but the question is not whether john boehner can survive or whether steny hoyer can survive.he issue is will the best interest of america survive? will we have the courage to act responsibly so that america is and is perceived by the rest of the world as the leader they thought it was and want it to be. >> congressman hoyer, appreciate your time on a busy night. thank you. >>> up next, how the white house is reacting to what's going on just up the avenue and congressman joe walsh one of the no votes tonight on speaker boehner's bill. ♪ ♪ i like your messy hair ♪ i like the clothes you wear ♪ i like the way you sing ♪ and when you dance with me ♪ you always make me smile [ male announcer ] we believe you're at your best when you can relax and be yourself. and at thousands of newly refreshed holiday inn hotels, you always can. holiday inn. stay you. and now stay rewarded with vacation pay. stay two weekend nights and get a $75 prepaid card. [ indistinct conversations ] [ hissing ] agents, what did we learn here today? that lint balls are extremely flammable! well, yeah. and tha

joining me now is house minority whip sten steny hoyer. you said there will be no vote for the boehner bill. is that still the case tonight? >> i believe it the democrats have clearly made a determination that this is a bad bill, a bad bill for the country. it doesn't represent any kind of a compromise. it doesn't represent any result of discussions that have occurred over the last months. this is simply a republican bill to seek additional cuts which we need to make but we need to make those in a fashion that will not hurt people, will not undermine the operations of government while at the same time bringing down the debt and deficit. but what we really see here, anderson, in my opinion is the party of no not being able to agree even with itself much less with those it shares responsibility with in the congress of the united states and with the president of the united states. and it does so at a time of great risk to america and to america's families. and that's deeply unfortunate. >> what do you make of what is going on in the republica

and steny hoyer and nancy pelosi have to sell this.them to a large number of members of the democratic caucus. >> i had henry cuellar on, democratic congressman from texas. this is not somebody thought of as somebody in the bernie sanders wing of the party. i asked him does he trust this president to make the deal. i asked him again do you trust the president to make this deal. he said i trust my legislative leadership, nancy pelosi. real disconnect. they haven't been in the room. that's a problem for some democrats. >> the president has lost a lot of altitude with democrats in the house and the senate. the factlosi has street cred with them. if steny hoyer says you have to take this one, at the end of the day most of them will stick. but it's going to be hard. if they had it all nailed down, they would be out there. >> this is not new for presidents. george w. bush was not always on the same page as tom delay and hastert. how much of it is par for the course dealing with a re-election and how much of this is something different? >> th

joining us, democratic whip steny hoyer.ongressman hoyer, a pleasure to see you again. >> dylan good to be with you. >> any chance that anything, whether it's the gang of six plan or anything that's being bandied about has a chance of passing the house of representatives? >> i certainly hope something has a chance of passing the house of representatives. we're fiddling, frankly, while the debt and the default is about to burn us badly, and burn the american people badly. and we need get about doing our business. unfortunately, as you just observed, and as i just said, we're fiddling while rome is burning, in the sense that the piece of legislation on our floor now has zero chance of passage. it was introduced at the last minute last friday. it was printed just this weekend. nobody's probably fully understood what it does, and it can't pass and won't pass the senate. we're wasting time. we have 14 days until the secretary of the treasury tells us american will run out of its ability to pray its bills. that will have reverbera

do you want me dealing with steny hoyer or do you want me dealing with you?e. and so i am not completely trashing them here. buchanan's pumping his fist. i understand that the, but as more than one person said over the past couple of weeks, they're two steps through the process, one is having the guts to stare down your opponent, and i say this as a lawyer who sat through a lot of mediations and sat through a lot of negotiations, the first thing is that you have to stare down your opponent, and when you opponent blinks, as the president has, the president's blinked. you're going to win. you can have a victory on the battlefie battlefield, but if you don't convert that to -- if they don't take boehner's bill, then reid's bill comes up. what happens? >> what actually occurred yesterday where eric cantor got up and said you have two options, you can pass this bill or be forced to vote on harry reid's bill. they played a video segment from the movie "the town." allan west said i'm going to drive this car, they're trying to motivate this caucus. and west supports

