his relationship. they have been much more close. >> the three leaders had dinner together tonight with the agenda left open and unstructured. tomorrow, but will have more formal meetings. they will also hold a news conference before they depart. we will have that live starting at 12:30 p.m. eastern here on c- span. >> 29, frank rich reflects on 15 years of political columns for the new york times. including his look of the internet from 1995, the whitewater hearings and his column following 9/11. "q&a," tonight on c-span. >> how is he spent funded? donations? >> may be private contributions. >> honestly i don't know. >> i would say from commercials. >> advertisement? >> something from the government? >> how is he's been funded?

it is a public service, a private business, no government money. . . >> center martinez has said that he would resign early. he had already said he would not run for reelection. the governor of the state will have to make some appointment and check into all laws and regulations on how this work. he is running for the seat and

asked to pick an appointment. our reaction, and how does this affect the election? >> i had dinner with him last night and he told me about it. mel -- the senate is full of people with interesting stories. but nobody has a better story than mel martinez. he came from cuba to the united states in the peter pan operation. his parents put him on the plane and did not note that would see him again. he broke some many barriers as a lawyer, as an mayor, and as a senator. he has been a wonderful contributor, and we will really miss him. he told his that is one -- that his one regret is that he is leaving when the republican party is making a comeback. gov. crest is going to run for his seat. we knew that.

teammate even have a primary but he is an exceptionally strong candidate. i should not presume to guess that the governor -- whom the governor will point. >> as a former governor yourself, is it not politically tricky situation? you may have been faced with this yourself. is this treaty or just part of the job and the governor of florida will handle it? >> it gets tricky when you appoint yourself which would be an unwise thing. it is one of the decisions that a governor has to make. i am a big admirer of governor crist. he has skill and common sense. >> based on your dinner last night, any more of the center's reasons for departure? >> i shall let him speak about it. he is of an age and he has contributed a lot in public life. he has been a mayor and a

cabinet member, he has been of the republican national chairman, and he has already decided that he is leaving. he still has kids to deal with and not like to live. he said that it was time for him to go. >> let's get over to the other big news on the economic front. the unemployment numbers went down to 9.4%. we still lost to under 47,000 jobs in july. the democrats ran with this in the markets seem to like it. telos, is the drop in unemployment good news? what does that mean for the economy? >> of course it is good news. republicans should cheer it as much as anybody that we got more people working. but we have a lot people not working. i am afraid that we on for several months or a few years of what many people call up jobless recovery, a higher than a larger number of people who have a

tough time finding work. that is why it is so important to go back to the fundamentals. i would like to see the president -- we know he is smart and he has more people around him, but i would like to see him focused on the economy in a way that the president eisenhower did and say that he is going to fix this economy and i will not stop until i do, and after that i will get a health care and climate change. >> a lot of republicans say that the stimulus is not working. i saw a story in the "new york times was " showing how the stimulus is creating jobs in your own state. is the stimulus working are not working? >> if you spend $787 billion and you do it in a tiny place like perry county, something is going happen. but we've borrowed 70 -- 7 uttered $87 billion and only

13% of it has been spent. that was spent not to create jobs but spending programs that the democrats wanted to spend on. more medicare, $80 billion over two years on more education spending. maybe that is good spending but it did not have anything to do with stimulus in creating jobs. after six months, it apparently did not because the president advertised that we would bring unemployment down and employment is where it is. >> a small issue does not making too much news as health care. [laughter] you go home and talk to your constituents, what do republicans need to do in this month to come back in september looking as good on health care issue than they appear to look heading into the recess? >> i am glad we have this chance to go on. i was afraid that they would ram this through before everybody

got a chance to read it or think about it. it is heading down the wrong track. we need to listen and we need to make sure that people understand what the problems are. and there are a lot of them. we need to make sure that our own proposals see the light of day. we have a right of proposals to bring the cost of health care down, to give low-income people an opportunity to buy health care that the rest of us have, without adding to the debt. we need to go down that track the proposals instead of the democratic proposals which flunked the cost test, caused millions to lose their health insurance, creates a new government program and expands one failing government program, taxes employers, and the worst thing to me is this business about dumping more people into medicaid and sending the bill to the states, which is going to be impossible. >> just as a quick follow-up,

