we are inside the sands convention center in las vegas. seven gop contenders wrapping up their debate moments ago, the tone this time, contention, personal at times, especially between herman cain and other candidates on tax, you might have seen, talking about already. there was also the explosive encounter between a very aggressive rick perry and counter punching rick perry over illegal immigration. our panel has plenty to talk b before bring them back in i want to bring in key moments about the debate, began with an all-out assault on herman cain s 9-99-9 plan. we will talk to him in a moment let s take a look. herman, i love you, brother, but you don t need to have a big analysis to figure this thing out. go to new hampshire where they don t have a sales tax and you re fixing to give them one. they re not interested in 9-9-9. herman, are you saying the state sales tax will go away? you re mixing apples and oranges? you will pay the state sales tax, no matter what w
illegal immigration. our panel has plenty to talk b before bring them back in i want to bring in key moments about the debate, began with an all-out assault on herman cain s 9-99-9 plan. we will talk to him in a moment let s take a look. herman, i love you, brother, but you don t need to have a big analysis to figure this thing out. go to new hampshire where they don t have a sales tax and you re fixing to give them one. they re not interested in 9-9-9. herman, are you saying the state sales tax will go away? you re mixing apples and oranges? you will pay the state sales tax, no matter what whether you throw out the existing code and you put in our plan, you are still going to pay that. that s apples and oranges. and i m going to be getting a bushel basket that has apples and oranges in it because i ve got to pay both taxes and the people in nevada don t want to pay both taxes. governor romney, you don t have credibility when it comes to obama care. each chance i
that s our challenge. that word right there, compete. that will be the buzz word. you may hear that 10 or 12 times. what s clear from washington outside outsiders, he ll make that move to the middle even more clear tuesday night. even the third way that s a centrist group says they re pleased by the direction this speech appears to be heading in. really confirming that move towards the center. all right. i predicted a different catch phrase for the state of the union. that is? responsible deficit cutting. responsible that s what he s going to introduce because he believes that the republican plan to cut the deficit by, i think, 2.5 trillion over the next 10 years which was the target would stall the economy. he thinks that is actually too radical or too drastic. as you heard doug say, he does want to increase government spending for education, for infrastructure, for other plans. now, the republicans see all of that as code for growing government. well but the president
is an exaggeration to shock them into voting for a plan that they re reluctant to jump on board with? white house aides privately say they think they re getting some momentum. they think both in the house and senate they re, in the end, going to have the votes to pass. but just in case, we re starting to hear rumblings tonight, they may send the president in the next few days up to capitol hill to sell this just as he did on health care reform. to roll him out shows they think there s going to be a nail-biter, john. ed henry at the white house. the president may have to go to capitol hill. let s get a first impression from our contributors. roland martin. john avlon, the backer of the new centrist group, no labels. i want to pick up where ed left off. the president may have to go to capitol hill to get some democrats some votes on this. listen to the president earlier today. he caused a huge stir by saying some liberals were being, in his words, sanctimonious. the president today tri
ourselves on either side of the aisle by party. what do you think? how likely is it is that they will all sit together? it sounds like there are some folks who are now saying it is a good idea. it was first pushed by third way, this centrist group. think back to the last state of the union, the president talked about how he was going to meet with republican leaders. he was going to make sure things were bipartisan. he really didn t follow up on it. the republicans didn t either. after the midterm say, look, we re going to have to have speaker boehner spoke customer on this. maybe after the tragedy, they will. a small gesture sitting at the state of the union that may make an important difference to get everybody actually following up on the rhetoric of working together, kiran and t.j. that s interesting to see if that happens. there s a lot of political theater playing out. ed henry for us this morning.