January 27, 2013 “MEET THE PRESS” CLIPS & TRANSCRIPT -- SUNDAY, JANUARY 27 Mandatory Credit: NBC News’ “Meet the Press”
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JANUARY 27, 2013 -- Today’s “Meet the Press with David Gregory” featured an exclusive interview with former VP nominee and Chairman of the House Budget Committee, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), and a roundtable discussion with incoming President of the Heritage Foundation, former Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC); NAACP President and CEO Ben Jealous; Washington Post Associate Editor Bob Woodward; and NBC’s Andrea Mitchell and Ted Koppel.

Below are highlights, video, and a rush transcript of today’s program. All content will be available online at www.MeetThePressNBC.com.

# # #

Ryan: “We haven't seen any solutions offered by the president on how to get the budget balanced”
VIDEO: http://nbcnews.to/X3UOYC

REP. PAUL RYAN: The House Republicans have offered budgets. I've written them and passed them. But we haven't seen any solutions offered by the president on how to get the budget balanced, pay down the debt. And, literally, the Senate hasn't budgeted in four years.

We need to have the kind of debate in this country about how we're going to make these choices. How we're going the grow the economy. How we're going to get opportunity. And if we have a debt crisis like that which is plaguing Europe, everybody gets hurt. And that's what we want to avoid.


Ryan on tax increases: “The president got his additional revenues. So that's behind us.”

DAVID GREGORY: Are you saying that you're opposed to any additional revenue that could come from tax reform?

REP. PAUL RYAN: Well, we already offered that back in the fiscal cliff negotiations. The point is, though, the president got his additional revenues. So that's behind us. Those higher revenues occurred and now we need to focus on getting spending down.


Ryan predicts: “we think these sequesters will happen because the Democrats have opposed our efforts to replace those cuts with others”
VIDEO: http://nbcnews.to/SVpXiL

REP. PAUL RYAN: We passed legislation, I voted and passed it in the House, twice to replace those sequesters with cuts in other areas of government. So we've shown precisely how we should protect defense spending by cutting spending in other areas. ... But we think these sequesters will happen because the Democrats have opposed our efforts to replace those cuts with others and they've offered no alternatives.


Ryan: “We’re not preaching austerity. We’re preaching growth and opportunity.”

REP. PAUL RYAN: We're not preaching austerity. We're preaching growth and opportunity. What we are saying is if you get our fiscal ship fixed you preempt austerity. … Our job, our goal, is to prevent and preempt austerity so we can get back to growth.


Ryan on entitlements: “we want a safety net” but not a “dependency culture”
VIDEO: http://nbcnews.to/X3VnS7

REP. PAUL RYAN: We don't want a dependency culture. We want a safety net that makes sure that people don't fall through the cracks. That gets people on their feet. ... People want the American want the American dream. They want lives of opportunity. They want to reach their potential. And so our concern in this country is with the idea that more and more able bodied people are becoming dependent upon the government than upon themselves for their livelihoods. We want to make sure that we don't continue that trend.


Ryan: “I don't think that the president thinks we actually have a fiscal crisis.”
VIDEO: http://nbcnews.to/UuRuY4

REP. PAUL RYAN: Well, I don't think that the president thinks we actually have a fiscal crisis. He's been reportedly saying to our leaders that we don't have a spending problem, we have a healthcare problem. That leads me to conclude that he just thinks we ought to have more government-run healthcare and rationing. … And so my concern is the president may be more focused on political ends, you know in 2014, versus actually moving to the middle. When you saw his speech say at the inauguration it leads us to conclude that he's not looking to moderate. He's not looking to move to the middle. He's looking to go farther to the left and he wants to fight us every step of the way politically. And I don't think that's good for anybody in this country.


Ryan on lessons for the GOP after losing the 2012 election: “we obviously have to expand our appeal”
VIDEO: http://nbcnews.to/YxddlL

DAVID GREGORY: What do you think the party should learn from the loss?

PAUL RYAN: Well, we obviously have to expand our appeal. We have to expand our appeal to more people and somehow how we'll take the country's founding principles and apply them to the problems of the deal to offer solutions to fix our problems. We have to show how our ideas are better at fighting poverty. How our ideas are better at solving healthcare. How our ideas are better at solving the problems people are experiencing in their daily lives. And that's a challenge that we have to rise to and I think we're up for it.


Ryan: immigration is “a system that's broken that needs fixing”
VIDEO: http://nbcnews.to/XK4VAY

PAUL RYAN: I think there's a balance between respecting the rule of law and adhering to the reality of the day. And I think Marco Rubio probably touched on it. I support and agree with the principles that he laid out about earned legalization. Making sure that you're not rewarding people for having cut in line, but making sure that we can fix this problem. ... It's a system that's broken that needs fixing. … Look, immigration's a good thing. We're here because of immigration. That's what America is. It's a melting pot. We think this is good. We need to make sure that it works. ... And I think those Rubio principles do a really good job of adhering to the founding principles, respecting the rule of law and respecting those who came here for a better life.


Ryan: “if we had a Clinton presidency...I think we would have fixed this fiscal mess by now”
VIDEO: http://nbcnews.to/WFMDBX

PAUL RYAN: Look, if we had a Clinton presidency, if we had Erskine Bowles, chief staff of the White House or president of the United States, I think we would have fixed this fiscal mess by now. That's not the kind of presidency we're dealing with right now.

DAVID GREGORY: And you don't blame conservatives, particularly in the House for thwarting the effort?

PAUL RYAN: Both parties. Forget about just the recent past. Both parties got us to the mess we are in, this fiscal crisis. Republicans and Democrats. And you know what? It's going to take both parties to solve this problem. That's the kind of leadership we need today.


Ryan: “premature” to think about 2016
VIDEO: http://nbcnews.to/WFMOgo

PAUL RYAN: I think it's just premature. I've got an important job to do. I represent Wisconsin. I'm chairman of the budget committee at the time we have a fiscal crisis. I think I can do my job representing the people I work for by focusing on that right now than focusing on these distant things.

DAVID GREGORY: But you'll take serious look at it?

PAUL RYAN: I'll decide later about that. Right now I'm just focused on this.

# # #

Web clips from today’s program:

Full one-on-one interview with Rep. Ryan
http://nbcnews.to/WFMnD1

Full roundtable
http://nbcnews.to/VgD7no

A look at John Kerry's 1971 MTP interview
http://nbcnews.to/121KKW0

David Gregory’s post-show thoughts
http://nbcnews.to/WFP0V6

# # #

Below is a RUSH transcript of this morning’s broadcast -- mandatory attribution to NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” A final transcript of the program will be available at www.MeetThePressNBC.com.

