gwenthe professor, the policen and the president. id barack obama step on his own health ca message? tonight on "washinon week." the first black esident steps in his first racl controversy. >> the cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting someody whenthere was already poof th they were in thei own home. gwen: th attempts to step away. >> tere was an overreaction in pulling the pofessor out of his home to the station. ialso continu to believe based on wt i herd, that professor gas probably overreaed as well.

gwen: the health care push is being threatened. s ros garden, new conferences and rallies. >> t nation cannotafford a future here our governnt spends mo on medicare and medicaid thn we spend on anything else. this is te price of doing nothing about health ca. gwen: some emain unmoved. this administraon, this president s no one else to blame. they have no strong mn, they have no press coferences left. gwen: on the hill fed chaian ben bernankepushes te rese button. >> we have a much beter siation today than we ould ve if w'd seen a collapse of the glal financial system last october. gwen: is anybody lisening? covering the week peter baer of "th new york times," michael fletcher of "he washington post," maryn werber serfini of "national journal", anddavid wessel of "the wall street journal."

>>clebrating 4 years of journalistic excellence. live rom our ation's capital, th is "washington week" with gwen ifill, prduced in sociation with "national journal." corporate funding for "washington week" isprovided by -- >> w know why 're here. >> to dsign the future o flight inse and out. >> to build tomorrow's technogy in amazing ways. >> an reshape t science of aespace forever. >> around te globe, he people of boeing ae working together with a dreamof generations to me. >>hat's why we're here. >it creates alf the electricity that fuels o dreams. we have more f it than any place onarth. and we' working on cleaner ways to use coal every day.

there's moe information t nma.org. >>ajor funding fr "washington week" is proded by the annenberg fodation. the john s. and james lfer knight foundation. the cororation forpublic broadcasting. andby conributions for your pbs statn from viewers like ou. thank you. >> once again, live from washington, moderator gwen ifill. gwen: good evening if you evr wondered hether ce was the tird railof our time, this wee may have provided t answer. it all started with disputed arrestnd endd with a presidtial intervention. thplight the henne lewis gates jr., he african-merican scholar arested on his front porch onwhat some called a misundrstanding and others called racial profiling bcame th president's proble too, en he said this -- >> i dn't know, not havg been ere and not seeing al the facts what role ace played

in that. but i think i's fair to say, mber one, any of us would be pretty angry. number wo, thatthe cambrid pole acted stuidly in arresting somebody en ther was alrea proof that they re in their ownhome. gwen: thecambridge polic were insulted, the blogs explode so today the president steppe in agai with a surrise visit to the white hse pressroom. >> becuse this has been ratcheting up and i obviously helped o contributeratcheting it up, i wanto make ear that i my choice o words, and i think i unfortunatygave an impression that i was maligning the cambrid olice depatment or serant crowley specifically, and i could have calibrated those wor diffently.

en: the president usually avoids, sidests race-reled quesons, issues. at was different this te, peter? >> a couple things we difrent. first of l, he was askd direct questions a a press conference, and it's haer to avoid t. and i think wha you would be told is h waspersonally offended, t watch this contversy play out in whih a person heknew, person of some eminence, as he put , a middle-aged ma with a cane wa uled off with hadcuffs on his own font porchstruck something insidef him in a personalay. >> i think bo statements are very telling about barack obama a president. the dnesday night tatement where he sad the cambridge police acted stupidly w obviouslheartfelt, something he beieved. something genuinel came out of his own oinions on this. and i think the friday statement also i some ways was also another prt of barack obama, the conciliatory barck obama,he one who wants to bridge divides and doest want tonflame things and probbly regret it, although he didn't

use that word the idea his own words had further inflamed an alady polarizing situation. gwen: was reading, i thnk it s "salon" hat heada line, breakingews, the preside is a blck guy. maybe is that what were seeing? >> you could hav easily forgotn that. he spent sixonths -- gwen: a lot opeoplewanted -- >> i dn't know its surpring itook six months for his to happen, ut he kew at soe pot and it happens inany presidey that some racl issue will comeand consume the country and consume e media for a while nd it was goi to be a test fr how he ould respond cause obviously he does have this unique psition in americanociety hstory. so he did chose to weigh i where he ften might be more elyptical. lot of people wou say he had a duty to in some fasion because it hadreally conctrated a lot of people's attention. but what it did wassomething he didn't want, wich was to distract from halth care and other issues e'd rather talk abt.

