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tv   Meet the Press  MSNBC  February 12, 2012 2:00pm-3:00pm EST

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this sunday, the culture war over contraception and the church that sparked a political firestorm. >> it's not about contraception. it's about economic liberty. it's about freedom of speech. it's about freedom of religion, and it's about government control of your lives and it's got to stop. and the white house compromise. >> the religious liberty will be protected and a law that requires free preventive care will not discriminate against women. is the fight over about health care and the role of government in our lives? here this morning, the new chief
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of staff, jack lew. and the republican with the hot hand in the hunt for the gop nomination, pennsylvania senator, rick santorum, on social issues, and his path to the nomination. and finally, the roundtable this morning. can mitt romney regain frontrunner status. >> i was a severely conservative republican governor. >> how will voters size him up as a leader vying for four more years. with us most of msnbc's "morning joe," joe scarborough, and peggy noonan, and ej dionne, and former aide to president obama who is running a super pac, bill burton. captions paid for by nbc-universal television
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good morning, a one-two punch for mitt romney. he got 39%, and second place finisher was ron paul at 36%, and here in washington the former massachusetts governor won the support of conservative activist that gathered for annual event for c-pac, and they had romney edging out santorum 38% to 31%, and that's getting a lot of attraction this morning. we will talk to rick santorum live from the campaign trail live in just moments. but first the debate over providing birth control coverage and the president's annual budget plan that will be delivered to congress tomorrow morning. with us the president's new chief of staff, formerly his budget director, jack lew. welcome to "meet the press." >> thank you, david. >> and here, religious freedom, social issues is the israel that
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is really taking the city by storm because of the birth control decision. within the white house there were warnings, this would be a political firestorm and this would be controversial. how did the white house botch this to the point where the president had to backtrack in such a high profile way? >> from the beginning the president had two important principles that had to be reconcil reconciled. one was every woman should have the right to all forms of birth control, including contraception, and when the plan was announced at the end of the january, it was clear there was going to be a year-long period for transition. with the ensuing controversy, that was speeded up. the president gave a clear signal we don't want a year of debate -- >> you knew that going in. your presidedecessorpredecessor you do this you will take on the
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catholic church and a huge social issue. why did the white house do this with its eyes wide open? >> we were in a place where we can say with certainty that women will have the right to health care, and religious institutions won't have to pay for it or do the work to pay for the benefits. it's a good solution and it brings together these two very important values, and there are others that don't want to reconcile these values and there are some oppose that woman should have the right to cont contracepti contraception. we don't agree with that. it's a plan that is respectful of a woman's right to have different forms of all kinds of health care. >> was this political malpractice in an election year?
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>> i think the issue of providing women all forms of preventive health care has been and remains very important. the importance of protecting religious liberties and will always be. >> you say it's resolved. here is some of the headlines. bishops reject white house's plan on contraception. and from the u.s. conference of catholic bishops they issued a statement on friday that indicate the resolution is not at hand. we note the proposal to continue to involve needless government intrusion and to threaten government coercion of religious people, in a nation dedicated to reledgious liberty, we should not be limited to negotiating within the parameters. the only complete solution is
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for hhs to rescind this mandate. >> on friday we had a broad range of groups endorse the president's policy. we had the catholic health association that understands the care well, and planned parenthood. there's a broad con census it's the right approach. >> you can move on without the hierarchy being onboard? >> i think it reflects the fact that we hit a important balance between providing the woman a guarantee that she has access to the kinds of preventive care that she needs and we respected the religious liberty. >> this is a hot issue in the presidential campaign. rick santorum, who you will hear from in a couple minutes, talked about this with great passion on the campaign trail a couple days ago. this is what he said in part.
