. >>> let's bring in nicolle wallace and steve kornacki. good morning to you. let's talk about what mr. trump said. has he put it to bed? >> your conversation with him is extraordinary, in that it was the first time i heard him blame the ear piece for -- >> what'd you say? >> old campaign trick. press your ear and pretend you can't hear. what is right about what he says is that the republican party is trying to take steps toward him. then he refuses to disavow david duke. he says things that make it necessary for us to run ten steps back. >> the article in the "new york times" talking about efforts over the last couple months by the gop establishment, what was the headline to you? >> i think it's the failure. there's been concern for a few months among republicans that trump could do this. he could pull away. i think there's a question, could they have done anything in the first place to stop him? there was a failure in the time to get behind any other candidate. it says a lot about the other candidates running. >> can't get behind a vacuum. >> exactly. >> the

. >>> let's bring in nicolle wallace and mark halperin, managing editor for bloomberg politics. good morning to both of you. mark, you were at the debate last night. the old saying, throwing everything but the kitchen sink. in this case, i think the sink was included. mao rubio dumping it on trump from the fake university to the hiring of the illegal workers to the fraud lawsuit. it was all in there. i guess the question this morning is, was it enough? was it too late? >> kitchen sink, bathtub and this morning with you guys, he talked about trump is a con artist. it was more of a focused message an last night where he tried lots of things. it's interesting t tthink about someone, including marco rubio, had had a performance like this against trump two or three months ago, whether the trajectory would be different. we're a few days away from super tuesday. donald trump is leading in all the states voting in super tuesday by a substantial margin, except texas. i think marco rubio probably waited too long tout this performance in. >> i don't think there is any doubt this was marco

nicole wallace, political analyst. last gop debate tonight before super tuesday. anyone whose name is not donald trump had better do something tonight to try to slow him down going into tuesday. what are their options? >> winning the nomination is like climbing to the top of everest. donald trump is halfway there and marco rubio is at the bottom of the mountain with a much heavier pack and a lot less oxygen. it is possible but extremely difficult. >> i think the rubio plan is to sort of stay the cououe, go after cruz, play this one more long game. hope cruz is eliminated after super tuesday and hope next dnesday morning he gets to wawa up, come on the "today" show and say i finished second and now it is a two-man race. >> there is a lot of ifs there. >> i think he can attract the real support, he has to show he is tough enough to take on trump. >> does trump absorb the punches, land a few good one liners or use this opportunity to take the turn and try to become more presidential than they are? >> if he was anybody but donald trump i would say he is so far ahead w

nicolle wallace was my guest, talking about the campaign. >> this man killed it. listen to this. >> oh, no. >> 24 hour mcdonald's in south korea will try serving beer to attract customers because if there's one thing i've thought while sitting at mcdonald's at 2:00 in the morning, it's, boy, i wish everyone here was more drunk. and they wrote some. >> you have a future, my friend, willie. i've always said, you'll go places someday. >> ucb is awesome. if you get a chance to see a show here, l.a., wherever, check them out. so much talent in that place. >> well played. >>> we're asking, we got this shoutout going. moms, send us their wildest first concert looks. dads cannot apply. >> why? >> i don't know. it's what they said. >> not fair. but that's what this is. for a chance to be flown to new york and win a head to toe makeover, courtesy of jcpenney. natalie shared her wildest first concert look when she was 14 and went to spandal ballet. share your throwback pictures. we'll pick a winner at the end of the month. go to our facebook page, facebook.com/"today's take"

