Candy Crowley's post game analysis

CROWLEY: Okay, to begin at the beginning - for Chuck Schumer, who remember this is the Senate Democrats' messaging guy. So, he's in charge of putting out there what the Senate Democrats want to be saying about a particular subject. So, let me just tell you that the message today is that the Republicans want to shut down the government, it will be a huge hardship, and it will be a really terrible and tragic thing. Now, we did press him on any culpability here for Democrats if the government shuts down. But the fact is it's, politically speaking, setting aside that it would be a hardship, particularly for workers, that politically speaking, the Democrats think it's a loser for Republicans if the government shuts down and they have indeed talking about it a lot, the Democrats. So, the Senator did say in response to a question, yes, you know, we're willing to bargain with the House, but the rest of the conversation didn't tell me they were ready to do that. So, there's that.

There's Senator Dick Lugar, who I just thought domestically it was interesting that he said, no I don't sign on wholly to what the House Republicans have done with the budget, but, I do sign on to the general sum of the cuts, which is 60 billion dollars, which is a pretty big chunk out of this particular budget, which is last year's budget but that's a whole different story.

I also thought that Lugar was very interesting in saying the only way we're not going to have a shutdown is if the President needs to step in, he needs to call in the leadership, he needs to say this is serious, let us get this done. He said otherwise it just goes off the rails.

I always think that Lugar, who has a vast knowledge of foreign affairs, is great when it comes to the Middle East. We talked about that a little bit. And I thought he was interesting on the fact that Israel and Egypt are about to hit a very tense time in the relationship with the new leadership in Egypt.

Donald Rumsfeld, goodness, where to begin. First of all, let's just say overall, after 45 minutes I can assure you that this is not a man who is ever going to see anything major that the Defense Department did in Iraq or Afghanistan as wrong. Right amount of troops, he says, we had an after plan. He thinks that the folks on the ground and the State Department messed up the post-Iraq plan. He thinks that the intelligence agencies messed up the intelligence, and you're never going to knock him off that dime, ever.

Having said that, I think he was interesting on, a) what he had to say about President Obama and whether or not President Obama had improved U.S. relations abroad. He said, "no," wouldn't buy it at all. I noted the Nobel Peace Prize and he said, yea, he got that when he was in office for about 15 minutes. It was a medal for hope, that kind of thing. So he's dismissive on that. And I thought he was interesting on Bin Laden, just talking about, yes if we captured him he should go to Guantanamo Bay prison, which Secretary Gates had said earlier this week. I just said, would you go down to see him? And he said, "no, he's not my type." So, it was a very definite Rumsfeld kind of sentence there.

And what can I tell you about interviewing two really good historians/actors who play Thomas Jefferson and President George Washington in Colonial Williamsburg. It's President's Day weekend. I thought it was time we had a little fun. And they were great, so you should check out those.

Thanks, we will see you next week.

Highlights:

Watch the entire Rumsfeld Interview

Donald Rumsfeld, Former Defense Secretary, on CNN's "State of the Union"

On the Iraq War:
CROWLEY: Was there ever a moment in that span of time when you thought we shouldn't have gone [into Iraq]?
RUMSFELD: We were so busy fighting the war and trying to save lives and to make the right decisions as the enemy shifted their tactics and procedures, I think there clearly were moments where we talked about it. There were moments where we discussed it. There were moments where we said, even more importantly, because what's done is done, what more importantly was what in the world caused that. How can we avoid that in the future? Are there other things that we're relying on that may not be true?
Donald Rumsfeld, Former Defense Secretary, on CNN's "State of the Union"

On Afghanistan:
CROWLEY: Couldn't more troops have taken care of more Taliban so there would be fewer of them to come back?
RUMSFELD: Oh, no. No. They simply move into another country, go into neighboring countries. Go into Pakistan. No, and - or disappear or just become quiet and not be active. And the minute they have an opportunity, they come back….
CROWLEY: But did you think going in that 10 years from now are still going to be there?
RUMSFELD: No, no. And I said that. I said, look, you can't make a career out of this.
Donald Rumsfeld, Former Defense Secretary, on CNN's "State of the Union"

On the Obama Administration:
RUMSFELD: I do think they were wrong in attacking the Bush administration's structures that have kept this country safe for almost a decade now. They now have switched from the campaign mode, and they are keeping Guantanamo Bay. They are keeping indefinite detention. They are keeping military commissions. So obviously, they've come to the conclusion that their campaign promises - easier to campaign than it is to govern.

