we start with what president obama said last night about the arrest of professor henry gates. with us is lynn sweet, and also journalist and commentator stephen a. smith, he'll be with us in a minute. >> when we talked to the officers throughout the department, you could see that they were really stunned by being -- not having the greatest regard or -- actually taking those comments to heart. i would say to you that they were very much deflated. >> well, the police have come out and said they'll have a commission report on this, look into it, but they basically stand by the decision made by the officer sergeant crowley, they say they acted correctly according to the book. here we go. >> it was an interesting press conference, chris, because he backed them up and said some airspace for whatever they might figure out, that they could learn from this incident, move ahead. which i thought signaled that he was giving a benefit of the stout. >> stefb smith, thank you for

joining us. it seems professional the way they're handling it at this moment. >> it definitely seems professional. the fact is you have piece on gates' side that are obviously disputing some of the things that the officers are asserting. i got off the phone with charles ogletree, the attorney for professor gates, saying there were inconsistencies in the police report, that he did indeed show his i.d., show proof of address and the situation should have ended there. but the point is it never should have escalated. let me read the report on paper here. while i was led to believe -- led to believe that gates was lawfully in the residence. i was quite surprised and confused with the behavior. i asked him to provide me with photo identification so i could verify he resided at that residence. gates initially refused. that's his case. the lawyer for gates says that's not true. >> i would also like to add this point. initially upon reading that report, i'm saying you're professor gates, you should know better, as an iconic figure, you have to understand that

everybody is not you, and if something like this isn't de-escalated and escalates to the point it did, ultimately it's a reflection on you, and who knows if another black person in that situation, how things would have transpired. i was thinking along the lines that indeed professor gates could have handled things before, but after speaking to his attorney and saying there have been some flagrant inconsistencies in razz to what the police was asserting, you have an entirely different matter. any black person worth his salt will tell you we've experienced profiling and we're not surprised whenever it occurs. >> i would also like to add this point. initially upon reading that report, i'm saying you're

professor gates, you should know better, as an iconic figure, you have to understand that everybody is not you, and if something like this isn't de-escalated and escalates to the point it did, ultimately it's a reflection on you, and who knows if another black person in that situation, how things would have transpired. i was thinking along the lines that indeed professor gates could have handled things before, but after speaking to his attorney and saying there have been some flagrant inconsistencies in regard to what the police was asserting, you have an entirely different matter. any black person worth his salt will tell you we've experienced profiling and we're not surprised whenever it occurs. >> we have an associated press report this evening saying that sergeant crowley in this case, the officer who made the arrest initially, brought him into custody, has teaching courses up there in massachusetts. there's a lot of answers we have to get. >> the main one is, why did it escalate to having an arrest? i think that's what president obama was trying to get out. he had an interview today, making that point a little more, that eventually the facts were established that he was supposed to be in the house he was in, and why did the police take him in?

this is the stuff that has to be sorted out. >> we walk into these situations, you, stephen and i, we all walk in with our baggage in the shoulder. we just do. the reporters trying to find us, we keep looking for a model that makes sense to us. here's what the president says. >> i don't know, not having been there, not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that, but i think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry. number two, that the cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody, and number three, what we know separate and apart from this incident, is that there is a long history in

this country of african-americans and latinos being stopped by law enforcement. here's his statement today -- i guess we weren't there. charles ogletree, the attorney for the professor, say anything about how heat it had got in terms of language or words used by his client? >> the one thing he did say is he felt that professor gates was coaxed into coming out of his home. the second he comes out of his home, then that gives the police more authority to be in a position to ultimately arrest him. >> what's that mean? coaxed into leaving? >> those were the words that charles ogle tree y50d. that's what he said. >> he's got to defend his client. >> the exchange was so remarkable to me was that obama

decided to engage in the question in a very animated way, but then when i realized that he knew professor gates, he lived in -- >> called him skip. >> this was extraordinary -- >> may i say something about that? the one thing that made me uncomfortable with gates himself, if there's any truth to what the police reported, is when he said, according to the police report, do you know who i am? anytime you sit there and echo those words or put those words out there like that, that implies, you know what? i have a relationship with powers that be with influential figures that ultimately can lead to your demise. i don't know if it is wise for anybody, particularly anybody of african-american descent, to be uttering such words like that,

