. >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, this is "meet the press" with david gregory. >> this sunday, the president makes history with health care reform, but the fight is far from over. >> i think the slogan will be repeal and replace. repeal and replace. they're going to run a platform on repeal in november. you've been hearing that. and my attitude is, go for it. >> will reform work, and what are its real economic consequences? plus, what does it mean for the rest of the president's

agenda, jobs, climate change, and immigration? a debate this morning between senator chuck schumer, democrat from new york, and senator lindsey graham, republican from south carolina. then -- the political fallout. rage against washington. have opponents gone too far and will voter anger sweep democrats from power in november as republicans hope a repeal health care message returns the gop in control in november. presidential hiss totorihistori republican strategist mike murphy and democratic strategist bob shrum. finally, we look back at another major piece of health care legislation that had congressional republicans legislation that had congressional republicans talking about real. captions paid for by nbc-universal television first, the vote may be over, but the debate over health care

reform and its effects continues. with us this morning, senators chuck schumer and lindsey graham. they have escaped the pressure cooker of washington and gone back home where no doubt your are constituents have a lot to say about the legacy of health care reform. welcome to both of you. >> morning. >> thank you. >> let me ask you about this legacy question. senator schumer, is it going to be that millions of additional americans are covered with health insurance, or is it going to be headlines like we saw this week, that at&t and other companies will take a billion dollar charge because of lost deduction as a result of this law and that ultimately they may provider fewer benefits to their employees? >> well, i think as people learn about the bill and now the bill is enacted's going to become more and more popular. here's why. two things happened, david. first the lies that have been spread, they vanish because you see what's in the bill. we had death panels in the summer. people will see no dth panels. illegal immigrants are going to

get health care. it's true they're not. the number one lie is you'll lose your insurance if you're happy with your insurance now. i had a firefighter come to me at the rockville center st. patrick's day parade last saturday, all upset. he said, i'm going to lose my health benefits. i said, where do you work? i'm a new york city firefighter. this bill is not going to touch his benefits. he'll learn that and feel much better about the bill. then at the same time the positives are going to start weighing in. seep yore citizens will get much better opportunities to buy prescription drugs, which we know they care about. small businesses will get tax breaks so they'll be either able to cover their employees, many small businesspeople want to but can't afford it, or keep the coverage if they have it already. people will be less likely to have their insurance policies canceled when they get sick. that's eye big thing to people. then there's a little hidden one, just one final one, if

you're up to 26 years old you can stay on your parents' health coverage. my daughter is graduating from law school. we told her the day after she graduates she's on her own. she has a job in september. but she was fretting, does she buy health insurance for $1200 a month for four months? she called me up at midnight when the bill passed and said, i'm covered. i feel great. there are millions of calls like that. i predict by november those who voted for health care will find it an asset. those who voted it against it will find it a liability. >> senator graham, the same question for you. after all is said and done, a 13-month pitched battle over this where the president said everybody had their piece on this. every opinion was aired. this is the polling from "the washington post" out this morning, 50% still oppose health care reform. what's the legacy? >> well, i think's going to be on the medicare front that we're going to take $570 billion out

of medicare, which is already $34 trillion underfunded, and give it to somebody else. so the legacy for medicare is going to be devastated. if you're a senior citizen in south carolina and new york, you'll lose your advantage. the taxes is going to be enormous. from 2014 to 2023 a trillion dollars for taxes. the lacy for student loans will be terrible because in this bill the federal government takes over the student loan program if you think fannie mae and freddie mac did a good job with housing, wait until the government runs student loans. $9 billion taken out of the student loan program to pay for health care. so the process that led to this bill was sleazy, the worst of washington. it wa not transparent. the substance of this bill is massive in terms of taxes and compromising medicare, and there's a bunch of tricks and gimmicks in the bill like you've heard about at&t is going to come up and bite the american

