you this, do you think hillary clinton is going to have to answer with her relationship with senator robert byrd who was an actual member of the kkk? i'm not trying to defend -- >> you're trying to do something, mike, i don't know what you're trying to do but there are a lot of -- >> and you were doing so well. >> no, mike this is pretty simple. donald was asked two simple questions and he didn't answer them. there's no fascination here: i'd just like to hear him say the -- i'd like to hear him say about ku klux klan what you just said about the ku klux klan, i don't think that's hard. do you? >> no and i think he's said that. i listened to the clip on the "today" show. i've read the things he said and i looks to me that he totally disavowed the endorsement. i don't think -- does anybody think donald trump is a racist? i don't. i don't. i didn't know of anything in his life that indicate this is man has racist tendencies. >> that's not what we said. >> if that's the implication -- >> mike, you and i have campaigned across the deep south and we have seen people that have done the nod and the

koch roberts. i will not release something until my democratic opponent does. >> the reason i agree with you, joe, i think it's all distracting. enough already with all of this stuff. she's trying desperately to keep the conversation about the issues that she's concerned about. >> release the transcripts, we'll move on. it's her fault we're talking about it. >> she raised money off of wall street. she's running against a guy who has no connection, taken nothing from them. prove the point. >>> coming up on "morning joe," does marco rubio suddenly have a conservative problem? he had to cancel one forum and now reports say he may not go to the biggest conservative event on the calendar. we'll hear from the head of the american conservative union when "morning joe" continues. >>> my exclusive interview with melania trump is also ahead. be good. text mom. boys have been really good today. send. let's get mark his own cell phone. nice. brad could use a new bike. send. [google] message. you decide. they'r

doesn't mean you have to be a liberal but he is on some issues. >> robert costa, let me ask you what you're hearing from the cruz and rubio campaigns because we have been asking the question all morning. when you have a guy in first place, ahead in every poll, looks like he'll win easily on supertuesday in nevada. what are the campaigns saying to justify attacking the guys in second or third place and not going after the frontrunner who looks like he could lock this thing down in three weeks? >> they both want a two-man race. to get there, they think they have to go through each other rather than going through trump. i think mark nailed it. there is a sense that they don't want to have the fight. they don't want to engage because they either don't have the political skills or they don't have the money. what you're going to see is rubio try to creep up onto a two-man race by coalescing establishment support. time is running out for him and others in the field. >> certainly is. >> robert costa, thank you. >>> governor john kasich clarifies off the cuff comments. >>> jeff greenfield joi

but robert costa and reverend al sharpton just us live in just a moment. we'll be back in a moment live from charleston, south carolina. ♪ give me miles, lots of miles, ♪ under starry skies above. ♪ ♪ don't fence me in. ♪ let me fly any time, ♪ any airline that i love, ♪ don't fence me in. ♪ give me a mile and a half ♪ for every buck i spend. ♪ double my miles when the first year ends. ♪ ♪ no annual fees, ♪ no blackouts, ♪ let the fun begin. ♪ don't fence me in. get the discover it miles card. whfight back fastts tums smoothies starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue and neutralizes stomach acid at the source tum, tum, tum, tum smoothies! only from tums is our partnership with habitat for humanity. pg&e is committed to clean energy and part of that commitment our mission is to build homes, community and hope. our homeowners are low-income families, so the ability for them to have lower energy cost is wonderful. we have been able to provide about 600 families with solar on their homes. that's over nine and a half m

josh green, robert acosta, thank you all. still ahead. >> remember when politicians 4e8d ne held news conferences walking back -- >> what i meant to say. >> the no apology approach of the republican front-runners ahead on "morning joe." the future belongs to the fast. and to help you accelerate, we've created a new company... one totally focused on what's next for your business. the true partnership where people,technology and ideas push everyone forward. accelerating innovation. accelerating transformation. accelerating next. hewlett packard enterprise. ifor all the wrong reasons.gical you may be muddling through allergies. try zyrtec® for powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin®. because it starts working faster on the first day you take it. try zyrtec®. muddle no more®. >>> new numbers out of south carolina leave us again playing the game what, if anything, can stop donald trump? if you think it's getting old, how do you think jeb bush feels? on the democratic side, for a while we didn't know h

