Guest: Sen. Chris Dodd, Ezra Klein, Eugene Robinson, Melissa Harris-
Lacewell
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAWRENCE O‘DONNELL, GUEST HOST (voice-over): Which of these stories
will you be talking about tomorrow?
A day for the history books. Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 -- the day
health care reform became the law of the land.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our presence here today
is remarkable and improbable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: President Obama praises the fortitude of every American
who helped win this battle.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: We don‘t fall prey to fear. We are not a nation that does
what‘s easy. That‘s not who we are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: And for those who chose to lie about the bill, time will
expose them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: I heard one of the Republican leaders say this was going to be
Armageddon. Well, you know, two months from now, six months from now, you
can check it out. We‘ll look around.
(LAUGHTER)
OBAMA: And we‘ll see. You don‘t have to take my word for it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Our special guest tonight: Senator Chris Dodd, on being
inside the White House today as a witness to history.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is a big
(EXPLETIVE DELETED) deal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Yes, Mr. Vice president, this is a big (EXPLETIVE DELETED)
deal.
The Senate takes up the reconciliation fix. Can Republicans succeed
in changing anything to force another vote in the House?
More than a dozen states join forces to try to block reform now that
it‘s law. Do they have any chance of convincing the court, reform is
unconstitutional?
John McCain couldn‘t stop health care reform so he says he‘ll just
stop working on any other legislation. So why not quit, Senator? Don‘t
run for re-election.
And speaking of quitters, Sarah Palin‘s rhetoric gets more incendiary.
Not only does she tell opponents of reform it‘s time to reload, she
announces her list of Democrats to target and she uses crosshairs, gun
crosshairs, to target them.
All that and more—now on COUNTDOWN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O‘DONNELL: Good evening from New York. I‘m Lawrence O‘Donnell, in
for Keith Olbermann.
The first hand that President Obama shook this morning after signing
the health care into law was that Marcelas Owens, an 11-year-old boy, who,
in recent weeks, has become a national advocate for reform, in memory of
his mother Tiffany. She lost her life to a treatable illness because she
did not have insurance and could not afford the basic care that she needed.
Today, the fifth grader, Marcelas, wearing a tie matching the
president‘s, said, “It‘s tough not having my mom around, but she‘s been
with me in spirit. Every time I talk, I hope I‘ve made her proud.”
Marcelas was standing at the president‘s side when he put pen to paper,
make that pens, plural, 22 of them. Each of them an invaluable gift the
president traditionally gives to the luckiest and most powerful dignitaries
in the room.
With his signature, President Obama made what once seemed impossible
the law of the land.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Today, after almost a century of trying, today, after over a
year of debate, today, after all the votes have been tallied—health
insurance reform becomes law in the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Earlier in the proceedings, Vice President Biden still not
accustomed to standing near open microphones, after he introduced the
president, Biden apparently let a very strong word slip into his feelings
about the moment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Ladies and
gentlemen, the president of the United States of America, Barack Obama.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: This is a big (EXPLETIVE DELETED) deal.
OBAMA: Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: No bleeping necessary from there on out. Nearly every
president since Teddy Roosevelt has tried to enact health care reform of
some kind. The 44th president of the United States thanked all of them—
plus Teddy Kennedy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
OBAMA: I‘m signing this bill for all the leaders who took up this
cause through the generations—from Teddy Roosevelt to Franklin
Roosevelt, from Harry Truman to Lyndon Johnson, from Bill and Hillary
Clinton to one of the deans who‘s been fighting this so long, John Dingell.
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: To Senator Ted Kennedy.
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: And it‘s fitting that Ted‘s widow, Vicki, is here.
I remember seeing Ted walk through that door in a summit in this room
a year ago—one of his last public appearances. And it was hard for him
to make it. But he was confident that we would do the right thing.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
O‘DONNELL: When it came time to talk about the legislation, the
president said health care reform would soon speak for itself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
OBAMA: In a few moments when I sign this bill, all of the overheated
rhetoric over reform will finally confront the reality of reform.
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: This year, tens of thousands of uninsured Americans with pre-
existing conditions, the parents of children who have a pre-existing
condition, will finally be able to purchase the coverage they need. That
happens this year.
