David Gregory analyzes this morning's Meet the Press including discussion on Saturday's debate and Newt Gingrich's rise in the polls.
All signs point to Newt Gingrich as the frontrunner in the Republican race for the nomination. We unveiled new numbers from our NBC/Marist poll on the state of the race in South Carolina and Florida and Gingrich is clearly out front in those two key early states.
Senator Lindsey Graham told me this morning, "If the election were held tomorrow, Gingrich would win South Carolina."
I also spoke with Presidential candidate Ron Paul who hit Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney on their conservative credentials. "I think they come from the same mold, they're about the same," Paul said. "They're both on the defensive. They're both explaining themselves." He later added that neither were "consistent" conservatives.
Our political roundtable weighed the fallout from last night's debate and the state of the race so far.
Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, who's endorsement all the candidates are courting, said it's still a "wide open" race, and indicated that Mitt Romney is getting the message that Iowa is important.
"He's starting to understand that he's going to have to get much more aggressive. He's going to need to spend more time here," Branstad said."
Lisa Myers, who covered Gingrich for NBC News when he was Speaker of the House, said Gingrich's debate skills were an asset to him last night, "This is Newt Gingrich's wheelhouse: verbal combat. No one is better at it. No one enjoys it more."
You can watch our entire broadcast on our website.
We'll be back next week. If it's Sunday, it's Meet The Press.
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You forgot to mention how Iowa Governor Terry Branstad expressed his favor toward Ron Paul's economic plan more favorable than any other candidate.
I continue to be appalled by the quality of presidential candidates these days. The country's going to heck in a handcart and no one seems to be able to fix it. The majority of the blame belongs to the gulible voters who are so easly manipulated but a good deal of the blame should go to the press who, until recently, were the arbitrators of truth between the powerful and the powerless.
A prime example was today's segment with Lindsey Graham where Mr. Gregory asked several pointed questions and then seemed to be satisfied with Graham's recitation of party literature. Perhaps it would speed up the show if you would make available campaign brochures containing the appropriate boilerplate, and the candidate or their representatives can simply point at them. Or, give them numbers where the guest can simply call out that number for the tried and true excuses. Number one will obviously have to be "It's Obama's fault", followed by "It's Obama's fault" and continuing through, "We can't tax our way out of the debt" and "Don't put this on the backs of the Job Creators © ", etc., etc..
This way you'd have more time for commercials and wouldn't have to do the fake out where it appears that the show has resumed but really you're just introducing the next bank of commercials.
All in all, a waste of an hour.
Hi Mr. Gregory,
Mr. Gingrich for President? Oh no he won't. Only GQ men are allowed for that post. That's one thing big money and an account at Tiffany's can't but. Give Newty the booty, Obama's the cutie. If a Republican "must" win, better it be Romney. At least with Mitt, you still have "it"!
Gingrich is going down. His true colors are showing and the are quite repulsive.
Ron Paul blew everyone away at the debate and I would be surprised if he doesn't step up to first place within the coming weeks.
All the Republican contenders are like bowling pins in a bowling alley with Obama being the bowling ball about to bowl them all down, and we all know what "color" a bowling ball is. Further more, the next time he has his feet up on the desk I want it to be "without" shoes.
Why oh why can the interviewees not answer the question? why can't they be told you have so many seconds to answer the question and then we will cut you off if you don't. I am sooo sick of this and it is everywhere! There isn't a news show on now that doesn't let the person go on about party politics and refuse to get to the actual question. Please, this is part of what is so wrong with the news!
I have been watching the debates and commentary much more this time around. Considering every one of them has supported Paul Ryan's budget plan and the destruction of Medicare and other entitlements I would not vote for any of them. All of them scare me to death, and I do not believe any one of them cares one iota about whether the people are suffering any more than I would believe it of Republican Congress and Senate members. I have not heard even one of them mention the 99ers which are those who no longer receive unemployment, which they oppose anyway. How do any of these people believe that we are survivng? Not one of the Republican candidates or members of the Congress ever ask about it.
By the way: Food stamps do not buy soap for the bath which they say we should take before we apply for our 456th job opening. Nor do they pay for the phone to receive calls before and after the interview if we get one or gas or bus passes to get to interviews. Nor do they keep up our wardrobe to look good at the interview or the haircut we need to be presentable.
Some of us have worked till we bleed for many years and get really tired of being told we are lazy, while these people sit in cozy chairs and do "governing", and have likely done very little physical labor in their life. I did it your way: went to college after layoff, ran out of funding and went back to work, went back to school after layoff, have a degree with no job available. If it wasn't for old friends, I would not even have a roof over head.
How about you jokers doing something to help us?
