Transcripts For MSNBC The Daily Rundown 20121210

The secretary of states future. Some of clintons closest allies are keeping very quiet which actually was surprising. Good morning. From washington its monday, december 10, 2012. This is the daily rundown. Im chuck todd. Were in double digits in december. What does that mean . It means were finally at the serious phase of the fiscal negotiations. Three weeks to go before the proverbial fiscal cliff. Actually its not proverbial. Socalled, right . Lets not hope this becomes proverbial. Anyway, the president s photoop of the day will be at a suburban detroit auto plant. If were serious about protecting middle class families and were going to have to ask the wealthiest americans to pay higher tax rates. Thats one principle i wont compromise on. The. The president is in detroit, daimler will announce a big 100 Million Investment to expand u. S. Production in jobs. Its the real reason he was invited to michigan. With time running out for a deal before the holidays, the president and now Speaker John Boehner met at the white house, the first facetoface meeting between the two in nearly a month. The first oneonone meeting between the two. Aides refused to characterize the meeting saying, quote, were not reading out can details but the lines of communication remain open. But well do it for him. This is the real start of the negotiations, folks. If this week goes bad, we shouldnt worry about a deal. The plan is to get something passed by friday, december 21st or even december 24th. And then the legislation has to be written by the 18th. And that means that obama and boehner must reach some framework of an agreement by december 14 or 15 if theres going to be a deal. What does that mean . Lots of serious talks have to begin now. We can put the posturing finally aside. Weve run out the clock on this posturing phase. Bob corker joined a growing number of republicans who argue that agreeing to the president s position on raising tax rates will actually give the republicans an upper hand in budget negotiations going forward. A lot of people are putting forth a theory, and i think it has merit, where you go in and given the president the 2 increase that hes talking about, the rate increase on the top 2 , and all of a sudden the shift goes back to entitlements. Will i accept a tax increase as a part of. Deal to solve our problems . Yes. Oklahoma congressman tom cole who has delivered a similar message said yesterday he believes the bill to extend just middle class tax rates would pass the house right now. I think it if it got to the floor it would carry. I spent a lot of time counting votes and looking around. But Kevin Mccarthy, the guy who is actually in charge of counting the votes on the republican side, made it clear that the public message from House Republicans is sill no deal on tax rates. The president wants the rates to go up, that doesnt solve a problem, another year, another ten years answering your same questions. Today the wall street journal editorial page lectures some republicans. Quote, its a shame that republicans are playing into mr. Obamas hands negotiating in public among themselves prematurely giving up on the tax issue and undermining house Speaker John Boehner in the process. But in the Weekly Standard bill kristol hit back at the journal take on this saying it would be great if the journal editors had a better idea what republicans could do. They dont. If the House Republicans follow the editors over the cliff, the only effect, im afraid, will be to turn a manageable reret in december into a panicked strategic route in january. The New York Times points out that even if republicans agree to the president s key demand that the top tax rates return to the clinton era level, it would only be a quarter of the 1. 6 trillion the white house is demanding leaving battles and limits on deductions and exemptions and estate and gift taxes all for another day. Then there are other political minefields of entitlement cuts in spending. By the way, by choosing to make his fiscal cliff pitch in michigan, the president is stepping into the fierce battle over Worker Rights in that state. They are becoming the 24th state for right to work state. The bill pushed through by the republican controlled house and senate in michigan, the daimler detroit michigan plant, the white house came out against the move sighing president obama has long opposed righttowork laws and continues to oppose them now. By the way, a quick little aside on this disagreement among conservatives about what tactic boehner should take the journal versus kristol. This gives boehner more room, more power, more of an ability to get a deal done because there isnt conservative consensus on how to back seat cut boehner. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton finishes up her final weeks as americas top diplomat and has to contemplate her next move. The clinton world is not sitting quietly, though. T the New York Times kicked off what is likely to become a monthly exercise by somebody in the media. We may come up with a meter. Probably throw in jeb in there, right . We should call it the hillary jebatron version 2016. Probably jon stewart starting that up already. Jodie cantor interviewed a number of clinton aides about future plans and strikingly a lot of them talked. While clinton has dozens of options when she leaves the state department, cantor makes a smart observation. She is a big constraint. The more serious she is about 2016 the less she can do. No frank, seen it all memoir, no clients, commissions that could prove problematic in the 2016 primaries or the general. Instead cantor reports that secretary clinton is considering writing an upbeat look at her time as secretary of state. Not a painful examination of her failed 2008 bid as she once proposed. Likely to be quoted in a handful of clinton aides willing to go on the record with the times even when asked questions that made it clear the paper was doing a story on clintons president ial ambitions. A longtime Senior Adviser to the clintons and hillarys campaign in 2008 tells the paper she has seen firsthand the difference she can make for women and girls. And that could be the focus of some such book and womens rights around the world. Quote, nobody interacts with Hillary Clinton like shes fading off into the sunset. Aides talk on background about the timing, strategy, even the issues she might focus on in a future one. And then the friend of about bill clinton who tells the times he sometimes cannot keep himself from verbally gaming out another campaign for her whether she wants it or not saying every indication is she would want him to run. A fever pitch hit when bill clinton buddy democratic strategist James Carville was asked about the 2016 bid. Every democrat i know says, god, i hope she runs. The democrats want her to run. I dont just mean a lot of democrats, i mean a whole lot of democrats, like 90 across the country. In a gw politico battleground poll out this morning, Hillary Clintons favorable rating is at 0 , higher than the president s, higher than Vice President biden. She is more popular than the republicans tested who may be laying the groundwork. Paul ryan, jeb bush and marco rubio. By the way, Newt Gingrich said sunday on meet the press what makes her such a formidable opponent. If the competitor in 2016 will be Hillary Clinton supported by bill clinton and presumably still relatively popular president barack obama trying to win that will be truly the super bowl and the Republican Party today is incapable of competing at that level. So should we do our little meter every week . Do you want to us do it every day . Tweet me some advice. How do we deal with hillary watch 2016 . If you want it daily, let us know. If you want it weekly, if you need a break, youre not going to get a break. The question is daily or weekly and well throw jeb into that mix as well. Clinton still has some real work to do before she leaves her current job, and it may well be dominated by the crisis in syria where violence from the 21monthold civil war is spilling over the border into lebanon. 40,000 have been killed according to the syrian activist. The rebels continue to make advances. The international community, though, worries that an increasingly desperate president assad will end up resort to go chemical weapons. Secretary clinton was to go to morocco for friends of syria group which is focused on ways to strengthen the syrian opposition. A stomach virus will delay her trip until tomorrow. The u. S. Has not recognized the opposition, Syrian National coalition, but that may happen. Theres been some concern because of who makes up the Syrian Nationals including some of those folks with connections to al qaeda. The u. S. And nato allies pressed for assads departure but any u. N. Action has been blocked against assad and tess piety a flurry aimed at the foreign minister at lyclintons last st in dublin. Fundamental decisionses about reforming syrias political system must be made by syrians themselves without outside interference. A disappointing statement for a lot of those trying to get the russians off of a assads side. Opposition should agree to the parameters of a transition period. Looking for a solution to the conflict but continues to oppose making the exit a precondition. The u. S. Gets involved in syria, it wont transform u. S. Policy in the middle east and change the dynamics of everything in washington. Trust us on this including the fiscal cliff. Well, driving a hard bargain, president obama heads to the motor city and in the middle of a union fight. I have a former governor of michigan here. Plus, well talk fiscal cliff and debt ceiling with him. Plus, one hatch of simpsonbowles. The Erskine Bowles half. The less dancing of the duo. Why former chief of staff is growing more optimistic well be able to get a deal before the cliff dive. By the way, will he take a job in president obamas cabinet . Ill have that answer straight ahead. First, a look ahead at the president s schedule today. You can see its michigan with the lunch time remarks. Back to the white house before 5 00. 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[ daughter 1 ] like that [ daughter 2 ] this is how ill do it. [ sarah ] there you go. For thos. This. Ions of doing thithis. W ill do it. And this, dancing in their heads. We have these. Home depot gift cards. Give the gift of doing, instore or online. President obama, speak er boehner enter a crucial week of negotiations. The president will have another Public Appeal for his fiscal solution this afternoon. Hell make a pitch to the detroit auto plant. A former republican governor of michigan and the president of the Business Roundtable, john engler. Governor engler, nice to see you. Good to be with you. Let me start with i know all of the ceos from what i understand privately that met that you organized to meet with the president last week all had one message was the same. Cant the two of them just get in a room and start doing a deal . Well, they can did that yesterday. Is that in your mind progress even if if we dont