and i would say that even if he came out on the other side of the bill, deeply, deeply offensive suggesting that a call this close for people who have supported not only israel but the defense of this nation and legitimately believe it puts our nation at risk and allies at risk and to delegitimize him this way is pretty stunning. >> it's over the top. this president gave the greatest speech at charleston six weeks ago. six weeks later he gave the smallest speech of his presidency at american university. it's been an interesting time. second of all, even if people like schumer come out against the agreement in the first moment, it doesn't mean it's over. i can imagine the president vetoes and then there's a chance for negotiations with the senate to begin. it's quite possible the white house could then come forward

with certain ideas to make it possible for people who voted against it the first time around to vote for it. >> they're not thinking that way. they shove everybody into a corner. >> i'm not sure it needs to go that far. chuck announced he would vote against it. i think the white house's unhappiness was partly the timing of the announcement that it was earlier than they expected. they wanted it closer to the actual vote so they would have less influence. i don't think that chuck intends to use every bit of his influence and power or whatever to try to bring along other votes. so when you do the math, the white house can afford to lose a few democrats. this one would be hardest to keep. i'm not sure it changes the ultimate trajectory of the process. >> the president doesn't think it's a close call. he's not pretending on that. he thinks it's an obvious vote. >> which makes it even more frightening. >> let me pushback on that, please. >> opponents still need an enormous percentage of remaining

undecided democrats in the senate and in the house. >> getting beyond politics, even if this thing does come into effect, this is going to be a major national security challenge for decades to deal not just with iran and its future nuclear capabilities but that of several neighbors. this will be front and center for not just this president and his successor but his successor's successor. >> when you ask opponents of the deal, what's the other option? they back up six months and say the deal they would have struck. no, richard. what's the other option now if this deal is voted down, what will happen? that's what the choice is. >> at this point i tend to agree with you. the choices are narrow. if this deal is voted down, we don't know what iran will do but all odds are that iran would do more in the nuclear area. >> this is why it's a no-brainer. this is why the president is being sharp and i know you call

him vilifying, but he's saying it's an easy choice because the question is what are the options if the deal gets voted down? what happens if it doesn't go through? not what deal could you have written six months ago. >> there's another question, mika, which is given the flaws in this deal, what is it the united states needs to do? what people like me have been saying, even if this gets voted on, this deal goes ahead, what do we need to do about iran's long-term capability and what do we need to do with serious questions of noncompliance and that's what i think the white house needs to address. it's not simply do you vote for it or against it. is it a good deal or bad deal? is there some way to make sure that in addition to this deal, the united states is better off. i am not sure right now absent some additional policies, this deal puts the united states where we need to be. >> all right. see what happens. all right. much more still ahead this morning. >> i don't understand.

>> i'll tell you. >> mika is asking the right questions. >> i'm asking the only correct question here. >> you're not. >> yes, i am. the president set up false choices for the past year saying it's this deal or war. he negotiated a horrible deal and, yes, guess what? there are people if they were not as closed minded as the president on this issue that could see a way forward even if the deal were not passed. >> that sounds really safe. it sounds like it's good for our country. >> it's much better for our country than doing into a bad deal with a commander in chief blind to the dangers of this deal that he vilifies the top democrat in the united states senate and claims that people that oppose the deal are in concert with terrorists in iran. that's a president using his bully pulpit the wrong way. >> okay. we'll be right back with much more "morning joe."

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still ahead, we'll continue this heated debate over the iran deal and we'll talk about why joe is dead wrong here. >> i appreciate your insights. >> you're wrong. you have to sort of hear the other side here. president obama's new comments on the republican opponents of the deal that likely won't make them anymore eager to support it. plus, donald trump's volatile political weekend. we'll bring in conservative

radio host hugh hewitt and then the donald himself joins us. we'll be right back. welcome to fort green sheets. welcome to castle bravestorm. it's full of cool stuff, like... my trusty bow. and free of stuff i don't like. we only eat chex cereal. no artificial flavors, and it's gluten-free. mom, brian threw a ball in the house! at ally bank no branches equalsit's a fact.. kind of like mute buttons equal danger. ...that sound good? not being on this phone call sounds good. it's not muted. was that you jason?

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or lease a 2015 passat limited edition for $189 a month after a $1000 bonus. >> remember what i said was that it's the hardliners in iran who are most opposed to this deal. i said in that sense they are making common cause with those opposed to this deal here. i didn't say they were equivalent. most democratic senators have taken the time to read the bill and listen to the arguments, a sizable proportion of the republicans were opposed before the ink was dry on the deal and

before it was even posted. that gives you some sense of the degree to which this is driven by partisan politics or ideology opposed to analysis. >> i find it stunning that a commander in chief is going to try to pass the most important piece of -- a foreign deal by no holes barred chicago political style partisan slug fest. >> well, it's worked on a few other issues. and secondly, it's not like he's dealing with opponents to the deal who want to sit and talk to him about it. these are people who invited benjamin netanyahu before congress, who wrote a letter that wasn't even backed by the head of the party in congress dissing the deal.

it's not like they played fair along the way. >> imagine if he instead asked bob corker and chuck schumer to be a sounding board through this entire process. a bipartisan sounding board he could send overseas as you were saying to talk. this is -- is this unprecedented what he's doing? >> i don't know if it's unprecedented. what we were talking about is using congress along the way. we used to put members of congress on the arms control delegation with the soviet union. he could have done the same thing here. put members of congress on the delegation that would negotiate with iran and even could have used congress as a bad cop to give us leverage along the way. now to have this type of a confrontation. the issues transcend the agreement. the issue is whether the united states as a great power can afford to look this inconsistent at the 11th hour and that transcends some of the -- >> they looked inconsistent

every step of the way. congressional republicans have been undermining this president every step of the way and especially on this deal. that's why we look incredibly inconsistent. >> it's okay to have a debate along the way but at some point you have a deal and the question is whether -- >> he may get a handful of republican votes. is there any precedent for a big foreign policy decision done only with party line vote? >> it reminds me of league of nations. a president makes a major commitment a hundred years ago and now the world is watching. it has major consequences beyond iran. >> let's reset the top of the hour. joining the conversation from los angeles, we have conservative radio host and columnist hugh hewitt.

and we have amy holmes back with us. >> we have enough republicans here finally that we can have a fight. i need someone to agree with me. i have no idea. we may have three different views on trump. >> despite the controversy and headlines, a new poll finds donald trump is still on top with republican voters. nbc news surveymonkey poll from friday and saturday shows trump with 23%, 10 points ahead of senator ben cruz. ben carson, carly fiorina and senator marco rubio round out the top five. the poll is good news for cruz and fiorina. meanwhile, donald trump came in second in the poll for who won the debate. he also topped the poll for who lost it. that's why we're all debating. nearly 30% said donald trump, 14% believe senator rand paul did the worst followed by jeb

bush. 54% of trump supporters say they would still vote for him if he ran as an independent candidate. >> i've been saying the political world is upside down. you have the establishment press always predicting donald trump's imminent demise. it hasn't happened yet. you now have fox news and you have rush limbaugh going after fox and you have possibly some split inside fox news. it's not great for the republican party. how do you sort through this mess and how does the party survive this to elect a president in 2016? >> well, that last question is the most important one. it was a missed opportunity on thursday night. they spent almost no time talking about hillary clinton and the iran deal and you've been talking about the iran deal most consequential foreign policy move in the next 40 to 50 years and they spent almost no time on it. >> can i ask you about that? you asked me about this when i was on your radio show asking what do you think about msnbc not getting a debate?

