john: i'm john rodham heilemann. mark: i'm mark rodham halperin. and with all due respect to the "new york times," if you are going to drop it, we're going to pick it up. on today's show, obama plays deal or no deal and we play jeopardy. but first, the blame game. barack obama, hillary clinton, and many other democrats have reacted to the planned parenthood shooting calling for tighter gun control laws.

planned parenthood has taken after its critics. most presidential candidates have been hesitant to say very much because very little information is known about the motives of the shooter. he appeared in court today for a procedural hearing. this raises the topics of gun control and abortion. what will the effect be? john: on the face of it, this guy traveled to colorado, made a comment, though in one sort of deranged interview, about "baby parts," suggesting a connection to the issue.

democrats are obviously demagogy this issue. if it turns out there is a reason that this guy did this, there will be much more politicization of it. mark: the possibility it will affect the gun-control debate, i think it is remote. it will make it harder for republicans to speak in the vivid and strenuous terms they have on planned parenthood. marco rubio has still not commented. there is a price to pay silence and democrats have criticized him. but it suggests how complicated the co-mingling of the two issues are. john: according to all public polling, planned parenthood is one of the most popular institutions in america. i think it is the most popular institution. this emboldened democrats hillary clinton, and others, to side with planned parenthood. it will make it much harder and

complicated for republicans, who thought they had a winning issue here, to exploit it. mark: particularly if you look at the biographies of the victims. john: including a cop. all right, donald trump celebrated his thanksgiving this year with a three-course meal of campaign flaps. he was going to be endorsed by 100 black pastors. many of those pastors just thought they were coming to a meeting with the donald and had no intention of endorsing him and said so. now the entree. trump has been doubling down on the controversial claims that he saw "thousands of muslims in new jersey celebrating after 9/11." today, he was asked to respond to garden state governor chris christie, one of his rivals, who like virtually every credible source, said those celebrations never happened.

mr. trump: he did not say that the other day. he was very weak the other day. i guess now he feels emboldened. he must be careful with what he says. we will see. >> they dug in the archives -- mr. trump: let's see what surfaces. i got hundreds of calls and tweets of people who saw it. john: and finally the dessert. trump defending himself from appearing to mock the disability of a reporter who covered him for years, claiming he did not know him, despite the fact that he covered him for years and were on a first name basis. are any or all of these current flaps likely to have a negative impact on trump, or will they be like all of the other previous flaps that had no effect?

mark: i don't think these fall into a different category. i do think the closer we get to iowa, he more he is in the news looking unpresidential, the more he looks like someone who is controversy rather than someone who can help the country, that opens up the possibility to put a ceiling on his support and opens the door for someone who can coalesce the rest of the party. john: i agree with you. none of these things, i do not think they will change the fervor, the intensity of the people who like him. but whether it was the belt buckle about carson or the way that he mocked the reporter or did not or what ever he was doing, he looked clownish rather than strong. when he does those vaudeville antics, i don't think it helps him convey the image he wants to convey. mark: the big question, will he put paid television ads on the air? this guy could drop millions of dollars on to pay television.

if he does that, that will drive a lot of coverage. john: will anyone else put money behind him on negative ads in a serious way? mark: ben carson took a trip over the weekend to jordan, where he visited a syrian refugee camp. talking to martha raddatz on nbc's "this week" on sunday, carson argued that the u.s. should put less emphasis on resettling refugees in america and more on helping jordan improve the refugee camps that already exist. dr. carson: we are hearing that they want to go to the united states. that is not what they want. they want to go back home. the united states and other countries could be more

supportive of the jordanians. they want to be repatriated into their own country. is that going to be easier from a neighboring country or the united states of america? mark: carson has been fighting this perception that he is not up to being commander-in-chief. how will this trip help him change the trajectory of that storyline? john: it helps a little bit and that i thought that his answers were relatively good. i think for people who think he is in over his head, that will not change the perception dramatically, but he acquitted himself decently on this trip. mark: i think he did more than decently. the pictures were great. he looked like a president going overseas. i thought his answers were very good. believe me, they are far from perfect, but there is no candidate who has given perfect foreign policy answers in this race.