know what happened . Its hugely important. Its not that theyve had the kind of relationship that can work well if they dont see each other facetoface since july of last year this year, i guess. Its time. And i think the fact that theyre together, its got to be worked out. All the pieces i described are laying on the floor, they just need to pick them up and put them together, facetoface and make some headway. Theres two big sticking points, it seems. One is where to go with taxes, but you can sort of see how thats coming together. The other one is this debt ceiling and this is where it seems republicans are united on not changing the rules or the law at all when it comes to dealing with the debt ceiling. Youve been an advocate, though, of trying to take the politics out of it, how do you do it . Both sides, both parties, depe depending on who has been in power, had their fun. They play the game. Absolutely. You 0 do think it needs to be fully reformed . Its a clumsy tool you can only hurt yourself with regardless of who you are. In this case its our own government that puts itself atriat risk. Mo threat to say we might default, put our Credit Rating at risk, put the economy at risk. Somehow at the end of the day i would like to see that out of there but i understand senator corker yesterday talking on this network about how, look, weve got to get the entitlements. I would say theres three legs on the stool. I look at it as the tax revenue question. Theres entitlement spending question and i think the third is Economic Growth. I think i look at the debt ceiling as a technical question off to the side. Do you want the debt ceiling to be part of this deal but if it isnt youre okay with it . No, they have until march. We saw what happens in august of 2011 when you go up to the end and look into the abyss or threaten to jump in. That didnt work very well. Do you think republicans are making a strategic miscalculati miscalculation . There are some who believe, all right, we have no lefl leverage on taxes. Maybe we give them the tax rates but nothing else and then use leverage you think thats a tactical mistake . I dont know how it works. At the end of the day we cant put the nations credit at risk. We cant seriously say, well, default is an option. And your members at the brt, the Business Roundtable horrified. They are petrified of this, arent they . They are. It deals with reputation. The United States has always been, i think, viewed globally as a pragmatic problem solver. After weve done everything well do the right thing. I think in this case were focused in the conversation with the president and with the congressional leaders, we had more than 103 ceos in town last week. And really the best was, look, sit down, work it out. But we were equally firm, i think, on entitlement spending refirm as on revenue. No doubt. I have to ask you whats going on this michigan. You were a michigan governor i feel like half my adult lifetime. 12 short years. Why didnt you pursue right to work . We didnt have the votes then. Would you have pursued it if you did have the votes . It was something we always talked about. At that time in the region there were no righttowork states. It was a regional question, and i think whats happened with righttowork and the governor is passionate about getting the jobs engine restarted in michigan, indiana moving to right to work status changed the game in the midwest. Now your neighbor is able to compete differently. And i think there is in michigan this sense that weve got to be able to win the competition. Near the end of my tenure, we actually had jobs moving from indiana back to michigan, jobs that at one point had left. So you think he has no choice because indiana has done this. This is going to be politically be make michigan potentially ground zero in a political fight between labor and the Business Community. Is that something it was in november as well because labor went forward with Ballot Initiatives when they tried to take right to work and put constitutional prohibitions against ever going there into michigans constitution and they failed rather dramatically with that. A long rich Union Tradition who will always choose to be part of the union. And i think the unions have to make it. They cant automatically assume in a right to work state that people will pay the dues. John engler, former governor of michigan, we got a lot in in a short amount of time. Up next, we have the results of the final Tea Party Versus establishment showdown of 2012. Thats right. There was an election on saturday. Well tell you remind you where it was. Plus, mitt romney took a ringside seat for a post election bout watching a member of congress fight. Well tell you where that person is a member of congress. A guy who knows how to throw a punch announced hes coming to washington. How many u. S. President s also served as secretary of state . And who was the last one . [ male announcer ] where do you turn for legal matters . At legalzoom, weve created a better place to handle your legal needs. Maybe you have questions about incorporating a business youd like to start. Or questions about protecting your family with a will or living trust. And youd like to find the right attorney to help guide you along, answer any questions and offer advice. With an a rating from the Better Business bureau legalzoom helps you get personalized and affordable legal protection. In most states, a legal plan attorney is available with every personalized document to answer any questions. Get started at legalzoom. Com today. And now youre