let's head over to capitol hill with luke russert. while the senate has been voting on multiple bills, so where does the situation stand right now, luke? can you categorize the tenor, the air, the feeling there? do they feel like they've achieved some sort of success as they break for the holiday? >> reporter: any time they can pass something out of the united states senate in the last few years, you can say that's a success in and of itself. this is a legislative body that's been bogged down, absolute dysfunction. this morning, they did pass the tax cut holiday, that includes the unemployment benefit. but also they did the novel concept this morning of funding the entire united states government. listen to arizona senator john mccain and his comments on the senate floor about that. >> here we are again. a bill, 1,221 pages long, not one member of this committee has read it. 1,221 pages representing $915 billion of the taxpayer's money and here we are not with an amendment -- we do have minutes, we have 15 minutes. school buses, reposi

. >> let's go over to luke russert live on capitol hill. luke, we've been watching the white house countdown clock. down to ten days 13 hours, 59 minutes. the question might be what will happen before that click hits zero, if anything? >> as of right now, richard, the gop conferees that are supposably are having their first meeting with speaker boehner and photo op around 10:00 a.m. that is really to try to show that they are here working. the gop wants to get that message out. this comes against a backdrop a for tough day for house republicans. "the wall street journal" wrote a scathing editorial saying they had botched this. they should pass the senate bill and move on. bob corker has said let's get this two-month extension and move on. against this backdrop a lot of folks in the higher end part of the republican party saying this fight is not worth it because the president is win, they're here in washington perceiving to work. what's going to happen today is after this meeting they'll sit around in d.c. the conferees waiting for negotiato

speaking of complex congressional maneuvering, i want to bring in here the stage of capitol hill luke russert who can update us on the latest comings and goings as the payroll tax cut battle continues onwards through the night. luke, tell us what's happening over there. >> well, as of today, alex, what you're going to see is a vote on the house floor to go to conference. and for a lot of folkses out there who -- that means essentially is there are differences between the house and the senate bill, sometimes you can appoint leadership on both sides would do that, to work out those differences and try to come up with a by paiparn agreement between both chambers. what's interesting though is to have a vote go to conference, the house gop leadership is not going to have a vote on the senate bill to have support on saturday. why? i spoke to a view gop members that said there is a real chance that bill could have passed the house, the one that leadership did not want to move forward. it's optics. 2012 campaign commercial i'm sure bill burton right next to you would write one saying -- >> he may hav

nbc's luke russert is busy on capitol hill with a good saturday morning to you, luke. >> reporter: good morning, alex. how are you? >> i'm great. i hope you are, too. i guess, are these billings all great? are they going to pass or are there still sticking points? >> reporter: no, these are very much bipartisan bills that will pass the senate later today. the voting's about to start now. it will go until about 10:30 or 11 a.m. senators really do want to get out of washington, d.c. and start on their holiday break. but there was some contentious negotiations all week, talk about extending payroll tax cut for a year from now. eventually democrats had to settle on two months because both sides cannot figure out exactly how exactly to pay for this. the way this two-month extension will be paid for is fees freddie mac and fannie mae xharnlg will go up, transaction fees will go higher and passed along to mortgage lenders. that's something both sides could agree to. also the reason why this is going to attract republican support is because of the keystone pipeline you mentioned. take a look to

for more on this, i am joined by luke russert and chief washington correspondent with the latest. luke, if i can begin with you. the surprise at what happened, isn't this john boehner's patent. he reaches an agreement as he did with the president and the moment tea partysquealing, he r from the deal. >> sorry that the criticism. >> sorry that the patent? >> it's an interesting thing. you have to look objectively. if you look at it objectively, john boehner himself has been a deal maker. he worked with ted kennedy on no child left behind and he himself would like to take the deal and make the deal. it was very conservative after the last election and he doesn't like a short-term banding or fix. if he has to represent that constituency, he would not like a deal like this that is too short-term. >> massachusetts republican senator scott brown called house republicans irresponsible and wrong for planning to vote down the payroll tax extension and cracks in the foundation here again. >> don't forget that dean helder, a republican senator from nevada also just said that the house should

