>> ife continue to move toward more and more spending cuts we will literally disadvantage the poor and working families of america to the advantage of those who are well off. >> i will not be able to support it because it does not proofficialsy provide us with the solution to the debt crisis that the markets are demanding. >> it subpoena beginning of a long hard march back to fiscal responsibility in our country. >> i am unable to support a bill that delivers the largest debt ceiling increase in the history of our nation, but does very little to confront the underlying problems that have brought us here. >> we're watching the white house where we will hear from president obama shortly after the senate votes. all of this in the next 20 minutes or so. we have luke russert on capitol hill watching the senate vote. looks pretty predictable.

the only interesting things at this point for a lot of us political junkies are watching certain senators and how they might vote in primaries, a dick luger, dean heller the new senator from nevada. other than that, we know how this vote's going to go. >> reporter: this thing is signed, sealed and delivered. we expected according to the interview you had earlier this morning with john cornen about 70 to 75 senators are going to come on. it's interesting a lot of us thought the senate would go first to try to give cover to house members saying i'm from your home state. i supported this, go ahead and do the same. they wanted to do the inverse i'm told by house gop aide that they wanted the house to go first so members wouldn't have to worry if their senators supported it or not. it looks like 75 votes from the senate. that bill i'm told will immediately be brought over to 1600 pennsylvania avenue for the president's signature.

well ahead of the default deadline of midnight tonight. >> luke, what's been interesting this morning is i'm trying to find the enthusiastic senator. i don't like this, i don't that, but i'm supporting it. it's perhaps the most unpopular bill that's ever passed the united states senate? >> i would say in terms of a bill with all this hope and op my on sunday it's really like drinking their medicine, if you will. in the house there is no one who is very enthusiastic about it in. the senate you have not heard anyone going to the floor saying this is a great moment. dick durbin hinted that this is historic to work together on something of this manager any tud and set up the framework for possibly having substantial spending cuts and deficit reduction and possibly reworking the nation's financial system -- tax code, rather. all that being said, this is not a glorious moment.

i think really that reflects upon what the debate was. it turned very ugly toward the end. this culture of dysfunction really permeated through i think not only here in the capitol hill, buttal the white house to where a lot of folks around the country, talking to folks who came and visited the capitol here, what is heck is going on here? no one really wants to embrace this in the sense we avoided default. that's great. this is not our finest moment as a nation. >> at any point do you get the sense that certain senators are being allowed to vote no because they need to politically. i saw orin hatch is a no. >> it's interesting. that will be for guys like us the 2012ers where they fall. orin hatch is very interesting. he said i'm a tea party guy. the other nos are fairly predictable.

ron johnson, rand paul has been against this. mike lee another tea party guy from utah. i'm interesting to see who goes against it many the left. we know bernie sanders was a no. we talked about the numbers, john boehner was deliver to deliver to the house of representatives getting about i believe 166 republicans to come on board. nancy pelosi's caucus was split in half 95/95. i suspect you'll see some liberal opposition to this in the senate. over all, i don't think they have to whip this very hard it's pretty much a done deal. >> luke russert watching this on capitol hill. i want to bring in three observers here. mark fry, reed wilson and michael steele in new york. oh, no, he's here in washington. >> that's okay.

>> michael steele, tea party to me doesn't know how to declare victory or are you look at this now and saying, well i don't blame them for not declaring victory? >> i think it's a little bit of both, actually. you don't want to be too premature. you want to make sure the final vote's done and you have all of your players committed to their particular position like an orin hatch or a mike lee many the senate. but i think going forward, a lot of folks are beginning to realize that you've touched on this numerous times. folks are beginning to realize that this is just the first step in a very, very long road to solving these problems and you don't want to shoot your wad too soon. you don't want to position yourself out of position in this town. you want to carry enough leverage into the next battle. i think you're beginning to see and hear that from some tea party activists. if you look at the polling particularly on the house vote, you see there were fewer folks

voting no in that instance. that tells you there's a maturing of the tea party process here. >> meanwhile, martin frost on the democratic side. democrats are saying okay, maybe the president didn't capitulate on everything that he sort of -- he had to meet a minimum threshold. he had a part of the house than wasn't going to do anything unless he gave them cuts, but he was careful about it. >> the question is what happens with medicare when this supercommittee is appointed. the president has wanted to defend medicare. he shielded medicare in this first round and then they said provider cuts in the second round, we'll see. we'll see what happens. i think that's right. i think the fact that he was able to get significant cuts on the defense side made some of the democrats feel a little bit better. >> reed wilson this 12-person committee what's interesting here sst going to be red-hot politics in the next wo weeks. john cornyn said nobody that's

greebl to raising taxes is going to be appointed by mitch mcconnell. three guidance the gang of six need not apply. if that's what mitch mcconnell is going to to say, we know who pelosi and harry reid is going to do. this is destined for deadlock. >> it doesn't seem like there's gong to be a lot of progress on this. i see a congressman tweeting on this saying the last time a committee worked is when they framed the declaration of i understand pence. it's been a while since a congressional committee has done something like this. it's interesting this supercommittee is just another way for liberals to be upset with the administration. just another way for conservatives to be upset with their leadership in congress. but anybody who they appoint in the senate is going to bring up some reason for conservatives. >> this is live pictures of the senate floor. harry reid wrapping up things. the vote will begin shortly.