people. so we're going to have a spirited civil contest on the size and shape of government and health care will be center stage. >> senator graham, despite what you say, is a campaign of repeal -- you're a pragmatic legislator -- realistic? >> yeah. only if you replace it. it is realistic to let the american people know the class act, which is a new entitlement where the government offers long-term health care insurance to the population, collects $78 billion in premiums to use to be paid for this bill. so when the money's spent to pay for the health care bill and when you need your class act coverage there's no money there. it is good to repeal the cuts in medicare and to repeal the massive tax increases and replace it with opportunities to buy insurance in the private sector without cutting medicare and raising taxes and using budget ponzi schemes like the class act. yes, there's a way to do that. and 16 million people are dumped into medicaid. my state is going to get killed by having to serve more medicaid

people. it's going to hurt state budgets. finally, this fight won't wind up just being in washington. it will spread to every statehouse in the nation and we'll have referendums on this bill through every state house in the nation. can the states afford what washington did to them? >> it is a big point. let me break this down a little bit now that we've kind of established some of the terrain. into some of the more specific costs and benefits. let's try to narrow this in our answers to these particular topics. here is the price of the bill, senator schumer, $938 billion over the course of ten years. the big question that a lot of people have to ask is whether this really comes in with a price tag that the government says it will. and there are some nonpartisan deficit watchdog groups who have real question bz this, including the concord coalition who issued a statement last sunday after the bill was passed. even if everything goes according to plan, the promised deficit reduction will be quite modest compared to the trillions

of dollars that current projections indicate the country will add to its debt in the coming dick'd. political leaders will still need to look for large amounts of savings and revenue. moreover, they will have to do so with much of the potential savings, having already been claimed for the expanded coverage in the new legislation. this is not the end of the cost control fight. it is the very tentative beginning. bottom line, senator schumer, you're covering 3 million additional people. how do you do that without busting the budget in a final analysis? >> the cbo is very conservative. they don't give benefit to things that will happen. for instance, if you pay for preventing diabetes today and then you don't have to do a major operation on someone because they're in the final stages ten years from now, cbo doesn't give you that benefit. i think if anything they underestimate the savings and they say $130 billion in savings the first ten years and then

when the bill really kicks in, a trillion. look, david, everyone knows our health care system is very wasteful. it delivers good health care for most people, but one-third of all dollars don't go to health care. it's the most inefficient system we have. and with doing nothing, the price keeps going up 10%, 12% a year. without this bill, medicare would have gone broke in seven years. now people say 's got 12 more years of life. so i think you're going to find this is the first attempt in the hess tr history of health care to get at the fraud, waste, everyone has experienced it. you're on a gurney, they say, oh, there's dr. wilson. he waves. then you look at the bill and they've charged $4,000 and you don't know what he did. that kind of stuff has to go. >> i know that. but my question is whether this is a realistic time line. it's easy to say 10 years down the road we'll have a deficit

reduction. a future congres not until 2018 is congress going to raise taxes to raise money for this. do you thicongress will have courage down the line? >> you bet. that's why it's crafted the way it is. some of the cost-cutting goes into effect right away. everyone knows the waste, fraud, abuse in the system. the answer on the other side is do nothing, repeal it. we have to get a handle on costs. for me at least the number one rationale for this bill, i think it's important to cover people, but the most important thing to do is get a handle on the costs that are out of control, that are killing business, killing individuals, and killing our federal deficit. does this do everything in that regard? no. is it the first major step to do it in a very large way? you bet. and in the second ten years when it really bites because you can't do all of this overnight, they predict a trillion dollars in savings, the biggest savings we've ever seen in any federal

program. >> let me ask you, senator graham, i think has difficulty hearing. >> i disagree with chuck in case you didn't hear me. >> senator graham, if you can hear us now, what is your response? he still can't hear us. let me move on to another issue and we'll get senator graham back in a minute. senator schumer, you wrote a book a few years back in 200 serve 7. winning back the middle class majority one you family at a time. rahm emanuel has said this will be a middle class tax -- middle class health care bill. yet if you look at our polling, middle income americans who were asked about this health care bill are roundly opposed to it, 58% say this is not a good idea. how does this deliver, then, for the middle class? >> well, it really does deliver for the middle class. but, as i said, there are alots of misinformation. that firefighter in rockville center -- you can repeat that

