president obama backs iran into a corner. let's play "hardball." good evenings. i'm mike barnicle in for chris matthews. caught red-handed. iran admitted to building a second secret underground plant to enrich your rainian. president obama says either open the sites for inspection or be held accountable. >> i have said repeatedly we're going to operate on two tracks, that our preferred method of action is diplomatic. but if that does not work, then other consequences may follow.

nbc news white house correspondent chuck todd and former state department spokesman jamie rubin will break down what this means for the president a week before the takes are set to begin. why are democrats seeing a sig any kabtd drop fund-raising. how can they convince big donors to open up their checkbooks ahead of the 2010 mid determine elections. remember if conservative outcry over the back-to-school speech? a student performance is drawing fire from conservative critics. >> conservatives charge that the school is attempting to indoctrinate and brainwash its students in support of the president. are they right? also, "meet the the press" moderator david gregory will pre viewer his interview with can

bill clinton. and rod blagojevich can't help himself on his never-ending media tour. he claims he's the anti-nixon. we begin with former state department spokesman jamie rubin on the disclosure of iran's secrete underground nuclear facility and president obama's response. according to several reports heard prior to this press conference, and i think things that the president alluded to during his q&a session with the media, russia was kind of surprise surpris surprised with the revolution of this new nuclear development in iran. if, "a" do you believe that, and, "b" if they were surprised, does that make our position, vis-a-vis dealing with iran, stronger and why? >> first of all, i doubt the russians will end up surprised when they finished absorbing all the information that's been

provided and what the iranians back because in the end this will be another enrichment of iranian facility, very similar to one that's already existed. the iranians will make the same arguments and in the end the russians will have to come to the same judgments. in a tactical sense, in a sort of today, tomorrow, the next day sense, the russians probably did not expect this to become a public issue right now. and they may not have had the same intelligence we had. when you examine very carefully the white house fact sheet about this facility, they make clear that it doesn't change the intelligence community's assessment that iran has not begun an actual nuclear weapons program. and so we're back to the same dilemma that we've been facing for quite some time now. this revelation, today, is important. it has highlighted the dilemma we've been facing for quite some time, but it doesn't change that dilemma. the dilemma is that iran is going full bore for the ability

to enrich uranium to a level that is not weapons grade, but they will have the capability inherently to increase that. an inherent breakout capability. meanwhile, the u.s. intelligence community doesn't think they have a nuclear weapons program right now. so that difference between having an inherent capability, having a peaceful so-called nuclear energy program and actually building weapons is something where countries like the united states, france, and britain are extremely worried and they take a tougher stance. countries like russia and china, as long as they don't believe the iranians have begun actually enriching uranium to weapons grade, as long as they believe the iranians are still not actually engaged in a nuclear weapons program their response is going to be limited. we're going to be in the game

the president was talking about in the last question which is some form of sanctions. >> you say the same dilemma. you just mentioned sanctions. i mean, the u.n. has been rather a toothless tiger when it comes to sanctions, has it not? we've been talking about sanctions as a country, vis-a-vis, iran, for 30 years. >> in the last three years president bush and now president obama have gone to the security council and sought some form of economic sanctions. they're quite limited. they effect certain industries, certain individuals, they're not, you know, the kind of embargo, say, that we have on cuba. i don't think we're going to get that kind of embargo. this information doesn't dramatically transform the case the iranians have or the case the americans have. it's very effective tactical intelligence that will put the pressure on russia, put the pressure on china, but it's not going to change their fundamental position. we're not going to see an

economic embargo, some sort of blockade of iran or something like that. the truth is, and this is what the last question brought out, which is most experts, most people involved have a hard time seeing why this particular regime, now that it's become even more extreme with this recent election and the crackdown, will capitulate in the face of an economic sanction of some kind. so this dilemma is going to become even starker in the coming months for the president. >> we're joined by chuck todd who is in pittsburgh, was at the press conference. chuck, jamie rubin, you just heard jamie talking about the answers to the last question that the president gave about sanctions. jamie seems to feel, correct me if i misinterpret it, while russia and china will be on board, he thinks, for sanctions, they are tiptoeing into the realm of sanctions and might not end up agreeing with tougher sanctions nearly as tough as we would want. what's the feeling within the

