Shade on tuesday, ted cruz went on the radio today and amped it up. We had an epic battle in congress a couple of years ago amnesty andion of the argument that we need to secure the border first was an argument i was making over and over again. Sessions argument jeff was making over and over again through it all of the folks on the other side dismissed it saying we were antiimmigrant for believing we should secure the borders. Deep and genuine disagreement with that view. As a voter, when politicians and say the exact up a set of what they have done in office, i treat that with skepticism. Mark ted cruz hits rubio pretty clearly on amnesty. Now it is rubios turn in south carolina. That he and his rival were not so different on this issue of amnesty and immigration. When the senate bill was proposed, he proposed legalizing people that were here illegally. He proposed giving them work permits. He has supported a massive expansion of the green cards. Look at it, i dont think our positions are dramatically different. Mark despite what he said, there are some differences. Rubio made news in another way today. He went on fox news and made a clear that some people who were in the country illegally would have to be deported before there can be a talk of additional immigration. In this fight over immigration, if ahead towards a showdown, who has the upper hand . John i can ted cruz has the upper hand. Andposition is clearer, more consistent with what we think we know about these guys. Ted cruz is not a member of the gang of eight. We will discuss all the intricacies of amendments in a stuff that rubio is counterclaiming by ted cruz is a restrictionist and marco rubio is the one with a muddled position. He proposerings nothing like a path to legal status. Or citizenship. This is a the second time that rubio has staked out a position on immigration and moves and farther to the right and it will be harder and harder for him to. Void criticism if he becomes a nominee, additional criticism. John we talked about this yesterday. I think model is a bad place to be even you are pleasing no one. Is likely that rubio will never convince the restrictionist that he is with them. Every time he tries, he makes his prospects worse by putting himself in a more conservative place. Mark i dont think grassroots like that position. John not at all. We have also talked a lot about the role of Opposition Research and reporting and how those things will play out. Republican side today, once again, in this venue, the target is dr. Ben carson. The ap writes about his connection to a pittsburgh guilty ino pleaded 2008 a charging patients for procedures he did not perform. He is a dentist doing oral surgery, allegedly heeded did not to some of them and then charged people. Carson has plus close personal ties to him. Carson wrote a letter to the court during his fraud trial asking for leniency. A couple years later, carson wrote that anybody found guilty of Health Care Fraud should face no fewer than 10 years in prison. The dentist avoided prison time with the help of dr. Carson and served just one year of house arrest. In his statement, carson said, i know his heart, i am proud to call him my friend, i have always and will continue to stand by him, that is what real friends do. Mark, ben carson, a new flap, how big a threat is this one . Mark one, carson is one of his best friends. I dont think that will be a problem. This other issue of apparent hypocrisy saying specifically, anybody who commits medical orud should go to prison face penalties, he didnt think that was true in the case of his friend. I also dont think that will be a big deal. I dont think his core supporters will matter, it is another brick in the wall, though, of his longterm problems in dealing with controversy. In, as people start today we understand that carsons that he profited off of those deals. You know that is the next phase. You are profiting from your association with a guy who was a convicted felon, there are some things that people will be looking into. He is becoming a riper target for investigation. That is all i am saying. Mark time for a classic shot and chaser. Ben carson said this week that china had some sort of military presence in syria. Here is on strong millions today on msnbc. Armstrong williams today on msnbc. Accurate. Ot on camera, maybe that is inaccurate but from our intelligence and from but dr. Carson has been told by people who are on the ground, the chinese are there. Just because the Mainstream Media and other experts dont want to seek credibility, doesnt mean that some way down the line that that story will come out and it will be reinforced in given credibility by others. , courtesythe chaser of susan rice, who says it she doesnt have a clue what carson is talking about. Also, he did an interview with iowa radio, and here is what he said he would do if president if russian planes violated a u. S. Nofly zone over syria. If we declare this nofly dowe are going to need we shoot down a russian mig . They are flying over iraq. They are flying over syria as well. If they come into the area after given adequate warning, you shoot them down, absolutely. All right. There is the whole butterfly effect. If you shoot down a russian mig, what happens next . Whatever happens next, we deal with it. Mark this is not the first time he has a controversial things on foreign policy. Experts dohing most not agree with him, his camp says maybe something will come , i am notsecond thing sure if most people in the party would my net position. Is it a problem . John the first thing is a problem. It is not a question of democratic counterpoint. The