Schumer: I think Obama will win 52-48 or so, fiscal cliff dealt with in lame duck

>>> all right. it's 42 past the hour. welcome back to " morning joe ." joining us on set, u.s. senator from new york , senator chuck schumer .

>> good morning.

>> and joe?

>> yes.

>> you are going to behave.

>> i'm going to try. i'm going to try.

>> he always behaves.

>> well, not really, actually.

>> i want to ask you what we asked senator mccain . what do you think, this weekend, 2,000 dead in afghanistan . you obviously -- you understand why we went, september 11th .

>> yeah. obviously.

>> but gosh, 11 years later, how much longer?

>> here's what i would say. i don't see how we can succeed in afghanistan no matter what the troops unless we are going to stay there forever, a huge drain on life and on the economy with all the money being spent because the leadership is so poor. karzai is not trusted by america. he's not trusted by his own people. and i've asked leading experts who are hawkish, can you succeed with karzai in charge? they say no. and i say what's the alternative? and they say there is none. so the answer is frankly the answer that the president has had, which is a measured withdrawal. and you know, yeah, maybe senator mccain 's right. i have great respect for him. you bring in more troops. you might prolong it for another year or two, but i don't see the end game .

>> we could argue about how many more troops you bring in or how you bring in more troops, but the fact remains, we've been there for 11 years.

>> yeah.

>> 11 years?

>> exactly.

>> they know that we're trying to leave. it's not like it would be breaking news if there was a discussion that perhaps they heard.

>> the alternative is to say we're staying there forever because we're going to leave at some point.

>> right.

>> and here's the other issue. we have this huge deficit. we have crumbling infrastructure in america, we have huge problems here, and we're a lot safer today on the afghanistan /pakistan border because of the drones. you know, it's not just that bin laden is gone. al qaeda 's greatly, greatly weakened in that part of the world, so we're a lot stronger today than we were -- a lot safer from al qaeda than we were five years ago, ten years ago. so it's not that nothing has been accomplished, but having more troops stay there and try to win over the hearts and minds of the various tribes, it's tough in iraq, but it's even tougher in afghanistan . i think the president's done the rite thing, a clear deadline and we're getting out.

>> to take you back home with the election coming up, what is your understanding of what the president would do in a second term to deal with the fiscal cliff and to help create jobs?

>> i think you're going to see real leadership from the president from the get-go from the day after the election. i think that he believes we have to have both revenues, which is easier for a democrat to say, particularly from the high-end people, but he's quite strong on entitlement reform. it's different than paul ryan 's entitlement reform, but it's real, and it's deep.

>> what does it consist of?

>> well, you know, medicare , which is the biggest one, delivers great health care highly inefficiently. and you have to change the inefficiencies, and you have to change that by getting away from cost plus , you know, from fee for service and do other things. if you pay doctors a salary, just about every major health care provider that pays doctors a salary gives better health care at far less cost, whether it's kaiser permanente , very good in california, people making $300,000, $400,000, sign up. they're much cheaper than the california average and the national average.

>> senator, are we talking shorthand about the fiscal cliff, if you could explain to the viewers essentially what would happen on new year's eve coming up if we don't address it and fix the problem, what would it look like?

>> what would happen it would be that taxes for everybody would go up, not just for people above $250,000. we'd have huge cuts not just in defense but across the board. and at a time when the economy is still slowly climbing out of that deep hole , it could put us right back in there, so it's very serious. i am an optimist. i think we're going to solve this problem in the lame duck, and here's why. it's sort of -- the people who have stood in the way, obviously this is my judgment, more than anybody else are the hard right republicans. but there are two groups in the senate and house of republicans. there are no more moderates, good bless susan collins , but there are mainstream conservatives like the man sitting here before me, john mccain , lamar alexander , lindsey graham , and the mainstream conservatives will want to make an agreement. and when romney embraced ryan and said i'm going the hard right way and loses the election, which if he does and it looks like he will, i believe he will, and i think by a significant margin, 52-48 or somewhere around there, the mainstream republicans are strengthened. and i'll tell you my view, both boehner and mcconnell have a foot in each camp, hard right, mine stream, that's what they should do, they're leaders.

>> you keep saying hard right. paul ryan 's not hard right. ryan is telling the truth about a medicare and medicaid social security system that's going bankrupt and you know it.

>> yeah, but what paul ryan does with that money doesn't put it into deficit reduction which you've been arguing for. he puts it all into tax cuts for the wealthy.

>> well, the president didn't put $716 billion that he took out of medicare into deficit reduction. he put it into obamacare. isn't that just as reckless?

>> no. because the president had -- we were dealing with health care at the time. the president will put significant medicare savings and tax savings, revenue increases, into deficit reduction. the hard right -- and i believe paul ryan is part of that hard right -- i think you've given him a pass.

>> i disagree.

>> i know you do. but his budget does not reduce the deficit for 40 years and takes almost all the medicare money that he saves under his plan, give him credit for stepping up to the plate on that, and puts it -- and the hard thing for a republican to do, joe, and you know this better than to say let's cut medicare , it' s to say let's raise revenues. he hasn't.

>> okay.

>> except in this amorphous thing that says somehow we'll close loopholes to equal $4 trillion. which loophole? he can't name one. that's not courage.

>> final question. with the new york giants who had a very rough night last night.

>> i didn't sleep.

>> you didn't sleep.

>> we can tell you're on edge.

>> as a new york jets fan --

>> you are. namath.

>> i wonder, would you consider a possible trade? like give us eli . you take sanchez.

>> he's not that tired.

>> and tebow.

>> you're a very persuasive fella. not that persuasive.

>> the jets, man, what a mess.

>> what a mess.

>> with sanchez, he just doesn't have it.

>> he's distracted.

>> mika keeps saying he's distracted because of eva longoria .

>> no, no, the tebow trade. they said oh, it will give him motivation. it doesn't. when you have someone breathing over your shoulder, it makes you nervous. a quarterback has to be like eli , calm, cool, collected. i have faith in eli and the giants.

>> they'll be okay.

>> aww.

>> eli is a great example, willie, where holtz, you have two quarterbacks, you have no quarterbacks, eli seems to be trashed by the new york press, every year he wins a super bowl .

>> no more. no, they don't.

>> i'm just saying.

>> they did.

>> he kept his head down because eli knew he had the job and he's not looking over his shoulder.

>> the manning genes, they have two wonderful kids, i don't know about the others, they're calm, they're cool, they're collected. they do their job. you know, you'll talk to -- i was talking to gilbride the other day who is the offensive coach. they would -- the linemen, the runners, the whole team would go over a cliff for eli . he's a true quiet leader. he's a great guy.

>> those mannings, those two kids, they are great. the other kids, in turkish prison.

>> is that true?

>> no, it's in turkish prison.

>> is that true?

>> no, it's not true.

>> first he tries to get rid of eli and then defames the family.

>> when we come back, the " morning joe " football frenzy with roger bennett . we'll be right back. [ male announcer ] the first look...is only the beginning. introducing a stunning work of technology. introducing the entirely new lexus es . and the first ever es hybrid. this is the pursuit of perfection. yeah. it's a good weekend because liverpool had a good weekend.

>>> simmer down now.

>> i'm talking the city. both won. everton fans. ronler bennett. and they're saying two minutes,

>>