thank you for taking the time. >> and thanks to everyone who was with us these last three hours. >> and also a huge thanks to you for being with us for special coverage of nikki haley ending her presidential campaign and the beginning of the general election. "chris jansing reports" starts right now. ♪♪ good day, i'm chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york city, and so it begins, the nation now bracing for what will go down as the costliest, longest, and likely nastiest presidential race in american history, one that will test the candidates and the country. first up, the scramble for nikki haley voters, now a coalition without a candidate after she quit the race. so how will joe biden and donald trump compete for the millions who have made it clear they don't want either man. plus, lawmakers falling in line, senator mitch mcconnell and house republican leaders wasting no time endorsing donald trump. now the party's presumptive

nominee. how it could influence the race to replace the republican leader. and the record busting billions that presidential campaigns will pour into buying a mountain of negative ads. can all that money buy a winning message or is it just so much white noise? msnbc chief political analyst chuck todd will join me to talk about that, and why it may takes weeks to get an answer. we start with today, the official start of the rematch most voters say they didn't want. joe biden versus donald trump, an unprecedented race in extraordinary ways. to candidates, older than any in history, both extremely well-known yet deeply disliked facing a polarized electorate and toxic political climate, and yet they have essentially cemented their party's nominations even before they have the delegates to make it official. trump is now the presumptive

nominee, after this morning nikki haley suspended her campaign congratulating but not endorsing trump with a warning that seemed to directly target him. >> our congress is functional and only getting worse. it is filled with followers, not leaders. standing by our allies in ukraine, israel, and taiwan is a moral imperative, but it's also more than that. if we retreat further, there will be more war, not less. we must bind together as americans. we must turn away from the darkness of hatred and division. >> but it's a suggestion that seems unlikely to land in a campaign where trump has been leading with fear, including in his aggressive super tuesday victory speech last night. >> we're a third world country, and our elections, and we have to stop that. our cities are choking to death, our states are dying, and

frankly, our country is dying. right now our country is known as a joke. it's a joke. >> we're expecting a very different vision of america from president biden's state of the union speech tomorrow, a huge opportunity to reset a campaign that's been struggling to find an effective message and convince voters he has the energy and the vision to continue to lead. so we've got lots to get to. i want to start with garrett haake in south florida. trump put out a message saying he wanted to invite haley supporters to join his movement, while at the same time trashing her and her voters as radical left democrats. so is that what's passing for outreach in 2024 trump world? >> reporter: it looks like that's going to be the case, chris. donald trump's been all over the map when it comes to nikki haley and her supporters. he's also suggested that they should be banned from maga if they were still donating to nikki haley as recently as a few weeks ago, but even going back farther than that, back to new

hampshire, it was clear trumpner never had a solid strategy for how to convince softer republicans, who are doubtful about him to get back in the camp. i tried to ask him about this on new hampshire primary day and his answer there was instructive for where we are now. listen to what he told me. >> you've talked about trying to unify the party. how do you bring these nikki haley voters, some of whom voted for you in 2020 but say they don't want to now. >> they'll all vote for me. they can all vote for me again, everybody, and i'm not sure we need too many. i'm not sure. i think that biden is the worst president in the history of this country, but we're going to all come back. they're all coming back, and i think you see that. >> reporter: chris, the part of the answer from donald trump there that's consistent with what his campaign is telling me now is the joe biden portion of that answer. it's very clear that the trump campaign strategy here is going to involve a biden push. they essentially think that they need the biden economy or voters who are more concerned about joe biden to push those voters back

into the donald trump's camp. they have not demonstrated any affirmative strategy to kind of pull them in proactively, at least as we stand here today just hours after haley suspended her campaign. >> garrett haake, thank you so much for that. let me bring in nbc news national political correspondent steve kornacki at the big board, tim miller served as communications director for jeb bush's 2016 campaign and he's host of the bulwark podcast and joins me on set. okay, we're already starting to see the dominos fall. mitch mcconnell coming out earlier today, endorsing donald trump, someone who has ripped both he and his wife pretty much to shreds. do you think either trump or biden can claim real momentum coming out of last night? >> they're both the nominees now. donald trump, look, i think there's a lot of reason to talk about the holes in the donald trump coalition, and i'm happy to talk about them. >> go ahead. >> he won every primary except

