>> i love it. mike mika, what did you learn? >> i'll read the next e-book. i look forward to it. >> happy birthday winston churchill, never, never. >> 1874. give up. >> willie, if it's too early, what time is it? >> "morning joe." >> see you tomorrow. chuck todd now. well, the herman cain train hasn't completely jumped the tracks yet, but is it just a matter of time? he and his campaign push back and push on. is mitt romney benefiting from the cain spectacle and what will romney do when that shiny metal object goes away? he got testy yesterday over the slightest challenges. evacuation, the united kingdom pulls their diplomats out of tehran after protesters stormed their embassy. who is behind the raid? what's it mean for iran's already bad ties to the west? and congress tries yet again to make a deal. this time it's on a payroll tax

cut holiday. can the white house help this one across the finish line? white house press secretary jay carney joins me this morning. good morning from washington. it's wednesday, november 30th, 2011, this is the "daily rundown," i'm chuck todd. a huge day in american politics. let's head right to my first reads of the morning. the shiny object that is herman cain and we're going to get to his floundering campaign in a moment. but frankly the bigger story is a rare interview mitt romney did and it was last night with fox news. you want to understand why romney is still the favorite to win the republican presidential race but really isn't the front runner, you got to watch it. romney has avoided a lot of one-on-one interviews with national reporters and even questions from the press sometimes that get asked and he was asked about it again in florida yesterday -- >> the press conferences almost every day and that's when i answer the questions. but when i'm meeting people, it's not a good chance to answer questions.

>> what about now? >> they require thorough attention and good answers. >> what about now, governor? >> he doesn't like answering questions, every day, if every day means six times in the last two months mostly along with surrogates, it would be every day. last night's combative interview with fox shows why it started, it started with a straightforward question on issues that romney has changed his views on over time. here's how he reacted -- >> climate change, abortion, immigration, gay rights, how can voters trust what they hear from you today is what you will believe if you win the white house? >> well, brett, your list is just not accurate, so one, we're going to have to be better informed on my views on issues. this whole stream of thought that you began with which is, oh, well, you'd say anything to get elected, if that were the case, would i still be defending massachusetts health care? >> you say on camera and other places that at times you thought it would be a model for the nation. >> you're wrong, brett.

>> no, no -- >> brett, brett, no, the tape out there, continue to read the tape. >> you think of mandating people to buy insurance is the right tool. >> brett, i don't know how many hundred times i've said this, too, this is an unusual interview, all right, let's do it again. >> it was uncomfortable at times to watch. he clearly didn't like being challenged on some of the simplest questions that any reporter sitting down one-on-one with governor romney would be asking him. it will be interesting to see how his campaign team has -- will respond to this. what will they do? are they going to put him out more to try to get him more comfortable in these exchanges, or is it the same pattern that we've seen at the debates where when he gets challenged, gets knocked off message a little bit where he wants to talk about, he gets maybe overly testy. it's something we write in first read today, is there a point where you become overdisciplined. in the latest sign that the republican contest is turning

into a two-man race, romney also took on newt gingrich directly answering a question his rejection by the new hampshire "union leader." >> the union leaders have not always been happy with me, so i'm not terribly surprised. speaker gingrich is a good man. he and i have very different backgrounds. he spent the last 30 or 40 years in washington. i spent my career in the private sector. i think to get president obama out of office you'll have to bring something to the race that's different than what he brings. he's a lifelong politician. >> this morning, newt gingrich, called himself a lifelong citizen in response to that. romney took on gingrich on immigration after this newt challenge earlier on the trail in the day. >> it's an absolute falsehood to suggest that i favor amnesty for 11 million people, period, and anybody who says it from this point on has been served notice that they are saying something which is not true, which in itself should disqualify them as

a candidate for the president of the united states. >> if he's going to do what i believe he said he was going to do for those people who would be allowed to stay permanently and become citizens, that would be providing for them a form of amnesty. >> well, it's on. there you go. newt gingrich said anybody that calls it amnesty shouldn't be a candidate for president. mitt romney said what nutt gingrich said is amnesty, i think you'll see this debate continue throughout the day and throughout the week and perhaps the month. all right, this shiny metal objection, herman cain, said he'll spend the next few days reassessing his presidential campaign, meanwhile he send out a fund-raising appeal attacking his latest accuser calling ginger quite a troubled woman with a fabricated story. she responded this morning. >> it's very disappointing that he would call me troubled. and, you know, it's unfortunate. i'm not here to say anything negative about mr. cain. i'm only here to state the truth.