white house and the administration about how hooked into this russia and china happen to be? >> reporter: right now they're very bullish on the fact they think russia is on board. the statement that russia put out today was tougher than they would have thought they would have gotten out of the russians, say, even just a couple days ago. so they're bullish on this idea the russians privately really do feel a little bit burnt by the iranians. in the fact that the iranians were concealing this. the u.s. folks that i've talked to some sources i've talked to indicate it's pretty clear to them the russians didn't know about this site. and that bothers them not on the intelligence front. that bothers them in that relationship. they've been out there defending iran. been sort of, you know, in many ways china has been hiding behind russia in this divide between british, between britain, france and the u.s. and where china and russia stood on this issue. so suddenly if you have russia aboard, the hope among those in

the white house is that that will bring a reluctant china. they're still acting very reluctantly and they're not -- that's where i think jamie could be right in china may not be ready to go with as tough as sanctions at the u.s. would hope for. i tell you, on one hand they talk about north korea. say, we have the chinese on board some of the toughest sanctions against north korea anybody has gotten out of the chinese in a long time. that's fine. iran is going to turn into a domestic political fight in this country. the pressure the president is going to feel on this front is different than north korea. you're going to see conditioningal republicans and a lot of dem contracts. -- today, joe lieberman, evan bayh put out joint statements today about their feelings on iran. hawkish statement. very sort of a message to the president about getting tough. there could be bipartisan bills that come out of congress with a lot of teeth. a lot of sanctions in it that

could pop up as a bill for the president to sign before he can make any headway, frankly, when it comes to what he's trying to do. this b 5 plus 1. and then you have this line in the sand that the president sort of drew for next week, but so, you know, look, it depends on what the iranians do. then said, well, they have a few weeks. do they show up, number one? do they agree to basic, some basic things that these six nations have been asking them for starting with allowing for inspections by the international atomic agency? >> thank you jamie rubin and chuck todd. coming up, the democrats could be up for a rough 2010 campaign season. the fund-raising is dropping while the republicans are raking in the bucks. can the. we're a talking to strategists we're a talking to strategists on both sides of the fence. even tone, brighten, smooth, hydrate,

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call or click today. welcome back to "hardball." democrats may be bracing for a bit of a battle in the 2010 midterm election. fund-raising has dropped while republicans have been watching the cash flow into their coffers.

what are republicans doing right and what do democrats need to do to convince donors to open up their checkbooks. rich masters, democratic senator, former aide to landrieu. joe watkins, a republican strategist. gentlemen, i'm going to give you multiple chase here to open this up. a, b, c and d. "a" the reason they are not able to raise the money they want to, is, we won. "b" we're in a rut. people don't have the kind of excess cash to spend they did a year ago. "c" a bunch of wall street rich people who contributed to obama, oh, he's new, great, going to change everything. compensation restrictions, bonus restrictions. i'm not giving them any money ever again? or "d" other. rich masters, what do you think it is? >> i think there's a little bit of truth in many of those. there's a little bit of complacency, i think. truthfully i think a lot of it has to do with the economy where

we are right now. let me bring up another point, too, mike. i think that we're all kind of stunned that this president is actually governing. he's not running the presidency as if it's an extension of the dnc, much like we saw with the bush administration. it was an extension of the republican national committee. he's trying to govern. he's got a very busy agenda. senators and members of congress all have a busy agenda. health care, the economy, the environment really across the board. barack obama has proven you can raise tens of millions of dollars when the idea is right and the motion is behind you and you can do that in a relatively quick period. i think democrats are in good position going into next year. we need to get health care done, keep this economy on the right track that it's on. >> joe, i can hear you shaking your head. >> rich gave a very, very nice spin. i have to take my hat off to him. that was a very kind spin. the reality is that, of course, the democrats are seeing their coffers dry up a bit because the

big donors, big people who gave generously to barack obama's campaign in 2008 and other democrats are not happy because in part, yes, they don't like being the part of the administration whether it has to do with having to pay more than their fair share of taxes with the health care plan that will unfairly tax small businesses. they don't like that. the other part becomes the small missteps taken by the administration over the last few months. there's a lot -- there was a lot of excitement about the president coming in back in january of this year, but it started to erode with the handling of various situations. for instance, health care that has not gone particularly well with democrats. of course, if you look at small things like more recently the lack of making some of those counties around atlanta federal disaster areas. then the last thing would be the handling of the new york governor's race that's upcoming in 2010.

