Barrasso, enzi, mcconnell, roberts, boozman, grassley, heller, hoeven, inhofe, i. C. Sa c isaacson, rubio, scott, tumyi, wicker. All these republicans voted today against having a vote on hagel. They did so after it was clear there would be a vote today. They did it to put themselves on record to undermine the functions of the government. They did it to put themselves on record for no better reason than to undermine, undermine is the key word here, the successful functioning of our government. They knew it would hurt hagels prestige, would discredit president obamas leadership, and did it anyway. Want to know why the government is grinding to a halt . Check this list. They are men bent on division, distrust, and disdain toward the elected presidency of barack obama. And i mean it. Im joined by Steve Clemens and peter beinart. These people are disreputable. Peter beinart, why on gods earth would a United States senator whose purpose is to help the republic work, knowing this guy is going to be secretary of defense, knowing theres going to be a vote on it, vote publicly to deny him even a vote today . Why would they do that . Well, i think its because they wanted to somehow show that they are more militantly in opposition than anybody else. But the whole thing is absurd. They already did that. Thats right. They already did that a week ago, two weeks ago. You know, peter, they did it. They did all that. They dumped all over this guys nomination. They attacked him in the hearing, issued all the press releases, made their point. Why would they do it the very day they knew hed be confirmed knowing they would be dumping on him as secretary of defense, not as a nominee, but actually as secretary of defense . Because we have so debased the idea of the filibuster that i honestly think people think of not voting to allow a vote as simply the same as voting no. This is how corrupted our political system has become that actually people see voting for a filibuster as simply no different than simply voting against someone. The whole system is not working the way its supposed to. You know what . Steve, i respect any opinion on this within bounds. There are problems with this nomination. This is not superman. Right. But they looked and they looked and i said fair enough, they looked. Had he ever made an antisemitic remark in private . Had anybody heard him say anything awful . They looked and looked and looked and they couldnt find it, and they still voted to deny him a vote. I find it interesting that two of the most militant senators opposed to hagel nonetheless did the right thing and voted for cloture, and that was mccain and graham. Those were two of the centerpieces. When you look at inhofe, ted cruz, inhofe is Ranking Member of the Armed Services committee. He has certain responsibilities. Of respect for the other side and how hes going to handle that. I think they just blew it. But youre right, they voted against voted for cloture to stop the debate. So hell have a vote today. Let me ask you about this, peter. Lets talk about the looking forward and what it does to our government. We have a government closed down in a lot of defense spending. Its going to hurt a lot. We have a potential we have a war were still fighting. I wish everybody remembered that. We are fighting a war in afghanistan. Men and women are out there on the post right now in some cases scared to death wherever theyre stuck fighting the enemy, and they couldnt agree on a secretary of defense in the chain of command. Whats it do to the active military . Whats it do to our future potential for saving money in defense and perhaps fighting another war in iran . I think its terrible. The fact that afghanistan, which you remember mitt romney never mentioned in his speech at the Republican National convention, was barely mentioned by any of the republican senators in the 7 1 2 hour hagel hearing, i think it shows how fundamentally unserious and unreal so much of this Foreign Policy debate is. This hawkish party, this party which claims to be the party of National Security and the military, basically acting as if the United States is no longer at war when american soldiers are still dying there. I think, unfortunately, this very, very Nasty Campaign against hagel and, lets be honest, hagels not very stellar performance in front of the senate Armed Services committee is going to make it harder for him to have the political leverage that hes going to need to make the tough decisions on cutting the defense budget. Hes going to have to rebuild some of the political clout that im afraid he lost over the past few weeks. Lets go with that. Steve, same question. What does it mean to our country . The wars were fighting now, the one were sort of getting out of in iraq. The one were still in in afghanistan. The one we may face within months. I know chuck hagel and know him well. I know hes going to sit down, and hes going to do exactly what peter said. Hes going to come out with a plan. Hes going to communicate with the soldiers in the field. Hes going to remind them he was a sergeant, too, and he is going to implement the president s policy of shifting out of the wars were engaged in now and sorting out other priorities. I think my estimate of this is that hes going to come out with a very, very good and confident looking strategy for the military and its priorities and how to responsibly handle what likely are to be sizable cuts. So hes going to do it, but people in the gop are saying that hes going to have to reinvent their relationship with them. I think its the other way around. I grew up in oklahoma. My parents are in texas. These places have bases, defense