for vermont and washington, d.c. it was an unprecedented performance by him. i think that democrats need to recognize that the threat here is real and there is a strong minority, but it's a small minority that voted for nikki haley over these -- in these states. you look at a place like north carolina. 23%. north carolina could be a swing state. so if half of that 23% -- >> do we think that's small? 23%? >> i mean, yeah, if only half of those people are open to voting against trump, now we're down to 11, maybe some of those people are democrats and independents. so look, i think that there is obviously resistance out there. i think that joe biden recognizes that these are key swing voters for him. i like the fact that joe biden put out a gracious welcoming statement saying to nikki haley supporters, we agree on ukraine. we agree on democracy. we agree on the rule of law, we agree on nato. i noticed that nikki haley's spokesperson olivia sent out a tweet that said a tale of two statements, comparing donald trump's ungracious attack on her.

i think there's potential green shoots for the biden folks. they're going to have to work for it. it's hard for me to get too excited when i find it completely insane that donald trump has won all but two primaries, despite the the fact that he provoked an attack on our capitol three years ago, that seven republicans voted to convict him and ban him from ever running again. seven republican senators and here we are. there's some concerns, no doubt, but that's pretty depressing to me. >> which brings me to steve cor kornacki, the point you're making, donald trump, 1,059 delegates versus haley's 93. this was not ever really a contest. >> yeah, i mean, look, going into last night, i think there were some places we were looking to see haley had gotten 40% in south carolina, 43 in new hampshire. demographically there were places -- colorado is a perfect example here, affluent suburbs

of denver, high concentrations of college degrees, groups she's been doing really with. you thought she might be competitive in colorado. even there it was two to one. there was some wind in haley's sails in those two stand-alone states. once this shifted to michigan and beyond, some of that just came out. i think that's what you see across the board here and i think picking up on what tim said there, in terms of the general election here and how the trump campaign, biden campaign for that matter is thinking about these haley votes, you know, i think, again, take a look at virginia. about a third of the vote in virginia, this is one of her best states last night. you see in the exit polls two types of voters that i think make up the core of the haley vote. there is a big chunk, there's a very significant chunk of her voters who say they are willing to vote for donald trump in november. there's also a chunk of voters who say they aren't, but in these exit polls we're finding, there's a key question we asked

in the exit polling, we asked do you approve or disapprove of joe biden's performance as president, his job approval number. when you poll just republican voters, it comes back at 3%. and we're seeing in the exit polls in the states we did, haley's voters were giving biden like a 50% job approval rating. i think between haley voters who are ultimately willing to go to trump and haley voters who i think frankly under the rules of these primaries, they're open primaries, allow independents and democrats, i think there were a lot of biden voters who do not like donald trump, who didn't vote for donald trump in 2020, and won't this fall coming in and voting for haley and vot there, it's very difficult to quantify, but there are some voters out there i'm sure who are for haley, maybe were previously for trump and perhaps there's talk there in his

campaign, do you try to get those voters and how do you get those voters. i think it's a smaller number in the overall scheme of things. the other reason i say that, we have polling evidence here, let me call it right up here. over the last few days we've had four national polls coming out showing small leads for donald trump. what's interesting in those polls, you ask republicans in a trump/biden matchup, who are you supporting. in these polls, 91, 6, 92, 5, this is trump's hair with republicans. what did he get among republicans in 2020? 94%. what did he get among republicans in 2016? 92%. his support in the general election polls among republicans really isn't showing any slack. so again, i think there's -- i'm sure there's an issue here with chunk of haley's voters who are gettable for trump. in a close election, close general election that can matter a lot, but in the context of what we're seeing in the general election, the one who has the

issue right now with the base is more biden than trump. this is from "the new york times" poll. they asked folks, you voted for trump in 2020, are you still with donald trump? 97% of his 2020 voters say they're still with him. ask biden's 2020 voters are you still with biden? the number is 85% there. at least right now in the general election polls, it's trump who's taking more from bidens voters than biden who's taking from trump's voters. there's a bigger context to that slack trump might have from the pro-haley side of the republican base. there are gains at least in the polling that he's making elsewhere that are offsetting whatever is there. the polling doesn't give us answers. it poses and it clarifies questions, and i think these are some of the questions we need to be asking and monitoring over the next few months here about the voters from the biden 2020 coalition who are now lining up with trump or not lining up with biden. what is behind it? who are they, and does that