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: This year, insurance companies will no longer be able to drop
people‘s coverage when they get sick.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: They won‘t be able to place life time limits or restrictive
annual limits on the amount of care they can receive. This year—
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: This year—all new insurance plans will be required to offer
free preventive care, and this year, young adults will be able to stay on
their parents‘ policies until they are 26 years old. That happens this
year.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
O‘DONNELL: President Obama talked about the many who had doubted that
this day would ever come.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Our presence here today is remarkable and improbable. With
all the punditry, all of the lobbying, all the game-playing that passes for
governing in Washington, it‘s been easy at times to doubt our ability to do
such a big thing—such a complicated thing; to wonder if there are limits
to what we, as a people, can still achieve. It‘s easy to succumb to the
sense of cynicism about what is possible in this country.
But today, we are affirming that essential truth—a truth every
generation is called to rediscover for itself, that we are not a nation
that scales back its aspirations.
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: We are not a nation that falls prey to doubt or mistrust. We
don‘t fall prey to fear. We are not a nation that does what‘s easy.
That‘s not who we are. That‘s not how we got here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: The president concluded by saying health care reform isn‘t
about doing what‘s easy. It‘s about doing what‘s right.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: We‘re a nation that does what is hard, what is necessary, what
is right. Here in this country, we shape our own destiny. That is what we
do. That is who we are. That is what makes us the United States of
America.
And we have now just enshrined, as soon as I sign this bill, the core
principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to
their health care.
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: And it is an extraordinary achievement that has happened
because of all of you and all the advocates all across the country. So
thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Among those at the White House for the signing ceremony
was Senator Chris Dodd, chairman of the banking committee. Earlier
tonight, I spoke with the Democrat from Connecticut about this historic
day.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
O‘DONNELL: Mr. Chairman, thank you for joining us tonight. This is
an historic day and I appreciate that you‘re busy on the Senate floor
tonight. We really appreciate your time.
SEN. CHRIS DODD (D), CONNECTICUT: Thank you, Lawrence. Good to be
with you.
O‘DONNELL: You were Ted Kennedy‘s best friend in the Senate. When I
was looking at the images today in the East Room, with his widow Vicki
there, his son Patrick, his niece Caroline, you there in the room—I just
expected at some point the camera was going to pick up that shock of white
hair and Teddy was going to move in there and throw his arm around you.
If Teddy had been there today, Senator Dodd, what would he have told
you about what you accomplished?
DODD: Well, I think he had a great sense of history. And I think he
would have reached back and talked about the fact that, you know, we got
Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, even Richard Nixon.
Teddy appreciated, I‘m sorry that the president didn‘t mention Nixon.
Lawrence, you‘re a great student of this institution and government.
But Richard Nixon actually tried to do something on national health care in
the first administration. Never succeeded. But he—Teddy appreciated
the efforts and, of course, appreciated the efforts as I worked with him in
‘93 and ‘94, you may recall, when Bill Clinton—President Clinton
obviously tried valiantly in the same vein. So, I think he had a great
sense of that.
And the president graciously mentioned his appearance in that East
Room about a year ago, maybe one of the lasts, other than a couple of votes
he cast later that spring. It was the last real public appearance he made.
It‘s kind of an appeal once again to try and get this off the ground. That
is the national health care debate and the victory we saw today.
So, I couldn‘t help but think of him sort of reaching back to all of
the battles, some won, some lost, the piecemeal efforts over the years. He
was around for Medicare. That battle in the ‘60s. He was, of course, the
author of the children‘s health initiative.
It was a great help when I wrote the Family and Medical Leave Act. It
was a great help to me when I did autism, premature birth, infant
screenings, children care legislations—all of these pieces of trying to
fit the puzzle together.
What was missing was this gap, and that is the notion that every
single American had a right to health care. And so, I think today, he
would have been thinking about all of those efforts over the years.
O‘DONNELL: Now, Senator Kennedy, Chairman Kennedy, in your committee,
literally handed you the gavel when he just could no longer carry on
physically. You had to get this bill through that committee in the Senate.
And you gave up on Republicans.
At what point did you know you weren‘t going to get any Republican
cooperation in that committee and did you then believe that there was no
chance of Republican cooperation the rest of the way?
DODD: I think, in retrospect, I knew pretty early on. I mean, you
can tell—as you recall, Lawrence, from your days here, you can tell
pretty early on whether or not you‘re going to have someone you can work
with, or whether or not this is going to be a struggle. And that they made
a conscious decision really not to be part of the final effort here, and
that was clear early on.
Now, I know Teddy Kennedy, Senator Kennedy, early on, in fact, really
tried to work with the minority in his committee, as he had done on so many
other issues.
