this this sunday mitt romney rules in new hampshire. >> we celebrate as we go back to work. >> now the stage is set for the showdown in south carolina. >> those that are calling themselves true conservatives end up attacking a venture capitalism and capitalism in general and it's suggests a bit of a desperate time for some campaigns. >> i'm shocked. >> can romney be stopped? newt gingrich says yes, and i will ask him how when he joins me live from charleston this morning. republicans have condemned romney's rivals for leading an assault on free enterprise, and later perspective on what will drive the gop voter, and south carolina senator, lindsay graham, and congressman tim scott. and the bred's campaign compares

to seize on the same issue this fall. later perspective on what will drive the gop voter in the palmetto state, south carolina senator lindsey graham and tea party conservative from the state congressman tim scott. also here live this morning a rare conversation with senate majority leader, harry reid, the democrat leader of nevada. is a new tone possible in the new year? can anything get accomplished in the midst of the 2012 campaign? good morning. all the focus on south carolina, where gop voters will go to the polls next saturday. this weekend a group of prominent republican christian conservatives gathered in texas and gave a boost to rick santorum, and that was a

last-ditch effort to stop romney's march to the nomination. and what will it all mean? with us, former speak of the house, newt gingrich. speaker gingrich, welcome to "meet the press." >> good to be with you. elated. >> let's start there. you laid it out this week. and you said there's one way to stop romney in south carolina. this is what you said to fox news. >> if we consolidate conservatives, we could beat romney by a big margin. >> we heard from social conservatives in texas, and they said let's get behind rick santorum. do you feel pressure to consolidate behind rick santorum and get out of the race? >> that was highly exaggerated. we split that vote, and as of noon today, others who were there will be talking and they will indicate i have strong support from christian conservatives and social conservatives and that support continues. there was an agreement, the one

consensus was nobody was for mitt romney, but in fact there was a very strong santorum group and a very strong gingrich group at that particular meeting and the gingrich folks are very much for me and they will start speaking at noon today. >> but isn't this the issue? if you just look at the raw numbers here and the politics, there's not one alternative to mitt romney. there are several of you vying for that aoe van gel can vote down in south carolina. we have seen this movie before four years ago. and doesn't that help romney? >> sure. it does help him. and the only way a massachusetts moderate can get through south carolina is if the vote is split, but we have six days to make our case to people, and i think somebody who generally agree are the best debaters so far, and i think i have the best chance to beat obama, and i have the best chance given the past to change washington, and i have the boldest and most aggressive projobs plan as well as a record of working with reagan and with

the speaker with bill clinton, and we will make our case to the national security conservatives and social conservatives and economic conservatives that newt gingrich is the best candidate to defeat president obama. i think we're doing pretty darn well down here. >> so your feeling is despite what the social conservative group said over the weekend, rick santorum doesn't have more momentum here and he is not the obvious alternative choice to romney? >> no, the fact is if you look at the actual vote yesterday that we were very close in the vote, and that, in fact, the folks who will be speaking out starting at noon today, congressman watts and others, are very committed to my candidacy. and i think we will go into the last week of the campaign with a large amount of home ultimate here. the polls show consistently, i am the strongest rival to romney

in south carolina, and i think that the debate tomorrow night will be a very important part of that, and the debate thursday night will be a very important part of that. i think it's going to be a lively week. one of the most important weeks in the history of the gop because i think nominating somebody who is essentially a massachusetts moderate makes it much harder to defeat president obama, and nominating somebody who is a reagan conservative makes it easier to defeat president obama. >> well, let me pick up on that point. this has been your charge. you talk about lively. and i think about the debate last week was fairly lively between all of you, and this is the charges you made against romney. let me play it. >> i think a bold reagan conservative with a very strong economic plan is a lot more likely to succeed in that campaign than a relatively timid massachusetts moderate. >> speaker, this is your flyer that you are circling in new hampshire. and it says clearly romney is not electable.