first majority whip steny hoyer. >> even within their own party, it is deeply divided party, divided against their leadership, angry at their leadership, and a party that has divided itself, has difficulty working with the president and with us and that's unfortunate and the country is the poorer for it. >> i don't buy this notion of e default. to me that's a false choice. default means you can't service your debt, you can't pay off your debt, anderson, and there's plenty of government revenues to do that. one of the things that's been harmful in this debate is there's been this obsession with august 2nd, august 2nd. we need to get this right. we need a balanced budget amendment. if it takes us a few days more to make sure we get it right, let's do it. >> so congressman walsh doesn't sound too wired. maybe he hasn't read the new reports, say, from credit suisse which says if the u.s. eventually defaults on its payments stocks could fall 30% in the next year and the economy could contract 5% over the same period and every month that there's a stalemate, 1% comes off the u.s. gross dom

grover norquist responded this morning to steny hoyer on our air. take a listen. >> hoyer is wrong. the answer is the people who made this commitment not to raise taxes made it clear they're not raising taxes and boehner and the other republicans have said that independent of the pledge. there's certain things you could do techniqcally and not violate the pledge but the americans would understand is a tax release. americans for tax reform reject any effort to reduce or not continue the 2001-2003 bush tax cuts. >> the question now becomes did grover norquist say unequivocally did any non-extension of the bush tax cuts equal a tax raise. seems like there is wiggle room there. why is that important? house republicans said repeatedly they will not allow tax increases to be part of a debt reduction deal. if there is leeway there, forever grover is not saying unequivocally, not the bush tax cuts, maybe there will be a vote. >> will this give people on the hill whiplash? >> reporter: there's so many different trains, no one knows what will get in the station. no one knows. on health care a

steny hoyer, democrat. democrat number two in the senate, dick durbin and, john boehner speaker of the house. on the republican side, the people who are a problem, mitch mcconnell, certainly eric cantor, certainly -- well, leave it at that. perhaps pelosi. we just don't know. fascinating stuff. >>> coming up, what are president obama's options if he doesn't get a deal? look at a deep perhaps by august 2nd. what if he doesn't get a deal? can we bypass congress under the 14th amendment and keep the country going by executive power and force the country to meet its bills? we'll hear from a brilliant columnist says. hear what she says. this is not radical. this is constitutional. >>> you're watching "hardball," this is not radical. this is constitutional. >>> you're watching "hardball," only on msnbc. >>> talk about strange bedfellows? south carolina democrat jim demint teamed up with maine moderate olympia snow to call for a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. they pushed for this in an op-ed in to

. >> joining me now is maryland congressman steny hoyer, the house democratic whip. reports indicate that the democratic caucus was taken aback by the reports that the president is seeking a $4 trillion deal and that medicaid and social security are on the table. were you and your colleagues caught offguard? >> i don't know if we were caught offguard. i think the caucus is clearly concerned about, a, getting the debt limit so that we don't default on america's bills. and we stabilize the economy and continue to grow the economy. and we are also very focused on making sure that medicare beneficiaries and social security beneficiaries are not adversely affected. we do want to see the deficit brought down and the debt addressed. but i think they want to have assurances that social security recipients and medicare recipients will be unharmed by any effort that we make. but i think they understand that we've got to work all focus on the fact that in a very short period of time, america is not going to be able to pay its bills, and that will have a very bad consequence on

joining me now, house whip steny hoyer.trong difference of opinion i guess among those on the hill, congressman. maybe not as bad as we've been led to believe, or so i was just told. >> there is a strong disagreement and congressman king does not review the views of his leadership on either the senate side or the house side where they all believe that not meeting our obligations on tuesday will have great adverse ramifications for every american family, and it will be immediate. the american families have already lost as a result of the, what i would say game playing, the politicization of this issue, have already lost $400 billion in net worth since mr. boehner walked out of the hearing, out of the agreement with president obama. and would not pursue those obviously because he couldn't get his party to the agree, which we have seen over the last full 36 hours. >> congressman, i just saw speaker boehner walk behind you, perhaps going to initiate this voted. where are we headed? tell the american people whants about to unfol

he is not involving nancy pelosi or steny hoyer or yours truly in what he's doing.nd so i'm never going to ask members of our caucus to vote to have severe cuts in medicare, medicaid, social security. we should never balance the budget on the backs of the vulnerable. and when i read what he is proposing, these cuts are deep for senior citizens and other vulnerables in our society and we as democrats are not going to do that. that's why many of us have been touting senator reid's proposal because he moves to according to cbo $ .2 trillion in cuts over ten years. but he has taken the revenue raises out of it to satisfy the republicans. he has taken the social security, the decline in median family incomes for his tannic americans down 66% for african-americans down 53%. and for whites down 16% in the recession. so the gap is really widening now to extraordinary -- historic proportions. >> absolutely. >> how do you combat that in a time of declining government spending? >> well, you can combat that by dealing with what there is to spend. the problem we have here and yo

