welcome to this week's politicking we're talking about the president's declining poll numbers and no one better to break it all down for us the real story with the pollster and republican strategist frank luntz one of my favorite people all right the recent c.n.n. poll of polls and frank by the way is a republican strategy is the best selling author and he's been a commentator an analyst on fox news and c.b.s. recent c.n.n. poll of polls shows obama's approval rating at forty one percent fifty five percent disapprove the only people lower of congress who have faith what's going on frank first of congress has got an eight percent nine percent job approval rating khadafi had a fifteen percent job approval rating and that was among the people who killed him hitler had eleven percent yeah bug juice and so it shows you how far congress has fallen the i want to take it one step broader which is that we don't trust any institutions right now it's not just the presidency that's in challenges that's being in check and it's not just congress it's business leaders it's cultural

leaders it's the media it's everybody we think is out for themselves and against us there's no cronkite there is no there's no arbiter and there's nobody that we trust mother teresa is gone nelson mandela's been off the political stage there's really nobody that we can look to and say that someone i believe in you know had it by the way was colin powell but then after the iraqi situation even he lost that kind of bipartisan is no duty figure in america that americans can say yes there's one but she's not political and that's oprah winfrey she's the most trusted most respected individual in the country and in some cases across the globe hillary would come in high politically though and she's a very divisive social come in very high among women very high among democrats very well among republicans as well as she could win she's clearly more than just viable i think that she's the front runner but going back to obama could so that's a good thing that the challenge with him is that if the polarization this country is so. deep that republicans democrats can't talk to each other they can't dine

with each other right now i like to joke that democrats laugh louder are much more fun to hang out with but they always stick you with a check at the end of the evening right now we're not talking to each other and so this divide has become a chasm but in every poll in the past obama always came out well in likeability yes we liked him because because they thought he was honest because they thought he was trying the problem with health care is that now they're not convinced that that he looked a straight in the eye and said again and again if you want to keep your health care you can well it doesn't work that way if the insurance companies have to cut you off let's presume he's not a liar was he misinformed they do not know his own bill to be insurance companies stab them what happened or are you saying he's a liar well first of all never use that language because it's so polarizing and so divisive one of the reasons why we've lost civility in this country is because we accuse our opponents of things that are just awful but i am not convinced that he

told the truth or not convinced that he didn't understand all of the word would you use that he did not acknowledge the consequences of his legislation is this all due to the affordable health care it's all due to that nancy pelosi her famous statement which we laugh about today if we weren't crying is that well we'll have to pass the legislation to see what's in it larry when you're doing something so significant that's going to affect every american don't you have the responsibility to know the consequences of that legislation to know the good in the bad and what i would argue is that why rush it that the republicans should be criticized for shutting down the government and playing politics i agree with that. but a lot of what they were doing was saying that you don't know what's in this legislation and it is better to get it right than it is to rush it sixty seven percent of america wants a health care program but they don't want to be the only industrial nation in the

world doesn't have want to go now but we don't want this health care program what we want is to be protected against preexisting conditions what's in this covers what we want is to know that we will get the quality of care that we deserve at a time that we need it which this doesn't do and i'd argue that it is not a discussion over the website that that's just something that happened that nobody was expecting your your co-pays are going to go up your premiums are going to go up your ability to access your doctor and your hospital is going to change larry the people who will watch this show probably don't have that problem because they're probably wealthier than average better educated than average and have the capability to make the right decisions for themselves but for the average american they're being pushed into something that they didn't ask for they didn't want a takeover of health care what they wanted was these things to be covered it could have been done in a smaller more efficient more effective way it wasn't and now we have the mess we

had over the weekend the administration declared it has achieved its goal of making health care work best majority of users you know that their website work right and what they're saying is that now ninety percent of the people who come in can get signed up i'm not sure if it's ninety percent but think about it so that means that ten percent of americans one out of ten there are people who are on the cameras and hailing the sound for this little conversation we're having right now it means that one or two of the people who are in this studio will not be able to access it and that's just signing up that isn't even getting the health care delivered to you. we have a responsibility as as people who do talk about politics just as the people that we elect we have a responsibility to tell people the truth and they deserve the truth and if the system doesn't work it's more important for us to acknowledge when we make mistakes

than it is for us to push it well bred i wrong you know i agree with you howard bragman is going to be joining us in a couple minutes and that's what he does for a living well as do you as a pollster obama calls you in i know you're republican paul i go by the way. what advice would you give the first thing is when the president says asks you you answer you don't tell him no second is to put yourself he put the country ahead of your party the first i'd say to him is that the american people appreciate those who admit when they make mistakes most americans support his intent they just don't support the results stand by intent stand by the principle that people should be helped but acknowledge that the actual details of the plan had not been worked out and made you made a mistake yes made you made you didn't tell the truth and myth that what you claimed wasn't true and how you say that only by saying it by being blood this is why chris christie is so popular chris christie says it is it is is an added him

