with us eric erickson and leslie marshall. i may surprise you in one part of this. i think we should be spying on some friends and allies. i don't have a problem with it. the idea that he knew nothing about merkel and other world leaders, knew nothing about it,

you have what eric erickson is saying. >> he basically said kiss off. he did. have to hand him credit for the way he responded. >> he said kiss off, but this is not going anywhere. this fight, and when we come back january 15th, february 7th, the republicans still have to -- >> let's go to a tea party expert that on this show. matt kibe. he said a split in the republican party is quote, a real possibility. let's listen to matt. >> grassroots activists have an ability to self-organize, to fund candidates that they're more interested in going right around the republican national committee and the senatorial committee. that's the new reality. everything is more democratized. they still want to control things from the top down and if they do that, there will absolutely be a split. but my prediction would be that we take over the republican party and they go the way of the wiggs. >> what do you take from that? watching the democratic convention as a grad student and watching and thinking i think the anti-war people do want to take over the party in the instance of s

meanwhile, conservative blogger eric erickson said conservatives should pick off so-called moderatesn the gop. quote, the last time the major leaders of an american political party tried to compromise their way to power, the party broke apart giving way to republicans. this fight too will break apart the gop. there will be a fundamentally altered party of new faces. never before have the people seemed less dependent on a party apparatus to play in primaries. i'm not sure how you'd answer this, sam, but i'm fascinated with this statement that they want to break apart -- over the issue of secession. that was particularly the democratic party that came from that. but this idea that our job is to basically take over and alter a major political party, take the party of lincoln and use the name because it's out there and turn it into a right wing thing that's capable of fighting all things modern. >> well, you know, i guess what's remarkable for me is the bubble that this exists in. for rush limbaugh to call it a cave without any context to how bad they were being damaged in the polls. how

but this is really, i think from eric erickson's point of view and others a form of political nihilism. they want to destroy and tear down. and anybody who sees it differently is not just wrong, they are the enemy. they are the rot within. they must be defeated. they're rinos, whatever you want to call them. the civil war, not just within the republican party but within the conservative crew, whatever you want to call it, is not getting any better. it's getting more exacerbated as people feel more unburdened and able to attack the enemies. >> chris, there's a generational war going on here. the national review was started by william f. buckley and has its roots in the 1950s and early 1960s when i think even when william f. buckley said he wanted to shout, he didn't want to give up on the governmental process. he didn't want to give up in the ability of the american government to take wildly die verge interviews, to take very harsh arguments and somehow make progress from them. the difference between what bill buckley was doing with the national review a generation or two and what some

eric erickson, a prominent conservative wrote something very aggressiove about you. is a damn liar. it looks like johnson has decided to blowing up the bridge with the grass roots is the only way to stay in good graces with the big boys. he said you yelled at or berated senator ted cruz over approaching the shut down. what do you think that is? >> it's totally untrue and anybody with integrity before they face that charge would have the courtesy of calling the individual and finding out. he didn't do that. whoever gave him that information also lied. i don't lie. i have a great deal of integrity. that is a totally false and ashamed of himself for not giving me the courtesy of calling me so i could set the record straight. >> senator, just to be clear, you did not dress down or berate senator cruz in that private meeting over his tactics and strategy related to the government shutdown and president obama's health care law? >> listen, we have these conferences. we have these lunches. and we discuss things. is there passionate debate? are there pointed questions? sure.

