>> what do you think a tree can be? can it be stronger than steel? can a tree be ground into plastic? can it be fuel for cars or clothing? or medicine that fights cancer? with our tree cell technology we think it can. weyerhauser. growing ideas. >> i will in the acceptance speech challenge the president to seven, three-hour debate. >> this week, newt gingrich soaring in the polls and

brimming with self-confidence. >> if i am president, i will be true to my family, my faith, and our country. >> mitt romney, family man, targeting you know who. >> i did not think anybody has been flawless. >> this is the defining issue of our time. this is a make or break moment for the middle-class. >> president obama channels his inner city roosevelt and reviews his 2012 campaign. secretary of health and human services overrules the fda on the after-sec's goal for young girls. if you are a republican who wants to the president, why must you seek the blessing of donald trump? >> a great honor to have newt up there. it is amazing how well he is doing. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> lets start by acknowledging that poles cannot predict the

future, especially in places like iowa and new hampshire. however, i felt compelled to note that according to a recent poll, newt gingrich has double- digit lead over mitt romney in florida, pennsylvania, and ohio. well ahead of mitt romney in iowa and getting closer in new hampshire and with out in front in south carolina. this is making a lot of democrats giddy but happiness. they may want to be careful what they wish for. it has some mainstream republicans riddled with anxiety -- but newt gingrich says he will take the high road no matter what. >> i will stay positive. i will talk about how we saw the budget problem and i have one of hoenig, barack obama. -- one opponent, barack obama. >> i am not inclined to be a supporter of new gingrich after having served under him for four years. >> i don't think newt gingrich cares about conservative principles. he cares about newt gingrich. >> republican senator tom coburn and former new hampshire -- john

sununu. what happened to ronald reagan's command, thou shalt not speak ill of a fabric -- fellow republican? >> i applaud newt for trying to stay on a high road. he is using surrogates, not doing it himself. but you have sununu and others tried to taken down. newt has tremendous of vulnerabilities and romney will try to exploit them. >> charles? >> newt says his only opponent is obama. not exactly true. his main opponent is the media. part of the reason he was so popular in their early debates is he took on every question every moderator. he is on a rocket ride. we will see if he can sustain himself without having an apollo 13 moment. >> colby? >> he will take the high road until his numbers go down. he will make set up with mitt romney, if he has to.

-- will mix it up with mitt romney, if he has to. romney put out a commercial that took a hit at newt because of his criticism of paul ryan's planned. >> richard nixon came back from the political boneyard, why not newt gingrich? >> he could. what we have seen it this week is an explosion and public of what you're in private from republicans who know him and don't love him. it is really across the board. the people who served with him. the people who came in with him and congress who you would think would be grateful, but they are not. they don't trust him. they do not think he is the kind of -- to be president, and they are worried he will take them apart with him. but there is no question whether it can sell to the rest of the country that does not know him. >> let's talk about his positives. he is a good debater, not afraid

to take on the moderator, which everybody likes. he will attack in any direction of. you don't know where he is coming from. also, he has a track record. declines of the credit -- does not give any to bill clinton, but still -- >> as i discovered, often attacking the moderator is an excellent tactic. to put it in the least invidious way, the people worry about him because he gets seized with enthusiasms. let's not talk about motives, but if there is an intellectual fad of global warming or a new kind of management techniques, he is on board. people are worried if he is president of the united states, who knows what side of that he will wake of on -- what side of the betty will wake up on? and he is a big government republican in the tradition of

george w. bush and many others in the past. he is not sort of out of the mainstream in that way. but the party is now student -- small government, at least the major elements and the thrust of it. i did ultimately that is going to be his problem. >> let us given his due. when he was speaker of the house, just getting there was an achievement. he actually got the house to vote to cut medicare in the summer of 1993 -- no, 5, summer of 1995. that was an act of leadership, a hard thing to do. he got his colleagues to cut entitlements and that will be the no. 1 job of the president to cut entitlements. it also knows a whole lot more history than his colleagues. it is a low bar but he is relatively smarter than the people he is debating. having said that, he is somebody who is a fabuloust cannot help myself. he makes a lot of sense until the 59th minute and then he