they executed a foreign policy trip and they did well. john: they may have stopped the skid, and that's an important thing to do, but he has lost so much altitude, he may not gain it back again. mark: he will never be the foreign policy candidate. we will see what they will do in other foreign policy trips coming up. i think it was smart of his campaign to put him in that position. [bell rings] john: all right, in the world of ye olde media, a new hampshire paper endorsed chris christie. he is making the most of it. he is campaigning today and tomorrow. it called the new jersey governor "right for these dangerous times." christie spent more time in the granite state than almost every other republican in the race.

my question for you, christie is enjoying a boomlet, but is it more? does it qualify as a boom? mark: some candidates are looking at areas to potentially scrutinize him. i do believe that chris christie -- if you take a standing start, if you just say, here are the profiles of the four establishment candidates -- chris christie would be right in this. he is a hot candidate now. he is the kind of guy who can keep a hot streak up for more than a little while. john: looking at drug addiction, boy, there is that chris christie. he has that natural political talent. you look at the numbers. they are not moving much.

mark: they don't need to move yet. to save -- i'm telling you, the guy could steal the iowa caucuses as the establishment leader. and he is the best natural political athlete in the race. john: to make the argument is a full-scale boom -- mark: it is headed toward boom. john: when you spend more time than anyone else in new hampshire to call it a boom. mark: it is beyond boomlet and headed toward boom. [bell rings] mark: up next, what is next for president obama and the world at the paris climate talks. stay tuned for that. ♪

john: today in paris, president obama visited the memorial

outside the theater that was targeted by terrorists earlier this month. the president is in the city of light to talk climate change. obama met with leaders from him china and india, two of the world's top polluters. a climate deal this big has been tried before with no significant breakthroughs. will it be different this time? mark: there are the usual obstacles. the political divide in the united states -- the republican congress does not want to give the president anything he wants to implement a deal like this. the fact that the president had these two meetings today is key -- i feel like the world -- you saw the protest surrounding world on behalf of the deal -- i think the world is more ready for this. a lot of the big players are. i think there's a good possibility that the united states and president obama and john kerry will lead to a pretty

big deal. john: i 100% agree with that. there is consensus now. you have these large polluters basically on board with this deal. there is still discussion about financial incentives and recompense for poor countries and what they would have to do to get their carbon emissions down, but it seems like on the basis of our reporting, our reporters who are over there, who cover this issue, they are confident a deal is going to get done. the question about whether that will make a dent in the carbon emissions, i think, is way down the line. i think we will walk out with something obama can say, this matters to me a lot. this is part of my legacy. i got something my precedents could not. mark: too often, president obama is accused of not doing anything because he cares about his legacy. i think on this issue, as far as i understand it, this is an issue on which he has talked more personally to more world leaders the most other issues and that makes a difference. [bell rings] john: up next, the deep dive. what is going on in syria and what it means for the 2016

foreign policy primary. we will be right back. ♪

mark: our first guest tonight, a longtime advisor to republicans -- currently the advisor to speaker of the house paul ryan. he is also the founder of the foreign-policy initiative. last time you supported mitt romney. who are you supporting in this race? dan: i'm not officially supporting anyone now.

i have a bias toward marco rubio. i have informally advised him and his team over the years, but i'm not officially involved with any campaign. mark: you have an evolving situation on the ground with isis, russia, putin. what goes on in terms of coming up with things for the candidates to say? ground troops, no-fly zone, how does that work? dan: you are being asked to weigh in on what you would do now. the truth is, when you are actually in a position to do something is 14 or 15 months or now when the situation, if it continues on the current trajectory, will be dramatically different.

