this is an msnbc special series. >> together we will begin the next great chapter in the american story! >> the time for games has passed. now is the season for action. >> yes, we can! yes, we can! yes, we can! >> you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do.

♪ attention on board the aircraft. the president-elect has departed with a 20-minute drive time. >> we were having the opportunity to have our first african american president come on board the aircraft. as an african american man, to have the opportunity to be one of the first to greet him aboard the airplane meant a lot to me. >> you're the pilot? >> yes, sir. it will be my privilege to serve you. >> you know, i have to say you are out of central casting.

you are exactly what i wanted. >> he is very excited to be on the airplane and he is having a very jovial conversation with the aircraft commander. >> you look like you know how to fly. you look like sam shepherd in "the right stuff." >> thank you, sir. >> they're standing there having a laughing moment. so for me, i'm trying to say, okay, do i just fall right into the humor or do i just keep it as professional as i can. >> welcome you aboard. >> thank you. >> and introduce you to reggie dixon, the senior flight attendant. >> good to see you, sir. >> my pleasure to meet you. >> thank you. >> welcome aboard. i will be serving dinner. not sure if you have had dinner already. >> see how you guys do it. medium well. like salad or something like that. >> no fries or anything like that. >> i'll still take the fries. >> yes, sir. ♪ >> incoming president is getting ready to deplane the airplane, and i look and all of a sudden

he's walking through the crew area, up to the flight deck. >> good to see you, all right. see you in a couple of weeks. >> and, you know, it made me think at that time, i'm going to be in for a great journey along with this new incoming president. ♪ >> somebody napping in there. don't want to wake them. >> those early months, nobody could be convinced that barack obama had a chance. >> hello. hi, how are you? who is this? i'm barack obama. >> we had a lot of heavy lifting to do to convince people that this wasn't just tilting at windmills.

>> did you expect at this point in your campaign that you would be gaining more ground in the polls? >> yeah, we always knew that i've got to introduce myself to voters in a way that some of the other candidates don't have to do. >> barack obama is untested, two years out of the illinois state senate, no national political experience, no national political organization. going up against hillary clinton who is incredibly strong. >> the party had already coalesced behind hillary clinton. it was going to be her turn. he will be running not just against the party and the establishment but really against someone who had been a key supporter. the clintons were big supporters of barack obama when he came into the senate. >> hillary clinton, first lady, united states senator. very competent, very capable united states senator. she was not some fly-by-night political hack. here you had this sort of upstart, two-term state senator from illinois who no one knew, african american, and we all

know the history of black folks and white folks in this country. so, you know, why would you dance on that pinhead? >> a new poll has hillary clinton now trouncing her closest challenger, barack obama, by 33 points. for the first time -- >> that's a big problem for her challengers who complain that her campaign and a lot of her media coverage gives the impression that she is already somehow the nominee. >> senator, hillary clinton widened her lead, a 30-point lead. i have to ask. does it concern you at all. >> come on. i mean we're having a good time in iowa, you know. the national poll story -- >> there was no lifelong plan for barack obama to run for president. >> some people wanted him to run so badly that they said, don't worry, you'll see the girls, you can be home on weekends, and i wear my emotions on my face. and i had a funny look on my face and michelle said, stop talking, i want to hear from melissa. i said, no, it is going to be terrible, running for president is terrible and you are not

going to see your family and we have to know that going in. she was like, thank you. >> may. >> mayor. >> mayor. >> that period of time in the democratic party, it was divided in two. you had the clinton wing of the party, and everybody who had never been a part of the clinton wing. it was a desire for an alternative to the clinton machine, and that's who was getting excited about obama. >> he had a lot of quiet support among some really establishment democrats who couldn't be open about it obviously because hillary clinton was the presumptive nominee. >> i called him into my office, and i basically said to him, i think this is a time you should consider running for president. he said, what? i said, i really think the country is ready for you. he was more than surprised. >> i think it was mrs. obama who said it, among the many reasons why it was the right time was they were very much average americans with student debt,

with two-working-parent household. they really could genuinely express the fears and the struggles of what everyday americans were experiencing. they would be able to take that perspective into the white house in a very unique way. >> the reality is obama is not going to be the nominee for the simple fact he has never run a competitive race outside a state legislative district in illinois. that is not going to happen. >> it is unclear if mr. obama has the stomach for the rough-and-tumble politicking required to win national office. >> hey. >> how are you? >> this is my polk county staff. are any of these people over 30? >> iowa was all about boots on the ground. they wanted me to work dubuque. >> everybody was out making phone calls, knocking on doors, campaigning to try to help barack and michelle have success. >> we need your support, too. >> yeah. >> talking about you both.

you're undecided? >> we're undecided. >> oh, goodness. >> the standoff -- >> if hillary clinton won early she was going to be almost impossible to stop. she had to have a circuit breaker moment, and the circuit breaker moment would be iowa. >> she authorized the war and then recently started voting on this iran resolution. you can't be fooled twice. >> we would build a grassroots campaign, because it is the campaign he wanted to run and we didn't have institutional political support so we had to go to the people. >> i want to stop talking about the outrage of 47 million americans without health care and start actually doing something about it. >> he was getting a lot of pressure from african americans around the country, saying, hey, you're not spending time with us. we had a meeting in chicago in the fall about, you know, should we remain faithful to the iowa strategy. >> a lot of people from the african american community felt like they were connected to the clintons, that they felt bill

clinton was someone who had done great things for neighborhoods and churches and for black americans as a whole. this idea that, oh, well, he is an african american, i'm an african american, i should obviously be voting for this guy because we are kindred spirits and correlated and connected, et cetera, et cetera, it didn't really happen like that. >> i had known president clinton, i had worked with him. it was very hard to make the decision to support hillary over obama, but i made it. >> it really shook him because john lewis is a hero of his. it was a pretty low moment. he is like, listen, i may not win, but it is not okay for me to lose and not do well with african americans. so should i start spending more time to get those numbers up? i just said, listen, the only way to get the african american numbers up is to start winning early. >> 74. 75.

>> tonight the voters of iowa caucus in the nation's first presidential contest. >> if you're not totally undecided, make your way around the room here, finalize your decision. >> if you are edwards, stay right over here and keep a corridor. seven, eight. >> come on. we just need nine more. 132 with obama. [ cheering ]. >> this is the final count. i can't stress that enough! >> three for obama. >> 25. >> 26. >> 27. >> we are back on the air here in des moines, and we have news to report at this hour. nbc news is projecting that when all of the caucus goers' preferences are counted up, barack obama will win. >> oh, my god! [ cheering ]. >> at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do.

