Todd: Trump’s Supporters Know He Isn’t a Conservative; They Want Change

RUSH TRANSCRIPT: 
BRZEZINSKI: "Joining us now from Washington, NBC news political director, moderator of “Meet the press” and host of mtp daily Chuck Todd. Good to have you."
SCARBOROUGH: "Chuck, boy, I tell you what, this is the race that just keeps getting more crazy by the day. We’ve been talking this morning about how we were sure that Saturday night was going to be a disaster for Donald Trump politically. It certainly does not look like that three days later. And then over on the democratic side, Nevada. Looks like Nevada will be much, much closer than anyone expected on the democratic side."
TODD: "You know what trump does. The reason why it seems like other candidates, when they get into trouble, they almost stew in their own trouble. Trump basically just tries to plow forward. I think he’s proven to be — that’s why he’s proven to be short-term resilient. I still think some of this stuff does potential long-term damage with swing voters. He plows forward and throws Cruz back on his heels, even after he was going after bush. You would think over time the bush attacks could backfire. For them to backfire, Joe, they have to attack trump on the air with it and they’re not. You don’t see Cruz doing it. You don’t see bush doing it. You don’t see them going after Trump on this stuff. If they’re not doing it, it’s hard to have an attack stick like that."
SCARBOROUGH: "Right."
TODD: "Think about, with Rubio, there was a bunch of reinforcements that came in in a hurry, particularly, by the way, from the democratic side of the aisle, one of the Clinton super PACS was jumping on robotic Rubio. You’re not seeing that. Even if there was a moment of trouble for trump, I don’t know if his opponents took advantage of it in time."
SCARBOROUGH: "Talking about the general election. If trump wins South Carolina a lot of people believe he’ll storm through the south and possibly run the table. Look at what he’s doing while that’s happening. You talk about problems in the general election. Certainly on temperament. But in South Carolina he defended Planned Parenthood. In South Carolina he blamed George W. Bush for 9/11. In South Carolina and new Hampshire, still was talking about national health care, refused to get some good, easy endorsements in New Hampshire by being against medicaid expansion. This guy is idealogically about as moderate idealogically in some of these areas as anybody who has run in the Republican party since the 1960s."
TODD: "Well, right, because he’s not trying to — this is what I think has been the mistake. Jeb tried it early. Cruz is trying it now. Attacking Donald for not being a conservative. His supporters know that already. That is baked in. It’s built in. Frankly, it’s also why I think some of these hits on Rubio and immigration and gang of eight are not as effective anymore. It’s baked in. You have to go after him on something else. I think temperament is probably a bigger vulnerability than ideology. The people who support trump, they were Democrats 20 years ago, many of them supported bill Clinton. Some supported Barack Obama. They are folks that are looking for change, not necessarily looking for conservative change. They’re looking for change. And maybe they haven’t figured it out idealogically yet or they don’t know but they know what they don’t like. I think that’s why these idealogical attacks on trump have not been effective."