howard, you are my friend and you, too, smiling john heilemann. you here's the plan -- i do everything aboveboard. i don't meet in the white house, never been there or been invited. here's the thing, you see a district. take the nastiest republican, red dog crazy tea party, fanatic tea party like michele bachmann. look at a bridge in her district. take a picture, get the address, show where it needs work a bridge that needs built, she's been through this with the stimulus bill. she'll tell you and already has. will create 3,000 jobs. she's done with the stimulus bill. they all know the bill, fixing bridges, fixing roads, water system, sewage systems create jobs. put it in their face and list all the challenges in their district, all the particular public works projects that need to be done, not jobs, jobs that need to be filled work that needs to be done safety that needs to be protected. with bridges that are in safety problems right now. take that information to local newspapers, take it to local tv affiliates, blast it all over the place and de

john heilemann, that's how you get a public works through. not gee wheeze, let's have a stimulus, or means nothing. you show them the school bridge going over in september. how about we make it safe. just a thought. what's your thought. >> chris, first of all, the white house and the president's re-election committee clearly understand they need to do something politically on the jobs front and they tr in fact at the moment as howard indicated trying to figure what that should be's they are going to have 134 sort of the jobs package they'll roll out at some point in the next couple of weebs maybe early in september. i think the problem with your proposal, and this is something i said on the show on friday, waiting for halloween or what? what are they waiting for? >> this is not a president -- this is -- this is not a put it in their faces kind of president. and i -- i see the political mileage that you're proposing in the proposal that you're proposing, but it's so counter to the way, to the temperament of barack obama and the way he's govern

now for the political fallout of the deal, national affairs editor for new york magazine, john heilemann joins me by phone. good morning, john. >> good morning, willie geist. >> so is paul krugman write, did president obama surrender to this small faction of the republican party known as the tea party? >> pretty much. i think that's about right. the president, if you think just from the 30,000 foot vantage point, the president talked for months about a balanced approach and from his point of view, a palled approach included revenues. he didn't get any revenues. so almost everything, gave in. the only thing he got that he wanted was a debt ceiling increase that would carry him through the end of next year. and that's something. certainly not just in terms of his political calculus, but also in terms of economic stability for the country. but it really was the only thing that he ended up winning in these negotiations and they were fought almost entirely and concluded almost entirely on republican terms. >> here's a big question with no obvious short answer. how did this happen? you have a

national affairs editor, john heilemann. peter alexander is here. >> he was so brave out in the storm. you went to coney island. >> i think your bigger challenge was your vacation in paris. i called it. >> i almost made what we learned a couple fridays ago -- tell his wife to be. >> we have the director of the earth institute at columbia university dr. jeffry sachs. pat buchanan, it is good to see you after a two-week break. >> it's great to see you. i was on the eastern shore. >> kind of rough down there. kind of rough down there, politically, kind of rough. dick cheney writing his book. were you surprised colin powell went after him the way he did? >> i was. john mccain handled it well saying i wish the vice president well and i wish him good health and ignored his comments. colin powell showed he was stung badly by the vice president. >> no doubt about it. jeffrey sachs, it has to steam you to see all these republicans fighting each other. >> yeah. what a scene, you know? >> i know. >> what are we looking at in news, mika

mark halperin is here, and interviewed governor perry for "time" magazine and john heilemann, national political columnist. mark first then john. impact statement. perry's in? >> chris, i'm sorry. could you say that again? >> what's the impact of perry coming into the race? nbc reporting says he's an actual candidate and will announce on saturday. >> i think by most metric we use to judge candidates he become as first tier candidate if he performs well in the first 15 day, i think for the time it will be a two-person race between him and governor romney. a big if, he's never done this. first time presidential candidate, but if he raises the kind of money they're talking about, fields the excitement in south carolina and iowa in particular, it will be effectively for the time being a two-person race. >> what do you make of it? two-person race? boxing out bachmann by getting in on the tea party side? >> well, as mark said, we'll see how he performs. has perry is, what he embodies is the possibility, you talked about the different wings of the party. we talked on the show about different

