let's welcome syndicated columnist bob franken this morning.py thanksgiving to you. >> happy thanksgiving to you, dara. by the way, there is no proof to the rumor, no proof whatsoever, that among the balloons in the macy's day parade will be one of donald trump. >> oh. that would be interesting, though, wouldn't it? >> well, there are those who suggest that with all his hot air that perhaps he should be in the parade. >> oh, i should have seen that one coming. >> that's right. you're a very good straight -- >> bob i do have a question. they're taking a bit of a thanksgiving break for the candidates but they've got iowa ahead, and two republicans, maybe not so restful because you've got ted cruz moving up and ben carson moving down. what is going on there? >> well, what i think is going on is that -- that ben carson was very, very hurt by his display of lack of knowledge, at least the lack of confidence, when it comes to foreign relations. with all the attention that's now being paid because of isis, and all the rest, that's becoming more and mo

." >>> let's welcome syndicated columnist bob franken. good morning, bob.s for being here. >> good morning. regarding the o'malley applause, obviously what they did is took some of the applause that was for one of our appearances together and edited it in. >> exactly. it was nice of them to take that. we'll give ourselves a hand here. >> yeah. >> bob, i have to ask you about this. these are fascinating details coming out about jon meacham's new book on george h.w. bush including these scathing criticisms of dick cheney and donald rumsfeld. what do you make of them calling cheney an iron ass and rumsfeld an arrogant fellow? >> well, i never thought that i'd be able to say these words on television and get away with it, but arrogant fellow, that's pretty strong stuff. the complaints that the first president bush is making about the administration of his son sort of feeds the impression that his son was maybe over his head and was handled by a puppet like a puppet by those particularly cheney and rumsfeld. and it's going to feed an impression that's probably g

okay, let's bring in syndicated columnist bob franken.ing to you. >> good morning, shannon. >> let's backtrack a little bit. i want to talk about the house here getting ready to vote on this bill aimed at stepping up the background checks before syrian and iraqi refugees can actually get into the country. it's sort of a first test here for paul ryan and mitch mcconnell. what can we expect? >> well, it's more of a test, i think, for the united states. let us not forget that we're approaching thanksgiving. which was to celebrate the -- celebration by those refugees who had fled oppression in europe for that kind of thing. and now we find ourselves being very unwelcoming to refugees who are fleeing oppression in the middle east. >> well, let's talk a little bit about how the country feels about this. there's a new poll here, an nbc news online poll that says 56% of americans disapprove of allowing more migrants fleeing violence in syria and other nations by letting them into the country while 41% approve. how does this put pressure on washin

let's take you now to washington where we are joined by syndicated columnist bob franken. >> good morning. not that he got particularly great reviews for his "saturday night live" appearance -- >> he wasn't on there as much as i thought he would be in some of those skits. >> well, besides which it looks like he does better ad-libbing than reading off somebody else's script. >> well, ben carson, though, is taking a little heat about what he has written down and i need you to break it down for us. there are a lot of questions, did he lie about receiving a full scholarship to west point, what's this about westmoreland, what about the mere mids? what do you know? >> well, he benefited for the longest time from flying under the radar but now he's to coin a phrase somewhere over the radar. now he is suddenly getting very, very closely examined, his present, his past, the statements that he makes, that kind of thing and he clearly does not like that to the point that he's saying, let's move on. and you of course have bernie sanders playing his game which is to say let's not dwell

let's bring in political analyst bob franken.ou wrote, "thank to 2015, we're having a huge tradition that means tolerance -- explain what you mean by that? >> it seems reich now we're seeing a surge of intolerance, personified by the popularity of donald trump. many people are feeling powerless because they've been perhaps feeling betrayed by the existing politician so they're gravitating to a donald trump who doesn't have any limits to how far that can go. >> he leads in all the polls but this controversy, could this be the one that finally hurts trump in the polls? by the way, a question i've asked many times before in this campaign season. >> and i think we've learned our lesson. i can't imagine anything is going to undo it. he seems to have a consistency of about 25% to 30% that seems to be pretty much locked in concrete. they are so furious at the system that just about any sort of civilized is considered suspect. >> as we head into next year, do you think the big issue will be that voters hone in on to make their pick for t