National Security advisor is saying what everybody believes. Mark politically so what, politically . John it makes it sound like an amateur, it makes him sound like herman cain. Now he has an advisor on television claiming that they have better intelligence than the white house. It is going to hurt him with anybody who might seriously give any thought to whether he should be president of the united states. Mark he said somebody things about policy that are john if you are try to tell me that this is another reason why this man does not have a leg to stand on in terms of policy, i agree. Fact, if he said these things before, no one would have cared. As a front runner and getting close to iowa, this stuff more than any of the other flaps john we agree. Voters are going to start a focus in that matters. I like it when we agree. Mark Chris Christie has been on a run lately. It seems like he might have finally put the shadow of bridge gate behind him. Now, bridge gate is back with a weird subplot. Lawyers are trying to get their hands on documents from his office in a court filing yesterday. They also claim that christies High School Classmate who pleaded guilty to corruption charges stole a hard drive that was under subpoena from the Port Authority offices in 2013. Is bridge gate back . If it is back, how big of a problem is it . Was neverge gate christies main problem, it was too close to president obama after sandy, and what was he selling from his new jersey record . Unless bridge gate gets directly to him to show that he line, i dont think that it is his problem. John i disagree. I think bridge gate has been a problem in general, a consumed a huge amount of his time and focus when he was the de facto front runner. It made him into a national laughingstock, the bud of jokes throughout the country. A cap a good to have people it cannot the good for people to be reminded of the chaos that ensued there. I dont think it necessarily derails his comeback but it is not great. Pac in iowa, i am telling you, christie thinks he can steal iowa and the expectation and get into new hampshire. He is playing a smart game, leveraging all he has got. John what does he need to finish in iowa in order for people to think he stole it . Mark he needs to be first or second in the establishment lane , and finish above where everybody expects. John next, we will run through the likely scenarios for that great political journalistic fantasia, the contested Republican Convention next summer. Then weber will be here with us. The politicalile, world has been wondering if the republican nomination contest was headed toward a super bowl a contested national convention. It is fun to think about in the abstract but with primaries and , it is nowproaching more likely than ever to actually happen. The wall street journal noted that none of the candidates looks likely to pull away from the pack to secure enough delegates to secure the mantle before the nominating Convention Next summer. It is one thing to talk about this in the abstract, we fantasize about it every cycle. What are the actual plausible scenarios by which we end up here . Mark the five guys up on our wall right now, those five are the most likely to be able to continue past the first four states no matter what. All five could say, no matter how i performed, i want to go forward because i have the money and the opportunities down the road. K sick and Christie John kasich and Chris Christie have to perform well in order to go on. If for out of the five feel they can go until march, the mathematically, we may invariably have a brokered convention as long as people dont give up. These five are not going to be inclined to give up. John it is a simple scenario. Either donald trump runs the table in the early contest, winning the first states, or ben carson. Race. G people out of the then when you get to the multiprimary states, there is consolidation on the establishment side, whether it is around bush or rubio. Carson or trump cannot be kept out of the convention but then the establishment coalesces and they get enough mark i dont think that is likely. If trumper carson runs early, they will keep winning southern contests. They will win florida, and i dont think you can stop them. If one guy runs, it is done. John it is a matter of timing. How quickly does consolidation happen . Once you get to trump or carson versus an establishment candidate, we have never seen a sign from trump that mark you are going to have it at least two establishment people coming out of the first tuesday who think they have a claim on going forward. If you are so weak that you couldnt beat trump and i am are new hampshire, i dont think the establishment will say that the strongest of the week guys, lets consolidate people will just say, there are fundamental weaknesses in the field. John one way or the other, and one of our scenarios, who has the upper hand . The establishment or the antiestablishment . Mark i dont know. When they come back, we will talk with a supporter of jeb. H, vin weber mark joining us now is a supporter of jeb bush and the former minnesota congressman, vin weber. Had a goodjeb bush chance to be the nominee. He has gone through a rough patch. Now . Ails him what is the problem keeping him from being a clear front runner . I supported jeb bush kasai thought he would be the best president , best qualified. I think that is true. What is surprising is that there doesnt seem to matter. We have two people leading the republican race who have no experience in government into dont match up well against a highly experienced candidate like Hillary Clinton. Mark what is the solution . It is not to start being something other than what he is. I liked him in the debate the policyoriented. Defending his position on immigration. I didnt like when he criticized marco rubio which i dont think is in his character. You have to just move ahead and talk about policy. Take on trump and some of the ridiculous things he says. The course ofin the campaign, that is what penetrates. I think people will want to choose a candidate who is qualified to be president and go up against Hillary Clinton. John do you have a sense that he has performed not as well. It is a question of whether he wants this or not, does he urine for the presidency . Does he have that fire . I think he wants to be president. There was a time when people thought he was an. He launched early to make it clear that he wanted to do it. Much of the campaign is going well. We are raising a lot of money. We have this phenomenon of trump you guysn that iwatch tried to explain to the country, we dont know it. Trump got into the race and froze the race. He shot to the top for reasons we still dont understand. I think the race is now unfreezing of little bit with carson moving up, rubio bouncing a little bit. I think it will melt even more and other candidates will have a chance. There is no question something happened over the summer that no person anticipated. Mark we talked about whether his allies can go negative on marco rubio. No bush has won the white house without doing negative campaigns against their rivals in the nomination fight. Is there a reason that jeb bush should be reluctant to say, here is what is wrong with marco rubio . It is tougher to take on rubio because first of all, pulling shows polls show from preferences. They are thinking about 34 candidates. That means they dont necessarily want any of the candidates to be too badly roughed up because then maybe somebody they end up supporting. You have a party that has problems with hispanics and young voters. A lot of people, including those not supporting him for president , dont want to see him damaged too badly. I think they have to be very careful, whether it is bush or anybody else. You have to be careful how you take on rubio. He is an attractive person to much of the party. John thats fine. You have to be careful about it. That element of teflon you are describing is an incredible attribute and the have to be careful about that appeared you cant just let him skate. I think you can take him on his some point but it has to be strictly on the issues and raise the question of has his conduct on issues proven that he is ready to be president . Well jeb bush win on issues or experience . What is the issue . My issuejeb bush say is better. I will not define find it for bush but i think other candidates will do that. You have to stick to the issues or you will end up in a personal fight and that is not what anybody wants. John marco rubio says he is against abortion even in cases of rape. A lot of people think that is a difficult position to hold. Is it ok for republicans to prosecute that issue . I think you are right at that position is damaging. To take on a candidate in a primary for being too prolife is a strategy that is not likely to work. Mark who will the nominee be . I still think bush will be the nominee. I thought bush would be running away with it by now, i am surprised. But i think he is the best qualified candidate. Everybody in the party says, i will support whoever the nominee is. If donald trump is the nominee, will people like you say that is too far . I think we saw in the debate the other night some real fissures in the Republican Party unfolding. Somebody like donald trump who says he wants to deport 11 million people, wants to start a trade war with mexico and sees oil fields in the middle east causes me a lot of heartburn. Mark thank you very much. Next, an education about the education issue. John the last republican to live in the white house made education a serious issue. How important will it be in 2016 . Our interviews with candidates both talked about tackling the education issue. To find the problem around Public Education today. There are several. It is not adequately preparing our children to succeed at the next level. We have some of the finest institutions in the world evidenced by the fact that the wealthiest and most powerful people on the planet send their kids to school here but you have too many young people who enter it not prepared to learn. Part of it his parents have few choices to choose where their kids go to school at. This is true for low income parents who are trapped sending their parents their kids to a failing school. A mismatch between skills and knowledge required to succeed in the 21st century and what our schools are teaching. Depends on your zip code whether it is failing or not. Are a largey, there number of students who go to failing schools. A lot of them come from homes who go to schools with no library in a move into a high school where things are not happening in a dropout. He see these enormous dropout rates in some major cities. This is a real scorch on our society because we need to recognize that for every one of , that is one more person he have to protect your family from. Do you want to be the education president . Things a the best president can do is not to involve the government in the schools details. Allow that to reside at the local level. At the local level, you will see the innovation necessary to improve. To go intos who want vocational training, i think we 41517yearolds who decided they wanted to become a machinist or a welder. So they can use it to go to high school in the