Transcripts For KNTV Meet The Press 20151220

He and the president can get things done . My exclusive endoftheyear sit down with the speak ere. Joining me for insight and analysis are nbc and telemoan Doe Jose Diaz blart. Doris kearns goodwin. Maggie havreman of the New York Times and radio talk show host hugh hewitt. Welcome to sunday, its meet the press. Good sunday morning. Tip oneill famously said all politics is local. Donald trump has a different idea. Hes betting all politics is national. This week, trump dominated the national poll, again, and as never before. Topping the secondplace finisher. No matter what poll you use, ted cruz, in each case, by more than 20 points. Tradition would tell you National Polls are meaningless. Just ask president s giuliani and herman cain. But donald trump and marco rubio are throwing out the old book that says you have to win iowa or New Hampshire before building a National Camp pain. Trump, who will join me in just a moment, wants to rewrite the rule book. The question is, can he rewrite history . The only one im not leading in is the stupid des moines register. Donald trump is are drawing thousands to rallies with a whistlestop strategy. Parking miz boeing 575 within view of the stage. Hes ignoring the facetoface retail politics that have been the political play book for decades. Hes held just 32 Public Events in iowa. His biggest threat, ted cruz, has held 75. In New Hampshire, trump has made 22 stops compared to jeb bushs 66 and Chris Christies 111. Those candidates dismiss the fact that theyre lagging nationally. This time eight years ago Hillary Clinton was 25 points ahead of barack obama. I dont remember people saying obama, you have to get out of the race. True, but weve never seen someone like trump. Hes saturating social media. Im the Ernest Hemingway of 140 characters. And hes dominating cable news. On fox news, a Traditional Home for republican primary voters, trump has gotten nearly eight times as many mentions as cruz over the past month. Marco rubio is following a similar strategy. In iowa, hes chosen to invest in Television Ads over staffers in field offices and hes been criticized for a Light Campaign schedule. Just 48 stop this is year. You havent been in iowa nearly as much i read that. Thats not true. Meanwhile, ted cruz is betting on a Traditional Campaign play book, rolling out iowa endorsements and opening a dormitory in des moines nicknamed camp cruz for volunteers from out of state. Lets go cruz crew, weve got three minutes. Reporter cruz and rubio are in an all out brawl, competing to be the leading alternative to trump. Marcos campaign is lying. Hes not told the truth about the his position in the past. Reporter rubios sponsorship of the senate 2014 Immigration Reform bill was met with hostility by many conservatives but rubio insists cruz wont admit he backed the reform, too. He supported an amendment in the u. S. Senate when we were debating the immigration bill where he flat out bragged about the fact he wasnt undoing the legalization. Rubio is trying to expose cruz as just another slippery washington politician. But cruz is having none of that, attacking rubio on the arab zbhsh the republican establishments gang of eight plan. In 2013, cruz said this what would you do with the 11 Million People here illegally. I think there probably could be a compromise on that. A compromise . If a path to citizenship was taken off the table. But now cruise is ruling out legal status for undocumented immigrants, now or in the future. I have never once supported legalization, i do not now and i will never support it. Well, im joined on the phone by republican president ial candidate donald trump. Mr. Trump, welcome back to meet the press, sir. Good morning, chuck. Good morning. Let me start with last nights democratic debate. Not surprisingly, the only republican candidate i think that was said, talked about by name, was you. I want to play one particular quote that Hillary Clinton said last night and get you to respond to it the. Here it is. He is becoming isis best recruiter. They are going to people, showing videos of donald trump insulting islam and muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists. Now, i know what youre about to say, no fact checker has been able to back up her claim on that. Thats exactly correct. I was going to say that. Exactly correct. Nobody has been able to back that up. Its nonsense. Just another hillary lie. She lies like crazy about everything. Whether its trips where she was being gunned down in a helicopter or an airplane, shes a liar and Everybody Knows that. But she just made this up in thin air. But let me ask you this. If you knew your words were being used in recruitment videos because ive had intelligence officials worry about this, youre right, theres no evidence yet. If you knew your words were being used, would you change your language . No, because i think my words represent toughness and strength. Hillarys not strength. Hillarys weak, frankly, shes got no stamina, shes got nothing. Let me stop you there. She couldnt even get back on the stage. Nobody even knows what happened to her. Its like she went home and went to sleep. Why do you keep going on this . She couldnt get back on the stage last night ill tell you why. Because we need a president with great strength and stamina and hillary doesnt have that. We can not have another bad president like we have right now. We need a president with tremendous intelligence, smarts, cunning, strength, and stamina. Theres a lot of things ive heard about Hillary Clinton, the idea, though, she did travel more than any secretary of state, its a gruelling job, this is somebody that has been on the National Stage shes sitting on an airplane, truck. So are you. Chuck, she may have traveled a lot but she didnt do the job because the entire world blew up around her. So she wasted a lot of time and energy and money and frankly she wasted a lot of lives because her policies were disaster for the world. The middle east has blown up around her. Her decisions were horrible. And hundreds of thousands