>> we were shooting a promo. >> oh! >> so scary on so many levels. >> there it is. >> the one that i saw, you looked a lot happier and more sated. >> you guys have to wrap this up. good luck. >> chuck todd is next. >> chuck todd? >> "the daily rundown." >> "the daily rundown." ♪ ♪ whoa ♪ i understand about indecision ♪ i'm totally scarred by that, donny and mika photo. grab your pitch fork. the tech companies blind behind the rocky rollout of healthcare.gov get an earful from the house. that hearing is starteding now and we'll take you there live when things really get going. meanwhile, another issue being discussed at the white house and on the hill. it's called immigration. is there a chance that something, anything, could happen before the end of this year? probably not. also this morning, a deep dive into whether the shutdown and the resulting poll number

breakdown for republicans could actually put democrats in a position to take back the house in 2014. we'll talk to the man in charge of that campaign. the dccc chairman, steve israel. good morning from washington. it's thursday, october 24th, this is "the daily rundown." i'm chuck todd. let's get right to my first reads of the morning, right at this hour. in fact, this minute. house republicans are holding their first hearing on the rocky rollout of the president's health care law. you're looking at some live pictures here. we already know, republicans want to do everything they can to create uncertainty and chaos when it comes to this law. the question is, did today's hearing become a bipartisan bash fest? members of congress will quiz executives from contractors brought in to build healthcare.gov about whether they overpromised and underdelivered. obvious answer on that one is yes. but already, representatives of the four companies who will testify today are doing their best to reassign blame. in prepared testimony, sharyl

cam we will, the lead contractor of the website, plans to shift blame to another contractor, awarded the contract for the data services hub portion of the federal exchange. and there's andrew slavic, whose company was tasked with managing personal accounts on the site, saying consumers had to register before they could browse for products. somehow putting the blame on hhs. let's watch how democrats handled the hearing today for clues on how much party unity we can expect on this issue going forward. one of the chief reasons why democrats won the fight over the government shutdown, if you want to put it in those terms, was the party's impressive unity. that same unity is not existing right now when it comes to health care and it's clear momentum is building amongst democrats for some sort of delay in some form of this implementation. on wednesday, a half dozen democratic senators, nearly every one of them, in tough --

potentially tough re-election fights in 2014 are worried they could get one, said they support extending the open enrollment period to allow people more time to get coverage before they're penalized. joe manchin drafted legislation with georgia johnny isakson to delay the first year of penalties for consumers who don't have insurance. >> it should be a transition year for one year. there should be no fines. and let's work through the problems. january 1, 2015, no fines whatsoever. transition in. work out the kinks. let's fix this thing. >> back in july, 22 house democrats voted to delay the individual mandate. yesterday they felt liberated to renew those calls. >> i urge my colleagues and the administration to delay the individual mandate. it's not only the right thing to do, it's the only practical thing to do. >> the administration is trying to nip some of the calls for delay in the bud by ironing out what they call a glitch in the law. the law was written in a way

that mentality the enrollment deadline to avoid a tax penalty was february 15th, not what they intended as march 31st as the white house originally wanted. more attention has been brought to the open enrollment process and the deadline to sign up to avoid a penalty, the white house and hhs are trying to clarify the law so that the march 31st deadline is, in fact, a real deadline. this means they are shifting the enrollment deadline from february 15th to march 31st. they haven't made the change yet, but plan to in the coming days. they are simply trying to figure out how they can do it. is it something that can be done with a rule from hhs and executive authority or do they have to go to congress with this. question is, will that softer deadline satisfy these squeamish democrats? americans for prosperity is already using the rocky rollout to target some democratic house members in swing districts to see if they can make them more squeamish. >> glitches that plague the rollout of the site. >> still experiencing delays. >> not able to create accounts. >> what if later, bigger

glitches prevent my family's access to care? call congressman ron barber. tell him washington can do better than obama care. >> house democrats, like minnesota's rick nolan and upstate sean patrick maloney say the president has not been aggressive enough and simply needs to fire somebody over this. >> i really believe he needs to, you know, man up, step up, and i feel that the people responsible for this did a terrible disservice to the affordable care act and to the president. >> even former white house chief of staff bill daley said this morning, there will be substantial political fallout for the white house on this. but he was more cautious about whether hhs secretary kathleen sebelius should be the one that's held accountable. >> it's a big embarrassment. it will be corrected. how did a program that is so vital to the country get screwed up this way? at the beginning? >> but does it also endanger other things the president wants to do? >> no question about it. some people are calling for her to be fired.

