chief of staff denis mcdonough, the senior advisor to the president valerie jarrett.ot of democratic activists in the audience, wolf. we spotted brad wood house who used to be at the democratic national committee, various other activists in the party as well as people ho support the law and benefited from the law according to the white house. it will be interesting to see what happens in the coming days with secretary sebelius. she has been called to testify on capitol hill. there's a hearing on thursday about that. the department of health and human services basically said she doesn't have the time in her schedule at this point to testify at that hearing and conservatives are responding by saying well, she had time to go on the daily show with jon stewart earlier this month. why won't she testify on capitol hill. this was very much a campaign style event in the rose garden. you heard clapping and laughter at some of the president's punch lines during those remarks, but some interesting comments that the president made he is going to have to hope he doesn't live to ru

. >> schieffer: the white house, the president, his chief of staff, denis mcdonough, both have said they stand by secretary sebelius, that the secretary still enjoys full confidence in her. do you think she should lead? >> you've had me on before asking about full confidence in eric holder. this president has to understand, this was his signature legislation. they voted it on a purely partisan basis, but they had unlimited money, $600 million, just to do this part, and billions to do the other part. the president has been poorly serveed in the implementation of his own signature legislation. so if somebody doesn't layoff, an--leave, and there isn't a rel restructuring, not just a 60-day somebody comes in and tries to fix it-- then he's missing the point of management 101, that these people should serve him well and they haven't. >> schieffer: you're saying it would be best if she went. >> if she can't get a team in to meet his agenda, she shouldn't be there. and when she says she didn't know, why didn't she know that the president's signature legislation was in fact in trouble? >> schief

denis mcdonough, the chief of staff, and there you go, the new chief of staff. >> are you joking?> well, let's -- >> america? >> massive redistribution of wealth, check, and the massive taxes for corporations, check. and profit is a filthy word, check. >> let me say -- >> well, this guy is a comedian, and he is like a lot of -- >> well, i take what greg said seriously and that he is juvenile and going off. he is coming out of his mouth, but he e nis not a great thinke but i will say this, how can you call america a socialist state, and i think that america corporations -- >> we are headed that way. >> wait a minute, and wait a minute, it is the word of the day, for sure. >> and i'm having fun with this, because women find him attractive and that is what we are talking about in the commercial break. >> he has not bathed in ten years, kimberly, and his life has skaby skabyes. >> and you don't believe in peace. >> we are exploiting people all over the world and legitimate problems of the people are not being addressed by the political people, and the occupy movement made a difference

how was he left, if he is the ceo of the nation, right, and, you look at denis mcdonough for example, who was riding these folks and saying look, this is his signature legislation. do not let the president of the united states look back on this thing, folks? >> reporter: right. look at cnn interview a couple days ago where kathleen sebelius said the president was not aware with the problems with the website until at least october 1st. martha: someone should have made him aware, perhaps? >> reporter: sure of the let's remember the washington post-report if you start connecting the dots, days best launch where there was stress test they got hundreds of people together to test it out and the site crashed even though they knew there would be thousands or as turned out a lot more millions of people logging on. why didn't someone along the chain, not just inform the president, and say, hey, folks we have to slow this thing down. >> these are some major headlines down. the contractors are already saying that u.s. officials were warned throughout the development of the system about the concer

the white house chief of staff, denis mcdonough, is out in front of the white house on the sidewalk today, hugging people and welcoming them back. vice president joe biden went to the environmental protection agency and he brought muffins with him. he hugged everybody. there he is with the epa administrator, gena mccarthy. the cabinet members all went out and greated people as they came back today. with vice president biden specifically, you do sort of get the feeling like maybe he wans to show up at everybody's workplace with muffins every day, but at least he made sure to do it today. from the president, though, in addition to the welcome back message and sticking up for what those workers do every day, saying that the government does important work, the president also had some not harsh words, i would say, but some bluntly admonishing comments for the people who made this shutdown and this brinksmanship happen, for the republicans in congress who voted for the shutdown and who voted last night to not reopen the government, to go ahead and hit the debt ceiling to try to get their way. >

and i raised them again just today with denis mcdonough down at the white house.aven't heard back on that. but we have to have entitlement reform. i imagine they'll be insisting on increasing taxes no matter what. >> does the president still hold to the cost-of-living adjustment for social security, the so-called cpi indexing, he's had it in his budgets, does he still hold to it? >> he put things in his budget, he knew that budget wasn't going to be acceptable to even democrats let alone republicans. that's kind of the game that's being played. but i believe he's sincere, that he would go for change cpi, which would be a more accurate way of determining the consumer price index that sets the price on a lot of these things. i believe he's sincere but i don't think the democrats will ever let him do that. >> notwithstanding the difficulty about these reforms, may i ask you, are you optimistic that in the next 24, 48 hours or so we can reopen the government and raise the treasury's debt ceiling? >> well, we have to reopen the government and we have to basically -- we