john roberts i think can be a defended choice for sure. the obamacare decision i was disappointed in but he's made really good rulings beyond that here's the deal. the lesson learned is you pick someone with a proven long-standing record, a history that you can point to. when he wasn't considered -- or she wasn't being considered a nomination in the supreme court. >> so, sam, the battle began immediately after scalia -- >> five minutes. five minutes. >> i would usually be offended by such things but it was so obviously a titanic event in american politics that you couldn't be shocked saying oh, we must mourn for two or three days, i expected it immediately and you know what? justice scalia would have expected it immediately, too, because so many cases hang in the balance, 5-4. "heller" is just one of them. the gun case. >> it does raise a question about the structure of our lifetime appointments to the supreme court. maybe it will spark a conversation about judicial term limits. >> you and dr. ben car jon? ben carson does agree with that.

ism -- i know we still have robert costa here in the spin room. how are you doing, robert? >> doing good. we also have aaron and elise. starting with you, robert, the mood here generally about who won and what matters in south carolina? >> reporter: here in the spin room a lot of the establishment candidates, more of the mainstream republicans feel they had an opening tonight. their argument in the spin room was donald trump was running against the republican party, running against the policies and views, especially on foreign policy that that have become the center of the policy over the last decade. they say especially in a state like social security that gives a rubio or bush or anyone else like a john kasich to move forward and the trump people feel pretty confident, too. they think they established themselves as someone a little counter and -- >> gabe, i don't want to add to the urgency of the moment. but i understand you guys are going to be kicked out of there at some point? the spinning must stop? is that right? >> yes, that's right. the spin room is quickly clearin

and like in 2000, you'll hear a lot of scalia, a lot of clarence thomas, not as much of john roberts, who has annoyed conservatives by defending obamacare now twice. so i think you'll hear from that. i will be interested to watch tonight, ted cruz, a justice -- a clerk on the supreme court. so tonight is the one time where in terms of these candidates, he is much more versed on legal issues than the other candidates. i think this is a night for him to show that and to really speak more eloquently about the issues. >> you make such an interesting point. what you're saying is it's not just where people stand, and from what we can tell, the entire leadership of the republican party within a few hours has taken the same position. it's not just so much where they stand on that, but who knows what? you make the point that ted cruz who has done well so far, is by any stretch the best lawyer on the stage, the most practiced legal mind. he already has that reputation. he had an exchange with donald trump about who was going to take advice on who on constitutional issues when the eligibility is

robert knows this. steve knows this. you go out there and talk to the people who go to two rallies -- trump rallies and sanders rallies. and they're amazingly akin at many, many levels. and to understand it, you have to sit there and watch the crowd react to the candidate, react to what trump says, react to what sanders says and you can feel what -- i was telling robert earlier, i likened it to watching people come out of a variety store after having bought a lottery ticket. nothing else has worked so their lottery ticket is either trump or sanders. this might work for me because nothing else has worked. >> and i tell you what, steve kornacki, we went to a sanders rally and trump rally the day before and trump rallies -- it's a rock show. it's just a complete rock show. we had somebody yesterday going "trump's losing energy." really. that's like saying zeppelin in '75 had seen their better days. >> i'd never seen anything like it before in my life. >> as far as politics go, i did literally say when my kids and i were get

she joins us along with the "washington post's" robert costa. you're watching "morning joe" live from new hampshire. [ applause ] want to get their hands on. if they could ever catch you. ♪ meand to the city.c. we said goodbye the day. and drifted off into the twilight. and when we woke, we found that the whole world had reinvented itself. sail with princess cruises the best cruise line in europe. princess cruises. come back new. think of it as a seven seat for an action packed thriller. watching tvs get sharper, oh remotes, you've had it tough. bigger, smugger. and you? rubbery buttons. enter the x1 voice remote. now when someone says... show me funny movies. watch discovery. record this. voila. remotes you are back. the x1 voice remote is here. x1 customers get your voice remote by visiting xfinty.com/voiceremote. i provide for my family. i will use my education to help my community. i will inspire our next generation of leaders. i am a college student, but i am only 1%. only 1% of college students are american indian. donate now, and help o

