>> whatever the politics totoday's decision wawas a victory for people all over this country whose lives will be more secure because of this law, and the supreme court's decision to uphold it. >> this week on "inside washinington" -- the supreme couourt to upholdld president obama's health care law. >> webcor did not do in its last day in session i will do on my first day if elected president of the united states, and that is i will act to repeal

obamacare. >> the court and down a split decision on immigration. >> it is a vicry for the rule of law and for the people of arizona and for americaand for the 10th amendment. >> and where does mitt romney stand on that one? >> we are left with a bit of a model. >> and the house vote to hold attorney general holder in civil and criminal contempt. and in northern ireland the handshake that made history. >> 26 states to challenge it, republicicans hate it, mitt romney says he willet rid of it. the patient protection and a portable care act is president obama signature legislative achievement, but is it constitutional? according to chief justice roberts, whoho wrote the majority

opinn upholding the law, yes and no. so much to talk about, so little time. nina did anyone expect it to go this way? >> n no one, not any person predicted all the twists and turns, the intellectual and jujitsu, of this decision, what would be upheld a five-four what woulde struck downn by a 7-vote. this was one of those wonderful days were the supreme court defied everybody's predictctionsns and it is why i love covering this institution. >> charles? >> on the day of the oral arguments it emed to me roberts was torn inwo directions. on the one hand, he e could not abide the defense of the act by the administration on the grounds of thehe commerce clause. he thought that was outrageous. on the other hand, he is the

chief justicece and has a reputation of being the custodian of the court. he remembered the abortion decision with bush and gore and how much strifthat caused when these things are seen as being partisan. what he did, which i thought was a great i intellectual concoction or finesse which everyone, he managed to do both. he said the commerce clause e does not apply it would be unconstitutional under the commerce clause, and concocted the idea that the mandate is a taxs a way to uphold the law and that itit does not invite the objection of the partisan court actingng on ideological grounds. >> i do not know what the chief justice said abo roe v wade, if he took all that into account, i do not even know if the chief justice concocted the idea about the tax.

if you look and what was filed on behalf of the government, there were two approaches to upholdingng the individual mandate. one was the commerce clause approach. the other was through the tax code. it was stated, this was a position against by the government. the chief justice and acknowledged it and said it was the correct position to take. i do not s the big mystery. >> my take is two fold. first of all, for those of my friends to respect andnd rear the constititution of the united states we are ree branches. legislslative, congress, executive, president and judiciary, supreme court. all three have not acted. they have extended t affordable care act. acpted by the congress, signed by the president ueld by the supreme court, let's move on. no. 1. no. 2, this is an important

issue. this was a central issue in the campaign of 2008. both sides vow t to do something about it. this came outf an urgent need in the people. the leading cost of bankruptcy in america was a serious illness, unable to pay for it, people falling outf the middle-class, losing their homes because of illness, because of lack of coverage. this addresses that. hope the administration will finally grabbed this moment to sell their case. the president started doing it on thursday in his statement t talk about what is in it. unfortunately, other than pre- existing conditions and your children can stay on until6, what is in the bill. >> he means congress did this, the preresident did this, you may or may not like it. the suggestion is, i think, i may not like it but that is not my job.

my job is to say whetheher or not it is constitutional. the president has a chance here to figure out how to sell l this. say to people, for instance, this is a no free rider fee so that oer people do not have to -- you didot have to pay for other people's care. so far the administration has failed to do that. they lost the broccoli argument because there was a broccol argument. they have to figure out their own broccoli argument. >> to analyze the chief justice roberts reasoning, it is pretty narrow, isn't it? >> that is why hehe did it. the assigned himself the role of writing the decision. he upholds the law but does not want it to be on the grounds of the commerce clause. as he and conservative justices say, correctly if you allowed under that clause, there are no restraints on what congress can do. he writes in a way that is

extremely narr and he calls the mandate a tax which is a concoction. when you get a speeding ticket, it is not called a speeding tax it is c called a speeding ticket. the reason is, there is a differenceetween a tax and a penalt a tax is to raise revenue a penalty is to punish you can change behavior. what the mandate does, the purpose is not to raise revenue for the treasury. it is to compel people to buy inrance. >> what is the purpose of the tax onon cigarettes? not to raise revenue. that is to discourage people from smoking. >> that is r right but the principal purpose of any tax i to colle money for the treasury. the prprincipal purpose -- the tax on cigarettes -- >> even the president himself has said repeatedly, it is not a tax, it is a penalty.

