robert gibbs was obviously one of the president's closest advisors. they go way back to the years in chicago. david axelrod was also one of his right hand men. 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

joining me live is former white house press secretary robert gibbs, who is now an msnbc contributor. robert, it's great to have you here and i hope you were able to hear exactly what the speaker was saying there. do you agree with that? do you think there is not a personality sniping issue going on behind the scenes and basically who's going to win out this negotiation? >> i think this is primarily an ideological battle. i think it started as an ideological battle over obama care. it may not be an ideological battle over spending. i was struck, thomas, in listening to that press conference. it seemed as if those members and the speaker were not necessarily trying to convince the american public of their message but trying to convince themselves of their message. trying to convince themselves that, no, it's not us that want to shut down the government. no, it's not us that think this is a good thing. we are trying to do something and get this government back to being open. and i kind of felt like i was in some sort of self-help class because i think they were trying to convince themsel

so you and robert gibbs sort of have something in common tonight. >> i'm for greta's fair deal. time is now. no more deadlines, the time is now. >> deadlines just delay things. good, i'm glad you and i agree with that. you agree with everybody tonight. with robert gibbs and with me. >> i agree with everybody. >> you think secretary sebelius should resigning? >> this isn't personal, this is job performance, this is accountability. how many times have we seen this administration with the lack of responsibility and accountability. i go back to eric holder, fast and furious, i asked for him to resign. we still don't know what the bottom line is with benghazi. we still don't know on the irs investigation. i'm on the senate finance committee, we're still investigating but we still haven't got that track to go either to the treasury or the white house. this administration is awfully easy to slide and then there's no accountability and responsibility. so, hey, in kansas city, we only won two games last year with the chiefs. now we're 6 and 0. >> i was going to say, you're doing pretty w

in washington robert gibbs and andrea mitchell.top leaders met the president since the shut down. coming together, right? when they bond, it's nice. it's a family. we disagree a lot. in the end, spoker boehner characterized the evening moting as little more than a polite conversation with no headway. president obama reiterated he won't negotiate over his signature bill. john har wood, the president spoke about his relationship with republicans and commented on the looming debt ceiling showdown. >> during the course of my presidency i have bent over backwards to work with the republican party and have purposely kept my rhetoric down. i think i'm pretty well-known for being a calm guy. >> call street has been calm about this. the reaction i would say generally speaking has been washington fighting, washing posturing, yada, yada, yada. is that the right way? >> i think they should be concerned. when you have a situation, a faction is willing potentially to default on u.s. government obligations, then we are in trouble. if they were wi

robert gibbs in washington. ferguson who is the author of "the great degeneration." >> niall has written a few articles about paul krugman. kind of tough. we'll talk about those in a little bit. >> in fairness to niall they are not tough. >> her honest. >> quoting some facts. >> but niall leaves some things hanging so you can look at them. >> the way you want to interpret it. >> like the title of his book. >> so, let's talk first about the news. >> sure. later today president obama is going to talk to a handful of republicans at the white house in an effort to find a solution to thamblgs a maybe a solution that would reopen the government and avoid a default. the president invited all 232 house republicans to the meet, however house speaker john boehner decided just to send a handful of party leaders and some committee chairman. white house press secretary -- >> i think it might be best. >> it might be. >> you don't want guys going out there saying some crazy stuff. >> jay carney respond boehner's decision sayin

then former white house press secretary robert gibbs with us. senior political editor and white house correspondent for the "huffington post" sam stein who had a harrowing trip. correspondent for bloomberg, josh green who found a new way to get his cover at the top of the show and put the creepiest picture you've ever seen, spooky creepy and i just realized i feel bad to say this, but this guy looks like my best friend's husband. i'm sorry. >> it's ted cruz. >> it is? looks like jim to me. >> any resemblance to bill murray? >> a little murray. also white house correspondent for bloomberg news julie and in new york because it's freaky friday, eugene robinson who should be here. joe, it all doesn't make any sense. can you make some sense of the week that just was? >> no, i can't. nobody can. but i can say it was some of the longest introductions ever in the history of "morning joe." >> we have a lot of people here. did you see the cover of bloomberg "business week"? it's fantastic. >> i did. i thought you would like that. so what's happening in th