this was a year ago. obviously things are changing around here now. i said i understand because there's always gotcha questions. i get sick and tired of liberal commentators getting republican debates and asking gotcha questions. and yet you look at what happened in thursday's debate. we didn't talk about hillary. we didn't talk about isis. we didn't talk about the iran deal. it was one gotcha question after another. you're sitting there scratching your head especially like rush said that the first question was framed around the quote war on women. sounded like hillary clinton asked the question. >> donald trump had a legitimate grievance that he magnified too much in the attack on megyn kelly which became the blood feud. until that point he had a legitimate grievance. i tweeted the same thing. i couldn't understand the question set. there wasn't much of a debate actually. ben carson came on my radio show that night and said i would have liked to talk to some people.

they almost sent carson and cruz out for coffee. i thought it was a missed opportunity. i'm doing the next one at the reagan library and i expect we'll spend more time on foreign affairs and differences between the candidates and less time trying to pin down or embarrass and i think they were out to embarrass donald trump and they triggered him. it was not a good idea on his point. scott walker did one thing in that debate. "the new york times" had a long story on server about hillary destroying 31,000 e-mails. that's not an 18-minute gap. that's an 18,000-minute gap. that's what they should have been talking about on thursday night and not the donald. >> we were talking about this yesterday on the phone that hillary clinton is truly the luckiest person in america right now because of all of this trump noise. >> there are fbi agents going to where her server was located in

colorado and no one is -- it's amazing. >> it's amazing. and who did they choose? someone that won small denver small business for 2008. it's stunning. >> we'll get to that. >> it's hard to repeat to be clear. >> what's going on? >> you have the most secure e-mails in america used by the 2008 denver small business of the year putting up a homebrewed server. it's staggering. but donald trump. everyone is talking about donald trump. >> he democrat natuominated the event. try and put aside the content, some of which is very questionable and we could talk about donald trump forever. when you were watching the debate, did it look to you like it struck me that they were trying to bring him down as a network? >> i think the front runner gets a lot of scrutiny and

responsibility and he didn't do all that well in answering these. but, i think that some of the questions they asked him were just in the form of gotchas. the kind of questions you would -- >> didn't seem focused to eliminate him. >> as he has said, doesn't justify his reaction, but as he said, he got different kind of questions than everybody else. >> and how can you help entrepreneurs -- are you kidding me? hugh hewitt has not been positive about donald trump. i said donald trump didn't do well in the debate. we're not here carrying donald trump's briefcase. it was obviously slanted toward destroying one candidate. that's not good for anybody. >> i saw a lot of questions to other candidates that were also challenging like to jeb bush on

common core or to john kasich on medicaid. >> you know what you just did? two policy issues. >> right. i think asking donald trump about his very public comments about women and his very public -- not just rosie o'donnell but others. it was fair. he got the better of that exchange. i think he actually won a point on that. he lost it in the last 72 hours with his continued warfare on megyn kelly. he doesn't have time for political correctness but has a lot of time to feud with megyn kelly i would not look forward to as the future president of the united states. >> there are a couple things about temperament. i was asked whether donald has the temperament to be president, no. he doesn't have ordinary temperament. times you have to be angry.

you can't stay that way. sometimes you have to be quiet. robert kennedy and john f. kennedy during the cuban missile crisis and other times you have to be angry. i think that donald trump needs to modulate it a little bit more so he stays away from personality conflict and tries to bring it back perhaps with the humor. he was on my show last week on monday. he was very funny. we talked about the nuclear triad and the wall and immigration but the fact of the matter is megyn kelly is not a winner for him. that's not a good place for him to be right now. >> you don't want to fight megyn kelly or fox news in general and fox news doesn't want to have this fight either. let's talk about the other candidates and what's with survey back up again. jeb bush nowhere to be seen there. scott walker nowhere to be seen there. and it looks like you have four protest candidates at the top. >> you have a lot of folks that

are frustrated. note that donald trump is only at 23% there. i suspect if the field was not 17 people large, you would have other candidates that were maybe closer. if you think about the party as having an establishment wing, social conservative wing, there are three or four candidates in each of those wings splintering that vote. so the idea that donald trump is the front runner, yes, he's atop of the polls but that's just a factor of math and fractions. what's frustrated me the most is i'm not concerned about the idea that donald trump is going to win the nomination. i think that's pretty unlikely. my frustration is the idea that the republican party is now the party of trump because he gets less than one out of four voters. you had 29% of folks in that same poll say they thought he lost the debate. he's very polarizing. i'm worried that you have a lot of swing voters seeing things like donald trump tweeting yesterday i don't like listening to carly fiorina. if you listen to her for more than ten minutes, you get a

headache. that's not megyn kelly. that's picking a fight with a woman because he doesn't like being criticized by her and i think that deeply concerns me if people start thinking that's what the republican party is all about. >> hugh, if you look at the top of the survey that came out yesterday, it really does lend credence to what i've been saying for at least a decade and what aeric erickson said yesterday. they make up together well over 50%. this is -- this looks like this rebellion we've been talking about for a decade is coming to fruition. is that fair to say? >> i don't know.

the numbers are awfully early. i'll wait for another week or so. i think the people had a good week last week were carly fiorina, carly fiorina and carly fiorina and chris christie came back from nowhere and john kasich had a good sweep of sunday shows. >> you haven't mentioned jeb either. sixth place in this poll. what is happening to jeb bush? >> he's got to up -- what donald has to bring down, jeb has to bring up which is what newt showed off in the debates four years ago. a willingness to get in there and mix it up especially against hillary. and that's what has to happen. they have focus on hillary who will be their opponent. >> it would help separate him from notions that he's spokesperson for the establishment but to your point, i think ted cruz's numbers are interesting because a lot of folks think that he is being siphoned off by donald trump and

they are appealing to the same constituency. the fact that ted cruz is at 13% speaks well to ted cruz and to your point about rebel ongoing on among republican voters. >> if you look now at who has money, momentum, message to win states, ted cruz is looking a lot better today than many other people given a better chance to win the nomination. >> let's look on the democratic side. bernie sanders' west coast tour got off to a rough start. he never got to deliver a speech in seattle. he was interrupted by demonstrators. activists south to force progressives to take up the issue at recent events so sanders descended into the crowd to meet people one-on-one and had this to say. >> it's unfortunate because among other things, among other things i wanted to talk about the issue of black lives and the

fact that the american people are tired of seeing unarmed african-americans shot and killed. but there are other issues as well that we have to talk about. >> sanders' campaign continues to draw massive crowds. a reported 15,000 people showed up at his next event on the university of washington campus. and then last night in portland, he had the biggest crowd yet according to his campaign. a reported 28,000 people showed up at the home of the portland trail blazers. >> let's just stop and take that in. let's stop and take this in. 28,000, mark halperin, in portland came out to see bernie sanders. >> another benefit of hillary clinton getting from trump's dominating the news. that's a massive crowd that i don't think anyone else in this field could draw.

