so the democrats would be down in the lone star state. >> quickly, mark, the republican response is our major focus on the president, his speech the most important, curious about the republican response and if they have to worry about appearing to be the party of just no and not with a counter idea. >> we've seen it. it's been a very big pr fight who is walking away from making health care a partisan issue. republicans have said they are willing to work with president obama. they want him to start over. when you have looked at whether or not a lot of the negotiations have been in good faith a lot of democrats say that republicans haven't been quick to come and put together a good health care legislation. who wins the pr war is very important in all of this. >> mark, real quickly, gene schmidt is cowards cut and run, marines never do.

is she safe in her district? >> she could be in trouble. if the democrats have a strong challenger, she could have a fight on her hands. >> i'm david schuster. >> i'm tamyrn hall. thanks for joining us. have to race to get dinner to watch the president's speech. "hardball" starts right now. the president's big night. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm lawrence o'donnell in for chris matthews in washington. leading off tonight, president obama's big night. yes, it is going too far to say president barack obama's presidency rides on tonight's speech, but after a frenzied summer of raucous town halls and

slipping numbers and general agreement the president has lost control of the health care debate tonight is the president's chance to set the reset button. what should we look for tonight? how will we know the speech is a success? we will give you a smart viewer's guide to the speech coming up. what will the president say about a public option? former dnc chairman howard dean will be here to tell us if the democrats will draw a line in the sand and insist no public option, no bill. getting to 60. what does president obama have to do to win over a republican or two to get to the magic filibuster vote 60 votes. we hear that. david axelrod will preview what we can expect from the president tonight. and we will check what last-minute negotiations on capitol hill ahead of the president's address. we'll be back with a live edition of "hardball" at 7:00

eastern. at 8:00 stay with us for live coverage of president obama's speech. after that it is "countdown with keith olbermann" at 9:00 and "the rachel maddow" show at 10:00 and "the ed show" at 11:00. chuck todd is nbc's political director and "newsweek's" howard fineman is an msnbc political analyst. chuck todd, you have the best speech writers in the business worksing frantically for days along with the best speech giver in the business, in my time working in the senate, i never saw a speech save legislation. do these guys know something i don't? >> i don't think they believe they have to save legislation. i think the goal of this speech as far as that is concerned is to create a little bit of political space. i thought you set it up very well. it is about retaking control of

the debate. the president this morning in an interview on as we say another network admitted something we've known for some time, he left too much ambiguity out there and too much of the details to congress. he admitted that may have been a mistake. the white house won't say that is a mistake, but they will say now is the time to bring it all together. we are going to take control of this debate and tell you what the obama plan is and joe and jane in kansas city are going to know what the obama plan is and after tonight i think the goal and this is what i'm confused about, lawrence, in fact, it is a question i have to you as someone with experience, after the speech what is the sledgehammer to congress to get it done? okay, if this is the last ten yards you are trying to go, the last 20% what is the sledgehammer the white house will have after tonight to get it through and get a bill on his

desk? >> chuck, i don't have an answer for you on that. i don't know a legislative strategy that get you from here to the end. howard fineman, you know political history better than i do. i was asleep in the '80s, you were paying attention. is there a speech we can point to and say that speech to the congress or to the country saved the legislation in trouble? >> the key word is saved. i think the answer to that is no, lawrence. i think there have been speeches that helped revive presidencies. bill clinton gave one in the '90s that focused on the nuts and bolts of government. his state of the union speech. the public liked that. it is possible to speak over the heads of washington and revive your pill standing. i think this is part of what this is about. his poll numbers are sagging, his numbers on health care are sagging. he is not speaking to

legislators tonight but to the public. this is the kind of speech you want to give just before the final votes after the conference committee, after the legislation, you've watch this sausage being made. he is giving the ultimate speech at what is the beginning of the process. the committees haven't -- these measures, first of all haven't been voted on by the committees, the house or the senate, there hasn't been a conference committee to reconcile differences and there haven't been vote by either chamber. we are at the begin. remember the pamphlets of how a bill becomes a law, we are on page two not page 20 and he is giving the final dramatic speech. >> floating around in these pages of legislation is a lengtening list of broken obama campaign promises. this is to be financed by allowing the top tax bracket to return to what it was under the clinton administration.

