This Week on Meet The Press: Ryan, Van Hollen, Gillespie, Hunt, Cooper, & Mitchell
I will not be posting notes this week. Instead I will be in Chicago to see the Blackhawks take on the Blues. Go Hawks!
More details on this week’s show.
Notes on the February 12, 2012 broadcast of Meet the Press
This morning’s Meet The Press opened with new White House Chief of Staff Jake Lew and the controversy about contraceptives in health care plans offered to employees of religious-affiliated institutions including hospitals and universities. Host David Gregory was aggressive in his questions.
“We can now say with certainty that women have the right to healthcare,” said Lew, and, he added, religious institutions won’t have to pay for benefits they find objectionable. Lew said that this is a good solution which brings together these values.
“There are others who don’t want to see these values reconciled,” Lew said. Gregory asked, “Will the president veto any efforts by Congress to amend the Affordable Care Act?” Lew did not give a direct answer.
This was the kind of meaty discussion of issues we need more of on Meet The Press. Beyond contraception, religious liberty, and health care, they discussed unemployment, budgets, deficits, austerity, and more.
Meet The Press Host David Gregory displays a Rick Santorum sweater vest. (All rights NBC News)
Next up, Republican presidential candidate and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) said, “No one is denying them access to birth control.” But he also said, “There is no compromise here,” and he added that a lot of Democrats and liberals agree with him.
Gregory asked Senator Santorum if he, like some, believe President Barack Obama has a “secret plan” which would be revealed in the second term. Santorum said there is nothing secret about the plan, the president has been clear that he wants more and more government control through things like “cap and trade” and other instruments.
On the California court ruling in favor of marriage rights for homosexuals, Santorum said “Judicial tyranny is a serious issue in this race and in this country.”
This segment, like the previous one, was also a welcome return to a focus on the issues. In previous appearances by Senator Santorum on Meet The Press, the questions seemed to center around,” Tell me why Mitt Romney should not be the GOP nominee?,” and “How can you beat Mitt Romney?” Interesting questions for those viewers who aspire to be campaign managers, but not all that helpful to those of us trying to pick a president.
Today, the “path to the nomination” question didn’t come up until the 29th minute of the broadcast. Here, Senator Santorum referred to himself as the “Richie Cunningham” candidate in what will likely be the headline of the interview.
In the roundtable, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough had all the one-liners and cogent insights. He said the contraception compromise is good enough to take the issue off the table for the time being. But he said the bigger point here is that three things lined up in the last several days (the Komen/Planned Parenthood controversy, the California marriage decision, and contraception coverage) to push the culture wars back onto the front page. And, according to Scarborough, this is bad news for both President Obama and Governor Romney and good news for Senator Santorum.
Scarborough also poked fun at conservatives for trying to simultaneously say President Obama is both a Josef Stalin-type totalitarian socialist and a Jimmy Carter-style incompetent moderate. Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne labeled President Obama a “progressive moderate” with the emphasis on moderate. He said most socialists he knows are insulted when they hear Barack Obama referred to as a socialist.
Today’s Meet The Press transcript will be here.
Also follow the show on the MTP Facebook page, track Twitter feeds from host David Gregory, Meet The Press, and Executive Producer Betsy Fischer, watch the midweek PressPass interview, and don’t forget Gregory’s blog.
More details on this week’s broadcast.
Notes on the February 5, 2012, Broadcast of Meet The Press
This morning’s Meet The Press began with GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich (R-GA) who vows to fight on in the nomination race despite exit polls showing his rival, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA), winning support even among the most conservative voters in yesterday’s Nevada caucus. In fact, Gingrich seems intent on destroying Romney’s chances even in the general election, by calling him timid, pro-abortion, and pro-gun control.
Gingrich did find time to criticize President Barack Obama as well. He criticized the unemployment statistics for not including those who have stopped looking for work. Gingrich briefly mentioned the “U6″ unemployment rate which includes all of those who have dropped out of the work force. However, he did not mention that even the U6 number has dropped dramatically over the last two years.
Referring to federal rules which require all employer-provided health care plans to cover legal contraception, Gingrich said, “President Obama has declared war on the Catholic Church.” He also referred to Romney’s negative campaigning by saying, “I am trying to draw more people into politics, not carpet-bomb them out of it.”
