Notorious Islamophobic far-right radio host Dana Loesch is stepping up to the plate to make Pamela Geller, Brigitte Gabriel, Frank Gaffney, and the Islamophobia Lobby happy by demonizing Huma Abedin, a Deputy Chief of Staff and aide to Secretary of State (and possible 2016 Presidential contender) Hillary Clinton.
Nevertheless, TeaNN contributor Loesch repeated the false claim by Bachmann without challenge on her radio show.
From the 07.19.2012 edition of KFTK's The Dana Show:
Next up, at last Thursday's FreePAC, with Glenn Beck and a few other prominent Conservatives, she stated that "the media is supposed to be our watchdog, not Obama's lap dog."
Guess what, Dana, the mainstream media is the lap dog of the 1% corporatists and NOT Obama or the Democrats.
Next up is Loesch's berating of a Christian conservative caller who opposed Chick-Fil-A's anti-LGBTQ policies on The Dana Show.
From the 07.24.2012 edition of KFTK's The Dana Show:
ABC again invited CNN contributor and conservative pundit Dana Loesch to be part of its This Week roundtable, even though she has promoted a conspiracy theory that her CNN co-workers described as "McCarthy-like." On her radio show earlier this week, Loesch promoted the fringe idea that Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin "is essentially a member of the female version of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim Sisterhood." The comment was the subject of a letter circulated by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) attacking Abedin.
Similarly, Loesch attacked a caller to her show this week who said she opposed Chick-Fil-A management's stance against gay marriage, telling her that "I know you hate Christ." Loesch claimed that as a supporter of marriage equality, the woman could not be a Christian. Polls over the last decades have shown declining opposition to same-sex marriage among evangelicals, and among Americans in general.
But Loesch nevertheless repeated the claim on This Week, saying, "obviously the CEO is a Christian, people are shocked that he's for traditional marriage? It just doesn't make sense to me."
The other panelists on the roundtable were This Week regular, Newsweek and Washington Post writer, and conservative George Will, Huffington Post/AOL Media's Arianna Huffington, and former Bush/Cheney consultant and Democrat-turned-Republican Matthew Dowd.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Upcoming HBO movie on the 2008 campaign, "Game Change." This film still being written this year in the primaries and the caucuses. I'm joined, as always, on our roundtable by George Will, Arianna Huffington, the editor-in-chief of the Huffington Media Group, Dana Loesch, the editor of BigJournalism.com, also conservative talk radio show host, and Matthew Dowd, our ABC News political analyst.
And let's begin with the big events on the Republican side this week, George. You had Florida, big win for Mitt Romney, and he follows it up with another one in Nevada last night. Seems like the inevitable nominee.
WILL: He is I think the inevitable nominee, but in Florida, turnout was down 14 percent over 2008. Granted, in 2008 there was a ballot initiative that may have pumped up -- still, enthusiasm seems to be down.
In Nevada, where it's really ground zero for the pain of the economic downturn, you would have thought enthusiasm for the Republicans would be up, down again there.
The Romney people have always said, we're not counting on enthusiasm to produce winning, we're counting on winning to produce enthusiasm, and I don't see that happening yet. Now, he's -- the second-place candidate, Newt Gingrich, has no debate, which is his strength, until February 22nd. In the South, he's already lost the biggest southern state in Florida. He's not even on the ballot in his adopted home state of Virginia. I think this is over.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yet, Dana Loesch, he says he's going to continue to go on. There were some rumors last night that he might get out of Nevada. He called a press conference I think at 11:15 at night to say, no, I am staying in. Also didn't take the advice of a lot of people to, if you're going to stay in, go positive. He was tough again on Mitt Romney last night.
LOESCH: Yeah, I was a little bit little shocked at the tone of his address last night, especially when contrasted with Romney's very positive speech and Rick Santorum's very positive speech. It was -- whoever gave him that advice is horrible. He should -- he should have stopped talking at one point.
But I hope that it remains diversified at least until Tampa. I think it's -- I've kind of gone back and forth over this. At one point, I wanted all of the non-Romneys except for one to get out so all of the support could coalesce around that particular candidate and they could -- because when you look at New Hampshire, when you look at Iowa, and especially when you look at the results of Florida, all of the votes for the non-Romneys, for Ron Paul, for Rick Santorum, for Newt Gingrich beat the votes that Mitt Romney was receiving.
So I think there is a chance, when you talk about having someone coalesce around the non-Romney candidate, but at the same time, I don't know if that's -- that's just presupposing that that support would go that way.
STEPHANOPOULOS: In Nevada, where you saw him start to get support, Romney, among Tea Party voters, among very conservative voters.
DOWD: Yeah, absolutely. He was getting it across the board, and I know the Newt Gingrich folks like to say, well, it was a heavy Mormon population. You take out the Mormon population, he still wins the race by 16 points, so it was an unbelievable victory.
I was thinking about this, having watched Newt Gingrich's response yesterday, which I totally agree with where he was going with this. Who would have guessed that the gold standard, decriminalize drugs alternative was the rational alternative...
STEPHANOPOULOS: Ron Paul.
DOWD: ... candidate to Mitt Romney in this race? To me, watching Newt Gingrich -- you know, he says he has this 45-state strategy or this 46-state strategy, he's going to go all the way to Tampa. I think he needs a five-state strategy, based on Elizabeth Kubler's Ross stages of grief, because last week he was in denial, this week he seems to be in anger. He's probably going to go to bargaining next, then depression. He's finally going to get to the state of acceptance.
He has to -- what he did yesterday only shot himself in the foot. I think Mitt Romney continues to wrap this up. By the time we get to the end of February, he'll have won five or six in a row.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And, Arianna, I was talking to some people in the Romney campaign this week who are so snake-bit by Newt Gingrich, they want to keep the pressure on, they want to keep going after him when they have to. On the other hand, you finally did see Romney last night put all his attention on President Obama. He seemed to believe he had wrapped this up.
HUFFINGTON: Yes, and something happened last night, George. You know, if you look at all these months, there were so many Republicans absolutely focused on anyone but Romney. And last night, you saw that shift, and you had almost that feeling, "OK, Romney," of kind of reconciling themselves with the inevitable that he will be their nominee. But the speech that Romney gave last night is not a general election speech.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You didn't think so?
HUFFINGTON: So I wonder at what point he's going to pivot. I mean, to say, "I'm the American candidate," to say I want a military that is so powerful that no one can challenge us, nobody believes that. To say basically he can balance the budget without any tax hikes...
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: ... most people wanted a military that -- that no one can challenge?
