is that what the people who know mitt romney and dick cheney told you to say? there's more reporting. where cheney's beliefs and policies are rooted in conservative ideology, romney's tend to be driven by analytical problem sauving. this is crack washington post reporting. emphasis on the word crack, based on what they were told by romney sources. trust us, he has nothing to do with dick cheney. pay no attention to the fund-raiser tomorrow. my favorite is from vin weber of minnesota. mr. weber incests with a straight face to the washington post who dutifully wrote it down, quote, this does not look to me like bush/cheney redux. what evidence does mr. weber have that the romney campaign is not a repeat of bush and cheney. he told the washington post, at the broader advisory level, everyone who was around cheney and bush are around romney. wait, back to the talking points. i don't see a lot of overlap there. so they have nothing to do with each other, they're not even advised by the same people except for all of the same people who are advising them. aside from th

dick cheney is a political lightning rod, loved by some, despiced by others.s lived through the last two years in limbo, slowly wasting away as he waited nor a heart transplant. tonight, in a candid encounter, he tells it all to jonathan karl in a "nightline" interview. >> reporter: while we were walk requesting dick cheney in wyoming, we ran into a 12-year-old boy who was able to one up the vice president. >> how are you? >> he two heart transplants. >> i had just one. you are ahead of me. miracle stuff. >> reporter: the man talked to us about facing his own death two years ago as his heart, after six heart attacks, starte >> two years ago at this time, i was a respirator, heavily sedated. just had a pump installed on my heart. you know, it was the end. >> reporter: it was dick cheney like i had never seen him before. reflecting on his own mortality. personal. >> i was sefly sedated in the intensive care unit for weeks. i had pneumonia recovering from surgery. be by the time i looked in the mirror, what i saw was my dad shortly before he died. >> reporter: ba

mitt romney then returning the favor, saying of dick cheney last night, quote, that's quite a man. ney's 24 foreign policy advisers are people who served in the bush/cheney administration. when joe biden accused the romney campaign of being laden with bush/cheney guys, they conference call to rebut that charge was led by two bush/cheney foreign policy guys. on matters of policy in terms of what they're in favor of, they're on the same page even on simple issues like the wars. cheney said it was a great mistake, in his words, it was tragic to end the war in iraq. and like dick cheney, he also does not want an end to the afghanistan war. i understand some of what they might think is the appeal of floating condoleezza rice as mitt romney's vice president, particularly since it's not about bain capital and that makes it a comparatively good topic of conversation today. did they not realize that putting condoleezza rise into today's news make them think about all of the connections between the bush and romney administrations. is condoleezza rice supposed to be so blindingly interesting t

it was the end. >> reporter: dick cheney like i'd never seen him before.cting on his own mortality, personal, even vulnerable. >> lost 40 pounds, heavily sedated in the intensive care unit. had pneumonia while i was in recovering from the surgery. and by the time i came out from under, looked in a mirror, and what i saw was my dad shortly before he died. >> reporter: back then, cheney looked like a shadow of his old self. today, he's transformed. thanks to an anonymous organ donor. do you know anything about the donor? >> i don't. they deliberately maintain anonymity, at least at the outset. i can't think of a more magnificent gift than to be given additional years of life and that's what it is. >> reporter: don't think cheney's gone soft. when it comes to politics he's as confrontational as ever, even taking a shot at john mccain for choosing sarah palin as his running mate. >> i like governor palin. i've met her, i know her. attractive candidate. but based on her background, she'd only been a governor for two years, i don't think she passed that test. >>

like dick cheney.eds someone who is going to have instant credibility with conservatives and is going to be seen ann as one of their own but also somebody who has the gravitas and seen as ready to take on the presidency on the first day and first day in office o. the reason that's important is that obama is running a strategy of trashing mitt romney and trying to paint his ticket as unacceptable alternative. he will understands that millions of people have made the decision to make a change. and the only way he can stop them is by convincing them that the romney ticket with whoever he puts ton is unacceptable alternative. romney is going to pick somebody along dick cheney's advice energize conservatives cheney like gravitas and seen like somebody who could step into the presidency. >> who would that be? >> i think that the most likely pick is paul ryan. paul ryan. >> let me stop you there. you say you believe paul ryan will get it and we will get back to why. all right, mr. shaffer, dick cheney on sara

