joining me now is msnbc analyst steve schmidt. he is the former senior adviser to the mccain/palin campaign, and a senior strategist in the joining me now is msnbc analyst steve schmidt. he is the former senior adviser to the mccain/palin campaign, and a senior strategist in the bush/cheney '04 campaign. and msnbc political analyst and future msnbc host, alex wagner. thank you both for joining me tonight. steve, you've seen a lot of these debates. i -- there's never been a moment in my lifetime, in the history of televised presidential debates, as what we just saw happen with rick perry. he's got these three agencies of government he absolutely wants to close down when he becomes president. just can't remember that third one. >> yeah. i think it's over for him. i think his campaign effectively ended tonight. just an extraordinary moment, the likes of which we have never seen before in a presidential debate. he had fallen off the radar screen. he's fallen to michele bachmann levels in the race, but i think it's over tonight with th

campaign strategists, democrat bob shrum, most recently of the terry 2004 campaign, and republican steve schmidt who worked on the bush/cheney 2004 campaign and the 2008 mccain campaign. steve's also an msnbc political analyst. let's look at now. here's rick perry losing his train of thought last night, and that's also being generous. let's listen. >> and i will tell you, it's three agencies of government, when i get there, that are gone. commerce, education, and the, um, um -- what's the third one there? let's see. >> you mean five? >> yeah, five, okay. so commerce, education, and the um, um, the -- >> epa? >> epa, there you go! no, not -- >> seriously? is epa the one you were talking about? >> no, sir. no, sir. we were talking about the, um, agencies of government -- the epa needs to be rebuilt, no doubt about that. >> but you can't name the third one? >> the third agency of government. i would do away with education, the, um -- >> commerce. >> commerce. and let's see, i can't. the third one, i can't. i'm sorry. oops. >> well, that's a heck of an oops there, mr. schrum, and i don't expect you

. >> smith: woody harrelson is steve schmidt. >> heilemann: yes. >> smith: .mccain's consultant.ama? >> heilemann: there's no barack obama. >> smith: he's not even in there? you didn't do will smith,,i mean.? >> heilemann: no, i think, they decided the, the guy jay roach, the director, and danny strong the screenwriter. they did, did the ilm for us. they mmde the decision that in a two hour movie, they needed a tellscope on something. and they were very attracted tooreally telling the sarah palin story. and so the movie is really about palin and mccain and the 60 ays between her selection as vice president. >> smith: right. >> heilemann: .as the vicee3 president nominee on the republican side and the election day 2012. so there's no john edwards, there's no hillary clinton, there's no barack obama. i mean they appear. joe bbden appears in like news footage and, and stuff. but in terms of the actual, the, the action is really. >> smith: and, and the storylinee ú&'s really fooused on that. >> heilemann: the storyline is a very tight narrative and it's really about palin and mccain

. >> joining me now, msnbc analyst steve schmidt, former add vier to the mccain/palin campaign and senior strategist in the bush/cheney '04 presidential campaign. thanks for joining me tonight, steve. >> great to be with you, lawrence. >> steve, for the republican politics of this, i want you to listen to what rush limbaugh had to say, because he is definitely a vocal factor in republican presidential primaries. i want you to listen to what he had to say today about this new accuser. >> i have been wrong in pronouncing the fourth cain accuser's name as bialek. gloria allred says that her name is pronounced bialek. as in buy a lick. as in buy a lick. there's no "r" in the name. you can't say it's rent a lick. it's buy a lick. >> steve, what is this doing to republican presidential politics? here is rush limbaugh who has by far the biggest audience of any conservative commentator out there, bigger than the fox news audiences put together and he is talking this way about a woman he knows nothing about. he has no idea how credible she is or how noncredible she is. but he certainly invested in

joining me, steve schmidt, ran the palin and mccain campaign in 2008.n i heard the response from herman cain on the substantive allegation on his campaign, him saying i don't know anything about that, i wanted to ask you how much time you have in a campaign to come up with an answer to a scandal you didn't see coming. >> you don't have a lot of time, but you never have the candidate go out on television and be caught cold with those facts like that. i mean, there's just no excuse for that. and that is the far more serious story out of the two, because those are felony federal campaign finance violations, if, in fact, the substance of that story is true, and that's a big problem for him. >> in terms of the sexual harassment discussion today, it was really a discussion because everybody kept asking about it. the story snowballed from the initial politico report into an evolving cascade of denials then contradictions of the earlier denials i'm assuming this is simple. you need one story, stick to the truth. >> the response has not been good. it's a serious