mr. trump could not draw 28,000 people anywhere in the country without a lot of effort. these are organic crowds in places that are really excited about his message. he is running at a time when a lot of people in the country see the possibility of a clinton/bush general election is not what america needs now and he's tapping into the democratic wing of the democratic party with passion and authenticity in a way that she's not. >> this is open rebellion. >> as a seattle native, he's choosing his cities well. seattle and portland are -- >> he did it in phoenix, too. >> it doesn't surprise me in seattle in particular to see that activism there. but for bernie sanders, maybe his campaign stop didn't go well in terms of on the ground but we're talking about it on monday so he got a lot of attention. >> is this mirror imaging? is the political phenomenon we

were talking about for ten minutes on the republican side is bernie sanders the flip side of that? >> but what's organic about him is that he is not a reality tv star. he has not been in the public's sphere as a household name for 20 years. he's bernie sanders. >> but donald trump is organic as well. donald trump was showing up in south carolina at events six months, nine months ago, not as a candidate outdrawing everybody. you have on both sides as richard said, you have people that are rejecting the bush/clinton setup that it seems like washington establishment wants. >> it goes a step beyond that. bernie sanders represents a clear message. they're not showing up to see the star of "the apprentice" or the guy that built hotels in new york or the guy with golf courses or the guy who was incredibly successful and maybe

you can be successful, too, which is somewhat of a message. this is a clear message. aren't they drawn to that or are they drawn to bernie, the celebrity? >> i don't know to what extent bernie sanders has a ton of celebrity firepower. he doesn't have a huge operation. he doesn't have eight handlers that follow him everywhere the way hillary clinton might. it's a very different animal. i think in this case think back to the howard dean phenomenon. he was tapping into this kind of anti-war frustration back in 2004 and got people very, very, very excited. he didn't ultimately go on to win the nomination but represented this part of the democratic party. to the extent we'll have headlines saying that donald trump represents it of the republican party, bernie sanders represents the heart of the democratic party. i'm also curious for everyone's take on this question of black lives matter movement and how they keep -- bernie sanders keeps running into issues there where this is not the first event that he's had that's been kind of shutdown or disrupted.

i'm interested to what extent -- that's another major piece of the democratic coalition. how can he hold it all together? >> we shall see. as amy said, there's a reason he went to washington and portland. hugh, final question for you. you brought up "the new york times" story on hillary and the server and questions about that. that has to feed into -- people are coming out to hear bernie sanders talk but there's the question mark around hillary gets even bigger every time "the new york times" puts another story there. notice i said it's "the new york times" that are running these stories. it's not "the wall street journal" editorial page. >> i hope vice president biden is watching this as well. he was supposed to be having a family retreat to discuss whether or not he's going to get in. i think he has to look at an opportunity to be not hillary

and be authentic and be all that comes with that. i hope he gets in. they need more excitement on that side. i think sanders crowd are much more about not being hillary than being bernie. >> thank you for coming on the show. please come back. up next on "morning joe," we're going to talk to donald trump about his volatile weekend and comments he made about iran nearly 30 years ago that could prove to be quite prophetic today. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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>> the bottom line is iran has taken advantage of this country for years. iran is in big trouble in terms of the military. we ought to go in next time they fire so much as a bullet at one of our ships, we ought to go in and take over their oil. other people would say that might start a war. we're going to have a war through weakness because this country is acting so weak toward

iran it's pathetic. two presidents and even three presidents have been discredited because of iran and i would stop that immediately. you go and take over the oil. let them have the rest of their country. we just want the oil. >> look at that. donald will get to talk policy on the "today" show 30 years ago. >> donald trump discussing iran and presidential candidate is joining us now by phone. good morning, donald. >> it's called vision. people have vision. very few but some people have vision. interestingly if you go back to 2004, take a look at the reuters articles and it was actually before that even but july of 2004 i am the most militaristic person there is. i would have the best military. nobody would mess with us. you go back to 2004, july, and you will see a major, major article that donald trump said don't go into iraq because if you go into iraq and decimate iraq, you'll lose the balance of the whole middle east and i turned out to be right.

very few people can say that. >> donald, let me ask you, we've been talking this morning about fox news, hugh hewitt was just on saying you had a legitimate beef about questions that were asked. i'm curious, obviously it's not in fox news' best interest to be in a war with you. it's not in your best interest to be in a war with fox news. have you talked to roger over the weekend? have you talked to anybody at fox news over the weekend about trying to find common ground with the network? >> i don't want to say that. i will tell you that i don't think fox treats me well. >> hold on. you're a straight talker. >> i don't want to say. i'm not going to embarrass anybody. >> have you talked to fox news? >> my whole life has been led on the theory that i do not want to embarrass people. the fact is that i think i don't get treated well by fox and that's all right because look what happens. i don't understand it myself. i mean, i have double digit lead in every poll. i don't know if you saw that georgia just came out and i'm at

34. a lot of good things are happening. maybe i should just leave it the way it is. the fact is she asked me a very inappropriate question. she should be apologizing to me if you want to know the truth. other candidates said that. during the debate and despite what you said earlier in the morning, joe, every poll virtually every poll has said i won the debate. you said i didn't do well. i don't understand how you can say that because i actually felt and especially in light of horrible questions i was being asked, they didn't ask me about jobs. they didn't ask me about the economy. >> i also said that. i said you weren't asked policy questions. that's why i was wondering if you all are talking and they are trying to -- >> you know, i tell you what was interesting. first of all, i get up there. i stand up there. and we're not even warm yet. i mean literally, two seconds in and bret gets up and says

third-party stuff. i can't believe it. and they're doing that. that was number one. people forget about. that was totally inappropriate. that whole question was aimed at me and then megyn gets up and starts talking gibberish and stupid question. this whole thing happened because the question was really a very unfair one. by the way, if you want to call them candidates, came up to me at that intermission and said that was unfair what they did to you. everyone felt that. that's when i gave the rosie o'donnell answer and the place went crazy during her question. joe, she got very angry. you could see there was anger spewing out of her eyes and this is what i was talking about. blood pouring out of her eyes and i went on further and i said this was later on and i went on further and i didn't even finish

my statement. that's the amazing thing. i would have said nose and ears because it's a very common thing when you say blood pouring out of the nose, eyes, ears but then i wanted to get onto jobs and so i didn't even finish the statement. the next morning i wake up and i hear this total lightweight e c erich erickson from red state. he's a loser. he doesn't back winners. he's a guy that's truly to be considered a lightweight. he disinvited me. i saved a fortune on fuel. he disinvited me to something that wasn't a big deal. by the way, the people that were there went nuts when they found out i was disinvited. >> you bring up -- by talking about erich who is a friend of mine, you bring up the next point. then i want to get to mika and everyone else around the table.

erich is a friend of mine. you're a friend of mine. we're all republicans. politics is a game of addition and not subtraction. at what point in this campaign do you start putting your arms around people? >> i do. i have great relationships, joe. i have great. look, this guy disinvited me. he has a failed little conference. it's not a big deal. it's not a lot of people. they were great people. i love the people because they were going crazy when they heard about it. many of them left. the fact is he disinvited me because he could get publicity for himself. do you now how many times he's been forced to apologize for things he said? he disinvited me to get publicity but it worked out and i had a semifree evening which wasn't so bad. >> let's try a different angle. i want to move on and talk about women. more and more women are bread winners and/or vital parts of

the household budgets across the country. how would you approach the issue of equal pay and helping more women getting access to capital which they struggle with. >> this is the kind of question i should have been asked. the women's health issue, which jeb bush so amazingly blew four or five days ago when he said no money going to women's health issues or essentially that. with me, mika, i would be the best for women. the best for women's health issues. jeb came back and he apologized. you wonder why he's doing so badly in the polls. you talk about a speech, there was no -- he didn't register at all. he didn't register at all during that debate. and by the way, joe, i have to just get off this for one second. 24 million people at the debate. 24 million. the highest in history. it was like a record in almost every way. if i weren't at the debate, you