exaggerates. >> when i say the democrats should be careful what they ask for, i mean, this is a weird year. >> this is a very weird year. democrats -- hard to remember -- but they thought having ronald reagan as the standard bearer would be good. they thought they could beat him. they were wrong. they could be wrong about this. but newt has a way of stepping in it. and let's not forget, he did it essentially plead guilty to an ethics violation and paid $300,000 when the republicans controlled the house. >> and ronald reagan -- newt gingrich will really get it from the neck from his own party. you see the establishment lining up to take shots at new gingrich. if he got the nomination, the record against him will be handed to the democrats and they will run against him. >> as of the co-author of the new political online book "the right fights back," let me ask you, is this where they want to

go, newt gingrich? >> i don't think so. and i think the right well as mentally destroy him. -- and eventually destroy him. but the right does not want romney, either, and they did not have an ideal candidate to they are fooling around with the flavor of the month and having a hard time warming up to mitt romney. >> the ride that newt is having now is the ride perry was supposed to have, and he blew it. >> i think the anti-romney sense has been very strong and constant. 30% of the electorate. it has looked for a vassal each time. what i think is in his favor is, he is last on the list. i am not sure there are plausible alternatives. he is also the most adept, the best on his feet, a lot of

ideas. he might be the one who does not actually come down. >> the clock is in his favor. >> president obama previewing coming attractions. >> teddy roosevelt came here and he laid out his vision for what he got a new nationalism. for this he was called a radical, he was called a socialist, even a communist. >> in his kansas speech this week, the president says his political opponents have been on the wrong side of history for a century. >> philosophy is simple -- we are very often -- better off when people fend for themselves and play by their own rules. i am here to say they are wrong. >> robert reich, bill clinton that is secretary of labor, said it was the most important economic speech of obama's presidency. the president said the future of the middle-class is the defining issue because what is at stake is whether this is a country where the working people can't

-- it can earn enough, save, and have retirement. roosevelt spoke about income inequality. what does it tell you? >> it lays out a philosophical differences between barack obama and his republican opponents. i don't think it is an economic speech that he gave, because there were few economic prescriptions. but he did discuss -- he put into perspective how we got here. he addressed the question of collective amnesia about our past and what we had to do as a country to get to where we are is completely different from what you would get from, say, a paul ryan, the way you look at america. >> charleston i read your column. you said he was not channeling teddy roosevelt as much as hugo chavez. >> yes, he talked about how we

got here. he gave a nice historical rundown accepted that it left out a critical three years -- his presidency. it is as if it did not exist. like we jump from 2008 to today. if his speech was a tense -- intended to say that everything that happened the past three years had nothing to do with my administration or policies -- economic stagnation, high unemployment -- it is the result of the malice of the rich. he talked about that at length. a classic example of how little it takes to sturdy erogenous zones of liberals. you give them a speech with social justice, a little bit of class warfare, you wrap up in the patina of intellectualism. essentially, it is a speech that exonerate anything he has done an obviously not done. saying all of our problems today are the result of the plutocrats.

that is why he is more like hugo chavez then teddy roosevelt in this speech. >> sterling v erogenous zones of liberals. >> not hard to do. >> got to love it. >> i thought this was a piece of rhetoric or piece of history, a really good speech, although the combination does not tell you what he wants to do next. having said that, the rhetoric of our country over the last 30 or 40 years is increasingly in praise of wealth and agreed and not any sort of community values of a greater good. we have to remember, when fdr -- i think his inaugural, in 1936, he said something like i hate me and i revel in their hatred. no democrat would say such a thing today. and yet, far milder things up

all the class warfare. >> the something is going on -- the tea party and occupiers. >> he is plugging into something -- a real tribute to occupy wall street that the president is now using the 99%, 1% thing. but where is the beef? teddy roosevelt, when he gave his speech, had a real platform -- progressive income tax, child labor, and all sorts of progressive legislation. there is none of that. the only substantive thing -- taking away tax breaks that they had. we'll be to would be like tax reform, that goes after interest groups -- real beef would be like tax reform. >> clearly he did not tap into your a rajah's zone. >> it left me cold, actually. >> some people -- >> you never been there.

