It was lovely. We have Mark Halperin here as you can see. Mike barnicle as you can see and in washington, d. C. , correspondent Senior Editor and White House Correspondent for the Huffington Post sam stein. How long are you out of school . Just a week. You must be so happy to be home in your own bed. Its joyous. It never gets old. This morning well look at two lame duck sessions and Lame Duck Congress for the next month and lame duck presidency for the next two years and the list of politicians jockeying to succeed barack obama continue to grow and he talks about that new car smell. Mark halperin, obviously this has been a tumultuous week for the president of the United States. Still a lot of people reeling from the executive order. Where does he stand going into the new year . The lame duck session has a lot of ambiguity to it. I think state of the union. People havent started to focus on that. Were just a couple months away from his last big chance to reset everything. Hell be talking with john boehner, speaker of the house, and Mitch Mcconnell installed as majority leader. How important is the republican response to this president . Does this president get defined by how well or how badly the republicans act moving forward . Yes. Going to try to trick them into behaving badly and the leaders, boehner and mcconnell, want a productive nine months. Despite comments this week about blocking confirmations, i think ted cruz recognizes he doesnt want to go into his president ial campaign as seen as the guy that obstructs everything. Hell take some passes. Chris wallace said he doesnt want to be seen as the guy thats kept eric holder in town. Do you think this is a moment of opportunity for the republicans and what do you hope they will do . I think its a time of great opportunities for republicans. We talked about it earlier this week. Whether theyre going to be the party of Christine Odonnell or joey ernst who won in iowa. A state that barack obama won twice. Whether theyll be the party of Richard Murdoch and todd aiken or the party of cory gardner and cory gardner, sam stein, a guy that won in colorado. Yet another state that barack obama has won twice. I get the sense i could be wrong. Youre on the hill more than i am. I get a sense that these republicans just got elected understand what went wrong in 2010 and theyre going to school to make sure that their actions over the next two years dont elect Hillary Clinton. I mean, Mitch Mcconnell has waited his entire career to be majority leader. Hell do whatever he can to hold onto that title in two years time. Its a difficult balancing act obviously for him because you have people like ron johnson and pat toomey running in democratically leaning states in a president ial cycle while at the same time in the same caucus he has people like ted cruz and rand paul who will be probably running for president along with marco rubio. You have two dynamic polls going on here. Mitch mcconnell has a difficult job. He is savvy enough and knows what he needs to do to make sure the party has a chance to hang onto Senate Majority and that may not be satisfactory to the base of the party. Republicans have learned so much about what they did right this time around. We hope they did. It was interesting when we saw an interview with president obama and he was talking about Hillary Clinton and whether or not she may run and having to distance herself from him. It seemed like they have that figured out. I think so. Maybe he was distancing himself from her. If im going to do this, dont be offended, im not going to call on you but i might and take a few swipes at you first. Youre right. It reminds me something that democrats have this planned out. They have everything lined up. They have one person thats going to be running for president. Theres also this talk that lamb duck presidency obviously in terms of the calendar theres lame duckness to it but in terms of reality, i dont think there is. You can make a case that isis, afghanistan, iraq, syria, the middle east, that precludes any lame duck presidency. Thats his hold card to play dealing with not only congress but the American People. He needs to get in the room with boehner and mcconnell and have trust and a sense of shared mission. Is he going to do that . Thats not going to happen. Has he figured out the only way ill get anything done in the next two years is sitting down and dealing with people he doesnt like. People around him have figured it out. I dont think hes yet there in a place where he recognizes why not . He doesnt like to sit with people he doesnt like. He likes boehner. He likes boehner more than mcconnell but hes disappointed in boehner. A breaking point was negotiations over the budget and the grand bargain. This immigration thing was a big break. He knows if john boehner put the Senate Immigration bill on the house floor, it would pass. Thats one thing they think at the white house. They may not love Mitch Mcconnell, but they say Mitch Mcconnell always does what he tells us hes going to do. Whereas john boehner cant keep any promises that he makes. Not because hes a liar, but because he cant control his caucus. Right now they have to figure out how they want to keep what theyve won together and if they want that trajectory to go toward the white house. And if they want that to happen, then they will all get in a common room together and try to figure that out. Go ahead, mike. Sam, i want to ask you off marks observation about the president and Mitch Mcconnell and john boehner, does this not open the door even wider for the greatest Vice President in the history of the republic, joe biden, to play a pivotal role in the next few months. I mean, hes a guy that