i suppose i'll go to you, tim pawlenty. do you get a sense that people in washington just do not understand how fed up the american people are of turning on their television news and hearing they're still squabbling over this stuff and can never get anything done? it seems like the whole year has been spent with people wasting time. >> well, absolutely, and that's why we need somebody to be from outside of washington as their next president. mitt romney has spent almost his entire life, save for four years as governor of massachusetts, in the private sector. he's not from washington. he's not part of that culture. he isn't a former lobbyist or advocate. he is somebody who's been in the private sector, started businesses, grown businesses, grown jobs. when people look at the experience differential, leadership differential, and frankly the difference in world views between barak obama's governmentcentric view of the world verse what is mitt romney has proposed and done cutting taxes in massachusetts, cutting spending in mass

. >> tim pawlenty, officially announcing -- >> i'm not running for entertainer in chief. >> pawlenty, the name itself is like polenta. >> president obama said that he designed obama care after romney care. and basically made it owe bombny care. >> there were some missed opportunities by him. >> the question, governor was by bamay care. >> the knock on you is that you're invisible and dull and you have the chance to be visible and sharp. >> breaking news, nbc can confirm that he is dropping out of the presidential race. >> pawlenty is out. >> mitt romney, and i'm proud and excited to endorse him for president of the united states. >> pawlenty was the hope for the gop. >> republicans need another entry. they need someone like chris christie. >> i don't feel ready in my heart to be president. i don't feel like i'm ready to be president. i simply do not have the desire to do it. nor do i think i'm ready. >> the person who just keeps being mentioned is chris christie. >> we can't wait another four years. your country needs you. >> the man many held up as the last great hope for the republi

pawlenty, maddow, v. push comes to shove.ee your local listings or just don't change the channel. >> that's why there are special rules taped up on msnbc on the doors of the editing rooms that ban the rachel maddow show staff from the editing rooms at peak hours. that's the kind of thing we do. that's why we can't have nice things. joining us tonight for the long awaited interview on this program is the former minnesota governor and former republican presidential candidate, tim pawlenty. at last we clash, governor. >> well, rachel, i was having a little fun with you when i made the remarks and you get serious on me, you go rhetorically postal. you kind of lose it. then i come on your set a week or so ago and you brush me off. i had to come back. i've been trying. here i am. i'm ready. >> you know, you must have a different definition of postal than i do. if you think that was me losing it, oh, sir. >> no, i was just having a little fun with you and you took it seriously. i thought, here's rachel maddow, somebody who's got a l

if he doesn't do it himself, he's going to look like pawlenty. will he be a pawlenty in the debate? john heilemann? >> we'll see, chris. i think the folks up in boston know the truth of what you are saying. i think they know, if this narrative is going to get changed and they are going to hold newt back and break the moment momentum, it's going to have to be mitt romney that does it. >> thank you. >>> remember rick perry? he's so debt pratt to get back on track, he's attacking gays and lesbians. there are nine members in the supreme court, not eight. your watching "hardball" on msnbc. >>> back to "hardball." now for the side show. first up, lesson learned? not the right lesson in this case. earlier this week, we showed an ad release d by rick perry's campaign. a war on religion, it slams letting gays serve openly in the military. let's watch a portion of the perry ad. >> i'm not ashamed to admit i'm a christian. you don't need to be in the pew every sunday when you know gays can serve openly in the military and kids can't openly pray in school. i'll fight against liberal attacks on

pawlenty was the fist to go out, cain is not making it to iowa.een the case this field would drastically narrow and you will see actual returns a month from now in iowa and new hampshire. ultimately, my sense is gingrich, romney and possibly huntsman are the people viable down the stretch. >> and the ones that will benefit from this. thank you, chris hayes. we appreciate it. we will wake up with you tomorrow morning on "on up" and i will be on next. up next, another msnbc doku mystery. have a good one. see you tomorrow.

. >> yes, that was a tim pawlenty cameo in that ad.e campaign has approximately 7 75,000 on the air. they're planning to spend the night in iowa on caucus night, do all of their morning show interviews from des moines. not from manchester. talk about confidence. they're going to doxz morning show interviews, the night after the caucus in iowa a campaign that thinks they're definitely going to win iowa. >>> a major defection overnight. michele bachmann's iowa chair, kent sorenson who was at her side yesterday afternoon, jumped ship and joined ronç paul's campaign later that day. bachmann made a surprise appearance in des moines last night. >> i believe we're in a turning point in this campaign, i believe that we have an opportunity to elect a consecutive, someone who holds our values dear, we're going to take ron paul of the way to the white house, 2012. >> now, in iowa, bachmann was quick to lash out in a statement. here's what she said. >> kent sorenson personally told me that he was offered a large sum of money to go to work for the