it was a very casual affair. am i proud to admit to that? no, i'm not. i went on several trips with herman. we -- one particular trip was the mike tyson/holyfield fight in las vegas, you know? i can't make this stuff up. and frankly speaking, i wouldn't want to make this up. >> i have to say, you would never forget seeing somebody bite another man's ear off, so it's obviously a story that we could check out. all right, cain's story is not just proving hard for conservative pundits to buy, at his foreign policy event last night in michigan, voters who chose to attend it were skeptical of cain. listen -- >> 2011, i mean, we've been there before with other presidents. >> sometimes where there's smoke and there's lots of smoke, maybe there a little fire brewing. >> if the poll numbers run up after the initial fall, they bring out another lady. >> come on, you guys.

>> well, he made no direct reference to the allegations, cain did have this line -- >> life can be a challenge. life can seem impossible. it's never easy when there's so much on the line. >> yes, it does appear as if he quoted the "pokemon" movie by way of donna summers, the power of one. sometimes you just can't make this stuff up. finally, the politics of presidential travel. the president heads to scranton, pennsylvania, today to sell his jobs bill and to make a public push to preserve the payroll tax cut. it's his 56th stop in a swing state this year. i asked white house secretary jay carney how can this be seen as anything other than a political trip especially when the president himself is doing tv ads saying the campaign has started. >> we did win pennsylvania by double digits. i suppose it might be a swing

state next year. you know more about this than i do. every president ought to be able to travel everywhere in this country. this president will continue to do that. it's also true that we are moving forward in what will be a presidential election year and this president is running for re-election. >> by the way, after the scranton stop, the president goes to new york city to be a candidate to raise some money. all right, jay carney is going to join me on the show moments from now. by the way, the president may have won pennsylvania by double digits but republicans now hold the governor's office, both houses of the legislature, two-thirds of the congressional seats, in control of 54 of the state's 67 counties. all right, let's get you to a little breaking international news as we told you in the open, the united kingdom says it's pulling all of its diplomats out of iran and expelling all iranian officials following the attack on tuesday. president obama is openly questioning the iranian's government's role in the pro tests. >> for rioters essentially to be able to overrun the embassy and set it on fire is an indication that the iranian government is

not taking its international obligations seriously. >> we've got our tehran bureau chief. ali, we know what the uk is doing. i understand some other countries are pulling their diplomats or at least considering to pull them, i believe norway is one. >> that's right, chuck. norway has closed its embassy here. they are considering pulling out all of their staff, but they have shut down their embassy. i've also heard reports this morning that all of the iranian ambassadors within the european union are being called to the various states' offices to answer for what has happened. as you mentioned, this is very serious now, the diplomatic ties between great britain and england seem to be completely severed. all of their diplomatic staff are being sent back home, so it shows how deep this crisis is becoming. but there's also no apologies from the iranian end either. today the ed of the iran's parliament said that the relations with great britain

need to be downgraded even further than this, and he also said that it was the domination seeping policy of great britain that was ultimately to blame for the storming of the embassy yesterday. chuck? >> all right, ali arouzi with the developing story. we'll be monitoring it all day, ali, i know you will be monitoring and thank you for checking in, sir. secretary of state, hillary clinton, is making an extremely rare trip to the long isolated nation of myanmar, formerly burma, she's there to assess what the white house is calling its flickers of progress in reform. kristen welker is traveling with secretary clinton and has more from the capital. >> reporter: secretary of state hillary clinton arrives here in myanmar on wednesday making her the first secretary of state to visit this country which is also known as burma in more than half a century. and another first, she will meet with aung san suu kyi who is the nobel peace laureate and was a