>> >> he said it was 80 -- he said it was not a tax increase. we could talk about semantics but the issue on the commerce clause was for himselfnly. the conservative that would have struck down the bill in its entirety had a much more wide ranging view of what you could not do under the commerce clause, than he did. he wrote for himself only on at. the four liberals would have upheld it under the commerce clause. and then the five and a majority agreed this looks like a tax walks like a tax collected by the irsrs, it is based on income, and therefore we will view it as a tax. initially, the administration did, but did not want to take the political heat. >> easily the most gratuitous advice of the week, to indicate the surprise that this decision was. john boehnerhe house

speaker, constructed his colleagues, do not gloat at the time of theecision. to their credit, they did not. i saw very little gloating. >> it makes no difference who collects the tax for the penalty. it is still a tax or penalty. secondly roberts madee a point in his position, a loan argument of saying you canno apply the commerce clause. if you do, it would be unconstitutional. that is the tonservative position, unchanged. >> e high court is out that fridge in your kitchen may have crossed this bridge. your new car probobably rode these rails. that shipment you just received was tracked by sallite. we build and maintain. we invest and innovate. so we can deliver what america needs. this year alone, freight rail companies plan to spend twenty-three billion of their own money, not taxpayer

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>> today's ruling underscores the urgency of repealing this handful of positive tardy. >> house republicans are not taking this decision lyingown,

obviously. they have alreaeady scheduled a repeal vote for the week of july 9. does this debate start all over again? will they somehow come to terms on this s issue? >> miraculously, they are woing on student loaoans and thehe highway bill. i think they will show progress. this is an interesting issue politically because the belief hahas been that the losing side in this gets the energy. i think that is true in most legal cases. certainly, the political energy that one can see from roe v. wade some 30ears later. on this one, it is a bit of a problem for john boehner because his base is not only energized, they are furious at this decision. john b boehner does not want this election to be about health re. he wanted to be about the economy.

that is where he wants to be. if anything, the president has the chance to be on the advantage of health care. that is a great opportunity. mitt romney does not want this. >> doesn' this work for mitt romney? he could say, ii told youu -- >> if mitt romney was ahead of the race and this bill was appealed 3.1 million adults would be shut off their parents' plan. if he got his way 5 million medicare beneficiaries who were saving $5.2 million in prescription drugs with news that. this is what the administration has got to talk about. >> from the president' perspective, mitt romney got his way in massachusetts. i would think he would point that out. >> in some ws, he is the worst person to be making this argument. he insisted on the mandate in his state, has a pgram in massachusetts that is wildly

popular now that it has goone into effect. was not so initially. the cost oit went up and then it flattened. it has been incredibly successful, more thahan 70% approval rating. and this program what they call obamacare, is modeled on of romneycare. in some ways, he is the worst person to bebe making this decision. >> obama gets the initial boost because his prestige is enhanced, anand he avoided a calamity. had he lost, it would've looked like he spent a year-and-a-half on somethihing he did not understand. he is supposed to be depression- era -- professor of constitutional law. the individual mandate which he has a hard time arguing, is dollar an issue. now it is aolicy issue.

is this going to be a good idea? there are a lot of arguments that mitt romney can make. right now i if you look at the polls, there is an 11-point spread between those who support obama and republicans who want to exploit it. in the state of the union address, the president gave one line t obabamacare, why?y? his signanature achievevement? he knows it is a losing issue. >> immigration. split decisision. >> both roberts and kennedy sided with the liberal justices. they suck down most of the arizona law upheld the so- called show me your papers provision, but with so many caveat, , it is a very circumscribed in a way that it is enforced. if you had to read it, i wouldld say it was an 80% ls for the state. no matatter how many times we say it was a victory. just buy and the sound and fury

of justice scalia's descent, you can tell who won and who lost. >> theombination of the decision on immigration and president obama's actions that he took with executive orders it pulls a rug out those someone ke marco rubio who has withdrawn his own version of the dream act. obama took the air out of it. >> where do you go if you are mitt romney on this thing? >> you are very uncomfortable. it has not been a great week for him. you could see his discomfort on immigration when the decision came out. there is somempetus from people who were -- and maybe thought this was unconstitutional, who will look at this decision in health care an say if it is constitutional maybe i ought to look at it more seriously.