tonight, steny hoyer is with us and chris van hollen and bernie sanders. they're here with their version an how this is going down and how it's going to get solved. this is "the ed show." let's get to work. >> the bill's not perfect. i never said watz perfect. >> even the tan man knows his bill is no good. he was embarrassed by his own caucus tonight. but is senator reid's plan any better? former labor secretary robert reich knows the answer. constitutional scholar michelle bachman doesn't understand the 14th amendment. >> he would be making spending decisions and tax decisions. clearly that's unconstitutional. >> we'll review the document for her. and while republicans hold the economy hostage, nobody's thinking about putting americans back to work. tonight, my commentary on how washington and big business need to start hiring. good to have you with us tonight, folks. it's an unbelievable day of news coming out of washington, d.c. house speaker john boehner, i guess you could say is finding out the hard way that a stiff drink and round of golf just isn't

this is obama and boehner and to a lesser extent steny hoyer. >> house republicans are the true believersne in the sand. they are the key to this. then the white house has adopted a number of different strategies, i suspect will continue to kind of move around and find the right place, the president appears to be engaged but not responsible if the public is actually angry at the end. day. >> is the public going to be angry about this? it's been a year. it's a weird disconnect between what's going on in washington and the public. >> up talked about wall street, how there's -- >> they are not reacting either. >> nobody quite believes we'll fall off the end of the cliff. they think this is all kind of the drama building. we've seen it before. it will work itself out. if at some point there's a true fear that wow there may not be a deal in time then you'll see anger. >> the public will react when the market drops by 500 points in a single afternoon. >> stick around. we have a lot to talk about. a bunch of 2012 news. and new jersey, the craziness between chris christie and his one time democra

joining me now is house democratic whip, maryland congressman, steny hoyer, thank you very much for joining tonight. >> good to be with you, lawrence. >> the senate today offered house republicans everything, every single point they said they wanted at the outset of this negotiating process, now some months ago. i've never seen something like that where one side offers the other side everything, and so far what you're getting is a straight rejection it seems. >> what we're seeing, lawrence, in my opinion, a very sorry and irresponsible spectacle of holding america's credit worthiness and frankly the interest of every american hostage to an increase in the debt limit which simply says america's going to pay its bills, and what has been offered by speaker boehnor is a formula that he has rejected and mr. cantor have both rejected saying that if we did just incremental, every six months or every eight months, it would keep the economy roya$ed and it wouldn't grow. they were right then, but for political reasons simply to put the president in a corner, they have said no to every deal, to every

last night on the last word with lawrence o'donnell, steny hoyer told lawrence what he thinks about mixing taxes into the debate over raising the debt ceiling. >> very unfortunate that the republicans continue to pursue this particularly when mr. boehner and the president have reached an agreement tentatively on two different occasions. and mr. boehner has walked away. frankly the republicans have walked intentionally more than barry bonds. and the fact of the matter is that we need to come to an agreement, the senate, senator reid has offered exactly what they asked for. mr. cantor said we have no taxes in our bill. he was very pumped up about that to tell his constituents, that the richest people in america were not going to have to pay anything towards solving this problem. but frankly, the senate is prepared to offer that, because they feel very strongly responsible step to take is to make sure that america is able to pay its bills on august 3rd. >> don't miss "last word" with lawrence o'donnell, week nights at 8:00 p.m. on msnbc, the place for politics. >>> the man suspected in friday

. >>> and come up this hour, i'll be speaking with steny hoyer. >>> plus, the long-anticipated drawdownn afghanistan begins. you're going to find out how many american troops in this initial withdrawal are coming out right away. and president obama joked he was calling for pizza. but in the end, delivering a personal message for america's final space shuttle crew. stick around. you're in the "situation room." woman: saving for our child's college fund was getting expensive. man: yes it was. so to save some money, we taught our 5 year old how to dunk. woman: scholarship! woman: honey go get him. anncr: there's an easier way to save. get online. go to geico.com. get a quote. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. that's how it is with alzheimer's disease. she needs help from me. and her medication. the exelon patch -- it releases medication continuously for twenty-four hours. she uses one exelon patch daily for the treatment of mild to moderate alzheimer's symptoms. [ female announcer ] it cannot change the course of the disease. hospitalization and rarely death have been