political prisoner here for more than a decade until she was released last year. aung san suu kyi is the head of the pro-democracy opposition movement and according to members of her party she's expected to announce her re-entry into politics here. now about two weeks ago president obama announced that he was sending secretary clinton here to myanmar because he'd seen flickers of progress which include the fact that the government has opened up a dialogue with aung san suu kyi, has released some of its other political prisoners and has eased some restrictions on the media. but he said this country still has a long way to go in part because it still has an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 political prisoners because it has come under wide criticism for its treatment of ethnic minorities and also for its close relationship with north korea. now, during her visit, secretary clinton will meet with the president as well as other top officials and will press them to enact more reform. she'll also assess just how serious they are about doing that. as you know, the united states has sanctions against myanmar,

top state officials say there is no chance that this will trip will lead to a lifting of those sanctions. the highlight of this trip will undoubtedly be when secretary clinton meets with aung san suu kyi which will happen on thursday and friday of this week, back to you. >> all right, that was kristen welker traveling with secretary clinton. up next, it's down to the wire over the fight over the payroll tax holiday. can the white house strike a deal? keep a few extra bucks in your pocket? plus, president obama officially enters the campaign ad race, white house press secretary, jay carney, joins me next. and we'll show you the comment. it's classic newt, whether you love him or hate him. it's his explanation for why he can charge 60 grand for giving a speech. but, first a look ahead at the president's schedule, as we told you, scranton, and then it's off to new york city, where he is going to be doing a little politics. you're watching the "daily rundown" only on msnbc. nyquil (st uffy

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i think at the end of the day there's a lot of sentiment in our conference, clearly a majority sentiment, for continuing the payroll tax relief that we enacted a year ago in these tough times, but we believe with this kind of deficit, we ought to pay for it. >> well, just as the president gets ready to launch hils pubs campaign for continuing the payroll tax holiday, but does that mean we're closer to a deal? white house press secretary jay carney joins me from inside, a little warmer there.

welcome. >> thank you, chuck, thanks for having me. yes, nice and warm in here. >> let's start with what senate republicans wanted to make sure we in the media all knew last night, basically after your briefing, which was that they support this, too, and now the question is how to pay for it. in "the wall street journal" this morning apparently two ideas out there that's different from what's in the united states senate which is the millionaire surtax, republicans are talking about selling broadband spectrum and increasing airport fees. is the white house open to that? >> you know the president put forward in the american jobs act a way to pay for this, the entire american jobs act, including his proposal to both extend and expand the payroll tax cut for 160 million americans. the senate democrats put forward an alternative way to pay for it and that bill will be voted on later this week, and the president supports that measure, the surtax as you said on millionaires and billionaires, asking the wealthiest americans to pay a little bit more so that

160 million americans can get an average $1,500 extra next year in a tax cut. now, you know, i don't want to negotiate an end game. the president obviously, because he put forward his plan and supports the democrats' plan, believes that the preferable way here is to pay for it. that's the responsible thing to do. i'm certainly glad that senator mcconnell said last night that the majority of republicans support this tax cut. it would be news i think and a little shocking if republicans suddenly said they support tax cuts for the wealthiest americans but not for middle-class americans, so hopefully we'll be able to work together and get this done. >> now, what was not mentioned actually by senator mcconnell is that there are two parts to this payroll tax holiday that you guys are proposing. there's the continuation which is on the employee side, but then there's the cut that you propose in the jobs act on the employer side. senator mcconnell left that unmentioned. are you willing to at the end of the day if all you can get is the extension on the employee side, you'll take it?

>> well, again, i don't want to negotiate what might happen depending on what the senate does later this week or what proposals might be put forward if it doesn't succeed in the senate, the initial proposal. what i can say is that the president believes as he put forward in his american jobs act that we should not just extend but expand the tax cut, so the $1,000 that 160 million americans got extra this year would be expanded to an average of $1,500 and as you noted, that we would have a payroll tax holiday for small businesses, because they're the engine of economic growth. they do the most hiring in america. so, you know, this president is for those kinds of tax cuts that will get the economy growing, will get people back to work, and we hope that republicans will support him in that. and he's also for paying for it in a way that most americans support, democrats, independents, and republicans. >> now, yesterday you seemed to get a little frustrated with us in the room because we kept --