. >> john heilemann is here. >> go ahead. >> msnbc political analyst and former chairman of the republican national committee is with us. >> have you had a good summer, john? >> what summer? >> exactly. >> one day is a cold spring, the next day, we are on the verge of a snowstorm. >> major news to report this morning. >> with a heat wave, does it really have to go from 42 to 117? are we on mars where we have no atmosphere? >> yeah. >> global warming. >> the leaves started to change out there. you can see that. >> i like it. >> the first changing of the leaves, august 1st. >> with just one day to go before the budget deadline -- i do like the fact we are not doing the countdown deadline. >> can we have an armageddon clock for a minute. we can add shocks. >> there's one day left. >> over the weekend, you know, the kids and i -- like the kids -- you know, willie, the kids are hip to my jive, right, so i'm on the twitter a lot. i'm on the twitter a lot talking about the cold play and -- >> oh, yeah. >> the stroke. are they still hot? anyway, it's going crazy this weekend. casey and the sunshin

thank you john heilemann and ben smith. when we return, why the tea party's muggings, what we saw this week and this month and this year will continue if the president lets them get away with it. 3q double shift... i need a break. he needs some gellin'. yeahhhhhhh. gellin' is like having a teeny tiny foot masseuse in your shoe. you like ? nice ! dr. scholl's massaging gel insoles. outrageous comfort, all-day long. >>> let me finish tonight with this bad experience we've all just been through. what we saw, what i saw was one guy with a knife and the other guy trying to avoid being cut. it was a thug attacking a victim, it was a mugging. good news, the victim did get through it. the bad news, the mugger got what he wanted, he got the wallet. i put you, the most important question of the week, the year, the presidency, our time. any doubt he, the mugger, will do it again? not a bit. he declared his intention to name not a single member of the special committee to make the second cut in the debt to an increase, so the mugging c

we're joined by msnbc political analyst richard wolfe and john heilemann. you've been on the campaign trail with all of these folks. >> it's clear bill keller is right in the sense that a lot of candidates use their religious connections to, as he said, pry open people's wallets in certain religious parts of the base. that's on display in this republican primary season. it's also the case that i think more broadly that presidential contest, presidential elections, are about character to a large extent and voters want to understand what the candidates they're about to vote for or not vote for what they believe in. those candidates do put their faith as they put their families on display to try to show people who they are at a deep level. to that extent i think it is fair as keller suggests to ask certain kinds of questions about what they're beliefs are and how they bear on public policy. >> look what happens when you do that, richard wolffe. as a fox news debate, michele bachmann was asked about comment she made in the past about a wife's duty to be submiss

thank you john heilemann and ben smith.urn, why the tea party's muggings, what we saw this week and this month and this year will continue if the president lets them get away with it. [ p.a. announcer ] announcing america's favorite cereal is now honey nut cheerios! yup, america's favorite. so we're celebrating the honey sweetness, crunchy oats and... hey! don't forget me!! honey nut cheerios. make it your favorite too! what if we designed an electric motorcycle? what if we turned trash into surfboards? whatever your what if is, the new sprint biz 360 has custom solutions to make it happen, including mobile payment processing, instant hot spots, and 4g devices like the motorola photon. so let's all keep asking the big what ifs. sprint business specialists can help you find the answers. sprint. america's favorite 4g network. trouble hearing on the phone? visit sprintrelay.com. >>> let me finish tonight with this bad experience we've all just been through. what we saw, what i saw was one guy with a knife and the other guy try

with us today, "new york magazine"'s john heilemann. the bbc's katty kay. "the new york times" helene cooper and tim magazine's rick stengel. all of a sudden we have rick perry shaking up both the republican race and maybe the whole she bang. how about this for a notion? that we're looking at 1980 all over again. like ronald reagan, the werner dethroning the establishment, mitt romney in the way reagan pushed aside george bush 41. reagan found a way to play a big debate moment in new hampshire to make bush look too small for the role. >> i am -- for this microphone -- chris: democrats hope barack obama won't be like jimmy carter, whose economic times were so tough they got reagan elected and reagan's far right views weren't even in focus. could the same be true for rirk perry? if he were the republican nominee, would his controversial views get ignored? >> i'm not real sure you're a bunch of right wing extremists, but if you are, i'm with you. >> john is this what the republican parties wants? a guy wo -- who kids around and embraces the far right? >> certa