to me that's kind of like firing captain smith on the titanic after it hit the iceberg. it's not going to do much right now. i think they've got to get it fixed. i think they've got to get it straightened out. and then there is a question, obviously, whether there needs to be new leadership at that department, not only with the secretary, but other things. >> yes, he really compared the health care rollout to the titanic. former white house chief of staff. look, the administration is getting a lot of unsolicited advice and some solicited pr advice on how to handle this crisis. one thing the white house is hearing, treat this like the oil spill. and here's what we mean. when the spill first happened, the white house initially made bp the scapegoat and to a certain extent passed the buck to other agencies to be the point, the lead on this. but at some point, they realized they weren't going to be able to avoid answering questions, and they weren't going to be able to avoid being held accountable. so they decided to own the issue and then flooded the zone. every white house briefing essentially turned into a daily update on the oil spill. all those incremental updates

meant the public heard daily how the situation was being handled. and frankly, daily we're getting updates that say hey, things were getting better. and you remember the president seemed to go down to the gulf about every other week. well, the appointment of jeff zients, a guy known for creating metrics and delivering results from the business consulting world, and the announcement there will now be daily abbreviation on this website issue at hhs suggests they are taking this advice to heart. we'll see if in a couple weeks it pace dividends, not just the briefing but actually this metric so that you see actual fixes. let's move to another topic. remember when immigration was the hot topic in washington? it was way back when. before there were these things called government shutdowns, way before we used the word "glitch" all of the time in our news pieces. this one, of course, related to healthcare.gov. immigration is back. president obama returns to the topic today when he gives a statement on the need to pass immigration reform, just about an hour and a half from now.

and though immigration reform advocates insist there is still momentum behind this issue and can get done by the end of the year, the last few weeks, republicans who have pushed for some immigration reform in the past, have begun blaming the president somehow preemptively for its failure. >> the president has undermined this effort, absolutely. the president has undermined the efforts and immigration reform is a lot harder to achieve today than it was just three weeks ago because of what's happened here. >> not sure how the president has undermined the efforts, but clearly there is som stalled momentum. still, yesterday, the white house was pleasantly surprised to hear this from house speaker john boehner. >> i think it would be crazy for the house republican leadership to enter into negotiations with him on immigration. and i'm a proponent of immigration reform. so i think what he has done over the last two-and-a-half weeks, he's trying to destroy the republican party. and i think that anything that we do right now with this president on immigration will be

with the same goal in mind. >> i still think immigration reform is an important subject that needs to be addressed. and i'm hopeful. >> we saw there that raul labrador quote, something we wanted to play earlier, showing the resistance, growing resistance among house republicans, again, for this. that said, you just heard john boehner there, wants to tackle this before the end of the year. house republicans are drafting several proposals. mario diaz belard, bipartisan gang of eight on immigration, who hasn't dropped out. is working on a plan which includes tougher border security measures than the ones the original group could unite on. he tells the "washington post" quote, we have yet to get the majority of republicans in support. but on something this difficult and controversial, we're going to need democratic votes, as well. then there is california republican congressman darrell issa. he's introducing legislation to give undocumented immigrants legal status for six years.

think of that as sort of a half measure, if you will. and then there's house majority leader cantor, still pushing for his version of a dream act, although he has been very quiet about that bill's progress. right now, here's the problem for house republicans. it's hard to see how any of these different bills that i just described can get 218, if democrats continue to stay fairly unified on supporting the senate immigration bill. so perhaps the best way to view today's obama event is to look at it this way. he wants to keep the pressure oranges hope there is another window, maybe it's this year. more likely, it's sometime next spring. after many of the filing deadlines and republican primaries have passed in order to get something done and maybe give boehner the room to do this on a bipartisan basis. all right. you're looking live here at that hearing, the rough rollout of healthcare.gov, this is representative upton. related to the implementation of

