house. for now, the pressure needs to stay on it. there needs to be a public option the president is going to meet with religious lead foreabout 45 minutes next wednesday. how big a play is this, jon that? >> this president made a big public outreach to evan yell cass. he had an idea there would be younger, more malleable evangelicals that wouldn't be fixated on one issue, abortion. right now it's going to be a tough sell, because the evangelicals have been nailing him on this idea of abortion and euthanasia. he might be changing the subject too late. he should have been doing this a long time ago, frankly. >> karen, where is the christian leaders in this country? the four i named at the top of the show tonight, they've been

very silent on the moral obligation to cover every american. what do you think? >> i think it's interesting, you were saying earlier in christ came back, if this was the second coming, what would he do? we know he was very careful not to let the pharisees entrap him in legalistic disputes, and i think that would be the case with this 1,000-page bill. the christian community, we have an obligation to care for the poor, children, widows, and i think a lot of churches do that. i'm not sure there's something in the bible that talks about should you have a single health care payer program? and i think it's very -- i think it's very, quite frankly, i think you really pushed the limits, ed. >> i'm not pushing it -- we're out of time, but i want to say i am not pushing the limits on this, because if jesus were to come back and have the second coming while we're on the face

of the earth, i don't think he would be denying care to anybody. >> you think during the rapture you he would take up health care? you're crazy. the christians, those who have dedicated their lives to christ will go back to having a crisis -- >> we're going to talk about this tomorrow night. >> that's great. "hardball" is next. have a great one. who's winning the town hall meetings? let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm lawrence o'donnell in new york in for chris matthews. leading off tonight, taking a toll. for all the talk about how the rowdy health care town halls are stocked with ringers, so so-called astroturf rent-a-mobs, now there's evidence they're

having their intended effect. a new "usa today"/gallup poll shows a margin of better than 2 to 1 independents say the town hall rantings of the stunningly ignorant protesters have made them more sympathetic to the protesters. and could that be because people like senator charles grassley of iowa, who is the senior republican on the senate finance committee who is supposedly seeking a bipartisan solution and who knows better, says things like this? >> we should not have a government program that determines you're going to pull the plug on grandma. >> there's room for legitimate disagreement about health care reform, but when a united states senator says you have every right to fear the government killing grandma, we've reached the point where the demagogues have seized control of the debate. in a moment we'll see if two members of congress can have a "hardball" discussion of this issue without resorting to provable lies and scare tactics. and there were many lessons learned from the clintons' failed crusade for health care reform back in the '90s.

did the obama administration heed them? we'll compare the hillary care debacle with what's going wrong right now. plus, cheney unleashed. the former vice president is working on his memoirs, and "the washington post" says he plans to criticize former president bush for going soft and rejecting his advice in the second term. is this cheney's revenge for bush's refusal to pardon his buddy, scooter libby? plus, what exactly was hillary clinton implying when she told nigerians that the 2000 presidential election in this country came down to one state run by the brother of one of the candidates? that's in "the politics fix." and would you believe mayor brad pitt? what the hollywood star said about running for mayor of new orleans in the "hardball sideshow." but we begin with the raging debate over health care that is taking place across the country. joining me now is congresswoman niki tsongas, a democrat of

massachusetts, and congressman brian bilbray, a republican from california. niki tsongas, you heard chuck grassley, who has been negotiating with democrats in the senate, not refute when given the chance this notion of death panels that is not in any bill anywhere. let's listen to what he actually said about it yesterday. i won't name people in congress or people in washington, but there's some people that think it's a terrible problem that grandma's laying in the hospital bed with tubes in her. in the house bill there's counseling for end of life, and from that standpoint you have every right to fear. you shouldn't have counseling at the end of life. you ought to have counseling 20 years before you're going to die. we should not have a government program that determines you're going to pull the plug on grandma. >> niki tsongas, do the american

people have every right to fear that the government might pull the plug on grandma? >> well, i'm actually surprised at senator grassley because this notion and this version of what's in the house bill has been absolutely debunked. it's true there is a provision in there that says that if physicians have a conversation with their patient, that they have a right around these issues, all of which are very, very important, that they have a right to be reimbursed for their time spent at this. it doesn't require that conversation. it can be initiated by a patient as they learn of great challenges of their own health care, but this interpretation that senator grassley has given it is one that, as i said, has been absolutely debunked, and i think in order for us to have the kind of discussion we really do need to have, we have to moderate the tone of it and not use our differences to, again, do nothing. >> congressman bilbray, has any member of your staff rushed into your office pointing to a section of any one of these bills as written to say hey, look, hey, look, the government

