more moderate. he s been sticking out education as an issue. they could run as two reformers. republicans also lick their chops at that idea. but jonathan martin talked with a dozen people close to jeb bush, and he s said that for family reasons, he s not going to do it, that if he were willing to undergo the national spotlight, that he would have run for president himself. so he thinks it s just not his time, and it puts mitt romney a little bit in a box because he would love to have jeb bush. when i interviewed romney back in new hampshire, he told me that jeb bush is such a powerful candidate that if jeb bush had run, he wouldn t have. wow. there you go. you still see a little window there for jeb. i sure do. when the call comes in the middle of the convention and romney says we need you because if we don t get you we lose the supreme court for a generation, we could lose the house, we could lose the senate, i think jeb s father picks up the phone
president said, we have to keep the interest rates low, immediately romney said, i agree, and so did the house republicans, because the fact of the matter is, those grim statistics shown at the end of that ad, the kids are having a hard time now, is not going to turn into a vote for slashing spending slashing student loans and slashing help for young people. which is what i think that the romney government is really saying. so i think a disconnect there that is not going to work in the romney camp. that s why i think substantively, the bottom line message really is this debate. do we cut government sharply now, and when you say that people are hurting, i think the reaction is going to be maybe we shouldn t cut government so sharply on student loans and so on. when you look at what happened this week, the republicans immediately came into line with the president because they don t want to be on the side of slashing student loans right
silly trying to sell barack obama as weak on national security. that s just like the white house trying to sell romney as this right-wing conservative. these people are trying to paint their opponents into corners that they are just not going to be cornered. americans don t listen, americans aren t going to be oh, well, look at mitt romney. boy, that s a dangerous guy to have running the country s foreign policy, when they let a state senator do it four years ago. and by the way, a lot of americans think the state senator has done a pretty damn good job over three years on foreign policy, killing osama bin laden, launching drone attacks, and 78, 79 countries now. he s been in my estimation at times a bit too hawkish. yeah. as john said, adopting a lot of the bush administration s foreign policy. but if you listen to that speech and imagine you re sitting in 2008, it just sounds absurd the idea that the president can t defer in any way to the state
well, it s designed, i think, to make it easier frankly to make one of the biggest consumer decisions you ll ever make, which is where you go to college and where you spend your college money. there have been some concerns recently about g.i. bill, military tuition assistance. and how people are making decisions how to spend that. and the marketing that s being done to this. this is really about accountability and helping people as we say at my bureau know before they owe. and give us a sense i know that the president and the first lady will be making an announcement today at fort stewart about their plans to make sure that students enroll in the right school as well. this has many different branches to it. yes. it s really a broad effort, and it s going to involve a number of government agencies, the department of defense, department of veterans affairs, justice, department of education, and also consulting with the consumer financial protection bureau where i work. and how
let s go to our next guest. joining us from washington, the moderator of meet the press, david gregory, and pulitzer prize winning author and msnbc analyst eugene robinson. david, i ll start with you. can t the obama supporters answer that ad with any of mitt romney s sound bites that make him out of touch and part of the 1%, i like to fire people, corporations are people too? is there a question in there? it just seems to me there is so much red meat for the other side. let me try this. david, what do you think of the ad? ask a question. you re making a political statement. it seems to me that the same can be done effectively on the other side, david. mika, trust me, it will. i don t think there s any question that we are going to see so much negativity coursing through the battle ground states that the candidates are not even directly paying for with these super pac ads. i agree with donny it s