nyquil tylenol: we are?ylenol. you know we're kinda like twins. nyquil (stuffy): yeah, we both relieve coughs, sneezing, aches, fevers. tylenol: and i relieve nasal congestion. nyquil (stuffy): overachiever. anncr vo: tylenol cold multi-symptom nighttime relieves nasal congestion... nyquil cold & flu doesn't. the first bombs fell on baghdad on march 20th, 2003. today, december 15th, 2001, with this end of mission ceremony at the baghdad international airport, the united states war in iraq is officially over. . much more on "morning joe" right now.

to all of the men and women in uniform today, your nation is deeply indebted to you. you have done everything your nation asked you to do and more. your dedication, your commitment to this mission has been the driving force behind the remarkable progress that we've seen here in baghdad and across this country. you came to this land between the rivers. again and again and again. you did not know whether you'd return to your loved ones. you will leave with great pride.

lasting pride, secure in knowing that your sacrifice has helped the iraqi people begin a new chapter in history. free from tyranny and full of hope for prosperity and peace, particularly for this country's future generations. >> that was secretary leon panetta overnight at baghdad international airport at the ceremony formally ending operations in iraq. good morning, everyone, it's thursday, december 15th, welcome to "morning joe." with us onset, we have the executive editor at random house jon meacham. yes, that would be you. the president of the council on foreign relations, richard hoss. >> good morning. >> and best-selling author russ moore. >> and also colonel jack jacobs.

>> perfect day to have him onboard. >> why don't we go ahead and put leon panetta's speech in perspective. >> after nearly nine years, the u.s. has formally ended its operations in iraq. we'll talk about exactly what that means coming up in a ceremony, though, earlier today at the airport in baghdad, the u.s. forces iraq flag was officially retired. bringing to a close a conflict that has claimed nearly 4,500 american lives and cost more than $800 billion. secretary panetta among the dignitaries in attendance saying today is "time for iraq to look forward." and that the conflict has sparked a new era of opportunity. here at home, president obama marked the occasion at the ft. bragg army base in north carolina yesterday where troops have been part of the war since day one and are among the last soldiers to come home. >> for nearly nine years, our nation has been at war in iraq.

as your commander in chief, and on behalf of a grateful nation, i'm proud to finally say these two words -- and i know your families agree -- welcome home. welcome home. welcome home. everything that american troops have done in iraq. all the fighting, and all the dying, the bleeding, and the building and the training and the partnering, all of it has led to this moment of success. now iraq's not a perfect place, it has many challenges ahead. but we're leaving behind a sovereign, stable, and self-reliant iraq with a representative government that was elected by its people. >> a different tone on capitol hill where senator john mccain

slammed the obama administration for the timing of the withdrawal. suggesting it was based on the president's reelection hopes rather than the conditions on the ground. >> it is clear that this decision of a complete pullout of the united states troops from iraq was dictated by politics and not our national security interests. i believe that history will judge this president's leadership with the scorn and disdain that it deserves. >> there's going to be about 15,000 diplomatic officials stationed in baghdad and 4,000 troops, but the pullout begins. >> so we still have about 20,000 americans over there. >> i think the big issue will be contractors. there will be many of those. >> oh, sure. the combat military presence is over, you'll have a small number of contractors, but that shouldn't obscure the fundamental truth. the era in which iraq dominated what the united states was doing

in the region in the world militarily and diplomatically is over. and now the debate can essentially begin both about the lessons of the war and also about what comes afterwards. >> let's talk about what the president said. the president in speaking with the troops said we're leaving behind a sovereign, stable, and a self-sufficient iraq. and we understand when you're using words like stable in that region, especially this year, it's a hard -- it's a hard word to define. but is the president right? >> that's an awfully optimistic take. it's certainly sovereign, it's still, though, sectarian, it's rough around the edges in terms

of stability. the leadership is quite heavy handed. so i don't think anyone can say with certitude exactly what iraq will look like in one, two, or three years. my hunch is it's going to be a messy place. in no way whatever becomes of iraq, will it justify or warranted the scale of the american -- >> looking at the president's decision to move forward despite capitol hill opposition. was a courageous move. america can't be fighting two massive wars across the globe. so historically, i believe, -- i believe it was the right decision to make, and i think we will benefit as a nation from it in time. but look backwards and tell me, what -- how are historians going to judge the iraq war a decade from now? >> one question is whether they're going to look at this, and richard is particularly well positioned to assess the validity of the statement as they say in colleges. was this really a 20-year war? a 21-year war? from august 2nd, 1990 when

saddam went into kuwait? the later '90s, those of us that think that bush 41 did exactly the right thing, built a remarkable coalition, defined a mission, did it, got out, took the heat for it, was proven to be right. as jim baker likes to say, you know, in that wonderful texas accent, you know, i used to hear a lot about whether we should've gone to baghdad, i don't hear that much anymore after they did go to baghdad. so was this a long conflict with the '90s and the conservative energy on that? remember, the right wing was looking for an enemy in the 1990s. it was china for a while. it was ultimately for the iraq study group. there was a bipartisan consensus we should not forget about the need to take action. >> and we have to say in 1998, the most -- the harshest

assessments against saddam hussein came from the likes of bill clinton, al gore, hillary clinton, ted kennedy. i could name you a list of -- >> totally. >> carl levin, the same people three years later going, saddam hussein, why, i would invite him to thanksgiving if it come. you look at the quotes in 1998. i'm always saying this to put this in historical perspective. you look at the quotes that you can google and find in about three seconds, it is breathtaking to see what -- not only democratic politicians who would change their tone three years later, but what the editorial pages of the "new york times" and washington post were saying about the dire threat about saddam hussein and his wes of mass destruction pose to america. >> i would just argue for a third stage in that. yes, i think there was an enormous bipartisan unity about the need for regime change in the 1990s. i think -- and, in fact, i think

the first bush administration, george h.w. bush expected him to fall. if you ask president bush today, he thought there was going to be an internal coupe and that the iraqis would do that for them. my sense, and the reason i suggest this might be seen as a long conflict, sometimes hot, sometimes cold is that there are a lot of people, i'm included, who thought that the criticism in the run-up to the war in 2003 is overheated. that i think people can make honest -- have honest disagreements about intelligence. what i don't think is once it became clear, this was -- we were not going to be greeted as liberators, to use another phrase you can google. that the facts on the ground did not dictate a change in policy. >> we weren't met as liberators and there weren't weapons of

mass destruction. and i believe you can justify going in in 2003 given all of the facts. but in 2004, if we had a draft, we would have been home. we would've come home by 2005. wes, talk about your friends that have fought in iraq and that you served with. >> i tell you, this is a very emotional time for anyone who has served, you know, served in uniform. the president yesterday was at ft. bragg, that's my old unit. old member of the 82nd. and the fact is for the past nine years, there has not been a single day that's gone by where a close friend of any of us has not been in harm's way in iraq or afghanistan. this is an important moment. but i think people also understand that as we said earlier that, you know, the real battle continues. the fact is, you know, we've lost close to 4,500 people, 4,500 brothers and sisters in afghanistan -- i'm sorry in iraq during this conflict. and for many of the people that will redeploy out of iraq now, that afghanistan is in the very

near future in terms of deployment options. so how we think about this going forward and what that means for not just the soldiers, but the families and these soldiers coming back is i think a very real question right now. >> and we have seen on this set day in and day out the volatility of the middle east. we've seen how it's really impossible to predict what's going to happen next month let alone next year, next decade. so it's really hard to make a clear-eyed assessment of exactly how this war is going to have a long-term impact on the middle east and the world, isn't it? >> yeah, it's probably too soon to say. i do hope one of the lessons, though, the country takes war more seriously than it did ten years ago. i remember sitting on the night of march 20th, 2003, watching those bombs fall over baghdad and it looked like a video game. it was a war that was happening on tv. and that's actually what it turned out to be, 1% of our country fighting a war that the rest of us watched on tv.

it's important to remember that if we commit troops to a war, we commit troops to conflict, people will die. this is not a video game. it's not happening on tv. so i'm grateful for my friend wes moore and all the people who have served over there. and also, for guys like our friend jack jacobs who is with you guys there. jack, i'm so interested. remembering the brothers left behind. >> well, that's half of it that you're happy to get home. nothing can propel you faster out of that place than the president saying we're going home and you're absolutely over the moon about it. but very, very quickly, you come down to the realization that you left lots and lots of friends behind. vietnam was 58,000, another 250,000 or so wounded. it makes it -- and over time, it makes it more and more bitter

and bitter and less sweet. the interesting thing about iraq is that we actually knew how to do it. we knew that we needed overwhelming fire power, but we also needed to control the terrain once we took it, and we just completely ignored that second bit. we decided we just drop bombs and then everything magically would sort itself out. and those people in the military at the time knew full well that this like any other operation had a tail on it. and if you weren't planning to hold on to the objective as well as take it, you were going to fail. jacob's rule is it always takes more resources to hold on than it does to take it in the first place always. and if you don't plan for holding on to it, you're going to get thrown out. >> and mika, in realtime day in and day out, there were people like colonel jacobs. and we can name quite a few nbc news contributors who were generals that we would have on

our show day in and day out leading up to the war who would say if you're going to go in, you better go in with overwhelming force. and donald rumsfeld and the bush administration is making a terrible mistake by trying to win this war on the cheap. colin powell's belief that when you go to war, you don't want a fair fight, you want to throw everything at them, win, and bring the troops home was completely ignored. and i think the impact, i think, has been devastating for this country for our armed forces, especially for the army and the marines. >> i couldn't agree with you more, absolutely. we're going to get to politics because there's big stories there. we're going to cover this story throughout the morning, as well. >> i was in government during both of these. the decision to go into both. and i think history is going to be very rough. it's not simply the question of how well fought the war, which was wrong, whether to fight it. i think history's going to judge the second iraq war as unwarranted. it's a choice that i believe history will say was

unwarranted. and the legacy of this war will be no more iraqs. if you remember when bob gates left office as secretary of defense he said any of my successors who sends hundreds of thousands of american troops to fight land wars in the middle east or asia needs his head examined, the consequence of iraq will be no more large wars like this for the united states. >> and yet we're in afghanistan and weafghanistan. >> we're winding that down, not fast enough. again, this is the end of that era, of american foreign policy. strategic distractions and distortions. >> and yet, mika, you have lindsey graham wanting to invade syria, and we're going to have a drum beat to invade iran, and other senators talking about invading yemen from time to time. >> and you -- >> where have they been? >> you heard john mccain yesterday. >> yeah. senator john mccain. >> this will continue and it'll be a question that will confront the presidential candidates.