it's really unfortunate. >> steve schmidt, senior campaign strategist for mccain/palin campaign, msnbc political analyst and someone i always really appreciate talking to about this stuff. steve, thank you. >> you bet, rachel. >>> after this show on "the last word with lawrence o'donnell" lawrence has the story of how bill o'reilly from the fox news channel has tried to help newt gingrich rewrite his relatively liberal record on climate change. coming up at the end of our show, "the rachel maddow show" department of corrections is open for business. you know the good folks over at prilosec otc have asked yours truly to teach you about treating frequent heartburn. 'cause i know a thing or two about eatin'. if you're one of those folks who gets heartburn and then treats day after day... well that's like checking on your burgers after they're burnt! [ male announcer ] treat your frequent heartburn by blocking the acid with prilosec otc. and don't get heartburn in the first place! [ male announcer ] one pill a day. 24 hours. zero heartburn. block the acid with prilosec otc, and don't get h

. >>> last night lawrence o'donnell asked republican strategist steve schmidt what kind of impact he thinks the sexual allegation charges will have in the polls. >> the reality here is we have a check mate. we have on the one hand blanket denials by herman cain. on the other hand, anonymous women. on the other hand we have a settlement. so there's smoke where there's fire. then we have someone coming forward with 15-year-old allegations standing next to gloria allred which frankly doesn't help her credibility. it certainly doesn't help her credibility in the eyes of republican primary voters. i'm not sure where the story goes other than to say we live in an entirely new media age, where people choose the information they want to be exposed to. at the end of the day i think a scandal in the mainstream media may not be a disqualifier in the republican primary. it may, in fact, be a credential. >> lean forward with the last word with lawrence o'donnell weeknights at 10:00 p.m. eastern time only on msnbc. >>> last night herman cain was on abc's jimmy kimmel live where he took a swipe at

it's really unfortunate. >> steve schmidt, senior campaign strategist for mccain/palin campaign, msnbcnalyst and someone i always really appreciate talking to about this stuff. steve, thank you. >> you bet, rachel. >>> after this show on "the last word with lawrence o'donnell" lawrence has the story of how bill o'reilly from the fox news channel has tried to help newt gingrich rewrite his relatively liberal record on climate change. coming up at the end of our show, "the rachel maddow show" department of corrections is open for business. let's see if we can get one past the defense. hut! go! here it comes! right on the numbers! boom! get it! spin! oh, nice hands! chest bump. ugh! good job, man. nice! okay, halftime. now, this is my favorite play. oh! i'm wide open. oh, fumble. fumble. don't want to fumble any of these. [ male announcer ] share what you love, with who you love. kellogg's frosted flakes. it's up... and it's good! good?! they're grrreat! congratulations. congratulations. today, the city of charlotte can use verizon technology to inspire businesses to conserve energy and m

it's really unfortunate. >> steve schmidt, senior campaign strategist for mccain/palin campaign, msnbcst and someone i always really appreciate talking to about this stuff. steve, thank you. >> you bet, rachel. >>> after this show on "the last word with lawrence o'donnell" lawrence has the story of how bill o'reilly from the fox news channel has tried to help newt gingrich rewrite his relatively liberal record on climate change. coming up at the end of our show, "the rachel maddow show" department of corrections is open for business. [ male announcer ] truth is, dayquil doesn't treat that. really? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus fights your worst cold symptoms, plus it relieves your runny nose. [ deep breath] awesome. [ male announcer ] yes, it is. that's the cold truth! with less chronic low back pain. imagine living your life with less chronic osteoarthritis pain. imagine you, with less pain. cymbalta can help. cymbalta is a non-narcotic treatment that's fda-approved to manage chronic musculoskeletal pain. one pill a day, every day, can help reduce this pain. tell your doctor ri

