thank you, michael crowley, thank you, david rohde. we'll be right back.watching "hardball." the place for politics. >>> let me finish tonight with this. things have taken a turn for the \worst in iraq in the past couple of weeks and indeed in the entire middle east. that fallujah, once the scene of intense fighting between ur sen gents and u.s. forces in the wake of the 2003 invasion is now said to be completely under the control of sunni militants affiliated with al qaeda. despite the efforts of prime minister nuri al maliki's shiite led government. militants control major areas of ramadi. now, both ma fallujah and ramadi in the province of anbar where 1,300 american service mn men died between 2003 and 2011. in other words, two years after the last american troops left iraq, the government troops trained by the u.s. at a cost of billions have not been able to maintain an upper hand in an area where many americans shed their blood. it's not only iraq that's aflame. lebanon and syria have destabilized in the past couple of weeks, as a result of fanatical

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joining us is michael crowley least viebeck and byron york. is this going to work?don't think they will work all that well simply because the ads don't change the facts of obamacare. if you are a young person and you need to buy coverage and you don't qualify for much of a subsidy or no subsidy at all you are still facing the possibility of higher premiums, higher deductible and narrower choices. you look admah jik johnson who when he contracted h.i.v. or when it was discovered that he had h.i.v. was a vastly wealthy nba super star. you think well, that's not me. so i don't think it really strikes with people. >> elise? >> i'm interested in the optics of who they chose. obama administration has many celebrity allies that one would think they could count on to sell this law to the public. they chose nba stars that many young people are not necessarily going to identify with. these are people who are kind of from the past. i actually had to look up who owe loan zoe morning was. >> he went to georgetown. >> there are a lot of people who are not going to immediately rec

joining us, our political panel the national general sam baker, the hill's elise viebeck and michael crowley. michael, yikes, what's the irs going to do? >> well, they're going to have to shuffle money around i guess. i see this story two ways. one way to spin it is that it seems like obamacare can't do anything right and ha it's one problem after another. on the other hand, if the irs is going to have less money for auditing people and catching up with you and making you pay your back taxes, it could actually be one of the few very popular things that obamacare has brought. >> elise? >> actually, the national taxpayer advocate says taxpayers earn back about $4 to $5 in revenue one dollar spent on the irs administration. in a sense that is an agency that deserves our money from a taxpayer's perspective. then again, they are still using magnetic tape to store their data. they need a lot of money to catch up with the 21st century. >> sam. >> the irs is responsible for a lot more than obamacare than we think. we focus on the payment of the individual mandate. administer tax subsidies, are taxes

joining me now is michael crowley, the deputy washington bureau chief for "time" magazine. michael. >> good morning. >> you heard the lieutenant governor. she didn't mince words. she called the hoboken's mayors claims that sandy funds would be withheld false and illogical. was she believable? >> it was an impressive performance. she was very poised, firm and articulate. it is not as important as the facts. i will say that there was a lot of commentary over the weekend yesterday about the fact that the governor's office's original response to this story did not seem to contain a very direct, flat denial of the facts. there was a lot of bluster and attacking of msnbc, the network which had first presented the allegations. people were saying, wait a second. what about the core allegations? what we now have is a very firm, adament clear denial by the person involved, not hiding behind press releases. that's worth something. what we really have is he said, she said. we will have to see where it leads. internal documents, e-mails from within the governor's office. i would say thi

stoddard and michael crowley. what do you make of these numbers?> you expect the rolls to rise in a recession. but we're well into our fifth year of a recovery, which is remarkable. the obama administration has tried to turn food stamps into another entitlement, they have expanded the time you're able to be on welfare, they have lifted the work requirements associated with the program and when you make welfare more attract ty, you get more people on welfare. now we have a 30-year low on participation rates in this country. >> when we have 30% of americans on -- they are more middle class, they are more middle aged, they have more high school education, they have more college education, and it says something about the new norm thal we're in. most americans don't feel that we're in any kind of recovery and you might be saying that in a mocking way, it is truly still recessionary for most people because the jobs they can get are not the jobs they might have had 15 or 20 years ago. while you look at president obama tomorrow and say the union will be at

i would urge your viewers to read what michael crowley has written in time magazine, which very uniquely i think it explains what we're talking about as her record. >> it's been a while since we've had shameless plugs, but that sounded like one from you. thank you very much. >>> 2 million people signed up for health care so far. most are older than 55. we're crunching the new numbers in today's takeaway. the soup of the day, it's turkey lent il. we'll be right back. [ male announcer ] bob's heart attack didn't come with a warning. today his doctor has him on a bayer aspirin regimen to help reduce the risk of another one. if you've had a heart attack, be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. in the nation, we know how you feel about your car. so when coverage really counts, count on nationwide insurance. ♪ love is strange just another way we put members first. because we don't have shareholders. ♪ baby... join the nation. ♪ nationwide is on your side ♪ for aveeno® positively radiant face moisturizer. [ female announcer ] aveeno® with soy helps reduce the look of

