>> "inside washington" is brought you in part by the american federation of government employees, proud to make america work. for more information about afge and membership, visit afge.org. >> production assistance for "inside washington" was provided by allbritton communications and politico, reporting on the legislative, executive, and political arena. >> effective immediately, the department of homeland security is taking steps to lift the shadow of deportation from these young people. >> this week on "inside washington," the president fires up the immigration debate. >> he failed to act until facing

a tough reelection and trying to secure your throat. >> i house committee holds attorney-general eric holder in contempt. >> why would the president claimed executive privilege unless there was something very important that he felt should not be made to this committee? >> the white house and the rest of us anxiously await the supreme court's ruling on the health-care law. baseball's roger clemens catches a break in court. what was the point of this? >> i put a lot of hard work into that career. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> last week as we were putting this program together, the president appeared in the rose garden to announce that, effective immediately, hundreds

of thousands of undocumented immigrants who arrived in the united states as children would no longer face the threat of deportation. now under certain conditions, young people under the age of 31 who came to the united states before their 16th birthday and have been here five years can work here illegally. as the president says, this is only a temporary reprieve. >> let's be clear, this is not amnesty, this is not immunity, this is not a path to citizenship. it is not a permanent fix. last >> year, did in the president tells us he could not do what he has just done? >> with respect to the notion that i can just suspend deportations through executive order, that is not the case. >> mitt romney has been dancing around the issue for a week. on thursday, he said this to a conference of latino elected officials. >> as president, i will not settle for stopgap measures. i will work with republicans and democrats to build a long-

term solution. we may not always agree, but when i make a promise to you, i will keep it. >> romney says he will streamline the immigration process and find a way to provide legal status and citizenship to undocumented immigrants who serve in the military as for undocumented college students, who knows? during the primaries, romney said he would veto the dream act as president and first, the president's unilateral action -- for said he could not do it, then he did it. your reaction, charles? >> well, the politics are brilliant the policy, there are merits on both sides of the argument. constitutionally, ideas and outrage. he has essentially unilaterally written a major act of -- re wrote a major act of congress.

it is like ordering congress not to penalize anybody who would not pay the capital gains tax. that would be a scandal and an outrage. >> colby, unconstitutional? >> can't say that pretty clearly this is an executive order is subject to challenge by congress. governor romney said he had three years to do something and he did not do anything. money is wrong. congress and the president have been trying to -- romney it is wrong. congress and the president have been trying to enact the gmac for years. -- dream act for years. it has been filibustered in the senate by republicans. there is no reason for ramadi to take the position that this is election-year politics -- for romney to take the position that this is an election-year politics. you can do it to court or congress can override the executive order. but i cannot say it is on

constitutional. justice krauthammer might, but i cannot rule on that. >> nina? >> i think it is probably illegal, unchallengeable by congress, who could override -- probably legal, challenger by congress, who could override it. i doubt that they will do that. republican co-sponsors drop off of it like mad. it puts it romney and the republicans in a corner. four days they cannot come up with an answer. romney >> this week on "inside -- romney still has not come up with an answer. >> lois romano, welcome. >> thank you. how can they challenge it with such a huge block of voters? obama might have had the latino vote anyway, and how they are very enthusiastic.

>> is the latino vote is lost cause for mitt romney? >> he did not have a lot to say in his speech for elected officials. there is a case you can make if you are conservative that i am not sure that romney has made, which is that if you could secure the border and get an authoritative letter from the governors of the four southern states that the flood is now a trickle -- will not abolish it entirely, illegal immigration -- at that point, i would be willing to amnesty everybody. if you know that these 11 million of the last cohort of illegal aliens, we're not going to toss them out, but if you close the border first annual i.t. has done, the american people left and right would accept a solution like that. many conservatives are not willing to accept that position. >> let it be said that the obama administration has deported more illegal aliens in three years

than the bush administration did in eight, and that was one reason why there was less enthusiasm in the hispanic community in particular. this will help overcome that, but there is still suspicion in that community because of the significant deportation effort by the obama administration. >> politically, what do the numbers look like, lois? >> obama is 67% in the latino community. i think it is too late. romney cannot get that back, especially during the primaries when he said he would do everything but put rottweilers at the border. >> everything is sliced and diced. where are hispanics with independent? >> they are splitting independents. it will be a very close election . what michelle obama is doin and -- doing is going in securing

the base. >> colby? >> politically, this is a nonstarter with the republicans. romney is in a worse position because he is still beholden to the right wing of his party. he cannot move on this subject very far without them screaming, as charles suggested. >> i screamed it quietly. >> silent scream. >> silent scream, with tears cascading down the cheeks. this is an addition of the position romney will be in through the campaign, not only on this issue, but other issues. >> no, i'm not sure. this is a case where the republicans have been working on something. rubio has been working on a compromise in lot like this, which had not -- which, had it been enacted in congress, would have been done the right way. the billions of this move by