you see the minority leader nancy pelosi and steny hoyer feel like this is one of those times where they have become relevant again in washington. they have some power and they are making a lot of demand for it whether they stick to those demands i think is up in the air. they are trying to extract as much as they can. >> what have you heard about the talks that are happening behind closed doors? is there detailed negotiations and they are giving behind closed doors but then they come out in public and say no? >> in the talks, both leaders realize they will have to make compromises. that is a sense i get from sources inside the room. both parties are under a lot of. pressure the white house and speaker john boehner have indicated great concern over what would happen to the economy if the company -- of the country did not raise the debt ceiling by the deadline. you have 9.2% unemployment that can out on friday. that ratchets up the pressure on both parties since nobody wants to see a down turn. >> the president meets this evening with democratic republican leaders at the white house. afte

. >> bret: we should point out that the house minority whip steny hoyer was going to be a guest to getlarity on that side from the house and he was called to the white house and canceled on us. we welcome him back sometimes. jonah, your take where we were today? >> it's a mess. fog of war is the only thing that comes to mind. hard to figure out what the heck was going on, on the hill today. and i have people telling me that diametrically opposed things with absolute confidence several times today. it seems to me -- mara take is more important than mine. but the fund me tall problem is the same. both sides have to turn the keys at the same time. the republicans who i think have a better case on this know that if you pass, if you pass the tax part first, you never get the spending cuts. we have been down that road before. they can't get burned again not with tea party guys on the tree line watching everything going on. >> but if you put cuts up front you never get revenue. >> the "cut, cap and balance" plan that passed the house with 234 votes will be dealt with in the senate tomorrow. t

congressman steny hoyer of maryland here.five days remaining to a potential default of the treasury. the house of representatives just begun the debate there over this legislation to raise the debt ceiling. now this is the plan today put forth by the speaker of the house john boehner, and at last report boehner continues to twist arms among his own republicans to win enough vote to pass this thing. let's bring in joe johns here in washington. joe, let's just both listen to speaker boehner. this is when he spoke just a short time ago. >> the bill is not perfect. i've never said it was perfect. nobody in my caucus believes it's perfect, but what this bill reflects is a sincere, honest effort to end this crisis in a bipartisan way to send it to the senate where it can receive action. >> joe johns, just so we are all on the same page as succinctly as you possibly can, what does the boehner plan offer? >> okay. i will keep it short, okay, so just stay with me. >> okay. >> it's got two steps. there's a debt limit increase, and it w

van hollen. >> both harry reid and steny hoyer were invoked.i assure you neither never voted for this kind of twisted version of a constitutional balanced budget amendment. this is an effort to manipulate the constitution, to stack the deck in certain ways. it has two devices to do that. one is to require a supermajority vote to raise revenue. the other device is putting on this 18% cap. those were not in any balanced budget amendment supported by steny hoyer and harry reid. that is what makes this provision especially perverse. you can have a good debate on the issue of a garden variety balanced budget amendment. this is not that. again, what this does, and let us be very clear, it creates a supermajority requirement to close corporate tax loopholes for the purpose of deficit reduction. we keep hearing the statement that 49 states have balanced budget amendments. only 10 by our count write into their constitution a limitation that requires two-thirds or more of a vote to raise revenue. what that does is immediately tilt the playing field. the

thanks. >> shortly before house speaker john boehner, house democratic whip steny hoyer held a briefing where he also commented about prodepress in the debt and deficit negotiations. he's joined by m.d. governor martin o'malley. -- by maryland governor martin o'malley. >> good morning. i thank you for being here. i wanted to have this brief press availability after our whip meeting. i asked governor martin o'malley who is not only the governor of my state and my good friend, but also chaired the democratic governors' association of our country. i asked governor o'malley to come to be with us this morning to discuss the effects and ramifications of our failure to extend the debt limit and to ensure that america can pay its bills. he and -- he, in league with our governor, our fellow governor from virginia, i know, has also expressed his great concern that we not address the ability of the united states of america to remain credit worthy and pay its bills. americans expect their country to meet our obligations. it is a moral obligation and it is a legal obligation. surely americans want u

with the president, and tonight, lawrence o'donnell will get reaction from the house minority whip steny hoyer on msnbc. >>> major developments today in the casey anthony case. she is a free woman next wednesday july 13th after being acquitted of killing her 2-year-old daughter caylee. judge belvin perry sentenced her to four years in jail for lying to police, but she is getting time reduced by good time served and in addition she will have a $4,000 fine. >> as you can see there, dozens of protesters are outside of the courthouse and many of them were outraged that anthony was acquitted of murder. today, some jurors came out and said that while they were upset and sickened over the ver dishgts thverdict that they could not convict on the evidence. >> not on death, because it is a very serious charge and there was not enough evidence. >> and another juror told a newspaper tearfully, i just swear to god i wish we had more evidence to put her away, i truly do. >> let's bring in the criminal defense attorney anne brimner to talk about this. i want to get straight to this about your thoughts on the

