doubling down on ted cruz. let's play "hardball." ♪ good evening. i'm chris matthews up in new york. let me start with you. better yet, don't get me started. how crazy is crazy? we showed you the list of right wingers to knock off conservatives in the senate next year. you haven't seen nothing yet. last night just about deadline time, a real nut ball, i mean as crazy as crazy gets threw his beanie in the race for texas senator. as if one ted cruz isn't enough, this fella steve stockman wants the lone star state to double down. they want republicans to dump

john cornyn and replace him with him. stockman, lest you forget him, is a prime member of the birther crowd. still playing to the racists out there who barked that the president is somehow a manchurian imposter who donald trump suggests no one knew in high school. whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. stockman's also right up there with the real life loony toons. he's also a fan of warning that waco was just a leading indicator that the black helicopters are coming. he said we could reduce the number of abortions in this country, by the way, with arming unborn babies with guns or at least says if they were armed with guns that would prevent abortions. an argument that leaves you wondering about the nature of the man's thinking process.

let's put it this way. this guy stockman makes michele bachmann sound like madam curie. who was born to an american mother while refusing to accept president obama born in hawaii. quote, one of the things i always questioned was the documentation of the president. whether that was fraudulent. but i don't question cruz. ted came right now and said here's the documentation. ed rendell and joan walsh. i don't get it. governor, why would they knock off a guy named john cornyn who is the second most right wing senator today and replace him with a nut job. why would you say the president's a foreigner, an undocumented alien? why would you keep pushing for impeachment? and why would you say if fetuses had guns they wouldn't be aborted? what does that stuff mean? what kind of thinking is that?

>> it means that that person is deranged. congressman stockman is either the best actor in the world and playing to this base that he thinks is going to get him somewhere, or he's deranged. i lean towards the second. he's just off his rocker. but what's amazing here, chris, is someone like the club for growth and you and i might not agree with them but they're successful people, would not back john cornyn. up until now they've stayed out of the race. if stockman wins the primary and we get the current mayor of san antonio or henry to come back and run for senate, we would beat stockman by five to ten points in the general election. all they're doing is setting themselves up for failure. and to what end? it doesn't make any sense at all and it's an embarrassment for the republican party and it's an embarrassment for any group that wants to talk seriously about where the government should be going. >> joan, just the first crack at

this guy. some people are right wing and some people we disagree with. but they're balanced. mentally balanced. this guy, he's still pushing the birther line. despite all the documentation, all the evidence, and no counterevidence, he's out there saying the president is an undocumented alien. somehow he snuck in from kenya or indonesia, i don't know what he believes. he also should be impeached. if he's not the legitimate president, you don't have to impeach him. then he's got this gun craziness. he's backing against the alcohol and tobacco and firearms as if they're the black helicopters. any case he gets, he goes with the nuts. >> yeah. this is going to be a fun race to watch. it's really a test of is somebody too crazy for texas. and i believe that he is too crazy for texas. now, governor rendell is right. it is very interesting. the club for growth and conservative funds, they haven't come out for stockman yet. there's a question about whether they'll do so. even they've got to know is this

man is crazy but they have not endorsed the incumbent. how conservative do you have to be to get their endorsement? >> when somebody jumps in at the last hour, i feel somebody popped in with a ton of money. what else would change your mind the last day unless somebody like the koch brothers or somebody over there making money? >> maybe. i don't think they're that crazy. the guy's got $82,000 in his bank account. he was knocked off in the '90s. he served one term. >> one reason he was dumped off by the voters, after the 1993 confrontation of the compound in waco, texas, where members of the cult died. congressman steve stockman played into the dark currents. in an essay at the time he wrote, quote, these men women and children were burned to death because they owned guns. that the government did not wish

them to have. waco was supposed to be a way for the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms and the clinton administration to prove the need for a ban on so-called assault weapons. by accusing the president of working with the u.n., the united nations, in an effort to confiscate our guns. quote, there's no doubt president obama and his anti-gun pals believe the timing has never been better to ram through the u.n.'s global gun control crown jewel. registration is the first step towards outright confiscation. and this treaty sets the stage for confiscation on a global scale. he's referring to a treaty signed by the u.n. that will represent global arms trade in an effort to stop military equipment from getting to the terrorists and dictators. it does not require regulation inside countries. meanwhile he compared to president saddam hussein with children in the audience. here he is. >> we're asking the president to go through the process if he thinks his bills are good, his law is good, then he should go through congress.

