i want to talk to my next guest, jim demint. mr. demint as always it's great to see you.ay i ask you a question as a former senator. there's this stuff circulating now in washington as though it's not complicated enough, republican senators want to abandon the sequester at the last minute and give all the authority to president obama so he will make the cuts and if somehow he doesn't do what they want him to do they are going to mount a two-thirds majority in order to overturn it. now to me this is in a field of nutty stuff this is one of the nuttier things. do you think the gop should hand the sequester over to president obama alone? >> no, larry. and they won't. they know the president's claims are laughable. you have a graph prepared by the heritage staff that shows spending is almost going to double over the next ten years. it doubled over the last ten years. the little red line at the top of that graph, the tiny little line is the difference the sequester makes. you can see from the graph there's no cuts in spending. in fact it will continue to increase in a rather d

the insult here being that jim demint was never known for having any charm. two years ahead of time there is always talk that the top republican in the senate, mitch mcconnell may not just face a general election challenge from ashley judd, he may face a tea party challenge from his own party, a named challenger already raising his profile in the state of kentucky against mitch mcconnell. the right wing pundits' fear right now is up in arms about how candidates are handle their fight. they're not on the republican side on this. the fox news channel has gotten rid of sarah palin and dick morris. they have hired scott brown and herman cain and dennis kucinich. hmm. the big headline out of the republican governors conference this year was louisiana republican governor bobby jindal insisting that republicans must stop being, quote, the stupid party. and the line was not meant as a joke. we're now a week away from the filing deadline in the first u.s. senate race that will take place after the presidential election, the race to fill john kerry's open seat in massa

jim demint did. >> we have not been involved in primaries until this point. >> keep it that way. that's my point. mike, i don't want karl rove, as much as i respect him, why should they be involved in primaries? why should they push the old establishment tired old republicans? i want new blood, new messages. i want more ted cruzs. they would never support ted. >> you're right. the problem is this is a discussion about whether a small group of people in washington get to choose who the most conservative, electable candidate is or do the people choose? reagan said in 1975 the american people are hungry for a sense of mission and a sense of greatness. the reason the republican party keeps losing elections is they don't stand for anything. grassroots worked for marco rubio, ted cruz, rand paul, mike lee. all were told by the establishment, well, rand paul can't win in kentucky. or if we put money into marco rubio's race we don't have -- >> take ron johnson in wisconsin. >> they didn't let the american people vote conservative. >> it was jim demint and his crowd that took over. robert

and my love for the palmetto state is why i was a natural choice to fill jim demint's senate seat when he stepped down in december. sadly, governor nikki haley appointed representative tim scott who was the congressman from my hometown of charleston, leaving that congressional seat open. god only knows who they're going to find to fill it. >> and elizabeth colbert-busch is running for congress in south carolina. she is not related to george w. bush, but she is related to stephen colbert. that's his sister. >> stephen: holy cow! my sister's running for congress! [cheers and applause] [crowd chanting "colbert"] you better be cheering for me! [laughter] now, lulu -- lulu is what we in the family called her growing up. i can still call her that because she still calls me by my childhood nickname: stephen colbert. [laughter] now right away, i want to dispel one of the vicious media rumours that is swirling out there. >> colbert-busch is stephen colbert's sister. >> she might be getting a little free tv time. >> stephen: wrong! no free air time, lulu. as a broadcast journalist, i am obligate

i think in ted cruz you have someone who's a jim demint with an attack dog.s a tea party favorite. if you look at the national review, they very much like his style, but, again, i think in some ways it certainly reflected what republicans are hoping to do next week and that is further chip away at hagel and hope that something will stick and a another shoe will drop. >>> up next, marco rubio's big gulp might define him in the future. this is on the sideshow. this is going to be fun. this is "hart ball," the place for politics. chances are, you're not made of money, so don't overpay for motorcycle insurance. geico, see how much you could save. you ready? [ female announcer ] second kid by their second kid, every mom is an expert and more likely to choose luvs. after thousands of diaper changes, they know what works. luvs lock away wetness better than huggies for a fraction of the cost live, learn, & get luvs. >>> this is going to be fine. when marco rubio made a grab for his water bottle, i merely thought, okay, he's now going to be forever known as the thirst