. >> no, it falls on steny hoyer.ely because i don't think she's going to be there to be counting votes. >> it's sort of that question of who's the grownup in the room. it's t.a.r.p. all over again. >> we shall see. shameless plug time, cynthia, i'm start with you. >> read my column. i talk about shameless republicans who don't care if the economy teeters over the abyss. >> christina. >> well, first happy birthday to david. but roll call, we have a little tidbit that some white house leaders are meeting with faith leaders about the deficit. >> if you need a compliment to first read check out the morning line at pbs news hour, our website. today we'll be interviewing ron paul. >> ron paul? who sits at 9% in our poll. he doesn't ever grow, though, he just sits there. that's it for this edition of "the daily rundown." tomorrow on the show, among my guests democratic senator chris koonce. next is chris "jansing & co." then andrea mitchell, joining her debbie wasserman schultz who had quite a dust-up questioned with a tea

steny hoyer came out and said your position will help john boehner get republicans behind a long terms wrong. the answer is the people have made this commitment not to raise taxes have made it clear they're not raising taxes and boehner and the other republicans have said that independent of the pledge. there's certain things you could do technically and not violate the pledge but the general public would clearly understand is a tax increase. so i can be clear, americans for tax reform would oppose any effort to weaken, reduce or not continue the 2001-2003 bush tax cuts and any changes of taxes should be kept separate from the budget deal. this is not some change that's taken place, atr has always made it very clear we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or not continue the bush tax cuts or any existing tax cuts. clearly, they need to continue, and not to continue them would be seen by the american people as a very dramatic tax increase and republicans have made it clear, that's off the table and we support that effort. >> grover norquist, thanks so much for coming on. >>> thomas rob

john boehner, speaker of the house, will have to deliver the votes he can, and nancy pelosi and steny hoyer will have to help him in the end? >> that's absolutely right. >> that's what i think, too. it will have to be the smartest and the grownups. anyway, thank you, ezra klein, for joining us and trying to get to the heart of this crisis coming. >>> coming up, religion are in search of a candidate. we're moving through july the year before. they're not thrill with romney, and he keeping flip flopping, by the way, on the key issues of the economy. they're waiting for someone like rick perry there on the right. he looks good to some of them. can he be the guy who unites on the far right? does anybody republican have the right stuff in they're still looking. you're watching "hardball." i att heartburn, third day this week. so i took my heartburn pill and some antacids. we're having mexican tonight, so another pill then? unless we eat later, then pill later? if i get a snack now, pill now? skip the snack, pill later... late dinner, pill now? aghh i've got heartburn in my head. [ male announcer

secret here is that boehner actually could get a deal if he were willing to go to nancy pelosi and steny hoyer about coalescens, we don't have to go too far back here, it does not look good for congressional republicans, but we have to go back just a year and a half, 2010, the election, they had a mandate at that time based on spending, but what has happened between then and now? >> they have still got a mandate on spending, americans overwhelmingly want spending cuts, some want tax increases. here's where the republicans would lose. if the republicans get the debt ceiling passed by august 2 and there's no downgrade of the american bonds and we don't have to start cutting social, republicans will come out of this just fine. if, however, i think we do get a debt ceiling period passes and we don't have it and there's real turmoil in the market, they will blame the republicans, no doubt about it. but, again, the president at the end of this, i think is going to have a real problem because with pelosi and others in his party, he's going to be accepting significant domestic social budget cuts and h

steny hoyer has the statement from this morning. let's get your thoughts after. >> the cuts equal to the extension of the debt limit. a committee to look at a longer term solution. >> are the democrats giving all the ground here? ron is saying there is nothing on paper. there are things they are trying to get through. >> what the president is doing right now and what harry reid is doing is trying to necessigotia deal. that is what people do in congress. to ron's point, the president in february submitted a budget. then he gave a speech in april and laid out another plan that cut even more from the deficit. that was done in april at george washington university. the president has been up front what he wants. he wants to no longer extend the bush tax cuts and let them lapse. that is adding to our debt. that is something we need to address. we have an issue of rich people are not rich enough problem in the country. we have a middle class that is shrinking. poor people are no longer working. if we go with the boehner plan, we will fight

