Of emails to a second woman. It isnt just a triangle, its a pentagon. That general down there, he is the Top Commander of our war in afghanistan. Afghanistan, really . Please. If our troops were really still fighting in afghanistan, dont you think wed be hearing about that on the news instead of all this bull [ bleep ] . Good morning. It is friday. It is friday, november 16th. Welcome to morning joe. With us on set, we have the president of the council on foreign relations, richard haass. Richard. Good morning. Chairman of deutsche incorporated, Donny Deutsch. Get over it. Okay . Get over it. Get over what . What are you talking about . All of you are in here. In washington, msnbc and Time Magazine senior political analyst, Mark Halperin. Richards in here . I dont know why. Im serious. Whats going on . Also, look at this cast we have today, the author of Thomas Jefferson, the art of power, historian jon meacham. Is meacham here . Meacham, look at him. Lots of books. And willie, congratulations on your newest honor. Thank you. Are you in nashville, jon meacham . Im in washington. Going to be in nashville tomorrow. He needs a pipe in that setting. Yes, he should, and a fireplace. Youre saying donnys milking this thing. We talked about it for ten minutes. We got on the set and donnys, like, can we do this again today . Unfortunately, joe and i are on whats called the decaying page. Guys falling apart. Were on the president ial page. You look good. Right next to brad pitt. That kind of ruins it. Okay. Well, there you go. Okay, take that down, please. Oh there we go. Its too early for this. It is. Take that down. Im sick. So mika whatever. Mitt romneys still in the news. Yeah, thank you. He is the gift that just keeps on giving. But i think at this point time to go away. Yeah. Well start there because actually, the response to it is probably the beginning of maybe something for the party. The Republican Party. We begin this morning with a growing number of leading republicans trying to distance themselves from mitt romneys recent comments where he argued that president obama won reelection by offering, quote, gifts or Government Services to minorities and young voters. What the president president s campaign did was focus on certain members of his base coalition, give them extraordinary financial gifts from the government and then work very aggressively to turn them out to vote. Okay. Were going to now show the response to this from some leading republicans. The only thing ill say is where was this along the way . Right. It was there. I mean, it was there. Its not like this is a revelation about romney. Yeah, the 47 quote. He actually believed it. Okay. And he wasnt just doing analysis. That was his, i would say, twisted view of what he views conservatism to be. That you write off 47 of the population and just try to squeeze out 3 thats undecided. Its just sick. I know this is going to sound snarky, but i think its a lot easier to say now, but it is being said. Louisiana governor bobby jindal came out strongly against romneys comments wednesday and continued yesterday. This is unhealthy. This is not where the Republican Party needs to go. If you want voters to like you, the first thing youve got to do is to like them first. Its certainly not helpful to tell voters that you think their votes were bought. Thats certainly not a way to show them that you respect them, you like them. We need to stop talking down to voters. I truly believe people on food stamps, on government assistance, dont want to be there. Theyre there because they dont have the ability to get better paying jobs. Its our responsibility to give them the education, give them the opportunities to have a better quality of life. Then we have senator marco rubio of florida who offered a carefully worded reaction to romney, telling politico, quote, i dont want to rebut him point by point. I would just say to you, i dont believe that we have millions and millions of people in this country that dont want to work. Okay. And former mississippi governor, haley bar rour barbour, saying party needs to do some soul searching. Weve got to give our political organizational activity, you know, a very serious proctology exam. We need to look everywhere is my point. Yeah. You know what . I will say and i dont hand you compliments often but youve been saying this during the primary process, it started. And now it seems to me that its great to hear these gentlemen coming forward and speaking truth to what mitt romney said. But its just too easy right now. It should have been done in the primary process. Its just like when i was talking about people in the conservative Entertainment Complex talking in ways that well never win the suburbs of philadelphia, bucks county, pennsylvania, or the i4 corridor. In this case, Donny Deutsch, i said all along that mitt romneys biggest problem wasnt that he was too conservative. Its that he didnt understand conservatism like margaret thatcher, the shopkeepers daughter, understood conservatism or Ronald Reagan, the alcoholic son that grew up in Middle America who actually believed, like i believe, like a lot of conservatives believe that if you want to help everybody, if you want to help the 100 , what you want to do is you want to fight hard for their individual free am do doms and unshackle them from regulations from high taxes, from a centralized state, and thats the best way to move forward. We can have a debate over whether thats right or wrong. The problem is, we didnt have that debate this time because mitt romneys view was such an insulated view of a guy who grew up rich and grew up in this insular world where his father ran Car Companies and was governor of michigan. This