eric erickson said men like mitch mcconnell, john cornyn, and eric cantor have preached a great sermongainst obama care but now conservatives who supported them see that these men have refused to actually practice what they've been preaching. and sarah palin said quote, rest well tonight for soon we must focus on important house and senate races. let's start with kentucky which happens to be awfully close to south carolina, tennessee, and mississippi. kathleen, i just wonder whether -- who's winning this fight? ted cruz and company and that posse or the regulars, the people who were calling for regular order at those meetings the last couple days? >> the big question, chris, is what happens in the primaries. the candidates who can win the primaries in these conservative districts are not people who can win in general elections. and they're not the people that represent the larger population in this country which as you know from the recent nbc/was it gq -- the poll? >> wall street journal, the big one. >> most people identify as centrist. they are tired of this nonsense. and i think th

now eric erickson says we are headed toward a third party. ic cantor, mitch mcconnell, and john cornyn will ensure that obama care is fully funded. in doing so, they will sow the seeds of a real third party movement that will fully divide the republican party. a third party? i mean, i'm hearing what you're saying these guys were elected for. i'm seeing what the leadership is being forced to do. is it really possible that a third party could happen? >> i don't think in the current structure that's a good claim. and i know eric and he's a good guy, i just think he's missed the mark here. even if they were to form a third party, what are they popular? 25% that poll came out today. that doesn't win you an election. it doesn't move a people onto your side. these guys came over here and have done everything they were going to do. so you can't blame them for that. where i blame leadership from the top. if you have strong enough leaders on the top bringing these guys in saying, look, this is the way to get it done from a strategic standpoint and how t

party patriots and club for growth, heritage action to a certain extent, freedom works, guys like eric erickson from red state and all these people, the grassroots right. the astroturf right say this is an absolute caving, disaster. any republican that went along with this is a horrible person. how do you balance that outside of right criticism of what boehner did and then the crazing of boehner? >> it's odd. no one should doubt the power of those outside groups. only yesterday you saw this bill on its way to the rules committee, the boehner bill, the house option. heritage action had to pull it. they claimed that was not because of heritage action but their own internal factional disputes. a lot of that has to do with the outside groups. they don't necessarily know on what they want. look what happened the last three weeks. they had control and in this yeo said that we cannot repeal obama care until we win the white house and senate. that cannot happen until 2017. what were the last three weeks about? the outside groups, those conservatives that brought boehner and house gop on this, they don'

with us eric erickson and leslie marshall. i may surprise you in one part of this.i think we should be spying on some friends and allies. i don't have a problem with it. the idea that he knew nothing about merkel and other world leaders, knew nothing about it, but it's been going on five years, i don't believe him. what does that tell you. >> one thing you know about poll sigss left or right, our president included, they are careful. he didn't say he didn't know about 35 or these problems. >> wait a minute. hang on. wait, wait, wait. >> he specifically didn't know about merkel. >> he didn't know the health care website had a problem. the irs targeting he read in news reports. fast and furious he read in news reports. knew nothing about doj targeting or benghazi. not me. i don't know anything. noble any of it. >> i will if you give me the time talk about benghazi. >> go. >> the health care site. if we believe the commander in chief will sit down whether it was medicare when it went online, whether it is health care when it goes online and he'll be sitting next to the

the club for growth announced they will score the shut down deal and the key vote, eric erickson is targeting the republican leader and have an opportunity to replace mitch mcconnell with a better conservative. we should do that founded by jim demint for a $2 billion provision that ends up in this bill. it funds a waterway project in kentucky and illinois. they are going to a kick back as an insult to families who don't want to pay for obama care and shoulder any more debt. the office said they did not make the request to include the project in the bill. former alaska governor sarah palin said we must focus on the senate races. let's start with ken tucky that said we are awfully close to tennessee and mississippi referring to lindsay graham, lamar alexander and cochran. they singled out in a post presumally written by the post. he is watching his own and voted against the deal. how this fight changed in 24th. connell and i show you pictures of ted cruz who is greeting visitors to the capital. one more thing, dianne feinstein, a democrat, they made sure that provision was in there. there you g