of people have been killed because of her faulty decisions. Ive heard you say that. Hundreds of thousands of people. Of course. Where . What is this charge . How about libya . How about all the bad decision. How about wheres going won the migration which was caused by her faulty decisions along with her president , her leader, our great president who is grossly incompetent. How about now . You look at our president , how about the iran deal, one of the worst deals ive ever seen negotiated in my life, chuck. I mean, its just bad deal, bad decision after bad deal after bad decision. Why are you so comfortable praising Vladimir Putin . Im not. I didnt praise him. He praised me. He called me brilliant. He said very nice things about me. I accept it. Well, you called him a strong leader. He is a strong leader, what am i going to say hes a weak leader . Hes making mincemeat out of our president. He is a strong leader. You would like me to call him a weak leader, hes strong leader. Im not going to be politically correct. Hes gotten a 80 Approval Rating done by pollsters from this country. Its not even done by his pollsters. Hes very popular within russia. That my change. But i didnt say anything one way or the other. He came out with a very nice statement about me and i said thats very nice, im honored by it and it would be very nice if we got along with russia, chuck, its not a bad thing, its a good thing. He can not stand our president. He doesnt like president obama. I think it would be a positive thing if russia and the United States actually got along and they could work to the mutual good of getting rid of isis and clean things up. Right now we dont get along with him at all. But right now Vladimir Putin is the best ally iran has around the world and the best ally that assad has in syria. No. No. By making the horrible deal, one of the worst deals ive ever seen made in my entire life, giving them 150 billion, 24day check periods which dont start for a long time after that, 24day check periods, selfinspection, we dont get our prisoners back, our four prisoners, we dont get them back, we gave them 150 billion. We happen to be in its own sick and horrible way we happen to have been one of the great allies of iran, if you want to know the truth. And by the way, just to add to that, we also handed them iraq on a silver platter. We gave them iraq with the secondlargest oil reserves in the world. Theyre taking over iraq as you speak to me this morning so we gave them one of the best deals ever made and, by the way, theyre taking that money now and theyre giving it to russia and others where theyre buying argument which is nobody ever reports. Do you stick by the idea that the middle east would be more stable today with Saddam Hussein and qaddafi in power . 100 . 100 . Theres not even is there even a doubt in your mind . And you would havent the migration and you wouldnt have people coming over to this country that we have no idea who they are and if i win theyre going to have to go back because we have no idea who they are. And if you become president , do you let assad stay . Do you let assad stay . Well, you cant fight assad and isis at the same time. You have to fight isis first. And i dont say assad is good thats exactly what Bernie Sanders believes. Well, thats okay. Then i agree with him. Its okay to agree. I dont agree with him on much but if he says that, im okay with it. Let me tell you, you cant fight them both at the same time. I say assad is a bad guy. But we dont know the rebels who are fighting. Every time we get involved with rebel, look at libya, look at these rebels, look what they did to our ambassador and those young men, those wonderful young men. Every time we get involved in benghazi, im talking about, every time we get involved with rebels, the rebels, they call them the freedom rebels, always nice names, it ends up being far worse than the people there in the first place. So assad is not a good guy. But the people were backing, a lot of people think were actually backing isis. So what are we doing . We have to get rid of isis first, assad we can think about later on. Let me ask you to respond to your friend jeb bush and what he had to say about you yesterday. Take a listen to the full quote and ill get you on the other side. Just one other thing. I have to get this off my chest. Donald trump is a jerk. [ laughter and applause ] i feel better now. I just i just i gave myself therapy there. Thank you for allowing me to do it. Well, this has escalated between you and mr. Bush. Look, his people gave him that quote, you could see he was just saying okay, im ready to say it. Jeb is a weak and ineffective person. Hes also a lowenergy person which ive said before but hes a weak and ineffective person. Jeb if he were president it would be more of the same. Hes got money from all of the lobbyists and all of the special interests that run him like a puppet. Hes got 2 in the polls. I have 41 in the latest poll. He has 2 . Hes going to be off the stage soon. Hes an embarrassment to the bush family and he doesnt even want to use the bush name which is interesting. Hes an embarrassment to himself and his family and the Republican Party has essentially theyre not even listening to jeb. Jeb is saying that by the way, hes only saying that to get mojo going but in the meantime i went up 11 points in the new fox poll. I went up 11 points after the debate and he went down two. Very quickly, why has ted cruz caught you in iowa . We can dispute whether youre ahead by a point pour two, whether hes ahead five or six, but ted cruz has caught you in iowa and he may beat you in iowa. I just got back from iowa last night. I was there for a long time yesterday, we had a tremendous rally and frankly i think were doing great in iowa. I dont know. I cant tell you who caught who. It looks like a twoperson race, everyone else is way behind but im doing well with evangelicals who i love. Im doing really well with every group. With the tea party groups, everybody, i can only speak for myself. We have a good team in iowa and ill find out, lets see what