“MEET THE PRESS WITH DAVID GREGORY”
January 27, 2013

DAVID GREGORY:
My exclusive guest this morning will have something to say about all of this. House budget chairman and the Republican party's 2012 vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan here for his first live interview since the election. Chairman, welcome back to Meet The Press.

REP. PAUL RYAN:
Nice to be back with ya.

DAVID GREGORY:
So let's talk about this top priority of the budget battle. It's really going to mark the beginning of the President's second term. This debt ceiling has been raised, at least temporarily, but there are still some big decisions that have to be made so let's go through it.

You specifically said in the last few days that your priority is to make a big down payment on the debt. A debt crisis that you see in this country. What do you specifically require? What's the priority? What does the president have to do in your point of view?

REP. PAUL RYAN:
Well, I'll just explain what the Speaker said when we passed that bill. Our goal is to get cuts and reforms that put us on a path to balancing the budget within a decade. One of the reasons why we did what we did was we think the Senate ought to offer a budget. They haven't passed a budget in four years. Even though we have a law that says we have to budget every year.

So the House Republicans have offered budgets. I've written them and passed them. But we haven't seen any solutions offered by the president on how to get the budget balanced, pay down the debt. And, literally, the Senate hasn't budgeted in four years.

We need to have the kind of debate in this country about how we're going to make these choices. How we're going the grow the economy. How we're going to get opportunity. And if we have a debt crisis like that which is plaguing Europe, everybody gets hurt. And that's what we want to avoid.

DAVID GREGORY:
So it's interesting. Last Sunday on the program Senator Schumer was here and he said, "You know what? We'll do a budget."

REP. PAUL RYAN:
Great. Finally--

DAVID GREGORY:
But this is in four years. This is what he said has to be in it. Watch.

(Videotape)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): You’re going to need more revenues as well as more cuts to get the deficit down. And I’ve talked to Leader Reid. I’ve talked to Budget Chair Murray. We’re going to do a budget this year and it’s going to have revenues in it and our Republican colleagues better get used to that fact.

(End videotape)

DAVID GREGORY:
So this is still the fight between how much in taxes, how much in spending cuts. You say, "Look, the president got his revenue." But it's less than he wanted. Less than Simpson Bowles should have been part of a big package as well.

REP. PAUL RYAN:
Well, Simpson Bowles also said, "Let's get rid of deductions and lower tax rates through tax reform." That's what we've been proposing. The president didn't seem to be in favor of that. He wants higher tax rates, which we think hurts growth.

But the president, let's not forget. He got a trillion dollars in tax increases with Obamacare. Then he just got new tax increases at the beginning of this month. And now they're calling for even more tax increases. And they're not calling to cut spending. They're actually calling for spending increases.

So basically what they're saying is they want Americans to pay more so Washington can spend more. That's not going to help the economy and that is not going to close the gap and balance the budget. The reason we want to balance the budget is not just to make numbers add up. We think that's necessary for growth. We think that's necessary for opportunity. We think that's necessary to make sure that our kids don't get this debt that they won't be able to handle if we keep going down the path we're on.

DAVID GREGORY:
Well, but there are certainly those in the White House who would take issue with what you said or might even say, to use your own criticism, that that's a straw man argument. It's not that they don't want to cut spending. They were prepared to cut additional spending if it could have been part of a bigger deal or agreement that Republicans weren't able to agree to. So those more room for spending cuts. It's--

REP. PAUL RYAN:
Well--

DAVID GREGORY:
--a matter of how you do it.

REP. PAUL RYAN:
I'm not so sure about that. As you know, the president was insisting on more stimulus spending during the fiscal cliff negotiations. He didn't get that. They haven't put out a plan. The reason why we wanted to get the debt limit extended is so that we could actually showcase our budgets.

We will put our budget up that says, "Here's our plan for economic growth. Here's our plan for balancing the budget. Here's our plan for entitlement reform, which is necessary if you want to save Medicare from bankruptcy and get this debt under control." The president hasn't offered any of those kinds of plans in public. And they try to do back room deals, but those always seem to fall apart. We want to have a debate in public so we can contrast these visions.

DAVID GREGORY:
I want to make sure that we keep up some terms that you're using here, because you say the president wants to raise tax rates. In fact a lot of the Democrats I talk to, and even the White House, say they're willing to do tax reform where there could be additional revenue. Are you saying that you're opposed to any additional revenue that could come from tax reform?

REP. PAUL RYAN:
Well, we already offered that back in the fiscal cliff negotiations. The point is, though, the president got his additional revenues. So that's behind us. Those higher revenues occurred and now we need to focus on--

DAVID GREGORY:
But you had--

REP. PAUL RYAN:
--getting spending down

DAVID GREGORY:
--but here's the leverage question because Senator Schumer just said, "No, we didn't just get our revenues. Yes, we got some. There have to be more that are part of it." The president's going to say that. So as you are--

(OVERTALK)

REP. PAUL RYAN:
--are we for more revenues. No, we're not.

DAVID GREGORY:
Right. Even if it comes from tax reform?

REP. PAUL RYAN:
Look, we've already done the revenue bit. And if you keep raising revenues you're not going to get decent tax reform. Look, I know you didn't want me to pull out a chart and I'm kind of a chart guy. This green line shows you historic tax rates. How much we've raised in taxes. The blue line is every tax increase President Obama is calling for. He got lots of those already.

The red line? It shows you where spending is going. Spending's the problem. Revenues aren't the problem. Spending is the problem. And if you keep chasing higher spending with higher revenues, as they're calling for, you're going to actually hurt economic growth. You'll never catch up. You'll shut down the economy--

DAVID GREGORY:
So--

REP. PAUL RYAN:
--and you won't actually get the budget balanced.

DAVID GREGORY:
Here's an interesting point, though. During the campaign, particularly when you were campaigning in Virginia, a state that you wanted to carry but didn't, you said, "Look, the sequestration cuts, these automatic spending cuts that are put in place because Republicans and Democrats can't agree so you have to have this sword that comes down," you said, "we're not going to let those happen. Those will not happen, those automatic defense spending cuts." Well, now we have a new deadline coming up in a couple of months that says there's going to be a whole lot of automatic spending cuts. The same ones that were in place before.

REP. PAUL RYAN:
That's right.

DAVID GREGORY:
Are you going to let those happen?

