and afghanistan, is this something money and a little diplomacy can buy? can we cut a deal with the taliban? can we end this war. hi, i'm chris matthews. welcome to the show. with us today. john heilemann, farr farr, andrea mitchell and david ignatius. first off, it was a week dominated by twitter, but the hard reality of our very economy is what is haunting the obama white house and giving encouragement to the republicans. the new issue of "time magazine" has this cover, what recovery? "time magazine" lists the five myths that shows how hard it will be to get back to how this one was. number one, the current is a blip. no matter how much the white house says it's true, two, more monetary stimulus could work if it comes to us. it keeps interest rates down, but it doesn't make people without jobs buy anything. three, private sector investment will help when it kicks in. businesses spending in emerging country is into the here. four, the people are ready to work. the fact is with new jobs, people can pick up stakes to move where the jobs are and many don't have the right training for the jobs. five, americans are entrepreneurs. that's just not the force it once was. rana this is a top portrait, are we in the downward from the american dream we all feared? >> if we don't take some pretty severe measures, yes, we are. it takes six months to get out of a recession, once you get out, start creating jobs again. this time it's going to take 60 months. that's five years. so the picture is grim. chris: was that a fact because of the high unemployment rate, 9.1, ticking up two months in a row? >> these are not a quarterly thing. these factors were happening long before obama took office. the period between 2000 asheds 2007 is the weakest job growth we have seen since the grade depression. chris: has the white housen covering up? they said we're on a fast train to recovery. every month is going to get better, yet always lower than expected, the recovery numbers. >> they thought back in december when they got the tax cut deal in the lame duck session and it had a bunch of stimulus built into it like unemployment insurance and payroll taxes. chris: the bush tax cuts, keeping them. >> they thought they would get a nice steady ramp through 2011 that would help the faltering recovery take flight. by early 2012, things would be off and running and solid. they have obviously been dealt a severe blow. they have been surprised that what they thought was going to happen has not happened. chris: housing, so many problems out there, they hit especially people 50 and older. we have a report by the association of retired people that basically says that a quarter of the people, 50 and older, have no savings whatsoever. it's all wiped out. 60% basically don't have enough to retire on. these are the people as we all know around this table that vote. >> these are the people who vote. and in fact these are the people most effected by some of the options that have been considered by the simpson bowles group and the people negotiating with vice president biden. chris: getting rid of medicare. >> and the home housing deduction. the fact is that housing has always led recoveries and construction and housing are just underwater as long as you have this huge inventory foreclosure is still a problem. you don't have any kind a spark to this recovery. rana is exactly right. the underlying factors are it's not just japan and the earthquake, tsunami and all of these under unintended events, the weather and the floods. it's a big issue. chris: every recovery we have been through, every recession has been led by housing. >> we had a huge oversupply of housing and we're working that down. one caution, i think rana's cover story is superb, but economies never turn around until suddenly the moment that everybody was expected no action and then, bam, here it comes. chris: when is the bam? >> we don't know. that's the point about economics. at some point given the factors that we're seeing, you do begin to work down your inventories. you need to hire more workers. you need to build a new factory and do all of the things to get recovery going. we can't say when that is. it's the moment when animal spirits take over again. at some point that's going to happen. chris: this is the fundamental question. you're suggesting this is a regular recession. you go into it and you come out of it the regular way. >> the basics that are driving it are the same as always. >> i don't think that's your piece. >> no, i have to say i don't agree with that. there is a sense as long as we can get some certainty, businesses are going to invest back home again. the truth is they haven't been investing since the 1980's. there is some interesting work done showing that the companies that are the global marketplace haven't created any jobs back home in three decades. the companies that are here in this marketplace only. chris: we hear that from financial advisors, putting more money overseas, that's where the money is is it? >> it is structural. people would say we were going through a once in a century all-star transformation gwobization and information technology. chris: will we sthrooze >> that is a huge change. it's the industrial revolution. it's going to take two or three decades to feel the effect of it. another 100 years to get it all played out across the world. chris: there is one number, it shocked the hell out of people, going in the wrong direction. all of a sudden romney who is not an exciting candidate, but the frontrunner, he is running even with president obama, after catching bin laden and all that is gone now. >> romney feels this is in his wheelhouse. if he keeps talking about the economy and is slow and steady. he can forgo the aims of iowa. chris: i think we're in a situation now political even steven, that romney can beat the president on the economy right now. >> no. if the economy in november 2012 is identical to today, yes, it's even steven. it's worse than that. if the sail begins to fill with some wind and there is forward momentum, president obama will say these policies have taken a long time to work and they're working. and the great damage for mitt romney is that the primary season