>>o you think that's why he backed off and sort o recalibrad his statement? >> i thi that's a big motivaon, obviously. he undstood, i think, ifhe idn't go out there ad try to lance the boi to end he controver it would keep going on a on and he couldive as many interviews he wouldwant about the public plan or cost contrs for medicare and all be washed awa by, shold he apologize, should he not apologize, so hetried to end it tody. mae the sunday shoes will be a lotto talk an hopefully by monday he can geback to his health care. >> barack obama is famosly displinned -- disciplined ad doest make many mssteps. was he not expecti a question on this? did he really ad lip th whole thg. >he didn't ad ib. the word "stupidly"might have en the biggest prolem. with him saying tre might be sues of racial proling in america probably woul not have created a big uror. i think if e said gates isa friend of mine and i on't kn the facts t i have a hard

time imgining skip gates would commit disorderlycontact - conduct, that probablywouldn't have been quite as big i tnk it was theword "stupidly" and looks lik he was attackingthe police and it's a volate area and hits a wed american society had a lofpk time -- gwen: to call the police ofcer. >> tht's a remarble thin e president intervenesin a local case hat's become natiol, call the police officer,calls the prfessor, and invitesboth of them to t white hoe for a beer. that's really soething. i cat wait for that. gw: i want to see that. you had a qstion? >> so do you think that the fridaytiming as wise? is that gng to work? >> i hink it ws necessary. i hink it took too long to get to this point. there was a question wheher he could do it or not. the white house ca out this moing and said the first thing arlymorning, iformal briefing the presint had nothing else to say on he matter four hous later. gwen:o there mushave been a lot of dscussion.

>> lot of discussion inside the white hoe today and a lot of disagreement. you now, we don't havea good picture of how much disagreementut there were pele in the white huse who were wary of him revsiting the issue and others who elt like ther was no way t get round it unlesse did. >> it has ben very dismiss of the idea ad the president said it's etty uncontrversial and he saihimself this was a straightforwa analysis. >> althgh they say he president didn't watch i was s press conference by he cambidge police departmentnd ey were very incense and tked how the prident had beeaned sergeant crowley d asked for hisapology. intertingly, an africanmerican officer who had been at thescene cme ut for sergea croley and stood behind is fellow officer00% and add to the whole mix things andthey recognized witht doing something they had tout an end to it. gwen: one thing we know is health care w supposed to be the main issue of the wk and the present gave it all he had, whetr he was talking t

twork anchors -- >> we've literally been waiting 50 years andwe still aven't gotten it done. gwenor to primetime audiences. i'm rushedbecause i get letters ery day from amilies that are being clobber by alth care costs. an they ask me, can you hep? gwen: but as pols sowed growing skepicism about his plans, did th white house accomplish wt they intended to accomplh this week, michael, escially with what we just saw hapen? >> i'm tinking the wo no. not yet. buit wasn't for a lack of trng. the presidentas out there using the full arsenalofthe presidency for arose garden atement, a primetime news coerence and had a rally in ohio. he did iterviews fora host of interviews, all trying make the case that health are reform is neceary, not jut to cover the 46 milion people who don't have hlthare right now, but o really save the economy going foward. d he promises a lot

he's saying e can have better care for less coss and that health care form is really key to taming the ficit log term. and he americ public kind of shrugged at this saing we've heard promises before pa of whatthe white use is encountering kind of lke exaordinary action fatie. you've had the finaial bailouts and th auto bailuts. and while this may have prevented sort of total crisis in our economy, i dn't think it's sho up in the lives of americans as improvement. that's a problem th white house is facing to kind of netrate this growi epticism about big govnment action. >> the preside wanted both houses to pass their ownplans by the august rece, and it's not going to haen in the senate. how important is that? why does t matter whether they do it or don't do itby the august recess? in the end it doe't matter but it's asmall blowon obama. he put the deadli out there and now he's had to bck off. yestery when sentor reid made thetatement, he said that's ok, i justwant to see continued pogress.

and perhaps the sente finance committee will have abill out. it's ust another sall blow. think the deadline the prident says it himself, without a deadle nothing happens in this town ande wants to keephe heat on ongress. t the evidence these issues are har and com play the dad and hard to get across to the pubc and hard to buld a ublic cosensus for l the talk of the peoplehat don't have coerage, 85% to 86% of aericans do hae cverage. and while it's imerfect and people are losin coverag people are scared to give up what they don't know. >> what is behi the public uneasinesshowing up in the polls? people always re concerned about losing the coverage. what h changed? >> i on't know it's chged so much as people startlooking at the details nd they look very americannynd for allthe promises the president makes, he has a planthat delivs the things he says. the's no pla yet ht puts toether all these elements

people havdifferent ideas out there that sort of geat part of the problem. many ofthese cost savings that are the magicbullet here are speculative and don'know whether they'llwork. you catalk about the mayo clinic or he cleveland cliic does and we know hat can be sced up with the population of patents, some realy deep questions here. >> how do they decide when the presidt does the press conference, bully ulpit stuff and when he ss ok wwe've go to do something like this med-pac comission andwhen are ty being specific or just hearding -- heding the caton the hill. >> ty're moving to moe specificity the estion has been when is the president goingto focs in on hlth care sole. he's been doingthat and everythinglse and now when congress comes ba i think you'll see him talking lot more about specics. but gain, this stuff i pretty dense and real hard to sell on us. gwe that's what you saw n the news conferenc the other night. how much faith is tis whie

