>> good morning everybody. let me begin. your loyalty and friendship -- >> david coke has entered the conference. >> rand paul has left the conference. >> i believe i have the best chance of being the eventual --

beating the eventual democrat nominee. i have decided it is best to give other leaders in the party the opportunity to become our next nominee. >> marco rubio has left -- >> i am organizing a pac for donations. from all my supporters, and friends, and family. goodbye. >> in our lineup romney and the budget. but first, romney. he has expired and gone to meet his maker. he is a late candidate presumably forever. here is how romney explained his decision not to run on a conference call with supporters

this monitoring -- this morning. >> i'm convinced we can win the nomination but it would be a difficult test and hard fight. i would have the best chance of beating the democrat nominee. that is before the other contenders at have the opportunity take their message to the voters. i believe one of our next generation of republican leaders , one who may not be as well-known as i am today, one who is not yet taking their message across the country, one who is just getting started, may emerge as being better able to defeat the democrat nominee. >> in the words of michael scott, why? why? why john did mitt romney choose not to run? >> the answer is at this moment, i don't think any of us know. mark, you may know better than anyone. you wrote a piece that came out talking about what mitt romney's mindset was, how he was torn between positive reasons to run

and reasons not to run. we are to go through this. this was a very open question as recently as 24 hours ago whether he was going to be yet or name -- yes or no. give me a sensible reporting is telling you? >> what he said on the call matches what our sources are saying in the last two days. he thought he would be the strongest to be the nominee. he thought he would be the nominee. what he referred to in the clip we play from the call this morning is that he runs as a messy toss nomination. he emerges in 2012 broke, battered bruised by a tough fight, maybe even tougher. hillary clinton not encumbered by a record in office. he cannot win a general election. he did not want to be the guy. he did not have it in him to run for a third time and lose at the

white house again. >> the hillary clinton thing, that is important. you remember as well as i do in 2012, against a much weaker field he was battered by the end. barack obama having sat back and amassed his war chest he was never able to recover from the depletion. you can imagine him come as much as he was convinced he would be a great president and he convinced others including chris christie and jeb bush that he was a better candidate, in the end, he just could not get their . interesting these comments these comments he made about the next and a ration, about someone from the next generation. that is not jeb bush who he is endorsing to take the fight hillary clinton. >> eyes i reported, he does not think jeb bush and chris christie the establishment candidates the front runners he does not think they will be the nominee.

he thinks jeb bush will be scrutinized. they have problems with the base. he things chris christie can't survive the vetting. he is hoping marco rubio steps up and is a more impressive candidate then currently some believe and sweeps into the white house. >> that makes a perfect segue. the other candidates. one thing that romney said on a call was that if he decided to run he would do well according to the poll. romney looks actually week in iowa according to our little -- our own poll. here is a peek at some of the numbers that relate to romney. likely caucus-goers gave him only a 50% favorability score. that is down eight points from our last poll. 40% viewed him unfavorably. where romney did look strong was

head-to-head with jeb bush. voters say mitt romney understood them better and would have been more formidable. going back to the rest of the field, among the potential 2016ers who is most helped and hurt? >> most helped is jeb bush. he has the capacity to lock up the establishment donor class in a way he could not as long as romney was going to be out there. he could dominate fund-raising. if you dominate fund-raising, you win. i don't think anyone has an hurt by this. it opens up space for possible candidates. he gives everyone a chance to say they are going to get that romney support. >> i agree with you. bush has helped. christie is helped. it frees up donors romney may have gotten too. it helps rubio and walker.

the person i think who is hurt is a guy like rand paul, whom i thought would be good news to have a three-way battle of the titans in the establishment bracket, he would have been in a better establishment -- better position. it is going to be hard for him to do that. >> who is today the front runner in new hampshire? with romney, it is romney. with romney out, today, it is rand paul. >> you think he is a front runner in new hampshire? >> today, i can't name anyone else i think is more likely. jeb bush will go up there. but i think today, rand paul is the most likely one to win. >> i will go back to strengths. i mentioned christie on the way in. he has a lot of problems, chris christie am a going into this. romney was thinking about some of the vetting they'd did for him in the vice presidential selection process.

