President Obama is a "spending addict" that "isn't willing to deal" in the fiscal cliff negotiations taking place between Capitol Hill and the White House according to Rick Santorum.
Santorum argues that there's no incentive for President Obama to reach a grand bargain because the fiscal cliff "gives him pretty much what he wants," in terms of tax rates and defense spending cuts.
In addition, he believes that going over the cliff allows the president to simply "blame the [tax increases] that are not popular on Republicans that are not negotiating."
The future of the Republican party, in Rick Santorum's opinion, should be one in which they don't "just care about the great achievers," but instead focus more "on that group of voters who don't think we care about working me and women."
As for 2016, the former presidential contender hasn't ruled anything out. "I'm going to keep my options open and we're going to stay involved in the fray," he says, but cautions that it is still a long way away and he has not made any decisions.
Watch the entire PRESS Pass interview above to hear more from Santorum including what he thinks Mitt Romney did wrong as a candidate and why President Obama is responsible for a "much more dangerous world" abroad.
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David, you didnt bring up the fact that santorum and republicans would legislate their religious beliefs on america on womens rights, family values, etc. its one thing to believe those things its another to try to pass personhood legislation on the country 5 times like ryan and some states.
Description of Rick Santorum's base of support...100% are members of a church, which is led by a 90 year old demented grand father and of which the membership is all made up of all blood relatives. They must be careful handling those snakes in church. They bite sometimes. "GAWD HELP US... Katy bar the door, them heathens is upon us". Rick is supposedly Catholic, but I do not know a single Catholic who would vote for this dead end loser.
Rick's base of support protest at funerals of dead soldiers with signs that says "GOD HATES FAGS". Rick "the prick" Sanctimonious Santorum could not get re-elected in his home state much less win the backwards GOPOX Primary. He is out of office and nobody cares what he thinks. WHY ARE WE SEEING THIS DOLT ON A MAJOR NEWS SHOW??? He is now officially a NOBODY.
By the way, David Gregory is just not getting the job done and is not upping his game. He is the worst moderator of MTP is it's long storied history. If he does not improve quickly I suspect he is on his way out. Dumb soft ball questions.... False Equivilencies....Mary Matalin and Bay Buchanan....REALLY David??? If you cannot do better than you have been doing you need to apply for a job at FOX because you are not up to NBC standards. NEEDS IMPROVEMENT....GRADE D....
Mister Gregory or the editors of MtP seem to have different standards for different guests. Since Rick Santorum does not hold public office, nor is he currently a candidate for any, he gets softballed. I think that is the wrong approach. If Santorum is on the show, he is selling his agenda, if not himself directly, and that agenda deserves the same level of scrutiny and skepticism as any candidate. If not, then it isn't interesting or informative enough to be airing on Sunday or on PRESS Pass.
@Dennis Lurvey (et al) - oh yes, we must be VERY afraid of Santorum and all those religious zealots! Why when he was a senator, he made all the women in PA wear dresses & stay home in the kitchen & have babies! And who can forget how he made birth control illegal!
Geez, are you people really as ignorant and bigoted as you sound? Please, don't bother answering - the comments here make it clear that my question could ONLY be rhetorical...
Video: Tennessee Republicans caught putting politics ahead of their people:
This guy will always be crazy!! The only reason he did so well in the primary is because he has a sweet, ill child who the U.S fell in love with..
Santorum should just give it up and get a real job!! Pennsylvania was glad to see him go, voted him out of office, not like he left to do something else!! Voted out!! And he went nowhere in those clown car Repub primaries! He's a loser. He has a losing "message". His plan for the country is to destroy, not build, cut not create anything. He did nothing while a PA senator. And his "message" to women is that we should return to the 1930's! He and his fellow angry old white men will never be elected to anything until they catch on who the voting public really is!!!
Simply put: Santorum is irrelevant. Who cares what he says or thinks.
To open the interview, Rick Santorum beems with pride over his efforts to deny support and services to disabled people around the world, with nary a followup as a cost for promoting his PAC. Then he goes back to linking the President's name with the word "infanticide". He closes the interview by making an absurdly hypocritical case about the dangers of religion in government, when he has been secularism's foremost critic in the United States.
Perhaps it is time for the mainstream media to stop assisting Santorum in promoting his agenda, to stop treating him as a politically relevant figure, and assign him to the same trash bin of far right conspiracy theorizing, hate mongering nonsense as the likes of Limbaugh and Beck, a place which Santorum has embraced with his new gig at WorldNetDaily. He has made his bed appealing to the worst elements of the far right, and now we should all just let him sleep in it in peace and quiet. Let's ignore him and focus on the real world instead.
... is it just me, or does anyone else on these pages worry that this little zealot represents a "base" in this country's body politic that could, potentially, be dangerous to themselves and to others? His "reasoning", at times, seems so convoluted, to me, at least, as to feel almost psychotic; but, then, who am I to judge: I'm far from "expert" in these matters.