let's get to the latest in politics there because there's some interesting twists and turns there to report on. the latest polling out of new hampshire shows mitt romney still leading the republican field with 38% support, 18 points ahead of newt gingrich, the former house speaker has moved up to second place, and jon huntsman jumps to third place. >> looks like i'm going to win a steak. >> 13% support. >> you remember -- >> who was that? with haleprin? >> dan senor. >> that's right. >> it was a car. >> it was a car, it was actually a private jet. let's look at this poll for a second. >> that number, by the way, is thanks in large part to independent voters with less than a month to go, 11% of new hampshire voters say they are still undecided. and over 50% say they're either very likely or somewhat likely to change their minds before the january primary. >> jon meacham, we see movement there, which many of us have

been predicting around this table. jon huntsman jumping into double digits. and seems to be taking off. >> what happened eight years ago, the man we saw making a very hawkish statement walked away with new hampshire. and new hampshire -- remember, the person who won iowa often never wins new hampshire vice versa, and new hampshire is a more representative bell weather because the independents are involved than iowa. it's not like a caucus, the caucus is geared toward passionate activists. and elections aren't decided by passionate activists, nominations can be. that's why new hampshire is an interesting example. >> and it really did. and john mccain revived his campaign, and it may happen again this year. i will say

>> well, the editors suggest taking a second look at jon huntsman and rick santorum, two candidates polling in the single digits nationwide. here's part of what the national review had to say. seems winnable next year and with it the majority of both houses of congress. so much of this conservative consensus could become law. . . a conservative majority of the supreme court, a halt to the march of regulation, all of them seem within our grasp. we fear that to nominate former speaker newt gingrich, the front-runner in the polls would be to blow this opportunity. very few people with a personal history like his, two divorces, two marriages, two former mistresses have ever tried running for president. gingrich himself has never run for a state -- >> this is fascinating. this is fascinating. he's never run for a statewide office. he's never run for a national

office, and then the "national review," i'm sorry, goes on and talks about the last time he was in politics. >> well, that year, they say he was kicked out by his colleagues, the most conservative ones, especially. you did kick him out. during his time as speaker, he was one of the most unpopular speakers in public life. gingrich tops the polls as a tribute to his perseverance and to republicans' admiration for his intellectual fecundity. >> what's interesting here, richard, not only do they say what george will said and erick erickson said, which is conservatives, you cannot elect this man. he will destroy the conservative movement, they go on to say, the "national review," we like rick perry, but he's not presidential timber, same with michele bachmann, basically say if you're a true conservative, you've got three choices. you've got jon huntsman, rick santorum, or mitt romney. it's a fascinating -- and i

think an editorial that's going to reverberate across the country for republicans. >> the danger for newt gingrich may have been he peaked a little bit too soon, people are now really going after him. it's both an opportunity and a risk for mitt romney, he either essentially comes back or for jon huntsman, this could be the opening. if romney can't come back, gingrich is so controversial, huntsman will have his opportunity to breakthrough and become the alternative to the tea party to newt. and this could then get very, very interesting. >> willie geist, it was several weeks ago when we were talking about jon huntsman's way forward. a lot of people were laughing. you look, though, again, the most important conservative magazine talking about huntsman's only failing is that he's been unable to connect with conservative voters. he's got a really conservative record. george wills saying he's more conservative than romney or gingrich combined. eric erickson saying he's got

the most conservative record. he's got the best conservative economic plan. you've got all of the most important media outlets all talking about this guy jon huntsman. he's going up in the polls now. but, my gosh, time's running out. >> and the facts bear out that he is a consistent conservative, much more so than anybody else in the field. you can go down the checklist, whether you're talking about gay marriage, abortion, immigration, or anything else. and i think he and his campaign regret how they rolled out playing the moderate card a little bit too much. he appeared too much like mitt romney somewhere in the mushy middle when actually he's a strong conservative who won by an 80% margin in a very conservative state to become governor. so now it looks like he's pushing the other direction. we're seeing movement in the polls. >> and actually, the really interesting thing for me about this editorial is actually the fact that it's an editorial in the first place about this. people are taking the gingrich candidacy seriously.

when you saw the other flashes in the pan happen, there was not a large movement saying they're not conservative enough or we shouldn't take this seriously or this could be a great opportunity to lose the election because i think people assumed there would be that fizzle. with newt gingrich, there seems to be something there. and that's what i think this has really caused people to come out and say, you know what? we need to stop this if this is the direction things are heading. >> you know what the editorial says, what george will's editorial says is play time's over. we've had our fun, we hope you've enjoyed your primal screen therapy, now we've got to go out, primal screen therapy didn't help john lennon, it's not going to help the republican party either. let's get out and get serious and figure out how to seize upon this historic opportunity. former new york city mayor rudy giuliani, why he argues that gingrich is a stronger candidate than romney. also, white house director of domestic policy melody barnes, bill bennett, and mark

penn will be here. up next, an exclusive look at the political playbook. but first, bill karins, not so exclusive with a check -- >> come on, he's exclusive at this moment. >> would i rather be the other way? >> if you worked for a certain other network -- >> i'm bill, here's the weather. go, bill. >> thank you. good morning, everyone. another incredibly warm start to a december morning in almost half the country. the only area below freezing out in the rockies. it's as warm as 53 at this hour in chicago, 49 in new york city, that's warmer than we should be for our highs during the middle of the afternoon. so there's no snow really to be found. you have to go all the way up to maine for a little bit this morning. the ski resorts are struggling up in northern new england. also some light rain there in texas. but really no travel trouble. just some light rain moving into the big cities in the northeast. bring the umbrella for this afternoon. but you'll notice those temperatures near 60 today in philadelphia.

it's got to change sooner or later. we're still waiting for it. we're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. the employee of the month isss... the new spark card from capital one. spark miles gives me the most rewards of any small business credit card. the spark card earns double miles... so we really had to up our game. with spark, the boss earns double miles on every purchase, every day. that's setting the bar pretty high. owning my own business has never been more rewarding. coming through! [ male announcer ] introducing spark the small business credit cards from capital one. get more by choosing unlimited double miles or 2% cash back on every purchase, every day. what's in your wallet?

for those who have abandoned hope, we'll restore hope and we'll welcome them into a great national crusade to make america great again. >> let it be our cause to see that child grow up strong and secure braced by her challenges but never struggling alone. >> i would like to restore your right to drink raw milk any time you wanted to. >> it is about time. >> he was so close to iowa. it's like -- >> it is about time.

>> all right. >> second amendment rights -- >> world's best hope. >> life and raw milk, the way it should be. the trifecta. the "wall street journal" says the price gap between top-selling print and e-books has narrowed to within a few dollars, in some cases e-books are now more expensive. from the "parade of papers," u.s. satellites have captured a photo of what is believed to be china's first aircraft carrier on a test run in the yellow sea. the ship has generated intense international interest because of what it might signal about china's intentions as a military power. >> let's go to the houston chronicle, cigarette and alcohol use among high schoolers has decreased, however, marijuana use is at the highest since 1981. 1 out of 15 students say they use pot on a nearly daily basis. >> daily basis?

>> okay. >> my gosh. >> time to go home and check the kids' drawer. >> exactly. >> i've got to make a phone call. rod blagojevich has applied to enter a prison substance abuse program. it raises questions whether he suffers from a real problem or angling to reduce his 14-year sentence. willie geist said it. it's an insulting suggestion. there's nothing in this man's past that he never angles to do anything except to provide health care to poor kids. >> he said that famously on "morning joe" a couple of years ago when we asked him what exactly do you think you did wrong and he said maybe i just love little children too much. and if that's a crime, i'll go. >> well, it's at least a crime at stage college, now apparently a crime in chicago. >> apparently so. >> by the way, i love that ron paul clip so much. get big government out of our refrigerators. >> out of our bedrooms, wallets, and our milk stash.

let's go down to politico. "politico's" executive editor jim vandehei. jonathan martin has a piece up for you guys. taking a look at newt gingrich and the way he's running his campaign in iowa. asking the question, is newt taking the hawkeye state seriously enough? reason to believe he's not? >> you had a real smart observation earlier when you were talking about, did he peak too soon? because suddenly thanks to this surge, you have two different attack ads from a group affiliated with romney against newt. you have a ron paul ad against newt gingrich. you even have another add from another outside group hitting newt gingrich. and he's not doing anything to respond, he's not spending as much time as the others in iowa, and there's certainly concern from conservatives at the grass roots that could affect him come caucus day. and if he doesn't win iowa, that surge would start to deflate pretty quickly. i thought your debate earlier was interesting.

when i think of newt gingrich, i kind of think of sarah palin in that you have the base really loves him, is willing to forgive his flaws, but it's almost impossible to find someone in the republican establishment who thinks he'd be a great candidate for republicans in a general election. almost every person who served underneath him worked with him, been in negotiations that involved him would tell you that great idea guy, but we do not want him leading something. >> all of these groups coming out and saying that. >> great idea guy, not great leader. and willie, as we said before, go down the checklist, the most important newspaper, the "wall street journal" expresses skepticism. the most conservative magazine "the national review" blistered him today. the most important columnist, george will, of the past 25 years said he would've made a marvelous marxist. the most important blogger in the conservative blogosphere,

erick erickson said he's unfit to be president. this is hard for any conservative to survive this. >> the establishment is pushing back hard. and we've talked about this before, the guys like you who served with him in 1994 are not coming out publicly supporting him. you've had guys like tom coburn come out and say publicly, i could not support a newt gingrich candidacy, which says a lot. >> you are right, i have not publicly come out in support of newt gingrich. and i have decided to this point, at least, and it's a tough decision, mika, and we need to talk about this off-air. >> i know. >> when i start expressing my opinion about newt. because i did work with him for a while. and i -- i've got some strong opinions. >> i try not to keep it personal. >> i don't want to tip my hand. >> you've done a good job of playing it down the middle, joe. >> i'm a journalist, it's what i do. >> i love gingrich's strategy in iowa, a mix of nonchalants and high road confidence. >> he's got a lot of both. >> jim, thanks show much for a