REP. PAUL RYAN:
So if Mitt Romney and I won the election they would not have happened. You know why? Because we would have gone and worked with Democrats and Republicans in Congress to actually put the budget on a path to balance and we'd have saved defense. So where are we right now? I think the sequester is going to happen because that $1.2 trillion in spending cuts, we can't lose to spending cuts.

That was to pay for the last debt ceiling increase, let alone any future increases. Don't forget one other thing. We passed legislation, I voted and passed it in the House, twice to replace those sequesters with cuts in other areas of government. So we've shown precisely how we should protect defense spending by cutting spending in other areas. And, by the way, in our budget last year we did take money out of defense. Just not nearly as much as the president seems to want to.

DAVID GREGORY:
But are you--

REP. PAUL RYAN:
But we think these sequesters will happen because the Democrats have opposed our efforts to replace those cuts with others and they've offered no alternatives.

DAVID GREGORY:
Is this worth shutting the government down over?

REP. PAUL RYAN:
No one's talking about shutting the government down.

DAVID GREGORY:
Well, but it's a piece of the leverage that conservatives have. You didn't want to fight over the debt ceiling because you thought you can't do that. You have to pay the government's bills. Do you think this fight over priorities is worth shutting the government down over?

REP. PAUL RYAN:
We're not interested in shutting the government down. What happens in March the 1st is spending goes down autonomy. March 27th is the moment you're talking about. The continued resolution expires. We are more than happy to keep spending at those levels going on into the future while we debate how to balance the budget. How to grow the economy. How to create economic opportunity.That's the kind of debate the country deserves. Because, by the way, if we keep going down this path we will have a debt crisis. It's not an if question, it's a when question.This isn't a Republican or a Democrat thing. It's a math thing and we have to get serious with this problem if we want to save people from the problems that inevitably would result from a debt crisis.

DAVID GREGORY:
Let me challenge you from a critic farther on the left. I mean there are a lot of centrist--

REP. PAUL RYAN:
I get those--

DAVID GREGORY:
Yeah, I know. A lot of centrists economists who may disagree with you in some areas but agree about the impending debt crisis. Some on the left, like a Paul Krugman, disagree. He calls you a deficit scold and he calls you worse than that. But his point is that you're being alarmist about the deficit and its relationship to how the economy performs and how the economy grows.

So here's what he wrote in his column on Friday. And let me get you to respond to it. "It was in fact a good thing that the deficit was allowed to rise as the economy slumped. With private spending plunging as the housing bubble popped and cash strapped families cut back, the willingness of the government to keep spending was one of the main reasons we didn't experience a full replay of the Great Depression." And this balance now by the way austerity, which he believes you call for, and appropriate investment on the part of the government is still where the great tension is.

REP. PAUL RYAN:
Well, we can debate the efficacy of Keynesian economics or not. And I don't obviously believe-- I think the debt is pretty clear it doesn't work. We're not preaching austerity. We're preaching growth and opportunity. What we are saying is if you get our fiscal ship fixed you preempt austerity.

Here's what a debt crisis is. A debt crisis is what they have in Europe, which is austerity. You cut the safety net immediately. You cut retirement benefits for people who have already retired. You raise taxes, slow down the economy, young people don't have jobs. That's the austerity that comes when you have a debt crisis. And when you keep stacking up trillion dollar deficits like this government is doing it's bringing us to that moment. Our job, our goal, is to prevent and preempt austerity so we can get back to growth.

DAVID GREGORY:
The question that I have is who's really with you. You know, a lot of the business community, natural allies, have now kind of come around to the president's way of thinking saying, "Look, you know, get more revenues if you want 'em. Raise tax rates if you need 'em. Let's just get something done." Silicon Valley, a lot of the innovators in the country, big job creators, big idea people, not natural allies of your way of thinking.

REP. PAUL RYAN:
I have--

DAVID GREGORY:
So that's the question it's sort of who's really with you on the--

REP. PAUL RYAN:
See, I don't know if I agree with that. They believe we should have tax reform. We have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. We're taxing our small businesses now at rates higher than corporations. We should have lower tax rates so we can be competitive. When we tax our job creators more than our foreign competitors tax theirs, they win, we lose. Silicon Valley--

DAVID GREGORY:
But the president--

(OVERTALK)

DAVID GREGORY:
--opposed to that, is he, on corporate taxes?

REP. PAUL RYAN:
He says so but he has yet to actually put out a vision or an agreement to actually make good on these promises. We hear the rhetoric but we never see the results. And, more importantly, businesses know we have to close this deficit. Businesses know we can't keep spending money we just don't have.

Businesses budget. Washington hasn't had a budget for four years. The president and his party have been in charge of Washington during this time. They have not budgeted for four years. And businesses know that you can't operate an enterprise, let alone the federal government, without budgeting.

DAVID GREGORY:
So let me have you respond to this other philosophical argument about entitlements. About the role of government. And the president really launched it as part of his inaugural address when he said this.

(Videotape)

PRESIDENT OBAMA: We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us at any time may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm. The commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, these things do not sap our initiative, they strengthen us.

They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.

(End videotape)

DAVID GREGORY:
Now that line of attack that didn't mention you by name, but certainly mentioned you in-- substance led back to a number of comments that you made about the makers versus takers. Here's one back in September of 2011. I'll show it.

(Videotape)

REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI): Right now, according to the Tax Foundation, between 60 and 70 percent of Americans get more benefits from the federal government than they pay back in taxes. So, we're getting towards a society where we have a net majority of takers versus makers.

(End videotape)

DAVID GREGORY:
How do you respond to it?

REP. PAUL RYAN:
But if you keep the context going, my point in making that statistic is it's not as these statistics lead you to believe. We don't want a dependency culture. We want a safety net that makes sure that people don't fall through the cracks. That gets people on their feet. Americans want the American dream and the point I make when I cite that statistic is it's not as it seems. People want the American want the American dream. They want lives of opportunity. They want to reach their potential.

And so our concern in this country is with the idea that more and more able bodied people are becoming dependent upon the government than upon themselves for their livelihoods. We want to make sure that we don't continue that trend. And when you take a look at those statistics, it's not as bad as those statistics say. People want lives of upper mobility. People want to chart their own course. They want to reach their potential. And our your policies should be--

DAVID GREGORY:
But--

REP. PAUL RYAN:
--geared toward doing that. So--

(OVERTALK)

REP. PAUL RYAN:
--no one is suggesting that Medicare and Social Security makes you taker. I mean these are people like my mom who worked hard, paid her taxes and now is collecting a benefit that she paid for. No one is suggesting people like my mom is a taker.