>> i think steny hoyer is right on target. certainly, when the republicans were quoting moody's and standard & poor's, when they were saying that we are in tough shape and they're going to lower our credit rating and republicans said, see what they're saying? now that standard & poor's said but not only do we want this debt rating to be raised, the debt limit to be raised, but we also want it to be long term because we cannot, the economy cannot afford to go through this once again. look, jenna, the facts are very, very, very clear. not to point fingers because i believe in a bipartisan solution, i've said this from the very beginning. neither party's on the virtue of getting the house in order, 40%, 2019, 40% of the problem we have still goes back to the bush administration and its raising of -- cutting of taxes, particularly the top 2% which didn't need it, didn't ask for it, did not contribute to any job increase. and, secondly, did not increase think revenue increase until 2005. those are the facts, deal with them. jenna:

democrats in the house have been just as vocal with now majority whip steny hoyer, assistant house budgetr chris van hollen, democratic leader jim clyburn and john larson all members of the leadership calling for the 14th amendment to at least be considered. they are referring to section four of the 14th amendment which says the validity of the public debt of the united states authorized by law, including debts incured for payments of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion shall not be questioned. joining me now, jonathan zasloff. professor. i have kind of gone back and forth on this. i read the 14th amendment when this question first came up, by the way, having no idea this provision was in the 14th amendment, back when i was in the senate writing debt ceiling increases, nobody ever mentioned it, and then lawrence tribe, harvard law professor came out with a piece that pushed all of us back. we thought okay, now i see what the white house is considering here. professor tribe said that using the 14th amendment that way would mean that any budget defici

steny hoyer and nancy pelosi not in the same political spectrum on the democratic side.s pelosi now say to the ppt and vice president, look we can't do this, or does she say give me a little bit here and see if i can bring people along? >> it's more b than a. you can see that she's allowing for the possibility. she's going to go down fighting. you know that is her nature. she's been a lilt bit out of the loop. i think the president could have helped himself by bringing her in a little earlier. i think she was taken by surprise by the aggressiveness of the grand bargain that's being talked about, the possibility of making some changes down the road to medicare, social security and having her is very important. internal audience of the democratic caucus, but speaker pelosi, former speaker pelosi is a very important voice around the country to progressives. andrea, you know, progressives really rebel, liberals really rebelled furious when they first heard these leaks that the president was going ahead with his long stated plans reiterated in the state of the union to modern

and if you do that, the only way boehner can get it through is to go steny hoyer and see if you can gett a bipartisan deal, which antagonizes and alienates the tea party folks. so then you have a split in the republican party in the senate and a split in the house, and there's going to be bad blood over that. the key issue is short term or long-term. >> morris, what do you think if that were to happen? >> well, one of the things, it's never as bad as it is or as good as it is. in that scenario pat painted it, it would seem that the democrats would jump for joy. but this is taking a political toll on both sides. president obama's numbers, he's under 40 dealing with this issue particularly. this is politically damaging for both parties. they need to get this over with and then seriously approach a reform, reforming the way washington spends money. i would get this behind me and that would be my issue from now until the election, fixing the spending habits here. >> richard, i think it's -- i think we're going to wind up here with both parties extremely bitter. the democrats got no tax incr

joining us now live from capitol hill, house minority whip steny hoyer of maryland. congressman, great to have you with us tonight. it has been a whirlwind of news. i'll just ask you straight up, what can you tell us at this hour? where are we? >> i think what we're seeing, ed, is a stark example of why we could not no matter what we did come to a compromise with the republicans. their leader wanted to do that. but the party of no is saying no to their own deal. the party of no is putting at risk the american taxpayer, the american family and america itself. i think the american public has a right to be enraged as i am about the dysfunctional spectacle that they see with america on the brink of -- in the first time in history being unable to pay what it owes. i said on the floor that is not only a bad policy, it's an immoral policy. i would hope in the next few hours that we can come together, democrats and republicans, not as a partisan effort, as is now occurring. every democrat is going to propose this bill that john boehner offered. it's a bad bill. it's a bad de