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hey, welcome back to "morning joe." you know, yesterday, mika, your father had an op-ed in the "wall street journal" taken from an article that's going to be in "foreign affairs" in the january and february issue about china. >> yes. >> and china's rise. >> richard haass you came back from a trip to china and japan. i want to ask you generally what you saw, but more specifically, the "wall street journal" are reporting there are investors betting against japan's continued rise. they believe the bubble's coming. they believe the economy is going to flatten out a bit. >> talking about japan or china? >> china. let's talk about japan too,

still a huge economy, but my god, a lost decade continues to ebb on there. >> i've never seen the chinese in all the decades i've been going there as insecure as they are now. they're about to undertake a big political transition, the economy's beginning to slow, they're worried about the inequality, worried about the environmental problems they've got. so here the debate about china is they're 10 or 20 feet tall, in china, they know they're not. and even though they've got the world's second largest economy, the gdp per capita on an individual basis it's 1/10 the size of the united states or japan. so, again, they are painfully aware of their domestic problems. and we tend to exaggerate their strengths. >> and i asked jon huntsman during a discussion with him offset, actually, what's the goal for the chinese? do you believe like henry kissinger believes the chinese always look in? or do you believe like american politicians that they want to sweep across the pacific and land in san francisco and plant

a flag there? you say, oh, no, no, no, they need economic growth to continue their internal -- their -- this communist power structure. >> exactly right. this is the lubricant for their society. they need economic growth to provide, if you will, the basis for social and political stability. that's why they're uneasy because economic growth is slowing, they can no longer live on the export model. they've got to increase domestic demand. they're worried about this transition. >> and -- tiananmen square is still in the rearview mirror, isn't it? >> more fundamentally, is they don't take chinese solidarity for granted. given geographical and the rest, they're worried about the unity of their country. japan is fundamentally different. japan has gone from two decades of boom in the '70s and '80s to now two decades, 20 years of economic malaise and drift. and going forward in the aftermath of the nuclear and the tsunami, giving you've had seven japanese prime ministers in a

decade. japan looking forward given the demographics again, they're worried they have even more time -- >> what happened? historically what happened? here's a country that started to rise in the '60s, in the '70s and '80s exploded, and by '87, '88, '89, when they started writing books, the japan that could say no, boom, they flat lined. >> one is demographic, no immigration. no immigration in japan, very small families. so the average age of the japanese has gone from 20 years old 40 or 50 years ago, it's now in the 50s soon. japan is an aging society, too much government involvement and regulation. the united states should watch what's going on in japan. there's some important lessons for us. >> all right. thanks for that. up next, the must-read opinion pages. keep it here on "morning joe." ♪ i'm burning out this useless telephone ♪

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i think speaker gingrich has lived in washington for the last 30 years. he went to washington to do good, and he stayed to do well. he's a wealthy man. a very wealthy man. if you have $500,000 purchase from tiffany's, you're not a middle class american. >> okay. there you go. >> you want to talk about $10,000 bets? i'll talk about your $500,000 tiffany's line of credit. >> time now for the must-read opinion pages. >> good use of word there, zany. >> i think it's -- >> i have different words, okay. "wall street journal," this is an interesting one. newt gingrich will either get mitt romney into shape for 2012

or he will make mitt -- take mitt down in next year's primary contests before the former massachusetts governor gets himself and his party in over his head. it has come to this. a republican nomination out of hollywood, which too often is where this process has been the past seven months. but it isn't going to have a hollywood ending. tinker bell isn't going to conjure chris christie or anyone else out of ferairy dust before the primaries begin. these two are it. romney's inadequacies are known, it's time to put the two in a cage together so one can emerge ready to compete for the presidency. >> speaking of hollywood, willie's there right now. willie, a lot of people arguing that -- and yesterday we had somebody here saying every campaign has to face the threat, i think it's a good argument that daniel makes that this will make him a stronger candidate or defeat him.

>> daniel sounds so disappointed by it. these are the two guys we're left with. live with it, deal with it. mitt romney's strategy is to go after newt gingrich. he'd kind of sit back and chuckle at the other debates, now his strategy is to go after mitt romney, jim vandehei just told us about super packs attacking in the states. i think it's a hilarious parallel universe stuff when mitt romney is saying newt gingrich is the one too wealthy to be in touch with the average american, newt gingrich is not conservative enough, meanwhile, newt gingrich saying i'm the outsider despite i'm the very essence, the very symbol of washington's revolving door. so it's a strange back and forth. >> no doubt about it. and i think because of that, wes, i think danielle henninger is correct, these two are the most likely. you still have to look at ron paul and jon huntsman and i'm not sure michele bachmann

doesn't make a late charge or rick santorum in iowa. >> mitt romney's going to be thinking to himself, even if i get past this process, win the nomination, there's some real issues i'm going to have going into the general election. because they understand the only way you're going to knock out an incumbent, when it's the person you're running against in the potential eight years, you have got to have a coalesce and a strong base that's wanting to come in and support you. and i think the romney team is genuinely concerned about this. because as we're seeing these occasional people flashing up, and even if you have someone who steals a primary here and there, if romney becomes the nominee, he's going to have trouble pulling the coalition together. >> there's other op-eds asking on the "washington post," if he's is the most conservative candidate and could still emerge. and the national review as we have reported earlier has given an anti-endorsement on its cover. not endorsing newt gingrich openly. we fear that to nominate newt gingrich, the front-runner in

the polls would be to blow this opportunity. we say that mindful of his opponents' imperfections and virtues on display during his amazing comeback. if he is the nominee, a campaign that should be about whether the country will continue on the path to social democracy would be -- would inevitably become to a large extent a referendum on gingrich instead. and there is reason to doubt that he has changed. each week, we see that the same traits that weakened republicans from 1995 to 1998. gingrich has always said he wants to transform the country. he appears unable to transform or even govern himself. he should be an adviser to the republicanparty, but not again s head. >> jon meacham, somewhere, somewhere out there -- >> the new york yacht club in the sky. >> the new york yacht club in the sky in the great beyond, the ghost of bill buckley is smiling this morning.

>> he is smiling. i suspect -- >> a slight smile. >> no, it is a rye smile that says about damn time. >> he's leaning back like this. and there's a clipboard somewhere. >> no, seriously, rich lowry and the team have made bill buckley proud. >> has channeled him well. when the "national review" was founded, he said the mission was to stand athwart history and stop. he was not a tragic conservative. bill buckley was a romantic conservative. >> yes. >> he wanted to win. he loved the game. he was the happiest of warriors. and he thought -- >> and he wanted to win. and as we've said around here, the buckley test, the william f. buckley test finish choosing a candidate was to choose the most conservative candidate who could win. not the most conservative candidate to make you feel good about hating the other side or

to create some conservative catharsis, but it was about winning with buckley. >> or to be angry. buckley was against the perpetuation of anger as an organizing principle in politics. he was for a form of american greatness. and believed that you had to believe in the country and you had to be a happy warrior to do it. >> all right. speaking of happy warriors, willie is standing by in los angeles with news you can't use. it's next. >> at 3:52 in the morning. >> oh, willie. ♪ [ male announcer ] it's easy to see what subaru owners care about. ♪ that's why we created the share the love event. get a great deal on a new subaru and 250 dollars goes to your choice of five charities. ♪

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oh, yes. is it time? what time is it? >> it looks like it's about 3:55 a.m. >> you look tired. >> don't say that. you never say that to a woman. >> don't say that to willie. you're going to hurt his feelings. >> i'm coming home. i'm going to be back with you tomorrow in new york. >> hurry up. so last night, barbara walters, most fascinating people of 2011, we always look forward to this list. and especially so this year because one of her choices was mr. herman cain. i want you to not only listen to his answer to this question, but watch barbara's reaction. >> what kind of cabinet position might you like if it were possible? >> we are speaking totally, totally hypothetical, right? >> yeah. >> totally hypothetical, department of defense. >> what? why department of defense? >> because if i could influence

rebuilding our military the way it should be, that would be a task i would consider undertaking. >> if you were secretary of defense, it would be important to be familiar with the various countries around the world. and you've had some difficulty with that, mr. cain. >> yes, but i have been doing my homework ever since that difficulty. >> what? says barbara walters. what? we've taken the liberty here at "morning joe." if mr. cain is serious about this of putting together the resume tape for the department of defense. here it is. >> you don't need to know the details of foreign policy in order to be a good commander in chief. do you really believe that? yes. i do view china as a potential military threat. they are trying to develop nuclear capability. okay. libya -- and when they ask me who's the president of

ubeki-beki-stan-stan, i'm going to say i don't know, do you know? >> i got all this stuff twirling around in my head. >> he is fascinating. he is fascinating, isn't he? >> he really tops the list. >> ambassador to ubeki-beki-stan. >> there we go. >> right? >> secretary cain coming your way. coming up next, former new york city mayor rudy giuliani and campaign strategist mark penn will be with us. and bill bennett joins the gang onset at 30 rock. keep it on "morning joe." we'll be right back. nyquil: you know i relieve coughs, sneezing, fevers?

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it's great in a campaign, it's great on talk radio, it's great in the print. it makes for fun reading, but in terms of the president, we need a leader. and a leader needs to be someone who can bring americans together, a leader needs to be someone of sobriety and stability and patience and temperance to think through issues to be careful in the choice of words he or she might express because the world listens. >> zany actually fits a couple of our guests this morning. bill bennett who is actually -- if you remember, he was jack

parr's zany side kick. >> what decade is that from? >> '40s or '50s. >> is it '50s? >> sure. >> welcome back to "morning joe." >> '30s may be zany. >> that is just zany. >> and joining the table, bill bennett's "morning in america," bill bennett. also author of the book "the book of man." readings on the path to manhood. and also us with us in washington, political writer for the huffington post, sam stein. >> a great morning to have you with us, bill. "the national review." >> yeah. >> put out an editorial, we've been talking about it this morning. where they basically say newt gingrich is not the conservative's choice for

president. rick perry is -- doesn't have the presidential timber required to be in the office. michele bachmann is not your choice. and basically whittles the field down to three. first let's talk about newt. >> all right. >> he's been hammered by george will, by the "wall street journal," by red state, he's been hammered by the "national review," all of them. what's your take on newt gingrich? you've known him a very long time. >> well, if there's a bit of humor in all of this, and there is, you know, though we're not laughing about the current situation. we republicans -- >> see, look, he sees the zaniness. >> i'll give you zany. look, my worry about newt is we don't have an election in which we talk about the issues. we don't talk about obama, don't talk about what's happening in the country. we're going to be endlessly talking about newt. what he said yesterday, he took that back, what he said last

