>> i am mark halperin. >> i'm john heilemann. >> with all due respect to bill simmons, we don't know how to censor ourselves. ♪ >> all right. rob portman is out of the game. jed bush scores again. and ashton carter on top of his game. first, the republicans combine their forces and unleashed a resoundingly forceful -- strongly worded letter. the truth is, there is nothing they can do. >> this is a serious breach of our constitution.

it is a serious threat to our system of government. frankly, we have limited options and limited abilities to deal with it directly. >> ok, mark. huffing and puffing, but what is the actual play for republicans? >> this is a good day for john boehner and mitch mcconnell. they want to be a governing party. they don't want to shut the government down. they got a lot accomplished today. they have to come into january with a strategy to counter the state of the union. >> here is the worst thing they could do. the worst thing they could do is shut down the government. all the crazy talk about shutting down the government and impeaching the president has

passed. anything that is not that is good. the symbolic measure, if that makes the base feel better that's all good. but they are not actually doing anything destructive. this is a good day for them. if you can wrangle the tea party people into accepting that. >> the spending bills, sending them well into next year. i'm a little surprised by that. they went pretty late into the year. again, it buys them time to figure out what they want to do. i still don't think they are a particularly good path. but for framing and avoiding damaging the party even more. >> harry reid seems happy with what they are doing on the spending bill. my point of view, this, the worry for them was that they would be seduced by the voices on the right and the voices in the base saying, don't compromise, don't do anything. instead they are biding their time, saying, let's not turn it into a conflagration.

at least look like we are governing. then when they are in a stronger position in january, they can actually try to force their agenda more. this is not the right time for forcing your agenda. >> some conservative bloggers, and i'm sure on talk radio though i have not listened to any talk radio today, you do not hear from house republicans that boehner needs to go, this is a cave-in. behind the scenes, boehner and mcconnell closely courtney and they are in constant medication. how do we go into the new year when we have control of the chambers with a strong hand after what happened in the midterms? >> we talked about this yesterday. if they do this thing, if they try to do it, will obama actually sign it after basically having threatened to veto it? >> the president will sign it. >> you say i will have to pay you $100? >> correct. 24 hours ago, the four strongest potential republican candidates for 2016 were chris christie jeb bush, the real animated corpse of ronald reagan, and rob portman. now portman is out.

the former florida governor jeb bush said he is nearing a decision on whether he will run. he opened up his theoretical campaign book -- >> i kind of know how a republican can win, whether it is new york some of the else. it has to be much more uplifting, much more positive, much more willing to, you know the practical now in washington. lose the primary to win the general, without filing your principles. >> that was last night. the conference continued to today, we heard from paul ryan and portman. portman is out. who will be establishment candidates be? >> chris christie is going to run. i think jeb bush, even though he is opening up his playbook a little, i am not totally convinced he will do this. the question is kasich and romney.

if bush runs, romney probably does. it is christie versus bush most likely. >> if we did christie versus bush or christie versus romney those are ferocious fight. i agree. even though jeb bush lead you to believe he is seriously thinking about it, i'm still hearing from a lot of people that he is ambivalent. a lot of people around him still don't know what he is going to do. i will say this. it is hard for me to see romney going after christie. it is hard for me to see the entire establishment being happy with christie. i have said since bridge gate receded a little bit, he is an undervalued stock, he is a strong establishment candidate who will raise a decent amount of money. but some other establishment candidate will get in the race. i don't thinkkasich will run. i don't think ryan will run. portman took himself out. it's jeb. >> if you look at the governors, mike pence might try to make itself and the establishment candidate. >> she can try, but that would

be a stretch. >> john thune. >> that is intriguing possibility. bush talked about the family thing. every politician has to figure out whether the sacrifices too much for the family. in his case the family thing has been huge. both of our books, we wrote that these family dynamics matter a lot. the bush weigh in. does he have enough fire in his belly to drag his family out into the public arena? >> this cnn poll that came out today for 2016, romney at 20%, no one else in double digits. a bunch of guys piled up below

10%. interesting thing for me, romney at 20%, that is not powerful. if romney gets to 32%, which i think he could, watch out. then the force to get him and will be powerful. >> you think there is no chance that ryan ends up. having taken the ways and means chairmanship? >> unless it romney does not run, jeb does not run, someone has to run against kristi. >> that would be interesting. bloomberg politics has been reporting on who will succeed chuck hagel a secretary of defense. we're not sure which ashton it will be, but we will let you know as soon as we do. let's assume it is ashton carter, not ashton kutcher. a tough job to fill. the pentagon has been a quagmire for the obama administration. can ashton carter succeed where chuck hagel failed in the previous secretaries of defense did not have that great of a run?

