who is dan rostenkowski? dan rostenkowski is the chairman of the ways & means committee -- the appropriations. powerful committee. he is a concert to a democratic president and and a leader in the democratic caucus and whether his workers doing? supporting upton the republican nominee under the theme upton, before it's too late. i'm sitting there in my home listening to these guys ask me to be a bigot, to be a racist to somehow be prejudiced. i said no. you are in the democratic party. u.n. dan rostenkowski and all of the white democratic party establishment should be ashamed of yourselves. they did not want a black man to be mayor of the city of chicago. they said the lights wouldn't come on at night and the garbage wouldn't be picked up. they there would be chaos and pandemonium under the theme before it's too late. mondale came to chicago to campaign for him and they were viciously booed when they visited a church on a sunday. so i just want you to think of a time in which the city was ready. i stood up,,

you decided to take dan rostenkowski as a political machine in chicago. i'm sure they're not happy with you. how was that? >> guest: number one, i was very angry and disillusioned. but at the same time, very motivated with a high level of spirit to say we the democratic party doesn't use race as a barometer. i kept thinking of martin luther king, you know, and how people were going to be judged by the content of the character of the color of their skin. get in chicago in 1983, we are still judging people on the color of their skin and the democratic party. the incredible thing is you decide to fight them. >> guest: at night and 83, with thousands of volunteers, like the young people who'd grown up in the 60s and 70s and are ready for change. and at the same time, he was inspiring. he inspired me. 280 to 220. then it ran against rostenkowski for committeemen. i thought i just have to replicate this in 50 more precincts. it wasn't quite that way. i got 24% of the vote. i want the public to understand. the last election on november wasn't always that way. i

bob michel and dan rostenkowski to different parties chicago area they would drive every weekend fourteen hours overnight to go home because they'd have the free travel those days with their lives and so these and sixty's and so the two guys other congressmen would sleep in the back on a mattress it was the station wagon and one guy would stay work to keep the other guy away ok so an affront to the back fourteen hours that forges relationship because the mill the night when you talk about if you're not on where they go i get that it's not about their wives their kids their problems in their marriage they talk about it all and they become guys to trust each other and it's very important politics to trust each other do you think some of it was party lines do you think some of this obama antagonism is racial yeah but you can't. i think everybody has raised this birth or issue that says he was born somewhere else the trump was trumpeted term smart enough that otherwise business reasons i say my everything he does is business reasons. even if he was first what he was not he was born in honolul

and lastly, the little-known fact is that during that same administration, dan rostenkowski from illinois passed a catastrophic health care bill. now, that went into law. six months later, unless repeal repealed it.ss i don't see the issue if the aca has nothing to do, as the president says, with funding the government. guest: any response for the caller? guest: -- host: any response for the caller? guest: as he watched the debate over time as a reporter and you hear the back-and-forth between the two sides, one of the patterns i've noticed is politicians are kind of geniuses at coming up with inventing such for war i -- for why and such is out of bounds. you saw john boehner inventing a role essentially that you can't raise the debt ceiling unless there are spending cuts or reforms of equal or greater magnitude to be amount the debt ceiling is raised. rule. are under this obama is trying to invent a standard here that obamacare has nothing to do with the budget. as the caller notes, obviously it is part of the budget and a sense that the government is spending money on the health- care l