0 you didn't deserve it. and i have made, like you have made a new year's resolution, to see more movies, i made three. >> what are yours? >> one, i'm not going to do that ever again. >> okay, that's good. i don't know if anyone knows what you're talking about, but that's okay. >> well, i was kind of -- i was in a bad place. >> he's got to hash something out. >> i was in a bad place. two, and this is important, too, i'm going to try to interrupt you less. in the new year. >> oh, that won't happen, but okay. >> and three, the next time we go to the white house, i'm going to try very hard not to poop my pants. >> i'd bank on one and two because i've seen you at the white house. >> what about interrupting the rest of us? where does that fit in? >> no. i mean, it's got to be "morning joe." >> all right. fine. we're good. let's do the news. >> oh. oh. >> snap. can we move on? >> yes, we can. >> former secretary of state colin powell was on "meet the press" over the weekend offering some tough words to his own party. take a listen. >> there's also a dark -- a dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the party. what do i mean by that? what i mean by that is they still sort of look down on minorities. how can i evidence that? when i see a former governor say that the president is shucking and jiving, that's a racial-era slave term. when i see another former governor after the president's first debate where he didn't do very well says that the president was lazy, he didn't say he was slow, he was tired, he didn't do well, he said he was lazy. now, it may not mean anything to most americans, but to those of us who are african-americans, the second word is "shiftless" and then there's a third word that goes along with it, bifrter, the whole birther movement. why do senior republican leaders tolerate this kind of discussion within the party? i think the party has to take a look at itself. i think the republican party right now is having an identity problem. and i'm still a republican. but in recent years, there's been a significant shift to the right. and we have seen what that shift has produced to losing presidential campaigns. i think what the republican party needs to do now is take a very hard look at itself and understand that the country has changed. the country is changing demographically. and if the republican party does not change along with that demographic, they're going to be in trouble. >> the next story we're about to do on gun control i think is a part of this conversation, but first, joe, how important is what colin powell said? he is someone who has endorsed president obama in the past. >> he has. >> he has shown frustration in the party, and it's not like he is mitch mcconnell or someone else saying we need to change. isn't he in a different category, or is this significant? >> it's extraordinarily significant because yes, he supported barack obama two times. but there are a lot of other republicans that are required for a majority, that are required for republicans to win the white house that are a lot like colin powell, that just look at the republican party and think that they've lost their way. i've got to say, if you look at how the republican party reacted the first time president obama was elected, i wrote a book that basically could be boiled down to don't lose your -- al roker at the white house. >> exactly. >> they didn't listen. they went out, they engaged in birtherism, they called the president a racist who hated all white people, and they went so far right and so extreme that they lost middle america. and so yeah, we lost another presidential election. look at the cover of "drudge" which i think magnificently reflects the feelings of conservatives, where the conservative movement is. and you know, he links stories that people want to see, and he does it better than anybody else. this weekend, i went on "drudge." and at the top of it is a story of survivalists. that are buying property, arming themselves and building walls out west. you have sean hannity who is talking about secession. you have another talk radio host whose name isn't even worth mentioning that is talking basically about -- about how the federal government is coming in and taking weapons, you know. there's a call to arms, and they're going even more extreme right than they were four years ago. this is such a recipe for disaster for the republican party. i thought i would never say it, but if this party continues on this trajectory over the next three years, then we're going to get wiped out in '16. and if we continue on this trajectory and i think the republican party ceases to be a player in presidential politics. when a guy like colin powell, mike barnicle, says i'm a republican -- and he's been saying this for years -- and the republican party has been pushing him away, every time i talk about how our foreign policy should be like colin powell's foreign policy, for five, six years, even before he endorsed barack obama the first time, i would get attacked for associating with colin powell's very conservative with a small "c" realist approach that republican presidents followed for years. it was the weinberger doctrine. it was the reagan doctrine. it was the powell doctrine. and suddenly, it became the doctrine of lefties? >> colin powell is a self-identified republican and has been for many, many years. and with each passing year, with each passing election cycle, the republican party, too many within the republican party, try to further estrange him from the republican party platform, from much of what is said publicly by a lot of republicans. colin powell is also a guy who has the ability and the belief that a lot of republicans -- not a lot -- but too many republicans and too many democrats don't have, he has the ability and the belief to put country ahead of party. and that's unfortunately something that's passe in washington. >> the problem, leigh, though is there are, you know, we're here in