they called in dick cheney. that's right.resident and accidental shooter who went to capitol hill today for a little republican pep talk. meeting with house gop leaders and going to a senate lunch. let's take a trip down memory lane, shall we? cheney helped turn a $236 billion surplus into an over $1 trillion deficit. he watched the unemployment rate grow more than 3.5%. he has no regrets about waterboarding. he left office with a 13% approval rating. yet, this is who republicans are calling in to rally the troops. and he's fighting today against defense cuts set to go into effect in january. saying they are unacceptable but how about this one? the republicans voted for these cuts. 174 house republicans voted for last year's budget deal. amazing. you really can't make this up. joining me now is former pennsylvania governor ed rendell. now an nbc news political analyst. and richard wolffe, msnbc political analyst. and author of "revival." thank you both for being here tonight. governor rendell, they are looking for leadership

a meeting with former vice president dick cheney. cheney came to capitol hill this week to discuss the automatic military spending cuts that will start in january. apparently, cheney proved to be very persuasive, because the same officials that want to cut jobs from other departments now are worried about job loss at the penton and the impact it will have on defense contractors. >> we're looking at a potential, just on the defense side, 1.5 million jobs. think of what that's going to do to a fragile economy. >> according to senator lindsey graham, cheney predicted the cuts would be devastating to the military. more importantly, it will make the planning of the next war more difficult. according to graham, cheney told the group defense spending is not a spigot you can turn on and off, that you need to keep money flowing in a predictable way so you can plan for the next war, yet according to the cbo, even with big cuts, the pentagon will still be able to spend as much money as it did in 2006 when we were fighting two wars. joining me no

with dick cheney? do i have to leave? crisis at that moment. >> but john mccain hit him back. he said, i love to hear these comments four years later. >> jennifer: like you couldn't have raised your hand at the time of course he didn't. he thought he was brilliant at the time. >> it's amazing. >> jennifer: so another big bit of news is that justice scalia is out with a book. he's doing his media tour on this. he was talking with fox news. take a listen to this. >> obviously the amendment does not apply to arms that cannot be hand carried, to keep and bear. it does not apply to canons, but i suppose there are hand-held rocket launchers that can bring down airplanes that will have to be decided. >> cenk: he's talking about the second amendment and the right to bear arms. he's talking about the original list intent that you could bear the arm. it had to be smalled enough to carry, like a hand-held rocket launcher or nuclear device. >> things that were at the ready for the minutemen. >> jennifer: right. >> the worse part of t

dick cheney is the living thread of -- for four of the last five republican presidencies. in the words of liz cheney this say person, mitt romney is, that dick cheney says he believes would be a great president, he thinks he's the man for the job. he hasn't been active on the campaign trail, but this is the passing of the torch of sorts. >> peter, it seems to be the question on the front of everybody's mind, the veepstakes, and ed rollins said this yesterday on fox, i'll get you on the other side. >> i would get the vice presidential choice out of the way as quickly as i could. and then basically -- >> quickly. >> quickly. before he goes to europe i would pick a vice president. the conventions are so late this time that the end of the day, you're not going to create -- you're not going to create a buzz. the buzz is your candidacy. >> so the great ed rollins saying sooner rather than later. is camp romney hearing that same advice? >> camp romney couldn't have been a lot more vague when asked about this at a town hall in colorado earlier this week. the question was posed. hav

is there a resurgent of dick cheney? >> it's interesting.kind of disappeared for a while, but now, he's back in a big way and a lot of republicans no longer fear being pictured with him. a lot of republicans i spoke to today welcomed him. he didn't talk about the politics of it when he met with the republican senators. he talked about the direct impact, the idea that these cuts, over 500 billion scheduled on top of the 487 already agreed to could decimate the d.o.d. he used his experience to talk about when planning for weapons systems, they go far in the future, so if you cut any money, you could decimate the ability for america to defend it. you could say he can preach all he wants, they agreed to this deal. the reason this is so difficult is because no one wanteded to have this. the super committee was supposed to succeed. hone honestly, they didn't get there. no one on either side wants to budge. >> this is red meat for the republicans obviously and dick cheney is ready to feed it to them, but how is this going to get carved together? >>

