>> newt gingrich has been an unreliable leader. >> mitt sharpens attacks. >> he's a wealthy man. a very wealthy man. if you have a half million purchase from tiffany, you are not middle class. >> newt vows to keep it clean. >> they're should run it the way i want to and my campaign focuses on positive ideas. >> how much longer can this professor control the class? >> we begin six hours to the last debate before republicans begin casting votes for their nominee. in this cast of castaways, only one can be the survivor. newt is king of the hill, paying the kindly professor and vowing to stay positive. >> my campaign will focus on positive ideas and solutions and i'm frankly taking the gamble with the american people that they care about solving our country's problems and not just

watching politicians beat each other up. >> really? tell that to mr. high roller. the $10,000 betting millionaire mitt romney. in between has three big bucks fund-raisers on wednesday, mitt took every chance he could to hurl invektive at the chief rival. >> it has been difficult to replace a career politician if you are just another career politician. someone who has gone to washington to do good and stayed to do well. she sitting down with nancy pelosi to support a cap and trade bill was a mistake. i'm not talking about someone who learned from experience is unreliable. he's a great historian. if we needed a historian, people would find that attractive. >> he's a great historian. newt agrees with that, but mitt be warned, if you on attacking

newt, you are not only attacking a politician, historian and a lobbyist, you are also attacking christmas. >> next week, we should wish people a merry christmas. i think if these guys keep this negative junk, it is so discordant with the spirit of christmas. >> what happened then? when in whoville say say that the grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day. >> let's get right to our panel. joan walsh from salon and joining us from san francisco and in washington, d.c., david corn, washington bureau chief. everyone in the republican establishment seems to be pouring buckets of -- you choose the substance all over newt. gingrich who would have made a

marvelous marxist believes everything is related to everything else and he understands how. is this a desperate effort by the republican party to save itself from the unthinkable and the horrific out come as newt as their nominee? >> if you think they are desperate now, wait until you see what happens if he should survive if he should do well in iowa and south carolina. newt and he does not represent republican establishment. if you were to get it, they would say they were scared out of their minds about having newt reading the ticket. that would mean for the presidential race and for all the candidates below him. why do they say this? they know him. they worked with him. this man was speaker of the house for four years and he walked away from that position with less good will than someone who went off to jail.

who knows him the best? the republican establishment. newt promised to keep things civil. he hammered him on everything from that to jewelry. do you think he will pufrt his spleen soon and spit out the most enormous amount of bile all over romney? >> he is making mitt part of the liberal war on christmas. that's what this is about. this evil form on destroying christmas with the attacks. this is what we have every four years. everything starts before the holidays. get used to it. it will be interesting. we have the sound of the air coming out of the newt balloon.

he is falling. he has risen nationally, but we don't elect presidents nationally and don't nominate them nationally. it's a state by state contest as you know. we may have seen newt peak and when he starts to drop, you will see desperate newt. that's not going to be pretty. desperate romney has not been that pretty. desperate newt will ruin everybody's holiday. he is now down to 71.2. there is a nasty spat between romney over money and their respective wealth. mitt made millions from bankrupting businesses and newt made millions from his career. i wonder in a nation where one in two of the population is found to be poor, how does this resonate with voter when is the two leaders are rallying over

respective wealth? >> one calls the other a sleazy washington insider. the other calls the sleazy corporatist who destroys companies. why can't they both be right? this is a christmas or hanukkah or kwanzaa gift. the videotape is running and the guys, they actually are both right. in a season we talked about the disparity of wealth, the top 1% and the 99% with pop efforty rates going up, you see both of these people do not represent the common man or woman, be it a half million dollar credit line or a $10,000 bet. >> indeed. you are agreeing with that. say your peace, please. >> absolutely. they're desperate to sort of rid

themselves of the stench of wealth at a time people are waking up to the power of wealth in corrupting our system. it's great to see them fight & d it's amazing to see the party with the two front-runners being so widely dispized. it's interesting. nobody likes mitt for a few weeks and then newt came along. it's like everybody really hates newt. it is going to be a hate off. >> i have to ask you, do you think christine o'donnell's endorsement of newt is say blessing or a curse? >> really, she is say bunch line and last year's bunch line as