Your predicament is paralleled across the country. You are not alone. The foundation of this social economic calamity was set over the course of many decades when times were "good". Hard decisions were pushed down the road as federal institutions gained strength and established roots while suckling at the teat of the then, well-fed middle class taxpayer. These federal institutions claimed to be the panacea of goodness, able to remedy any social, economic, or environmental ill, only to, again and again fail the very people they claim to protect and defend. They became the toys of the powerful entities they were to keep in check. EPA, Federal Reserve, FDA and others…the leaders of these institutions not only inappropriately associate with, but often revolved to and from the very entities they regulate, as we do not live in a laissez-faire society. But we should blame ourselves. In general, we failed to pay attention, to educate ourselves and make the hard decisions through our participation in this democracy to change course during those “good” times. We now reap the consequence of our earlier inaction. But rather than take our medicine with a short depression, we want more expenditure by the federal government on policies that will only create an extended recession and steal from the future of our children, and now, our grandchildren. Only one politician has spoken the “truth”: Ron Paul. Yet he is not likely to win the leadership role in a society that think and pay more to their football “heroes” than their young lads that fight overseas.
Ron Paul "truth" is not sustainable nor realistic. Republicans have not been good stewards of our funds in the past. What has changed in their policies to warrant another chance at leadership? They lead in the House, yet look at what bills they are touting.
Corporation over the interests of Grandma not eating cat food in her later years does not challenge anyone with a heart much less a brain. Starving, begging, seniors does not reflect what our forefathers envisioned.
All should question the potential of either of the established political parties to change course and correct the decades of misguided altruism-through- government. Both parties are culpable for the existing economic and social state of this great nation. But the emotional argument that our forefathers envisioned a strong centralized government providing for the health and welfare of our elderly is to ignore history and is blatantly wrong. The morphing of the government towards such socialist utopian views was developed during the transformations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Our forefather suffered through far worse conditions in their time. One generality I would support would be their not wanting seniors to have to eat cat food if they knew of the massive technology and wealth lavished on so few today.
Our forefathers had hearts as well as minds that envisioned better times then they had it. Socialism is not a bad word. It is not 100% or nothing. We have promoted some type of socialism since day one, when my forefathers landed on Plymouth and had to share with the indigenous people they found there.
This entire argument is silly. We have people depending on SS/Medicare today and the program works TREMENDOUSLY WELL. I have paid taxes all of my life in order to support the program for my parents and trust my children to do the same for me. Paul touting a complete reversal of our country's direction is not justified and lacks an alternative that will not harm millions of people.
Your many misconceptions concerning our founding fathers casts doubt on your understanding of history. Our founding fathers owned slaves and indentured servants that lived in dirt-floored structures along side the livestock. A tour of Monticello, home of one of the most liberal of the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, clearly demonstrates these disparate conditions. They believed only a free man with property, not a woman, slave or indentured servant could participate in matters of the state and vote. As for the more recent Social Security, it is a Ponzi scheme that requires continuous exponential growth in population, continuous significant inflation, continuous increase in wages and a constant average age of death within the populace in order to be sustainable. All these aspects change with a modern society. Families have fewer children, inflation is neither constant nor significant, wages are depressed from globalization, and the average age of death continues to rise. As with all Ponzi schemes, those last in the program (today’s youth) will lose. And finally Medicare, it is the single program most responsible for the unaffordable prices of health care.
Paul's salution to this money mess is so simple and so right on but he comes off to much as an old comic than president. We have to stop being the worlds police and spending money "over seas'. Simple. It is so sad that this group is the best the party has to offer and sad for the country that we will have 4 more years of Obama.
What EXACTLY is P. Obama touting that saddens you???
Like many others who have commented here, I am pretty much at the point of not watching this show anymore. Not only do the politicians fail to answer the questions and say whatever they want, but David Gregory doesn't listen to them and goes on to blindly ask his questions. There were several times when Gregory, had he been listening and interested, could have had either Dick Durbin or Lindsay Graham respond directly to what the other person was stating, but time and again, he just went to his next rehearsed question. And then his interview of Ron Paul was, frankly, a joke. What exactly was the purpose of asking him repeatedly which of the other candidates he was going to endorse? How about finding out more about Paul first? Journalism at a very low standard. Very, very sad.
Gregory looked for most of the show like a he was salivating - his bias is so obvious - he needs to be more introspective and stop drooling like a high school debater.
David Gregory is an idiot. His bias was obvious when he interviewed Michell Bachman.
Why can't MSNBC newspeople be neutral when interviewing political candidates or reporting news, instead of advocating your own liberal views?
And there you have it. Turn off the tube and do some real research. All the tv pudits show there bias, as well as newspapers. One has to really dig to find out what these people (candidates) really stand for. Believe only half of what you see, none of what you hear. It is the congress that has put this country in the mess we are in. We need to send them all home after two terms...no pensions, no lifetime congressmen.