. >> nbc's luke russert is following the details for us.er boehner even going to have the votes needed to get through today? >> that's a good question, thomas. the how gop met today as a conference. i spoke to a member who went in there who said the leadership informed him they may not have the votes to pass a republican bill. the reason being they have an ideological opposition to extending the tax cut holiday, because they see it as a temporary band-aid. that all being said, it's believed the addition of the keepstone pipeline will get enough republicans on board, because they'll be seeing as being a pro-jobs growth agenda. that's the road to 217, there's been a a divide, and it's going to not be the easiest slam dunk, but it is expected to pass. le to what harry reid said about it on the floor of the united states senate. >> we have to understand as i explained to the speaker today, we're going to have to do this together. this ideological candy that they've added to this bill is not going to sell over here. >> that is the keystone pipel

luke russert who covers capitol hill for us and is the sage of nbc for all things political. luke thanks for being on the show. >> good afternoon, alex. >> i want to start with the spat between nancy pelosi and newt gingrich over his ethics violations. what is the latest on that and how much could those ethics violations hurt him in the long run? >> it seems like we're reliving the 1990s all over again, a time when i think we said before you and i couldn't even vote when all this was going on. >> we weren't yet born, luke. just kidding. >> we were born. >> show over. >> continue. continue onwards. >> but nancy pelosi a few days ago said in an interview up here and sort of a tongue in cheek way talking about the possibility of newt gingrich being the republican nominee, how a lot of democrats would welcome that because of all the ethical baggage he had in the 1990s. she was a member of the ethics committee that investigated newt gingrich back then. it started in 1994, went through 1997. it was about whether or not newt gingrich improperly used a tax deductible dollars for polit

luke russert and john harwood, coming up.top lines. >> a mormonç gambling with an evangelical over who is the bigger liar. are there any commandments left? the best approach to food is to keep it whole for better nutrition. that's what they do with great grains cereal. they steam and bake the actual whole grain while the other guy's flake is more processed. mmm. great grains. the whole whole grain cereal. the newest droid armed with motocast. granting you wireless access to files on your home computer from almost anywhere. 4g lte equipped to pull pictures, music, and movies. all at mind-melting speeds. powered by verizon, this droid is too powerful to fall into the wrong hands. ♪ with quarter-inch holes and blueprints for the coming year? those of us with doers on our lists. and because it's always better to give than to guess, we can take these last few days of shopping and our holiday budgets a lot further. ♪ more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. this 18-volt ryobi starter kit is just 89 bucks. ♪ p p

i'm luke russert in for chuck todd who son a very -- or well earned vacation.he first read of the morning. it looks like there will be a tax cut for christmas after all. five-day standoff came to an abrupt end on thursday when speaker boehner essentially cornered by the president in his own party called his colleagues and told them the fight was over. >> you know, sometimes it is hard to do the right thing. sometimes it is politically difficult to do the right thing. may not have been the politically smartest thing in the world, but let me tell you what, i think our members waged a good fight. >> boehner surrender paves the way for the senate and the house to approve the two-month extension and send it to the president's desk. the president tried to take his political victory in stride, attributing it to public pressure, not the bully pulpit. after the announcement, he took to twitter and said thanks to all who shared their stories. today's victory is yours. keep making your voices heard. it makes all the difference. mark murray is nbc's deputy political direct

luke russert covers capitol hill and joins us now. o do as we watch the year tick down and we had the clock lit ramaley kicking at the briefing yesterday that president obama gave. does anybody here have the upper hand? >> it's an interesting question, thomas, because earlier this week you could say that democrats definitely did have the upper hand because republicans were still trying to coalesce around a message. they were in the awkward positioning of not liking a payroll tax cut extension because they thought it would harm social security and didn't think it was a permanent fix to the nation's tax code but it put them on the side of wanting to raise taxes for the nation's middle class. they have coalesced around a plan in which they would include the keystone pipeline and restructure unemployment benefits and freeze the federal pay of workers possibly until 2015 to pay for the extension of the payroll tax cut holiday. that plan would then seem to say now both sides are on equal footing because house republicans are going to coalesc

. >> nbc's luke russert has the very latest for us. this one down, one to go kind of business going on here? there we have john boehner saying the house is done, the dishes are clean? >> absolutely, let's look at this from a broad perspective, tom mass number one, the fear of a government shutdown that is off the table. late last night the democratic senate and the republican house came to an agreement on $1 trillion-plus bill to fund the government through the rest of the fiscal year. we got that off. we don't have to dust out the countdown clock for the shutdown of armageddon, we fig that out. next issue, payroll tax extension, holiday of that as well as the extension of unemployment benefits as well as the medicare doctrine, things congress needs to get done by january 1st or every single working american will feel them in very impactful way. most americans would see $1,000 disappear from their paycheck if congress cannot figure out the payroll tax cut extension. what are they going to do with that? the house is going to vote to pass