would have had your standard 2 million people. maybe less. you would have had 2 million people if they had a good night. so we took it from 2 million to 24 million people. does anybody think that anybody else on the stage drew that extra 22 million people? >> so the question -- >> do you think maybe jeb bush drew the 22 million additional people? >> nobody thinks that. >> the question is about equal pay. republicans have repeatedly voted against it. how would you get equal pay passed and how would you enforce it and then the question of access to capital for women. >> as far as questions like that, mika, i'm not going to do it on this show and i don't want to discuss it on the show. i want to discuss those questions at a debate. all i can say is on women's issues and women's health issues, there will be nobody better than donald trump. i'll come out with policy on that and make it in the future. i don't want to discuss it now. >> mr. trump, bernie sanders is drawing even bigger crowds than

you. >> excuse me. i don't think he is drawing bigger crowds than me. >> he drew over -- have you drawn a crowd of 25,000? >> 15. excuse me, i'm not finished yet. >> he's drawing big crowds also. i just wonder what you think is the source of his appeal and whether there's any aspect of his message and his program that you think you share with him. >> i think there's one aspect that's amazing. trade. he was talking about trade because you can't have two people more opposites. i was watching him and he talked about trade and how we're getting ripped off left and right on trade. i think i can take that paragraph and use it in my speech is what i'm saying. it's one of my big things. we're getting killed by china. here's the difference between bernie sanders and myself. i negotiated. i will make great deals. he can't do that. he's incapable of doing that. he knows the problem at least. he's not going to be able to do anything about it. but he does know the problem. and if you look at his words on

trade and my words on trade, man, i was just looking at it yesterday actually. i said that's pretty close, you know. so in terms of that, we're very close. he struck a nerve. they're putting us together. he struck a nerve on the other side and i struck an even bigger nerve on the republican side and conservative side and it's been amazing. the response i've had is amazing. i guess they just announced a new poll that my numbers actually went up. that's good. >> donald, let's continue with policy for a second. what is your approach to isis in both iraq and syria? how seriously do you take it and what would be the outlines of your approach? >> i take it very serious. these are mad people. these are people that have to be taken seriously. i didn't want to go into iraq in 2004 and we went there so now we totally knocked out the balance. what we've done in the middle east is incredible. it's incredible. when you have people going around cutting off christians'

heads and everyone else's head and saying what they're saying and doing what they're doing, it's incredible. we have to take them out and do it strongly. >> would that involve a potential reintroduction of u.s. ground forces? >> i would -- they have great money because they have oil. they have much oil. i would -- every place where they have oil, i would knock the hell out of them and i would put boots on the ground in those areas. i would take the oil. what you're doing is you're cutting off a big portion of their money source. the other part of their money source happens to be banks. money is flowing in through banks in saudi arabia and other places. you have to cut that off. i would knock out the source of their wealth. primary source of their wealth which is oil. in order to do that, you would have to put -- i would knock the hell out of them but i would put a ring around it and take the oil for our country. >> steve? >> donald, you've been vocal about not having been asked

policy questions in the debate and so let me try another one on economic policy. we all understand very well your position on trade. let's talk about the domestic economy. can you tell us three things that you would do as president to fix the domestic economy? >> one thing i do and very strongly is i cut costs of different agencies. you look at some of these agencies, environmental protection, i'm also totally against common core so education, you can do so many agencies and cut the cost. i would simplify the tax code. you have to do that, steve. if you don't do that, i can just tell you from my own standpoint, the number of pages it would literally be 10 feet high if i put them together. it's so complicated and so terrible. now you can say fair tax. you can say flat tax. you can say a hundred different taxes or you can say simplification because that's one of the things that you really can do and you can do it a lot easier and quicker.

at a minimum you have to simplify. i want to put h & r block out of business. it would be a dream of mine to put hh & r block out of busines. i create incentives for people to go into inner cities. you look at baltimore and so many of these cities that are blowing up and there's many of them. we see so much about ferguson and baltimore but there are many, many fergusons and baltimores and i do something to get the inner cities working because we have to give them spirit. we have to give them a lot of things. we also have to give incentives. economic incentive. every single poll has me down at the -- cnn did a poll where i was over 50% in terms of leadership and in terms of economic development and getting the economy going. and there was nobody within 30

or 40 points of me. so this would be something -- you know, i did the grand hyatt hotel years ago and created a tax incentive and sold it to the city. i know how to get that stuff done. we have to put people to work and we have to put people to work in jobs they love where they want to go to work. >> so, donald, we got to go. you said something at the very beginning i thought was fascinating because we've been talking that nobody can figure out why you're doing as well as you're doing. you said yourself you don't exactly know what's going on there. if you could narrow it down to one thing, why do you think you continue to stay at the top of the polls despite the establishment press and republican establishment in washington predicts your demise every two or three days? >> because they like my message, joe. my message basically is saying that our leaders and our representatives and our negotiators in terms of trade, they are all incompetent. they are grossly incompetent.

i spoke with karl icahn yesterday. i said i want you to negotiate with china and japan. if we get caught, we'll be fine. sit back and let him negotiate. i have many people that want to get involved and we have to make great deals and not horrible deals because our money is being taken like babies. our jobs are being taken away by china and mexico and japan and they know that's not going to happen with me. >> donald trump, call me back on equal pay. i'll ask it again. and again. >> i will do that. >> thank you very much for being on the show. we'll be right back with much more "morning joe."

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because we should fit into your life. not the other way around. >> let's talk about this for a second. we're talking about policy here. so, richard, you have a policy answer. boots on the ground. seize the oil. >> boots on the ground and seize the oil. not clear if it was iraq or syria or both. 30 years ago it was iran. big ideas not terribly practical but interesting that the republicans have gone a long way if you go from rand paul two years ago where it was less foreign policy and now shall we say more foreign policy. >> shots are fired near the u.s. consulate in istanbul. we'll talk to commander of u.s. air forces in europe next on "morning joe." sion. but i keep it growing by making every dollar count. that's why i have the spark cash card from capital one.

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near the u.s. consulate in istanbul. a female suspect has been detained and was injured in the crossfire but a man fled the scene. the incident came hours after the u.s. military announced that six f-16 fighter jets have arrived at a turkish air base to join the fight against isis. earlier this morning there was also a bombing at a police station in istanbul leaving two attackers dead and at least 10 injured. joining us now, commander of u.s. air forces in europe and u.s. air forces in africa. good to have you on the show. >> general, chances are good we'll hear more stories like this coming out of turkey now that they're engaged finally. >> they did make a commitment to join in the isil fight and they've had a couple incidents, terrorist attacks and things they're reacting to. so they decided to join in

and -- >> how significant is that? >> i think it is significant. we've been working with them for a long time to try to gain some access to some basing inside of been successful at, obviously, with moving the f-16s into where currently stabbing personnel recovery at another location inside turkey at an air base, and so now we're able because they have joined the fight to put in some of the things that air power does so well. and because it's coming from the north, it's clearly increased the number of access which action is coming from. >> principle has been the conduit which volunteers have reached isis. do you see signs they're beginning to tighten the border to slow the flow of people. >> i'm not familiar with the exact status of the border.