>> i think he will have a hard time getting elected. >> let's look at how conservatives actually voted having heard that pitch from you. and these were some of the exit polling, 42% of conservatives voted for romney, and only 14% for you, and then how about this from the exit poll, among those satisfied or dissatisfied, 63% said they would be dissatisfied with you, and these are conservatives who are actually voting. how do you respond to that? >> governor romney governed next door for four years, and bought a house in new hampshire, and lived in new hampshire for years. that was his third best state in the country after utah and massachusetts. so it shouldn't be very surprising in his stronghold he did adequately, and it was not overwhelming but adequate. the question is when you think about the whole country -- go ahead. >> wait a second. >> if this is a place where they know him best, and he was a timid republican moderate governor, don't you know those

in new hampshire would know that best? >> when you come to south carolina and you learn, for example, he favored gun control and raised the tax on guns 400%, that has a real impact in south carolina, and that's a real contrast. people are strongly for the second amendment as i am. and that's a real contrast. i think, again, when paul got exactly the same vote in new hampshire as romney did, it was considered a defeat, and you bill clinton was called the comeback kid even though he lost. so you have to look at regional characteristics. just ask yourself a simple question. is it better to draw a bold, clear line between a reagan conservative and the most liberal president in our history, or is it better to have somebody in many ways, romney care versus obama care, and tax increases in massachusetts, and the 47th worst record in creating jobs in massachusetts,

and it's harder for romney to draw a sharp contrast than it would be for me. >> let me ask you about your own candidacy. you were hear eight months ago back in may. after the appearance when you criticized the medicare reform plan from ryan, it looked like you were over before you started and then you came back and you said six weeks ago, you said odds are i will be the nominee and then you went down again. how do you explain the ups and downs in your campaign? >> well, i think -- in the summer i was surprised the intensity of the washington establishment of the tax and the number of different people who said gingrich is dead and gone, i calmly kept having positive ideas as you know, and having positive ideas by early december, the gallop poll had me up by something like 12 or 15 points over governor romney nationally. and then the romney campaign understood reality and

they decided they would throw $3.5 million in negative ads for iowa. and i thought it was bad for the country and a bad tactic, and as a result, we slid from a very strong first to coming in fourth. we revamped the campaign and accepted the reality that you unilaterally disarm and get out of the race or have some ability to match the level of negativity that governor romney's campaign engages in. and i think if you look at what is happening right now in south carolina, we're ready to call this between to really dramaly slow down his progress and have a lot of people raising questions about whether or not governor romney could withstand the campaign this fall and stand up to barack obama in debates. >> let's talk about going negative. again, the debate on "meet the press" last sunday, you previewed what is a film against

romney's time as head of bain capital, a firm unveiled by your super pac, which is run by a former top adviser to you, and this is how you previewed it sunday. >> when the 27 1/2 comes out, i hope it's accurate. i can say publicly i hope that the super pac runs an accurate movie about bain. it will be based on established newspapers like the "washington post", "new york times", washington journal, barrens, bloomberg news. and i hope it is totally accurate and people can watch the 27 1/2 minutes of his career, bain, and decide for themselves. >> i'm not going to play all 27 minutes. >> if there was a topic sentence, i think it would be this. >> a group of corporate raters, led by mitt romney, and the company was bain capital, and it was more ruthless than wall street. >> the film is not accurate, is it? >> well, some flaws in the film. i promptly said this is the difference between governor

romney and me. when the "washington post" said governor romney's super pac in a 30-second commercial was wrong on four different counts, he didn't know anything about it. when it said something similar to the film, i promptly said i hoped they would make it accurate, and all of this is out in the open because you cannot communicate privately under the law, and i said that publically, and as i understand it, rick tyler has said he is prepared to edit the film and submitted five questions to romney's campaign to get accuracy and clarity to edit the film. i think if we're going to have these kind of super pacs, there should be some effort to make them accurate, and the tough ads should be factual. >> so you can it should stay up? it shouldn't be pulled down completely? >> i think that's a question frankly they should decide once they make it accurate.