obama politically was to preempt -- the brilliance of this move up by obama politically was to preempt that and take the issue for himself. rubio would've had a solution that would have been consensual. >> friday morning, you pick up the paper, and 15 big banks downgraded by moody's. i thought the banks were in good shape. >> the bank said not capitalizing very well -- banks are not capitalizing very well. the biggest problem at they face political stalemate. the capacity of the country to step up and address the underlying problems in their communities -- deficits, debt problems, the lack of our productive sector of the economy. the banks reflect that. they did the same mistakes that were made right here in the united states. they are not stepping apart from the states. they are so tied into the economies of the states that they are almost too big to fail.

the same problem we had here -- >> moody's downgraded these banks, including jpmorgan chase and all these others, because they said they were engaging in derivatives-type trading, the kind of thing that led to the crash in 2008 and 2009, and that they have not learned the lesson. >> the capitalization problem -- >> and up until the 1990's, we had banks separate from investors. that was the glass-steagall act. president clinton decided to get rid of that. we paid a price ever since. >> what happened to the conservative banker in the three piece suit? he wants to know how much money -- >> nobody can get money right now. >> he died in dubuque in 1952. >> small banks have been taken

over by the larger regional banks and multinational banks. you have banks acting as investment institutions. it is difficult for the sound principles of banking to be a observed. outrageous thing that's happened -- >> more bad news for obama. the romney campaign will find a way to talk about it as see, this stuff is still going on even though we build the bank's out. i bet another story would get more traction -- >> "washington post" -- >> did an investigation found that bain capital supported companies with outsourcing and outsourced hundreds of thousands of jobs and that will cause romney a huge credit. >> the person who answers the phone in india could be from bain capital. charles? >> on the issue of banks, the

bank said european exposure and it is not even agreed problem anymore. the problem is with spain. the long-term bonds for spain is 7%. it is fixed. at 6, greece went into bankruptcy spain. is unsustainable. in the end, who will have to bail them out? the germans. the germans have this answer -- we retire at 67, agreed to address or retires at 50. you want our steel worker the berlin to subsidize the greek hero desert for 16 years? that is not going to happen. >> they need something like the fed. >> the germans, the central bank is like saying the germans are going to sustain the rest of the continent they don't want to do it. >> what do you say to the germans to work for?

>> -- the german steel worker. >> we see something very serious in europe will go beyond the financial crisis. dark, dark clouds are hanging over there. you don't have this situation much longer. >> as a house committee holds attorney general eric holder in contempt of congress. >> our purpose has never been to hold the train general in contempt. our purpose has always been to get the information the committee needs to make its mission work, that it is not only entitled to, but obligated to do. >> the committee on oversight and government reform is supposed to -- is supposed to root out problems and find ways to reform how government works. shouldn't be a political witch hunt. >> that is congressman darrell issa, committee chairman, and member carolyn maloney of new

york, a democrat. for those of you wondering what this business about eric holder is about, a sting operation wher -- fast and furious was a sting operation where guns could be traced to mexican drug cartels. a couple dozen weapons in all. at -- a couple thousand weapons in all. atf lost track of them and they were possibly involved in the murder of a border agent. republicans say that the attorney general have been withholding documents central to the investigation. this week, the white house in about executive privilege. why hasn't the attorney general given the committee everything they ask for, colby? >> the executive privilege issue is one we've seen, over and over again with administration's, republicans and democrats. it is probably legitimate to

invoke executive privilege if the documents give a whit what the prosecution is a criminal case. i tend to favor more disclosure and less secrecy. >> if you invoke executive privilege, it sticks to the president, doesn't it? >> the committee have overreached. i don't think the public has the stomach for this right now it plays to the image of congress being disruptive, and they have not made a case for what is in the documents he has to have. >> that is the problem. i would be sympathetic if i thought it was something in there. but there is no cover-up as far as we know. there was ranked in competence, but not a cover-up. what i can tell people are looking for is evidence that they were talking a lot about how to portray this in a better light. ok, so what.

