47% believe it s a bad idea, which is unchanged from june. joining me live now, nbc news senior political editor, mark murray. mark, we know the president many times has made the link between economic struggles of a family and health care. we know the numbers, that it can literally and has sent many families to bankruptcy when someone in the family suffers from an illness. it is a point that he s made time and time again. but he needs to do it a whole lot more. one of the reasons why is there s almost been this asymmetrical warfare when it comes to the health care law. republicans have continued to hold vote after vote trying to repeal it. there s been a preponderance of republican tv money on ads attacking the health care law. and it was almost as if right after the supreme court, after president obama s re-election, they said, well, the health care law is here to stay, let s move on. it s clear that the fight at
hi, everyone. i m tamron hall. the news nation is following developing news. the texas attorney general reacting to the announcement made by eric holder that the justice department plans to take on texas in the battle over voting rights. in a tweet sent just a few hours ago, greg abbott wrote, quote, i ll fight obama s effort to control our elections and i ll fight against cheating at ballot box. mr. holder s statement was made at the national urban league s annual conference in philadelphia. the obama administration will seek to reimpose so-called preclearance requirements in states with a history of discriminating against minority voters, starting with texas. today i am announcing that the justice department will ask a federal court in texas to subject the state of texas to a preclearance regime similar to the one required by section 5 of the voting rights act.
all of our records are out there for the government to examine or content of our communications and that s just simply not true. if there is the suspected terrorist activity, the government lass to go to a court and get a court order in order to get the communications of american citizens, whether they re here or whether they re abroad and that is one of the protections that we ve always had in the separation of powers with the judiciary checking and balancing against the executive branch of government. senator nelson, senator wyden gave an impassioned speech yesterday and he hinted i know because of intelligence and security restrictions since he has been briefed, he couldn t speak to it but he certainly broadly hinted that there are other programs of vast collection that we don t even
said today, at least in their side, and you re right, there are two sides to this, he said this is based on evidence of intentional racial discrimination as well as the history of pervasive voting-related discrimination against racial minorities. the supreme court acknowledged to some degree, as eric holder noted today, pete, that these issues certainly still exist. they were not saying that suddenly all of these issues have vanished. reporter: well, here in brief is the argument in texas. that it s entitled to four more seats in the congressional house, in the house, because of population growth and 80% of that growth was among latinos and african-americans who tend to vote democratic. but in the texas republican legislature s plan, three of those four seats were pretty safely in the hands of republicans. and so the groups that are challenging are saying that s simply discrimination. all right, pete williams, thank you very much. we ll see what the next move as the state of texas
orleans and current president and ceo of the national urban league, mark morial. thanks for being with us. great to see you today. a major announcement from the attorney general eric holder today. what is your expectation now? well, the audience received the attorney general s remarks with great enthusiasm. the idea that he would continue and the justice department would continue to enforce the voting rights act with vigor and with all resources at its disposal. so the announcement that they would seek to bring texas back in to section 5 coverage was welcome given the fact that a court has already found that texas engaged in intentional discrimination. that s i think the operative word. there s already been a finding and that triggers, we think, the opportunity for the justice department to bring them back in. it was well received and the