protected. Prego . but ive bought ragu for years. [ thinking ] wonder what other questionable choices ive made . I choose date number 2 whooo [ sigh of relief ] [ male announcer ] choose taste. Choose prego. [ female announcer ] some people like to pretend a flood could never happen to them. And that their Homeowners Insurance protects them. [ thunder crashes ] it doesnt. Stop pretending. Only Flood Insurance covers floods. Visit floodsmart. Gov pretend to learn your risk. I heard you guys can ship ground for less than the ups store. Thats right. Ive learned the only way to get a holiday deal is to camp out. You know weve been open all night. Is this a trick to get my spot . [ male announcer ] break from the holiday stress. Save on ground shipping at fedex office. On our radar, is he or is he not going to challenge chris christie. Its a multimillion dollar question for cory booker. He faced that question on cbs. I am considering running for governor as well as giving some other options consideration. I will be focused on that the next week to ten days or so. Other options. The real option that we keep hearing if booker opts against challenging christie and thats the betting, theres speculation he will look at running for the u. S. Senate in 2014, the seat held by the on again off again democratic senator there frank law tenberg. He has not made his plans public yet. Lautenberg will turn 90 in 2014. Charles boustany beat jeff landry. Boustany finished with 61 while landry had 39 . Neither one had 50 in the primary held on november 6. Thats how they rejiggered their laws and that whole business in order to become constitutional, if you will, in how they handle their races in will ylouisiana. They do everything differently down there. Saturday was fight night for mitt romney. Mitt romney and his wife attended the las vegas boxing match between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez as a guest of the nevada state athletic chairman bill brady. Pacquiao, of course, has thought about running for president of the philippines and he still might some day. Before the fight romney went into mannys locker room and had this little comment for him saying, hey, im mitt romney. I ran for president. I lost. Okay. Well see if pacquiao blames those words of wisdom for what happened. And speaking of fighters, former heavyweight boxing Champ Mike Tyson has that crazy oneman show that hes been doing. Well, its on a threemonth national tour. And it begins in february. The state show tracks his rise to stardom and is set to hit the Nations Capital the same week as the white house correspondents dinner. So we challenge you to mix your brunch and mike tyson all up in the same event. Good luck with that. Coming up, just because the election is over doesnt mean theres no more polling in the battlegrounds. The latest swing state poll are for you. Plus a deep dive into the race to avoid the socalled fiscal cliff dive with the bowles half of bowlessimpson. A little different way to look at the markets today. The opening bell just rang. As we start a new week of trading, the president and can coo of our friends at telemundo are on hand to do the honors at the nasdaq rolling out a rebranding effort to redefine hispanic television, a division of Nbc Universal and something were all very excited about here. Good luck to them. No big surprise. Wall street is keeping a close eye on fiscal cliff talks. Mcdonalds is up. Apple and aig down. We should mention that today its expected to be one of the busiest Online Shopping days of the Holiday Season as you get in those last times to get deals in so that you know for sure it gets there by christmas. Well, for a deal already rejected with by congress, oh, yeah, theres the music, it may be unusual that we still hear so much about the simpsonbowles plan. Its a plan no one will vote on. Its come to represent what could have been. Today a deep dive into the elusive grand bargain captured in the simpsonbowles plan. First the outlines of a deal between president obama and Speaker Boehner. As weve told you, you take the two positions were looking at between 800 billion and 1. 6 trillion in new tax revenue. Enough savings to hold off the sequester. Compare that to the simpsonbowles proposal and youll see a big difference. As a starting point the plan would allow the bush tax cuts to expire for everybody. It proposes tax reform that would produce another trillion in tax revenue t. Could produce more revenue than the proposals from president obama or Speaker Boehner combined. In addition Simpson Bowles would cut spending by nearly 3 trillion, half that have coming from national security. Thats right. More defense cuts. Than people have been talking about. It all adds up to around 4 trillion worth of deficit reduction. The plan also reforms Social Security to raise the retirement age and raise the maximum amount you can tax. And for the middle class it would turn mortgage into a 12 tax credit. Coauthor of the plan alan simpson said on cbs face the nation theres no easy way out of this debt problem. Not a single economist who talked to us in our hearings said we cant grow our way out of this thing if we had double digit growth for 20 years, you cant cut spending out of this. And you cant tax your way out of this baby. This is impossible. Earlier today i spoke to the other coauthor of the simpsonbowles plan, former white house chief of staffer, Erskine Bowles, cofounder of the fix the debt campaign. Good morning, mr. Bowles. Good morning, chuck todd. How are you . Im good. Let me start with this. Why arent you for going over the fiscal cliff . I heard you yesterday saying it would be catastrophic, but let me read you estimates. We go over the cliff, we suddenly have were basically taking in as much money as were spending over a fiveyear period. Yes, the economy is in bad shape in 2013 but by 2018 wed have a debt to gdp ratio of 1. 