though she brings any cloud or anybody's vote except maybe or own. >> now he nailed down the wiccan vote. >> do you think he should have paid her $10,000 not to endorse him? he is available. >> maybe he couldn't meet her price. >> newt keeps going around like edward the professor, apologizing and saying she a repentant man and saying he has gone to god and asked for forgiveness. saying that in debates and whenever he is asked. he answered in the same way. one of the difficult things we have with newt is that he seems to repeat his sentence all the time. he may not be filandering with women, but we know he doesn't tell the truth about so many things. when we describes how he had to

leave the congress, he paints the responsibility on a waping amount of enthusiasm on the part of congressional friends and we know he was kicked out by a unanimous vote because of corruption. >> this guy, he only cheated on two wives so far. i don't think if we can draw conclusions from that yet, but a 30-year record of newt being newt. he is out there now as we talked about the spirit of christmas and how we shouldn't be attacking each other. back in the 90s, this is one of my favorite newt items. he sent out a memo to republicans running in state races and congestionaries saying here say list of preferred words to use when talking about your opponents. they were words such as traitor, treasonist, betrayer and nothing to do with policy and history and the grand debates of our

time. now he said i want to have a high and noble time when we talk about this campaign. he doesn't change. he is situational and he gyrates and says whatever coming to his head at any given moment in time. that is the serial newt that a lot of us have come to know. i don't like that much. >> a final question to you. how does mitt romney go about executing his plan to e vis rate newt this evening if newt decides he is going to play the very polite stroke professor. >> it could be hard. it could be great or fascinating and we will all be watching. it could be hard. mitt romney has a problem in an earlier debate when rick perry was flailing all over the place and mitt was trying to get him to calm down. he comes off as the unlikable

boss and the guy. he has got smp self control issues and persona issues. that could make it hard for him to come out swinging. if newt wants to be above it all and take it, that will be interesting to see if romney punches himself out. there ways i think for him to not decent to a disgusting level, but make clear -- i think the whole pay for play, my opinions are based on who is paying me this month issue with gingrich is very powerful. it doesn't involve nastiness, but fact. there still things you can get in. >> better than nfl sunday night football in anticipation. thanks very much. coming up, is bane the

four-letter word haunting mitt romney? >> doesn't the speaker understand not all businesses succeed? fortunately most were able to be successful and i'm proud of that record. frankly very surprised that he would attack conservatism and free enterprise and capitalism. this is the party that believes in free enterprise. when you have tough pain, do you want fast relief? try bayer advanced aspirin. it's not the bayer aspirin you know. it's different. first, it's been re-engineered with micro-particles. second, it enters the bloodstream fast, and rushes relief to the site of your tough pain. the best part? it's proven to relieve pain twice as fast as before. bayer advanced aspirin. test how fast it works for you. love it, or get your money back.

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got uglier from there. >> governor romney would like to give back all the money hey earned from laying off employees, i would would be glad to listen to him. >> doesn't the speaker understand that not all businesses succeed? fortunately most of them were able to be successful and i'm proud of that record. frankly very surprised that he would attack conservatism and free enterprise. he would attack capitalism. this is a party that believes in free enterprise. >> william cohen is is a former wall street banker and the author of money and power. good to have you here. you heard mitt romney defending his record and saying that's part of capitalism. isn't the truth of what he did take hold of businesses and strip them and eventually sell them in part and raise dividens

and these companies went bust? >> martin -- >> that's the record, isn't it? >> it is and it needs to be thoroughly probe and it wasn't been to this point. the information is available and it's hard to get at, but the fact of the matter is that private equity firms all over the city and the country have been in the business of buying companies and loading them up with debt and trying to pay down the debt by stripping assets and laying off employees and generating as much cash as possible and paying themselves dividends and taking them and creating equity value where there was once debt and getting themselves wealthy. >> in the case of mitt romney, very, very wealthy. >> he's not the wealthiest private equity guy by any stretch, but he's very, very wealthy. that wealth is financing his campaign in large part. he call this is capitalism, it's