we will hear those immortal words when the roll call is started. michael steele, i had a republican pollster argue to me, you sit here and look at all the polls. i plenty of people cite the polls, large joerts including a huge chunk of swing voters say to republicans you have to put some revenues on the table. you have to put some taxes on the table. i'm okay with that. i had a political poll. plenty of republican pollsters tell me it will divide the republican party for a decade, it's a mistake. that's why republicans have to draw this line on taxes. it's a fine line between doing that and looking like you can't govern. >> that's exactly right. you want to be a party divide or a party in power. the question has to gets anned in the next 12 months or so. starting with the republican nominee for president. i've been actually a little put off by the fact that the voices from those who are running has been not there. and that i would expect to hear

a little bit more on such an important issue. go back to 2008 -- >> i think that's a mistake. i think mitt romney -- >> i think it's a mistake. you've got to declare leadership on a moment like this and state exactly without hesitation how you would lead this type of crisis. this doesn't end if barack obama losing in 2012. it continues. >> i want to go to the senate floor. let's listen to harry reid as he makes, i believe he'll be the final speaker here. >> without responding to my friend who boasted about in his own way about the new senators and the new members of congress who came here. i welcome them all, the result of the tea party direction of this congress has been unconcerting and unfir to the american people. it stopped us from arriving at a conclusion much earlier and we must go forward. also mr. president, i recognize

we have to do more. of course, we need to do more. that's why we have the joint committee set up that i'll talk about in a few minutes. >> the american people are not impressed with the no new revenue. the vast majority of democrats, independents and republicans think this arrangement we've just done is unfair. the richest of the rich have contributed nothing to this. the burden of what has taken place is on the middle class, on the poor. my friend talks about no new taxes. these tax cuts that happened during the bush years, the economy should be thriving. the tax cuts have not helped the economy. the loss of eight million jobs during the bush years. two wars started on borrowed money. these tax cuts on borrowed money. if the tax cut were so good, the

economy should be thriving. if you go back to the prior eight years during president clinton's administration 23 million new jobs were created. we had when president bush took office a surplus over ten years of $7 trillion. that has evaporated and now we're talking about a $14 trillion debt. the compromise we reached is imperfect. and we're going to send legislation to the president today that will not only avert a default but make significant deficit reductions. is it enough? i repeat, no, not enough. this legislation from provide our economy with stability it desperately needs. to assure congress that we will continue working, i said this yesterday, i'll say it again, i appreciate my friend, the republican leader putting his arms around the idea that i came up with to have this joint committee. they've worked in decades past.

there's no reason it couldn't work now. no supermajority, each leader will appoint three to the committee of 12. we need to do something because the trigger that kicks in is very, very difficult. we need to do this. it has to be one that's fair. the american people demand fairness. it can't be more cuts to programs that have made this country what it is. there must be a sharing of sacrifice. it's really unfair for billionaires and multimillionaires not to be contributing to the arrangement that we've just made, but they're not. my friends, the republicans held firm. and no revenue, which is really too bad. we need to have a fair approach to this joint committee. i'm confident we will do that. and one reason we're going to do that is because the trigger mechanism that kicks in. now, this committee that was

going to have be appointed, the members i say here must have open minds. we've had too much talk the last few days of republicans as early as this morning republican leaders in the senate saying there will be no revenue. that's not going to happen. otherwise the trigger's going to kick in. the only way we can arrive at a fair arrangement for8eñmy the american people with this joint committee is to have equal sharing. it's going to be painful. each party if they do the right thing it's going to be painful for them. to be fair, we have to move forward. there has to be equal spending cuts. there has to be some revenue that matches that. the legislation is going to be sent to the president today ends a standoff that ground the work of washington to a haul this summer. congress must now return to its most important job, creating jobs. now mr. president, there are things we can do to create jobs, we know that.

we passed out of here quickly, the patent bill. 270,000 jobs we're told that legislation will create. so we'll move to that first time we get back after the summer break. move to the patn't legislation. it's important we do that. there are other things we can do. there are things out there that should be bipartisan in nature that we can do. we have a highway bill that's due. i've spoke to the chairman of the finance committee today. there are ways we can fund that that should be in keeping with bipartisan approach to this. the important part -- the important thing that we have, mr. president, with these infrastructure jobs we need so, so very much is that for every billion dollars we spend in infrastructure we create 47,500 high paying jobs. a lot of other jobs spin off from that. now these aren't jobs that you have a billion dollars and you have all these jobs are jobs