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>> this is the kind of coercion we can expect. it's not about contraception. it's about economic liberty. it's about freedom of speech. it's about freedom of religion. it's about government control of your lives and it's got to stop. >> can you understand the view that some conservatives have which is beyond religious liberty that this is what government does, and this is what happens when government makes health care decisions for you. it's a role of government issue that is an issue that will live beyond this compromise. >> david, i think there are a lot of conservatives that don't believe government should guarantee access to health insurance, and from the comment from the center, they don't believe women should have a right to contraception. we believe the affordable care act is meeting a need because we had tens of millions of americans that did not have access to health care that will. we think we have done this in a way that is a proper balance.
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>> is this an issue the president will campaign on? >> i think the affordable care act is a big accomplishment and he will campaign on that. i think the right of women of all forms of preventive health care is an important part of it. >> will he veto any bills in congress to abridge this? >> the issue has been addressed. >> will he veto or change the mandate? >> i think the president has been clear that he will n insistent that we implement the affordable care act. i spent last year to make sure we had the resources to implement care act. >> would he veto an implement to change it? >>. the jobs picture seems to be improving. i was looking at the stock market the other day as the dow climbs closer and closer to
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13,000, and that's a sign of better times. what's a realistic unemployment or jobless number, do you think, by november of this year? >> david, the unemployment situation has improved over the last few months, and actually improved so much so that it's better than we and all the economic forecasters thought it would be back in november. that's good news. the american people should be pleased that we now have recovery that is taking root. the job growth across all sectors of the economy, it's not the result of people leaving the workforce. it's the result of private sector job creation. this is good. the thing that we have to be careful about is to make sure that washington doesn't get in the way. last year we saw an awful lot of instances where washington's dysfunction became part of the uncertainty and problem in the economy. congress has a challenge from now to the end of february to extend the payroll tax kutd so we continue to get the boost the economy needs.
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i hope congress can do the job and get it done and we can keep the wind at our backs instead of becoming part of the problem, which is what happened last year. >> i think that we are certainly seeing unemployment coming down. i am reluctant to do spot estimates from a point here or there, and we are heading in the right direction. we are seeing unemployment come down in the low 8s, and we hope it gets lower than that. >> the leadership in washington has an an impact on business in america and the out look. the number of days since senate democrats passed a budget is 1019. can you explain how do you fund the government when there's no budget? >> well, one of the things about the united states senate that i think the american people realized is that it takes 50 not 60 votes to pass something. there has been republican opposition to anything the democrats have tried to do.
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it's a challenge in the united states senate to pass legislation when there is not that willingness to work together. congress didn't do a great job last year. it drove right to the edge of the cliff on occasion after occasion. a lot of that was because of the extreme, you know, conservative approach taken by house republicans. the positions that ended up tying the congress in knots came out of the house, the tea party wing in the house. >> can you explain to americans how the government funds itself when there's no budget? >> last year, one of the things that was part of the budget agreement was agreeing to the overall levels of funding for two years. congress will be able to continue to do its business. it would be better to do it in the context of an overall budget. the president tomorrow will present a budget that does $4 trillion of deficit reduction in
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ten years. and it does it by energy independence, and calling for shared american values where everybody has a fair shot and does their fair share and plays by the same rules. that's what we hope congress will do and will work towards that end. >> i do want to ask you about the president's blueprint because it is seen in some ways as an election year document. this is how "the new york times" describes it in part. president obama punched the deficit in half by the end of his term, and their optimistic rejection is next year's deficit will almost be $1 trillion. the white house is bragging about a broken promise. deficit reduction may be besides the point, and he is laying out a document paid for with tax increases on the rich against the deep-spending cuts that will be the heart of the republican
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parties program, rebuilding versus austerity. why should not the austerity be a centerpiece of what the united states government is about these days, given how high the budget deficit is, and how much economic uncertainty that fiscal insanity contributes? >> david, i think that there's pretty broad agreements that the time for austerity is not today. we need to be on the path where over the next several years we bring the deficit under control. right now if we were to put in austerity measures right now it would take america in the wrong way. "the new york times" for example argued that 2012, 2013 is not the time for austerity. the challenge is how do you do two things at the same time? how do you put money forward for things like getting a jump-start on infrastructure and building schools and make the decisions for long-term deficit reduction?