because that can come back to bite you. >> you know who you're messing with? according to the police report, again we're dealing with this. what do you think, in terms of the president, was his wise last night in terms of all his constituencies, black and white out there, in terms of his role in our society, to identify so clearly with the defense of the situation with regard the professor? was he wise, stern, to take sides, as we put it, tonight? >> i wouldn't say it was wise, but i would come back and say it was honorable. the reality is he's the first african-american president of the united states of america. in all likelihood, he's experienced some racial profiling in his life. just because he's the president of the united states, meaning he's the president to all people not just the african-american community, that doesn't mean he gets to shred his blackness. he's a black man. >> stephen and lynn, everybody i talked to in the last several days, has had a personal experience of what we call profiling, meaning you're completely innocent or guilty of a traffic citation, and treated like a felon. open your trunk. i've never had anybody tell me to open my trunk. >> i was surrounded by eight

officers, because i was speeding. i was going five miles over the speed limit in detroit, michigan, and eight police officers surruineded my car. this is six years ago. >> clearly even if you didn't have someone that's prominent as professor gates, be a key figure, this whole issue touched a nerve the. and big -- it was amplified as having someone as prominent -- i think obama was enwilling to engage. he's been involved in this issue, and maybe that's why he was willing to go personal on it. stephen, i don't want to project myself, but it seems the people that care most are african-american men, and he had not stood up for what looked like a situation, we would have had a problem with him.

>> here he is a bit more of last night. >> the police are doing what they should, there's a call, they go investigate what happens. my understanding is, at that point, professor gates is already in his house. the police officers comes in. i'm sure there's some exchange of words, but my understanding is that professor gates then shows his i.d. to show that this is his house, and at that point he gets arrested for disorderly conduct, charges which are later dropped. >> well, as somebody once said in the movie, people only really believe what they discover of themselves in their lives, and we're at victims or beneficiaries of our experience. your last thoughts. >> barack obama gives a press conference last night for the nation where he's talking about health care. we all know how important this is to him. this is defining his i want si, as far as he's concerned if you listen to the pundits out there,

yet the time was taking for him to address this issue and address it in a very candid form. what does that tell you? that tells you this is something near and personal to the president, as it is to most african-american males, because we have all experienced it. >> i'm at laguardia a couple years ago, a very distinguished-looking fellow, about my age, was waiting at the front of the line, no cars would stop. this isn't white or black, it's all cab drivers. he asked me, as a favor, to stand first in line, so the cab would stop, and i bait and switched for the guy. that's the situation of a distinguished guy dressed, you know, a business guy, having to go through the humiliation of a white guy to hail a cab so the cab would fricking stop for him. that's life, and that's what i think the president's had a piece of in his life, and i can understand where people carry this baggage into a situation without knowing enough of the facts, you and i may disagree, i

think he ought to know all the facts in a potential criminal case before he speaks. >> i will agree with you, but in fairness to white america, that doesn't happen all the time. there's plenty of times when a cab has stopped and there's plenty of times we don't have to reach out to a white american in order to facilitate catches a cab. it happens, but not as much as it used to. >> i thought in our country i hate that we had to do that, to help a guy get home to his family. thank you. good question last night, lynn. talk about making noise. stefb smith, great to have you on. coming up, cheney versus bush. "time" reports that former vice president dick cheney got in president bush's face pushing him for a pardon for his longtime chief of staff, scooter libby and not give it up. that's next, only on "hardball" on msnbc. (announcer) this is nine generations

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why did the so-called birthers fin to ignored facts? radio talk show host gordon liddy will join us, ahead on "hardball." ppuccinos, you're ready for the mid-morning rush thanks to a good breakfast. one coffee with room, one large mocha latte. medium macchiato, light hot chocolate hold the whip, and two espressos. make one a double. she's fiber focused! i have two cappuccinos, one coffee with room, one large mocha latte, a medium macchiato, a light hot chocolate, hold the whip, and two espressos, one with a double shot. gonna take more than coffee to stay this focused. stay full and focused through the morning... with a breakfast of kellogg's® frosted mini-wheats® cereal; an excellent source of fiber that helps you avoid... the distraction of mid-morning hunger. no thanks, i'm good. it's much easier to find money at esurance. great auto insurance rates and lots of discounts! got insurance already? save more with esurance's "switch & save (tm) discount"! it also pays to shop online. you get esurance's "fast 5 (tm) discount" just for getting an instant online quote. - thanks, professor. - don't forget the good student discount.