house put i their guy i an, it'sremarkable how often w see him in frt of a microphone,ow often we see him in front of a ban of cameras. they clearly ave decided, detailaside, the psident has maical powers of persuasion. >> right. that's right. that's barck obama's stock and trade. you look at e polls and even though there's a lot of skepticismabout his policies that come ceeping in e remain as popular president. his populrity is down some but clearly the white hous thinks he's the lesman tha can make this dal. gwen: as he said,without a deadlinnothing happens in this town. congre leaves townthe beginnin of next month. do they worry tey'll lose their momentum? >> i think ty worry about that buthe president establishea new deadline yestday and said, i want a bill on my desk by e end of the year. gwen: i ticed that. >> i thinkthat's one he'll have to stick t. gwen: wn in doubt come up with a new deadlie. we've got to move . the white house .r. push s the rd nuts and bolts work

underw behind the scene at the capital. harry reid admitd he would mi the president's first deadline to geta bill passed before theummer recess. but w did congres then seem toit the brakes? it felt this wek they could hear the rubber hiting the ro, as everybody said,wait a minute. at happened? >> they did hitthe brakes. bu this is no srprise to many people. ths is part of the ntural political cycle ofa big piece of legislation. eople expected this would happen. until now recently wee had many of thestakeholders comig at this ery easy. they wanted to sit at he table and keep theirseat at the table, whether 're talking about the replicans or modetes or conservatis or the insuran industry, they wanted a seat at the tble. so we dn't hear a whole lot of complaining. now we're making the ig decisions andit's bound to happen that once yu start making the big decisns, that everyone is goin to start drawing thr lines in the sand. so theconcerns were there fore about a publi plan, a

public health an that would pottially compete with private insunce plans for folks w don't have insuance. the concern were alwa there aboutwe've been talking that this bill could cot more thn $1 trilon, maybe even 1.5 trillion for a while now. th isn't the first wee hearing it. but this i the first we're starting to hear complaints about these tings. gw: are the complaints roed, as the president sd, are they rooted inthe idea that peopleust fel nervous and this is a bigdeal they want a ttle time to look a? >> i tnk it's both. in the ntional we're really talking abouthe republicans who ar starting to feel more uneasy thanthey didbefore an t house, of cour, thee's a strong democratic majorit they've nohad to give a lot ofhought to what the republican ncerns might be. the house we're talking about the s-called blue dog decrats, the conrvatives and the moderate emocrats. and frankly in t house, this

bill really can't e passed without their suport. but whether i's the blue dogs in the hse or the republicans in the senate, the ssues are retty much the same. some of the are philosophical, havinto do with big vernment. they don't reallywant what ty see could poteially be a big governme takeover. they don'treally wanta ugely expensive bill. th don't want t-- youknow, last week when the director f th c.b.o. dropped th bom -- gwen: congression budget offi. >> exactly he basically dropped the bomb that he sd none of the big bills on e table would actuay do much o decrease the costs of healtcare. that was very salient and thats what really got us started and is contnuing this week, in a way he oened the door bit for the republins and the conservative and moderate democratsto step in and say, ok, that exactly what i needed to her, here's

my linin the sand. we're talking the replicans but in th senate the democrats ifthey were to ve all their members healthy d in town have 60votes, enough to get past a filibusr. what's happening wih them? why are the republica able to have a influence on this process given that? >> acually, there e two reasons. one is that you do have morate and conservativ democratwith real concern in the nate. you lo at senaor conrad who runs the budgetcommittee. he is a -- hes very conerned about the pric tag and making sure you do something about cost but in aition to that, the sate finance committee here a t of this is goin on has a traditi of bipartisanship. and in this committee, senat baucus, the chairman of the committee, is edicated to working with his counterparts, senator grassley, republican from iowa, to come out with a partisan effort. he said this fm the beginng when senor grassley was chairman and dithe same thing

for senatobaucus. it their tradition and ey've vowed to work tother. >> the president has mad the case, he me it at the press conferencehat if you want more ninsured and igher cost the way to do th is to do nothing. do members of congress ee it that way, tat doin nothing wod be worse than dong something? or are they willing to ay we can'agree, we'll go homeand say we trieand failed. >> i don't thk there are many peoplewho would feelthe way that they could home and say we tried, i'm srry, the ther party really essed it up and really topped us from dong it. everyonfeels there's a lotat stake he. there are may people who believe we've got t get the whole thing done. there are many peoe who beeve even if we can gt a piece of it do and even if we can expand verage to children or expand coverage t a group people that we've ot to do something. anin fact that's wht's keeping thse negoiations, theye on again, they'r off again, before, wn i left the neroom this evening to com here, i had one peson yellng from one se of the newsroom,