DAVID GREGORY:
But then why--

(OVERTALK)

DAVID GREGORY:
Look, you're citing figures that of course increase entitlements--

REP. PAUL RYAN:
The point I'm trying to say is--

(OVERTALK)

DAVID GREGORY:
--Social Security.

REP. PAUL RYAN:
--when these statistics get cited it leads you to think that America's gone. That we're becoming too much of a dependent culture. And my point has always been, "No, that's not the full picture. That's not the whole picture."

DAVID GREGORY:
Well, here's the criticism--

REP. PAUL RYAN:
We want the American (UNINTEL).

DAVID GREGORY:
--against you, and Jonathan Chait wrote about it in the New York Magazine blog this week and I'll put it up on the screen, which goes to whether you really want to expand the base of the party and reach out to the poor. This is what he writes as part of this argument. "Obama's arguing that misfortune can strike Americans in all forms. A disability, a storm, an illness or merely outliving our savings. And we have some obligation to each other."

"Ryan's budget," the one you proposed, "imposes savage cuts to food stamps, children's health insurance and other mitigations of suffering for the least fortunate. Oh, and Ryan also voted against relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy. By Ryan's definition, if the government is rebuilding your destroyed home, you're a taker too."

REP. PAUL RYAN:
Now, look, this is the straw man argument. The president said, I think the week earlier, that we have suspicions about Medicare and taking care of the elderly and feeding poor children. When he sets up these straw men, which is to affix views to his adversaries that they don't have to win the argument by default, it's not really an honest debate.

Here is the point we've been making all along. We want to have a safety net. A safety net that's there for the vulnerable, for the poor. For people who cannot help themselves. But we don't want to have a culture in this country that encourages more dependency that saps and drains people of their ability to make the most of their lives.

DAVID GREGORY:
But which part of the culture, the safety net--

REP. PAUL RYAN:
We want opportunity--

(OVERTALK)

DAVID GREGORY:
--culture today is doing that, because there's part of this cultures, as somebody--

REP. PAUL RYAN:
So--

DAVID GREGORY:
--pointed out this week, that you even benefited from after your father died when you got--

REP. PAUL RYAN:
Absolutely.

DAVID GREGORY:
--Social Security benefits.

REP. PAUL RYAN:
Survivor benefits helped me get (UNINTEL).

DAVID GREGORY:
Okay, so which part of the safety net culture is sapping America's opportunity right now?

REP. PAUL RYAN:
So this is the point we keep making with benefits. Take, like, food stamps, for example. The benefits that he talks about, the changes we made, all we're saying is you have to actually be eligible for this program to receive this program. We need to target these things to people who actually need them. And if our reforms on food stamps went through they would have grown by 260% over the last decade instead of 270%.

So when you call such reforms savage, that I think does a disservice to the quality of debate we need to have. And what we're trying to achieve here is a system where you have that safety net to help people who can't help themselves, but you have an opportunity society, education reform, economic growth, so that people can get on their feet and make the most of their lives and reach their potential. And that is what we're worried about losing in this country.

DAVID GREGORY:
One more on the budget. I want to talk about just a couple other things. Do you feel like there's just a failure to get to know each other in Washington? To really understand each other? You haven't had much contact with the president over the last couple of years. Somebody pointed out to me something I thought was smart, which is solving the problem on the budget is actually not complicated. Winning politically and solving the problem, that's hard. And that's what both sides seem to be locked into trying to do.

REP. PAUL RYAN:
Well, I don't think that the president thinks we actually have a fiscal crisis. He's been reportedly saying to our leaders that we don't have a spending problem. We have a healthcare problem, That leads me to conclude that he just thinks we ought to have more government-run healthcare and rationing. I don't think that's going to work.

And so there are a lot of Democrats that are good friends of mine who agree with us on how to do Medicare reform. On the need to do entitlement reform. On the need to do tax reform with lower rates for faster economic growth. The problem is the leaders of that problem don't seem to want to ever come to agreement with this.

And so my concern is the president may be more focused on political ends, you know in 2014, versus actually moving to the middle. When you saw his speech say at the inauguration it leads us to conclude that he's not looking to moderate. He's not looking to move to the middle. He's looking to go farther to the left and he wants to fight us every step of the way politically. And I don't think that's good for anybody in this country.

DAVID GREGORY:
It's reminiscent, isn't it, of a lot of the Republican leaders after his first inauguration getting together and sort of plotting how to make him a one term president. Is that how you see it? Is that a--

REP. PAUL RYAN:
No.

DAVID GREGORY:
--mirror image?

REP. PAUL RYAN:
I see it as we've got big problems in this country we've got to fix. We want to be a part of that solution. Whether people like it or not or intended it or not, we more or less had a status quo election. We have divided government. We have to make it work.

And when we see our country living far beyond its means, when we see our nation destroying our children's future by saddling them with a debt they can't handle, we've got to do something about that. And when we see families struggling in society in this stagnant economy, we've got to do things to grow the economy.

And the things that are coming out of Washington right now don't do that. And that's why we're offering solutions. That's why we are showing with our budget, "Here's how you grow the economy. Here's how you save your kids from a debt-laden future. Here's how you save Medicare." This is the kind of debate, the honest debate, that we need to have versus impugning people's motives.

DAVID GREGORY:
What did you learn from your run for the vice presidency and being Mitt Romney's running mate? What did you take away as a Republican as you look to the future?

REP. PAUL RYAN:
It was a great experience. I feel that I benefitted tremendously from that. My family got to see a lot of this country. We got to see countless people who just feel so passionate about their country. The other thing I learned was Mitt Romney would have been one heck of a great president. He's a very good man. And the big regret I have is we didn't win the election and we weren't able to put the kinds of reforms that we think are right for the country in place. And now we're going to have to use this tool of divided government to try and make it work.

DAVID GREGORY:
What do you think the part should learn from the loss?

REP. PAUL RYAN:
Well, we obviously have to expand our appeal. We have to expand our appeal to more people and somehow how we'll take the country's founding principles and apply them to the problems of the deal to offer solutions to fix our problems. We have to show how our ideas are better at fighting poverty. How our ideas are better at solving healthcare. How our ideas are better at solving the problems people are experiencing in their daily lives. And that's a challenge that we have to rise to and I think we're up for it.

DAVID GREGORY:
On a couple of issue-specific areas, immigration is one. What's it going to take to get conservatives to rally around an idea that illegal immigrants who are here now can stay without having to first leave, which is something you proposed--

REP. PAUL RYAN:
Yeah, touchback.

DAVID GREGORY:
--and get a pathway to citizenship. Do you think that conservatives can rally around that idea and ultimately get reform passed?