holder said, "i will negotiate and compromise with you." he wants the issue, he does not want the documents. it is pretty clear to me and probably clear to everybody else. >> they are looking for documents that happened after the thing blew open. they are looking for conversations -- >> emails -- >> not things that led up to it. >> there is stuff in there about ongoing investigations. you cannot turn that over. what happens next is that it has to be referred to the justice department, so it will go nowhere. >> who benefits least from this, charles? >> i have to respond to this idea that they are just going fishing for documents. what is left out of this last edition of the facts, and i kiss interesting that this show and mainstream media times -- it is interesting that this show and means committee after expenses

from a one, because it is almost never talk about -- in february of last year, they issued a statement saying that there was no gun running. they had to retract that. what they are trying to figure out is the documents about how that was made and who made it. the attorney general testified in may 2011 that he had only heard about the entire affair, the entire operation, a few weeks ago. he later had to admit because the documents were discovered from a year earlier that he knew about it and was informed about it. there were two major statements holder had made it that the doj had made that were untrue and later on done -- undone. those are the documents that are being requested. what were the false statements, who made them, how word they

later covered up and retracted? >> it would be one thing if the committee uncovered something, but he uncovered it himself. >> all, he uncovered it himself? he had given multiple memos about it, and all of a sudden he uncovered this -- >> this is no gotcha thing. they exposed it did they realize it was there and expose it. you are trying to make a devil out of this situation. there are no devils here. >> could this backfire on the republicans? >> with everything going on now, all these issues, i don't think the market -- i don't think the american public cares about this and they will take it out on the perpetrators, the republicans. >> whether or not it affects

election, there is it dead border agents as a result of this, and the parents want to know happen. >> this has nothing to do with the contempt citation did this happen under the atf, the justice department was not running this operation, and we know what happened to him. >> which way will the supreme court go on the health-care law? people long have used important health screenings because they cannot afford -- people will longer have to skip and board of health screenings because they cannot afford them. >> nina, what will we get a decision? >> i think the we will get it next week, because of the justices have to leave town on friday. i once asked the late, great justice was powell if i could visit my parents on july 4

weekend, and he said, "certainly." then the phone on my desk rings and he says, "nina, i'm afraid i misled you." you never know. >> which way are they going to go? >> i never like to predict, because you are often wrong. have somebody who doesn't know anything predict. >> there was an interesting pew study out this week. 7% say that the issue will be -- 70% say the issue will be important to their vote this fall. they are uncomfortable with the thing. >> the draconian measures in there scared the dickens out of a lot of people who are against it.

on the other hand, when you discuss this of aspects of the ac -- --specific aspects of this act, there is support for it. i think the narrative, the dis information has affected this bill. there could be built blowback when people realize what they have lost. >> former speaker pelosi said that people begin to like it went they know what is in. unfortunately for your argument, the logger it is out there, the greater the opposition to obamacare. >> what is the obama administration do? >> they go back to the drawing board quickly. republicans are ready for this, and they are not going to gloat. we will do some revisions and get this going, because as

everybody is saying, there are provisions that people like. >> interesting story in "the new york times" on friday, where the money went. where does the money go? >> that is unclear right now. >> the whole thing is incredibly unclear. a lot of political experts think that if the court strikes down the act, it is good for obama. the motivating force week and talking about is somewhat gone. but then people will be very angry when there isn't a fix. the question is whether congress can deal with this. >> 8 million young people who are covered now because of their parents' insurance would lose that coverage if that is not downed tre -- if that is knocked down. >> and pre-existing conditions -- you take that away from people and they will go crazy.

>> yeah, but it is not free, although it sounds like it is spre. cbo said that the cost of obamacare was $6 trillion, and the entire argument from democrats that it would save money and reduce costs, which is killing the budget, was exposed as. > -- as fraud. >> roger clemens be the rap. was the trial worth it? >> i have never taken steroids. >> roger clemens and lord the rap on all six counts that he lied to -- to. roger clemens beat the rap that of all six counts that he lied to congress. >> these were brought in cases and they should not have been brought. the higher ups in the justice department should have to answer for that.

you have to have some control of your lower-down prosecutors, some of whom have political ambitions, some of whom have no judgment. they did not do that. i don't think that roger clemens beat the wrap. i think he came as close to being exonerated as you can be when you are criminally charged. there was no there there. >> congress actually did this -- congress said that he had lied. the justice department carefully pointed out that they responded to this -- >> they did not have to say yes. >> if the answer was no, they would have been vilified. >> all three of these cases went to trial if lot primary witnesses -- with flawed primary witnesses. do not make a flawed witness dirty person. -- your key person.

>> andy pettite said that clemmons had told them he used drugs and then said maybe he didn't t. george mitchell said that clemens -- and i think anybody to watch the game knows or thinks he did, and this is a case that should never have happened and the congressional hearings that should never have happened. original sin is that that is not the realm of congress. baseball is baseball, not a criminal activity. >> the government has a flawed witness, and it uses its leverage than to get that guy and talk to mitchell, and mitchell tells mcnamee, we're not going to name names, and mcnamee -- god knows how much of it he made up. and then mitchell does name

names. this reflects badly on mitchell, the justice department, and the congress of the united states. >> congress congratulate the house of representatives committee for pursuing this issue. they were getting attaboys from this panel. >> see you next week. >> "inside washington" is brought you in part by the american federation of government employees, proud to make america work. for more information about afge and membership, visit afge.org.