with tens of millions of families -- are worried. peoplethemselves, how is it going to affect me? they've been told they will lose their coverage. people who have coverage now, whether through an employer or medicare, will keep it and it will get better actually because the waste and the dupe application will be cut back. they'll pay less. this is a bill aim at the middle class and my point being, if you look at a snapshot poll today, some of them show there was one that was 49/40 in favor of health care, this one's against it. but i would predict to you and i feel very, very strongly about this and firmly about this that as people learn what's actually in the bill, that six months from now, by election time, this is going to be a plus because the parade of horribles, particularly the worry that the average middle class pers has that this is going to affect

them negatively, will have vanished and they'll see it's positive in many ways, some of which i mentioned. >> let me get senator graham back in here. the question before we lost the ability to communicate with you is whether this is going to come in at cost. >> well, no. it's a giant ponzi scheme. let's look at the claim that i saves $138 billion in teams of reducing the deficit. if you assume paying a doctor as part of health care, there's nothing in this bill for the doctor fix. next week or two weeks from now, we will try to forgive cuts to doctors. over the next ten years doctors are supposed to be cut by $21 billion. can you hear me? >> yeah. hear you fine. >> hello? >> continue. okay. we've lost senator graham again. >> hey, i like the show this way. >> yeah, right, right. these things happen from time to time. but he's still making a point about the cost issue not coming

in, that ultimately future congresses like with the doctor fix are going to keep restoring payments to doctors when in order to meet the budget of this plan you're going to have to do that over time. >> let me say this. there are many doctors, most, who do a very good job are. there is a number, maybe 10%, who spend all their job maximizing income. right now as we speak there's some salesman talking to a doctor saying, hey, if you buy this machine for $1 millions, my company will finance it, we'll show you how to fill it up 100% of the time with patients and you'll make $200 thoushg,000 more a year. even though there's a machine a mile away, right now there's no check on this waste. our bill does it. doctors who go overboard and provide tons of quantity and no quality will be disciplined. again, cbo is bipartisan.

it's known to be conservative. it's driven us nutses because we though there's more savings. even taking them at their face, $138 billion in ten years, a lot of savings. >> let me get senator graham in here. now, i promise schumer is not playing with the cables here. >> no. >> but you have the floor here. you know what some of the discussion has been. what is your view? >> yeah, i do. well, there's a reason no republican voted for this thing. it's not that we don't care about people and we don't want to lower cost. this lost its focus. it got -- there's a noble effort started by the president. then it got to be, i've got to pass a bill because my presidency is at stake. this idea it reduces the deficit is a flat-out lie. you don't include the money we're going to spend to fix the doctor problem, which is $200 billion. so they took it out of the health care bill and put it in the jobs bill to make it look like it cuts the deficit. if you add the money we're all going to spend to help doctors

not get cuts, that wpes out the deficit. you spend medicare money twice. you take $570 billion out of medicare to pay for the health care bill. then you're using that same 570 to say it lowers the growth of medicare over time. it's a giant ponzi scheme. you treat a new entitlement call a class act where you sell long-term health insurance to the public, take the premiums and you don't keep them in the system. you pay for this health care bill. where does the money come from when they need the health care? so it is a house of cards. it is a ponzi scheme of the first order. it's going to blow up the deficit. it's going to affect every business, every family in this country. it was done by one-party rule and it was a shame we had to go down this road. and there will be a contest in this country. president obama ran as a centrist. he's governed from the left ditch in a rightive center nation and it's just not health care. it's taken over general motors.