that the federal government does. these are moneys that go to the private sector to build roads and bridges and dams. we need to do that and we can do that. clean energy jobs. they're changing the face of this nation. we need to do that. i'm optimistic and hopeful that the spirit of compromise has taken root in washington over the last several days will endure. i hope my republican colleagues will join forces with democrats to put america back to work and not be looking for winners and political parties. let's start looking for winners with the american people. we made progress toward cutting the goal. we made progress toward our goal of cutting the deficit spending that we have around here. this nation still faces a jobs deficit as well. there is no issue more important to the american people than job creation. until every american that chooses to work can find a job,

our job is undone. we're going to continue finding jobs our number one priority. we ask republicans to join with us in our regards. ed a lied stevenson once called politics, the people's business. the most important business there is. that's what he said. so prpt it's time to get back to doing the people's business, creating jobs. nothing is more important than that. mr. president, i ask for yeas and nays on my motion. >> is there a sufficient second? >> there appears to be a sufficient second. >> the yeas and nays are ordered.

>> they're calling the role. we only have two yea votes. we do know what a few people are doing. martin frost, i want to bring up a couple of things first. mr. reid was talking about all the things they could be doing. there is a long list of stuff that the white house thought -- frankly republicans thought before the recess. three trade agreements, korea, panama, there's a little bit of finger pointing, the fact of the matter is if it wasn't for the debt debate it would have gotten done. there is no secretary of commerce. that has been held up. he brought up the highway bill. i don't think that was going to get done. we know about the faa reauthorization. this thing got in the way of a lot of other work that congress was going to get passed before this recess. >> chuck, no question about that. this is the long distance runner who gets to the finish line and

collapses at the end of the race. he doesn't die, he collapses. the real question when they come back are they going to go straight to a cr and not do any appropriation bills. that says a lot of talk. >> one of the things that harry reid's office points out in this deal they set is spending limits for 2012 so there isn't going to be a shutdown. there's plenty of room. they know how much they're going to spend in each general area. >> the appropriations bills themselves might get hold up, there might be finding -- nobody wanted that. >> that's fantastic. had that not been the case, we would have come back in september to yet another budget fight until october 1st. >> what it means, chuck, is that individual issues in the appropriations process don't get fought out. >> michael steele, a couple votes that we heard about that came over press release minutes ago. dick luger is a yes, orin hatch

is a no. both face the same issue. challenges from the right, hatch is -- hatch wants to become a card carrying member of the tea party. lugar has been walking the fence a little bit. he tries to reintroduce himself as a conservative. but on certain things like this, you know, he's still the what ill call the chamber of commerce republican. >> lugar, what the hell. i'm going go with my principal vote and that's it. i think orin hatch recognizes also the challenges he faces out in utah and not just recently, but for some time really tried to bring to the fold the connection with the tea party element in utah. and i think reflects their concerns by his position today. i don't think that's out of sorts for him, but, you know, he's a political realist, too. >> let's remind people about

orin hatch and richard lugar. orin hatch was considered a very right wing conservative. when he came to the united states senate this is not somebody you would mistake for the two senators from maine. >> exactly. that is a reflection of the changes of the politics on the ground where they are. and just how much more conservative the voices are in utah for example. even in lieu garr's state that these gentlemen have been put in this particular box. >> martin frost, richard nixon's favorite mayor can't get a republican nomination? >> it will be hard. it won't be as hard as it will be for hatch. they have a crazy convection process out in utah. bennett lost last time. hatch doesn't have any choice. >> if there's two candidates. he just needs to get it to the voters. he has a fighters chance if he gets to the voters in the convention process. >> make it easier for dick lugar is they have an open primary. lugar can afford to play a

little bit towards the middle. there is nobody taking the fight directly to tea partiers like dick lugar is. >> michael steele, two polls have come out recently in indiana. one had lugar released his own poll that showed him under 50%. in a republican primary. i look at that and i'm going, how do you -- how does a guy who's been in the united states senate for almost 40 years, if he's sitting at 45, those next five points are almost impossible. >> it's a mountain. it's something that i picked up when i was on the road the last year or so going around the country and recognizing the real fervor and the power of these grassroots activists within the tea party structure, if you will. and they are playingor keeps here. they have made it very clear. you get our support when you demonstrate that you're going to

adhere to certain principles. you have someone like a lugar and a hatch, these are guys that understand how this town works. let me bring my conservatism to the table and finesse it to what's in the best interest of our state. what we're running into is hard charging, hardball politics. >> they don't respect that. >> chuck on your point about the poll. i never released my own poll unless i was over 60%. the only reason to release that is fundraising. he's going back to his friends saying i have a difficult race here. >> he had to release it there was a club for growth point that had him down two points. >> one of the most conservative groups in d.c. they've been great for challengers against incumbents. they released a poll that showed richard murdoch his opponent leading, not significant except there's an incumbent at 32% in a primary. >> i want to bring in