there are problems for chris christie. i just can't help but think he is looking at those donors who mitt romney would have locked up. he has got to be happy. >> jeb bush is going to get more of them. >> we have more to the poll, check it out on bloomberg politics. >> enough about mitt romney for today. this next topic is brought to you by money. from there. 28 of this year to october 1 there are five key deadlines for the fiscal fight they could get messy. last night, one of the huffington post most prominent blah bloggers, barack obama, wants to spend the money. he wants to jack of spending by 7%, make his case two houston mcbride's pre-is going to hate this? every republican.

in these limning fights over the debt ceiling which party is better position to win these fights? >> i would have said before this morning, the president had the upper hand here. i have to say today's economic numbers, the gdp growth 2.6% for the fourth quarter. down from 5%. a lot of economists thought it was going to be over three. those are disappointing numbers. they are ok. every moment it looks like the economy is weakening that is bad for liberals and bad for barack obama trying to spend more money. >> i don't know we can put the graphic backup. if you look at the fights, in every one of them, unless republicans find a new way to have these fights, they are going to lose. they're going to have to punt and wait for a republican president.

trust fund, cave on that read debt ceiling, cave on that. homeland security, they can't shut the government down. unless they have a brand-new strategy, the president has the upper hand. >> up next, something like that. i take on orrin hatch in a battle of wits. that's when we come back. ♪

>> today i crept into orrin hatch's office with some rock him suck him robots. why? because journalism. >> do like boxing? >> i do. >> it's like ali frazier.

>> we became fast friends. >> he just walked into your office. >> and sugar ray robinson. tony zale. there were some great fighters. sugar ray was outside of ally the greatest fighter i ever saw. >> you are an mba man. >> i love the nba. >> it is fantastic. >> we are a small area chain. >> the craziest thing is that team used to be in new orleans new orleans jazz. >> it irritated them to death we would give them back. >> is there a history of jazz? >> i don't the tabernacle choir has sung jazz. >> we talk sports and music.

let's talk politics. governor romney they said wasn't going to run for another time. you ran for president as everyone knows in the 2000 cycle. >> for not long. >> what did you learn about running for resident, about why it was fine, white was hard. >> i found too late, i did not have a chance. the merkel did not occur. i did give it a good run. i ran to give [indiscernible] that became one of the three important issues w ran in his campaign. >> what would you say the highlight was? >> the highlight was in some of the debates we had. naturally, being a small time guy in that league, they didn't

give us as much time. bush said you would make a great vice president. i said you got that wrong. when i'm president i will make you vice president, and you will have eight years of training and you will be a good president. everybody laughed. he left. he was a good sport. a wonderful man. >> in the time you have been in the senate, everyone talks about how washington has changed. the make a big deal but how hard it has changed. from your point of view, what has changed for the better the time you have been in the senate , in washington? anything? >> i can't think that far back right now. there are some things that are better. i've seen people who are less [indiscernible] then they used to be. >> the same person has become less strong? >> frankly, you have to raise

money so much, you are going every chance you get away from the senate to raise money. kennedy and i did all kinds of those things. just pick one thing. he wanted to be more liberal to get on the liberal bloc. he never thought we would get there. when we finally did get there i said this is what it is. he was upset. to his credit, he helped put it through. the hatch kennedy relationship is well known around here. we passed all kinds of bills. he was fond of saying, you never know who will regret it. i will always say yeah, you're the one that never read the bill. we had a great relationship. i came here to fight him. we had awful scraps on the

floor. we would be yelling and skimming like only kennedy can do. after it was over, he walked over and i was ready to punch him. he would say how did i do? how do you get mad at a guy like that? he was there great legislator. i'm not sure he passed many bills before i can chairman of the labor committee. >> hatch made kennedy. >> there is a lot of truth to that. [laughter] >> three questions. first question, short answer what is the thing that most confuses you about president obama? >> his continual ignorance of how this, what has to be done. he is not an ignorant man.

but he is so left wing. he can't get off of that left wing kit. i could get kennedy off of that. we had a meeting of republicans and democrats, and i think it was senator brown who is very liberal himself, from ohio, he said what caused you and can need to get together. he was willing to move to the center right. i had to move to, but he was willing. >> another question. short answers preliminary your best imitation of another senator, go. [laughter] >> that's hard. >> inset you do a mean barbara mikulski. >> not true. >> i would not do a mean facsimile of a woman to begin with.