it's the stimulus bill that's just completely out of control. and now taking over student loans. i look forward to a contest in november about whether this health care bill is a real fix or a phony political document trying to grow the government. i think that's what it is. >> senator graham, let me stay with you on the tone of the debate and then look forward about the rest. president's agenda. >> speaker nancy pelosi spoke this week after we saw instances of violence or attacks on offices of members of congress, nasty phone messages and all the rest. this is what she said on thursday. >> i believe that words have power. they way weigh a ton and they are received differently by people depending on their shall we say their emotional state. and we have to take responsibility for words that are said that we do not reject. >> when you hear from conservatives, whether they be popular politicians outside of

office, party officials, members of congress, describe health care reform as socialism, an attack on freedom, ushering in totalitarianism, does that contribute to an atmosphere where opponents can go too far? >> in my view, i think attacking this bill in terms of expanding government beyond anybody's imagination where atet 80% of t country at the end of theay will be covered by a health care bill that is not paid for that can never be paid for is a legitimate debate. but when you use the "n" word and question somebody's patriotism, you're off base. president obama is a fine man, a good father, a good role model. he is an american liberal. the reason i don't say he's a socialist is because most people associate that with being unamerican. he is an american just as much as anybody else. the idea that he's very liberal i think is pretty clear to the american people. he ran as a centrist. he's governing from the left ditch. that's his big problem. and we don't need to call each

other names. chuck schumer and i come from very different backgrounds. we're going to work together to do some hard things. so let's focus civilly on the major differences of the role of government in our lives and what's honest and what's not and part the rhetoric in a personal way. >> senator schumer, have opponents gone too far? >> well, obviously there are some people way off the deep end. but you don't condemn a whole group or a whole movement for the outliars. you just ask the people who are responsible, left, right, and center, democrat and republican, to condemn the bad words, to condemn the violence. that's been ne. i've heard even the head of some of the tea party people condemn the violence. so i agree with lindsey. i'm raring to go for a debate on the merits because i think we win that debate and we don't need the distractions. >> let's talk about the rest of the agenda, then, when it comes to immigration reform, where you two have come together to seek out a pact or a climate change, financial regulation and all the rest, there's real questions about whether there has been a

poisoning of the well here, senator graham. your friend, senator mccain, said there will be no more cooperation with democrats in the white house this year. this is what the "new york daily news" wrote in an op-ed this week as well, senator lindsey graham made a statement last week that showed why washington is losing the public's trust and his party in particular is losing its sense of duty. graham had joined with senator schumer to present a well-reasoned outline for immigration reform. then graham threatened to walk away from his own proposal, "if the health care bill goes through you this weekend, that will in my view pretty much kill any chance of immigration reform passing the senate this year." what do you say? >> well, i'm just being honest. i worked with chuck schumer to come up with legislation. i will keep working with chuck on immigration. but here's the effect. immigration immigration's tough. it is a tough, heavy lift. the president promised to pass an imdpraigs reform bill in his

first year. they've done almost nothing in the white house on immigration. we've been absorbed by health care. people are risk averse. if a moderate democrat got a call from the president, he wants you to come to the white house and help him with immigration now, most of them would jump out the window. that's just the truth. i will continue to work with chuck, but immigration is a heavy lift. we haven't done the things necessary to bring the body together. and 16 democrats voted against immigration reform. this idea that i would be the 60th vote on immigration/climate change could not be further from the truth. tough sledding lies ahead because of the acrimony around health care. but on financial regulations we'll get a bill. i hope it's a good bill, not some liberal bill with a few republicans. i look forward to working with chuck. >> senator schumer, is imdpraigs immigration reform dead? >> i don't think so. 15,000 people cross our border illegally every day.

most of them take jobs from americans. yet at the same time there are certain people we need in this economy to help this grow and we can't get them, engineers, doctors, farm workers. the system is broken, lets ut wrong people in and excludes the wrong people. we need to fix it. lindsey and i have worked for a year, we put out a framework that goes by what we think most americans believe. most americans are anti-illegal immigration and pro-legal immigration. we're real clos we do need a second republican to come on the bill. and lindsey, to his credit, he's had a lot of courage to step forward here, has alys said we need that. but i would plead with him, if we can get that second republican, we have business in labored ready to sign on, all the religious community, not just the liberals but the evangelicals. we even have lou dobbs and bill o'reilly saying positive things about our proposal. i would urge that we try to get this done because it's so important for america. >> if i could say something, i urge the president to write a

