david axelrod was on the hill yesterday. rahm emanuel met -- the white house chief of staff -- met with several of the undecided members. carol browner, the senior adviser on the -- a lot of the secretaries have been calling in meeting directly with members. the energy secretary has been active in this. so really the white house has just fully deployed be forces to try to push this over the edge. host: what about republicans? do you expect to get any house republicans on this bill today? guest: well, there is a group, a lobby -- overall, republicans are adamantly opposed to this, but because the vote looks like it will be so tight, the democrats -- there is a group, a group called the independent 11, 11 moderate republicans, most of whom have not declared their results -- have not declared their votes. they may get just a handful of moderate republicans, and they will be grateful to have them. host: if this bill passes today in the house, or maybe it early saturday morning, what are the prospects in the senate? guest: is a r

david axelrod, his chief strategist, called early on in the evening to say things look pretty good and axelrod didn't want to say congratulations, mr. president, as bob had set in 2004 because they were hesitant within a few minutes effectively virginia went, the whole election was done, and i think it took them all by surprise. one key moment though, he canceled the fireworks on the night, an executive decision to tone things down and a sort of supernatural ability to step outside the moment and say let's be disciplined because people are watching. >> host: the book is called "renegade", or just for the last hour, richard wolffe, thanks for joining. please come back again. richard wolffe covered presidential campaign for newsweek magazine. he is a frequent commentator on msnbc appearing most often with keith olberman and chris matthews. to find out more, go to newsweek.com. ..

at time, and they knock on the door, david axelrod says we have come up short, looks like we are not going to make it, and they are all looking to see how he is going to respond, and they were surprised themselves. these guys were not exactly short of respect and the adulation for their candidate but they were surprised because his reaction was well, what happened, this is strange, what do you think happened so they go through and say the people have a maseth clipper now and are so weird and undecided voters went for hillary and he said well, let's pretty much give the same speech. obviously we need to tweak it a little bit, i need to get ready but this is a test and that became the message all the way through as he spoke afterwards and key supporters, the initial reaction was it is not supposed to be easy. people want to see us being tested and we are going to come out better for it and i think at that moment that gave his inner circle by extension his campaign headquarters and the millions of people supporting them a lot of confidence he could deal with the failure because i think

. >> about health care, yesterday on abc, david axelrod was asked about whether the president would veto health reform and make a tax increase under $250,000 per year. will the president veto any health bill -- [laughter] >> i think we get this question once a week. in some form or another. in many ways, what marks the difference between this health care effort and other health care efforts in the past is what exactly the president described -- a very large table of people sitting at in it and trying to solve the problem we have been working on for 40 years. we are making significant progress, and all those people are still sitting at the table. we have not drawn a lot of bright lines. we understand there is some flexibility on the part of congress to work through some of these policy issues. we are going to allow that process to continue to make that process. >> that would be true, but the president said he made a pledge that he would not raise taxes for anybody under tutored $50,000. is that still an offer? >> question is hypothetical because there are any number of different bills, di

we can blame nancy pelosi, harry reid, chris dodd, george soros, david axelrod and their ilk for then fall of this the country. it saddens me greatly to think we were the great powerful good in the world. we as americans knew america to be strong. and we were the liberators of the entire world. we are becoming a weak nation. obama really thinks he is a soft-spoken julius caesar and thinks he's going to conquer the world with his soft spoken sweet talk and really thinks he's going to bring all the enemies of the world into a little playground where they'll swing each other back and forth. we and we alone are the right frame of mind to free this nation from this obama oppression. and let's give thanks to all the great people like sean hannity, rush limbaugh, bill o'reilly, laura ingraham, mark levin, william bennett, glen beck, hugh hewitt, dennis frayinger, dennis miller, dick morris, ann coulter, michael steele, karl rove, newt gingrich, thomas so, victor davis hansen, shelby steel, charles kroutheimer, michele malkin, fred barnes and so many others. let's give thanks to them for not

here's a bit of what david axelrod had to say and also with the president said. >> well, i do not want to show viewers something the president said in the campaign back in september -- i want to show viewers this. >> i want to make a firm pledge that no family making less than $250,000 per year will see any form of tax increase, not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes. >> that is a firm pledge, does it mean that the president will veto any bill that has a tax increase for those earning less than 2 minute 500 thousand dollars per year? >> the president says that whatever is done it must not add to the deficit. this will have to be paid for. two-thirds of its expense under the president's plan would be done by transferring money within the health-care system for medicare, on wasteful spending, giveaways to the insurance and drug companies, and so on. we're talking about the final third. he has proposed a plan that would be in keeping with his promise, to cap deductions for the wealthiest americans. host: was there any change of messa

well, we get a quote from david axelrod a list of political campaigning through and a longtime family friend and that mrs. obama is quote, very very smart and sensitive. we're told that when she speaks at a rally, the audience roars with delight and that her primary role is imam in chief. mark helprin, time magazine who was absolutely a mainstream journalist, not some right wing anybody, he said at the profile of a michelle obama was a front-page endorsement of what a great person michelle obama is. here is why this is important -- just a few weeks earlier executive editor of the new york times bill keller was that the conference and media conference in new york city and he was asks about what did you do when it mccain protest to "the new york times" about your coverage? and the questionnaire was referring to the page one story in the new york times earlier in the campaign about mccain hinting, i want to be fair, alleging, hinting in suggesting is the best word, suggesting that john mccain might have been having an affair with a female of bids. this was story -- this was based on to u