congressman raul gravala. one of the most revealing moments in this debate, it's been contentious, exhausting, was what happened on the floor with your colleague showing up. congressman, did you know she was coming? did you get a heads up that she was coming anymore than a few minutes before she arrived. >> a few minutes before she arrived is when we were told that gabby was going to be on the floor to vote. and it was throughout this -- one of the most contentious and divisive situations is this vote was and a difficult vote for many to have gabby come on the the floor was very moving, very uplifting. and not too many dry eyes on the floor when we saw her. it was a special moment. i think for all of us, regardless of how we felt about this particular vote. it was strong feelings on both

sides, this was a little touch stone special moment that i'm very grateful that i was there for. >> we're hearing all sorts of reports about how she seemed to greet everybody by name. >> she recognized the members. she was very gracious to all of us. took time to hug the members as they came up. and obviously recognized each and every one of us. >> we're seeing the debt limit vote. this is about to get wrapped up. you were a no vote on this. look, nobody seems to be happy even those who voted for it seem to be happy. what is the advice you'd like to see congresswoman -- to leader pelosi when she appoints the three democrats to her three democrats from the house side? what sort of parameters you want to make sure she draws with them before she appoints these folks to this supercommittee? >> to look at the entitlement

programs that are the battle ground. to put people on that that have a passion and are protective of those programs. and to have the kind of tough minded people that are going to be part of the debate, the necessary debate on revenue generation. that cannot be off the table. she needs people on there that are going to make sure it states on the table. i'm wrong, i really do that we're going to end up in a deadlock and then looming over us is this trigger mechanism that will be devastating to many, many programs across the country to many people. but i hope that doesn't come to pass. i do -- i'm a little pessimistic that's where we're going to end up come december. >> and this as -- i know you're a no vote. there seems to be a lot of democrats waking up this morning feeling as if maybe the white house did better in these negotiations than they thought at the beginning. do you feel that way?

>> i think we could have done better. and i wish we -- i wish the white house would have never given up on the unilateral constitutional authority of the 14th amendment. that would have been a bargaining chip that would have been very powerful. it was eliminated early. as a consequence, we were always on the defensive. >> it's -- if he was besides that, do you think the president -- steny hoyer yesterday said he wished the president had taken the bowles-simpson approach and owned it early and maybe sold it earlier and that maybe he would have had a better chance of selling this idea of the grand bargain. what's your sense on that? >> i think that was an option. and that should have been part of the discussion. more importantly i think there was strategically underestimation of the tea party. their stubbornness on this issue and their willingness to take us right over the cliff unless those concessions were made. i think at the beginning of the

strategy for the white house and for the leaders in congress, there was a very serious underestimation of that. >> do you trust the president to be a negotiator at this point? >> he's our leader. he's the leader of our party. i trust him that he will now use that bully pulpit in the white house to rally the american people so we do talk about the -- we have a national discussion about what these next six, seven months are going to mean not only to our economy, but to the society we all know and programs that we care about. i think he needs to be the advocate, not just a negotiator. >> all right. as you said, it was a moment i think everybody in this town needed and perhaps the country after what was just such a rough debate. congressman thanks for coming on. >> thank you very much. >> let's bring back our panel, the last i heard is we are on the rs when it comes to the roll

call vote. >> they will go through twice. >> there are a bunch of people missing. >> martin frost you seemed to have the congressman a little more open. i had other congressman very upset with the white house saying they didn't think the white house knew what they were doing. >> i think steny is correct. the one fault i would have with the president is he should have embraced simpson-bowles in january. >> he could have made it his own plan. the only place tonight the plan, you have to go to a website called whitehouse.gov. >> he chose not to do so, in retrospect i think that was a mistake. what we're dependent on if there's going to be agreement in this committee of 12 there's going to have to be one rogue senate elephant. if you don't have any senators that break from the pack -- >> you're not going to have it on the house side. >> you're not going to get to

seven votes unless there's one rogue elephant. we'll see who gets appointed. >> it looks tough enough that it seems to be a motivator or else we wouldn't have been held up at the end. everybody thinks the trigger is going to get pulled. is it tough enough? or is this going to be a cuts only? i guess my sense is -- they've already found the $2.5 that they're negotiating with. it's been sitting in the biden committee. the white house wasn't going to agree unless revenues came in. maybe they'll get the oil subsidy and that's it. >> there's an interesting wild card, too. in the house armed services committee, there were members there on the republican side were real upset with speaker boehner in terms of how much because of how much in defense spending the trigger option would cut. we'll see if whether or not they can bring any pressure to bear and save some of that money. it's a sort of -- hanging over

everybody's head. >> michael steele, it's interesting this new -- you talked about the new tea party. they're not accepting of this idea that an orin hatch or dick lugar can use their conservative ideology and their influence to get it into the debate and influence the debate 30%. how about the defense lobbying community? are they going to be powerful enough. as somebody pointed out to me, it's the only pork yet left. i don't think pork as if it's a negative. it is the one piece of legislation that you bring to your congressional district that's not frowned upon by base republicans at this point. there were a lot of congressman going this is the last thing i have left. you got rid of earmarks. i can't sell bridges anymore. i can sell the idea of making bombers in my district. >> i'll tell you from the folks that i've talked to out there and certainly had a hand in helping get to congress last november, that's all on the