morning and trade school in the afternoon. Federal government can play an important role. We are behind in stem education, particularly from other developed countries. It is a national problem. There are ways that we can have a National Focus on getting our people caught up. Pulpit to using the make that message heard . You are still relying on states to get this done. I would also look at the states that are doing well. It was intended that we would have all of these laboratories in each state and we can learn from them and we could see who is extremely successful in him we can make that available in other places. Core has been controversial for republicans. Your mentor, jeb bush, who has ,een a real leader on education has stayed with common core as a way to get all states to raise standards. Common core is about curriculum reform. It is about trying to set a benchmark that everybody can aim for. Curriculumce, the would respond. My problem is that every time if you create a national standard, the federal government will use it as a mandate mechanism. The less federal interference, the better. States could work with local School Districts in with parents and pdas. Ptas. Nt see pta so far, that has created nothing but chaos. The question before us is these two guys talking about education. In a republican fight, does it matter . Mark the Republican Party has been in retreat during the obama years. President obama has been by some measures a conservative thoughtn reformer and his party. There is still the impression that a lot of our kids are not given an equal chance youre a george bush convinced americans that he cared about education, would be great on education. There is a huge opening here, particularly if Hillary Clinton deals with the teachers unions. John in a general election, this is an issue with a lot of opportunity for republicans to make arguments. I am most interested in the fact that because bush and john kasich had not done better so far, common core has not been essential issue because they had too many other problems. Mark when i asked paul ryan about vouchers, he basically said vouchers are great but it is not a federal issue or you can see that with these guys. You basically want education reform not mandated by washington but at the state level. It makes it harder to argue that you are going to be good on education as opposed to using the pulpit. If clinton is the nominee, the right republicans still without violating federal principles can make a strong case on education. To contrast against her than obama. Like a looks a lot preacher for the teachers union. Mark it is still a big issue for a lot of americans. John when we come back, bush child or for jon meacham after this are from our sponsors. Jon meacham is the author of the George Herbert walker bush biography. He joins us from philadelphia. So good to see you. How are you . This is a question we always wish somebody would ask while promoting a book but never get asked what stories from this book that you consider important had it not had a chance to talk about yet . I appreciate that. One of the things i find fascinating is whoever was hiring the andover faculty in the 1930s was brilliant because if you read bushs teacher reports, you find that the character of the man was entirely said from the time he was 14 until he was 18. He was intense about everything. He worked hard but didnt want anybody to know it. He covered it up with a great amount of charm, and inability to reach out to his classmates. He was a heroic figure at the school, famously helped a kid who was being picked on. The kid later said, who just saved me . And they said, that is poppy bush. The menre character of was born before he entered public life. Mark you did something unusual in a book like this, you want to some of the nonmain characters and told them what you had and got their reaction, reporting within the book. There have been additional reactions from rumsfeld, cheney. Talk about what things have occurred since the book came out, whether they surprised you are not . I did go to everybody. I think cheney has been a great sport, he has been gentle many about it. Proud ironass. [laughter] if you are dick cheney given what a lot of us have reported and followed, it puts him back into the center of the conversation in a way he had not been in the past couple of years. Rumsfeld, i think he proved the point. On the record, he declined to comment. We had two conversations about what bush had said about him. To me, he did not want to comment. His statement was that president bush is getting up in years. The problem is that bushs comments about his being moreant, ironass, comments made first in 2008 and then repeated again over several years. Think rumsfeld is passive aggressive. On reaction puts a cap are what has been a great rivalry in modern american politics. Mark lets unpack this thing that got a lot of attention, bush 41 says, from where i sat, cheney and rumsfeld had too much influence, they were too bellicose. Bush 43 says, i love my dad, i dont want to challenge them, but i called the shots. Did bush 41 have enough data to make this judgment . Is it informed . Was this just a father imposing his view . Trying to get his son off the hook . I dont think he had much more data than a lot of us. One of the factors that hasnt gotten attention is i think that president bush 41 reads the New York Times every day. Honestly. He follows the news, and he followed the commentary when inngs were so bad in iraq 20062007. Informed, given that he knew everyone. To me, one of the interesting both 43 and 41 till me that they had never had this conversation. He had never said, i think that cheney is exacerbating why not . Two things. Deferentialcredibly to every president that held the office, starting with Lyndon Johnson. I dont know that Lyndon Johnson was that worried about being attacked personally. That is an barbaras diary. Carter,ord, even because bush left the door to being cia director. He then famously, almost to the , almost trudeau put it putting his manhood in a blind trust by being so deferential to reagan. Default position is that you do not complicate the life for president. Then you go to 43. 