i look back at stories we wrote in the early summer and denis mcdonam mcdonough said, i'm spending twot even during that, denis mcdonough says i'm focused every day on health care. it does not seem like there was the urgency going on in recent weeks to sort of portend this. in the white house they were saying, we were distracted by syria and then the government shutdown. so the president's attention was elsewhere. they do somewhat regret that. but it's hard to believe that no one was able to raise these red flags for him. >> matt, accountability and responsibility, secretary sebelius has caught a great deal of flak over the past few weeks. is it all justified? >> you know, i think she should be fired just for the sound bite that you just played. >> here's the thing, people say that -- >> we talked about having testing going forward. no, seriously, they didn't test the website as of september 26th, according to "the new york times" reporting on that. five days before and the same day that the president gave a speech attacking the misinformation about this health care rollout. so for tha

reporter: she will meet with the insurance executives, valerie jarrett, white house chief of staff denis mcdonoughe industry is key part how they move forward from problems they had in the recent days. the secretary did the first big interview with cnn. she basically tried to push the idea this is one piece to a much larger product that we're selling and suggesting that little blips to the website is nothing compared to the problems that average americans are facing in terms of getting health insurance. take a listen. >> we have create ad market. we're early in the first quarter in football terms. we have a six-month open enrollment period and i am confident that millions of americans at the end of open enrollment, march 31st, will have affordable coverage for the first time in their lives. >> reporter: various republicans have been pressuring the president suggesting that he fire kathleen sebelius. one thing that might keep her in her job if they to push her out, having confirmation in the senate for new health and human services secretary would give republicans like ted cruz and other lawmakers

these people are now out of the picture now and denis mcdonough is walking around the rose garden making big decisions with the president. perhaps gibbs is saying you know what? maybe if you hadn't nudged me and axelrod perhaps out the door you would have handled this whole thing better. is that a possibility? >> i think you hit nail on head. i've been in the white house before where people were let go and biggest critics of the white house within a week are people let go. think there is some of that here. these are people that were responsible for running one of the more flawless presidential campaigns and now they're sort of sitting on the sidelines watching what, to them, computers, which is something that they really innovative in politics. >> i think it is more than sour drapes grapes. we've known the chief architect of obamacare in march said he was afraid when the website debuted people would have a third world experience. gao said in june it wouldn't be ready. the president pushed this through just to meet a deadline for political purposes and pride. martha: that appears to be ob

. >> that was denis mcdonough, the white house chief of staff. he's in the room now.. what's going to happen later after this event, the president has invited, gloria, all 200 members, democrats, in the house of representatives, to come over to another room at the white house and have a little powwow. >> yeah, you know, he canceled his international meeting in asia. now he's having nonstop meetings here with democrats. he's also invited the republican caucus, although not the entire republican caucus is going to come. i think the president's objective here is to stay in the public eye, making his case, wolf, as much as he can. and making the same points. as we heard at the press conference yesterday over and over and over again, for over an hour, making the same points about how he's not going to be held hostage. it's -- this whole controversy, by the way, has really let him off the hook on the question of all of the glitches of his health care reform plan. >> we saw an aide brings the president's statement there. he's going to read it shortly. let me go quickly to da

yesterday said the president apparently had a walk in the garden again with his chief of staff, denis mcdonough and he was advised what was happening. president said go ahead and fix it and get it done, find a creative way to do it. carney said their interpretation of the law, the pay our military act law, did not appear to fix it, meaning the death benefits were not legally able to go back to the family. i just find that wording peculiar. did not appear to fix it. what that tells you, that people are interpreting the law and the law, the attorneys were involved in this, to find what they believe, you know, the words meant here? and -- >> right. bill: they said hey, it doesn't appear we have to go forward with this. >> right. the word appear, makes you think, why were they focusing on the idea that maybe we shouldn't be giving these benefits. the benefit of the doubt always sending out the benefits. the focus shouldn't be trying to make sure that maybe there's an option to not send these benefits. that gives credibility to the argument that they were doing this, to make it hurt. and to make the

john mcdonough, the issue of medicaid being denied to so many millions of people around the country.as obamacare framed around them actually getting that medicaid so that -- what is your response to that? the way it was written by the folks in the house and the senate was that all states on january 1, 2014 are required to open up their medicaid programs to all uninsured people with incomes below 138% of the federal poverty line, which is about $14,000 to $15,000 for a single adult. the u.s. supreme court's decision in june 2012 changed that, the one substantive change they made in the aca was to say the medicaid expansion had to be a state option. reallyre faced with this awful situation where beginning january 1 of next year, the only americans who will not have some form of health insurance available to them as a matter of law are poor individuals who live in states that have chosen not to expand medicaid. so it is probably one of the most cruel and despicable forms of rationing i can imagine. it is the folks remote -- who are in some of the most media states who are denied coverag

mcdonough, your thoughts? >> january 1st is a key date. after january 1st no american can be deniede for a pre-existing condition. the sushs difficults kick in. the medicaid expansions go into effect in states that are doing it. it's a fundamental change and a very important date coming forward. we'll get there and get beyond this. >> in the meantime, political opposition has all the ammunition in the world to make the case to the american people that this will not be successful. you be the experts on romney care and also the affordable care act bring us to a level of wisdom that their political fodder just doesn't work, the good stories and what this is going to bring to america is what we need to focus on. >> great to have you with us, gentlemen. >>> coming up, the war for fair wages from walmart kicks into high gear. stay with us. i love this show. [ male announcer ] so good they'll think it's homemade. try campbell's homestyle soup. m'm! m'm! good. i'm on expert on softball. and tea parties. i'll have more awkward conversations than i'm equipped for, because i'm raising two girl