robert gibbs, who is the press secretary for president obama saying people should be fired for the rollout and the problems that have gone with it. how disappointed are you, and who should be accountable for it? >> first, i think the number one point about the rollout is that there is huge interest. 19 million individual visits to the website? that's huge. 500,000 people, close to 500,000 people already filing applications, even with the computer glitches? the number one worry before we started was, are people going to be interested? will people sign up? and the answer to that is overwhelmingly yes. as more people learn about it, more people are going to do that. i was at a wedding last night and i saw my cousin who has a small plumbing business. he was all worried about obama care. what am i going to do? i have a small number of employees on health care. i said, your costs will be cut in half. he was happy. >> that's not the reality today. you can talk about what will happen. the reality has been very difficult for people. >> well, because there are computer glitches. look, every major te

you know what, when i heard robert gibbes being honest and candid, i started missing robert gibbes. bert we miss you. come back, robert, come back. >> and representative trey goudy had tronning words. world war ii veterans were denoticed access to their own memorial and occupy protestors were able to break the law without repercutions. >> no camping. but the protestors camped anyway and you didn't do anything in terpwas arrest or citations for over 100 days, and so mr. jarvis. fast forward two years, parks are closing and access to monuments are restrictedine those when helped to build the monument. you didn't wait a hundred days to enforce the law with veterans who wanted to see the monument and you didn't work to gain compliance and veteraryerans were not groated with a measured response. they were groated with barricades on the very first day. >> wow, what can i say? trey gowdy nailed. it >> i listened there was nothing i could add because he was spot o. watching jarvis sit there in that seat, do you just wonder who had to bring the mop in and clean up under that chair after that

former white house press secretary robert gibbs spoke recently about all the problems with the websitelet's hear from him. >> i hope they're working day and night to get this done. when they get it fixed, i hope they fire some people that were in charge. this is excruciatingly embarrassing for the white house and for the health -- department of health and human services. >> that's robert gibbs. so should someone get fired? he hopes someone will. >> so jake, the first thing that robert said was i hope people are working 24/7. they are working 24/7 and will continue. our main focus at this point is to make sure that it works and it works flawlessly for folks. >> but robert gibbs, former white house press secretary, says i hope people are fired. do you think anyone should deserve to lose their job over this, or even their contract, if it was a contractor's problem? >> jake, at this point, the sole focus needs to be and should be, and i think the american people would agree, fix what's broken. throw all your resources into making sure that people who need insurance, get insurance and then

they got millions of dollars in contracts for the website, et cetera, and even robert gibbs is sayingbotched. is this company planning to turn over -- this is millions of dollars. >> questions about contracts related to this are ones that should be addressed to hms and cms. i don't have that information. what i can tell you the accountability the president seeks today is the accountability that comes from those who are working on implementation, working around the clock to ensure that the consumer experience is improved. >> joining me now, christian anderson, vice president of the winston group and simon rosenberg, analyst and president of indian, a progressive think tank. here's my question. the reason we say who is getting fired and not should somebody be fired is they've got over $93 millionf taxpayers' money just to set up the web sites which apparently stink. $93 million. so we talked about this with pete hegeseth. accountability. where is the accountability for that failure? christian? >> i feel sorry for david carney when he has to defend this rollout. he has a tough job saying

. >> we'll talk more about this with robert gibbs coming up. >>> there's another casualty of the shutdown. president obama's visits to malaysia and the philippines next week. those were on the back end of his planned trip to asia and the shutdown prevented personnel from getting in place. the white house staff is still evaluating the front leg of the president's trip which would take him to indonesia. covery? yo, yo, yo. aflac. wow. [ under his breath ] that was horrible. pays you cash when you're sick or hurt? [ japanese accent ] aflac. love it. [ under his breath ] hate it. helps you focus on getting back to normal? [ as a southern belle ] aflac. [ as a cowboy ] aflac. [ sassily ] aflac. uh huh. [ under his breath ] i am so fired. you're on in 5, duck. [ male announcer ] when you're sick or hurt, aflac pays you cash. find out more at aflac.com. [ male announcer ] when you're sick or hurt, aflac pays you cash. if yand you're talking toevere rheuyour rheumatologistike me, about trying or adding a biologic. this is humira, adalimumab. this is humira working to help relieve my pain. this is