there is a lot of thing's that all of these candidates would do now when they are talking about it within some kind of range. but i'm not sure many of them will be possible in january 2017. mark: are candidates resistant when the staff says you will be asked about x, and they will say, that's too hypothetical? dan: they have to have a stance about general principles without getting bogged down in specific spirit it is a fact, if we want our air operations to be more effective in syria against isis, we need some kind of ground presence to coordinate air operations. this does not mean deploying divisions of the u.s. military, but some kind of ground presents to coordinate those air operations. if we are going to be successful against isis, we need to think through what will replace isis. if we chase isis out of mosul or raqqa, what will be there? you can lay out those principles, those objectives. the challenge is not getting bogged down into, exactly how

many troops? what will your governing process look like? who would you engage? who would you include? you can go down a rabbit hole. you are not equipped. certainly for the intelligence to weigh in on. john: i'm thinking of paris. in issue comes along, becomes a big vivid point in the campaign. think back to 2012 when benghazi happened. that was a big moment. the reason it mattered, it provided a window on mitt romney, his character, his political instincts, etc. who do you think, in terms of the way that republicans have reacted to this paris moment, have we gotten a snapshot that has been revealing, positive or negative? dan: marco rubio and jeb bush and have laid out strategies for how they would do with the real threat.

we are focused on the refugee crisis, which is a real issue. at the end of the day, they are symptoms of the problem. the real problem is we have failed dates in iraq in syria. you have a border that has been been erased. northeast syria and iraq --it has been completely taken over by isis. unless you deal with that, you have nothing. there is no policy. i think marco and jeb have laid out how they would deal with it. i think christie has a different approach. without getting bogged down in what he would do in syria, he has played the rudy giuliani of this race. the tough guy who will deal with the issues in the united states. i have been impressed with some of the candidates. i do think they are laying out real ideas, a real governing agenda. john: do you accept that ben

carson has been hurt by this moment and his reaction to it? dan: yes. do i think that this will bring ben carson's numbers down to gravity over the long run, probably not. it's not helpful when his own advisors are going on the record that you are not up to speed on national security. that's not a good thing to happen. will it eventually crash his numbers? i'm skeptical. i think he has a very strong following. his following is very loyal. 700,000 donors. 400,000 people engaging on facebook. he has a real following. even if his numbers come down, i do not think they will evaporate because there are questions about his commander-in-chief credentials. mark: let us lay trump and carson aside and talk about the four establishment candidates and cruz.

cruz, rubio, bush, christie, and kasich. dan: each one has experienced that lends itself to being in charge in these issues. the senators, rubio and cruz, the senators are fluent on these issues. in the case of cruz, he sits on the armed services committee. rubio on another committee. they are getting intelligence briefings. mark: are people in iowa and new

hampshire looking at that and saying, they are on the committee, that's impressive? dan: that's not the credential. it's the expertise. they are not saying marco rubio is the chairman of the western hemisphere senate foreign relations committee, therefore he is ready. but when you go look at his back and forth -- he is on these platforms where he has had to weigh in. you do get the impression that this is a guy in command of facts and knowledge. i think bush, christie, and john kasich have other advantages. more bush and christie than john kasich. they just have the executive in chargeness profile to them. at the end of the day, i think rubio and cruz will have an advantage over the governors. i think them demonstrating real expertise, marinating these issues for a while, they have been in the middle of these foreign policy fights with president obama. they had to vote whether to send troops to syria. they had to take real responsibility. they had to vote on what to do with the intelligence and national security programs, the metadata program. a have a level of knowledge, discourse, and the credentials are less important than the experience that those

credentials represents. mark: if hillary clinton got elected and ask you to be national security advisor, would you do it? dan: wow. mark: yeah, you would. would you do it? you would do it because you are a patriot. but there's not that much difference between what you believe in terms of specific policy decisions then you do. true or false? dan: false. health care reform -- the biggest entitlement established in modern times. every democratic president has tried and failed. the iran deal wasn't impressive was an impressive feat. what the president achieved internationally and domestically -- getting the u.s. congress on board with it -- the implications for the middle east

and america's role in the middle east will exist for a long time and hillary clinton was part of that process. she has asked that she has not explained it away. she has not apologized for it. i want the next president to be unwinding this iran deal. john: let me follow the political logic of that question. listen to what you just said about why the senators have advantages. they have the expertise, they have fluency, they have confidence. she's got all that stuff. you can make substantive arguments against her, but any republicans has to do with the fact she has all of those qualities and projects them in spades. how can any republican match her on that front? dan: i don't think that's the only criteria. i think that if marco rubio or ted cruz wins the republican nomination, they will have to defeat a stage of giants. these are very strong personalities. jeb bush, chris christie, donald trump. just go through that list. if ted cruz or rubio emerges as the last man standing, people

will look at them differently. they will look large and in charge. the way obama looked after he defeated hillary. obama looked like a different person in 2008. i think ted cruz and rubio will be the same. plus the youth. the youth will be an asset. mark: you are young, you are large, you are in charge, and you are staying. dan is staying with us. when we come back, he will be our contestant on gopardy. a brand-new game you are going to love. after this word from our sponsors. ♪