pawlenty wouldn't play the game. you remember the scene in "presumed innocent" where they say the prosecutor has to point a finger at you and say, you did it, in front of the jury and he wasn't willing to do it. here's hick perrick perry. he had the most ill timed brain freeze. at the cnbc debate. let's watch the freeze. >> i will tell you, it's three agencies of government when i get there that are gone. commerce, education and what's the third one there? let's see. the third agency of government, i would do away with the education, the -- >> commerce. >> commerce. and let's see. i can't. the third one i can't. sorry. oops. >> you know, chris hayes, it's tough when you can't answer somebody else's question. when you can't answer your own question, you got a deep freeze problem there. i don't know what to say about this one. oops didn't quite handle it. >> the saddest part of the entire thing were the other candidates essentially whispering the answer like helping a little child who is stumped. what's interesting abo

remember the prestraw poll debate and candidate tim pawlenty going after michele bachmann?putable fact in congress her record of accomplishment and result is non-existent. >> the way tim pawlenty went after michele bachmann out of the chute, that was horrible. right off the. >> desperate. >> off the get. lost it. >> the post debate deliberation? >> how much longer will you go? you only have three weeks left. >> i didn't make up my mind four years ago. voted at the caucus. you never know. >> in sioux city, steve brown, fox news. >> bret: wisconsin voters are trying to kick out governor scott walker. trying to kick him out of office. they say they are close to having enough signatures to force a recall election there. they are angry at the republican governor over limiting collective bar ganning rightser public workers. we have follow that one. take a live look at tonight debate stage as we leave you before the debate. we'll have a preview of the debate. with a special all-star panel when we return to sioux city after a quick time-out. ♪ [ male announcer ] it's easy to see wh

it would be tim pawlenty if the guy hadn't dropped out of the race. >> tim pawlenty is gone though. rick pitino about larry byrd, tim pawlenty is not walking through that door. what do you do then? you have a guy, you say he's the candidate of the spread sheets but mitt romney may also be the only guy who can beat president obama. what is the answer? >> i think it's going to be mitt romney at this point. look, somebody, you know, again, if newt gingrich or rick perry catches fire in iowa, that could give them the momentum but if i'm a betting man today i think it's going to be mitt romney and this is going to be the republican party that says, we don't fall in love. we fall in line. this is going to be bob dole. it's going to be, you know, whoever, the next guy in line is. and maybe that's enough though. maybe that's enough this year to beat barack obama. we'll see. >> bob dole and john mccain perhaps. >> there you go. >> two guys who went on to lose. we should point out. >> there you go. >> we'll continue this conversation coming up and revisit some of the biggest interviews of the

-- will this guy be a pawlenty this saturday night in that abc debate, john heilemann? >> we'll see, chris. i think the folks up in boston know the truth of what you're saying. i think they know that if this narrative is going to get changed and if they're going to hold newt back and break this momentum he has right now, it is going to have to be mitt romney that does it. >> thank you, john heilemann. geronimo! remember rick perry? he's so desperate to get his campaign back on track he's attacking gays and lesbians. i think it's pretty shameful strategy. by the way, mr. perry, governor, there are nine members of the supreme court, not eight. i wonder if you could pass a citizenship test right now. you're watching "hardball" only you're watching "hardball" only on msnbc. it'll cause cavities, bad breath. patients will try and deal with it by drinking water. water will work for a few seconds but if you're not drinking it, it's going to get dry again. i recommend biotene. all the biotene products like the oral rinse...the sprays have enzymes in them. the whole formulation

pawlenty ended his own race for president earlier this year.ill hold the first 2012 presidential primary on january 10th. >>> in the penn state child sexual abuse scandal new comments today from jerry sandusky. in an interview with the "new york times", he is readdressing his earlier comments about his alleged attraction to boys. sandusky faces 40 charges in the case. cnn's susan candiotti is with us from new york. how does sandusky defend himself in that interview? >> reporter: well, you know, fred, jerry sandusky says he sat down with the "new york times" for nearly four hours to defend his work with children, work he says has been, quote, twisted to make his motives appear sexual. he says his life has been spent helping boys over the years through his second mile program and that those boys, quote, might say i was a father figure. sandusky also tries to explain his controversial answer to nbc's bob costas. you'll recall sandusky hesitated at first when he was asked whether he is sexually attracted to boys before saying no, he is not. in part