year. it will be about the candidate. >> that's what happened in '96, '97, and '98, every idea we had had newt wrapped around it. >> some go up fast and come down fast, but the reaction of the audience is you guys in the establishment, sometimes i'm in, sometimes i'm out -- >> right. >> you guys in the establishment don't like newt. you beltway guys don't like newt, we like newt. parse that for a second. you beltway guys, you're the problem, therefore we like newt. is anybody more beltway than newt? has anybody been in the beltway longer than newt? >> has anybody made $100 million in the beltway from newt? >> romney criticizes newt from making money, where do you make the money? when you make the money from fannie mae and freddie mac, that's a problem. >> that's a big difference. and let's underline this fact

because newt gingrich made his money in the k street revolving door. he made money from fannie and freddie, he made money from ethanol, he made money from a lot of things that conservatives consider abhorrent. mitt romney made his money doing things that liberals consider abhorrent. using the free market, figuring out what companies had what it took to survive, and what companies needed to be broken down and made stronger and better. and to me, it is a huge difference on how mitt romney made his money and how newt made his. >> well, not only do liberals disapprove of how mitt romney made his money, newt does, free market capitalism. and that was an interesting lesson. >> he channeled in the "wall street journal" yesterday said he was channelling paul krugman and teddy kennedy. >> staples comes into business and it gets jobs, this is how it works. you may want to criticize, but that's the way it works. >> this cover of "national review" was an anti-endorsement

of newt. basically says he's a bad candidate, bad for the country, and nominating him would be passing up or throwing away p an historic opportunity. the national review editorial board highlights records of other candidates in the race. governor huntsman has a solid record, the magazine says, notwithstanding his sometimes glib foreign policy pronouncements, his main weakness is his apparent inability so far to forge a connection with conservative voters outside of utah. governor romney won our endorsement last time because some of the candidates were openly hostile to elements of conservatism. he is highly intelligent and disciplined and takes conservative positions on all of the key issues. senator santorum was an effective legislator, he deserves credit for highlighting more than any other candidate the need for public policies that topple barriers to middle class aspirations. >> bill bennett, i've known you for quite a while, i would guess that you are like me. and like a lot of other small

government conservatives, if we had our choice, paul ryan would be in the race. jeb bush would be in the race. maybe even mitch daniels would be in the race. but chris christie -- but we really didn't get our first choices. so this is where we're left. do you agree with the "national review" that if you're a conservative and you want to win, you've got jon huntsman, mitt romney, or rick santorum? >> largely i do, i think that's right. paul ryan called me yesterday and i said, is this it? >> come on, paul, let's do it! >> you're going to deliver us, take us -- he said, no, i'm telling you about my premium support agreement with -- >> that's a big one too. >> i think huntsman, by the way will have a moment. and if you really are a conservative, you look at huntsman's economic plan, it is the most conservative plan. but people haven't given him a serious look yet. >> can i ask you why? because you, again, one of the pillars of modern conservatism

agree with the "wall street journal," another pillar of modern conservatism who agree with george will, who agree with red state -- it seems to me that the conservative -- the people that have built the conservative movement over the past 30 years agree that jon huntsman has the most conservative economic plan. >> yeah. we'll see. >> why is he not connecting? >> well, because he's decided to connect in one state. it seems this morning there are some numbers moving in new hampshire and may move, you know, new hampshire they say watch it two weeks before, go with where the surge is. so we'll see if he lives to fight another day. >> would he be a good president? >> i think he'd be a very good president. i think i disagree with him on some things. he's smart as can be, talks foreign policy, speaks fluent mandarin. the only time the president used the ambassador -- i know of in history as the simultaneous translator was jon huntsman. that's cool. he's very smart. the utah record is a very

impressive record. again for conservatives. >> does huntsman have the most conservative record of anybody in the field? >> i think pretty -- maybe santorum. but pretty close. but santorum's numbers are so poor. but, you know, we're always accused of being so doctrinal, we stick to these views. well, if we did, there'd be more enthusiasm for huntsman than newt who is all over the map. i love newt, he's got more ideas in a day than i'll have in a year, but the debate will be about newt, it won't be -- >> that's one of the maddening things, i want to go to sam stein. i've got you here and this is a great opportunity for me to vent. it seems over the past decade while george w. bush was president and once barack obama came president, it became more important for the conservative movement to have these catharsis moments, to engage in primal screen therapy, to say he's our guy, he's a member of our gang. so if you're against our guy, we're going to kick the hell out

of you and you're needily not a member of our gang. and the things you've always looked at, that william buckley always looked at like, who is the real conservative? seemed to matter less and less. and that's how we ran up this huge debt, this is how we got engaged in foreign policy. is there going to be a real awakening of -- >> sobriety just in time? >> yeah. >> remember bush derangement syndrome? we have obama derangement syndrome. newt will give it to him -- but what happens in the morning? how do you feel in the morning? these debates don't really resolve things. we think they're going to -- al gore's going to wipe the floor with george bush or kerry's going to do that -- >> doesn't work that way. >> doesn't work that way. >> but do you want to feel good or win an election? >> that is it right there. you just nailed it. >> and that's basically what the national review is saying.

>> let's go also to sam stein who is also one of the great conservatives of our time. >> ask him how he's going to feel the next day. >> the "washington examiner" also a conservative outlet this morning, sam, they have an editorial throwing their support behind mitt romney. saying he's the only republican candidate that can beat the president believes that romney can defeat obama but gingrich cannot. as bill bennett and i have talked about, the businessman is far better suited by temperament and cast of mind. the fact is gingrich is part of the problem not part of the solution. it seems to me, sam stein, that a week ago -- i mean i know the romney people saw newt gingrich as a threat. today, this morning as they wake up, they're saying to themselves and they are i've gotten

e-mails, thank god for newt gingrich. he's making us look pretty damn good this morning with the people we care the most about. >> yeah, it's a sobering wake-up call for the conservative press. and i think bill's largely right about how this race stands. there's, you know, people putting the pause button on the gingrich boom because they're wondering what happens after you wake up the next morning. the one thing about all that, and i think we touched on it earlier was with respect to why huntsman is sort of still not catching on and why gingrich did catch on and why romney remains in the 20% to 25% range. i get e-mails every day how people think gingrich is the one candidate who could mop the floor with obama and give it to him in the debates. and i don't want to overstate it, but i think that's a huge component in the psychology of republican voters. they want someone who really will go after the president on a whole bunch of issues. and they've seen gingrich

perform in these republican debates, and they sort of adapt that to a general election format and they get -- they start salivating almost. the problem is, when you look back at the record, there's a lot to be desired. one other thing to add, "the national review" piece was interesting in that they conceded up front that basically all of these people are close on policy matters that they're arguing right now. they're all in the same vicinity when it comes to these things. and respect to the paul ryan medicare plan, which has been a big debate between mitt romney and newt gingrich, what we saw yesterday, even paul ryan is moving away from the paul ryan medicare plan. no, that's true. >> no, but paul ryan said from the very beginning, he was just putting a marker out there because he believed medicare was such a critical budgetary issue. hep wanted to put his marker there, and i guess he expected democrats to be equally responsible and put their marker out there and instead they're just demagoguing. >> but now he's with ron white

in a plan that looks very similar to what newt gingrich and even mitt romney were advocating, which is sort of a hybrid approach. my point being is if you were to judge the candidates strictly by what they're offering right now, you'd have a difficult choice. so everyone has to go project to the future, the debate with obama or the past, which is what they're looking at with gingrich and getting really scared. >> jon meacham. >> bill, you've written books about character, you've looked at a presidential race yourself, i wonder what you see in romney at this point in his character that suggests what kind of president he would be. remarking this morning, we're talking a lot about the horse race right now. we started the morning talking about the end of a decade-long war of -- or the character of a president mattered. >> well, i think competent, steady within the lines. i mean, that's the way he's lived his life. you know, and the worst thing you can say about a guy he has a dog carrier on the top of --

>> that's a pretty -- >> at least for me. >> if that's all you can say. >> yes, sir, guilty, absolutely. >> we'd have a ticket here. >> i think it'd be focused. again, i think conservatives. people take conservatives seriously. we disappoint in some ways. i think he governs center right, but i also think he'd govern on the issues most important to the country right now and i think that's what the presidential debate would be about, as well. that's what -- that's what i'd like to see. you've got to look at the man, the totality of his actions and it's an impressive set of actions. >> downside? >> passion. you know, can he win? can he fire up the base? once he's in, i don't care about the passion. get your passions elsewhere. >> that's interesting. >> and going along -- >> you know about that. andrew jackson. >> and along those lines about the issues being most important. you can make an argument that john mccain in 2008 won the nomination because the people

talking about mostly at that time was the wars, military conflict. we didn't hit that precipice until september long after he had the nomination. how can mitt romney really define this argument and say, listen, all the other stuff we're talking about is a side bar, the economy is the leading issue. and this is an issue where i have a much better chance standing toe to toe with the president than newt gingrich. can that transition be made? >> i'm not sure it's needed. people say what's it like to host a conservative talk show radio, people call in and talk about abortion -- that's not what the conversation's about. the future of the country, can we survive another generation? can we survive another four years of barack obama? is the country in decline? is america in its last years? that's all anybody's focused on. i don't think a transition's necessary. >> wow. well -- the positives and negatives of mitt romney. i think we're having him on the show --

>> mitt's going to be on on monday. can i ask you really quickly -- >> could you mention my book? >> before we go to break. >> that's why i'm here. >> we'll do that next block. >> we thought you were here because you loved us. >> i do love you. >> it's because we want to williams. >> really quickly -- >> williams has a lot to answer for. >> i know. >> as we move away from iraq, what has this decade of war meant? >> the only thing missing is you could have said rumsfeld for not listening to the generals. as we move out, we're not listening to the generals again. there aren't any generals who say we should do it this way and i fear we're going to lose iraq and it'll be a terrible thing. >> good warning. >> bill bennett, thank you very much. also coming up, new york mayor rudy giuliani, he's going to be onset. also, mark penn. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. now, rudy, i want to get rudy talking about newt. >> let's do it.

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my gut tells me right now as i look at it that gingrich might actually be the stronger candidate. because i think he can make a broader connection than mitt romney. as i said to the -- to the reagan democrats where he won't have this barrier of possible elitism that i think obama could exploit pretty effectively. >> that was from our file tape. joining us now, former mayor of new york city and former republican presidential candidate mayor rudy giuliani, we're just clarifying that was several years ago, right? >> no, that was about a week ago. >> we didn't have a lot of people onset saying what you just said that newt is perhaps the most electable republican. >> well, i believe it for a

couple of reasons. i'm not sure he is. i think you look at these polls, romney is ahead in most of them -- ahead of where newt is by three or four points. i kind of go back to 1980. and i remember the carter white house just dying for ronald reagan. ronald reagan was the dumb actor, said incendiary things, was like newt, gosh, you never know what he was going to say and the whole world would go crazy, the "new york times" would write editorials. there was bush, greatest resume of anyone that ran for president, solid citizen, right on the mark, and it may be that newt is appealing to something that mitt isn't appealing to. there's something wrong when you've been running as long as mitt has and you're at 25% and you don't go much above and don't go much below, 75% of the other republicans are telling you something about him. >> what do you think?