and former white house press secretary robert gibbs. thanks for joining us. a few weeks ago, maybe it was a week ago time moves very slowly in my world. you said when they get it fixed, i hope they fire some people. we're in charge of making sure this thing was supposed to work. your more confident now that you've heard from the president this morning? >> well, look. i think there's some good things that are happening. obviously, a lot of people are in the process of completing applications, and clearly the demand of almost 20 million unique visitors is huge. that's a great thing. the president was also smart to acknowledge that there are some real problems with the architecture of the website. both at the front end and they are clearly adding things like call centers, increased call centers, the ability to shop for health insurance plans without completing an application. back end problems as insurers are not getting all of what they need on the back end of this. i think the hardest thing the president has to do is clearly what he was trying to do today and

and even robert gibbs is saying it's been botched. is there an investigation of this company? i these are millions of dollars in hard-earned action taxpayer dollars. will the government get some money back? >> questions about contracts related to this are ones that should be addressed to hhs and cms. i don't have that information. >> all right. now, ed henry is at the white house. ed, jay carney, peppered with questions about the glitchessed. did he provide many answers? >> reporter: he did but whether the answer are good enough for the critics of the healthcare law is another question. it was jay carney's predecessor, robert gibbs, who says louisiana week -- said last week this was a disaster in terms of the rollout, and in his words, someone should be fired. i previously asked jay carney whether that would be kathleen sebelius, the health and human services secretary. he said, no, she still has the full confidence of the president and that's why the question today by many others council asked similar questions -- wasn't just kind of accountability will there be? people calle

. >> robert gibbs takes a similar view criticizing the roll out, saying the administration better get it together. >> to get the roll out and the website right so this works. get a plane full of engineers and get them into national and let's start building the website tonight. let's get something that works. >> nancy pelosi brushes off the concern and she was asked if the websites are not working better by november or december, should the plan be delayed? >> no, no. it has nothing to do with the problematic part of it. it's about technology. >> that of course is why it isn't working. in maryland once hailed as a model of how obama care will work, the governor said my sense of it is probably for the next month or so or month and a half, we will be working out glitches in the port american league. while companies can correct wrong or duplicate information can manually check it, that will be impossible if they get the numbers it predicts. he said government should have tested more and earlier and for many different scenarios when problems were found, he said politicians pushed ahead. >>

when i heard gibbs being that honest and clear, i started missing robert gibbs. i didn't think that was possible. robert, we miss you. come back robert, come back. all right, this week, representative had strong words for national park director. it was only two years earlier when occupy protesters were able to break the law for 100 days. >> the law says no camping but the protesters camped anyway and you didn't do anything in terms of arrest or citations for over 100 days. so i want you to fast forward two years. parks are closing, access to monuments is restricts and access for those who helped build the monument in the first place. you didn't wait 100 days to enforce the law with veterans who wanted to see their monument. you didn't work to gain compliance. veterans weren't greeted with a measured and reasoned response, they were greeted with barricades on the very first day. >> wow. what can i say? trey nailed it. i was thinking there is nothing i could add because he was spot on. baa i do have one question. watching jarvis sit there in that seat, do you wonde

robert gibbs wants someone to be fired over the obama care rollout, so what should it be? >>> before you go, please check out our facebook page. plus our brand-new website at foxnews.com/thefive. we'll be right back. small business owners are using tools like email and social media marketing from constant contact to grow their business. they're getting customers coming back. fans following their business online. and new customers through the door. see how constant contact's products and people can help you grow your business. start your free trial at constantcontact.com. could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. everybody knows that. well, did you know that when a tree falls in the forest and no one's around, it does make a sound? ohhh...ohhh...oh boy! i'm falling. everybody look out! ahhhhh...ugh. little help here. geico. fifteen minutes could save you...well, you know. anybody? >>> remember when obama care matriarch kathleen sebelius said this? >> how many have signed up thus far? >> fully enrolled? i can't tell you. because i don't know. >> "the wall stre