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♪ that's dirty snow, and i have to campaign some more. >> new hampshire, in four days you have a chance to change america. in four days you can do what the cynics said could not be done. >> obama's big win in iowa has given him a huge bump here in new hampshire where he now leads hillary clinton by double digits. >> their only chance is to do something bold, dramatic and to completely change the narrative. >> as a woman, i know it is hard to get out of the house and to get ready. my question is very personal. how do you do it? >> you know, i have so many opportunities from this country. i just don't want to see us fall backwards.

no. so, you know, this is very personal for me. it is not just political. it is not just public. >> hillary clinton according to our reporters on the scene visibly teared up. >> is that a scripted moment? is that a genuine moment? is it an appealing moment, is it repugnant? >> thank you! thank you. >> take care! >> hillary clinton woke up this primary morning, her presidential aspirations potentially on the line, ready to work for every last vote. >> nbc news is making -- >> there it is. >> hillary clinton has won the new hampshire primary for the democratic party for 2008. she has pulled a stunning upset. >> thank you so much. thank you. >> the emotion she showed had an enormous impact, and they voted for her. >> i want to congratulate senator clinton on a hard-fought victory here in new hampshire. she did not --

>> we lost new hampshire, and it was a shock because we felt like we had such huge momentum coming out of iowa. >> we've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope, but in the unlikely story that is america there has never been anything false about hope. >> we wrote that speech thinking we would win that primary and thinking, let's just uncork and write the best victory speech we possibly can and use this "yes, we can" phrase as a call and response. >> when we have been told we're not ready or that we shouldn't try or that we can't, generations of americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people, "yes, we can." yes, we can. >> yes, we can! >> yes, we can. >> yes, we can! yes, we can! yes, we can! yes, we can! >> what's interesting is in the

moment of defeat, that's actually when he sometimes is at his best and the delivery of that speech is so powerful. >> and together we will begin the next great chapter in the american story with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea, "yes, we can!" thank you, new hampshire. thank you! >> i remember being back in my tiny studio apartment in chicago a couple of days later and waking up to this viral video that had been made with all of these celebrities, will i am. >> it was whispered by slaves and abolitions as they blazed trails towards freedom. yes, we can. >> yes, we can, to justice and equality. yes, we can, to opportunity and prosperity.

i didn't know that that would be one of the biggest campaign tools and how it would, you know, become so big on social media and beyond, to help really advance the campaign and create that phrase to be something that will forever go down in history. >> yes, we can! yes, we can! yes, we can! yes, we can! >> during the campaign, shepard ferry calls me and he says, hey, i have this image that i did. i'm happy to let the campaign use it. do you think they would be interested in it? i knew then senator obama was going to be in los angeles, so, you know, i take the tube of the art and i give it to reggie. the next day they call me and they say, hey, hill, we really like this one image, but do you think he would change what it says on the bottom? it said "progress." and they said, our campaign, you know, we are about hope and change. do you think he would be willing to change it to like hope?

i was like, i don't know. you got to call him, it is his artwork. he changed it to hope, and the rest is history. ♪ >> obama was something of a rock star at the time. i think there were many people on my side of the political aisle who felt like the media was sort of allowing that to occur. >> the interesting thing about obama is he was the most uncomfortable person about the cultive personality that was growing up around him. he would like at the hope poster and he would say, you know what? the image on the poster always fades, nobody can live up to all of this adulation, and so it make him slightly unnerved. >> we cannot wait to bring this war in iraq to a close. we cannot wait! >> super-duper tuesday has been a split, a horse race in the delegate towns. >> this is where we start going into what is going to be a very active caucus and primary

calendar. >> if we could stop thinking in terms of black, white, hispanic, asian, gay, straight, old, young, rich, poor. i'm going to reward teachers for their greatness by giving them higher salaries and giving them more support. >> obama has an opportunity here to put a little distance between himself and hillary clinton over the next few weeks. we had to expand the electorate, quite frankly, to beat hillary clinton in the primaries, but also expand the electorate for the general election. >> the only way we were going to do that was to drive turnout amongst young people, amongst african american voters, and to win back some of the suburban voters who had been drifting republican. >> john lewis switched sides and threw his support to barack obama. >> obama had emerged as this bright, shining star. it was a decision that i thought was the right decision to make.

>> in the new "usa today" gallup pole, obama is pulling ahead with a double digit lead with democrats pinning him as their best chance to beat the gop. >> the stuff we have done overseas and now brought right back into our own front yards! >> the inflammatory remarks about race and the 9/11 attacks made in sermons by his personal pastor -- >> it is important that he figure out how to bring short-term closure to this issue, and if he can't, then he is not going to be president and he might not be the democratic nominee. fenses every day, with vitamin c, d and zinc. season, after season. ace your immune support, with centrum.

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right now barack obama leads hillary clinton among pledge delegates, 1,408 to 1,251 and there are 566 more that are at

stake. >> he can't win the election. >> why not? >> i don't think that america is ready for it yet. >> for barack obama as a presidential candidate, the biggest risk factor, of course, was race because the biggest sort of achilles heel in the united states has always been race. david axelrod and david plouffe, the chief strategists for senator obama when he was running for president, really understood how to run a black candidate. there was a theory which is that you don't run too black. >> he needed to be palatable enough to white america so they wouldn't be afraid of him, so he wouldn't be seen as a race man that would come in and tilt the playing field toward black people. they were down playing race as much as they could. their goal was to run him as a candidate from illinois, a senator, and to sort of drain race out of the equation. >> the government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and

then wants us to sing "god bless america." no, no, no. not god bless america. damn america. >> when the reverend wright tapes hit, it was one of those deep-breath moments. one of those moments that wasn't any political handbook anywhere because this moment had never happened in america before. >> jeremiah wright was the pastor of barack obama. married he and michelle, presided over the baptism of their children. jeremiah wright is in that vaunted tradition of trying to bring a powerful megaphone to those who would express outrage at injustice. >> there was just an explosion. it seemed to feed into this idea that he had inherited this anti-american radicalism from reverend wright. >> how could you go to this church for 20 years and not know this guy said this? >> we don't have a choice when it comes to our relatives. we have a choice when it comes to our pastors. >> new polls say barack obama is

taking a big hit because of his pastor. >> the notion that somehow that barack obama was an acolyte of this guy could be really damaging to places that barack obama needed to win. it energized the anti-obama forces, and they were significant. for some independent voters, i think it was, wait, do we really know this guy? >> barack was at a dinner. he called me. i said, hey, man, i think this reverend wright thing is a blessing in disguise, and they started laughing. he said, "marty said it is a blessing in disguise," they started laughing. i said, "look, it is a hurdle that you have to clear, that nobody else in the field has the opportunity to clear. so you clear this hurdle, you win." he said, "i guess i got to give the speech." i said, "i guess you got to give the speech."

