jamal simmons, thanks for coming in. and larry elder, thanks to you as well. >>> professor gates reacted to the president's remarks in an e-mail he sent to cnn's don lemon. i'll read it to you. -- meanwhile, the police officer involved also speaking out, he explained his recollection of what happened after it was established that professor gates lived in the house in question. >> i was continually telling him to calm down during this whole exchange because i didn't want this either. i didn't -- although i didn't know at the time who professor gates was, knowing he was an affiliate of harvard, i really didn't want to have a drastic action because i knew that it was going to bring a certain amount of attention, unwanted attention on me. nonetheless, that's how far professor gates pushed it and provoked and just wouldn't stop. >> certainly that was before the president spoke out on friday. and now sergeant crowley said he'll be happy to come to the white house and have a beer with the president and professor gates and move

now jamal simmons, what about this reversal?she id all along she was given inacrate information and it comes out under testimonyy leon panetta that, hey, we haven't told you everhing, we've been concealing stuff nce 01. >> it certaly does strenhen thespeaker's case, and i think here's the one thing. this is o of the reasons why the american public was so eager to get rid orepublans in the white hoe. bebecae e wenow that thererhahae been a lot off t tings thatave happppeded or the course of the lastst ehtht years,ee don'tnow alall the details, butwe know that the b bhhwhite house didn't get it all riht. atat'sne of theasons why back obama's s sitng therere. dd ihink onon panetta he himselelf pretty well by releasing this and tting this out.t. so we do need to know who o di what and when n an i i tnkhehe questionon i was it t theiia fault? or was it the people in the e white house who dederethe cia not to release the information? a a right. shshelalaims that thehe media's bugging g he a all the time a nt fair to her, but this pict

jamal simmons, democratic strategist, is with towns night on our panel. ton post." ron christie, republican strategist with us tonight. this is a as much a social question about us as a country, i think. when do we reach the level of acceptance, and it crosses i think a lot of social mores lines. jamal, what do you think about this? >> i'm finding it hard to get worked bun this. i think that there's a real issue here about michael vick. michael vick committed a crime. it as serious crime. he was punished for that crime. he's now trying to come back and get back into his game, literally, and earn a living. i think we ought to give him a chance to do that. he ought to have the opportunity. i can't help but remember a story that ran in the detroit newspapers a few years ago about a homeless man who lived in the train station and he had a dog. and they did a three-part series how this guy ended up being homeless. the paper had to run a fourth story because so many people wrote in asking, how can they help the dog? who was living with this homeless man in the

let's pose that question to jamal simmons, democratic strategist with the raven group, and steven moore, editorial writer for "the journal." jamal, let me start with you. did he sell you on the need and the urgency for this plan? >> well, nerve i was sold before he started talking. so, let's just be serious. >> the president had you at hello, didn't he? >> he had me at hello. i do think he did a good job. one of the reasons why people voted for barack obama and the reason why his poll ratings don't stay above 50%, 55%, is because they trust him and they think he's smart. and the one thing that he did do at that press conference is he showed off his brain and he sort of established that he's still the person speaking straight to the american people on this issue. rudy giuliani just said that costs are going to go up under the plan. well, you know what, costs are going to go up anyway. right now we're spending $2.5 trillion on health care. that will go to $7 trillion in 2025 if we do nothing at all, so the president wants to get this donnell so we can try to save some of that money and ge

jamal simmons, democratic strategist and john fehry, republican strategist. mal, what does the president have to do tonight? he's been visible a lot lately. nine out of the last ten appearance he's been talking about health care and now press conference. what does it mean? >> the white house has clearly stepped up their game. i think he's done three network appearances including "nightline." he'll connect this to the 14,000 people losing their health care every day he'll talk about cost and quality. he'll talk about choice and the fact that we've got to get this done. the costs are killing us. people are going to maintain the care they have, but also keep the quality. >> doesn't it give the president a lot of ammunition when one of the health care providers reports a quarterly profit up 155% from a year ago. i'm a profit guy. i'm in a couple of businesses. i like profit. but doesn't that take us down the road of yes, it is a monopoly. doesn't this help the president's sdmies. >> i don't think republicans should be in a process of any way defending the insuranc

jamal simmon e.j. dionne, and timriffin. jamal, let's g with you first.ow dogmatic, she sould i say, the ama administration be to get to the bottom of thi are they weighing public opinion on this? are they rely going to seek out e truth? >> used to be against some kind of investigation intothis. but isecoming clear now there's so much more here than even thought we knew. as donald rumsfeldould have said, it's the unknown unknowns that arenawingt the linin of my belly here. what i want to see ithe government to figu out through some sort means, and maybe eric holder will do it, what dick chen did when he was in fice, what secretrograms existed, what we ha to stop and whate have to apologize for and let's move on as a countrand li up to the values we all hold. >>e.j., what defense wld dick cheney have at this point to the intellence committee to have a legal righto know what the heck is going on? are we back , hey, we got to keep the couny safe and only we could know in the oval offi, and at's it? >> are you telling me i havto come up with a defense here fo

. >> we have jamal simmons will be on in a moment and he will join the conversation we had with eric cantor. >> here's my last question for you, again, you've got two hats here that i'm asking you to wear here at the same time. when you're asking eric cantor about reform and how to pay for it and all those issues that you asked him, the first area he went to was tort reform, right? >> right. >> so, make the argument that cantor is making about tort reform and then let's be clear about this. the cbo does not score, am i correct here? the savings that you get from -- that you believe you're going to get from tort reform, correct? >> they have not scored it to my knowledge yet because i have not seen, what you're seeing there is a political issue because the democrats who have the trial lawyers as one of their big allies are not big in favor of tort reform. that hasn't been a big part of the democratic initiative, so the republicans are trying to push that. eric cantor may be right that may squeeze some savings. my next question is tort reform may be helpful but not get you $1 trillion.

we're going to talk to leslie sanchez and jamal simmons about what is she going to do now?sident obama is meeting this morning with russian president medvedev, talks expected to focus largely on arms control and first lady michelle obama as well as first daughters sasha and malia will be joining the president on his week-long trip. suzanne, the relationship between russia and the united states, it could use a little work right now. what do you think the top priorities are going to be? >> it certainly could use some work. and one of the things we're going to see is how the relationships unfold. president obama meeting with medvedev today and tomorrow. and with vladimir putin, they are a little bit frostier when it comes to the two of them. we saw these two leaders sitting down this morning and they're going to be sitting down for hours, president obama saying he welcomed the hospitality saying even the weather favors us. chilly outside, but warm inside. some progress both of these leaders to announce later this morning that they're going to reduce their nuclear arsenals some

jamal simmons, thanks very much for coming in. larry elder, thank you as well. >> jamal, thank you.nd, you're going to see the house we're told that michael jackson wanted but couldn't afford. >>> and the first lady, michelle obama, you're about to hear her talk, as well. what she loves about the arts. >>> let's bring in senior political analyst, gloria borger. you've just come from the white house where you and other journalists just had a briefing. >> yes. we met with rahm emanuel probably just at the same time the president was giving his statement on the gates situation. >> the white house chief of staff. >> that's right. and, you know, he really wanted to put to rest some of the criticism that this president hasn't been involved enough and hasn't put out a bill. and let me just read to you what he said. he said, "we made a choice to offer broad outlines and let the legislative process work." and he makes point that the president abhas been on the hill, he's been on the hill working, negotiating, and he works with hillary clinton, if you put a bill out there, every change in the