>> another senator? >> i can talk like dimarco. he was a great character. i remember when he saying on the floor of the senate. >> it worked. >> it didn't work. >> it orrin hatch ran for president in 2016, what would his slogan be? >> probably this is a guy that counts. this is the guide will get it done. >> that is good. >> right off the top of your head. you're the don draper of the senate. >> that's right. >> we are putting that on the set in new york. that is why we need the notary. thank you. >> yes, the fire place israel. -- the fireplace is real. ♪

>> the super bowl is just two days away. it has been an amazing year for football. i'm so excited about the game. i'm sure it was positive all around. our tireless contributor will leitch is in arizona for the biggest of big games. hi. how are you? glendale, arizona. what is it like to be out there? is it more exciting than you can explain? >> there is nothing more nutritious and fulfilling than the two weeks in between football games before the super bowl. it is exhausting. everyone is talking -- everyone is tired of talking about football. if someone says in the about a deflated football i'm going to fall over. >> rocca delle gave his -- rob dell gave his version of the state of the union.

there was so much nonsense that it felt like we were at the circus. we sent some highlights to the appropriate music. sit back and enjoy. > we take seriously the integrity of the game. it is my responsibility to take responsibility of the integrity of the game. we have people that have uncompromising integrity. the integrity is impeccable. >> hello. i'm the nfl super kid. >> i was doing the elliptical. the highest level of integrity. that's the integrity of our game. thank you. enjoy the weekend. >> my question to you, you are a great student of roger goodell. which questions do you think, do you think he handled worse?

the ones about the deflated balls or if he should keep his job. >> he handled the one where he tells everyone his workout routine very well. the one plant in the audience let him say he was working out. there is a certain -- it's odd how he repeated integrity over and over. he did a better job than the one in september in the midst of the ray rice controversy. this was a morse today crowd. this is the super bowl. there is a certain media person that comes here someone who is part of the establishment nfl media that is not going to push him too hard. there were maybe three actual tough questions asked, not including the kid who asked. one tough questions came from nichols, where he did not

completely belittle her. the interesting thing is there was a cockiness that wasn't there in september. he made it through. he survived. he made it through the difficult part. you saw that in his response. >> you basically are referring to your colleagues, the lapdogs. you are there being a lapdog. do most reporters in that room, even though they are lapdogs, consider him a liar? >> there's a great moment where he said to the nfl is full of good and caring people. you stopped for a moment and said we didn't think it wasn't, but now that you mention it, i don't believe you. i think roger goodell he makes a ton of money for these 32 owners of the nfl, which is why he has never been in danger.

he can make a strong argument he has been standing behind the nfl. he can be the kenyatta, or the non-piñata he will be in a safe place. people asked about his job. he said i'm not worried. he should not be. >> three quick questions. first, who are you betting on to win the game? >> i think it's new england. i think the quarterback brady's summit better than the seahawks. i think it is new england. >> who is the surprise musical guest? >> i am surprise katy perry is there. i do feel like lenny kravitz but it will be someone from his train. >> what do you think the first commercial will be? >> probably the clydesdale. you see them bowing to american monuments. it is usually bud light. >> our very own clydesdale, or

the dog the clydesdale falls in love with, will, thank you so much. ♪ ..

>> this is what i am taking stock of on this friday, january 30, 2015. the report shows gdp expanded 2.6 percent. that follows a 5% growth rate in the fourth quarter. despite the results, the s&p 500 fell more than 1%, marking its fourth munley -- fourth monthly performance. crude oil rose 7%. shares of shake shack also rose today. it saw its first day of trading as a public company getting 118% after being offered at $21 per share.