the affordable care act are testifying before the house energy and commerce committee. we're going to keep our eyes on the hearing, we're going to bring you any news as it happens. we'll let you know, particularly what fred upton and henry waxman, the ranking democrat, are saying to these folks. up next, we're talking takeover. did the shutdown showdown open the door for democrats to really compete for control in the house? in 2014? dccc chairman steve israel joins me next for how he thinks it can be done. and as lawmakers head to florida to pay their respects to the late congressman bill young, why his district could be the canary in the coleman for democrats to figure out if they can figure out if they have a shot. today's politics planner. told you about the president and immigration. look what hillary clinton is doing today. we teased that earlier this week. tonight, a little event for the center for american progress, at one time everybody thought

c.a.p. really meant the center for clinton's american progress. you're watching "the daily rundown," only on msnbc. of providing a free world-class education for anyone, anywhere. if you look at a khan academy video, they cover everything from basic arithmetic to calculus, trigonometry, finance. you can really just get what you need at your own pace. and so, bank of america came and reached out to us and said, "we are really interested in making sure that everyone really understands personal finance." we're like, "well, we're already doing that." and so it was kind of a perfect match. humans. even when we cross our "ts" and dot our "i's", we still run into problems. that's why liberty mutual insurance offers accident forgiveness with our auto policies.

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today's deep dive. we've seen house republicans reach new lows in public opinion polls since the shutdown began and ended. the same polls show democrats moving up. but is it enough to give them an actual shot at flipping control of the house a year from now. let's take a look at some numbers here. this is from our nbc news "wall street journal" poll. in july, people were fairly split on which party should control congress. after 2014. as the shutdown threat loomed,

it began shifting to the democrats' favor by three points. and in the midst of the shourngs we saw an even bigger shift. democrats pulled ahead on the generic ballot by eight points. the reason that's important, historical trends show, democrats win big when they have a double-digit lead on the question of who controls congress. so they're not quite there yet. but they're getting closer. which then tells us, it's potentially getting more competitive out there. democrats tell us they're capitalizing on the swing and raising money, even landing some recruits. but can they keep the momentum for the midterms in a year? here's that whole health care thing here. let me go through some of the math for everybody. when it comes to this. right now, we've got 231 republicans. 200 democrats for vacant seats here. let me do a little math for you. among these four, we know two are going to the republicans. and we know one is going to the democrats. these are some empty seats, special seats there. so that means 201 down here. we'll see how my knuckle writing

is doing today. 233 over here. i say that's pretty readable telestrating. take that, john madden. that gives us one empty seat here that's a true swing district, replacing bill young. i'll tell you more on that. overall, it means democrats need 17. if they somehow won this one vacant seat, it would make their magic number 16 in november. let me go through some other numbers here for you. we've got the different districts -- the way to look at this and the breakdown, these are republican districts, where republicans control them, but president obama actually won the district in 2012. there are 17 of them. and they need 17. so the numbers technically work remember the . you see, it's actually only in a handful of states they need to target to do this. let me take it down a step further. these are republican-held districts. the number of districts where president obama won at least 48%. he didn't win these. romney narrowly won them. but, again, you see the states are generally in either blue or purple areas.

that's another 19 seats total, by the way. this is how their playing field needs to expand. what's interesting here, when you look at that, how tightly targeted by states some of these house seats are in. so they could literally spend their money and just about five to ten states, and big ones here, multiple districts in california, target multiple in new york, florida, pennsylvania, and yes, arkansas, two open seats there, two represented by democrats not too long ago. so that's their good news. now i'm going to take you to our canary in the coal mine. and that's that one vacant seat i told you at the beginning. florida, 13. it's a swing district. i can tell you this. look at this. obama, 50.1%. romney 48.7%. doesn't get more swing than this. obama care in '08, guess what, bush won florida in '04, won this district. you can basically say how florida '13 goes in presidentials so goes the state of florida. so that special is going to be

our oh big canary in the coal mine. look at the things where democrats and their house results over previous years. a few things i want to throw up here. this is what they netted after the last shutdown, thanks to special elections and different things. they won about nine seats overall in '96 after the fact. so they netted seats after the shutdown, but it wasn't enough at that time to gain control. it was really nine, but, again, you play around the numbers, and you could say it's a net three. obviously, we know what happened for them in '06 and '08. 52-seat gain over those two cycles. all of it, plus some, given back. you mr., of course, they got their -- they got eight in 2012. that's what you're looking at there. that sets up where things stand right now. what's interesting here is representative young was florida's longest tenured republican in congress. and he just died and the funeral is going to be today. but it looks like republicans will keep harping on health care reform and hope that that sort of stops their bleeding.