lawrence asked republican strategist steve schmidt and msnbc's alex wagner to weigh in on rick perry's debate blunder and if it spelled doom for his campaign. >> it's over for him. i think his campaign effectively ended tonight. just an extraordinary moment. the likes of which we have never seen before in a presidential debate. he had fallen off the radar screen, he's fallen to michele bachmann's levels in the race, think that was something over tonight. >> ha was something akin to wetting your pants on the last day of school. there's no reprieve for rick perry. especially ironically on energy, which something he has hammered out over and over and over. >> it turns out later he was thinking of the department of energy. he finally got that out. the governor of texas, the oil business centered there, and he couldn't quite remember oh yeah, the department that regulates my big industry, i want to get rid of them. >> it was one of those white knuckle moments where you could almost hear him saying -- line, line. i think once you have the pity of the american public, you've also lost their v

with me now, democrat bob schrum, and republican steve schmidt, who worked on the bush/cheney 2004 campaign the mccain campaign. it looks like cain has problems up the wazoo. he will have to keep battling. romney does look more and more like the nominee. can be a good nominee if so many are contentious of his beliefs? are i do think he is likely to be the nominee, if for no other reason, he's the only plausible republican candidate for presidency at this point in the race. i think the comments are unfair to romney. remembering the mccain campaign. you have all of these quote-unquote conservatives cheering for romney during the entire duration of the primary. he was the conservative candidate. now some elements have turned against him. if you read what mitt romney says, follow mitt romney's vision, i think he is clearly a conservative candidate in the race, and i -- i don't understand why erick erickson would go out and say romney is not capable of winning a race. no president has gotten re-elected with an unemployment race above 7.4%. >> what is an issue that romney will not bend in order t

host: steve schmidt, another advisor to john mccain, said that this campaign is essentially over for. guest: given the difficulties he has had with these terrible acquisition -- accusations against him, he has shown great resilience. he is hanging in there. maybe not at the high levels that he once was, but he is still a contender. the jury is out of how they will judge these charges against herman cain. host: what you think about the interview that he did yesterday where he asked about libya? guest: i did not look at the video, but i am led to understand that he stumbled around quite a bit in answering the question. one thing that happens in these races is when business people run for president, they have to learn hundreds of issues. they have to develop positions and be able to articulate them on dozens of important issues. because they have not been doing it their whole life. sometimes it is hard to come up with the answer. host: we have made little bit of that interview. i will show you and our viewers. >> do you agree with president obama of libya or not? >> libya. president oba

host: steve schmidt, another advisor to john mccain, said that this campaign is essentially over for him. guest: given the difficulties he has had with these terrible acquisition -- accusations against him, he has shown great resilience. he is hanging in there. maybe not at the high levels that he once was, but he is still a contender. the jury is out of how they will judge these charges against herman cain. host: what you think about the interview that he did yesterday where he asked about libya? guest: i did not look at the video, but i am led to understand that he stumbled around quite a bit in answering the question. one thing that happens in these races is when business people run for president, they have to learn hundreds of issues. they have to develop positions and be able to articulate them on dozens of important issues. because they have not been doing it their whole life. sometimes it is hard to come up with the answer. host: we have made little bit of that interview. i will show you and our viewers. >> do you agree with president obama of libya or not? >> libya. president

his admonition, talking about government or-- >> and open to interpretation and the google of steve schmidt >> eric. >> alisyn: eric schmidt says, i don't know if i would use lazy. taking umbrage, he was called lazy on some level. but the administration organized to make it easier for foreign investors to open a plant here. >> so the reverse. >> dave: after adding layers and layers of regulation, we've come back on some of the regulations. >> clayton: it reminds me, of steve jobs him talking to the president, look, i can't open factories and build apple products in the united states because of the regulations here, you've got to do something. >> who was he addressing, ceo's, government officials? ff weekend on twitter. >> dave: reminds me the country going soft comments we heard a while back. let us know what you feel about that. coming up michele bachmann and ron paul not happy with cbs. did the network conspire to keep them quiet during last night's debate. one campaign says they've got the e-mails to prove it. >> alisyn: whatever happened to the government workers who missed the bernie m

not when it came to any device steve attached his name or any restaurant allen attached his name. they were iconic names. like mccormick and schmidt'scheesecake factory. a couple of bernstein eateries that became and are darn near institutions. allen would say because of the premium experience. restaurants are like destinations he told me. you come back to the memorable ones. allen was big on memorable. just like he was big on setting a very nice table. as he explained a few months back when we last dined, who could fight at a nice table? i laughed, he laughed. good times, good food. very good man. allen bernstein, dead at age 65.