>> mike viqueira, thanks. for more on decision 2012, let's bring in cnbc's chief washington correspondent john harwood. we witnessed plenty of surges in this race. you had bachmann, perry, cain, all had their turn. how does gingrich's rise differ, if at all? >> reporter: it is a bigger threat to mitt romney because of how close it comes to when voting starts in january. because of newt gingrich's national track record as the leader of the 1994 republican revolution, gingrich starts way behind in organization to convert popular support into delegates and money for tv ads and mitt romney has just begun to advertise. >> we heard it a moment ago, some white house attacks seem to presuppose romney as the nominee. might that change? >> reporter: i wouldn't expect the white house to change tactics at all. they clearly fear mitt romney more than any other republican candidate. they believe as democrats do generally that the background and record of newt gingrich makes him an easy target, but we have seen that the whit

nbc's mike viqueira starts us off tonight. >> reporter: now a distant second in iowa polls, mitt romney is mounting a late push, campaigning today in des moines with wife ann, highlighting their marriage of over 40 years. >> this is my middle son. we have five boys, as you know, and josh had an extraordinary talent. he really should be the politician in the family, not me. >> reporter: romney's goal in iowa, halt the rise of front-runner newt gingrich, in part by contrasting his own personal life with gingrich's history of infidelity and two divorces. though he hasn't attacked his rival directly, romney's allies have. >> you have to have somebody that you believe in. you have to have somebody that has integrity. you know, poor ethics has no place in the white house. >> reporter: other republicans fear gingrich is a loose cannon. >> with the palestinian authority it's relatively weak. >> reporter: that fear was heightened yesterday when in an interview with the jewish channel gingrich implied there is no such thing as a palestinian. >> i think we've had an invented palestinian people who

mick viqueira has more. >> reporter: crunch time in iowa. now or never for some of the gop candidates. last night, they came out swinging at front-runner newt gingrich. >> wait a second. >> the gloves came off last night in iowa. >> i've been of the opinion that if you cheat on your wife, you'll cheat on your business partner. >> reporter: a cheer challenge from rick perry to newt gingrich and his history of infidelity and divorce. >> when i make a vow to god, i would suggest that's even stronger than a handshake in texas. >> gingrich appeared to be ready. >> i made mistakes, i had to go to god for forgiveness. >> an odd moment, when mitt romney, in a dispute over his massachusetts health care plan, suddenly challenge ed a big wag. >> i'm not in the betting business. >> reporter: romney caught gingrich a career politician. but gingrich hit back. >> the only reason you didn't become a career politician, you lost to teddy kennedy in 1994. >> that's probably true. if i would have been able to get in the nfl, like i hoped when i was a kid, i wou

nbc's mike viqueira reports. >> reporter: the debate quickly got personal. >> if you cheat on your wife, you'll cheat on your business partners. so i think that issue of fidelity is important. >> reporter: it was an appeal to conservative voters by rick perry and a clear challenge to newt gingrich and his history of infidelity. gingrich was ready. >> people have to render judgment. i said up front openly, i made mistakes at times, i had to go to god for forgiveness, i had to seek reconciliation. >> reporter: leading in iowa polls, gingrich was a frequent target, hitting back when mitt romney called him a career politician. >> the only reason you didn't become a career politician is you lost to teddy kennedy in 1994. >> that's probably true. if i would have been able to get in the nfl, like i hoped when i was a kid, i might have been a football star all my life too. >> reporter: the brass gingrich style is playing well with republican voters. a new poll shows gingrich opening up big leads in key republican battlegrounds. in south carolina, he leads second place mitt romney by nearly 20 p

nbc's mike viqueira with the latest. >> reporter: entering the homestretch in iowa, candidates in the back of the pack are racing to catch up. rick perry and michele bachmann are blanketing the state on bus tours, stopping to greet voters. and delivering attacks on front-runner newt gingrich. >> trying to sound like a conservative, but sounding more like a 30-year establishment washington beat insider that he is. >> reporter: today, mitt romney questioned gingrich's ability to lead. >> he has been unreliable in those settings and zany. i wouldn't think you would call mirrors in space to light highways at night particularly practical or lunar colony a practical idea, not at a stage like this. >> reporter: this as gingrich invited more controversy, speaking out in favor of abolishing some courts, allowing presidents to ignore judicial rulings and empowering congress to subpoena judges. >> would you send the capital police to arrest him? >> if you had to. or you instruct the justice department to send u.s. martial. >> reporter: in the past two days, romney scored a string of endorsements

