Schwarzenegger Among Guests on NBC's MEET THE PRESS
By: Caryn Robbins Oct. 08, 2012
Sunday's MEET THE PRESS WITH David Gregory on NBC featured a roundtable discussion with Obama campaign senior adviser Robert Gibbs, former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen, Republican strategist Mike Murphy, and NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd; and a one-on-one interview with former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Below are highlights and a transcript of Sunday's program. All content will be available online at www.MeetThePressNBC.com.
Newt Gingrich: I think it was a significant help to the president. Imagine it had come out at 8.2 following that debate. I mean, people would have entered this weekend saying, "Well, that's close to the end." So I think it's part of this whole process. This campaign's going to go down to the end, I think. It's going to be one of the most interesting campaigns in American history. And I think you're going to see it go back and forth some over the next week. ROBERT GIBBS: I assume, David, there's a number of people that believe the real unemployment report is somewhere in a safe in Nairobi with the President's Kenyan birth certificate. I mean this stuff is absolutely crazy. The notion, quite frankly, that somebody as well respected as Jack Welch would go on television and single-handedly embarrass himself for the entire day of Friday by saying somehow that these statistics are made up, I agree with Chuck, it's incredibly dangerous.Gingrich: “The weird moment with Eastwood and an empty chair may turn out to be symbolic.”Newt Gingrich: The job of the president is supposed to be to be competent and to be able to stand up for what he believes in and to be able to articulate what's wrong. Mitt Romney walked over him. … The weird moment with Eastwood and an empty chair may turn out to be symbolic.
Rosen: “Either Mitt Romney is completely faking everything he said, or he is a liar.”HILARY ROSEN: I think that what we are experiencing right now... is that this sort of style over substance is, I don't think, going to overtake this race. I think you had a president who was trying to move the facts out, was facing a guy who he hadn't seen before. Either Mitt Romney is completely faking everything he said, or he is a liar. So it's either way. MIKE MURPHY: The president got a huge chunk of unfiltered television, and he lost the debate because he had nothing to say. And that is a fundamental probably of the Obama campaign. They have the thinnest reelection brochure ever. Very short on accomplishments, huge new national debt, none of the jobs we were promised. They're now literally trying to start a parade about economic statistics and say, "Things are now just as bad as they were when he started."
Gibbs: Romney “did everything but learn tap dance”David Gregory: What specifically does the president have to do better in the next debate?ROBERT GIBBS: Well, look. I think you're going to see a very engaged president that is ready and willing to call out whichever Mitt Romney shows up.David Gregory: And you have to admit that's not the president who showed up in the first debate.ROBERT GIBBS: Again, I'm not going to take away from Mitt's masterful theatrical performance. He did a superb acting job. You know, he did everything but learn tap dance.CHUCK TODD: Well remember, this was before the debate, our NBC Wall Street Journal poll, and we have a registered voter model that had the president up seven. But we had likely voter model that had the president only up three at the time, 49-46. So the question is why? What is going on that has Republicans doing better and becoming more likely voters? Well, it's simply an enthusiasm gap. And we're seeing it across the board.
Murphy: going more negative will make Obama campaign “look smaller and smaller”MIKE MURPHY: I'm just amused that every time there's a question about the President's vision it's 17 words to a total attack on Mitt Romney. If they were out, and they'd run a debate, and they were running a campaign now with interesting new ideas to get people excited about voting for him, they'd be in better shape. Instead, they're running the old Mackey Political Consultant campaign, I know it well, called The Zero Sum, which is the other guy's worst, the other guy's worse, the other guy's worse.That was working. Romney was in trouble. The negative ads were working. Mitt Scissorhands all over T.V.. Then Romney got an unfiltered shot. And everybody's taking a second look at him. So the real question to me of the campaign is, "Can the Romney campaign take this moment and run with it?" If so, the Obama campaign, which is only going to get more negative, and that's what fear does in a campaign, is going to look smaller and smaller.
Gingrich: “Romney now has two great advantages that Reagan had.”Newt Gingrich: Romney now has two great advantages that Reagan had. The first is there are real substantive differences now to approaches. The second is every time they run a truly vicious ad and then you see Romney in a debate, he's not the person they ran the ad about. That's exactly what happened to Reagan in 1980.ROBERT GIBBS: I think the big question is which Paul Ryan do we get? Do we get this-- same sort of, you know, chameleon that we saw in Mitt Romney, who literally walks away from virtually everything that he's campaigned on for two years in the space of less than two hours? Newt Gingrich: Well, I think Ryan's one of the brightest people in the Congress. And I think that he knows an immense amount of facts. But I suspect he's going to be respectful of Biden. I mean there's a generational difference here that I think will lead Ryan to not give an inch, but to not be very hostile. CHUCK TODD: And I was just going to say, history shows that when there have been age differences, the elder statesmen wins these vice presidential debates. You had sort of, in Cheney and Edwards, remember, Cheney was almost able to smack down Edwards, if you will. Benson and Quayle the most famous.Arnold Schwarzenegger: I think that the race is wide open. And I think there's a lot of things that change all the time. Especially when it gets close to the election. So I think either one of them can win it. It's really depends.