capitalism for a select few. >> a very select few. romney described ring rich as a wealthy man and referenced his tiffany account. >> by standards of the 1%, they are both in the 1%. newt definitely made himself quite wealthy since he left office. that's a standard construct in the country, but mitt did it by bending the rules of capitalism to his benefit. when they were allowed to take tax deductibility for interest expense on debt, that allowed all these private equity guys to thrive and make millions, billions even. it has been an incredible boom to the very few wealthy guys. >> one of the things that romney repeatedly said is he created jobs. his business strategy created

jobs. is that true? >> i would like -- this is where the detailed analysis comes in. if i were an o bam-or gingrich strategist, i would go through in detail whether he did create jobs and whether he was a job creator. a lot of people got laid off in a number of companies whether it was data international. they tried to make a lot of money from them and through them to bankruptcy. a number were liquidated. on balance, maybe it was like a staple that he started from scratch. he may have created a number of jobs and that's weighing in balance. >> in truth overall, a venture capitalist in the form of mitt romney working in a company like this, their very business is about fining these companies as you said loading debt against them and basically taking their money out and leaving them to

die. >> or leaving them to go on under a different ownership. the fact of the party matter is, i don't think he cared one whip. he cared about making money for himself and investors. he is not alone when it comes to that. that's why last night he had so much support from the world at steve schwartzman's apartment. >> he spent the day literally being followed by millionaires and billionaires. >> exactly. he comes to new york to raise capital. >> thank you very much for joining us. stay with us. the day's top lines of straight ahead.

> with the prospect of a

government shut down hanging over them, top lawmakers struck a more conciliatory tone over the battle of extending tax relief and unemployment benefits. luke russert is live at the white house. luke, is the keystone pipeline out along with drug testing for the unemployed or are they part of the bill? >> as i talked to you, those are still part of the bill and negotiations are ongoing between a few people that senator harry reid is talking with mitch mcconnell and john baner is caught in the loop. they met last night. there is there is a lot of rhetoric about a government shut down that is tampered by both speaker boehner and nancy pelosi. they would like to move away from that. nevertheless we are looking at right now the gop plan to still go forward and it supports the bill to fund the government with only gop votes that would be on

the floor tomorrow night and not hold back. they are doubling down on this idea and saying look, we paid the tax cut extension with keystone by freezing federal workers's salaries and reformed the unemployment benefits. they will double down on the office of saying dwee our work. what can the senate do? we are in this wait and see. honestly, the only thing that cuts through is real negotiations and talking to aides, they are ongoing. maybe they will come up with a government shut down. everything else looking like it will fall into the weekend. >> the president promised to reject a bill that would be loaded down with approval or cuts to entitlements. the president once again told congress no deal, no vacation. what came out of wednesday's meeting between the president and members of the senate democrats?

>> neither the white house norfolks on the hill are giving us a lot of detail about what specifically came out that was meeting, but martin, it seem like what came out of it is a desire to compromise on the issues. not necessarily on the ski stone pipeline, but there is a separate thing debated here which is how to extend the tax cut and how to pay for that. the president has been adamant he wants to see a deal done on that before congress leaves and in conjunction with this dig spending plan, the leading democrats were willing to compromise for the extension for a long time. they were saying they wanted to tax millionaires and making the most amount of money. republicans said they were not going to support that. they thought it would hurt small business owners. democrats might be willing to come to the table and try to find another way to pay for that

extension of the payroll tax cut. martin? >> on that point if i can jump in. >> very briefly. >> the sur tax on the millionaires, republicans are pushing back on the saying because it would never pass a democratic senate. the idea was if they got rid of the keystone, doesn't look like that would work. >> kristen welker, newly and formerly appointed. congrats to you and luke. >> congratulations, kristen. >> thank you. >> i'm honored. >> for much more on the state of congress, tune into the ed show at 8:00 eastern. my colleague speaks exclusively to leader nancy pelosi. stay with us. the day's top lines are coming up. >> he's a wealthy man. a very wealthy man. if you have a half million purchase from tiffany, you are not a middle class american. [ male announcer ] an lg smart tv, lg optimus cell phone