and democrats are going to have to deal with those attacks and make hay out of the poll numbers. take a listen to john boehner and what he said when it comes to the house. >> as long as we stay focused on the priorities of the american people, i think we're going to be fine. what are they concerned about? they're concerned about their jobs. they're concerned about their income. they're concerned about their own health insurance and how they're going to be able to afford it, and how they're going to navigate through this bizarre plan that they now have to deal with. and so our job is to stay focused on the issues of the american people, most concern canned about, and if we do that, we'll be fine. >> boehner is hoping it's health care that stops the bleeding on shutdown. let's bring in dccc chair steve israel, the man in charge of trying to get democrats to actually control the house and get a bunch of reporters to believe him when he says he thinks the house is in play. so congressman israel, let me start with an issue you had six months ago and ask you to update

it now. six months ago you and others were talking about, you were having some difficulties convincing democrats to run in 2014, because too many good recruits said to you, you know what, i would love to run for congress someday, but i want to run in a presidential year. what are they saying now? >> well, you know, chuck, thanks for having me on. you have that in every single cycle. you have people who look at a potential candidacy and say i think i'll wait. and two things have happened. number one, those recruits have realized that waiting is a good strategy for not getting elected to congress. and secondly, they're seeing more of a path as a result of the harm that house republicans are willing to inflict on the economy. so there has been a fundamental not shift in terrain, but an implosion of the ground under house republicans throughout the country, and that is opening up doors to us that had been closed. and we now have problem-solvers who are sick and tired of the antics of republicans in washington who are, again, willing to hurt the economy in order to advance an obsessed

political agenda. and they're stepping up to the plate to run. >> well, you've -- i was pointing out your playing field has to be somewhere 35 to 50 seats, because you probably have to win 20 to actually take control. while you need 17 as a net, you probably have to win 25 to 30 house seats, because you have your own vulnerable seats. i want to put up a graphic here. there is at least seven democratic incumbents that hold districts that mitt romney carried. and all of these seem to have one concern of late this week. we heard from barrow down in georgia talking about what he would like to see in the health care law. health care is a challenge for your candidates, is it not? >> in every poll that i have seen, when given the choice between a democratic candidate who wants to fix, enhance and improve the affordable care act, and republican candidate who is obsessed with defunding and repealing the affordable care act, to the extent they're willing to shutdown the federal government to achieve that aim,

the democratic candidate is preferred by voters. particularly independent voters. what we're seeing in all these generics that you just posted, chuck, is that those generic preferences for house democrats are largely fueled by independent voters who are shifting back to democrats, and why are they shifting back? because they would rather have people who are going to work every single day to improve the affordable care act and fix it, rather than people who are willing to shutdown the federal government and default on our economy in order to repeal and defund that law. >> so this is going to be the campaign. in this respect. you're basically saying, you're going to embrace the health care attacks, fine. if republicans want to make -- in 2010, democrats ran away from health care. when republicans attacked democrats on health care, democrats wanted to talk about something else. what you're saying this time is, you believe you can win a messaging war on health care if you frame it the way you framed it. >> i'm not sure that health care is going to be the dominant issue of the campaign. i'll tell you -- the republicans are going to try and do that.

