JOHN HEILEMANN (CO-HOST): Yea, this is something, this is unprecedented, this is an incredible thing. I mean we've never seen anything like this in all of our years covering politics. It is, as they say, shocking in some ways. It is, it portends on Armageddon, I think on stage tonight. There's no reason for him to do something as provocative as this if you are not going to essentially go completely nuclear on stage tonight.
MARK HALPERIN (CO-HOST): It makes the prospect that a discussion, a thoughtful discussion on education or health care --
HEILEMANN: That was never going to happen anyway.
HALPERIN: Well, this will be the story at the debate.
HEILEMANN:: The only story.
[CROSSTALK]
HALPERIN: And it will rival the discussion about the videotape involving Donald Trump and remarks he made a decade ago. Both of these now will be intertwined and it is going to be fierce, aggressive, fight to the death conflict no matter what the moderators ask, no matter what they do.
HEILEMANN: And I think it would be fair to say right now, judging from Republicans that we've talked to in this hall, and judging from Republicans on Twitter, that Republicans as much as Democrats right now think this is Donald Trump pouring gasoline over his head and lighting himself on fire. Not everyone believes that but the majority of Republican opinion think this is a suicidal thing for him to do, this is the path he is going to go down.