. >> here is what steny hoyer said this morning about the politics. >> i think we are playing russian roulette with the nation's credit worthiness. unfortunate unfortunately, the chambers are loaded in the house side. they want to shoot every bullet they can at the president. i think it is political in that sense. it is much, much too dangerous. >> what do you think is going on here? what is the bigger problem? is it the next election and the politics surrounding that or is it the details of how to get it done? >> i think it is the politics of the next election which is the biggest thing. the president, i think, has been behaving badly in the sense he has not put a detailed proposal of his own to get this moving forward. he keeps -- >> he kept calling the leadership in. he basically said -- >> he did not put together on the table the way you would expect. the way ronald reagan did 25 years ago when he got a bipartisan agreement to overhaul the tax code. they hashed it out. he had a proposal. his administration had a proposal. this president has not done so. >> let me ask you, their co

the most powerful democrat to mention that is steny hoyer, essentially saying it would be unconstitutional to allow the nation to default for the first time in its history. the white house has pushed back hard, because they realize what fuels the folks on the right is this strict constitutional argument, tea partiers saying i'm going to fight for the constitution. if the president were to look like he was taking matters into his own hand and there was the constitutional argument, that's a headache the white house does not want to deal with, especially heading into an election year in 2012. >> luke russert there at the capitol, thank you is much. >>> new word from president obama this morning on the debt crisis, as well unfolding on capitol hill. he said both sides are not that far apart and demanded compromise. >> any solution to avoid default must be bipartisan. it must have the support of both parties that were sent here to represent the american people, not just one faction of one party. the time for putting party first is over. the time for compromise on behalf of the american people i

so boehner is going to have to go to steny hoyer and get votes to get that through.h what's going to happen at 2:00 is, excuse me, but flipping the bird to harry. >> what you said is curious. leadership, whether you liked reagan or not, they provided leadership. we need the congress, whether you're a republican or democrat, to show leadership. no one is, and i'm blaming everyone. this is a football we've kicked down the road. we now need to deal with it. let's show some leadership. you were elected to lead our country, not the democrats or republicans or tea party, do the right thing. then convene a forum to force the issue. i don't understand why people can't understand they need to do this. >> i'll tell you why. this is the difference not simply where they -- when you disagree, when you're the republicans that were elected they believe to say we're headed in the wrong direction. we're not going to give you another dime. we're going to move here. democrats want to move here. there is no common ground, i think. that's why we're having this hellish confrontation. >> l

to the senate, we're going to get something of harry reid's plan or boehner will have to go toç steny hoyerwill be worse. grab the trophy and leave the stadium. >> i think the president said he did that last december, with the unemployment held hostage. i said it last night on the show and leading democrats are saying it now, the 14th amendment, look at this. this time i think he should call -- >> okay. >> let me speak it that, al. i raise that today at the white house briefing. >> hang on. i want you to see what some of the leading democrats are saying on the 14th amendment. >> he should sign and executive order. envoccing the 14th amendment to this issue. >> you leave it to the president to take whatever action is within his power by his right under the constitution. to move this country forward and -- >> envoc the 14th amendment and make sure that is taken care of. >> i said it last night on this show. that i wish you would do it, bill. now we have congressman clyburn number three in the house. anothers say go to the 14th amendment, forget about these guys. >> i think they are absolutely

john boehner, speaker of the house, will have to deliver the votes he can, and nancy pelosi and steny hoyer will have to help him in the end? >> that's absolutely right. >> that's what i think, too. it will have to be the smartest and the grownups. anyway, thank you, ezra klein, for joining us and trying to get to the heart of this crisis coming. >>> coming up, religion are in search of a candidate. we're moving through july the year before. they're not thrill with romney, and he keeping flip flopping, by the way, on the key issues of the 1k34i. they're waiting for someone like rick perry there on the right. he looks good to some of them. can he be the guy who unites on the far right? does anybody republican have the right stuff in they're still looking. you're watching "hardball." >>> former president bill clinton has been blasting the republican effort to push new rirms. he compares it to jim crow. republicans are trying to restrict voter registration, making it harder for young people, african-americans and latinos to simply vote. clinton specifically called out florida governor rick sco