O‘DONNELL: It seems—
DODD: But he wasn‘t getting—I‘m sorry.
O‘DONNELL: Sorry, sorry. It seems like the last two months maybe the
most dramatic part of this story. Roughly two months ago, Scott Brown was
elected to Massachusetts.
DODD: Right.
O‘DONNELL: There were plenty of Democrats, good Democrats, who were
strong supporters of this bill, who believed it was dead.
How did you get this thing back up off the floor and moving?
DODD: You know, I‘ll tell you something. And I don‘t know if maybe
I‘ll be the only person with this view. I actually think the election of
Scott Brown helped Democrats, because all of a sudden, it wasn‘t 60-40, it
was something less than that. I think it reinvigorated the party. Instead
of relying on just producing the numbers, I think it caused us to step back
and try to figure strategically how we were going to get this over the
finish line.
And almost had a sense while we had—I think the period between the
election in Massachusetts and the events of the last couple of weeks, it
was kind of a hiatus. It was a quieter period. There was that—
obviously, that conference at the Blair House which I strongly recommended.
And I thought it was wise to kind of calm down a little bit, take a breath,
step back, regroup and then go forward.
And candidly, I almost think that election in Massachusetts actually
helped produce the results we saw today.
O‘DONNELL: Senator, quickly before we go—turning to financial
reform bill, the next big crusade in the Senate. You are the chairman of
the banking committee. You have a horrible problem out there on the Senate
floor where you need 60 votes to move the bill on the Senate floor. You‘re
going to have to get at least one Republican to go forward.
In what may be the most politically polarized era the Senate has ever
seen with Republicans and Democrats just completely opposed to each other -
- do you think there‘s any way you‘re going find that route to 60 votes in
the Senate to move that bill forward?
DODD: I do, Lawrence. And I actually think the events of today and
the last couple of days are going to help in that effort. I can tell you
the number of Republicans I know in this body who frankly were never overly
enthusiastic about this “just say no to everything.” They didn‘t jump (ph)
here, they didn‘t get elected, they didn‘t spend the time to come here just
to not be at the table to work on issues like the health care debate and
like this one.
And I frankly think that “just say no” strategy was the political
equivalency of a high wire act and it failed. Now, the question is: are
you going to get to the table and be part of fashioning a product in the
key area of financial reform? And I think I‘m going to find some partners
willing to do that.
Bob Corker of Tennessee has already indicated that, wanted to work on
this bill. Richard Shelby and I had worked on a number of bills together.
I think he wants to work with us on this one, too.
O‘DONNELL: Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, thank you for your time
tonight and congratulations on this historic health care victory. And
please, for me, pass on my congratulations to all the committee staff and
the Senate floor staff involved in getting that through the Senate.
DODD: That‘s a true Senate staffer that made that comment. I‘ll do
it as well. Thanks, Lawrence.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O‘DONNELL: Coming up: the final front in the health care fight. The
reconciliation fix is being debated in the Senate at this hour. Can the
Democrats beat back every Republican challenge to change the bill?
And Sarah Palin‘s latest tweet, urging followers to reload on the
health care fight. Reload what, Sarah? Any coincidence that in her list
of House Democrats to target she actually uses crosshairs?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: Coming up: the Senate gets to work on the reconciliation
fix to health care reform. The biggest drama isn‘t whether the Democrats
have the votes to pass it. The big question is: can they get it past the
parliamentarian with every word intact?
And later, Senator John McCain is ready to give up on the Senate, but
he still wants to stay in his job.
And is there any truth to the claims the new reform law is
unconstitutional? That‘s next.
This is COUNTDOWN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: Health care reform, even if you consider it mostly just
insurance reform, is now a reality. But the House only passed the Senate
version after the Senate assured the House it would pass a package of fixes
and the debate on those fixes began today. The trick for Democrats is,
that if a single word changes in those fixes, it goes back to the House for
yet another round at a time when Democrats are eager to move on to other
issues. For that reason, Republicans are trying to force change, any
change, no matter how trivial.
It‘s up to the Senate parliamentarian Alan Frumin to rule on those
changes. If he sides with Republicans on any of them, the Democrats can
overrule the parliamentarian, but that takes 60 votes. Another theoretical
option is for Vice President Joe Biden to overrule the parliamentarian,
which happens so infrequently, it would be—in Biden‘s speak—a big F-
ing deal.
But Republicans can do more than challenge whether the existing bill
meets the budget reconciliation guidelines. They can also offer amendments
to the bill and that‘s what they were doing today.