happens on february 1. Ted is doing well there and im doing well there and if you look at the numbers in New Hampshire, im through the roof there and in South Carolina im through the roof there. Im way ahead in those two states. And ted and i are even, although the last three polls have me up in iowa, as you know. Is it fair to say if youre not the nominee youd prefer ted cruz . No, i dont want to say anything about that. But ted has been very nice to me, very respectful. Very will be almost in every single instance he backs my ideas probably more so and ben carson has been very nice, also. I get along with believe it or not i get along with a lot of people on that stage but ted has been very nice to me, yes. I think everybody right now except mr. Bush. Donald trump, i have to leave it there, have a Merry Christmas, happy new year. You, too. I look forward to seeing you face to face. Merry christmas, happy new year to everybody and its been an interesting time. Thank you very much. Yes, it has, sir. Thank you. Hugh hewitt, what did you think . I thought he was consistent with tuesday night. I like the fact that he took it to Hillary Clinton at the beginning. This is what republican candidates need to do. She made up another video last night, she left libya in chaos so i think donald trump showed the republicans how to take the campaign to Hillary Clinton and he did it very effectively. He has been caught in iowa. And i think that that will change the campaign but he did a nice job right now. Maggie, hes on the verge of discipline sometimes. The first half he was disciplined, the second half he let jeb bush get him underneath his skin and it does bug him. He spent more time i was ready to go more and ive got another thing to say about jeb bush. For somebody at 2 of the polls, thats interesting. That is interesting. You have this race going on between marco rubio and ted cruz and then you have the trump jeb fight which is not representative of where the race will end up but they represent the two poles on the Republican Party right now which is immigration, and they are sucking up focus and polling energy. Jeb bush came very close to getting donald trump to blow up and then backed off a bit yet hes clearly still to your point needling trump. This is one of the unknowns. Ill take a quick pause here, well get everybody back in. When we come back, well return to the democrats. They debated last night in New Hampshire. But is Bernie Sanders running out of time . He joins me next. [ male announcer ] whether it takes 200,000 parts, 800,000 hours of supercomputing time, 3 million lines of code, 40,000 sets of eyes, or a million sleepless nights. Whether its building the worlds most advanced satellite, the space station, or the next leap in unmanned systems. At boeing, one thing never changes. 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Tell your doctor if you or anyone in your house needs or has recently received a vaccine. In a medical study, most stelara® patients saw at least 75 clearer skin and the majority were rated as cleared or minimal at 12 weeks. Stelara® helps keep my skin clearer. Ask your doctor about stelara®. Last night was the final democratic debate of the year and it started with a little seasonal peace and good will from Bernie Sanders who apologized to Hillary Clinton for his aides breach of her Campaign Voter Data but they clashed over their different approaches to the war against isis. We wont get the support on the ground in syria to dislodge isis if the fighters there who are not associated with isis but whose principle goal is getting rid of assad dont believe there is a political, diplomatic channel that is ongoing. I think we have got to get our foreign policies and our priorities right. The immediate it is not assad who is attacking the United States, it is isis. And isis is attacking france, and attacking russian airliners. The major priority right now in terms of foreign and military policy should be the destruction of isis. Senator sanders joins me now. Senator, welcome back to meet the press, sir. Thank you very much, chuck. I want to pick up on the isis comment. You said Something Else in here that caught my eye. You were talking about, look, we could get rid of Saddam Hussein but that destabilized an entire region. We could get rid of qaddafi, but that created a vacuum for isis and we could get rid of assad tomorrow but that would create another political vacuum. Let me ask you this would the middle east be more stable today with saddam, qaddafi and assad all sort of strong men in charge . Well, the answer is all three of those guys are terrible dictators and the goal is through a democratic process to get rid of terrible dictators. But the truth, the simple answer to your question is, i think yes, the region would be much more stable. The point here is that it is easy for a major power like the United States to get rid of somebody like Saddam Hussein. But the reason i opposed the war in iraq is i worried very much about the destabilization in the region and what would happen the day after. And, sadly, many of the concerns that i had turned out to be right. Similarly, in libya, qaddafi, terrible dictator, gotten rid of, right now isis is gaining ground in libya because of all of the destabilization in the region and all of the turmoil. So i think what you need is coalitions, broad coalitions, to Work Together to create a process by which we removed people or by through democratic change. Well, but the problem, as secretary clinton pointed out, is that isis and a lot of the people that you want in this coalition, you know, arab boots on the ground rather than u. S. Boots on the ground, theyre more concerned with assad than they are isis. And if our priority isnt to get rid of assad, they wont join this coalition. Isnt that the catch22 here, sir . Look, i mean, thats a fair point and no one denies this is a complicated issue. But here is my point what American Leadership is about is to put as much pressure as we can and we have the leverage to do that. We have the leverage to bring countries together to demand that they overcome their differences because right now the crisis facing this world is international terrorism, it is isis. Assad, i want to see him go but thats a secondary issue compared to the destruction of isis. Clinton made a pledge she would not raise taxes on any household that raise 250,000 or below. You would not take that pledge. You said for 1. 