>> i think it's deeper. i ran against him in '07 and '08, i've never seen a guy change his positions on so many things so fast on a dime. everything. >> you're talking about -- >> pro-choice. >> you're talking about gingrich? >> no, mitt. mitt was the governor -- >> no, i'm just saying -- >> newt has switched pretty quickly on issues, as well. >> nothing, absolutely nothing like what mitt romney did from governor of massachusetts to candidate for president. pro-choice pro-life, pro-choice because somebody, close friend died and he became pro-choice because this woman died of an abortion. then he figures out there are embryos and changes. he was pro-gun control. fine, then he becomes a lifetime member of the nra. he was pro cap and trade, now he's against cap and trade. he was pro mandate for the whole

country, then he becomes anti-mandate and takes that page out of his book and republishes the book. i can go on and on. what will barack obama do to that? >> that's a good -- >> what barack obama will do with that, this is a man without a core, a man without substance, a man that will say anything to become president of the united states. i think that's a great vulnerable. i think newt has his set of vulnerabilities, but a more consistent position with real ideas like ronald reagan had. ronald reagan signed the bill that made abortion legal in the state of california. ronald reagan did, in fact, raise taxes several times not just as president but as governor of california. so i think that newt might, in fact, be in an imperfect world, there may be perfect candidates, and you mentioned some of them, paul ryan -- >> jeb bush. >> man, i'd take him in a second. >> chris christie. >> and in this imperfect world, and maybe i'm also reacting to everybody coming after newt.

it's like -- it's getting ridiculous now. it's like the guy's some kind of monster. >> let me ask you a question and not necessarily about newt gingrich, but let me just take your question. what would barack obama do with that? you could put that toward newt gingrich or any of the other candidates. >> absolutely. >> let me ask you this, if a candidate -- often you and i don't speak the same language. >> it's english, but sometimes we don't understand your english. i have to tell you, because if you're looking, your party is looking for a conservative who can beat barack obama, you ask what barack obama would do with newt gingrich or mitt romney. he could do a lot, don't you think? >> of course he can. but what are we looking for? are we looking for the reagan democrats? who makes the closer connection to the reagan democrats? mitt romney? talking about elitism, an aura of elitism or newt who can talk

to them, who comes to them from a very, very large extent. i think there are a lot of ways yo do cross-party analysis that isn't just one way. ronald reagan was the least likely guy that was going to get the reagan democrats from his ideological position. bush was the most likely to get those democrats, bush could never get the democrats because bush was an elitist. reagan knew how to talk to them, newt knows how to talk to them. he will be able to do better -- i feel more comfortable campaigning for him in the suburbs, which is where i think i know how to campaign the best, and selling him in the suburbs to reagan democrats than i do mitt romney. >> bill bennett, what do you think about that? >> rudy to my right, this is a fun place to be. it's interesting. sure, the positions have changed. and he doesn't -- romney doesn't fire up the base. newt's positions changed some too, and one worries about newt is where he will be when the

head stops spinning and what revelations and what other things will we learn? part of this centers on the center. and what the center is. if you characterize the center and a piece of it the center is reagan democrats, i see the point. the moderates and independents are moderate and independent people, sort of more moderate in disposition, i think newt scares the heck out of them. i don't know how those numbers break down, but maybe i just don't want to go through all of the surprises, the roller coaster. >> well, you're talking about the roller coaster, you can talk about mitt's transformation from moderate to conservative. my problem with newt is you never know what you're going to get tomorrow. >> a box of chocolates. you never know what you're going to get. >> exactly. a few days ago he was channelling as the "wall street journal" said yesterday paul krugman with his comments of bain capital. this past summer, just this past summer, he was calling paul ryan a right-wing social engineer. >> i had him on my show and i

said unforgivable, i'm not going to support you. ryan steps out there, makes this very courageous -- i'll agree with you. he then steps up and apologizes and says i'm sorry, i was wrong, i shouldn't have done it. but then, and with newt he says but then, actually i was right the first time. >> what does that mean? that's the unsettling and unnerving part. >> and for those of us who worked with him day in and day out, i remember when we were fighting to reopen the -- to shut the government down, it was reopened, that battle continued, though, and we finally were making progress, and then newt goes on a flight across the country -- across the world to israel and he's complaining about being stuck in the back of the plane and said that's why we shut down the government. i remember all of us being bombarded off the house floor in the middle of our legislative battle with dick gephart and the

democrats who didn't want to balance the budget. it overwhelmed us. that happened time and time again. >> that was a stupid thing to say. no question -- >> but not his last stupid -- >> it's a tough audience for you. >> man, oh, man, i can give you a list of stupid things i said, that barack obama has said, stupid things that mitt romney has recently said. i work with newt also, not as closely as you did. as the mayor of new york, most of the time he was the speaker, i found working with him and bill clinton very easy. and we worked the crime bill. newt, you guys voted down the crime bill before newt took over. clinton wanted to to put the crime bill back together. it was going to get me $100 million for new york city. >> and a lot of midnight basketball. >> and i spent a lot of time negotiating with bill clinton and newt gingrich. and when he calms down and relaxes, he's a totally practical, smart guy. and does he have his -- >> when? >> but what do we want the

conversation to be about this summer and fall? and, you know, newt's a great source of ideas, i've learned a lot from him, but i'm worried the conversation will be about him, rather than about barack obama -- >> we haven't even talked about -- >> let's turn the conversation to your book. because you came on here -- >> yeah. >> to talk about your book, and we for 30 minutes have hijacked you. it's called "the book of man" with all of these men around, what can rudy and meacham and i learn from "the book of man?" >> there's no problem at this table, let me stipulate that, but there's a problem with men. whether you look at employment levels, men looking for jobs, look at marriage, commitment to family, and so on. we said to the women, you know, you go girl, and they went. and now we have the first generation of women who are outperforming men in almost everything in terms of achievement, education, ambition, and so on. this book is an encouragement to men to be men and to remember

what it is to be a man in the best sense of the term. and the most interesting thing about this book is the reaction from women. who have not criticized the book, people thought i'd be criticized because it appears macho. women said you don't know the half of it. women everywhere are saying 25-year-old men are spending all their time in video games, you know. if 60's the new 40, 25's the new 14. the male i'm getting from women, who do i settle with? where are those men? what happened to those men? it's a book about the culture. >> and if men are able to accomplish what you're able to put forth in your book, then women would be allowed to be women. >> yes, that's right. there's not a lot of gloating among feminists about the collapse of men. they're not happy about this. >> what caused the collapse? >> what caused the collapse? >> well, a lot of different reasons. dr. sachs and some of the other people who study the brain say

that too much aderol, too many medicated boys. when they are active, they are drugged. you take an active guy like rudy giuliani, you know, he would have been drugged out if he were in school today. look, no, i like -- >> christian brothers -- >> a lot of us would -- >> put me on an i.v. >> they want the boys sitting still so they do this. one thing's for sure in the culture, if a boy looks out and wants to find out what it means to be a man, it's very confusing. look at the sitcoms. >> i've got two boys, two older boys, one younger boy, two older boys who were perfectly normal, probably at ten different times during their development i had doctors in one town or another saying, oh, you need to put them on ritilin, and now we see our 3-year-old bouncing off the walls and she says what's wrong with him? what's wrong with him?

and i said, he is a boy. and -- and do you agree? >> absolutely. absolutely. i saw it in new york all the time with my friends, my own children. my son was enormously active, so was i. there was one time i was about 3 years old i didn't sleep for two days. my mother took me to the doctor. >> right. >> and the doctor was an old-fashioned pediatrician. and he went through our family history and he said to my mother, how much do you sleep every night? and she said three or four hours and he said, well he takes after you. but nowadays i'd be drugged up. i sleep three or four hours every night, always have. if i've been going through this stage, i'd be sitting here now -- >> right. >> exactly. >> all drugged up. boys are boys. >> that's what willie geist does. >> my son ended up three times in emergency rooms. once he ran into a wall, once he fell off the couch, and the third time he was running around so much he got dehydrated and fainted. >> yeah.

they called you in the third time they're supposed to see you. >> i brought him in with my wife -- >> this is the third time for joe, what are you doing? >> no bruises on him and i was the mayor at the time. a heck of a story for the daily news. wow. >> maybe we shouldn't medicate sam stein then. he's in washington. >> he looks medicated right now. we'll get back to you next hour. so, bill, it's a fascinating book, an important book -- >> for christmas. >> it is a christmas book is what i was about to say. >> thank you, sir. >> i can't tell you, though, how many women i have heard through the years just asking the question, where are the men? where have they gone? >> yeah. well, i think they're there. we certainly have a lot of good men in american society, but we're not bringing out the best in them and we're not encouraging the best. take a look at the fall tv series, the sitcoms. and the men in these sitcoms are --

>> not manly. >> not manly. the only one that is tim allen and the show is called "last man standing," which may be the truth. one hopes not the end of civilization. >> you know, meacham, when you get authors writing for you, they need to be as driven about selling books as bill bennett. he talks christmas, plus, look at that tie. >> yeah. >> it's a message. >> it's a message. >> bill bennett christmas, buy books. >> i'm going to buy the book. >> thanks, rudy. >> his book is really excellent. you're a terrific writer, terrific thinker. >> we'd love for you to talk more about newt, mayor. >> you're right, there are a lot of people knocking him around. >> too much -- >> we didn't ask you the hard questions. >> couple of other candidates you haven't talked about, santorum. good man, i can't understand why -- huntsman, i know why he's not moving. i know you ask it every morning. foreign policy. republicans are national security hawks. i became a republican for that

reason because of the weakness with regard to the soviet union, the weakness with regard to the military. huntsman frightens us that he's into that sort of state department intellectual i don't know let's go after the military. we shouldn't be a strong military presence. you don't say that to republicans. >> we're going to have him on next week, we'll let him respond to that. >> very good on china, he just doesn't want to occupy about 20 muslim nations at the same time. >> america has to be willing to have a military presence in the middle east for the next 50 years like we've had in europe if we want to make a statement to the -- to our enemies. the people planning to kill us are in that part of the world, that's where our troops should be. >> all right. thank you very much. the book is called "the book of man." if you believe in christmas, you will buy this book. >> we shall return. >> now i'm embarrassed. ♪ i'm burning out this useless telephone ♪