i would oppose it being run if it's inaccurate. i think that should be a reasonable standard. i wish governor romney would go by the same standards. and phreugs publicly call on his pac. you know how hard it is and negative is it to have four mistakes in a 30-second commercial. >> it's easy after the cat is out of the bag, and the commercial is run, and now it's easy to say i think they ought to edit those things out, and how do you unring the bell? you got the benefit of that negativity, didn't you? >> i think the questions are being raised by a lot more folks than newt gingrich, and i think governor romney ought to answer the questions. you will notice, by the way, he has been saying he created 100,000 jobs in the private sector, and this week he got three pinocchios in the washington post, and now he is down to saying thousands of jobs, and not 100,000 jobs. this is sorting out of the process in a campaign, and i have tried to be precise in

descriptions about the governor's record and my own record. i worked with reagan, and we helped to create 16 million new jobs, and i worked with clinton the speak of the house, and we created 11 million new jobs. those are factually verifiable by people month want to see what the campaign is doing. >> you talk about there should be more facts and records. there are questions about whether governor romney should release his tax records, and is that part of what you would like to see now? >> he has to make his own decision. president obama is releasing his records this coming thursday, and i will release my income tax records, and we agree this is part of the process of the american people having trust in the candidates. i think governor romney, if he plans to stay in the race, ought to plan to release his records, because he will never get through the fall without releasing his records, and it's better to do it in the primary season so the country understands what is going on and

not wait and be surprised in september. i think it's the right thing to do, and we're going to work -- right now we have our folks working to release our records on thursday so the american people can see them. >> do you think governor romney is hiding something? >> i don't know that. you are the reporter. i'll let you decide that. i think the country deserves accountability and transparency. and these are big issues and not issues that you can hide from. i will try to set the example to provide leadership to do the right thing, and then governor romney has to decide what he is going to do. that's his decision, and i will let you determine why he makes that decision. >> let me pin you down on this point. going back to the film, it said bain capital was more ruthless than wall street. let's be clear here. are you suggesting that what bain did as venture capitalist on behalf of investors including pension funds for working people, firefighters and the

like was equivalent to saying what aig did in coming up with complex financial instruments that ultimately led to financial collapse or subprime lenders, and are you suggesting that's the equivalence in how ruthless they were? >> all i'm saying is there's an article i believe in the "washington post" this morning in which somebody who was an investor and a deal maker says flatly he got to a point where he would not deal with them or work with them. i recommend you read his article. i am not an expert in this kind of financial stuff, but i do think if you are going to run for president, and if you are going to base a large part of your claim on your business experience, you have to have some expectations of people asking you to open up the books and prove it. you can't just run for president on claims. you have to have an actual experience. my life has been so much in the public sector, and if i say i worked with ronald reagan to develop a jobs plan, that's demonstrable. and if i say we worked with president clinton and we had

unemployment come down to 4.2% and balanced the budget for four straight years, and that's out in the open. governor romney should be held to the same test of being out in the open. >> besides referring to articles that have been written about this, you believe governor romney is a good businessman and has been a good businessman, don't you? >> sure. i think he's a tough and smart businessman. and the question is what is his character and what was his judgment? how does that relate to being president? are there legitimate questions that can be asked that ought to be answered by somebody who wants to be president. it's a much different standard than somebody running a business. it's a question about how you approach people. how you approach circumstances, what values you bring to bear, and those are legitimate questions for all of us are running for president and people should know it before they vote, because the presidency is such a central position in our society

that you want to know what does this person think, what are they doing, and what values do they bring to the oval office, and those are totally legitimate questions. >> the wall street journal, and conservative politicians and commentators and others, they wrote this. the bain capital bonfire, bain's business model is a little more than rich people figures out clever ways to loot a company. and these candidates are desperate but do they have to sound like michael moore? and are you comfortable, speaker gingrich, being casts as the michael moore of this republican primary? >> look, i am totally committed to free enterprise, and i am particularly committed to small businesses and intrapreneurs, and startups, and i am committed to the people that work hard to save companies. i used to be on an advisory board, and teddy forceman went down and took over a company and turned it around and saved the