but me ask you about the democratic message shifting from health care reform to help insurance reform, how do republicans push back against the message this says we want to eliminate pre-existing conditions as a barrier to health insurance by private insurance companies? we want to eliminate lifetime caps of that when you get sick you cannot be dropped. they will have a very personal appeal to americans out there that otherwise they would be concerned about a government takeover. how you push back on the health insurance reform message as opposed to the larger message about the plan? >> we do not push back. we agree with that. all of our plans have health insurance reforms. we have a bipartisan plan that i am a copartner -- co-sponsor of. one way or the other we're going to get iraq -- get rid of the phenomenon where you get a pre-

existing condition like diabetes, you cannot get health care. still, the proposals that people need to pay attention to it are the ones that say the cost is going to go up, according to the congressional budget office, but state taxes going up a point to it -- according to democratic governors, millions of people losing their health insurance from their employers despite what the president says. millions will lose and that will end up in a government-run program. it is time to find out about that. >> if the public option that makes it to the senate floor, is that dead right now? they cannot get it out of committee. well that -- will there be any form of public option or will they watered-down? >> it is hard to project. my guess is that the president will probably give up on the government option before it is all over.

it doesn't make any sense, anyway. it's like the press as saying that he is going to buy the rest of the retailer's debt keep wal-mart honest. it does not make any sense. if that doesn't have any special a bandage, you do not need it. if it does have a special advantage, if you make -- if you get government subsidies, then it drives all the other choices out of the market, choices that more than two winter million americans have today and they like. >> what about the idea of co-ops ? i don't think it has been explained very much. it is a pooling of money said that people can buy in at a lower rate. >> again, if it is a co-op with no government advantage, then it does not make any difference. if it has an advantage, then it is a problem. we do not really need to do that. we're going to pass a law that

has insurance reform. you can get insurance at reasonable cost and not lose it if you change your job or have a pre-existing condition. that is going happen. the question is, are we going to break the bank or transfer taxes to the states in our effort to expand insurance and are we going to do it with government programs, helping more people into medicaid, or will we take subsidies that we already have been spread them around in a fair way that -- so that more people can buy health insurance? >> with all the discussion about transparency and health care, at you feel about the negotiating committee keeping it so close to the best? >> i think that is all right. those are three republican senators. we have a lot of respect for grassley and iensign and snow. we had a conference that most of us can go to.

the report on the progress that they are making or not making. >> sat there, picking up on that, it doesn't seem like most of the republicans are excited about what is going on the finance committee. you held a news conference with senator orrin hatch and talked about the finance committee negotiations. you did not seem to think that they would come to conclusions that republican senators could support. can you explain what you feel the problem is with what is going on in the finance committee? >> i believe that i said at that press conference that iraq respect max baucus for trying to resolve this in a bipartisan way. our fear is that they will come up with something that we have seen come out of the senate health committee and out of the house. government programs, losing your employer insurance, and this absurd idea of the is dumping more low-income people in the

medicaid and sending the bill to the states which broke to begin with. i figured out in tennessee that after five years to expand medicaid and you pay the doctors to actually see the patients, which 40% will not do today, and an end -- and then give tennessee its share of that, we would have to pass a 10% stake in come tax to pay for that. that is why you see democratic governor sayingseewhoa. don't do this to us. dollars are your ears based on what you see how about where the negotiators are heading? >> not from them. we do not know exactly what they will end up with. they report their discussions and most of the discussions are asking a lot of questions. there are a lot of big issues in detail to the side so we will not prejudge them until they finish their work. that will be several weeks, i guess. >> we're talking about what is

going on behind closed doors in the senate. what is getting a lot of attention right now as congress goes home is these town hall meetings. we jokingly call them town halls in the wild. but it is a serious issue. they have been canceled or overrun by protesters. there was even a fist fight that broke out in tampa, florida. the democrats are saying and there is some evidence that these protests had been ginned up by national groups like freedom works. what does that play with this town hall anger, and how would you handle such a disruption? >> the democrats are feeling the fire. if they want to punch, punch back, and they are raising the issue in calling protesters names. everybody just needs to settle down. good manners are a good thing. first amendment rights are important but if you shot someone down, if you are

destroying that persons first amendment opportunities, too. town halls are a very important part of the american fabric but we should not be calling these protesters names just because they don't like the idea of being dumped into a government program or want to see their federal debt go higher. they are scared and worried. they are terrified. they saw congress tried to ram through a bill that they knew they did not like and it wanted to find out more about it and let their senator or congressman know how they felt about it. good manners are important but other than that, we have the right to say how we feel and most of us in public life are used to vigorous exchanges back and forth. >> tenants left. >> senator, let's switch briefly to the supreme court confirmation of justice sotomayor. you are one of a handful of republicans to vote for her confirmation. >> 9. >> two and falls.