you know, they're spending a lot of money today, beaming into districts, rooting for failure. again, repeating their obsession with defunding and repealing the affordable care act. they'll try and do that. here's what we're going to put on the ballot in 2014. do you want solutions? do you want reasonable people with common sense ideas to address the nation's problems who are going to fight for what they believe, but are focused on -- keep their eye open to the middle ground? or do you want a continuation of the cliffs and the chaos and people who are actually hurting the economy and costing jobs as a result of their partisan obsessions? that's what this campaign is going to be about. and i think that we -- voters would prefer our message to the republican obsession. >> the polarized nationalizing and climate, you're trying to win over independent voters. president obama standing with independent voters has not been great in our polling. his job rating holding up more so in comparison to republicans, and more so, thanks to a unified base again. sort of coming back to the

president. is -- is -- is this a way that you selectively want president obama involved in the campaign in 2014, or do you think he will be an asset in many of these places? >> oh, i think he is -- he will be an asset in many places, particularly against the house republicans who are just toxic right now in every single poll. look, in 2006, we won the majority, because independent voters preferred our approach to the house republican approach. in 2013, all of those generic polls that you just referred to are showing a fundamental shift of independent voters back to house democrats. why is that? because inspect voters are by their very nature nonpartisan and when they see house republicans who are willing to hurt the economy, cost 1.5 million jobs, laid off federal workers, furloughed people, in order to advance a partisan obsession, they have buyers' remorse. and that is why you're seeing that shift back to house

democrats who will be about solutions and reasonableness versus the kind of theatrics and harm you've seen from house republicans. >> let me ask a few things on health care. do you want the enrollment period extended beyond march 31st if the healthcare.gov isn't running smoothly by december 1st, say? >> look, i think we have to continue to make common sense accommodations and improvements, based on facts on the frounld. and so whatever we need to do in order to make sure this works, we ought to consider. as opposed to house republicans who have now announced they're going to have a series of hearings and across a whole bunch of committees. i want oversight to make something work. but not obsession to ensure that something fails. >> you don't think this hearing today on the contractors is a legitimate hearing? seems legitimate. >> oh, absolutely. and i welcome it. because we need answers and we need accountability. but what they have said, they're going to start a series of hearings across multiple

committees, which is part of their obsession. that's not oversight. that's obsession. >> common sense accommodation. that phrase sounds like you're open to some deadline extensions. >> i would be, if it's based, again -- if it's based on common sense and in the interest of making something work as opposed to an obsession with ensuring that something fails. >> steve israel, chairman of the dccc. also, we should remind people, a member of congress from long island, although we're not hearing your long island accent very well today. thank you, sir. >> i'm going to get some pizza now. >> all right. fair enough. all right. you've been looking at live pictures of capitol hill, the hearing on the rough rollout of healthcare.gov. we saw frank pallone up there holding up a poster with headlines on the rollout of the medicare part d, the prescription drug benefit, which also got off to a rough start way back when. up next, "the daily rundown" data bank of numbers you need to know or you may want to know to get through your day. plus, could kennedy cousin,

michael skakel, be getting out of jail? the latest twist in a nearly 40-year-old murder mystery. but first, today's trivia question. according to our friends at roll call, six current members of congress are engineers. how many of them serve on the house energy and commerce committee? first person to tweet the correct answer t to @chucktodd@"the daily rundown" will get the shoutout. answer is coming up on tdr. building animatronics

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help the gulf when we made recover and learn the gulf, bp from what happened so we could be a better, safer energy company. i can tell you - safety is at the heart of everything we do. we've added cutting-edge technology, like a new deepwater well cap and a state-of-the-art monitoring center, where experts watch over all drilling activity twenty-four-seven. and we're sharing what we've learned, so we can all produce energy more safely. our commitment has never been stronger.

well, the attorney for michael skakel, one of the kennedy cousins, who spent 13 years in prison for the murder of martha moxley says he will request that his client be released while he awaits a new trial. skakel's conviction was set aside wednesday after a judge determined his defense attorney had failed to give him adequate representation. among other things, the judge blamed the defense for not

focusing more on skakel's brother, the last person seen with moxley, and said that could have changed the course of the trial. the state attorney says prosecutors will appeal the judge's decision. skakel, the cousin of robert and ethel kennedy was convicted of murdering moxley in 1975 when the two were teen agers. all the attention that trial got at the time, hard to imagine that people feel as if michael skakel didn't get a good representation. anyway. now it's time for "the daily rundown" databank. if you stayed up late watching the world series, let's start with the number 64. that's the percentage of older workers that are piling up more debt than savings as they near retirement. a washington firm called hello wallet found that the number -- found the number to be much higher than the 46% of those who are debt outpacing savings before the recession. this is a real impact. retirement crisis that's taking place. our next number is eight. that's the number of fund raisers president obama is