shift during the course of the campaign? >> steve kornacki, you've given us a lot to think about. thank you so much and thank you for your 48 straight hours of coverage. i want to bring in ali vitali, she is following nikki haley from daniel island, south carolina. i always was shocked when i saw you here in new york, actually. a lot of people are saying what does nikki haley do now? i don't think she gave us a definitive answer, obviously, this morning. i took away some clues if donald trump wants her endorsement, she does not seem easily inclined to do it. maybe the bigger question listening to steve is how many of her voters would be influenced by what she has to say. >> reporter: yeah, chris, sometimes they let me back in the building that you call the office. maybe after this campaign since it's over, they will again. but look, i think there are a

lot of different clues to be heard in haley's remarks. the fact that she called herself a conservative republican, and always votes for the party's nominee, and did not endorse not just the former president, not just the likely nominee, but her former boss. that is something that underscores what haley has said over the last few weekswhich is that she's concerned about trump's electability this a general election. she is concerned about his mental fitness and his acuity, and she is concerned about his moral fiber domestically, but especially on the world stage. there was also the what she said and the how she said it. you know that i always love to dig into what it means to be a woman running for any office, but of course the presidency. haley notched some historic bench marks over the course of her candidacy. the first republican woman to win any republican primary ever. that is of course something that will be a legacy of her campaign. but then there's also the how she dropped out, and the barbara

lee family foundation always has research in this space that i turn to and is specifically instructive here. the first is that voters want someone like haley to drop out and look magnanimous in doing it. the fact that she wished trump well, even if she didn't go as far as endorsing him is important. and then there's also the way that she conceded, and they have polling that says a candidate who concedes with a forward-looking message, who frames her loss as a launch to talk about continuing the fight, working together, making progress for the community, is more likely to leave voters with a positive impression of her candidacy. that tracks for the way that women run as well as the way that they drop out of races, chris. you always have to be talking on behalf of the community, as opposed to with one's own ambition front of mind. we hear it with hillary clinton, elizabeth warren who i was covering four years ago today as she left the race. it's instructive as we chart the path forward for female leadership as well.

haley is one singular candidate and certainly her role as they figure out what the republican party looks like going forward is going to be significant. the fact that she says she's going to keep using her voice tracks with what research shows us about how voters want to respond and will respond positively to female candidates in the aftermath of their candidacy. all of that is really instructive for what haley could do next. i've got to be honest with you, in my conversations with allies and now former staffers, they keep using words like they were in a righteous fight. they did something just, and i think they're talking about the future of a party that really does have a split screen in front of them, one we often talk about. it's clear that many of those voters in the republican party now are saying let's remake our party's image in that of trump. >> we have been fortunate to have your energy and your smarts on the campaign trail with nikki haley. thank you for that. >> thank you. >> i want to read, tim, if i can from an article in "the washington post" today. i mentioned at the top how this is expected to be the nastiest,

we say that a lot, at least in the last couple cycles, but the nastiest campaign. quote, for both trump and biden, the formula for winning support from voters unhappy with their choice will be to make the other candidate even more unacceptable, hence the prospect of a relentlessly negative campaign for months it used to be, remember the olden days, if you're going to turn negative you have to wait until the end. >> labor day maybe. >> what are you seeing? >> i'm not sure the people are ready for just how negative this is going to be. i need to put on my hyperbole hat. you've already seen trump put out -- i saw a video on tiktok that the trump folks put out that was like joe biden stumbling into a senior center, right? they are going to go low and low and lower, and they are going to use every gaffe possible. they're going to go after hunter. they're going to go after his family. i think that the biden campaign is ready to push back and be

aggressive. we've seen some aggression from biden in the last couple of days, and we saw a story on "axios" on how they're planning on going negative and they think trump is mentally weak and they struggle to respond to that. i hope they do that. you're in a mud wrestling match with a pig here, and like they are going to get a lot of mud on them, and i just -- it is just not within the constitution of a joe biden staffer or joe biden to level the types of attacks that trump is willing to, you know, when it comes to these personal attacks on family, character, age, et cetera. and so that's something that worries me looking forward. >> and if it escalates more, and i don't know how it could escalate more or how it's received. we have some breaking news, dean phillips, the former congressman who was running on the democratic side, i did a quick google. i was trying to find how many votes he got. i wasn't able to do that quickly. a lot of people frankly may not even know that he was running but what does it say he's out now, nikki haley's out. this is so early.