talk to me about the politics of your vote and a policy part of your vote, in terms of your deference to the president, and if you feel that we might have turned a page from some of those contentious confirmation hearings from the bush administration or does it depend on who barack obama may nominate in the future? >> i think the republican senators were much better behaved than the democratic senators worked for president bush's nominees. i can remember coming here six years and being absolutely appalled by the treatment that judge pickering and judge estrada, and even justice roberts and alito receive. i have appointed 50 judges as the governor of tennessee and i did not like it. i criticized then-senator obama and the democrats for speaking

out against and just because he was not on their side. sotomayor is not on our side but we should not talk about -- which cannot turn these votes into who saturday one. that turns that the supreme court itself into a political football and it is supposed to be a group of well qualified individuals who are impartial. >> to you believe that the number of republicans who voted against tirpitz the party at a disadvantage with latino voters? >> i do not face up. -- i do not think so. there are a number of people still angry about the treatment democratic senator's aide to republican nominees a few years ago. we need to get back to the point and one of the reasons i but it that way -- when every single senator voted for justice scalia and all but three voted for judge ginsburg. >> let's go back to health care.

republicans have been criticized as being the party of no, for not having an alternative. what is the republican plan said that people can understand it in plain english? >> i will give you one of them. my plan is a bipartisan plan, and the elements are like the other plans. one, we would take the subsidies that we are now getting -- getting to americans and redistribute them so that every american would have a chance to buy his or her own health care. second, we would not create any new government programs and we would take 67% of the people in one failing program called medicaid and give them the cash they need to buy private health care. third, the congressional budget office says that the other bills do not add one penny to the debt. fourth, we have insurance

reforms that would say that if you got a pre-existing condition or diabetes, you can buy insurance at a reasonable price. and theft, we would not be shifting big taxes -- and fifth, we would not be shifting the tax burdens to the state. it is a completely different direction than we are going with the democrats. >> let me talk about the political aspect of that. there is the jim dimon plan and other plans. we are aware of these plants but politically, but that a single piece of paper that has the republican health care agenda on at, that can be shared by everybody on both sides of the hill and by the party at large, does it puts you in a political disadvantage, given that you don't have the bully pulpit of the white house to drive your agenda?

doesn't confuse the matter and leave people thinking you are the party of know when in fact there are legislative proposals? >> we have offered more plants than the president has. he has offered zero. we have offered four or five and have the common elements i just described. he speaks with a single voice and we speak with many voices so i think we have done pretty well. we have said what we do not like about the house and senate plans that have come out and offered our own proposals in specific terms, which i just did. most people are getting the message. what they are hearing, they do not like. >> i need go back to your comments about center martinez, leaving at a time when he thinks the republicans are turning the corner? do you agree with that observation? >> the two best political indicators i have never seen our money in canada. we're raising money better and the republican senatorial

campaign committee and we ever have. and we have good candidates in florida and new hampshire and ohio and missouri. in a whole variety of states, the first choice candidate are excited to run for the senate. that usually means that they can wind. >> in a couple of the state's you are trying to hold their seats. where can you pick up seats in 2010? >> that is john cornyn's job. [laughter] he is far cheaper quarter -- recruiter, and you are right. we have a tough job coming up. for example, can it its of the caliber of governor crist who are willing to run, and in new hampshire. there may even be primaries in the states. in connecticut, i think we have three republicans seeking senator dodd's see. -- ceased. the smells to me like a year