yeah, they' on again. someone el would say no, th're off again. and so you now -- >>another day. >> that was about an hour ago and i'm n sure where they are now and it's minu to minute and the emoions are running very high a so it'snot clear from minute o minute it's changing. gwen: weove it at the end of the year when congre decides it's goin to be craz, the end of the suer this always happens becauseongress is also concerned this wek, arching a cllective eyebro at deral reserve chairman ben bernan who testified he as a plan, an exit strategy. where have i hea that before? wants to extra the fed from the unpredented privat sector inervention. co august 4 you'll be abe to read all aboutt in david wess's new book "in fe we trust." ben bernanke's waon the great panic. tonight he'll te us what bernke was up to thsweek. >> that'sright,gwen. the poor guy went the hill three tes, once in the senate and once before the house he had avery consistent message.

thingsre getting a little better a i deserve some of the crdit. and arney frank to him no one got elected with abumper sticker sayin you could have been worse. he said, you real do need to hange the regulory -- financial regulatoryapparatus so wdon't go through this again. and i'm 100% behind ti ithner, the treasy secretary and h plan, except r the things i don' want to . he said to congress emphatically he htes this bill ron paul is pushing th has the surpsing support of 2/ of thehouse that would gi the government e accountaility office the right to audit te feds' monetary policy, their interest rate decisions and basicaly said if yodo that the fd will lose its independence a we'll have inflation. was very strong on that. and he said, as ou said, i've got an exit trategy in mind so you don't have to worr about the fed inadversently creaing inflation, i'vgot a way out. then he tured the tables on th and said, so what's your exit strategy? how are you goin to get out of this $1.8 trillion deficit tht

you built? en: did they buy ny of that? >> ty all promised they don't want tinterfere with his independee and then they go to say why is i if e audit your monetary policy things ad tellou what we didwrong, it's demoracy, you'refor transparency, y don't they do ? a lot of theare suspicious of thgeithner plan and don' like the idea of ceating a consumeragency thatould take all e consumer stuff. thbanks hate it and som of tm were vey sympathetic and i dn't notice anyprofiles of courage of people coing up with olutions to the deficit when the chrman of the fed offered the oprtunity for em to giveit. >> when does the chrman think the exit strategwill be need? e we getting closeto the en or arewe to t point where they can pull back so of theieasy money on policie i don't think from what he said this week,i don't think hethinks we're anywhere near that. the receson could be about to end, meaning the ecnomy may b closto the point were it stops hrinking and starts to grow again.

but the fd's forecast is unemployment will rein very high, 9.%, 1% for another year and a half, twoyears. he thinks they have long tim to go before ey have to start lling back and wants to resure people they n do it when they want to. is it our impression that we've seen him a lot lately, bernanke,ut in public and doing lot of talking? is that typical for a fed hair and he said the point s coming up, obvously, at the end o -- being nextyear, is there any elationship there, campaigning fr anoter term? >> it's veryunusual. he's taken very different approach. he came to office sayinghe anted to be less the personification of the fed than alan grespan, his predecessor, butn the crises gone t places fed chairmen haven't ne before. did a press conference t the naonal press club. he went on 60 mintes" and sunday night e's doing a own meeting in kansas citythat wi be on news hour. ose are things greenan never did. i hink hisprimary ambition is peoplare suspicious of the

fed and goinover the hads of congre to say, look i saved e country and here's w i did it, trust e. then it mas him a little mre lily to be reapinted, then that's an add benefit. >> wil he be reappointed? >> i think if thepresident had to decide rig now, i thin the odds favor reappointment. you can bet on th internet on this. and i checked before i cme ov, nearly 70 odds of reappointment. but i hink the white house will wai a whle becase if something else goes wong, if the econy goes south and the need somebody to blame, they would like to hae the opportunity. gwen: i'm curious. he was gving a version of the green cutes spee, things are getting beter. s optimism is uted. is ijustified. >> i think if yousay are we at the risk of havi another great depressn, another 5% o 6% decline in the gd.p., the answer is he'sright, we're beyondhat. thin seem to be getting better. the stk market is now fially

risen above where itwas when e president took office. the g..p. is probablyabout to stop ctracting. so in hat sense thngs are better. but ty're still awful. and that's a veryhard message to deler. gw: ok. you can preorder that bok on amaz. we'll end onthat note. but the coersation continues online check outour "ashington week" webcast q&a, your questions, our answers, fid us at pborg/washington wk. turn to news hour with jim lehrer and see the ess nference monday in kans city. we'll wrap it u and see yo next ek on "washgton week." go night. captd by the national captioning instute --www.ncicaprg-- gwen: every thursday ge a preview of our tops and anel with our "wshington week" email alert. availablet washington week

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