he's not a king. using children, that reminds me of saddam hussein when he used kids. >> okay. governor, remember when saddam hussein patted that little kid on the top of his head. it was one of the most sickening sights in history because he was a killer. this is comparing the president to saddam hussein at one of his worst moment. do you think it will sell? >> number one, this guy is deranged and i do not believe it will sell. and number two, john cornyn is a rock red conservative. he is almost as conservative as it can get. where do you draw the line? where do you draw the line and say someone's conservative enough? you know, there has to be a line drawn somewhere. if stockman gets significant support, then it is maybe the death now of the republican party. they can't survive if they keep acting like this.

what they've got to do is freeze this guy out. make sure he gets no money and make sure that john cornyn has a fairly easy route to winning the primary. if they don't, it's literally self-destructive. >> joan, why doesn't the democratic party seize upon the fact that the republican party is making itself a happy home for some of the nuttiest people in the world? and luckily for the kinds of people -- i forgot what's her name in nevada didn't make it. and the woman in -- >> christine o'donnell. >> christine o'donnell doesn't make it, aikin didn't make it. people that are closer to the fringe there. and they didn't make it. but at some point, i always say to young people you only get one reputation. be careful. you only get one. once you get a reputation of crazy, people think you're crazy. be careful what you do in your life and what you say. and the question is when is the republican party just going to be swamped? there's so many of these people that they can't say they're not us. >> right. this guy makes christine o'donnell look like dick lugar.

he really is a dangerous person. i think it is a test as you say. young people are afraid of the republican party because they've seen these people time and again. they haven't all won. some of them won. ted cruz won. but it's also a test for ted cruz. i guess i saw his spokesperson say well, you know, senator cruz said he's going to stay out of the republican primary process. he shouldn't just stay out of it. he should come on the side of the incumbent. >> he's not going to do that. you know where he's running. he's going to the crazy. >> that's fine. i can still say what he should do as a decent person. >> if babies had guns they wouldn't be aborted. or who ridiculed transgender people on a radio show. let's listen to his fun here, so called. >> it's amazing what they're saying is covered by obama care. if you decide to become transgender, you can also get that covered. >> good to know.

>> here he is going after the rodeo clown. likes this guy in missouri who mocked the president likened to a klan rally. he invited the clown to perform in texas. quote, they want to crush dissent by isolating and polarizing anyone who questions obama. even if it's in a rodeo with a harmless gag. the idea to create a state of fear and make people afraid to trivialize obama. and then he brought ted nugent to be his guest at the state of the union. quote, i'm excited to have a patriot like ted nugent to join me in the house chamber to hear from president obama. >> he's racist. he's clearly sick. there's something wrong with him. the stunning part of this is, you're right, chris. i had had independents come up to me, friends of mine who are independents said i don't think president obama's done a good job, i like romney, but i can't vote for romney because his party is full of crazy people. and that's -- this is just

adding to that. it creates a huge problem for the moderate republicans. they're in trouble because people are beginning to believe that this party is becoming taken over more and more by nut jobs. >> joan, last thought. a lot of people i knew thought jim demint was as bad as it could get. >> we were wrong. >> close. >> there's always a new bottom, chris. we keep being wrong about that. we keep thinking we hit bottom and we're wrong. >> if the democrats can't build a case against this party, they've got weak leadership. thank you ed rendell and joan walsh. coming up, who could vote against a ban on undetectable guns that can slip through security? republicans in the senate. that's who. it's true. plus in honoring nelson mandela, president obama today addressed three audiences. south africans, americans, and perhaps most important himself. also i've been saying for a long time president obama needs