planning to headline over the next two months. when it comes to campaigning for house and senate democrats. this ambitious schedule -- excuse me. that will take the president to democratic events in some big fund raising cities like new york, boston, miami, philadelphia, seattle, san francisco, l.a. and dallas, all will take place before the end of november. here's another one. 750,000. that's how many votes that it apparently typically takes to win a statewide election in texas. here's why. despite the fact there is 26 million people that live in the state, it generally only takes 750,000 to win a statewide republican primary. and since texas hasn't elected a democrat statewide to office in almost 20 years, you could argue that winning a gop primary in those 750,000 votes is tanemount to winning the general election to represent 26 million people. next up, $337. that's the average price of a domestic airline ticket over the

christmas holidays. it doesn't include taxes and fees. that's up more than 7% over last year. what's more, the airlines are reporting that corporations says not to hold out hope for last-minute sales, pointing out that airlines have consolidated. there's fewer flights available than in recent years, so the prices might actually go up further. and finally, the number three. that's how much one fan paid for a ticket to last night's opening game of the boston st. louis world series in fenway park. think about that. $3. it wasn't $300. it wasn't $3,000. it was $3. the ticket was sold on stub hub to a fan named eric with the service fee he actually ended up paying $6. but somehow somebody put a world series ticket on stub hub and forth a few zeros. jack lew and california

governor jerry brown, former secretary of state -- current secretary of state john kerry, rahm emanuel and secretary of state hillary clinton speaking tonight. you can watch the live stream of this at -- preview at msnbc.com. [ female announcer ] it figures...on your busiest day you see the gray. try root touch-up by nice 'n easy. just brush our permanent color matching creme right where you need it. then rinse. in ten minutes zap those grays and get on with your day. nice 'n easy root touch-up. mmm! this is delicious katie.

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because they know i don't trade like everybody. i trade like me. i'm with scottrade. (announcer) ranked highest in investor satisfaction with self-directed services by j.d. power and associates. been a lot of questions to our folks testifying. now we're going to hear some answers. testifying now is sharyl campbell, senior vice president at cgi feral, the company responsible for much of the design in technology behind the new health care website. let's take a listen. >> a transaction processor, and sophisticated business analytics to simultaneously help americans determine their eligibility for insurance, apply for subsidies, shop for health plans and enroll in qualified plans. the technology works in real-time with sophisticated analytic systems developed by other contractors. large-scale data repositories hosted in disparate federal agency databases, and health plans from more than 300 insurers.

in short, the federal exchange, including the ffm, is not a standard consumer website. but rather a sophisticated, integrated technology platform that for the first time in history combines the processes of selecting and enrolling in insurance and determining eligibility for government subsidies, all in one place and in real-time. since september 30th, 2011, cgi federal has worked diligently to develop the ffm by following a rigorous process that is customer area for large i.t. projects. the ffm passed eight required technical reviews before going live on october 1. while cgi federal delivered the functionality required, and some consumers were able to enroll on october 1, we acknowledge that issues arising in the federal exchange made the enrollment process difficult for too many americans. consequently, cgi federal's

focus shifted immediately to solving consumer access and navigation processes on the exchange. the first set of issues on the exchange concerned another contractor's enterprise and management or eidm function. the eidm allows consumers to create secure accounts and serves as the front door to the federal exchange. consumers must pass through this front door in order to enter the ffm application. unfortunately, the eidm created a bottle neck, preventing the vast majority of consumers from accessing the ffm. since then, cms, cgi federal and other contractors have worked closely together to troubleshoot and solve this front-door problem. as more consumers are gaining access through the ffm, and enrolling in qualified plans, the increased number of transactions caused performance problems, such as slow response times and data assurance issues. cgi federal is addressing these problems through tuning,

optimization and application improvements. over the past two weeks, the federal exchange has steadily improved. we have continued to dedicate the resources necessary to sh t shorten wait and transaction times in order to improve quality. we have confidence in our ability to deliver successfully. why? because the company that i represent here today has successfully delivered some of the most complex i.t. implementations for the u.s. and government, including federalreporting.gov. we have participated with cms in transformative projects like medicare.gov, which has enabled more than 50 million beneficiaries to compare health and drug plans annually. we are widely recognized by independent parties for our expertise in i.t. systems and software, and have level five credentials that demonstrate our commitment to rigorous software development processes. and as part of the fifth largest independent i.t. and business process services company in the

