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– Hillary's getting severely burned. I'm John Phillips and this is The Rundown. Nationally, Hillary still has the edge but the gap between her and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is getting uncomfortably narrow for Mrs. Clinton. Investor's Business Daily TIPP poll shows Hillary with 43% and Bernie just behind with 39%. A Fox News poll shows Hillary with 54% and Bernie with 39%. But in Iowa and New Hampshire, a consensus is building that Hillary is losing. In Iowa, a recent ARG poll showed Bernie ahead 47% to 44%. On NBC news, Wall Street Journal poll showed Hillary ahead with 48% but Bernie very close behind with 45%, that's within the margin of error. In New Hampshire, ARG once again finds Bernie in the lead 47% to 44%, the NBC ews Wall Street Journal showed Sanders ahead by an even wider margin, 50% to 46%. Another poll conducted by Fox News shows a still bigger win for Bernie, 50% to 37%. In a just released poll from Monmouth University shows a runaway with Sanders getting 53% to Hillary's 39%. There are other big storm clouds on the horizon for Hillary. Moveon dot org which was created just after the Clinton impeachment to encourage the country to move on, has decided to move on to a new standard bearer, by endorsing Bernie Sanders. Joe Biden also took a hit at Hillary, calling her quote relatively new to the issue of income inequality. An issue Sanders has been trumpeting for years. The FBI is reportedly looking into the Clinton e-mail scandal, not just as a rule breaking security risk, but as an issue of public corruption. Were favors given in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation. And finally to add insult to injury. Tommy Chung has announced he's still the burn. Bernie Sanders is cool, Hillary isn't. Joining me to talk about whether Hillary could actually lose the nomination to an admitted socialist is author and political satirist Scott Ott his home studio in Dallas, Texas. And here in southern California, stand up comic and PJTV contributor Steven Cruzer. If you're Hillary Clinton, and you're looking at these poll numbers, your hitting the cums pretty hard. Do you think these numbers are real or do you think this is just Democrats flirting with an alternative before they actually go into the booth and vote ultimately for Hillary. – I would think the latter if this was the first time they tightened up in this race. But they tightened up over the summer. Bernie then went and mailed in two debate performances, and didn't attack Hillary on her vulnerable issues. Suddenly she starts surging again, and she built up quite a padding there in the late fall and early winter. And suddenly it looked like okay it's a done deal, everything again. That lead has almost evaporated in a month. A poll that came out after we wrote the script for this a CBS news poll I believe, her lead went from 20 points to seven in a month. Over Bernie Sanders nationally. Though she's, all of the polls are dramatically tightening so I don't think it's just this whimsicality that goes on. That's what the New York Times tried to say it was. There was this whimsical stuff that happens right before the first primaries, no. I think, and you list all the things like the scandals, the this, the that, the poison pill is Hillary herself. She's had to get out in front of the public more. She does not wear well on the public. Bernie for all his goofiness, does. Yes, he's a loon, but he's a fun to watch loon. (mock talking) And you know, and Hillary always – He even had the accent. – Yeah, and Hillary looks like she just ate the head off of a puppy or something. (laughs) So, I think it's real, and I think they are extremely nervous which is why Chelsea's been dispatched. – You know Scott, in 2008 Hillary came in third in Iowa, but it was a crowded field of viable candidates. This time around, Hillary was really the only viable candidate. I mean they have the debate schedule set up. So that it is to Hillary's liking. Hillary probably wrote the debate schedule because they didn't think Bernie was viable when this thing started. If Hillary Clinton loses in Iowa, what's the headline in the New York Times gonna be the next day? – It's funny because I saw a Hillary Clinton backer being interviewed in one of the major newspapers, I forget which one now. And basically saying that they thought that Hillary in Iowa would finish better than third. And I thought well there's her new slogan. Hillary Clinton, better than third. And (laughs) I think that there's a very real possibility that she is gonna be down there knocking knees with Martin O' Malley. She's in a bad situation right now. She's got no enthusiasm behind her. She never had any enthusiasm behind her. But then she went up against a guy who does, I mean for all his faults, Bernie Sanders has set the place on fire. He is the Donald Trump of the Democratic race. And he is drawing huge crowds, and they cheer for him, and they love him. And I'll tell you what, Hillary Clinton and Debbie Wasserman Schultz have no one to blame but themselves, because both of them were asked on separate occasions by Chris Matthews on MSNBC what's the difference between a Democrat and a Socialist? And neither one of them could give an answer. And basically so Bernie Sanders has redefined Democrat as the new socialist. If Bernie wins the first two, do the powers that be in the Democratic party just assume South Carolina is gonna be Hillary's firewall. A lot of southern states which in the Democratic primaries involves a lot of minority voters who like Hillary, you look at the polling she's doing very well with blacks, very well with Hispanics. So she'll likely do very, she'll have good results on super Tuesday. Do you think the Democratic power brokers will count on that event occurring? Or do you think they're gonna panic beyond belief and get Joe Biden to jump in this race?

– Umm, you know what lends credence to the latter theory is the fact that i think it was just a week or so ago Biden was on the record in an interview saying how much he regrets deciding not to run. So… – Every day of his life he said. – Every day of his life, so I think I can go with because I think they will panic because the thing with Bernie is that they can play around with all they want in the Hillary strong support with the black vote and everything. But Bernie's got the kind of enthusiasm that oh, what was his name, Bill Clinton had going where you think, no there's no way this can happen but then, it just gets, it starts to snowball.

