. >> let's turn to chris hayes, washington editor of "the nation" magazine. chris, good evening. >> good evening, keith. >> sure, ma'am, ask your neighbors for the $400,000 for the around-the-clock nursing care. what the hell's the matter with these people? >> well, look, i mean the only way to make sense of the tape that you just played, and in all three instances is to understand first and foremost, the objective here is to kill the bill and to issue a political defeat to the president and to the democratic party. everything sort of derives from that. so what you're seeing is there's a complete like inconsistency internally. the arguments that are emanating from the right and from the republicans are a logical mess. they're self-contradictory, they're for medicare, they're not for medicare. they love medicare and they hate government-run health care. your neighbors should feed your -- your ill husband. i mean, there is no consistency because it's not being engaged in, in good faith. it's a bad-faith effort to construct a series of arguments around a politica

joining us is chris hayes, washington editor of "the nation" magazine., thanks very much for coming on the show. >> thanks for having me as always, rachel. >> in trying to make sense of the health care town meeting mob scene that's we are seeing organized now and the strategy here, do you think this is the same kind of strategy that was behind the brooks brothers riot in florida? >> i think it is similar. the key phrase is something uttered by congressman sweeney and actually reported by a conservative editorialist of "wall street journal" back in 2000, is when he heard about what was going on with the recount, he issued the order to, quote, shut it down. i think shut it down kind of -- kind of epitomizes exactly what the strategy is. i mean, it's hard for me to even talk on the television while they're screaming shut it down. i can imagine it's difficult to sort of conduct any kind of public discourse, any kind of democratic politics in the face of this sort of implacable, bullying braying intimidation. and shut it down is really the kind of catch phras

leaving all puns aside, chris hayes, the washington editor of "the nation" magazine. chris, good evening. >> good evening, keith. >> give me your read on glenn peck's position and its relative precariousness. >> well, i mean, look, as you know and as anyone who works in television or any corporate media knows that it's a business at the end of the day whether ge or murdoch and fox. you have to make money and the way to make money is by telling viewers to advertisers and the boycott to advertisers, the pressure brought to bear does have an effect. the question is, is this the kind of thing that's going to die down? there is this cost benefit issue you sort of highlighted in the intro which is that for every advertiser you drop, if this is the kind of thing that gets ratings, you know, there is going to be other people out there who are going to fill their spaces. i mean, sometimes the deep problem is the fact that this is something that a lot of people, unfortunately, want to watch. >> but unfortunately if your advertising base now becomes "guns and ammo" magazine. >> t

let's turn to the washington editor of "the nation" magazine chris hayes. good evening. >> good evening, keith. >> has senator rockefeller summed this up and if so why hasn't the administration learned its lesson from the stimulus package? >> well, i think he has summed it up. first of all, i think he is stating the obvious point which is that mike enzi and chuck grassley and olympia snowe is sort of another story, mike enzi and chuck grassley are not going to vote for this bill. i'd be willing to bet a lot of money on that final outcome. there is no way. mike enzi is a very, very conservative republican representing a conservative state. there's no reason for him to vote for a big, controversial health care reform propounded by a democratic president. so the idea politically i think is this notion of quote-unquote cover. that you're going to sort of somehow create some risk hedging politically by getting the consent of republicans and that somehow is going to ensure everyone from partisan attacks come the mid terms. i think it's a crazy notion because they

jim dowd, aarp's national spokesperson and chris hayes who has taken to this a level with the add suredityor new a second. jim, what is your sense at the aarp of where your organization's view is on reform, period, right now? >> we've been working for years, frankly, to try to make sure that meaningful health care reform happens in 2009. we know, frankly, this is an opportunity that comes once every generation or more. and if we don't pass something in 2009, frankly, we might not get this chance again until the complete health care system runs aground. so we are definitely in favor of health care reform. we have not endorsed any of the big comprehensive bills, you know, currently considered in congress but we have supported key positions that will help older americans and their families and including lowering prescription drug costs and filling the doughnut hole, the agreement that mr. burton mentioned with the pharmaceutical industry. they include adding a benefit to medicare that would include transitional air when people leave the hospital. that's the kind of thing we're looking for. we

chris: that was white house press secretary robert gibbs today getting people ready for some bad economic news. let's bring in the panel. steven hayese weekly standard. jennifer loven, chief white house correspondent for the associated press and jeff birnbaum of the washington times. we do get, as gibbs said, steve, the new unemployment numbers for july, tomorrow monk morning, friday morning, and unemployment is up to 10.5 % and people expect it to go up a couple tepghtsths of a point. we heard last week that recession was leveling off but unemployment going up. how do you expect people to process it? >> i think it is a hard argument for the white house to make. they were smart at this point to get in front of it. christina romer gave a speech today, saying that the stimulus was actually working. they're making an aggressive push, and i think a smart political push to try to say, look, this is all working. you will get this bad news, and it won't look good when you see the unemployment, but it doesn't mean we're not starting to emerge from the recession. chris: jennifer. >> i agree with steve. they spent the whole week, you know, th