that republican candidates are saying that we need a change in washington, and what is happening is disturbing me. i'm going to go straight and some things out. i was around in 1977 and 1978, when i was elected governor. i was out running for president in 1993 and 1994. >> we have four minutes left. closing questions? >> you have some historical perspective. for republicans seeing signs of life in what is happening now, looking to 1992 and 1993, looking at 79 for 1981, a lot of things give you hoping to see concrete evidence. can you talk about some of our assumptions that should not be made, that people need to look out for? you may be in this chair i year from now singing the same tune in server -- in terms of where the party is headed your >> if

we did not like the democratic government-run option for health care, we need have our own plan like i just described. or if we are like the economy and a big energy tax, that we hung up -- that we have our own plan -- which we do. we want electrify cars and trucks, exploring for natural gas offshore, some nice manhattan projects like we had in world war ii on alternative energy, so it is important that people are going to turn to us and say they are not liking what they're seeing. we want to make sure that they like what they see. but canada's that have something to say. -- good candidates that have something to say. >> t think that there will be reform for health-insurance signed by the end of the year? >> i hope so and i believe so. it may be insurance reforms. it may be a few steps toward an improvement of the delivery systems.

i hope that it does not add one penny to the dead and i hope it makes it easier for people to afford their health care plans. there are enough good ideas out there that we can agree on that. >> what is the message you want people to understand about the party? you run on a message on this conservatism's but fewer -- you had such support for class for clockers. >> it was allocated to renewable energy. that is the first thing. the republican message is that we want checks and balances. too much spending, too much debt, too much taxes, and we have an agenda for a low-cost clean energy plan, a health-care plan without being government- run, and an education system that gives you more choices. those are some of our ideas. >> the final minute. >> one health care, we keep going back to that because it will be a major driver in the

fall. if the president were to drop his support or his desire to see up public -- a public plan, to expand medicaid, which your concern will add to the deficit, and just focused on insurance reforms like no lifetime caps, like pre-existing conditions, it might get a chance for republicans to look more timely on what the president -- more kindly on what the president is trying to do. >> well, of course. we are all for that. that is where the problem is. it is not where the disagreement is between the president and us. we disagree on cost and government-run plans. >> we assume that something like that has -- comes out of the committee in goes to the senate floor, there will be an up or on the left side of the aisle. >> -- an uproar on the left

side of the aisle. >> that is why we have a president. lyndon johnson had a relationship dirkson. the president and the leadership have to get busy if they want health care bill and there are plenty of senators and congressman willing to support that. but not in the direction we are going now. we would have to start over. >> thank you for being our guest. we're back with david drucker and. where are the opportunities and challenges as they going to the break? >> the opportunity is that they had into the office break with national opinion polls showing the president becoming more of a human being and less of a political rock star.

the polling also shows that republicans are very skeptical about the democratic plans for health care reform. the republicans have a chance of a the next month to solidify their standing as being opposed to what people do not like and to further take advantage of the anxiety out there. what they have to worry about is that a month is three lifetimes in politics. just as fast as people have been worried and concerned about the reforms and the way the democrats are going, the democrats can turn that around. they are heading into the august break changing their message from health care reform health insurance reform. people do not like health insurance companies to much. republicans have announced -- half to announce their opposition in ways that appears not to stick up for insurance companies but that there just opposed to things that people do not like. it sounds a little redundant but it is a trick. the head in position to do

this, but there is ample opportunity for the democrats over the next 1.5 months to change the game. whenever you have an articulate, well liked president and he is still very well liked and has the bully pulpit, it is a challenge to maintain any sort of position of strength. >> there is no doubt the republicans had just had their best month. july was probably their best month since john nominated sarah palin and got that bump in the polls last august. but a month is a long time and people can go back and talk to their constituents. a lot of this anchor that we see at the town halls, there is a chance that that can backfire little bit. some of the extreme elements on both sides can come out of these and people -- especially when the fist fights are breaking out and people are banging and protesting, people will say let's sit back and talk about this like adults.

that is where republicans need to be careful. they want to encourage dissent and the appearance of a grassroots movement against health care reforms, but they have to make sure that they are offering a clear alternative that people can understand. >> this is an unusual august break. most americans are going off to vacation and not paying attention to washington. but the economic news and the impending vote on health care, this will be in august where people stay engaged. >> i think that that will stay and gates and in the first time in a long time, we will see the first year of a new presidency with a ball that is all a twitter -- but they fall -- with a fall that is all atwitter about domestic issues. barnett banks, we are finally getting intl