self. ever chris christie goes he brings people to their feet you know but want to really mean i get nominated the other day he says he's all cuomo says that chris christie is going to stay out of the not indorse in the new york governor's race what the american people want is our individuals their leadership who say what they mean and mean what they say look each other straight in the eye and tell the truth so you would tell abominate go on television and say i misinformed you and i would go on t.v. to the toughest interviewer of all i would take whoever is the strongest individual and let them have at me and be candid and in that would amount to odes i would do my best to not come at the wall but i wouldn't i wouldn't yell at them but that would be disrespectful and then hopefully he'll see this winson rush limbaugh and to do it not because it's not the pope but that it happened but that's the but that's the whole issue is that they want the chance the public wants

a chance to hold you accountable there's three actually beats i want this to be a useful conversation there are three actually buttes at the american people want most in government officials see effectiveness and accountability and what they want from their political leadership is common sense. that's what they're trying to get out of people and they don't think that this health care plan makes health care more efficient more effective and the president isn't holding himself accountable joining us now are two people who know what the president needs to do to regain that popularity the p.r. strategist and vice chairman of reputation dot com author of the best selling where's my fifteen minutes howard bragman also here to help us fergal commentator tanya acker who worked with the two thousand and four kerry edwards campaign and whatever happened edwards. we just heard frank who remains with us were doing or they had to say i think that frank was right on the money and here is one of the things he said that was so right american people want more than anything else

efficiency they want things to work and so if we can all put aside for the moment our various partisan differences over this health care plan whether or not there should be a health care plan the fact is we have one the supreme court has upheld it and what this administration has got to do is to make sure that it's running effectively for the people that's it that's intended to service you know what would you agree what he said i do when you said go back and look at this bill conceived plan i go back and i looked in bill sold plan. united states as the most expensive health care in the world but not the best health care in the girl in select moments were very good but consistently not the best in the world high infant death rates other measures that we use number two obamacare how the affordable care act does solve a lot of wrongs with the system it helps people with preexisting conditions

it make sure that our limits that people don't go bankrupt in health care none of this was sold well and he did a horrible horrible horrible job of explaining why this is positive and even today you can turn on any network and you can hear twenty people talking about how they lost their insurance nobody will say i got insurance and i couldn't get it before so frank this may not be solvable. i don't know how i don't know how it is solvable because when people get thrown off it creates instability and anxiety and that is the worst thing you can have when it comes to health care is fear the second aspect is it is not more fordable for a lot of people are signing up for it because of co-pays and because of premium increases third is that if you don't have access to the hospital system the true used to to the doctor that she used to i never use a doctor so it doesn't really matter to me obviously but by looking at me you can see an user and i go to

a doctor i just i don't i don't need bad news i have enough bad news in the newspaper i don't need someone telling me if i'm going to go in the next thirty days i just want to go i want to be able to snap my fingers louder than that and i just want to go if you lose your doctor. it's unimaginable and so larry that's the challenge of your problems that we can't solve i do think though that it's important to focus on another part of the narrative here that has really gone missing in the coverage of a lot of the of the rollout your talking about the people who lost insurance who the president promised would never lose insurance that's about five percent of insured americans where there's a whole other ninety five percent of people who are benefiting from this who are having those problems i mean one of the things that the media is not doing and you know i might quote the pope here i never did i think i'd be quoting a pope but you know the pope recently said that when an elderly person dies of exposure no news when the stock market loses two points it's all over every channel

what we're not seeing are the stories of the people in south l.a. the people outside of oakland the people in the other really impoverished communities who are getting service who in spite of the fact that their insurers are changing rules changing coverage areas those people are getting service they're getting treatment and frankly i don't think we're i don't think we're talking about what is probably. it's ninety five percent why i think that howard nailed it i think that from the outset the administration did a really terrible job of selling the program i think that they let the g.o.p. get ahead of the game in terms of telling americans what this plan was or what it was. time that was given to a lot of nonsensical claims like sarah palin's death panels and the like i mean these are things that made very sexy news really good sound bites but they really didn't go to what this plan matter what it would do for most americans french said where he would say to the person what would you say. i'd say you have to go back to ground zero you have to say here is what we can see this plan as here is why we did

this plan and you have to go back and start to defined this start to sell with passion but the other thing is this frank was just talking about the reason obama won the election was he did it community by community and the this health care plan has to seoul be sold community by community because the biggest problem and this health care plan will not work if we don't get enough healthy younger people to sign up for it he's got to talk to college students and others and say you have to come on board and here's where the impact if it will break if they overturn congress function to just throw the whole thing out actually it was seeing more politicking with the panel after the break. quite often countries rich in natural resources are the poorest africa's a colony it's a colony of the big corporations it's a colony of some of its own leaders who are under the thumbs of the big

corporations so they have to beg from the world bank's development of social programs goes to pay back debts cold country is drowning under the amount of debt that they did and so every year they would borrow money. and they would use that same and there was money to pay back oh this can all that money really help. the wages of debts. or is probably the most complex difficult to. awful. lot. i think a phenomenon of friendly fire probably. back to the invention of gunpowder.