bill and see if he can get another republican, see if he can convince the 16 democrats who voted no last time. let him do some heavy lifting here on immigration. write a bill and send it to me. >> the president supported our framework and he'll be right up front in helping us. we just need to move forward. >> before i let you go, senator graham, are you concerned about these recess appointments from president obama? >> yes. it's going to make problems worse. >> how so? >> well, becker is a guy who wants card check by regulation and at the end of the day they're really pushing forward here rather than trying to bring us together. financial regulation has some bipartisan hope. i hope we'll seize the moment there and try to get a bipartisan financial regulation bill. >> senator schumer? >> i'll say this about recess appointments. they're holding up 77 people. the head of the tsa we need that. some people in the defense department and the treasury department, 77 people. and so we have no choice but to

do recess appointments. if we spent a week on each of these people they're holding up, many of them get voted on 99-0 after they hold them up, we'd do nothing else. george bush did more recess appointments at this point than president obama has done. reagan has done them. clinton has done them. if they'd let us vote on these people, we wouldn't have to do the recess appointments. >> i'll let it go there. all of this to be continued. coming up next, now that health care reform is law, does it mean for the remainder of the obama presidency and the midterm electrics? insights from republican strategist mike murphy, democratic strategist bob shrum, plus doris kearns goodwin.

we're back now joined by democratic strategist bob shrum, presidential historian doris kearns goodwin and "newsweek" editor jon meacham. quite a week of history and an important week for the obama presidency. here is the president on tuesday signing health care reform into law. >> after a century of striving, after a year of debate, after a historic vote, health care reform is no longer an unmet promise. it is the law of the land. it is the law of the land. >> joe biden, the vice president seemed to say it best when he said with such vigor that this was a big deal. certainly, the late senator

kennedy, bob shrum, was part of all this in spirit. his son patrick kennedy went to his grave site and penned a note photographed that said "dad, the unfinished business is done." this is a big deal. >> this was a big deal. the last time i was here was the week he was lost. this is the week for which the cause he spent so much of his life has been won. he would be the first person, by the way, to say now we have to move on, we have other great challenges in this society. it was a wonderful week, if you had been with him, as i had, for 40 years in the center of this fight to finally see it get done. there was always a sense maybe this never would happen. he never thought that, by the way. he wrote a thing last summer, one of the last things he wrote saying we're almost there. now we're there. >> previous presidents couldn't achieve this, jon meacham. there was this photo between secretary of state hillary clinton and the president. look at that embrace. she and her husband, former president clinton tried to

achieve this and could not. to what extent is this what puts barack obama in the history books? >> it certainly changes the short-term narrative. rumored about a month ago he was dead, dead, dead. now he's -- you're asking where he's going to be in the history book. i think it's a cautionary lesson to all of us who render instant judgments. he managed to do something they've been trying to do since theodore roosevelt. for all the rage and all the rawness out there which is very ugly and very disturbing and to my mind disproportionate to the legislation, this is, as john dingell has said, somewhere to the right of where richard nixon was. i think we should remember, as important this is, we need to look at it proportionately and with a sense of balance. >> speaking about balance, mike murphy, there are a lot of republicans who seek a little balance in all this discussion of history. there's a congressman who wrote on his website, just because it's historic doesn't mean it's good.

>> i think that's right. i think it's a bad bill. i don't like it because it's not about cost, but only about access. the access problem is driven by cost. i think the truth is it's the end of the beginning on health care. the congre we'll have after the november elections, i'd be willing to bet it's a different kind of congress, may still be democratic but the numbers will be much tighter. this bill couldn't pass that congress. this country doesn't like this bill. this is long term here. this is only the beginning. i believe four to five years from now, when this takes effect, the same bill will not be on the books. >> we'll get more into the politics. doris, this question of history, if we put this into some kind of historical context. thinking of you this week, we were thinking about fdr. we found this sound byte from him signing social security into law back in 1935. here is what he said. >> seems to me if the senate and

the house of representatives in this long and arpd ous session had done nothing more than pass this security bill, social security act, the session would be regarded as historic for all time. >> historic, but also arduous. certainly health care was, and if you look at the tone of this debate, some of the calls for violence, some of the violence against congressional offices, racial epithets, all the rest. you heard senator graham say the process was sleazy, it harkens back to another time. >> each time we've passed one of the major legislations there's been a lot of turmoil around them. after social security in 1938, landon ran to repeal that bill. he claimed in the 36 election, in your paycheck they would be taking out the payroll tax and you'd never get it back. he ran on that issue and he won a huge election, fdr did, as a result, because he fought back. i think the key thing that the legacy is not simply what this is going to do for the future,