. >>> joining me around the table, michael crowley, donna brazile.here, especially since we have to shorten our time with you. here's the mayor of hoboken, sort of adding on, where are we in the assessment damage for chris christie? >> we're still in the everybody's trying to figure things out stage, right now when you look at for instance chris christie's favorable ratings, there's four out of ten americans that are still unsure. a lot of folks are saying, this is odd, i don't know if this adds up, nothing's been connected to governor christie yet, let's wait until -- >> but true, but not connected then becomes the guy can't manage his own store? >> that's right. i think the big question now is will another shoe drop that shows that direct connection, which is really a nuclear bomb, you can imagine his career being over if it looks as if he gave direct orders to do the bridge closure, but even short of that, i do think people are judging him and i think it's fair to judge him based on the kinds of people that are around him and who you surround your

joining me michael crowley, deputy washington bureau chief of "time" magazine and time's cover storyristie the boss known as the master of disaster. your cover story about a year ago. one of many that we've seen of governor chris christie. how would you describe the press's treatment of him up until this scandal this week. >> i think he's had very good treatment and i think there's been a little bit of a chris christie bubble in the media. he's benefited from some really for him wonderful political dynamics. his response to hurricane sandy as a matter of pure political theater was perfect and in a way it was like a miniature version of rudy giuliani after 9/11 and people in his state lufbds it. i think it was appropriate for the press to say he did a really good job because he was rewarded and had a smashing re-election victory. there are other factors we can get into. >> if you watched msnbc this week they would say until this week christie has been the darling of the beltway media. do you think that's true at all? >> i think it's fair to say he's gotten favorable press. in addition

joining us now, cnn political reporter peter hamby and "time" magazine michael crowley.entative brian in des moines said this. "clinton needs to become more populist. hillary is a front-runner for a reason. a lot of people support her. but there is a group of progressives that want to see who gets in." democrats right now, they are the ones who would participate in a caucus, they are not yet convinced that she's the one. >> part of this is, eiowans wan to be supported. there's been a lot of writing with bill de blasio of new york. that's alive and well in iowa. you have that ideological anxiety about hillary clinton but you also have an emotional anxiety, too. democrats like to look ahead. they like to be told a story and grabbed by the heart strings, unlike the republicans who nominate the next person in line. i got a sense they nt want to s some new faces. >> is that why barack obama beat her in 2008? >> that was it and a lot of it was her vote for the war in 2002. there's a very strong anti-war strain in the democratic party out there and hillary clinton was not able

crowley, michael grimm of new york, senator bill nelson of florida, senator charles schumer and harryd of new york and nevada introduced last year. you can go to their websites to learn more about that. a piece of legislation i would imagine you are in favor of. we support that legislation as well is another house bill from congresswoman allyson schwartz and aaron schock of illinois. again, both bipartisan bills, both would expand training by just about 4000 -- 400,000 positions are you. half would go into primary care and the other half spread across other specialties of me. specialties of need. are about to face a burgeoning crisis in terms of access to medical care. we have about 100 cosponsors in the house and senate, people who think this is a good idea. i think that right now, actually, as we talk about -- we have 120,000 positions, in our hospitals and met schools, and as we talk about the sustainable growth rate, the whole idea of white we are talking about the sgr, we don't want to cut the reimbursement because you want people to left access to beneficiaries. tothink it is a

monica crowley, fox news contributor and basel michael, a democratic political consultant. as we're speaking, monica, health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius is telling an audience in jacksonville, florida, the website, private websites, private insurance plans for obama care registered about three million participants as of now. 800,000 in january. originally the published white house goal was 4.3 million by this point in time. does that mean they are catching up with the notion of success? >> well, if the numbers are accurate jon, then perhaps, but we still don't know how accurate these numbers are. even the white house administration can not tell you how accurate they are, when she talks about sign-ups, does that mean who actually enrolled in obamacare by paying first month's premium? we don't really know the demographic mix. they're giving us some estimates but again they need young and healthys to sign up and they're telling us 25 to 28% of those signing up are in that age group. that is not nearly enough to uphold this thing and make it work and again ho