to have strong people around him not yes men and floaters. now finally he may be listening to that. and we told you last night that rick santorum somehow managed to compare obama care to guess what this week, apartheid. maybe he was having fun at president obama's expense, but jon stewart and "the daily show" had a lot of fun at santorum's expense. and this is "hardball," the place for politics. why no other mouthwash feels like listerine®? because no other mouthwash works like listerine®. in your mouth, bacteria forms in layers. listerine® penetrates these layers deeper than other mouthwashes, killing bacteria all the way down to the bottom layer. so for a cleaner, healthier mouth, go with the mouthwash dentists recommend more than all others combined. #1 dentist recommended listerine®... power to your mouth™.

senator patty murray, the democratic chair of the budget committee, and her republican counterpart in the house paul we're back. the people on the far right have made it their mission to defund, derail, destroy, or kill anything and everything on the president's agenda. in addition to shutting down the government, repeated efforts to kill the affordable care act and an historic campaign to block appointments, they've gotten to the point where they want guns on airplanes. that's right. it might sound crazy even for the far right, but as the associated press reports, gop senators rejected an effort by chuck schumer democrat of new york to strengthen the ban on plastic firearms by requiring that such weapons contain undetectable metal part. a metal piece can be removed making them a threat to be slipped past screeners. in an interview with the ap, schumer had a simple and powerful response. who in god's name wants to let plastic guns pass through metal

detecters at airports or stadiums? what's important here is that plastic guns aren't science fiction anymore thanks to new technology. they are frighteningly real. gentlemen, thank you. this may be a case like this campaign of steve stockman down in texas of jumping the shark. i'm just going too far with the crazy gun nutness where anybody with a gun out there fighting deer or killing deer in pennsylvania wants anybody getting on an airplane, their mothers riding on it, their kids riding on it to have a gun. i don't get it. why would anybody want a guy on a plane with a gun? they wouldn't have needed box cutters. >> it's total madness. it's an expansion of a gun law. the senate okayed the approval of the existing law as it was written for the last ten years.

but this would have constituted what chuck schumer wanted to do would have been an expansion. so any kind of expansion to the nra is no good. and so they had to block it and they had to nix it. and so, i guess, people are going to get on planes with guns. then i guess the nra is going to say after sandy hook that well, everybody on planes should have guns. >> everybody should be at a wild west show. i want to get to you, ryan grim, on this because they can get into the u.s. capitol. they can get in the white house. they have metal detecters too. everywhere in the country, schools and everywhere else we keep guns out by using metal detecters. if you can make a gun out of plastic and sneak in a piece of metal later on, a barrel, for example, you can get in with a loaded gun and kill anybody you want or everybody. your thoughts. why is it politically expedient for anybody to play this game or

play this card? >> well, it probably isn't in the long run. and i think you're right that they might have jumped the shark on this one. there's sort of a compromise going on. the country allows guns to be -- the country to be a wash in guns. hundreds of millions of them. but statement saying we're going to screen certain events and certain places. we're not going to have guns on planes and stadiums or the united states capitol or a business that decides they don't want people to bring guns in. that's sort of the deal we've made with this gun-owning culture. but this upends that deal. the nra is essentially saying they're against screening. that they're okay with allowing people to carry guns even in places where society has decided that we don't want guns such as on airplanes. you know, it's going to -- >> why would you screen if you don't want to screen for metal? why do we even bother having tsa

taking our shoes off, taking our hats off, all that process if you can just scoot through there with a gun that's just as good as a metal gun? >> no. that's right. and so you either support screening for weapons to make a plane safe or you don't. there's really no point in screening for some guns but not other guns. it's only a matter time until somebody who wants to bring a plastic gun will do so. >> i'm sure the terrorists are watching right now. let's look at the nra statement that makes one thing clear. there's no such thing as common sense or compromise particularly on gun control. quote, we would like to make our position clear. the nra strongly opposes any expansion of the undetectable firearms act. apparently chuck schumer is like a red flag for these people. even if he comes out for apple pie, they're not going to be for it.