>> i never, never do. >> you seemed to get frustrated, asked a version of the question because you weren't giving us a clear answer which is would the president sign this if it is not paid for, and how do we not read in between the lines of the transcript and say as many of my print friends did this morning, and say, you seemed to leave open the possibility that if that's what it took to get the payroll tax holiday and it wasn't paid for, the president would sign it? >> the president believes it's vital that we extend and expand this payroll tax cut for the american people, for working americans, middle-class americans, who desperately need this extra money. now, again, he thinks it should be paid for. he put it forward in a way that's paid for and he supports the senate democrats' version that it's paid for. i don't want to box him or members of congress in before we've even had a vote on the best way to do this. now, it's ironic that senate republicans and other

republicans are saying this has to be paid for. the president believes that's the best thing to do, when, you know, in the -- republicans are the ones who changed the rules so say that tax cuts don't have to be paid for. republicans as you know overwhelmingly supported massive tax cuts under bush that were never paid for, so i think, you know, there needs to be an hypocrisy check here. the president believes this tax cut is vital to working and middle-class americans and he's going to fight to get it done. >> hey, very quickly, the other day i had the number three house democratic leader, jim clyburn, on the show, former member of the supercommittee, and he said he was open to renegotiating the sequester part of any larger deal, whether it's to negotiate on the payroll tax holiday or on other things. is there any way this white house would sign any bill that renegotiated that sequester? >> the president's been very clear on this, the answer is no. the sequester was designed to be so onerous, to be -- to have the kind of cuts that were so objectionable to members of both

parties in congress that they would never come to pass, that they would force congress to work hard and reach a compromise that was responsible and balanced to reduce our deficit and deal with our long-term debt challenge. the president believes that the very nature of the sequester needs to stay the same to keep the pressure on congress to do its job. >> all right. jay carney, white house press secretary, got to leave it there, jay, thanks for coming on sir. >> always good to be with you, chuck, thanks. >> all right. well, most of this country's biggest banks just got their credit rating cut. you can only imagine how wall street's going to react to this. the market rundown is next. and still to come, mississippi governor haley barbour weighs in on the republican presidential race. but, first, today's trivia question -- ronald reagan's so-called 11th command amount you shall not speak ill of any fellow republicans was actually created by someone else. who was it? tweet me the answer, the first correct answer will get a follow

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we're minutes away from the opening bell. let's get to the market rundown. cnbc's becky quick is here. i assume it will be ugly, right? >> no, it's actually going to be hugely up today because of big moves coming from the central banks. central banks from around the globe actually moving to coordinate to easley quiddity to make it easier for banks to borrow money and that cut off a huge number of big concerns about europe. so right now it looks like the stock market will open up over 280 points for the dow. again, this is a massive move and this all came within about the last hour and a half as the banks came out and started talking about it. it's a coordinated move that we haven't seen since -- we've seen similar recent moves but people say it reminds them when the central banks were trying to shore up confidence and make

people feel a lot better about things. it's helping in europe, stock markets there were up about 3 1/2%. >> the downgrade of the big banks here -- >> this is, like, overshadowing that at this point, the downgrade of the banks here, that caused a lot of concern last night and obviously the central banks watch what's happening here, they watch confidence, it could be the downgrade of some of the banks here but also concerns about what was happening in europe. but the banks at this point, the central banks moving to easley quiddity, it's washing all the concerns right out the window. we'll watch that and also watch jobs. >> what we heard from adp, right? >> exactly right, chuck, adp report came in and said 206,000 jobs for november, it was well above expectation of 130,000 and it gives us something to look forward to this friday, too. >> it sure does, becky quick from cnbc, busy week for you, too. >> yes. the herman cain train seems to run out of steam, these puns,

will never get old, will they? governor haley barbour will join me next, we'll talk about where the republican race goes from here. and the police crackdown on protests from l.a. to philadelphia, forcing protesters out. you have a question you want to ask our good friend andrea mitchell, join her today for a live web chat between 2:15 and 2:45 p.m. eastern online at andrea.msnbc.com we'll be right back. andrea, i'll e-mail you a couple, but i'll do so under a pseudonym. to pick up some acc. a new belt. some nylons. and what girl wouldn't need new shoes? we talked about getting a diamond. but with all the thank you points i've been earning... ♪ ...i flew us to the rock i really had in mind. ♪ [ male announcer ] the citi thank you card. earn points you can use for travel on any airline,