will take this man who really is a smart business consultant, advisor, a guy who knows how to run things and make him into a kind of ideologue cal fool. >> you make a good point. >> the story, the very thing that woo give him strength. chris: we asked our matthews meter what is president obama's better reaction strategy? is it talking about a future agenda or straight talk about how tough things are right now? eight of the regulars say obviously, in the very american way, the best option is to talk about our future agenda. four say it's better to give straight talk about what we're up against right now. john and andrea split, you talk about the future. talk about tomorrow. >> i was there when walter mondaydale said -- mondale taxes, i just did, i told you i just did, whatever the quote was. the point is that it's morning in america. it's a better sales pitch. the bumper sticker that it could have been worse is not a great bumper sticker. chris: can you get away with the night before morning in america? >> if the trends are going in america, then he can pitch it. chris: you say tell the truth. >> in the un-american way that i'm famous for. look, if the question is whether david is write, if there is wind in the sails or not? if so, you can claim it's morning in america. if it's flat until now until november, you have to. you have to talk about the future. you have to confront reality. the best presidential messages are ones that take some measure. you don't want to be down and pessimistic and tell people, i have been here for four years, things are just add bad. you have to explain why the structural thing is such a huge challenge. chris: back to your analysis, you are giving a traditional view which i like is things will get better because the wheel turns. eventually we run out of inventory and the young people do demand to buy a house. people have to buy things and new toys are invented, things people want to buy, new cars. you say it's different. under your analysis, will it get better by next november? it's be political. >> he can talk about the future. what is the comparison? >> the unemployment rate is at 9 next november? >> slightly lower, but the comparison is importantment the republicans say we can starve our way to growth, cut, cut, cut. >> if the president can say next year i am fixing what is broken in washington. if he can have the spirit of the lame duck session where he is reaching out to the republicans and he is getting things done, especially on the deficit, he will be in a stronger -- no matter what the economic position are. chris: before we break, let's stipulate that few people have had a worse couple of weeks than anthony weiner and his family. he is the latest in a long sad line of politicians caught and faced with out bad choices. the grand daddy of these scandals was gary heart. back in 1987, the press was all over heart once the donna rice story broken and here was the classic exchange in a new hampshire news conference. >> i do not have to answer that question. chris: no denial there. two days later he quit the race. bill clintons always denied. he used anger. >> i did not have sexual relations with that woman miss lewinsky. i never told anybody to lie, not a single time, never. these allegations are false and i need to go back to work for the american people. thank you. chris: senator larry craig was stuck with his police tape this one, but still carried on his denial. >> you really think it's your feet? >> i don't know. i don't know at the time. i'm a fairly wide guy. >> let me be clear. i am not gay. i never have been gay. chris: and finally there is john edwards. here was his denial after "the national enquirer" revealed his affair. he thinks he can get by with a denial. >> it's completely untrue and ridiculous. i have been in love with the same woman for 30-plus years as anybody who has been around uslá >> this twitter picture in question is a hack or a prank that someone posted on my twitter page. it seem like a prank to make fun of my name. chris: demake a nightmare worse or was this homeless to begin with. >> people say that the cover-up is worse than the crime itself. certainly the things that he did and the way he tried deny this made him look a fool. the crime in this case was going to be pretty devastating one way or the another. if you send pictures of your genitals around, and they are forwarded around the world, you are in serious trouble no matter how you respond. chris: he distributes the evidence worldwide. >> they could have used some more cover-up. chris: this is fraught with that. when we come back, is there an exit strategy for afghanistan and it involves doing what the taliban wants? will paying honor to the taliban in time honored tribal ways let us get out. "scoops and predictions," be right back. chris: welcome back. our buddy here, david ignatius, is out with his third thriller, his stories have been best sellers and body of lies was a huge big movie. this new book is blood money, about the reality of the no tore i don't see pakistani intelligence service. david, we have learned about that, they seem to be on our side when they want our money. then they are on the taliban's side and maybe al qaeda's side when they want protection, what? >> i say in the book, accused of double dealing doesn't do them justice. it's a lot more complicated and manipulative than that. the pakistanis are always hedging their bets. they fundamentally don't trust us. i have to say we're hedging our bets with them. it's a poisonous relationship. we need each other. we need them to fight al qaeda and they know it. we're caught in these manipulations, half lies -- chris: let's look at what you write in your book about something that matters to everybody here and that's how you envision and end to the war in afghanistan. "the tribele code for restoring harmony is how wars end morning horrible man. the vanquished party goes to the house of the enemy and requests forgiveness and peace. they bring a gift of animals. david, that wonderful way of ending family disputes and even murders, i fidelities, that kind thing, how can we utilize that culture to our advantage to get out of that country? >> i'm glad you selected