jim demint resigned to head up the heritage foundation. and "the new york times" reports that the biggest donor in the republican party are funding new groups, and tea party enthusiastics who worry that it could compromise the party to win control of the senate. not really a worry, happening for multiple elections. but even with that group emerging, and they are a big deal. there is a lot of money behind the group. it is a big deal that karl rove's group is turning its fire essentially on the tea party. it is very clear about what is and is not happening in the republican party. the republican party, which is again a conservative establishment is rejecting or trying to reject the tactics and rhetorical approach of the tea party in the last couple of years. they're not actually changing their minds about important policy topics or announcing big positions, the tea party in the last couple of years were playing a somewhat convenient role for the republican party right now. because they're there, and they're something that can get thrown over

if we thought jim demint didn't play by the rules of the senate, well, ted cruise is jim demint 2.30 or 3 had the 0. we saw in the hearing with secretary clinton, we saw in the confirmation hearings with chuck hagel that cruise was by far the most prosecutorial, the most aggressive of the questioners of both of those folks, and he is someone who makes no bones about his -- both his ambition and his willingness to buck how the senate is supposed to work. we're going to hear more from him before we hear less. >> you know, the way the senate is supposed to work is that you don't ask a question about the friends of hamas until you check out whether there is even such an organization as the friends of hamas. just saying. margaret, could marco rubio and the foreign trip. he has credentials and has given foreign policy speeches. here he was with king abdullah. he was in israel and had a press conference there, met with netanyahu. he is really -- there he is with shimon peres. there is quite a lot of activity by marco rubio, even since the state of the union water episode. >> well, he has no

in a courtroom, but i think in ted cruz you have someone who is essentially auditioning to be a jim demint conservatives want an attack dog and he's auditioning for that role. a tea party favorite. they like his style. but again, i think in some ways it certainly reflects what republicans are hoping to do over this next week, and that is, further chip away at hagel and hope that something will stick and another shoe will drop. >> nia malika henderson and wayne slater. >> up next, marco rubio's gulp might become the moment that defines the poor guy. another iconic moment, and grups that have crippled reputations of politicians in the past. it's going to be fun. this is "hardball," the place for politics. [ female announcer ] research suggests cell health plays a key role throughout our lives. one a day women's 50+ is a complete multivitamin designed for women's health concerns as we age. it has 7 antioxidants to support cell health. one a day 50+. to get her oven baked taste straight from the microwave. like her oven roasted chicken baked in a rich, creamy alfredo sauce. she calls them her

now retired jim demint. the head of the heritage foundation, of course, now. toomey of pennsylvania. ron johnson of wisconsin and rand paul of kentucky round out the list. news busters caught double standard of of keystone pipeline protest we told you about early. news hour found 36 words for the march for life, hyping pipeline protest as the biggest climate rally in u.s. history in the segment nine times as long. while the protests were going on focus of the media gaze on the president's golf trip to florida with tiger woods. a pair of texans who are key, oil, gas and keystone pipeline players. the white house says president obama is committed to the environmental issues and the golf trip had nothing to do with the policy. >>> the u.s. postal service lost more than $40 billion in the last several years, billion with a "b" announced it would stop saturday delivery is getting in the clothing business. they signed a deal with the ohio based clothing company to produce line of apparel dubbed rain, heat and snow. it includes wearable electronics like jackets with

the former south carolina senator jim demint says we have seen how the movie ins and it's not go. okay, jim, spell it out. more tacks and not so many spending cuts. what's the result? >> you have to scratch your head. the federal government will receive historically high tax revenues this year, yet we've double spending. it's a spending problem. the president is not willing to cut spending at this point. he continues to talk about more taxes. even though he promised that this sequester would never happen and if he got his tax increases he would cut spending. >> what are the run republics going to do? we have the president calling for more taxes. what should their response be? >> well, republicans passed in the house last year what they called a fix of the sequester, which they found cuts in other areas, reasonable cuts, to replace the spending for our defense system. it was a very reasonable bill. they passed it. harry reid never even tack it up and the president didn't acknowledge it. but there are good ways to fix this problem without gutting our military. but we can't good back