world, we leverage deep resources and expertise of a global work force. i will end this testimony where i began. by reinforcing cgi federal's unwavering commitment to working collaboratively with cms, to improve the consumer experience. thank you. >> thank you. mr. slavic. >> chairman upton, ranking member waxman and members of the committee, good morning. i'm andy slavic, group vice president at optimum. the qssi, one of the contractors working in the online marketplaces. let me begin by saying -- >> this hearing now of the contractor. been dipping in and out here of the health care hearing here. the contractor is testifying. they're doing their opening statements. we gave a preview earlier. let's bring in our thursday gaggle, contributing writing,

gonzalez. democratic strategist, emily tissue us isman and jim garrity. let me start with you, nathan. i think the more interesting thing with this hearing today is going to be how house democrats treat these guys. we know what the agenda of the house republicans are on some of this stuff. but how will democratic frustration that's clearly starting to percolate, how is it going to express itself in some of these questions? >> i think it's definitely a fluid situation. i think you're starting to see more democrats, starting with senator shaheen, senator pryor, maybe talking a little bit more about delays in the sign-up process and that is starting to open the door for other democrats to say, hey, okay, let's -- let's show some more flexibility than i did before. because as you point out in the earlier segment withim chairman israel, there are democrats running for re-election in tough districts. not just republicans on the defensive in moderate to swing districts. it's democrats, as well. >> and emily, we heard steve

israel say common sense, you know, delays, things like that. if it -- this is going to happen. you know? we know it's going to happen in some form or another. the question is when. >> yeah, you know, i mean, for -- even for democrats to be denying that there have not been problems, we just come up as totally disingenuous and people hate politicians that lie. so to deny any problems at all would just be ridiculous. like, you have to be acknowledging the problems and the president did. but what i also think is disingenuous is a lot of the republicans that are on this committee that are holding the hearing today were also on the committee with the medicare part d rollout. and at the time said things like, it's going take a little while. there might be some glitches. so the fact that all of a sudden they have turned the page suddenly and this is totally unacceptable, you know, first it was don't pass the law. repeal the law. delay the law. and now it's not enough people with get on quickly enough. that i think also comes across as disingenuous. >> this is a little bit of a challenge for republicans. what is this -- what is this sort of process that we're in right now?

what is this moment? is this the beginningf further problems? or is this a medicare part d., where -- and that's the thing. we don't know. republicans, you know, they run the risk of, okay, what happens if the website starts working? >> medicare part d, the government wouldn't find you if you didn't sign up during the bush administration. >> you just get charged a whole heck of a lot of money for prescription drugs. >> that's your choice. today the contractors really should have sent a papier-mache version of themselves and let everybody on the committee whack it like a pinata. they're going to be the designated scapegoat. hhs didn't send anybody, probably a mistake. no message to the contractors out there. having said that, the only thing they can say, don't blame us, we just hired incompetent contractors. >> and that's what's interesting today, that "new york times" piece, how the contractors plan on doing this. lots of blame deflecting. i'm going to get back to more of you in a few minutes. we'll have a little bit more of the health care hearing. but first, let me sneak in a break, and you need to know what

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testifying now, this is lynn spellacy, her company determines benefit eligibility. she is giving her opening statement. illinois democrat brad schneider is the only engineer in the house who is not on the energy and commerce committee. so kind of nice they take their business background and actually match them up with committee assignments. at least we hope. congratulations to today's winner, lee hahn. send your tribute suggestions to "the daily rundown"@msnbc.com. we'll be right back. [ male announcer ] with only minutes left before kickoff, thousands of tailgaters realized they needed one thing...and fast. mom, i need a bathroom. [ male announcer ] that's when the charmin tailgating potties rolled in,

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>> live pictures here. this is john lau. he's the program director with a company called circo.

that's him testifying now. his company was contracted to process paper insurance applications. a little old school. let's take a listen. >> in consistency resolution entails data verification and validation of the self-attested data from applicants. these are problemses identified through the use of the data hub in the main system and then communicated to us. to date, circo has successfully opened two of its four processing centers those in kentucky and arkansas. a third will be opening next week in missouri and in about four or five week, the final site in oklahoma. we've had no trouble recruiting and hiring competent staff in any of our areas and have received the number of compliments from local officials and community groups about the professionalism of our recruiting efforts and outstanding ways we've onboarded and train our people.