REP. PAUL RYAN:
Yeah, I think there's a balance between respecting the rule of law and adhering to the reality of the day. And I think Marco Rubio probably touched on it. I support and agree with the principles that he laid out about earned legalization. Making sure that you're not rewarding people for having cut in line, but making sure that we can fix this problem.

Look, we did immigration reform in '86. Then we tried to do it again in '96. We've been trying to do immigration since 2004. It's a system that's broken that needs fixing. And there are many of us who have been involved in this issue over the years.

Look, immigration's a good thing. We're here because of immigration. That's what America is. It's a melting pot. We think this is good. We need to make sure that it works. And so I think that there are Republicans and Democrats, many of us are talking to each other, that can come together with a good solution to make sure that this problem is fixed once and for all. And I think those Rubio principles do a really good job of adhering to the founding principles, respecting the rule of law and respecting those who came here for a better life.

DAVID GREGORY:
And do you see that getting done this year?

REP. PAUL RYAN:
I do. That's one of the areas where I feel that-- I think the president's got a big speech coming up. The question that many of us are asking, Republicans and Democrats, is he looking to play politics or does he want to solve the problem. We don't know the answer to that yet, but I do know that there are a lot of Democrats in Congress who once and for all want to solve this problem, fix this mess, a broken immigration system. And many of us agree with that. So hopefully we can actually get this done.

DAVID GREGORY:
On gun control legislation, are there any new regulations that you could support?

REP. PAUL RYAN:
Well, I think the question of whether or not a criminal is getting a gun is a question we need to look at. That's what the background check issue's all about. And I think we need to look into making sure that there aren't big loopholes where a person can illegally purchase a firearm.

But I also think we need to look beyond just recycling failed policies of the past. Let's not take this moment-- look, you and I are the same age with the same age kids. The same number of kids. It's our worst nightmare, something like this happening. Let's go beyond just this debate and make sure we get deeper. What's our policy on mental illness. What's going on in our culture that produces this kind of thing? You know, we need to have that kind of a discussion and debate. And I hope we don't just skip past that and bring out political ideas that recycle failed policies of the past.

DAVID GREGORY:
You seem to see a lot of division here. You think the president in some ways is trying to finish off the Republican party. So I don't hear you as sanguine about more comprehensive reform in the ways that you think is necessary.

REP. PAUL RYAN:
No.

DAVID GREGORY:
You blame the president for that and his mindset.

REP. PAUL RYAN:
Look, I decided to not comment between the election and the inauguration because I wanted to see what kind of president we were looking at here. What kind of path and trajectory he was putting his administration on. And all of the statements and all of the comments lead me to believe that he's thinking more of a political conquest than political compromise.

And that's my concern. And this is why we're going to have a big debate this spring about how to balance the budget. About how to save us from a debt crisis. About how to grow the economy. And I think there are issues, like immigration reform, where there are Democrats and Republicans who want to come together to fix the problem. The question is will the president frustrate that or will he facilitate that. I just don't know the answer to that question.

DAVID GREGORY:
It was interesting, on the day of the inauguration Brian Williams and I and others were talking and we noticed some video during the luncheon after the inauguration. And one of the things that caught our eye was a great moment here, you have your back to us, but there are you and you're speaking. You're with Secretary Clinton but also President Clinton. And that's just one of those moments where you say, "Gosh, what were they talking about?" Any advice there coming from--

(OVERTALK)

REP. PAUL RYAN:
We were talking about personal health. Both of us lost our dads when we were young and we were just talking. I got concussions when I was young and Hillary was talking about hers. And we were just kind of chumming it up. Look, if we had Clinton presidency, if we had Erskine Bowles, chief staff of the White House or president of the United States, I think we would have fixed this fiscal mess by now. That's not the kind of presidency we're dealing with right now.

DAVID GREGORY:
And you don't blame conservatives, particularly in the House--

REP. PAUL RYAN:
Everybody. Look both--

DAVID GREGORY:
--for thwarting the effort?

REP. PAUL RYAN:
Both parties. Forget about just the recent past. Both parties got us to the mess we are in, this fiscal crisis. Republicans and Democrats. And you know what? It's going to take both parties to solve this problem. That's the kind of leadership we need today.

DAVID GREGORY:
So how do you think about
2016 and a presidential run?

REP. PAUL RYAN:
I don't.

DAVID GREGORY:
You don't. You're not thinking about it now?

REP. PAUL RYAN:
I think it's just premature. I've got an important job to do. I represent Wisconsin. I'm chairman of the budget committee at the time we have a fiscal crisis. I think I can do my job representing the people I work for by focusing on that right now than focusing on these distant things.

DAVID GREGORY:
But you'll take serious look at it?

REP. PAUL RYAN:
I'll decide later about that. Right now I'm just focused on this.

DAVID GREGORY:
All right. Chairman, thank you very much.

REP. PAUL RYAN:
You know what, thank you.

DAVID GREGORY:
As always. Appreciate it.

(COMMERCIAL)

DAVID GREGORY:
President's nominee to run the State Department, Senator John Kerry, faced questions during his confirmation hearing before the Senate foreign relations committee this week. During his opening remarks Kerry was interrupted by an anti-war protester, which triggered this personal reflection.

(COMMERCIAL)

DAVID GREGORY:
Nearly 42 years ago it was Kerry who aimed to have his voice heard when he first appeared on-Capitol Hill, not as a politician but as a protester. The year, 1971, and he was part of an anti-war group testifying before that very committee. But it was days before, on this program, where Kerry gave the country its first look at a future leader and it's this morning's Meet The Press moment.

(VIDEO NOT TRANSCRIBED)

DAVID GREGORY:
As Kerry prepares for his new assignment he faces some critical challenges as the president's foreign policy opens a new chapter. It's among the topics we will tackle with our political roundtable. Coming up next.

(OFF-MIC CONVERSATION)

DAVID GREGORY:
We're back with our roundtable. Joining me, president and CEO of the NAACP, Ben Jealous. Former senator from South Carolina, incoming president of the Conservative Heritage Foundation, Jim DeMint. NBC News special correspondent for Rock Center, Ted Koppel. We love to reinforce NBC's own Ted Koppel. Author and associate editor for The Washington Post, Bob Woodward. And NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent, Andrea Mitchell.

Welcome to all of you. A lot to get to. And as we react to Paul Ryan this morning I want to show some of the headlines from the president's inaugural address, because he really speaks to it. "Obama offers a liberal vision. We must act," The L.A. Times. Again, talking about a liberal vision.