and like dick cheney, he also does not want an end to the ghantan r.heppeaof fltingondoezzaice tt rney'viceresint, rticarlyincet's t out bain capital and that makes it a comparatively good topic of conversation today. did they not realize that putting condoleezza rise into day'newsake em tnk abouall theonneions beeen e bu andomne admistraons. is condoleezza rice supposed to be so blindingly interesting thate d'tememr wh she is fous? ybe wasn inntiol thg. maybthe mneyampan is gettg cler tallong t phos, ght? sayubliy th a mt roey psidey mit be thd te of sh/cney d wh abo it? joining us, melissa harris perry. a man medelis hars pey. grt toave u he. thk yo >> tnks. >>hichs yo dre tict. mitt romney condoleezza rice or mitt romney liz chen? >>t's mneyice? why >>ell,omnerices futo y. on i le thideaf a ndi ce/j bid debe. 's aebataboufolkwho have foreign policy conversation about the two big issues that have domined our forgn pocy scenfghastannd aq. d i uld ke thear condeezzricealk out w shwouldefe tha partular in polical rcumanceecau sheasn' had do at. i uld ve

exclusive. >> i just got back from jackson hole, wyoming, where i sat down with former vice president dick cheneyr his first interview since he underwent heart transplant surgery in march. take a look right here. that's cheney before surgery. and during our interview. in our interview cheney opened up about the surgery and life after politics. but his comments about selecting a vice president and john mccain giving the nod to sarah palin four years ago were particularly enlightening. take a look. how important is it for him to do this in a way that's different in the way john mccain handled his vice president? >> pretty important. i don't think that one was well handled. i sort of think of it as there are two lists. there's the big list that's got a lot of folks on it. when i did it for ford in '76, but then again for george w. bush in 2000, i had a couple of calls from politicians, said, you know, it really helped me in my race back home because i was on the list. somebody could leak the fact that they were on the list. but that was the big list. it was easy to get on the big list. the tough one

karen, mitt romney is having a fund-raiser with dick cheney tonight.s joe biden after his naacp speech. he was booed for ending his speech contrasting of course to mitt romney, who was booed for using a phrase, obama care. how would you rate biden's speech today? >> i thought it was like a ten plus plus plus plus. he was awesome. i was on twitter. it was blowing up. people were so excited to see joe biden there particularly because he did what mitt romney failed to do and that is he spoke from the heart and talked about vision, right? he said this is the vision that president obama and i have. i also think you cannot underestimate and underscore given joe biden's personal relationship with the naacp in his own work, lifetime, having him say this is my guy and i'm standing with him and you got to stand with him. i thought that was incredibly important. meanwhile, mitt romney goes to a fund-raiser at the home of the gentleman who thinks it's perfectly okay to be as secret as possible and that the american people don't deserve really any information. >> w

and that's usually a very, very short list. >> well, jonathan, dick cheney ought to know.picked himself off the short list. is there any chance he will want to choose another game changing pick like sarah palin? >> most people think that romney will go with a safe pick. everybody also fights the last war in politics. so that would argue for a rob portman or tim pawlenty, bob mcconnell, the governor of virginia, somebody safe like that. there could be something unusual that happens. you could get maybe bobby jindal who's got some experience now that he's been governor of louisiana for a while, trying to go for an out of the box choice, somebody who would pass that test of being a plausible president which palin's two years as governor did not get her. she's also not as smart as jindal. so they could go that direction. oftentimes it is not the person that the press most speculates about. there's a long history of this in both parties. so folks that in trade should get pretty skeptical of anybody who thinks they know exactly how this is going to go. you would have to give an

