and, yes, that involves the people in this room, the people who have cycled through this room, nicole wallace not here but outed herself as an establishment republican earlier this evening. >> poor kid. it's going to be a rough weekend. >> steve kornacki is here in the weather position at the end of the desk. the folks you don't get to see who get none of the glory who are in control rooms and behind cameras and scurrying to airplanes, the people who did scurry to airplanes with names like andrea and kacie. my friend, named rachel, who is the pilot of all things here in this room. thanks. >> this has been a lot of fun. let's do it again. >> yeah. something tells me we're going to get that chance whether we want it or not. thank you for joining us. >>> thank you for being with us tonight. >>> we are back with special live breaking coverage here with news on the iowa caucus. i'm ari melber coming to you live in the nbc newsroom. i can tell you right now hillary clinton has been named the apparent winner of the iowa caucus. we now have all numbers in according to the iowa state democrati

joining us here in new york, all night, nicole wallace, and gene robinson. great to have you both here. we're joined in the studio by steve car knacky, who is not allowed to sleep until deep november. steve, what we're all wondering about, hard to put your finger on ahead of time, but we know it will be critical, is the turnout, how many people will show up. >> it's the biggest cliche in politics. it comes down to turnout. it is totally true tonight. if you want to know who's going to win either one of these contests, you have to know how many penal are actually going to show up. let's start on the democratic side. historically this is how many penal turn out for these things. this is obama, this is clinton, this was historic. this was 240,000 people. nobody expects they're going to be close to that tonight. the question is, how close will they get. why is that significant? take a look at this. this is from patrick murray, a pollster, part of our decision desk here at nbc. he looks at the possibility. now, remember, 240,000 is the -- oops, i did that wrong.

we're joined by in the studio by nicole wallace. we go over to the board and steve who has all the asterisks. >> they are offering us clues ar possibly clues on the republican side. two things to highlight that we're seeing right now in these numbers. one of them might be encouraging for donald trump. the other may be a bit more for ted cruz. this is one question that's asked in the entrance poll is are you a first time caucus goer? this is key for donald trump. people coming to his events that don't participate, would they turn out. there round of data tells us that 43% are first timers. the last time in 2012, the number was 38%. it's higher than we had this 2012. 2012 was record turn out. all time for republicans. you have more first timers this time. already consider you have repetitive caucuses in 2008 and 2012. to have an increase in the number of first timers after two straight competitive caucuses, that is a potentially significant statistic. the other one to tell you about that we're seeing that might be encouraging for ted

i must say, nicole wallace, this matches kind of what the talk you were getting from out there was that one of our plot lines is marco rubio would have a good night. >> cruz was way ahead two weeks ago. the fact that trump has topped him. and marco rubio is eating away at his support. he was a dominant figure in the iowa caucus in polling two or three weeks ago. the fact they are right on his heels is saying something interesting. >> thinking about the trend line in iowa. after donald trump announced he was ronning he shot to the top of polls. he held that lead until october when ben carson took it from him. ben carson collapsed in november and then ted cruz took the lead from him in iowa. ted cruz has been on the down swing. his momentum has been negative since then. the question is whether that created an opening for marco rubio. let's go to jacob who at the caucus there. they are not counting folded pieces of paper. they are counting heads, right? >> that's what's happening. this is not completely unexpected. it's very, i would say, incredible to see. this is the hillary clinton room

nicole wallace, the republican story tonight is really fascinating. to chuck's point, he's so right. a week is a year in american politics, especially in this cycle. >> and what cruz will have done if these numbers hold up is he will have robbed trump of his central reason for being. his central reason for being in this race is his winneriness. and he will have deprived him of his whole purpose for being the best guy to make america great again, his best -- >> wait, you think it's key to his appeal that he will win. so if he doesn't win it punctures him? >> i just think his whole brand is about being a winner and the rest of us are losers. so he will -- in effect, coming in second is not as good as coming in first. he will have lost to cruz. and i think it gets at the central trump purpose. >> and it's what he tells his audiences every night. if i don't win it's a waste of time. >> you'll come to me and say president trump, can we stop winning for a while? >> you'll get so sick of winning you'll be bored. >> that said, because donald trump is becoming

the people that cycled through this room, nicole wallace not here but an establish the republican out this evening. >> poor kid. going to be a rough week ahead. >> lauren, steve is here in thewet pore session at the end of the desk. the folks you don't get to see who get none of the glory in control rooms and behind cameras and scurrying to airplanes. the people that did scurry to airplanes like andrea and casey, my friend named rachel who is the pilot of all things here in this room. thanks. >> this has been a lot of fun. let's do it again. >> yeah, something tells me we'll get that chance whether we want it or not. thanks for joining us. >> thanks for being with us tonight. >>> welcome back. two parties and two stories tonight. there is the leading story, two close to call as we go into the overnight hours. we had a republican victory comparatively early in the evening with ted cruz taking the iowa caucus, but tonight as we go into the night, it's the democrats that are gathering the