Charles Krauthammer wrote this in The Washington Post and it caught my attention on Friday and I want to put it up on the screen. "His mission," speaking of Obama, "is to redeem and resurrect the 50 year pre-Reagan liberal ascendancy. Accordingly, his second inaugural address ideologically unapologetic and aggressive. Is his historical marker his self proclamation as the Reagan of the left? If he succeeds in these next four years, he will have earned the title." And I show that, Bob Woodward, because what Paul Ryan said that I thought was so notable is that he believes this president is more interested in political conquest than political compromise. That is the backdrop for a second term.

BOB WOODWARD:
And Ryan's an important figure in this in many ways and I think you agree. He's, quite likely, the future of the Republican party. But if you go back three years ago, President Obama himself publicly said that the Ryan proposal on Medicare was serious and legitimate.

The president is playing-- and not that the Republicans aren't. They play a lot of politics. But the president is playing politics too.

And when I talked to the president six months ago about Medicare he said the spending trajectory is untenable. And so he knows there needs to be a fix in this area. And what's the shame in all of this is that they can't kind of sit down and work it out because-- if you were the negotiator up at Camp David, you'd be able to do it.

ANDREA MITCHELL:
And one of the problems is they're not at Camp David. They're not sitting down together. But the State of the Union I think should not be viewed-- rather, the inaugural day should not be viewed as a State of the Union speech. This is not the place where he was laying out-- I'm told by White House officials that what he put on the table on Medicare and on entitlements is still out there and still he wants to negotiate it.

And I think Paul Ryan is going to be leading the Republican side on where they go on this. There are going to be serious negotiations. They have to get down to it. I think where the liberal or progressive mission was from the inaugural speech was on human rights. On Dr. King's legacy. On gay rights. That was profoundly moving and important. That's where he sees his legacy.

DAVID GREGORY:
But it's interesting. That's not going to drive--

ANDREA MITCHELL: UNINTEL

DAVID GREGORY:
--legislation as much, Ted Koppel. The big--

ANDREA MITCHELL:
No.


DAVID GREGORY:
--issues of the day are the ones we've been fighting for the last several years. How much taxes, how much in spending cuts and this role of government.

TED KOPPEL:
David, I think the president recognizes the obvious. That is he's got eight to 12 months to do things and the time for being coy is long over. He laid it out and he laid it out without any ambiguity. I think he's going to push, he's going to push hard and he's going to push immediately.

DAVID GREGORY:
Where Jim DeMint, former senator, where do you see your party pushing? Where should they push? How do they balance conservative principles with a real desire on the part of the public to see compromise and to see achievement?

FMR. SEN. JIM DEMINT:
Well, Paul Ryan was talking about one of the most important moral issues of our time. The fact that we are stealing from our children and we're putting so much debt on them that their lives, their opportunities are going to be greatly diminished.

And what he said about balancing our budget or putting our country on at least a path to balance our budget in 10 years is a complete contrast with what President Obama is talking about. Before we get into all the political labels and the specifics, it's clear the president plans OT keep spending and borrowing and putting more debt on our children. So America has a perfect contrast between the directions that they want to go. We know--

DAVID GREGORY:
But we've just had an election, senator, with two different directions, and America chose. I mean that's something that Paul Ryan said. He said last year the country will choose what happens in 2013.

FMR. SEN. JIM DEMINT:
Right.

DAVID GREGORY:
And they did. So aren't we past the point of two different visions in choosing?

FMR. SEN. JIM DEMINT:
I don't think the country has chosen that. In fact we see almost in the majority of states now where conservative, bold visionary governors are implementing the ideas that work. And that's what conservatism really is. Whether it's cutting taxes or freedom in the workplace or education choice.

What we want to do and what we need to do for the American people is show them the successes and which ideas work. We can show where President Obama's ideas go. And we can look in history at countries that fail. At Europe today. We can look at his home state of illness. The tax and spend and big government approach has always failed. So our job as conservatives is to make sure Americans know that. And we need to show it with real people and real faces.

DAVID GREGORY:
Ben Jealous, a lot of this, we have to remind ourselves, is about economic growth. What makes the economy grow. What gets people back to work. And what role does Washington play in that?

BEN JEALOUS:
You know, look, we now how to get out of tough times. We got out of the Great Depression investing in what we wanted to be as a country. By investing in jobs rather than focusing on our fears. You know, I will push back and say that the big issues of this day Alaska include marriage equality. They include comprehensive immigration reform. They include making sure that we lift all boats.

And right now when you look at joblessness in this country, you know, the country's back to pretty much where it was then this president started. White people in this country are doing a bit better. Black folks are doing a full point worse when it comes to it. You know, and so with this president having said to us, "We need to invest in strategies that lift all boats," And was that some boats are clearly more stuck, the question is will Congress join him in getting those boats unstuck too.

DAVID GREGORY:
Now, but the question, Ted Koppel, as well is where the president tries to seek a way forward. I mean he doesn't think much of Republicans in terms of their approach or being able to deal with them, but he could also confuse the opposition a little bit if he would take the reigns and say, "Look, we're going to have to do big spending cuts and here's why." It's ultimately helpful for the solvency of the country, even if he has to push back against some Democrats.

TED KOPPEL:
Look, David, I'm going to defer to some of the others here who spend more time covering domestic policy. I think this president is going to end up facing some of the biggest foreign policy crises that we've had in many years. And I know you want to get to that a little bit later, so let me hold my--

(OVERTALK)

DAVID GREGORY:
Well, Bob, answer that piece of it.

BOB WOODWARD:
\Well, look, this can be worked out. If you look at the plans, and they seem very abstract when Paul Ryan and President Obama talk about them, they're just saying, "Let's fix a little bit on the entitlement front." And they're not saying, "Let's start tomorrow cutting." They're saying, "Let's start in five years or 10 years." It is all doable and fixable.

And then this gets to the engine of the economy. And if you fix that, if you stabilize the debt in some reasonable way, we're going to have growth. The unemployment rate should come down. And President Obama is exactly right. Focusing on the people at the lower end here. You fix and help the people at the lower end by getting the economy going again. You're exactly right.

And that psychologically for the business community, for Democrats and Republicans, it's so important that there be some consensus. I mean you get Paul Ryan here with his charts and it looks like the world is going to end at some point. And you need to get everyone on board to the idea, "No, the world is not going to end."

DAVID GREGORY:
Andrea, I was on Capitol Hill this weekend. You get a sort of state of play where there's a sense that a lot of the gun legislation is not going to be successful. Immigration is moving apace. They're having very constructive conversations, Republicans and Democrats together. The entitlement piece is going to be hard. Whether the president wants to go very far on Medicare. He's got, you know, liberals saying, "Don't do it. Don't raise the retirement age." So how do these pieces come together here and the next--

ANDREA MITCHELL:
Well, that is--

DAVID GREGORY:
--three, four, five months?