msn nbc's mike viqueira is standing by to talk with us. do we expect the president to address this this morning or is he going to stick to the script of what he's talking about with former president clinton? >> reporter: i think we can definitely expect the president to address those job numbers. good news. you mentioned the fact that we always have to say, there are still 13.3 million people out of work in this country who are looking for work. but every friday, the first friday of every month, it's been gloom and doom around here for quite some time as the unemployment rate has risen. if it sunk, it's sunk by just .1 point. every month, white house officials try to accentuate the positive. the difference today is they have more positives to accentuate. expect the president to say, we're not out of the woods yet, as they often say, but certainly this is good news. the president is appearing just uptown a few blocks away. this is under the rubric of, we can't wait today. they're filling in some of the details today. $2 billion in private s

nbc's mike viqueira is at the white house. why are they opposed to seeing card cordray step? ?rst of all this was created under the dodd-frank legislation, after the financial collapse of 2008. republicans have opposed it ever since then, saying it is overly restrictive as the legislation in general. in particular they opposed the creation of this consumer financial protection bureau and the way it's structured. what they're insisting on in the senate and the reason why most republicans with two proment nent exceptions voted against moving on to this debate on the confirmation of richard cordray, of course the former attorney general of ohio, now the bureau but they want to elevate him to the top post here but republicans say the structure needs to have tighter oversight by congress, can't be automatically funded through the federal reserve, needs to go through the normal appropriations process, they're basically opposed to the tight restrictions and we've seen the dodd-frank legislation come under attack on the republican campaign trail from newt gingrich, mitt romney, and oth

not a done deal yet. >> mike viqueira at the white house, thank you so much. once again, here is lester. >> david gregory is moderator of "meet the press." >> good morning. >> mitt romney has not put a lot of work into iowa. now he has picked up the endorsement of "the des moines register." how he is doing? >> this may not has have as much effect as it would for a democratic primary. it helps romney make the case that iowans should take a hard look at newt gingrich, still on top of the polls. if you're romney, you may not be able to win iowa, but you hope to reduce the scale and the size of a gingrich win in iowa. and others can help him do that, ron paul does well, bachmann gets a don't percentage of the vote, gingrich win in iowa could be seen as a smaller victory. >> romney stumping in south carolina. gingrich decided to take the weekend off. he lost almost his entire campaign staff many months ago on the issue of whether he was putting enough time effort and in the campaign. does that still dog him? >> i think questions about his organization, questions ab

thanks, mike viqueira. >> you can see skron boehner's full interview at 2 p.m.py wall street protesters were arrested they tried to form a new encampment in a vacant lot owned by a church. police quickly cleared the area. church officials asked demonstrators not to use the area saying it wasn't fit for an encampment. >>> after nearly nine years, the war in iraq is over. hours ago, the last u.s. military convoy rolled into neighboring kuwait. richard engel got a rare look at the region. good evening your time. it's been emotional this last couple days, hasn't it, richard? >> reporter: it has been a moment of closure for the million or so troops that deployed to this country. but right now, i can say that the spirits of the soldiers are very high. they are packing out their equipment. you can see some troops behind me. they are from the california army reserves. they are responsible for processing the 100 or so vehicles that are currently on this lot alone and there are many other lots just like it. the only mission right now left of the iraq war, the war which is

not a done deal yet. >> mike viqueira at the white house, thank you so much. once again, here is lester. >> david gregory is moderator of "meet the press." >> good morning. >> mitt romney has not put a lot of work into iowa. now he has picked up the endorsement of "the des moines register." how he is doing? >> this may not has have as much effect as it would for a democratic primary. it helps romney make the case that iowans should take a hard look at newt gingrich, still on top of the polls. if you're romney, you may not be able to win iowa, but you hope to reduce the scale and the size of a gingrich win in iowa. and others can help him do that, ron paul does well, bachmann gets a don't percentage of the vote, gingrich win in iowa could be seen as a smaller victory. >> romney stumping in south carolina. gingrich decided to take the weekend off. he lost almost his entire campaign staff many months ago on the issue of whether he was putting enough time effort and in the campaign. does that still dog him? >> i think questions about his organization, questions ab