table. they didn't parse any of it. it's not just entitlement reform for them. it's not just tax reform for them. it is also reforming the defense department and making sure that we're getting the biggest bang for the buck that's going into those programs. and so they are consistent if nothing else in their desire to make sure that the federal government does not spend a dime more than it can afford to spend regardless of program, regardless of department. and it's going to take a little getting used to in washington as i heard some folks say this morning on morning joe and other programs, why don't these guys understand this is how washington works and they come here and kind of fold into the system. that's not why they were sent here. they were sent here to unfold the system to deconstruct it, and to rebuild it based on what the people out there want. one other thing -- >> let me stop you there, it is now officially been passed the vote. there's enough votes. we don't have a final vote total as we know we're going through

the roll call to make everybody in. it has gotten over the 60 vote threshold which is what they created in order to do this. we're waiting for the final number. martin frost is going to get to 80. i took the under. we have to settle this battle. michael steele, you're going to take the over or under on 80. >> i'm with you on the under. >> it feels like 80 is just a little bit -- >> 80 is like wizard of oz land. >> safety in numbers. >> not in this one. martin frost you wanted to make a point about the defense issue. >> it is something very slick. they included foreign aid, veterans and homeland security. it doesn't all come out of the defense fnks. even though it will be a big hit. >> let me bring up a point about the tea party. one of the things that we've seen in this debate is the tea party is not a monolith. it's easy to talk about as a group folks coming in to cut and cut and cut.

a significant number of so-called tea party members just voted for this thing. as a matter of fact, a lot of tea party members were on board for boehner's first plan. >> we got the two-minute warning on the president going to make a statement in the rose garden. very quickly, it does seem as if some of these tea party members took an incremental victory. they said, this is the step and they voted that way. >> absolutely. that goes to reed's point. i know a lot of my friends on the left want to paint this one size fits all. this is not the tea party. they come from different perspectives and bring a different energy. i think we want to go back to the beginning on this whole debt discussion. all of this could have been avoided if harry reid did what he should have done on december 8th and presented a debt bill why they controlled the house, senate and had that executive vote. they wanted to play politics with this. harry wanted to kick it to this new republican congress. be careful what you wish for, baby.

>> i'm not sure that's right. you had to get 60 votes. i'm not sure harry reid could have done it even if he wanted to. >> it is interesting this issue of whether would things have changed if the president had done bowles-simpson or harry reid tried to get the one to one. how about conrad's budget which showed up two weeks ago in the presentation which started one to one which started with the bill clinton. imagine if democrats had started at one to one, maybe they would have got and 4-1 ratio. this is cuts to tax hikes. >> i'm not sure. there was such strong anti-tax sentiment in the house, i'm not sure. >> we'll see. >> we can tuesday morning quarterback this -- >> absolutely.

>> at this point a ton, but reed it is the democrats it is hard to negotiate when they're sitting there willing to put their unpassable budgets out there publicly, the democrats weren't. >> there were a lot of democrats who were very upset with how this debate came back. elliot engel said if there was caving next time, what makes you think there's not saving next time. that's our quote of the day. >> the president's out of the picture after this point. it's all the 12-member committee. if they don't agree it goes to sequestration. i don't think the president's going to be a player. >> michael steele from what i understand at the white house they knew this was going to be a tough climb. they knew they were going to get sullied. you do when you mess with congress, you get dragged into their unpopular swamp. now he's got this behind them and he can go back to being candidate obama. how much of that do you expect to hear starting today or do you think he expresses relieves, channels a little bit of the public's outrage and moves on to

tomorrow? >> i think you're going to see as we have seen since the beginning of this year the candidate rise. he's going to take center stage and claim to be the adult who brought everybody together. now let's move on with the nation's business and create jobs. how many times are we going to talk about creating jobs. at some point we've got to start doing it. this was the conversation at the beginning of my chairman manship in february of 2009. here we are in august of 2011 still talking about cut creating jobs. that's not been lost on the american people. i think you've seen the president diminish himself by not taking a more forceful lead in january on how to handle the nation's fiscal problems. >> i want to bring in luke russert. any fun yeas or nays that we should be aware of. we haven't been fully listening to the roll call.

jill brand voted no. that was surprising. >> i have to be honest, i'm over in the canaan building on the r-span feed. from reading tweets from my colleagues i think an interesting fact is a lot of the no votes seem to be coming from the class of 2010. guys like ron johnson, mike lee, rand paul ark lot of conservatives who came in with the swell of tea party support seem to be voting no on this deal. jill brand is interesting. a no vote perhaps she is upset with what harry reid is saying is a lot of these cuts are going to put an undo burden on the middle class and the poor. mitch mcconnell on the senate floor saying this deal will slow down the government spending freight train. most likely it will do that. especially in the near term. it all depends on the supercongress. i think the interesting thing as we sit back and we tuesday morning quarterback all this,

from now on whenever there's an extension of the debt limit, if there's a divided congress, like we have now in the democratic president and republican, you're going to have the grover norquist calls it the boehner rule. this is not the last fight. this is is going to become a mainstream political fight every few years or however long they extend these things. it's really striking that this is all over now, 2013, the president's re-elected and presumably more republicans in congress, you can see the same thing play out again and the nation's economy go to the brink. the first of many. >> exactly. just wait a minute, if all of this works it doesn't make sense that you would do the quote, boehner rule again. martin frost you wanted to make a quick point. >> the majority of the democratic house members from the state of new york voted no.