red state.com's eric erickson says no way. the democratic strategist doug rosher disagrees.can you justify double pay for basically a paid vacation? go. >> this is just a mess. it's a mess created by the caucus that shut down the government. now we're having to deal with people who file for unemployment because they were on federal shutdown. now we have to hire more people and more workers. if we never shut down the government, we never would have been here. >> sure, they should pay the money back, that's common sense, but we're in this situation because we shut down the government -- >> chuck, you're not going to argue the point they should pay it back? erick erickson, your point. >> anybody sitting at home knows you shouldn't be paid twice. we shut the government down and put people out of work. it's their right to file for unemployment. >> that's not the issue. stuart, the issue here is most states are requiring workers to pay the money back. it's a pool based on the tax of employers. when the pool gets drained, there's no money to pay without increasing the tax. so these

in fact, you're seeing folks coming out and saying on the right like eric erickson that they want to see more primary challenges, enforce more purity on the republican party in the house. i mean, that is a scary situation. it could get worse before it gets better. >> well, i'm going to have to leave it there. congressman chaka fattah and krystal ball, thank you for your time tonight. let me say i'm glad the government is back open. i'm glad the debt limit has been dealt with, but i don't think we can rest until we have gotten past the next deadlines and we must remain focused on moving the agenda of this country ahead. don't forget to watch krystal on "the cycle" week days at 3:00 right here on msnbc. >>> ahead, remember the guy who said president obama bows down to allah and should drop the koran? well, now he's apologizing. well, sort of. but not really. and president obama drops the mic on rush limbaugh. we'll show you how he called out all the right wing blow hards on the radio. >>> plus pop some popcorn. now sarah palin is attacking other republicans. and it's great news for dem

or wherever they happen to be based, thinking of eric erickson and red state.com, and can start playing in -- moveon.org, can start playing in primaries where they're completely separate from their thousands of miles away. i was struck by a piece in yesterday's "washington post" by my colleague paul cane who went down to tennessee, he was following lamar alexander around, and lamar alexander's opponent, one of the state reps trying to primary alexander from the right, said that he would really have a great chance if all the outside money from washington would come in. the outside groups, heritage action fund, club for growth, groups like that get involved in that campaign. you now have a guy rupping for office in tennessee who is depending on money from washington instead of building a grassroots movement from tennessee. >> there is a couple of problems here, though, worth pointing out. you can have sharp ideological polarization and partisan polarization, plenty of issues which are not inherently ideological if you want to work together. what has happened in part two is the phenomenon

>> jonathan, erick erickson wrote a piece, how is gop prepared to give up? i'm being told that speaker boehner and eric cantor are plotting on giving up trying to defund obama care. in doing association they will sow the seeds of a real third party movement. if that's not a hostage, if that's not a ransom note, i don't know what is. >> i'm just weary over the infighting within the republican party. i'm weary not because of what it's doing to the party, but because of what it's doing to the country. ryan is -- we're talking about whether boehner will be able to pass this bill with democratic votes. we know if conditions are right, he probably can. but that goes one step farther than the real step we have to watch. will he have the courage to actually bring that bill to the floor. will he be so afraid of losing the speaker's gavel that he won't do what's right. and until he does that, i still am -- i understand know there's a lot of optimism whipping through washington right now. but i'll believe it when i see it. >> yeah. and i think you've got to think, luke, that's a position the white house has, too.

does the conservative grass roots group, heritage action, erick erickson, how do they hand him this when it happens, is it a -- you got eric against ron johnson, upset he has been railing ted cruz on a specific issue. how does this play itself out? does mitch mcconnell become a pin ata? you see the incumbents if 2014, revenge of the grass roots, us that by a will feel the republican elites dropped the ball on health care. >> i think that's the unknown here. >> chuck todd, thank you so much. walter, alex, stay with us if you can. still ahead, he was there for the last budget standoff in 1995, congressman mark sanford jones us straight ahead. also, former white house official melly barnes will be here. >>> up next, members of the senate republican committee, pat toomey joins us. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. evto earn degrees in mathan stand science.ut but more than half leave their programs. so we're missing out on 450,000 math and science graduates annually. but if we can help students prepare for these subjects we'll have a stronger workforce for our fastest-growing industries. let's invest in our f