president obama, the african-american president, of course, made it known earlier this week that he does not wish for the black governor of new york to run for election in 2010. >> all right. okay. i'm going to give you -- based on the last one. that was pretty lame. okay? here's what i want you to do. here's what i want you to do. richard, i'm going to ask you to answer the same question. i'm an independent, joe, and have $1,000 i can play with. tell me a couple of things why i should contribute to a republican candidate. >> a republican candidate is going to allow you to keep more of your money and wants to reform health care but doesn't want to reform it on the backs of small business owners and not by taxing charitable contributions or by making the wealthy the whipping boy of any kind of legislative agenda. i'm going to give money to republicans because they're going to be more fiscally conservative and not enlarge the size of government, not create 52 new agencies to deal with

health care or anything else. >> rich, tell mel why i should give my $12 1,000 to a democrat. >> it's simple. the reason you give $1,000, the majority of givers to the democratic parties are in $10, $20, $30, $50 dollars. the reason you give the thousand dollars, mike, to the democratic party, is several reasons. one, we all know that health care is unsustainable. it's unsustainable for taxpayers. unsustainable for the government. barack obama and democrats have a plan to fix it and one that's not going to, you know, screw up insurance for people who already have it but focus on the folks who don't and let them have that. they're going to focus on getting the environment back on track and do it in a way that's going to create tens of thousands of green jobs. it's already working. if you want jobs, that's why you give $1,000 to the democratic party.

look at what's happened with the economy. barack obama is not getting the credit for the economy. there's at least three good reasons. i can go for another 20 minutes. >> joe, let me ask you, how do you think michael steele is doing in terms of raising money for the republican party? >> he's doing very, very well. that's probably the best measure of the job he's doing. he's got to raise money for the party, he's got to encourage great candidates to run in 2010, win those midterm elections, win back house seats and senator seats and governor races in 2010 and he's focused on that. >> rich, we can all agree we have a fairly angry electorate out there in a very volatile time in our country's history for reasons having very little to do with who is in office. let's state that. okay? how much more angry do you think the average person would be if they knew the amount of time their elected officials have to spend raising money? >> oh, i think they'd be furious about it. i mean, no one really knows. i mean, i worked in the senate. i know joe's worked with

political leaders. i think it's a disgrace how much time you have to spend. if you want to be a united states senator and these are six-year terms, mike. i mean, if you realize you have to raise $20,000 on average, $20,000 a week for the entire time you're a united states senator, think about that. $1,000 increments, $2,000 increments. it's a disaster the amount of money in the system as it is right now which is one of the reasons i was a big supporter of barack obama's. he's actually fundamentally changing it. look at the donor base for him as well as the democratic party it's coming from moms and pops, people who want to fundamentally change america. i think that's fundamentally the way we need to change the entire system. >> last quick word on this sickening process. joe watkins? >> rich makes a great point. senators and congressmen and others have to spend a lot of time, maybe too much time raising money from people. it certainly calls for -- makes it sound attractive to push for a term limit so we don't have people running again and again and again.

at the same time, i don't see that the system changes any time soon. we have a shot in the 2010 to regain, recapture a number of house seats, certainly if we can make inroads in the northeast, that would be huge for republicans because we lot a lot of our footing there. 2010 is a real opportunity year. >> joe watkins, rich masters, thanks very much. up next, disgraced ex-illinois governor rod blagojevich won't stop talking. his latest offense next in "th sideshow." (announcer) sleep can help lighten your mood...

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i love his laugh. back to "hardball." time for the sideshow. first up, blago's blitz. the impeached governor of illinois, rod blagojevich has a

new book out claiming he's innocent of trying to sell president obama's senate seat and that those incriminating fbi wiretaps were taken out of context. here he is last night on "the daily show." >> i'm the anti-nixon. i want every tape recording heard by you. i want those released to the public. >> it's not like you came out and everybody said, really, blagojevich? people in chicago are like, that sounds about right. >> no, i don't think that. >> that's what it seems like. >> i don't think so. would a guilty man say listen to all the tapes or would an innocent man say listen to the tapes? you'll hear the truth in the tapes. that's what i've said. my accusers won't let you hear them. >> i mean no disrespect. people can convince themselves of a lot of things. >> that's a sneak peek of what we might see during blago's trial next june. next, live from new york, last night the thursday edition of "snl's" weekend update brought back their take on new york governor david paterson. here's paterson's comment on president obama who reportedly

tried to discourage him from running from re-election. >> why do you think he's getting involved? >> probably just has a bunch of time to kill. oh, wait, he's the busiest man in the world and he took time to bully me, a fellow black democrat. that's like the pope calling a local priest to tell him to go to hell. by the way, you know how to go to hell, chris? take the tunnel straight to new jersey. >> the obligatory new jersey joke. time for tonight's big number. cbs/"the new york times" poll asks americans who they thought had better ideas about reforming the health care system. president obama or republicans in congress? president won out. how big is his advantage on health care? 25 points. he bought out republicans 52% to 27% when it comes to who americans trust on health care. the president has a sizable advantage, 25 points. that's tonight's "big number."

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