is going to kill grandma? >> no, they haven't. in fact, what they've pointed out is this kind of fear is why we shouldn't be trying to at least give the appearance that we're rushing to judgment and trying to force something. i think once we start setting arbitrary deadlines and saying we don't have time to talk about this, it sets off that paranoia, that concern that government is somehow doing something that they don't want us to know about, and i think that end of life consultation is something we need to talk about as a society, as a community, and i think the biggest concern is that people are saying is there something in this bill that i'm not allowed or shouldn't be reading and that sets off this concern. so i think this is a good reason why we should be slowing down, having a dialogue, talking about this and not fearing these town hall meetings. i'm a former mayor when i was in my 20s. frankly, this is a great dialogue we're having back and forth. both sides are very spirited, they're very concerned, and rightfully so they want a chance to be able to dialogue about

this. i think if we want to stop these scare tactics as we talk about them, then let's slow down and stop pushing an agenda that moves so quickly that people think the worst rather than looking for the best. >> all right. let's listen to what i actually think is the most important thing that chuck grassley said that everybody has missed. tactically this is the most important thing. he said to this crowd that he wanted credit for slowing down the health reform process. >> well, i think that i have by sticking my finger in the dike, i have had the opportunity to give the grassroots of america an opportunity to speak up as you're seeing every day on television, and i think that that's a good thing. >> niki tsongas, president obama mentions chuck grassley constantly as one of the responsible republicans in the senate who is trying to work on a solution. chuck grassley when given a

chance to describe to his constituents what he's doing, he says he's sticking his fingers in the dike. that must have been pretty disappointing for you democrats in the house who have been waiting for the senate to move and waiting for the senate finance committee in particular which has missed all the deadlines chairman max baucus set for it in getting the legislation done. >> i'd like to go back to the notion that we're going too slow. in addition to doing the two town halls i've done as a part of this august district work period which have been so helpful to me and i think important to my constituents, i also have done four telephone town halls which allows me to use technology to reach across the districts. in one of them i had an 85-year-old gentleman from lawrence, massachusetts, an old industrial city, that said -- he campaigned, he's now 85, he campaigned for president truman on the issue of health insurance. this is an issue that we have been dealing with as a country

for almost 60 years, and in this past presidential election our two major candidates agreed we needed to do something, and so we do have that moment. we've had 60 hearings in the house of representatives, three committees have reported out their piece, and this is a moment in time that we have to take advantage of because of the cost of doing nothing is simply too great. we all know the escalating costs of health insurance premiums. they're rising three times faster than wages. we know, we hear the data that if we don't do anything within ten years we could be spending $1 out of $5 generated in this country on health care. we know that we hear the figures that each one of us is paying over $1,000 a year to help cover the cost of those who are uninsured, and we now finally have a moment in time where we have a president elected and committed to making a difference, working with the house, working with the senate, and committed to going forward. so, you know, i think it's a specious argument to suggest that we haven't been working on

this for many, many years, but do i think we have an obligation this month of august and throughout this discussion to get out there, use all forms of communication to reach out, answer people's questions, tweak the bill as we hear concerns that we need to address, but in a sense debunk all the myths? yes, i absolutely do. so i think it's been a very important month, but again i think we cannot use these differences to go back to doing nothing. we simply cannot sustain the path we're on. >> congressman bilbray, as we all know the minority party in the house is always powerless. there's nothing you could have done to stick your finger in the dike and prevent those committees from taking action, but what you do need on the republican side if the republicans are going to kill this is someone in the senate who has the power to stick his finger in the dike as senator grassley has said now that's what he's been doing. now, is that really what's going on here? is this delay, is the

grassley-imposed delay in the senate about killing the bill or about getting a bill? >> lawrence, no, it's about let's take a look at this. i mean, when people talk about we don't have time to talk about it, we don't have time for people to read about this, and if it's such a crisis, why is the implementation date at 2013? and 2013 is not tomorrow. so they slow down, and it's legitimate for people to have a question, lawrence, about the fact that if you ask somebody would you like to have a free house, a lot of people would say yes. but if you asked them would you like to have public housing, it's a totally different answer. >> congressman bilbray, what would you be prepared to vote for? what could chuck grassley negotiate for you in the senate finance committee that you would be prepared to vote for in health care reform? >> first of all, give individuals the same tax credit that we give big business, big labor, and big government, the same tax benefits. that should be out there right away to allow people to independently do that. portability is a major issue we talk about. the pre-existing condition i think is something we can