jobs, and that was because those were his values, and that was his level of commitment to try and make sure the company could succeed. i am very much for capitalism and free enterprise, and i am for it as it relates to small businesses and main street, but to say that raising a question about a particular company and a particular style for somebody who wants to run for president suddenly gets turned into a class action is foolishness. this is about one man that ran for office on a commitment about his own career, and the minute you start to question that career, all of a sudden people throw up all the smoke screens. all he has to do is talk about his career, and this is about somebody that wants to be president, and that's a matter of values, character and behavior. >> if you lose in south carolina, do you have to get out of the race? >> well, you certainly have to reassess it, but frankly i think

we will win here and we are increasingly consolidating and i am excited about the next seven days, and we have stuff planned all over the state and i think it's going to be a very, very exciting campaign. >> i don't mean to dampen your expectations, but if romney does win, is he the nominee? is it over? >> well, sure. look, if romney wins here, he has an enormous advantage going forward, which is why i think it's important for every conservative who wants to have a conservative nominee to rally around -- i am the one person who has a realistic chance of defeating him here, and they would reach the conclusion to vote for anybody but gingrich will help romney win south carolina. that's the heart of the message for the next six days. >> all right. before i let you go, i have to ask you something that is funny and ridiculous about politics. here is a portion of a web ad you have against mitt romney. i will play a portion.

>> and just like john kerry -- he speaks french, too. this obsession with the french, speaker gingrich. if mitt romney speaks french, then voters in south carolina should conclude what? >> no. that whole ad was designed to take dukakis, barney frank, and john kerry and mitt romney and say this is what massachusetts is like. mitt romney is governor, and governed like a massachusetts politician. he is much closer to dukakis and kerry than ronald reagan. frankly you just proved the point of putting that in, it was funny, and more people -- that web ad has gone viral because people think it's funny, and i rest the case as cain used to say, it's nice to have a sense of humor. and that whole ad is about having a sense of humor and getting people to show it, as

you just did. >> just to be clear, as somebody who lived two years in france as you did, you don't have a problem with anybody speaking french especially when they were a missionary in france, which is what romney was. >> i lived in france as a child. i did my dissertation in belgium. but you have to confess when you look at the whole ad, it does work. and comes together perfectly and ties romney back to dukakis and kerry and that's the whole point of the ad. >> speaker gingrich, good luck on the trail and we'll be watching you. >> thank you. coming up, six days before south carolina, is it the last stand for republicans if they want to stop romney from becoming the nominee? we will talk to two republicans, senator lindsay graham and congressman tim scott. but first a year year. will it be a new congress? after the bitter political this

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we're back and joined we're back and joined by senate majority leader, harry reid. i want to talk about what is going on in washington first. this is not a good time to be a washington insider. just look at the polling. the worst congress ever. look at the disapproval of congress at 66%. as you are going into this new year, democrats and job approval of democrats may be more specific, and what can you as the majority leader or the president do to change that? >> first of all, i understand the frustration of the american people and i feel the same way. but understand that we have had obstructionism on steroids. the republican leader, and my counterpart, mitch mcconnell. we spent months on things that

used to happen matter of factually. raising the debt ceiling. we did it for president reagan 18 times, and we spent 2 1/2 months doing that. so the number one goal -- i hope the republicans have learned a lesson as extendsing the payroll tax, and that was a disaster for them. can you believe they were opposed to lowering taxes? so i would hope that they understand that everything doesn't have to be a fight. legislations are made to be together and compromise, and i hope the tea party doesn't have the influence, and it had been really bad for this country, and i understand why the american people feel the way they do. because it has been really bad for this country. >> you thought the tea party would die out as the economy got better, and you were not ready about that? >> i think the tea party is dying out as the economy is

