what do you hear from sources inside washington, d.c., whether or not reince priebus is the person to head up the rnc or do they need somebody that brings diversity? >> my understanding is priebus is popular so far and has the majority of the folks. priebus starts out with a lead, people like him. the republicans had a black chairman in 2009 and 2010, michael steele, of course who our viewers are familiar with. the thing is he had plenty of ideas diversifying the party and the republicans more broadly ignored him. it's not clear to me if picking j.c. watts matters if they ignore his advice, getting more young and hispanic and black votes and listen, it's not just the party chairman. the party chairman is a weak office in and of itself. the party has to make more strides in a lot of ways on policy, on candidates, on tone, no chairman the candidate like mitt romney giving gifts to people that's a big problem the chairman can't solve. >> you can lead an elephant to water but can't make it drink. we're back more right after this. ♪ i'd like to thank eating right, whole grain, multigrain c

the audience was reince priebus who attended the meeting.t was his rnc who hired the firm ran by the improprieties to run the voter registration efforts in five swing states. when that firm, ran by that guy with the shady past was inevitably accused of doing shady things this year with voter registration, the republican party in all of those states had to fire the firm which ended voter registration in the final crucial week before the election. there was no plan b. thanks, reince. the republicans just had to give up registering voters in those states. maybe that came up in today's meeting. also potentially on the meeting today, the rnc field program, part of the ground effort that was just swamped this year. the republicans get out to vote technology crashed early on election day. one campaign telling the daily beast, everything about the system that was supposed to work actually failed. so these dozens of big-time republican donors meeting today to talk about what went wrong and reince priebus is there to listen, to listen to them vent abo

republican national committee chair reince priebus has launched the so called growth and opportunity ask that very question. five republicans will chair the project. only one of which you've probably heard of. former george w. bush press secretary arifleicher. they accuse pollsters of underestimating the romney vote in a bid to secure an obama victory in november. after learning about the project, "washington post" conservative columnist jennifer reuben called you can almost hear the cries objecting to any substantive policy changes on immigration or gay marriage and see the eye rolling from grizzled veterans who think it is beneath the dignity of the republicans to feel your pain. if the party does nothing there is every reason to believe it will keep losing elections mpl here's what karl rove believes the republican party needs to change. >> i hate to say but we need to copy what howard dean did. make our ground game in all 50 states. >> joining me now, the man behind the former 50 states strategy, howard dean. governor dean, did you ever think there was a time when karl rove would

reince priebus?> chris, you know, i have kind of gotten caught up in this whirlwind and this thing has kind of taken a life of its own. everybody points fingers and whistles when -- >> how about pointing like this to yourself and saying i want to run? >> but the fact -- the fingers that i'm pointing, i have been pointing for 20 years. >> i know. >> you're like jack kemp. you're a good guy on this stuff. >> that they have done a poor job in establishing deeper relationships, and that's my point. >> agreed. >> i think it starts at the rnc and they keep saying -- >> we're going to have to wait and see if you run. >> they keep saying we're going to do better, they never do. >> i'm waiting to see if michael steele runs. i want to see if you both run. i don't think he's going to run, but i think you may run. thank you, j.c. watts. thank you, judith. >>> up next, jon stewart explains how republicans hate the u.n. more than they hate the disabled. this is "hardball," the place for politics. >>> welcome back

look who's going to challenge reince priebus jim. >> reince priebus! >> stephanie: jc watts.on huntsman has some advice for the g.o.p. the g.o.p. can stay away from fringe issues instead of focusing and instead focus on bread and butter republican principles, the party will be better for it. actually they are fringe issues that's they're bread and butter principles. he says we have some structural issues. that's so cute. after the whole house just fell down. [ applause ] >> stephanie: all right. >> suggesting mitt bot needs some repairs. >> stephanie: you think? >> needs to be reprogrammed. >> stephanie: looky here. westpoint chapel hosted its first same sex wedding. conducted by senior army chaplain. they've been together for 17 years, those kids. just sayin'. today's the day. what's the latest? the supreme court -- >> they're not going to rule today. >> not today. >> stephanie: by friday they will consider prop eight and other marriage equality cases. because we don't know what's going to happen yet. >> they thought it would be friday. they thought it would be today then th

rnc chair reince priebus had him in mind when he said this reflecting on some of the 2012 candidates.> i think we were pretty clear on some of the dumb things that were said over the last cycle. >> not a good sign when a look back at your parties' candidates includes the word dumb. >>> next. what happens when romney's glen hubbard fell victim to an unexpected interruption. >> they either have to raise taxes or cut spending. that forces the congress to think about the mix between taxes and spending outside of the entitlements and spending on the entitlements. that's just not something our framers thought about, because we -- we didn't have a welfare state in those days. >> glen, are you all right? >> i'm fine. that's what happens when you criticize the welfare state. >> wow. somehow he's unfazed there. and that video went viral instantly. >>> finally a ppp poll last week show 28% of republicans want their state to secede from the union. a quick status update from david letterman's late show. >> secession update. still holding steady at 50 states. >> that was close. >> still in the clea

it shows the fact that he's speaking out, the lack of leadership, reince priebus, i guarantee he did pick up the phone and say, let's build on it, this makes us look bad. that's the problem. there is a void of leadership altogether and it's clear when you see bush as the ring leader. >> so you think he could have advised romney? >> better than sununu. >> much better than sununu. >> absolutely. >> abby huntsman and james peterson, thank you for your time tonight. >> thanks, rev. >>> coming up, the bully man is back. rate until you hear the latest theory about president obama winning the election. >>> and she's here. she's here. with me in the studio. she is the one and only rosie perez. she's very passionate about our politics. i'm so happy to see her. [ male announcer ] red lobster's hitting the streets to tell real people about our new 15 under $15 menu. oh my goodness! oh my gosh, this looks amazing! [ male announcer ] our new maine stays! 15 entrees under $15, seafood, chicken and more! oo! the tilapia with roasted vegetables! i'm actually looking at the wood grilled chicken with