HUFFINGTON: Meaning that nobody can challenge America ever because the military is going to be so powerful, it makes you long for Ron Paul, talking about, you know, Iraq being the unnecessary war based on false assessments and lies. You know, this whole bluster is not going to work in a general election. You see it with independents. Independents are not going for Romney.
STEPHANOPOULOS: His unfavorable rating has gone up among independents, among all voters, George.
WILL: Exactly, because there's a cost to this kind of campaigning, which is why he ought to stop it as soon as he can. But beyond that, he won two events this week, but he may have lost the narrative of his campaign, which was the economy's horrible and only I can fix it. Now, he's been running on his resume, on his previous career. That may not work.
Foreign policy, I mean, the American people hear we're winding down Afghanistan, they say, "Great." They cut the defense budget, and some conservatives say that means we can't intervene as much as we have in the past. People say, "Wonderful."
We're drawing, what, 7,000 troops out of Europe, out of 80,000 there, 65 years after V-E Day? I mean, the whole Republican narrative since McGovern was nominated in 1972 has been, "We're the party to trust on national security," and I don't see the big difference anymore.
DOWD: To me, that's a huge -- what's a big huge change that's happened in this race is what's happened on unemployment this month and the jobs that we're at, is the conversation you just had, and it's beginning to show positive signs. If that continues, and it -- we'll probably start seeing a change in approval numbers, we'll probably start seeing a drop in wrong track numbers. We'll probably start seeing that start to happen.
And when that happens, Mitt Romney is going to have to make a very difficult choice in this, because it's been all negative Barack Obama, no positive, and then the American public is going to start saying, well, it's starting to move, starting to move.
To me, Mitt Romney feels like he's snake-bit or the curse of the Bambino, which is this old thing that happened to the Red Sox fell on him. So in 2007, Mitt Romney runs as a social conservative when people wanted sort of an economic outsider message. He didn't do that; he loses the nomination process. Now he's about to win the nomination process against what he thought was an incredibly vulnerable president who now could turn out to be not so vulnerable.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And, Dana, you were just talking about how conservatives continue -- you want them to continue to put pressure on Romney through this nomination fight, but doesn't that make it harder for him to do what he needs to do in the general election and grab more of the center?
LOESCH: Not necessarily, because I don't think watered-down conservatism has very much worked in the general elections. And I don't think that Romney's really lost it yet on the economy, in terms of proving a disparity between President Obama and himself, especially when you consider -- just, what, in November of 2011, we've lost 300,000 -- 300,000 -- over 300,000 jobs, which is more than the jobs that we've gained, these past job numbers.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But the trend is what matters in an election year, isn't it?
LOESCH: Yeah, but we've still lost 1.2 million people from the workforce. It's a 30-year low. But...
HUFFINGTON: The problem is that he could actually run an economic populist message. He could focus on the things that are still not working, the fact that...
STEPHANOPOULOS: Like Trump?
HUFFINGTON: No, he's -- not with Trump, but, you know, that was another...
(CROSSTALK)
DOWD: Or with myself.
(CROSSTALK)
DOWD: ... multimillionaire to run an economic populist message.
(CROSSTALK)
HUFFINGTON: Actually, I wonder if Trump looks in the mirror today and looked at the Nevada results and said, "I'm a kingmaker. I did it." But seriously...
(CROSSTALK)
DOWD: If he didn't look in the mirror, that would be news.
HUFFINGTON: I wouldn't put it past him. But, seriously, he could actually look at the fact that we now have long-term unemployment at unprecedented heights. You know, we have...
STEPHANOPOULOS: Almost half the unemployed.
HUFFINGTON: Almost half the unemployed, 5.5 million people. He could focus on the fact that youth unemployment is still astronomically high, 23 percent among 16-year-olds to 19-year-olds. Are we concerned that the unemployed young can become unemployable?
He's already focusing on the fact that we have 3 million to 5 million people too discouraged to look for work. So he could play on that message, but then he doesn't have any answers, he doesn't have any solutions. They're probably going to be against extending unemployment benefits, which expire on February 29...
STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's take that question, George Will, you know, because the president -- Governor Romney is getting a lot of advice from the Wall Street Journal editorial page and others saying he's going to have to big on issues like taxes, come out with a brand-new economic plan. Smart?
WILL: I think it is, because, again, he can't run on a record saying, "I know how to create jobs and no one else does." At this point, George, in 1984, when Reagan was gearing up for his re-election campaign, unemployment had fallen from 10.8 percent to 8 percent. It kept falling to 7.4 percent, and he carried 49 states. As you say, it is the trend.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But the big difference, Matthew Dowd, from 1984 and Reagan is that there was a lot of pent-up demand in the economy...
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: ... the economy was fueled by housing...
(CROSSTALK)
WILL: But the economy was growing at 8 percent...
(CROSSTALK)
DOWD: But I think there's another big difference. And I think that time will tell about how much this will really impact his numbers, as I say, because he's got to change the wrong -- Barack Obama has got to change the wrong direction. He's got to change his job approval in order to get re-elected. That may happen, and we may see that happen.
But the huge difference that I see, there's still this gulf between jobs getting created and people feeling like the country is going in the right direction and they feel it. There has not been a rise in 2010 dollars in per capita income in 10 years, in 10 years, through the entire Barack Obama presidency and the Bush presidency.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Which is why...
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: ... want to throw whoever's in out.
DOWD: And so during Reagan's rise and Clinton's rise, people felt it. Jobs got added, and their income went up, and they felt like they could spend more money. People haven't felt that in 10 years.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And, meanwhile, we're also seeing a lot more focus, again, with all this talk on the economy, we're also starting to see focus on social issues this week on at least two major fronts.
I want to start out with this whole controversy over the Susan G. Komen breast cancer foundation. They took away their funding from Planned Parenthood. Huge backlash created online by the supporters of Planned Parenthood. It turned -- and also the president of Planned Parenthood came out and said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARDS: This is a relationship we've had for many years. It came as a total shock and a real disappointment. We provide more than 700,000 breast exams every single year, and we've been very proud of our relationship with the Komen Foundation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: By the end of the week, Dana Loesch, the Komen Foundation reversed it, said they are open again to providing money to Planned Parenthood, which created a lot of concern among those who are anti-abortion.
LOESCH: Yes. Well, when you consider the amount of money that Planned Parenthood -- or that Komen donated to Planned Parenthood and the amount of accessibility that Komen funded, it's really not a lot. I think it's something around 800,000 screenings that Planned Parenthood either provided referrals to or -- they either provided referrals to mammograms to different clinics that actually are licensed to do mammographies and own mammography machines or they do the most basic of basic screenings. They did 800,000 of those usually about a year.