Republican Judd Gregg wanted to block the use of savings for Medicare
for anything but Medicare, but began his remarks by reiterating GOP talking
points about the bill.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JUDD GREGG ®, NEW HAMPSHIRE: I wish I could stand here and
agree with the senator from Montana. I wish as I looked at the bills just
passed the House, and now that we‘re getting the trailer bill, the buy-it
bill, the bill that was used to purchase the votes in the House to pass the
big bill, that I could say that America‘s children are going to be better
off, that the people who have health care issues in this country are going
to be better off, but that‘s impossible to say.
Why is it impossible to say? Because this bill, as it passed the
House, was an atrocity. It was an explosion of government, the likes of
which we‘ve never seen in this country before.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Democratic Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the finance
committee, pointed out the elephant in the room, that Republican opposition
to the original reform bill in the Senate is now moot.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MAX BAUCUS (D), MONTANA: This is a debate we had when we were on
the bill. The Senate has already considered the arguments made by the
senator from New Hampshire and others. The Senate decided against those
arguments. The Senate has decided to pass health care reform as has the
House of Representatives, as has—and the president signed it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: And Democratic Senator Tom Harkin took aim at the recent
Republican chorus for repeal of the bill, essentially daring Republicans to
do what they say they want to do.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TOM HARKIN (D), IOWA: In the near term, however, it is
disappointing that some Republican legislators, I think, may be taking
their cue from the more extreme voices on talk radio or FOX TV, are
pledging to repeal this new law. In fact, the distinguished minority
leader, Republican leader, a couple of weeks ago at a press conference,
said that their motto was going to be this year, that if we pass this bill,
their motto was going to be: elect Republicans. They‘ll repeal it.
Well, this strikes me as bad public policy and, I think, quite frankly
bad politics. Do Republicans really want to repeal the ban on denying
insurance coverage due to pre-existing conditions? Do they really want to
repeal the ban on insurance companies canceling your policy if you get
sick?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Senator Baucus conceded to “Roll Call” that one or two
parts of the fix package might have to be changed, which would send it back
to the House. And that could cause from the left for Senator Michael
Bennet, who led an effort to revive the public option by inserting it into
the reconciliation fix—an option that seemed shut off when Democrats
insisted on no changes to the fix, but not might now be open if the bill
has to go back to the House anyway.
We are joined tonight by Ezra Klein, columnist at “Newsweek,” who
covers domestic and economic issues for the “Washington Post.”
Good evening, Ezra.
If the Democrats succeed in changing the reconciliation bill, what
happens to the public option issue in the Senate? Will Bennet be under
pressure? He has a primary challenger in Colorado, putting him under
pressure to then raise the possibility of inserting the public option as an
amendment in the Senate bill? How will—how might that play out?
EZRA KLEIN, THE WASHINGTON POST: My understanding is Senator Reid has
made a deal with Senator Sanders and others to consider the public option
later.
My guess at this point is that Democrats had decided they want this
reconciliation bill passed. They are very, very happy coming off of the
signing of the bill today and that they‘re probably going to stick together
procedurally here. They‘re not going to be tricked by Republicans into
sort of tying themselves back into knots and reopening old debates.
O‘DONNELL: Well, you know, I had heard from staff yesterday who had
met with the parliamentarian that they felt there were maybe one or two
pieces of the bill that might not make it past the parliamentarian. I was,
though, surprised, I think, today to hear Senator Baucus say that publicly.
Because it seems to me that will give great encouragement to Republicans on
the floor, that if they haven‘t found it yet, there must be something in
there that they can get struck up by the parliamentarian.
KLEIN: My hunch is that a lot of the Democrats in the Senate were
surprised to hear Senator Baucus say that publicly. But I think that‘s
correct.
On the other hand, what you‘re going to see is that Republicans are
going to attempt every challenge they can make. Senator Gregg began this
process by saying he had dreaded 310(g) challenge, the Social Security
challenge, that is going to derail the whole reconciliation, and that been
at works. And now, they can just sort of go after little bits and parts of
it.
And at the end of the day, if they do get a little bit or a part of
it, a provision struck out and it goes back to the House, it just isn‘t the
biggest deal in the world. The House doesn‘t have the difficulties passing
things that the Senate does. Nancy Pelosi has the votes and Democrats are
feeling pretty good right now.
So, at the best, Republicans can annoy the Democrats. I don‘t know if
they can do too much to harm them on this reconciliation bill.