. >>> plus -- >> i'm jon karl outside of dick cheney's home, we just had the first interview with the former vice president after his heart transplant. >>> a abc news is at the olympics. is very latest from london. >>> good morning, everyone. george stephanopoulos has a well-deserved morning off. as you just heard, it's been a rough week for both candidates. let's get right to it with their senior advisers. robert gibbs with president obama and kevin madden for mitt romney. >> good morning. >> who are the junior advisers? >> i tried to get that title before, nobody will give -- >> i make my own coffee >> i always wondered that. i want to start with, we're 100 days out. dead-even race. robert, what is going to make this race out, or is it going to stay this way until the end? >> i think it's going to be a very close race throughout. that's what we prepared for. i think what's going break this race out ultimately is the choice between two candidates and two extremely different visions about how we build this economy and how we come out of the economic disaster that we were in and how we

of course dick cheney's wading back into the thick of republican publics today.or mccain could have done without the input here. but let's listen to it. >> well, i'm always glad to get comments four years later. >> what is cheney up to right now in his own right? it's no accident he turned up on tv for his first interview since his transplant. but what does he want? sam stein covers politics for the "huffington post." i want to start with you, susie. this guy is back like freddy krueger. he's only been elected congressman in wyoming. he's making fun of palin for only being a governor. he's never been elected to much before he was vice president. what's he talking about? >> well, of course he got to be vice president because he selected himself -- >> he was head of the selection committee. >> there you go. i don't know. maybe someone needs to play him that song how can we miss you if you don't go away. he doesn't really seem to understand his time is done. and i have to say president bush, i've got to hand it to the guy. i'm sure he's had disagreements with presid

that's usually a short list. >> jonathan, dick cheney ought to know. he chose himself off the short list. do you think romney is heeding the advisory. is there any chance he would like to pick another game changing pick like sarah palin? >> not like sarah palin, but most people think that romney will go with a safe pick. everybody always cites the last war in politics. that would argue for a rob portman or tim pawlenty, bob mcconnell, the governor of virginia. somebody safe like that. there could be something unusual that happens. you could get maybe bobby jindal, who has got some experience now. he's been governor of louisiana for a while. so to try to go for an out of the box choice who would also pass the test of getting over the threshold of being a plausible president, which palin's two years as governor did not get her, and also she just wasn't as smart as jindal. they could go that direction. oft oftentimes, it's not the person that the press most speculates about. there's a long history of this in both parties. folks at intrade should getpry sk

what is dick cheney doing on the hill today? >> it's interesting.and foremost he's going to meet with the gop leadership as you mentioned but then he will meet with gop whip mccarthy's whip team which is essentially about 35 or so house republicans that are in charge of counting votes and getting members on board with a plan. now, republicans in the past have been able to sort of say all right, we're not going to have this sequestration go in effect, let's create more spending cuts in programs that liberals hold near and dear. what dick cheney is going to do is apparently go to these authorize whip team and tell them just how dreadful these cuts would be to dod. i asked the same question you posed to the gop leadership and they said quote, the former vice president and secretary of defense obviously has a valuable perspective on the devastating impact of obama's defense sequester that they feel will be invaluable to their members. so the idea here is here's dick cheney, a guy that you all know, love and trust from his eight years as vice president,

george bush and dick cheney. that's about to change though. the former vice president is hosting a fund raiser for willard in wyoming tonight. it begins at a swanky country club with a golf course designed by arnold palmer. i bet it has a lot of quiet rooms. then supporters can pay $30,000 to hang out at cheney's house. it'll be romney's first appearance with dick cheney on the campaign trail. he still hasn't appeared with bush. remember the endorsement president bush gave romney? he said i'm for mitt romney as the elevator doors closed on him. no speeches. romney doesn't want any public connection with bush except he wants to extend the bush tax cuts indefinitely. he's asked bush advisers to shape his economy policies. 17 of his national security advisers worked for bush. and let's not forget what a spokeswoman for the republican national committee said about romney's agenda. >> it's less government spending. it's lowering taxes so small businesses can grow. >> how different is that concept from what was -- what were the policies of the bush

