NBC's Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro discuss who is the leader of the Republican Party after their loss in the presidential race. For now, the leader seems to be House Speaker John Boehner who is the GOP's main negotiator in the fiscal cliff talks.

Thanks to DaNoid for the question!

Edited by NBC's Matt Loffman.

TRANSCRIPT:

MONTANARO: Welcome to Inside the Boiler Room. I'm Domenico Montanaro joined by Mark Murray. Mark, DaNoid asks, 'If we define the leader of a political party as the most influential elected official from his/her party in Washington, who is actually the leader of the Republican party right now? If there doesn't appear to be one, who could we expect to assume that title during the next four years?'

MURRAY: Well this is a fascinating question always for the party that is out of power, particularly the White House. When you look at  an elected leader when you are actually talking about the current negotiations in this fiscal cliff debate, it does seem to be House Speaker John Boehner. But then you also end up having someone like RNC Chairman Reince Priebus whose own committee is looking to see what went wrong in 2012. But to really answer the question on who eventually becomes the leader, its really -- we wont really find out until 2016 when the party selects its presidential nominee. But even as we found out with Mitt Romney, sometimes actually being the leader of that party for a short amount of time...boy, sometimes you end up losing and you are gone a week later and people have forgotten about you.

MONTANARO: Well if leader means someone who is able to corral influence, I do think that there are some people that can do that. Right now, I think that Speaker Boehner, first and foremost, should be at the top of the list because it is the highest ranking office. I mean, you are third in line to the President. Then I would say and maybe almost on equal footing is Sen. Mitch McConnell. The fact of the matter is, he is one of the best tacticians and strategists that the party has on rules. So when you need to get something done or blocked in the Senate, he is the guy that Republicans go to because he can go toe-to-toe with Sen. Harry Reid. I do think that a little further down inside the Republican caucus you still look at someone like Rep. Paul Ryan who does tend to be an influential intellectual leader and someone to watch for the future of the party being as young as he is. But, I think you are right that obviously the person that becomes president becomes the party's de facto leader. I think nobody would have said Barack Obama six years ago was the leader of the Democratic party. But that person emerges eventually.

MURRAY: But one thing that is fascinating and we are going to see in 2016 and it will be a lot like 2008 where so much of the leadership, so much of the activity will be on the presidential campaign trail on both the Democratic side and the Republican side and when you would have a lame duck president like Barack Obama would become in 2015, 2016, all that attention is going to be on the campaign trail. So when there is news, sometimes people are going to be looking for more comment from the presidential actors rather than the President himself who is in the Oval Office, which is an interesting development.

MONTANARO: Well, that is what you call lame duck. (LAUGHTER) I'm Domenico Montanaro--

MURRAY: --and I'm Mark Murray. Thanks DaNoid.

NBC’s Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro discuss Speaker Boehner’s influence within his own caucus and whether or not he can corral enough GOP House members to reach a deal on the fiscal cliff.

Thanks to Jody, Iowa for the question!

Edited by NBC's Jay Rankin.

TRANSCRIPT:

MURRAY: Welcome to another Inside the Boiler Room, I'm Mark Murray joined by Domenico Montanaro. Domenico, we actually have a question from Jody in Iowa who asks, "Do you think that Speaker Boehner will be able to corral enough of the Republican caucus to pass a bill to extend only the tax cuts for 98% of the people?" What do you think Domenico?

MONTANARO: I don't know.  I mean--if I knew that I would be getting paid a lot more than I am getting paid. I don;t know I mean I think that is the million dollar question. The trillion dollar question if you will. I don't -- I just -- it is very difficult to see how it gets done, it is also difficult to see how it doesn't get done.

MURRAY: It is interesting how it splices up in a couple different scenarios. On the one hand there is always this kind of unwritten rule that Republicans would only pass legislation that is supported by a majority of Republicans. If you are actually looking for what a majority of the caucus could support, well that becomes kind of dicey. But all of the sudden if you are talking and you only need a minority of Republicans, say getting fifty, sixty, seventy and with the Democrats signing on to the rest maybe that is kind of doable. We have already heard from a lot of lame duck members of Congress who have either lost or are retiring and people saying, 'Look, I could actually sign on.'

Domenico, I know you actually have done research on this, looking at these groups of people that aren't coming back to the next Congress and they might be able to make a deal.

MONTANARO: Yeah, I meant there is about seventy people who have either lost races in the primary, lost for the general election or have -- were in 55 or under races. Not all of those people are going to be people you can get to because some of them include people like Rep. Allen West, Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rep. Paul Ryan was at 55. So, maybe the number is closer to forty or fifty who you can really get to. But, there is at least a chunk of people who you know, Democrats and maybe Speaker Boehner would want to go to try and get things done. I do think it depends on how much John Boehner wants to remain speaker, how long he wants to continue to do that.

MURRAY: And there is one magic number -- 218. That is what would be needed to pass legislation in the House, that seems to be the most difficult hurdle.

MONTANARO: Sure is. I'm Domenico Montanaro --

MURRAY: -- and I'm Mark Murray. Thanks Jody!

While the new NBC News poll shows that most Americans want Republicans and Democrats to make a deal in the budget negotiations, NBC's Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro explain that some Republicans are hesitant to give in because of potential primary challenges.

Thanks Amy B. Portland, ME for the question!

Edited by NBC's Matt Loffman.

TRANSCRIPT:

MONTANARO:  I'm Domenico Montanaro, and this is Inside the Boiler Room.  I'm here with my colleague Mark Murray.  And Mark, Amy B. from Portland, Maine, asks, "The general perception is, if we go over the fiscal cliff, the blame will rest with House Republicans.  My question is, why don't Republican leaders sound even the tiniest bit conciliatory towards the President?" 

MURRAY: Well there's I think one simple answer to Amy why there is a lot of Republican resistance to cutting a deal, and that has to do with Republican primaries.  That these folks are looking over their shoulders and saying, 'We see a lot of the same poll numbers that are on the NBC News Wall Street Journal poll that show people want compromise.  They actually want the fact that you end up raising the rates on the wealthiest of income.'  But they also see if they actually cut a deal, they could end up losing their jobs.  And this is even a calculation for House Speaker John Boehner.  If actually completely ends up caving in on almost everything the White House wants, does he even remain Speaker?  So that's a very delicate situation for the Republican Party.

MONTANARO:  Yeah, there are a lot of delicate balances that they have to make.  I do think, though, that Republicans would say that they have been more conciliatory because in 2011, they said that rates, or revenue, was off the table.  Well now they're saying, and John Boehner would say to his great peril because of the speakership, that he's put revenue on the table.  Now that's not raising tax rates. 

MURRAY: Right. 

MONTANARO: Which I think is Amy's point that there's broad support  for raising the tax rates on the top two percent.  But I think Republicans anyway would say that they've been more conciliatory on revenue. 

MURRAY: Right.  And our NBC Wall Street Journal poll actually asks and finds that a majority of the public, 56%, would actually blame both sides equally.  Though, there is a percentage, 24% would blame Boehner and the Republicans more.  Just 19% would blame President Obama.  But when you look at the rest of our poll, it does show that President Obama does seem to have a broad mandate for the things that Democrats are calling for in this budget standoff. 

MONTANARO: Well, but anytime Republicans will see that there's even the tiniest sliver of hope for, within a poll, they're going to use that to go with the ideology that they believe to be able to say, 'See, we don't really have to completely give in.'