>> i interviewed dean phillips a couple of weeks ago. at that time he was talking about going through the convention. i think he's really convinced that biden is very weak. his candidacy didn't take off. we were going back and forth, i kept saying to him, stop attacking biden and attack trump. i do think maybe the democrats could have hypothetically been open to another candidate that demonstrate that had they would have been a stronger opponent to trump. >> or maybe he could have been a voice in the way nikki haley was a voice. >> exactly. of going after trump. instead he was focusing his attacks on biden. it just never broke through. hopefully now that he suspended his campaign. he's a democratic congressman, he will get on board with biden and take those attacks back to trump. haley, i was listening to that segment where they say oh, he's in a righteous fight. when i listened to her statement today, i heard something different.

i heard her say that trump could earn back the support of her voters. really? what could he do? we know who donald trump is. donald trump's not going to change. it's not like tomorrow he's going to wake up and say i love nato and i'm going to be a nice person now. we know who donald trump is. we've seen him for ten years now, longer for people who are in new york. and so i don't -- to me that was her leaving the door open for saying, oh, you know, donald trump's turned over a new leaf and he's earned it because he made this concession. i worry about that. that's what i heard, and i hope that the friends that ali's talking to say it's a righteous fight as well. it would be nice to have dean phillips and nikki haley and everybody messaging. >> and my crack political staff just told me in minnesota his home tate, dean phillips got 19,800 votes, third after joe biden and uncommitted. >> not a good performance. >> no. >> thank you so much. i love having you here. in 60 seconds, the race is now on for nikki haley's supporters, a donor for her campaign will join us live next. r for her cam join us live next.

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the scramble is on for nikki haley's supporters, but the now former presidential candidate isn't on board yet and urging her followers to be the same. >> it is now up to donald trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him, and i hope he does that. at its best politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. >> well, today both donald trump and joe biden maybe no surprise, issued a statement asking for haley's voters to move over to them, a critical group to follow especially in the six battleground states likely to determine the election. joining us now eric levine who is a nikki haley donor, and back with us, tim miller. i think you told "associated press" last month, eric, that you plan to support haley up to

the convention adding -- and this is a quote -- we're not prepared to fold our tents and pray at the altar of donald trump, so what do you and other people who really supported nikki haley do now? >> so i'm from the reagan wing of the party. the one thing that's not going to happen is i'm not going to support joe biden. the world is on fire. the catastrophic surrender from afghanistan, the unforgivable appeasement of iran, the separating of the united states from supporting israel. these are horrible things. l the spike and explosion of anti-semitism on the left, as an american jew i can't possible vote donald trump. >> so donald trump pull out of nato, support putin. >> charlottesville. >> charlottesville, if you play the entire clip -- this is terrible, always put us in the context of having to support and defend donald trump, if you play the entire clip of charlottesville and not excerpt it, donald trump was clearly

talking about people who wanted to take down the statues. not -- so let's not get sidetracked to that. joe biden also called me a semifascist, whatever that is, and he also accused georgia of jim crow 2 when they passed their election laws. let's not pretend joe biden is some nice guy. he's not. >> we haven't attempted a coup, so they've got that going for them. nobody's charged the capitol -- >> where does the vote go? >> okay, but first, what was the russia hoax? that was an attempted coup. >> no, it wasn't. >> russia did interfere in the election. >> you told donald trump he has to admit the truth, democrats have to admit the truth. >> i'm not a democrat. >> supporters of democrats have to admit the truth. the same rules need to apply to everybody. the russia hoax was an attempted coup. donald trump won the election and it was an effort to displace him from office. putting that aside, where do the trump voters go? that's a good question, nikki haley's point of trump has to earn our support is 100% right. we're not going to vote for joe biden. the question is whether or not we vote for donald trump or we