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welcome back to "hardball." "time" magazine's cover story out today. a special report of the final days of the bush and cheney administrations. it describes a vice president obsessed with convincing the president to give his aide, his top aide, scooter libby, a pardon. and it shows a strained relationship between bush and cheney in those final days. michael duffy is assistant managing editor of "time" and david corn is the bureau chief for mother jones and a columnist for "congressional quarterly." here is an excerpt from his piece on the concern about a cover-up. quote, and there was a darker possibility. your piece is pretty astounding. it says the vice president of the united states was involved

in a cover-up of his behavior by trying to get a pardon for his chief of staff because his chief of staff was covering for him. >> i think even the white house wasn't entirely sure. that's what that quote suggests. that when it came to the moment the third time that officials had sought a pardon for scooter libby, once in 2007, once in 2009, and then on the very last four or five days of the bush era, president bush had several concerns about whether it was true. one, did he show any repentance, did he show any remorse? two, did he lie or not? and three at the back of their minds, one official said, they weren't sure if scooter libby had somehow taken the fall in the investigation for his boss. >> this goes to the question of why we went to war with iraq. he was in deep all the way with everything cheney did. cheney wanted him pardoned because cheney wants him free and not sitting back there without his law license maybe

wanting to write a book some day to provide for his own future. >> cheney is the only person i think in washington who can say with conviction that scooter libby is an innocent man. as the piece in "time" showed, even people within the bush administration, you asked the question did scooter libby lie to the fbi, that's what he was tried for. not for being a leaker, did he lie to the fbi? and they all came to the conclusion that basically, yeah, he did. you raise the point why did he lie? it was dick cheney who told scooter libby that valerie plame worked for the counter proliferation division at the cia. >> that's what "time" reports today. >> we reported that in our book, too. there's a lot of overlap. that's not a new fact, that cheney was the one who told scooter libby where she worked and earlier scooter libby had

from the state department and cia on valerie wilson. then when the investigators come along a couple months later, he says, i heard it from tim russert. which is his line, and why he was convicted, he said he completely forgot that dick cheney ever talked to him about this and then when he heard it from tim russert, it was like he was learning it for the first time. a jury listened to him say that. they said that's baloney. that's why he was convicted. >> let's talk about where this ends right now. the president said no to him. >> three times. >> the president said no. do you have a sense from your reporting that the president believed that scooter libby and the vice president were in cahoots on trying to out valerie wilson as a cia agent as part of the effort to cover up basically the whole question of why we went to war with iraq? >> there's some evidence in the grand jury testimony as it came out in the trial that perhaps the vice president and libby actually asked bush to come to scooter's defense at the time in 2003. it's not clear, and i don't know, we don't know whether bush was aware that that was incorrect, whether he found out later, whether he cares even now. what's clear is that when it came time to decide to cut this

guy a second break under considerable pressure from the vice president, pressure that was really unrelenting, he declined. >> here is a guy, scooter libby, who came down to washington, gave up a big white shoe law firm practice in philadelphia. he could have made a lot of money. he wanted to come down here and become one of those wise men, one of those great people over the last 50 years or so, who basically stood up for america for no money. good guys. he came down to play that role. he's a bit to the right. he served this president and vice president. he didn't tell the truth to the prosecutors for one reason, there's only one explanation why he didn't tell the truth, because he didn't want to tell what was going on in the administration. he wasn't out robbing gas stations at night. he wasn't doing something else outside the line of duty.

he was performing his political duty on behalf of this administration. even the vice president said don't leave one of our combatants in the field. so he admitted he was part of the team. so if the president knows he was part of the team, knew he was doing the business of the team, then he knows he was lying for the team. that's the obvious fact here. >> the president doesn't want to acknowledge he was lying to protect the president's number one guy, which is dick cheney. i mean, dick cheney says you don't leave someone on the team, but scooter libby took a bullet for dick cheney. >> why? >> i think there were two reasons. i think the overarching reason is he just didn't want to admit that dick cheney and he were trying to dig up whatever they could find on joe wilson and it led to his wife to discredit joe -- >> this is going to help that movie a lot, your story, because if this opens up the whole wound again about scooter libby and we're reminded of this horrible story, how we get talked into the war with phony wmd, how they get upset by the fact that the cia was blaming them for the phony wmd, so they start blaming the cia, including valerie wilson of the cia. >> there's a question of possible legal liability. leaking valerie wilson's name was a possible federal offense.