walsh does. >>> up next, dick cheney says getting sarah palin was a big mistake. he wants credit for getting bin laden. he's unbelievable. cheney's back. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. >>> held lee, everyone, i'm lynn barry and her's what's happening. gefing prosecutors different options to potentially pursue the death penalty. >>> president obama arrived in new york earlier for a high dollar fundraiser. it's the event that went for $40,000 each. u.s. corn and soybean crops are in the worst shape in 20 years. now we'll send you back to "hardball." >>> governor palin. i met her, i know her. but based on her background, she's only been governor for two years. i don't think she passed that test of being ready to take over. >> welcome back to hardball. cheney is wading right back in the thick of republican politics today. let's listen to it. >> well, i'm always glad to get comments four years later. >> what is cheney up to right now in his own right? it's no accident he turned up on tv for his first interview since his transplant. but what does he

some surprisingly blunt comments from former vice president dick cheney. >> indeed. ith abc news, cheney said john mccain's selection of sarah palin as his vp candidate was a mistake. abc's john karl sat down with cheney and asked him about the vice presidential process for mitt romney. >> how important is it for him to do this in a way different than the way john mccain handled his vice presidential search? >> pretty important. that one i don't think was well handled. i sort of think of it as -- there are two lists. there is the big list, that's got a lot of folks on it. i actually when i was doing it for -- well, i did it for ford in '76, but then again for george w. bush in 2000. i had a couple calls from prominent politicians who would say it would help me in my race back home if i was on the list. you are on the list. then somebody could leak the fact that they were on the list. but that was the big list. it was easy to get on the big list. the tough part is the small list has to be is this person really under active consideration. and the test to get on the smal

. >> dick cheney speaks the truth about sarah palin and sparks of family feud with his daughter. >> i think that was a mistake. >> liz says palin is more qualified than president obama. we'll see if jonathon alter agrees. bill clinton is set to play a major role at this year's democratic convention. meanwhile, the gop is running away from bush and cheney. e.j. dionne "the washington post" has the latest. >>> governor mitt romney's european missed a venture is now 0 for 2. after insulting britain, he tried to praise israel but it backfired. instead of looking like a president in waiting, he's come off as diplomatically tone deaf, at best. his latest mess happened at a fund-raiser in jerusalem. initially the romney campaign wasn't going to allow reporters. after criticism, it reversed its position, no doubt with great regret. in front of a group of wealthy donors, including billionaire sheldon adelson, as you come here and see the gdp per capita in israel which is $21,000 and compare that with the gdp per capita just across the areas managed by the palestinian authority, which is more l

brian mooar, nbc news, washington. >>> meanwhile, former vice president dick cheney says mitt romney should think long and hard about who his running mate will be. cheney called senator john mccain's choice of sarah palin quote a mistake. he says he likes palin, but felt she wasn't ready at the time to be a vp candidate. mitt romney will announce his running mate next month. bob mcdonald is among those on the short list. chuck is back now and what's this about we're going to need an umbrella one day this week and you're going to tell us which day. >> we need every drop we can get, even though we don't like getting the rain on the weekends, we're more than seven inches behind, so we appreciate the sunny days, rain drops are in the forecast and that's not necessarily a bad thing. but the sunshine today was a treat in and of itself. also, just standing there and getting sprayed by nice, cool water on a summer day. perfect weather to get outside and enjoy our only 90-degree heat today as opposed to the 97 yesterday. that fountain is in georgetown, where you can do this. just go to the boa

but dick cheney -- >> any time dick cheney rises out of his latest undisclosed location and gets anyir time, it's probably a good thing for the democrats. his approval rating is probably lower than george bush's and you know, he doesn't engender a lot of popular support. >> i think you're missing -- >> this is twice i keep missing something. >> but i'm saying seriously here, i think the republicans are going for a guy who has testicular fortitude. they're trying to say here's a guy, no matter what his publicity was bad about, he stood for his principles, stood up and was seen as the darth vader of his particular era. i think that's a signal they're sending to other republicans, especially mitt romney, stand up. stand up. >> they do have mitt on the defensive stuff because he's been out there calling for -- >> he's going to spend 61% more than the current president is spending on defense if elected into office. i do think the optics here, if we're talking about a time when the republican party is arguing against cutting food stamp -- funding for food stamps and then on the same hand,