there is concern to the south. we have helped in the nato context because i'm also the commander of nato allied air forces. we have patriot batteries down there that are helping. with respect to the activities on the ground, i'm not familiar enough to talk about it. >> one other question. it's become smautd of a relatively shared statement that you can't succeed against a group like isis from the air. the fact that turkey is allowing us to use the air base. at the end of the day, can this make much of a difference? >> yes. i believe that air power has been effective. air power has changed the behavior of the combat nlts on the ground. they have gotten smaller units. we do a lot of things well. we provide air and space superiority strike capabilities and reconnaissance. we answer a lot of logistical questions with air lift and then we have the command and role that enables all four of those

to come together in a way that's more effective and then you combine that with the joint team and the coalition team, and you combine that with diplomacy and economic power and so i think we have been effective at contributing to the very big picture in the only way the air force can. >> steve. >> in terms of getting access to incirlik, what the ability to project power to syria and what's your strategy there and what effect likely if any is that to have on our allies joining in using air power in syria as well as iraq? >> from the air, the base itself is actually physically closer. and so obviously, you don't have to launch as many if in fact you have more time over any area of interest. you know, this is just the beginning. we recently were able to increase our remotely piloted

aircraft enterprise. we armed them. we fired our first weapon from an incirlik base. the fighters you described have arrived and are getting ready. don't know exactly when they're going to contribute. there will be tankers that for sure will follow in, and then of course, the personnel recovery assets in there. so in the end, logistically, it's a lot easier because it is closer, and it is -- does give us much faster access for anything that might happen. >> some would say it should have been there a lot sooner. good we have the access now. frank gorenc, thank you so much. >> come back. i want to talk about russia and eastern europe. come back sometime soon. >> anytime. >> much more "morning joe" in just a moment. see it? that's a sensor. using ge software, the light can react to its environment- getting brighter only when it's needed.

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>> welcome to "morning joe." yes, we're back here in new york city. top of the hour. with us on set, we have mark halpern and steve rattner. in washington, the co-founder of the opinion research found echelon insights, kristen solstice anderson. kasie hunt is coming up. a lot to talk about, but i want to get your sense of where things stand right now with the whole political campaign and the donald trump factor. >> i said it on wednesday or thursday. the world's upside down. the political world is upside

down. and you have donald trump who is sort of this mad hatter of american politics, but here's the catch. he may be mad, but he's driving everybody else in this process mad, too. or at least driving them wildly off their game in a way that feeds right in to his strengths. take the "washington post." mark halpern, and i'm going to be talking now about people whom i love and respect. papers that i love and respect. journalists that i love and respect. but this is a diagnosis the mainstream media better pick up on fast because they're getting it wrong time and time again. the "washington post" wrote an article yesterday morning where you could cut and paste, mark,

the gop establishment names and the quotes and the predictions of donald trump's imminent doom from the john mccain -- the identical john mccain story that they wrote two, three weeks ago. two or three sundays ago. identical. really, they go to lindsey graham to predict that donald trump's campaign is going to end. gop leaders say trump's erratic style will hurt him. we talked about this. we could not believe the headline. >> "wall street journal" today same idea, saying this is it. trump's demise is finally coming. they rely on a woman named penny nance, the chief executive of the conservative group, concerned women for plaeamerica their expect to say this is it. this shows you trump is about to decline. >> by the way, this is not even going to the substance of the remarks, which we'll get to in a second, but how many times are

they going to predict the imminent decline of donald trump. >> there's an iron triangle now. you have these conservative activists who want trump to decline, the candidates who want trump to decline, and the media, some people we like and respect, who have decided they want to write his obituary now. >> let's go to the "new york times," and the "new york times" lead yesterday. and now we get on a little -- >> perfect morning television topic. >> it's disgusting. it's just to be talking about it this early. but there was a stunning lead in the "new york times" yesterday morning. that stated as fact that donald trump was talking about megyn kelly's menstruation cycle. i talked to a lot of people who like me happened to see that live. some people that you know very well. >> yeah. >> some people in media, some people out of media. i have yet to talk to one person live, and i sure didn't get the

e-mails. i sure didn't get the texts, who when they saw it said oh, my gosh, donald trump is talking about megyn kelly's menstrual cycle. but yet, by the next morning, it was a stated fact. >> in the lead. >> in the lead that that's what he was talking about. again, assume the worst of trump if you want to asump the worst of trump. if you know what he was thinking, if you want to say after he told that very bad joke about john mccain and then say for five days that he doubted his war hero status when he called him a war hero 15 times, you can do it. we're not here carrying donald trump's brief. we're not here defending donald trump, but the media is jumping to conclusions that feed into donald trump's supporters worst beliefs about the media, that assume the very worst, and write

it as if that's the case, and you only help donald trump. >> that all said, and let's -- we can't resolve what was in donald trump's mind when he made the comment. >> you would agree as a reporter for the "new york times," the editor should not write it as the lead that that is what donald trump is talking about what you don't know, i don't know, they don't know what was in his head. >> let's look at it this way. do you think sitting here today on monday morning, three and a half days or whatever it is since the debate, do you think donald trump is in better shape than three days ago or worst shape? >> i think after being on all the sunday news shows and probably after you once again have the media overreacting and the republican establishment in washington overreacting and the iron triangle, i think he's probab probably, well, in as good of shape. i know this. it wasn't donald trump who was hurt by the debate. it was jeb bush who was hurt by the debate. it was scott walker who was hurt

by the debate. it was the republican establishment that was hurt by the debate. look at the people who went up. add up donald trump's numbers, ben carson's numbers, and ted cruz's numbers. you're approaching 50% of three guys who were just anti, anti-washington. who was the biggest wonner? probably carly fiorina? >> she was. you know, it's not just the media. i think there's a whole list here of entities that have taken not only just a side against donald trump but aim at him, and they have completely misfired. it's nots just the media. it's elite circles. it's fox news itself. it's the republican party. and they have all completely overreached. and what they need to be looking at is not donald trump but the mood of the country. >> well, and by the way, let's just state. i think donald trump did a terrible job on the debate. thursday night. >> right. >> i think most of us did. i thought he bumbled through

questions. he should have been better prepared. i thought it was a bad night for him. it is, though, the media overreacting to donald trump that once again feeds into donald trump. who was it? there was a quote that i think i sent to you. i think it said only the republican establishment, and the mainstream media by overreaching could make, as matt said, one of the biggest bullies in america a sympathetic figure. spooking of which, let's talk about my friends at fox news. i don't know megyn kelly that well, but i certainly just -- i can't have any more respect for the three and for chris wallace and i just love brett, and i have known him for a long time. i love him. he's a great guy, but let's talk about that for a second, and the overreaction of that. you know, reince priebus had decided to ban networks, this

one, and i would if i were reince priebus, too, so i'm not knocking him. i would never give msnbc a republican debate right now. pretty soon i would. >> i think i would. >> things are changing really quickly, this network, but a year ago, never. i understand that. but the idea was to get news outlets, mark, that would ask legitimate questions about policy instead of gotcha questions. there wasn't a single question asked of the republican front-runner that dealt with jobs, that dealt with iran, that dealt with isis, that dealt with the economy. that dealt with foreign policy at large. it was, you had three questions, the first one was, i was stunned. and i guess you told me rush limbaugh talked about this for a long time. the first question was on donald trump's insult of rosie o'donnell and his insults of reality show contestants.

and were they crude and crass? yes. would i ever say? no. would ever republican candidate ever say? no, but that's your first question? and then the next question was asking this billionaire about four deals that failed. and then the third was really a political speech that was veiled as a question with a zinger at the end going, so tell me, why did you become a republican? so i thought this was what we as republicans were trying to avoid. people that used front-runners as theater. and it was political theater on thursday night. starting with the first question. >> yeah, i mean, a lot of the questions. they did ask about the iran deal at one point. that's the only foreign policy. a lot of people have criticized, not just rush limbaugh, but for talking about the war on women and for trying to take down the front-runner, as you said, in

somewhat of a theatrical way. h he didn't handle it well. he could have handled it much better. there is somebody coming to his defense. >> who is that? >> the northern korean government. >> u.s. media in total disarray, as fox news declared war on noted scholar donald trump. >> got the north koreans. that's a strong coalition. they went after him and he didn't do all that well, but i think we all, at least you and where agree, mika probably agrees, that he's still standing and still being defiant, and if he's so weak, the question i have is why isn't any republican just overtaking him? if it's such a strong field, if he's so weak, why is it that they can't get, you know, traction in the polls? why can't they move up? >> i just -- i, following my twitter feed yesterday, throughout the day, when there was a poll showing donald trump

in first place comfortably again, it was as if there was a disconnect from the republican establishment and the mainstream media and the candidates, this iron triangle you're talking about. and listen, i'm not sitting here saying he debated well. not saying he would be a good president, i'm not saying that he doesn't say offensive things all the time. i'm not saying that at all. i'm just saying this denial of reality by the mainstream media is actually feeding into donald trump's strength. and when you see leads that state as fact things that should only be stated as fact on the opinion page because we don't know, and you see the same story being written over and over again, talking about donald trump's imminent demise, it's just -- it's just feeding in, again, to his strength. and a lot of people would say that's not good for the republican party and not good for american politics.