Next up were Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I-New York City), Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN), and Gov. Deval Patrick (D-MA) in a Super Bowl-themed match up. The game, broadcast by NBC, will be in Indianapolis today featuring the New York Giants and the New England Patriots. Bloomberg, free from party affiliation, can say some pretty bold but common sense things. He wants the president to end all of the Bush era tax cuts (across the board) and adopt the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan.
All the guests in this segment bemoaned the negativity of the presidential campaign thus far. Bloomberg made a pitch for MayorsAgainstIllegalGuns.org.
In the roundtable, Host David Gregory skimmed over what I think might be the most important numbers of the day. Winning the Republican presidential nomination will require 1,144 convention delegates. Even after Nevada, Romney has 83, Gingrich has 28, Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) has 13, and Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) has 11. Oh my God, we are going to be in this for long time!
Congressman Xavier Becerra (D-CA) addressed the religious freedom and contraception issue saying, if your church wants to become an insurance company, they will have to follow the insurance laws.
Republican strategist Alex Castellanos said that for a long time he was pessimistic about Republican chances to beat President Obama, but now he thinks they have a better shot. His reason is that Republicans are now making the case for economic growth. He said, “Democrats want to talk about Mitt Romney’s paycheck, but Romney and the Republicans want to talk about people’s paychecks.”
There was a fairly meaty discussion of real policies and options for the country. So much so that Gregory even apologized when he brought the conversation back to the horse race. He asked Castellanos if there was any path for Gingrich to win the GOP nomination. He said no.
Today’s Meet The Press transcript will be here.
Also follow the show on the MTP Facebook page, track Twitter feeds from host David Gregory, Meet The Press, and Executive Producer Betsy Fischer, watch the midweek PressPass interview, and don’t forget Gregory’s blog.
This week on Meet The Press: Gingrich, Patrick, Bloomberg, Daniels, Becerra, Brooks, Castellanos, & Maddow
A crowded set for this Sunday’s Meet The Press. Read more here.
Notes on the January 28, 2012 Broadcast of Meet The Press
This morning’s Meet The Press was to have begun with GOP presidential candidate Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), but he had to cancel due to the hospitalization of his three-year old daughter.
Instead, the broadcast began with a lackluster “surrogate debate” between Mitt Romney supporter, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and Newt Gingrich supporter, Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN). The latest poll numbers from this Tuesday’s Florida GOP primary show Romney in the lead with 42%, Gingrich next with 27%, Santorum 16%, and Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) at 11%. While many are pointing to Florida as the “last stand” for the anti-Romney forces, Thompson points out that even after Florida, only 10% of the total delegates for the Republican convention will have been chosen.
The most surprising thing about this segment was that neither of these guys seem to have any real or apparent enthusiasm for their candidates. McCain only became animated when discussing potential scandals over the tidal wave of Super PAC money coming into the campaigns. And this lead to the best moment of the morning: Thompson rebutted McCain with a joke, “Do we really want to talk about money? I understand Sheldon Adelson (big money Gingrich supporter) asked Mitt Romney for a loan.”
Overall, this segment pinballed between re-litigating 1995, dissecting the horse race, and debating who Reagan would support. Yawn.
Host David Gregory did point out that today marks McCain’s 63rd appearance on Meet The Press, tying Senator Bob Dole (R-KS) for the all time record.
Next up, David Axelrod, senior adviser to the Obama 2012 re-election campaign, who in style, tone, and content was completely different than McCain and Thompson. Whether you agree with him or not, this segment was all about issues, the future, and passion. He was most passionate about making the tax code more fair. And the horse race only intruded when Gregory brought it up.
In the political roundtable segment, the consensus was that the Florida campaign is about money, money, money. After Gingrich’s South Carolina win, the Republican Establishment roared its disapproval. And Florida will show the establishment’s power. So what’s next?
Host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough, says some potentially very strong states for Gingrich are still coming up in March and Gingrich will still be in the hunt. “This isn’t the end of Newt Gingrich. This isn’t even the beginning of the end of Newt Gingrich. This battle is going well into the summer.”
NBC Political Director Chuck Todd, on the other hand, said Gingrich could go 0-6 in races between now and the March 6th Super Tuesday primaries.