>> reid, steny hoyer.that's pewter and square? >> jimmy: that's something you buy in "skymall." >> right, they only make it for fiji water and you walk in his office. you're like, "dude -- do you love the fiji that much?" [ laughter ] and -- >> jimmy: cool. >> but it's an amazingly serene place in all their offices. it's like ducks. you can't see their feet and there are --the majority and minority whips paddling beneath the surface. and then, you walk outside the hill and you realize the level of disgust for this body. all of the people we spent the day with. the hatred in america where we all live. so, we're going to reflect some of that in this special. >> jimmy: it was interesting, i mean, 'cause we don't -- we don't really get too political on our show but, you know, now and then we'll do a joke about obama or we'll do a joke about sarah palin. >> right, you keep it -- >> jimmy: keep it balanced. but man, people go nuts on twitter. they go, "hey, stop making fun of palin, why don't you make fun of oba

with republicans, it would be a difficult vote in the house that would have to be a team effort by steny hoyer, the dplik whip and the republican whip on trying to get any compromise solution in the senate to 216 votes. it's crunch time here on the hill. there's a lot of tension. >> okay. luke, we're going to go through more of the details with you all morning long. thanks for that recap. meantime joining me from washington, we have aaron mcpike, a reporter for real clear politics. >> good morning. >> i was listening to luke talking about dotting the is and crossings ts. do you see a quick resolution? >> there's going to be a resolution. a quick one needs to come together tomorrow, sunday, and monday and we don't know what's going to come of sfart reid's bill and john boehner's going to do with the house. there's nothing yet that shows a compromise between the two sides. so it's possible that there may not be a resolution, but if there is it's going to be very quick. >> i just wonder how things get done when before bills are even presented officially into the senate and subsequently back to th

congressman steny hoyer, house democratic leader. >> thank you, chris. >>> joining me now, democratic mark warner of virginia. on the banking, budget and commerce committees. senator warner, i was wondering in the course of the -- as we get closer and closer to the deadline on the action of the debt ceiling legislation, why are we not hearing from big business? why are we not hearing from tom donahue of the u.s. chamber of commerce demanding action to avoid a default? >> ychris, as you know, and man of your viewers, i'm a pro-business democrat out there. i'm pulling my hair out on that same reason. we've seen the power of the business community to weigh in on issues. there's not a business leader i've talked to. i've talked to the chamber, the brt, every business group i can get in front of. many times what saxby chambliss was saying, be a balanced approach, both sides of the sheet, revenues and cuts. we get a lot of atta boys, but we don't get the meaningful involvement i think will convince some of our republican colleagues and our reluctant democratic colleagues that we're driving

steny hoyer will come up with 100 democrats. >> right. >> this fella boehner, 118. pull 218 together. on a package basically separating debt ceiling increasing from deficit reduction. don't you agree? david? that's what they have to do? >> this will not be a -- >> okay. >> this will not be a package the tea party can claim credit for and it's nothing they can take to the bank. >> you're not sounding like a winner, david. >> back to brinkmanship. do you think this is healthy one party becomes a protest party instead of waving placards and spitting on congressmen when they walk by, this party moved into the halls of congress and is now controlling the process. is that good for american politics, to have 200 and some members of congress with an attitude? if the other side doesn't agree we bring the house down. is that good for america? >> i think the reality is america is a divided culturally, economically, every other way. no area of agreement. the only way to decide these things is fight it out in the center of the field. negotiations be absurd. obama used them to be

my colleague reference people like harry reid and steny hoyer supporting a balanced budget amendment. this is not in the traditional balanced budget amendments that we have seen and debated in the past. what you have here is in section 2, page 5 and my copy, it says, outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed 18% of economic output of the united states. when you write that cap into the constitution of the united states, you will require deep cuts to those programs. as i indicated earlier -- the last time the united states government hit that target was in approximately 1966. we now have the retirement of the baby boomers. the other provision that jerry rigs the process is section 5. it says a bill to increase revenues shall not become law unless two-thirds of the whole number of each house shall provide by roll call vote. you cannot eliminate a tax subsidy to the oil and gas industry for the purpose of reducing that deficit under that provision of the constitution. you can call that what you want, but you are writing into the -- oh, really? what do you call that? >> i call that a st

with that, i am pleased to yield to the leader in charge, steny hoyer. >> thank you very much, madam leader. >> it's crowded over there. >> time is short. the stakes are very high. the american people expect us to do what has been referred to. i do not have the faintest idea to on the american women paltry -- who on the american women's soccer soccer team is a republican or democrat. they are of the diverse races, nationalities, and regions -- and religions, but they are united in an effort to win for america. that is what this congress and this president need to do. the united in gaining a win for -- be united in gaining a win for america. what does that mean? it means, in the first instance, not walking out of the room, not watching their hands and saying, "we are going to proceed in a unilateral fashion." we are going to present a bill we note cannot pass the united states senate. and that the president of the united states would not sign. it is too late to continue to play partisan games. we need to come together. that is why the leadership of this party has supported our preside