stay home. and that's really the open question. so for me the absolute worst outcome is a joe biden win, a chuck schumer leader of the senate and a hakeem jeffries speaker of the house. to me the best option for republicans right now, the surest way to avoid that trifecta is to make sure republicans retake the senate because the map is great for us, and that's where i'm going to be putting most of my efforts. look, donald trump won fair and square. that's how these things should be done at the ballot box, not alvin brag or etitia james. >> it's also about where the money goes. do you stop giving? >> i'm going to support republican senate campaigns. i'm a one man band. i only have so much money and so much time in a day. my efforts are going to be directed almost exclusively to electing republican senators. i did an event for tim sheehy last month, i have an event for larry hogan in may and i plan to work as hard as i can to elect republicans to the sna the. >> we have talked to a lot of

haley voters and obviously this was before she made it official that she was getting out of the race. i think there are a couple that are representative of her voters. let me play those. >> if it ends up being trump or biden, how do you think you'll vote in 2024? >> you know, that's a really good good question. i would -- it's probably going to be biden just because it's been, you know, four years and he hasn't divided. >> so she doesn't end up winning the primary and getting the electoral votes, would you vote for donald trump in november? >> i'm not sure. i'm not sure. i don't know what to do. >> so our exit polls, tim, show that in virginia, north carolina, california, about a third of the primary voters answered no to the question of whether they will vote for the republican nominee regardless of who that might be. how much competition do you think there really is for the haley vote? >> i think that there's real

competition. i think that there's competition from votes like this that are determining whether they're going to vote for donald trump or sit it out. i think that's important, right? if you look in a place like georgia, trying to motivate people and say, hey, donald trump is unacceptable. trump instigated an attack on the capitol. donald trump had lunch with a neo-nazi. donald trump started to get us out of afghanistan, actually. he's unacceptable. we're not going to vote for him. moving somebody from trump to nothing is a win for democrats and then i think there's another group of people that are genuine swing voters that the biden folks could reach that are trying to decide what to do. those folks exist. we hear from them in focus groups all the time. you heard from one of them right there, and i think that the biden campaign, you saw in the statement they put out today, they're at least trying to message to some of those voters, and i think they could be important, especially when you look at phoenix suburbs, georgia suburbs, look at the midterms, brian kemp, the republican wens for governor, raphael warnock

wins for senate. those are haley voters and those are important swing voters in this election that biden needs to speak to. >> let me take you back to may of 2016 if i can. you were working for jeb bush, i was covering the bush campaign. he posted on social media he would not endorse donald trump. he said he had, quote, not demonstrated temperament or strength of character. what are the conversations like, do you imagine behind the scenes whether it's nikki haley or other people of influence. obviously mitch mcconnell has put aside the attacks that trump made on him and his wife and decided that he was going to endorse -- >> the quintessential team player. >> i don't think it's the team player to endorse the person that does racist attacks on your life. i wouldn't endorse them. doesn't matter what team i'm on. that's one man's opinion. jeb bush is a man of integrity but he also wasn't trying to run for office again. let's just be honest, that is the calculation a lot of people are making. i think that jeb's happy to move back to miami, he's got a great wife, has a great family, and he had a good life, and he made a

good run. i think nikki, the question is does nikki think that her future is in the republican party? an independent candidate? i think what she is calculating on that will impact her choice. >> i think whether donald trump gets reelected will impact her future. thank you both so much. why the next six weeks could be a critical stretch of the 2024 election and what the exit polling now shows us about how that battle will unfold. you're watching "chris jansing reports" only on msnbc. watching reports" only on msnbc ( ♪ ♪ ) start your day with nature made. the #1 pharmacist recommended vitamin and supplement brand.