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it's obvious that something's happened last few hours that suddenly they don't want to vote on their own bill. keep this in mind. the house has passed a bill that

i have said and nondemocrats have said is a dead duck. doa, dead on arrival. it's here, it's dead, and they don't want to vote on it. you think maybe they don't want to vote on it because republican senators are kind of embarrassed or ashamed what's in that bill? i would think so. >> if the majority leaders are convinced the house bill is doa, why doesn't he talk to the speaker about how we can craft a bill that can pass both the republican house and the democratic senate? and quit wasting our time here in the senate scoring points because the government shutdown is two days away. >> welcome back to "morning joe," 42 past the hour. can you believe we are doing this again? what is wrong with people for the third time this year, congress is walking dangerously close to a government shutdown when funding dries up. today house republicans are

pushing forward with a $1 trillion spending plan to keep the government running through september. but democrats and the white house say no deal. they want to take up the payroll tax cut first and instead pass a temporary plan to keep the lights on. in a statement, the president's communications director wrote this. congress should pass a short-term continuing resolution as it has seven times already this year that all parties have an appropriate opportunity to consider and complete all the critical, budget, and economic issues necessary to finish responsibilities for the year. >> mika, we have had continuing resolutions in the senate for 900 days. no budget, no budget in the senate, no budget -- well, there was a budget from the white house that got zero votes. the house has passed a budget that nobody is moving toward working to the. they have got to figure out a way to work on this. >> democratic senate leaders have since dropped their demand that the payroll tax cuts be paid for by increasing taxes on

millionaires. which would have been a good way to do it. a move they hope will be enough to convince republicans to compromise. so who's being more difficult? >> now, let's not play that game. let's not, because we know where that ends. but let's not play that game who do we blame here? because you know what? i blame -- i blame the democr s democrats, you're going to blame -- you're going to blame the republicans, and i don't know, sam, where you're going to be -- >> they want obama to -- >> hold on, mika. hold on. no, if we want to have a debate, we're going to have a debate. we've got to talk about something bigger, mika. the fact that washington, d.c. is broken and it takes two to tango, two to compromise, two to come together. and i want to know, and if you want to ask sam this or if you p want to take a cheap shot at republicans, you can do that too. what do we want to do? what leader is going to step forward that will bring

democrats and republicans together? >> well, it would be a great start to maybe make that happen on the payroll tax cut extension. sam? >> by doing just what barack obama wants? is that the world we live in now? i don't agree on that. and conservatives don't agree on that. we talked about this yesterday. >> we did. >> why is it i have to agree with barack obama 100% or i hate america? >> that's not what i said. >> that is what you're saying. >> it's not what i said. >> yes, it's what you're saying. >> this is becoming a very awkward thanksgiving -- >> is there a turkey i could throw -- >> uncle herb is getting angry. >> you should let sam speak now. >> i'm not going to say another word. i'm going to eat my turkey here and not eat a word. >> i want to say i hate it when mom and dad fight and it's really awkward. >> sam and i need to go play nerf ball. >> see what you're doing to the kids? >> sam. >> you guys are worse than congress. you know, obviously -- there's mutually assured self-destruction here going on.

and the irony is that the two sides aren't all that far apart. the white house doesn't want a long-term continuing resolution, they want a continuing resolution for a few days so everything goes -- the negotiations can continue and they can pass this budget for $1 trillion. the problem we're having right now they can't resolve the issue over the payroll tax cut. obama saying, okay, we'd be willing to drop the millionaire surtax. in return, they want republicans to drop the keystone pipeline. once they can get that done and it shouldn't take too much to get that done. just get that done, then they can move on to the spending bill. coming up next -- thank you, sam. >> no problem. >> thank you, sam. >> i try my best. dan senor and -- >> by the way, was that a great debate between rudy and bill bennett last block? >> it was interesting. let's talk about that. more "morning joe." financial advice is everywhere.

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♪ i think we can agree on this next guest. >> we can agree on this song. >> great guest. >> joining us now, adjunct senior fellow -- >> i wasn't talking about him. i was talking about harry. >> also with us, journalist, author and editor at large for thompson reuters, sir harold evans. it's a mental condition conducive to paranoia and impervious to truth. once an emotional stereotype has been created of the jews, of blark blacks, of catholics, of

muslims, it's readily absorbed. none have been more stereotyped and more durably than jews. >> you can go back and look at the magna carta which gives some bits of freedom. you don't have to repay debts to jews or deal fairly with them. why is it especially in europe? >> it goes back a long way. one of the exciting things to me was to find an organization like the publishers facing history and ourselves, which are concerned with the whys you ask. it goes back to roman times and back to the days when the jews were dispersed from israel and they had one abiding fault, the jews. they believed in one god. they were going to societies generally where they believed in

many gods. secondly, in the christian era when they were accused of killing jesus forgetting that the romans did the crucifixion, they were excluded from many trades and had to go into one that was banned to christians and then it became -- that became -- dickens has a lot to answer for. >> john meacham has a lot to answer for. he has the next question. >> when do you find the most important early instance of anti-semitism. there's internal in the interesting way of the beginning of the christian era. >> you go before the christian era, you find it in the greeks, athens -- don't forget when the jews arrive were foreigners and they have strange customs.

it started in athens. the great riots were there. they were resented and then in the christian era one tragic thing for me when i read this manuscript, my eyes were popping because when i was a boy, i was excited by the crusaders going across killing all of these turks and so on. sorry, turkey. i have no prejudice about turks. any way, they are a wonderful nation and they're doing very well. i had no idea that these crusaders and heros were killing more jews than anybody else. why? they got blamed for the death of jesus. i was so ashamed that this is religion i'm subscribing to killing jews because of this curse that was put on and the

jews killed jesus. >> one of the worst lines in the new testament that echos throughout history is let their blood be upon us and upon our children which is inserted in the most anti-semitic of the gospe gospels. >> this is a terrific book and hats off to you and facing history for producing it. you don't talk a lot about modern anti-semitism. it's okay to criticize israel as long as it's not on anti-semitism. is there a blurring when the criticism is disproportionate. >> i think so. quite obviously because this is the only democracy in the middle east that's where it starts so it threatens regimes with freedom. israel is demonized and it's

pretty appalling actually. >> sir harold evans, wonderful to see you again. thank you for being on the show. >> i got the important question of this moment. does manchester united prevail this year? >> they do if they have a jew. >> there you go. an episcopalian turns to the light. we shall return. purifying facial cleanser from neutrogena® naturals. removes 99% of dirt and toxins without dyes, parabens or harsh sulfates. so skin feels pure and healthy. [ female announcer ] from neutrogena® naturals.

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>> we have a bet. exactly. >> that bet is what? >> i do not think huntsman will ever exceed his space right now in the republican field. he's at about 2% in the polls.

i don't think he'll catch on. >> you don't think he'll do better in new hampshire? >> he might do a little better. >> i want to be clear what the bet was. >> will he stay in single digits in new hampshire? he'll stay in single digits. >> he won't finish top three. >> i want to double down on you right now. >> four kosher steaks. have you been to prime grill? their steaks aren't cheap and my boys are eaters. >> i don't care. you're saying that he's going to be held to single digits in new hampshire? >> no better than third. >> no better than third in new hampshire. >> you want to know why? >> it doesn't matter. i know you're wrong. >> i'm hungry. >> 10,000 steak. >> welcome back to "morning joe." that's not fair. i even feel bad for dan. >> dan is just fine. >> they do a burger with pastrami too.

they grill it on top of the burger. i may want to switch that. >> you still think double digits? do you want to tripping down? >> a lot of red meat. >> three dinners. >> that's a lot of dough. >> i'm going to win so it doesn't really matter. back with us on set, dan is with us and john and sam are here. joining the table we have mark penn. former chief strategist of hillary clinton's presidential campaign. good to have you back on. nice to see you. >> let's break this down. new polls out of new hampshire. and a fascinating article by the national review this morning editorial saying that mitt is not worthy of being a president if you're a conservative and

mitt romney and jon huntsman and rick santorum. what does he have going on the republican side? >> the republican choice is romney or suicide and so far they choose suicide if you look at the polls. i spent working with president clinton working against newt gingrich. he became the most unpopular person in the country and very if you people seem to remember he said medicare should wither on the vine. this stuff out there is devastating on the guy. if republicans in their quest for a republican candidate, they seem to be twirling a wheel to pick a conservative candidate and in their quest for that they pick gingrich and it couldn't be better for president obama to wake up with that kind of choice. >> sam stein, yesterday you had eric erickson talking about the republicans "suicide pact." a lot of conservatives concerned about the prospect of newt gingrich? >> they're not flocking back to

mitt romney. been fascinating to watch these polls in iowa where you can see the beginnings of gingrich's decline but not translating into an increase in romney poll numbers. he's stuck at 20%, 25%, and you have ron paul filling the void which i think is deeply troubling to a lot of conservatives as well. you raised it early in the show. you could have a broker convention which would be fun for me and for others that do reporting but i can't imagine republican party is very excited about that. >> dan, you look at mitt romney who has been stuck around 20%, 25%. ron paul in some states moving up into the mid teens, maybe even to 20% in iowa, a little bit higher. you have jon huntsman who in new hampshire is catching on. we don't know what will happen after that because he doesn't have a lot of money or organization. there is a possibility. as you see the votes move away from gingrich, romney is not

going up to 30% nationwide. it seems to be going back to santorum and to bachmann and to perry. >> this could go on for a while. i think there's increasing view within the romney camp that things will go on for a while. does this field to you, mark, like hillary, obama, heading into spring 2008 where suddenly both campaigns are looking saying this is going to be a long complicated game. the machine matters. which side built the machine. who can compete in primaries and caucuses? >> i don't think it's clear yet. it's a two-person race. romney will be likely if it is. huntsman could take conservative votes and moderate votes and bring romney down and it would be gingrich against huntsman. >> gingrich versus huntsman. wow. >> let's look at the latest polling out of new hampshire which shows mitt romney leading

the republican field with 38% support. that's 18 points ahead of gingrich. former house speaker has moved up to second place and jon huntsman jumps to third place with 13% support. that's thanks in large part to independent voters and with less than a month to go before voting begins, look at these numbers. 11% of new hampshire voters say they're still undecided and over 50% of them say they are either very or somewhat likely to change their minds before the january 10th primary. >> three weeks out. >> that leaves the latitude for what mark penn is talking about. any president we can look to? >> john mccain in 2000. 25 points or 30 points. big blowout. and then remember george w. bush somewhat like his father in 1988 had to build that firewall in south carolina and win.