[cheering and applause] >> thank you. thank you. reverend wright's comments were not only wrong, but divisive. divisive at a time when we need unity. >> i didn't know the speech was a good idea, but i knew we didn't have a better idea. he called david axelrod and i and said he had just done a series of interviews, cnn, msnbc and fox. he said, that is not going to satisfy, more importantly i'm not satisfied about it. i can't talk about this in a 30-second answer. >> the man i met more than 20 years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another, to care for the sick and lift up the poor. as imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. >> he didn't want to be

president if he couldn't be himself, and so he stood up in front of the american people and he just shared his perspective. >> but i can no more disown him than i can disown my white grandmother, a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed her by on the street and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe. these people are part of me, and they are part of america, this country that i love. >> i think that was the balance that no one else could strike because the average black couldn't imagine what a white grandmother thinks and the average white couldn't imagine the anger that is generated from being marginalized and discriminated against with blacks. that was a moment america had never seen, because here was a guy in one body that understood in his own being, in his own

blood line the bias of some whites and fear, and the results of bigotry, what it meant to blacks. >> yes, we can! yes, we can! >> there were moments that he had perfect pitch, and i think that that speech about reverend wright may have been one of those moments. >> and we are covering a big night, the democratic race. barack obama has won a decisive victory in north carolina. >> i think it is born out by the fact that six weeks later he's secured enough delegates to clinch the nomination. [cheering and applause] >> primary season has finally come to an end. [ cheering and applause ] >> tonight i can stand here and say that i will be the democratic nominee for the president of the united states

of america. >> yes, we can! yes, we can! yes, we can! ♪ >> now that the primary battles are over, barack obama and john mccain are looking ahead to the fall election. >> we have two very patriotic men, but we have men with very, very different senses of what our country should be. >> the old, tired big government policies he seeks to dust off and call new won't work in a world that has changed dramatically since they were last tried and failed. trelegy. ♪ birds flyin' high you know how i feel ♪ ♪ breeze drifting on by you know how i feel ♪ [man: coughing] ♪ it's a new dawn, it's a new day... ♪ no matter how you got copd it's time to make a stand. ♪ ...and i'm feelin' good start a new day with trelegy. no once-daily copd medicine has the power to treat copd in

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good evening. i'm dara brown. here's what's happening. early voting has ended in the georgia senate runoffs and the turn out numbers are in. with 4 days until the runoff

republican senator david perdue is quarantining after a close contact tested positive for covid. president trump, president-elect biden and vice president-elect harris will all campaign in georgia in the coming days. now back to "yes we can the barack obama story." let's make john mccain, my friend, an american hero, the next president of the united states! >> barack obama ran against a consensus u.s. hero in john mccain. this veteran senator, naval aviator, annapolis graduate, p.o.w., was going to be the standard bearer for the republican party. >> we will campaign to strengthen job growth in america with lower taxes and less regulation. >> what senator mccain stood for was the stability and leadership quality of america that we needed more of a substantive

type of leadership presence, not soaring rhetoric that was going to lead us nowhere. >> the biggest criticism from pundits and people who didn't support us was sort of a lack of foreign policy experience and how he would sort of ascend on the world stage. >> mccain, like george h.w. bush, was kind of at home in world politics. well, barack obama with his lack of experience was a question mark. >> so our face-off tonight, does obama have the foreign policy credentials. >> he is great on the themes and photo ops but it is not governing in foreign policy. >> so we decided to send obama just a few months before the election to afghanistan, iraq, jordan, israel, france, the united kingdom, germany. >> he becomes the first afro-american president in november, he will bring peace. >> i doubt we're going to have a million screaming germans. let's tamp down expectations. >> 900,000.

>> the center piece of the tread was a speech he would give in berlin. we envisioned this as, you know, deliberately echoing some of the more iconic presidential speeches overseas. reagan, "tear down this wall." kennedy, benign berliner. >> the walls between allies on either side of the atlantic cannot stand. the walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. the walls between races and tribes, natives and immigrants, christians and muslims and jews cannot stand. these now are the walls we must tear down.

thank you, berlin. god bless you. thank you. >> the world can see something that was hopeful. i think the people internationally could see, you know, when america is better the world is better, too, and with a great leader, like, we could be at our best. >> barack obama very rarely made a mistake. we were 12, 13 points behind and we were dropping on a daily basis. and the most effective line of attack was posing the question to the country, do we really want to have a celebrity president? >> he's the biggest celebrity in the world. >> obama! obama! >> but is he ready to lead? >> let's try to make his greatest asset his chief liability, and that was the purpose of those ads. and then from their airing over the course of the summer, we were able to get some traction,

and by the time the democratic convention began it was essentially an even race. >> my friends, fellow americans, i am very privileged to introduce to you the next vice president of the united states, governor sarah palin of the great state of alaska! >> i did not know much about her other than the fact that she was the most popular governor in the country. at that moment in time we had to excite the conservative base of the republican party who was apathetic about mccain, and we needed to close a massive gender gap that disabled any prospect of us winning. >> i was just your average hockey mom and signed up for the pta. i love those hockey moms. you know, they say the difference between a hockey mom

and a pit bull? lipstick. >> she electrified the hall. she electrified the republican party. we believed, the country believed, the obama campaign believed maybe it was possible that john mccain could win the election. >> are you ready to change things up in washington? [ cheering ] >> the media, i think, immediately fell in love with sarah palin. they found her a fascinating and interesting and endlessly talkable. >> sarah palin is speaking to her generation of women. >> and now she even has her own action doll. >> we were getting a lot of pressure from the party. like, you guys got to take down palin. she is going to win the race for mccain. obama was super chill. he was like, i'm not worried about it, it is me and mccain. >> turns out one of his earliest supporters is a man named bill ayers who according to "the new york times" was a domestic terrorist. and it sure would be nice if

even just once he would say that he wants america to win! >> the thing i think that was the most jarring for people who were watching what she was doing were the ways in which she just openly invited white americans to hate barack obama. >> now, this is not a man who sees america as you and i see america. this, ladies and gentlemen, has nothing to do with the kind of change that anyone can believe in, not my kids and not your kids. >> there were a lot of code words. i mean sarah palin had her role to play, and that role was to kind of stoke the sense of suspicions, this fear of who barack obama was and what he potentially represented. you know, laying those seeds out there that were seeds of doubt, if you will, into the actual character -- not necessarily the politics, but the character of barack obama.

>> obama is a terrorist, don't you know that? >> he wasn't born in america. >> i do not want a black man running my country. >> this is little hussein. >> the ways in which sarah palin openly invited racism and hatred, if they aren't new in american politics but they certainly are new on television. what she unleashed is something very hard to put back in the bottle. on the broadcast tonight, meltdown, the american financial system is rocked to its foundation as top wall street institutions topple under a mountain of debt. >> as we were going down the final stretch of this campaign, the economic meltdown was happening in real-time. >> lehman brothers declares bankruptcy. >> by far the largest bankruptcy ever in this country. >> three of the five biggest investment banks are gone. the country's biggest mortgage lender is gone. >> american taxpayers woke up this morning to learn their money makes up most of a bailout package to save a huge insurance

conglomerate called aig. >> people were in the grip of a brutal economy. >> you are seeing, like, massive acceleration and job losses, firms were cutting into investment across the country. there was a general condition of terror. you were at the edge of panic. >> a tough situation for america, but we'll recover from it. >> george bush's last days and the collapse of the economy, there was a lot of uncertainty. >> you had the iraq war going badly. >> there was a lack of confidence in the bush administration in george w. bush himself, the handling of katrina. there was a sense everything was failing. >> people were really frustrated with washington and they wanted a change, and there was one candidate who was promising change. >> don't believe for a second this election is over. don't think for a minute that power will concede anything without a fight. we're going to have to work like

