MARK HALPERIN (CO-HOST): Are the candidates not trying to fight Trump for time in the news cycle, or its just impossible to trump Trump given his dominance of the news media?

JOHN HEILEMANN (CO-HOST): Well Mark, you know, first of all you can't resist a man who's just about to give someone a punch in the lunch. Second of all, cable news is just so often so crazily dumb. I mean, if you think about the things Donald Trump has said that are genuine provocations. And I'm not talking about things he's said in rallies, I'm talking about wanting to ban Muslims and some of the things, some of the things he's said about immigrants. These are things that got a lot of attention deservedly. Donald Trump saying, in a kind of a flip way, “I'd like to punch that guy,” man if that is going to dominate news, there is nothing, nothing that those other guys could do that is ever going to break through because the news cycle is just too much Donald Trump's plaything.

Previously:

Wall Street Journal Columnist Blasts Rush Limbaugh And Mark Levin For Helping Build Up Donald Trump

Newt Gingrich: “You Could Say That Trump Is The Candidate Fox & Friends Invented”

How The Right-Wing Media Echo Chamber Bolstered Donald Trump's “Many Campaign Misstatements”