O‘DONNELL: Yes. You know, and sending it back to the House, I‘ve
never thought that was a big deal. That‘s what normally happens on these
things. And I suspect that maybe if Baucus was thinking about it, after a
big signing ceremony at the White House where this is law, there‘s nothing
to worry about, maybe he let it be known that there might be one or two of
these things so that the House could prepare psychologically for that
possibility, rather than have them come out of the blue and it looked like,
wait a minute, the Senate is out of control.
Might that be what he was doing—was really kind of talking to the
House saying, hey, guys, don‘t worry if this happens?
KLEIN: It‘s always possible. At the end of it, I think that Senator
Baucus might have also just been engaging hypothetical. Yes, it‘s possible
some things change and it goes back to the House. Again, I think what‘s
relevant for Democrats right now is sort of how up they are feeling. I
almost feel like the House Democrats would be happy to take another crack
at things.
So, I think you‘re probably right that Senator Baucus was saying,
look, this may happen. Nobody should be surprised. It‘s not even really
our fault. It‘s how the parliamentarian rules.
But at the end of the day, it just doesn‘t strike me as a big deal for
either chamber. A lot of tension of reconciliation has died down now. I
think, actually, Democrats felt better about signing the basic Senate bill
than they thought they were, and that‘s done a lot to ease the difficulties
between the two chambers.
O‘DONNELL: The other was the time when the thought was the Senate
bill would be signed in the dark, in the middle of night—
KLEIN: Right.
O‘DONNELL: -- because it‘s such an embarrassing document. But there
was a complete change of strategy on that to make, I guess, what‘s going on
in the Senate just seem like a redundant, unnecessary thing for anybody to
watch which may be exactly the way they should try to treat it.
KLEIN: It‘s a very smart move by them, because it really took the air
out of the Republican tires on this. What Republicans figured they could
do was the Senate bill could pass. They knew they could that.
If they could stop reconciliation, that was actually the point of
vulnerability, because potentially, they could do that procedurally. They
could draw it out. They could force Biden to come in and do a ruling (ph)
nobody is really that comfortable of him doing.
And maybe they could derail reconciliation. They would never sign the
Senate bill and health care reform would never become law.
Now that health reform is already law and now that the newspaper
headlines have been written and the word “historic” has been used, the
Senate bill is just fixes. You really heard Republicans saying today that
they think this will come into law by the end of next week. So, they don‘t
seem to really be trying to fight this one out too much longer either.
O‘DONNELL: Ezra Klein of “The Washington” and “Newsweek”—thank you
for watching the Senate floor for us tonight.
KLEIN: Thank you.
O‘DONNELL: Coming up: Senator John McCain gets the “sore loser of the
year” award. Now that health care reform is law, he doesn‘t want to help
make any more laws. Why is he promising to be the laziest lawmaker in
Washington?
And later, why does Sarah Palin insist on playing with words that
could incite violence? She tells opponents of health care reform to reload
and then puts out a Democrat target list full of gun crosshairs.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: Country first or revenge? Now that the health care reform
bill has passed, Senator John McCain actually admits he has settled
comfortably on the latter. He has decided to continue to take a big
government salary, which his wife‘s wealth renders meaningless, and do
absolutely no work for it for the rest of the year.
The former Republican presidential nominee is now, of course, in a
primary battle to retain his Senate seat, and yesterday, he went beyond
merely condemning the health care reform bill. Speaking to Arizona radio
station, he declared his intentions for the long term. “There will be no
cooperation for the rest of the year. They have poisoned the well in what
they‘ve done and how they‘ve done it.”
White House senior advisor David Axelrod responded, “you know, that‘s
OK on the sandlot, but that‘s not really OK when you are trying to govern a
country and move a country forward. It is a disappointing attitude.”
The McCain camp, now in the business of nothing but issuing press
releases, immediately shot back. McCain spokeswoman saying, in a
statement, “Senator John McCain will always stand on the side of the
American people. Get used to it, Mr. Axelrod. That is what strong,
independent members do. You‘d know that if you had ever worked for one.”
Harry Reid couldn‘t resist taunting McCain in the middle of his
tantrum. Reid‘s spokesman saying, in a statement, “for someone who
campaigned on country first and claims to take great pride in
bipartisanship, it‘s absolutely bizarre for Senator McCain to tell the
American people he is going to take his ball and go home until the next
election. He must be living in some parallel universe, because the fact
is, with very few exceptions, we‘ve gotten very little cooperation from
Senate Republicans in recent years.”
