JOHN HEILEMANN (HOST): Joe you wrote a column in the Washington Post and although everybody who's smart that I know reads the Washington Post and follows you relentlessly, there may be some people in our audience who did not read that column which made a pretty provocative charge about what happened on Friday night at that Trump rally in Chicago. Just outline your theory of the case there and whether you think in the end what happened Friday night will hurt Trump or help Trump today, in terms of the vote going on in these five states.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well first of all it was a made-for-tv event. People comparing it to Chicago 1968 have absolutely no idea what they were watching. Anybody that turned on their television set after getting breaking news across their phone that Donald Trump's campaign rally had been canceled out of fear of violence actually walked just right into the trap, walked right into what Donald Trump wanted them to walk into, that was a made-for-tv protest. They obviously set up as Bill Daly said they knew exactly what they were doing when they set the rally up in the college where they set it up. The college was 25% Hispanic, 25% Asian, 8% black. It was in a town that had not elected a Republican mayor since 1931. And Donald Trump knew exactly what was going on. They allowed the protesters to stream in. So much so that they had an excuse to cancel it. And when they cancelled the event, well Donald Trump got to go on all the networks for the next three to four hours and complain about how his First Amendment rights have been violated, despite the fact he was getting far more airplay than he would've ever gotten from that one speech. I think it shows once again how well Donald Trump knows, how cynically Donald Trump knows how to play the media. So does it help, does it hurt? It helps him tonight, it hurts him in the long run. Almost everything that Donald Trump has done over the last three weeks helps him in the short run, because he is being a political day trader but hurts him in the Fall election. And that's the reason why you were seeing general election matchups between Hillary Clinton start to show separation. Now we've got a long way to go, if Donald Trump locks down the nomination and again stops the political daytrading, stops playing to the lowest common denominator you will see those numbers start to tighten up. But he's got a ways to go, because for every angry disaffected voter that he picks up with events like Chicago he loses three or four more moderate Republican voters in the suburbs and the numbers just don't add up for him.

Previously:

Right-Wing Media Baselessly Accuse MoveOn.Org Of Inciting Violence At Trump Rally

Media Highlight Trump's Role In Inspiring Violence At His Events

Report: Trump Has Received $2 Billion Worth Of Free Coverage