scooter libby had to worry about his role in that and had to worry about what dick cheney's role in that was, too. wasn't just covering up a political act. it was covering up a possible crime. so he took one not for the team. he took one for his leader, being cheney, not bush, and i think cheney is being somewhat of a standup guy. i think he's delusional when he says scooter libby was an is innocent person. he was trying to protect the guy. >> when sean penn shows up playing joe wilson in the movies, i think the public will know who the good guy is. >> hollywood gets the last word. >> they do, don't they? let me ask you about any other story coming out of this. besides scooter's guilt and all that. >> a little one, not as important or interesting as this. but this does reflect a difference of views after the presidency this. fight that takes place in the final 72 hours, 36 hours, does reflect how they are going to behave and perform after --

>> how they differ. bush comes back to do the library. what is cheney -- >> he comes right back into the fray. he moves right into the washington think tank in a few weeks. >> you're not caulk the american calling the american institute a think tank are you? >> he was first in a transition office but went right back in the fray. started attacking the new administration -- >> so he's going to be the -- he's holding salons and soirees. there used to be a time when people left office and left town. al gore left town, everybody left town. this guy sticks around. he's freddy krueger -- not really. maybe, maybe he's worse. michael, david, thank you. up next, jon stewart takes on the birthers, the right wing crazies, who don't think barack obama is one of us. he's an american. they can't handle the fact he won the election so they're saying he's not an american. that's their argument. we'll see how jon stewart handles it. you're watching "hardball" only on msnbc. ♪

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back to "hardball." time for the "sideshow." first up, speaking of the birther movement. comedy central's jon stewart carried the conspiracy theory to its logical roots last night showing the ends to which some people believe -- must believe that other people went to get this fellow into the white house. he calls it the old kenyan prince birth announcement scam. here it is. >> here is how it goes. you want to destroy america from the inside, but you can't because you're a foreigner. so first you got to find yourself a good old american willing to reproduce with you. then you have that child on foreign soil while

simultaneously placing the birth announcement for that child in one of our fringe states' local newspapers. your hawaiis, your alaskas, your pennsylvanias. you heard me. all right. and then -- kidding. and then -- hold on -- you wait. until this baby is a middle-aged man. now the trap is set. you just sit back and let that child go out and win the election for president of the united states. >> thanks, jon. next up, corruption in jersey. early today in new jersey, the fbi arrested about 40 people in a sweeping money-laundering sting, including the mayors of hoboken and secaucus and a state legislator and several rabbis. what is it about the new jersey waterfront? anyway, now for tonight's "big number," a sign of the times. during last night's primetime press conference, how many times did the president mention the

words iraq or afghanistan? zero. nada. none. what a difference a year makes. all eyes on the health care bill. by the way, we have lost 35 troops in afghanistan this month. but no mention of that, zero mentions of the words overseas, tonight's "big number." zero. up next, back to the birthers, those crazies on the far right who continue to question president obama's americanism, americanness, despite the overwhelming proof barack obama was born in america. so what's going on here? we'll ask one of the birther movement's most prominent members, g. gordon liddy. he's coming here next, and you're watching "hardball," only on msnbc. what's in a triscuit? simple ingredients like soft white winter wheat gathered together for 22 grams of whole grain goodness. it's what makes triscuit worth every bite. triscuit. weave some wonder. triscuit. (groans)

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here's what's happening.

the death of a ussr rust service member in afc today brings the number of americans killed in action this month to 35. so far july is already the deadliest month for u.s. troops since the start of that war. the house approved a bill that will build a high speed championed by obama. a county commission has freed three corrections officers after being convicted of using excessive force. witnesses said the inmate was being belligerent and aggressive. some highly charged thunderstorms caused major delays at airport as lock the eastern seaboard thursday night. eight lightning strikes were reported on the national mall. all within a five-minute period. no serious damage or injuries were reported. those are your latest headlin headlines. now back to "hardball."