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like lg tvs with the latest technology. and get free shipping to your store or home. save money. live better. walmart. from breakfast at tiffany's to the sweet sound of herman cain. how we missed you, godfather. here are the top lines. >> newt gingrich has been an unreliable leader in the conservative movement. he went to washington to do good and he stayed to do well. >> no, no. i'm going to go ahead and try to talk over them. >> for you have a half million dollar purchase from tiffany's, you are not a middle class american. >> they should run the campaign the way they want and i will run mine the way i want to. >> in pointing out people's positions, not negative, but the candidates have responsibility to point out. his position used to be this. >> zany is not what we need in a

president. zany is great in a campaign. a leader needs to be someone with sobriety and stability. >> a brain science initiative is the way of the human being. i come down on the side of being -- i don't like to see people lose lives in wars. >> as your commander in chief, i am proud to finally say these two words. welcome home! >> what kind of cabinet position might you like if it were possible? >> we are speaking totally, totally hypothetical, right? >> the yes. >> the department of defense. >> what? >> the late has been on tv since television started and has never reacted viscerally like that. >> what? >> would you sing a little something for you in. >> only because it's you. are you ready? >> yeah.

>>. ♪ amazing grace will always be my song of praise ♪ merry christmas, barbara. >> merry christmas. >> let's get right to a preview of tonight's debate with our panel. joining me here in the studio, with us from washington msnbc contributor jonathan cape hart for the post and ken vogel, chief investigative reporter. we will get to the debate in a moment, but i top the play another piece of sound from barbara walters's ten most fascinating people that featured herman cain. take a listen to this. >> do you think any of this had to do with the fact that you are black? >> yes. because i happen to believe that the democrats did not want an accomplished, articulate,

optimistic black man to face president obama. i can't prove that, barbara. >> articulate and accomplished? really? >> yeah, really? herman cain, the only way that statement would be true is if this were 1996 and the president in the oval office was bill clinton and the articulate black man was colin powell. herman cain, i don't know what planet he is living on, but he's delusional. >> planet pizza? >> sure. >> let's get to the debate in iowa tonight. you described in your column that i read this morning, you described this race size like a reality tv show. we are having the 18th or 19th episode tonight. it has been fantastic. for people like yourself who take the republican party seriously. >> i try. >> this is horrifying. >> it's embarrassing, absolutely. there have been embarrassing moments that were at the hands

of candidates and some by the media. there is enough blame to go around. when you have two guys out there trying to outdo each other on who is the better rich person at a time when joblessness and the economy or at the forefront of these issues, it is embarrassing. let me tell you this. it's reminiscent of 2004. democrats trotted out whacky characters and john kerry and john edwards and howard dean. it was john kerry's to lose. he was up against a very unpopular president. still lost the election. i'm not worried that the cast of characters are too zany here. >> you are finding optimism in a difficult situation. >> mitt romney is the most electable guy hands down. if conservatives elect newt gingrich, they will have to forfeit credibility as well as the election. >> what are do you think candidates like rick perry and rick santorum and michele

bachmann have to do? this week has been dominated by newt versus mitt. >> what are they have to do is make an overt play for the social conservatives in iowa who formed a large percentage of the voting block and can sway the caucuses and have problems with each of the front-runners with romney. there is leeriness about his mormon faith and gingrich has weariness about his past infidelity and ron paul who focused on fiscal issues. there questions about him. if one of these second tier candidates can do something to cast doubt on and take advantage of the vulnerabilities of the front-runners with evangelicals, i think they have a chance to make noise in the iowa caucus and if one of them has a strong showing, it can throw the race into further chaos and put the potential out for a long primary fight. >> let's see ken's whole

strategy was hammer the negative. it's going to be another nasty night. >> it's going to be a slope fest. you will be looking at mitt versus newt. it's up to santorum and bachmann to play the social values card. they should do it in iowa before the caucus comes and the far right alternative to the squishy moderates like mitt romney and newt gingrich who even conservatives are questioning. >> the president said he should not be compared with the almighty, but with the alternative. isn't it the case that ever time one of the debates takes place, the president's rating goes up a little bit. >> up a little bit and the american people are taking a look at either of those candidates on the debate stage and listening to what they are saying and comparing it to the guy who is actually in the job now who is actually trying to