in fact the house of representatives has passed three new top tax brackets on top of that. barack obama campaigned eloquently and i thought strategiably brilliantly against health care mandates. hillary clinton was in favor of an individual mandate. barack obama was opposed to any mandates. these bills have an employer mandate and individual mandate. has the white house begun to figure out how to deal with the looming possibility of some very real and serious breaks of campaign promises here? >> well, i think, look, what we've been told tonight, for tonight, without being specific on which side he is going to come down, he is going to be clearer on the mandate issue, talk about the responsibility of employers and the responsibility -- i don't -- this idea of a fine, km is popping up in the baucus bill, senator max baucus, chairman of the finance committee, i don't think you are going to hear that out of the president's mouth

tonight. i don't think that is something they want to go to. talking about getting everyone covered. that is by the way, how they want to assuage the left. i'm going to assign legislation to cover all americans. you want to get into details. does that mean universal coverage or universal access. we can debate and parse that statement. he wants to look at the american public with a straight face and say there is opportunity for health care coverage for everybody and if you can't afford it here is a tax credit. he thinks that can be the pitch to the left who says if you don't have the public option immediately we are not going to vote for this thing. he is hoping, hey, if i'm promising coverage of everybody shouldn't that be the ultimate goal. >> well, one minor problem with that, chuck, a lot of people have lost sight of in a lot of these bills is none of these

bills reach universal coverage. he is not going to be able to say under any scenario out there everyone is covered. go ahead, howard. >> he is going to be able to use the word universal as it applies to some mechanism by which people will be required to have coverage. to answer the question about the broken campaign promises, my sense of this white house and its political strategy is this. they want to say at the end of the day they did something historic. it is going to have all kinds of asterisks and footnotes. >> you bet. >> but they are going to say it is historic. barack obama is a historic figure in and of himself. his election is historic and he is doing historic things. pay no attention to those campaign promises. they are minor details he made. that is what their strategy. >> the hot-button issue is the public ops. let's look at how the president will talk about the public

option tonight. he was in speaking to the labor groups on labor day weekend and had one sentence about the public option. was soft approach to it and, chuck, it doesn't take a mind reader to figure out there is no veto threat over the public option. what can he say tonight about the public option that in any way affects the dynamics of the legislation? >> i think he wants to go on two front on this. one, i have heard this behind the scenes from the white house for a while, the public option isn't directed at 90% of the country. the public option is about 10% of the country. about people that aren't getting coverage or undercovered with insurance. he wants to try to put it in its proper context. 10% to 15% of what is being attempted as far as health care

reform is concerned. not the be all, end all that is one. two, i do think you are going to hear some form of this, mean, when you have olympia snowe, the one republican they are ready to cut a deal with and move on, olympia snowe, the republican senator from maine saying okay with the trigger. to explain the trigger is basically the government says we have a public option. we are threatening the private insurance industry if they don't do xy and z., we will have this hanging over your head as a possibility. that may be a way to save it. olympia snowe came on our air and said if that is what it takes to get everybody together she seems to be -- that is why she came out with the idea. it seems to be getting more traction as far as assuaging the left than the co-op. >> thank you chuck todd and howard fineman. coming up, will president obama

take a strong stand on whether he wants a public option? what about his party? will progressive democrats go for a plan if it does not include a public option? howard dean with be with u.s. next. you are warping "hardball" only on msnbc. [ crying ] [ female announcer ] a touch can now be more calming thanks to pampers sensitive. the only sensitive diaper and wipe clinically proven mild on some of the most sensitive skin. clinically proven mild: pampers sensitive. ♪

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welcome back to "hardball." when he speaks will president obama tip his happened on a public option. howard dean is here, pat buchanan is a msnbc analyst and former presidential candidate and speechwriter himself. president obama spoke to the afl-cio. we have tape.

can we roll that now? >> i continue to believe a public option within that basket of insurance choices will improven quality and bring down koss. >> governor, one sentence. there was his chance to sell what you demand be in this legislation as the central piece of it. that's got to be kind of disappointing. >> it is not that i demanded it but there is no reform in this bill unless you do that. there is insurance reform. the only health care reform is the public option. most americans prefer a public option. they think they ought to have the choice. i think it will be in the bill ultima ultimately. without any republican participate -- >> the poll shows most americans prefer a public option. we are not sure we know what that means to them. but they don't know that over 90% of them, it woil be illegally to choose a public option. it is only available to 10% of