43, i defy anybody to spend several minutes around george w. Wasntd think that he totally in charge. Frankly, he believed he was getting the advice he needed to get. He asked his father about personnel, george tenet. If you read decision points it carefully, there are cases where he asked for his fathers council, including whether or not jim baker might replace rumsfeld, including the ultimate appointment of bob gates to that job in 2006. I said to president bush 43 that i had a theory that he protested too much about how little he asked his father for fear of appearing overly dependent. 43 said, that is not about observation, which i took as a resounding yes. I really believe that they did not have long, serious conversations about policy. John let me ask you about a moment in the book. Weber. Talked to vin you have a scene where vin weber and Newt Gingrich go to visit georgia taper george h. W. Bush in the white house. It is a small story but it seems to have a lot of meaning. Talk about that story. I thought it was absolutely critical. Thank you for raising that. You know the line about the wing of a butterfly starts a hurricane . Fails to be confirmed as secretary of defense. Bush 41 reaches out to dick cheney, polls and out of the becomes secretary of defense, leaving the House Republican job open. The vin weber runs the campaign within the caucus for Newt Gingrich, gingrich is put into house leadership. A series of events that leads to 1994 and gingrich becoming speaker. Interesting thing about if cheney had stayed in the leadership. Put that to one side. Bush calls gingrich when he is gingrich andnvites vin weber, and vin weber said to me, what other president would even think about inviting your Campaign Manager . They have a beer in the tellence and they can that george bush wants to Say Something but cannot get it out. As they are leaving, vin weber says, mr. President , tell us what worries you most about us . Bush says, i worry that your idealism might sometimes get in the way of what i think of as sound governance. Vin weber said, he always credited bush for using the word idealism, not ideology, purity, nuttiness, inflexibility. There is a direct line from that conversation to the 1990 budget deal, when bush puts out the press release he doesnt announce it. They stick the press release on the bulletin board. , bush neverng days comes out and explains why he put the tax increase is back on the table. And vin weber and gingrich find out about it from reporters. It instantly goes into vin webers mind that this is what bush was talking about at that moment. Would bring democrats along to get spending caps. In many ways, that moment is the beginning or a critical chapter in the politics we have now. John that is one of the many Amazing Stories in your book. Thank you for coming on the show. We believe that to talk about some other stuff in 60 seconds. Mark welcome back. Another busy weekend in election land. Lets go live to alexander trowbridge. It looks like a busy weekend. That is not even debatable especially if youre in des moines. We are expecting some november flurries around the country so lets start by flying down to the Sunshine State where a , 12blican does an candidates will be at the Sunshine Summit in orlando on friday and saturday. If you are in the area, get out up. Ppf50, and lather lets move over to iowa where we have that powerful delta we has been telling you about, clinton, sanders, omalley, the Second Democratic debate on saturday night. Keep an eye on clinton, she is expected to hit a watch party injury. , we have gotlla you covered. Thank you. Lets talk about florida. As much as we talk about the , the fact is,tes neither rubio or bush may be in this thing come florida. You can imagine a world where trump goes into florida with a head of steam, it could be incredible. John obviously, it is a winner take all state. It is the first megastate where being on air is what matters. You are going to iowa, are you going to see cornell west . Mark there is a lot of stuff for me to see in iowa. The debate is a huge deal. We have gotten used to the republican debates but we have only had one democratic debate. Bernie sanders was not ready for that depict. He will be more ready this time. Will he be ready enough . And also, only three people on one state. John that will benefit the debate normatively and give candidates a chance to do whatever they want to do. It will help martin omalley. Unlikely to be a nominee, but we you will have a lot more time to make his case. Mark same thing i said about Hillary Clinton, she is if she makes one mistake, it will be the story of the debate. As always, the pressure is big for her. We will be right back. John we are on the two twice a day. Tube twice a day. Mark we have a story about how republican strategists are uneasy about the rubioted cruz immigration feud. Tomorrow, i will be in des moines, previewing the Second Democratic debate. Jennifer jacobs will join us. Until tomorrow, sayonara. Cory you are watching bloomberg west. 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