>> this is geopardy! introducing today's contestant, a republican strategist from new york city, dan senor. now here are our hosts, mark halperin and john heilemann.

mark: thanks, johnny. john: here are the categories. taken for granite, followed by yuge news. taken for granite. raucous caucus. the gipper. and finally, mitt. this is what will finally knock trump from his front-runner status. dan: nothing between now and february. i think what folks follow in this race, what they have not come to grips with, this race will be is fragmented and fluid for the next couple of months as it is today and i do nothing much will change for trump or anyone else before people start voting.

we could be in a freeze mode until february 1, and then the race will take off like a rocket ship. mark: if trump wins highway new iowa and new hampshire, is it possible that he just roles the nomination -- dan: absolutely. but i think the field will stay frozen and then there will be voting and i think voting will begin and i'm hoping, praying that voters that are shopping, flirting with trump now, when being asked by pollsters, will not necessarily do so. mark: go back to the board. dan: the gipper for $1000. john: you are always picking $1000. reagan signed the montreal protocol which sought to do -- dan: something on the environment. john: i do not know the answer to this question. mark: we will get you the answer. gipper for $500.

john: this candidate embodies reagan the most? dan: i am biased, but i believe marco rubio. i think his theme of the new american century, his optimistic message to conservatives is the most reaganesque. i think if we had to a race of rubio versus cruz, actually, i think it will be very much like '76, reagan versus ford. i think rubio does have that appeal. mark: the first time -- pick another one. dan: i'm going to go for the $10,000 bet. mark: this is what it will take to get mitt romney into the race. dan: a brokered convention where there is total chaos at the convention and paul ryan refuses

to accept the strong invitation from various factions within the party to unify the party, be the nominee. mark: what about a romney-ryan "i told you so" ticket? dan: i love it. i like it. start asking for it now. mark: i have been. john: [indiscernible] dan: zero. i talked to him about running for speaker. he said he would never do it. mark: if trump wins, none of the establishment candidates look strong enough to stop it, couldn't romney get in? dan: of course. oh, you are thing before the

convention? technically if he could meet the ballad of lines and all the rest, sure. i have a feeling he would not. mark: pick another one. dan: raucous caucus for $1000. i'm going big again. mark: this establishment candidate has the best chance to be the top vote getter in iowa. dan: marco rubio or chris christie. mark: not jeb bush? dan: i don't think so. i often hear you guys say one of the challenges rubio has is he does not dominate one lane, which is a challenge now. but he also plays very well in many lanes in many states, and i think in iowa -- he is very well-liked with many segments of the electorate and a place like iowa which has a very specific segment of the overall electorate, i think a guy like rubio, he is still optimistic. the reaganesque appeal could be attractive. christie, assuming he gets momentum from this moment, i think he could also be an unlikely performer. mark: do you think rubio has

another wave of scrutiny between now and iowa? dan: once you make it into that tear, it is scrutiny nonstop. it may not come from the candidates. it may just be the press. john: do you think jeb is dead? dan: wow. jeb is alive. john: i don't mean physically. dan: he's not in the conversation right now. it's like he's not part of the discussion. i think the players are christie, cruz, rubio, trump, carson. john: how do you come back? it is december 1 and you're not part of the conversation? dan: it's very tough. i don't think any of these -- mark: undertaker is not one of them. dan: rand paul, i don't see a

path back for rand paul at all. if i were rand, i would be focusing on my senate race. john: back to the board. dan: ok, yuge news for 500. john: donald trump's poll numbers will go in this direction after allegedly mocking the disability of a reporter. dan: it won't change. i don't think he will take a hit for this fight with the new york times. donald trump has a combination of celebrity and a willingness to say things about immigrants and about the media that no one else will say, and it touches the nerve for conservatives and i think they like that his voice is out there, even though