(Meanwhile over on Face The Nation, Donald Trump said he will run as an independent if the Republican nominee is someone he thinks can’t win the general election.)
Today’s Meet The Press transcript will be here.
Also follow the show on the MTP Facebook page, track Twitter feeds from host David Gregory, Meet The Press, and Executive Producer Betsy Fischer, watch the midweek PressPass interview, and don’t forget Gregory’s blog.
Notes on the January 22, 2012 Broadcast of Meet The Press
This morning’s Meet The Press featured, for the third week in a row, Republican presidential nomination candidate and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. He was fresh off a surprising win in the South Carolina primary (and he was wearing a different tie than the one he wore on the previous two appearances).
Screen shot from 1/22/12 (All rights to NBC News)
Gingrich said his two takeaways from South Carolina are that there is real economic pain in this country and the level of anger at the “national establishment” (particularly the elite news media) is very high.
In a clip played from last night, rival Gov. Mitt Romney (R-UT) criticized people who are “demonizing” his success at Bain Capital. He said people who do so are using the “tools of the left” and are not fit to be the GOP nominee. Gingrich responded that Romney is using tactics no high school debater would let stand. “Questions about the character, judgement, and record of a presidential candidate is not an attack on business. That is silly,” said Gingrich.
Gingrich said, “Beating Barack Obama has to be the number one priority for Republicans.” And exit polling in South Carolina showed many think Gingrich is now the most electable. But, as Meet The Press Host David Gregory pointed out, the newest Fox News poll shows Newt Gingrich’s favorable rating nationwide is 27% with unfavorable at 56%.
In response to the fears a Newt Gingrich nomination raises within the Republican party, Gingrich says he is, “…happy to be in the tradition of Ronald Reagan as the outsider who scares the Republican Establishment. Frankly, after the mess they made of things, maybe they should be shaken up pretty badly.”
In response to a question about his personal character, Gingrich twice mentioned that he is 68. This did not reassure me.
Finally Gingrich said he does not consider Barack Obama a bad human being, but “…Obama believes in a very radical version of America’s future that is fundamentally different from maybe 80% of the country, and no one in the elite media has ever wanted to dig into it.”
Underlying much of the conversation today was news that Romney will be releasing his tax returns for 2010 and 2011 this coming Tuesday. While Gregory did let Gingrich and the next guest, Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), respond to this, he didn’t ask either of them about the timing. Romney first said he would do this in April, so is it a sign of trouble that he is doing it now? And should we read anything into the fact that he is waiting until the day after the next presidential debate for the release… a day which also hosts the president’s State of the Union address?
Christie said Romney’s second-place finish in South Carolina was disappointing, but he still believes Romney will be the Republican nominee. Gregory’s questions to Christie in this segment were surprisingly soft. One was about how Romney can better communicate, and the next was, “What has been Mitt Romney’s greatest contribution to the conservative cause?” Questions like this just open the door for a stump speech response, and that is what we got.
This was followed by the zinger, “Why shouldn’t Newt Gingrich be the nominee?”
The next question at least had the potential to elicit something newsworthy: “Do you think Gingrich will embarrass the party?” Gregory then tried to pivot this to the personal character issue, but Christie did not take the bait.
On the big (yet obvious) question, would you accept the vice presidential spot on a Romney ticket, Christie said he would listen if Romney called, but he fully expects to stay as governor of New Jersey.
Out of nowhere, an actual governance issue of importance to the country made a fleeting appearance. Gregory asked if there was anything President Obama could say in the State of the Union speech that might bring the parties together to accomplish something meaningful even in an election year. Christie said, “embrace Simpson-Bowles,” the budget deficit reduction plan commissioned–and then shelved–by the president.
The interview ended with Christie predicting the “New Jersey Giants” will win today’s NFL playoff game and head to the Super Bowl.
On to the roundtable, where NBC political director Chuck Todd said South Carolina exit polls show Gingrich is becoming the single conservative alternative to Mitt Romney.
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, a former Congressman with no love lost for Gingrich, says Gingrich is not really a conservative, he has flip flopped, and talk of a brokered convention will now ratchet up.
Republican strategist Mike Murphy says Romney has been playing defense for several days, and that doesn’t work for him.