former senator jim demint, the man who promised to make health care president obama's waterloo, rightseader who gives americans a reason to hope. wow, flattery will get you everywhere. and then there's these guys. ted cruz, the new senator from texas. >> he is fearless. he doesn't make excuses. he's not defensive in anyway at all. it's a plshl to hear him. when you hear ted cruz, you're wondering, what happened? why aren't there more? you've got to understand what we're facing and ted is one of those guys. >> ted krrksz ruz, i've seen him speak and he is spell binding. he really is. he's just a tremendous or tor. >> today, cruise was one of the 15 gop senators who asked president obama to drop chuck h arks gra hagel as secretary of defense. >> i think president obama is the most radical president we've ever seen. but i think an awful lot of republicans fail to stand for prinsz pl and contributed at getting us in this mess. >> president obama is the most radical president we've ever seen? good luck on that rebrandings, republicans. jonathan, is ted cruz the right's idea of change? >> ev

he kind of replaced jim demint as the conservative strong voice.his idol and he talked about demint when he ran for office. it continues this sharp division in the senate. it also means some of us here in texas are not likely going to get a lot of money for our highways and for our military bases because we have two senators certainly ted cruz is not only alienating democrats which he sees as his job. but he's alienateing fellow republicans in some stature which he says that's fine. that's what i was sent to watch to do-- >> michael: when he is protect protecting their golf courses from the united nations. you have to give him points on. let's go to what you've written about. you have a new column about how evangelical voters are getting behind immigration reform. >> yes. >> michael: does this show another skissism in schism with the republican party. >> i think it does. these evangelicals, and many of them are republicans, and they're more often republicans but what i think when i talk to these folks pastors in various places in the country and in

ariana huffington and jim demint, they are standing by here in "the situation room." announcer ] a car has a rather small rear-view mirror, so we can occasionally glance back at where we've been. it has an enormous windshield so we can look ahead to where we are going. now is always the time to go forward. and reimagine all the possibilities that lie before us. an ally for real possibilities. aarp. find tools and guidance at aarp.org/possibilities. did you know not all fiber is the same? citrucel is different- it's the only fiber for regularity that won't cause excess gas. it's gentle and clinically proven to help restore and maintain regularity. look for citrucel today. [ babies crying ] surprise -- your house was built on an ancient burial ground. [ ghosts moaning ] surprise -- your car needs a new transmission. [ coyote howls ] how about no more surprises? now you can get all the online trading tools you need without any surprise fees. ♪ it's not rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade. humans. even when we cross our t's and dot our i's, we still

maybe sarah palin, glenn beck, jim demint, ron paul and michele bachmann. handful list of congressmen, steve king and joe walsh. then you realize that every single one of them either lost their job or abandoned being a voice of the movement. an interesting statement. >> absolutely. i think when you look at the tea party politics and what was happening in 2010, both on the hill and even for the president, the president just won the election, 2008. all of a sudden the tea party rises. folks are angry. they want to take their country back. there's visceral partisan rhetoric we can't relate to in any way shape or form. now, the evolution of the tea party. we saw this election season with people saying all kind of things like donald trump wanted to see a revolution. glenn beck said people are hired into the government to be taught how to be racist. we see these things unfold in all kinds of ways. they are not representative of what the american people at large think, feel or vote for. >> why do they fight? >> i don't know. when you look at what's happening today

jim demint's tea party for one, quote, this is a continuation of the establishment's effort to avoid blame for their horrible performance in the 2012 elections. now they want to use this new pac to trick donors into giving them more money so they can lose more races. also, the club for growth, remember them? they're pointing to the electorally successful tea party insurgents of the recent past. they're telling politico, quote, they are welcome to support the lights of arlen specter, charlie crist and david dewhurst. we will continue to support the likes of pat toomey, marco rubio and ted cruz. freedom works compares these developments to everything from the "star wars" empire to the dystopia imagined by george orwell. they say the empire is striking back. the empire is striking back. an orwellian named conservative victory project is created with the sole mission of acting activists across the country. these blatant acts of hostility are typical of an entrenched establishment circling the weapons around entrenched incumbents regardless of performance in office. biggest problem with t

