Christmas. Another Government Shutdown looming early in the new year. Finally another debt ceiling the month after that. Expect this fight against obama to barrel all the way until 2016. For his enemies, the demolition of this president remains their most exciting quest. They call it the cause. Its battle flag is the stars and bars. The notion somehow those who back cruz and lee are the real americans. To take it back from the other. Minorities and liberals and others who to them constitute the enemy. Be warned. With every fresh defeat, this crowd becomes more frustrated and angry. This made the they who are the true superamericans assume their votes should count more than those lesser folk they think are lesser who voted for the president. How else do you describe a group that was outnumbered at the polls that call themselves the American People. Joining me Howard Fineman and jonathan capehart. Both are msnbc political analysts. But first tonight, gentlemen, a little comic relief following more than two weeks of dysfunction. In a comparison pointed out by john pedorits, he called it the animal house shutdown. Complete with senators ted cruz and mike lee playing the roles of otter and bluto in this great misguided call to arms. We got to take these bastards. Now, could fight them with conventional weapons. That could take years and cost millions of lives. In this case i think we have to go all out. I think this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebodys part. Were just the guys to do it. Howard, a real futile gesture. What have these two weeks accomplished for anybody on this planet . Chris, i should point out that at the end of the movie they show blutarski there becomes a United States senator. I dont know if you remember that. Thank you for that bit of history. We did need it this week. Perfect. First of all, as funny as that was, theres nothing to laugh at here. I think this is the beginning among other things of a real grassroots civil war in the Republican Party. You saw today that the ted cruz and his allies went after senator thad cochran who voted for the Reid Mcconnell deal. Theyre going to support the Tea Party Challenger down there. I think Mitch Mcconnell is going to stepped up antagonism from the cruz faction. One of the things thats going to happen between now and 2016 is a real ground war led by the cruz people against anybody who disagrees with them. So part of their mission is not only to point to those moments that youre talking about come january and february, theyre in this for the long haul and theyre looking to take over the Republican Party. Let me go to jonathan on this, but their fuel. What angers people, the hatred of obama is the fuel for their engines. They may be going after what they call chicken republicans, but theyre really running on the fuel of hatred of obama. Hatred of obama care if you want to call it that. Hatred of anything with his name on it. Anything they can tie to him, any vote. Right. Absolutely. You know, i wrote a piece yesterday, the irrational fear of president obama. And it was based on an interview that our colleague Stephanie Cargill and i did with a man in North Carolina. We were there to talk to people in belmont about what they knew about obama care and what they didnt. And just asking him about obama care led us down this sort of rabbit hole of conspiracy and fear of the president that when you read the transcript portions of the transcript i put in the piece, its ive heard people say its scary, its mind boggling, what world are these people in. But they firmly believe that the president is out to destroy the country. They dont trust him. And they support folks who support their viewpoint. Jonathan, take this carefully, i mean it carefully. Just imagine we had an africanamerican president who did three things. He doubled the stock market, took the dow to double where it was when he came in. He went out in a fever pitch killing our enemies in the world using all modern technology to do it. Not listening to the left. Going out and killing our enemies with whatever he can use, using s. E. A. L. Teams that the guy before him couldnt do. And he used the republican plan on health care, the Heritage Foundation plan. Do you think they would applaud that . Im just being sarcastic, because thats what he did. Right. If that president were white, you mean. Yes. Absolutely they would applaud what he did. Excuse me. Of course they would applaud that. I just should point out, chris, that David Jackson in North Carolina told me he does not believe that Osama Bin Laden is dead. He does not believe that the United States on orders from president obama actually killed americas number one enemy. And what does he think happened . That obamas cooperating with us in some way by acting dead . I just i couldnt explain it. I asked the question. He gave an answer. So the ship bringing him home before they buried him at sea did everything right by his religion, did those people lie . They all lied . They i cant explain where he got that from or why he even said that. Anyway, the republicans are already itching for the next fight, of course. And the next target date has been set with the continuing appropriations act. January 15th is when they can fight again over shutting down the government. Their favorite cause now. And the debt ceiling has to be raised by february 7th giving them another date to which they can threaten the u. S. And world economies. Here they are putting on their game face. So were going to continue to stand up for our values that we have all along. What does this mean for the future of the