she was voting with the new yorkers. >> reed wilson this is an important note. jill brand wants to look like a centrist except when there's a filing deadline coming up. i feel like since she's become a senator she has quietly carved out to make sure there's no room on the left. >> she was a centerist when david patterson appointed her to hillary clinton's senate seat. she had to move to the left. remember she represented a district that was upstate. she had to move to the left to present a challenge from new york city. she has taked out that position on the left. i think that's where that no vote comes from. >> in fairness the two mf minute warning would you say a falls morning. a producer jumped the gun. based on the papers being put out there. that's a rough two-minute warning. we're still waiting. my guess is they're waiting for the roll call vote to be completely. >> they're not going to have the president come out and declare victory before. >> we know it's passed.

it has enough votes. >> they can change their votes until it's finally recorded. senate rules. on jill brand what's so interesting even though she comes from up state, she was progun, she was far more centerist than anyone else. he is aligned with chuck schumer. she has a re-election fight and she -- >> she could have a re-election fight. and she could have a tough fight. >> and not only in primary fight, she could have a serious opponent you don't know if somebody could materialize. most of her money has come from wall street. she worked on wall street. so for her to vote against the againstal wisdom of wall street on this is very interesting. it shows where she think she's vulnerable. on the primary side. >> absolutely. i heard some democratic rumbling for a while they thought if they want to challenge her in the primary. that's why a bunch of

republicans didn't jump in because they thought why am i going to do that when that's going to go away with barack obama. >> she's turned out to be a very smart politician. i don't think they can beat her from the left or right. i think she was protecting herself. >> don't forget who stood up with her when she was very nominate. al domatto. >> michael steele, i want to bring up the republican presidential candidates. the headline of the day has been this mittness protection program. it's one of these headlines politico came up with it. that's going to live with him for a while. i got a poll in pennsylvania today. that shows mitt romney, pennsylvania is not a battle ground state that will decide the presidential. it's only a battle ground if the democrats are in trouble. if the president obama is in trouble. mitt romney is leading them by two points. within the margin.

the mittness protection program has worked for now. at some point he's going to have to start speaking out. >> absolutely. i saw you rise out of your seat this morning on this point. >> it's funny. i agree with you. it's a fascinating turn of events to have this poll come out a day after he gave his response, if you will. you're right. he's going to have to like the others tim pawlenty and certainly waiting for mr. perry if he should get in. the going to have to be very clear about how they would handle this debt situation going forward. they would have to stake out some ground. some of the ground might be different. >> i didn't mean to interrupt you. the official word. >> the house amendment bill 365 is agreed to. without objection. >> mr. president --? >> majority leader? >> i should ask -- >> 74 yeas, 26 nays. michael steele, the under paid

off. the under pays off, we'll get the party breakdown as soon as we have it to see how bipartisan was it. was it more democrats or republicans that be voted for it. >> there were 34 nos from the tea party supported members to the house bill. 22 black caucus members voted no. 12 hispanic caucus and 58 so-called progressive caucus members voted no. you had more opposition from the left than from the right. >> martin frost, i've been watching one of the things and an drea knows this when you have the white house beat suddenly you see people come in. you don't see who the president meets with all the time. you see flows of people coming in. activists. and they have been doing some already some prewiring conversations. i'm not saying it's it's the

president meeting with them. clearly some advisors are. clearly they have a lot of healing to do with the base of the party. >> the key for him is turn out. he's going the get the black vote. he's going to get the hispanic vote. but what's the%age going to be in terms of turnout. that made all the difference in the last election. >> reed wilson 95% of the black vote in virginia if it's 15% of the lek rat doesn't matter. if the black vote makes up 20% of the black vote in virginia, the president wins. >> that's got huge ramifications for the rest of the state as well. dick cain to keep the democrat seat. >> it's a virginia, it's a north carolina, where in particular where the president base of african-americans and younger voters and new voters in those two states in particular. >> you brought up the point about pennsylvania being a sign that democrats are trouble. the new swing states are not ohio or pennsylvania or the upper midwest. it's virginia and north carolina

and if those -- suddenly pennsylvania's in play, obama's -- >> he's playing defense not offense. >> if he loses north carolina, virginia, he can't win the election if he loses is the mid western states. >> there is the big difference there. bring up pennsylvania in a minute, andrea. >> i love it. >> i am always a doubter when it comes to pennsylvania. that pennsylvania is for republicans what missouri is for democrats. the polls always look goodened there's just a ceiling. the democratic turn out machine in philadelphia always makes up the difference. >> yes, but. you've got a republican governor now in pennsylvania. you have the kind of budget concerns concerns that have affected so many states and a lot of push back against obama obama.