but what it has done, which you started on, to obama's leadership. when lbj got civil rights through in '64, he said it felt so incredible inside to make lich better for millions of americans. he said now i'm going for voting rights and medicare. it emboldens the president. they're in the trenchesing to, they've come out more unified, the democrats. the party has its morale back up. even the sense of the countries ab board, he's a winner. i agree the bat tall has only begun. the battle of public sentiment was never won. the republicans won it with the death panels. still the majority of the people don't feel good about this bill. they still have a lot to do to compress their arguments and make sure they reach the country. lincolonce said, to go back to yet another guy which he claims i always do -- >> it's sunday. >> lincoln once said that he who molds public centsment is more

important than he who passes law, that with public sentiment, erything is possible. without it, nothing is. >> it raises the question to bob and mike, this president talked as a campaigner about being a transformational figure. what's a leader ship lesson of this experience for this president? >> first of all, i think there are some mistakes. they would say there are mistakes. they should have reassured the elderly at the very beginning that this didn't hurt medicare. if you look at the inside of that "washington post" poll, by 13% people trust democrats more on health care, and the center of the opposition to the bill is actually from seniors, that could have been taken care of. it's very hard to quarrel with the president who has achieved this kind of measure of social justice. the greatest measure in 50 years. by the way, without the congressional majority of the size that lbj or fdr had. i think from here you have to go on and look at what's going to happen with financial reform

which lindsey graham sort of hinted is going to pass. i think it will be. at the end of 14 months, let alone the end of this year, you have a president with achievements of historic sweep, the largest economic recovery plan in history, health care, wholesale student loan reform which, by the way, was tucked into the bill and hardly talked about, and a major arms control treaty with the russians. this is the beginning of a historic presidency that could be a great presidency and could lead us into a whole political era. mike is going to disagree. >> i can't disagree more. i want to look at the pa tina being applied to this. they used to do a great parallel thing where they do fake history. plato, george washington, abraham lincoln, zingo of sor ran five and create this quality of pan tina. this is a failure of leadership. the hard thing to do would be to address cost in a bipartisan

way. that involves the lab or june yuns, trial lawyers. th didn't happen. we got a one-party muscular effort to put a lot more people into the current system, make some small insurance reforms and flood the thing full of money to prop it up form a few years. this system can't stand which is why i think it's written in pencil, not pen. you have to lead the country. this isn't leadership. it's divided the country. it won't stand. >> thi is all a rep tipgs of what was said about medicare after it passed, what was said about social security after it passed -- >> you know what reagan said about medicare at the time, he said some day after medicare passes, you're going to be telling your children's children as senior citizens that you once knew a time when america was free. it's no longer free. yet, he didn't move to dismantdal it because it worked. that's the key. the key is they have to make this work. they can come back and do cost troll. >> do you think it will work? >> i think it will work. it's the beginning. it's not the end when these

things pass. >> i say it's not tend, but not a solution either. >> for 32 million people who didn't have health care, it's a big issue. >> whether it's a solution or not, you bring up the political point. here is the cover of "the economist" which says what now for the president or now what? the subhead line needs to use a bruising victory to unleash the promise of his presidency. here is the polling on this. we showed this earlier, the new "washington post" poll, 50% still opposed on this. jon meacham, in terms of mobilization of voters as we get towards the fall, who is more mobilized on this? >> right now i would say it's a pretty close call. the passion and the passion that we pay attention to because it's so dramatic and again raw and tragically unfortunate i think, when john lewis can't walk across capitol hill without being spit on and called the