. >> nbc's luke russert is live on capitol hill where the vote is expected to begin this hour. d luke, you could hear the exasperation across the beltway when those announcements came out. first of all, tell us about the timing of this vote that's supposed to happen today. >> the main vote that folks should be look at here in d.c. and around the country will be around 12:00 moon today. the house is going to vote to go to conference with the senate. the senate passed that two-month extension. the house passed a yearlong bill about a week ago. there are real discrepancies between the two of them in length, cost and what they do with unemployment benefits. republicans want to take unemployment benefits from 99 weeks to 59 weeks. that is going to be the vote around noon. we originally thought that the senate bill, the two-month extension would see a vote on house for the gop leadership in the house. pulled that bill from the floor they were weary of having their members go to the floor to vote against a tax cut that would appear in a 2012 political ad for democrats. the idea, this g

joining us now is luke russert who covers capitol hill for nbc news. give us a little bit of background on this is a fluid situation as we know. what is going on? >> well -- it's now a game of optics alex. whichever side feels they're going to win the pr war is going to end up winning this fight. but the house gop is in a very precarious situation this morning. for a few reasons. number one, the article in the "wall street journal," it was almost the authority of kind of sophisticated republican politics, really slamming them for this fight. that will resonate with a lot of rank-and-file members who don't want to be on the wrong side of the "wall street journal." on top of that, they're not get anything support if their colleagues in the senate. mitch mcconnell has been silent about this, has not spoken out in favor of the house gop's position. bob corker, someone close to leadership in, a republican from tennessee said the house can stop this fight, it's not worth it. so the optics are looking very bad. saw right there, stenny-hour, on the house floor

i want to bring in luke russert, who covers capitol hill for nbc news.nk you for joining us, as always. >> reporter: sure. >> we have many questions for you. >> reporter: okay. >> but i guess one of the first ones is , can you update to the situation regarding the payroll tax cut and the extension of the unemployment insurance? >> reporter: the story has developed quite a lot in the last hour, alex. and the reason why is senate minority leader, mitch mcconnell, essentially released a statement saying, look, john boehner and the house republicans should pass a two-month temporary extension, and after that, harry reid, the senate majority leader, should motion to go to conference, especially appoint conferrees to work out the difference between the house and senate bills. what's ironic is this has been the position harry reid has had from the beginning of this debate saying, look, we understand that a two-month fix doesn't work. we want to do a year-long extension. there's not enough time to sort of mesh the differences together and come out with a cohesiv

. >> nbc's luke russert following all of this for us. if republicans won't pass the senate bill, democrats won't go to conference, what's going to happen to this extension? >> nobody knows, thomas. it really is an anomaly here on capitol hill. usually somebody can chart a path forward. and right now we are in what i like to call a real stalemate city situation. you might as well remain washington, d.c. that. what we're going to see around noon is the house voting on the motion to go to conference with the senate. now originally the house was going to vote down the senate compromise, then house republicans in the leadership got weary about having their members vote for a tax increase. so that has since been scrapped. it's suppose'd to be as a gop aide said an outright rejection of the senate plan when you vote to conference. usually when you have different bills that deal with the same thing from the house and senate leadership on both sides can appoint conferees to work out the differences. this usually happens on big budget bills. howev

pink christmas trees are bad or not, joining us with the latest on the payroll tax cut fight, luke russert. luke, good day. >> good day, alex. how are you? zpl i am good. i am not one for the sports metaphors, so i will let you clarify. did boehner effectively call an audible here? is that what is going on on capitol hill? >> i would go a step further. let's say that mitch mcconnell was the coach of the gop here and they agree today a play and went to the line of scrimmage and quarterback boehner realized his team was out of position and started calling a huge time-out to restructure themselves. if you're john boehner realizing that on a conference call yesterday, the house gop would not pass this two-month extension, 90% of support was negotiated by mitch mcconnell, who i don't think anyone would say is a progressive liberal, if you will, trying to undermine republican clause. and this bill is now being seen by the house gop as just another temporary band-aid. they want to have a full year extension and a lot of this is exattention if president obama will use this two-month period of wher