it is tuesday, february 2nd, and with us we have -- well, nicolle wallace was here on the set but she keeled over so we've propped her up in front of the flash cam. >> it's the palin cam. >> steve rattner is with us, associate editor of the "washington post" and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson and msnbc -- speaking of propped up. >> wow. >> steve kornacki. seriously? >> you squeezed a couple hours there. >> i don't know what's going to come out of your mouth because you will be punchy. >> i doubt it. >> in washington we have senior political editor and exhaust correspondent for the huffington post, sam stein and in manchester, new hampshire, managing editor of bloomberg politics whose eyes are very red this morning, john heilemann. >> it's a blues brothers look. >> nbc news is calling hillary clinton the apparent winner in iowa but it was gut check night for both campaigns. >> the iowa democratic party says the results are the closest ever in the history of the caucus and the clinton campaign seemed to indicate they had won with precincts still out. as the votes were still bei

nicolle wallace has been watching and listening from new york. nicolle, by my notes, a guy promised a greater future and bountiful america, why isn't he doing better? >> well, lawrence warned us correctly against looking at the percentages because these are small numbers of actual voters, but the percentages smell a very ominous end for the once hopeful cruz candidacy. 22 days ago he won the iowa caucuses largely due to the quality and the caliber of his campaign infrastructure. everything that has happened since that night has been the other side, the dark side, if you will, of that campaign caliber and infrastructure. on the night of the iowa caucus victory, he was accused of spreading rumors about ben carson dropping out of the race. he is the guy running as the character candidate. he has been hit with more attacks on his character and the character of his campaign than anyone running on either side in this cycle. and i think that what you see in the percentages of the vote that he's getting among evangelicals, it is insufficient to deliver h

nicolle wallace, get back to your son. thank you for making time for us. i want to go to katy tur. she joins us from ft. worth. she was there when the announcement came with chris christie throwing his support at donald trump. katy, i know you've had a few questions as well trying to figure out what thisç means an whether christie is vying to be on the ticket or the cabinet. >> reporter: that's right, why would chris christie endorse donald trump at this moment. some of it has to be his anger at marco rubio and the negative ads, but i want to know is there something coming along the pipeline down the future? is he ang ling to be his running mate? is he angling to be an attorney general position. trump said he would be a terrific running mate but they haven't had those conversations. chris christie has said repeatedly he plans on staying in office in new jersey as governor for the rest of his term, which is a few more years. so certainly not giving away anything, but i wouldn't be surprised if there is something coming, a competition to be had later on down the line if donald trum

>> because nicole wallace is vibrating at a high intensity at this point. she's six inches above her seat. you're freaking out. >> those interviews at the red owe knocked me over because they speak to trump's political brilliance. he talks about his poll numbers on the stump every day for the first 15 to 20 minutes and is hard-wiring the minds of those in texas. >> the woman who said i like cruz and it looks like trump is going to win. >> we all said that to some degree. >> trump is not ahead in texas according to the polls. there are some poll that is have cruz a bit ahead. but the impression she has is trump is the winner. >> but does ted cruz have any prospects of winning anywhere other than texas? >> he doesn't talk about it. so you have to think a campaign that's been so technically precise. i mean, their predictions in iowa, they had it down, they had the turnout model down to within 10,000 voters. this is a technically and operationally very, very good campaign. so they are not talking about winning anywhere other than texas. >> it's amazing to be a

. >> chris, it is -- what's fascinating here, nicolle wallace mentioned something with me on the "today" show she said the dirty secret of republican politics is rubio is pretty divisive internally. it is envy of the ambition, this happened with candidate barack obama, too, there is a little bit of that and it's almost some in the party are gleeful of this. >> there's also a gleeful part because they think they have the opening right now. they see what happened in the debate as bunching everybody together even more. when you talk to the campaigns and they're looking at what they're tracking in their internals they're saying we think this is maybe even a crazier race than we thought it was before. you talk about how many tickets could come out of new hampshire, has this changed the narrative that more people can make a rationaler leaving here because they will be so tightly bunched in after donald trump. >> that's the thing here, peter. first of all, donald trump, he's -- he's the one ahead, he's doing fine. it looked like five days ago we were wondering, oh, is he going to start sinking