>> absolutely. and chuck is one of the leading guys on gun control issues going back to his time in the house. going back to the 1980s and 1990s. so anything schumer wants to do, the nra is going to say no. it doesn't matter what it is. you know, chris, we got this anniversary of sandy hook coming up next week. we're going to have to talk about all that again, relive all that. god forbid we're going to go into a situation where something really serious happens before we have to address this and see that schumer was right and then try again to push it through the senate. and probably watch it fail again. because nothing will change these people's minds because they fear the nra so much. >> last word from you, ryan. this seems to be a general hold the line. whatever trick they can use. and no deal on the budget even if it threatens another government shutdown. therest a group out there on the hard right that doesn't want to

ever be caught dealing with obama on anything. >> right. and the specifics vary depending on the particular issue. this time it happens to be the nra that's wagging the party. but on different issues, it's different powerful groups. but it's consistently the same thing. anything that could get through the senate and get signed by the white house is almost by definition to enough of the wing of the republican party that it doesn't have a chance in the house. >> mike tomasky, someone said you're a follower of somebody if you do the opposite of somebody. they would only take this wacky position if obama supported it. that's the only way they know how to vote or think. just do the opposite. >> that's all it's about.

one of these days maybe hopefully a republican is going to take on the nra and is going to beat them or beat an nra-backed primary opponent and then maybe this political situation will change. but it's not going to change until then. until some of them stand up to the nra and win. >> okay. thank you so much. great reporting here. and thank you for your analysis. up next, jon stewart lays into rick santorum for comparing the affordable care act to what else this week, apartheid. this is "hardball," the place for politics.

back to "hardball." time for the sideshow. last friday we reported to you that rick santorum compared south african apartheid to obama's health care plan. well, last night he got the full treatment from jon stewart. take a look. >> apartheid is not obama care. the systemic subjugation of a

people is different from health care exchanges. the fact that that insurance is now mandated, again, gets us nowhere close to apartheid level injustice in any way, shape -- i cannot stress this enough. so let the world go forth to a new generation of americans wherever people gather on whatever it is americans read, apartheid injustice-wise, greater than obama care. if i may shout it from the hill tops! ♪ obama care is not apartheid ♪ ahhh >> next up, despite being stripped of his powers, rob ford isn't gone from office. here from last night is the latest update on him from jimmy kimmel.

>> mayor ford made a somewhat unwelcome appearance at the annual santa claus parade on saturday. of all the hilarious things mayor ford has done over the past year, to me this might be my favorite. watch this. look at how he passes out these candy ands. he just -- he's dumping -- he throws them as if he's feeding pigeons or something. there you go, kids. what the hell? >> finally, everyone knows the dysfunction in washington has reached new depths. now there's a fascinating way to visualize just how it's become. recently published a study of political polarization in the senate done by a computer science student at harvard. using data from each session of congress since 1998, they created a model to graph the relationship.

the result looks something like this. here's the model of the 101st congress. each blue dot there represents a democratic senator. each red dot a republican senator. see how the lines connect. and the model graphs those dots closer to the middle. the more the overlap, the greater the bipartisanship in that particular session of congress. so they're united there. when we fast forward, you'll notice that the chart varies from year to year. they split along lines. the red is separated from the dark. and from a sphere into two distinctive clusters on either side. and the increasing trend becomes most apparent over the last decade. through president obama's administration to the present. 113th congress appears split down the middle or as the economist describes, though america's political polarization has become a fact of life it's never been so graphically.

as a diseased brain with few neural pathways between the two hemispheres. up next, president obama's tribute to nelson mandela today was aimed at americans, south africans, and perhaps most important of all, himself. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. oral-b pro-health toothbrushes have crisscross bristles that remove up to 90% of hard to reach plaque. feel the difference. oral-b, trust the brand more dentists and hygienists use. oral-b.