knows what a deal is and likes dealing. He does like dealing. The old dynamic was this. The white house looked at congress and said, okay, anything that we can sign has to go through john boehner and harry reid and well let those two people negotiate because it has to pass through both chambers of congress anyway. We wont put our stamp on it until then. Theres a new dynamic now. The bill has to be negotiated not just between john boehner and now Mitch Mcconnell but the white house knows if theyre going to affect legislation, theyre going to have to do it in congress and there is where joe biden enters. Hes the negotiator on this white house. Much to the dismay of a lot of Senate Democrats who thinks he gave up way too much during the bush tax cut fights and during the shutdown debt ceiling fights. Theyre going to have to start getting into these negotiations because youre going to see a bunch of shortterm spending measures which means there will be every three or four months this specter of a shotdown cout coming and that will require negotiations. Where is joe biden right now . The white house staff froze him out. Hes in tijuana hanging out. He goes to nantucket for thanksgiving. Hes up in nantucket right now. He gets out swimming with his shirt off. Hes doing it yesterday i guess. Where is he as far as the white house goes . He was frozen out. The staff treated him terribly. Is he still frozen out . People focus on the president s relationship with boehner and mcconnell. His relationship with pelosi and reid is just as important. Is he going to do what they want or cut them loose . If he cuts them loose, i think biden can make deals. Why would he not cut harry reid loose . Hes worried about the 40 of the country that supports him if he is still worried about helping harry reid get reelected. I dont know. He needs to politically. He has governed exclusively asking nancy pelosi and harry reid, what can i do here . How has that worked out . Saved the auto industry. Reregulated the Financial Sector with their help. Youre talking about things that happened five years ago. How has that worked in the last five years . Not very productively. They got a tax hike in there and they got the debt deal that got sequestration. Liberals hate it but they did deficit reduction with divided government. On the larger picture, sam, of the economy in general, you just mentioned that it will be all sorts of shortterm spending bills introduced. This does nothing for rebuilding the confidence of the american economy. Exactly what economists say we shouldnt do. Maybe well avoid it. Maybe at the end of the year theyll say we want to fund the government for a year. We have a template to do in the budget deal but the likelihood of that happening is remote because of what happened with immigration. The Republican Party doesnt want to fund the government too long until they can get back into the majority in the senate so were looking at shortterm deals. On that immigration, who wins this immigration standoff . Is it the president or has he perhaps made a prediction that the republicans are going to misbehave when they wont . If the republicans misbehave, they have played into the president s hand so the president wins. Theres also the possibility that even if this is ruled unconstitutional and nobody really knows how the Supreme Court is going to go. Nobody knew how roberts was going to go on obamacare, but you have the very real likelihood that his executive order is overruled. Republicans celebrate victory. And then they end up losing in the long run because the president is seen as a person thats trying to help hispanics in america. The human aspect of the immigration issue. The human aspect. You have this moment in the Latin Grammys where everything stopped. You had these pictures of people weeping and crying and hugging hispanics all across america. Protesters outside of the white house. Across the country. Again, how do republicans answer that. Even if the Supreme Court strikes down this executive order, they have to come back with a response or they could lose hispanics by 43 just like mitt romney did and if they lose hispanic, i go back to if Ronald Reagan had the same percentages with voters across demographic groups in 2012 as he did in 1980, he would have lost. When we look at common sense republicans who have come out to talk about Immigration Reform and they like the ideas that the president presented and he came out First Talking about Border Security and talking about funding for that and what needs to happen there and then talking about saving families and not felons. Most republicans agree with that. Is it the way of the presentation thats the distraction to the republican side of things that is going to get everybody caught up with the semantics and then republicans lose in the long run . The problem is, there are a lot of house members this isnt a problem. Theyre representing their districts who oppose Immigration Reform. The problem is for president ial candidates. Did you get an immigration bill talking politically you get an immigration bill, passes the senate, it passes the house, and it passes the house with a lot of democrats, and less republicans and you have people running for president , republicans, that dont do what mitt romney did at the beginning of the president ial Campaign Last year when he was in a debate in iowa coming across as so harsh he could never recover within the hispanic community. Thats whats going to have to happen. Some republican senators in iowa and in colorado are going to have to be right on the issue. Mainly its president ial candidates in these debates that cant just come out and feed to an antiimmigrant bias that they sense