Now, Komen funds 34,000 of those, so that's like 4.25 percent. That's like nothing. If they can't afford to Planned Parenthood by themselves pay for less than 5 percent of the breast cancer screenings, then they can...
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: But that's not what this was about.
HUFFINGTON: No, absolutely not. But what we saw here is social media at work. It was really extraordinary. Planned Parenthood has now raised over $3 million, and...
WILL: Five times what was at stake in the Komen...
(CROSSTALK)
HUFFINGTON: Yes, five times what was at stake. But what was fascinating was that it was very clear, this is a beyond left and right issue. This was about women's health. This was an attempt to politicize it.
By the change in leadership at the Komen Foundation, including Karen Handel, who ran for governor of Georgia on the platform of the life -- the pro-life platform and against Planned Parenthood. So the attempt to politicize this issue backfired, and people said this is not a left-right issue.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You're shaking your head.
(CROSSTALK)
WILL: This is not about women's health. This is about providing 300,000 abortions a year. They -- Planned Parenthood cleverly cast this to say we are in the mammogram business. They're not in the mammogram business. They're in the referral of mammograms.
This showed two extraordinary things, George. First, the American left cares about ending wars and they care about poverty and they care about the environment. What they really care about, when they're not perfunctory, is when you touch abortion, and historians will marvel that American liberalism in the first part of the 21st century is defined as defense of abortion. Furthermore...
(CROSSTALK)
WILL: Second -- wait just a -- just a moment. Second, all these people describing themselves as pro-choice said it is illegitimate to choose not to be involved in abortion. And a much more important decision politically that was taken this week was the Obama administration saying that Catholic institutions have no choice -- and this was applauded by pro-choice people -- have no choice but to provide contraception, abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilization.
STEPHANOPOULOS: I do want to get to that, as well. First respond to the Komen, and then let's get to that other issue.
HUFFINGTON: Well, first of all, this is (inaudible) presenting this as a left-right issue, to say that...
WILL: I didn't do that.
HUFFINGTON: To say that the people who raised money, who signed petitions were on the left and that didn't care about breast cancer, that it didn't care about prevention is absurd. And if you look at what Planned Parenthood does, an enormous amount of what it does is about prevention.
And what it showed, this whole campaign that was generated by people, by social media this week, showed the new power of that, to actually reverse decisions very, very quickly.
LOESCH: They hacked their -- their website. They hacked Planned Parenthood's website. They bullied them on Facebook. I mean, that's definitely -- that's a new media strategy.
(CROSSTALK)
DOWD: I think that this demonstrates -- to me demonstrates the corrupt nature that's happened in politics has now bled into the privates, but (inaudible) view as the private sector, which is...
STEPHANOPOULOS: What do you mean by that?
DOWD: That there is now -- a private foundation can give and dispense money any way it wants. It can choose to give money -- people could have said when they first gave the money to Planned Parenthood, was that a good idea? Nobody sort of screamed and yelled. But all of a sudden they say we're going to take $700,000 back of private donations, which most people that gave money to Susan Komen Foundation had no idea they were going to go to -- be going to Planned Parenthood.
And so now what we see in Congress, this bitter response any time somebody does something, everybody screams and yell. Whether or not Congress should be investigating Planned Parenthood we can have an argument over. I don't think they should be in the middle of that. But I don't think Planned...
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: ... who say this is democracy at work...
(CROSSTALK)
DOWD: I think this is a -- this is a corrupt, poisonous part of democracy at work. I think foundations should be able to make a decision, and if Planned Parenthood wants to go out and raise the money...
(CROSSTALK)
HUFFINGTON: Well, they can make a decision. Nobody stopped them. There's no legal enforcement on what the Komen Foundation is going to do. They reversed the decision in an incredibly disingenuous way, saying that the reason they had withdrawn the funding was because Planned Parenthood was under investigation. Well, right now, the Hershey Foundation has $7.5 million from the Komen Foundation. It's attached to the Penn State University, which is under investigation. They haven't touched that money.
LOESCH: Two quick points. First, Planned Parenthood was under congressional inquiry because of underage girls going into Planned Parenthood...
STEPHANOPOULOS: Where they were providing abortion services.
LOESCH: ... and they were alleged to hide statutory rape. The second issue is that, on average, the Komen Foundation would give a little over $500,000 to Planned Parenthood. That was less than Cecile Richards' paycheck from Planned Parenthood.
Now, you would think at some point in the past -- it's been a year to the date since Live Action called Planned Parenthood clinics in 27 different states to ask whether or not they had mammography machines. You would think that at that point -- they'd had a year -- Planned Parenthood would invest in obtaining licenses to operate and own mammography machines and give mammograms so they could have avoided this whole thing.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's get to the issue that George Will raised, as well. The president under his health care plan saying the Catholic hospitals and other institutions have to provide insurance policies that cover contraception, drew a sharp response from House Speaker Boehner.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOEHNER: This mandate violates our Constitution. I think it violates the rights of these religious organizations. And I would hope that the administration would -- would back up and take another look at this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: And, Arianna, even some of the president's prominent Catholic liberal supporters said he went too far here.
HUFFINGTON: Well, actually what the White House has said is that they have a year in which to work with Catholic institutions to find ways in which they can provide contraception for their employees, many of whom are not Catholic, and they have a year during which to work that out. The churches are not going to be affected. We're talking about Catholic hospitals that employ a lot of non-Catholics.
DOWD: One disclosure. I'm on the board of a Catholic hospital in Austin, Texas, so with that being said, one of every six people in this country go get their medical care at a Catholic hospital. And I think what most people feel like is, when that -- they're on the front lines, they're not making money, there are nonprofits that are doing all this stuff, to be able to be put in the position of the federal government where they basically have to now decide what they're going to do about that, whether they're going to have to, you know, receive money, provide services on all that kind of stuff, I think was a -- not only a huge political mistake, but I think it was a huge substantive mistake, toward a system that basically provides most of the health care in this country, which are Catholic institutions, which came to this country before anybody else did and provided those things, for the administration to do that I just think is a bad decision if they want to provide health care for America.
WILL: On the political side, in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, particularly, there are lots of blue-collar Catholics who hear this as more bullying. The dialectic in this country goes like this. You declare a right. You have a right to abortion, contraception, fine. Then you say, well, we have a right, it has to be subsidized by the federal government. And then institutions that don't conform to our values have to be bullied into it, and this all in the name of choice. It's an astonished Orwellian piece of rhetoric.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Arianna, I know that some believe -- and in the president's campaign -- believe that this will end up actually working for the president. Taking George's point, they think that that's an old view of the Catholic voter and that, secondly, the Republican Party has put itself too far outside of the mainstream on these social issues.