nicolle wallace served as an adviser to the mccain-palin campaign, and mark halperin is the managing editor of bloomberg politics. good morning to you. >> good morning. >> nicolle, the question, is donald trump unstoppable? he seems to have the momentum and has two big wins under his belt. >> flip it the other way around. can ted cruz or marco rubio win? i think it's a harder question to answer. it would be defying decades of political history to seize the nomination in marco rubio's case, after coming in third, case, he hasn't won since iowa. in my view, it is increasingly unlikely. >> mark, the argument from a lot of republicans is, if you get donald trump in a one on one fight, it's the way to beat him. i guess the question for me is, which of the candidates, whether marco rubio, ted cruz or john kasich, gives up the fight at this point, given how well they've been doing in the second place slot? >> none of them give it up. all of them think that somehow, when it's one on one. you've got the contest here tomorrow, and then super tuesday a week from tomorrow. nicolle said -- increa

political analyst nicolle wallace and political correspondent, steve kornacki. good morning. >> good morning. >> let's take it piece by piece. if you watch the debate, you see there are certain voter groups and issues that keep cropping up. let's start with this battle, and it is an all-out battle for the african-american vote. steve, we saw hillary clinton really usher in this strategy that she's been trying out, which is to wrap her arms around president obama and his legacy not only that, say that bernie sanders didn't do so sufficiently. president obama is still extremely popular with african-american voters. more than 50% of the electorate in south carolina. all of the areas where bernie sanders would try to come after hillary clinton, so many of them, the criticism he levelled against her could also be applied to president obama. she pointed that out time and again. basically put him on the defensive. he had to say, this is why i'm criticizing hillary clinton but it's not meant as a criticism of president obama. it's tough to accomplish. >> who do you thin

nicolle wallace served as an adviser to the mccain-palin campaign, and chuck todd, moderator of "meet the press." >> good morning. >> chuck, big moment, big stakes. chris christie absolutely eviscerated marco rubio. where does it fall out?? >> i think the consequence of what happened saturday night is, i think no matter what happens here, barring one ofofhe candidates sort of skyrocketing or an upset over trump, i think it means now nobody gets out. i think it means new hampshire doesn't win out the field. marco rubio had an opportunity to t te control of the race on saturday night. he knew everybody was going to come after him. that's what makes saturday night so perplexing. he knew they were coming after him and he wasn't ready. he ended up blowing an opportunity that i think could have been meaning securing the nomination, believe it or not. if he had had as g gd of a night as he had as bad of a night. >> let's go further on that. chris christie spent the whole week saying exactly what he was going to say to attack marco rubio on that stage on saturday punch. i'm going to hit you r

. >> let's bring in chuck todd and nicolle wallace. long night for you. nice to have you with us this morning. >> where am i? >> let's start on the republican side. yesterday morning you told us the cruz campaign was supremely confident. we interviewed donald trump yesterday morning and he seemed unchbracteristically subdued. did they know it was coming? >> i think the cruz camp knew it was coming. i saw them the day before and they were calm. they hung out a long time and there were no frantic cell phones. i thought, they either knew they wewe going to win or knenethey wewe going to lose. they built the model with the capacity to go to 170,000. it went bigger. they knew they were going to do well lt night. >> what is trump supposed to make of this? is it just, he didn't organize well in the end for iowa, and it's iowa specific, or is this a sign that perhaps the support you see in polls over and over again, that there's less than meets the eye when it comes down >> the answer to both questions are yes. meaning that, look, his people are not people that a

. >>> let's bring in nicolle wallace. good morning to you. the question about a loss tonight for donald trump and how it damages his political brand, what do you think? >> listen, i think that he said what i was going to say, which is that this is a series of known-unknowns. i thought it was actually a sober interview from donald trump this morning with you guys. he described it -- bernie sanders describes it as a revolution on the democratic side -- is goingf people are going to show up. is their model going to bear out the right number of evangelicals, or is donald trump's movement going to upend the republicans? >> a lit is >> right. >> the fact he's doing so well with evangelical voters, is that one of the more confounding things? they can be dispositive of what ultimately happens. he's winning them, donald trump. >> i sat down with my two evangelical whisperers, friends who know the block the best, and said, what's going on with trump? they said, it's a misnomer. evangelicals, obviously, we have a set of values but we want to win, too. t