the population. >> in the house bill. that is right. the point is not to let the private insurance people out of business but some people would like to do that. the point is to have a system which doesn't throw people off their health care when they get sick, stays there if they have a job or don't have a job or is portable no matter what happens, if they lose their job or move to another state to make the insurance companies behave themselves. the only other way to do this is through regulation. it is more efficient to make the insurance companies behave by giving them some competition and pro consumer competition than regulate. >> if the public option falls out of the bill, you will still be pushing for what is left for health care reform? >> if the public option is out of the bill they have to strip the money out. to put $60 billion in the system is insane. they have screwed up the system. why health care is so expensive

is because of the private insurance agency. to give them $60 pl billion of taxpayer money is nuts. >> before i get to pat who has been patient. will you support a bill with no public option? >> no. >> let me stand right with dr. dean. cut this thing down. >> you will oppose a bill with or without a public option. >> good point. >> this is my question of the day, in the history of presidential speech making, i am not aware of a speech like this that saved legislation that was in trouble. >> we used to do it from 1985 to '87 with ronald reagan on contra aid. we would run a campaign, lawrence, and everybody would be out there, cabinet officers, briefings, reporters, op-eds and we would save it for 36 to 72 hours before the vote in the house and the president of the united states would go on national television and we could

see the conservative bol weevils breaking in our favor. >> he wouldn't do it in this way? >> no. i think barack obama is making a mistake. this is their ace of trumps. i think he can get some kind of reform, not this option, but a bill with 60% or 70% of what they wnt through conference. that is the time i would have a dramatic announcement. the president is going to speak to both houses of congress and roll it through that way. i think he is playing his trump card too early in the game. >> governor dean, if what we saw in 1994 when i was chief of staff of the senate finance committee is the republicans kept moving the goalpost. their target was the employer mandate. that was the linchpin to get it under the clinton bill. when they killed that there was a chance to legislate. they went on to kill every other

thing in the bill. >> not going to happen. >> when they kill the option which looks dead next week. >> in the finance committee. >> in the finance committee. they will go to the employer mandate and taxes in the bill and individual mandate and they will use the most effective tactic will be barack obama's own words opposing the individual mandate the employer mandate and this new tack regimen they are inventing. >> you can do this without an employer mandate. you can't do this without an individual mandate or public option. it is clear from senator grassley and enzi that is what they are going to do. here is why i think we ent up with a public option in the bill. this is why i'm not chnervous - >> he does not look nervous. >> you can contradict me. you know how this city works.

you cut out the republicans except maybe susan collins and olympia snowe. who is going to write the bill? the vast majority 2 to 1 in the senate and 3 to 1 in the democratic house caucus. who do you -- what do you think is going to be in that bill? since the republicans have essentially taken themselves out of the game. >> i think you can do it. >> we are going to have a health care bill. >> let me get to the immediate response tonight. there is going to be a congressman no one heard of, a republican congressman who happens to be a cardiologist. he seems like he was the one who lost the bet and can follow obama on this. what are they going to do in the next 48 hours of their communications strategy? sarah palin has an op-ed piece today. are they going to roll out before the weekend? >> i think the communication strategy i would adopt is -- look, they have done a great job attacking this. support is moving down.

you wait for them to get their package together. i think they can get a package through the finance committee if you get snowe, if you get the public option out there, i do not believe the progressive democrats will kill a bill which would sink barack obama, sink themselves when they get 60% of what they want. they have the numbers they didn't have. if they pull it all together i think they can go through the senate through reconciliation, get something through the house and get something barack obama would sign. i would wait for the final bill to come out and just a full artillery barrage on every vulnerable part and hammer those blue dogs because they are the key guys and hammering and hammering and hammering them so they cannot go back home if they vote for it. >> we will have time for legislative strategy on this show. thank you howard dean and pat buchanan. up next, can president obama unite democrats in congress? tonight we'll ask one of his

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back to "hardball." tonight president obama lays out of his framework for health care reform. will he have the votes in congress. joining us is dick durbin. a senior senator from illinois. did you sit down with your then junior colleague barack obama and explain to him that the politics of governing are a thousand times more complex than the politician of campaign something. >> well, we did sit down and talk and believe me, his experience in the illinois state senate prepared him for the rough and tumble of congress and capitol hill. but i think he has done a great job.