>> fifth is bad. [ laughter ] >> fifth is bad. >> thank you, robert costa. >> not just in the number but in terms of his status in the race. >> having finished thursday in iowa, having had momentum and dropping back to fifth -- >> let's not forget -- >> can't be beat by bush. he's got to be at the top. >> he's got to be bush and needs to beat kasich. but it's rubio's own campaign team that said we've got to three three, two, and one. third in iowa, second in new hampshire, first in south carolina. let me go to mary. mary, you were laughing when willie was talking about what was happening the other night. what i found from conservative commentators and the "wall street journal" opinion page had a great editorial on this as well is the most disturbing thing was he knew the attack was coming and even knowing the attack was coming, rhetorically his feet stayed in the same cement it's been in for ten years, telling the same speech for ten years. >> it was a brutal line, very effective attack from christie. but i think the more important issue is that voters are starting to focus on substa

i heard the arguments coming from democrats and republicans, robert rubin, alan greenspan, about how great an idea it would be if we did away with glass-steagall and if we allowed investor banks and commercial banks and big insurance companies to merge. go to youtube today, look up "greenspan, sanders." listen to what i told them then. i helped lead the effort against deregulation. unfortunately, we lost that. the result is, was, the worst financial disaster since the great depression. >> all right. so much to go through here. i thought hillary clinton was amazing. she was unbelievably prepared and she was very artful in making an honest, serious election question, transforming it into an attack on her which almost, almost made -- until she called it an artful smear and people didn't buy it. bernie never went in for the kill with her. she actually kept it big picture and i think ultimately the audience loved that. >> he wins that way. >> he wins that way. >> everybody knew there were so many times you're going "is he not going to take that punch?" and he set back and he almost let th

. >> abc news political commentator and npr senior analyst cokie roberts is with us. nbc analyst michael steele, senior national correspondent for bloomberg business week josh green. republican pollster and columnist in at the washington examiner kristin soltis anderson and in manchester, new hampshire, managing editor of bloomberg politics, mark halperin along with willie geist in new york. a lot to talk about this morning. we'll start with the democrats. >> let's do that. first i want to talk briefly with cokie about the republicans because -- [ laughter ] >> now i know where you're going to go. >> as i was watching the breathless press coverage all day from the second trump loss through yesterday it's breathless. and there was a narrative that was breathless for five months which was trump can't win. then it was breathless for a month, oh, my god, trump's going to win. now for the last three days iowa does what iowa always does, changes the narrative and then the press goes running this way to the complete opposite direction and then the new hampshire voters push h

abc news political commentator and npr senior analyst cokie roberts. pulitzer prize winning editor writer for the "washington post," jonathan capehart and in new hampshire we have robert costa. and willie geist back in new york. >> why don't we go up to new hampshire and get a report on the ground from bob costa. bob, obviously donald trump is the story going in there, his second place finish along with marco rubio. give me a tale of those two campaigns yesterday. what did you see on the ground? >> well, i landed at 4:00 a.m., joe, and i was with senator marco rubio when he went to the airport diner and he was all smiles. he was spinning to his supporters and to himself as he talked to voters at that this performance he had in iowa was a win that will perhaps propel him here in new hampshire. that doesn't mean donald trump is shrinking away from the fight. i was with trump when he landed at the tarmac at a manchester airport at dusk, he came with his daughter ivanka. he had his swagger back. the trump we saw in his concession speech in iowa, that trump

up next we pack the political round table, andrea mitchell, robert costa, hallie jackson and -- oh, my gosh. >> american goth i can. >> straight ahead on "morning joe." we will be right back. you can't predict... the market. but at t. rowe price, we can help guide your investments through good times and bad. for over 75 years, our clients have relied on us to bring our best thinking to their investments so in a variety of market conditions... you can feel confident... ...in our experience. call a t. rowe price retirement specialist or your advisor ...to see how we can help make the most of your retirement savings. t. rowe price. invest with confidence. i thione second it's there.day. then, woosh, it's gone. i swear i saw it swallow seven people. seven. i just wish one of those people could have been mrs. johnson. [dog bark] trust me, we're dealing with a higher intelligence here. ♪ the all-new audi q7 is here. ♪ ♪ >>> do we have any like young kids here, like ten years old? okay. let's do this, i have a little bit of an idea. we will have -- look at that handsome guy. i have -- w