Republicans dupe Republicans

>>> a new piece in the daily beast makes the argument that some republicans are dumping their own party. part of it is the quote from the article is while imagine joifrts rank and file republicans express pretty reasonable opinions about most of the great questions of the moment, their representatives in washington are ignoring them and instead striving to please the more extreme minority. we had this word cloud up, words, bad, weak, negative, uncompromising, need work together. that fits a lot into perhaps what you have addressed in your piece?

>> yeah, exactly the same thing. they reinforce each other. it was interesting to hear mark murray saying that some of those comments from the republican party even came from rank and file republicans which i found to be true in the piece i wrote about today. i took at a different poll, not your poll.

>> how dare you, michael, not look at our poll.

>> done by a pollster, who has polled for nbc. and in that poll, imagine joirlts of republicans very often large majorities of republicans , mid and high 60s, support what you would think democratic fixes for a this fiscal cliff problem. they don't want to raise the medicare eligibility age, 60-something republicans , don't want to see big cut us in medicaid or medicare, 60-something percent don't want cuts in medicare and medicaid . the rank and file republicans , the piece you quoted from mip says it, rank and file republicans have kind of reasonable views here. the republicans in washington are just catering to the extremists in their own party. it is interesting that you have congressman chris van hollen yesterday saying he believes part of the maybe the strategy of speaker boehner in stalling out these talks to hold onto his position as speaker. you said he is hugely popular within the ranks.

>> i don't know enough about what individual members of the house republican caucus are thinking about him right now but i would say this, it's entirely possible that if he gives obama his increase in marginal tax rates before january 1st sure, a lot of the tea party -type people in his cause cuss might think of him as a sellout. of course, he always has the threat of eric captor tapping him on the shoulder, wanting to be speaker around eric captor having the support of those more extreme hard right types. that is always a threat for boehner , always something he has to think about. more broadly and as more broadly than just to boehner . all these republicans , either half of them are partiers and the other half who aren't are scared to death they are going to be primaried in their next election by a tea party .

>> just quickly here, what do you make of speaker boehner not coming out, at least at this point, being more direct regarding tax cuts for the wealthiest? from conservative radio to members of his own party, which started with tom cole earthquake the congressman it is all but impossible for the party to avoid that concession, if it is a concession or fairness, whatever your description or perspective, it is unavoidable.

>> i saw what smerconish said in your earlier segment, republicans should embrace it, they can turn around and put pressure on obama. but you and i and smerconish don't really know what the conservative base in john boehner 's district and other districts around the country, house districts around the country are going to do when boehner and other house members say that they embrace that tax hike. they are going to go ballistic and look for somebody to run against them and make their life very, very difficult and that's big part of the problem