actually do, but let's remember, too, we need to look at tort reform. let's get the lawyers out of the operating room. you know -- >> would you be prepared to vote for a bill that extends health care insurance and subsidizes it for people who currently cannot afford it? >> only if they participate in a different type of program than what we see in a lot of places. i think what's exciting is you look at niki's state, here is a state that's very aggressive. here is a state that can dive into it -- >> are you in favor of the massachusetts plan? it was a republican plan. >> i think i'm in favor of massachusetts. i'm very in favor of states being aggressive about this because they're small enough to be able to address if they make a mistake. you've got to understand, niki's state is smaller than one of our counties. we have a county 50% bigger just in california. niki's state is manageable. it's 6 million people. it's not 300 million people which would be the largest health care system in the world by a magnitude of five to six times. ings i think niki's state has taken a great experiment. it's a great way we ought to

look at to see what works and what doesn't work. they have a size we can manage. we don't have to wait 60 years to admit we made a mistake. >> niki, you can tell speaker pelosi that brian bilbray is now in favor of insurance reforms and an individual mandate as has occurred in massachusetts. >> well, massachusetts reform has been an important one. >> what does the experience in massachusetts tell us, especially the struggle they have been having financing that plan? >> i think you have a number of things the massachusetts plan has done. one, it shows you can actually have a partnership between the private sector and the public sector. so what you've done is strengthen private insurance companies and strengthened employer-based insurance. at the same time you recognize that there are people who cannot afford insurance, whether their income levels are too low or whether they're a small business that cannot compete and negotiate with insurance companies and have the same efficiencies and have the same negotiating power that a larger company does. so by creating an exchange, you create access for the many who

are uninsured, and you make a commitment to helping them pay, but on the other hand they also have to pay a portion of their insurance, and you also create a place that small businesses and the self-employed can go to find affordable insurance. and the benefit to all of us is it brings down the cost of care across the system. also lost in this discussion is the really important insurance reform debate that are so significant to every american whether it's saying an insurance company can no longer -- >> we just got a democrat and republican agreement on this show about the insurance reforms. brian bilbray is ready to go on that. >> we did. and there's some others. you cannot have a lifetime cap on whether an insurance company is willing to pay out. you cannot drop someone when they become too expensive. you cannot do rating. your insurance premiums cannot be based on gender. i would hope my colleague from california could agree on those as well. because they are so important.

>> brian bilbray, you can agree on those, can't you? >> i can agree on a lot of things as long as we understand that when we put mandates on the insurance options, instead of going to the credit union option that i think that we ought to be looking at, let's not just look at the government option. let's not look at big business. let's allowed independent people to make independent decisions and let's not have a situation where we ignore not only the quality, but the cost is a big one, and the next big crisis, you mark my words, lawrence, and niki will jump on this, you watch, the next big crisis in the decade is not do you have insurance, but do you have a doctor, do you have a nurse? these are all things nobody wants to talk about right now. if we're going to talk about comprehensive we have to talk about these coverage issues, we have to talk about cost. we have to talk about the whole issue of how are we going to get the lawyers not to take a pound of flesh out of this issue. >> congressman bilbray, we will bring you back to talk about that. thank you congresswoman tsongas and congressman bilbray. >> thank you larry. coming up, the president's health care plan is in critical

condition. did the obama administration learn the right lessons from the hillary care disaster? you're watching "hardball" only on msnbc. ♪ well i was shopng for a new car, ♪ ♪ which one's me - a cool convertible or an suv? ♪ ♪ too bad i didn't know my credit was whack ♪ ♪ 'cause now i'm driving off the lot in a used sub-compact. ♪ ♪ f-r-e-e, that spells free credit report dot com, baby. ♪ ♪ saw their a on my tv ♪ thought about going but was too lazy ♪ ♪ now instead of looking fly and rollin' phat ♪ ♪ my legs are sticking to the vinyl ♪ ♪ and my posse's getting laughed at. ♪ ♪ f-r-e-e, that spells free- credit report dot com, baby. ♪ but i've still got room for the internet. with my new netbook from at&t. with its built-in 3g network, it's fast and small, so it goes places other laptops can't. i'm bill kurtis, and wherever i go, i've got plenty of room for the internet. and the nation's fastest 3g network. gun it, mick.

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thththththththththththththththt. call or click today. is while i don't share the chairman's joy at our holding hearings on a government-run health care system, i do share his intention to make the debate and the legislative process as exciting as possible. >> i'm sure you will do that, mr. armey. >> we'll do the best we can. >> you and dr. kevorkian.