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the next six weeks could be some of the most critical in the 2024 campaign. that's the argument that nbc's chief political analyst chuck todd makes in a new piece that's out today. that combined with the new data from super tuesday exit polling sheds a light on how this political battle could unfold. nbc's political editor mark murray is with me from d.c., and look who's here from d.c. in new york on set with me, chuck todd >> lay it out for us. why are these six weeks -- i was just talking about everything's upended, the important six weeks are supposed to be september, october, right? >> sure. the reason i point it out here, if you look at the last two incumbents, won re-election,

george w. bush, barack obama. right after their opponents were coronated, they had a resource problem, right? they didn't have as much cash. the incumbent did. this is when george w. bush and team framed, questioned kerry's war record, and he didn't have the resources to fight back in time. mitt romney, this was the period of time they turned mitt romney's bain capital experience into a liability, and romney didn't respond. he was low on cash. this six-week period, biden has this advantage right now. he's going to press this financial advantage. we're going to start to see the first hits on trump, what works, what is their framing -- what is their theory of the case. we're going to learn a lot. if he wins reelection, it will be because he set the predicate correctly in these six weeks. that's what i'm curious to watch. >> he's going to figure out now what to do when everybody's paying attention. most people are not paying attention right now. >> right. you want to -- you sort of like you got to lay the groundwork for what you hope becomes your

closing essentially the argument you're making for that slice of voters since september and october. it's very possible in this rematch environment that nobody tunes in until october, right? that the crucial -- the truly persuadable voters that are not looking forward to this will tune in, but they're going to wait until as long as possible. i'm not watching the entire regular season. >> right. >> just get me to the -- it's kind of like the way the nba is, nba regular season, nba playoffs. >> final four, yeah. >> exactly. i'll watch that, you know. and that's where -- that is -- but i do think we're going to learn a lot about biden, whether the biden -- what theory of the case the biden campaign has in their anti-trump message. what is it going to be? how much does it look backwards? how much is it trying to run against what could be a trump second term, right? these are choices they have to make. >> all right, mark, you did a deep dive into our nbc news exit polls. what do they tell us about those coveted small number of real

swing voters? >> yeah, chris, and what we end up seeing, whether it was in new hampshire, south carolina, or in virginia and north carolina last night, according to the exit polls was nikki haley doing really well with independent, moderate to liberal leaning voters, and you know, normally we end up having a general election lens on things, you want to be the candidate that's doing better with the independents, with the moderates. however, it's important to note, chris, that one thing that we have kind of picked up in all of those early states with exit polls and particularly in states with open primaries, that means that not only republicans can participate but also independents and crossover democrats is that a lot of the nikki haley supporters, not all of them, are joe biden or democratic voters. in virginia, for example, 51% of haley voters ended up approving of joe biden's job. now in a republican primary, you

normally end up seeing it's around 1 to 2 to 3% of republicans who might end up approving the job of the opposition president, but here it was at 51%, which leads me to believe that these are a lot of democratic and biden voters who were never going to be voting for donald trump or the republican ticket in the first place. >> all right, chuck, so critics say that donald trump doesn't really understand the issues, and i'm not even sure that matters, right, for his base. how much will the issues matter and how predictable are they, and i asked that because we always say it's the economy, stupid, like we've been saying that since james carville said it. then we said it's going to be reproductive rights. that's what we saw in 2022. now what the exit polls are showing us, it's immigration, or is it maybe not as much about the issues. >> i'm not convinced about the immigration. we're looking at a republican

electorate telling us what their issue is. i have yet to be persuade that had a voter who's vacillating between the two parties is an immigration voter. that doesn't mean they're not concerned about it, but is it a voting issue for them. is there somebody out there, i'm for biden but for his mishandling of the border. abortion issues, i'm just voting on this. there's a lot of those single issue voters. look, i think that trump has set up a predicate here, you know, by going really dark, by saying the country is, you know, is in a mess and all this stuff. he is now -- he's made himself where his campaign only succeeds if events match his rhetoric. he's painting a picture, so it's almost like he needs a migrant crime wave in october. okay? he's claiming it exists. it doesn't exist. there's incidents. there's that one incident in georgia. if it's something that feels like it's happening all over in october, i accept the premise

that, yes, that could then suddenly be a swing voters. my point is he needs outside events to i think create a -- create support for his theory of the case, where biden in some ways, look, i'm still of the mind-set that it might be abortion may be the only issue he needs, that it is still -- until it's settled law, this is going to be a problem for any for the republican party in any national election whether it's a midterm or presidential. >> chuck todd always great to have you here. mark murray, thank you my friend. in a stunning reversal, senate minority leader mitch mcconnell the highest ranking republican in washington endorsed donald trump today. the two men have clashed for years, most notably over january 6th, which at least at one point mcconnell blamed on trump, but following trump's dominant super tuesday performance, mcconnell today said it's abundantly clear the former president has earned the support of republican voters and therefore his support. it does underscore just how