HUFFINGTON: Well, yes. First of all, we're talking about contraception. We're not talking about abortion. And we are talking about the fact that so many of the employees of Catholic institutions are not Catholic. So this is (inaudible) another basic right. And the fact that, again, this is politicized is taking us away from the major issues we should be debating right now.
WILL: Excuse me. Is it -- why isn't it politicizing abortion when Komen decides to subsidize Planned Parenthood, which is in the abortion business, but politicizing it when you withdraw that money?
HUFFINGTON: Well, right now, they're making a decision, which they claim was based on the fact that they misrepresented a decision at the beginning. You know, this is -- the Komen Foundation is coming out of it worse than anybody. They mishandled it completely.
DOWD: And I don't think it's about whether or not Catholics believe in abortion, whether or not they believe in choice, or whether or not -- that's not what this is about. I think what -- just what George said. I think people that run these institutions and are in these services think, and that is, why is the federal government doing this, when we're providing all this care, doing all this stuff -- why is big government getting involved in our business, which we know what to do?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Newt Gingrich put a finer point on it last night, said it's part of a war by President Obama on religious liberty.
LOESCH: Well, there's a lack of choice. It's a stunning display of irony when you look at all of this. For instance, Komen is excoriated over their choice -- the private charity to do what they want with their money. And here you have the government now saying that you don't have a choice to be able to practice your religious liberty and these institutions have to comply with this particular mandate that goes against their freedom and liberty. So it's irony.
STEPHANOPOULOS: OK. It is Super Bowl Sunday. Before we leave, I want to get everybody's predictions. But, George, first...
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: ... I know you're not always the biggest fan of the Super Bowl.
WILL: Football is a mistake. It just is. It combines two of the...
STEPHANOPOULOS: On Super Bowl Sunday.
WILL: ... it combines two of the worst...
DOWD: Seventy million people are going to make a mistake and watch the game?
STEPHANOPOULOS: A hundred and twenty, I think.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
WILL: This is the second-highest calorie day in American life, second only to Thanksgiving, and people are betting and eating, is what they're doing today. Football, as I say, combines violence punctuated by committee meetings called huddles. It just replicates the worst aspect of American life. That said, when it's over, pitchers and catchers report in two weeks, and we can go back to reading the newspapers.
You want a prediction?
STEPHANOPOULOS: I want a prediction.
WILL: I usually root for the team whose victory would make the most liberals unhappy.
(LAUGHTER)
Boston and New York, I don't know how to choose. So I'll say probably Boston has a higher concentration, so I'm for the Giants.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Giants. All right, he's going to go for the Giants. Matthew Dowd?
DOWD: I'm a -- I'm a Detroit Lion fan. They're not in the playoffs, but I'm -- so I'll root for the NFC team which is the Giants. I think they win by seven. I only pick seven because I think if the unemployment number has a seven in front of it, Barack Obama's re-elected.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And if it doesn't -- I think that's a pretty safe bet, actually, if it gets down to seven. Not a lot of predictions for that today. Dana Loesch?
LOESCH: Well, I'm from St. Louis, so we are the home of the Rams, and we're not allowed to like football. So that's -- well, I feel...
STEPHANOPOULOS: The whole middle of the country is being left out this year.
LOESCH: Well, you know, I've -- I've been sulking through the entire season, so I feel really bitter today. But I get it. You know, we've had two great World Series, you know, whatever, but it would be nice to have a good -- a football team that has as much success as the two teams playing today.
But they're two Northeastern teams, so I'm mad and I'm bitter about it. If you wanted to make people mad, you could shamelessly say, I'm supporting the Patriots because Patriots. So Giants I think will win.
STEPHANOPOULOS: OK. Giants again.
HUFFINGTON: Well, first of all, I predict that there will be a car company (ph) commercial that somebody is going to find offensive. And...
STEPHANOPOULOS: That is for sure.
HUFFINGTON: ... and that half the people are going to find the show -- the half-game show disappointing. And I do predict the Giants. And, OK, I'm going to read to you a whole prediction that our sports editor gave us.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Uh-oh. We have 10 seconds.
HUFFINGTON: I don't understand it, but here it is, 24-21 with a field goal, that it will be a close game, decided by whatever defense can put more pressure on the opposing quarterback. I have no idea what it means.
STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, but you gave it. I'm going to take the Patriots.
Dana Loesch is just another right-wing distortionist on all the issues, ranging from Planned Parenthood to Abortion, to the 2012 Presidential Elections, and a whole other host of things.
As expected, Breitbart crony Dana Loesch and This Week regular George Will were drinking the Koch Bros/GOP Kool-Aid.
The other panelists were Newsweek and Washington Post writer Will, political analyst and former interim DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile, and ABC News's own Jonathan Karl.
The last time Loesch was on the program, she wholeheartedly endorsed the elimination of Social Security, thought that the Texas Governor Rick Perry was "too weak on illegal immigration," and said that "Obama can be beaten by a generic Republican," which-- depending on the pollster-- might be partially true.
AMANPOUR: And now, of course, we now bring in our roundtable.
President Obama, though, has called the situation at Penn State
"horrifying," "a moment for soul-searching." And as I said, we bring in
our roundtable, George Will, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, Dana
Loesch, founder of the St. Louis Tea Party and editor of
BigJournalism.com, and ABC senior political correspondent Jon Karl.
George, what have we learned from this?
WILL: Well, first, what we still need to learn is, how graphic was the
description that the assistant coach gave to Joe Paterno about what he'd
seen in the shower? Because that would tell us the degree of Joe
Paterno's culpability.
What we've seen here -- and Christine had it exactly right -- when you
graft a multi-billion-dollar entertainment industry anomalously on to
higher education, you produce a bubble of entitlements and exemptions,
and eventually a simple moral derangement.
AMANPOUR: Donna?
BRAZILE: George, I don't know if explaining the details would have made
any parent, any adult just suspect and immediately call the police. My
initial reaction, had I witnessed that, would have been to pick up
something to stop it, to stop the act itself, to call upon the adult to,
you know, stop, to protect that child, call the police, and then inform
everybody else later, as -- but, look, this was a moral failure, a
human tragedy. And as a former college athlete and high school athlete,
I mean, this is just upsetting to many of us.
AMANPOUR: And it happens in other sports, too. ABC News has done investigations on, for instance, the lady's swimming team.
BRAZILE: And that's why it needs to become a teachable moment. I know
that's a word that we use a lot in politics, but, no, college football,
college sports has gotten out of hand. And it's time that we take a
look inside of it.
