>> do you still have the juice to get the rest of your agenda through this congress? >> striving for relevancy in your second term. >> maybe i should just pack up and go home? >> another massachusetts senate race in the spotlight. >> i will stand up in the u.s. senate and be a strong, passionate voice for working families across our state. this be a replay of 2010? >> pushed back on the senate gun-control vote. the justice department steps into the debate over the morning

after pill. former justice sandra day o'connor on bush v. gore. and the president knocks them down at the white house correspondents' dinner. why don't you get a drink with mitch mcconnell, they ask? really? why don't you get a drink with mitch mcconnell? [laughter] >> 18 years ago after newt gingrich said republicans had tan over congress, president bill clinton famously said, the president is still relevant here. we were reminded of that moment this week at obama's news conference when an abc correspondent asked the president if he still had the juice to get the rest of it

agenda through congress. the president paraphrase mark twain in saying that the rumors demise might be- exaggerated, and then added this. >> you seem to suggest somehow these folks over there have no responsibilities and that my job is to somehow get them to behave. that is their job. >> the president thought it was a gunss's job to pass control bill, the senate failed to do so. he is struggling to get something done and immigration. heat fromng republicans on everything from bed gauzy to syria and he cannot shut down guantanamo bay, but the voters still like him. and the unemployment rate, we learned at week's end, dropped to 7.5%, heat from republicans a seven-week low. charles krauthammer is off this week. in his column he says that the president is dead in the water. how relevant is barack obama?

>> the president is not dead in the water, charles, i wish you were here to write you personally. what was missing from that press conference was any zest for combat. the president came across, i thought, as a very composed and a list, rather than a compassionate advocate. >> colon fresh, same question. is relevant to that was a very low blood sugar day. i was looking to see if there was a tranquilizer dart. he does not like to do these press conferences. to an extent he did himself no great service with a lack of verve that the answer that question. >> i also think that this is pandit pucky. go into aand then we dither about whether the president is relevant. the president is always relevant. the fourthly into

month of his second term. he is going to get a victory on immigration, something will happen here. i think it will come back to the background checks. those who have opposed it in the senate are in trouble. he will have another crack at gun-control. this is far from over. he is right, the rumors of his death are premature. >> is he going to get immigration? he is in mexico at the end of the week talking about that, and will congress come through with immigration reform? >> i think he will get something on immigration, but not because of him, but because he won big and carry the hispanic vote and it scared the holy jesus out of the republican party. a jump ball. is people are being too optimistic -- optimistic about this.

marco rubio has been at the vanguard of this, obviously, republicans want to move away from their current position. but there is a lot of recalcitrance and the house on this. anything substantial will be difficult. >> keep your eye on the republican side on three people, ted cruz, the senator from texas, who was speaking this weekend at the major republican fundraiser in south carolina, rand paul, of kentucky, a tea party favored who is looking at 2016, has straddled the issues so far, and mike lee, a conservative senator from utah. if you start to build a conservative opposition to it, the house could be a bridge too far on this issue. >> the president said this week we are making sure that we hit our marks every week so that the new health care law will be in place. 14 states will not participate.

16 are in limbo. how will this play out? >> they would have had a slow rollout, but this is not dead. this is a very complicated piece of legislation and act, a lot of moving parts. you cannot measure the success of this by this year, you have to look at a period of time. .t is here to stay some modifications, perhaps, but it is here to stay. >> if you look at any major piece of health legislation that rolled out, beginning with medicare, and the system in massachusetts, which obamacare is modeled after, and the new drug benefits never in the bush administration, the immediate response was this is not going to work, this is awful. in each case, it did work. i am not saying that this will work, but this is a predictable beginning.

the question is, can they pull it off in the long run? >> the president talked candidly about how difficult it is when you have rick perry and rick scott in texas and florida respectively, opposing this. in the westo i was wing and i had a senior obama aide tell me that by this time this would be more popular than the super bowl. this has not happened, you have democrats who are apprehensive about this. >> democrats are nervous about the failure thus far to inform people of the benefits and what will be good about this. that john has not been done. when you have a great communicator like the president, the lack of communication on this issue is really on their finger and disturbing to a lot of democratic candidates. >> over time you will see 30 million more americans covered by this act.