Republican Party . This means that were doing exactly the right thing. Were choosing the right areas to advocate on for the people of the country. Well continue to do that. We will, indeed, continue to fight. Were not going anywhere. We took a charge at this and fell short. At the end of the day we lost the battle, but were going to win the war over obama care. Sometimes you think its the battle of gettysburg on here. Spoke on the senate floor yesterday about what the world might be like if it only were as he imagines it. Lets listen. I would ask you, mr. President , to imagine a different world. Mr. President , i ask you to imagine a world in which Senate Republicans united to support House Republicans. Imagine that one piece being different from what we saw. Imagine after the House Republicans stood together with the American People, if all 46 Senate Republicans had stood together and said we are united against the train wreck that is obama care. I want you to imagine, mr. President , if Senate Republicans have stood together and simply supported House Republicans and the American People. Mr. President , if that had happened, this result, i believe, would have been very, very different. Howard, its exactly your point. Hes making war against his fellow republicans using the fuel of anger against obama. But youve been around like i have for awhile, thats a strange use of the senate floor. The areas on the senate floor which is to conduct the business of the people as americans, and hes operating like hes in a republican countercaucus, some town meeting. He talks like hes at a town meeting. Hes blasting away at fellow members of the Republican Party, using the senate floor to do it. I just think its strange. Its unusual to do it. I agree with you, chris. Thats one of the striking things about it. But ted cruz brings his mental town hall, his mental congregation, if you will. Theres a sort of religious tone to a lot of what he does. He brings that with him wherever he goes. Its a portable construct that hes got everywhere. Whether hes speaking to a bunch of reporters outside the senate or on the floor or the senate anywhere. Utterly political, utterly militant, utterly focused. And their goal the goal of his and of the people who are around him is nothing less than a take over the Republican Party from the inside, if they can, or the destruction of it from the outside if they cant. And i think that every first of all, any republican senator who is up for reelection who supported the Reid Mcconnell deal of the other night is going to face a well financed, well financed challenge with money channelling via ted cruz and his allies who include jim demint of heritage, who include the koch brothers. It looks like a purge. Theyre going to do the purge if they can. They have nothing but contempt for people they view as accommodationists who are in league either deliberately or by by neglect with barack obama. President obama admonished defeated republicans today that breaking our system of government is not the way to make change, not breaking it. Helping it. And he had a suggestion of how they might one day get what they want. Lets listen. You dont like a particular policy or a particular president , then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election. Push to change it. But dont break it. Dont break what our predecessors spent over two centuries building. You know, sometimes the president isnt at his best. He was today. And i thought, jonathan, i thought going out there and win an election is the best. You want to run for office and give the speeches and win one time. You cant beat me in elections. I go out there and debate. At least im running. What are you guys doing . What youre doing is waiting until we need the debt ceiling passed and trying to screw the country to get what you want. Extortion. Why dont you play fair . I think it really comes down to it. Its not illegal what these guys have done. We know that. But it breaks the rules of normal political debate and decision making. Because if everything is like this, its going to get worse. Itll always get worse. If you keep going the direction that the cruz is taking everybody. It breaks the rules of governance. In that clip thats the president talking about what just happened over the last few months from the 35,000foot level. But what he said there is what he was saying in a more granular fashion about the Affordable Care act. The Affordable Care act, obama care was passed by both houses of congress, signed into law by the president , upheld challenged in the Supreme Court and upheld by the Supreme Court and then ratified by the American People visavis the 2012 president ial election where the Affordable Care act and its repeal or staying in place was the central one of the central themes of the campaign and yet as you said and as we all know, you had a narrow band of the majority pushing a nowin strategy to convince this president to do away with, to defund, delay, and repeal his signature legislative accomplishment. And as we all knew going into this, if thats what the republicans want to do, then theyre going to need to take over the senate in 2014 and the white house in 2016. And the First Step Towards that is taking down the Confederate Flag from the political rallies. That would be a good start. Thank you so much Howard Fineman. You hit the head here. Jonathan capehart, thank you so much. Coming up, what do republicans get out of all this . Changes in the Affordable Care act . No. Reduced spending . Not at all. Improved poll ratings, better ratings for 2016. No, no, no. Plus until now, democrats