AMANPOUR: Do you think there will be, as President Obama said, real soul-searching, Dana?
LOESCH: I hope so. I hope so at this point. I just -- I'm trying to
get my mind around the fact, as Donna and George were saying, that you
see something like this happen right before your eyes and your first
reaction is to wait a day, and then go and tell Coach Paterno what had
happened, and then go through the process of going to the
administration, and so on and so forth. I hope there's going to be some
soul-searching. Someone's first reaction, aside from feeling
physically ill, should be to physically stop it.
KARL: Well, and if you want to send a message on this, you cancel the
rest of the football season. Why are they still playing? Why doesn't
the NCAA come out and say, "Done, Penn State's football season is over"?
What's going to happen? Are they be playing in a bowl game? I mean,
send a message, a clear, unmistakable message that this will not happen
again.
AMANPOUR: Let me ask you now, let's turn to the other headline in
politics, and that are the still unanswered issues and allegations of
sexual harassment against Herman Cain. And I want to ask you, Jon, as a
reporter, we witnessed on Wednesday night a reporter trying to ask this
question at a debate, and he was roundly booed, as if it is not our job
to ask these questions.
KARL: Yeah, well, look, Cain's core supporters see this as all the more
reason to support him. And, frankly, until -- unless there are more
women that come forward and, you know, decide to have a press conference
of all his accusers, looks like is not going to happen, it's hard for
me to see where the story's going to go.
Cain has made it clear he is not going to answer any more questions
about this, even peripheral questions. He's completely done with it. I
think, frankly, his bigger concern as a candidate, maybe his inability,
as we saw in last night's debate, to talk about some foreign policy
questions, you know, to meet the commander-in-chief test. I think
that's going to be what we're going to see next with Herman Cain.
AMANPOUR: Let me ask you, George, though, have we seen the end of this
story, when it comes to Herman Cain? I mean, this is a gentleman who is
running for the highest office in the land and in the world.
WILL: A rule is, when there are four women, there may be 24, that
there's a pattern here. He says there's no pattern, because all four
are not telling the truth. Well, we shall see.
For Republicans, it is a teachable moment, because Republicans have
said, over and over again, character matters in leadership. We have
this powerful government. All more power the government has, the more
character matters in the chief executive. And this is a test for them.
BRAZILE: Mr. Cain has received a little bit of what I call a martyr
status among some Republicans. And that may be the wrong message to
send to someone who is a novice at presidential politics.
The truth is, is that he was defiant, he was defensive. Four women, two
have come out, and then they went right ahead and start attacking those
two women, who are still anonymous. He attacked former Speaker Pelosi.
He made fun of Anita Hill. This is not a good sign of a candidate who
would like to remain a frontrunner in the Republican race.
AMANPOUR: And he's still top of the polls. Let me ask you, George,
about Rick Perry, who as we all know had a very, very, very bad week,
not just his first bad week. Why should anyone believe that he can turn
it around? And I know you want to take care of some personal
housekeeping this week, as well.
WILL: Yes, for more than 30 years, my wife, Mari, has been in the
political business. She was a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan's campaign
and his White House. She was his last White House director of
communications. As part of her profession, which is to consult with
businesses and congenial political candidates, she has been in the
political business off and on for 30 years. Last Monday, she became
part of the Perry campaign, specializing in messaging and debate
preparation.
AMANPOUR: Isn't she banging her fists against her head then?
(LAUGHTER)
WILL: No, that's what she's there for, is to fix things. Some of the
more excitable and perhaps less mature members of the Romney campaign
have tried to make this personal. At the Michigan debate, after the
debate, Mari waved to Ann and Mitt Romney. They came over and talked.
They've been guests at our dinner table. And Romney gave her a kiss on
the cheek, and they went their separate ways. They're both mature
professionals.
AMANPOUR: You -- you have -- when Rick Perry first started to get in,
you were quite optimistic about his chances. Do you feel now that he
has a chance? I mean, it's not just his gaffes. It's his poll numbers.
WILL: Well, he's got better advisers. Beyond that, his poll numbers
are down. He had a steep climb before Wednesday night. This climb got
steeper. But I would remind you that in -- in 2008 campaign, a
presidential candidate gave a speech in Oregon in which he said, "I've
visited all 57 states and have one more to go."
(CROSSTALK)
WILL: That man is in the White House today.
AMANPOUR: On that note, let us just look at what Rick Perry said at
last night's debate, obviously, playing on the -- on the big gaffe he
did on Wednesday night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PELLEY: Governor Perry, you advocate the elimination of the Department of Energy. If you eliminate the Department of Energy...
PERRY: Glad you remembered it.
(LAUGHTER)
PELLEY: I've had some time to think about it, sir.
PERRY: Me, too.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Dana, has he neutralized any worries about his weakness as a debater and on the issues?
LOESCH: I think he's coming around. He's -- I think the smartest thing
that he did -- and this is sort of interesting, as well, because the
week prior to this debate, he and his campaign had been saying that they
were considering seeking less media attention and going to less
debates. And now it's a complete 180. Now there's not a camera that
Rick Perry will not get in front of. He even went on Dave Letterman,
which I thought was great, because I think it did neutralize some of the
criticism. I think it gives him a little bit more media time, so he
can get used to the pressure and the scrutiny. And it helps his
perception in the public's eyes.
AMANPOUR: And, Jon, what about the real issue of his poll numbers? And are his donors, fundraisers feeling a little swishy?
KARL: From all I hear is that the fundraising has essentially dried up
for Perry. I mean, look, his campaign was in serious trouble before he
had his debate performance on Wednesday. I will say, he had a very
strong debate last night. It was by far Perry's strongest debate. You
could argue -- you saw he was kind of funny at times. He was
substantive. He was -- he was strong. You could say that if he had
been doing this all along, he'd probably still be the frontrunner. But
it's -- it's a really steep climb right now for Perry.
AMANPOUR: A quick round for all of you. Look at the new
McClatchy-Marist poll. Mitt Romney, with his trusty 23 percent, as
ever, but Newt Gingrich, back from the dead, maybe, and in second place.
How did that happen, Donna?
BRAZILE: Well, he's had steady debate performance. He understands
that, by attacking the media, taking on media during these debates, he
wins the day. He's still a darling of the conservatives. Remember, he
was a popular speaker for the Republican side.
AMANPOUR: Do we think Newt Gingrich is going to rise, George? Is he the latest anti-Romney or...
WILL: He's the flavor of the week, and he's a skillful campaigner, and
he has perfect pitch for certain Republican constituencies. But, again,
you've put your finger on the striking number there, which is that Mitt
Romney's support fluctuates wildly between 23 percent and 25 percent.