govern and think ken raises a good point about these candidates appealing to social evangelicals and social conservatives. >> that's fine. keep going. >> i'm sorry. they both talked about it. the point i'm trying to make is the more the candidates go for those voters, i think the more they hurt themselves with voters in new hampshire and the more moderate republican voters as the cat endar goes along. they might do themselves a great big favor and maybe even steal thunder in iowa. i wonder to what end as you look down the primary calendar. >> jonathan and ken, please stay with us if you will. there is much mer to come. >>. ♪ i will never know why jesus came to love me so ♪

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>> part is because he hasn't had the resources and that may work in iowa and that may be a real problem. especially if he doesn't win iowa. it will be important for the outside groups that were enabled and empowered by the supreme court decisions and the lower federal court decisions to spend unlimited money from real wealthy folks on ads with the candidates to come to his aid and we are reporting that one of the wealthiest backers, shelden adeleson committed to raising or directly writing a check for $20 million to one of the backs. >> that's a huge sum of money. he accused mitt romney of spoiling christmas by announcing the ads and being nice about them. >> both newt gingrich and mitt romney have pledged almost with

a straight face to conduct totally positive campaigns. mitt will stay above the fray and newt will keep positive. they run to the press and start slinging some pretty personal bashes at one another. i think newt, this is what he does. for mitt it's new. it's because newt represents a new threat to him. he is not like the other guys that people got to know and then dismissed. everyone knows newt. we are not going to learn anything about him that we never knew before. he has to take newt gingrich on. he knows that. that's what he is doing now. >> do you think what mitt romney is doing is using attack as the best form of defense knowing it's one of the nastiest politicians that the country ever produced in newt gingrich? >> i think you might be on to something, but the problem that mitt romney will have and is going to have that his tax, they

don't fit. they don't feel right. they feel actually kind of mean. when you look at the two people -- >> what do you mean? i don't get what you are saying. >> newt gingrich is not the nicest person in the world. he is actually a mean sob. mitt romney has been above the fray and has been trying to play the nice guy. as i said a couple of weeks ago, mitt romney is the sort of secret mean guy. the guy to whom you say something mean at 9:00 a.m., but when you go home at 5:00, your house is gone or the locks have been changed. he comes at you in a stealth way. this is what we have seen mitt romney trying to do. when he does things as you show in top lines of the attacks he was making on newt gingrich, they are not terribly nice. i don't know if that plays well with people in iowa or new

hampshire looking for the nice guy. >> very quickly. >> that's not what i heard from romney insiders. the word is he is so nice, almost to a fault. he is not doing mean very well. i don't think it's because he is trying to be secretly mean. that's not what i hear about him at all. >> jonathan cape hart and only refer to your appearances as a now show in the future. >> it's all in the family. >> no, it's not. stay with us. we will have much more ahead. in a business like ours, personal connections are so important. we use our american express open gold card to further those connections. last year we took dozens of trips using membership rewards points to meet with farmers that grow our sweet potatoes and merchants that sell our product. vo: get the card built for business spending.

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>> an historic day where leon panetta marked the end of the car in i wack. a conflict that claimed nearly 4,000 american lives. following the casing of the

colors, the secretary joined leaders in honoring our service members while being candid about the road ahead for the nation. chief foreign correspondent richardengel, has covered the war from the start and join us live from baghdad. richard, a solemn days in many ways, with the secretary of defense saying to the troops, your nation is deeply indebted to you. all of us, of course, honor their service, but this departure leaves many questions unanswered, doesn't it? not least, remaining diplomatic personnel and the fragile peace between iraq's sectarian groups. >> reporter: well, starting off with the remaining embassy personnel, this is not like any other embassy in the world. you're going to have between 15,000 and 18,000 people serving under the auspices of the embassy. many of those will be security contractors, in some cases, protecting other security contractors who are protecting