tonight, the chief national correspondent jim engle says that robert gibbs is not the only washingtoner crying foul over obama care. >> reporter: the battle of obama care has receded somewhat as the republicans are focusesing to keep the democrats from raising the federal spending, but the conservative views have not changed about the law or the roll ow. >> you have to go to the website that does not work to sign up for a plan that you cannot afford and send your information no irs which is already proving that they won't treat it confidentiality. >> it is not a glitch in terms of the rollout, but a breakdown having tried myself to get on yesterday. i feel sorry for "the new york times" research writer who spent 11 days trying to get on, and ended up with the blank screen. >> the architect of the website said in march that we will be lucky if this thing doesn't look like a third world experiment. >> and robert gibbs told msnbc today that it is excruciatingly embarrassing for the white house and bungled badly, and not a server problem, but too many people came to the website and this i

>> well, wolf, first, i think we have to focus exactly where robert gibbs said we should focus, which is let's fix the problems, get this thing up and running. there's a huge amount of interest from the american public, a huge amount of people who are looking for this kind of affordable care so let's get the system fixed and up and running. then we can go back and figure out where things went wrong and see whether people need to be held accountable. clearly, if there were mistakes made, people should be held accountable but i think we're getting ahead of the game here. our focus should be all hands on deck, let's fix this problem so that the millions of americans who want to get access to affordable care, can do it. >> you still have confidence in the secretary of health and human services, kathleen sebelius? >> i do. this has been a very big rollout. you know, there's the good news and the bad news. the good news is that the affordable care act, the idea behind it, was absolutely necessary, because you have this huge unmet need for affordable care. the bad news is that millions more

this is robert gibbs, former white house press secretary. human services. this was bungled badly. this is not a server problem, like too many people came to the web site. this is web site architecture problem. i think it is, again, it's excruciatingly embarrassing. >> the "new york times" said this, the "washington post" has said this. but the president of the united states and jay carney have said, this is a good problem. it's more popular than ever. it shows there is such a need. when people can't get on, they try to get on again, then they try to get on again. then it becomes somewhat of a challenge. remember how many hours that "new york times" reporter spent -- i think it was 11 hours, trying to get on. >> casey kasem had a better system in the '90s when i was trying to get a call. >> you're the 19th caller. >> at least it would work after a little while. >> you do get through? >> i got through a few times. >> plus t doesn't sound like this particular company had to submit to the standard federal contracting bid thing. it sounds like th

i actually agree with robert gibbs. a lot of people should be handed pink slips, including kathleen death panel sebelius because of the rollout and the train wreck that it is, because tlhere is a new report that only 1% that visited healthcare.gov actually enrolled. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] more room in economy plus. more comfort, more of what you need. ♪ that's... built around you friendly. ♪ >>> this is excruciatingly embarrassing for the department of health and human services. this was bungled badly. this was not just too many people came to the website, this was a website architectural problem. i hope they workday and night to get it done, and when they get it fixed, i hope they fire whoever was in charge of getting it fixed. these are glitches that go, quite frankly, way beyond the pa pale of what should be expected. >> there you have it. even former press secretary robert gibbs cannot defend his old boss's master plan. while obama care may live, will anything come to an end because of the disastrous rollout of the

joining us from washington, press secretary robert gibbs. chris, i want to start with you. i want to ask you as someone who lives in washington and has lived through a lot of political brinksmanship, where do we go from here? >> this is a unique time. a lot of the media is trying to play this as something that happens regular. it hasn't happened in 17 years. even by that time we had appropriations bills passed by now. it wasn't a government shutdown. it wasn't a government shutdown. i'm wondering who is feeding the elephants at the washington zoo. what's still being done? the problem the president has and harry reid and mitch mcconnell and the speaker has. nobody in politics is trusted anymore. there may be a time when you went on television and spoke, at least the facts were straight. when obama says this is a shutdown and they are taking nonnegotiable commands about taking a bill already in place. that's in flux. one more vote on obama care. no acceptance of fact. they speak from different pages. that's why it's very hard, if there's still somebody in the middle to figure