is a pivot point for the Republican Party. I think bobby jindal probably said it best. You have to turn you have to marry conservatism and pop y lyh populism. We helped the little guy because thats the america dream. Its not the opposite as far as entitlements and victims. Thats a pivot point. And the republicans that get it are going to be part of a new branded i was arguing yesterday on the show about the republicans need to rebrand themselves. Of course they do. A brand is a set of values and how you articulate those values and the attributes you assign it. And its very, very, very clear, the demographic fait accompli of where this world is going, until you can shift what is the current view of republicanism into what ill call the pop yewist articulation of conservatism, they will not get there. Willie, it all starts at the top. It really does. In president ial years, for better or for worse, the guy or woman you nominate to run your party, to be the president ial candidate is one that runs the party. And we had a guy in the Republican Party that just did not think like thatcher, did not think like reagan, did not think that. Its interesting that all these governors held their tongues through the campaign. Its not just bobby jindal, it was Bob Mcconnell of virginia yesterday saying we need to be more flexible on the issues of taxes. Haley bar rour said bour said, purists. I guess the question i have is how do you win general elections without abandingenioning your c principles . How do you move yourself to get 50 of the electorate . Its actually healthy. What you want to see is a Republican Debate about ideas. You cant have the lessons of why romney lost be about quote, unquote, gifts. You cant have it all be about ground game and political tactics. Thats a copout. Its like an army after losing a war and you chalk it up to this or that sideshow. The republicans have to have a serious debate. What is their view of the economy given whats going on . What is the proper role of government in this society . What is the role of the United States in the world . What did we learn from iraq and afghanistan . Lets have a serious debate, but lets not chalk it up to this or that democratic tactic or this or that failure to get the vote out. Thats avoiding any serious learning of lessons here. Lets go to jon meacham. I would love to ask what Thomas Jefferson would do, mika. What would jefferson do . Having said that, also how do we whats the moving forward conversation to have . Because this, again, just shows how bad the candidate was. Or how much he didnt fit the conversation that needed to be had all along, which, by the way, was a failure on both sides in the campaign. Jon. You know, whats fun sometimes in life and in politics is when you can make a vice a virtue. And in this case, the fact that romney was not a good candidate and has now said this, which totally ratifies his 47 comment, those of us who wanted to think that he was just talking about tactics, that it was late at night and he didnt really mean it, well, we were wrong. He really meant it. And i think the republicans to some extent are lucky in that they now have a total, to use donnys term, words, by the way, i never thought i would say, in that order. Yeah. It is a pivot point. You now have a nominee who is absolutely embodies and has now said again something that you can play off of. You can define yourself against. You can become an i would try to use a term, Something Like im a 53 republican. Something that says youre not, you know, were not that anymore. And then what richard says is exactly right. You cant just be packaging. Its got to be whats in the package. Well, to that point about being a 53 republican, joe, you actually have to really be one, though. You have to really be one. You actually have to believe it. Im not a 53 republican. Im a 100 republican. Tom coburn is a 100 republican. Steve largent when he was in congress, 100 republican. Matt salmon back in congress, a 100 republican. You remember back in 1994, we got into congress. We were conservatives, but we were all populists. And we constantly were doing battle with what we called the Thurston Howell iii wing of the Republican Party. I thought that wing was dead. It is hard to imagine listening again this morning to mitt romneys statement that this party, two years after a Tea Party Revolution that led to the largest legislative landslide in American History nominated a Thurston Howell iii republican to be their standard bearer. Its just shocking. Well, its not so much unlike 1994, joe, because thats another huge republican congressional win that was also fueled by populism. I think theres no doubt that the republicans react to the macro lessons for their brand and for the experience of 2012 are going to be looking for leaders who are more populists. You cant just wait for the president ial campaign because its too far down the road. There are lots of political battles between now and then. Hell be looking for somebody like bobby jindal who has a lot of strengths, one is he does have a populist streak, an andy washington streak, and focus on the real lives of real people. And i think whats so damaging for a lot of republicans about romneys comments is once again hes talking in a way thats narrow and thats not talking about things in a populist way but more the way you talk if you are at the yacht club with Thurston Howell. Yeah. Every time we talk about jon huntsman, we have idiots and ill call them idiots that say oh, youre a rhino for even suggesting suggesting jon huntsman would have been a good candidate when everybody from Erick Erickson to myself said, as a matter of fact, its just a fact, he had the most conservative