ANDREA MITCHELL:
--exactly the question, because when he even suggested raising that retirement age from 65 to 67, decades from now, actually, and not affecting current retirees, the whole liberal based exploded again him. The AARP went to war against him. So he has to decide whether he's going to take that on, because even his budget negotiators, the people who were in the gang of six and working, like Dick Durbin said, that that was a non-starter. That is the big question.

You know, on immigration, you see these negotiations with Lindsey Graham and McCain and Rubio on the Republican side and Durbin and Schumer and others on the Democratic side. They are really making progress. The president's giving a speech on Tuesday with outlines. The question now is he going to send legislation up. That's still to be determined. And he's just met with the Hispanic caucus and with these senators in the last couple of days.

The other thing is guns. And despite all the hints from the White House that they are not backing off of the assault weapon bans, most people I've been talking to in recent days inside the White House and out agree that that is really going to be the biggest lift. But if they can get the magazines and the background checks and something in mental health they think that there is something that can be done there.

DAVID GREGORY:
Senator DeMint, part of the calculation for Republicans is where do they push. Where do they fight. What battles do they pick. And this is part of a period of self examination for the party that you're a part of as well. Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana, was outspoken on Thursday talking to Republicans. Here's part of what he said.

(Videotape)

GOV. BOBBY JINDAL (R-la): We must stop being the stupid party. It's time for a new Republican party that talks like adults. It's time for us to articulate our plans and visions for America in real terms. We had a number of Republicans damage the brand this year with offensive and bizarre comments. We've had enough of that.

(End videotape)

DAVID GREGORY:
He's arguing that that's getting in the way. Colin Powell, on this program a couple of weeks ago, talking about a deep vein of intolerance within the Republican party. How do you respond to that as you take a look at where the party needs to go?

FMR. SEN. JIM DEMINT:
I talked to Governor Jindal yesterday because we're on the same page of where we need to go. He knows that spending more than we're bringing in in this debt is a moral argument that we need to connect with the American people. And not just in numbers, but we need to help people see that what we're doing here in Washington, the politicians are the real takers because they're taking the future away. Every paycheck is going to be worth less and the future of our children with the debt on the head means that the opportunities that they could have are going to be diminished.

DAVID GREGORY:
And that's not quite what he's speaking of there.

FMR. SEN. JIM DEMINT:
Well, he--

DAVID GREGORY:
What he's talking about is how the brand positions itself.

FMR. SEN. JIM DEMINT:
I'm not going to--

DAVID GREGORY:
How it reaches out to people?

FMR. SEN. JIM DEMINT:
--speak for Republicans. And one of the reasons I left Congress is because I don't believe the politicians are going to solve our problems unless the American people force them to. They're going to keep spending and borrowing in Washington. They're going to keep implementing policies, as Ben just said, that hurt minorities. They're worse off.

And we can go to Detroit and Philadelphia and Chicago where these liberal, progressive policies have been in place for decades and you see Latinos and African Americans in failing schools, with high unemployment. What we're going to do, and I know what Governor Jindal is going to do, along with a lot of other governors, is show the success stories where the right ideas are implemented. And we're going to show the failures in Detroit and Philadelphia and L.A.

DAVID GREGORY:
Ben, comment before we go to a break--

BEN JEALOUS:
Well, look--

DAVID GREGORY:
--here.

BEN JEALOUS:
--there are places where we can totally work together. (UNINTEL) reform is one of them. But the real question for GOP is whether they're willing to give up on the gasoline that has been the old Dixie crowd rhetoric that they've indulged in for the past 40 years. And we talked about those bizarre, insulting comments. That's what he's talking about. Playing to the cheap seats again and again and again.

They need to stop. They need to say, "Look, we have an old brand as the grand old party. The party of Lincoln. The party of Kemp. The party of people who united this country again and again. Let's be that. And let's stop trying to be these Dixiecrats, 'cause it just doesn't work for anybody."

DAVID GREGORY:
Now Senator, do you regret, you know, some of the comments about abortion in this last cycle? About rape? About, again, what Colin Powell thought were veiled racist comments from the party?

FMR. SEN. JIM DEMINT:
Well, David, the fact that we are losing over 3,000 unborn children a day is an important issue. But Republicans or conservatives should not engage in a debate about exceptions for abortion when the other side will not even agree that we have a real people or real human beings. And we need to fight the battle where it should be fought. Life is important. We know from all the new technology and improved sonograms that we do have a baby. And it's important that we fight for that.

But instead of just offering my opinion on some hypothetical debate about exceptions for abortions we need to move it back and particularly work with the states that are fighting for just the personhood of the child. And if we can start there I think America will move with us.

DAVID GREGORY:
All right. A little different than the question about rhetoric and how that it reaches voters, but I'm going to take a break here. And when I come back I want to move the debate a little bit. Talk about foreign policy in this president's second term. Hillary Clinton in the hot seat this week talking about Benghazi and the threat that is ahead that she warned about that, as Ted Koppel suggests, could occupy a lot of the president's time. We'll get to that as we hear more from our roundtable after this.

(COMMERCIAL)

(Videotape)

HILLARY CLINTON: With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans...

SEN RON JOHNSON: I understand...

HILLARY CLINTON: Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they'd go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.

(End videotape)

DAVID GREGORY:
A combative section of the hearing on Benghazi on Capitol Hill this week. We're back with more of the roundtable. Ted Koppel, wider than just the Benghazi investigation and the questions are about a region that's in ferment, in revolution in certain parts. Where there are a lot of threats facing the United States and it's not getting a lot of attention thus far from the administration. Certainly from the president's inaugural address. And there are real fears in the region that Iran, particularly, is going to be on the edge of causing problems for the U.S.?

TED KOPPEL:
I think, David, as I suggested before, that we're entering one of the most dangerous periods this country has ever known. A, it's not over in Afghanistan. B, to the degree that al Qaeda has moved over into Pakistan, that's a country that has over 100 nuclear weapons. Syria, which is an ongoing problem, the suggestion constantly seems to be that we need to come in on the side of the rebels. There at least 1,000 al Qaeda members in Syria today fighting on the side of the rebels. If the chemical weapons fall into their hands, big problems.

You mentioned Iran. Remember now, and it may even have been on this program, I think that Bibi Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, suggested that come spring, come early summer, if the Iranians still have not pulled back from building a nuclear weapon the Israelis may attack. The Iranians would respond against the United States. And they have the capacity to do it with cyber war.