luke russert is live at the white house. ke, is the keystone pipeline out along with drug testing for the unemployed or are they part of the bill? >> as i talked to you, those are still part of the bill and negotiations are ongoing between a few people that senator harry reid is talking with mitch mcconnell and john baner is caught in the loop. they met last night. there is there is a lot of rhetoric about a government shut down that is tampered by both speaker boehner and nancy pelosi. they would like to move away from that. nevertheless we are looking at right now the gop plan to still go forward and it supports the bill to fund the government with only gop votes that would be on the floor tomorrow night and not hold back. they are doubling down on this idea and saying look, we paid the tax cut extension with keystone by freezing federal workers's salaries and reformed the unemployment benefits. they will double down on the office of saying dwee our work. what can the senate do? we are in this wait and see. honestly, the on

for more on this i'm joined by mike at the white house and luke russert from the washington bureau. r john boehner introduced legislation today that would extend the payroll tax cut into 2012 as you know, but is he suffering a form of hearing loss? i'm sure i heard the president say he won't accept a bill that has multiple attachments? >> that's right, martin. president obama said that he would veto any bill -- >> is speaker boehner suffering a form of hearing loss? >> i don't suspect he's suffering from hearing loss. he's trying to strengthen his negotiating hand by combining a bill that's a job creator with a bill unpopular with his conference, which is an extension of the payroll tax holiday. the keystone pipeline is an interesting issue. it's one that organized labor would like to see happen. environmentalists are against it. it puts both of the president's constituencies against each other. republicans try to exploit that. they've lost the argument last week on the payroll tax cut holiday because it's a payroll tax cut that helps working families. they weren't on board as being

for more on this, let's go right to nbc's luke russert who's on capitol hill for us. ow, luke? >> reporter: good afternoon, richard. really in the last half hour, another outlet reported there's possibly a way forward here on the payroll tax cut extension that perhaps speaker of the house john boehner would allow the senate bill to be passed by unanimous consent on the house floor, and possibly that would go over to the senate, under e thesthe us a pass they would go into conferree. frank thorpe, our producer, is also reporting that at 5:00 p.m., the house gop conference is going to have a conference call. that's important, because that means every single member is going to get on there, they're obviously going to hear some member from speaker bayner and the leadership. the last time they had a conference call, richard, is when speaker boehner had to pull back and this is where we are now. the fact that there's a conference call at 5:00 p.m. leads us to believe that some explanation from boehner will be going out to his members about what the next step forward is going

luke russert is nbc news capitol hill correspondent. contingentm congressman, and former chief economist for vice president biden. luke, what a day. >> reporter: indeed, reverend al. we woke up this morning with the house gop having a press conference at 10:00 a.m. announcing they still would fight. they would fight this to 9 bitter end, because they thought a one-year extension was the way to go, but surely that's not the case. >> tell me why did boehner cave in? from 10:00 to the white flag going up tonight, what happened? >> what really induced boehner saying that he was going to go along with harry reid's idea was the fact that mitch mcconnell, the senate majority leader gave the house gop no cover. he basically said they should pass the two-months extension and harry reid should appoint conferrees to work out a long-term solution only after we pass the two-month deal. why? he was one of the chief negotiators of the senate deal that got 97% of the votes in the senate. 89 senators, 39 republicans. he wanted to see that thing move forw

. >> nbc's luke russert obtained a copy of the anti-gingrhas been n capitol hill. that includes newt gingrich opposed paul ryan's conservative budget. newt gingrich claims to be a fiscal conservative but when he attacked paul ryan's budget he threw the conservative cause under the bus. mitt creates jobs. mitt romney is the only candidate who can beat barack obama. oops. the trouble with that last talking point, of course, is the polls disagree. polling now indicates that romney and gingrich are evenly matched against president obama. a new batch of early state polls now shows gingrich roaring ahead of romney. in iowa, gingrich has a 13-point lead over romney. in new hampshire, the former state of massachusetts pretends to leave, gingrich has closed to within nine points of romney. until now, romney has had at least a 20-point lead in every new hampshire poll. and in both south carolina and florida, gingrich is running away from romney 23 points ahead. a new poll out today confirms gingrich's commanding lead in florida. and when voters are asked to choose between ju

