perry talks about mitt romney having been a critic. you know, we ve heard a report from elliott cohen and others that there s essentially a purge going on. anyone who was not strictly loyal to trump during the campaign, even christie is seen as not having been loyal enough so it s odd to see romney there. let s look at the secretary of state options, and you can tell me whether you see any coherence in this group of people. rudy giuliani, bolton, corker of tennessee, senator corker of tennessee, mitt romney and nikki heal who also was a pretty big critic and gave a speech where she was still critical and said trump didn t represent republican values. what s going on here, jennifer, a head neighboring to make it seem like he has an intellectual variety and even an ethnic and gender variety? i don t know, what do you see? it s hard to say. is he doing this for show. does he not really realize that these people have views that are antithetical to his own and to one another. he s got a b
policy, nbc news political reporter perry bacon jr. and washington post opinion writer jennifer rubin. a great mega panel. first, kate, what do you make of mitt romney who called donald trump a con man during the campaign showing up to trump tower to i guess perhaps plead for a job? well, politics and politician is a wonderful business. i remember a former president of bill clinton making a comment about candidate barack obama and bill clinton s wife became secretary of state so mitt romney being forgiven for his comments or vice versa, you know, one thing i ve seen in republican politics that we ve done real well matching democratic politics is moving past the elections and finally saying, okay, guys, i got beat, you won or whatever and trying to move the country forward, so i think they conducted themselves as gentlemen yesterday. i can t tell you they will ever be best friends but there is a quality to mitt romney that
but this year as candidates jockey to replace him, other prominent democrats in the crowd, hillary clinton mingled at last night s dinner and held a private afternoon reception but she adid not give a people s and vice president joe biden stopped by the prayer breakfast as he still considers whether to launch a run himself. joining me now nbc senior political reporter perry bacon jr., who was at the cbc gathering yesterday. good morning. good morning, richard. good to see you. perry, joe biden, did he sound like a candidate? he didn t speak so i don t know what he sounded like but he acted like a candidate. the prayer breakfast was three hours long. he stayed there three hours. he didn t get a chance to give a speech but shook hands, took pictures and i asked one of the members of congress you think bide be is running they were like of course, it s a :30 in the morning breakfast and he s here for three hours, he s think being it. maybe he wanted a cup of joe. this is the first
championing the president s iran deal and knows about foreign policy. a former member of congress ousted by a tea party candidate in 2012. the best way to prevent and stop an iran nuclear situation. there are fewer and fewer richard lugars in the republican caucus. president obama faces a very different house and senate landscape and is responding, in some ways, by changing his approach to governing, bipartisanship that he promised in 08 to get things through however he can and with vinegar, when necessary. senior political reporter perry bacon jr., good morning to you. good morning. good to see you, ari. good to see you, too. little backstory on campaign politics. you and i were both on then senator s plane in 2008. you and i both saw him speak to
perry bacon jr. is following the latest. this is misconduct unrelated to anything hastert did while he was speaker and while he was in congress. but still, d.c. is talking about this. what are folks there saying? this is a huge surprise. the history of dennis hastert becoming speaker was in part because he was very noncontroversial and became speaker after 1998 when newt gingrich decided to resign. the next person in line robert livington opted not to become speaker either because he was involved in a sex scandal and problem with that being the republicans would then trying to impeach bill clinton. hastert was picked mainly because he was not controversial and he was kind of known. we talked about the hastert rule on this show. the idea was hastert s job when he was the house speaker, when bush was president, to make sure every idea that the republicans agreed upon past and nothing would be on the house. he was there for consensus and