Senator McCain, deep breath. Calm down. You are not the only senator
who lost the presidential election and returned to work in the Senate.
There is a model for how to do this with dignity, while fulfilling your
oath to serve the people without violating your loyalty to your party.
He‘s a bit younger than you are, but served in the same war. Like you, he
is a decorated Navy man. And he has much to teach you about controlling
your temper and preserving your dignity.
He‘s right there across the aisle. You can talk to him. He still
likes you. The Navy bond is stronger than the Senate bond. Go ahead. Ask
John Kerry how he does it.
Let‘s bring in “Washington Post” associate editor, Pulitzer Prize
winning columnist and MSNBC political analyst Eugene Robinson. Good
evening, Gene.
Gene, we are looking at a 73-year-old senator, who will be 74 by the
time he is re-elected, if he is re-elected, and he is asking the voters of
Arizona to keep him on as their senator until he is 80 for what possible
reason, after just confessing that he is no longer capable of doing the
job?
EUGENE ROBINSON, “THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, Lawrence, you remember
Tip O‘Neill said all politics is local. For John McCain, all politics is
personal. I think clearly the defeat at the hands of President Obama in
2008 still rankles—really rankles for Senator McCain. And I think he
has decided that he wants to leave the Senate on his own terms, not on J.D.
Hayworth‘s terms, his certain primary opponent in Arizona.
And so he has taken a stand. It is a bizarre stand to say, send me
back here, and by the way, I‘m not going to do anything.
O‘DONNELL: With McCain, there is always the question of his
personality, of his character, of what is really going on here. In his
case, the question arises, is this just pure bitterness? The people who
know him say that he‘s capable of steaming for a while and holding a grudge
and acting this way just out of his own emotional reaction to things.
ROBINSON: Well, you saw it at the end of the campaign, Lawrence. You
saw his, frankly, erratic reaction to the financial crisis. It is one of
the main reasons he lost the election, or lost the election by the margin
that he did. He didn‘t give the impression of being a cool, steady hand in
a crisis. And he—
You know, emotion fuels him. At times, it has served him well. And
at times, it has served him ill. I believe it is not at all serving him
well now, either in his primary contest or in terms of his pledge to serve
as best he can for the citizens of Arizona.
O‘DONNELL: Eugene, for me, as a watcher of politicians, they never,
never become more interesting to me than they do in defeat. Because it is
in defeat where you see where the real character is or what is left of the
real character. And the McCain performance in defeat has been far below
the dignified reactions we‘ve seen by others.
Al Gore, for example, who had plenty of reason to be bitter, to be
angry, left the stage without rancor when the final vote was cast, in
effect, in the Supreme Court. Where does McCain rank in the recent models
of how to lose gracefully?
ROBINSON: Well, clearly, well below average. You mentioned John
Kerry and Al Gore. You saw the classy way in which Hillary Clinton handled
her defeat in the primaries. It‘s—it does tell us an awful lot about a
politician‘s character to watch them deal with disappointment. And John
McCain is not dealing with it well now.
And again, I think it‘s going to hurt him. I think it‘s going to hurt
him in his primary battle.
O‘DONNELL: And in history. Eugene Robinson, of the “Washington Post”
and MSNBC, thank you for your time tonight.
ROBINSON: Good to be here, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: Coming up, John McCain‘s running mate crossing the line
yet again. The half governor Tweets that it is time to reload in the
health care fight. Melissa Harris-Lacewell on the dangerous path we are
going down among the Tea Party followers.
Is the reform law President Obama signed today constitutional? More
than a dozen states filed suit to block it.
When Rachel joins you at the top of the hour, she will be a guest on
her own show, responding to fears from Senator Scott Brown that she will be
his opponent in 2012.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: How a bill becomes the law. First, the vote, then the
president‘s signature, and now the lawsuits. More than a dozen states have
filed legal challenges to the health care bill, claiming that it is
unconstitutional. It should be noted, however, that the complaint filed by
the state attorneys general lacks any specific case law. As Marc Ambider
notes, there is no case law in the complaint to buttress the claim that the
bill is actually unconstitutional.
For an overview, our correspondent is Pete Williams.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We simply can‘t have Washington make the rules and
we get stuck with the bill.
PETE WILLIAMS, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Fourteen states
and counting.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An unprecedented expansion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have the individual mandate held unconstitutional.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It does trample the Constitution.