ç >> luke russert joins us live and it's interesting rhetoric from nancy pelosi who said what do republicans against the working people in america? if they are moving towards some kind of solution here, they certainly want to go out with a bang for their base. >> there is certainly a solution in the near future. that's most likely weeks away. both sides putting forth that helps them in the fall of 2012. democrats would say they wanted to protect their friend who is are millionaires and million bears. democrats would not have cuts in spending and not want to put a means test on millionaires or to pay for something. listen to what nancy pelosi said in regard to that the little class is bearing this heavy burden on the issue of taxes. >> the republicans want to extend tax cuts for the wealthiest people in america. one million and above. the tax cuts to the middle class and that needs to be paid for. >> and a lot of democrats are really using that angle and saying they supported the bush tax cuts in the past and republicans say look, that was different. that was people not having more money in t

for more on this i'm joined by nbc's luke russert on capitol hill along with nbc's kristin welker of licans, as i understand it, expect to vote tomorrow in the house on their plan. it is unlikely to pass in the senate as you always say. if this is another failed attempt to resolve the issue what comes next? >> that's the million dollar question here on capitol hill, martin. this is very similar to what we have seen in these types of debates in the past. the crunch time for the payroll tax cut holiday extension and all the business in congress needs to get done by the end of the year. what's going to happen? the house gop bill will pass the house tomorrow and it will go over to the senate and most likely no not even get a vote on the senate floor. and there is a -- lot of reasons for that. one, it cuts unemployment benefits from 99 weeks to 59 weeks and reform there as well as having an extension of the keystone pipeline. a decision must be made by the president under the house gop bill within 60 days and that's something a lot of folks over the senate and democratic sides says it is n

. >> luke russert specializing in understatements about newt gingrich. maybe it's a good thing that newer generation doesn't remember his speakership. >> maybe it's a good thing. but they're going to be reminded or learn very quickly about newt gingrich. what they can do is read the column written by a certain individual who uses this same studio earlier in the morning, joe scarborough, who wrote a piece that basically damned newt gingrich with scant praise. i won't even say faint praise but scant praise. you get to the very end of his column and he says, who the hell knows what's going to happen to the republican party if this man gets the nomination? we're looking at a guy who i think is rising in the polls because one, folks already know his baggage. >> the skeletons are already out there. >> so they're used to it. and, two he's very, very blunt. as we heard what he said about really poor kids in really poor neighborhoods and lots of other examples of newt being very blunt. what we've seen over this primary process is that the folks who rise to the to

luke russert, thank you for joining us. the sanl of capitol hill. >>> coming up wrs the gop front-runner. but first, we talk about the political infighting at nrc and the mood in congress. that's next on "now". when you have tough pain, do you want fast relief? try bayer advanced aspirin. it has microparticles so it enters the bloodstream fast and rushes relief to the site of your tough pain. it's proven to relieve pain twice as fast as before. bayer advanced aspirin. twice as fast as before. you want to save money on car insurance? no problem. you want to save money on rv insurance? no problem. you want to save money on motorcycle insurance? no problem. you want to find a place to park all these things? fuggedaboud it. this is new york. hey little guy, wake up! aw, come off it mate! geico. saving people money on more than just car insurance. it's all crossed out... it's 'cause i got everything on it. boom! thank you! [ male announcer ] the big christmas event is here. starting 8 a.m. saturday. with great deals on toys, ele

luke russert joins us this morning. where does this back and forth leave us today?we're just getting started in the crunch start of this debate, thomas. what we're going fooz is tomorrow the gop plan to extend the payroll tax cut extension, could be voted on on the floor. we think the debate will start. what's in that plan? there's a few things. it would extend the payroll tax cut holiday but force the president of the united states to make a decision on whether or not to let the key stoin pipeline to be constructed from canada all the way to goulf of mexico. no longer can you be on unemployment benefits for 99 weeks. it goes down to 59 weeks. a medicare fix that medical physicians don't see a 28% decrease in pay. that's attached to a pay for, which is a freeze on all federal workers' salary, possibly until 2015. so there's a lot of elements in this plan that are deeply unpopular with democrats, speaking unemployment going from the 99 weeks to 59 weeks. the keystone pipeline is unrelated to anything to do with the payroll tax cut haul daily. it will go out of the ho

. >> thank you luke russert, the sage of capitol hill for your wisd wisdom., we'll be looking at the real economic picture in our country. ♪ [ male announcer ] it's easy to see what subaru owners care about. ♪ that's why we created the share the love event. get a great deal on a new subaru and 250 dollars goes to your choice of five charities. ♪ with your help, we can reach 20 million dollars by the end of this, our fourth year. [ female announcer ] get 0 percent apr financing on select models for thirty-six months and we'll donate two-hundred and fifty dollars to your choice of five charities. now through january 3rd. >>> we learned this beak that jobless claims dropped to the low nest three years. the fed see moderate growth yet that obscures a serious economic problem for this country which is the crisis in europe. ben, you're a guru of all things financial. the situation in europe and the potential meltdown of the euro doan is quickly changing environment. can you get us up to speed in term of the latest. >> i can try to do that. you're right. it is now t