welcome back to "hardball." was president obama born in the usa? the answer is yes. the president's birth certificate says he was born in honolulu at 7:24 p.m. on august 4th, 1961. check out this these pictures of the birth certificate held by fact check writer joe miller. state officials in hawaii say they have seen the original birth certificate and verified its authenticity. that includes the governor of the state, who is a republican. the honolulu advertiser, which is a big newspaper there, has faxed to nbc news last night his birth announcement. which was back at the time of his birth in 1961. why are conservative radio talk show hosts fueling doubts about his citizenship, nine members of congress are doing that as well as senator shelby. e. steven collins, g. gordon

libby is a radio talk show host. so here we go. what is your argument, gordon? >> my argument is this whole thing could be settled in a minute if the president would simply produce a valid birth certificate. so far, so far as i know, he has not. all he's produced has been a, quote, certificate of live birth. you can't get a passport with that. you can't even register your son for little league with that. that's the problem. >> i understand that he presented a -- what's called a short version of the birth certificate which is what you need to get a passport. and that's adequate to get one. that's what people expect you to turn over when you go to the state department. the document he has is what you're supposed to show, this thing. right there. this is what you show the state department if you want to get a passport. this is what he's got. >> let me see it, if you would. it's interesting that it's redacted. >> yes, it's redacted. we have a copy of the certificate number. it was redacted by the state officials because they don't want that in circulation, but they made that decision to redact those numbers.

we have a copy we'll show you in a minute. we have it. that's the redacted part. we'll be able to show you now an exhibit showing the -- in fact, a photograph copy of the certificate number. we'll be showing you. this is all available, gordon. here it is. so we have the number. what do you think now? >> well, i would like to check it out. the preponderance of the evidence is as follows. you've got a deposition which is a sworn statement from the step-grandmother who says i was present and saw him born in mombassa, kenya. you have the certificate of live birth that they have here. it's not a birth certificate. it says right on it certificate of live birth. >> how do you explain the announcement in the honolulu advertiser back in '61 when he was born that he was born. how do you explain that?

to the parents he was born to. >> i would want my child born in the united states or at least i would want people to think he was born in the united states so he could have all the advantages of being a -- >> but it listed their address in honolulu. >> and also you have a statement that it was -- >> okay. >> the hospital and that it was the queens hospital. they can't even get that straight. >> if he wasn't born here and he's never gone through a naturalization process, right, that you know of. >> not that i know of. >> therefore, he's here illegally and you're saying he's an undocumented alien. >> illegal alien. >> so he should be picked up. >> well -- >> i'm serious. let's -- and by the way, do you think his wife is in on this, his mother? how many people are in on this conspiracy to make him look like he was born here? i figure his mother must be involved, his grandparents must be involved. how many people are part of this cover-up? >> well, his mother is dead.

>> how many people are part of this presentation that he was born here? >> i don't know. >> the mother would have to say it. she saw him run for president. she saw -- how about the colleges he went to? he went to occidental college, where jack kemp went. do you think they knew he was here illegally? columbia university, harvard law. >> we would like to see the records of those places. apparently they've been available to you but -- >> we have the state health director who says he was born here. the republican governor of the state says he was born in hawaii. why would linda lingle, the republican governor, lie? why would everybody lie going back to 1961? >> well -- >> and nobody gave away the story. >> i don't know -- >> do you think axelrod is a liar? >> who? >> his chief spokesman. do you think david axelrod is a liar? >> why would i think axelrod is a liar? >> because they are all saying they have documentation he was born in the united states. is the governor of hawaii a liar? >> if he would put out the birth certificate -- >> they've done it. here it is. >> no, that's a certificate of live birth.

>> it's the rule in that state they don't hand out copies of the birth certificate. they have pictures of it we'll show you over and over again. pictures of the original -- here they are. what do you think, that was fabricated? >> i can't really see it but i would like to have -- i would like to see it. >> okay. we'll bring those in. we can bring in copies of the original. we have copies of the original photographed. we've gone to an effort, gordon, to establish he was born in hawaii. i just think -- steven, it seems to me the challenge gordon has -- because you have said he was born in the kenyan slums. that means he's an illegal alien. not only illegally president, he's illegally in the united states and he ought to be picked up. >> unless he's been -- >> he's never been naturalized. he's never claimed to have gone through a process. so by your account he's illegally in the country and his mother is involved in this and everybody who has ever dealt with him. do you think his wife, michelle, does she know he wasn't born here is it >> i can't look into

michelle's -- >> all these people say she was. is she part of the cover-up? >> i have no idea. >> you claim he was born in the kenyan slums. you say that as a fact. >> a hospital in mombassa. i didn't say the kenyan slums. >> what's the difference? chris, chris -- >> which hospital in mombassa? i have been over there so many times. where is all this happened? you have a whole history of this fellow in kenya. do we have any evidence it ever happened? >> what ever happened? >> that he was born in kenya. >> yeah, i have the deposition of the step-grandmother who said she witnessed it. >> okay. your witness. e. steven, go ahead, i'm sorry. >> i'm flabbergasted. this is so ridiculous. it really is. i met president obama before he