getting better slowly. >> you believe that. >> oh, sure. no question about that. >> and we talk about their muscular impact on the process. >> well, but that's during the past year. i would hope that the two republican leaders have learned what took place in the previous year. you know, what we have to focus on this year is rebuilding the economy. we have to. the only way to do that is to create jobs, and that's why the agenda that i am moving forward on, i hope with cooperation from the republicans this time, it's to do something about creating jobs. our surface transportation bill, it will save jobs and create jobs and the federal aviation administration, that will save 200,000 jobs. and it's important to this network right here, and that's of course dealing with informational -- with making sure that we have intellectual property that's protected. and

we need to do that. and that's job saving. so that's what we need to work on, things that create jobs and protect the american economy. >> on that point, because it has been a big issue, because i am on facebook and twitter, and people say that's a bill that appears to be helpful but could have an affect on clamping down with free expression on the internet. >> this bill was unanimous with democrats and republicans, and in recent weeks, organizations by google and facebook and others have said that there are problems this could create, and i think they're right, it could create problems, and i have spoke to the chairman of the committee and wrote a letter to the ranking member, saying there's issues that have come up and i think we need to have this a winner for everybody, not just for the content people. i have spoken at length with senator feinstein, and she is in the eye of the storm in california, because that's where theft of music and movies is taking place and also where google and facebook is headquartered.

so we need to work on this, and i hope we can have a managers amendment when we get back in a week or ten days, and it's important that we try to do this on a fair basis and i will do everything that i can to get that done. >> you mentioned senator mcconnell promising to make the president a one-term president, and i hope you don't mind. but last week during the debate and i invoked your name to raise this question about how washington works. this is the question that i posed to newt gingrich during the debate last week. >> speaker gingrich, if you become president gingrich and the leader of the democrats, harry reid, says he will promise to make you a one-term president. how would you propose to work with somebody like that in order to achieve results in washington? >> i think every president that works with every leader of opposition knows they are working with somebody that wants to make them a one-term

president. >> you led the charge against president bush and you were pleased when his approval ratings were knocked down, and gingrich is saying this is how it's done in washington. >> you can be against somebody being re-elected, but not as your number one goal. we have had obstructionism on steroids. we need to work together, and that's the name of the game here and it hasn't happened. the only way to get things done is by cooperation, and if we are going to rebuild america which is our number one program, we have to do that by creating jobs. >> there was a poll asking who should have the most influence in this new year? 46% said obama, and 42% said republicans and congress, and this is after you and president obama had been out there campaigning saying it's all the republicans' fault, and they are standing in the way and it's tight between who should have most influence, the president or the republicans. >> we know we have a unique form of government. a constitution which i think has been the most defining document

in the history of the world for having good government. we have three separate equal branches of government, and the only way you get things done is not to have one dictate what happens, it's all a balance, and that's what i think that we have to look for this coming year. we have not had that balance, because we had one arm saying we will do nothing but go after obama, and that's not the way we get things done. >> you know what they are saying, you run the democrats. democrats have not put together a budget in a year, and the republicans in the house are doing that, and they are getting things done, and that's the argument they have made. are they wrong? >> david, you know having been around washington a long time, how the senate works, and the senate works on consensus, and we have not been able to get that because the republicans -- i repeat for the third time, i want to make sure everybody understands this, obstructionism on steroids. >> no, i wrote that down. >> that's been the problem.

i hope with what happened the last week in the last week of congress, republicans learned they cannot be guided by the tea party, because the tea party is putting them over the cliff. you want to talk about polling? a recent poll shows american people favored democrats in congress 40% to 22% to republicans. there are all kinds of polls. the point is they don't matter. we're in a new year of this congress, and what i want to do is to work to get things done to rebuild this economy. >> we talk about the president and his approach to congress, because ultimately you can talk about building consensus and it requires leadership on the part of both parties to actually achieve results. this was interesting. this caught my eye in "usa today." obama has given up on compromise, not giving up on