new york. or washington or boston or l.a. and the conversation's going to be different than out in the rest of the country where if you saw on the front page of "the new york times" over the weekend, this mad rush to buy guns. it's not nonexistent. they want their bushmasters. >> that's absolutely true. but i mean, i think we're seeing the party just splinter in so many different ways. >> but that's pressure on the party. >> it is. it is. and i thought he also made a great point that, you know, the party can't lose its grip on what's happening demographically in this country. that is a tremendous deal. and this is not just the party of the wealthy, he said, and of lower taxes. it has to be, you know, many republicans don't make as much money and pay a much higher percentage of their income in taxes, and they need the party's help, too. i thought he made so many. that was such a potent -- what was it, 30 minutes? >> it really was, but mika, let's talk about the people that want to buy bushmasters. yes, gun sales are moving at a rapid pace. a lot of people are buying two or three. >> they were buying as many as they can get. >> just to keep up with their survivalist neighbors. >> right. >> you can't have enough of those clips, right? >> apparently not. >> maybe they string them around their christmas trees. i don't know what they do with them. but steve rattner, this is the problem the republican party has made. this is the mistake the republican party's made. they listen to the loudest voices. a small, small percentage of americans. and americans, by the way, who don't swing presidential elections. i have been saying it ad nauseam for four years and making extremist conservatives very upset. you don't just look at what the most conservative person in northwest florida is going to do when they're voting. if you want to win the white house, you ask what's going to happen in bucks county, pennsylvania, what's going to happen in the suburbs of philly, what's going to happen in the i-4 corridor, in columbus, ohio. republicans chasing survivalists and the wayne lapierre fringe of the republican party, i'm not talking the nra, i'm talking the extreme fringe of the nra, that's just such a losing formula. >> yeah. so look, everything you said is obviously completely true, and i can't disagree with it. it is at the moment a recipe for disaster. it's some kind of thelma & louise exercise where they're trying to take the party over the cliff. but i also agree, i think the colin powell performance was extraordinary. i think the way he calmly, clearly, logically -- it was just so logical from a, b to c laid out everything you just said in terms of how the republican party has moved and why it's not his party, i think there are a couple other things about the interview worth noting. one is, of course, he is to some degree still fighting the battles of the bush administration where he had that sensible, more centrist position and was fighting the neocons and for the most part probably lost. and he also has this -- you know, this particular ability to look at the situation as somebody who is a member of a minority and is trying to be a republican and feels this hostility toward him from the rest of the party, in part because he is a minority. but just to finish on a slightly more optimistic note, joe, while at the moment it is impossible to point to any sign in the republican party that they're taking to heart the kinds of things colin powell is saying, you do remember, as you've pointed out many times on the show, that parties do have this tendency to self-correct before they self-destruct. if you look at the democratic party after 1972, it pulled itself together and eventually created the dlc. of course, after '64 nixon was able to pull the republican party back to center. >> 1984, democrats were off the deep end. and that's when bill clinton and like you said the dlc brought them together. here's the really disturbing thing. i remember, mike, back in 1995, a lot of people were talking about colin powell running for president. and i didn't want colin powell to run for president. he was a moderate. i was a conservative. but it wasn't the entire party and me against colin powell. like there were moderates in the center of the party. and we had this very positive give and take. >> what's happened? >> this tug. >> what's happened? >> the moderates in the party have collapsed. >> where are those voices coming from? >> i am now considered by a lot of the right-wing looneys to be a moderate, to be a, quote, rino. anybody that's listened to anything i've said on taxes, on the budget, on the fiscal cliff, i mean, i think my party made a horrible mistake on the fiscal cliff, and yes, i would stare at the president on a government shutdown and say, yeah, maybe shutting down the government's reckless, but you know what's even more reckless? continuing to spend the way you and harry reid want to spend, and i'd have that battle. now, that -- the fact that a guy that carries that around as his core message, the fact that i was willing to shut down the government in 1995, and i would advise it again in 2012, if washington doesn't get serious about curing the debt and the fact that i am considered a moderate, that should be deeply disturbing to the republican party. >> isn't that one of the key questions that republican leaders have to ask themselves? what has happened to the moderate voices in this party in that party? what has happened? you know, 15 years ago, you could have those discussions in congress in a much more amenable way. those discussions don't take place today within the republican party. look at lindsey graham. what, five, seven years ago, he could have been described as a moderate. but now because of his fear of a primary from the right, he increasingly drifts toward the right. and he's no longer a moderate voice. >> i mean, lindsey said something about like don't try to take my assault weapon away. just silly like