>> mit romney has got to be happy that health care came up to move immigration off. that simple. can i tell you one anecdote that happened about health ce that happened on thursday? nancy pelosi, who was the speaker, who was more responsible for passing hehealth care than yone else, and paid for it, she losyour speakership and the e process. sh was on her way to the democratic caucu she e went up to george miller of ccalifornia. she said,d, andeorge, what great news. george said, you bet your ass. she said, i did. >> can i take 30 seconds to correct all the errors that we have said about the immigration case? nuer one it was 56--3 and the provisions.

in the show me your papers part, it was unanimous. they were humiliated on this on this legal argument. the administratition is not ae to distingui between the law and its policies. the point is, the administration is saying, we do not want to enforce immigration. if you do, it is an impingement on our prerogative of doing immigration. >> this is an objective analysis. >> show me where i'm wrong. >> as nina said, that position is so new ones, they clearly expected it to -- >> the chair recognizes your descent, but we have to move on. >> an attorney general has not beenwe w will right back.

>> today's vote is the regrettable culmination of what became a misguided and politically motivated inveigation during an election year. >> t the house made story by voting to hold attorney general holder in civil and criminal contempt of congress for allegedly refusing to turn over documents related to the fast and furious gun operation. certain members of the house walked out while they were taking the vote. what is the point of this? >> i would like to make two points. the point of this is politics. to get the issue and to get the nra in. i but to point out this came six or seven days after the committee vote when the committee voted to site. myers from the bush administrationor contentnt, it

took six months. i do not think the administtion, in the with dick cheney did not, made a good public cares for why they did not turn this stuff over. >> there was no coverage of this ise for a year-and-a-half. we have to explain thee background now. the reason they are asking for the pape is because in february 2011, the administration issued a letter which was false said there was no gun walking. as nina said last week, it corrected it. it was corrected in december. the papers are about februarary untidecember 11. the cover-up and the hiding of what happened, that is what holder is withholding. it is a clear stonewall in the watergate tradition. >> ordered a tradition? >> everybody on fox, starting

from when the sunomes up to when it goes down. the power of talks. that said, what they did was an abomination. this is the same house of representatives that is prepared to see the full faith of the president in the ununited states go down the toilet last year. we have on our hands some radicals in the house of representatives. >> no fox and thchicken coop. let's confront this. >> chiens are tasty. >> this is truly a fascinating political moment. the compressed time on moving on this. at the same time, i found very little reservoir of good feeling towa the justice depepartment among the democratsts. one of the reasons is e failure to go after wall street and to put some of tho $9,000- suit sob's in handc

[ female announcer ] the son of a single mom. proud father of two daughters. president obama knows that women being paid 77 cents on the dollar for doing the same work as men isn't just unfair... it hurts families. so the first l he signed was the lilly ledbetter fair pay act to help ensure that women are paid the same as men for doing the exact same work. because president obama knows that fairness for women means a stronger middle class for america. [ obama ] i'm barack obama and i approve this message.

>> we arewo people who have suffered. she has suffered a loss i in her fafamily. >> is the northern ireland deputy minister mark mcginnis. this week he shook hands with the queen. he is a former ira commander. the irate assassinated the queeeen's cousin. an amazing moment. >> an amazing moment. it is hope, hopee everywhere. open the middle east. let this be an inspiration. i will say a word for the queen. she has never been o on my dance card but i have to admit this is a woman who shows sense of leadership and h histo and a sense of magnanimity. it was the ira that killed her favorite cousin. >> who wasesponsible essentially for her marriage to

prince philip. > it is an historic moment. i agree with mark. it tells us that it is still possible for people far apart to come together. it can happen there why can it happen in the middle east? >> i will tell you why. it is the end of five veteran yearsf catholic-protestant wars. that handshake is the end of those wawars. the war between islam and the rest of the world we jog-- the borderss of islam are still bloody. it feels it has been demed and oppressed and dominated, and that will conontinue in our lifetitime. >> nina? >> i agree with everybody but i think the queen and is a class act.t. maybe she needs to senend one of her hats to the middle east. >> i have done some reporting on this. if you would say to me that one day mark mcginnis and the queen

would shake hands, i would say to you what are you smoking? >> which is s a good question at any time on this show. >> see you next week.