ronald reagan and jack kennedy before him. attack trump, and it looks like sour grapes. meanwhile hillary clinton has proven herself all pro on defense. attack her, and you're a dead man. could be quite a general, by the way, if this thing keeps up, hillary versus donald trump? >> could be interesting. all right. let's welcome in jonathan allen, the chief local correspondent for vox which has a partnership, relationship, in fact, with nbc universal. good morning, jonathan. >> good morning, partner. >> all right. partner. let's talk with this gop debate. ben carson. he is ahead in the polls. how important is tonight's debate to keep that momentum going for him? >> i think it's very important for him. i think the scrutiny on him will be much higher not only from the media but from voters in iowa, and in other early states. so, this is an opportunity for ben carson to really make the sale for himself to all those voters. and i think if he falters, you could see a precipitous decline in poll numbers. >> yeah. what is it about carson that has him surging ahead of the pack right now? >> i think

since ronald reagan and jack kennedy before him. attack trump and it looks like sour grapes. meanwhile, hillary clinton has proven herself all are pro on defense. attack her and you're a dead man. could be quite a general, by the way, if this thing keeps up. hillary versus donald trump. and that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. >>> tonight on "all in." >> so bush has no money. he's cutting. he's meeting today with mommy and daddy. and they're working on their campaign. >> whispers of a death spiral for the bush campaign. >> i've got a lot of really cool things that i could do other than sit around being miserable. >> tonight, inside jeb's latest troubles and why ben carson is pulling away in iowa. >> i wasn't always like that. >> plus, why donald trump today declared war on super pacs. martin o'malley on where democrats stand after the jefferson jackson dinner. and there has been yet another twist in the pharma bro saga. >> after this backlash i may support a republican now. >> when "all in" starts right now. >>> good evening f

. >> now you're jack kennedy? >> when we look weak, our adversaries are more willing to test us -- >> with all due respect that's a bunch of ma larky. not a single thing he said is accurate. >> this is a bunch of stuff. look, here's the dealing. >> what does that mean? >> it's irish. >> it is. we irish call it ma larky. >> vice presidential debates are always the most fun. nothing will ever beat sarah palin versus joe biden, remember, can i call you joe? he was like, sure, governor, but joe biden verse paul ryan that was a high point, because if only because he appeared to think ha paul ryan was hilarious. in the last 24 hours, though both of the debate irs veld fairly epic days in the news. vice president biden announcing he will not enter the presidentacy race himself this year, and his 2012 debate opponent congressman paul ryan announced he will throw his hat into the ring to try to become speaker of the house, but will only do it if republicans great to a whole host of -- paul ryan is demanding unified support from the three caucuses in the house that center rite republicans

nixon. he found out with his sickly and sweaty performance in the 1960 great debate with jack kennedy. joining me right now is nbc's katy tur, who covers the trump campaign to tell us more about the trump/rubio feud. katy, i would love to hear your inner-most thoughts sometimes about this race, because you must be storing a lot of really good journal material. >> i have no comment. >> it seems like trump knows as much about the media as people like you and me, where we watch all the shows, if we can, we know what everybody is saying, it's all part of our traffic control in our brains. he knew that we had stewart stevens on last night and he seems to know who's moving up, even if they're down in single digits like rubio, he sees him coming up in a trajectory that might be trouble, say, in december. real trouble. is that why he's swatting the guy so hard and trying to humiliate him? >> i think he's a voracious news consumer, i think he's constantly checking his numbers, i think he's obsessed with numbers. and this is one of the smarter moves of the trump campaign. instead of calculating, who is

. >> jack kennedy said that in vietnam. you have a drink. when the effect wears off, take another drink. over 200,000 troops after ted. there is never enough when we get in there. >> maybe this is a show of force to try to make a play at the negotiation table to suggest to russia and others, if you don't come to the table and negotiate, we have the stomach to put troops on the ground. that's a risky bet. if these negotiations don't work, you are struck with a strategy that commits u.s. forces to the ground in a civil war that could become a quagmire. >> very critical comments about the president's foreign policy. he said many of the decisions they've made i strongly support. but we are kind of going from crisis to crisis. the president has said don't do stupid stuff. that's not a big enough doctrine. by not doing stupid stuff you're not doing stupid stuff not to do. i don't think the administration really has a cohesive strategy. >> i think tim's point is congress needs to be at the table to set the strategy. i think the facts on the ground change on a daily basis. with the russians the

moments were like a you're no jack kennedy. >> he needed a moment, and he didn't -- he needed to make a moment and he didn't make a moment. but i worked for him. he's a guy he has to get over the part that the only part of his job he likes is the nerdy wonky policy making part. he has to accept that the only way you get to make policy that affects the country and the world is by sort of stepping up the performance -- >> maybe he'd be a better polts adviser than president. >> well, people are going to rule on this. it won't be decided by any quacking people on television. he's got to get in front of others and improve the performance. >> in front of donors too. >> of course. >> let me ask you about this news tonight not from the rnc but from the campaign -- >> i keep thinking pinto beans. >> pinto. >> fight chewbacca. the campaigns think that the debates are such a disaster that they need to take over, box out the rnc, tell the rnc we don't care about your rules, your sponsored debates, all this stuff, it doesn't matter if none of us go along with it, we're going to stop -- are things so

just emotionally and aesthetically. i don't think she had relations. she loved jack kennedy, hated joe mccarthy, loved bobby kennedy. >> absolutely. she was an emotional observer of politics. she put her heart into it. she really believed in politicians that were out there and willing to take a chance and willing to raise their voice. >> why did nixon hate her? >> they were perfect enemies. if you designed two people you couldn't make them more dissimilar. he saw her as an enemy of the state. he had the irs investigate her returns. she got a bigger return. >> three years her taxes were audited. >> she got a bigger refund because she donated to orphans. >> you said in the book she should have never been in pollapau polit politics. >> let me ask about lbj. want to give us the dirty on that? >> lbj was desperate to woo her. >> literally. >> as well as a columnist. it shows how important it was that perk what she was writing and appeared in the paper. >> look at the picture next to the oval office. that's notorious for other reasons. there is mary and lbj giving her the eye. >> with feet u

truth on his particular issue is coming out. >> heidi, you know what bobby kennedy said to jack on the way to the great debate everybody knows what it is. kick him in the -- maybe somebody should say that to secretary clinton on the way to the hearings. >> given the opportunity she'll definitely go for it but it will have to be something that comes naturally like joan said she has them in such a great position. they have to make a decision now. do we go into the hearings and do we make them about what we want to make them about which is the e-mails or do we make it about benghazi which as you know already $4 million spent, more time investigating this than water gate and pearl harbor and basically have another nothing burger, embarrassing hearing that makes our party look like we are wasting taxpayer money. if she gets the opportunity she should go ahead and pound the nail in the coffin, but she already has them right where she wants them. >> thank you. we'll be right back after this. become the only thing you think about. that's where at&t can help. at at&t we monitor our network traf