sure but the people and. their families their people. reading. this some of them shoots my brother in the leg not intentional because it did because it was night time or in the morning even the best even the best soldiers. were going to make mistakes this is this whole idea of brotherhood and author. and camaraderie in this sense it was in this context that has absolutely no place. for the back of politicking with frank luntz tanya acker and howard bragman i was mentioning could congress overthrow this bill but you said he would veto it right it's a result of this bill is in place the bills in place the question is are we going to do the right thing and the right thing is to allow it to remain in law because

the because the president ran on it in two thousand and twelve and got elected on it but the right thing is also to modify parts of it that aren't working this president wants to defend it and he thinks that any kind of compromise is selling out well there are aspects of it that are problematic for businesses that are problematic for employees and problematic for individuals are actually just to the right thing and compromise look i don't think that's a particularly controversial proposition i mean we do that all the time. also not this congress i mean you have a congress that started out on day one saying we're going to make this has waterloo you know the notion that the president has been alone and some refusal to negotiate and by the way that even take issue with that because i think that you see more of movement from this white house than you do from the other side in congress but all that being said you know look look how many times we played with social security over the. years i mean that the idea of having to amend or advise legislation

that's not novel and if it turns out that a bipartisan consensus determines that that's what's required then do it now they have no not a care and social security did not have the time to bless that it to start with bad so that you know they remember medicare wasn't so sure i was five years old but i remember medicare would as i had the history we've never once this is not was not a get out there know the room some had a lot of negativity mostly from the politicians now they do it as a minute kennedy there was no big slap at kennedy had a medical change in civil rights also this is the biggest piece of legislation and i remind you that this that there were over twenty democrats who voted against it this was never bipartisan legislation was pushed through it was a democrat versus republican vote which i accept because that's how the senate in the house work but our politics have changed since then in response to this legislation he can't forget the results of two thousand and ten or two thousand and twelve the american people want them to get along to talk to compromise and to make

something good happen. and it's not happening how on earth do you do that i agree with you but when you've got a republican base that is dead set against this president that hates this president and when you've got people who are elected to congress for the sole purpose of impeding anything he wants to do i'm just not exactly sure what that road to compromise looks like i believe in it i wish it were possible but the notion that the president because again remember if you were to just go off on his own issue some executive orders and make things more efficient than you can have all kinds of folks on the right wing calling him communist fascist dictator oh you know when everyone knows the numbers or is it doesn't require these executive actions and he's used it more than anybody else what there has to be and i recognize that there are conservatives a do not want the president is to succeed but in the end we will only be successful as a country when people have the courage to stand up and say enough enough is. and it's

not happening our perceptions reality right absolutely can he change the perception of what i think what you said he needs what we like to call a catharsis interview he needs to sit down with somebody who's perceived this tough stuff a mom plus chris matthews somebody who can really understands the politics and he needs to say it's not perfect our intentions were good our intentions are right it's not perfect and once we get this in place we are open to changes let's get it up let's get it running right let's get past the technical issues with it and then if we see flaws we will fix them and i think just saying i have a willingness to change will mean a lot of employees with experience with this our hope by their enemies i would like to have rush limbaugh attacking me where i mean i think it would help me in. that number i've got him on speed dial i'd be happy to get mccall i think he could turn the election the other way i mean he could turn people he could make you like obama

if you didn't like them asked rush. there just on that will happen. now the problem that the issue that i have right around me is help you. but i don't but not everything is about politics i know that the name of the show is politicking but everything in life is about politics and one of the challenges that i face because i do these focus groups all the time and the tries me crazy is that people will not sit down and have a conversation like this anymore you cannot have a dialogue about so many issues and it's even dangerous around the christmas table i hear stories of relatives having knockdown drag out fights couples who will no longer invite each other to dinner i didn't know you felt that way and then the dinners over you don't even pay for dessert more people have run out of more checks in the last six months because they are offended about the politics of others and to mother republicans they meet in a phone booth well we're gerrymander. political districts and