after days of dodging that question, today tim pawlenty took the plunge. i would vote to kill medicare. the only major republican presidential candidate who has not signed on to this joint proverbial suicide pact in the republican party is mitt romney. mitt romney so far managed to avoid signing on to the kill medicare thing. every major republican presidential candidate except for mitt romney so far, every one has pledged they, too, would kill medicare. i'm genuinely puzzled as to why this hasn't received more attention in his campaign for the vice presidency. mitt romney is the only major contender for president on the republican side who has not said if he wants to kill medicare. mitt romney standing alone as the only major candidate who has not committed himself one way or another on the paul ryan kill medicare plan. right. for weeks and weeks romney refused to take a position on the paul ryan budget, as everybody else in his party did. he's making him standing with paul ryan the centerpiece of his campaign against newt gingrich. mitt romney's decided

tim pawlenty, officially announcing. mitt romney expected to announce. both have been trying desperately to avoid getting pinned down on the question of whether they, too, would vote to kill medicare. the only candidates to avoid taking a position on this so far are tim pawlenty and mitt romney, trying to sprint as far away from the issue as possible. a spokesperson for mr. romney told us mr. romney is on the same page as paul ryan in terms of reducing the budget. but the spokesperson told us that mr. romney will be proposing his own changes regarding medicare. after days of dodging that question today tim pawlenty took the plunge. i would vote to kill medicare. the only major republican presidential candidate who has not signed on to this joint proverbial suicide pact in the republican party is mitt romney. mitt romney so far managed to avoid signing on to the kill medicare thing. every major republican presidential candidate except for mitt romney so far, every one has pledged they, too, would kill medicare. i'm genuinely puzzled as to why this hasn't

-- will this guy be a pawlenty this saturday night at this debate, john heilemann?we'll see, chris. i think the folks up in boston know the truth of what you're saying. i think they're knowing that if this narrative is going to get changed and if they're going to hold newt back and break this momentum that he has right now, it is going to have to be mitt romney that does it. i went to see romney this morning up in cedar rapids. he gave a very standard fine performance in a factory there, talking to a bunch of people , town hall setting. there was only one moment where he singled out gingrich, which was on the question of the paul ryan entitlement reform plan, where he criticized him very mildly. but you could argue he was holding his fire until tomorrow night when the eyes of the world and particularly the eyes of iowa will be on him. we'll see. this will be a very, very big moment, both for newt gingrich and mitt romney to see how he responds. >> i heard part of that speech, how his dad was part of a motor company. very soft stuff. hardly the pre-gaming or buildup

here's tim pawlenty previewing his killer line against romney on fox the day before the new hampshiree debate. >> president obama said that he designed obama care after romney care. and basically made it obamanycare. >> obamanycare. an interesting line. but when it came time to deliver that line in the actual debate, will pawlenty, the governor, punted. listen, moderator john king tried to get him to say. >> governor, you just heard the governor rebut your characterization, obamanycare, why? >> let me first say to sylvia, she has put her finger on one of the most important issues facing the country, which is president obama stood before the nation in 2008 and said he promised to do health care reform, focused on cost containment, along with republicans. he'd do it on a -- >> the question, governmentor was why obamney-care. >> i'm going to get to that. >> your rival is standing right there. >> president obama is the person i quoted in saying he looked to massachusetts no designing his program. he just doesn't have the gut to do it. >> you think it's guts? >> part of it is heart on a st

this goes back to what governor pawlenty mentioned.e have right now the highest taxes in the world for employers. we're tied with japan. europe is about 10 points lower for employers. we're about 35% tax rate. europe is about 25%. i'll bring our rate down to 25% for employers and take out some special deductions and exemptions that companies currently get so we don't lose revenue. but at the same time bring our rates down so that businesses are able to stay in this country and not have to pay higher taxes to do so. otherwise, they'll leave. i don't want businesses to leave here going elsewhere because they can get a huge tax break. i want the jobs to stay here. and there's something else i'll do. and it relates to taxation and the other big burden on small business. and that's regulation. sometimes in my party i think we misspeak. we say we're for deregulation. well, what we mean by that is it regulation has become too heavy and burdensome, we want to shrink it down but we don't want zero regulation. you have to have regulation and law

[applause] [applause] -- 17, pawlenty first single occupancy sro in the chinatown development center. he also wrote a grant proposal to create a bilingual fire safety and emergency preparedness curriculum along with emergency kits for each participating sro unit. [applause] [applause] valerie clinker is a voice of community change in front and behind the camera. she was a guest youth analyst at the third anniversary women's pioneer awards ceremony and presented gina davis with the woman pioneer award. she was also named valedictorian of the changing program. [applause] last but not least, a nasalee, 18, spearheaded the 16th street bart installation about gender which infused her passion for art and activism. an asset is a second year career educator at the arid and engaging facilitator of the group trend magic rashid is committed to becoming a visible and zero allied to the transgender community. [applause] [applause] >> thank you, supervisor mirkarimi, kim, mayor. once again, we are all here to honor and the phenomenal accomplishments of these 15 new four years. it has been a blessin