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the president unveiled a plan to do that. he was willing to negotiate a bipartisan agreement that would be do it. we have seen from republicans that they don't want to be part of any plan that races taxes at all. the president's plan has $1 of revenue for every $2 for spending. i think that for the next short period of time, our number one priority is congress needs to do its work. they have two weeks to do the important business if they don't gets in the way of the economic recovery, congress should take seriously the long-term deficit reduction, and the president takes it seriously and that's why he is putting out a plan that has that long-term deficit reducti reduction. >> jack lew, thank you very much. >> good to be with you, david.
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coming up next, he came in a strong second in a straw poll among conservative activist here in washington. but can rick santorum go the distance against mitt romney's money and political machine? and later, bill burton, head of the super pac supporting obama along with msnbc's joe scarborough, and peggy noonan, along with msnbc's joe scarb[ male announcer ]noonan, to the 5:00 a.m. scholar. the two trains and a bus rider. the "i'll sleep when it's done" academic. for 80 years, we've been inspired by you. and we've been honored to walk with you to help you get where you want to be. ♪ because your moment is now. let nothing stand in your way. learn more at keller.edu.
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joining me live this morning from california, former two-term center from pennsylvania, republican presidential candidate, rick santorum. good to have you back on the program. >> good to be on, david. >> you just heard the white house chief of staff. is this a debate you want to have in the course of the campaign, as he would frame it, to deny women access to birth control in this country? >> nobody is denying them birth
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control. we have the federal government saying we are going to give you a right, and by the way we will tell you how to exercise that right and we are going to control you, a church affiliated group as to what you provide to your employees, and if you don't like it, tough, because our rights, our right to tell you what to do trumps your deeply held convictions about what your dollars should be spent for. and the idea that you can have the insurance company, and a large number of catholic social service providers are self insured, and so the self insured is the insurance company, and they are going to be forced to still provide. there's no compromise. there are forcing organizations to pay for something that they find is a deeply and morally wrong thing, and this is not what the government should be doing. this is not just rick santorum talking. you have a lot of democrats and liberals that are aghast this president will take on the fight
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that says government will force you to do something against your conscience. >> i heard you say you think contraception is dangerous? >> what i talked about is with respect with my catholic faith. and that's a different position than i have with respect to public policy. women should have access to contraception. i have no problem with that at all. the question is whether some religious organization should be forced to pay for something that they believe is a moral wrong and the answer to that is no, and under the obama administration policy, they are continuing to be forced to do so. >> i brought up with mr. lew, the idea a lot of conservatives have it's beyond the religious freedom issue, and it's the argument of you and others.