BOB WOODWARD:
I think it's even bigger and more troubling than that. It isn't just the Middle East and that region. Look at North Korea announcing that they are going to target the United States. They have nuclear weapons, unlike Iran at this point. You look at what happened in Algeria and Mali. The Egypt problem is not solved. I actually had one of the experts tell me recently that the next book I ought to do is this whole sweep of foreign policy and the working title of the book would be Meltdown.

DAVID GREGORY:
And, Andrea, I want you to respond to something. Hillary Clinton, when she was not talking about Benghazi, issued a warning for her successor, which, I gather, she also wanted to make sure was heard inside the White House when she talked about the region. In this case North Africa, the al Qaeda presence. Bigger than Benghazi. This is what she said.

(Videotape)

HILLARY CLINTON: Let me underscore the importance of the United States continuing to lead in the Middle East, in North Africa and around the world.

When America is absent, especially from unstable environments, there are consequences. Extremism takes root, our interests suffer, our security at home is threatened.

(End videotape)

ANDREA MITCHELL:
I think she is trying to warn the administration and the world that we cannot retreat from this engagement here. And right now, overnight, we've seen that the U.S. is doing refueling of French fighters in Mali, which is very troublesome to some. It is a much more aggressive posture. But the U.K. has taken all of their nationals out of Somalia overnight.

This area of North Africa, as Bob and Ted were just saying, is the most dangerous perhaps in the world, aside from Pakistan and Afghanistan, which are nuclear armed against each other. Pakistan and India are nuclear armed against each other and what's happening in Afghanistan, as we retreat and the effect on that, and North Korea. So they have to really not just look at immigration and guns and the budget as the next challenges here.

DAVID GREGORY:
But have we figured out-- Senator, have we figured out what the balance is between invasions, nation building, a huge commitment on the part of the United States in this part of the world and turning our eye away from governments that can become illegitimate or failed states that invite either terrorists or authoritarian regimes to take root?

FMR. SEN. JIM DEMINT:
Well, there's not a lot of patience for the requirements of understanding here in Washington. What Secretary Clinton said reflected a deep problem, not just in foreign policy but domestic policy, when she said, "What difference does it make." It's the same type of thing we see on all policies. It's an unwillingness to really bore down and understand the root causes of failures and successes.

And that's why I think we see our foreign policy going in a lot of directions. It doesn't seem to be coherent. It sends signals of weakness. We don't understand what North Korea really is doing right now. It is not just to provoke us, but it's a product demonstration for Iran and other countries that want to see if these things work because we know North Korea wants to sell them. So I think there is a perception of American weakness but our problem here is the failure to really understand what is motivating these other countries and how we can affect--

(OVERTALK)

DAVID GREGORY:
But is that--

BEN JEALOUS:
That's what the conversation should be. The conversation hasn't really been about that. At least not that we the voters see. What we see is people in Washington kind of picking on each other, focusing on the personalities. Who knew what when. What we want to hear as voters is what's really happening out here and what are you going to make us--

DAVID GREGORY:
But, Ted, that comes back to my point. Do we have a real policy approach that is somewhere in between a projection of American power and just leaving the region?

TED KOPPEL:
I mean the answer is yes. I don't think, Ben, that it means that we necessarily have a strategy, but we have new tactics. We have moved away from the big unit operations. Divisions, tanks. And are moving more in the direction of special operations. C.I.A. Drones. Civilian contractors. Cyber warfare.

This is what you're going to see happening. But we're also playing whack-a-mole with al Qaeda. And I think one of the greatest mistakes that the president has made is in leaving America with a sense that somehow al Qaeda has been dealt with, the war in Afghanistan is over, the war in Iraq is over. Fact of the matter is, we've got major problems and al Qaeda is--

DAVID GREGORY:
I want to get to a political note. It happened on 60 Minutes tonight, an interview with the president and his outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raising a lot of eyebrows. Here's a portion of the interview.

(Videotape)

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I just wanted to have a chance to publicly say thank you cause I think Hillary will go down as one of the finest Secretary of States that we’ve had. It has been a great collaboration over the last four years. I’m going to miss her.

HILLARY CLINTON: A few years ago, it would have been seen as improbable because we had that very long, hard primary campaign

Look, in politics and in democracy sometimes you win elections and sometimes you lose elections and I worked very hard, but then I lost and President Obama asked me to be Secretary of State and I said yes. Why did he ask me and why did I say yes? Because we both love our country.

(End videotape)

DAVID GREGORY:
Andrea, is he passing the baton?

ANDREA MITCHELL:
You could imagine the Joe Biden camp reaction to that. Unprecedented and an interview that President Obama has never done an interview with anyone other than his wife and here he's doing it with the secretary of State. I've talked to a lot of Democrats who say that if she decides, and she hasn't decided, but if she decides, and she's completely positioned for it, to run, she clears the field.

That there is no one else. Not Cuomo, not the Maryland governor, not Joe Biden. No one can take her on. Because after eight years of President Obama who could in and, as a woman, and as a non-Obama person originally, be enough of an outsider to challenge a Republican.

(OVERTALK)

BEN JEALOUS:
This is a real powerful historic mandate.

BOB WOODWARD:
But don't wipe Joe Biden off the slate. I Mean he has been a vital part of the Obama--

ANDREA MITCHELL:
No, I--

(OVERTALK)

BOB WOODWARD:
--administration on foreign affairs and on domestic affairs. He's the one who goes and makes the secret deals with McConnell.

DAVID GREGORY:
That's right.

BOB WOODWARD:
He is the go to--

ANDREA MITCHELL:
But Bob, I'm saying what Democratic--

BOB WOODWARD:
Right.

ANDREA MITCHELL:
--leaders are saying. I'm just quoting what they say. That she is--

DAVID GREGORY:
But plenty of--

(OVERTALK)

DAVID GREGORY:
--time to (UNINTEL) the seed. It ain't over but it's over for us this morning. Thank you all very much. We'll come back and have our final moments in just a minute.

(COMMERCIAL)

DAVID GREGORY:
Thanks to the roundtable this morning. Before we go, a quick programming note, you can watch this week’s PRESS Pass conversation with Martin Indyk, former ambassador to Israel, director of foreign policy at the Brooking Institution. Some of the big bets President Obama will be making in his second term in foreign policy. that’s at MeetthePressNBC.com. That’s all for today. We’ll be back next week, if it’s Sunday, it’s Meet the Press.

* * * END OF TRANSCRIPT * * *

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