that quote. it's what the book in the end is all about. the way we're going to get out of the mess that we have gotten into is to understand the tribele rituals, the cultural rituals of that part of the world. conflicts always start in the areas of afghanistan and pakistan, but they end with the balance of mutual respect in which the two sides symbolize that their relationship of equality somehow in our secret contacts with the taliban which are going on now, we have to signal to them that we don't want to grind them into the ground in a traditional, but we want to respect their dignity, respect who they are, and then have a settlement. chris: we have the chief foreign affairs correspondent for nbc news here. >> it's for shadowed in "blood money" and it's what petraeus envisions. this is the exit strategy. yet now that the president is deciding this coming week is the glide path, how rapidly to do this, panetta and gates are on the same page on this but the president has to make the ultimate decision. chris: john, how do we turn any part of that country's power over to a bunch of people, taliban, who blew up buddhas, who treat women like dirt, how can we have our hands in that? >> david's books are fantastic. let's get that out of the way. i don't think there is not a good end here. the one problem with the end that david envisions is that it's not really clear who is the victor. not really clear who is the vanquished. >> karzai is the president we prop up. does he share his government with taliban leaders? >> i absolutely understand the microanalysis or the macroanalysis of that. all i mean is that what we actually have in this case is another one of the scenarios that david actually lays out in the earlier part of the book which is having to walk away because it is just impatient and exhausted. there is not going to be a clear end here. the only answer is we have to walk away because it has become untenable for us to stay. >> rana, your thoughts? >> i think we have to remember history in afghanistan. when you walk away or when the dominant foreign power leaves, what typically happens is that the leader gets strung up. the u.s. needs to put a lot more pressure on karzai to deal with corruption. he needs to get his brother out there and get some more buy-in when we leave, whenever that is. >> speaking to what john said, we do have to accept that the end of the story is going to have ambiguity, is going to be a political compromise with people we don't like. one thing that gives me hope, chris, is the regional powers use identical language to describe how this should end. that's what we need to go on chris: when we co chris: welcome back. john tell me something i don't know. >> with the i am employees of newt gingrich as a presidential campaign which is dwed if not formal yet, we are about to see the rises of rick perry, the governor of texas. he is going to claim them back. he is the one candidate who has been on the sidelines of all of the people we have speculated about that might get in. he might get in. the odds are rising rather rapidly over this weekend. >> the next bubble in the markets is going to be the higher education bubble. the amount of student loans has now reached almost $1 trillion. that's topping credit card debt and we're going to see a generation of folks that can't pay their loans back because they can't get jobs. >> one of the biggest changes in our counterterrorism strategy is the departure of the head of the counterterrorism center. since 2007, he has been in charge, the president credits him with getting bin laden. the key player. this is a challenge for general petraeus as he takes over the c.i.a. he is going to feel a huge vacuum there. >> france is tellingalize that libya's gaddafi is going to run out of money in four to six weeks and that his regime will implode. one problem, i talked this week with the gaddafi representative who says he still has $10 billion which is probably enough to get him through the end of the year. chris: you're a member of the leagues of honor. when we come back, the big question of the week, why do they take such risks? i love this question. be right back. [ male announcer ] baltimore. a city that's been inspiring ideas and innovation since 1729. at bank of america, we live, work and help serve the community here through hundreds of branches and atms. every day, we're working to help set opportunity in motion. from supporting the university of maryland medical center... to the restoration of the hippodrome theater and american brewery building. because when you're giving, lending and investing in more communities across the country, more opportunities happen. chris: welcome back. politicians are predisposed to risk taking. it is called type t personality with the t standing for thrill which brings us to this week's fabulous question. is this why politicians are disproportionally involved with is sex scandals. john heilemann, let's start with you? >> i accept that analysis. politicians are risk takers. they have a lot of public scrutiny. there are scandalists that don't get brought into the public eye. and politicians are type n, needy and narcissistic. that is very dangerous. >> how come women have run for president, women have run for national office, you never had a woman involved in a sex is scandal? chris: we had that conversation in our family the other night. your thoughts? >> i think women don't do them, they don't have time. they're too busy dealing with everything else, packing lunches for kids. i think it's a risk-prone personality. you see it on wall street, too. the big dogs are risk takers. it doesn't pay there or here either. >> david. >> watching the clips in the show, politicians lying and doubling and redoubling their bets, i couldn't think the real turnon for these people is the risk of getting caught. they're steering closer and closer to the thing. that's what is pulling them, this sort of desire and fear of getting caught. >> you bring the novelist. chris: closer to human nature than any of us are willing to admit. thanks for a great roundtable. that's the show. thanks for watching. see you all here next week.
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