60 a week youd get paid family leave. How much are taxes going to go up if you are president of the United States . Can you say youve got a lot you want to pay for. Can you give us a number about how much youre going to raise taxes. Well, this is what i can say. Were going to do away with the corporate loopholes that allow major profitable corporation who have their money stashed in the cayman islands. Thats 100 billion a year. Well impose a tax on wall street speculation to make sure public colleges and universities in america are tuitionfree. Well raise the estate tax for very, very wealthy people, the top twotenths of 1 . But in terms of this issue you raised, i do disagree the secretary. I believe the United States should join the rest of the world for paid family and medical leave. It will cost us 1. 61 a week in an increase in payroll tax. Thats great investment. Is that the only thing you plan on raising taxes on the middleclass on. Yes, thats right. Look, we have seen a huge transfer of wealth from the top from the middleclass to the top onetenth of one percent and i think its appropriate the ask wealthy and large corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. Let me move to the dnc issue. Do you believe the dnc is treating you fairly . I think in this instance they did not. On two occasions now, chuck, in the last several months, breaches have occurred as a result of the incompetence of dnc vendors. Two separate vendors. Then what happened is, you know, our first time our staff said, hey, weve got information from the clinton campaign. They did the right thing. They went back to the dnc and vendor. Second time some of our staff screwed up and i apologized for that. Now shut off our access to our own information, to significantly hinder our campaign was a complete overreaction and that was wrong. But you acknowledge who had staffers who essentially if they didnt rob the Hillary Clinton voter file they certainly took pictures. Hold on, chuck, chuck. Chuck, let me just say this. Lets be clear. Okay. As a result of a breach caused by the dnc vendor, not by us, information came into our campaign about the clinton campaign. Magically . Wait . Magically came there or you had a staffer that got it . Yes, thats what you believe it accidentally came in. Thats not disputed. There was a breach caused by the incompetence of the dnc vendor. That information came into our campaign. First time it came in our staff did the right thing. They said we have information from the clinton campaign, we dont want this. And they went to the dnc. The second time a staffer or more, we dont know yet, were doing that investigation, screwed up and we have fired that person. Point is the dnc then proposed because of the initial screwup on their part to take away our access to our own information which significantly hampers our campaign. Fortunately that has been resolved. All right, senator sanders ill leave it there. I know it was a late night, early morning. Appreciate you coming on for a quick postdebate wrap. Thank you very much. For more reaction, im joined by john podesta of Hillary Clintons president ial campaign. Mr. Podesta, welcome back to meet the press. Nice to meet you, sir. Let me ask you to something secretary clinton said last night about donald trump and isis. Fact checkers cant say it. She said definitively it is being used for propaganda. Where do you get this information . Do you have information that we dont have . Chuck, your own network ran a piece citing the most Important Organization that follows isis on social media that said theyre using social media and using donald trump as a recruitment tool so thats what she was referencing and thats the interpretation we made and i think if you look at whats going on in the middle east the fact that mr. Trump is on television over there all the time, the fact that isis is using him as a recruitment tool, its a very fair charge. I understand what youre referring to hes becoming a very important recruitment tool for isis. I understand what youre referring to and there was concern he would become an important recruitment tool. She said it definitively, declaratively. In the piece youre referring to, it was about concern. I think if you go back and look at social media, if you look at whats going on, they are definitely pointing to mr. Trump. So she stands by this comment . She does. Let me ask you about senator sanders and him saying hes being treated unfairly at the dnc. Do you accept his apology and believe hes telling the truth . I liked his apology last night better than the one i heard this morning. I think this was an egregious breach. This notion that somehow this information just kind of came into the possession of his campaign is completely inaccurate. The firewall went down, they made 25 separate searches, 24 occasions, they moved tried to move information into personal files that was information we had gathered, spent enormous amount of volunteer effort to put together and these were very directed searches about who our supporters were, who the people who were least likely to support us were and they got caught. And they didnt respond well to the dnc but he acknowledged that it was an error. They fired their type data guy. He wasnt a 20yearold kid, he was a 39yearold ph. D. Thats a very senior position in the campaign. They just put two other people on suspension. So you dont think theyre being you dont think hes being forthcoming . This was a very serious breach. I dont think his campaign has been particularly forth coming. I think senator sanders is a good guy and i think his campaign is a little bit not serving him well in this instance. I think they were clearly did something that was unethical and if you