>> i have been told about your charm and wit, and let me tell you, the reports on your charm are overstated and the reports on your wit are understated. >> thank you, thank you very much. >> welcome back to "hardball." the last time a president tried to reform health care, the first lady led the charge, and clinton health care reform died in congress. what lessons can president obama take from the clintons efforts? jacob hacker is a yale professor and the author of a book about the clinton health care plan called "the road to nowhere." and haynes johnson wrote about the 2008 presidential race in the new book "the battle for america 2008," and he wrote a behind-the-scenes account of the clinton health care reform effort in the book "the system." jacob hacker, if there's a page in your book that you would want everyone in the white house to read this weekend, if there's a chapter, what would you highlight for them? what should they be studying? >> well, i would probably point to a chapter in my book entitled "the plan" in which i talk about

some of the major mistakes that the clinton reformers made, but i think that the obama reformers have definitely paid attention to what happened in 1993-'94. they have, i think, been very attentive to the concerns about that episode, but i think at the same time they may have overlearned some of the lessons of '93-'94. you know, there were two big lessons i think that people took correctly out of '93-'94. one was that the president had tried to manage the process too directly, to develop his own proposal and to put it out there himself and really make it a white house effort. and the second lesson that was taken out of the clinton reform failure was that whatever reformers did, they shouldn't do anything to threaten the existing private insurance arrangements on which americans relied, but i think both of those lessons very important needed to be learned, have been overlearned to a little bit of -- too much of an extent, and

in particular i think that the one lesson of the clinton reform effort that has seemed to have been forgotten is that they really need to have a positive case for change that you're presenting consistently and that's simple from the very beginning of the reform effort. >> haynes johnson, how much deja vu are you experiencing these days and what do you think is the most important lesson for the obama team to have learned? >> enormously hearing hillary just say that about dr. kevorkian just a minute ago brought it all back to me, the way the bitterness of it, the failure of the plan, and i think the real lesson in this is you can't do it unless it's bipartisan and that's the difficulty because we're now more polarized than we were 15 years ago and the issues are greater, more people have less insurance, and we are in an economic time where people are anxious understandably, so you have the problem where a president's greatest power is the power of persuasion, and you have to do that. the clinton people did for a while, but they didn't have the skills that obama has of reaching over and trying to bring the country together. that's why he won the presidency.

now he's facing a tremendously difficult task, so i think this is an even greater and more fateful titanic struggle than we had 15 years ago. >> jacob hacker, do you think the senate finance committee is showing a little too much nostalgia for the old days of bipartisanship? >> yeah, i don't think -- as haynes was saying, this is such a partisan political environment. i don't think it's realistic to think we're going to have the kind of bipartisan back room deal we had for example on social security back in the 1980s or on tax reform under ronald reagan. i think this is going to be inevitably a very partisan fight, and i don't think that the lesson i would take from the clinton reform debate was that bipartisanship is the precondition of action. what i would say is that the really important thing is that the president has to move very

quickly and decisively, and he does have to bring moderate -- in this case moderate republicans on board, but that could occur through pressure and through persuasion toward the end of the process. it doesn't have to be a backroom deal, and i don't think they're going to get a persuasive backroom deal. i mean, i think to go back to the point i was making earlier, the president was right to make this a congressionally centered effort and he was right to focus on reforms that would help those who don't have access to insurance today to get access to good options. but what he really needs to do now is show how middle class americans who have coverage will benefit from the reforms he supports. he needs to get out there in front of the debate and not let members of congress and what they're talking about drive the discussion. >> now, the thing that i find eerie about both of these debates in both periods is the plans being discussed are absolutely inexplicable. there is no kitchen table in america where anybody in any family can explain to anyone else in the family what it is the congress is considering, and haynes johnson, i remember you

coming around to my office when i was working at the finance committee at the time and many others interviewing people about what we were doing, and we all had these day-to-day notions of who made what mistake today, and my retrospect of it was nothing was passable. the goalposts kept moving. the whole thing was impossible and what we should have done was go for something much more simple, what the liberals in the house now call medicare for all. what every strategist tells you is that's a political loser, but i want you both to consider the following. what if, after hillary's disaster, the democrats said absolutely nothing and then they started getting serious about trying to advance the debate on medicare for all? maybe 15 years later, like around now, the country might be ready for a serious vote on medicare for all. the debate might have ripened if they had started it that long ago. does that sound like a wacky lefty idea to you? >> not at all. as a matter of fact, i support that. it makes great sense to me. what we want is something that works, and it's so complex you