worst thing he can be called, a man who helped change america, then we're out of whack in a way that we should denounce, in the way i think republican leaders at the very highest levels love to hear from senator doll, from the bushes. this is sething that should not stand. and my sense is that the right has the passion. but you know what? the left and the center left just helped pass this bill. and we shouldn't form get that. there was a key moment in the white house strategy here where they went back to the grassroots. you could see it on the web. you could see it with the e-mails. they were trying to reengage the people who helped obama defeat, remember, the most formidable force in politics. >> the tone is troubling. i can't agree with you more. for those of us who live in fast, it's not as bad as 1850s

when congress brought guns into congress or the 1960s when there's bulldogs and whips against the civil rights marchers. but to hear the rachel epithets, the anti gay thing, it shows we still have a far way to go. frank rich had an interesting article today where he said it's not just about health care, just like prohibition wasn't just about prohibition. it's people worrying the country is becoming too unhomogenous. some things are out there, but the democrats have to mobilize their base. >> there are bigger things going on here. there was a piece in the "times" this week, a reference to candidate obama talking about the reagan legacy, that there ought to be bottom-up wealth created rather than just trickle-down. ron brownstein wrote something this week about difficulty. he wrote the belief that washington transferred benefits

up the income ladd derp is pervasive, but especially pronounced among white groups. the group that most resisted obama, now health care can threaten democrats from the other direction by stoking old fears that liberals are transferring income down the income ladder to the less deserving. there are tight races in pennsylvania or ohio where this can be a factor. >> chuck schumer went through what's going to happen imdiately with this bill, 26-year-olds being covered on their parents' policies to help for small business, preventing cancellation of your insurance when you get sick. people will live with the reality of this bill, not the caricatures. i think what's happened with the republicans, and i think they'll pay a longer term price, by the way -- some of them got marp reached to the mob. they stood outside on the steps of the capital and on the balcony and encouraged people to do this. the words of that mob were

echoed inside with words like armageddon and baby killer. americans don't like extremisex. when they find out this bill is an extreme -- it's actually your friend mitt romney's bill. >> that's unfair, bob, not true. >> the answer is it should be done on a state-by-state business. they show a film where he says it ought to be a national model. the scott brown era is the shortest era in the history of mayor kafrn politics. he helped us pass the bill. once he got there, once he got there the democrats sd we can't ping-pong this back and forth between the senate and house. the house must pass the senate bill, then we'll fix it in reconciliation. >> that was a freight train of disen generous sound bytes. based on this historical triumph of incredible dimensions, how many house and sts will you

pick snup. >> i think we'll lose seats, but lose far fewer seats than people assumed. i think the republicans peaked way too early and i think they made a big mistake, didn't take your advice from months ago that they had to stand for something positive. the campaign you're running in california for governor stands for something positive. >> let me a a question i brought up. a lot of working class, middle class voters, they oppose this health care plan. wait a minute thrks is mostly helping people that are poor or don't have insurance, i'm hurting here, why are they getting all the benefits and not me? >> absolutely they feel totally disconnected. lindsey is right -- for a middle of the road person who would put washington back together. they got a more labor oriented administration. they feel very disconnected from washington which is why polls show the republicans are doing so well t. only worry i have about republicans, we'll do very

well because the country wants to get this out of control congress. i'm worried about the day after election, that's where we'll have the store read piece, then the country will say what are you going to do. we better have a damn good answer. >> and you don't. >> sarah palin has gotten a lot of coverage. out this weekend campaigning for senator mccain, who faces a tough race. that anti incumbency is directed at republicans. she makes a point about the republicans and the tea party movement out there. this is what she said. >> let me cle the arp right now. we might as well call it like we see it and not beat around the bush. in respect to the tea party movement, beautiful movement. everybody here today is supporting john mccain. we are all part of that tea party movement. >> is that true? that probly what republicans hope is true that, the tea party is part of the republican party? >> i think perhaps that crowd,

perhaps it was true there in searchlight. no, that was a different one. i don't think so. bob and mike would know this better. when you have these extreme more vociferous and ferocious movements, it doesn't always help. as churchill once said newspaper another context, it's a good starter, but not a good finisher. the way parties absorb these things, and we've seen them a thousand times, we've seen it with wall loss and perot, they take some part of the grievance, address it and press forward. i think partly we're built for argument. the system wasn't created to really resolve much ultimately, to go back pre land din because we haven't mentioned james madison yet. i think we would be remiss not to. >> if you were in texas you