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you believe the president is dangerous, and re-electing the president would unmask a hidden plan that he has for a second term. this is what you said recently on fox news. >> i suspect it will be back down here rather shortly, but it's a lesson learned of what this president would do if he has another term and not have to worry about re-election. >> what is the secret plan? >> it's not a secret plan at all. at the time he was promoting obamaca obamacare, it's a program of cap and trade where he wants to control the ability to use energy and charge you for the energy in a way that, again, the government decides the allocation of the resources. the pretsident's agenda is clea, he believes that they should make decisions for you, whether
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it's health care or dodd frank and the board that will tell you what kind of loans they can get, it's government taking over choices for people. and we look at the medicare system, and we talk about the idea that we will give medicare recipients choices as to what is best for them, and president obama says you give people choices that's throwing people off the cliff, we need to make the choices for them and we're the ones that should decide what kind of health care everybody should have. the government knows best attitude and it's reaching more places in peoples' lives. >> i want to stay on the social issues that defines your campaign and gives energy to your campaign and supporters. let me ask you about gay marriage, and you talked about proposition 8 in california that became an issue this week, and if the supreme court decided
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gays and lesbians had a right to mar marry. what would president santorum do? would you respect that decision? >> it's not designing my campaign. we are talking about economic growth and getting manufacturing jobs back to the country and trying to grow this economy to make sure everybody in america can participate in it, and i went after governor romney for the idea that he is not concerned about the very poor or very rich. i am concerned about everybody. if you look at the track record, it's one that does reach down and makes sure that everybody has an opportunity whether it's the work i did on welfare reform or creating opportunities for people who are lower income whether they are in my state or economic enterprise opportunities for lower income people, so my campaign is not defined by social issues and i understand the media wants to focus on those issues but i have been talking about the issues of
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economic growth and opportunity for everybody and freedom being at stake, and i have been talking about to -- to get to your question, i have been talking about the overreach of the judiciary. not just in this case, but here you have the ninth circuit saying a constitutional amendment is unconstitutional. the people of the state of california can decide what kind of constitution they have. there's a constitutional process. they can create responsibilities or rights. that's how the constitutional process works. what the judges tend to do is no, we will bypass the people and we will decide what new rights or responsibilities are in. >> what would president santorum do? >> it's not the role of the judiciary. >> i would do the same thing of roe v. wade. i would seek to overturn it. we need judges who respect the
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peoples' voice. let the people decide with respect to what the constitution says if in fact they are going to go through a constitutional amendment process which is what they did, and the judges should respect that. >> and there's other issues, and you have written about, and you have been scrutinized for, and maybe not everybody is aware of what you said. you have been asked about women in combat which is an issue that came up this week. you also talked about your view of feminnism, and it's something you wrote about. the radical feminist succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness. everything that i learned about feminnism is that it's about respecting the choice of working or not working, not somehow the
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choice of working undermining the traditional family. >> well, i would agree with that, if that's what it was about. but i can tell you -- i had a working mother, too, and she made more money than my dad throughout her career and that was unusual in the '50s and '60s, and my wife was a working woman and we had children and she decided to take off time from her career and raise our children, and this section was written in large part with her, and somebody with a great amount of professional experience who felt very much like society and those radical feminnists that i was referring to, they were looking at that at a choice that was not the right choice, and there are a lot of working -- a lot of moms out there that did step away from the workforce that feel like their choices are not as respected as those that continue in the workplace. all i said is and what i said in that book and what i continue to
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say is we should affirm both choices, and they are both very important things and women should have the right to make those choices and should be affirmed completely as to what whenever choice they make. that's what the book says, and i stand by what i say. i understand that women in the military right now do serve in hazardous positions and are subject to -- we have seen a lot of injuries serving in front line positions. what i was referring to is women in combat in the frontlines. that to me is a fundamentally different issue than the great work that people are providing in the military. >> are they physically up to the job to serving on the frontlines? >> there are different physical requirements. you go to the academies. there are different requirements for men and women. why? because there are physiological differences between men and women and that's one of the things we have to consider when
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deploying them out there on the infantry front line. >> let me ask you one more question about women. if you were president of the united states, and women want to work in your administration, and do single women without children only need apply? are you going to respect the decision of women to come and work for you if that's the choice they make or would they be held by radical feminists? >> i think if you go back and look at the people that work for me, we have had single women and married women and all sorts of folks. those are decisions, again, i affirm, that if women want to come into the workplace, great, and if they don't, that's great. we will look at the best qualified people and there will be plenty of working moms that will be in our administration and will add greatly to the conservative cause that i believe in. >> i want to talk pure politics with me.
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later this month is arizona and michigan. you decided to stake your claim in michigan and then on to washington and super tuesday. where is the path, senator? >> if you would have asked me that question two weeks ago, if i said i will win missouri, and colorado, and there would have been chuckles. we have done well. we had a great week and raised over $3 million this week alone and money continues to pour in. michigan shows us ahead at this point, and shows us closing in in arizona. and we are going to go out and make the case that we are the best candidate to contrast with barack obama, and we have the boldest plan to help everybody get to work in united states, especially in michigan, and we are going to create an opportunity for manufacturing jobs and energy in north dakota.