Scarborough again, Gingrich sold us conservatives out in Congress in 1998, he is not a conservative, he is an opportunist. “But here is the problem: So is Mitt Romney,” added Scarborough.
Murphy puts a fine point on it: “Newt Gingrich could not carry a swing state in the general election if it were made of feathers. And that is a fact of politics.”
Murphy dismissed the idea of more candidates joining the field, but Scarborough wants to have some fun with this. He floated the name of Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) as a potential nominee, and he spun out a “favorite son” idea where many different candidates stand in their own states as a way of forcing a brokered convention.
Todd also dismissed the brokered convention and the idea of new candidates joining. But he thinks all of these developments raise the likelihood of a third-party run for the White House.
In case there was any doubt about Scarborough’s position on the Gingrich candidacy, he ended the broadcast proclaiming, “Newt is not sustainable. South Carolina was a primal scream against the GOP establishment.”
Today’s Meet The Press transcript will be here.
Also follow the show on the MTP Facebook page, track Twitter feeds from host David Gregory, Meet The Press, and Executive Producer Betsy Fischer, watch the midweek PressPass interview, and don’t forget Gregory’s blog.
This Week on Meet The Press: Gov. Chris Christie plus Scarborough, Murphy, Kay, &Todd
Will David Gregory ask Christie a bunch of horse race questions? Will he push Christie about his own plans to run for president? Or will they discuss the best ideas for getting America back on track? Tune in and find out!
Notes on the January 15, 2012 broadcast of Meet The Press
This morning’s Meet The Press began with Republican presidential nomination candidate and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and the topics most important to Americans got very short shrift.
On growing evangelical support for Senator Rick Santorum’s (R-PA) GOP nomination candidacy, Gingrich said he too has sizable support among this group. On a recent evangelical leader meeting in Texas, Gingrich emphasized, “The one consensus was that virtually no one was for Mitt Romney.”
For long stretches of the Gingrich interview, the “horse race” became the consuming topic rather than a discussion of issues. Even in a flashback clip to last Sunday’s Meet The Press/Facebook debate (where Gingrich was apparently wearing the same time he wore this morning) the focus was on who is the real conservative, not on how to fix or improve America.
For the record, at 7 minutes into the program, Gingrich mentioned healthcare and jobs… the first appearance of such topics this morning. Host David Gregory went immediately back to the roller coaster nature of the 2012 campaign.
The next topic was negative ads and the new, pro-Gingrich super PAC ad attacking Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital. The discussion went on for four minutes. And it was followed by a couple more minutes about Romney’s tax records.
The most entertaining moment in all of this was the reference the Wall Street Journal made to the “Michael Moore” tone of the anti-Bain Capital attacks. As if the earlier discussion wasn’t sufficiently substance-averse, the segment ended with discussion of a Gingrich ad poking fun at Romney for speaking French.
If this is how our most venerable public affairs program prioritizes American issues at this crucial moment, we may, in fact, be doomed.
And then the contrast. After the frothy conversation with Gingrich came a more substantive, but ultimately sleepy, discussion of real issues like jobs and SOPA with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). Even here, though, large chunks of the conversation focused on who should get the most blame (Republicans, Democrats, Congress, the President) for gridlock in Washington, DC, rather than on how to improve American lives.
There was, ultimately, a real conversation about what, if anything, can be done to change the dynamics of Washington. Gregory had a couple of good questions here, but the momentum ground to a halt in the discussion of recess appointments.
At 40 minutes into Meet The Press, Gregory asked a very substantive question about income inequality, and then went right back to, “Can Romney win?”
The final segment, rather than the usual roundtable of press and commentators, featured two Republican elected officials from South Carolina, Senator Lindsey Graham and Representative Tim Scott.
Scott say that because unemployment in his state is near 10%, voters there are mostly thinking about who can create jobs. Graham says the voters are focused on who can beat President Obama. This made me wonder if Senator Graham has been in DC too long.
Scott and Graham agreed that South Carolina is the “last stand” for the not-Romney GOP candidates. If Romney has a good showing in South Carolina, he will win the nomination.
Today’s Meet The Press transcript will be here.
Also follow the show on the MTP Facebook page, track Twitter feeds from host David Gregory, Meet The Press, and Executive Producer Betsy Fischer, watch the midweek PressPass interview, and don’t forget Gregory’s blog.
