>>> hi, everyone. i'm tamron hall . following reaction to romney 's return. bitterness and regret just some of the words being used today to describe mitt romney and ann romney 's first sit down interview since the defeat. here's nicole wallace , former senior adviser to john mccain 's campaign earlier today on " morning joe ."
>> whenever you come out and talk about what went wrong there's just a -- sort of wreaks of the bitterness and the regret and hard to watch.
>> i also remember watching the interview in grad school thinking, you know, that's not the future of the republican party and i must say with all due respect to governor romney , i had that feeling watching him, too.
>> that's of course bill kristol and the romneys made it clear as the first read team said in the words and tone that they have not moved on from their loss.
>> i look at what's happening right now. i wish i were there. it kills me not to be there. not to be in the white house doing what needs to be done.
>> that was that crushing disappointment, not for us. our lives are going to be fine. it's for the country.
>> romney lingering on even as his party attempts to move forward. rebuild, rebrand. the future and past collided today in some ways with the gop. romney 's sit down interview a day before 2016 prospect jeb bush made the rounds on morning shows in which bush spoke about where romney went wrong.
>> governor romney put himself in a box i think in the primary by trying to out-conservative very good conservative candidates and never really recovered from it.
>> joining me now, director of communications for american cross roads and former press secretary for the national republican congressional committee . thank you both for joining us.
>> thank you.
>> hi.
>> what was your reaction to the interview? bill kristol says in a sense romney was yesterday.
>> i think there's two interviews. the first part was the governor and ann romney looking back at what happened. i got bored with that. looking forward was i thought a little bit more interesting but at the same time romney suspect the head of the party anymore so i don't know how relevant it was to the future. there's a history of losing presidential candidates , doing the postmortem on the cam plains.
>> he's not the head of the party but init haved to cpac when the guy referred to as the boss on "time" magazine chris christie is waiting on the invitation. jonathan , maybe some members of the party believe romney is part of the puzzle for the future.
>> he will have interesting things to say about the campaign and what went wrong and we saw just in about every way the obama campaign was more robust than the romney campaign and a lot to the debate --
>> give me a specific here. let me -- before you answer that, let me play what governor romney regardi ining minorities and how the minority vote factored in to the loss.
>> i lost and so i'm not telling the republican party come listen to me. the guy who lost will tell you how to win.
>> you must have ideas.
>> of course. but among the ideas, clearly, we have to do a better job bringing joint voters in.
>> danny , bringing in minority voters but he didn't say how and certainly it's not by implying that people voted for the president because they wanted free health care or something along the lines of the 47% comment and he's not clearly explained.
>> well, that's right. i think, you know, frankly this interview was not newsworthy in my personal opinion. interesting to see he was able to admit a big part of him losing the race is the fact he wasn't able to bring on minority voters, latinos and asians and blacks in a number that made a difference. i agree with you. it wasn't about being able to offer them goodies as he described it that the campaign of obama attracted. ronald reagan won states by being able to offer a vision hopeful and optimistic about the future. that's what we need to be able to get back to. we do better speaking to people's hopes and dreams and aspirations and not fears and desperations and angers. that's what we have done. we need to get back to basics and talk about the things of values and core principles that resonate with folks.
>> so much of what happened in the campaign affects the republican party , immigration, danny . you have a great number of those within the party with the wake-up moment and looking for some kind of comprehensive, perhaps a great bipartisan plan that would include securing the borders and a path to citizenship. back to the inclusion or the issue of whether or not the party 's one that's inclusive or wants to be exclusive, let's play what romney said regarding 47%.
>> i didn't express myself as i wished i would have. you know, when you speak in private you don't spend as much time thinking about how something could be twisted and distorted and come out wrong but i did and very harmful. what i said is not what i believe.
>> jonathan , what confuses me about your reaction to mr. romney 's interview, you point out he's not the leader of the party and could have good things to say at cpac with many conservatives there waiting i guess for some kind of direction, some type of leadership. he is on the roster for a reason and still can't quite explain that 47% comment and i do not believe that that will exclusively haunt governor romney . i believe it's haunting for the party for many people not to at least explain or justify what he was thinking.
>> well, specifically, with minority outreach, i agree with danny , but i think that immigration reform specifically, legislative approach is part of it but as republicans we need to show up more, go to more local eve events. i don't know what he's talking about at the cpac conference. could be a postmortem to the campaign but things to learn from it.
>> you learn nothing with a postmortem and didn't give you major headlines other than "the washington post " which said ann romney needs to move on but with that said, jonathan , if you had a choice of chris christie or mitt romney to the big conference, your conservative cross roads conference, who would you pick for moving forward?
>> i would expect that chris christie would be invited there. i think he's spoke there in the past. we have great things happening at the state with republican governors.
>> i want your thoughts on ann romney . let me play it.
>> what about the media ?
>> i'm happy to blame the media .
>> do you think the media was in the tank for barack obama ?
>> i think that it's any time you're running for office you always think that you're being portrayed unfairly and, you know, of course on our side believe there's more bias in favor of the other side. i think that, you know, that's a pretty universal -- universally felt opinion.
>> danny , is that what you feel? she didn't have to answer the question. she could say i want to talk about our role. she took the bait for right or for wrong.
>> see, that's --
>> she took it.
>> i would like to blame the media for everything, too. what you deal with, you deal with --
>> blame your parents or being poor parents or blame the media for how you turn out. she took that bait from chris wallace .
>> but the reality is that you deal with the media that you have, not the media you wish you had. right? i think what we have right now as a party , as a perception problem. i think too many segments view us as intoll rat, insensitive. it is up to us to change that and made up of policies, plus principles plus politics. i think there are principles good and solid. i think our policies, i think we have a lot to learn from various communities in terms of how we shape our policies so they make sense and don't appear harsh and politics disastrous with too many segments of the population. that's fixable but i think unfortunately too many times we have had tone and tenor and rhetoric that's divisive and need to get away from that and talk about thing that is really are aspirational and optimistic for segments of the population that are looking for viable national republican party that has a different alternative than what the republicans were offering.
>> thank you both for joining