our future depends on in these last few days because it does! >> but it was clear as, you know, the days unfolded palin was going to end up being a net negative for mccain. >> the whole question of sarah palin, except there was an issue was overwhelmed by the economic meltdown and people's insecurities and anxieties about what was going to happen in the economy and who was best to deal with it. >> obama will end this day thousands of miles and many hours away in hawaii at the bedside of the very sick grandmother who raised him. >> i was on the press plane when he went back to see his grandmother. he knew that she was sick and it was, you know, sort of an unexpected detour off the campaign trail in the final weeks, and he was very, very introspective. i remember him being particularly bothered by our presence in hawaii. not quite realizing or accepting, like, the new place he was in his life, and he was still really chafing against

those demand and the interest. he wanted to have a walk and he walked down the street and thought that he could do that without anybody or any of us taking notice, and there's this picture of him walking where his head is down, he just looks extraordinarily lonely and annoyed with us for trying to get that picture, but it was a very -- you know, it was a very sad time for him. you know, like his grandmother raised him and he wanted that space, and when you are talking about a few weeks before the election, you know, that was -- it wasn't something a lot of people were willing to give him. >> for senator obama, this day took an incredibly sad turn. the unfortunate news tonight that his beloved grandmother has lost her ongoing battle with cancer just one day shy of this historic election. >> you know, obviously there's a little bit of a bittersweet time for me. some of you heard that my grandmother, who helped raise me, passed away early this morning. >> love you, brother! >> and, look, she -- she has gone home. her name was madelyn dunham.

she was one of the quiet heroes we have all across america. all they try to do is just try to do the right thing. and in this crowd there are a lot of quiet heroes like that. that's what america is about. that's what we're fighting for. after decades of broken politics in washington, after eight years of failed policies from george w. bush, you don't need to boo, you just need -- you just need to vote. [ cheering ] >> after 21 months of a campaign that has taken us from the rocky coast of maine to the sunshine of california, we are one day away from changing america. one day. strength

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so two years after this election season began, it all ends today. >> at least 130 million americans and perhaps over 140 million are expected to vote today. >> we are hours away from knowing who the next president of the united states will be. >> i remember election day in chicago. he wanted to have a basketball game for good luck. >> a bunch of guys from chicago came down to iowa. we played basketball on caucus day, won iowa, did not play basketball on primary day in new hampshire, lost new hampshire. so obviously the campaign gods said that if you want to win, you need to play basketball on election day. >> he wanted to spend time that day just playing with old friends of his. most of them went back with him for years, a lot further than i did.

high school friends, college friends, law school friends, some people on the campaign. >> once we walked out onto the court, the only thing any of us were thinking about was, you know, we got to win. we got to win this game. >> i remember hacking him once. i figured this is my last chance to do some kind of something physical before he has secret service protection. >> it was just a wonderful day, and that was completely the same guy that i knew and played basketball with at harvard law school. same guy trying to make a basket, trying to win, trying to help his team win. we sat around after the game. everybody was tired. people were stretching, and he says, okay. i'm going back. i'm going to go to the hotel, get my hair cut. and then i'll see you guys at grant park. we were like, hey, see you later. >> decision 2008, election night. >> good evening and we are already under way.

>> we had the tvs on in the locker room. >> kentucky goes in the mccain column. >> and kentucky had just announced, and it was -- obviously it was not for him, and we were like, oh, man. come on, come on, come on. >> new hampshire being called. also maryland, the district of columbia. >> and delaware as well for senator obama. >> mccain on the board again in tennessee. >> i talked to a former executive director of the republican party. he has no idea which candidate's going to win the outer suburbs. >> in arizona, it is too close to call. >> i did not want to be in chicago. i wanted to the watch night service in martin luther king's church in atlanta. >> i'm a member of that church. i felt and believed that somehow, in some way, that i had to be with the people that i knew best. >> in georgia, the projected winner, senator mccain, 15 electoral votes. >> republican john mccain will

win alabama, mississippi. >> new york tonight predictably for senator obama. >> michigan goes as expected -- >> minnesota goes to obama. >> 11:00 p.m. on the east coast, and we have news. an african-american has broken the barrier as old as the republic. the celebrations begin. [ crowd cheering ] >> people are rushing the stage where there's a big jumbotron. >> the crowd is really snapping pictures, hugging each other. i see some tears in a few people's eyes. >> just overwhelming to see the numbers of people we have here right now and the degree of joy that they feel. >> i jumped so high, i didn't think my feet were going to touch the floor. and i started crying, and i cried, and i cried. i was crying for president kennedy, for president johnson.

i was crying for martin luther king jr., for hundreds of thousands of people of color who never had an opportunity to register to vote, didn't live to see a person of color elected as president of the united states of america. >> we went from dying for fighting for the right to vote, to a black man being able to become president of the united states inside of four decades. >> hello, chicago! [ crowd cheering ] >> all that suffering we went through, this was three centuries of work, and the memories of the people who made it possible were not there. i wish for a moment god would just give them 30 seconds to see the fruits of their labor. >> americans who sent a message to the world that we have never

been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states. we are and always will be the united states of america. >> dear president-elect obama, i am 18 years old. voting for you in this election was truly the first time i had done something that went against my father. i truly believe that you are the man who can make this place we call home a great one again. sincerely, benjamin durrett. >> and to those americans whose support i have yet to earn, i may not have won your vote tonight, but i hear your voices. i need your help. and i will be your president too. in this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people.

let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. >> dear president-elect obama, i am a died-in-the-wool republican. i have voted since i was 18, the last eight elections. i may not have supported you before, but as of today, i am committed to serving you as a citizen and to praying for you daily. best regards, jeri harris. >> this is our time to reclaim the american dream and reaffirm that momentum truth that our of many, we are one. that while we breathe, we hope. and where we are met with cynicism and doubt and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people. yes, we can. thank you. god bless you. and may god bless the united states of america. [ cheers and applause ] >> he had finished speaking, and

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if i had to describe president obama in one word -- >> you know, i just can't do it in a word. >> one word? >> empathetic. >> tough. >> pragmatic. >> cool. >> the mean answer -- well, no, i'm not going to say that on tape. >> barack obama is a gentleman. >> nice guy. >> complicated. >> wisdom with compassion.