that. >> crazy stuff. >> come on. first of all, i would like to see him try to shoot one. >> that's the reason mike said, you've got this enormous from the right coming from all these guys and ladies that if they don't adhere to this new republican line, they're going to face a primary, get primaried. >> another big difference -- i'm sorry i interrupted you. hold on one second. >> wasn't that resolution number two? >> okay. that's okay, right? >> you're going to need a bigger paper. >> you're going to need bigger paper! all right. famous roy scheider line. the thing is, though, here's the second big point. that about 1995 and colin powell. yeah, i didn't want colin powell to be our nominee because i wanted somebody more conservative. but i respected the hell out of colin powell. and if colin powell won the nomination, i would salute instead of all these idiots -- idiots on the far right who now say if you don't agree with them on every single issue that you're a rino, you're a socialist, you're a this, you're a that, they have no idea who the ronald reagan that they once talked about was, the man who said, just because i'm your friend 80% of the time doesn't make me your enemy 20% of the time. the reagan who came out against assault weapons, the reagan who passed tax increases when he had to pass tax increases, the reagan that was pragmatic. you don't win 49 states without being pragmatic, without figuring out, like bill buckley always said conservatives had to figure out what the reality was in front of the conservative movement. reagan figured it out. he won two historic landslides. if republicans want to win again, they're going to have to figure that out. and colin powell could actually help them out quite a bit. >> so from the logical colin powell to the completely illogical, let's end this block on the nra. following a series of meetings last week, vice president biden is set to deliver a list of comprehensive proposals to the president tomorrow. it's expected to include expanded background checks for gun buyers and the call to reinstate a national assault weapons ban that expired in 2004. yesterday the president of the national rifle association said such a ban would not make it through congress. >> we put the brakes on is anything that simply takes away a person's second amendment right for no good reason. >> do you think you have enough support on capitol hill to keep an assault weapons ban from passing? >> i think right now we do. when a president takes all of the power of his office, if he's willing to spend political capit capital, you don't want to bet your house on the outcome. but i would say that the likelihood is that they are not going to be able to get an assault weapons ban through this congress. >> how about a clip? some kind of restriction on clips? >> i don't think ultimately they're going to get that either. >> you know, i agree with him on -- i think the assault weapon ban is going to be close. i think it could pass. i think right now it's going to be a tougher lift. i think, though, on magazines, i think that looks -- i think that most americans support that. republicans that stand in the way of that do so at their own risk. background checks, universal background checks, that would get rid of what happens at, like, these gun shows in virginia. 80%, 85% of americans support these universal background checks. again, republican -- maybe republicans would kill that in the house. if they do, they're going to kill themselves politically. so they just have to decide whether they want to support the 1% of survivalists who believe the federal government's coming, as i said last week, to steal their chickens and take their wives, or whether they want to side with the 99% who -- or at least the 85% who agree that every american before buying a gun should have a check. >> what have they given back in this conversation? besides please, arm the schools and make them fortresses? i'm sorry. >> the party of no. >> okay. >> the organization of no. >> it's just unbelievable. i think you're right, joe. coming up, former presidential candidate john huntman will be here. senator joe manchin of west virginia. newark mayor cory booker and former white house adviser for health policy, dr. zeke emanuel. up next, mike allen with the top stories in the "politico playbook." but first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. bill? >> good morning to you, mika. kettle corn is what i prefer for movie night, by the way. if you want me to bring that, just let me know. >> it would be awkward. >> it wouldn't be awkward. it would be enjoyable. good morning. let's talk about this weekend. the fog was incredible in new england. it's been foggy for three straight days down to the mid-atlantic. airports were a mess over the weekend. as of now they're okay. once volume increases, the visibility still very poor around philly, new york, hartford. boston and d.c. are all right, but especially those big ar airports in the middle of i-95. through virginia and carolinas, have the umbrella with you today. it's another unusually very warm day, but that's coming to an end. look at the cold air by buffalo and pittsburgh. that's on the way for the east. in the middle of the nation, it is freezing cold this morning from chicago all the way to the west coast. frigid air, winter in full glory. look at the windchill in denver. it's minus 16. and if you watched that football game this weekend, it's been cold all weekend long. even dallas this morning with a windchill of 19. so the east coast, you're warm, you're foggy, you're wet. the middle of the country, you're cold and dry. and on the west coast, we're going to slowly recover after what was a very chilly weekend for you. i guess if there's any good news, winter kind of returns to normal around the country, but there's still no big snowstorms on the way anywhere. you're watching "morning joe." we're brewed by starbucks. i have lost 101 lbs on weight watchers online.