WILLIAMS: Attorneys general from every part of the nation, nearly all
of them Republican, are challenging the health care law in court.
BILL MCCOLLUM FLORIDA ATTORNEY GENERAL: Congress has exceeded its
powers, in terms of its requiring the individual mandate, that anybody has
to buy a health care policy or suffer a penalty.
WILLIAMS: The new law does something the government has never tried
before, requiring nearly everyone to buy something sold by private
companies, in this case health insurance.
The Constitution gives Congress broad powers to regulate commerce, the
business of selling. But opponents of the law say, while that allows
Congress, for example, to regulate how cars are made and sold, it doesn‘t
mean that government could require everyone to buy one.
PROF. RANDY BARNETT, GEORGETOWN LAW SCHOOL: Congress can no more make
you buy insurance than it can make you buy a GM car in order to help out
the government, who have now subsidized GM.
WILLIAMS: But supporters of the law say Congress has broad power to
regulate things that end up having an effect on the economy. They point
out that it adds up when people without insurance go to the emergency room
for their health care.
PROF MARK HALL, WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL: It‘s part of the
whole scheme of things to say that, you know, you can‘t just slack off and
assume that somebody‘s going to take care of you, if you have some sort of
emergency.
WILLIAMS (on camera): Tonight, the Justice Department says it will
vigorously defend the law. Some legal experts defend the lawsuits as a
long shot. They do raise a question the courts have never directly
answered.
Pete Williams, NBC News, at the Supreme Court.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O‘DONNELL: I‘m not a lawyer, but I occasionally play one on TV. In
my humble opinion on this, the case will not turn on the commerce clause,
but the power to tax. In a previous life, I wrote tax law, and I can
assure you there is no question that the federal government has the power
to tax. The Obama administration doesn‘t like to call the penalty for not
having health insurance a tax, but that is exactly what it is. It is
enforced by the IRS, and that‘s what they will call it in court.
They will simply argue that having health insurance allows you a small
tax credit that you won‘t get if you don‘t have health insurance. And a
minimum of five justices on the Supreme Court, if it ever gets to them,
will see it that way.
Coming up, Sarah Palin releases a target list of Democrats to go after
in the next election. In marking the districts she uses gun cross-hairs.
And in a separate message, she tells supporters to reload. Melissa Harris-
Lacewell joins me with more on what‘s wrong with this disturbing picture.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: In case you needed another sign that the rage from the
right is rising to a dangerous boiling point, a new poll shows that nearly
40 percent of Republicans believe President Obama is doing many of the
things that Hitler did. And now the half term governor of Alaska is
encouraging those angered by the Democrats in health care reform to reload.
Sarah Palin taking time off from negotiating a multi-million dollar
reality show deal to Tweet “common-sense conservatives and lovers of
America, don‘t retreat; instead, reload.”
Palin directing followers to her other social media outlet, Facebook,
“with the president signing this unwanted and transformative government
takeover of our health care system today, with promises impossible to keep,
let‘s not get discouraged.”
Instead, Palin supplies her flock with a hit list of 20 Democrats to
target in the midterm elections, “all House members who voted in favor of
Obama-care and represent districts that Senator John McCain and I carried
during the 2008 election. We‘re going to fire them and send them back to
the private sector, which has been shrinking thanks to their destructive
government-growing practices.”
Palin then provides supporters with a map of the districts currently
held by the targeted Dems, location through gun cross-hairs. With three of
the 20 Dems retiring, Palin wants to focus attention on holding the others
accountable for their disastrous vote. “Warning, we‘ll aim for these races
and many others.”
Meanwhile, some disturbing numbers unearthed by the latest Harris
poll, showing the majority of Republicans believe that President Obama is a
socialist and a Muslim; 45 percent of the GOP believe the birther line,
saying Mr. Obama was not born in the U.S.; 38 percent of Republicans
believe the president is doing many of the things Hitler did. And perhaps
the most demented group a major polling firm has ever exposed, 24 percent
of Republicans say that Obama may be the anti-Christ.
Joining me now is associate professor of politics and African-American
studies at Princeton, columnist for “The Nation Magazine,” Melissa Harris-
Lacewell. Good evening, professor.
Polling results rather troubling. You have written in “The Nation”
recently about a vicious new Jim Crow terrorism. In those polling results,
do you have what you need to almost prove it?
MELISSA HARRIS-LACEWELL, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: Well, not quite. One
of the things I would like to know is who else they might think the anti-
Christ is.