>> he has worked a lot in the building. he did not serve himself, but he has a lot of respect on capitol hill and in the building, and he doesn't care about bureaucratic fighting with the white house. i think he is a very solid choice. he is kind of like panetta or gates, and because he is on the procurement side he will be very skilled at managing down the defense budget. >> the biggest thing the white house had as a legitimate gripe against hegel, and they had themselves to blame, he could not tame the pentagon, a monstrous bureaucracy. they had their own agenda and hagel could not contain them. ashton carter, he has been in this system as undersecretary of defense and deputy secretary of defense he knows the building. he is also quite close to the president. he has a real personal

relationship with the president. hegel did not, panetta did not gates did not. knowing the pentagon and knowing the president could put him in a good position. >> the president had not even announced this yet. bloomberg is reporting this is who he settled on. presumably is going to happen. he will not be nominated and the confirmation will not be until republicans control the senate. it will be interesting to see what confirmation he faces. ted cruz spoke today at a conference by concerned veterans for america and the weekly standard. listen to what he said about the prospect of the nomination of carter. >> it is an unfortunate statement that we already are facing the fourth secretary of defense in six years. at a time when the threats are this great, we should not see more turnover at the defense department and one has in a typical burger king. >> that is hyperbole, because there is more turnover at a burger king then four slots in

six years. but even cruz, who talked about holding a confirmation because of the immigration thing -- this could be an easier confirmation than almost anyone else they could pick. >> that is not a slam on ashton carter. that is a slam on barack obama. he is officially a political. she has worked on tons of bipartisan things and is respected by republicans, has a lot of allies in the republican party. he will be almost as easy of a confirmation as you could pick for this job. >> he is an egghead with panache. [laughter] after a scandal over and nfl star beating his wife and horrible publicity, and arbitrator overruled the suspension of ray rice. the sports world has settled on the view that nfl commissioner roger goodell is a liar. here is missouri democratic senator claire mccaskill, late

this afternoon in a hearing where she berated the league for not supporting victims of domestic violence. >> professional sports, with few exceptions, have done little to hold those who commit this crime accountable. there has been little or no effort to independently get the facts. rather, just use the predicable outcome. very few who are abused will have an adequate support system within the families of the professional sports teams where they exist to get the support to come forward and hold their abuser accountable. >> press coverage of the nfl is normally reserved for super bowl sunday, but given the scrutiny six days in a row where the nfl has gotten bad attention, do we think the league is actually now in a mode to change things? or are they can be playing defense? >> let's start with this. it is easy to mock congress when

it gets involved in the sports world. but think about the effects of congress taking up the question of steroids in baseball. that actually did change baseball. there are still performing enhancing drugs, but football is different. it is the premier american sport. it is a behemoth. and roger goodell answers to no one but the owners. until the owners turn on him nothing will change, absolutely nothing. it is disgraceful, but nothing will change. >> i wonder what happens between the owners. all the owners are men. i wonder if any spouses are talking to them. they are under incredible pressure, except where it really counts. they have not lost sponsors, they have not lost tv deals. some pressure will do it. it could come from congress. there are not many entities that

could possibly pressure them. this might work. >> in this case, we talked about this yesterday, goodell is being called a liar implicitly by everyone in the sports world. if this were politics and you are caught in a boldfaced lie and the question where this controversial you would be in a meltdown mode. and you do not see the nfl scrambling to save roger goodell. they seem pretty calm. >> coming up, house republicans made a big decision. or was it a non-decision? we will discuss that with our guest, a man who is about to be a senator, oklahoma's james lankford. when we come back. ♪

>> our guest tonight, like a lot of republicans, is not happy with president obama and the way he has loosened immigration law. he represents oklahoma's fifth district, and next year he will work in the senate. james lankford, thanks for coming to join us today. >> a pleasure to talk to you. >> you had a meeting today with speaker boehner and other members of the leadership. talk about what happened in the room. what was the mood like? >> lots of conversation. what is going on in the next two

weeks, and conversation about the deal with immigration and the constitutionality of that, and how congress should respond. when a president steps in and says he will set aside a huge chunk of the law and do something different, congress has to respond to that in a way that is appropriate, that is also very clear. >> in the room, is a disagreement about how to proceed? or the speaker laid out his plan and everyone agreed? >> i don't know if you will ever get anyone together with the speaker on an idea. there is a lot of conversation. everyone is elected to be a leader. a lot of ideas come to the room. >> i'm sorry to interrupt -- what would you say was the most dramatic moment in the meeting? >> i don't know there was a drama in the meeting. three things came up consistently. we have to respond legislatively, we have to use the power of the constitutional elements of it, and respond initially as well. this sets a new precedent. can any president look at a large chunk of the law clear from the action of congress and say, i will do something different? congress did not move fast