hillary clinton carried this state and obama was not an easy sell. >> the key is organized labor in that state. >> i think andrea is on to an important point that gets overlooked in political circles. you assume a lot about the black vote right now. i'm on a panel with the national association of black journalists on thursday talking about this question of how strong is president obama in the black community at this point and certainly there's the fervor going into 12 we want to see the man get re-elected et cetera. below the surface some real issues with respect to the black agenda and whether or not the white house pays attention to that. there's a question mark in places like virginia where you've got a good governor that has a strong relationship with the black community. how that factors in a state like that in addition to the republican governor of pennsylvania. >> it's a numbers game is the way you talk to the obama folks here. it's where can they quote, grow the lek rat. you look at a state like

pennsylvania, it's similar to ohio. what they would say it's a shrinking -- >> for instance, the whole point of north carolina and virginia for the obama campaign is a path against ohio. they don't believe they'll lose pennsylvania unless it's a landslide. and they do. >> they have a significant path with ohio. it's been since 1888 something like that that the winning president has not won ohio. but it's been ohio is no longer that sort of ground zero central. as you talk about states that are becoming older and whiter that brings up the area that's becoming oldest and white nest the country, the upper midwest. states that are part of the blue wall that voted for democrats. >> fife straight. >> wisconsin, minnesota. >> one quick point about

pennsylvania don't forget the head of the afl-cio came from pittsburgh. mine workers. you've got -- he's got to feel also engaged and they're not happy. >> i want to talk about la boar. what's interesting about la bo here it is a shrinking force in some ways. they have a huge test. they could really come roaring back. roaring back if they pull these recalls back in wisconsin. it seems to be the line labor wants to draw. everybody says we're no longer what we used to be. watch. does that fire them snup. >> the answer is yes, it has to be more than that. the membership is meeting with obama in the next couple of day it's not just pennsylvania. it is wisconsin. it's iowa and it's minnesota and it's michigan. all those states you've got to have labor is the swing vote.

>> republican senator lindsey graham who was a no vote one of the 26, i believe no votes on there. in your statement, senator graham, you put it on the trigger. you pit it on this issue of pentagon cuts on philosophical points. you said you feel as if wait a minute, we've gone too far on this. >> i think you're a good political analyst. this is a philosophical shift of the republican party. the republican party has been about two things since i've been around, a limited government and a strong national defense. i cannot imagine ronald reagan exposing the defense dept to the sequestration trigger provisions. i'm all for lower taxes. this is a philosophical shift for the republican party saying defense spending is not the mothers important part after to budget anymore. it is of lesser importance and that disturbs me. >> isn't that the point of a trigger that you want to put something above the heads of those folks on supercongress --

no not really. >> so they don't pull it. >> here's high i don't want to play games with men and women in uniform. every democrat, republican and independent should want a strong national defense in a time of great danger. by putting the defense department on the table and subjecting it to $600 billion in cuts above what's already being from posed is irresponsible and is not a good motivator. it's a demoralizing event to our men and women in uniform. it's a philosophical shift that i do not want to have any part of. >> would you have preferred then a trigger, the idea of these is you want to great motivation. >> would i prefer? >> would you have taken one with taxes? the amt was thrown out there. >> i've been in the camp if you closed the ethanol subsidy, chuck, as $4 billion it's not

much, i would take some of the money to cut the bye down tax rates but take some of the money to pay down debt. from my viewpoint closing loopholes and deduction and paying down debt is a good use of the money. i'm not of the camp that you can't ever have revenues to solve our national debt problem. but i don't want to raise rates. the agreement is putting out a fire. the only thing congress is capable of is putting out a fire. we had a debt ceiling limit fire, we put it out. that's good news. boehner did well with his conference. mcconnell did well with his. harry did well. we haven't moved the needle much. we're going to add $7 trillion in debt. the government still grows. we put the defense department at you been necessary risk. that's high i voted no. >> senator, i want -- >> one quick question, on the subject of taxes, senator mcconnell was quoted as saying that nobody from his side would be apointed that is open to any

kind of tax increase to this supercommittee. if you're setting that bar from the republican side at the get-go, you're going to get closer conceivably to a division on that committee and having to deal with those triggers? >> i think democrats are going to put people on the committee that are not going to jeopardize entitlements. >> stalemate. >> is this the why i think is whole thing is not going to withstand scrutiny. here's what i would have liked to see, the average length of time we extended the debt ceiling since 1940 was nine months. what i would have done as a republican is say mr. mr. president, we'll give you the average time, nine months we'll pay it for dollar for dollar and continue the debate. president obama has a clear path to january 2013 where he doesn't have to deal with this issue anymore. in that regard, he was a winner. >> senator, i talked to a lot of your colleagues over the last couple of weeks who were not in the negotiations. who even ones in the gang of six