. >> on accountability on health care, we talked about robert gibbs saying the rollout has been so bad that there should be people fired. you have defended secretary sibelius. short of somebody being fired, what kind of accountability will there be? i have not asked you about these that have gotten millions of dollars in federal contracts for the website, data collection, and when robert gibbs is saying it has been watched, is there an investigation of this company? is the company plans to turn over-- these are millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars ash is that government going to get some of that back? >> questions like this should be directed to hhs. but i can tell you is the accountability the president seeks today is the accountability that comes from those who are working on implementation, working around the clock, to ensure the consumer experience is improved and that the whole process of implementation of the affordable care act moves forward. again, it is important to remember that although there's a lot of focus on it, the affordable care act is not just a website. website i

i actually agree with robert gibbs. a lot of people should be handed pink slips, including kathleen death panel sebelius because of the rollout and the train wreck that it is, because tlhere is a new report that only 1% that visited healthcare.gov actually enrolled. turn out for a student edition of "hannity," our greatest yet. we're going to talk about last night's deal and the fireworks that followed, here on "hannity." [ male announcer ] introducing new fast acting advil. with an ultra-thin coating and fast absorbing advil ion core™ technology, it stops pain before it gets worse. nothing works faster. new fast acting advil. look for it in the white box. new fast acting advil. prefer the taste of gevalia house blend over thtaste of starbucks house blend? not that we like tooting our own horn but... ♪ toot toot. [ male announcer ] find gevalia in the coffee aisle or at gevalia.com >>> this is excruciatingly embarrassing for the department of health and human services. this was bungled badly. this was not just too many

you heard what robert gibbs said. it wasn't about her specifically. but president obama still trusts her stewardship of obama care. leslie, is that the right result? >> i believe it is. she didn't design the website. of course they could not fully implement the website, put it together and test it. they were waiting for states to decide whether they would be on it. the expectations exceeded in great numbers. not just one million the first day. 14.7 million. >> who checked it out, not registered. >> oh, absolutely. that's where one of the problem lies is being able to register. absolutely, no question. >> that beg s the question. that's the issue. millions of people came according to the washington post. they claim 9.47 million visited the website. the number who completed enrollment, 36,000 they are estimating. 36,000 out of 10 million. that's why some are saying someone needs to get fired. the website stinks, the rollout stunk and there should be accountability. >> i have been covering government for a long time. there are so many examples in frooift

the "washington post" blogger comedian john stewart and president obama's former press secretary robert gibbs all who said this would be a tremendous failure with the launch. you have to think he is feeling the pressure right now. >> oh yeah. >> look, in order for obamacare to work and not collapse they need 2.7 million young, healthy people on the exchange out of a total of seven million signed on by next march. that's the estimation of the administration. if this pool is too skewed to old and sick people on the exchange the ensurers lose money and the entire system evolves into what they call the so-called death spiral. here is the deal, a one-year delay could avoid the death spiral. rejected last week by congress, but how would you handicap a one-year delay as this thing continues. >> i think it is hard to imagine there will be a year delay to mandate. i think it would make it worse for the president. what incentive do people have? the incentive is very low because it may be beneficial and they see it as beneficial to sign up and mott take the penalty. without the mandate and without the p

. >> one of the things that got my attention was the statement from robert gibbs who was president obama'smer press secretary who said yesterday when they get it fixed i hope, quote, they fire some people who were in charge of making sure that this was supposed to work. we knew there would be glitches but these are gordon th go beyof what is expected. do you think this is something on which people's heads would roll and people should be politically held accountable for this? >> i don't. i saw the staff at cms and contractors burn midnight oil, they deserve thanks from the nation for their attempts so far and what will be ultimately be successful attempts. this is a very hard process. rolling out part d medicare was hard, getting drug coverage to millions of seniors was difficult. and the state exchanges have had their problems and massachusetts had their first one and i remember that took awhile to get it up and running properly. we should look at the successful states, california is running very well, and we'll learn a lot from them. this is an enormous process for the enrollment roll out

