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against chuck hagel. what is it about is? is it for show? is it about something hagel said in the cloakroom? is it the unfairness of vietnam itself that some went and sond didn't. is it about johnson's inability to win that war or end it. what burns so deeply in john mccain these days? it seems to excite those who knew nothing about vietnam but want to replay it. we big into the deep well of resentment purning in john mccain's patriotic heart. a resentment not against the north vietnamese who imprisoned and tr toured him all those years, no the against george w. bush and his political henchmen who tried to stain mccain's reputation back in 2000, but against a guy who fought against fear and ralliesed against wounds just like he did in the same army of america's long nightmare in vietnam, chuck hagel. a nightmare by the way whose flashbacks must haunt still the mind and hart of john sidney mccain. i'm joined by david con and joy reid. both of you, sir and lady, are younger than me but i'm convinced we're watching a flashback. watch this. here is senator john mccain. did he a
his nomination of chuck hagel. we're looking live at the senate where moments from now they're going to take a vote that's likely to delay the confirmation of a much-needed secretary of defense for this country, a country, by the way, that's still at war, and we'll bring you that live. but first, we take you on an exclusive tour of wayne lapierre's new york. that's right. this is how the nra's chief executive describes the city of new york today in an opinion piece published on the daily caller beb site. after hurricane sandy, he writes, we saw the hellish world that the gun prohibitionists see as their utopia. looters ran wild in south brooklyn, and if you wanted to walk several miles to get supplies, you better get back before dark or you might not get home at all. yes. while nobody in this city recognizes that bogus, racist, and entirely mythical description of new york during the hurricane, mr. lapierre says ordinary americans are now at the mercy of everything from marauding latino gangs to urban thugs and drug dealers and woe to him who cannot defend himself and his property. >
! >>> the posturing around chuck hagel's nomination for a defense secretary, well, it's getting murkier by the minute. are republicans gearing up to deny an up or down vote for the pentagon kick before the weekend? >>> president obama's road show policy push hits atlanta today and we'll take a deep dive into the options and odds of the president having to fall back on executive actions, because his policies won't go anywhere in congress. >>> and the republican ruckus over karl rove's conservative counter-strategy is reaching a bit of a fever pitch. but is the core of this fight really about the messengers or the message itself? >> good morning from washington and happy valentine's day. it's thursday, february 14th, 2013. this is "the daily rundown." i'm chuck todd. let's get right to my first reads of the morning. it may be valentine's day, but not a lot of love for chuck hagel. next week a nato meeting of defense ministers is scheduled in brussels. but given the way chuck hagel's nomination is going, it's possible the u.s. may not have a new defense secretary there or leon panetta may be forced to g
. the senate will need 60 votes to end a filibuster on defense secretary nominee chuck hagel. republican senator james inhofe of oklahoma is leading the charge to block hagel. harry reid scheduled the vote to end the filibuster for friday. >> this is the first time in the history of our country that a presidential nominee for secretary of defense has been filibustered. what a shame. >> howard, is hagel, is the nomination in trouble? >> a little bit. i think in the end it will get through. but i think this a way, chuck hagel has kind of become the pinata for republicans, because he is within reach. president obama is not. president obama is on the right side politically on most of these political issues. the republicans can't touch him, and they know it. the only person they can whack right now is chuck hagel. i mean, chuck hagel is a perfectly acceptable defense secretary. and privately, most republicans would say the same thing. but for a whole host of reasons, the only person that the republican right can go after right now is hagel, and they're going to do it. >> yeah. >> and i think
. senator kerry as well as senator chuck hagel, both served honorably in vietnam and in combat while dick cheney made sure that he got five different deferments to avoid fighting a war, vietnam, that he loved supporting. so let's take a look at the cheney legacy and see how it stacks up to the president's so-called second rate team. we've got an expert, howard fineman is editorial director of the "huffington post" and joan walsh is editor-at-large of salon. both are msnbc political analysts. dick cheney says the president's national security rate team is second rate. that's rich coming from the man who did more than anyone to sell the u.s. on a completely unnecessary war. take a look. >> we know with absolute certainty he is enriching ewe rain yaum. >> we believe he has reconstituted nuclear weapons. i agree we will be greeted as liberators. we learn there was a relationship between iraq and al qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s, that it involved training, for example, on bw and cw that al qaeda sent personnel to bagd to get trained on the systems. it provide
