himself as a president that s not not the right person to lead this country. our only opponent is barack obama and we need to come out of this process remembering, beating him is what we collectively have to do. a lot to get to this morning, let say hello to our pan that will we have assembled, david goodfriend, democratic strategist and former clinton white house staffer, tony frato, bush 43 deputy press secretary and msnbc contribute ber. i want to start with you, tony, nikki haley s endorsement, take a listen this coming from mitt romney today. what it comes down to is how do we get every person a job? how do we make sure our economy gets back on track in the only way to do that is go with someone that has done it not talked about it but actually done t. nikki haley giving that endorsement. how does this, tony, help him, romney, that is, and also, in your estimation, did romney stop the momentum that newt gingrich has last night? i think so.
falling out have rallied behind gingrich and i m still not sure that that s permanent purchase. i think they are still kicking the tires f the nikki haley endorsement represents a sort of evangelical southern conservative move toward romney, that is significant. it is really significant, because the one thing we haven t talked about here is the fact that christian evangelicals have had a problem with romney from the beginning and if he is unable to carry the south in a significant way, i m not talking about florida, but i m talking about south carolina and arkansas and, you know, places where we think of red, southern state it is, evangelical vote doesn t go to romney, he has got problems. so that, to me, is the significance of the nikki haley endorsement. well, david, tony, thank you so much for joining me this morning. i appreciate it. a lot to talk about from last night. but we are moving on to some breaking news. again, thank you. this breaking news right now
because when you add verizon to your company, you don t just add, you multiply. discover something new. verizon. welcome back. the gop candidates will go head-to-head in tonight s cnbc debate. they re supposed to talk about their plans to boost the economy. but will they attack rival herman cain over this recent scandal? joining me now are two former deputy white house press secretaries. we ve got bill burton from the obama administration joining us from d.c. and tony frato from the bush administration here with me in new york. it s great to have you with me. i know you were both listening to the interview we had with sharon bialek. do you expect the cain scandal to overshadow the debate? and do you expect other candidates to go after him for it? i think given how this sort of thing works in washington and the campaign trail, yes, no matter what gets said tonight
but for right now, republicans are trying very hard to find somebody else. tony, what do you think? i think you know as well as i do at this point in the presidential campaign, there s a lot of fluidity. not a whole lot different from what we saw back in 2008 on both the republican and the democratic side that you see primary voters go through the list of candidates to see who they re going to settle on. i think you re right, mitt romney really is regardless of what some of these polls are. herman cain was never going to be the republican nominee. i think mitt romney s still the guy to beat. he still has been incredibly steady and solid throughout these debates. no one has been able to knock him off his message or his goals getting through the debate. so that s the real challenge. and as we talk about economic issues whether the other candidates are going to be able to, you know, get into mitt romney s issues and he has his own plans, and i think he s looking forward to talk about
will probably dominate whatever news comes out of here. romney has already talked about the scandal, cain obviously has a lot of questions to answer still. and if you re a republican candidate, there s an opportunity for you to really mix it up and get some attention if you talk about it. and so i have no doubt that no matter what happens at the debate tonight, the cain scandal will likely be the lead coming out of that. gentlemen, tony if you were advisi advising cain and prepping him, what would you be telling him? he s got his message set. he has the message from his press conference yesterday. i don t think he s going to change very much from what his story has been to deny the allegations and to try to move on as he said, you know, get back on message. i don t think that s going to be possible for him to do, and it s certainly not going to happen tonight at a debate. it s going to have to be addressed, and we re going to have to see how the other candidates react to, you know,