>> i am not going to go there, charles. this is a family show. [laughter] he did something else and this speech that is important. he described a situation in which we found ourselves in 2008. in 2008, we were facing this tremendous prospect of a financial collapse. digging out from under that takes time, and he was too optimistic when he said we could get done in the first couple of years. it will take awhile to dig out. we were in the deepest slump since the great depression. people want to forget that. and people want to forget the net million jobs lost because of the collapse of the housing industry and the construction industry. those of the things that take time to work -- give out of.

he can point to positive trends in the economy now as a result of some of the things done in the first two years of his administration, including the stimulus, to stop the economy from falling further below where it was already going. then history will market the first term, if the last two, and his presidency, if the has one, that he spent the three years doing nothing about a major drain on our economy and our productivity -- entitlement reform, tax reform, all of that that he would have had support on the left and right, he left out. what he says instead is if you raise the incomes of the rich by 4.5 points, that is going to being a panacea. complete non sequitur. >> it was to stop the decline. >> ok. plan b birth control pills over- the-counter, not for everyone. this is the first and my memory -- secretary of health and human services -- and human services

overruled the fda who decided to make plan b available to drugstore shelves to everyone. fda administrator market hamburg said there was adequate and reasonable science-based evidence that plan b one step was safe and effective and should be approved for non- prescription use of all females of child-bearing potential. not so fast, said sebelius. girls under 16 will still need a prescription. what is going on, politics or science? >> looks like politics to me. this is the second time a panel, a board, fda board, recommended this. first in the bush administration and now this time. since the first one -- now, the bill is really easy. it is not even complicated. you take a pill the day after. a single pill. if you say a 15, 14, or even 12- year-old need a prescription to get a pill because they may not

understand how to take -- which is what the secretary said -- then you would have to say that about aspirin, nasal spray. i realize there is a lot of emotional freight that goes with it, which is why she did what she did. >> are there medical, health reasons? >> there don't have to be. it is not as a science determines policy. it informs it, it tells you what the risks are and the safety is, but you have to make a political decision. like stem cells, like on the mammograms -- you make a decision. and i think i would defend it as a political decision that all to be made with the values of the country in mind. yes, it is safe, but a lot of stuff is safe and we cannot allow it. marijuana, drugs, all this other stuff. we make a political decision. i think it is reasonable. it is an arbitrary age, but nonetheless, a 12-year-old to essentially aborting herself is a big deal, not a casual air vents, and probably other people

like adults ought to be involved. >> requiring a 12-year old girl to get medical -- a doctor before she -- >> she would get her sister to do it. you guys are so unrealistic. >> let him finish. go ahead. >> a policy, that as a parent, would you want that to happen? would you want your 11-year-old to go and get a bill that will help her abort a child? >> the access to these bills, will increase promiscuity? that is sort of a policy question. i doubt it. >> but also is a 12-year-old able to handle all of the consequences of such an event? the regrets. apart from the increase, as you might expect, the promiscuity. i think it is a more complicated

issue. it is not an easy issue but i think the idea somehow science will determine how we act on this is nonsense. >> another question unrelated to this about a payroll tax cut. the senate disapproves or block it this week -- that is pure politics, right, on both sides? >> yes, that is political. it is also not the last word. we are going to do something about this because politically they cannot let the so-called tax increase take place. >> only 6% of the american people in the latest gallup poll saying i did not want members of congress and reelected, 55% saying let us boot the president -- they do have a problem. >> they will do this. the republicans want to do something in exchange for it. they want to get something out of the administration. >> it sounds like it will be a last minute -- you know, but in

any normal year -- doing this show for a long time -- things are just so crazy and screwed up that it is conceivable. >> they did last year but without the fanfare. >> i think republicans are smart attending to tie it to the keystone pipeline, which was a purely political decision, a decision obama made that would help him in his realistic -- re- election in which he postponed for a year the pipeline the state government had approved and studied for three years. i think republicans hold onto it as a job action, because it would create more jobs, it puts obama in a tight spot. >> let's switch to europe. a huge elephant and the global living room, and that is what is going on in europe. is it time for the imf to step in? >> the problem is not the response of the imf -- the problem is the individual countries themselves.