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and that the partnership will be broad based. >> that partnership includes a robust security relationship. based on what you decide, what you decide, you think that relationship should be. we will continue our discussions with your government over the substance of our security arrangements, including areas of training, intelligence, and counterterrorism. >> by the way, that's diplomatic speak for they're having a little bit of tense negotiations. prime minister maliki is coming to the united states in a couple of weeks to meet with president obama. more than 200 protesters have been arrested after a huge contingent of police dismantled occupy camps in los angeles overnight. the raid which was mostly peaceful was carried out after demonstrators ignored the city deadline to clear out. there was a similar story in philadelphia where protesters camped out by city hall there were also evicted overnight, after ward a group of

demonstrators marched through downtown before being stopped by police. about 50 people were arrested. right now the cain train is dealing with an atlanta businesswoman's claim that she had a 13-year affair with him. the last time mississippi governor haley barbour was on this show he urged cain to come clean after two women then had accused him of harassment. and governor barbour joins me now, has your advice changed from two weeks ago? >> no, not really. i think all the facts ought to get out and the people can make a decision and he can make a decision. >> is it hurtful to the republican party as a whole if he stays in the race with this cloud hanging over him? >> well, look, the cloud is going to either dissipate or it's going to be untenable. but i don't know what the facts are. and for us to continue to speculate, the facts will come

forward, and that's just something that we know will happen. and the sooner the happens, the better it is for everybody, including herman. >> i want to move on to what's actually going on inside the republican presidential debate on some issues. we're having a big debate about immigration and apparently the definition of the word "amnesty." i want to play for you what newt gingrich said yesterday and what mitt romney said yesterday and at least have you help me mediate here. take a listen to what they said -- >> it is an absolute falsehood to suggest that i favor amnesty for 11 million people, period. and anybody who says it from this point on has been served notice that they are saying something which is not true, which in itself should disqualify them as a candidate to be president of the united states. >> if he's going to do what i believe he said he was going to do for those people who would be allowed to stay permanently and become citizens, that would be providing for them a form of

amnesty. >> governor barbour, you were in the reagan administration. you were there when president reagan signed that -- the last time we had comprehensive immigration reform and a lot of folks believed at the time that that became a model for amnesty, who is right here? newt gingrich, mitt romney, and what is your definition of amnesty? >> well, first of all, mitt used a word there that i think newt has specifically ruled out, and that is citizenship. what i understood newt to say everybody who's watching your tv show today or everybody who is here at this governors conference knows is true, we're not going to risk 11 million or 12 million people, put them in jail or deport them or put them back to wherever they came from. i was in the reagan white house when we passed it, and president reagan were he here today, would say to you what he said many times after that, the deal was we were supposed to have a secure border. and if we don't have a secure

border now, we'll never pass immigration reform again. we need to pass it. but it's not going to happen until there's a secure border because of the fact that it didn't get secured after 1986. i think that's exactly what gingrich has said. you know, we are in a global battle and race for capital and labor. and as we get older and go forward, we're going to continue, despite high unemployment rates today, we're going to continue to need labor. now, mitt says something that i say all the time. every kid who is here from india or china or wherever else when he gets a ph.d. or she gets a master's degree in science, technology, engineering, or math, we ought to staple a green card to their diploma to let them stay here and instead of opening a business and employs people in mumbai, open one that

employs 800 people in memphis. now, i think there's a lot of common ground here. the definition of amnesty is obviously very, very different. but to have a guest worker program that allows people who are not citizens to come here and work as long as they're on good behavior, pay their taxes, don't commit any crimes, is something that we've recognized in the united states for a long, long, long, long, long, long time. but our border is so porous or has been, that that's got to be the first step. and i think mitt and newt would agree. first thing we have to do's have a secure border, then we can start talking about what is good law. >> right. do you think governor romney is being disingenuous with how he's defining gingrich's position? >> well, i wouldn't characterize it that way. but in the little clip that you played, i believe he used the word "citizenship" and my