felt as if their own leadership wasn'tñi taking them seriously. how bad is this disconnect between leadership and the rank and file meaning you weren't able to do all these other things you guys have been wanting to do these last six weeks. >> people would call me up at home and say what's going on like i'm in the room. i say i don't know, i watch msnbc and fox like everybody else. you can't have 535 people negotiating. i don't blame the leadership for having to try to find common ground and do a big deal. i'm sorry the big deal didn't happen. the lesson to be learned from our leadership is that you need to listen to members. these new members ron johnson spent $9 million of his own money to come to washington. he's been arguing for a strategy for two months. and what we did is let the clock run out like the cr, like the lame duck. get your back up against the wall. and make irrational decisions and you don't have much to show for it. a lot of new members say you

couldn't run a business that way, so they're frustrated. if i was a congressional leader i would go back to my caucus when we come back in september and listen a little closely. >> there's a list of things that didn't get done that i was told were going to get done, the confirmation of a new secretary of commerce. three trade greemts. there's some politics on that. can you put -- did all of these things get tabled because of thissome. >> i think so. the one thing i worry about when you look at the first two years of spending in this bill, really not much savings. what we've done with defense is carry a $686 for 13. this is what's important. defense has to share that money with homeland security, foreign operations and veterans. if you believe as i do, that the way to defend america is beyond killing people and using bombs, that foreign operations account where you invest in people's

well being throughout the world where you help allies like egypt have a good election, that account is now competing with the department of defense. one of the ruls of this deal is to make us fortress america. the ability to engage the world without military -- using the military exclusively is going to be diminished here. the foreign operations account is the big loser in this whole deal and we need to be involved in the world in constructive fashion. >> grover nor kwst has bragged about there's the boehner rule. that no debt ceiling increase will ever go without a dollar for dollar cut. is that a rule that is good for the -- is that good policy? >> the question -- i think so. how do you get in $14.3 trillion worth of debt? both parties have to work together to screw the government up this bad. you can't be this far in debt doing it all by yourself. if someone party's willing to break that cycle, that's a good thing. the tea party has brought a lot

of energy to this whole debate about paying for things. and looking at the government as being out of control. now i'm with the tea party on spending, but there's elements of the tea party that feel it's okay to cut a trillion dollars out of defense budget over the next decade. i will not be with them there. they're right on spending. i'm not going to agree with anybody tea party included to decimate our defense needs at time of great threat. >> you brought up syria, i know you follow these things as closely as anybody. what can the u.s. government do that it hasn't done with syria right now considering this is not libya in this case? this is a pretty -- you can't do what we've been doing with nato. ? >> you don't have the nato world behind you and the u.n. here's the key to syria is turkey. the turkish government came in with the transitional national council in libya and that gave a lot of momentum to gadhafi being

isolated. turkey is becoming a big player in the region. and i am hoping that the prime minister of turkey will understand that his neighbor is destroying the arab spring, destroying the turkish model and will basically side with the syrian people. the goal is to isolate asad in every way you can. sanction him and isolate him in the region. i'd love to see a coalition led by turkey telling asad he's got to go. >> it does seem on the sanction front that suddenly everything that we've seen and it's very hard to get pictures. all of us it shallvery hard to get into syria. a lockdown similar to iran and korea the way that government locks people out of that country. it does seem as if you have the european union, italy pulled its ambassador, that there is a coalition at least on the financial front. >> i think we're forming a coalition to isolate asad. we should isolate our investor.

at the end of the day, this debt debate is long overdue. we need a strong america. our national debt is one of the biggest national security threats. here's what i'm trying to tell my colleagues, we should be investing in eswript this is the first chance to bring about democracy in the arab world in 6,000 years. we're missing a great opportunity to help the egyptian people with their election in november. don't take your eye off the ball with the arab spring. that's why it's so important to get gadhafi out of power in libya. it would be the death blow to the arab spring. there is a wonderful opportunity in this world. america needs to support it. women are now driving in saudi arabia and you and an drea know that is no small thing. i just -- i'm very frustrated that we're not coherent as a nation to support what i think is a wonderful opportunity for change that won't last forever.

>> senator lindsey graham republican for south carolina. senator, thanks for rolling with us here on this. >> we'll see you around town. >> all right, sir. andrea mitchell this syria story. this debt story has consumed our attention. it's consumed congress they can't get anything else done. the white house has done a bunch of stuff behind the scenes. >> right now hillary clinton today meeting with u.s.-based syrian dissidents back for the first time. they are pressing for more sanctions against syria. as you know, the u.s. feels completely tied down by the fact that the other arab countries do not guilty oppose asad the way they oppose gadhafi. >> i had somebody tell me if you did a poll of the arab world, this was six months ago before the real crackdown that the most popular leader would have been asad. >> asad -- >> very popular. outside of syria this is unlike mub lack who was unpopular. >> correct.