for now, i'm joined by nbc's mike viqueira at the white house.they must be delighted. >> well, i think that they are, but no one, martin, is declaring it a christmas miracle just yet. that little white behind you, notwithstanding. the white house has always been very careful, ever since the first year, the first spring that we went through here, when people started talking about green shoots in the economy. obviously, that didn't happen. what has ensued is an ever-rising unemployment rate, getting up near 10%, at one point, it has steadily dropped. but each month, the news is just incremental. it ticks up a tenth of a point, goes down a tenth of a point. a drop of 4/10 today, certainly a big deal here at the white house. still very cautious, saying the economy is healing, but there's a long way to go for 13.3 million people still out of work. the president appeared earlier today. he was with president clinton, as it happens, talking about one of his green initiatives under the we can't wait rubric. but the president used the opportunity at the to

. >> nbc's mike viqueira live at the white house for us this morning. mike, there's a lot on the administering's plate right now with the clock ticking down. so what is the priority as we get closer to the new year? >> reporter: right. on the 25th, of course, is christmas but we're also 25 days away from iowa. between now and then, between now and christmas and everybody leaves town, including a planned obama family vacation to hawaii, they are going to have to come to some agreement. the president and republicans and the democrats in congress on this extension of the payroll tax cut. as you know, it's due to expire at the end of the year. it was agreed to by the president and mitch mcconnell last december when we had a similar fight about extending bush tax cuts, this was sort of thrown in. it means $1,000 in tax cuts over the course of the next year for the average american family and the president is hammering home. house republicans say they are willing to go along with it if the president will allow that controversial pipeline that keystone pipelin

mike viqueira is there, and this is something very important to the president and something he promiseddo in the election campaign. >> yes. it certainly is. you won't see any mission accomplished banners, but you will see the president and the first lady here accompanying the president, chris, more or less thanking the troops and paying tribute to the troops. we all know the statistics that more than 1 million servicemen and women have served in iraq in the course of the last nine years and some 4,500 servicemen and women have lost their lives there including here deployed from fort bragg with 102 servicemen and women. the president is going to be here to thank them and pay tribute and talk about the sacrifices not only that they have made as individuals, but the families have made over the course of the years and the folks on their second and third and fourth deployment to iraq. there are political of tones to where he goes particularly to north carolina, a swing state, where fort bragg is located. the president was greeted with a newspaper, and open letter from mitt romney talking abo

mike viqueira live for us at the white house. we hear the senate minority leader, mitch mcconnell has issued a statement, this after days of silence. >> reporter: it's very interesting what has happened in washington on both ends of pennsylvania avenue today, thomas. a lot of tea leaves being read. there's nothing firm here. but a lot of people seizing on comments made earlier today by the republican chairman of the ways and means committee, very instrumental in all of this, dave camp, said something about a three-month extension, a quarterly extension we heard boehner talking about earlier. and now mitch mcconnell puts out a statement very cryptic. he says house republicans sensibly want greater certainty about the duration of these provisions while senate democrats want more time to negotiate the terms. these goals are not mutually exclusive. we can and should do both. so the way it's being imagined right now, and i have to caution, thomas, none of this is firm. is that house republicans would come back to the white house or co

more now on that from nbc's mike viqueira. >> reporter: with approval of congress at a new low, today conservative rivals hit front-runner newt gingrich on his record as speaker. >> newt was the originator of earmarks back in the '90s. i mean, if there was a granddaddy of earmarks he would be it. >> reporter: today gingrich appeared in virginia at a book signing with wife callista, still trying to stay positive even as a barrage of ads debate confrontations and voter mail take aim. campaign aides say it's the right course. >> this electorate wants to hear solutions. they don't want to hear traditional campaign where you have attack after attack and negative charges. >> reporter: with the first votes cast in just two weeks -- >> all i want for christmas is to win the iowa caucus. >> reporter: -- gop candidates are out in force this weekend. a day after she endorsed the mitt romney campaign was south carolina governor and tea party favorite nikki haley. in a campaign all about the economy, romney seized on the issue that has roiled washington this week, insisting president obama approve