moderation under clinton who ran obama's transition team after the 2008 election, and he's just giving up on the house and senate. i'm listening to you this morning and you sound about the same. have you given up on the prospect of real compromise this year? >> i think i said clearly today that i think that we need to work together. there are things we need to get done this year to continue the momentum the economy has. does the economy have enough momentum? of course not. but for 22 months we have built on private sector jobs and we have so much more that needs to be done, so i look at the glass as being half full and not half empty, and i hope the republicans have learned that they cannot be led over the cliff by the extremism -- >> so you say in the union address. what does the president say to the congress and country that breaks the log jam? what can he say that gets republicans off the sidelines,

as you would put it, to start negotiating with democrats? >> the president, to his credit, for 2 1/2 years, bent over backwards to develop bipartisanship. he had people down at the white house, republicans down at the white house. he came to capitol hill. nobody can ever criticize the president for reaching out to republicans, because he has done that. since last september, we have been more directed in saying we have to do things without the republicans and that's what we have done, and that's what we did with his jobs bill. we kept bringing votes forward to move the american economy forward. look at one of the things we did that was so important, and we thought it was wrong to lay off teachers and firefighters and police officers across the country, so we thought we would have the whole american populists work together, and we said the millionaires, people that make more than $1 million a year, should not the they contribute to keep the cops and the firefighters and the

teachers on the job? so what we wanted to do, and this is the legislation, we wanted to have millionaires, and that is people that make more than $1 million a year, they would pay one-half of 1% tax, and every republican voted against that. >> you were talking about democrats are dug in on the idea that rich pay more in taxes, and republicans feel opposite, and i asked you what can the president do to break the log jam, and your answer is hopefully they will do better, and there's nothing here that would help people see change in washington. you are blaming the tea party, and the republicans are blaming the president for not reaching out in a real way and trying to compromise, and is there anything that can be done to really change the dynamic? >> i don't think anybody can question -- or they shouldn't

question our reaching out to the republicans. we have done everything we could to work with them. we will continue to do that in spite of the obstructionism. we have been able to accomplish a lot of good things during the last congress, even somebody as conservative as frank hornstein said, they were productive. in spite of the republicans we got a lot of things done, we had the most productive congress in the history of congress. all i ask is for the republicans to understand what legislation is all about. it's the compromise and building of consensus. >> the way washington works is what people are focused on and even the recessed appointment to head the consumer protection bureau, this has been a big issue on the campaign trail because you're in a pro forma

session, and not a real session, and this is what governor romney is saying last night. i think what you're seeing with the president is extra constitutional action. he is taking hi friends and putting them in position of power. he doesn't want to work with both parties. he wants to jam through whatever he wants to do. >> this is washington at work as far as the republicans are concerned. >> one of the things the president has done that has been so popular is appointing cordray, a man, not a single republican has called for his qualifications. we did what a lot of presidents have done in the past, and when i say we i mean the white house, what he is doing is criticizing teddy roosevelt that recessed

16 po people. and ronald reagan recessed to appoint people. listen, the point is this, the president is entitled by our constitution to appoint people. the republicans have made it so that the national labor relations board, they didn't want it to even work, and he had to do recess appointments there. cordray. that's what this is all about. that's why it was such a good move by the president. i am confident that the president's recess appointments will be upheld in the courts. without any question, i think that will be the case. >> let me go through some issues if i can. >> let me ask you -- >> if i could say, the recess appointment is something that i came up with during the bush years, but the reason bush didn't do recess appointments during the time we had the recess is because i worked with him, and we gave president bush hundreds and hundreds of people. he didn't have to worry about recess appointments because we

were working with him, and i believe the man that i believe now the president has the right to make appointment. >> you talk about the economy and income equality, and i want to play a clip with suze orman and then ask how the president will deal with it. >> when the truth of the matter is the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and i used to say the middle class will disappear, and the middle class has disappeared. today as i sit here, there is a highway into poverty. there is not even a sidewalk anymore to get out. >> specifically, state of the union coming up, what is the inequality agenda for democrats as we get into this new year? >> to create jobs. to have the richest of the rich contribute to the problems we have in the country. i couldn't have said it better than she did. i think she is absolutely right. the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and the middle class is being