they do have to execute that. >> this is the benefit that they will be able to point back to four years from now. look at the people now getting cover that did not have it before. >> an interesting political had appointments. >> it is really interesting, he spent the last couple of weeks doing this charm offensive with republicans, but the fact is coming in the second term, he has to get his base behind him, philosophically and financially. penny pritzker, in 2009, had to withdraw herself from consideration of commerce secretary because of some dealings that her family business had done. her time had come and she made it clear to people in the president's circle. the more interesting pick is mel watt, the north carolina

congressman who has been tapped to run the agency that oversees fannie and freddie. he supports -- not to get too complicated here -- principles for those struggling with their mortgages, and he is resistant to this notion of overhauling fannie and freddie. he will get a lot of republican opposition and will raise a lot of questions about a week part of president obama's administration, which is housing policy and how to deal with the affordability crisis. and there error still significant for closure issues. >> we have a former banker on the panel. pressure againt to lend. if you ignore the basic requirement of lending -- people have to have the capacity to pay it back. that gets lost in the shuffle when you start to push it out like that.

thing, wees the same will be back where we were before. >> i think mel watt is one of the most people members of the house, well respected, and the fact that he took this job and left speaks to what it is like to be in the minority in the house. the minority has one big responsibility in the house, which is to make a quorum. a commentd say it is that perhaps he did not see the democrats winning in 2014. >> in the larger sense i am really interested by the fact that there is nobody there in most of these agencies. in the state department there are people who have left who are helping out. 25% of those jobs are unfilled. that is true of every agency, as

it is in judgeships. the president does not want to seem to want to spend any capital on the business of appointments, whether it is his legacy in the court, or people to help him run the government. backlog.is a huge we have been hearing, i am sure you have heard as well, a backlog of people that want to get into the administration who are having a great deal of trouble, a lot of capable people waiting outside the gates. >> what is the problem? >> the president does not want to pick any battles that do not involve his core issues. let's face it, barack obama is not a guy that has ever been about coattails', bringing others into the game. he has been about building his brand and using that to lift all the democrats. >> it is a 1-way administration. it all comes down to him.

he is not thinking about the next agenda, the next generation of leadership. it is all about his agenda. >> i would point out, in defense, an interesting fact in "the new york times." had 444 questions submitted that he had to answer, which was more than the seven previous nominees for secretary of the treasury had to face in total. there is a problem on the hill. >> and he is still working, only up to 327. and massachusetts senate race in the news again. this is gabriel gomez, a former navy seal. he will face veteran massachusetts congressman edward markey. in the last massachusetts special election, you may recall, scott brown scored an

over marthawin coakley. here we go again. how are you handicapping this, mark? >> first of all, the question is, is gabriel gomez another scott brown? he has a military record, became to harvard, went business school, the son of colombian immigrants, made a lot of money, is for same-sex marriage but against a background checks. not a crazy man, with no public record, no voting record to defend. edward markey is not martha coakley. he has been all out. with he said in the primary, which have found interesting -- i found interesting, the most he had in that

congress was on obamacare. he has made himself a surrogate for barack obama in massachusetts. as of now, he is a strong favorite. the congressn in since 1977. should he have a bigger than a six-point margin? >> yes. globe," e boston democrats fear reliving 2010. >> the big difference here is that it edward markey knows fenway park. they let this thing faster in 2010, they were not paying attention. the political director over there thought that this was going to be a bit of a slam dunk. they are not making those same mistakes now. we have a may 29 fund-raiser with michelle obama, the most popular public figure in the country right now, and they feel

this will be decided by the women. ofed markey has a lot democrats behind him. this also shows how deft gomez is in the campaign. he will be charged with all the republican votes in the senate. he will be asked, how would you have voted on this, how would you have voted on this? that as adles candidate matters. >> a lot of independent voters out there. they do like moderate republicans. >> we say that but they have not elected one, other than scott brown, in a long time. the reason that scott brown lost was not just because elizabeth warren was there. he had taken positions that are more conservative than this very liberal state. we will have to see how this plays out. right foroo massachusetts.

>> the new republican senator from new hampshire ran into a buzz saw at town hall meetings because of her voting on gun control. is this legislation still doable? has reported that omy-manchin d to will try to get back in business. the political arm of the campaign is not doing a good job getting out there. this is still an open question. >> issing there is still a possibility. joe manchin has said that he would try to do it again. we can see the swell of support for beckham checks around the country. i think you will see some of the republicans falloff. she has steadfastly refused

to change her position. it is an open question whether that could lead to her defeat four years from now. >> she has a six-year term. and, maxrget her baucus, mark begich. perhaps he is on the fence. >> now that max baucus is not running now, perhaps he will change his mind. >> he has made it clear to them that he is not. their problem is not necessarily republican but their own party. have at of all, you story that scott brown is considering moving to new hampshire to run against jean shaheen, which tells you something about the republicans. karl rove recommended this strategy in "mall street journal" on thursday.

this has been fiercely covered, she has a lot of coverage, probably more adverse coverage man kelly has ever sustained before. she has seen to lose her stride a couple of times with that kind of scrutiny. we only have the numbers from one polling company, but those numbers show that to me's numbers and pennsylvania had gone up for supporting it and kay hagan's numbers have gone up after supporting it, while jeff flake and others have seen their numbers go down. if that becomes a pattern, perhaps there will be consequences. >> to be continued. plan b four young girls and second thoughts perhaps on bush v. gore from sandra day o'connor. >> it shows a lack of responsibility on parents.