O‘DONNELL: Some follow-up questions for the poll.
HARRIS-LACEWELL: That‘s right. I would like to know a little more.
What I will say is one of the sort of biggest steps that America took over
the past 50 years was enormous sea change in American public opinion,
particularly on questions of race, gender roles, a kind of opening in the
American system. Where in the 1940s and ‘50s, you had people willing to
say all sorts of racially discriminatory things, gender discriminatory
things.
By the time you got to, for example, 2008, even to the extent people
harbored those feeling, they were really unlikely to report them in a poll.
So the reason I find these poll results so sort of anxiety producing is
that it is an indication that the kind of socially acceptable lid that we
have kept on these kinds of beliefs may be bubbling off the pot, with some
boiling anxiety underneath.
O‘DONNELL: There was a lot of over-boiling in Washington this
weekend. We saw the spectacle of Congressman John Lewis, a former civil
rights marcher, being spat on, yelled at, exactly the kind of thing that
happened to him when he was marching for civil rights. Much worse happened
to him then, very severe physical violence. What were your feelings
watching that?
HARRIS-LACEWELL: That one was very hard, I think, for Americans who
know that history to watch. To actually see this same person, this same
body being attacked on questions of race.
For me, there was also this interesting shift, because, remember, when
he was marching as a young demonstrator, he was marching against the state,
against the government, saying that he had the right, as did other African-
Americans, to be full citizens. Now—
O‘DONNELL: And was being beaten by agents of the government from
those states.
HARRIS-LACEWELL: Absolutely. Now, in this context, it is the racists
who are the outsiders and he is an agent of the state now, right? On the
one hand, you see enormous change, this enormous transition. But I also
think it calls us to say that this is not just a matter bigotry or
prejudice. But this is people who are challenging the right of President
Obama, Representative Lewis to actually be making policy. They are duly
elected leaders in our country. We have folks saying they don‘t have the
right to levy taxes.
O‘DONNELL: Was it your sensation that part of this notion that they
don‘t have the right to do this has to do with their race and holding those
positions?
HARRIS-LACEWELL: I have to say it looked so much to me like—
O‘DONNELL: I mean when you hear the epitaphs, it raises that
question.
HARRIS-LACEWELL: It does. Because it looks like the turn of the
century film “Birth of a Nation,” 1915, which looked back on the period of
Reconstruction, when the anxiety was different kinds of people holding
public office, this idea that somehow the country had been lost, and the
fact that all of that had backed up with states rights language.
The same kind of secessionist language that we heard going on, that we
see in this lawsuit, saying the federal government doesn‘t have the right
to tell us what to do, that is actually what the Civil War was about. It
was about establishing that the federal government does have the right to
make policy for the nation.
O‘DONNELL: Now turning to Sarah Palin. I‘m not one who believes
she‘s trying to incite violence. I mean, I‘d have to give her a very big
benefit of the doubt that this is what it sounds like when you are a hunter
from Alaska. But there are enough people around her to say, you know what,
when you say target a politician in a country that suffered assassinations
of our politicians, and recent ones, you don‘t use cross-hairs. You have
to use other symbols.
Is she just out of it or this is also an indication that this movement
actually likes to move in that provocative direction.
HARRIS-LACEWELL: I appreciate she said she is going to fire them and
send them back to the private sector. That is a little different language.
That is what democracy is. You are meant to, if you don‘t like the
representatives, go out and run for office or vote for someone else. I do
know that there should be a kind of carefulness about people in public
life.
I think this is part of what Sarah Palin made a decision to do when
she quit the role of an elected leader, one who had the responsibilities of
being careful. She went rogue and made a decision that she is going
organize on Facebook and Twitter. I love Twitter, so not to demean it.
O‘DONNELL: How many followers do you have?
HARRIS-LACEWELL: I think I‘m up to 12,000 now. Come on, join the
party. Yet, this notion that she has so little responsibility that she
would use cross hairs to talk about an appropriate action, a democratic
action—people who disagree should vote against representatives they
don‘t like.
O‘DONNELL: Melissa Harris-Lacewell of Princeton University and a
contributor to MSNBC, thank you for your unique insights into this subject.
That will do it for this Tuesday edition of COUNTDOWN. I‘m Lawrence
O‘Donnell, in for Keith Olbermann. Our MSNBC coverage continues now with
“THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW.” Good evening, Rachel.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY
BE UPDATED.
END
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