understanding, recollection, was that newt specifically didn't use that. and at times when he's talked about this, has said we're not going to allow people to become citizens. we're going to allow them to stay here legally on good behavior as long as they work, as long as they pay their taxes, as long as they're law-abiding, good residents of wherever they're working. >> any chance you're going to endorse before the primaries are over at this point? >> no. i didn't in '08, i don't intend to this time. >> are you comfortable if it comes down to newt gingrich and mitt romney, are you comfortable with having one of those two lead your party in 2012? >> either one of them would be an enormous improvement over barack obama. this election is going to be about policy and how the policies of the obama administration has made our economy worse and made it harder to create new jobs, which ever everybody says are our first two

goals. yet, the obama policies make that harder. i think either one of them would be a tremendous improvement for america. >> as a political strategist, do you think one matches up better than the other? >> they match up differently. but, you know, some strengths are strong with one than the other or vice versa. >> why don't you give me that, what's the newt strength that he would bring that romney doesn't and vice versa. >> well, look, you can -- you can nitpick this, but newt i think has done very well in the debates. he's obviously very bright, very knowledgeable about the federal government, how it works, what its policies are and how those policies in this administration have gone far in the wrong direction. that's why the country is so far off on the wrong track. mitt has had tremendous experience as a manager in the real economy, you know, one of the things, chuck, that i heard your interview about the stock market before i came on, you

know, government is driving the stock market today. the stock market's up 280, why? because of government decisions about central banks. the real economy is so far off from what's happening on wall street that it's really unprecedented. mitt romney understands the business side of business and job creation. newt gingrich understands government. and those are two very important strengths. >> all right. governor haley barbour, republican from mississippi, your last governors conference i imagine as governor, is that correct? >> it sure is. thank you, it's enough. >> governor, we'll check in with you again. thanks for coming on. >> all right, chuck. our hump day panel joins me next, we're breaking down mitt romney's fascinating interview yesterday. rick perry's latest flub. there was one even later than last night, and the herman cain sideshow and newt gingrich, is he a lobbyist or a celebrity?

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>> i did no lobbying of any kind, period. for a practical reason. i'm going to be really direct, okay? i was charging $60,000 a speech, and the number of speeches was going up, not down. normally celebrities leave and they gradually sell fewer speeches every year, we were selling more. >> wow, paging john mccain's ad team somebody referred to themselves as a celebrity. reid wilson is editor in chief of "national journal's" hotline, and we've got we've got the president of global strategies group. helene cooper, let's start with you. one thing, this is the newt gingrich everybody loves, some people hate. he says there's no filter. >> there is no filter. that's definitely part of his charm, but that was a ballsy statement.

are you making $60,000 a peaspe? >> no! >> i don't have to lobby. i don't have to represent my swint constituents. i know, i know. >> it was a fascinating way to refer to himself. reid wilson, i was flashing back, and the obama campaign, you probably remember this, when the mccain campaign ran what i think turned out to be actually an effective ad at least defining this, something that president obama said, the biggest celebrity in the world, he referred to himself as a celebrity. here's newt gingrich calling himself a celebrity. >> and he's a celebrity because he's so off message all the time. hom he's the d.c. insider that's able to command $60,000 a speech and then he goes out and says something crazy like this. this is why the front-runner moment that he's having might not last too long. >> yeah, nobody thinks that this is -- this is going to last, jim, and i'm not going to ask you to pick, but, you know, a lot of people have been trying to read into the minds of the

obama campaign, you're not officially a part of it, but i'm sure you're still supportive. are you really pulling for mitt or newt or newt over mitt? >> i've been in this long enough to know not to make calls like that, but they both have something in common, which is that they believe for some reason that the american people don't expect them to answer questions, and, you know, you look at newt gingrich yesterday and what he said, which was not only, you know, you can compare it to mccain, but it's also $60,000 a speech, that's a lot of money to a lot of people around the country and it reminds me of the mccain campaign when he couldn't remember how many houses he had. so, there is a comparison there. and, you know, i think both of them are going to be peeling the onion over the next couple of weeks to see what they really stand for. >> but, you know, there is something about gingrich that part of me thinks, you know, he may stick around a while and he may do this. i want to quote from you from "the new york times," here's what she wrote this morning about gingrich, he has more exploding cigars in his pocket

than the president with whom he had a bromance, and next to john huntston gingrich seems to conservative, next to michele bachmann and rick perry, gingrich looks like an intellectual, it's the first part, authenticity, authentic, authentici authenticity, it could trump everything. >> it could trump everything and jen was answering from a political point of view. let me answer your question from a purely reporting journalistic point of view, give us newt gingrich, can you imagine that campaign? gingrich versus obama? it would be fabulous. >> i think the debates would be unbelievable. >> they would be fantastic just as a pure political theater. >> here's -- i mean, here's why newt gingrich has at least something of a shot of sticking around. rick perry has disqualified himself in the mind of voters, bachmann and santorum are out of the campaign.