is with a base that i dont know its with. I could name quite a few republicans who supported Immigration Reform. Lindsey graham in south carolina. A very conservative state. Jeff flake in arizona. They still won. It goes back to the polling question we talked about earlier in the week cares about people like me. Last week i asked bobby jindal and scott walker, forget your views of the president and what he did, how do you feel about the people who live in your state there illegally living in shadows families divided how do you feel about them personally . Their answers were not that personal. They werent that emotional. They have to figure out a way to talk about the plight of people here living in the shadows. Yes, they broke the law. How do they feel about them as human beings. If they cant do that and if president ial candidates cant do that i dont think boehner and mcconnell can. Thats what a lot of hispanic voters care about. Where do you see it going in the future . We think of support for Immigration Reform as this killer in republican politics but john mccain was the candidate in 2008 having been a vocal supporter of Immigration Reform. I know that its tough to get through the process. Tough to get through the caucuses being that supportive and certainly he lost in iowa. I dont see it as a killer. I am with you, joe. They need to figure out a way to get it off the table entirely and maybe just ignore the executive order or they pass a bill that is certainly to the right of what the president wants but its something hell have to sign and heavy on Border Security and in favor of what the Business Community wants which is visas and then they can say we were constructive in this process. We didnt like the executive order so we passed this and thats it. I think thats the best reality republicans could make for themselves. The thing about Immigration Reform and i think the biggest reason that john boehner didnt put it up for a vote in the house after the Senate Passed it is that members of congress, republicans among them, are much more in tune with their districts than the United States senators or candidates for president. They go home every week. They know who these people are. You meet these people. You meet them and you say, yeah, fine. They can stay here. They ought to be allowed to stay here. Say one thing about the president. Hes tougher on enforcement on the border and deportation than any predecessors and republicans should deal with the reality of that and not just say we need to be tougher on the border. Hes been tough on the border and deported way more people than george bush. Theres a lot ahead including George Clinton joining us on set. The legendary funk master is here with Great Stories from his new memoir. I found a better deal on prescriptions. We found lower copays. And a free wellness visit. New plan. Same doctor. Im happy. Its medicare open enrollment. Have you compared plans yet . Its easy at medicare. Gov. Or you can call 1800medicare. Medicare open enrollment. Youll never know unless you go. I did it. You can too. Funk is a force that tour off the sucker of modern music. There was something futuristic and that was only fitting since they played a huge role in creating the future of music. You want to see pure funk, its George Clinton. Thats the only place you find it. Hes the groove man. Thats his contribution. So hes the raw. He actually is when you think funk, hes the rawest of it. Just a sample of musicians describing the impact George Clinton has had on the music world and joins us with his new memoir. Its crazy. That was almost the title of my last book. I dont know where to start here. Music is incredible. I got to say, even if youre not a music fan, mike barnicle, the stories are crazy. You said you once laundered counterfeit bills and you were tripping on acid when you heard Martin Luther king, jr. , was shot and you lit a hotel room on fire while smoking crack naked. Thats on the first page. Is that true . If memory is good from that era in the 60s and 70s, its true. It was a crazy time. You cant remember most of that. Those things if thats the part you remember, god help us with what you dont remember. I dont remember the rest of it. It was fun. Im here. I feel better and changed my life. Wrote the book. Told the stories. I feel a lot better. So why did you decide at what point did you decide to write the book and talk about the great music and also all of the crazy times . Im going to put it like this. On page 379, ill tell you that story. Its about the copyrights. I was messing up my inheritance for my heirs. People were stealing music and fighting in court over to the Supreme Court, that made me change. I dont mind myself. I messed up so i can pay for that but when it comes to the kids and family, i had to straighten it out. You got clean and sober to take care of the legacy of your music and to make sure financial protection of your kids because people are ripping off your music. You cant do that on crack. The agenda is to be messed up. Four years clean now . Four years. Im not counting because im not going back. I aint even thinking about it. One day at a time. Forever. That youre sure of. Im positive. Do you ever wonder what you might have done other than what you have done if you hadnt spent so much time blasting on crack and coke and that stuff. I dont think so. That dont bother me. Thats in the past. I cant live it. I cant change it. I dont want to think it. A lot of it might have had to do with the fact that i was struggling to get out of debt. Especially in the 60s. What was that like . Your struggle . What would that be like . I think i can beat it. I thought i could. Thats the problem. You cant beat