Why would any legitimate media give this evil man a forum to spew his hate and lies again and again? What the hell is wrong with Meet the Press these days?
Why does this guy have any voice? He lost his Senate seat, got trounced in the primaries and is part of the American taliban! Keep him off the air!!!!!
Your interview with Rick Santorum sounds like you would like to have the opportunity to vote for him sometime in the future. I don't understand your pasty handling of him on PressPass. You let him criticize actions of the administration and then when you ask him what he would do in a similar situation, you let him off the hook when his respond is, "Well, that is a hard question." Why do you allow him to get away with that?
No one cares if they never see Rick Santorum again on the air. We wish him well with his ill child but he is truly one who never seems to have any thing of substance to say. Does he not realize that is why he was a non-entity in his attempt to secure the presidential nomination? WAS HE REALLY THE ONLY PERSON IN TOWN YOU COULD GET FOR YOUR SHOW THIS MORNING?
Santorum is so irrelevant... Every time he speaks, and angel gets a black eye.
I have stopped watching and recording MTP. It will stay that way as long as squishy republican loving DG is the moderator.
The man is a menace, stop giving him a forum. He is irrelevant, his views are worthless to Americans. He deserves no attention of any kind. Leave him under his own personal rock, stop inflicting Santorum on the The Nation, self-righteous, elite, snob booger.
Am done watching MTP until you get a decent moderator who actually calls political whack jobs out when they blatantly lie on the show. Why on earth is MSNBC giving Rick Santorum a non-contested forum to spew his ridiculous crap??? Whether it's a Democrat or Republican up there lying, I expect the MTP moderator to call people out. David Gregory is mostly useless in this regard. Done until he's replaced.
I looked at all the comments, no one had anything positive to say about this jerk. He has no relevance in our society, the best analogy was the American Taliban. Ignore this jerk, he is stupid, incompetent, irrelavent, annoying, and a certified loser.
Rickyour are forgetting, that while Romney was preaching jobs, he was sending a factory from freeportto China! your excuses, don't add up to what the Republican were doing, and what they were saying. My question to you is " will the republicans ever do and say the samething." I'm part of the 47% that Romney wrote off, and you expected people to vote for Republicans? Your a dreamer! My S.S. and medi-care was bought and paid for, and there for, it is a hands off subject. Any attemps to lessen this will be an all out war, towards the Republicans, and that is not a saying, it a fact!
This is what I hate about you David and others. When you've got a loon like Santorum talking about Sharia, you don't go after that point instead you're letting these Republicans disrespect Islam/Muslims on national television.
Santorum is a has-been. The news media should ignore him. No one is interested in his rantings.
Rick Santorum just beat Bob Dole, John Kerry, and John McCain in the Senate on the proposal recommending that other countries adopt the US's nondiscriminatory practices towards disabled persons. So, yes he is still relevant.
And David Gregory let him proudly proclaim that if it had not been for him and his organization... and how that would somehow prevent the United Nations from coming into people's living rooms where they homeschool their children...
I would say Meet the Press is doing us a service-- look Rick Santorum is still around and still working hard on his agenda.
'Frothy Santorum' is a burr under the saddle of any decent politician trying to govern our nation. Santorum's concept of governing is too stringent and aligning to religious fervor for my taste. Yes, he and his organization may have been behind the defeat of this UN Disability movement..........but I'd rather have heard from a republican senator on what persuaded them to vote against it. Santorum was trounced and he needs to remain under the soles of every voter.
David Gregory is a terrible host. He panders to the guests,lets them dance around questions,etc. I've e-mailed the show numerous times but never get any kind of response. Why doesn't he ask these pols the reason they don't negotiate with drug companies to lower Medicare and Medicaid costs? And,with that complete moron Santorum on,I would love for someone(on any media site)to ask him,"Since you don't believe in contraception,you have six kids,does that mean you've only had sex with your wife six times? I hope he runs again,that way the American people can see how much of a complete a'hole this guy really is. To think he is so delusional to think he has the American people behind him!!
Not to harp,but,since the late Tim Russert,awesome host,this show has gone downhill. It is beginning to look like Stephanopolous's show on ABC. He has the same old stale rustbuckets at the roundtable. If NBC wanted to boost its' Sunday audience,they should let some up and coming woman host the show,one that has a spine like Rachel Maddow. The time for women is now,hopefully someone will see the light.
Please stop covering this idiot. It took us several years to get rid of him in PA... and the American Public pretty much told you what they thought when they gave him 4% of the vote. He got less than "none of the above"...
Why are you interviewing this crazed lunatic in the first place? Especially on the week in was announced that he's signed on with World Net Daily and his first column was about how the UN wants to come and take his special needs daughter?
Guys - seriously - pull your head out.