look, though, at other occasions theyve created a culture where senator sanders says he doesnt want to run negative ads then they run negative ads then he has to pull the negative ads. He says he doesnt want a super pac but a super pac is supporting him. So i think he has a problem in his campaign with the culture of that campaign and that was shown in this incident and i think the were the victims of this, not the sanders campaign. All right, john podesta, Campaign Chair for secretary clinton, thanks for sending a little time this morning. Appreciate it. In a moment. Speaker of the house paul ryan on what he and president obama might actually get done in 2016. Surprise we heard you got a job as a developer its official, i work for ge what . Wow. Yeah okay. Guys, ill be writing a new language for machines so planes, trains, even hospitals can work better. Oh sorry, i was trying to put it away. Got it on the cake. So youre going to work on a train . Not on a train. On trains youre not gonna develop stuff anymore . No i am. Do you know what ge is . I said i really cant stay baby its cold outside i have to go away baby its cold outside i really cant stay baby its cold outside you never know who youll meet at barnes noble. Wfrom your cold flu. You give them a case of the giggles. Tylenol® cold helps relieve your worst cold flu symptoms. You can give them everything youve got. Tylenol® ashley bryant, you are a teacher of small children. Thats right. I have read it is the hardest job in the world. Thats why im here. Can you. I can offer advice from the accumulated knowledge of other educators. Thats wonderful but. I can tailor a curriculum for each student by crossreferencing aptitude, development, geography. Sorry to interrupt. But i just have one question how do i keep them quiet . pause watson . There is no known solution. The artificial heart, this ielectric guitarsdoers, and rockets to the moon. Its the story of america land of the doers. Doin it. Did it. Done. Doers built this country. The dams and the railroads. John henry was a steel drivin man hmm, catchy. They built the golden gates and the empire states. And all this doin takes energy no matter whos doin. Theres all kinds of doin up in here. Or what theyre doin. What the hecks he doin . Energy got us here. And its our job to make sure theres enough to keep doers doin the stuff doers do. To keep us all doin what we do. Heres fun political note this christmas season. Not only do liberals and conservatives think differently and vote differently, they shop differently, too. According to simmons research, here are the top ten places where conservatives shop. Most stores are located in the south. Here are the stores where liberals shop, mostly in urban areas. Youll notice not one store in the conservative list appears on the liberal list, nor one store on the liberal list appearing on the conservative list. A lot of this is geography but it shows you how we have totally sorted ourselves out. Well be back in a moment with the speaker of the house with the speaker of the house paul ryan on what he this is the one place were not afraid to fail. Some of these experiments may not work. But a few might shape the future. Like turning algae into biofuel. New technology for capturing co2 emissions. And cars twice as efficient as the average car today. Ideas exxonmobil scientists are working on to make energy go further. No matter how many tries it takes. Energy lives here. Are you curious . Do you wonder why things work . Do you look at things and say i can make that better . These questions, these curiosities then lead to discoveries. And those discoveries are going to lead to the Energy Solutions for the next 50 years. We have big, big challenges. One challenge is to capture the co2 before its released into the atmosphere. We captured more than 6 million tons in 2014 alone. Thats the equivalent of eliminating the annual emissions of more than one million cars. In the longer term, we are working on how to convert algae into biofuels. The ultimate objective is to be able to put it into an existing car, to not have to redo the engine. That could be one of the very important parts of the Energy Equation in the future. We want to drive our scientists, we want to drive our engineers, to never be satisfied with where we are today. Because there are always better ways to do things. Im vijay swarup, and i am a scientist at exxonmobil. Yothats lactaid®. K right. 100 real milk, just without the lactose. So, no discomfort . Exactly. Try some. Mmm, it is real milk. Lactaid®. 100 real milk. No discomfort. It would be an understatement to say there is conservative anger over the budget deal agreed to by the new speaker paul ryan. Look at this headline from the washington times. White house declares total victory over gop in budget battle. Needless to say, conservatives are unhappy that planned parenthood and the Affordable Care act are funded, there are no restrictions on syrian and iraqi refugees and no measures blocking president obamas efforts to fight climate change. Speaker ryan heard the criticism. I sat down with him on friday and he said hed deal with planned parenthood in the new year and conservatives need to accept he had to make compromises to get a deal done. Let me first say, this is divided government. And in divided government, you dont get everything you want. So we fought for as much as we could get, we advanced our priorities and principles, not every single one of them but many of them and then well pick up next year and pick up where we left off and keep going for more. I want to get to this interview without using the word omnibus. You just said it. I know. Because you one time said omnibus equals a crap sandwich. When you were a member, not speaker. Now that youre speaker, do you think member paul ryan was a little naive . Everybody knows that i walked into the speakership seven weeks ago with this process already in place. With this cake already baked. And so what i did is went to work to make the best of this process. To get good wins for conservatives. Like lifting the Oil Export Ban for