. >>> let's bring in nicolle wallace and steve kornacki. good morning to you. let's talk about what mr. trump said. >> 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. cuddles up to putin. 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. >> the failure was i

. >>> 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 marco 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 everything else in his arsenal. this morning with you guys, he talked about trump is a con artist. it was more of a focused message than last night where he tried lots of things. it's interesting to think 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 to put this performance in. >> i don't think there is a

nicolle wallace is an nbc news political analyst. guys, good morning. did i miss anything? all right, last gop debate tonight before super tuesday. five people on the stage. anyone whose name is not donald trump had better do something tonight to try to slow him down going into tuesday. realistically realistically, what are their options? >> listen, winning the nomination is like climbing to the top of everest. donald trump is halfway there with half of the pack and a lot less oxen. it's possible, but extremely difficult. >> what do you expect, chuck? rubio and cruz and kasich, they have to make their move. >> what i expect and what they should do are two different things. i think the rubio plan is to stay the course, go after cruz, play this one more long game, hope cruz is eliminated after super tuesday and hope next wednesday morning he gets to wake up, come on the "today" show as he's done after these nights, and say, hey, i finished second in the delegates, now it's a two-man race, and hope somehow by march 15th he can overtake him. >> there's a lot of ifs there. >> wa

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 half way 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. >> rubio and cruz and kasich. >> i think the rubio plan is to sort of stay the course, go after cruz, play this one more long game. hope cruz is eliminated after super tuesday and hope next wake 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 he absorb the punches, land few good one liners or use this opportunity to take the turn and try to become more presidential than they are in. >> if he was anybody but donald trump i would say he is so far ahead

nicolle wallace was my guest, talking about the campaign. 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. >> i wrote some monologue jokes 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. >> why? it's what they said. >> not fair. >> i don't think it is either 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 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" and te

nicolle wallace served as an adviser to the mccain-palin the managing editor of bloomberg good morning to you. >> good morning. donald trump unstoppable? he seems to have the momentum and has two big wins under his >> 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, fifth and second, and ted cruz's case, he hasn't won since iowa. it is possible. 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 place slot? >> none of them give it up. all of them think that somehow, trump can be eventually stopped when it's one on one. you've got the contest here tomorrow, and then super tuesday a week from tomorrow. i think it's increasingly -- as nicolle said -- incr

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, 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. >> that's the interesting thing. 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 th

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. it's like a game of three-dimensional chess. where does it fall out? >> i think the consequence of what happened saturday night is, i think no matter what happens here, barring one of the 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. to take 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 good 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 night. punch. i'm going to hit you right in the

. >> 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. yesterday morning and he seemed uncharacteristically 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 were going to win or knew they were 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 last 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 to voters writing down his name? >> the answer to both questions are yes. meaning that, look, his people are not people

. >>> 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. no one knows if his movement, as he described it -- bernie sanders describes it as a revolution on the democratic side -- is going f 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 >> a little uncertainty even from donald trump himself, who is usually a ton of confidence. >> 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 s

. >> nicolle wallace, thank you very much. we appreciate it. >>> let's get a check of the early weather from mr. roker. we talked about a snowstorm moves into iowa. timing, al? will it have an affect on the caucuses? >> it might. especially for folks a little nervous about a blizzard coming in. take a look at flag staff, arizona. in fact, listen. boom. thunder snow. that's right. this storm is making its way to the east. it's already dumped a bunch of snow throughout california, arizona, and it is headed this way. here's what we're looking at for today. already, snow making its way through the rockies. now, this system will push to the east. as it does, we look for some fairly good snow falling through the rockies today. heavy snow for southern-central rockies. moves to the plains later this evening. tomorrow, we have a blizzard likely for iowa. snow falling at rates of 2 inches an hour. heavy snow in the upper midwest. out west, flag staff, denver, 8 to 24 inches of snow. the timing for iowa looks like this. we're going to st