>> that word would be steady. >> i would describe barack obama in a single word, american. >> patriot. >> remarkable. >> to overcome the battering ram of historic resistance, and on his slim shoulders rested the weight of american history and democracy for eight years. remarkable. ♪ >> the feeling in the air was electric and incredibly exciting. i'll never forget that sense of hope and that sense of possibility. >> it was truly one of the greatest days i've ever experienced in life. we were cold, but just feeling great. >> the day of the inauguration, it's myself, barack obama. we're all kind of standing back there waiting because he's the last one that they're announcing to stage, a little bit of surrealness because i can remember looking out from the capitol and seeing all the way down to lincoln and basically

just the sea of people. >> january 20th, 2009, was this very, very poignant moment in american history for a few reasons. we were seeing the inauguration of america's first african-american president, something that seemed unfathomable as recently as a decade or so beforehand. there were 1.8 million people on the mall that day. washington, d.c. had never seen anything like that. >> are you prepared to take the oath, senator? >> i am. >> i, barack hussein obama, do solemnly swear. >> i, barack hussein obama, do solemnly swear. >> i was sitting home, and we were watching the inauguration take place, seeing him being sworn in. a lot of people in general that, to be frank, never thought this day would come.

>> i remember suddenly a tear comes down my cheek, and i was like, what was that? you know, i'm a journalist. i'm impartial, which i am. but i was struck by the history of the moment as an african-american. >> preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the united states. >> so help you god? >> so help me god. >> congratulations, mr. president. [ cheers and applause ] ♪ >> on the day of the inauguration, i walked up to president obama and said, mr. president, will you sign this? it was just a little piece of paper. and he wrote on it "it is because of you, john." i said, thank you, mr. president. the election of this man changed so many people and inspired so

many of us. >> it is my great personal honor to present the 44th president of these united states, barack obama. >> he was nervous before the speech also because it was really cold. and the guy's like a hawaiian dude. he was like, i don't want to be up here, like, teeth chattering. i said to him, i was like, well, i think there's a heater in the podium. so you should be warm at least for your speech. before he went out, gave him a little fist bump because it was like, you got it. you're going to be great. you're going to crush it, as he always did. >> my fellow citizens, i stand here today humbled by the tasks before us, grateful for the trust you've bestowed. >> ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states. [ cheers and applause ] >> i remember the day that he

was inaugurated. there was a series of parties, but the first one featured beyonce. ♪ at last my love has come along ♪ >> and she's singing "at last," and the first couple, this newly elected african-american president and his beautiful wife, are dancing to beyonce. it was an emotional moment, i think, for anyone who was there and anyone who watched on television that night. >> the night president obama is inaugurated a number of republicans get together at a steakhouse in washington, including paul ryan, who would become the speaker later, kevin mccarthy, who would later become house majority leader, eric cantor. >> barack obama, i think at the time maybe a 70% or 72% approval

rating, which meant those of us in the minority as republicans were going to have a tough road to try and assert what we believed in terms of policy to try and address the challenges that were facing the country. >> a lot of the discussion is, okay, how can we continue to work on republican priorities, work with the president? how do we get some things done over the next two to four years? >> former house speaker newt gingrich, who had engineered the takeover of the house of representatives in 1994, reminded everybody seated there, you know, we were once cast out. we were once irrelevant. we found our way back. we can do it again. we will do it again. >> they basically plot out a campaign of opposition in effect to say, we can't give him victories. if we do that, then we lose our relevance as the republican party. >> at the very conclusion of the evening, speaker gingrich said to everyone, we will look back on this day as the day that the seeds of triumph in 2010 and 2012 were sown. >> this is a president who has

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the first days when you are in the white house, there's a lot of pressure. >> yeah, you know why? because today i got to learn about how to set up an emergency press conference. >> oh, really? >> it was like jumping on a moving train. >> he didn't just come down, did he? okay. so he's been down there. that's what i thought. all right. >> the first few days, you know, when the president walks into a room, everybody stands up. that's the tradition. and he would get really uncomfortable and say, guys, guys, you don't have to stand up. sit down. and within a couple weeks, that's gone, you know. he's accustomed. he walks in there, everybody stands up. >> we were trying to function

when we just didn't even know our way around the building. one little corridor, which we call the outer oval, has about four doors in it. you actually can't tell which door is the door to the hallway to the colonnade, and which door is the door to the oval, and which door is the door to the cabinet room. i remember being stuck in there one time when the doors were closed, and it was like, oh, my god, which one do i open because you really don't want to open the wrong door, right? >> the thing about working in the white house, you're not just someone who works there. you represent the president of the united states. we never wanted him to be criticized for giving us a chance. >> i remember the first day we walked into the oval office. i still get teary when i think about it. in that one second, you know, before he was potus for the rest of his life, it was kind of like just us for a minute really taking in how crazy it was.

i don't think any of us can really talk about the first day now, after everything that's happened in the last couple of years, and not get really emotional thinking about sort of like what that office really means and what it stands for. and we just thought it was the most special place on earth. >> there was ample and stunning proof today there is no place to hide from the effects of this country's crumbling economy. >> we have in fact been in a recession for a year. >> it was only the 12th time in u.s. history the dow has fallen 500 or more points in a day. >> the unemployment figure now over 8% for the first time in a quarter of a century. >> foreclosures across the country are up a staggering 87%. anger at this economy is at a modern-day high. >> the kind of moment was taking over, really arguably the most perilous point a new president

has taken over since maybe fdr in 1933. everything that could be going wrong seems to be going wrong. >> we were facing the greatest economic downturn since the great depression. the financial system was on the brink of collapse. >> i felt some serious fear in those first weeks. it was really terrifying. you sort of think, well, this is the point at which the grown-ups go sit in the room and they close the door and they figure it out. there's some playbook somewhere, and it is quite another thing to be in the room with the brilliant people and realize, holy mackerel, they're not omniscient and they're flawed humans, and holy mackerel, i'm one of them. >> often in those early weeks, i'd be coming into some meeting, and the people walking out of the room were the economic team. and he would just look like the weight of the world had been dropped on his shoulders. >> he doesn't have a huge amount of experience. you know, who had any experience

with financial crises like this? he sees a great group of people around him. he did what you should do, which is try to listen to people, ask some hard questions, but then choose and then act. >> when it comes to rebuilding our economy, we don't have a moment to spare. the businesses that are shedding jobs to stay afloat, they can't afford inaction or delay. the workers who are returning home to tell their husbands and wives and children that they no longer have a job and all those who live in fear that their job will be next on the cutting blocks, they need help now. they are looking to washington for action, bold and swift, and that is why i hope to sign an american recovery and reinvestment plan into law in the next few weeks. >> the stimulus bill was a mix of tax cuts and temporary spending measures and infrastructure, and we spent a long period of time negotiating a strategy that would maximize the chance that some republicans could support that legislation. >> we feel that so much of the spending that's in the bill frankly although may be laudable in and of itself has no place in the stimulus bill.