we've achieved a lot of things this year. health care leads the agenda and tonight the president will address it. >> how many votes do you have for the public option in the united states senate? >> that is a hard vote to measure at this moment because we don't know what it looks like and don't know the context. i would say the majority of the people in the senate make sure the health insurance companies are honest so people can get affordable health insurance premiums. i'm for the public option. but if there is a better way to do it, i'll keep an open mind. >> in 1994 the senate looked so weak compared to the house on health care reform that as you remember, you remember the house at the time, the house asked the senate to go first, to prove that the senate could actually pass something because the house didn't want to waste its energy making difficult votes on something that was never going

to get to conversation. have you been asked by nancy pelosi to go first in the senate? >> no. at this point we believe the house is preparing to move forward and may precede us. we believe we will see a bill laid down next week for public scrutiny for a full week before it is taken up by the senate finance committee. if we are successful bringing a bill out of that committee blend it from the house, education and labor committee and move it to the floor. we hope by the early part of october to have this measure on the floor. >> again, procedural. reconciliation. do you think this bill can pass in a reconciliation process? >> no. what you can pass in a reconciliation process are important elements but a comprehensive health care reform bill requires the regular

procedure. if we can't get the votes we have to consider reconciliation. >> so this speech tonight is many things. it is a speech to the nation where the president's poll numbers are down, 52% are opposed to this president's handling of health care reform. it is a speech to the body, the house the blue dogs, the liberals in the house, to your colleagues in the senate. if there is an isolated camera to hold on one senator all night it would be olympia snowe. in many ways this is unlike any speech we have seen before. it is a speech to an audience of one, to olympia snowe. have you been working with her directly yourself or have you all a left that just to max baucus? >> i can tell you max baucus as well as the others conrad and senator bingaman have been working with her a long time.

she has shown extraordinary courage and leadership. she told her the bottom line. they are working with her. no commitments have been made, understand. at the end of the day we think there will be more than one republican senator joining us. we certainly hope so. this should be a bipartisan effort. we have given republicans every effort to help us craft this bill. we want to get it done on a bipartisan basis. >> senator, with all the focus on republican opposition to the public option and other elements it has masked how difficult your job as whip is in getting over 50 democrats to vote for any version of this thing t. truth of is you have democrats in your caucus not ready to go to the public option and not ready to go to the employer mandate and some of these new taxation elements invented by the ways and means committee and the finance committee. when the focus becomes how is dick durbin doing on whipping up

a majority of democratic votes what are you going to have to have to show us? >> well, listen, 59 democratic senators, with the death of ted kennedy, we are down to 59, have to be taken seriously. we have to sit down and go through the bill. for each and every one of us this is a critically important bill in our home states. most of the focus has been on the gang of six this is moving to the floor and each and every senator has to have the moment they take into consideration things that are critical at home. we won't assume any vote. >> your job will get tougher by the day. thanks for joining us. how big a night is this for president obama? senior white house adviser david axelrod will be with us when we return. you are watching "hardball" only on msnbc.

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promises results from a new drug that is it from cnbc. now back to "hardball." welcome back to "hardball." with us tonight to preview tonight's presidential address to congress, white house senior adviser david axelrod. welcome david axelrod. >> thank you. >> as you have learned in the next nine months the politics is about govern k, oh, i don't know h 100 times more difficult than the politics of campaigning. was there anyone who warned the president it could be this difficult to get health care passed? >> i think there was a vigorous discussion about this, lawrence. at the end of the day the president felt this was such a pressing problem for country and for families and businesses around the country, for the

government ultimately because of the cost that we had to do something. he understood there was political risk involved. his attitude is he is not here to hoard his political capital but solve problems. that is what he is trying to do. >> the president acknowledged making some mistakes along the way this morning on requested twoed good morning america." >> i out of the ability to give congress to do their thing and not step on their toes probably left too much ambiguity out there which allowed opponents of reform to come in and fill up the airwaves with a lot of nonsense. >> david axelrod, has your playbook been whatever the clintons did, let's do the opposite? they wrote a specific bill, sent it to the hill. it didn't get to where it needed to go.

you took the opposite tack of let's make it clear the legislation will be written in the committees. >> we are farther than anybody has ever been. four of the five committees have passed health care reform bills. the finance committee and the senate said they are going to pass something next week and we will be able to go to the floor and move this process along. the president watted to let the debate go on. he felt this was a serious issue to warrant the debate. get the ideas out on the table and come back in fall and bring the strands together and get the job done. i think we are in a position to do that. >> is the president going to make it clear what he can't live with tonight? there are a bunch of proposals out there in the various committees that violate obama campaign promises. he has not said it is okay to violate those promises and he has not said it is not okay.