engineers, who are protecting logistics con voice. the actual number of diplomats at the embassy won't be that much larger or that much bigger than what you have at other embassies around the world. it is because of this layer after layer of security personnel in this country that it has gotten so big. and that is something that iraqis are going to not react well to. i think it is fair to say that the security contracting companies, like blackwater, although blackwater's changed its name and is not allowed to operate in this country, but companies like blackwater have a terrible reputation here and are hated by iraqis. so if that is the new face that iraqis are going to see of the embassy, then i think it's going to be very difficult for the embassy to pursue its mission, which is supposed to be fostering a new phase of relations with the iraqi people and with the iraqi government. >> and then, of course, there is the sunni/shia conflict and sectarianism, really, right the way through iraq. >> reporter: this country feels

with every passing year more like a shiite state. the shiites, the majority here, have benefited the most from the u.s. presence and they are exerting their power. the shiites control most of the key ministries and when you go and walk around this city, you see shiite flags and banners. when you go to ministries, they are openly discussing shiite religious air force. when you arrive at the airport, it is full of iranian pilgrims coming to visit shiite sites. and that is something that leaves many sunnis in this country concerned that they don't have a future in iraq. so, the more the shiite character of iraq develops, the more there is the potential that sunnis will feel squeezed and may react violently. >> and of course, finally, and briefly, if you can, richard, that raises the issue of that shiite country that neighbors iraq, iran. >> reporter: the iraqi officials, maliki in particular,

they're not shiite or iranian pawns, but they do feel a certain affinity to iran, and iran has a great deal of economic influence here, many travelers from iran are coming, and when you compare iran's influence, which is exerted through political friends on the ground, through charities that it funds, compared to america's influence, which is now going to be carried out by the face of thousands of hated security contractors, i think long-term, iran is probably going to have more success in winning friends and influence, which is ultimately what embassies want to do. >> nbc news chief foreign correspondent, richard engel. thank you, as ever. and we'll be right back. [ female announcer ] your mom, so proud. tells the neighbors all about her son, the lawyer. someday, but not today mr. intern. today, your boss needs her caffeine. the boss that calls you nick. your name is nate.

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again in an attempt to win over republican voters with little more than just two weeks until the real voting begins. and the one individual who everybody says has really prospered during these debates has been the current front-runner, mr. newt gingrich. part of the reason for his success has frankly been the terrible performance by some of the other candidates. candidates like rick perry. >> i would do away with the education, the, um the -- >> commerce. >> commerce. and let's see. i can't. the third one, i can't. i'm sorry. oops. >> poor old mr. perry. but the main reason for why newt gingrich seems to flourish is because he is never lost for words. gingrich has a quick answer for almost anything. but if you go back over what he actually says, it's usually a lump of ill-informed garbage wrapped up in the superficial ribbon of words like

"fundamental," "basic," and his all-time favorite, "literally." for example, take a look at what he said yesterday when he was invited to discuss brain science, but quickly moved from neuroscience to offering his thoughts on the subject of obesity. and as you listen, listen for the overwhelming authority with the way he delivers his lines. >> i actually don't think obesity is a problem of money, obesity is a problem of culture. obesity is a problem of getting people to get up and walk. literally, obesity is a problem of getting people to eat less junk food and to walk more. >> this is quintessential gingrich. simple, authoritative, and utterly wrong. there is not an epidemiologist in the world that will tell you that obesity is a simple problem. there's not a properly credentialed scientist who will tell you that the answer to obesity is to simply get up and walk. obesity is a multi-factoral

issue that is affected by everything, from the circumstances of a child's birth to the environmental factors of places where people can drive and not walk. but not in the world of newt gingrich. get up and walk. wow. and one who might have thought that for a man who closely resembles henry viii might possess a little humility, but not king newt. thanks so much for watching. dylan ratigan's here ready to go forward. what have you got? >> how do you keep your collar from getting screwy? do you ever think when you're all worked up, just giving newt gingrich the business on tv just getting your collar like this or that? >> i wear what are called collar stiffeners. >> what about the tie? >> things are fairly tight here,