>> and they're not willing to increase the deficit. they're actually saying we need to cut the deficit in the short run rather than increase it. >> the bill that is scheduled to come to the floor this week will come to the floor without any consultation among house republicans and with categorical opposition. >> so they're not only opposed to the particulars of obama's bill. they're opposed to any stimulus bill. >> lots of numbers in this $819 billion recovery bill that just sailed through the house. >> it passed the house last night and faces the senate on monday. >> the white house is trumpeting its first big legislative victory. >> congress has passed my economic recovery plan, an ambitious plan at a time we badly need it. >> the economy is growing again in six months. the worst part of the crisis had passed. >> history will record that

barack obama prevented the country from falling into a great depression, and republicans were completely and totally obstructionist towards his agenda. >> there was no bipartisanship, not even close. there was virtually no support, you know, from republicans. >> the republicans bear some of the blame, but so did barack obama. he was, i think, injured in part by some of his own manners. he could not help but communicating that he was the smartest guy in the room, which he often was. all the more reason not to flaunt it. >> what the obama people did basically is they took the rhetoric of bipartisanship. they asked for it only on their terms. and when they didn't get it, then they could rant and rave against the enemies of bipartisanship. it was extremely slick politics. >> if we can't work together on something this urgent to address a crisis this significant, the prospects for bipartisan cooperation in the future are rather dim. new advil dual action

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the opportunities to just do what you want as a president can be kind of limited. you can't just pick up and walk off the south grounds out to the public street. i recall once talking to the president outside, and he was like, man, if i could just drive a car. >> he was this free spirit who was spontaneous and loved to just go and come as he pleased, and you can't do that when you have secret service. >> there is a bubble in the white house. he's probably the most normal person to become president. most people who become president have been famous for most of their lives. they've had these big staffs of yes-men and yes-women, and this is somebody who was pumping his own gas and still paying student loans two years before he declared for the presidency.

the bubble chafes at you. >> mrs. obama certainly recognized this was going to be a different environment for her children to be raised, but she wanted to try to make it as normal as possible. i had a private meeting with mrs. obama and her staff to talk about the kids. i couldn't help but think she's a mother and looking after her kid, and i'm a stranger. but in my mind, i wanted her to know that we were going to do whatever we needed to do to make sure they were safe but also experience what other kids do growing up. >> mrs. obama in her book tells a story of sending the girls off to school their first day in an armored car with men with guns. she said, my goodness, what have i done to my family? >> she had her round little face pressed up against the window of the suv. her thoughts unreadable but her expression sober. we were asking so much of them. >> i get a little nervous about how they're going to adjust when they're teenagers and they

started having dates and, you know, they've got secret service guys following them around, and there may end up being issues about somebody asking them out because their the president's daughter as opposed to because they really like them. it's already a self-conscious time in life. >> i think he wanted to be always be empathetic and available and to help them get through the process. he would always sort of say, look, i grew up without my father. i lost my mother at an early age, you know. and those things like are hard to go through and, you know, you never want to, you know, waste those moments. and i think having been through it himself, i think also never wanted his children to feel the way that he felt growing up at times. >> president obama and michelle and the kids went to st. john's church and walked back. they went to the kids' plays or go to the basketball games. in fact, president obama coached

for a little while sasha's basketball team. >> i can remember the first time the vipers, which was sasha's basketball team, executed the pick and roll like in a game. you would have thought that michael jordan had returned to the game of basketball and like just hit a buzzer beater. he always enjoyed when they competed because it was sort of one of those simplifying things about life. >> what's your name? hey, man. good to see you. i'm doing well. thank you so much. >> this is my daughter, grace. >> hey, grace, how have you been? >> he used to draw a distinction between people who wanted to be something and people who wanted to do something. i drew from that he didn't just want to be president. he wanted to do something as president. he wanted to do something for people. >> 400 years our country has been striving to provide health care for all americans in terms of access to quality, affordable health care. so when president obama became president, this, of course, is a

priority for us. >> i come from the immigration policy world. that world likes to argue that he should have done immigration first. but part of the reason for the decision to tackle the affordable care act so soon after the recovery act is because of the clear understanding of the high cost of health care and the relationship to the economy and bringing the economy back online. >> but there were plenty of people outside of the white house and a few inside of the white house that thought he was being too ambitious. >> i do believe at the time it was probably not the issue that needed to be first and foremost given what the country had just gone through and the near collapse of wall street, the mortgage crisis and the rest. >> as someone who had worked on president clinton's health reform effort that famously failed, to me it seemed obvious that if you didn't do it right away, it wouldn't happen. >> our goal will be to enact comprehensive health care reform by the end of this year.

>> the very first thing the president did when he decided we're going to tackle health care was have a bipartisan meeting at the white house. we had a health care summit. we brought down the entire republican leadership. we brought outside experts. we brought the same with democrats. we had over 100 people there. >> it was on the question of affordability that he opened that conference in the white house. i'll never forget it. i'm like, wow, this is exactly where i think both sides can come together is if you reduce costs, you can increase access. >> kickoff to the president's health reform effort. it wasn't just a sort of a gabfest. there was a lot of good will. i took a lot of encouragement from that. president obama and our team at the white house worked closely with senator kennedy.

>> the nobody was better at the internal politics of health care than ted kennedy. >> the odds were against health care passing. i don't think any president tried to do it on the heels of the economy slipping into an economic collapse. so, yes, we went in with our eyes wide open that this was probably a 60-40 proposition. >> hello, everybody. >> there's this quote from president lyndon johnson. there is but one way for a president to deal with the congress, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption. and i taped that above my computer monitor, and that was sort of my mantra every day. that was president obama's mantra too. there were certain issues that were hot buttons for some of the republicans, and we were figuring out ways to work with them. >> the first shot off the bat out of the democratic proposal was they wanted government option, meaning government to provide the insurance as an option for people to choose when they were looking at the other options in health care if they didn't get one from their employer. and that was a non-starter for republicans who don't believe the government has a constitutional mandate to

provide insurance like that. it was too far of a reach for us. >> if we have government-controlled health care, we're going to have illegal immigrants involved in the system. >> let's stop this rampage towards bigger and bigger government. >> and let's keep a four-letter word out there. it's a good word, and that's "cost." >> i know the government can't run health care, and i don't want them running my plan. >> and the president couldn't have been more focused. he was spending a couple hours a day having meeting with individual members, senators, groups of them, trying to help speed them along to get to a bill, and i was very positive until that august recess.

good evening. i'm dara brown. senator mitt romney slamming the federal government's failure to develop a plan to vaccinate americans against coronavirus. romney called the lack of a plan

as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable. and college football championship game is set. alabama will take on ohio state on january 11th in miami. it is the fifth time in the past six years that the crimson tide are playing for a national title. now back to "yes we can the barack obama story." i think we're taking our first steps toward full-fledged socialism. >> you know i can't find one little paragraph in here that says the government has the right to take over our health care. >> god will take care of health care. >> you dirty thieves! dirty thieves! >> i've done some research into obama, and he's a marxist. >> the things that obama's doing are the exact things that hitler did. >> town hall meetings had started up around the country where senators or house members are trying to explain what is in the bill and they were greeted by insults and shouts, and that was all over talk radio.