enough, so i will do what i want? what the time period is, that's not consistent with constitutional principles, so we had to figure out how to respond appropriately. >> you talk about responding with the power of the purse. a lot of people interpreted the speaker's plan is symbolic. are they trying to do something with the power of the purse, having any actual power? >> one way to find out. we pass it and start working. that is an appropriate way to respond. we're passing 11 total appropriation bills. 11 of them would move for the entire year. we take the department of homeland security and we set that one aside for three months and say, as the president continues to roll this out we want to say that this cannot happen. this is not appropriate. so that would not be funded into march. >> some colleagues talk about tying the funding of the entire government to this immigration

thing. i don't know where your position was on the. have you guys taken half measures here, or should he be pursuing this any more aggressive way? >> i think we are pursuing it in an aggressive way that is consistent with what the president has done. there is no reason for veterans to not have pay to not have action because the president has done this with immigration. we will respond appropriately. as the courts unwind this, they will not look at press releases. they will look, what has congress done? what is the congressional response? article one responsibilities article two response abilities the courts will try to determine, what has congress done on this? >> regardless of what you would like to see in the lame-duck session, what do you think will get done? what will pass the house and the senate in the next month? >> this funding bill, funding 11 areas of the government and holding up one for three months, that will pass. the house and senate have done large negotiations on taxes to try to bring permanency to the small business tax reduction. it's important that moves to permit rather than every year it expires.

the problem is, i hate to go back to immigration on that, but we will not expand the earned income tax credit to this broad-based because he is trying to bring 5 million additional people into that that would be eligible. it is not as moving people from illegal status to recognize status, it is expanding $5,000 to each of them from the earned income tax credit. the whole deal blew up. we still have to do something on that, but the real deal that would have solved problems just

ended with the immigration plan. we have to deal with the terrorism risk insurance plan. there are big issues. >> congressman, you came back to immigration. i will go back to immigration with you. we ask your colleagues over the last few weeks, and i'm curious what you have to say. we know you disapprove what the president is doing on this executive order, but what is your proposal to deal with the 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country? >> the house started that process. the president says that the house has no plan. it is not true. go back to november of 2012, the house passed a bill for high skill immigration visas. they should have been approved. the president said, if we don't do everything we will do nothing. the house came back this year and up with a border first security measure dealing with securing the borders and increasing the opportunity for the judges to do videoconferencing to expedite the immigration process. the senate did not take that up. we have said it over and over again, you have to do border

security, deal with internal security, and then you start dealing with the folks that are here. >> real quickly, with all those things stipulated, there are still 12 million undocumented immigrants in the country. what should be done with them? >> not all of them are the same. some folks have criminal records. some folks came over when they were two years old. the people who came over when they were two years old brought by the parents have not violated any law. so those children should have a separate process they would go through. people who came through an illegal work visa who overstayed will have a separate process. you cannot treat them all the same. one thing you cannot do is take 11 million people who have been -- and dump them in front of people who have been waiting in line and trying to do it the right way. >> congressman, thank you very much. when we come back, we have a story that began a long long time ago. the "star wars" trailer. we will be back with that. ♪

>> the first trailer for "star

wars episode vii" dropped last week. like all things star wars, it produced a parsec's worth of controversy. >> i need to say, i love star wars. the new trailer caused a ripple in my force. it had everything fans were looking for. x-wings, tie fighters, but also a curious shot of a lightsaber with crossbeams on the hilt. i saw this as something completely different. when everyone is pc in america this is a sign of the creeping nanny state. hear me out. the only thing that can stop a lightsaber is another lightsaber, so they are being shown as a protection for your hands. is this what it is coming to? sure, sometimes bad things happen to good people, but it was great. star wars had a careless disregard for safety. there were not any safety rails in cloud city.

you are 37,000 miles in the air. and the death star, the guys operating are so close that the radiation alone should have killed them. still, no safety railing. and the storm troopers, the armor is completely useless. it does not protect them from blasters or tiny bears. that is the star was i remember, and all of a sudden we are adding extra safety percussions? what is next? regulations on workplace harassment? give me a break. once again, hollywood liberals with limousine airplanes are messing with my galaxy far, far away. although it still does look pretty rad. >> consider our force reawakened. we will be right back. ♪

>> we are only here half an hour a day, but we are live 24/7 on bloombergpolitics.com. ♪

>> i am pimm fox and this is what i'm "taking stock" of. gm, toyota, fiat, and chrysler topping estimates. gm says the auto industry had its best november in 11 years. in politics, a reshuffle and a shakeout. ashton carter is said to be president obama's choice to replace chuck hagel as defense secretary. richard blumenthal said he would approve carter if selected. >> he drills down on questions and i think he is a very solid choice. >> and in israel, prime minister benjamin netanyahu fired two cabinet ministers and called for elections.