is he going to make that clear tonight? >> it will be very clear what he thinks the major components of this plan are, lawrence. he will make the case for them. there are some things on which he has become persuaded that he was opposed to as a candidate. others that he feels very, very strongly about. but what has never changed is the goal. the goal is to bring stability and security to the people who have insurance so they have strong consumer protections, out of pocket costs, prohibition on a ban against people with preexisting conditions. you can't get thrown off your insurance if you get sick. a marketplace where people can go if they don't have insurance. small businesses and the uninsured where they can get it for a price they can afford. all in a context of trying to bring the overall cost down of health care. i think we are close to achieving that and the president

will speak to that tonight. >> david, when i worked on the finance committee in '94 we found when the republicans gained an advantage, knocked one piece out of the bill they didn't stop there. they went on to the next thing. they seem on the verge of knocking the public option out of the health care bill. the next thing standing is the employer mandate which republicans oppose and the individual mandate. during the democratic primaries the only difference between barack obama and hillary clinton in terms of governing going forward was the obama candidacy was opposed to mandates in health care and hillary was in favor. all the republicans need to do to knock out the mandates is use barack obama's eloquent arguments against mandates in the campaign. are you expecting that next? >> first of all, i wouldn't make your assumption. the president is going to make the case for a public option

tonight. the pool that is being kree yeated for uninsured workers and small businesses so there is a guarantee of competition and choice within that exchange. there are markets in this country, states in this country where one insurance company has 90% of the business. that is not healthy for consumers. i wouldn't assume some form of the public option would not be in the final legislation. he will speak to that tonight. in terms of the mandate, he has come to believe that everyone has to have a responsibility within the health care system. we pay $1,000 more per person because of what we have to pay to cover the uninsured who get care and don't have insurance to cover it. if we make insurance affordable for people they have a responsibility to take advantage of it. >> chairman baucus on the finance committee released and 18-page outline of what will probably be the legislation he introduces next week. one of the components of that

involves a 35% tax on health insurance plans that are valued over $8,000 per year. now, you guys have been very quick to say if you like your plan you can keep it. but that tax will tax my plan or someone who has a plan over $8,000. it will tax that plan 35% which means it will cut the benefits of that plan. so people's plans will not be what they were before this legislation went through with a provision like that. how do you square a provision like that with the idea of if you like your plan you could keep it? >> i could probably pick provisions out of every one of these committee plans that the president would not find to his liking. he'll have his own proposal on this and he'll speak to it tonight. this is one committee of five and you know the legislative

process better than anyone else. they will pass their bills. there will be a meeting of the minds in the senate. a bill passed out of the house and we bring the two bills together. i'm not going to comment on any individual items. i will let the president speak for himself tonight. >> david, you lead the best speechwriting team in the history of that building behind you. are you using any models in previous presidencies where a speech saved legislation? >> well, i don't think we're -- i would dispute the premise of your question. i don't believe we are in a place where we have to save anything. i think we have made great progress with the announcement of the senate finance committee. we have more progress and on the doorstep of getting this done. what is needed to tie this together to get the final ten yards. there i think a speech would be valuable because it will give a

clear sense of direction to members of congress and a clear sense to the country about the plan the president supports, not individual committees but the president's plan for moving forward. by the way, i would say one other thing, we do have a great speechwriting team, but we are working for the best speechwriter who has been in that office in many, many moons. >> i agree you have the best speechwriting team and the best speech giver. i have never seen a speech save legislation. this legislation is in trouble. >> i don't agree. we'll get together and have a beer and find out who is right and who is wrong? >> what lessons can president obama learn from president clinton? the moderator of "meet the press" david gregory and dee dee meyers. this is "hardball" only on msnbc.

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we are back. time for "the politics fix" with moderator of "meet the press" david gregory and former press secretary dee dee myers. david, you have been pulling teeth all day. any leaks? >> i do think i have a handle on what we can expect. first of all, in terms of

general taupe, the president will try to direct his message to the american people to clear up confusion, misinformation, a recognition he has to regain control of the debate. really answer that question, what is in it for me and what are the consequences of inaction. secondly, a lot of talk about the public plan. the president will be for it. he will say he is for it. he will make the point it is not the entirety of health care reform. it shouldn't define health care reform. that will be a message to his own base in the democratic party. lastly there are ideas, i'm told, in this speech tonight that are republican ideas that the president will use to say to republicans look, if you are for these things they are in this plan. you have to come to the table and do business. >> dee dee myers, my question of the day, for you who have worked in the white house and prepared these kinds of speeches and worked the rollouts of them, can we think of a speech that saved

