Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld joins David Gregory to discuss his new book, "Rumsfeld's Rules," as well as the biggest issues facing the country's military and foreign policy today.

NBC Political Director Chuck Todd sits down with White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod and former Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., to compare their picks in NBC’s “Senate Madness” – an online bracket contest pitting history’s most consequential U.S. senators against one another. 

With the country's eyes focused on football this weekend, Bob Costas sat down with Chuck Todd for a Take Two web extra about the changing nature of football and what the NFL is doing to increase player safety. 

David spoke with the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward on his revealing new book, “The Price of Politics,” about the standoff between the White House and Capitol Hill over the debt ceiling last year. Watch the web-only conversation above for Woodward’s behind-the-scenes insights about the Obama White House, tensions within the Republican Party -- and whether we’re headed towards another crisis over the nation’s fiscal future in 2013.

David talks with Washington Post Associate Editor and Author David Maraniss about his new biography, “Barack Obama: The Story.” Watch the full conversation above.

Watch the exclusive web-only conversation with former democratic presidential candidate and former Senator from New Jersey Bill Bradley on his new book We Can All Do Better. Bradley discusses dysfunction in Washington and why he believes it is so important to take money out of politics.

We were lucky enough to be joined today by a surprise guest with a history as storied as our own.

The NHL’s championship trophy, the Stanley Cup, along with its official Keeper, Mike Bolt, stopped by our Meet the Press roundtable and to do a special Take Two web extra.

Watch the entire interview above to hear from Bolt about traveling the world with the cup (including to the homes of NHL athletes),  and its effect on players and fans alike.

Below is an excerpt from Tavis Smiley's new book, Fail Up. Tavis will be a guest on our round table this Sunday and will take part in a Take Two web extra with David after the show.

Where Did It Go Wrong?

 It’s one thing to encourage people to find their truths, stand on principle, and adhere to the three C’s (courage, conviction, and commitment) when tested. But that’s a hard lesson to enact when everybody you know, love, and respect is saying you’re wrong.

 “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

— S O C R A T E S

In 2006, we published the Covenant with Black America. It hit the #1 mark on The New York Times best-seller list. A year later, The Covenant In Action—an NAACP Image Award

Winner—reached the #7 spot on the same prestigious list.

After countless radio and TV conversations, book tours, and seminars revolving around the Covenant books, we had thousands committed to action, armed with agenda items, corroborating statistics, bullet-point demands. We had everything we needed to barter with any established or prospective politician—Democrat or Republican—who desired our votes.

In 2007, we hosted not one, but two primetime television presidential debates on PBS—one for Democrats, at Howard University, and another for Republicans, at Morgan State University. They were the first nationally televised debates where presidential candidates exclusively addressed issues important to people of color. They were also the first that people of color—me, as moderator, and the panelists posing the questions—controlled.

By the time President Bush started his second term, we were a well-oiled machine. We knew he was on his way out and the 2008 election was going to be the mother of all elections. Our intent was to use our momentum to force candidates to address the disparities in employment, health, education, the crippling prison industrial complex, and more—everything outlined in the Covenant with Black America.

Who knew the candidacy of an unknown senator from Illinois would derail the wheels of our carefully crafted, collective machine?

On the Wrong Side of History

 Ironically, my mainstream audience saw no detour from my standard course. Granted, most whites don’t tune into the Tom Joyner Morning Show or keep up with news on Black websites. Whites, for the most part, were familiar with the Tavis Smiley they knew from PBS and NPR. Some read or heard interviews with me talking about my book, Accountable: Making America as Good as Its Promise. Others saw or heard me say that we should treat Obama like any other presidential candidate.

Many had heard about a rift between me and a large number of Black people, but they saw no justification for it in my public commentary. The majority of my white audience saw no deviation from my core beliefs expressed over the years and what they now heard me saying about Obama.

But in Black America, all of a sudden, Tavis Smiley was “stuck on stupid.” Overnight I was labeled a “hater.” That was the spin generated in Black media: on talk radio, the blogosphere, and other news outlets. I was the commentator who had forgotten what it means to be Black in America. I expected Obama to risk his candidacy by trumpeting himself as the “Black candidate.” Later, the critics implied that I was furious because Obama wouldn’t go out on the stump and promote a Black agenda.

WRONG.  I never held the position that Obama should make the woes of Black people the center of his campaign. At no time did I insist that he roll out The Covenant. I’m not stupid. Not only

had I worked for a Black mayor who was elected five times in a city that was less than 12 percent Black, I had also run for office myself in a district that was half Black and half white. I know the danger of racial politics better than most. I also know the value of building successful political coalitions.

The perception by some of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton representing and caring more about the fate of Black people than the fate of all other Americans effectively doomed their respective presidential campaigns with certain voters before they even got started. No way did I expect that the presidential candidate in 2008 who happened to be Black would necessarily speak for all Black folk. Not if he expected to win the election.

I did, however, expect him—and every other candidate—to address the issues that our community raised. I said it then, and repeat it now. We cannot start a process where politicians—Black, white, or “other”—are given passes on addressing African American concerns because it might hurt their chances of getting elected. If we start that process, it can’t be reversed so easily.