1 . Isnt this simpsonbowles on steroids . You know, its no different than what happened over in the uk, in my opinion. They had a similar proposal to what we proposed with dollar revenue and 3 worth of spending cuts. They had a cost benefit analysis they did on all the spending programs, they raised the retirement age. They slowed the rate of growth of health care and they tried to get to balance in four or five years. And we thought at the time the debt was too much too quick that amount of austerity would really, you know, lead to a recession. Thats why we had as our number one priority in our program that we didnt want to do anything to disrupt a very fragile economic recovery, so we phased ours in. If you do that and if you look at the Economic Forecast you can see what would happen. Youll probably have Economic Growth slowed by with about 4 . Were only growing at 2 . So youre automatically in recession. You would have about 2 million more people lose their jobs. Thats not something i want to see. And unemployment back to 9 . I think thats absolutely wrong and i think is the kind of thing we should avoid. Theres no sense betting the country when we can reach such a reasonable compromise before the end of the year. All right. Speaking of the compromise, it seems were at sort of two book ends. The good news is there seems to be momentum not to go over the cliff. At a minimum republicans would pass the middle class tax rate extension period. And that could be the only thing they do. Where is your Optimism Level that the deal would be better than that . Oh, gosh, i think all you have to do is look at the atmospherics. I have not been very optimistic. We were going to be able to get a deal based on where the early discussions were. Just look at what the president is saying. He is insisting on raising the tax rates on the top 2 . But what he said is, look, next year i want to sit down with chairman camp. I want to sit down with senator baucus and see if we can, you know, do something that broadens the base, simplify the code, get rid of some of this back door spend i spending in the tax code and use it to reduce rates. Hes also shown real flexibility on his ability to negotiate, reducing some of the entitlement programs. The speaker on the other hand not only has he put revenues on the table, but hes been, you know, i think very candid in the offering made last week where he doesnt mention a thing about premium support for medicare. He doesnt say anything about, you know, granting medicare to the state. He doesnt say anything about, you know, severe cuts in income support programs that are so important to the disadvantaged. And then you listen to the people around them who are their surrogates. You have lots of republicans out there saying, hey, we could do rates. Democrats out there like senator durbin who is very close to the president saying, hey look, you know what we can do, on medicare, you know, i wouldnt like it but i would be willing to support means testing. Well, thats not thats like number one on mcconnells list so i think you have good atmospherics out there. It seems the politics of it is this. The president s willing to do it. He doesnt want to have to be the one to propose it. Republicans, it seems, some of them want the president to get into a political pickle so they want him to propose it so that the democrats have the same internal problems on entitlements that republicans right now are dealing on taxes. Do some republicans know they have to own the entitlement thing if they want the president to get there . I think two things. First, the tax side and then well get to entitlements. On the tax side, i think the president really wants to make sure that revenue is there and the only way he can be sure that revenue had will be there is by raising rates. Hes then willing to see if members of congress will work to bro broaden the base and actually get rid of some of these tax expenditures. Seeing is believing. Secondly on entitlements, i dont know why the president wouldnt want to negotiate against himself on this. Republicans would be willing to reduce entitlements, ought to come forward and talk about those that are willing to support. The president has said, and i know he means it, but hes willing to reduce the entitlements so that we can, as an example, slow the rate of growth of health care to the rate of growth of the economy. Have you been vetted for treasury secretary . No. Do you have any interest in serving in an Obama Administration . Look, i dont have any interest in a fulltime job working in the private sector, in the public sector. Im really happy here in this being nk. Im 67 years old. Ive been married 40 years. I want to stay home for a while. And i guess practice your gangnam style dancing. If i can do that, i can go on Television Full time. Well, thats for sure. Erskine bowles, one hatch of simps simpsonbowles and were not allowed to call it bowlessimpson. Theres good reason for that. He doesnt want the whole bs business. I dont either. Thank you. The gaggle will be here to kick off the week, but first, the white house soup of the day. We start simple on mondays. Tomato basil. Probably going to need some sort of spicy sauce or something to make it more edible. More flavor. Check out the show on facebook. Like us, poke us, stick a proverbial facebook attack in the eye. Whatever you want to do. Were at walmart with the simmons family. How much is your current phone bill . Four sixteen seventy six a month okay, come with me were gonna save you money. With Straight Talk at walmart, you get unlimited talk, text and data for only 45 a month per phone. Would we get the same coverage . Same coverage on americas best networks. You saved 146. 