couldn't mention jefferson because they've written him out of the history books. >> the first question we asked is what's going to happen in the midterm? we have an extraordinary bill. what's going to happen in the midterm? this is the way it works. in 1964 we have civil rights, '65, sloeting rights act. in 1966 republicans did extremely well ronald reagan was elected the state of california. >> that was vietnam as much as anything. >> the big en chill ladd da in 2012 which will be linked to the economy which is still the main driver of the elections. the midterms are only a step along the way. beyond that, the republican party has work to do. >> that's a question. what are the expectations that the american people have right now of government on the other end of the arduous process that has been health care? >> i think that's one of the things that needs to be worked on the public sentiment is going to be changed. before the obama campaign began, people were saying they trusted

government more. it was one of those see changes a little bit from the reagan era of conservatives hating government. now they're just so mad at the process that we have to be able, if you're a democrat or if you care about government, to show that government did come through in the end in a certain way. the funny thing about the way this process works, even though everybody said it was so horrible and should have taken control earlier, the one thing lbj always said is they're going to have to be with you on the take off if they're with you on the landing. he made congress feel engaged in this process even though it went on much too long. by the end, they were with him on the landing. they got the credit, got the recognition. i think my favorite moment is when the guy stood up and said you've taken your lumps. we sure did, and we're still standing. he's linked to them in a way. i couldn't agree more the sentiment in the country hasn't been changed much. >> lbj was a lot better than bipartisan strong arming and

compromising than president obama was. he had the democratic party with them on the takeoff, most of them on the landing, and nobody else. >> wait a minute. everett dirk son who was the republican leader was willing to help john kennedy on the test ban treaty and help -- mitch mcconnell said we're going to obstruct no matter what's in the bill before he knew what was in the bill. i think you have a very different situation. the president did exactly what he has to do. by the way, mike is right about the economy. next big thing to watch are the march job numbers that comeut in april. >> that's the last word. coming next, our "meet the press" minute, another look at a piece of health care legislations and gerald ford and a question about repeal after this brief station break.

45 years ago in washington,

there was another heated debate about providing health care to americans. in spite vigorous republican opposition, a democratic president and democratic congress passed sweeping reform. july 30th, 1965, the country's largest ever expansion of public health care, the medicare program was signed into law by president lyndon johnson in independence, missouri t hometown of president harry truman who fought for national health insurance program 20 years prior. a year later republicans made big gains in the midterm election due in large part to president johnson's unpopularity. the gop netted 47 house seats. in early 1967, then house minority leader gerald ford appeared right here on "meet the press" to discuss his party's plans and the issue of whether medicare should be repealed. >> mr. ford, the last election was interpreted by many as a mandate for the house republicans. in the previous congress, you people describe that congress as

one of the worst. i'd like to know whether you plan to repeal or basically alter any of that worst legislation, for example, the medicare bill. >> in the last congress, the republicans, as you well know, recognized that there were problems domestically that had to be solved. we felt there were better ways for the republicans to do this job than the way that the administration proposed. for example, we had an alternative, a constructive one in my judgment for the handling of the problems of the aged, hospital care, medical care. yes had other alternatives. we had a better voting rights bill, for example, than that which came from the white house. i still think that should be on the books. it would be better legislation than the one we're operating under at the present time. >> isn't the house now a conservative body? >> i think the republicans, the 187 of us compared to 248

democrats is -- the republicans are a moderate, highly unanimous group of representatives. and we're not going to clobber things. we're not going to stop the progress of america. we're going to try to redirect it and do it in a more effective and i think less expensive way. >> the question today on health care reform, of course, is whether it represents progress for the american people. but as the political reality, both parties understand it's very difficult to take away a benefit from the american people once it's been given. we'll be right back.

before we go this morning, tune in tuesday for matt lauer's exclusive interview with president obama in his first one-on-one interview since signing health care reform into law. that is tuesday morning. that's all for today. we'll be back next week. if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."