Rush Limbaugh agrees with Lawrence O'Donnell

>>> this moment tus day of 12-12-12 will go down in political history as the day rush limbaugh gave up and found himself agreeing with me.

>>> the clock is rapidly ticking down to christmas.

>> republican leaders warning their colleagues.

>> we are committed to staying here.

>> not to make any holiday plans.

>> we are going to stay here right up until christmas eve .

>> fiscal tensions mount as the clock clicks down christmas less than two weeks way, the moment the nation is due to go off the cliff .

>> we are getting a little close.

>> the white house has moved a little bit.

>> i remain optimistic.

>> nothing yet from the house republicans .

>> the two sides really do disagree.

>> sunday is basically the deadline.

>> they could be working through the holidays.

>> the president and john boehner talked on the phone last night.

>> bain ner and the president spoke on the phone yesterday.

>> described as tense.

>> i remain the most optimistic person in this town.

>> i remain optimistic.

>> what do they want?

>> most americans say they want compromise.

>> voters overwhelmingly disapprove.

>> figure it out. we did. figure it out z we are 20 days away from the so-called fiscal cliff .

>> republicans are tote little over the barrel.

>> we are committed to staying here.

>> we don't have an agreement today.

>> we are going to stay here right up until christmas eve .

>> they will be pushing all that and we'll go to the senate and we'll lose.

>>> with just 20 shopping days until the fiscal curve, president obama stood firm on raising the top income tax rates today and john boehner took one more baby step toward the president. tonight, plolitico reveals that house speaker told barack obama he is prepared to consider more than the $800 billion that the gop has already proposed in new tax revenues but only if the white house will back much deeper cuts to entitlement programs according to several sources familiar with the talks getting beyond $800 billion in revenue without raising tax rates on upper income families would be difficult. today, speaker boehner , told house republicans not to make any plans for the holidays and then told reporters this.

>> the president and i had a deliberate call yesterday. we spoke honestly and openly about the differences that we face but the president's call for$1.4 trillion worth of revenue. the glass half full. i roux he main the most optimistic person in this town but we've got some serious differences.

>> president obama seems to remain comfortable with, if necessary, taking that step off the fiscal curve.

>> i'm pretty confident that republicans would not hold middle class taxes hostage to try to protect tax cuts for high income individuals.

>> prediction? are you going to be able to raise taxes, yes or no?

>> oh, taxes are going to go up one way or the other.

>> in a just-released nbc news poll, 76% of americans say it is acceptable to raise income tax rates on people who earn more than $250,000 per year to avoid the fiscal cliff and reduce the deficit. today, rush limbaugh after searching for and failing to find a way out for republicans on the fiscal cliff dilemma found himself making the point that i made five months ago on this program at this desk. for some reason, rush failed to give me credit for what he told his audience today.

>> so we go over the cliff . everybody's rates go up. here comes obama in the white hat on the whitehorse to save the day. he is going to propose, guess what? tax cuts for the middle class and, thereby, take the issue away from the republicans . tax cuts for the rich they will own. somebody needs to explain to me what is the benefit to obama in letting the republicans out of the trap of going over the cliff ? i think going over the cliff is the most attractive option obama has.

>> crystal, you can learn it from rush limbaugh on 12-12-12 or you could have learned it from me this summer.

>> i learned it from you this summer.

>> there you go. he is finally catching on. he finally gets it.

>> it pains me a little bit to say this but rush is right. if republicans were smart.

>> this is the rush is right night.

>> that's the theme of the night.

>> i'm not going to show any more rush. he has three hours of radio today . that thing that we just showed is the rush is right moment.

>> if they were smart, they would go ahead and do that. take it off the table and live to fight another day. i do think they are a little bit delusional about the am of leverage that they will have around the debt ceiling as well. holding the debt ceiling hostage is extremely unpopular, as is taking away people's medicare. you are going to do two things. your going to hold the debt ceiling hostage in order to take people's medicare away. it is going to be massively politically unpopular if they try to do it. i don't think they will have the stomach for that political fight either.

>> columnist john pedorick made an important point. he said is that 4.6 percentage point overall gain the tipping point to what mitt romney called a government-centered society. the case would be easier to make if it were an unprecedented hike but it's not. it's a return to a rate from the mid 1990s . ari, that's the problem. the big scary thing president obama is talking about is having the big scary top tax rate be the same as it was under president clinton when people in the top tax bracket had a great time.

