these weapons could find their way into new york city or washington, d.c. and a nuclear weapon could be set off in this city. that s how serious this is. we have to maintain an american presence. you know, dan, we ve been awfully tough on michele bauchmann, but i will tell you, she was very good last night. she was competent, wasn t playing for the cheap applause lines. i mean and you talk about her performance the night before, it s almost like she s finding her sea legs before the final charge in iowa. she clearly is getting invested in the substance here. she knows what she s talking about she should be rewarded for that when you know you re losing, you can actually it s liberating. she can sort of be herself. which is not whichรง helps. the pakistan debate was interesting. what he was basically implying
well, welcome back to morning joe. steve rattner and dan senor are still with us. he s a financier and he s a foreign policy adviser. and joining the table steve, you agree with the neo con that the island is expanding. but after watching jon huntsman go after mitt romney last night, you want part of my bet, don t you? well, that s a different question. i want part of your bet because i think jon huntsman has a decent shot to get on the score board, to get above 10%. he s practically living there. he s putting all of his effort there. and if any state in the early round is going to give him any kind of a nod, it s going to be new hampshire. but that s a different question. i do think that the republicans are basically on dan senor s side of this argument, which is still more forward leaning in our foreign policy. thank you for coming on i also want to hear from a
matt lewis quote? people around the morning joe table are looking at republicans as archaeologists look at ancient tribes well, as if they have been dug up. fantastic. major garrett, grade the debate last night. who s the winner? well, look let me say one thing about the debate up front. and having co-moderated one recently, i have a appreciation i didn t have before. don t waste the first 15 minutes, please. cold open. just get to the questions, number one, and number two, the winner look, until mitt romney falls in these debates, he always wins, he s the default winner unless he does something memorably uncomfortable, which he did not do. he struck all the right notes on immigration, all the right notes generally speaking on pakistan, iran, all the major topics. newt gingrich also performed well, except on immigration where either intentionally or unintentionally he created weakness for him in the two most
26 past the hour. time now to take a look at the morning papers along with tina brown, willie geist, joe scarborough and dan senor. i m adviser. oh, really? i mentioned it early on. i m glad you re advising in foreign policy. you re not clouded at all in your judgment when you make bets. i m glad he s advising on foreign policy instead of like politics. because you just questioned somebody else s republican cred. you might want to learn from today. yeah, you just don t go there. it ll come back at you is much worse. the utah governor, he s not a real republican. he s not conservative he s not. he s not. everyone knows everyone on this stage last night everyone on the stage last night advocated a neo
party of the family is going to destroy families that have been here a quarter century. and i m prepared to take the heat for saying let s be humane in enforcing the law without giving them citizenship, but by finding a way to create legality. all right. wow. 23 past the hour. we re having a little debate here. joining us now from washington, the moderator of meet the press can help us. joe thinks that that was newt sort of surging ahead in the polls and strapping on tnt. and sort of a rick perry sort of way. i see it as vomiting all over yourself. what say you? those are my choices? well, look, i thought it was a strong, but dangerous moment for newt gingrich. he actually found the language to provide a pathway to something less than citizenship. it was a real parsing of the immigration debate over the last decade.