76 by switching to Straight Talk. Awesome now you can afford to share your allowance with me. Get the seasons hottest smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy s2 and get Straight Talk with unlimited data for just 45 a month from americas gift headquarters. Walmart. Id like one of those desserts and some coffee. Sure. Decaf or regular . Regular. Cake or pie . Pie. Apple or cherry . Cherry. Oil or cream . Oil or cream . Cream. [ male announcer ] with reddiwip, a slice of pie never sounded better. Thats because its always made with real cream, never hydrogenated oil like some other whipped toppings. The sound of reddiwip is the sound of joy. Hurry in and try five succulent entrees, like our tender snow crab paired with savory garlic shrimp. Just 12. 99. Come into red lobster and sea food differently. And introducing 7 lunch choices for just 7. 99. Daily flashback, this day in 1869 when the wyoming territory became the first place in the United States to grant women the right to vote more than 50 years before the 19th amendment passed. With three weeks to go before the fiscal cliffs automatic spending cuts and tax hikes kick in, a new politico gw poll shows 60 of americans favor higher taxes for people making 250,000 or more a year. That hasnt changed. The politics of taxes hasnt changed. Ari shapiro, michelle bernard, and chris join me. The president , boehner, behind closed doors, theyre not reading anything. They did it without any other leaders. I think the real negotiations have finally started. Thats a good sign when were not hearing much, when theyre saying everything is a disaster or were making progress. When theyre meeting and saying were not going to tell anybody what happened behind closed doors, to me thats getting somewhere. Look at the clock. If everybody wants to get up. Senator joe man offion. The smell of the jet fumes from national all want to be out here before the 24th. If if the bill on the 18th it at the latest, that means to get a bill written like that you need to have the frame wok by the 14th or 15th. Today is the 10th. The framework a little plug and play. You can do an extension. If it really comes down i know no one will want to hear that, you can say here is the framework. We buy ourselves two months time, whatever it might be, to write the legislation, and then you do it when you come back, i actually think i agree when they go quiet, when they meet in private, its a positive sign and youre starting to see indications both on the right and the left, lets get a deal. The risks are too great to go over the cliff. The republicans really are annoyed by the president continuing to do public events. It bothers them. Now todays public event wasnt fiscal cliff planned. It had to do daimler wanted the president there. They wanted to announced big thing with the u. S. Auto manufacturer. Still going to make a cliff point. Do you think this could be the last public we hear from the president until they do real stuff . Possibly. Its working. The republicans are irritated because the president isnt playing their game anymore. I think thats why theyre so irritated. Its working. The American Public likes it. So possibly. I wouldnt be spraysed if we see one more speech from the president. I want to play were seeing more and more republicans break. I think the big one was bob corker, ari, lets play a little bit of sound from corker. There is a growing group of folks that are looking at this and realizing that we dont have a lot of cards as it relates to the tax issue before year end. I mean, we have one house, thats it. The presidency and the senate and the democrats hands. And Kevin Mccarthy on meet the press. He didnt say they werent going to be for rates. He said raising tax rates isnt enough. Everybody supports raising taxes. Everybody is for raising taxes on somebody else. Its just whether the rates will go up. They are speaking more openly about going over the cliff and negotiating about getting the automatic rate hikes back down and republicans do not want to see that. Chris, there was republican infighting among conservative intellectuals, bill kristol versus the wall street journal editorial page. Essentially saying to bob corker, shut up. And kristol going, what do you want to do, given the democrats more leverage in january . This was his message. If we go over the cliff, the republicans have zero zero leverage. You can make the argument that they gained leverage possibly with the debt ceiling negotiations but how did that work out the last time . It would be the worst of all worlds. And i had john engler on here. The entire Business Community will come down en masse on the republicans if they play too many games. They cant. They have no games left to play. They will lose complete credibility. You talked to maybe about the possibility of an extension. You have to think most members of the American Public, barack obama won in a landslide. People dont want any more games. You have to be sitting back and saying, why is it so hard to do the job that we elected you to do . The message let me sneak in a