>> exactly. everyone remembers that. everyone understands that. there isn't a big principle here left for the republicans . that's why the fallback position i think shows a great weakness. it also shows a top of economic nighalism that they don't care about the cred imrating of the united states of america . we already knew that. the other difference that is going to hurt them, we are seeing it in the bloomberg news poll and the views. this should be a compromise time and obama should get the tax hike on the upper 2%. people talk about a teachable moment. this is a teachable month. this is taking a long time. it hurts republicans because people are seeing the entrance yents and seeing who is in the way of recovery.

>> there is a new theory about the pace of things. chris van hollen thinks it has something to do with speaker boehner 's future.

>> i am getting increasingly concerned that one of the reasons the speaker is deciding to, i think, spring out these discussions is that he wants to wait until january 3rd , when the election for speaker takes place.

>> krystal , that's the kind of thing i wish i thought of. i've been seeing this thing as being a january 3rd or 4th reality point for negotiations. i wish i would have caught that point. that's a good point.

>> here is something that you did think of when you were so kind as to grace us with you being on our show.

>> the cycle at 3:00 p.m .

>> thank you.

>> sometime last week. you were talking about how john boehner got some control of his caucus by doing what no speaker in the past has done, by letting the crazies roule the roost. it wasn't his choice but it was what he had to do to send the strategy. that lesson hasn't totally sunk in yet. i don't think they have completely resigned themselves to the fact that they are going to have to give on tax rates . going back to what you were just citing, a lot of them do see taxes as the core principle. raising them is an@ma to the republican ideology because they have seeded every other idea they have had. they have spent their time yelling about socialism and death panels rather than offering ideas that make sense to the american people .

>> ari, the thing ha happens when you are off the cliff is as of that day anything you would then vote on is a tax cut ?

>> right.

>> the tenses all become correct. right now, it is not considered a tax cut , because it is a future dealing with the rates. if the rates are up here on january 2nd and on january 5th , you get to vote for them to be down here, you just voted for a tax cut .

>> exactly. you saw that in the clip you played of the president talking to barbara walters . a lot of times we talk about framing and messaging. this isn't about framing. the facts are, as you just stated, that the taxes will shift back and we can start anew. it is not like a frame or a gimmick. those are the facts. again, going back to the clinton era, going back to something that we know was fine that didn't hurt job creators is perfectly palletable. that's why republicans increasingly look extreme holding on to this last par. stock futures went up today. we don't have any silver anymore. but we have a lot of people in the markets who actually do think this deal is going to work out and probably work out on obama 's terms.

>> i think they think what republican senator, bob corker , said today. let's listen to this.

>> at the end of this year, in some form or fashion, whether we embarrass ourselves and wait and go over the cliff and next year or before this year ends, we are going to offer revenues, right? i don't know how anybody can believe that revenues aren't coming. what i would say to everyone here, let's move to entitlement reform. that's the only thing candidly that hasn't been talked about in this debate.

>> krystal , it is really striking how republicans feel perfectly free to go out there and say, it's going to p ha. starting with congressman cole in the house and no one in the leadership is saying to them, don't do that. mitch mcconnell could easily have said to corker, look, bob, not today. we have to hang tight against obama in our negotiations, none of that. they are allowing these republicans to go up there and soften the wall against these taxes.

>> i loved when tom cole first came out and said, this is what we should do, go along with the president. boehner did come out and make a cursory, he shouldn't have said that. cole went on five more shows to reiterate the exact same point. this helps boehner to be able to soften up his caucus. the fact that you are seeing people like rush limbaugh and ann coulter say that this is where we have to go, i think it does provide measure of comfort for further to the right republicans who are worried not about a general election but are worried about their primaries back home.

>> the guys way over on the right don't have to vote for this. they can vote no. you are going to get enough democrats and other republicans to pass it. those guys can be given a pass.

>> exactly. that's one thing that ex speaker pelosi was saying. when she was speaker, she did bring certain things to the floor that she didn't like, because she had a notion of responsibility.

>> funding the iraq war .

>> you don't have that responsibility here yet.

>> krystal ball and ari melber. thanks for joining me.

>>> the case of the silent tea party in the fiscal cliff negotiations. where in the world is michele bachmann ?

>>> in the rewrite, what republican house members tell themselves about their history with taxation and what they don't know about the republican party 's history with taxation.

>>> tony-winning award actor, alan cummings , star of "the good life" will be here. keep an eye for alan cummings . he could be popping up at any moment. you know that.