about the first congressional district which opened up when tim scott was named senator replaced jim demint went off to be a lobbyist. it is an interesting cast of characters running for the seat. you mentioned stephen colbert's sister but let's not forget also former governor and romantic trail hiker mark sanford. son of a liberal billionaire teddy turner jr. who is embarrassed of his daddy running as a republican. what do you make of the cast of characters running in this race? >> well, there are 15 republicans running. they range from the craziest of the crazy to the most -- i mean they really are. i said the other day that the republican primary was a lot like midget mud wrestling. we know one thing for sure, whoever the winner is going to be an intellectual mudge et covered in mud because they're just slicing and dicing each other. mark sanford of course has money. he is the best liar in a camera. he's got a very touching spot up in which he says he's asking for forgiveness for his sexual peccadilloes but what he doesn't mention is that he hasn't asked for the people of south carolina'

>> one thing that's really interesting right now, on the violence against women act is, senator jim demints past year, he went over and now he is leading the heritage foundation. >> yes. >> the very conservative think tank group. they are actually vote checking on the violence against women act meaning, they are encouraging people not to vote for it. >> wow. >> they are going to mark it on their record if they do. >> on their scorecard. >> jim demint's first move at the heritage foundation. >> my pre-dix was he was going to destroy the reputation of the heritage foundation. sounds like et cetera well on his way to do so. jen bendery, we have a briefing today at the whitehouse jen bendery covers the house for huffington post. we will be back with jamal simmons and the rest of the news of the day. this is the full court press. "the bill press show." live on your radio and on current tv. the bar harbor bake is really worth trying. [ male announcer ] get more during red lobster's lobsterfest. with the year's largest selection of mouth-watering lobster entrees. like our delicious lobster lover'

i know internally they do not care for him he's kind of become the new jim demint.a thorn in their side. he's the type of guy that would worry about the 30-hour rule. the filibuster. that you could sink something at any minute. they don't like that. but i think what he represents is a wing of the gop that's going have to be catered to during the 2016 primaries. and who is the person to bring them together? we all thought it might be marco rubio. the voting record may be too extreme for rubio. christie, if i would have been anywhere, it would be have been the biltmore hotel. is he the one that can do the rand paul parts and the will he? that's the establishment that could. >> i just like hanging out at the biltmore hotel period. coming up, cabinet filibuster threats and domestic violence, obstructionism, are republicans their own worst enemies? we seem to be asking that question a lot. we will take a look just ahead. [ coughs ] [ angry gibberish ] i took something for my sinuses, but i still have this cough. [ male announcer ] a lot of sinus products don't treat coug

. >> while speaker boehner is hammering, jim demint a hammering over the tax hikes, what is going on that the president knows the tax hikes are going to hurt so he's blaming the sequester. >> good evening, greta. >> most of the media so sold out to obama that they're missing the obvious here, the policies that the president has in place, especially tax increases that just got in, are going to hurt our economy. probably actually bring it down. the president is desperate to blame it on the republicans. he wants to blame it on a reduction in government spending. but the taxes are taking almost two and a half times more out of the economy than the sequester will. i spent a graph over that we weren't able to get up tonight, but spending under the sequester continues to go up. and we raise-- >> it slowed growth. it's not really a cut when we talk about the sequester. >> instead of 1.7 trillion in additional spending over the next ten years, we're going to spend additional 1.6 trillion. yet, the president is making this look like it's an apocalyptic situation because he wants to do what the

he was the top pick to take over jim demint's senate seat in a december ppp poll. >>> now, an interestingundrum about mark sanford. there's no shortage of material for sanford centric attack ads starting with his pretend hike in the appalachians while he was having an affair with a woman in argentina. here is the question, how much higher can his negatives be driven and do people already know everything there is to loath about him rendering future negative ads less effective than they otherwise might be? sanford's unfavorability among south carolina voters was at 53% in that december ppp poll. not the best way to kick off a campaign. >>> up next, the truth about chuck hagel and his inartful comments about the jewish lobby. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. >>> were you correct or incorrect when you said that the surge would be the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since vietnam? were you correct or incorrect? >> my -- >> yes or no. >> my reference to -- >> are you answering the question, senator hagel? the question is were you right or wrong? that's a