commanding trump's control over his party has become with moderate opposition all but gone now. that dynamic is playing out in the race to replace mcconnell, the longest serving senate leader in history. whether they have any choice but to bend to the base and go full maga is very much an open question. nbc's ryan nobles is reporting from capitol hill. i'm wondering what's the reaction to this endorsement and is the expectation that it is trump who will have the major influence on who replaces him? >> reporter: to answer your first question, in his statement mitch mcconnell said it should come as no surprise that he intends to support the republican nominee and now that it's donald trump, he is supporting donald trump. i think i have to agree with that statement. i don't think there are two many of us that believe that should snow there be a scenario that donald trump turned out to be the nominee and mitch mcconnell would not support donald trump. he is a loyal republican. he's always been a loyal republican and that's going to continue despite his differences

with the former president, and in terms of what it means for the leadership race, the effort to replace mitch mcconnell, i think there's no doubt that donald trump's going to weigh heavily in that decision-making process. one of the interesting things we did see play out in the last 48 hours, john barrasso of wyoming, the most maga of the three johns announced that he intended to run for the second slot, the house republican whip as opposed to being the republican leader. that pits right now john thune against john cornyn. both of them certainly have aligned themselves with donald trump when it's been beneficial to them, but then have also found opportunities to separate themselves so there's no question that if donald trump puts his thumb on the scale, that could have a lot of influence over who will replace mitch mcconnell, and there's also always the possibility that there is some dark horse candidate that we haven't even thought of yet, someone that is more clearly defined with the maga wing of the party, and then depending on who e merges from

the fall election, the type of republican that will replace some of the republicans that are leaving think mitt romney in utah and other places that perhaps that -- those -- that group of people may have a bigger influence as well. this is going to be an interesting race that's going to play out, and remember, chris, when they ultimately decide who's going to be the leader, it will be a closed ballot. we won't know who they vote for, which could make things a little bit interesting, chris. >> and a challenge for our correspondents to figure out what's going on behind those closed doors, ryan nobles, as always, good to see you. i want to bring in congressman ken buck, republican of colorado, always good to have you on the program. let me, first of all, get your reaction to this endorsement. look, we said it was a stunning reversal. i don't think that it's an enormous surprise what mitch mcconnell decided, but what do you make of it? >> well, first of all, i think that donald trump has insulted so many people that mitch mcconnell doesn't necessarily take it personally when donald trump insults his wife, but i do think that mitch mcconnell is a team player.

he's a loyal republican, and he saw his duty, he saw his job as supporting the candidate in this situation. >> you're one of many who have said there's no room for compromise in congress anymore. just yesterday kyrsten sinema cited that as a reason to bow out. let me pose a question for everyone who has said i can't get much done. i'm going to not run again. could you be jumping the gun? what if trump isn't reelected? who's going to be left from the middle and even if donald trump isn't president, is your argument that maga retains its outsized influence? >> i think if donald trump's not elected, i think you'll see less and less influence from the maga wing of the party. it really -- i've heard some of your guests talk about the conservative and moderates. in my view it is the conserve conservetive and populist sides of the party now. what was a conservative years ago would support the ukrainians

in the war with russia. a conservative years ago would make many of the state law arguments that aren't being made right now, so i think the spectrum is a little bit different, but i do think that the maga forces will over time wane and you'll see somebody else step up that starts to lead the party, and that person, that group is going to have outsized influence because there's going to be a vacuum if donald trump doesn't win. >> we do see the maga influence all over the budget negotiations. friday, right, is the deadline to avoid a partial government shutdown. the spending package scheduled for a house vote today is actually six bills rolled into one. it's a thousand pages long. "punchbowl news" puts it this way. it's precisely the kind of legislating republicans vowed they'd avoid when they took over the house in january of 2023. what's your opinion on how this budget process has played out? do you support this bill?