Schwarzenegger on leadership: fear and bickering are “not going to build any roads and that's not going to make our air clean.”Arnold Schwarzenegger: You can't be scared of things and then hope that you get reelected and that becomes the number one interest. Your number one interest should be-- you should not worry about do you keep your position, do you keep your seat. I mean, think about it. Every police officer, every firefighter, every one of our brave men and women that go overseas, they risk their lives-- their lives-- every day. They never know if they’ll ever come home and see their family again. And our politicians are afraid of losing their seat? I mean, it takes a little bit more balls to run this job and to do this kind of a profession. I mean, that's how you get things done.So that's what we need. Political courage to go in there and to fix the problems. There are five or six major problems that we have in the United States. And they need to be fixed. And they should stop bickering around and pointing fingers at each other. Because that is not going to build any roads and that's not going to make our air clean. David Gregory: Do you think you lost credibility as a political voice, a high-profile political voice in the country?Arnold Schwarzenegger: I don't think so. But let me tell you. If the people are angry at me, I deserve that.
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David Gregory: Are you a man of good character?Arnold Schwarzenegger: I think so.David Gregory: Even after everything you've done?Arnold Schwarzenegger: Look, I'm sure you made mistakes. I'm sure a lot of people out there make mistakes. I made my fair share of mistakes. ... People should make up their own mind about all of this stuff. I'm not going to tell the people what they should think about me. “MEET THE PRESS WITH David Gregory”
October 7, 2012David Gregory: This morning on Meet the Press. Just one month until Election Day. Has the race taken a new turn? What a difference a debate makes
(video)
MITT ROMNEY: Mr. President, you're entitled to your own house and your own airplane, but not your own facts.David Gregory: Romney delivers. The president tries to recoverPresident Obama: When I got on to the stage I met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be Mitt RomneyDavid Gregory: The economy again is the central focus as new jobs numbers drop the unemployment rate below eight percent.(video)President Obama: We've made too much progress to return to the policies that led to the crisis in the first place.(End videotape)David Gregory: A sign of recovery just as voters head to the polls? We cover it all this morning: the policy fights emerging from the debate and the politics.What does a debate reveal about these two men? Plus a preview of the vice presidential debate this coming week. This morning a special panel - joining us... Obama campaign senior adviser Robert Gibbs, former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen, Republican strategist Mike Murphy, and NBC's chief white house correspondent and political director Chuck Todd. And finally what you haven't heard from Arnold Schwarzenegger this week. A revealing conversation with the former California governor ... He talks politics and his personal failings. (Videotape)
David Gregory: What would you like your sons to learn from your mistakes?Arnold Schwarzenegger: I think that they're not-- gonna make the same mistakes. David Gregory:
And good morning. One month to go, and so much to get to, I wanna get right to our special roundtable discussion this morning, anchored by our own mini debate. Joining me this morning, former White House press secretary, now senior advisor for the Obama campaign, Robert Gibbs, former reputation presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich. Rounding out our special panel this morning, Republican strategist and columnist for Time Magazine, Mike Murphy, Democratic strategist, Hilary Rosen, and our own political director and chief White House correspondent, Chuck Todd, who just can't wait for new polls to see where we are, is this race in a different place? And we'll get to that as the hour-- rolls on. We have the debate to talk about. We have to look ahead. But we also have the reminder, Speaker Gingrich, that this is really about the economy. And new jobs numbers come out on Friday. Are they a game changer, in some ways, in terms of how people perceive the economic? This is The Washington Post front page. Certainly not something that the Romney team wanted to see, the line graph showing 7.8 percent-- unemployment when Obama takes office in January 2009. Here we are in September of 2012, lowest since he took office. Does this change anything?Newt Gingrich:
Sure. I think it was a significant help to the president. Imagine it had come out at 8.2 following that debate. I mean people would have entered this weekend saying, "Well, that's close to the end." So I think it's part of this whole process. This campaign's going to go down to the end, I think. It's going to be one of the most interesting campaigns in American history. And I think you're going to see it go back and forth some over the next week. On the other hand, Friday, the International Monetary Fund said, "Probably no recovery until 2018." Now that's a very sobering number.David Gregory:
Robert Gibbs, it is particularly weak. I mean look, you have 40% of those who have been out of work for six months or longer. This is a weak economic recovery.ROBERT GIBBS:
Well, it's a stronger economic recovery in terms of jobs produced than we saw coming out of the 2001 recession. And the important thing, David, is we continue to make progress. 31 consecutive months now of private sector job growth. Certainly we're not where we want to be.It has taken us, as you saw from that graphic, four years to dig out of this enormous hole that we were in. And the question going forward is, "How are we going to rebuild that economy from the middle, out? How are we going to make sure that folks have hope and opportunity, good education, we bring back some of these manufacturing jobs and continue on this path to progress?”David Gregory:
There is a reality that, on the campaign stump, that Romney has been denied a line that he's been relying on when it comes to 8% unemployment, which was a significant marker. This is how he's been talking about it this fall.(Videotape/Wednesday & September 7)ROMNEY: We've had 43 straight months with unemployment above 8 percent,ROMNEY: He said that he'd create jobs, and instead we have unemployment now still over eight percent for 43 straight months(End videotape)David Gregory:
The symbolism, Mike, Murphy, is there for everyone to see. You know, you get below 8%, it matters to a lot--(OVERTALK)MIKE MURPHY:
Well, yeah. Well, it becomes a good political club for the Obama folks. But fundamentally, I don't think America woke up and said, "Hey, everything's fixed. You know, we feel great." You can still see that economic worry is, to quote the words of the great vice president, "The middle class has been buried for four years." So Romney still has a jobs campaign. I think what's changed in the campaign is not statistics out of DC. I think we make a lot out of that.MALE VOICE:
Yeah.MIKE MURPHY:
It's perception out there in the states, what people think.David Gregory:
But that's actually been a bright point, Chuck, right? We've seen people feel better about the economy--
(OVERTALK)David Gregory:
--getting a little better.CHUCK TODD:
Well, and-- and especially in certain places, like in Ohio, like a Virginia, where the economy has performed better than the national average. But, you know, it is this-- you know, the Obama campaign, their belief in this has been, since the sort of Bill Clinton explanation of digging out of this hole has been that, ultimately, that last sliver of swing voters is going to say, "Okay, let's not change horses in midstream," right? They're making a classic incumbent case of saying, "It's not great. But hey, do you want to start over?"And I go back. I remember watching a couple of focus groups. It was one out in Nevada with some working women. And this one woman said, "I'm not happy with Obama. I'm not happy with the economy. But God, I don't want to have to start over." There's this perception. And so that, to me, is a tricky thing for Romney, right?Romney has got to sort of make this case that, "Hey, we're not going to rip everything out by the roots, right?" Which is, of course, what someone in his base do want to have happen. "But I'm going to create a better recovery, a faster recovery." And so I think that that's what this 8% means, right? It means he's got to be more nuanced in that argument where the president can simply sit there and make that same case. Do you really want to start over?HILARY ROSEN:
Yeah. There's another point, too, which is that for the wealthy, life has been pretty good over the last several years. You know, the stock market's doubled. CEO pay is way up. You know, the long term unemployed, and those jobs that were lost under the Bush administration that President Obama has restored in manufacturing and the like, the key number for them is, "Who do I trust to take my long term unemployment needs, my middle class family's needs, to the next level?"So, you know, I think that the combination of people just trusting President Obama more, if you're middle class, and that he has delivered on what he said he would in terms of getting us out of this hole--David Gregory:
Murphy doesn't buy that.(OVERTALK)MIKE MURPHY:
No, no, that's their message. But I think they're missing the biggest thing that's happened in the campaign. I mean economic (COUGH. UNINTEL) out of Washington is one thing. But 80 million people finally got an unfiltered look at Mitt Romney, and they like what they saw. And I predict you're going to see credible polls this week showing significant movement in the swing states and a much closer race than we've had. That's the big factor right now.Newt Gingrich:
Let me put this in a different format. Because we all sit in Washington and get all these numbers. The average American goes outside and says, "Okay, 600,000 part time jobs, 114,000 full time jobs. Gasoline the highest in history. Do I feel better? Or, in the real world, can my cousin still not find work? In the real world, is every small business in my neighborhood still stressed?"And I think the reason Obama's never been able to pull away, even when Romney had two pretty bad weeks, is that, in the end, there's this rubber band effect where they go, "Well, I'd almost like to give him another shot, but this is really frightening and really painful."(OVERTALK)HILARY ROSEN:
--pull away in this political system. So that's never going to happen. We always--(OVERTALK)CHUCK TODD:
No, I disagree. I think they could have. There was an opportunity--MALE VOICE:
There was a moment.CHUCK TODD:
There was a moment to pull away, and the only thing that snaps it back is this feeling of things aren't--(OVERTALK)ROBERT GIBBS:
The race is always going to be close. I don't think anybody would deny that. But let's be clear. Let's look at where we've come, right? 800,000 jobs are being lost the first time the president read the unemployment report. I know these are just statistics for people in Washington. That's real lives in America. 31 consecutive months of positive job growth.Are we growing as fast as we'd like to? No. But it takes a long time to dig out of this avalanche of tremendously bad decisions that preceded the Obama presidency. And let's understand this. The one thing they saw in the debate was clear. Mitt Romney's plan is to go back to a failed economy theory of tax cuts for the very rich, despite the fact that he denied the existence of tax cuts or the existence of math. The notion that, "Let's go to war on Wall Street, go to war with Sesame Street but give Wall Street a big, wet kiss," that's exactly what got us into this mess. That's what we spent four years--MIKE MURPHY:
That's not what we saw.ROBERT GIBBS:
--digging out.MIKE MURPHY:
That's really not what they saw. I mean I get the interpretation, you got a campaign to win. But what they saw was one guy who seemed to be someone they had never seen before, he shattered the fiction of the advertising. And he was a guy brimming with new ideas and energy. And then they saw (UNINTEL PHRASE) states was sleepwalking the whole--(OVERTALK)MIKE MURPHY:
But let me just finish quickly.CHUCK TODD:
Yeah.MIKE MURPHY:
That (UNINTEL) contrast, I think, rang a bell with people, said, "You know what? Romney's got ideas, and the president, there's no vision for a second term." And that's what I think really hurt him.CHUCK TODD:
Mike, I don't doubt that this was somebody they'd never seen before. Quite frankly, I think there were people on the Romney campaign that had never seen this candidate. I mean this is a guy, a week ago, Paul Ryan was asked to explain the math of a $4.8 trillion tax cut. And you know what he says? I don't have time. During the debate, Mitt Romney said, "We just-- we just don't do math.(OVERTALK)CHUCK TODD:
Like math doesn't exist. But what-- but hold on, let me finish my point.David Gregory:
Go ahead, Chuck.CHUCK TODD:
I mean you simply cannot wish away the existence of your entire campaign platform, as inconvenient--(OVERTALK)CHUCK TODD:
--as inconvenient as it may be when somebody says to you, "Okay, you're going to reduce revenue by $4.8 trillion, you're not going to tell us one loophole that you would close, you're not going to run up the deficit, and you're not going to let up taxes on the middle class."(OVERTALK)MIKE MURPHY:
--story out yesterday says that claim was fiction. Because you guys don't count the loophole closing.(OVERTALK)MIKE MURPHY:
--mortgage interest, he's talking about, very quickly--(OVERTALK)HILARY ROSEN:
He's never talked about--(OVERTALK)MIKE MURPHY:
The hilarity.(OVERTALK)David Gregory:
Mike said it, but I'm going to--(OVERTALK)MIKE MURPHY:
The hilarity of this is the president says he wants to lower tax rates for big corporations. How do you pay for it? "I'm going to close loopholes." What loopholes? Nuthin'. "Tell you after the election." You're attacking Romney for doing exactly what your candidate--(OVERTALK)David Gregory:
Let me pull back for a second, because I want to stick to the economy, also gas prices. One thing that was striking about the debate over the jobs numbers, Speaker Gingrich, was what some in conservative corners were arguing about the actual numbers. Jack Welch made a lot of headlines with a tweet that said, "Unbelievable jobs numbers. The Chicago guys will do anything, can't debate so that they change the numbers without any substantiation." He was on Hard Ball with Chris Matthews. And this is how he explained what was behind that analysis. Watch.(Videotape/Friday)Jack Welch: I`ve reviewed 14 businesses this week from restaurants to rental cars to widgets. I have seen everybody with a third quarter equal to or weaker than the first quarter.Chris Matthews: OK.Jack Welch: In order to get 873,000 new jobs, you would have to have a GDP going at 4 to 5 percent. The second quarter was downgraded from 1.7 to 1.3.MATTHEWS: I know.Jack Welch: The third quarter`s not going to be very strong. It just defies the imagination to have a surge larger than any surge since 1983 a month before the election! I leave it to you to do all the analysis.
(End videotape)David Gregory:
One of the most important CEOs in America, formerly at General Electric. Did this ring true to you, Speaker?Newt Gingrich:
Well, it rings true on a deeper level of getting into the conspiracy of the Bureau of Labor Standards. Actually, since it's a survey, is this outside the statistical bounds of their survey? Which is plausible but irrelevant.What's interesting is you have a president who, after four years, and by the way, his last budget got zero votes in the U.S. Senate. Not a single Democrat voted for his last budget. So you have a president of the United States so deeply distrusted that people like Jack Welch, who's hardly a right-winger, I mean Welch is one of the most successful businessmen in America. But Welch instantaneously assumes this is the Chicago machine. And this-- it's--(OVERTALK)CHUCK TODD:
--because this has been-- this is really making me crazy. The Federal Reserve gets questioned now for politics these days, the Supreme Court, John Roberts, gets-- we have got-- we have corroded what we're doing. We are corroding trust in our government, in a way. And one-time responsible people--(OVERTALK)CHUCK TODD:
--are doing to-- controlling. And the idea that Donald Trump and Jack Welch, rich people with crazy conspiracies, can get traction on this is a bad trend.ROBERT GIBBS:
I assume, David, there's a number of people that believe the real unemployment report is somewhere in a safe in Nairobi with the President's Kenyan birth certificate. I mean this stuff is absolutely crazy. The notion, quite frankly, that somebody as well respected as Jack Welch would go on television and single-handedly embarrass himself for the entire day of Friday by saying somehow that these statistics are made up, I agree with Chuck, it's incredibly dangerous. And we wonder why institutions in this country, or the perception of institutions in this country are failing, because people go on T.V. and just make stuff up.HILARY ROSEN:
No.ROBERT GIBBS:
After the evidence, he said he had none.
(OVERTALK)HILARY ROSEN:
And the Bush head of The Bureau of Labor Statistics came out after Jack Welch did and said, "There is no way that this could be."(OVERTALK)CHUCK TODD:
When did you stop beating your wife?(OVERTALK)Newt Gingrich:
You guys are missing the whole point. The reason people are losing--MIKE MURPHY:
I knew he was going to say that.Newt Gingrich:
The reason people are losing respect for Washington is they're losing respect for Washington. It's not some right-wing crazy thing. I don't know a single small businessman or woman who believes that the next four years under Obama will be good. I don't know a single small businessman or woman expects to have a lot more people if Obama wins the election.I mean I travel a lot. They're not conspiracy theories. These are not right-wingers. These are people who get up every day and they look at what are they going to have to pay in taxes, what's the cost of their health insurance going to be, what's the market going to be like? And they are all overwhelmingly, look at the National Federation of Independent Businesses, they go out and survey their members.(OVERTALK)David Gregory:
I want to advance this from the economy to the aftermath of the debate. The new cover of The New Yorker gets a laugh and makes a serious point at the same time, as we put it up on the screen. And that is Governor Romney debating a chair, east-wooding (PH), in effect. (LAUGHTER) Robert Gibbs, before I get Hilary take on this, a simple question: What happened? This couldn't have been the game plan for this president to go in and, by all accounts, under-perform against a guy whose back was against the wall, who faced a make-or-break debate.ROBERT GIBBS:
Look, David, it's not rocket science to believe that the president was disappointed in the expectations that he has for himself. But look, I think part of that was because, as I said earlier, we met a new Mitt Romney. We met a Mitt Romney that wanted to walk away from the central theory of his economic plan, which is his tax cut. "I don't have a tax cut that's $4.8 trillion or $5 trillion. I'm not going to cut taxes on the rich . I don't have a Medicare voucher plan. I love teachers, I think we need more of them."I mean look, don't believe me. Speaker Gingrich was pretty eloquent in running during the primaries and saying, "Look, Mitt Romney will say absolutely anything to get elected. And if somebody says absolutely anything to get elected, you have to wonder what they're going to say when they're president-- "(OVERTALK)David Gregory:
Speaker, you did say he was fundamentally dishonest after debating him in the course of the primaries on the issues that he felt. So this is not a new attack against Romney policy.Newt Gingrich:
No. I think that the challenge for the Obama people is pretty simple. President of the United States had 90 minutes. Now, if he had done his homework, if he actually prepared, if he'd actually studied Romney, why didn't he say it? I mean why didn't he take Romney head-on. First of all, the charges on the tax cuts are just plain wrong, and I think virtually every analyst has said. And even your deputy campaign manager said--MALE VOICE:
Oh no, no, no, no.(OVERTALK)Newt Gingrich:
--the charge (UNINTEL PHRASE) wrong. But forgetting that for a second, the job of the president is supposed to be to be competent and to be able to stand up for what he believes in and to be able to articulate what's wrong. Mitt Romney walked over him. And I mean it's just funny, but Eastwood and, just as "Mr. Green, I paid for this microphone," was one of Ronald Reagan's breakthrough moments, the weird moment with Eastwood and an empty chair may turn out to be symbolic of the--(OVERTALK)David Gregory:
Let me just let Hilary respond. Because the issue of the taxes alone, the big knock against Governor Romney here, is that he walked away from a $5 trillion tax cut plan. He assumes that tax cuts spur growth and make the math work. Simpson Bowles say his math doesn't add up.HILARY ROSEN:
Right.David Gregory:
That something has to give.HILARY ROSEN:
Right.David Gregory:
You either explode the deficit, raise middle class tax cuts, something has to give, which is, I think, the point that Robert was making.HILARY ROSEN:
Something has to give, and we just heard Mike say that maybe this thing that gives is mortgage interest deduction, the single most important thing to middle class American families. And that's going to be, and we'll get to this later, that's going to be a challenge for Paul Ryan.But, you know, I think that what we are experiencing right now, and we just said it, which is that this sort of style over substance is, I don't think, going to overtake this race. I think you had a president who was trying to move the facts out, was facing a guy who he hadn't seen before. Either Mitt Romney is completely faking everything he said, or he is a liar. So it's either way.David Gregory:
But mike, when you say style over substance shouldn't matter, I mean who chooses optics are important.(OVERTALK)HILARY ROSEN:
But wait, I was going to go to that. Because I do think, in fairness, it is fair for the American people to want to see their president fight for them. And the Barack Obama every day that they see on the campaign trails, and the Barack Obama we saw in Wisconsin the day after the debate, is a president who is fighting for them. And this president has to do that in those moments when there are millions of people watching the T.V..David Gregory:
But to that point, before Mike and Chuck, here is an example of the closing statement by the president that people felt was so lackluster. Which a short clip of this.(Videotape/Wednesday)President Obama: You know, four years ago I said that I'm not a perfect man and I wouldn't be a perfect president. And that's probably a promise that Governor Romney thinks I've kept."(End videotape)David Gregory:
Mike Murphy?MIKE MURPHY:
Well, yeah. (CHUCKLE) The president, as the speaker said, the president got a huge chunk of unfiltered television, and he lost the debate because he had nothing to say. And that is a fundamental probably of the Obama campaign. They have the thinnest reelection brochure ever. Very short on accomplishments, huge new national debt, none of the jobs we were promised. They're now literally trying to start a parade about economic statistics and say, "Things are now just as bad as they were when he started."What I think really worked in the debate was Romney seemed like, "I have energy and ideas." And the president didn't. So it's no surprise the President's campaign strategy is all these character attacks. If they can bury Romney, then they can win, no matter what. Romney--
(OVERTALK)MIKE MURPHY:
--the debate, which is what changed the race.CHUCK TODD:
And that's important is that style has always mattered in these things. It is sort of that feel that you get for a candidate, whether it was Kennedy-Nixon, whether it was Carter-Ford, whether it was Reagan-Carter. We can go through it time and again. When Reagan lost the first debate Mondale looked like he had energy. He looked like he had ideas. And Reagan looked listless.So, you know, that is one thing I guess the Obama people can say, "Well, you know, we've seen other. Bush and Reagan had bad first debates, they recovered, it's recoverable because there are more debates." But this was bad. And his own supporters, I went to this Denver rally.MALE VOICE:
Yeah.CHUCK TODD:
To a person they were like, "What was that? What was this guy?" And they were your supporters, Robert.ROBERT GIBBS:
But look, let's dispense, though, with style. I don't doubt that style is important. But let's understand exactly, because I want to drill down--(OVERTALK)ROBERT GIBBS:
--who loved style dispensing with style. This is a president who is serious about substance and is wondering where it is that Mitt Romney went with his substance.