in benghazi. >> i don't think we should allow brennan to go forward for the cia directorship, hagel to be confirmed as secretary of defense until the white house gives us an accounting, did the president ever pick up the phone and call anyone in the libyan government to help these folks? what did the president do? yes, i'm going to ask my colleagues just like they did with john bolton, joe biden said, no confirmation without information. no confirmation without information. >> you are saying that you are going to block the nominations -- you're going to block them from coming to a vote until you get an answer? >> yes. >> now, john mccain has already think that he doesn't think republicans ought to filibuster this. what will you do? you're just going to put a hold on it? >> yeah, i'm not filibustering. this is a national security failure of monumental proportions, and i'm not going to stop until we get to the bottom of it. >> first of all, i'm shocked. you know, lindsey graham doesn't usually like getting in front of a camera and going on the sunday talk shows. so i'm shocked that li
, they seem to be ready, the american people are with them. he's handling the fight over chuck hagel. it looks like hagel, despite the sort of abuse he got yesterday will be confirmed. but then it's also jack lew. we have heard that may be contentious, john brennan. steven chu announced he's stepping down. that's another opening to fill. not to mention susan rice's. at some point how much of a distraction are these fights and how much political capital do they eat up that sort of takes away from some of these policy things we're talking about? >> well, it's always a risk and it's become obviously a bigger deal in recent years and this is one of the reasons why i think rice stepped out of the running there because she didn't want to become a distraction. obviously any post that has to be filled up will eat up a little bit of your capital, but tames there are a lot of issue that is can't be ignored. the sequestration battles and unlike julian, i do kind of think that's a difference between the gun and the immigration battle in that republicans themselves really want this immigration issue off th
are watching the senate floor. we are expecting the final debate to start on chuck hagel's nomination for defense secretary any moment. it's been a is seven-week long battle but mainly it's been held up over politics. this first vote that will come this morning is procedural. if that moves forward, a second vote to confirm him would happen this afternoon. >>> check out the headline from "the huffington post," immigration and customs enforcement frees detainees as sequester looms. they were let out as the budget cuts loom. the president is heading to newport news, virginia, to a navy shipyard. today the impact there could be significant. late word this morning that the president will bring a local republican congressman, scott rigell, with him. obama is not seen in newport news as any sort of safe you're but rather as the leader of dysfunctional government that is playing havoc with people's lives and people are bitter. >> this is not time for a road show president. this is a time to look for someone who will leave. >> the president really ought to stop come paining and come back to th
got to tell you, it's, many, many, many years ago. >> quickly, chuck hagel, a vote of his nomination postponed this week. senate republicans saying they need more time, and more financial information. they said that the gop action was unprecedented saying that in part, the committee cannot have two different sets of financial disclosing standard force one nominee and then one for senator hagel and one for other nominees. what is going on with the hagel nomination? >> if it sounds like a jury asking for more information for the judge after it's sequestee- after it's sequestered to make a decision. that is what it is. they are acting exactly like a jury. this is a great deal of political theater. i heard from a number of people who think, fairly certain that hagel has enough votes to get confirmed. >> yeah. >> but it's not a sure thing and especially since his weak performance in front of the committee last week. i think they will make it as difficult for him as they can. >> last question, president obama, among those honoring leon panetta yesterday in an armed forces tribute. what is
to new taxes. other than that, they're divided by chuck hagel and a legislative and pr strategy for dealing with the sequester, divided about immigration, divided to some extent about just the general posture towards the president. and i think you see in that poll, you know, you say who's the republican party unpopular with? to some extent obviously with democrats. but the reason the number's down so low is a lot of republicans are unhappy with the party. some from the right and some from the left. i think right now the president and his team are firing on all cylinders on the pr war leading up to the sequester. and republicans have put themselves in a weakened position. a lot of long-term issues as well. >> when your brand is in the 20s, you're in harry truman and george w. bush territory. it's just not good. and you know, the president is winning the day on a lot of issues, especially when it comes to dealing with gun violence. if you look at the poll, overwhelmingly, americans think that this country needs stricter gun laws. that obviously is an offshoot of not only newtown b
reacted more quickly. i think john kerry will push the administration and that direction. chuck hagel to a certain extent by not putting boots in the ground and areas where we know little and have no idea what the out come will be. the example is libya and what happened in benghazi. a huge intem jens failure. not the state department, but the cia. >> with syria, we move our red lines and losing credibility. you said that militarism has negatively affected the period abroad. i wonder if you weigh in on whether you think his drone program or the expansion of the drone program has damaged our reputation abroad even further. >> for damaged our reputation bad low. the idea that a president is sitting in the white house with a hit list with candidates for targeted killings is an outrage. the real blunder was to nominate john brennan as the director of central intelligence that explain a policy he orchestrated and conceived and is responsible for implementing. any other would note have dealt with the questions that john brennan had to deal with. i think obama should go back to the positions