voting record of anybody that ran. The most conservative record as a public leader, of anybody that ran. You mow what else he talked about, Donny Deutsch . Unlike barack obama, unlike mitt romney, unlike newt gingrich, unlike herman cain, unlike anybody, jon huntsman was the only guy that understood this populist strain of the Republican Party. He talked about breaking up the banks. Governments too big. Our banks are too big. Our military Industrial Complex is too big. We talked about it here all the time. You know, thats that populist strain. Why didnt people talk about breaking up the banks . Ill tell you another thing that he had that actually worked against him that will now be price of entry. And its called compassion. You know, his tone did not have the vitriol that the other candidates had. By the way, they called him a rhino, and this is style over substance time and time again. If you dont hate, then you are, by the entertainment, the conservative Entertainment Complex, this must mean youre a rhino. If you dont hate, this must mean you are not sufficiently conservative. If you dont hate, youre not good enough to be in our party. No. Theyre in the losing party. Theyre on the loser side of history. They are finished. They are finished with having any impact on this party moving forward. So the very thing that was price of entry, the fist pounding, the anger, the vitriol is the opposite now. If there is not a compassionate streak and you cant fake it. Its interesting, the contrast of jindal and rubio. Jindal did the hard pivot. And he had the conservative populist message, and it felt compassionate. Rubio, it was just blah, blah, blah. So to me, to your point, to huntsman, the very thing that worked against him will now work for the candidates. What does it tell you, joe, that it wasnt just the conservative Entertainment Complex, it was the voters. Jon huntsman could not get above 3 in the primary. He ran a lousy campaign. I mean, hes responsible in the end for not carrying that message forward. But you know what . More people other than Erick Erickson on the conservative blogosphere and conservative publication should have picked up that fact. He ran a lousy Campaign Early on. If he runs again, maybe hell run a better campaign. But i think also, though, he didnt he was not sufficiently angry enough in this environment that the primary process was fought in. He wasnt antiintellectual enough. And downplayed his conservatism. That was the biggest mistake. He downplayed his conservatism from the very beginning. And i want to say again, Mark Halperin, the antiintellectualism in the Republican Party over the past decade has been growing. Thats another thing bobby jindal has been talking about. Thats got to change. Thats got to change. We not only have to win over hispanics, weve got to win over educated hispanics. Educated africanamericans. Educated white people. Educated people of all races with ph. D. S, an area weve been losing for decades. And joe, theres another issue that i know you think a lot about and thought a lot about that huntsman also talked about which is afghanistan and ending the war. Thats another populist issue that i think republicans missed in 2012. The president was for winding down the war. You had others who didnt run that thought that that was an issue to tap into across the board populists including a lot of the groups you just talked about. That was an issue that would have surprised voters. Thats one of the things that people criticized the republicans who ran for, no deviation from the expected orthodoxy. And if you do that as a party, if you rethink things and lead, you can cut across voting groups, you can reach welleducated people, less welleducated people. High income low income. If youve got an issue thats bold and brave, you didnt see that from republicans on dealing with the banks and other issues where the Common Thread would be populism. Issues that would have been a real match for president obama. Really quickly, one thought. I would challenge everybody to close their eyes is this about the People Magazine thing . Lets not go there. By the way, jon meacham just quoted me, a Pulitzer Prize winner. It has nothing to do with sexiest man. That may be my 47 . Thats your waterloo, my man. Look it up. If you close your eyes and think of a progressive or liberal or conservative, the vision can i do this with my eyes open . The vision of the conservative now has to feel nicer. I know that sounds silly. Conservative has always had a hard edge to it. It was all good till you said that, but whatever. The growing crisis between israel and the palestinians, we want to get to this story, gaza is on the verge of allout war developing over the past 24 hours in response to repeated rocket attacks from hamas operatives. Israel has begun mobilizing some 30,000 reserve troops including Armored Vehicles and tanks. Overnight the fighting did not let up. Explosions rocked gaza city as israeli warplanes pounded hamas targets. Hamas vowing retaliation for the death of its military chief two days ago is escalating missile attacks deeper into israel. The Jerusalem Post reports that Israeli Air Force has fired a rock near the home of hamass Prime Minister. No one was reportedly injured. For the First Time Since the gulf war, more than 20 years ago, air raid sirens were triggered in the commercial capital of tel aviv, sending residents running for cover. So far the longrange missiles fired from gaza have landed without damage there. Yesterday israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu warned that the military operation could significantly widen. No government would tolerate a situation where nearly onefifth of its people live under