>> haley barbour saying he's not endorsing endorsinging anybody. >> everybody else has disqualified themselves in one way or another. cain will drop out in a number of days or his campaign will go no where if he decides to plug on, so there is this moment where there's the possibility for the anti-romney forces to coalesce around one person. >> i don't see the incentive for herman cain to drop out. >> i don't either. i think that's cutting it close. >> elaine, reid, jen, stick around, we'll talk a lot more, maybe a little rick perry after the break. but trivia question we asked ronald reagan's so-called 11th amendment, thou shall not speak ill of a fellow republican, a lot of you got the answers, the answer gaylord parkinson who was the california republican party chairman back in 1966. following that now famous rule, it helped reagan win the 1966 republican gubernatorial primary upset. we'll be right back. you're watching the "daily rundown" only on msnbc.

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we're going to be talking about that and we'll be talking about it in harsh and strong terms over the course of the next four to five weeks as we get ready for the new hampshire caucuses. >> a little gaffe this morning when you called the new hampshire primary the new hampshire caucus? >> yeah, i'll do that from time to time. >> oh, rick perry. let's bring back the panel. reed wilson, you're making a point, enjoying pointing out his flubs. yesterday it was talking about the -- all you 21-year-olds, you turn 21 by november 2012 -- he was trying to say november 6th. in isolation they're not a big deal but do you realize union leader editorial yesterday was about perry being unqualified for president because of some of these things? >> he's been on the air with $2.8 million in advertisement -- >> more than any other candidate. >> $1 million on fox news nationally.

his numbers have not moved an inch because voters have simply decided he's not qualified to run for president. once they make that decision, voters don't unmake that decision. >> he doesn't have another shot of popping back up. can you think of a time when any candidate flubs, can they recover from that? richardson, he had had a moment he was doing well, flubbed and never recovered. >> it's tough because people want you to pass the bar, jump over the bar, whether you're qualified or prepared. when you can't answer basic questions like this is makes the american people wonder if you're ready to make much more challenging decisions. >> i want to move to what i think was the biggest story in the last 24 hours and that was simply mitt romney's snippy interview. that's what your newspaper called it actually today with brett over at fox news. he seemed uncomfortable answering some of the basic questions you would have asked on a one-on-one, i would have asked, frankly anybody covering this campaign would have asked. we have a theory this morning,

is he overdisciplined? >> i think that's a really interesting point to bring out. keep in mind the fox interview came right after he had had an altercation earlier in the day with reporters on the campaign -- >> it was before that. they taped it in the morning. i was trying to find out which was which. it actually came before. >> and he got angry and said, you shouldn't be asking me questions. i have press availabilities every day. >> every day? it's once every ten days. >> he's been so far aa from the national press. he's been much more contained. he's trying to keep that discipline. you know, i think overdisciplined might not be a bad word. >> reed wilson, we will not see him on sunday shows unless he's the nominee in may. >> absolutely. >> very quickly, shameless plug? >> virginia file, my husband's grandmother, best over 80-year-old democrat in kentucky. >> my little sister completed half marathon, best time.

>> could you have -- >> not a chance. >> i'm going to keep this in the family. my mom made the best liberian polenta shot this weekend. >> my mom will be my guest for the holiday christmas party next week. that's it for this edition of "the daily rundown." tomorrow on the show we'll have more on the crazy show. coming up next "chris jansing" and then andrea mitchell will talk about van hollen and representative ryan. walmart-pren gives you the lowest plan premium in the country... so you can focus on what really matters. call humana at 1-800-808-4003. 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

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good morning. i'm chris jansing. it's a good morning on wall street. take a look. the markets have been up all morning long, almost 400 points. the central banks all around the world, we're talking about europe, the u.s., britain, canada, japan, switzerland, all lowering borrowing rates. here's why that's important. there's been a lot of concern we