. >> viqueira for the white house. david gregory joins us now from our washington news room. david, did the romney camp see this gingrich train coming and would you expect them to go on the attack and wait and hope for him time plode? >> i think the early part of the strategy was to let the other candidates flame out on us. that's the experience they've seen so far. gingrich was different. he immediately became a more lasting frontrunner. tonight, yes, i do think you'll see romney rather in a targeted way going after gingrich. i don't think he'll make it personal. but look for two distinct areas. ideology and then temperament and leadership. i think there's no question that romney wants to say to voters, look, this is a political philosopher. this is somebody that you can't really trust who's going to zigzag all over the place. at a time when washington needs to change the way it does business, you need somebody who can bring kind of a steadier hand, a more even keel. that's the contrast he's going to try to paint. >> of course it's not going to be just gingrich taking body b

mike viqueira is at the white house. >> reporter: good morning. >> south carolina, first up.the nominee? >> reporter: yes, every presidential nomination since 1998. newt gingrich now leads with 42%. mitt romney comes in at 23%. rick perry, 7%, and ron paul at 9%. and then head to head in south carolina. very interesting. all the counter intuitive. >> okay. let's look at florida. that is a huge factor in a general election. how do the numbers play out there? >> reporter: florida, florida, florida, as somebody we all know once said. gingrich comes in at 44% in the lead, and 29% for romney, and ron paul at 8%, and perry at 4%. and obama leads romney at 51%. a mixed bag here, alex. newt gingrich is the frontrunner in the race for the gop nomination. we have been talking about it how the candidates went after gingrich last night, and nobody landed a hey maker, and now as i understand it, right now the first family -- i guess i should mention this since i am standing in front of the white house, they just emerged and are walking across to st. john's church for services. >> thank yo

mike viqueira is at the white house with more on this. >> reporter: good morning. it was yet another trip to avoid a government shutdown. the government was set to run out of money as of midnight last night, but democrats and republicans came together. was a rare bipartisan deal to fund government operations well into next year. as you said, amy, there's extending a deal on those tax cuts, but everybody is not going to be happy about it. first, it's good for only two months and congress will be back at it again early next year. and after the president said he would reject it, republicans were successful in attaching a controversial provision that would require the president to make a decision on that pipeline. remember, environmentalists are against it and would run from canada to the gulf of texas. it said that the president would have to decide within 60 days or recall if the administration had put off that decision for as long as a year until after the election to further study the environmental impact. even so, the white house says they're going to accept a de

mike viqueira is at the white house with the details. good morning. >> reporter: good morning to you, amy. with little more than three weeks to go from that first caucus all eyes on iowa and a debate scheduled for tonight. though there will be seven candidates on the stage, all eyes on just two of them. mitt romney and newt gingrich. now trailing in the polls, mitt romney campaigned in iowa friday stressing gop unity ahead of tonight's debate. >> seven or eight that don'ted several times would do a better job as president as the current president, yes, they're all qualified including speaker gingrich. >> reporter: even as romney praised him, his allies on the attack. launching a $3 million ad campaign in iowa trying to stop the gingrich surge. >> newt has a ton of baggage. like the fact that gingrich was fined $300,000 for ethics violations. gingrich even teamed up with nancy pelosi and al gore on global warming. >> reporter: gingrich's sunday rise has alarmed some in his own party including romney supporter dan quayle. >> poor ethics ha

. >> nbc's mike viqueira at the white house for you.s the white house stand on the gop field? >> isn't it fascinating since last summer we have seen michele bachmann, rick perry, herman cain and now we see newt gingrich surge to the front or near the front of the republican field and still the president and his surrogates take the time out after saying they're not paying much attention to the race to attack mitt romney. you heard david earlier on meet the press that this is a man with no core. david gregly the host of meet the press called axelrod out on that. asked him to defend that stance that the obama campaign has taken. that's what david axelrod had to say. meanwhile the new poll with the marist organization and other polls a month out from the iowa caucus, with gingrich surging to the front. romney is still the focus of the fire. that tells you about what democrats and the white house is going to be the ultimate outcome of that. meanwhile, priebus, he is the chairman of the republican national committee, he was sitting next to da

mike viqueira joins us with the latest from the white house. >> good morning to you. it's been a big weekend in politics here in washington and on the campaign trail. there was a rare saturday session of the senate. the president appeared in the briefing room afterwards after a temporary stand still with republicans on extending the pray roll tax cut. meanwhile, on the campaign trail, the man the obama campaign still thinks it's most likely to face next fall picked up some key endorsements. instead of a year, they got two months. the full payroll tax extension both the president and republicans say they want still mireed in gridlock. >> it would be inexcusable for congress not to further extend this middle class tax cut for the rest of the year. it should be a for malt and hopefully, it's done with as little drama as possible. >> one issue had republicans high fiving. the keystone oil pipeline project was added to the tax bill, requiring the president tosses decide within 60 days if it will be built and not wait till after the election. despite an earlier threat from