contractors. Now, hagel will be judicious. Hes not going to hold anything against them, but their constituents are going to want can you talk to chuck hagel about our base . Can you talk to him about our defense . I dont know if hes going to take his calls before he may have to he will take their calls. Hes not going to hold any grudges. I guess but their grudges are going to cost their constituents. Peter, lets talk about the republic. How wier were doing as a country right now. What does it say about the ability of a president to pick his cabinet, especially the top officers. Theyre going after jack lew. They gave i guess kerry got this pretty clean, but it looks like theyre being very tough on these top appointees. Thats right. And this obsession with the benghazi thing, it seems to be again, its a way for the republicans to still continue to fight the last election, and just politically its hard to understand what the republicans feel theyre gaining by continually picking these fights that they know theyre not going to win. It seems like, you know, youre a student of the history, chris. You know how this happens. Sometimes when parties get smaller because they have lost elections, they get more captive for a while by their most extremist wings. If you look at the way that ted cruz was essentially driving this whole debate over chuck hagel, you see that you have a Republican Party when in some ways its most militant factions, the ones who are furthest away from ever being able to help the Republican Party compete nationally, are the ones driving the agenda. I think one thing theyd like to do, lets talk about the golden fleece, what theyre really after here. I think what the republicans want to do with benghazi, its the thing the only thing theyre interested in and theyre the only ones interested in it is potentially in their dream world that they can prove that the president of the United States got an emergency call from benghazi, from libya, and heard our ambassador, chris stevens, was in trouble, was under attack, and went off and played golf or had his dinner or forgot about it. They want to show that somehow the president of the United States didnt go to the defense of his own guy over there, and thats why the guy is dead. I think thats what theyre after. I dont think theres any proof, any evidence, any reason to believe it, but thats the only thing that can justify this continual refocusing and refocuses and reattack. Peter, what do you think . Theyre fighting the old battle. I think theyre still going after obama personally. Its also about Hillary Clinton in 2016. Its about trying to take away the benefit shes gotten from what most people agree was a pretty successful run as secretary of state and creating a political scandal they can use all the way through until the next president ial election. Lets face it, theyre going to turn on hillary the minute she makes a move. Absolutely. Theyre waiting. Only last as long as obamas run. Thats right. Lets take a look at the confirmation vote. We just got it in here late this afternoon. Chuck hagels been confirmed by 5841. So he got some republican votes there. Its interesting. John bolten, when he was up for under secretary of state, he also had 41 no votes against him. So theyre tied. So those that were the bolton crowd can feel like they got a tie with chuck hagel. Your attempt at symmetry disturbs me. I think no one is in the same league as bolten. Why do they keep bringing up benghazi . Whats the bee in the bonnet . I think theres a couple things. For them theres the earnest side if you want to give john mccain and the others the benefit of the doubt. Theyre National Heroes and they think its markers for things like the iraq surge. Its all bundled together. If youre not in the right place on that, youre not a True National hero stewarding the interests of the country in the right way. The deeper thing is this is a time where the other side really just wants to tear down the president anyway they can and to do it viciously every day over and over again and not be about constructive solutions. Now, i happen to be one who doesnt think john mccain and even Lindsey Graham are really about that, but i think that the ted cruzs and inhofes are. Cruz is voting against everybody. I think its the petty slander. Weve got to call it what it is. There is a game of slander thats coming out of u. S. Senate offices today in a way that we havent seen in generations. Thats what we should be worried about. We saw the staffer who said were going to prove hes an antisemite. Right. Friends of hamas. Peter, i know youre a high level policy analyst, but lets talk down and dirty politics. I dont dislike Lindsey Graham. In fact, i like him. I dont dislike the guy at all. I think hes facing a potential right wing challenge for renomination in south carolina. By some standards on the republican right down there, hes a moderate republican, i guess. Was this a way to show that he had some bullets in his gun and he was willing to play right wing cowboy on issues like benghazi and it would make up for the fact he was smart and reasonable and even a bit progressive on issues like immigration . Absolutely. You know, Lindsey Graham reminds me of what al damato used to be like when he was senator from new york. In the last couple years, he would have to race to his left politically to get in touch with new york, and in some ways graham does the same thing. Hes actually relatively moderate the first four years, and the last couple years he races to get in line with the tea party because people have seen what happened to richard lugar. There were people who were considered reasonable conservative