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and that's a key element for us to increase our energy supply here in americas, and it's very clear that the more energy and the cheaper it is here in the country, the better the standard of living, and so we will talk about energy and manufacturing this week, and we think that's a great and positive message for the country. >> is it going to be hard, as newt gingrich said, the longer the conservatives stay split the harder is it to beat romney and then obama, and is that your view as well? >> no, i beat governor romney by 30 points in missouri and almost 30 in minnesota, and in a place in colorado where he got 61% of the vote and campaigned hard and spent money more than i did, and i was able to beat him in colorado by five. i feel good that this is a two-person race right now, and that's how we are focused on it. if you look at the results from maine, we did not spend anytime there and did much better than we expected.
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c-pac, again, we felt good that the other two candidates were far behind. we're going to stay focused on presenting the best plan, the best ideas to defeat barack obama, and i think the people of this country are looking for somebody that will focus on the issues and focus on obama and not play the petty politics we have seen in this campaign to date. >> is there a position you might adopt even in the course of the campaign that would make conservatives uncomfortable that you think you could take and still get the nomination? >> well, look, i am a conservative. i am somebody that believes in founding principles, that we're a great country because we were built from the bottom up, one family and one church and one civic organization and one small business at a time. that's what made america the greatest country in the world. that's who i am. i don't believe in government taking control of things and ordering things from the top
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down. you won't see the october surprise, rick santorum is for government doing something. that's not what i believe in. i believe government needs to be there as a referee on the sidelines but should not be out there playing quarterback and running the offense. they need to be on the sidelines, and let the american people, the free people, build a great and just society. >> senator, i am sure, like me, you get offended when you hear people say washington is not cool and doesn't have a fashion sense. if you contributed nothing else to the campaign, you brought back the sweater vest. here is a rick santorum sweater vest that will endure whatever the results of the campaign, true enough? >> well, i hope so. you know, people have referred to me as the richie cunningham candidate. but contrasting that with what is going on in the popular
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culture, a little bit of richie cunningham would not be bad for the society right now. >> i think that's a headline. appreciate it, senator santorum. thank you. >> thank you. five years ago, then senator obama launched his campaign by criticizing failed leadership in the smallness of the politics. five years later, how will voters size up his leadership? our political roundtable includes, joe scarborough, and bill burton, and peggy noonan and ej dionne. this is an rc robotic claw. my high school science teacher made me what i am today. our science teacher helped us build it. ♪ now i'm a geologist at chevron, and i get to help science teachers. it has four servo motors and a wireless microcontroller. over the last three years we've put nearly 100 million dollars
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you're not... filming this, are you? aw! camera shy. snapshot from progressive. plug into the savings you deserve with snapshot from progressive. we are back with our political roundtable. joining me "washington post" columnist, and host of msnbc's "morning joe," joe scarborough, and former deputy white house press secretary, and now
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cofinder of priorities u.s. action, bill burton. that's not a front company. that's actually a super pac that is supporting president obama, and that's why i wanted to have you here, and you have experience working with president obama and now on the outside issues, and we'll get to that. i want to start with everybody, the culture wars are suddenly back over the birth control decision. where does it leave all the players in the race? ej dionne, you have been out spoken in terms of how the white house handled it. is this an issue that the president wanted? >> if he didn't want it, then he acted in exactly the wrong way. i found this remarkable, sort of a moment in the white house. they had a warning for months and months that they had to be careful like this, because even catholics like me that were not against contraception felt it
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was a legitimate argument here and you could find ways of providing contraceptions without having faith-based institutions provide it for them. they hurt themselves in the process. i am glad he came around to the right decision. >> the cover of "newsweek" is the politics of sex. you heard from jack lew, and they are not backing down on this, and if other conservatives don't think it is, is it a public health issue they want to run on or something else? >> you mean why has all of a sudden this come forward? it's interesting to me that it's being portrayed as the, quote, contraception story. it's a story about more than that as we all know. it's about contraception devices, and sterilization