so new hampshire, mark has forgotten more about this than i know, because of the role of the independents it's more representative of a national electorate than iowa can ever be in a caucus system. and so i think it's a more interesting test ultimately of national strength. >> sam stein, it's fascinating. i think without the mccain example in 2008, i would say that republicans know who mitt romney is and with 50% of the new hampshire field undecided, if they were going to support mitt romney, they would have supported him by now. >> yes. >> but you go back four years ago, you could have made the same argument about john mccain and what happened at the end of the day is mccain was the default guy for going back to people like my dad. i'm not sure about the rest of these guys. i know mccain. he came in with reagan. war hero. i'm voting for him. maybe that's what they say about

mitt romney at the end. >> yeah. i wish i knew the answer to this. it would make my life a lot easier. mitt romney he would seem like the obvious default candidate but they haven't yet moved to mitt romney. i think the one thing that really is going to complicate the matters is the organizational question. for newt gingrich this is problematic. he's risen up the polls but he's had no ground game in iowa to complement that. last friday he was at a book signing in washington, d.c.'s union station. monday he was doing a fund-raiser at cafe malanno in d.c. and yesterday a lecture on brain science in iowa. i mean, it's as if he's got this opportunity and not grasping it. that's why mitt romney may end up buying the default candidate simply because newt isn't taking advantage of the opportunity he has. >> let me ask this to dan seymour.

you worked for mitt romney. >> joe wants to be jon huntsman. >> i'm good where i am. i don't want to be anybody. >> dan seymour, usually it's a help for a republican if he's run before historically. it seems or has he and we're missing it in some ways has he evolved as a candidate? >> sure. >> to sam's point it seems he hasn't. >> he's evolved as a candidate. >> how? >> i think he certainly is -- look at joe. >> his position has evolved. >> can i get a shot of t.j. i'm trying to have a bite of oatmeal. i'll smiling at the camera going when are you going to go away from this. they zoom in on oatmeal. >> wait until we do steak and eggs when i win my bet. >> let me just -- john mccain in

2008, we went through these moments months before the race. conservatives are not in love with them. conservatives openly revolt against them. his campaign collapsed. certain dynamics happened. look at south carolina in 2008. john mccain won south carolina with 40% of the vote. they said john mccain could never get elected in south carolina because it's such a conservative state. huckabee getting momentum out of iowa. fred thompson in the race late. the opposition was fragmented and mccain won with 40%. the idea that mitt romney can't win a number of these states with below 50% of the vote is just disconnected with recent history. >> you haven't answered the question. >> joe interrupted rudely because he was eating and the camera went in on him. >> i'll ask mitt romney the same question on monday. how has he evolved as a candidate. there's a flat-line reaction that people have to him and at this point in the game that could be concerning. >> i will say this. there's deep concern among many republicans about newt.

mark just pointed out when we were talking about the segment that if newt wins the nomination, it's highly likely there will be a third party of the i've been struck in the last few days raising money for romney and struck by how many people arms i was twisting who literally got off the fence because they said, my gosh, if newt is the nominee, it's a motivating impulse. i just think as more and more news comes out about newt, the contrast with romney, the contrast with romney, the column yesterday in "wall street journal," mitt's moment. we know the ideas needed for this moment. what mitt brings to the table is his execution capability. execute, execute, execute. he's a competent guy who can get things done and that's coming through and that's powerful. >> and mark penn, also, there are some realities, some political realities. we were talking about it yesterday. you have newt who is doing what herman cain did before running a glorified book tour while you've got huntsman and romney sliding

it out in new hampshire. there are certain laws of politics and at the end of the day usually come to fruition and in this case, guys that run book tours glorified book tours for presidency don't have staying power that a romney would have or huntsman in new hampshire. >> obama had a book himself. >> he had a big organization to go with it. newt does not. >> he had a big organization but these campaigns are more and more media driven. i think the real question for romney is can he step up and out and out defeat newt gingrich. that's the job. so far republican voters have not gone to him. he seems weak. he seemed ineffective. he polls a few points better. if he could say you can't elect newt and here are five reasons why and prove it in a debate and prove it on the air, that's the decision he has to make. he has no other choice. if he tries to punt through this as he has the rest of the race, he'll be toast. >> all right. tonight the republican candidates are headed to iowa

where they're going to hold their final debate before the january 3rd caucus there and if the past few days are any indication, mitt romney may come out swinging against the field's latest front runner, newt gingrich. >> newt gingrich has been an unreliable leader in the cons e i am distinguished from speaker gingrich who has taken extraordinarily unusual positions with regards to calling the medicare reform plan a right wing social engineering plan, suicide he's called it, this is a person who has a very questionable record when it comes to leading conservative principles. i think speaker gingrich lived in washington for the last 30 years. he went to washington to do good and he stayed to do well. he's a wealthy man.

a very wealthy man. if you have a half million dollar purchase from tiffany's, you're not a middle class american. >> it's a zany thing. one historical point. in the last 52 years, with the exception of -- >> by the way, if you making an historical point on this show, it's actually relevant to what we're talking about, that's a change for the better. go ahead. >> here we go. 52 years the republican party has nominated the person who turned except for berry goldwater and it seems like it's mitt romney's term and not newt gingrich. whether that cultures wills out, i don't know but it willed out every other time. >> sam stein, you were talking about newt hanging out in washington d.c. i had a guy e-mail me a couple weeks ago. a democrat saying why is newt at the lincoln center or the

kennedy center hanging out with the rest of us at cocktail parties when he should be in iowa and when he should be in new hampshire? do you agree with mark that these campaigns are getting more and more driven by the media instead of grassroots and that's why newt gingrich can continue living in washington, d.c. while he's trying to win the iowa caucuses? >> yes and no. at some point you have to get people to go to the polls, especially in iowa you have to get them to caucus although the republican system is different than democratic which mark knows better than i do. if on the ground operations were important, you would see rick santorum doing better than he is. he lived in iowa and isn't doing well. i can't imagine come election day when these candidates need voters that having some sort of infrastructure on the ground won't matter. it has to matter. otherwise we're just throwing out political history.

>> i can just say again i know it is media driven but at the end of the day, there's no substitute for knocking door to door shaking people's hands -- >> you know that first hand. >> i saw it time and time again. i would have people come up to me and still come up to me and saying i voted for you in '94. even though i wasn't sure about you because i met you here. you shook my hand. we sat and talked. >> be careful what you wish for. newt will knock on your door tomorrow morning. he'll show up at scarborough residence. >> let's not lose sight of what's happening on the other side. the president is up a couple points. he seems to be playing a smarter strategy on the payroll tax. he might actually get it. i think he's being tougher on the cr. for what happened with newt gingrich, republicans know you can't shut down the government no matter what. we have that as a trip wire. i think you have seen the republican party and "wall

street journal" sink while democratic party may not have the greatest ratings but that's the tendency. republicans now, obama moving up and the party -- this debate is not going to be good. >> care to make a prediction? >> which one? >> iowa and new hampshire? >> you know, look, i think gingrich will win iowa. gingrich in iowa and i think romney still in new hampshire. huntsman coming up and cutting his lead down. remember, if romney doesn't win by a lot, what happens is it's perceived as a loss. clinton didn't actually win new hampshire. just did well enough. >> mark penn, thank you very much. standing by, president obama's domestic policy adviser melanie barnes will join us on set and she was labeled the black sheep of the reagan family. patty davis reflects back on her rebellion against her father's policies and whether she now has any regrets.

first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> your most valuable sheep. >> thanks, bill. >> exactly. good morning, everyone. it's a warm morning across the country. so many people right now asking me where's the snow, where's winter, will we have a white christmas? to get snow you need temperatures below freezing and we don't have that anywhere on the eastern half of the country. very warm morning from chicago to detroit to new york to go find the cold air. i have to go all of the way up into canada and northern canada and it's not until this cold air starts to head down to the u.s. at that we're going to get any big snowstorm and that's not supposed to happen any time in the next seven days. we have some light rain out there this morning. have the umbrella. pittsburgh, d.c., new york and boston later today. it's not going to rain all day. we'll have showers around this afternoon. incredible warmth. temperatures in the 60s and 70s in the southeast and that's going to be well above average. showery weather in dallas but no bad airport delays. no ice and no snow. a nice day in washington d.c.

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>> the director of domestic policy office for the president but are leaving. >> yes, i am. >> look how happy you are. look at your smiling radiant excited face.

>> it's a mixture of emotions. it really is. >> it doesn't look like a mixture. not even a mixture. that's pure joy. if you could bottle whatever it is, that high powered elation that comes from leaving the white house and sell that, i think the deficit could be solved. >> that's my next move. >> adorable. 25 past the hour. >> she's here. >> she is here. >> it is a pleasure to be here. >> let me say, valerie is a friend of ours and she watches the show all the time but valley, she's not a joyful giver. she won't say i like you, joe, but i don't like you sometimes. valerie likes me. i have to say, you were a joyful giver. you watch the show. your parents watch the show. >> absolutely. >> i thank you for that. >> thank you. >> we've been talking about jesus christ and forgiveness.