i'm milissa rehberger. the chairman of the senate banking committee says he will delay passing new sanctions against iran. a winter storm in the northeast has forced schools and government offices to close in washington, d.c. up to four inches of snow are expected in new england. a family missing for two days in nevada have been found alive. the children are hospitalized in good condition. now back to "hardball." over 30 years ago while

still a student, i learned of nelson mandela and the struggles taking place in this beautiful land. and it stirred something in me. it woke me up to my responsibilities to others and to myself, and it sent me on an improbable journey that finds me here today. and while i will always fall short of madiba's example, he makes me want to be a better man. >> welcome back to "hardball." madiba is the nickname people use for nelson mandela. speaking of the memorial service today, president obama had an enormous worldwide audience, of course. there were messages you could hear most noticeably his american critics. the south africans and even himself. and he took lesson from

mandela's words and actions personally. >> madiba disciplined his anger and channelled his desire to fight in an organization and platforms and strategies for action. he accepted the consequences of his actions. knowing that standing up to powerful interests and injustice carries a price. i have fought against white domination and i have fought against black domination. i've cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society. in which all persons live together in harmony and equal opportunities. it is an ideal which i hope to live for and to achieve. but if needs be, it is an ideal for which i am prepared to die. >> cynthia tucker is a syndicated columnist and visiting professor of journalism

at the university of georgia. jonathan alter is an author. when he said madiba referring to nelson mandela, he said he disciplined his anger and channelled his desire to fight into organization and platforms and strategies for action. was he talking about himself as well? that's my hunch about a little bit of anger there behind the president. the way he must feel about the poll numbers and things like that right now. >> absolutely, chris. you know, he has to be reassessing where he is in his second term. he had so many hopes, so many goals starting out. a successful rollout of the affordable care act, immigration reform, doing something significant in the middle east. and much of that seems to be going poorly at the moment. and so he has to draw strength from looking at the example of nelson mandela who was in prison for 27 years.

does obama get angry? of course he does. he's human. he must get angry. we don't see very much of that, but he -- again, he's reflecting on the fact that nelson mandela learned to channel his anger for constructive purposes. so i think that there are many ways that he draws on nelson mandela's example for strength as he's trying to overcome these many obstacles in his second term. >> there does seem to be something existential these days. he was reflective in a way he normally isn't publicly in talking about what he's been up against, the resistance he's felt. he doesn't use words like racism, because it's hard to pinpoint it. but you know he's talking about the people who are totally rejectionist from him since the day he was elected.

>> he draws strength from mandela as he has ever since he was a college student and became involved in anti-apartheid protests. when he was getting ready to go into politics and public life, he wasn't looking to j.c. watts or edward brooke. you know, conventional african-american politicians. he was looking to nelson mandela and martin luther king who didn't go into politics. maybe harold washington the mayor of chicago where i am now. but he was very focused on movement politicians who all did have to discipline their anger as he said. that's an important line for understanding who barack obama really is. you know, there was a political reason all these years why he's been such a cool customer. he knew that if he was ever seen as an angry black man, it would hurt him badly, politically.

so that was the political calculation. then there was a deeper sense of who he needed to be to be the man that he wanted to be. and that's where mandela comes in. this, you know, under enormous pressure, great persecution, he kept his cool. he did not rise to the bait. he maintained his dignity. these are profound life lessons for barack obama and we could see that in that speech today. >> he's also unmistakably also talking to an american audience back home. including his critics. let's listen to him in part of his speech today down there in south africa in that big soccer stadium where he's sending a message i think back to the people listening and watching here at home. >> around the world today men and women are still in prison for their political beliefs and are still persecuted for what they look like and how they worship and who they love. that is happening today.