. >> i called him after he dropped out of the race, just like i did tim pawlenty. i think infusing himself into the dialogue dumbs down and makes it less consequential the issues we need to address to get this country back on its feet again. this isn't about ratings for donald trump, this is about jobs for the american people. who is who can beat president obama. and dealing with the two biggest deficits we face, one economic and the other the trust deficit. >> i read donald trump book, it's serious about how to make america toucher and stronger. i think he has a lot of good proposals in that book. i'm not sure why you say he dumbs it down. he's somebody that has been very successful. why are you insulting him? >> there's no doubt about that. he's a successful man. he might want to run as an independent. i say when you start moving into politics as entertainment, which is exactly what this is, and when you put an show and say afterwards you might pick your favorite contender, this becomes more politics as entertainment as opposed to politics as part of a serious di

. >> do you think tim pawlenty is regretting that right now?nly, out here in iowa when folks look at rick santorum surging at the end of the campaign, there is a sense what if tim pawlenty had stuck with it? we wouldn't be asking in the first place. he put a lot of time and money into the straw poll. and came in third to michele bachmann, who is now at the back of the pack. >> not doing interviews for a long time. do we think mitt romney has fixed that? >> well, he certainly has come out in force over the last month as your network knows as well as anybody. i think that romney's camp would push back on the idea it was a mistake for anybody to stay in a political bunker because it gave folks enough room to imploed on their own. but going into the general election, romney is going to have to contend with the facts in the eyes of a lot of voters, he's just not such a defiant candidate because of that low profile. >> and now the countdown to everyone's favorite. here it is. >> you can't name the third one. >> i can't. sorry. oops. >> oops. >> insta

i was an ardent support of governor pawlenty.what we're seeing happening in the race is they take this vetting process very seriously. they have looked at all of these candidates in great detail, and we're coming down to the wire here. the election grassroots campaign in place, that he's well-positioned to beat barack obama, there's nothing wrong with looking at that and saying that's one of the reasons why you're going to vote for him. >> let me go back then though to what you said because it's true, it's true what you say about his record as governor. so why is it that so many conservatives feel he's not conservative enough? why can't heç get past that 25 or so that he's stuck at in so many places. ? . >> sure. that's interesting you look at him as being stuck at 25% or 30%. with six folks in the race he's the only one that's been able to maintain 25% or 30% with the other 70% split between five other people. i think when -- i think what you're seeing, chris, honestly, is just the normal process as we go through all of this. y

former minnesota governor and republican presidential candidate tim pawlenty topped the list for being, quote, aggressive forgettable fellow. despite something of a comeback year, gwyneth paltrow made it because, quote, is it any wonder we all loved watching her die? that's just mean. and england's princess beatrice for proving, quote, the british have just as many embarrassing couches as we do. . oh, that's just sting. >> scathing. >> a little too harsh for me. >> was it just the hat? is that why they didn't like her? i don't know. >> she'll never live down the hat. >>> this comes to us from channel 2 in anchorage, alaska, where an effort to rescue a trio of bear cubs is about to close with a storybook ending. alaska's brutal winter would have likely killed 11-month-old cubs after a suspected poacher killed their mother. wildlife officials rescued them but didn't have funds or facilities to keep them in. they faced possible ute anyway za. >>> i'm lynn berry and this is "early today," just your first stop of the day today on your nbc station. [ male announcer ] citibank's new app for i

former minnesota governor and republican presidential candidate tim pawlenty topped the list for being, quote, an aggressively forgettable fellow. despite something of a comeback year, gwyneth paltrow made it because, quote, is it any wonder we all loved watching her die in "contagion"? that's just mean. and england's princess beatrice made it for proving, quote, the british have just as many embarrassing hillbilly cousins as we do. ouch! kind of below the belt. >> it's a scathing -- i bet it was an awesome collaboration in the room they were coming up with all this stuff. >> can you imagine? >> that's only what made it to print. >>> this comes to us from ktuu channel 2 in anchorage, alaska where an effort to rescue a trio of bear cubs. alaska's brutal winter would have likely killed the 11-month-olds after a suspected poacher killed their mother. wildlife officials rescued them didn't have the funds or facility to keep them in so they faced possible euthanize. in the spirit of the season, instead of polar express, fedex is making the special delivery to their new home. i'm lynn berry