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processes that the catholic church found unacceptable, and it's about the first amendment case and religious freedom. it seems to me an odd and mi subject that is torn apart by so many things. i don't get the higher strategy. i thought the administration was wrong. i am not convinced the president's accommodation will work, but i think it will probably take it to some degree out of the public steer and into legislation and the court. >> quickly, if i could, i think that as long as this was a religious liberty argument, the church and its allies, the bishops and their allies, had a very good chance of winning the argument and in effect i think they did. there are some conservatives in the church that now want to move it to a contraception argument
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and the obama administration would love that. >> that's what the church thinks. it was so great for the three weeks that we all got along. i mean, this is a church -- >> yeah, beyond the catholic church, joe scarborough, the larger playing field here, which is decision 2012, i mean, this is in many ways much more about role of government, government making health care decisions, and that's how it seems to me the conservatives will argue it. >> yeah, before the friday deal, everything was breaking conservatives way, but not only on the c-pac, but you had democrats, the sitting democratic vice president, and lieberman, a former vice presidential nominee for the democrats, and kerry, and on and
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on and on saying the president over stepped it's bounds. at the end of the day, there was no change. you have a president saying you don't want to pay for health care, fine, we'll give it away for free. now it's shifting the plan to all catholics that they may find to be immoral, but at the end of the day, this is all the president needs politically. now, we have -- we have sisters debating bishops, and we have liberal catholics debating conservative catholics, and you have peggy and ej on where they should be, on opposite sides of the issue. for the president, that's all he needed to do. he had a unified catholic front against him and he split that in half now and now he can move on. i agree with ej, if this bedate stops being about contraception, then republicans lose in a very
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big way. >> bill burton? >> the president was in an okay place before he made the compromise. nothing indicated that broadly his numbers were going down and the gallup daily track had him -- >> why did he rush to compromise? >> he saw leadership was required here to bring catholics together with the progressive community and figure out a way to move forward on the issue. but i think that before the compromise, the opponents were separated into three different camps. the folks that had legitimate religious concerns, and the folks against contraception and the folks playing politics. the compromise isolated the folks who were against contraception and who were playing politics and left the mitt romneys and rick santorums out on a limb on the mainstream of the pie? >> well, it gets you in the
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debate about health care and what it represents in a debate that would be heated? >> it didn't happen in a vacuum. i guarantee the obama white house did not like it, and it's a nightmare for mitt romney. >> talk about that. >> you had the planned parent hood dust up, and then the hhs exploding and then the ninth circuit deciding to overturn the constitutional amendment out in california, and 14 million voted on that, and all of that lined up badly for the president, but much worst for mitt romney that doesn't want to talk about social issues and now they are front and center and rick santorum is the big winner. >> social issues have got in the republican race that leaves romney in trouble with the conservatives? >> he doesn't want this to be about social issues. he has been on various sides of
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important social issues, and it goes to the question of what does mitt romney stand for? if you like or dislike rick santorum, you know what he stands for. >> well, he is very conservative. did you not hear the speech. he is a severe conservative. >> i like compassionate consub-tives. i think he was next to the president on this. i think the administration has to look back and see how did it look track of obama who was so open on religious questions in 2006, and in 2009 wrote the speech and was very sophisticated. they have to find that guy again. >> i think one thing that will be very damaging for the president long-term on this, social issues aside, the whole argument we have been having for
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the past three weeks once again puts what had been a dormant issue, obamacare, the president's health care plan, forward once again as the controversy it started out as. it's forcing people to think, god, this plan kind of forces people, and it dictates and decided on high and washington and we have to go along with it even if it hurts our conscience or shows disrespect for our church. it's not good for the president if we go back to looking at obamacare as that bullying and confusing entity that is 3,000 pages long, and they make it up as they go along. >> well, you are getting into something that i think is important. the president campaigns for re-election, the competing views of what he is and what he represents and what he wants to do. mitt romney spoke about this at c-pac a couple days ago and i