KARL: And the other anti-Romney is like a yo-yo, up and down, up and
down. But, you know, look, Romney has got some serious problems in
terms of closing this deal. But this race, you could argue, is as wide
open as it has ever been.
AMANPOUR: We're going to continue this right after a break.
And up next, crunch time for the super-committee. Will the lawmakers
beat the clock and fend off budget doomsday? The roundtable reads the
smoke signals when we return.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Repent, the end is near, well, for the super-committee, at
least. They have got less than two weeks to figure out how to shave
$1.3 trillion off the deficit. Miss that November 23rd deadline, and
they'll trigger draconian slate of budget cuts. Let's bring back the
roundtable.
So, Jon, is the super-committee going to make this deadline?
KARL: From all of my talks with people on the Hill, the super-committee
is on the brink of failure. And barring an 11th minute breakthrough
that we don't see any signs of right now, it will fail. It will fail to
produce -- now, it may -- my prediction is that they -- that they do
something, but it would be a much smaller number than $1.2 trillion.
And it will be seen, as it should be, as a failure.
AMANPOUR: Donna, Senator Mitch McConnell thinks that this is all a
White House design. Let's just put this up and see what the senator
just said this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCONNELL: It does raise your suspicion that the folks down at the
White House are pulling for failure, because, you see, if the joint
committee succeeds, it steps on the storyline that they've been
peddling, which is that you can't do anything with the Republicans in
Congress.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: What about your storyline?
BRAZILE: Oh, I don't think so. Look, the White House has put forward a
big deal, a big bargain, you know, with more cuts that most Democrats
will basically say, "No way, let's not cut so deeply into the
entitlement programs."
This is still about the Bush tax cuts. It's still about raising
revenue. And the -- the Republicans have not put -- put forward a
reasonable plan to -- to really, you know, make a deal with the
Democrats. So I -- I see a deadlock. And I also believe they're going
to kick this down the road.
WILL: They wanted more revenues, the Democrats did, so Pat Toomey,
former chairman of the Club for Growth, tax-aphobic if anyone is, put
forward hundreds of billions of dollars in new revenues by largely
devaluing deductions for high earners, in other words, making the tax
code more progressive, and the Democrats again moved the goal posts and
said we're not going to do that.
Now, the real deadline is not the 23rd. It's the 21st. They've already
blown past one deadline. They had to get their plan scored. The 21st,
they have to have it published for 48 hours before the deadline. What
happens if the sequester trigger comes into play? Nothing. Nothing
happens on the 24th, because the sequester works in 2013.
Furthermore, you can draw a graph. This is federal spending without the
sequester; this is federal spending with the sequester. Tiny
difference. It's a tiny difference in the rate of growth of federal
spending.
AMANPOUR: What's at stake for you and for your sort of constituents?
Is this going to work, do you think? And the sequester that George is
talking about, if it does go into effect, it really heavily affects
military spending.
LOESCH: Yes. And that's sort of, I think, one of the big problems that
grassroots conservatives especially had with this whole situation, is
that it really focuses on defense, but nothing is really done so much
about entitlement.
I personally have zero faith in the super-committee. I don't have any
faith in a smaller version of Congress doing what Congress couldn't do
already. So because of that -- and just because we've watched Democrats
walk away last week from the plan that Republicans -- that Toomey put
forward just last week. It threw them a curveball, $300 billion in
revenue -- revenues raising.
But I think it comes down to an ideological difference. They want Bush
tax cuts to be made permanent. They want to increase revenues by adding
to the tax base, as opposed to just jacking up the rates, which I think
is valid, especially when you look at tax receipts for the last six
decades. And so there's an ideological difference here, but in terms of
how this is going to affect us and -- and whether or not we have faith
that -- I don't know how it will. We'll wait and see. And I have zero
faith.
AMANPOUR: Jon, is this going to be something that we're just going to
have to wait for the next election, this whole idea of cutting the
spending and getting the deficit under control?
KARL: Well, George made a really critical point I think a lot of people
don't really realize, which is these automatic cuts that take place if
the super-committee fails don't happen until 2013. What are the odds of
them really happening? I mean, Congress can simply vote them away
during the lame-duck session after the 2012...
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: So what is this, just an exercise in futility?
KARL: Well, it's -- it's profoundly disappointing. And I think that,
if they fail, the cost will be borne by incumbents everywhere. This is
an indictment of Congress. It's an indictment of both parties. And
it's an indictment of the White House.
WILL: That's the crucial point, because Harry Reid's interest diverged
from Barack Obama's interests here. Harry Reid is defending 23 Senate
seats. And he does not want his -- his Democratic candidates for Senate
to be out there while the president is campaigning against a
do-nothing, failed Congress.
LOESCH: Right.
BRAZILE: Well, I just want to go back to Toomey's proposal. While it was a modest recognition that revenues need to be...
KARL: Five hundred billion dollars is not modest.
BRAZILE: But, look, compared to allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire,
$800 billion? I mean, come on. We're looking at, you know, a proposal
that would cut entitlements, cut Medicare, cut programs on people who
can least afford them.
KARL: You know the Republicans weren't going to go along with allowing
the Bush tax cuts to expire. I mean, this was the first significant
movement forward for Republicans on revenue, besides what John Boehner
did with the president in their secret discussions.
BRAZILE: Well, the Democrats have already moved on entitlements, so why
can't we just find a one or two billion -- trillion dollar more that --
that will allow us to achieve balance (ph)?
AMANPOUR: Let's talk a little bit about mood, which inevitably governs
all these kind of debates and discussions. We saw over this last week,
with elections in various different states, you know, various
conservative ideas pushed back, whether it was anti-union measures in
Ohio or other such things elsewhere. And some have called it a reaction
to conservative overreach. How much can one read into this?
KARL: Well, I'd be careful reading too much. Clearly, conservatives
lost in those two initiatives you mentioned, but look at the health care
mandate in Ohio. Ohio voted overwhelmingly -- every county in the
state -- to reject the centerpiece of the president's health care plan,
and by a bigger margin than the referendum that put away Kasich's plan
on collective bargaining.
So I would be careful in reading much. In fact, if anything, this was
an incumbent election. I mean, incumbents did pretty well across the
board. And that's a troubling sign for conservatives and for the Tea
Party movement, because it means the momentum has waned.
AMANPOUR: So the momentum, George, right down to the latest Quinnipiac
poll is basically saying that -- the new state poll out of Iowa is
showing President Obama defeating all Republican comers in that new
poll. Shift of mood? It's a swing state, isn't it?