to the white house we go, mike viqueira is there. the white house obviously still celebrating, mike. we're celebrating cave-in friday with an ice cream cake. our staff is big on pro-wrestling as you know. when a cave-in happens, we'd like to enjoy a cake. and if you can give us a sense of the political merit of this. and is it really as simple as as long as the president looks better than the republicans, that's really all they care about? >> reporter: well, dylan, i'm having a hard time hearing you over the fireworks going off over here at the white house. dylan -- let me go ahead with this. there's an uneasy truth settled over washington. i guess the president in the political market, his futures are way up, so are fig leaf futures for that matter. you're right, we're back here after two months and the president has spoken time and time again about how he wants to do this without any drama, but there's little evidence that can get accomplished. let's get to another sound bite from the president from the same appearance today. >> wh

. >> and nbc's mike viqueira is live with us in fort bragg and bring us up to date into celebratory momentand also one to fulfill a campaigning promise, and we want to see that pi picture, vicara, whatever you are seeing the picture of. >> well, it is air force one wheels down, and i will tweet it to you, thomas in a moment, yes. and the president and the first lady have arrived wheels down at fort bragg, hope field here in north carolina, and the president and the first lady here to pay tribute to not only the elements of fort bragg which is the famed 82nd airborne, and the army corps of special operations corps, but the 1 million men and women in uniform who have served in iraq and 4500 of whom have paid the ultimate price over the course of nine years. politics overshadow any move that the president makes, including to a blue state like north carolina. mitt romney took out an ad and paid for an ad in the local paper here excoriating the president for the sad state of unemployment here in north carolina, and 11% for returning veterans here and across the kun t count country. but for the

mike viqueira. appreciate that right now. >>> let's bring in washington post columnist e.j. dionne. good morning to you all. exciting couple of days before the christmas holiday, or holidays for many at the moment. e.j., let's start with you. is there a way out for republicans here? that allows the tax cut to go forward without them looking like they're caving on this? fig leaf if you will? >> i think the answer is basically no. but i think they're going to have to look for a fig leaf anyway. what's really striking is that most of the time you talk about democrats in disarray, they're at each other's throats. in this case, the morning papers are full of quotations from republicans, some named like john mccain, some unnamed saying we can't understand what the house republicans are doing. this is a terrible idea. the "wall street journal" editorial page, which is about as loyal to conservative republicans as you can imagine. jo john kennedy once said that a republican being criticized by the "wall street journal" is like the pope being criticized by the vatican newspaper. he was talki

luke russert and mike viqueira. i will send a card to the majority leader. thank you very much for joining us. thank you. >>> coming up, this time of year, we are thankful for lines like these. stay with us. >> i am the coke brothers' brother from another mother. and proud of it. for a hot dog cart. my mother said, "well, maybe we ought to buy this hot dog cart and set it up someplace." so my parents went to bank of america. they met with the branch manager and they said, "look, we've got this little hot dog cart, and it's on a really good corner. let's see if we can buy the property." and the branch manager said, "all right, i will take a chance with the two of you." and we've been loyal to bank of america for the last 71 years. just cover your bases. bring her the all-natural sugar in the raw and the all natural, zero calorie sweetener stevia in the raw. then learn that she doesn't drink coffee, just tea. it's only natural. yes. but lately we've been using k-y® intense™. it stimulates arousal so the big moment is... (announcer) k-y® brand intense™ - intens

nbc's mike viqueira is at the white house with all the of the details. mike, good morning. >> good morning to you, amy. with little more than three weeks to go before that first caucus, all eyes are on iowa and a debate scheduled for tonight. but all eyes are going to be on just two of them, mitt romney and newt gingerich. now trailing in the polls, mitt romney campaigned in iowa friday, stressing gop union city ahead of tonight's debate. >> i think there's seven or eight of us that have debated several times would do a better job as president than the current president. so yes, they're all qualified, including speaker gingerich. >> but even as romney praised him, his allies were on the attack against front-runner gingerich. a pac launched a $2 million ad campaign in iowa trying to stop the surge. >> the fact that gingerich was fined $300,000 for ethics violations. gingerich teamed up with nancy pelosi and al go gore on global warming. >> gingerich's sudden rise has even alarmed some of his own party. >> poor ethics has no place in the white house. i've