the day of reckoning. the day of reckoning is here now. they lived beyond their means and they are going to have to rein in their spending, get their budgets in order. the same issues we are facing here in this country -- it comes back to the words i used before, political will. taking some real heat, internally, to make these changes. >> tomorrow as well -- >> the also see it -- it suddenly struck me that we are looking at is sort of what the united states was like when it was a confederation and it was not a united states. and you see the value of a strong central government. they don't have one that can actually act. they may not have one for the reasons, political paralysis, but our structure is sound then there's. they are struggling been in the u.k. saying we will not for dissipate with you in your new treaties because we do not like

one part of it, and they can't do anything because of that. >> and also they are running out of time. europe, as far as i can tell, the do not have a madison ave jefferson and they did not have much time because they could easily have collapsed before they could get it together. one problem. you may notice of the secretary of state has been over there because obama's reelection depends on this -- treasury, secretary of treasury. because, if your bank collapses, that is america's biggest market, and unemployment in the united states will go up and that will defeat obama. >> i don't really think that politics played that much of a world. i think he would have sent the secretary of treasury in the first or last year of the administration -- is secretary of treasury of the united states must get involved because

it affects not just the reelection prospects of the president but the economy of the united states, all of us. this is an institution of response. >> i think colby was right when he was saying the real problem is living beyond europe's needs. the problem is the entitlement state, which the europeans have developed, to an extent, that is obviously not sustainable. of course, miss south -- the greek, spanish, italian systems -- compared to the stronger northern economies. but this is social democracy run wild, way beyond means, and now comes the reckoning. the interesting thing is that america has a look at this. we are not quite where the europeans are, but we are also on a collision course with our entitlements. >> so do the scandinavian countries -- even more so. it is the question of paying for it. >> the germans had a peculiar work ethic that is not shared

and the rest of europe, and that is why germany alone will have to hold up 17 other countries, and it resists it. but i think the two people will determine who gets elected last -- next year are angela merkel and ron hall. they will have more say on who becomes our next president than anybody in this country or anybody around the world. >> why ron paul? >> because if he runs as an independent, obama wins. >> and the riots or demonstrations -- in russia, you have the united arrested, the first time that a president of russia has not gotten a majority. >> if you want to be president, why do you have to pay homage to donald trump? >> donald trump -- as also a great businessman. new ways of doing things and a new ways of approaching things. >> that apparently includes pissing donald trump's ring.

what does he bring to the table? >> what inches is -- interest meet, the endorsement, what does it mean? with a 6% it helps, but for 18% it hurts. only two people showing up to the debate. >> december 27, the last one before the iowa caucuses. >> i give props to ron paul who said this would be a show that is beneath the dignity of a republican debate, to pay homage to donald trump. what is the attraction? >> i would just like to say, and more and innovative ways of doing business like donald trump, like declaring bankruptcy more than one time. >> i understand the next debate will be hosted by the kardashia n sisters and the russell will

be handled by lady gaga. an interesting bridge hand, five no-trump. actually had to work on that one. >> newt gingrich and risks santorum have agreed to appear. all five of them decided not. >> 10,000 canadians out of work and he has to tell jokes. >> a possibility. >> it would be just before the iowa caucuses and we should remember one thing, people always said you need a big organization and i would -- that is true for the democrats because it is a more complicated system of the republicans just have to show what. >> thank you. we will show up next week. thanks. for a transcript of this broadcast, log on to www.in broadcast, log on to www.in