and i thank you for forgiving me and giving me grace every day. >> it is my pleasure. before i left i had to come on so my parents could see one last time. >> you know what amazes me? three years later -- i'm dead serious. we were talking about this off set, you are still smiling and cheerful. the white house and dan knows this and other people who have worked there, the white house is a miserable slog for anybody that goes in there. you had a great description of what it's like. republicans say this. democrats say this. what's it like working in the white house every day? >> we were saying the fact that it's like going to the beach. i say this to people all the time. you wade into the water first wave knocks you down. you get up. you get the sand out of your bathing suit. and then relentlessness of it and complexity of the problem. by the time the problem gets to

our desk, the easy solution are off the table and you are left with very, very difficult complex issues that you have to resolve. at the same time it goes to the smile, the honor of serving -- i'm not making this up. you sit there every day and realize that you are there to help the american people to try to make things better even through all of the complexity. >> doesn't that make the difference in your attitude and i found it with other politicians and i found it with people that worked in government, if they understand what a great honor the american people have given them to serve this country, then that makes everything easier, doesn't it? >> it absolutely does. it absolutely -- it is the opportunity -- the opportunity has been the opportunity of a lifetime. i've been changed by it. i've been enriched by it. amazing colleagues, this wonderful president that i get to serve and to actually when i go out into communities and i see the effect of our work and i look into a kid's eye and

they've been at a school that people say is failing you can't make it and we see it turning around and realize there's an opportunity for that child that didn't exist before, that touches me very, very deeply. i've had an amazing spouse to support me through it. >> and married six months into the white house and that's a good man. >> yes, it is. >> dan seymour was telling me the same thing but sort of different. dan is, like, when i invade a country and when the tanks roll in, it makes it all worth it. i'm joking, dan. i love you. i love. >> when joe is sucking up like this, it means he doesn't want to get to another point which is the tax cut extension. >> going on twitter. >> at what point does this fall on the republicans as theirs to

lose or are you going to get an agreement in washington? >> the president has said we're not leaving until this happens. we cannot afford literally to let 160 million people lose about 1,000 or $1500 if we get the proposal in place out of their paychecks every year. i was next to him at a dinner the other night. i said are you looking forward to getting to hawaii? he said i'm not going anywhere until this happens. he was dead serious about that. we continue the negotiations. we continue the conversation. that's where the president sits. >> where does this go? we're looking at a gridlock again and a shutdown and people are really tired of this. does this lead to something, the president saying that? >> well, we believe it must. again, this goes back to serving the needs of the american people. this isn't for our benefit. it isn't for political benefit. it is because this impacts real lives. we don't have to get to a shutdown. no one wants to get to a shutdown. we can pass a short-term cr to

avoid that. that would have its negative implications as well. but i think this is about the momentum of the american people and their needs affecting what policy will ultimately look like. >> i do want to point out something extraordinary that's going on. we saw the headlines. president is going to hawaii for three weeks and congress is at 9% approval. i was reading this story about the possible shutdown and the president saying don't go home until it finishes. i looked up at the date and for some reason it had not registered, we're in december. we're halfway into december. congress usually adjourns in september and they go home. that's when they catch up their family and constituent work. it's extraordinary the president holding everybody in town this way. >> i salute it. >> i do too. >> people who are out of work want to see the government working. and trying to actually get something done. my question is, you were on the hill.

you've now been down pennsylvania avenue. what have you learned? what surprised you the most about that shift? >> you know, people often ask me that question. i say where you sit is where you stand. working in the legislative branch we were trying to move forward and why can't they work with us, why can't they compromise on something that we want, or help push us something over the finish line that we want. it's a narrow perspective on the hill. in the white house we're focused on the entire landscape. the entire administration competing on priorities and how you're trying to push those priorities forward and what challenges you have when you flip switch a what will it mean to lever b because you have the responsibility for the entire government in front of you. so it is the complexity and the wholeness of it all that has struck me since i've been in the white house. >> melody, sam stein in

washington has a question for you. >> i think the metaphor of waves coming in is a great one and that's also what we're seeing right now with the tax cut and omnibus, now that you are stepping away from the white house and you are candid and don't have to hold anything back, if you could change one thing about congress and the way it does legislation, what would it be? >> i think it goes to a bigger question about how i would change congress. i think it is about -- it's a focus on how people are engaged with government. it goes to our conversation about being a public servant and working in government and realizing that our responsibility is to people. when you think about the -- what we see as unwillingness to move forward, even on issues that people have agreed to and supported in the past for political purposes, to me that

means a neglect of responsibility to being a public servant. people are hurting. these are some of the most difficult times our country has faced in decades and yet i think the american people look at this and say you are playing games. meanwhile, i'm trying to figure out how to put my kid through college. i'm trying to figure out how to buy groceries. that's what has to change. it is a commitment to being a public servant and to doing the best for our country and having a vibrant discussion about differences. there's nothing wrong with disagreeing with one another but we have a responsibility to get things done. >> how long did you work on the hill? >> for over ten years. two years in the house and then eight years in the senate for senator kennedy? >> do you think it's gotten worse over the past few years? >> in all honesty i do. i'm not one to whine to say this is bad. i walked to school barefoot and look at you. it hasn't been that. i do feel as though some of the comradery and people getting to

know each other and look at each other in the eye, we disagree but we can get things done and that's our responsibility. >> thank you so much. great to see you. >> thank you for being here. >> president reagan's daughter reflecting on why she rebelled against her father. that story when we come back. everyone have their new blackberry from at&t? it's 4g, so you can do more faster. so, kathryn, post more youtube videos of your baby acting adorable. baby. on it. matt, ignore me and keep updating your fantasy team. huh?

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welcome back. 38 past the hour. joining us now, editor in chief of town and country. >> hold on. more importantly, he and meacham belong to a club that involves heavy drinking. do you want to tell us about the club? >> recovering editors of julia reed. we have meetings. we stand up and say, my name is john. i'm julia's editor. as jay knows getting copy is usually the trucks are leaving for the post office as you chase after it. it's always great. the wounds are raw.

>> good thing she's a damn good writer. >> sometimes she goes to every subscriber's house and reads it. >> in the latest issue of town and country -- >> i'm going to pay for this. >> she's watching you. >> reflects on protests against her father's nuclear initiatives and writes in part this. this is what i know now that i didn't know then. how you express yourself is as important as what you are expressing. >> don't look at me. >> anger is generally not a good communication tool and a daughter publicly protesting her daughter's policies as he sits in the oval office sends only one message, anger. >> that's kind of touching. tell us more about the piece. >> it's only about 1,000 words but patti is a skillful writer and her honesty and the regret she has about this moment in her life with her father and her

mother has weighed on her for many years. you know, the other thing that strikes me about it is the relevance in the context are where we live now. the world we're living in now where obviously there's revolution in the middle east and overnight protests in russia and riots in europe and we have our own protest movement under way that even if it doesn't seem as organized and message forward as it might be is still at least among the people we know found its way into the dinner table conversation and here you have patti exploring the idea of not so much the politics of a situation but the personal cost of it. here's this woman that took on the most powerful man in the world, the president of the united states, who happened to be her father. it was ideal for us to have her write about it. >> john meacham?

>> even mrs. reagan has said that there was always deep inside ronnie a wall that nobody could get past. even mrs. reagan of whom president reagan along came nancy davis and saved my soul. is the kids' view that they didn't really know him? >> she doesn't get into that directly. i think you get the feeling that there are several moments that stick out in my mind. one of which is soon after she started protesting and coming part of the anti-movement which was also a worldwide kind of movement at the time in 1982, her father did reach out to her over the phone and she turned him down. she rebuffed his invitation to come talk to her rather tenderly father to daughter and not to keep her from expressing her opinion but to have a conversation. >> she writes about that. one of my deepest regrets is how

i responded when my father asked several times if i would sit down and talk to him and listen to his side of the issue. i already know your side i told him. i can still hear his hurt silence. >> we all can relate to that i suspect. we all can. how horrible that she lived this very publicly. >> so hard. >> she has those reagan qualities. part of what whether you agree with what she ended up saying in her life or now, she's willful. she's confident. she's not going to back down. she's humorous. she can relate to a lot of people and communicate well. i think that that's also another interesting thing that's going on in the pieces that you feel these two very strong people coming up against each other. >> you just described julia.

exactly. >> the magazine looks great. >> thank you. >> a piece on the occupy wall street that's fascinating. >> thank you very much. >> we have seen this over occupy wall street protests going to billionaire and millionaires homes. they are not affected by it at all. people who are late for work because the subway stations are disrupted. someone who works for me is late. she's complaining. up late. >> i appreciate that. good stuff. >> articles are in new issue of town and country. jay, thank you so much. >> you're welcome. >> big news on weekly job numbers crossing right now. business before the bell when we come back. capital one's new cash rewards card

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a live look at the top of the rock in new york city. weekly jobless claims just came out and cnbc's with us with the numbers. >> dropping by 19,000 below 400,000 for the fifth week in a row. we're going to have rally on wall street. the dow is going to open by more than 1% at this point because numbers were good and so we are seeing -- they're not great numbers. 366,000 people filing for unemployment is still high but it's better than what we've been seeing. and add to that the fact that spain could borrow money this morning, that's how we measure success these days. we're going to get a rally at the open. >> spain is not going up in flames. all right. >> not today. >> i found that we had really good unemployment numbers last

month down to eight points and then everyone said you're such an idiot. i'm glad it's 8.6 instead of 9. the numbers keep going down and at some point you can't explain it away. at some point it's good news. at some point we can celebrate a little bit. >> absolutely. the u.s. stock market would be lower than it already is if not for the fact that we've been getting u.s. economic data, which has been coming in slightly better. if we were going down like we were seeing in europe, it would have been far, far worse than what we've seen. biggest risk still remains what are they going to do in europe? there's no fixing the european problem. it's figuring out who is going to pay for it and they keep delaying that decision and the longer they delay it, the bigger the bill gets and more at risk we are to a credit contraction similar to what we saw in the fall of 2008. that's a big problem. >> all right. thank you very much. >> up next, the best of late

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>> what kind of cabinet position might you like if it were possible? >> department of defense? >> what? >> the lady has been on tv since

tv started and has never reacted like this? she has faced down crazy baloney from dictator, from presidents, from moguls and movie stars. last week the syrian dictator who launched a brutal crackdown on his own people told barbara walters this -- >> no government in the world kill its people unless it's by a crazy person. >> that, that, that didn't get a what? barbara walters was able to suppress it in all of those situations but five minutes with herman cain. >> department of defense? >> what? >> it blew her mind. literally blew her mind. look at her ears.

there's blood coming out of her ears. >> i'm endorsing mitt romney. >> boom. mitt romney is back in it. christine o'donnell's endorsement will cast a spell over primary voters. >> i'm not a witch. >> okay. i'm sorry that's a bad metaphor. in fact, in fact this endorsement proves she's not a witch because a witch would have gone for the eye of newt. and what about mitt brought o'donnell around to romney? >> his consistency. the fact that he was so strong and i think people will find that appealing going into 2012. >> some people say that mitt romney isn't the most consistent candidate because he's changed his minds about big important issues over the years. >> that's one of the things i like about him because he's been consistent since he changed his mind.

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welcome back to "morning joe." time to talk about what we learned today. >> you know what you learned. >> i learned a few thing. don't begin suffolk pulling and we couldn't identify one speaker from the '90s that's supporting his campaign for president. >> that's fascinating and telling. sam stein what did you learn today? >> i learn if you want a good steak and low on cash, dan is giving them away. >> yes, you are. >>