the first time in 40 years. Getting permanency on tax policy. Getting good riders. Limiting the irs so the irs cant meddle in politics. Making sure we get more prolife riders. Those are wins we did get but the point i would say is this is the process i inherited. I fully owned that. But its also a process that will help us get to what we call regular order next year where we dont wind up with the same kind of situation next year. Thats my hope and goal. What does it say though mark levin says they betrayed you. Referring to you. Laura ingram omnibust. Marco rubio is to jeb bush as paul ryan is to john boehner. But harry reid said this. Its a good product for the American People. So here you have harry reid praising you and conservative opinion leaders calling it betrayal. None of this stuff gets to me. Its results that matters. We made good on our promises. We advanced good legislation and more importantly do you think this rhetoric is inappropriate . Out of line . I dont Pay Attention to it. People know who i am. Some of your members do. The members know i am a movement conservative. They know i am a doer not a beer. I want to make sure we have an agenda to take the American People that gives the country a clear choice and thats what were excited to look forward to in 2016. You were aggressive when it comes to pushing you were happy about this. But one of the criticisms from deficit hawks is 700 billion in permanent tax cuts, what youve done with obamacare is probably going to be these yearly extenders which if it becomes permanent, thats another 250 billion. Theyre not paid for. Thats a trillion in tax cuts not paid for. I completely reject the premise of your point and question which is you dont think tax cuts should be paid for . Thats not what this is. These tax policies are in law. We want to keep them in law. By keeping taxes where they are that means were keeping them where they are. That doesnt mean were cutting taxes, were keeping taxes where they are. Be was theres an artificial problem in the law that says taxes will raise, not raising taxes is not cutting taxes, its not raising taxes. So the point i would make is this is not a tax cut as much as tax certainty let me move to your relationship with president obama. Youve been in seven weeks. What can you get done . Criminal Justice Reform is one area. Getting the appropriations process back on track. Trade . Well see when we can get that done but thats one thing. Were looking at that. Thats something you will work with the white house on . I havent made my mind up. I havent read the entirety of the agreement yet but thats something conceivably that could be done. Hes not on the ballot again. There will be other people on the ballot again but i believe the president has succeeded in transforming this country in a direction that it was never supposed to go in the first place. You came down hard on donald trump on muslims. You said this is not conservatism. What was proposed is not what this party stands for and what this country stands for. In many ways you gave cover from other republicans to also criticize him here we are two weeks later, ten days after hes done it is. Donald trump more in step with the party than you are . I think its a bigtent Republican Party. I dont think im out of step because im a known conservative. People know me with as a very conservative person whos been advancing ideas like balancing budget, reforming welfare, entitlements, tax reforms, all the rest. There is room in this tent for a lot of people. It is a majority party. This nomination process is going to be healthy. I trust the republican primary voter to pick a nominee that can take us all the way to win the without so we can fix this country. Are you concerned about Donald Trumps rhetoric . You were with that one. Obviously i dont agree with what he said with respect to a religious test. I was speaking out for the first amendment. Religious freedom, right of conscience, thats a fundamental right, a natural right and a constitutional right. And its something we as conservatives should always forcefully defend. What is the process youll go through to make decision if you want to be speaker for 2016 . I havent thought of that. Is it family . Whether a democrat wins the white house . A republican wins the white house . Are you enjoying this job more than you thought . I am enjoying it more than i thought i would. I havent given it thought. Im focused on the here and now. I want to get Congress Working again, open up the process, get us back to Running Congress the way the founders intended it. Most likely whoever is elected president is going to become immediately polarizing. Were living in a time where it feels that this is is there anything you and president obama can do together that could lay the ground work to lessen it a little bit . Have you thought about that . I discussed that with him. Hes one of the most polarizing president s weve ever had. Isnt it going to be anybody at this point . I this i leadership matters. Leaders can unify and polarize. This president decided to polarize. But you are going to try to defund his Signature Health care law. For many progresses, thats a polarizing move. Its a how will that isnt working. A how will depriving peoples choices, a law making families pay double digit premium increases, a law leading medicare into a rationing scheme that wont i understand the argument, but do you understand to some that that is polarizing as what youre saying president obama is doing . My point is, how do we get out of this cycle . Thats a good question. I think we get out by being positive, offering a vision, Offering Solutions and focusing on what they do to make peoples lives better. And to appeal to what unifies us as a country, as a people. We should not play identity politics as conservatives or as liberals which is a political tactic that aims at speaking to people in ways that divide them from one another. That is wrong in my opinion. I take it thats why you spoke out against donald trump . And both sides do it so i think its wrong. All it will do is polarize us further and we can not have a unified country if we keep doing that. So this is why i think leaders should lead to unify. This is why im a Jack Kemp Ronald Reagan conservative. You can see more with my interview on our web site, meetthepressnbc. Com. When we come back, the big battle that emerged in the Republican Party this week, marco rubio versus ted cruz. Is it about two men or two is it about two men or two different views of what a if you struggle youre certainly not alone. Fortunately, many have found a different kind of medicine that lowers blood sugar. Imagine what it would be like to love your numbers. Discover oncedaily invokana®. 