Donald Rumsfeld, Former Defense Secretary, on CNN's "State of the Union"
RUMSFELD: I think the Tea Party people have brought a lot of energy into public life and public affairs, and it's a good thing that people are energized and active. I have seen the Republican Party declared dead and over probably four or five times, and it hasn't been. And what's going on now is some energy into it, and that's a good thing.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-New York) on CNN's "State of the Union"

Watch the Video

SCHUMER: Speaker Boehner has said even before negotiations that he wants it a certain way. That is reckless. That's what Newt Gingrich did in 1995. And I understand that Speaker Boehner is being pushed by the hard right in both his body, the House, and outside. Sarah Palin said a shutdown would be a good idea in New York on Thursday, but it's wrong. It would hurt innocent people, hurt the economy, and we hope we can come to the table and negotiate without shutting the government down.

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) on CNN's "State of the Union"
Watch the Video
LUGAR: But we must have reductions that are very, very substantial and the Senate must have an opportunity to act upon them as well as the House.
CROWLEY: Can you just quickly for me, to wrap this up, define substantial from the view of Richard Lugar?
LUGAR: Well, I think something in the neighborhood of the 60 billion that the House has done. That seems to me to be a reasonable figure, to say the least. I don't think they have overstated it.
Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) on CNN's "State of the Union"
LUGAR: I'm certain such talks have gone on in the past, sometimes covertly, sometimes more obviously. It is a situation described frequently as a stalemate in which somehow at the edges talks with the Taliban, who are currently the enemy, as opposed to the al Qaeda people who have probably left to go to Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, or wherever, I think that we're either going to have to have some type of negotiations with the president of the country, President Karzai, the leadership, whether they call them warlords or the leaders in various provinces take place.

Sound of Sunday

Under the weight of a March 4th deadline, the budget loomed large on Sunday talk, sprinkled liberally with various iterations of the new buzz words "adult conversation"...

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) on "Fox News Sunday"
MCCASKILL: I'm going to be optimistic that everyone behaves like adults here and we can sit down and get this worked out.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) on "Fox News Sunday"
COBURN: It is ridiculous to say that the children in Washington can't come together and cut some spending.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) on NBC's "Meet the Press"
GRAHAM: What I hope to happen is that we'll find a way to resolve this by reducing spending in a bipartisan fashion.
It was as close as anybody got to bipartisan agreement. The rest of Sunday morning TV was rife with what Senator Lugar called on this program: "the blame game"...
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) on "Fox News Sunday"
MCCASKILL: I'm a little worried that the Republicans in the House are so anxious to threaten shutting down the government.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) on "Fox News Sunday"
COBURN: You can't play the waiting game saying, well, we don't want to agree to this now.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) on NBC's "Meet the Press"
GRAHAM: Only way we'll shut the government down is if our democratic colleagues insist on keeping our government large and unsustainable.
Still, there are reasons for some optimism…a feeling between the lines that what you heard were first positions, not final ones...

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) on NBC's "Meet the Press"
DURBIN: If I have anything to fault in the House approach, I think they went too far in their cuts.
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) on CBS's "Face the Nation"
RYAN: I don't think the Senate will pass this cut. We will have to negotiate. Look, we're not looking for a government shutdown. But at the same time we're also not looking at rubber stamping these really high elevated spending levels that congress blew through the joint two years ago.
In Wisconsin's budget showdown, playing out in the streets of Madison, the state's republican governor, accused by President Obama of developing a plan that amounts to an assault on unions, had a message for the White House. Essentially, stay out of it...

Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wisconsin) on "Fox News Sunday"
WALKER: The president ultimately should stay focused on fixing the federal budget because they've got a huge deficit, and believe me - they got their hands full. They're far from getting it accomplished in Washington.

Watch State of the Union with Candy Crowley Sundays at 9am ET. For the latest from State of the Union click here.