>> i thought the question about women, it was just fraught with lots of different problems all around, for him and for the whole scene, actually. >> really? >> what was wrong about the kwgz about women? i thought it was a great question. >> you have to make sure that, you know, with fox news not love to put their hosts on the "apresentence" as guest whatever. it's the apprentice. it's like asking howard stern. he's a performer. these are comments taken from his show. i would like to know -- i would have rather found other things that might have been disturbing if there are any, and i don't know of any, where he said something serious about women that shows what his policies would reflect. >> why would you not ask him a question about jobs? how do you get america back to work? why would you not ask him questions about isis? how do you stop isis? i'm not talking about you. >> i don't dismiss or disagree

with you about the debate and what should or should have been asked. but donald trump has been asked the questions in all other places and he doesn't answer them. >> all the more reason to ask him at the debate. >> i think that's what i don't understand. he was weak on policy. so if they were so busy trying to play gotcha, like liberals usually do with conservatives, that they couldn't see past the end of their nose that the way to get donald trump is to ask him about policy on iraq or what are you going to do, how do you balance the sunnis and shia and then you have the kurds. what's the biggest problem bringing the kurds into a coalition with turkey. you could go -- >> contraception, planned parenthood. >> this was the sort of thing, and the questions that the moderators asked were questions that if asked by a broadcast

network or any other network other than fox news, the reaction would have been so vowel can volcanic. >> think if it happened here. >> that conservatives all together would be trashing those networks and the mainstream media for months to come. which brings up the bigger point, and then we'll go to the poll. people are cheering, is fox news going to win this or donald trump going to win this? this is not a zero-sum game. fox news wins when it's fox news and the conservative movement against the world. against the liberal bias, against media bias. you now have 25% of the republican party. you now have the gop front-runner at war with fox news. now, i think that's not smart for the republican front-runner. i would never do it. >> he'll make up with them. >> but that's what i'm saying. they're going to make up, and the reason they're going tomake up is because at the end of the

day, it's about business. roger said that when he attacked nbc. he said it's not about ideology. it's what's good television, what's bad television? donald trump brought in 24 million people to watch the debate. fox news knows that. it's also not good having megyn kelly up front, who is their new superstar. she is the superstar over there, and it gets amazing numbers. she is just -- she's a talent who is extraordinarily important to them. she doesn't need to be at war with the front-runner, and playing victim, and she's not playing victim. but you know, people say, she should play victim. no, that's not good for fox. it's not good to have the conservative base split. it's not good for the republican party. and that's one other thing that my son said last night overdinner. he said, they're just dividing the party. and they're just inviting donald trump to run as an independent. somebody out there has to have the sense to try to bring everybody together. >> and the demographics of the

fox news viewership is pretty in line with what trump is talking about on policy. >> yeah. >> despite all the controversy and headlines, a new poll finds donald trump is still on top with republican voters. an nbc news survey monkey poll from friday and saturday shows trump with 23%, ten points ahead of ted cruz, ben carson, carly fiorina, and marco rubio round out the top five. >> who is missing from the top five? >> the national front-runner, the inevitable nominee, jeb bush. >> stunning to me. >> and, by the way, scott walker. the other national front-runner. >> the two people who are the national front-runners, they looked like establishment candidates. look again at the top, actually, four. look at the top four people in the republican party. this is a headline, not donald trump, not comments on friday night on cnn. the top four. that is your national headline. >> three of whom have never held

elected office. >> and the fourth has been running against the republican party from the second he started running for the senate in 2010. >> there are questions that have been raised about this poll. it was a survey monkey poll. it's what's called a nonprobability survey. it's not from a group across america. it's from a group of people who respond to survey monkey polls who adjust it to try to get the right demographics. >> we can have chuck todd who do talked about this yesterday. they were the most effective pollsters in the british races and have a great track record. and chuck todd spent most of yesterday talking about their success. >> in your heart of hearts, do you seriously think that's the lineup right now in terms of who's where? >> could be. >> the poll is good news for cruz and fiorina for the biggest movers after the debate. more than one in five voters said fiorina won the debate with trump not far behind. fiorina said fund-raising increased after the performance and she's confident she will

soon become a top-tier candidate. >> i would also remind you at this time in previous presidential elections, the polls, the pundits, and the money said jimmy carter couldn't win, ronald reagan couldn't win, bill clinton couldn't win, and barack obama couldn't win. so the truth is this race has just gotten started. and game on. we're going to talk to as many people as we can through every medium there is. i will continue to do what i have done from day one. i will answer any question, talk to anyone. i'm not afraid to talk about anything. the more people get to know me, the more people support me. so that's what we're going to keep doing. >> meanwhile, donald trump came in second in the poll for who won the debate. he's also topped the poll for who lost it. nearly 30% said donald trump. 14% believe senator rand paul did the worst, followed by jeb bush, and 54% of trump supporters say they would still vote for him if he ran as an independent candidate. up next, we'll bring in kasie

hunt who is at the red state gathering over the weekend. how the people there reacted to the news that the republican front-runner had been disinvited to attend. did it only make his supporters more loyal to his campaign? you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ it took serena williams years to master the two handed backhand. but only one shot to master the chase mobile app. technology designed for you. so you can easily master the way you bank.

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if you haven't heard, i disinvited donald trump. i've got my wife here, i've got my daughter here. i've got 800 friends of mine here. it's a family-friendly program, and if he's not going to clarify that this isn't what he meant, i don't think i want him at my event.