have had no shot at winning back the house in 2014. Again, until that well see. If anything could change the odds, this shutdown might have been it. Also 24 billion. Thats the cost of these republican antics. This was expensive theater for us. The shutdown did real damage to real people. Finally, why one republican compared ted cruz to a bunny in heat. This is hardball, the place for politics. Cory booker is the new u. S. Senator. He won to fill the term of frank lautenberg. A very low turnout election. Booker will have to run for reelection next year. It looks like hell do it well. Well be right back. Welcome back to hardball. In washington were used to conflict between republicans and democrats, of course. But what were seeing now is a civil war within the Republican Party between tea party and nontea Party Republicans. Well, the wounds in the divisions are deep. And the tones getting worse. Here is Rush Limbaugh today. Actually yesterday. The republicans agreed to tie one hand behind their back because of obamas race. They have the other hand tied behind their back by this trick that got them to shut up. I was pondering if i can ever remember a greater political disaster in any lifetime, if i could ever remember a time when a Political Party just made a decision not to exist. For all intents and purposes. Well, the reasonable and responsible right in the Republican Party is fighting back against the limbaugh, cruz, and demint crowd. This is what a few nontea Party Republicans talked about the damage done to the country and to their party. It was a fools errand. And thats why some of us became so angry. Do people realize that the strategy didnt work the way they wanted it to . Some say it worked perfectly. It depends which youre living in. I hope we learn from she past and employ different tactics that may be more successful in the future. Is there shortterm damage . Yes. Is there longterm damage . Well see. Well see. Former congressman Steve Latourette and kathleen parker. Thank you for joining us. I want a sense im going to withhold my comment as long as youre on the air. And just hear from you folks. Because you probably know more about this issue than i do. How goes kathleen, how goes the afterglow for some of this big fight . Well, its definitely not an afterglow in the Republican Party. There are those who would argue that this has been ultimately a fight that the Republican Party had to have and that in the longterm, its actually probably something good. And by that i mean that there were theres this contingent of younger freshman congressmen who dont really get how the system works. And i dont use that term system in a negative way. John boehner, the speaker of the house, has always had a strategy. He tried unsuccessfully to convince his members to come along with him. That strategy with a much longer view. And these younger guys that came in in 2010 wanted to fight. If we fight, then we win. Even if we lose. Of course thats sort of nonsensical. Its clear they did lose. And what im hearing from this Speakers Office is that some of these folks have now seen the light. And they understand now that they did approach things incorrectly. Its at least tactically. Now, the speaker himself made a decision, clearly, to lead his conference where they wanted to go. And that was not what he wanted to do, but he was preserving unity within the ranks rather than allow civil war to erupt. Thats where they are. Congressman, he seemed to lead he waited until it was clear he had no alternative to pass a bill through the house. To save us from default. Do you think that was the best strategy for him to keep his speakership . I think it is im sorry. Am i interrupting . Im going to the congressman. Go ahead. Thats okay. Was it over when the germans bombed pearl harbor . No and its not over now. We are going to have a robust conversation. The speaker did what he had to do. People who criticize him need to know he is the elected leader of the republican conference. And they told him that they wanted to engage in this idiotic strategy that had no chance of success. I called it the death march to nowhere. In an attempt to show them how stupid it was. Even this tuesday, he came up with not one plan but two plans to help them save them from themselves. And they rejected it. And what do you expect . He made it clear hes not going to let the nation default. He thought that the shutdown was stupid. Hes an institutionalist. Hes a governing guy. He was going to open it back up. Immediately following last nights vote, the far right had its pitch forks out for reelection next year. They named names here. Eric erickson said men like Mitch Mcconnell, john cornyn, and eric cantor have preached a great sermon against obama care but now conservatives who supported them see that these men have refused to actually practice what theyve been preaching. And sarah palin said quote, rest well tonight for soon we must focus on important house and senate races. Lets start with kentucky which happens to be awfully close to south carolina, tennessee, and mississippi. Kathleen, i just wonder whether whos winning this fight . Ted cruz and company and that posse or the regulars, the people who were calling for regular order at those meetings the last couple days . The big question, chris, is what happens in the primaries. The candidates who can win the primaries in these conservative districts are not people who can win in general elections. And theyre not the people that represent the Larger Population in this country which as you know from the recent nbc was it gq the poll . Wall street journal,