legislation in trouble? >> i don't know if that is the goal of tonight's speech. i'm sure if we wept back in history we could find some that could have a difference between success and failure. i think what the president has to do as david said is regain control of the conversation and remind people what is in it for him. the president has several things going for him we didn't have 15 years ago. in '93 and '94 people thought if we did nothing they would be fine. people no longer believe that. the president has more stake holders in this who signed on to part of the policy. the american medical association, insurers, nurses, who were dead set against the clinton plan are for reform now. that is a huge difference. his goal is to rally people, remind them what is at stake, draw some brighter lines, not totally bright, but get this process moving forward.

>> lawrence, i also -- that big question you raised with david axelrod is so important. they do view it slightly differently. to pick up on dee dee's point, they say, look, both we in the white house and democrats and democratic leaders on the hill we have learned from the conseq of not doing something are tremendous. are huge to the democratic party. bill clinton talked about in the recent weeks. they've got the benefit of that experience. their confidence resolves around the idea they can get something done. defining the parameters of that will be what the next several weeks will be about. >> the public has one lesson, which is if we do nothing our health care costs are going to double every cuppiouple years. the members of congress, how many seats did we lose in 1994 when the president failed? >> there is an theory. the theory that the reason the democrats lost is they spent a year scaring people that they

were going do something terrible about health care and maybe if they had stopped scaring people soon enough -- >> you're talking about 1994? >> yeah. >> they spent seven months on we, behind closed doors drafting a plan that everybody could find something not to like about. this has been an ugly but open process. we've all been through what's in there. there's no surprises. we've been through it. this is like a house that went through a hurricane in august and during the hurricane the shutters were flying off and the windows were breaks, oh my god it's going to collapse. the hurricane passed and the house hasn't collapsed. it's sturdy in a lot of ways. >> by the time you go on the air with "meet the press" there will be polling reaction to look at to say how successful this was with the public. barack obama is polling 52% disapprove in the latest poll, 52% disapprove of his handling of health care reform. what do those numbers have to look at by sunday or next week when the full effect of this speech has played out?

>> you know, this won't surprise you there are some in the white house parsing those numbers carefully and making a distinction between the job approval on the require of health care and how people feel about the health care plan he's proposing. that's what they'll be focused on. one could follow the other. if he takes more control of this, recaptures the debate, if he's driving the process, maybe that will restore confidence in his leadership overall. it's overall support for the plan. that's what the white house says is so critically important so it makes the job of those in congress easier to cast what could be a difficult vote. the key piece here, lawrence, as you know well, the president now has a crisis of confidence among some of the very people who propelled him to the white house, those independent voters around the country who know health care's too expensive. they know the government getting involved in this is a really expensive proposition at a time when we're bailing out gm and banks and passing the stimulus plan. that's who he's got to direct his message to tonight.

>> we'll be back with with david gregory and dee dee myers. for more of "the politics fix." ♪ well i was shopping 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 ads 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. ♪

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we're back with david gregory and dee dee myers for more of "the politics fix" on "hardball." the white house released part of what the president will say tonight. this is going to be one of the passages. know this. i will not waste time with those who have made the calculation

that it's better politics to kill this plan than improve it. i will not stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are. if you misrepresent what's in the plan we will call you out and i will not accept the status quo as a solution, not this time, not now. dee dee myers, you and i were there in 1994 when president clinton gave his speech. he waived a veto pen. said he would veto it if they didn't give him universal coverage. he held up a health security card we were supposed to have. it doesn't work. i still have to use my writer's guild health insurance card to get health insurance. this sound as strong as president clinton was when he faced the same audience. >> the process was dimpbts. president clinton and the leadership of mrs. clinton drafted a bill which he introduced in his speech to the

congress. as the legislative process went forward and it was clear there were a lot of resistance in the bill, the president at the state of the union held up the pen and drew a line in the sand and the legislative process fell apart after that. president obama is not saying take these provisions or i will veto the bill. he's saying work with me. you know, you say you want health reform, you don't like this refrorm, bring me your ideas. he's trying to keep this a bipartisan bill. >> david gregory, calling you out if you're a republican and you say something about death panels is one thing, but what do you do when a republican stands up and says we're in a recession, this economy cannot sustain that. it has three new top brackets for individuals. i as a republican am opposed to that taxation. there are plenty of substantive arguments against every argument in this bill. whhe