cannot understand it, and everybody knows it. it allows itself to be frightened and scared, what we're seeing in all the town hall meetings. if you do this slowly, incrementally, piece by piece, wait a while, explain it to the country, be the educator, be the public educator. here is where it's going to affect you, so you can understand it. if you can't understand it, it won't work and you're going to have this kind of debacle that we had 15 years ago and is now generating so much heat and passion. it's not a case of bipartisanship entirely. i agree with my colleague on this. that's not the point. the point is you've got to go slowly. you've got to bring in people into the center, and you've got to see what then comes and you've got to educate the people. >> jacob, as i told haynes at the time at the end of our 24 hearings in the senate finance committee on health care reform that year, chairman moynihan at the end of the final hearing put his hand over the microphone and simply turned to me and said why don't we just delete the word 65 and older from the medicare statute? it would be explainable. if you don't understand

medicare, you're related to somebody who does. your grandmother, your mother, someone can explain it to you. you don't have to go to a town hall meeting to have it explained. do you think if the democrats had made that their crusade for the last 15 years, we might actually be at the tipping point where the country would be ready to go for it? >> i'm not sure that's true, but i think you're absolutely right that we really need to have a simple alternative that's on the table and that's grounded in something that people are familiar with like medicare, and i think during the campaign president obama did a very good job talking about the idea that this was going to be creating a simple set of options for people. if you didn't have coverage from your employer or you weren't happy with it or if you were a small employer that wasn't able to provide good options to your workers, you would be able to go into some kind of new pool where there would be a choice of a medicare-like public plan, and that idea, the public plan, has become such a flash point of

conflict. i think part of it is, as you suggested, that democrats really haven't laid the groundwork. what senator moynihan said back in '94 is actually the strategy that advocates of medicare wanted to follow after it was passed. they thought it would expand to cover children. they thought it would expand and it did expand to cover the disabled. they thought over time that people who are at lower incomes might be enrolled in the program as well, and so it would be a steppingstone to broader coverage, but what we've seen instead is that the democrats have been very reluctant to talk about medicare. they're worried because its costs are out of control and as a result many americans don't realize medicare is a government program. >> jacob, we're going to have to leave it there. we three could go on and on about that. thank you, jacob hacker and haynes johnson. anybody working in the white house who haven't read these two books, you have to do it this weekend. up next, will actor brad pitt consider making the big move to politics following in the footsteps of arnold schwarzenegger and ronald reagan? that's up next in the "hardball sideshow."

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back to "hardball." time for the "sideshow." first up, brad pitt for mayor? not so fast. on this morning's "today" show, the star addressed the calls to run for office in new orleans where he bought a home in 2007 and founded a charity to help victims of hurricane katrina. here he is. >> have you seen the t-shirts? >> i have seen the t-shirts. >> i'm looking at this here, and it's pretty good. there's a nice rendering of you, i think. >> okay. >> right? if chosen, would you run? >> yeah, yeah. >> would you serve? >> yeah. i'm running on the gay marriage, no religion, legalization and taxation on marijuana platform. >> okay. >> i don't have a chance. >> and a political career comes to an end.

and now, a blast from the past. remember betsy wright, the top aide to then-arkansas governor bill clinton? she's probably best known for handling candidate clinton's so-called bimbo eruptions during his 1992 campaign for president. well, betsy wright's back in the news. she's been accused of visiting an arkansas prison and trying to smuggle a knife and 48 tattoo needles in, get this, a doritos bag. wright's defense, she said she found the doritos bag lying at the bottom of the vending machine. from suppressing bimbo eruptions to prison smuggling. clinton world, still stranger than fiction. time for tonight's "big number." the house health care bill's provision for end of life counseling has given rise to bizarre right wing talk of obama death panels. the critics claim the democrats are trying to pull the plug on grandma for money. here is a reality check. how much does the congressional budget office say the program will actually cost? yes, yes, cost the federal

government over the next ten years. $2.7 billion. so don't be surprised if it falls out of the bill because it's just too expensive. the end of life counseling provision will cost, not save, cost the government $2.7 billion. tonight's "big number." up next, is former vice president dick cheney ready to reveal his frustration with george bush in his new book? revelations about the rift between bush and cheney with pat buchanan and tom defrank. you're watching "hardball" only on msnbc. this is my verizon small business specialist, tom. now, i know the catering business but when i walked in here i wasn't sure what i needed. i'm not sure what i need. tom showed me how to use mifi to get my whole team working online, on location. i was like, "woah". woah ! only verizon wireless has small business specialists

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this is humiliating. stand still so we can get an accurate reading.