break so we have more time to talk on the other side. Trivia, how many u. S. President s also served as secretary of state . The answer was six. But its been a long time. Jefferson, madison, monroe, john quincy adams, martin van buren, and james buchanan. Bu k buchanan was the last one. Impressively you got it all. If you have a political trivia question, email it to us. A message to Hillary Clinton, not since before the civil war. Watch out. Music is a universal language. But when i was in an accident. I was worried the Health Care System spoke a language all its own with unitedhealthcare, i got help that fit my life. Information on my phone. Connection to doctors who get where im from. And tools to estimate what my care may cost. So i never missed a beat. Were more than 78,000 people looking out for more than 70 million americans. Thats health in numbers. Unitedhealthcare. Very mooar mformidable as a. A very popular person. Shes married to most popular democrat in the country. They both think it would be good for her to be president. That makes it virtually impossible to stop her for the nomination. Well, there you go. Newt gingrich predicted it. Thats the kiss of death, essentially. All right. Im trying to figure out how we deal with hillary watch 2016, right . We might throw jeb in there, too. I think this is what the next 18 months are going to be like between hillary at a higher decibel level than jeb, but they are the two most formidable figures in their parties. If either one decides to run theyre the immediate frontrunners. How do you manage this if youre hillary . The time story laid it out all out. Shes more limited in what she can do if shes thinking about running. I think if im advising Hillary Clinton my advice is its way too early. Dont listen to the hype. Of course it is. But its not. Disappear. Its not but it is. You just dont want to be a frontrunner. Her numbers are astronomically high. She was a terrible frontrunner. We found that out four years ago. She doesnt want to see a repeat of that. People love her. She can do really well. She needs to lay low for a while. Chris, check out these numbers. The most recent politico g. W. Pole. 60 favorability rating. Better than jeb. Better than ryan. Better than rubio. You heard newt. Everybodys running in fear of hillary if you will on the democratic and republican side. Its amazing were already talking about this. We love the idea. As he walked down, he goes, can we wait until january 21st . Thats all. Lets get to the inauguration. Putting that aside she is unquestionably a formidable force. Theres just no way of painting it a different way. That being said, anything can happen. And what i mean by that is, you dont know who may emerge from the right. You dont know where the country is going to be. You dont know what happens on the left in terms of another, you know, emerging character or emerging player. So a lot of dynamics. The smart play here for her is is not to disappear. But to pick her moments over the next two years when she wants to speak. Understand every time she speaks its going to create a firestorm. If you want to work, by the way, if you want to work on hillary 2016 im told send a resume to terry mcauliffe, virginia governor. Traditionally its the republicans who have the coronation in the primary. Democrats have the free for all. This year its shaping up to be a 2014 republican free for all and democrats going for the coronation. Well except we know that joe biden is clearly going to run. Hes not just going to walk away. Watching these two titans go at it, like this dance where theyre not going to be attacking each other is going to be the interesting story over the next two years. Biden is not going to let this go. Im with you. Hes run for president multiple times. He said it on election day. Its what carville said. Running for president is like having sex. You dont just do it once. Really . Thats carville. Howard university, student aid campaign. I want to give a shoutout to my mother, nesta bernard. They are raising money like rabbits for deserving kids to be able to finish school. Raising money like rabbits. We need money. Youre raising a lot of money. Robert samuelson oped today about a lost generation. Look at the unemployment numbers. 41 are people who are under 30. This is a serious problem that i think we havent committed enough attention to. Mr. Shapiro. Bloomberg hired a new social media editor, my friend scott bixby. Congratulations. Follow him at scott bix. Thats it for this edition of the daily rundown. See you right back here tomorrow. Just a few more days till the fiscal cliffness. Coming up next, chris jansing. Byebye. [ male announcer ] this is bob, a regular guy with an irregular heartbeat. The usual, bob . Not today. [ male announcer ] bob has afib Atrial Fibrillation not caused by a heart valve problem, a condition that puts him at greater risk for a stroke. [ gps ] turn left. I dont think so. [ male announcer ] for years, bob took warfarin, and made a monthly trip to the clinic to get his blood tested. But not anymore. Bobs doctor recommended a different option onceaday xarelto®. 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Feels like membership. Good morning. Im chris jansing. Could a secret meeting seal the deal when it comes to the fiscal cliff . Well, president obama and Speaker Boehner met one on one at the white house last night. It was the first time in almost a month. Neither side is talking about what happened. But today president obama continues his Public Campaign to pressure republicans to give on