was president. many people across this nation and around the world know him to be an honest person. this is so ridiculous. this goes to is he muslim and all of that ridiculousness started by the same person. did he -- is he not a true american, the little flag issue. come on. this is just another desperate move, i think, by the republican party to try to pull down this great man, and i just don't understand why there's such a consistent pattern here. you have all that information up there. if you got it, then gordon can get it and everybody else in america can get it. why do that? we have serious issues right now. we have a huge economy, millions of people out of work, people are concerned about health care and want to see something done, and we're sitting here tonight wasting time talking about is he an american. come on. that's just -- you know what? final point i want to make here is if barack obama was a polish-american or german-american, there would be

no discussion anywhere in this country about his citizenship. this is because many people in this nation cannot still accept the fact that a brilliant african-american is the commander in chief, and they're looking for ways to reduce the greatness of his -- not just his intellect, but his honesty and his purity as a person who is serving this nation. >> well, we've got several military officers who have refused to recognize him as a commander in chief, and there are cases working their way, i guess, through the courts on that, but i think what will happen is that when he registers to run in 2012 for the second term, then you will have the opportunity to prove that he is an american citizen, if you can. >> why do we have to even begin, mr. liddy, to even justify that statement? why? the president -- i spoke to the white house today. they were crystal clear in indicating everything chris just

went through, all of the details. they've done it. i'm paying attention to what he's actually doing, which is focusing in on issues that matters to america. >> what you're doing is making a speech praising your president. >> i'm not making a speech. i'm not. this is a point of fact. what other president had to go through this? >> you say -- the secretary of state -- >> the question of fact is not, you know, whether he's focusing on this problem or that problem. the question of fact is was he or was he not born in the united states. >> but that already has been -- >> i want to give the viewers some guidance here. the state health director in honolulu has put out this statement, that the records are available in the files there. the governor of the state has said the records are there and they've all seen them. there are all -- they don't

allow the original documents to go out. they put out this document. they have redacted the certificate number on it. they've done what you normally do to get a passport. there was a birth announcement at the time. i don't see how you can believe that the mother of this president, the white mother, if you will, back 48 years ago constrived to to put out an announcement in hawaii that her boy was born there so somehow 48 years later her boy can become president of the united states. >> it's a wonderful thing to be a citizen of this country rather than a citizen of kenya, and you don't have to -- everyone wants their child to be able -- >> according to the government of hawaii, he was born at 7:24, august 4th, 1961, in honolulu. he had an african father, caucasian mother. the names are familiar to us all. >> which hospital? >> it just says state of hawaii. >> just like my birth

certificate. >> they've given out two different hospitals. >> it says exactly the same thing. >> if this is proven at any point in the next several weeks to your satisfaction, what will you do about it? >> i'll broadcast. >> and you'll say you were wrong. >> sure i'll say i was wrong if i was wrong. >> thank you. that's all i want. thank you g. gordon liddy and steve collins. up next, president obama backs off the idea of getting health care done before the next recess. now saying he wants it done by the fall. will congress meet the new deadline? this is "the politics fix" up next on msnbc. my doctor told me something i never knew.

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we're back. time for the "politics fix" with chuck todd and politico's josh gersten. last night two points. first of all, what was the president trying to say or not say during that hour press conference last night on health care? >> it seems he was trying to do two things, one, trying to rally some support from middle america, try to put some of this stuff into english, but it also sounded like he was negotiating a bit with congress. he had just gotten off the phone, chris, about an hour before the press conference with max baucus, chairman of the senate financial committee. he got an update about where they are. so i think, for instance, that's why you didn't hear a detailed

defense and plan about what the government-run health plan would look like. you heard some vague references to it, but you didn't hear exactly how it would work. why? because we know bachus is working on the idea of a co-op, and frankly i think that's what made last night's news conference a bit of a waste for the president. why? because it was supposed to be the conference that was going to be to explain the health care plan. well, he had nothing to explain last night. >> josh, it seems that one of the things we saw last night was the president didn't want to do something that bill and hillary clinton did, which was jam it through. so he went the other way. it's almost like he was saying, i have three republicans on the hill. chuck grassley, snowe, and ensly. he wanted them to feel good. >> i thought it was a rather unfocused performance, that he gave different answers. at one point he seemed to tell people, you'll never have to sacrifice anything, and later he said we could be talking about a fairly dramatic overhaul. i wasn't clear what the viewer at home was supposed to do? were you supposed to call your congressman? feel better about the situation?