while somebody like ted cruz may be a war on the republicans party's us a lot of people may not like him his base loves ted but howard what happened to conservative democrats conservative that well this is what i think happened if you look at the base of each party so let's say you've got the hard right republican base and the hard left democratic base what i think and you know granted i'm a democrat but i think that my experience with my party proves this out democrats particularly the ones who get elected they tell their base to shut the f. up i know we're on the internet but they used to be the republic thousand sequelae you know they be quiet we're going to win this the republicans at least today today's moderate republicans i mean the party leadership i see it still seems to me as if they feel like they've got to throw their hard right a bone you know they've got to show you know our you know we're not totally with

gay people together you know where we don't trust them either they've got to kind of throw them a bone i think that the democratic base is much more likely to be kept in line and that may be because the country is probably a better. right of center and so our base just doesn't have as much room to act and the republican base to take you know they give them an edge you know they want the whole country that's what i think the other thing is the primary process is geared towards the most liberal democrats and the most conservative republicans one reason romney had such a problem going back to the center was because some of the things he said during the primary chris christie if he were to get the republican nomination would be an extraordinarily strong candidate ok but however if how do you get that nomination there how do you grow you in south carolina you know or you know we always do or it's christie it's interesting chris christie loses iowa wins new hampshire loses south carolina wins florida. he's got an incredible record but here's the

thing for christie he's actually a very moderate republicans policies but he's very tough and how he communicates. i started to tell this joke. wherever chris christie goes he brings people to defeat reason i run across he hasn't seen his own feet in six years is that this he is the best communicator that the g.o.p. has right now his directness he's in your face here's the question i have and you guys should answer can the american people be yelled at for two years as much at the end i don't think so i think they're going to pick him up part i think the republican party just him and bracing obama after the storms in new york superstorm sandy there are people who hate him if christie whom who you fear is a democrat if christie is out of it oh gosh i haven't given it much thought because i do think he is for men of all i mean and going back to frank's question i think

there is something about that directness and bluntness that people actually like so i think that people maybe could stand being yelled at for not another couple of years i'd rather have that by modern real moderate i'd rather have the yeller be hillary than chris christie but that being said i think that you know you hear time and a half that you had something really important and in my business and in the p.r. world the number one thing of importance in the reason you've been on the air for almost three months now successful. is authenticity it's authenticity a you you have a sense of self you have a soul you have a true center as soon as people start veering from that and they're perceived as inauthentic that's when people lose their trust they will disagree with you but if you are authentic they will respect you a little ronald reagan was that way a lot of people didn't agree with him but they thought he was true. in his belief

that obama and edwards and that was romney's problem as well because he governed differently as massachusetts governor then he ran as a republican in a primary and that's exactly obama's problem right now is the actions to earlier it is too early i heard someone use the line that you ever commit suicide last term and. it really is both parties are making mistakes the republicans greatest advantage in two thousand and fourteen is nancy pelosi and i made the mistake of saying that to a colleague of yours who was horribly offended by but here's the point she is not a compromise or she is not a unifier she is as partisan as it gets and we watched this in her defense of obama care if they had someone who was more mors such centralized more centrist they would be much stronger they mirror a compromise boehner open up the rules and people don't you know this during the four years that nancy pelosi was speaker republicans could offer anything they

could barely get to the floor to talk they were shut out baner said we're not going to have these long votes we're going to give the democrats the right to offer changes to the rules it has slowed up the process but he did a lot to open up the conversation between republicans and democrats i think he's being held hostage in many instances by the extreme right wing of his party so i'm not prepared to say that he's not willing to compromise i think frank's right i think that there have been glimmers of hope from time to time with great faith and between that he might be willing to move but i don't think that he can because i think that there's an element in the republican party that is very proud of being able to do nothing for obama's no in twelve and sixteen irrelevant right to be irrelevant that he won't be the campaign in two thousand and sixteen will be a referendum on what he has done and whether to carry it forward with hillary clinton whether to change course with whatever republican. but hillary would be she

wouldn't wouldn't she be so formidable as to right now being a major favorite well what hillary's got going for her builder the campaign for absolutely where he quill do good and they know that already or well it's a good issue thousand and eight well what hillary has said is it. in less something very shocking happens she is going to coast into the democratic nomination not joe biden i don't think is there a god no no he's not going to run and cuomo is not going to run if hillary runs she is going to coast into this nomination means you can collect more money it means you're less damage the republicans are going to beat the crap out of each other just like they did last time and you go in damage and some income limping in and they're going to have to end the primary and start their fund raising all over almost any long shot republican if you like as a republican consultant and the one that i'm looking at in addition to christie's

marco rubio i think marco rubio is for the republicans what brock obama was for the democrats in two thousand and seven thank you all very much we've just begun to fight luntz acar bragman sounds like a law firm. for joining us on politicking today from my viewers out there want to hear from you join the conversation on my facebook page share your thoughts on twitter by tweeting king's things and using the politics he had today that's all for this week's politicking see it.

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