squeezed almost to death. >> when is your take on mitt romney? is he the no, ma'am rhee for the republicans? >> i watched the battles during the primary, and there's a lot going on. the republicans are beating up on each other. i will stay out of the presidential republican primary. >> do you think he has a core? >> i don't know what a core means. >> you said he is a man that doesn't know who he is? >> listen, the republicans have said a lot of things, good and bad about romney. i think that i don't need to interject myself into the republican primary. >> what about the democrats this fall in the senate? you have 23 democratic seats up for re-election, and only ten republican seats are up, and nelson just announced he is retiring. do you think losing control of the senate to the democrats is a

possibility? >> we are doing extremely well. people across the country know what democrats stand for. we stand for taking care of the middle class and rebuilding america. we don't believe you should be stripping good things from the senior citizens of this country in an effort to do good things for the richest of the rich. we believe health care should not be rationed, and people know that. we're going to do just fine come november. >> you are not vulnerable to losing the senate in your judgment? >> i think we're looking pretty good. >> what about in nebraska? would you like to see former senator, bob kerrey, to run? >> who wouldn't? he is one of the most interesting, dynamic, heroic people and a wonderful human being, as proven in the battle field and proven when he was a legislator and governor. >> best democratic prospect? >> we have a lot of good democratic prospects. we have massachusetts, and north

carolina, and arizona, and we have nevada, and we're doing just fine with prospects. kerrey would certainly add to that. >> we will leave it there. thank you. coming up, more on the fight for south carolina and the republican primary race. republicans there picked the party's nominee in every cycle since 1980, and after romney picks up in iowa and new hampshire, his rivals, as you heard this morning, are turning up the heat by attacking his claim on jobs, and we will have senator lindsay graham and representative tim scott coming up next on "meet the press." at claim on jobs, and we will have lindsay graham and tim scott coming up next on "meet the press." this is an rc robotic claw. my high school science teacher made me what i am today. our science teacher helped us build it. ♪ now i'm a geologist at chevron, and i get to help science teachers. it has four servo motors and a wireless microcontroller. over the last three years we've put nearly 100 million dollars into american education.

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we're back. we're back. joining me now is representative tim scott, and the senator from south carolina as well, lindsay graham. welcome to both of you. senator graham, this is the cover of the weekly standard, and it tells the story if you look at it.

can the romney juggernaut be derailed? you said if the election were held tomorrow, you are saying it would be newt gingrich who would win south carolina. who do you think will win now? >> i think the super pacs have had a big impact on the race. and if for some reason he is not derailed here and mitt romney wins south carolina, i think it should be over. no one has won all three. there would be quite a testament to his ability as a candidate and campaign, and i hope the party would rally around him if he did win south carolina. >> tim scott, if they are going to drive the outcome. the social conservative leaders meet in texas, and they say the guy is rick santorum. but you heard speaker gingrich

who said i don't think he's going anywhere. what is the impact of their vote over the weekend? >> well the evangelical vote will be huge, and there will be a strong turnout, but you have to consider you have three people going after the evangelical vote strongly. that works to the romney campaign's benefit. it's hard to find a single candidate that rallies all of the christian voters in south carolina, and therefore that splintered approach will probably have a major impact on saturday. >> what is driving the vote? you go to your district, and you are talking to people in the state, and what is really going to drive the vote in south carolina? >> well, our unemployment rate in south carolina is almost 10%, so the thing that i think voters are heading into, whether you are evangelical or whether you are a liberal or libertarian, you are looking at who helped to create jobs in this economy. you are thinking about who will help create jobs.

>> senator, how do you answer that as well? it's the economy, yes, and we heard a lot about the attacks and you heard it again this morning from speaker gingrich on governor romney and his time at bain capital. is that going to be an issue that voters are really going to vote on? >> i think what drives the uncertainty and the undecided vote right now is who can beat obama? that's what i am focused on. the idea that you make a claim that i have been a great businessman and created 100,000 jobs, and i think it's fair to say prove that claim. but if the attack against governor romney is private equity is bad for the economy, i think that's misplaced. without them a lot of these companies would not get traditional financial backing they would sell, but the idea of proving your claim that you created 100,000 jobs is a legitimate inquiry, and attacking capitalism is not. the number one thing that i am looking at is who can stand up to barack obama and make him a one-term president.