>> she is responding to making the it after -- the morning after pill available over the counter. the justice department is asking a federal court to overturn that court order. where is this going? >> to the courts. i think it is a political decision. there is no reason, if you treat this drug the way you would any other drug, that it should not be on the shelves. they have a scientific panel that has repeatedly said that. the obama administration is chicken. now they have a federal court order. they have to comply with this. they are appealing and they changed their position to look more appealing. 17?idn't they start at >> yes, now at 15.

>> it come down to the fact that the president has two young daughters. kathleen sebelius, secretary of hhs, a mother of two sons. . think -- call it political i do not think it was chicken. was a provincial decision. this judge, by the way, is michael on this subject. he has been on this since the bush years. you read his opinion and he comes off as mr. intensity. >> this is not a question of science, not challenging the science here. there is a question of political judgment, and it belongs right there. it is a question for the congress and president to decide. as a matter of policy, do you really want 12, 13-year-old girls getting access to contraceptives? >> excuse me, i'm going to interrupt here and just say, we

have had this conversation on this show before. none of you could ever get pregnant. i rest my case. >> that was the point i was going to make. >> and it has been a problem. [laughter] conversationsame with my wife who is a health care editor. i was questioning whether or not -- the validity of granting this to kids of that age. we have the same exchange. she said to me, you will never get pregnant. i think that really illustrates in a stark way the way that men and women think about this particular issue. >> all right. i am changing the subject. notice how silly i do that. did you notice sandra day o'connor tell the editorial board that regarding bush to be gore, perhaps the court should have said we are not going to

take it, goodbye? >> timing is everything, sandy. only 12 years too late. if you have said it then, i am sorry. the rearview wisdom is just a little outdated. >> it is what you call a decade after pill. [laughter] >> you cannot top this. think it isoes not a joke. >> it has been no secret that she had second thoughts about this relatively soon afterwards. she was still very unclear about what she meant. if we go back to bush v. gore, the country was in an uproar over who 1. the majority of the court decided at the time that they should decide. >> let's make it clear, if the court does not touch this, the ruling of the florida supreme court stands, does not?

>> but then it can go to the congress. >> how about a count? aither side really wanted count. that would have been nice. the idea at the time, it was suggested by some people, at least one person on this panel, that you appoint gerald ford and jimmy carter as cochairs and have a count of every ballot in the state and take it away from katherine harris and the political thinkers so it would be validated and verify. cartery ford and jimmy on hanging chance. to what we said earlier, i speak about this as a father and parent. >> and you still cannot get pregnant. >> speaking of, barack obama, the stand-up comment -- comic.

>> one thing that they all agree on is they need to do a better drug reaching out to minorities. call me self-centered, but i can think of one minority they could start with. [laughter] hello? a trial run.s >> president obama at the white house correspondents' dinner. sarah palin said it was pathetic. too much hollywood glitz, not enough exciting political figures like max baucus or chuck grassley. [laughter] think, to a certain extent, the criticism of the dinner has become as annoying as the dinner itself. it is one night a year. this is not a town that is saturated in glamour, shall we say. i can live with it. >> sarah palin call did a nerd

prom. >> i guess maybe it is, but there sure are a lot of people at it. i decided to go because i had not been there for years. it was a mob scene. if he did not station yourself at the entrance to see the glamorous people, you did not see the glamorous people. >> how about the president's performance? >> i thought the president did well. >> he did better than well. >> i'm sorry, i guess he did better than well. i will return to my own observations now. i did that realized. i thought he did well. i will leave the opinion to the other experts. ownou are entitled to your opinion. >> what should i say, nina? >> they were complaining because

did attend. who cares? -- did not attend. what difference does it make? the president was really funny. that is good, but you expecting to be funny. you expect them to be humorous at times. it is a blip. >> i will give you the last word, glenn. >> the joke that really got me, as a print refugee, was conan's joke about print reporters being there, food and shelter.

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