they may not ultimately vote for him. they like that he is saying these things. i don't think his numbers will change. mark: quick, take a taken for granite. dan: taken for granite for $1000. mark: this candidate is poised to win the new hampshire primary. dan: trump, christie, or rubio. john: pick one, dude. dan: rubio. mark: carly fiorina. what happened to her? dan: it's great to have these moments in debates. she capitalized on being trump's foil. she does not have much of an organization. we do not hear much from her. after the debates, the debate splash, and then she is nowhere. mark: she does not stand for any specific policy on anything. she dodges questions frequently on policy.

dan: ok. i think the ability to follow up on these big moments that you have in a debate is very difficult if you have no leverage. no capacity. john: dan senor -- dan: great game, guys. john: we have a box of rice-a-roni in the green room. when we come back, the iowa caucuses under a microscope. ♪

mark: thanksgiving is over. exactly two months or now, we will have the iowa caucuses.

we will not bring out our countdown clock today, but with a discussion on which candidate has the best phone banking and pizza ranging in iowa, it's time for the victory lap. sasha issenberg. ♪ so, iowa, ground game, does not take a lot of numbers. what you think? sasha: the candidates are looking at the trajectory, but they are counting individual votes. this is when they knock on the door, and enlist them as a supportive. they are moving toward what they call their win numbers. what numbers to they need to get the results they want out of of iowa? when you break it down, when you look at it in terms of raw

votes, you see how small this is and how much, when we talk about ted cruz surging or staying, what it means. john: let's look at this historically. in 2008, 119,000 turnout on the republican side. mike huckabee beat mitt romney by just over 10,000 votes. four years later, turnout is a little bit higher. romney, rick santorum, basically tied at 30,000 votes each. when you look at those numbers, what do you see? sasha: the conversations in these campaigns have been developing the projections of how many voters they turn out. you see a pretty steady constellation of voters who voted in 2008 and 2012. one of the questions this year is is there anyone who is going to expand the electorate through targeted contact? is it possible all of the attention we are seeing somewhat

through polling, through debate management is going to help. but this is more of an art than a science. how much could it grow? what do you need to win in the expanded electorate? john: the premise of the rand paul campaign was he would change the electorate the way obama did. that is now the trump approach. is there anything trump would need to do to change the makeup and the size of the electorate? sasha: this is a big open question, what it takes to mobilize a nonvoter or infrequent voter. caucus behavior is different from primary behavior. on the republican side, you have to show up at a given time in a given location. john: it's cold outside. sasha: if you have a job outside or family activities --

mark: most people who vote go to the polling place early morning to late at night. sasha: you can file a absentee ballot, vote early for six weeks before the general election. you need certain information. you also probably need to have been behaviorally conditioned to do it before. the things the obama campaign did in 2008 to mobilize people were highly personalized forms of interaction, usually with other people from their own communities -- mark: social media and face to face? sasha: social media, face-to-face, very old-fashioned. these are largely old electorates. even the older voters by and large are still getting through by phones and face-to-face contact. just assuming that because people are paying attention to this on tv that they will go into the neighborhood precinct caucus, i think is wildly optimistic. mark: so the turnout, 50,000 --

my gut is they could go higher with the number of candidates. what does that mean in terms of the numbers a candidate needs to win? sasha: we did some polling. in terms of looking at it in just percentages, we looked at the raw vote in these two scenarios. when you look at the turnout we saw four years ago, we had trump at just over 30,000 votes, ted cruz, finishing second, placing second in that poll at just under 28,000. when you move it into a larger universe, you see trump's numbers get up to 37,500. this really ratifies the sense that i get from talking to folks on the campaign. you guys as well. people think it is possible to win the republican caucus in iowa with as few as 24 thousand votes. if anyone gets up to 30,000, i think they can be assured a

victory. a lot of this will be up to fluctuations in the polls. we've seen this in the past. the polls fluctuate, but the campaign hard counts are relatively constant. mark: where are the counts for trump and cruz? sasha: i don't know. these things were you have to go out into the field require the ground game. that is one place where ted cruz is far more advantaged than trump is. mark: so, the difference to the path to the nomination or not, 3000 votes -- that is less than the number of people go to a trip -- trump rally. sasha: we are talking about really small movements that will be incredibly determinative.