>> you talk about whether it helps the other side. tim scott, you on fox news this week said this about the attacks on romney and bain. i will play it for you. >> one thing without any question that is true today and that is that the winner of the 28-minute commercial is president barack obama. starting and feeding into the cultural war is absolutely unequivocally wrong for us as a nation and bad for the conservative movement. >> and yet gingrich said that film had errors in it and should not be taken down, and he said the record at bain was as ruthless as wall street. do you think that's fair? >> well, i think that's probably inconsistent with reality, and there's no question that the storyline that will play out in the fall if romney is our nominee, there will be many ads run by the president talking about what republicans said

about our own nominee. i think that's just bad for the country, because i think the country absolutely needs a new president. >> do you think romney, if he's the nominee, has been hurt by this sufficiently that they are giving the president a very potent issue to use against him as the nominee? >> well, they are certainly buying into a liberal storyline without a question. i hope whoever our nominee ends up being, this process of choosing the nominee will help him to be a tougher candidate and give him a tougher opportunity now so the road gets easier later. >> when are you going to endorse? have you made up your mind who you are going to endorse? >> we had a forum yesterday, david, where i had an opportunity to listen to five very strong candidates, and i walked away with a little more clarity. i am going through the process of elimination. this is a very difficult choice, because each candidate really represents something that i really like, and i believe the country needs, but the question that senator graham was talking

about is who matches my values and who can win, and that's the guy we will support. >> do you think anybody but romney has a realistic shot at beating the president? >> i think we'll know the answer saturday. if romney wins south carolina, i think the game is over. this is the last stand for many candidates. you will see the candidates coalescing around together around one option, and that's taking this race to florida with some momentum. >> let me ask you both this. and congressman scott, you are a tea party candidate in your state, and harry reid just talked about that, and this column says most people expected the tea party to shape the 2012 election, yet the one credible contender it has produced embodies everything the tea party despises. in an age of populist

discontent, they will battle over the middle ground. it will be interesting to see what happens to all the passion beneath them. senator graham, you never thought the tea party as a political movement could survive? >> well, what i said is that the tea party is associated with changing an out-of-control government. most americans associate themselves that we're too far in debt and we spend too much. tim scott is the rising star in the republican party, and he gets as much chamber of commerce support as the tea party. they are basically ronald reagan conservatives. people other than mitt romney can beat barack obama. he has been a very unproductive president, and the question for the country is do you expect your life to change if you give barack obama a second term to keep doing the same things he has done in the first term? this is our election to lose.

the only way we will lose it, if we go too long in terms of the primary and the attacks go too far. we have not done that yet. as long as we keep this inbounds. bush said reagan's politics were voodoo, and they ended up winning. so we haven't done damage to ourselves yet. tim is right. be careful what you say. south carolina is looking at you hard. we will pick the most electable conservative, and mitt romney is a good man the tea party people should look at closely to vote for, because i think he can beat barack obama. i think that's all of our goals. >> you are not endorsing him, or are you prepared to do that? >> i don't know who i will vote for, because i know in south carolina, we pick presidents here and this is the best chance i have seen in years for the republican party to revive itself, and to prove we can lead and to end the barack obama administration.

i have to ask you to be brief. 15 seconds. is romney, in your view, a tea party candidate? >> i would say that we have five strong candidates running for president in the republican nomination process right now. i would probably say he is the least of the candidates running for president right now that would be considered a tea party candidate. the question is can he win? any republican nominee is better than the president we currently have. >> we will leave it there. thank you very much, we will be watching the vote. >> thank you. before we go, stay with nbc and msnbc all week. continuing coverage of the campaign in south carolina. full coverage of the primary results saturday night and complete analysis right here sunday morning. that is all for today. we will be back next week. if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com ♪

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