>> you said earlier that medicare is being run by experts. who are these people? this is a program that is $39 trillion in the red? >> as i said, there is a nationally coordinated effort to disrupt -- >> who sent me here? i sent myself! how dare you! how dare you claim that i'm part of a conspiracy! >> we were watching the town halls occurring around the country. it was really a low point, and i think everyone was pretty frustrated about whether we were actually going to be able to get this done. >> one day god is going to stand before you, and he's going to judge you. >> it was clear that what was happening over that august recess was not a positive thing for the momentum of health reform. that's when you saw the tea party beginning to form. >> i believe obama is running our country into the ground. >> they're spending too much money we don't have. >> we must stop this government takeover the health care.

>> i thought the tea party was one of the most refreshing movements i've ever seen in the country, and it's been maligned and misrepresented in a lot of ways. and i did go to a lot of the rallies, and it was people from all walks of life, many who had never been involved with politics. >> well, some of that opposition is coming from former alaska governor sarah palin. she made a statement on her facebook page. she called this health plan of the president's downright evil. she said, quote, the america i know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with down syndrome will have to stand in front of obama's death panel. >> what we often ran into is in the other side couldn't win on the facts, they would just invent a tax. death squads was a great expect. there were no death squads in the bill. the president would try as best he could to explain that those things weren't true, but it still became part of the debate. >> what you can't do -- or you

can but you shouldn't do -- is start saying things like, we want to set up death panels to pull the plug on grandma. i mean, come on. >> the affordable care act became the proximate focus of anger and dissatisfaction at government, and the tea party really became the anti-obama movement. >> i had a sick feeling what had been bubbling up was now becoming kind of a grassroots organized movement against the affordable care act, and it was going to make it much harder to get the legislation done. >> so we met in early august of 2009 to talk about the prospects. the president started the meeting by asking me what i thought, and i told him i thought we still could get it done. i said i wasn't sure how, what

the path was going to be. he then went around the room and heard from a lot of other people. >> the chief of staff, rahm emanuel, had asked that we consider something less than the full affordable care act. why not do a bill that will cover the parents of children who are covered under the state children's health insurance program? that would add some people to the rolls. that would be making some progress. so the president wouldn't have failed at health reform. he would have gotten something done. and so the president was considering that and considering whether he should push for a vote. >> after he heard all that, he came back to me at the end of the meeting and said, well, what do you think? and i said, what i think it comes down to, mr. president -- i was thinking of a clint eastwood movie. i said, mr. president, do you feel lucky? >> and president obama got up from his chair, and he went over to the resolute desk, and he looked out the window, and he said to phil, so, phil, where are we? and phil looked around at the rest of us, and we shrugged our shoulders, and he said, well, sir, we're in the oval office.

and president obama said, yes. and then he said, and, phil, what's my name? now phil is really confused. and he said, well, sir, your name is president obama. >> and without missing a beat, he said, my name is barack hussein obama. i'm a black man. i'm president of the united states. i get up every day, and i feel lucky. let's get this done. now get to work. i was being a little bit of a smart aleck. his response was priceless. >> the man called the lion of the senate, ted kennedy of massachusetts -- >> senator ted kennedy, a member of one of america's most powerful and captivating political families dies after a year-long battle with brain cancer. >> when ted kennedy died, you knew it was going to be one of those moments that united official washington in mourning. this is someone who most people would agree was one of the greatest legislators whoever lived.

>> he was a product of an age when the joy and nobility of politics prevented differences of party and platform and philosophy from becoming barriers to cooperation and mutual respect. a time when adversaries still saw each other as patriots. >> the president was deeply saddened by senator kennedy's death. it was a loss of a mentor and a friend and someone who had been willing to support him early on when a lot of others weren't. >> so with the death of senator kennedy, immediately a democrat was appointed to temporarily fill that seat. so the president still had a super majority in place. however, a special election was coming down the pike in january that could change everything. that super majority was in true question. trelegy for copd. ♪ birds flyin' high, you know how i feel. ♪ ♪ breeze drifting on by you know how i feel. ♪

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broken. like the president said, it's not a health care system. it's a disease care system. >> i would love to see real reform. i don't really want to leave it up to the insurance companies to fix it. >> we still had a path forward to pass a bill, but it really depended on the president going and explaining, convincing the country that this was going to make our health care system better. >> the president of the united states. >> at that point, it was clear there was almost uniform republican opposition, but this was his opportunity to go. >> well, the time for bickering is over. the time for games has passed. now is the season for action. now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together. >> because we were going to have to do this, it was clear at that

point by just democratic votes and we had 60 democratic senators, and we needed 60 votes on the senate floor, we didn't have any margin of error. >> there are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. this too is false. the reforms -- the reforms i'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. >> you lie! >> it's not true. >> it was stunning because it was so out of the circle of any experience that any of us had ever had. of course my first reaction was to just go down there and throw him out, but that would be a victory for him. >> i thought that was inappropriate. i thought it was disrespectful of the individual and the office. >> of all the people who you would have expected from the house republican conference to yell "you lie" at president barack obama, joe wilson of south carolina would not have

been the likeliest nominee by a long shot. >> i particularly didn't like it because the fellow who did it was sitting right behind me. so when the president turned to see who did it, i think he was looking at me thinking i might have done it. but when the president has the opportunity to address congress, that's his opportunity to speak. so i think in the name of civility, that spirit, there should be respect. >> black america saw a president in whom all of us were extremely proud being treated as he was not president, as if he was just an interloper, as if he'd broken into the white house and was occupying the building. >> you lie! you lie! >> for the right, wilson did become something of a folk hero. suddenly people from all over the u.s. were contributing to his campaign. money was really, really pouring in. >> it was a big indication to me that things are going to get worse. that's an indicator of how

deeply hateful some people in the country and even some people in the congress were with respect to the president. and clear to me that there are going to be deep divisions, and this is going to be difficult to heal. >> i had people who said to me, well, why didn't president obama respond to that? anytime you react and you get taken off message, then you're losing the reason why you're there. you cannot afford yourself the luxury of indulging your emotions. you just have to keep them in check. and how he managed to do that every day, i don't know. >> three weeks later, the house passed the bill on the floor, and then we moved into the senate. >> what do we want? >> sing payer. >> when do we want it? >> now. >> clearly the nurses are here because we see the need on a shift by shift basis for health care reform. >> i think it needs to be done for the protection of our country's future overall. >> i will not accept the status

quo, not this time. not now. minnesota, we are closer to reform than we've ever been before, but this is the hard part. >> when the health care bill went to the senate floor, it was the second longest debate that the senate had had in 50 years. it went from thanksgiving to christmas eve. >> can you hear us now? can you hear us now? >> this is the reality. no bill except one in the previous 50 years had been on the senate floor that long. >> this bill would provide real reform for our nation's flawed health care system. >> the first thing we do is address affordability. >> democrats in the senate will not give up on this dream of bipartisanship. they think, i know these republicans. we can sit down with them over beers. they still think the old rules of washington applied. >> i've got a diagnosis, and it's legislative malpractice.