john: in terms of state of the art electoral science. none of these have great organizations. is cruz really just the class appeal? sasha: i think they are approaching this in the most deliberate, systematic way. they're trying jerry getting the data they're trying targeting the various universes they can in iowa. i think they trump campaign, and to a lesser degree, carson's are so media centric or, in the case of carson's focused on contacting voters for fundraising, but not necessary to mobilize them, it's far less optimistic that these guys turn into caucus-goers. mark: is rubio trying to bring them in? sasha: i don't see evidence of it.

i do not see rubio building machinery to have that volume of contacts. mark: it's amazing how few people will decide. thanks, sasha. up next, your 72-hour political forecast and what it means for your morning commute. ♪ john: it is shaping up to be a

busy week out there in election land, so let's go live to our 72-hour camping forecast where our chief political meteorologist out grow bridge is keeping an eye on it. what are you tracking? alex: i'm keeping my eye on a

number of things. donald trump and ted cruz fighting to get on the ballot. and donald trump will be blowing through the old dominion on wednesday. mark: old dominion, eh? what else is he up to? alex: for those of you who liked trump with your indoor tennis, he will be going to the atlantic club. and chris christie will be campaigning. hillary clinton, big day on thursday. john: it is a rare moment when candidates leave iowa or new hampshire, but i gather there will be activity further south again? alex: there will, in one special spot. washington, d.c., everything converging.

the major jewish coalition, presidential forum. we will see what happened thursday. john: mark, i've got to say -- mark: thanks, alex. john: we have a cattle call. now we have a big cattle call. mark: all of the major republican candidates giving big speeches on foreign policy. this is a group, a lot of donors, some of whom are still undecided. a lot of people looking to see who has got the chops, particularly in this time where there is so much national security focus. who can give a big foreign-policy speech back to back to back. big event. john: who can wrap their arms around the state of israel tightest and squeeze it closest with the most fervor. mark: who promises to personally take a u.s. moving truck to the embassy in tel aviv and move it to jerusalem. which has been the promise of

republicans -- john: since there was a jerusalem and the republican party. in new hampshire, a lot of activity up there. who you think has the most at stake? mark: at this point, not too many establishment candidates dream about winning iowa. you've got to do well in iowa first. trump and carson and cruz are dominating iowa. people like bush and rubio and even chris christie think they can do well enough in iowa, springboard it to new hampshire. john kasich has to go from a standing start there. i think people like christie, people like rubio, doing well in iowa is super important. john: i was shocked to learn when we asked our researchers, christie has spent a lot of time

there. he has spent a little less time than lindsey graham, who really is always in new hampshire. obviously does not have as much to show for it. for those candidates, new hampshire is not do or die. if you are john kasich right now, you have a lot to show for it. mark: all you have to do is get hot. if you get hot in the next couple of months, you can be the candidate. christie is hot right now. if he can have a couple moments in january, they are right on in. john: you said thanks to us before. i will say thanks to alex again. we will be back after this. ♪ john: we are on the tube twice a

day at 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. eastern. we are live 24/7 on bloombergpolitics.com. mark: when you visit our site, you can check out the latest campaign news on our campaign tracker. we have the latest from our colleague john mccormack. barack obama's slowly stepping up to back hillary clinton. thanks for watching. sayonara. ♪

>> it is the first of the month and this is trending his mess. trending business. watching on we are the week. it has been three years and this is a growth target. manufacturing should come in above expectation with the australian dollar jumping on speculation that there will be no change in the reserve bank policy.

it strengthens on the membership -- ishe global elite and ahead of sterling and the yen. i am rishaad salamat. what about this onslaught going on? here is heidi. data: they are taking the in stride, other than shanghai. gains ineing strong half an hour. stocks andng tokyo ahead look at this rally of the policy decision in a couple of hours