credentials who are now no longer conservative enough to win their own primaries, and thats whats driving even Big Questions like how you vote on chuck hagel. I remember pataki in new york moved to the center. I like people who move to the center in general elections. Its the whackos who move so far right that theyre incredible when they come to the general. Of course they dont have general elections in south carolina. That is a problem. Not the ones that are close. Thank you. Steve, thank you much. Steve. Thank you, peter beinart. Coming up, the fight over the massive automatic jobkilling spending cuts set to take place this week. The fifth fiscal showdown between congress and president obama just since 2011. Now its true gridlock, and it could be taking the country down economically, and thats what i fear. We have two former members of congress, a democrat and a republican, coming here. I want to know what theyd do if they were president in one case, House Speaker in another. We have to figure out a way to Work Together in this country because split government looks like its here to say for a while. Another sign of how far this country has come on Marriage Equality. Good news for progressives. A group of republicans has signed on to a brief to the Supreme Court supporting gay marriage. And the rising stars of the Democratic Party. Tonight were going to bring you someone i have been keeping an on, Pennsylvania Attorney general Kathleen Kane. Shes one of the several women im watching who will soon be in the national ondeck circle. Let me finish with my growing concern that things are not working out so well in this city of washington. And this is hardball, the place for politics. 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The annual conservative Political Action conference, cpac, is coming to town here next month, and one republican star wont be there. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie wasnt invited. Christie is a republican with a sky high Approval Rating at home and is a potential president ial contender for the gop in 2016. We all know that. He committed a cardinal sin to some conservatives. He lavished praise, even touched president obama during the aftermath of hurricane sandy, and now hes getting snubbed by cpac. It might not be a bad thing for governor christie. Republican strategist Steve Schmidt called cpac the star wars bar scene of the conservative movement. Remember that scene . And well be right back. [ male announcer ] susan writes childrens books. When shes happy, she writes about bunnies. When shes sad, she writes about goblins. [ balloon pops, goblin growling ] she wrote a lot about goblins after getting burned in the market. But she found someone to talk to and gained the confidence to start investing again. And thats what you call a storybook ending. Its not rocket science. Its just common sense. From td ameritrade. Welcome back to hardball. True gridlock, and thats where we stand tonight. No closer to a deal to avoid the automatic spending cuts set to take effect this friday. Just like democrats and republicans in washington, the public has mixed views on just what to do about the deficit and the budget. Let me show you some new numbers from our own nbc wall street journal poll just out tonight. We asked how americans feel about the president s budget negotiations with republicans in congress. Do they make people feel more or less confident about the economy . 51 said it made them less confident. In other words all this is the hurting peoples confidence in the economy and it could have a real impact on our lives. On the spending cuts scheduled to take effect on friday, 52 said they are a bad idea, but 53 think congress should deal with the deficit with fridays scheduled cuts or plan even more cuts. In other words, theyre complicated on this. The public doesnt like the idea of automatic spending cuts, but if they had to choose, these spending cuts but more spending cuts. So theyre concerned about the way its being done. And when asked which statement is more in line with their thoughts on the cuts, the country looks pretty evenly divided. 50 say the cuts are too severe. 46 say its time for dramatic measures to reduce the deficit. Those numbers, if you look at them, reflect the whole numbers, 50 being obama and 46 being roughly romney. So people are pretty level headed about this. With numbers like that, what do you do if youre president obama or Speaker John Boehner . I have two former members of the house of representatives. Democratic congresswoman majorie margolies and republican steve latourette, thank you. Congresswoman, thank you so much. Im going to put you in a difficult position to be president obama right now. Hes given so many speeches. His wife is all over the place. Mrs. Obama is on every show, including the Academy Awards. Theyre getting a lot of popularity, but its kind of thin, i suppose. Its nice, its good, its happy, but what does that have to do with getting a deal with the republicans who are insistent on no new revenues . You know, i think i think actually let me add on to what you were saying. 27 of the public says that theyre not even interested in it anymore. I dont know. I dont know where to go. If i were doing it, i would say lets look at bowles simpson, Simpson Bowles a and b. What are we doing . Where should the cuts be . The military says that cuts can be had with a scalpel, not with a cleaver. 20 years ago when i was in congress, i said lets talk about entitlements. Weve never really dealt with entitlements except on the margins. Thats what i would be doing if i were president. Okay. I would the president says he will do it after