>> well, i don't think people want to see how sausage is made, and they don't want to see how legislation is made, especially appropriations. the issue, again, when you look at a conservative position on a spending bill, it should be less spending or you should be freezing spending. this bill has billions of dollars of ear marks in it, something that conservatives work very hard to do away with. so i think that you will see a lot of conservatives walk away from this bill in the house. i think you'll see a lot of democrats vote for this bill. >> congressman ken buck, we shall see presumably later today. thank you again for being on the show. much appreciated. >> thank you. and coming up, breaking news, the iranian-backed rebels attacking another ship and killing and injuring civilians. plus, kba republicans issue subpoenas and hold their first hearings in the probe of d.a. fani willis. we're going to atlanta to get the latest on that. you're watching "chris jansing reports" only on msnbc. ing "chrg reports" only on msnbc ahhh!

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true confidence, its barbados flagged and liberian owned. we don't know the nationality of the crew at this point. we are trying to figure that out still at this point, chris. but two of those crew members were killed when a houthi anti-ship ballistic missile struck that vessel earlier today. it was in the gulf of aden, about 60 miles off the coast of yemen according to defense official when it was hit. it caused a severe fire. at least six other crew members were also injured in this attack. now, coalition warships that were already in the region as part of this ongoing patrolling mission there have responded to the distress call, but the crew have already abandoned the vessel, chris. they are in lifeboats off the side of it. we still don't have a good sense of exactly the status of that ship. beyond the fact that it experienced severe structural damage and there was a fire. again, chris, this was the first time that one of these many houthi attacks that we have seen

since mid-november has resulted in the death of civilian mariners. >> thank you so much for that, courtney kube. just last hour, the lawyer at the center of the attempt to remove fani willis from the georgia election committee. she talked about what she said she found that she believes should disqualify willis. nbc's blayne alexander is following this in atlanta. this takes the hearing from the legal arena of a courtroom into the political arena. walk us through what's happening and why? >> reporter: chris, that's exactly what it does. to be very clear, what's happening at the state house is different from what is happening a couple of blocks away at the fulton county courthouse. the judge will decide whether or not fani willis will stay on the case. here at the state house, what lawmakers are doing is they are looking into whether or not there was any misuse of state funds and the misuse of power for personal gain. those are the two issues they're

looking at here. what they can actually do if they find there's wrong doing, they can refer this to another body or propose new laws to curb something like this in the future. practically, their hands are really relatively tied and there is a limit on what authority they have in the situation. now, that's practically. politically of course is another matter. the chairman of the republican-led committee tells me this is going to take many months to complete this investigation. they will likely want to hear from fani willis down the line. they're not ruling out a subpoena if she doesn't come here voluntarily. that's what republicans are saying. the democrats on the committee say the entire thing is politically motivated. take a look. >> we really should not be doing this. we don't have a role here. that judge is going to make a decision in a couple of weeks. that's the role that ought to be played out. we need to find a way to expand medicaid in georgia. we don't have a role in this

particular situation right here. >> you just heard from the democrat on that committee. the chairman tells me there is nothing political about this. they say it's their responsibility to look into any allegations of impropriety. chris, to your point earlier, the fact that this has moved from the courthouse to the state house really kind of underscores the degree to which these allegations over the past two months have largely eclipsed even the charges and the allegations and the evidence against donald trump and his codefendants themselves. chris. >> blayne alexander, thank you so much. we have more breaking news. this time from the supreme court. the justices saying now they will hear arguments on trump's presidential immunity claims on thursday, april 25th. at stake, what can be included in the federal election interference trial against the former president. he argues he can not be prosecuted for his actions on january 6th. what the supreme court decides will determine if a trial can happen before the november election. coming up, 2020 deja vu the

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it's good to be back with you in this second hour of "chris jansing reports." there are, count them, exactly 234 days until the november election, and today, with nikki haley out of the race, donald trump is now the presumptive nominee for a 2020 rematch against president joe biden. while it may feel like you've seen it all before, is the case really that you ain't seen nothing yet? tomorrow's state of the union will be a speech that is likely one of the biggest opportunities of joe biden's long political career. can he make his message stick? and can he win over any of haley's supporters. >> it is now up to donald trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him. and i hope he does that. at its