>> to the american people who are concerned about this being a done deal, it is not. >> it must be opposed. >> till the vote was taken, we were still trying to reach out to some republicans to see if we could convince them. >> the yeas are 60. the nays are 39. hr 3590 as amended, the patient protection and affordable care act, is passed. >> a historic vote, a first for the senate on christmas eve since the late 1800s, bringing health care reform one step closer to reality. senate democrats pushed through their version of the bill against unanimous opposition from republicans. >> democrats took their victory lap, and republicans warmed up for another round in the fight. >> this fight isn't over. in fact, this fight is long from over. my colleagues and i will work to stop this bill from becoming law. >> now we had passed a bill out of the house, and we had passed a bill out of the senate.

when the house passes a bill and the senate passes a bill, it goes to something called a conference committee. the conference committee resolves differences between the two bills. i used to say something to the president as we were going through the process, which is he was trying to climb a mountain no one had successfully climbed before. that day of passing the senate bill got us much closer to the summit. we weren't done. now we had to come down the mountain. we had passed the house. we had passed the senate. now we had to get back safely, which was trying to get a bill that could pass both places. are you ok?

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with real-time notifications and a week of uninterrupted recording. all powered by reliable, secure wifi from xfinity. gotta respect his determination. it's easy and affordable to get started. get self protection for $10 a month. it happened in massachusetts, a special election to fill the seat of the late senator ted kennedy. >> this is the people's seat. tonight, the independent voice of massachusetts has spoken. when there's trouble in massachusetts, rest assured,

there is trouble everywhere. they know it. people do not want the trillion dollar health care plan that is being forced on the american people. >> republicans inspired by the words, senator-elect scott brown. he won by five points. that has both parties saying, if it can happen here, what's next for the president and the democratic party? >> with the election of a republican u.s. senator from massachusetts, scott brown, it robbed the democrats of that super majority in the senate. if scott brown was going to oppose health care reform, we would not be able to reconcile the two bills. it became clear, the only path forward was for the house to pass the senate bill that had been on the senate floor for a month and take that without changes, which the house wasn't going to want to do. >> speaker pelosi said she couldn't pass the senate bill. those were dark days.

we were discussing how we would go forward. it just became clear to me we shouldn't go forward without republican votes. it's going to hurt him politically. that was more important to me than passing the bill. all the negative advertising and the negativity had started to bring down the popularity of doing anything. looked like it was not going to pass. if it failed that would be a disaster for him. the president said, i want to bring everyone together one more time. i want to try one more time to explain what we're trying to do, to talk about the problems and see if we can get support. >> the last meeting he had in february of 2010 was a bipartisan meeting at the blair house, which was televised. he brought leadership of the senate and house republicans and democrats to sit down together and make one last effort. >> the blair house summit is a little bit of a gambit.

it's a way for obama to show the country he's willing to listen to different ideas. he gets both parties together and says let's brainstorm our plans. >> we just can't afford this. i mean that's the ultimate problem here. >> it seemed clear that the republicans in the meeting with a few exceptions seemed adamantly against what we were trying to do. >> the question i'm going to ask myself and i ask of all of you is, is there enough serious effort that in a months time or a few weeks time or six weeks time, we could actually resolve something? and if we can't, i think we've got to go ahead and make some decisions and then i think that's what elections are for. >> i think the president then decided he was going to forward and ask the speaker and majority leader to pass the bill, to take the vote. >> my staff can tell you i can

curse like a sailor behind closed doors sometimes. there's been a bunch of times i've been aggravated. i have a competitive streak and the sense of determination to want to get done what needs to get done. >> he understood what the challenges were we faced and he understood what the opportunities were. we made a decision to succeed. the press would say to me it doesn't look like you're going to pass this. what are you going to do, you're going to give up? and i said no, we believe this is the challenge of our generation. >> and the president spent most of saturday and the rest of sunday calling individual members thanking them for their votes, encouraging them. he was deeply, deeply invested in putting his own personal stamp on it. >> good morning, sunday showdown after a final push from the president. >> after all the debate and bickering we're now just hours away from a vote on health care reform. >> tensions are high, votes are still influx and the stakes could not be higher.

>> i've learned about this which is that you have to be there when the votes are going on. when you're the vote counter you have to be there. so, yes, i went up on the senate side, up constitution avenue and there were protesters there. i was in the house chamber sitting at the seats up there overlooking the house chamber. >> can you say it was done openly, with transparency and accountability, without back room deals struck behind closed doors, hidden from the people? hell no, you can't. >> and so in the spirit of history and past health care you

the american people give health care a chance. >> the president's idea was to get everybody in the roosevelt room to watch the vote. and the president and i i spent the day going through the vote count again. so there was still a lot of tension in the room because we weren't there yet. >> members will record their votes by electronic device. it is a 15-minute vote. >> it seemed like it took 5 hours. every increment of time, every 30 seconds seemed like an eternity. >> on this vote the motion to conquer and the senate amendment is adopted. without objection the motion reconsiders late on the table. [ cheers and applause ] >> we moved heaven and earth to pass that bill.

>> it was a high moment to savor, no question. >> any presidency there are things that you have to manage and then there's the mark that you try to make. and, you know, we had to manage the financial crisis. but health care was affirmative. health care was we are creating something and leaving behind something that wasn't there before. >> this is something that for a hundred years presidents have been trying to do and coming up short. and this president working with nancy pelosi and harry reed and rank and file members all came together to do something that no one would predict they'd be able to do. >> phil called me and said get back down to the white house, come back down here, the president wants to see you. i went out on the independence side toward the house and there were a lot of people there who

seemed to just have gathered, and it was very emotional. so got back down to the white house, i opened the door of the roosevelt room and it's up roarious in there. there's all these people s celebrating. people came over and they were hugging me. >> barack obama invited a small group of us up to the residence. and it was a combination of the people who really helped get the health care bill done, but then he wanted people like me who had been there 2007, 2008 to be there for that moment. >> mrs. obama was what of town which is probably how he got away with doing something that spontaneous. he went around and thanked every single person. >> raising toasts and celebrating and looking with awe on this amazing view. this was about 11:00 at night. and the truman balcony is that curvy part of the white house that looks over the south lawn and you can see the washington monument and the jefferson

memorial in the distance. >> i remember seeing the incredible relaxation he had i hadn't seen in a long time. >> i asked him how he felt that night compared to election night and i'll never forget he said to me there's no comparison. election night is always about getting to this night. >> one great achievement of barack obama is just being barack obama and winning the presidency. second was when he became president there was not an almost universal consensus that there should be universal access to health care. when he left, there was. that's a big achievement. >> i remember when i came up to him and shook his hand, and he kind of poked me in the chest like an athlete who had just won a game and said, remember, don't bet against me.

we understood he had to walk a tightrope. >> he may not have been born in this country. >> surely you can question my policies without questioning my faith or for that matter my citizenship. >> announcer: this is an msnbc special series. we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. >> race is an issue that i believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. a part of our union that we have not yet made perfect. >> we know the march is not yet over. we know that reaching that blessed destination where we are judged all of us by the content of our character requires admitting as much, facing up to the truth. ♪