They keep trying to say while the youth vote is out, It's not the youth vote, it's people under 45. It's people who will actually go out and vote. We're not just talking about the 22-year olds who like Bernie. He's overwhelmingly popular with every Democrat under 45 right now. And that's despite the fact that he went out and admitted on television that he wasn't familiar with David Bowie. But umm (laughs)

So I think, there gonna be so worried about Bernie and they'll know he'll implode in the general because as you pointed out many times, The Wall Street money won't be behind him. Wall Street will flee him in droves and they'll throw all of their money behind the Republican. So I think your Biden scenario is very very plausible given what the Vice President has said recently. Well here what happens Scott, If Bernie Sanders is the nominee, that means Bernie Sanders gets to determine who's running the DNC, he'll get to put his people in those positions of influence, he will remake the Democratic party as an admitted socialist party, and he will kill the electoral prospects of every red-state democrat. There's still a bunch of them that exists, we've got Manchen in West Virginia, we've got Heidi Heitkamp in North Carolina. Some Democrats in the house that belong too or live in red or purple states. I don't see how those people continue to exist if they have to run on the same ballot as a guy who's calling himself a socialist.

– I'm not being facetious about this, I don't see which Obama appointee Bernie Sanders removes when he gets into office. I mean seriously – That's a good point. President Obama and Bernie Sanders have virtually no distance between them. When it comes right down to it, It's just that Obama cares about his political legacy and Bernie Sanders is just a bull in a china closet. You know he's just running around acting wacky and doing what he want to do. And to his credit, Bernie Sanders is not afraid to say what he actually means and he's okay with living on the fringes of society like some hermit living on the side of a mountain. He'll be okay with that. And I don't think he'll remove anybody that Barack Obama appointed. – Why doesn't anyone ask a follow-up question to HIllary Clinton or Debbie Wasserman Schultz when they're asking them what a socialist is. – Because socialism of course is where the government controls the means of production. So either Bernie Sanders doesn't understand what a socialist is, or the Democratic party is a socialist party and has been for years. The answer is one or the other. Why don't they press them on that, get them to admit one of those things. – Well because, it's the fact that the Democratic party is socialist now, and the press is still mostly democrats, and they really don't want to go that far. They want to, you know, the press is very adept even when it seems like their blundering right now. The mainstream media is very adept at creating the appearance of objectivity. They'll throw you this little sop that makes it look like they're being objective and then they won't really follow up. They don't press things, because they really still are in cahoots with the Democrats. But by asking the question, they can say 'eh and they know that the only place that the fumbling answers are gonna get replayed are on right-wing blogs. In the echo chamber over there. It's not like MSNBC kept replaying the fact that she stumbled on it. – I think it does hurt them cause she's doing the same thing in regard to the questions about whether or not she helped her husband intimidate women that he allegedly sexually assaulted. She said I'm not answering questions, "I'm not going there." It was Alisyn Camerota on CNN – Yeah that conducted an interview where she was good, she held her feet to the fire. And Hillary just refused to answer it. And Scott, when Hillary does that, she looks like she's not telling the truth, she looks like she's holding back, she looks like someone you can't trust. And when you look within the numbers, as to why her numbers are going down so dramatically, not just in the Democratic primary, but in head to head match ups with Republicans, where Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, beat her Jeb Bush ties with her. I think her elusiveness feeds into the narrative that she's a person who cannot be trusted.

– Well yeah, but the problem with the whole scenario there is Hillary Clinton's being herself. I mean she is a person who can't be trusted. – That's true. – And so (laughs) – duly noted what's she gonna do? She's certainly not going to go and start you know coming clean with the American public after all these years. She's between a rock and a hard place. And these are legitimate questions that people have. But certainly if you put the shoe on the other foot if you're skeptical about that, and think they're just going after Hillary because they never liked Bill Clinton and you know and all that sex stuff has no business, we shouldn't even be talking about it. You know, imagine the same thing happened to a Republican candidate. I mean if there is one little sorta sexual innuendo related to their candidacy, the media jumps all over it. I'm glad to hear that Alisyn Camerota was asking some tough questions and I think the Republicans are smart to keep the focus on Hillary Clinton's claim to be a feminist champion while at the same time, she's been an enabler of a man who abused women. – Cruzer. – The bigger problem with this scenario right now is that we're talking about Bernie Sanders surging right now and he will not hold her feet to the fire on this. That is the real problem here. – Yeah – The trustworthiness is an issue, it's her biggest vulnerability. If he wants to win this election, he has to go for the throat right now, and he won't do that. He is giving her a free pass. He's already said let's not talk about the e-mails, let's not talk about Bill Clinton's past, so that's why you know as much as his surging looks good, I don't know if he can eventually prevail because he will not go after her. – The Clintons are people who have Sidney Blumenthal and in the past had Anthony Pelicano on their payroll. – Yeah – They play for keeps. – Yeah. They play hardball. They have no problem playing dirty if they have to. Give me a date, when do they take Bernie out. – When do they take Bernie out, umm… – They play really dirty. – It would have to be if he wins Iowa, it would have to be between Iowa and New Hampshire because if he wins Iowa, he's gonna win New Hampshire. They're gonna have to do, whatever play they've got, they're gonna have to make it then. – Scott… – Yeah he'll be the worst racist you've ever heard of going on into the South Carolina primary. – Alright, so what do you think? Is Hillary Clinton actually gonna lose the nomination? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. I'm John Phillips, thanks so much for watching The Rundown. (show outro)