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Doris, i want to go to this Marco Rubio Ted cruz fight because im i want you to go to Teddy Roosevelt for me a bit. Are we seeing a splintering of what conservatism is when youre watching rubio beat cruz or this just a personal spat . I mean, theres something thats personal in terms of two sons of immigrants the same age, the jealousy, that visceral sense, im the one, not you the one. But clearly theres a big difference between their views on interventionism and nativism, their views on immigration. I mean, the thing you realize when you look at where we were right after romney lost and the Republican Party was talking about how are we going to get the hispanics back . Rubio might be proud he was part of gang of eight at that point and maybe cruz would have been saying yes, i was for legalization but now its shifted so much that the ground is taken away, but i do think the Republican Party as it was in 1912, in my time, is undergoing a major split. [ laughter ] and what happened thien . A third party. What happened then . They split the vote and the democrats win. Its one of the times where factions are not personal. Trump is out there possibly in a personal way. But these two guys and other people represent real splits in the party. Im not sure how theyll come back together again unless hugh can figure it out. Jose, is this about immigration or authenticity . I think its about trying to win the primaries and sfw no i dont think if it has anything do with authenticity or based on reality. Its like hello from the other side. I dont understand how you can say im for something or i am against something when in 2013 you were on the record like cruz was about immigration. And legalization. And you know what . I just wish people would define words more clearly. Above and beyond the fact most people dont even read, except phil. But you know, amnesty, legalization, its as though you throw these words out and you dont look at what it is youre trying to say because words dont matter, apparently. Almost like its on purpose. Shocking. I think this is about from cruzs perspective, its rabb i redefining immigration as a National Security. And despite what he said in 2013, despite what we know, he has been trying to make the case he is running against washington and that is what he is doing to rubio. Rubio is trying to say there is no real distinction between us on this issue. Frankly, there are a lot of issues where there are no distinction at all. The National Security and immigration are the two. I do think politically the more that the distinction between the two men gets erased on immigration, i dont know if you disagree with me on this, i think it helps trumps. To the extent that cruz is less of a palatable alternative, that can only make trump stronger. I think its helping Chris Christie. If you see the new movie creed creed goes after the english fighter again and again. Rubio and cruz are killing each other and Chris Christie is standing over there, hes rocky, stallone character winning by not being in the fight. Ill also say about your paul ryan interview, i was very encouraged by that. Mark levin is one of my closest friends, i read the liberty amendments but i think hes wrong. Paul ryan is a new man beginning a turnaround, a workout, a difficult position for the Republican Party and full of ideas and energy. Were winning. This fight can go out for a long time. Let me throw out something about whether whats going on with trump and then cruz and rubio. The december poll leader in 2012, 2008 and 2004, just to remind people everything can change quickly. In 2012 gingrich december poll leader. Romney eventual nominee. Clinton, december, obama nominee. Dean, december, kerry, nominee. Now trump is trying to redefine this thing but sometimes history matters. Of course come on, that was a thump. [ laughter ] in the end you want to hope that the venn shl nominee slogs through New Hampshire and iowa and learn something from the people. To go back to tip oneill, he said you have to ask people for your vote. Remember he had this neighbor and she didnt vote for him and he said why didnt you vote for me and she said you cant ask me for my vote. So unless theyre out there moving around, i dont think they can win it nationally. They think they can. The debates have given them endless exposure. They have money enough that they dont need endorsements and momentum. Maybe we here in a different world. Thats the thing. Eventually none of us can say were not. Were already in a different world. Eventually things change. Another number, 71 . Thats the percentage of latino votes president obama got. The republicans after that election did a mea culpa and said lets talk about imgalatian a respectful way. Now what are we talking about . The only issue on immigration that were hearing is build the wall, selfdeportation which ive heard before and the solution is never to have anything do with the 11 Million People. That is jose, in the debate last night words matter. In the debate last night mrs. Clinton embraced libya and said we have isis where we want them to be. Its a National Security election. The republicans had a great debate and theyre coming together. I clapped when donald trump said no regrets . No regrets. It means there will not be the third party that the professor referred to that would destroy the Republican Party. National security . It is but i want to talk