WILL: It's a swing state. It's a purple state.
AMANPOUR: I actually meant Ohio. I hope I didn't say Iowa.
WILL: You did...
(CROSSTALK)
WILL: Well, Ohio's important to Republicans.
AMANPOUR: (inaudible)
WILL: No Republican has ever won the presidency without carrying Ohio.
Republicans always spend something like the gross national product of
Brazil to carry Ohio, and that puts them across the finish line.
The real problem for Republicans is they have to have a candidate who
can carry the white, non-college-educated, blue-collar vote, Hillary
Democrats, if you will. It used to be called Reagan Democrats. They're
in play, and the Republicans need a candidate who can carry them. They
lost them in Ohio last week.
BRAZILE: Well, let me just say this. More people turned out to vote
against Governor Kasich's proposal than voted for Governor Kasich in
2010. This is a sign of things to come. Voters are sick and tired and
frustrated of politicians overreaching, you know, basically doing things
that they did not elect them to do.
They want jobs. They want to protect the economy. They're not
interested in all of these side issues, whether it's the personhood
amendment in Mississippi or the voter proposal in Maine and the
anti-worker proposal in Ohio. And, also, remember, in the Hawkeye
State, in Iowa, they also rejected one of the Tea Party-backed
candidates who had proposed -- was against the marriage initiative. So
this was a good day for Democrats.
AMANPOUR: All right.
On that note, up next, the Iran crisis boils over, as U.N. inspectors
find new evidence that Iran is working on a nuclear device. The big
question: Can America do anything to stop it now? Answers from the
Republican presidential field when we return. Stay with us.
AMANPOUR: Last night, the Republican presidential candidates took on
the chief foreign policy crisis facing the United States today, nuclear
Iran potentially. This week, weapons inspectors said they finally have
enough -- the most strong evidence, they say, to see that Iran is still
working on a nuclear device.
So can it be stopped at this point? The candidates said yes.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROMNEY: Well, it's worth putting in place crippling sanctions. It's
worth working with the insurgents in the country to encourage regime
change in the country. And if all else fails, if after all of the work
we've done there's nothing else we can do besides take military action,
then of course you take military action.
CAIN: I would not entertain military opposition. I'm talking about to help the opposition movement within the country.
PERRY: The issue that has not been raised is that this country can
sanction the Iranian central bank right now and shut down that country's
economy.
SANTORUM: We should be working with Israel right now to do what they
did in Syria, what they did in Iraq, which is take out that nuclear
capability before the next explosion we hear in Iran is a nuclear one
and then the world changes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
This time, Loesch defended Rick Perry's infamous 53-second gaffe at the CNBC Debate Wednesday night. She praised his appearance on CBS's The Late Show With David Letterman. She also stated that she has zero confidence in the Super Committee.
The other panelists for the political roundtable were former Bush 43 speechwriter Michael Gerson, Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page, and ABC News' own Jonathan Karl.
AMANPOUR: And we'll certainly be watching his candidate forum tomorrow. And so, no doubt, will our roundtable. With me today, Michael Gerson, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush and a columnist for the Washington Post; Clarence Page, who writes a column for the Chicago Tribune; Dana Loesch, editor at BigJournalism.com and a founder of the St. Louis Tea Party; and ABC's senior political correspondent Jon Karl.
Jon, let me turn to you first. You know, tried to get some sort of determination out of Senator DeMint, but keeping his powder dry. Given that, what do Governor Perry and Governor Romney have to do to break out of the current situation?
KARL: Well, frankly, you've seen the polls that show that Perry has just shot to the top. We don't know how real this is. This is the month we'll find out whether or not he is truly the front-runner.
We have three debates over the next three weeks. Perry has taken off because he's got this record as the jobs governor in Texas and he speaks the Tea Party language, but there is the biggest oppo file on Rick Perry than of all the other candidates. He's got the longest record. You alluded to his book. He's got the most that can be attacked. We'll see over the next three weeks whether or not he can survive it.
AMANPOUR: Well, you just alluded to polls. Let me just put them up. The latest Quinnipiac poll has Rick Perry six points ahead of Mitt Romney. The CNN poll shows an even wider gap.
Michael, good news for Rick Perry, but the Republican establishment, as Jon alluded to, because of all that oppo, must be quite worried about it.
GERSON: No, I think there are some worries. This is a remarkable rise. He has gotten support not just from the Tea Party, but actually from a lot of establishment Republicans in these polls.
But they're just getting to know him. The Tea Party people could have questions of their own. He supported TARP. You mentioned some of these other issues. And the establishment is already having questions about his book and other things, with views that seem odd or extreme. He opposes the direct election of senators, apparently, which is, you know, a interesting position to take.
KARL: Big populist issue, yes.
(LAUGHTER)
GERSON: Right, exactly. But I would say that every front-runner has to be wary of the Giuliani fate. Giuliani led in all the polls the last time. He ended up with one delegate at the convention. You know, this can change very quickly.
AMANPOUR: You said it's a remarkable sort of rise. Is it remarkable like Michele Bachmann was remarkable when she entered? Or is it beyond that?
GERSON: Well, I think it's a little bit beyond that. I think he has a serious governing record. I think his appeal on jobs is a real advantage in this case. I don't think this is necessarily a bubble. I think he's going to be serious.
And I think that Romney may want people like Palin getting in the race, in order to divide and create an inter-Tea Party rivalry, you know, going forward. But I think Perry's been very good at marginalizing Bachmann. It shows that he's a savvy politician. And, you know, that's a real achievement so far.
AMANPOUR: We'll get to Palin in a second, but, Dana, I wanted to ask you, again, alluding to some of the things that Governor Perry has said. And he is a Tea Party favorite, and yet he's talked about Social Security, he's talked about it as a crumbling monument to the failure of the New Deal. But we know and the polls show that 87 percent of Americans believe, of course, Social Security has been good for the country. Does that not put him completely out of step with the rest of the country on this major issue?
LOESCH: Not really, because I think that what he wants to do is reform Social Security and hopefully take it out of the hands of the government and allow people to be able to decide what they want to do with their own money.
And that's something that grassroots has always been supportive of. We trust ourselves more than we trust the government. And the government has done a horrible job. They said this money was supposed to be there for people who are my parents' age, who are my aunts' and uncles' age. This money was supposed to be there for them when they retired. It was supposedly put in some sort of lockbox. And then when you open the box, when these people hit retirement age, it's not there anymore.
So I think that this is something that grassroots has pushed for. I think Perry is beginning to speak to that. That's not to say, though, however, that there are other issues that I think that he, over the next -- the course of the next several weeks, he's going to have to answer to, to grassroots.
