GLENN: Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. Two tough questions. One, can you name a time -- because I can name McCain/Feingold, I can name McCain/Lieberman, McCain/Kennedy. What else? McCain -- what was it? No, any of the other bills, Stu, that has his name in it. They are all mistakes. Where he reaches across the aisle and says, "Ted, friend, I just want to hug you and let's get this done for the country." Can you name one time where he's grabbed Barney -- probably a bad example. Where he has grabbed a liberal and said, "Friend, I need your help. I need you to help me right now accomplish this conservative goal"?
MATALIN: Not off the top of my head.
GLENN: See? I mean, what good is it if he reaches across and helps them if he never demands --
MATALIN: You're going to have to explain that. What he's saying is I can -- you are 100% right. And in a 12 step program he's taken step 1. Now one of the steps -- and that might even be step 6, when you reach across -- keep using his reaching across as one of the rationales for his candidacy. See, he has to answer that question, and I'm sure he will put himself in a position 2. Or if he doesn't, he will have to. So reach across -- what do you think you can get them to do with you that's in our interests? So I think he sort of tried to suggest that, whatever it was, CPAC thing, for instance, health costs, we can do market forces and I can do commanding control. What he didn't address and here's a good place to see it, energy is the same thing. He has been --
GLENN: No animal.
MATALIN: Yes, of not increase domestic production. So that's a good place to set specifically if you reach, can you reach across the aisle and get them to be for increased domestic exploration and production. That's a very good place to start. Now, if he was on the forum and said he committed him to all these things and he's -- you know, again John said I never make promises I can't keep. So I guess what he's saying is don't judge me on the parts of the record you don't like, judging by the whole record. What I'm telling you today I'm going to do going forward, knowing full well that I can't win if I don't have you and I'm not going to get you unless I commit to these things with which we've disagreed in the past.
GLENN: Okay. I can't get any senator, and I've talked to quite a few of them, I can't get any senator to actually go on record with these stories. There are stacks of apologies in their desk from John McCain because he flies off the handle. He is not a stable individual and I don't mean this in a bad way. I mean, there are people that have tempers. With what John McCain went through, I've got to believe, and I don't mean to overstate this. I'm not saying that he's a crazy man or anything like that. But with what he went through that has to create psychological scars, and I don't know if that's where his temper comes from or what but he concerns me that he is an angry guy and a volatile guy and not necessarily a good combination in the White House.
You know who he reminds me of is Nixon. In some ways he remind me of Nixon.
MATALIN: You know, I think -- that's interesting because I think Nixon actually, A, had a drinking issue himself and B --
GLENN: Oh, I'm not saying that John McCain has a drinking issue. I don't mean to imply that.
MATALIN: I think Nixon also had a nervous breakdown. You are saying something different. It might manifest itself the same but the source is different. John McCain himself as said that obviously he could not remain unaffected by however many years he was a P.O.W. but that he is conscious of that hair trigger and he works at it. It's also true when he wants to let go, he just lets it rip. First of all, it's good to know if that's an issue for people, if they think that's not -- if petulance was into passion. And then we have to say, you'll have to answer or somehow convey that even if that is a problem with him currently that he will rise to the occasion which, you know, many people have done when they get in that office. It does have a sobering effect.
I'm not saying I think this. Please don't make me defend him.
GLENN: No, no.
MATALIN: I'm not duplicitous about this business but I'm just telling you what he's going to say and the issue before us today is are enough conservatives going to believe that? Is he going to be able to sell them enough? Because one of the points he made that -- and this is true. This is a brace that's going to turn on the margins and it's not -- it is not an unmoving argument to say. With what is at stake here, do you seem to burn down the village might mean blowing up the country because it would put Hillary/Obama in place. Now, are conservatives going to go there or not?
GLENN: Right.
MATALIN: And you know what? I don't know the answer to that. I haven't made up my mind yet. It feels compelling to me but I actually do want to hear some more.
GLENN: Well, by your fruits you'll know him. Okay, hang on.
MATALIN: By your fruits, right. But you know, I also know what he's going after and how he knows he has to get there.