>> all right, that was erick erickson, disinviting donald trump and announcing that. i don't think those were all che cheers, joe. >> this is a great example of how this is not in the best interest of the republican party, the conservative movement, fox news. anybody that wants to see a republican elected in 2016. a great example. erick erickson, a friend of mine, been a friend of mine for a long time. he obviously saw something in that -- i don't know if he saw it live, but he saw something of the friday night clip that a lot of people that watched it didn't. it's just another example, there's this division. when you have rush limbaugh attacking fox news and you have fox people seeming to go indifferent corners, again, this is a dust-up. it's a dust-up that has got to be cleaned up because it's in everybody's best interest on the rig right. >> let's bring in kasie hunt who

was at the red state gathering in atlanta over the weekend. what was the reaction there? >> well, mika and joe, i would say if donald trump is the mad hatter of american politics right now, then the red state gathering was a lot like wind wonderland. this was supposed to be a chance for all the other conservative candidates to shine, but it turned out to be next to impossible. >> i'm pretty sure not a single person in the debate stood up and said i'm establishment moderate squish. i stand for nothing. have you noticed that they run as us? >> this group of conservative activists would usually be ted cruz's crowd. >> god bless red state. >> but like everything else in the gop race right now, the red state gathering quickly turned into donald trump's show. even without him there. >> i don't want my daughter in the room with donald trump tomorrow night, so he's not invited. >> on stage, jeb bush called on trump to apologize. >> do we want to win? do we want to insult 53% of all

voters? >> and many of the conservative activists here think trump has taken things too far. >> what he said was just over the top. i can see him as president picking up the red phone and saying he wasn't nice to me. bomb him now. >> you can't act like a spoiled child and throw a temper tantrum. >> erick erickson is usually a thorn in the side of conservatism, but he read from the angry e-mails from trump supporters. >> i have e-mails referring to me as gai and trump standing up for all of them. >> sham on you, she clearly was on her period. he's a great american f-u. >> in the room, trump still had plenty of defenders. >> i'm a woman, but we're playing into the hands of political correctness when we silence someone. >> i wish the other candidates would take his attitude of being

who they are instead of being whoever wants them to be. >> that sentiment might explain why some of trump's opponents refuse to denounce him. >> should he apologize? >> i leave that up to him. >> was it right to disinvite him? >> that was a decision for red state. >> there's plenty of frustration that the only way to make headlines in the gop race is still to talk about donald trump. >> plenty of people who can talk about donald trump. i'm the only person who can talk about what mike huckabee is doing running for president. >> and huckabee is not the only one who feels that way. marco rubio in an interview with chuck todd over the weekend said he was going to stop commenting on what donald trump said because he would spend all his time talking about donald trump if that was the case. >> nice job. thank you very much. >> just looking at kasie's great package there, i have been saying what the establishment has been doing wrong in the media by overreaching, but i'll be the first to say i don't get

it. i have been saying for some time, the political world is upside down. it's rackable that you have all these candidates, all these mainstream candidates, they can get no oxygen. rand paul, marco rubio, down the rist, they can't get oxygen. >> the campaigns are about challenges. the challenge now for all these candidates, how to succeed, how to be ready to take on trump and in case trump ends up falling, i don't see any of them doing anything but trying to avoid the problems. sporadically, you'll see jeb bush or somebody take him on, but this is the challenge currently facing the other 16 candidates. who's rising to the occasion to deal with it? i don't see anybody right now. >> coming up on "morning joe," he went one-on-one with chris christie, carly fiorina, and mike huckabee. david brody will join us. plus, warren buffett makes his biggest deal ever at work shire hathaway. we'll tell you what company he's

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give me a break. i mean, do we want to win? do we want to insult 53% of all voters? what donald trump said is wrong. that is not how we win elections. and worse yet, that is not how you bring people together to solve problems. that is not the way to do it. so your decision, i think, was

the right one. mr. trump ought to apologize. >> the fact is she asked me a very inappropriate question. she should really be apologizing to me, you want to know the truth. >> that was donald trump on "morning joe" just about an hour ago. for the first time now, demanding an apology from megyn kelly. joining the table, we have the chief political correspondent for the christian broadcast network, david brody. and in washington, director at red state.com, bryan pruitt. good to have you all onboard. >> quite an event this weekend. >> it was. >> who emerged as a few of the winners at red state? >> i think the takeaways from the weekend, one, that ted cruz is still the hero of the conservative base. i think carly fiorina is the de facto female alternative to hillary clinton. and scott walker is continuing to expand his national appeal. >> what about jeb bush? how did jeb do at the event?

>> jeb and chris christie made great appeals to the conservative base. i think they're getting a second look. absolutely, from conservatives across the country. >> mark? >> bryan, what does red state do next now to play a role in the foig for the republican nomination? >> first and foremost, we emphasize the new s.e.c. primary that's going to have five states play an absolute critical role in choosing who's going to we the next nominee. i think erick is one of the most powerful voices on the right, and we need to activate people to get motivated in their communities and vote. >> go ahead. >> it didn't seem like everybody was happy that trump was disinvited? >> actually, in the crowd -- >> there were some boos. >> a few boos, but in a room with 1,000 people in it to have five people boo, i mean, less than 1% is a pretty good business, if i -- or a pretty good response level, if you ask me. >> but isn't this sort of a

forum to hear from the republican candidates? and isn't he the front-runner? >> our event is different from most of the cattle call style events. these are personal invitations that erick and i issue. it's not meant to be every person taking their turn on stage. we want people to hear from influential republican conservative leaders that we think have a great chance of being the next president. >> all right, bryan pruitt, thank you so much. congratulations on a successful weekend. david, let's bring you in now. what's happening to the republican party? what is happening? >> can you please explain? >> i was at red state over the weekend. i take a little bit of an issue on bryan with one point he made. there were a lot of folks that were not happy with erick. they were not happy they weren't hearing from trump. they said hey, let us decide. bring him on the stage. if we want to ask him tough questions, let us ask. that was interesting. >> to add to that point, i feel

like whenever i see trump covered or, you know, pushed away or disinvited, i feel like every entity that is sort of trying to get a handle on the story is trying to control it. we had him on last half hour, and i asked him two questions about women, same question twice, and he couldn't give me an answer. that speaks for itself. we'll see what he comes up with, but it's not my place to control this. i get a sense that even media outlets, but also these sort of -- >> also the conservative establishment. >> establishment entities are trying to control the process. >> they can't do it. the reality is the only person who can take down donald trump is donald trump. everybody is trying to say, well, we'll have awful research. from the past, it's been research, what do we have? the smoking gun. all of that doesn't apply. donald trump will have to say something so outrageous to the point where there really isn't any filter for there to be such an outcry from even his

supporters. look, this is a game of whack-a-mole. there's donald trump and gop and conservatives. where is he snow inthey can't find him. >> you're right. the only person who can take down donald trump is donald trump. >> is there a front runner? if so, who is it, and will there be one before iowa? >> there is no front-runner in the race. no question about that, and here's why. liberals will disagree, but in the conservative community, if you will, this is kind of like the nba all-star team or at least, for example, magic johnson, michael jordan, all of these great, who's in your top five? there's a lot of great candidates. donald trump, you can make an argument, is kind of like the dennis rodman. what i mean, rodman, all-star, talented, great defender. you know, he had the respect of his peers as it relates to being a great basketball player. but he's a wild card. >> they say if trump can't take on megyn kelly, how can he take

on putin? if they can't tick on trump, how can they take on putin? >> that a great point. part of that, it was interesting. the question in the debate was always asked about raise your hand, who wouldn't actually run as a third-party candidate. but where was the question to all of the candidates as to, if donald trump is the nominee, would you support him? there was never a raise your hand question about that, which i think was interesting and plays to the hypocrisy to a degree. >> carly fiorina seems to be the candidate on the move. what was your take? can conservatives trust carly f feorene a? >> they're saying they can trust her. at least there's a feeling. she's like this, i don't mean flat line, but she's consistent. oh, my goodness. talk about, you know -- >> precise. >> fluctuations, nothing. totally precise, and i asked her about planned parenthood. i said, look, would you actually shut down the government over the planned parenthood issue?

she said yeah, if it came to that, she would. which will get her in trouble a little bit with other folks. >> if i were tweaking her campaign, and this is totally inappropriate and nobody would ask, but i would say, add some optimism, and you would have like a really strong campaign. >> i agree with you. i also think she needs to kind of take a few red bulls, a couple red bulls would help her, as it relates to giving a little more oomph. i have covered her on the stump, and you know, she's very good, very solid. >> but she attacks very, very strongly. >> she does. it's her personality. i would say this, i saw ler at red state. she was a lot more fire and brimstone, which makes sense. she was more fire-and-brimstone there, was as in the debate, she was more straight. she needs to ramp it up. >> speaking of somebody being a red bull iv, let's talk about jeb. >> oh, my gosh, yeah. >> what's happening with conservatives and jeb right now? again, i was there when he was governor of florida.