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want to play this tape of the one view of the president. watch. >> i am convinced that if we do our job, if we lead with conviction and integrity, that history will record the obama presidency as the last gasp of liberalism's great failure and a turning point for the conservative era to come. >> here is the counter point to that, bill burton, and we were talking about it a few minutes ago to the "washington post." obama is a moderate president in an immoderate time. for progressives that has been frustrateding and for conservatives it's obscured and for the white house it's a calculated strategy, and we will know in november whether it was the right one. ideologue or what? >> well, he avoided huge controversy and tried to be a
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leader and bring folks together, and i don't think people should be surprised about the kind of president he is because of the campaign he ran. the president can charter towards the middle. >> and andrew sullivan's piece is preposterous -- >> it's from "newsweek." >> he claims barack obama saw it all along, and he is setting up the enemies, and he was trying to set biden up in a trap and kerry up in a trap. the one thing andrew sullivan did say, he did say you can't have it both ways. barack obama can't be joseph stallin and jimmy carter at the same time. pick your poison. is it an incompetent moderate to the right, or -- well, he is now
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in clinton territory, because he understands, like bill clinton, you get a lot of big things done from the left for the first year and a half, and he will spend the rest of his time whether it's the next year or five years compromising with the republicans. >> and compromising with himself, right? what happened to the guy that stood up in front of the country and criticized the role of the super pacs, and now he's encouraging people to give to your super pac. >> well, i won't take all the blame. the president, from what i read, has not changed his position as to whether or not campaign finance ought to be reformed. but the difference is people look and say we want unlimited donations and full diz clossclo and we think major league baseball, they say they are
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going to move it to ten innings, and that doesn't mean we will put our team on there. >> one thing that i think is knew for the past few years, the leftists, if you will, part of the president's base seems to be, a, more powerful, when you have a white house that says planned parent hood are here, and the catholic church and i would argue the first amendment are here, who wins? they rally on planned parenthood. that's politics that is kind of mad, and that suggests a certain sort of -- i hate to say extremism, but something rather extreme. >> well, the american -- >> may i say bill clinton wouldn't have done it. this is not a traditional democratic party thing. this is --
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>> we believe there was overreach on the contraception rule. barack obama is a moderate progressive with the emphasis on moderate. most socialists are insulted when he is called a socialists. i think -- i think right now what you have is that the left is very happy he is raising the issue of economic inequality, which occupy wall street pushed him towards, and a lot of the country agrees on that. i think the pressures to move further left, and there's not that much of the left to begin with. >> let me get a break in here. we will talk about the hot [ male announcer ] is zero worth nothing? ♪ imagine zero pollutants in our environment. or zero dependency on foreign oil. ♪
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romney winning maine, and he won the straw poll for c-pac which is the conservative movement, and ej did not know richie cunningham from "happy days." >> i am sometimes culturally deaf, and my children are the only ones that can bring me back. >> the birth control controversy, is it over or not. that was a big debate at the top of the program. >> i think that the issue of providing women all forms of preventive health care has been and remains very important. the importance of protecting religious liberties in the country has been important to the president and will always be. i think we resolved this issue in a way where we can all look forward. >> i think many or a large number of catholic social service providers are self
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insured and so the self-insured is the insurance company, and they are going to be forced to still provide. so there's no compromise here. >> over or not over? >> not over because republicans will be pushing him on the house floor. they need to be very careful. they were inwinning when it was a health care issue. it becomes dangerous politically. >> we will be watching it. before we go, a programming note. for the press pass conversation online, i spoke with a leader in a christian conservative movement, tony perkins, about the contraception movement. you can find that on the press pass@msnbc.c pass@msnbc.com. if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."