we'll talk to john heilemann. meanwhile the international markets that thread ethreatened

john heilemann first. the perfect storm. europe in turmoil, countries on the periphery of hell waiting to drop out, inability to pay their debt. the united states going day-to-day basically in a clinch, a non-decisive clinch, was the smartest guy on the block mitch mcconnell saying i'm not going to let the republicans be blamed? this is all obama's baby? let him have it. >> i think it was. you mentioned before working for jimmy carter. the last time we've had nine consecutive drops, was february 1978. the memories should are strong for you of this kind of thing. i think that what we had was, we managed this week to avoid a debt ceiling default, but i think the markets saw over the course of the last three months and month particularly the last three week as political default on the part of both parties, and they're reacting to a lot of thing. obviously, a lot of economic data in europe. bad economic data here, but also to this notion, as you put it, a clinch, a political default, that there is no -- that the government and t

joining me is peter orszag manager of budget, john heilemann the "new york" magazine and mark halperin and al hunt. mark halperin, tell us what happened today. >> the good news charlie is the house has passed this agreement which avoids the cataclysm of faults, i suppose lessons for credit down grade. that's really good news. the bad nooses -- news in the short term is this deal does absolutely nothing to address a pathetically anemic economy. the bad news in the long run is it really is delusional as far as dealing with long-term chronic deficit. so it's a good deal in avoing a default. it's pretty hard to argue and i find very many democrats or republicans who would argue it does anything significant. >> charlie: it will pass tomorrow and the president will sign tomorrow. >> it will and he will there's no question of to the. unlike the same sun's committee, unlike the gang of six, unlike all the plans conceived by peter orszag, this does nothing about taxes and does nothing about entitlement. and that's a problem. >> charlie: this is just the beginning or is this somehow give us a pe

as john heilemann reported in "new york" magazine, a piece about romney and huntsman. analysts, huntsman adviser john weaver sees the nomination contest as a tournament with two brackets -- the establishment bracket and the populist tea party bracket in which the winners of each will ultimately face off in the final round. in the establishment bracket, weaver places only huntsman and romney. and if we win our bracket, he says, we win the nomination, because in our party, the winner of that bracket always wins the big prize, always." is 2012 the year that stands that on its head? >> that's the central question hanging over this race -- is this your father's gop? if it is, then weaver is right and the gop will nominate whoever is next in line. that appears to be romney. but here's why i think perry could be the bracket-buster, because he can appeal to both wings. he can do the establishment side, governor for ten years, but also, he was tea party before it was cool. so i think perry has the possibility. we'll see, it's still early yet to appeal to sort of both of those w

back with us on set, john heilemann and harold ford jr. >> what did you think of that?imes, if you read between the lines of some of these stories, it seems like some of the reports may have been overly optimistic. i must say, i was surprised by just how good she looked, and just her responding the way she did to everybody. what a happy, happy moment. >> you know, it was the kind of thing where you -- sometimes when you're watching coverage of something, it is overkill because we roll it and roll it. i could watch that video again and again and again. it brings -- >> the opposite for me. i was switching around the channels, right? and i saw the -- i saw everybody rise, and i was, like, okay, take the giffords shot. even at home, i'm the director, like take the giffords shot. everybody is like, well, you know, you wonder what the parliamentary procedures -- like the people on air, it took them like 30 minutes to figure out why they were clapping. i'm, like, gabby giffords. without knowing she was there, she was there and then you saw it, man, it was just great. >> chills

. >> now let's go to john heilemann. >> you've talked about the popes being corrupt, but the pay palsyhad a couple of correspondents who go cover the vatican who had previously covered white houses and got there and thought it's not that different. can tayou talk about the politil nature and political aprats tuesday that popes put around them in the vatican? >> you have to admit the vatican was for most of its existence, it was actually not only just spiritual, but it was also a temporal authority. it ruled great tracts of italy. so there was absolutely no question that it could avoid being political. it had to be very, very political indeed. and it had to take its part in all the nightmarish plie isish g that was going on for centuries. so it's 100% political institution. always has been. and i think it trays to be spiritual inevitably certain popes who have been perhaps better than most of them, more successful than most, have been extremely spiritual people. but i think they were in the minority. i think the very large majority were really very, very -- were hardly more than mediocr