>> well, i sort of agree with robert gibbs. i do think there needs to be some accountability, and that is -- makes you wonder why the people who set this up are still on the job. this is not just a question of too much volume, as the white house and the administration tried to portray it. the fact is that even in the test runs, before this, the insurance companies were warning hhs that people were not going to be able to get from the starting point to the ending point. so i do think just because this has become -- they can probably fix all this, hopefully, fairly quickly. but this has really struck, i think, at the credibility of the whole system. >> perry, jim demint on that note has an op-ed in "the wall street journal," we won't back down on obama care. the headline in the washington post, republicans are not done fighting with the new health care law. this is not going away, certainly. in fact as you may have heard, marco rubio saying this is going to be an election issue, big deal in 2014. what's your thought? >> i do thin

robert gibbs, the press secretary, calling for someone to be fired. but congress, as you might suspect, is all over this, and many republicans criticizing many of their own party for drawing away from this ineptitude and casting down on the affordable care act to begin with, and we expect the president to say there was not really a problem but it's a question that too many people have been visits the website. >> we know it is broke. now that we know it is broke what are some of the main issues plaguing this website? >> reporter: as i mentioned a lot of folks looking at the technical aspects of this. it was three years ago that the president signed the affordable care act, three years presumably that the administration would have an opportunity to get this thing up and running. there was no shortage of fanfare leading up to t and we should go back and explain this is for folks who do not obtain their healthcare through their employers. they have to go through the individual market, this is the place to do that. we should mention that the sign up period

when robert -- robert gibbs says it's excruciatingly notice. >> it's the first week. what can i tell you? i expect we'll see a headline graphic coming up showing that in oregon 10%, the amount of people who are uninsured in oregon was reduced by 10% last week. a big number. california, 600,000 people now getting health coverage that didn't have it before. there are some victories in the states. the launch of the federal website, a disaster. you know what? it will get fixed. >> steve, actually, we can only guess how bad the federal health exchanges were. state exchanges are different. the federal health exchanges are the ones we're getting very, very mixed reporting on. the most we can calculate, all estimate is 50,000 people have been able to sign in all the way in the federal exchanges and they have to expect 7 million -- if they can't handle 50,000, how are they going to deal with 7 million? >> this thing is so complex. it's not glitches, david. this is beyond repair. obamacare short-term won politically but that is like saying the titanic won politically. it will s

robert gibbs says it's embarrassing. >> i hope they're working day and night to get this done. when they get it fixed, i hope they fire some people that were in charge of making sure that thing was supposed to worg. we knew there would be glitches, but these are glitches that go quite frankly way beyond the pale of what should be expected. >>> and what's old is new again. new research is old on the diet of president howard taft. america's most portly president. doctors put him on a low fat, low calorie diet and told him to avoid snacks. it's a regimen used quite frequently, but didn't work so well for mr. taft. his weight fluctuated between 255 and 350 pounds. and that is your morning's dish of scrambled politics. >>> joining me now is bob franken. bob, good to see you. >> good morning. i will avoid any smart aleck comments about the president's weight. >> you're a heavy weight, so that's a good segue for us. >> that's it, i'm going on a diet. >> i mean that in a political pundit accepts. so let's talk about this supposed deal in the works. senate republicans are working on a b

robert gibbs among them, somebody needs to lose their job over this. >> bertha coombs, thank you. i'll let you know if i go et to sign on and shop. >>> while the troubled websites are run by the government, the coverage itself is sold by private insurers. stocks have been rising on the prospect of potentially millions of new and profitable customers. but if people can't sign up or if only the sickest do the profit and loss sumsassumptions may be seriously flawed. joining us is a.j. rice, analyst at ubs. a.j. welcome. what do insurers fear the most and who is among the most risk? >> i think what they do fear is exactly what you're talking about, that this ends up being a program where the people that have a lot of preexisting conditions that haven't been able to get insurance sign up, and those that are healthy relatively speaking stay on the sidelines, and you don't have a balanced pool. the people that are the leaders in putting these plans out there right now tend to be the blue cross plans. many of those are quasi nonprofits but well point among the publicly traded companies, i