about the fact that hillary embraced libya last night, thats a volcano of terrorism and refugees. She owned it. She date stamped it last night and john podesta stood by that video. Good weekend for the republicans. Good week for the republicans. We shall see. Dont go anywhere. Well be back with end game in less than a minute. As we go to break, i want to share at least one fun moment from saturday night live last night and the return of some familiar faces. That was a real fun election. I was tearing up with that cute little john mccain fella. May he rest in peace im guessing. Hes alive. Yes, i need to get back to 2008 and send a bunch of covering your kids eyes is one way to prevent them from seeing something inappropriate. Another way is to use Parental Controls on your tv, computers, and mobile devices to control viewing habits when youre not around. Its in your hands. The more you know. The panel is here for a little end game. Lets go, you bought up the democratic debate a little bit, hugh. Maggie, you heard Hillary Clinton has this one issue, fact check, and as hugh said, john podesta stood by it is. This going to be a problem for her or not . I think it is potentially a problem. This seems to be the posttruth election in a lot of ways. By the way donald trump attacking Hillary Clinton on truthism she lies he said repeatedly. I dont know how much that will be a problem. I do think what she said about libya will be a problem. She said ive got them where its supposed to be. I think things like that anything she does that link hearse to obamas Foreign Policy in the general election is a problem and i think more of a problem than what she said last night. But did you hear anything from Bernie Sanders that says okay, he can take her . The most important thing that hillary did last night, its not that bernie didnt do well and he had a good night, too, but she showed such amazing confidence. That moment when should Corporate America like you. Everybody should like me. Think of the difference between 2008 when there was a question about do you think you can catch obama because youre not likable. And she said well, i feel hurt. Ever since that big week when she did 2 debate well, did the benghazi hearing and when biden got out of the race shes got her internal confidence. When thats there, yes, the problems will come up, you have to worry about confidence becoming arrogance but shes a better candidate than six months ago. Shes better than in 08. Her business answer, i thought Corporate America answer, shes worried about the general, she isnt even thinking about bernie. Shes going i wont be an antibusiness democrat. You wont put me in that hole. And the whole issue of interpretation. The moon is round, cheese is round therefore the moon must be made out of cheese. [ laughter ] where did you get that . Thats a good one you start interpreting other things, you get away from the fact. I wish that yesterday there would have been less talk about how long it takes people to go to the bathroom than it is to deal with issues of National Security that includes immigration and every single day there are families being separated in this country because of lack of Immigration Reform and we dont know who they are and very quickly, let me ask you this, when do republicans say to themselves our two leading candidates cant beat Hillary Clinton . Polls show trump and ted cruz are the two weakest after zblik i do believe the news of the morning is john podesta doubling down on the video. This is the second time hillary has created a video narrative that is a lie and ththat will b the story. I think ted cruz can beat her, Chris Christie can crush her. You think donald trump can beat Hillary Clinton . She has a 60 did you here his. 60 untrustworthy. And donald trump i believe has the same number. 71 . And in spanish [ speaking spanish ] help me. Thats massive and it may be more. Im thinking ochenta. If youre not careful. You can take the boy out of miami, you cant take the miami out of the boy. Sounds like telemundo. Lets lighten it up before we get felize navidad. Its five days until christmas and rumor has it if you ask santa for adele tickets youre probably going to wait for a long time. For her, that u. S. Tour was sold out within an hour, leave manager fans unable to say hello to their favorite chanteuse. So someone like you as well as the president ial candidates may not see adele. But while ive been doing these sit downs with the contenders and the serious interviews on meet the press, weve had fun for facebook. Weve been asking them what their first concert was. Wait until you see some of these answers. It is hilarious. Boy, the first concert was probably a country concert although im not a Big Country Music fan. I went to a pete seeger concert, a very long time ago. I mean, i like it, but im more of a lincoln park kind of guy. When i was in junior high i went to men at work in concert. First concert i remember going to was the beatles a long time ago and they were terrific. James brown, 1966. Say it loud, im black and im proud. Drop the mic. [ laughter ] look at hugh. Youre speechless. I got nothing. You got nothing . The beatles is cool . First concert . I dreamed of being at a concert with elvis. Gyrating on the stage, i dreamed it 20 times. Santana, 1971. Nice bob dylan, 1976 with joan baez and joni mitchell. Madonna, 1990. Do i have to admit mine . Yeah. I worked concessions at neil diamond. All right i worked concessions. The first concert i paid for was living color and rollingston. Thats a good one, too. I went there more for living color and look whos still giving concerts. Exactly. [ laughter ] Merry Christmas, happy new year. Thank you. Thats all for today. Well be back next week. Have a very Merry Christmas and dont forget, if its sunday two days after christmas it will be meet the press. Press here is brought to you partially by what is it like to take your Company Public . Pure storage ceo found out weeks ago and he will tell us what he learned. And trying to bring more japanese to silicon valley. And john lever on the new gig economy. Our