. >> we are getting a lot of views, in fact, reince priebus, the chair of the rnc is in new york todayor post-election listening to donors and politico says, quote, two donors described it as a vent session, suggesting bundlers what went wrong but what they think the problems were. as they talk to bundlers, they are getting an earful. >> certainly. because people spent money and expected the republican party to be successful. this happens for every party that loses an election but just trying to fix some of the apparatus problems in running a campaign won't necessarily fix the republican party's problem. i think when we're looking for leadership of the republican party, that's in the hands of john boehner and the policies that he's negotiating with president obama over the next two years before there's another presidential election that begins. the republican party is going to be looking to john boehner to carry its flag. >> well, if boehner is carry the flag, kristen, today his counter proposal said we're going to protect the rich, not give a tax cut, and he put social security and cu

you think reince priebus is calling the shots here? yeah, right. it's the conservative movement. and because of the chaos right now in the conservative movement, in their k street fake grassroots big money used to be a think tank revolving door conservative influence lobbying and fund-raising machine, because that is such a mess right now, republicans trying to do policy work now on capitol hill is also a mess. i mean, without any coherent guiding structure to tell them what to do and what to think, republican members of congress, their attempts to actually participate in policy on capitol hill are turning out to be total chaos. the starting point for these talks in washington, right? was the position that the president campaigned on. you might remember that he won by 3 million votes. and that was the opening position in the negotiations. what he campaigned on. last week john boehner made his opening offer in response to that. and then two days later president obama responded with a counteroffer. he actually came quite some distance toward what mr. boehner had suggested, which fr

all of this is window dressing to cover up the fact that reince priebus doesn't have a vision for theya move so he could say we have this commission and we did these things. >> ari fleischer was brilliant about lying about the iraq war for about six years. jonathan according to rny filings with the election commission, $59 million was spent with vendors in the five weeks leading up to election day. of that amount one-third went to a single telemarketing firm which just happens to have been founded by current rnc chief of staff jeff larson. >> it's sort of a closed loop world here where -- >> unbelievable. >> you have people working for the party but they have side contracts with the party and then no matter what happens, no matter the fortunes of the candidates, for the senate or congress or even presidentially, the folks who have the deals, they always end up coming out on top, win or lose. >> right. and karen, no less a conservative than bill krystal is writing about this now. he says of his own party, quote, the conservative movement is in deep disarray. it may be that major parts

. >> rnc chair reince priebus who, of course, is running for a second term, says this is a wonderfulent, an opportunity. is it an opportunity? >> of course it's an opportunity. anytime you lose you need to reflect and look and see what happened in the last election cycle and recalibrate and move forward. of course it's an opportunity. >> do you think republicans are prepared to face reality as part of that? because one of the things that we've heard is this almost inability to confront reality that they did lose the election and they lost it for the reasons that goldie was just giving, but no one is actually are a take lating that. all i hear is people like rick santorum doubling down. >> i don't know about doubling down, but republicans do live in reality. i don't know whether the democrats do. we are spending far too much money, we're spending 24% of gdp, the highest levels we have spent since 1948. we have created an entitlement system we're cratering under the weight of it. the professor can grumble and you can laugh at me. the fact of the matter is the united states is going ban

. >>> let's talk about this and more with the chairman of the republican national committee, reince priebusing us now. thanks very much for coming in. >> hey, wolf. nice to see you. >> what did you think of what david gergen just said, that it would look bad for republicans to go after a younger african-american woman, especially at a sensitive time like this after the election? >> i don't think skin color has anything to do with this. as chairman of the party, i don't really weigh in on nag national security issues like that and that's why we have lindsey graham and others. particularly at the tail end of the election, there were questions about what happened at benghazi and how the state department and susan rice and the white house were on the same page. wolf, generally those are questions for the leadership in the senate. it's really not a place that the chairman of the party gets too involved with. >> let's talk a little bit about what you are directly involved with. yesterday you announced the major -- i don't know if you want to call it autopsy, postmortem, whatever, looking at what

. >> that's why i salute chairman reince priebus for forming this community to take a look at these hearthanging and if you don't change with the country while making the principles morselable, more believable and heartfelt to people in all wings of the country, you are not doing your job. ronald reagan was able to do that, wolf. he was able to keep a very conservative base and make it attractive to the middle. i think there's room in the republican party to be a conservative party that has ideas that sell, not only with a conservative base but sells with a group that is much bigger because the ideas are good ones. so we cannot be a party of just white people. that's not going to cut it. when ronald reagan was elected, 88% of the voters were white. today it's 72%. you do the math. >> so how do you go out and reassure nonwhites out there whether hispanics, african-americans that the republican party is a big tent, all inclusive kind of party, for example, ronald reagan you point out what he used to talk about? >> well, first of all, you have to have candidates who don't make tragic mistake