stage no way to go through two years of a presidential campaign or four years as the president of the united states anymore, without stepping it. that s the fact of life and i mean, i don t mean seeing every candidate on the probably side do something, say something, we all go, what was he thinking. the same thing with the president. that s going to happen from now on the regardless who the president is, we saw it, you know, president bush would occasionally gaffe as president of the united states. oh, it hans. and used to it. and ann marie how will the republicans exploit this. and as joe just said it you ll see this show up in campaign commercials against president obama and it isn t his first open mic gaffe one with sarkozy with netanyahu and and it s different from a campaign, this has real world implications on the international stage and it s policy and he s actually in office, he s not at a coffee shop meeting with voters on the campaign trail.
that conversation is that the united states will reassert what bill clinton did, which was to agree not to improve our anti-missile missile. keep them at the same level, not make them better. bush scrapped that, and to mange them better and now putin is desperate to reinstate the commitment not to improve them. he wants it to be credible and he s literally going to the president of the united states and saying, please make your country vulnerable to our nuclear make us weaker make yourselves weaker. yeah. mike: the crazy thing is that obama essentially is conceding the point. s going to do it and you know darn well that the russians are going to give that technology to iran and north korea and right now, we have a real capacity to protect this country against missiles. the last 24 times there s been an enemy missile and we sent up an interceptor, we killed all 24 of the missiles, 20 of
etch-a-sketch and what does he stand for? so, i think you re going to see this and it may be exactly what the obama people and democrats like me use to come back and romney when he uses the tape and saw the president. both of you have been in that room in a presidential campaign when the gaffe has been made and only three or four people in the campaign. you, a candidate, a spouse and maybe one other person. take us inside the room and the discussion that s held. ann marie, when is the discussion, let s go answer it and let s leave it alone and let s don t extend this back. you know, i think it s important to be calm and react and have a cool head and be able to think through what the implications are. and sometimes the response will be a miss. you hope it s going to be a hit, but you have a team coalesces and you come up with the response and get this out as you know, a lot of times you don t know how it s received, but you have to go with your instincts and lead with what you beli
the last gallup poll before the election, and said, where do the undecided vote go, where there was an incumbent president and 80% of the time it went to the challenger, there is s another way to understand it, but some people in your audience might appreciate, if i ask my wife, are you going be to be married to the same guy next year, she says, honey, i m undecided. (laughter) by the way she called and she is undecided. i know her very well, dick. and that s the signal for you. very he good analogy. this has been a tough wook for president obama in many ways and what is it, specifically, referencing his open mic gaffe with the soviet president, but what is it that he is doing that makes not just him vulnerable, but makes the other people down ballot from him so vulnerable? well, first, let me address the open mic thing. what he s telling putin in
debates he would not sort of own up to a comment he had made before on fox news sunday. about obama-ney care. and was that a discussion inside the pawlenty campaign? among senior staff a discussion how to handle that. at the end of the day, look, this happened in june of 2011 six months before they went to the polls and we were happier then that it happened in june of 2011 than june of 2012, but you know, i think that you want to do what s best for your candidate and remain loyal to him or her. and to put your best step forward and get over it as quickly as possible and move onto the next thing and change the story. well, it s always something that s going to happen. i want to thank both of you, you have a perspective that very few people have had. and maybe we can bring you back, i think it s a fascinating thing and having been in that room and having been the guy who made the gaffe, i know it s painful