mandela demonstrated that action and ideas are not enough. no matter how right, they must also be chiselled in the law and institutions. as he showed in pain staking negotiations to transfer power and draft new laws, he was not afraid to compromise for the sake of a larger goal. >> well, let me get back to jonathan. one of the messages he sent home here a lot of the right wingers don't like, he's shaken hands with raul castro. what do you make of that? came from marco rubio of course and elena down in florida. but also john mccain who compared it to chamberlain shaking hands with hitler. >> first of all, the mistake chamberlain made was not shaking hands with hitler, it was giving away czechoslovakia. you have to shake hands with your adversaries, even your

enemies. that is one of the main messages of nelson mandela's life. imagine trying to live nelson mandela's message at his funeral. oh, that's so outrageous that barack obama would do exactly what nelson mandela was trying to teach people to do. so anybody who reacted badly to this has no idea of mandela's true message, has no understanding of what he stood for, and really i can see some right wingers reacting this way. but for john mccain and marco rubio to do so is really disappointing. it's almost politically thick, historically dense. >> i don't like castro one bit or his brother. >> i don't either. >> thank you, both. i've been saying president obama needs to change his presidential operation inside. now it looks like he sees the problem himself. that's ahead. and this is "hardball," the place for politics. on your face. [ sneezes ] [ female announcer ] the start of sneeze season.

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dick cheney's doing what dick cheney does best. he's conflating one issue with another. listen to why he says the deal with iran isn't a good one. >> in iran we've got a very, very serious problem going forward. a deal now been cut, the same people that brought us you can keep your insurance if you want are telling us they've got a great deal in iran with respect to their nuclear program. i don't believe it. >> and the guy talking there is the guy that brought us the iraq

war. never forget it. anyway, is it bad for the president he told the country he could keep our health care? what's that got to do with this? we'll be right back.

did you have -- let's look forward here. do you have a relationship with your cabinet that you have a system of cracking the whip, that they follow through, they execute as you envision they should? or do you work through as coo like mr. mcdonough. what is your system? >> generally speaking my theory has been number one, that yes i've got a strong chief of staff, but i'm holding every

cabinet member accountable and i want to have strong interactions with them directly. number two, i have an open door policy where i want people to be bringing me bad news on time so that we can fix things. >> welcome back to "hardball." that was, of course, a clip from this interview with president obama just last week where i pressed the president to explain his role as a manager. the structure, style, and chain of command he depends on. it's difficult to discern a chain of command at this white house. last week a formal official in the clinton white house told the l.a. time with us, quote, it seems to me this white house has no chain to the top. even just the conventional protect the boss standard that ought to be in place everywhere. when something's about to burst you warn the boss. trying to save his presidency with three years to go, president obama is adding a more senior presence to the structure.

democratic strategist and mr. fix it john podesta who ran back in 2008 when he was first elected. he's returning to the white house in a title called counselor. chuck todd is nbc's chief white house correspondent, political director, and the host of "the daily rundown" on msnbc. gentlemen, thank you. what's wrong with the white house structure? i think there is something and there's a lack of a chain of command. a kind of a regimental thing where everybody does their job or they're out and it's enforced by a tough chief of staff. i don't see that. i see a lot of floaters and presidential favorites. now i see more added with titles like counselor. does he need more counselors? or does he need a chain of command that's clear and strong? >> you single out an issue that some others have been concerned about. are there going to be too many chiefs here? too many people who among staff think of themselves as principals among the staff a

little bit? not necessarily get it done people. that's not been an issue with mcdonough. he is considered if there's a critique of him internally it's he gets involved in too many things. that if something's going wrong, if somebody doesn't know how to shovel a driveway. he doesn't say let's show you how to do it. he just says give me the shovel, i'll do it. he's almost too stretched is the criticism you hear. >> why doesn't he fire people that aren't delivering? why doesn't he go to the president say, this person whether it's kathleen sebelius or her coos or somebody else, they're not doing the job. i'm telling you. you're in there, you know it. that this screwup of the rollout is probably a bigger story than passing health care at this point. i don't think it'll be that way in history, but right now it is. >> right now it is. but this comes from the top. this is not what president obama does. when somebody is going to be fired, it's done so two or three months later. it's the whole no drama obama.

i'm sorry. maybe i'm wrong about this, but i'm watching the body language and i'm watching how things are working when it comes to the current hhs secretary. and i'll be surprised if she's there in four months, but this is not something they're going to do today because they don't believe in doing it as a story.

it's figuring out how to use the executive branch and how to get around congress. he didn't have a congress to work with too well in the last two years, they were busy trying to impeach president clinton. so they worked on how to stay relevant using the executive branch. that's what john podesta is best at.