he's really conservative governor. >> it doesn't seem to be translating for some reason. it's frustrating for his followers. frustrating for people like me who saw him as a conservative/libertarian government in the state of florida. >> i agree. one of the best pro-life governors ever really, you could make that argument. i think the problem for jeb is that to a degree he's handled to a degree. what i mean by that is he knows what he wants to say and he says it, buthere's a lot of folks around him. look at donald trump. why does he do so many media interviews? because there's nobody handling him. he's going say what he's going to say. where as you get these other candidates, jeb bush, scott walker, the establishment folks, they're basically to a degree handled. i'm not saying they don't know what they're talking about, they do. but when you have handlers saying you're talking to the evangelicals, talk about a, b, and c.

donald trump goes and says, i haven't asked god about that. and he gets a standing ovation. >> he seemed to be better organized. >> best i have seen. i tweeted out 12 red bulls. >> he stood alt c-pac where he was quite good. he stood at red state and had the interplay with erick, so i think he needs to bring a buddy with him. >> the thelma and louise model. >> he's waiting for the storm to pass. >> my opinion is he will be around if and when the storm passes. >> a big storm. like a monsoon. >> come back soon. >> the big change that could be coming to twitter. plus, he's called the ultimate giant. the tributes pouring in for gridiron great, frank gifford. keep it here on "morning joe." shopping online... ...is as easy as it gets. wouldn't it be great if hiring plumbers,

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it's 44 past, nfl hall of famer and veteran broadcaster frank gifford passed away sunday at his home in connecticut. he was 84 years old. willie geist has more on the life of the pro football legend. >> we're going to come back to that in a second. you know, i was thinking back when i heard the sad news, and obviously, for anybody who was around in the early 1970s, it is hard to think of another weekly show that brought america together as much as monday night football. it was brand-new. it was remarkable. you talk about the global village. everybody stopped and watched monday night football with frank gifford and howard cosell. >> younger people watching the show couldn't understand what an

event it was because now you see football on sports round the clock on cable and broadcast television. to take nfl football and move it to monday night into primetime was an incredible thing. those three guys, meredith and gifford and cosell, were extraordinary broadcasters. >> once a week, the country stopped and watched monday night football. and most people, a lot of people, learned the news that john lennon was killed watching monday night football. >> in the halftime highlights which didn't exist anywhere else. >> here's willie geist's speech on the legendary frank gifford. >> his southern california good looks just as easily could have taken him to hollywood, but frank gifford was a football player. all-american at usc, first-round pick of the new york giants. eight pro bowls, and in 1956 most valuable player of the nfl. the hall of famer caught a touchdown pass in the giants dramatic overtime loss to the baltimore colts in the 1958 nfl championship game. which earned the title, the

greatest game ever played. gifford's career was put on hold for nearly two years after an infamous hit he took from chuck bednarik of the philadelphia eagles. gifford returned from the head injury and made another pro bowl before retiring in 1964. frank's charm made him a popular choice for advertisers. >> nothing like it. >> and a familiar face in popular culture. >> where are you from? >> bakersfield, california. >> to a later generation, frank gifford was something of a straight man in a raucous monday night football booth where he was joined by howard cosell and dandy don meredith. gifford spent 27 years on the show. >> really amazeth athlete. >> in 1986, gifford married his wife kathie lee, a beloved member of our nbc family with whom he has two children. >> recycled yet again. we're green around here. thank you, sweetheart. thank you. >> and our thoughts, prayers,

and lots of love to kathie lee at this time. we're going to move on to business before the bell with cnbc's sara eisen. hot is moving the markets today? >> good morning. another big deal with warren buffett announced this morning. berkshire hathaway with buy precision cast parts is the name of the company, for more than $30 billion. it's a big deal. if you add debt to this transaction, it's $37 billion and it would make it berkshire's largest takeover ever. precision cast parts is a company that makes some aerospace parts. companies that buy from this company include g.e. aviation, boeing, airbus. this is a bet on american manufacturing, on american industrial heavyweights, and on largely the aerospace, and airline industry. they do do a little business when it comes to power and parts supply for oil companies, but a

bulk of their howevrevenue is to the airline industry. big deal, a lot of speculation. the "wall street journal" reported it first over the weekend, but now the deal looks to be a done one, and warren buffett was on with us earlier on cnbc. he said it takes us out of the game for big deals. they have to build up their cash again because this is more than $30 billion. >> sara, the market overall has taken a hit over the past week or two. we expecting a rally anytime soon? or more bleak days ahead this week? >> there's a lot of uncertainty right now. last week was a tough one. in fact, we're looking at seven straight down days for the dow, something we haven't seen in four years. there's uncertainty when it comes to corporate earnings, and really, corporate revnies. the sales just are not coming in as good as analysts were expecting. uncertainty around the fed interest rate increase. we could see the first once since 2006 as early as september. it's taking its toll on media

and technology companies. twitter continues to fall and continues to have uncertainty around the management issue. the latest reports circling around an intel president, rene james, the "new york post" saying she might be tapped as the next ceo of twitter, and reports suggest the former ceo will step down from the board by the end of the year whrx a new ceo is announced. the bottom line here for twitter is continued uncertainty, continued rumors and speculation, and the stock continues to fall toward its ipo price, which means its lowest price ever. >> sara eisen, thank you. we'll be right back with much more "morning joe." two million, four hundred thirty-four thousand, three hundred eleven people in this city. and only one me. ♪ i'll take those odds.

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i want nothing more than to see you come onstage, give the speech you were meant to give, give me a hug and tell me you love me one last time, but that isn't our reality. and i know that his athleticism and talent made him extraordinary enough to make it into the hall, but it is his passion and heart that make him truly legendary. and deserving of this tremendous honor. i would just like to thank my family and everyone else for all their support throughout this process. dad, i love you and i miss you. congratulations. you made it. >> that was the daughter of the late junior seau on saturday night after initial questions about whether the pro football

hall of fame would let her speak. she got the opportunity to honor her father onstage at the ceremony. the linebacker committed suicide in 2012, and it was later discovered he suffered from a dejenerative brain condition known as cte. >> nfl made the right decision. >> absolutely. >> tyime to talk about what we learned. >> lot of opinions about what will happen to donald trump's political standing now and no clear answers. >> what did you lurb? >> you can't control the process so let it continue with the candidates. ask questions. >> i learned a couple things. first of all, dtd dt demands an apology from megyn kelly. secondly, he told richard haass on policy grounds, he would put boots on the ground in iraq. kill isis leaders, and then take their oil. and any other policy issues? >> wouldn't answer mika's questions on equal pay and access to credit for women. >> i'm going to keep asking. >> we shall see. also, he said he himself

couldn't explain his success. fascinating insight. if it's way too early, what time it is? >> "morning joe," but it's time for "the rundown" right now. have a great day. wrap it. good morning, i'm jose diaz-balart. we're following breaking news on "the rundown." chaos and gunfire breaking out in ferguson, missouri, after a day of peaceful protests marked one year since the death of michael brown. >> this is a good area to be in. [ gunshots ] >> st. louis county police chief says a young man around 20 years old is in critical condition after he opened fire on plain-clothes police officers. those officers were deployed following reports of looting in the area. >> bloods and crips are fighting.