-- >> bring you back in to the gaggle. mr. garrity, was there one thing i noticed what i feel about the last couple of days and you heard it in steve israel and i heard it in john boehner which is you want to bring up what's going on in the civil war wit the republican party and you say health care, health care, health care. you want to bring up health care to a democrat and they say shut down, shut down, shutdown! no, no, no, stop talking about health care, we want to talk about shut down. our disunity. did you see health care? >> during the shutdown, after the shutdown, they were in a crappy, crappy place. after a while, time will go back and people will think less and less about the the govern want should thedown and new issues will come along. >> the obama website and the exchanges and are the the prices accurate. it's democrat are current,

whereas, unless you have a government shutdown in january and february. weren't you angry in october 2013? wasn't that awful? >> i think i disagree. ask we're seeing a little bit of the republican civil war. >> civil war is there. >> i think it's still ongoing. lindsay graham yesterday was stomping around in south carolina and all of his opponents have no problem and they're beating the living daylights out of them. >> it's a fight over the frame of the election and the democrats want the election to be about. do you like the tea party or not? yes or no? >> the election will probably be more complex than that. do you like the tea party and do you like the dysfunction of the government. there are a lot of issues going on. >> emily, it was interesting to hear steve israel saying republicans are looking forward to running health cara, gen and

let's have a health care conversation and then i said let's back off. do they need to at least nip or keep republicans from totally dominating the issue? >> yeah. i was surprised that he would back off when you asked that question and i think he should go for it. the law is ready to go into effect and once people reap real benefits and get covered where they weren't covered before. i think that ed spreads naturally. you don't have to drive the message so hard. it will work to the democrats' advantage. >> if republicans don't have health care. what else do they have? >> health care is their big play. >> it is their bread and butter. without it, then what? >> the question is do you feel the economy is doing great right now? >> do they need to get back to that message? >> in 2012, it didn't work as well. they didn't emphasize obama care as much as they needed to and that's why obama was reelected

and i'm not 100% sure that i'm onboard with that. you have this massive disaster unfolding before them. that's all they need. >> fred upton's first questions had to do with a delay and also not ready for prime time and let's take a liss 18 the at some of the responses. >> start with miss campbell. >> sure. >> i mean, you all testified in september, and so, either you didn't know about these problems or you knew about them and chose not to disclose them. which one is it? >> chairman, from a cgi perspective, our portion of the application worked as designed. people have been able to enroll, not at the pace and not at the the experience, but the end to end testing was the responsibility of cms. our portion of the system is what we testified in terms of what was ready to go live, but

it was not our decision to go live. >> it was not your decision to go live? >> it was cms' decision, not our decision one way or the other. >> did you recommend to cm is that perhaps they weren't ready and they might delay the date. >> it was not our position to do so. >> so you chose not to share those thoughts with them, is that right? >> let me clarify my statement. cms had the ultimate decision for a live or no-go decision, not cgi. we were not in a position. we are there to support our client. it is not our position to tell our client whether they should go live or not go live. >> so who at cms were you sharing that information with or those decisionses? anyone in particular? >> once again, chairman. it was not -- i did not have nor did drshgs gi have an opinion on cms to go live or no-go

decision. >> do you know who at cms made the decision to go live? >> good morning. i'm chris jansing and you're watching right now congress holding its first hearing to investigate the botched rollout of the health care law. what you've been seeing is contractors who built the site and they've been answering questions, but as you can see, a lot of politics involved just from the opening statements. >> top administration officials and lead contractors appeared before this committee, looked us in the eye and assured us repeatedly that everything was on track except that it wasn't. >> i would just ask my republicans. let's the goal here be to fix it not nix it. and if that were your goal i would feel good about that, but i don't see that happening. ? design choices that hide unaffordable premiums, massive glitches, dead ends, error