he was the top pick to take over jim demint's senate seat in a december ppp poll.interesting conundrum about mark sanford. there's no shortage of material for sanford centric attack ads starting with his pretend hike in the appalachianians while he was having an affair with a woman in argentina. here is the question, how much higher can his negatives be driven in do people already know everything there is no loath about him rendering future negative ads less effective than they otherwise might be? sanford's unfavorability among south carolina voters was at 53% in that december ppp poll. not the best way to kick off a campaign. >>> up next, the truth about chuck hagel and his inartful comments about the jewish lobby. usual of whatting "hardball," the place for politics. south carolina voters was at 53% ] when was the last time something made your jaw drop? campbell's has 24 new soups that will make it drop over, and over again. ♪ from jammin' jerk chicken, to creamy gouda bisque. see what's new from campbell's. it's amazing what soup can do. if we took the nissan al

he is joined by john corn nn, jim demint, pat toomey and ron johnson. joined by udall, ron wyden and al franken, dick durbin and patty murray. so are two of the most conservative members of the caucus. the threat of primaries in 2014 moved several republicans to the right in 2012. 2011 lindsey graham was the senate's 42nd most conservative member, basically one of the most moderate and john cornyn the 14th. gram leapfrogged to 42 and cornyn to 3. flagging the rankings for journalists who have written or continue to write that senator ted cruz is pushing cornyn to the right. not just republicans who are more conservative last year than the year before. north carolina kay hagan, one of the handful of red state democrats who could be in danger in 2014. she jumped from 69th to the 52nd most conservative in 2012. >>> the senate odd couples are breaking up. ron johnson the 5th more conservative. and a breakup of long-time odd couple harkin and grassley innide waw and in south dakota rumors that tim johnconson could head for the exits breaking up that pairing

in a courtroom, but i think in ted cruz you have someone who is essentially auditioning to be a jim demintith an attitude. conservatives want an attack dog. he is very much auditioning for that role. he's a tea party favorite. if you look at the national review, they very much like his style. but, again, i think in some ways it certainly reflects what republicans i think are hoping to do over this next week, and that is further chip away at hagel and hope that something will stick and that another shoe will drop. >> let's take a look at another thing. first of all, just in terms of british-style debate, british-style debate you use innuendo, you use rhetoric. american-style debate, guys, is about documentation. it's about bringing in evidence. that's how we debate in this country. the british do it with flair and all kinds of rhetoric and oratorical devices. that's what he's more like. anyway, both senator cruz and senator mccarthy at times have used media props to make their points. at hagel's hearing, cruz employed a video clip from al jazeera. here he sets up the presentation. >> i'd li

when you talk about the outside groups that are helping the ball push the ball forward, you have jim deminttage foundation. he is not exactly going to be a voice for sort of moderate reform within the party, right, carrie? >> no. he is taking that over. you know, to further the work he was doing in the senate, which was, you know, among some of the most conservative ideas and efforts around, so, yeah, the heritage foundation, which came off of the individual mandate for health care. you know, good two decades ago. ing that became the foundation of health care. that was the heritage foundation. i don't think we would see that same kind of idea coming out underneath. >> conservatives have attached themselves. the establishment of the party attached itself to the tea party movement, and it's very hard to untether yourself from that movement. especially when, as you point out, the objections are kind of cosmetic. they're aesthetic. they're not disagreeing with them about core substance. the dlc wing of the democratic party and the liberal wing was -- >> it was profound. >> it's like coyote ugly

luminaries: top conservative congressmeeric cantor, kevin mccarthy, paul ryan, senate power brokers jim demint, jon kyl, tom coburn, and event organizer frank luntz. >> the room was filled. it was a who's who of ranking members who had at one point been committee chairmen or in the majority, who now wondered, out loud, whether they were in the permanent minority >> the 44th president of these united states, barack obama. >> many of them had attended obama's inauguration. they had seen that breathtaking spectacle of a million and a half people on the mall. and it felt like a wholesale repudiation of the republican party. >> they walked into that dining room as depressed as i've seen any elected members of congress. they lost every senate seat they could lose. they lost all these house seats. the numbers were so great that they thought that they weren't coming back again, not for an election or two, but maybe a generationr two. >> narrator: as the night wore on, the talk turned to the future. >> three hours, some of the brightest minds in the republican party debated how to be relevant. >> the p