(OVERTALK)ROBERT GIBBS:
I bought a white board last night, and I should have brought it. There's a $4.8 trillion reduction in revenue, okay? You cut, according to Mitt Romney's own plan, there's a 20% rate reduction from the Bush tax cuts. We're going to end the estate tax. We're going to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 to 25%. You cannot sit here, Mr. Speaker, or anybody can sit here and say that doesn't require a reduction in the amount of revenue by $4.8 trillion.(OVERTALK)ROBERT GIBBS:
This is math.(OVERTALK)MIKE MURPHY:
--time. Moderates, liberals, everybody says, "Here's the problem. You guys won't give them any credit for closing loopholes 'cause, like you guys, he won't name all the loopholes." Why? You attack him for doing it. You attack him for not giving (UNINTEL) target, and they attack him when you get the target.(OVERTALK)MIKE MURPHY:
If there's substance, why the-- you keep bringing up substance. Let me hear some Obama substance. Your substance was always to attack Romney. That is the whole campaign. Where was the President's vision? If he had a couple of sharp ideas, and looked like he actually liked the job, he would have had a much better debate.HILARY ROSEN:
You know, the president talked about his health care plan. And then Mitt Romney, all of a sudden, said, "Well, my health care plan will do the same thing."David Gregory:
All right, but let's--(OVERTALK)HILARY ROSEN:
And then he had his guy go in the center--(OVERTALK)David Gregory:
--is this, Speaker. Because I do think there's an issue here of whether something has to give. Again, you can talk about fact checkers. Simpson and Bowles, I've spoken to them specifically about, and Romney praises them, they said, "Look, the math doesn't add up. Something's got to give. Either you have to specify where the deductions are, but you can't increase defense spending, extend the Bush tax cuts, do 20% on top of that and just say, 'Well, no, I mean it's going to be okay. We'll grow our way into it.'" I mean that does raise a fair amount of scrutiny.Newt Gingrich:
Sure. And look, I think that's legitimate. First of all, Romney has said, to the degree they can't get the loopholes closed in Congress, they'll reduce the tax break. That he's going to stick to the principle. It's going to pay for itself.Second, there's a genuine intellectual argument over whether he should count economic growth. Simpson and Bowles don't count economic growth. People who do, two Harvard economists came out this week and said $58 billion a year higher growth. Third, Romney has an energy plan which dramatically expands American oil and gas. The royalties alone are worth $750 billion over the next 20 years to the federal government.Fourth, I think you've got to look carefully at how Romney structured this. What he said is something that, frankly, true supply siders (UNINTEL PHRASE) but it's good politics, he said, "I will close enough deductions that wealthy Americans will not get a net tax cut."David Gregory:
Right.(OVERTALK)Newt Gingrich:
That's a pretty clear description.(OVERTALK)ROBERT GIBBS:
Let me just say this. Standing on the stage with you in Arizona, this is what Mitt Romney said. Number one, "I said today we're going to cut taxes on everyone across the country, about 20%, including the top 1%." Mr. Speaker, you mentioned that your opponent, Mitt Romney, had a problem with being dishonest, in the primary. My question is was he dishonest when he said that?Newt Gingrich:
I think it's clearly changed.(OVERTALK)David Gregory:
I want to get a break in. There are several different directions. We're going to keep going, talking about the economy, talking about the aftermath of the debate. We want to look forward to the next debate, which is Biden and Ryan. We also want to go inside the numbers with Chuck Todd for a look at how the campaign is feeling good, the Romney campaign, after the first debate, looking at some of the enthusiasm. Later, my conversation, as I mentioned, with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Much more to come with our special panel right after this.(COMMERCIAL OMITTED)(Videotape/Saturday)JIM LEHRER IMPERSONATOR: Excuse me governor. Mr. President?President Obama IMPERSONATOR: Uh. Yeah what's up?JIM LEHRER IMPERSONATOR: Governor Romney has just said that he killed Osama bin Laden. Would you care to respond?President Obama IMPERSONATOR: No. You two go ahead.(End videotape)David Gregory:
Having some fun at the President's expense there. Robert Gibbs, I want to get you on the record on this. What specifically does the president have to do better in the next debate?ROBERT GIBBS:
Well, look. I think you're going to see a very engaged president that is ready and willing to call out whichever Mitt Romney shows up.David Gregory:
And you have to admit that's not the president who showed up in the first debate.ROBERT GIBBS:
Again, I'm not going to take away from Mitt's masterful theatrical performance. He did a superb acting job. You know, he did everything but learn tap dance.David Gregory:
Let me get back to Chuck Todd, because one of the things that we're measuring is we're waiting for polls to reflect the debate. Is what you're seeing inside the numbers about enthusiastic, and it's significant?CHUCK TODD:
Well remember, this was before the debate, our NBC Wall Street Journal poll, and we have a registered voter model that had the president up seven. But we had likely voter model that had the president only up three at the time, 49-46. So the question is why? What is going on that has Republicans doing better and becoming more likely voters?Well, it's simply an enthusiasm gap. And we're seeing it across the board. Look at here in this first one. 79% of Republicans call themselves extremely interested in this election. On a scale of one to ten, that means they said they're a nine or a ten on interest in the election. 73% of Democrats.Look at four years ago. It was a 13 point gap in favor of the Democrats. Let me go through some various voting groups. This is an important voting group. Seniors are an important voting group to Mitt Romney now. He leads them by about 10 points in our NBC Wall Street Journal poll. Look at this in engagement in the election. Four years ago was 81%, pretty higher. Even higher this time at 87%. And Romney's doing better among seniors than McCain did.Let me go to an important voting group for the president, young voters. Look at this engagement level: 52% now they call themselves, voters 18 to 34, call themselves extremely interested in this election. Four years ago it was 72%. That 20 gap. The president wins young voters by huge margins. He's winning them by some 20-plus points. But if you don't have this kind of enthusiasm, they're not going to show up to the polls.And then let me give you this last one here, because this is, I think, the most important one. And that's Hispanics. The President's winning Hispanics by 50 points. He hit the 70% mark. However, look at this in terms of interest in the election. 59% now, it was 77%. What does that mean? President got 65%, I believe, of Hispanics four years ago.So even though he's going to get more Hispanics, if less of them turn out, it's a net zero. And yet, you look at Republican enthusiasm, up, senior enthusiasm, up. It's a huge problem. And by the way, all of this, pre-debate.David Gregory:
Hilary Rosen, one of the things that you've been talking about is the President's record, how he runs on his record, but then, how he also leans forward, as well. David Brooks's column on Friday struck me complimentary of Governor Romney. And he wrote this about the challenge for the president: "Politically, the president will have to go back to portraying Romney as a flip-flopper instead of an ideologue. Substantively, Obama will have to kindle new passion. So far, he's seemed driven by the negative passion of stopping Republican extremism. He'll have to develop a positive passion for something he actually wants to do in a second term."HILARY ROSEN:
Yeah. Well, I think he might be right to this degree. But President Obama has a record. I mean we have completely changed how education is being evaluated. President's Race to the Top, support for community colleges. We've invested I new alternative energies, because everybody knows, despite what Mitt Romney, said that the only way we're going to become energy independent is with a mix of energy sources. He has provided health care, so much to the extent, that Mitt Romney started to claim credit again for what he could do in health care. This actually is a president with a record beyond just digging us out of our jobs hole.And I think, though, that it's important, when we look at the going forward. Going forward isn't just about the economy. Because people don't live in that binary world where they only care about the economy. Yes, it's the most important issue. But if you're a mom worried about your reproductive health and having to buy insurance separately from your family to pay for that, you know, that's an extra burden on your economic issues.If you're an immigrant, you know, worrying about whether your family's going to be deported or your kid is going to be able to stay in high school, that's an extra burden that you have to worry about. If you're a gay or lesbian worried about whether you're going to get fired from your job because President Obama wants to protect your job and Mitt Romney doesn't, that's an extra thing you have to worry about.MALE VOICE:
Right.HILARY ROSEN:
I think Americans actually live in a very holistic world.David Gregory:
All right.HILARY ROSEN:
And President Obama gets that and Mitt Romney doesn't.MIKE MURPHY:
I'm just amused that every time there's a question about the President's vision it's 17 words to a total attack on Mitt Romney. If they were out, and they'd run a debate, and they were running a campaign now with interesting new ideas to get people excited about voting for him, they'd be in better shape. Instead, they're running the old Mackey Political Consultant campaign, I know it well, called The Zero Sum, which is the other guy's worst, the other guy's worse, the other guy's worse.That was working. Romney was in trouble. The negative ads were working. Mitt Scissorhands all over T.V.. Then Romney got an unfiltered shot. And everybody's taking a second look at him. So the real question to me of the campaign is, "Can the Romney campaign take this moment and run with it?" If so, the Obama campaign, which is only going to get more negative, and that's what fear does in a campaign, is going to look smaller and smaller.David Gregory:
Can I talk to--(OVERTALK)David Gregory:
I know you want (UNINTEL PHRASE) respond to, and we may have to do it after the break. But can I just talk tactics here? Speaker, are we going to see Mitt the Moderate now?Newt Gingrich:
No.David Gregory:
Is this what he's doing with this second look? He talks about he doesn't want to gut financial reform. I mean, in other words--
(OVERTALK)Newt Gingrich:
--said that in South Carolina forum back in January.(OVERTALK)David Gregory:
He's touting health care and (UNINTEL) talking about replacing it all the time.Newt Gingrich:
Look, the fact (UNINTEL PHRASE) he's talking about replacing Obama Care, which is part of how he pays for his tax cuts. And as he cuts out all the spending that's put into Obama Care. But let me go back to one example Hilary used. 86% of the country favors an American energy independence plan, which Romney's campaigning on. You look at North Dakota, you look at Ohio, where there are five counties in Eastern Ohio that have five billion barrels of Ohio, something people didn't even know a year and a half ago. All of a sudden, you have an entire explosion of new energy sources in this country. That's why Romney talks about okaying the Keystone Pipeline, which Obama (UNINTEL). And Romney has two big advantages--(OVERTALK)HILARY ROSEN:
--than any administration has--(OVERTALK)David Gregory:
Finish your point and then we're going to take a--Newt Gingrich:
Yeah, just very quickly. Romney now has two great advantages that Reagan had. The first is there are real substantive differences now to approaches. The second is every time they run a truly vicious ad and then you see Romney in a debate, he's not the person they ran the ad about.MALE VOICE:
Exactly.Newt Gingrich:
That's exactly what happened to Reagan in 1980.David Gregory:
All right, let me get a break in here. We're going to come back. We'll hear more from Robert Gibbs responding to some of this stuff. We'll preview the debate between the vice president and Paul Ryan and also hear from Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well. We'll come back right after this.(COMMERCIAL OMITTED)David Gregory:
We are back. We're thinking ahead, as well, to the vice president showdown, Vice President Biden, Paul Ryan. The Weekly Standard is the cover here previewing the bit debate, the debate smack down. Ryan feeling good. And here's Biden maybe looking a little afraid here. Robert Gibbs, how do you see this one shaping up? Are we going to see Biden over-compensating, being a little more aggressive than he might have otherwise?ROBERT GIBBS:
I don't think that Vice President Biden will overcompensate. I mean, again, I think the big question is which Paul Ryan do we get? Do we get this-- same sort of, you know, chameleon that we saw in Mitt Romney, who literally walks away from virtually everything that he's campaigned on for two years in the space of less than two hours? Look, I know that Vice President Biden is anxious and ready to do this. And I know the President's anxious to get Biden--(OVERTALK)David Gregory:
How do you size them up here?Newt Gingrich:
Well, I think Ryan's one of the brightest people in the Congress. And I think that he knows an immense amount of facts. But I suspect he's going to be respectful of Biden. I mean there's a generational difference here that I think will lead Ryan to not give an inch, but to not be very hostile.CHUCK TODD:
And I was just going to say, history shows that when there have been age differences, the elder statesmen wins these vice presidential debates. You had sort of, in Cheney and Edwards, remember, Cheney was almost able to smack down Edwards, if you will. Benson and Quayle the most famous.David Gregory:
Right.CHUCK TODD:
You know, Joe Biden, yes, everybody talks about the gas on the trial. The guy won, I would argue, most of the Democratic primary debates in 2008.(OVERTALK)CHUCK TODD:
--not John Edwards and not--(OVERTALK)MIKE MURPHY:
But the is a high wire act with Joe Biden.(OVERTALK)MIKE MURPHY:
They're going to be pouring Cola down his throat. He's going to have a (UNINTEL PHRASE). They're going to react. Because they're going to have a couple days of bad polling. You've got Ryan, who's very impressive, but hasn't done this before. And you've Biden, who's a high wire act, in an attack mode, which isn't always his natural place. It's going to make for--(OVERTALK)David Gregory:
Here's my question, which I can just ask you, Hilary, which is, you know, there is an immediate reaction to these debates about, wow, how do you feel? Because there's so much information. And this was such a substantive debate, Chuck, as you pointed out, between Romney and the president. You couldn't square all of that at home.And there is an initial impression and then a second impression that can deliver over time. How does that factor in? And we've seen it. I mean you've heard it here from Robert. They're going to try to grind down Romney on the idea that he's a chameleon, who do you trust, you know, is this really what he believes, that sort of thing that was different from, "Wow, he really, you know, performed well."HILARY ROSEN:
Right. Well, interestingly, you saw that people thought that Romney won the debates. But the Dial groups (UNINTEL PHRASE) showed that they didn't necessarily change their vote one way or the other. So I think, you know, when you have-- Paul Ryan is not going to be able to do what Mitt Romney did. He was the chairman of the budget committee, for goodness sakes. It would be an affront to him to have to make up, you know, all of these numbers. And so I think it will kind of have the opposite of what we had before, when President Obama got a little wonky and Mitt Romney got pretty aggressive in high style.(OVERTALK)HILARY ROSEN:
Joe Biden is going to have the style in this debate.David Gregory:
All right.HILARY ROSEN:
And Ryan is going to be the wonk. And the question is whether he'll tell the truth on the numbers.David Gregory:
Let me switch gears a little bit to a different performance this week that got a lot of attention. I had a chance to sit down with a familiar face to this program: Arnold Schwarzenegger, former governor of California, of course. He's a high profile figure in the Republican Party.But recent revelations about his personal conduct have hurt his reputation, to say the very least. You have noticed he's been out this week with a new book called Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Story, in which he details what he says are his successes and his failures.(Videotape/Tuesday)
David Gregory:
Governor Schwarzenegger, welcome back to Meet The Press.Arnold Schwarzenegger:
Thank you. It's good to be back again.David Gregory:
I want to talk a little bit about your book and some of the personal aspects in just a couple minutes. But let's start with some politics. You're still a high-profile voice in the Republican Party. What do you make of this race? Can Governor Romney win this election?Arnold Schwarzenegger:
I think that the race is wide open. And I think there's a lot of things that change all the time. Especially when it gets close to the election. So I think either one of them can win it. It's really depends.David Gregory:
Are you a naïve optimist when it comes to your belief in post-partisanship? I mean, you see what goes on in this town. I know it's a big work of your job now as a professor and your institute at U.S.C. How does post-partisanship happen when you see the polarization in Washington and how poorly things work here?Arnold Schwarzenegger:
I think that I've seen firsthand that when you bring both of the parties together and if you do the peoples' work, if you see yourself as a public servant rather than a party servant, I think you can get much more done. And we've seen it. We have seen it-- I mean, just look even during the big battles and the fights between Democrats and Republicans when Ronald Reagan came into office and THEY looked at Social Security, he appointed the bipartisan commission. And they studied it for two years.And in 2000-- in-- 1983, they moved it forward, passed legislation, and reformed Social Security. So those are the kind of things that you can do. And I have seen it when I was governor. When we brought Democrats and Republicans together. We need the infrastructure. We made the commitment to rebuild California. We did all of our environmental progress in reducing the greenhouse gasses anD Making a commitment to 33% of renewables for the year 2020, and stem cell research, and on and on and on. And as soon as in 2005, when I thought I can go off by myself. And it's my way or the highway, just with the Republican Party, we're going to grind it out. It failed miserably. And so I learned firsthand that the only action is-- is when both parties come together.David Gregory:
Former governor of California, you understand the demographic shifts in the country very well, the Latino population not just in states like California, throughout the Southwest, throughout the Midwest and the rest of the country. The reality is-- Governor Romney has said it himself-- that as a party Republicans a
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