>> there was a vacuum of leadership. i asked the president about that vacuum which chuck just mentioned last week. let's talk about the chief executive, you. and let's talk about a lot of these young people came here to study government and how it can be run. there's all kinds of theories on how the presidency can be run. there's the spokes of the wheel which john f. kennedy had. then there was the strong chief of staff, sort of the military command system of general eisenhower's president. and ronald reagan had a great chief of staff, a strong one, jim baker. zeke emanuel said there should have been a ceo assigned by you personally with unique personal responsibility to oversee the rollout of health care. they're not about to get better any time soon. does the president recognize the importance of execution, not

poll circumstances, execution? >> yes, he absolutely -- in the white house, everybody now there gets the message. you asked earlier why kathleen sebelius or anybody in her department didn't get fired as a result of this. >> the person who doesn't exist, they can't fire a man or woman who doesn't have an assignment as the direct responsibility to the president. >> anybody you fire over there who doesn't have a senate confirmation can't be confirmed. >> this is one you cannot blame on the republicans. >> you can't blame the rollout on the republicans, but you can suggest why more heads or any heads haven't rolled. >> do you really believe that? that you can't get rid of someone because the other side might make it harder? you don't need senate confirmation for white house staff. >> for hhs, for kathleen sebelius's job. it was her department. >> yeah, i know.

so we blame it on the organizational charts of the u.s. government, that won't work either. chuck todd, do they know the problem, are they fixing it? >> i think they know the problem, i don't know if they're fixing it. this is not a shake-up and it should not be seen as a shake-up. i don't know -- i think this will calm house democrats a and senate democrats down a bit. but i don't know if they are fixed their political problem. right now house and senate democrats don't understand the political pickle that these guys are in. >> it does buy us some time. but between podesta and polaro does buy some time. >> he got rid of don reagan and brought in howard baker. you have to make big changes sometimes. thank you, chuck todd. we'll be right back.

let me finish tonight with this. i'm about to end a 16-city book tour. i think it's the perfect gift for "hardball" folks because it reminds us that politics, smart aggressive politics not only works for the country but it can be a joyous event to watch. i spent 16 years of my life working against flaig reagan. my boss and hero tip o'neill

could get things done for the country. call it nostalgia if you want, mr. president, it worked, i was there. i was supposed to be in cincinnati tonight at the book sellers but amid all the snow at laguardia today, we watched that plane being repaired but not in time to get us out of here in ohio. i'll talk to what i'm told is going to be a big sold out crowd out there. back here in new york thursday night at the influential 92nd street along with david gergen who worked on the other side in those o'neal reagan days. i go through the snow and get some copies of tip and the gipper. to remind those of us my age and to teach the younger people out there that political grown ups can get things done, they can fix social security, create fair taxes and even end the cold war, even if they come at these challenges from different directions.

i want you all to benefit to the growing up. it's on amazon right now waiting for you to get it, read it and share it. that's "hardball" for right now. a all in with kris hayes starts right now. good evening from new york, i'm chris hayes, we begin with breaking news, the unveiling tonight of a two-year by partisan budget deal to avert another disaster rouse government shutdown. >> a plan i would have written on my own, i'm pretty sure that chairman ryan wouldn't have written it on his own. i know many republicans had hoped this would be an opportunity to make some of the kinds of changes to medicare and social security they have advocated for. but congressman ryan have set aside our differences, we have made some compromises and we