get mad at someone about something? maybe he was trying to tell us to stay calm, but it's strange to have a press conference for that. >> the senate financial committee put out the word this afternoon, you've seen it as well as we all have, that they won't be able to get the bill through the senate before the august recess, but they hope to get it through the committee. it seems that would be paydirt if they could get it out of committee. >> that's right. the plan is to get it out of the senate finance committee so that during the august recess, reid and the senate leadership can figure out how to merge the dodd/kennedy big out of the health committee and the finance bill. rahm emanuel has been on capitol hill all day today, meeting on the house side with the blue-dog democrats, the conservative democrats and the leadership, because they still want to try to get an actual bill passed in

the house, and the question is, do these house conservative democrats in the district want to walk a plank before they know what's coming out of the senate. we talked a lot about that, and they said, wait a minute, we did it on cap and trade, and we have no idea if the senate will ever vote on cap and trade. don't make us vote for something that the senate will never vote for. we'll know by monday whether the president and rahm emanuel can get a bill out of house. we'll be back to talk about dick cheney with our top reporters. back with "hardball" and the chennee/bush war that seems to be going on. is your haircolor perfect 10?

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we're back with chuck todd and the politico's josh guess steen. vice president cheney's testimony under oath in the scooter libby case, will we see that testimony? >> this was just an interview to the prosecutor pat fitzgerald. >> under oath? >> i don't believe it was under oath. i believe it was an informal sit-down interview with pat fitzgerald. to the group's surprise, the obama administration, lanny brewer, a former clinton white house attorney, also refusing to turn over this dick cheney

interview, saying this would chill future white houses from cooperating with criminal investigations. >> the question is, chuck, five years, ten years, the judge is trying to decide how long something can be a political football, and when it becomes a need for history. how do we decide as a journalist you would like to have access to everything, right? >> absolutely. you want everything opened up. i remember i wanted more questions asked during the campaign, and i know we did during debates, but it's amazing, it doesn't matter which party the president is, it's funny how executive privilege and this idea of protecting, you know, the secrecy issues that a president has at their disposal, no president usually wants to give that up once they have it. >> why doesn't david axelrod or somebody at the white house grab a copy of the original document

of the president's birth certificate -- you're laughing because this is an absurdity, but throw it out to a reasonable reporter that types it up and makes an official story and makes it available in some bin so someone can look at it, like the wack jobs. >> then the obama campaign posted that copy of the certificate of live birth from the state of hawaii, that they fed the conspiracy theory. every time you throw something -- you decide, okay, i'll throw another -- maybe this will shut them off, it only feeds the theory that you have something -- see? we wouldn't have gotten that piece of information if we didn't -- so there's that argument the more you talk about it, the more you help the cause of the wack jobs. >> the zoo bus is becoming a convoy out there, and maybe this is a -- >> that's the internet's fault. >> i agree. chuck, you're the best. chuck todd, josh guess steen,

join us tomorrow night. right now it's time for "the ed show" with et schultz. "countdown with keith olbermann" starts right now. which of these stories will we be talking about tomorrow? the gop cries uncle in health care reform after promising a plan the republicans say they won't offer one. and the rnc chair says why bother? the democrats should have the votes anyway. but the hard work of governing isn't too hard for the president. >> never closer to achieving equality for affordable health care for all americans. >> a harder time uniting democrats on capitol hill. and a day of distraction after obama's news conference. >> the cambridge police acted stupidly. >> the president says he stands by those worz and surprised by the uproar, a reaction led in part by rush limbaugh. >> last week we saw white firefighters under assault by agents of barack obama. now white policemen are under assault from the east room of

the white house. >> the two faces of governor, bobby jindal. the stimulus is a failure, dc is bad. or, congratulations, please accept this money from me and here's a nice commemorative big check with my name on it. the two sides of liz cheney offers a chance to weigh in on obama citizenship. she decides to throw fuel on the fire instead. >> people are uncomfortable with having for the first time ever a president to seem so reluctant to defend the nation overseas. >> and move over sopranos, it's too much for "law & order." how new jersey pales in comparison with the busts in the garden state. two mayors, two family men, several rabbis. the corruption and trafficking