AMANPOUR: Such as?
LOESCH: Well, I think -- well, for one, his stance on immigration. He's spoken out against building a fence at the border. And I think there's also, too, a lot of people want to talk about Reagan during this political time, but some of Perry's stances on immigration, frankly, aren't all of that different from where Reagan stood on immigration.
We have to remember the immigration bill that was signed into law by Reagan in '86. Reagan was very proud of that, but the difference is, is that Reagan wanted to support a strong border, not just amnesty. And Perry doesn't match up on that. So he's got a lot of answering to do.
AMANPOUR: Clarence, you've written today's column on the Social Security issue. You just heard what Dana said, take it out of the hands of government, and it's just a way of Perry saying he wants to reform it. But how difficult do you think his record, his written record on what he thinks about Social Security is going to be for him?
PAGE: Actually, his written record, he's been very consistent about -- more consistent than his own press spokesman who told us in the media a week or so ago, don't take that book seriously. He wasn't planning on running for president then. And then Perry came out across Iowa, stopped saying, "Oh, yeah, read my book. That'll show you how I feel."
His book is very explicit. Dana's right. He wants to take Social Security out of the hands of federal government, put it in the hands of the states. As Michael wrote eloquently this week, he spoke with great admiration of a temporary program that for a couple of counties in Texas that were able to -- to opt out of Social Security program.
This will not go well with regular Americans. Now, with all due respect, the term grassroots, I had a city editor years ago who said never use the term grassroots, because it is meaningless. Everybody has their grassroots.
The fact is, most -- well, President George W. Bush went around campaigning for a program that would just offer us the option of investing part of our Social Security contribution in the stock market. The more he talked about it, the less popular it became. It died on Capitol Hill.
And Perry calls it a "Ponzi scheme." You know what a Ponzi scheme is? Bernie Madoff, wizard of Wall Street.
KARL: Well, he invokes Bernie Madoff in the book. But, you know, I've got to say...
PAGE: He wants to put more money -- well (inaudible) he wants us to put more money in Wall Street, where Bernie Madoff is. The average American I don't think right now is ready to go for that kind of a radical move.
KARL: But -- but -- but to Dana's point, I think that some of this rhetoric may actually help him with the base that he's trying to excite.
(CROSSTALK)
KARL: But -- but he's going to have some problems. You know, at some point during one of these debates, one of the candidates, maybe it'll be Mitt Romney, will stand up and say, there's only one candidate on the stage here who has voted for tax increases, including the biggest tax increase in the history of Texas. Now, that was Rick Perry. It was a long time ago. He was a Democrat. But this will be an issue. There will be issues that the Tea Party, that hard-right conservatives will go at Rick Perry over.
AMANPOUR: Well, you just mentioned Mitt Romney, who, of course, was the front-runner until Rick Perry jumped in. Where does he need to go now? He's sort of been coasting on his record and being the presumed front-runner. What does he need to do tomorrow and in the coming days and in these debates?
KARL: They know that they've got an issue here. Look, for three years, Christiane, Mitt Romney has been essentially the front-runner in this race. Before he officially declared, he has been the front-runner. He has been the guy, but suddenly this has changed.
And like I said, we'll see over the next month whether it really has changed, but they know that they're going to have to go after Rick Perry. They could sit back when Tim Pawlenty was the big threat. They could kind of let it play out. You can't do that when you're running against Rick Perry. And they know it.
AMANPOUR: And, Michael, I mean, again, let's get to primaries versus general election. Can Rick Perry -- or is it dangerous for the Republican Party to -- to sort of let Mitt Romney slip behind?
GERSON: Well, I think that there's a serious amount of discontent with the field. I don't think Republicans regard this as a strong field. So there is still talk of people getting in the race, not just Palin, but last week, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey was in Chicago, had two meetings with serious Republican groups from the Midwest.
AMANPOUR: Even though he's said no, no, no, no, no?
GERSON: He's actively, I think, considering getting in this race, which would throw things open once more. But the desire for that to happen, for people like Paul Ryan, who are pushing this to happen, it shows that they're not happy with the current field. They think that it needs to be filled out in important ways. But I don't know if that's going to happen, but the desire for many Republicans to expand this field shows that they're not content with the field.
AMANPOUR: All right. Well, let's play something that Sarah Palin said at her rally in -- yesterday when she was out talking. Let's see what she said about this race.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PALIN: The challenge is not simply to replace Obama in 2012, but the real challenge is who and what we will replace him with, because it's not enough.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, Jon, conventional wisdom is that maybe she's left it too long, but you're hearing different, right? Do you think she's going to jump in?
KARL: I think it is more likely that she jumps in than most of us have thought for a long time. We really don't know.
But I will tell you this: For months and months and months, it has been accurate to say that Sarah Palin has been teasing publicly, but has done nothing behind the scenes to prepare for an actual presidential run. I do not believe that is still the case. I think that she is -- she is laying the groundwork to decide, yes.
AMANPOUR: Where do you see that?
KARL: I -- I -- I think that she's beginning to look at what she would have to do to staff up the campaign. I think she's looking at what she'd have to do to actually establish a campaign organization, which she has done absolutely nothing until now.
AMANPOUR: So would that bring you great hope if she jumps in? I mean, look at her negatives. They're very, very high.
LOESCH: I think that she does have a little bit to overcome, in terms of -- I know that there was the Fox News poll which came out, and there was also an independent study which was done in conjunction with that, that also looked at Republican voters to see who they would or would not choose.
I think -- but we're still -- I mean, we're still really early on into this race, so anything is possible. I mean, and when I say anything is possible, I mean, when you look at the polls right now, the last poll that was released showed generic Republican candidate was beating this president in the polls.
KARL: That's who they should nominate.
LOESCH: So I think that we do -- I think that we do have a strong field. I do really think that we do have a strong field. But whether or not we're going to end up with someone that is speaking to the base -- because I think not only is this election going to be a referendum on Obama's first term, but this is also going to be a referendum on the Republican Party.
This is the Republican Party's decision right now. Who are they going to put forward? Are they going to keep going with the same Bush policies that helped create the Tea Party? Or are they actually going to put forward a real conservative, real Republican candidate, and actually unite the right once and for all? That's the question.
AMANPOUR: We're going to get to President Obama in our next panel, but thank you all very much for joining us. And the roundtable will continue in the green room at abcnews.com.
She claimed that the "government is doing a horrible job about Social Security" and supports Rick Perry's effort to eliminate Social Security (which she endorses). She falsely claimed that Texas Governor Rick Perry panders to "illegal immigrants" and wants "amnesty."
