but ultimately, we need to work together as democrats, not to i would certainly work bipartisanly, but on sound principles like medicare and social security and pell grants that the president pledged to defend. on issues of protecting planned parenthood and what conservatives tried to do last week, to defund a group, if you will, that provides primary care to 3 million women in this country. we stand on principle there, we fight together on those things. some of these preliminary working out of issues is fine, but in the end the president needs to stand strong, as he s doing starting today, i think, on these fundamental democratic principles, that there s huge consensus in this country, there s mainstream values in the democratic party, but also the mainstream values in this country. opportunity for kids in college, opportunity for kids with head start, medicare, social security, safe drinking water,
with american values. so said president obama today. whatever you heard about this speech, whether or not you believe the way that i am describing it, whether or not you watched it today, i never say on this show, print out and read this thing, or very rarely say it. in this case, if you have a second read it. spend a few minutes reading it. if you are a liberal or if you are a centrist, if you are a person who voted for president obama, if you were worried that president obama would not confront the republicans on what they are trying to do with the economy and instead would try angulate against it. mr. obama did not do that. if you were worried he would sell out medicare, medicaid, social security and say we can at forward them any more, like the republicans wanted him to say? mr. obama did not do that. if you were worried he would let the republicans in the beltway media get away with this assertion they make constantly that social security is causing the deficit, when it is not? he
his criticism of the republicans today was stronger than most people expected. does that buy him from his own party, his supporters, more faith that he will defend medicare, medicaid and social security even as he said today they need reform? it s great to have you back, senator sherrod brown. thanks for having me. i saw greg sergeant published your letter to the president advocating on medicare, asking him to protect america s seniors and oppose any attempts to dismantle medicare. did what the president say today make the kind of commitment you were looking to hear? yes, exactly within 24 hours, more than 20 senators joined me in that letter. at 2:00 in the afternoon, to a democratic caucus, already a couple dozen senators have signed on. it s fundamental in our party that we believe that medicare should be a public program, not
they re for and explain what s really going on in the economy and speak up for his own values and explain why he believes democrats values are the right ones on this stuff, then as a liberal, i am less worried than i was. my only worry at this point is why did he give this speech at 1:30 on a wednesday and sort of whisper it. with a little finetuning, i think this could be a barn burner, i could imagine this one in a stadium over and over and over again. we ll be right back. we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. we can t afford it. and i refuse to renew them again. let me be absolutely clear, i will preserve these health care programs as a promise we make to each other in the society. i will not allow medicare to become a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry. salad on saturday
wrote when i knew i was going to talk about today, wiggle room? ask senator brown. the president said, there are those who said we shouldn t make any reforms to medicare, medicaid or social security, out of fear that any talk about change to these programs will urker in the radical steps the house republicans o s proposed. the president said he understands the proposals but there need to be changes to the program. are you worried about the wiggle room? no, what he wants to change makes perfect sense. we have a new kind of pharmaceutical in this country called biologics, they re pretty new, pretty expensive save lives. because they are so expensive they don t have a generic substitute. the president has fought hard, and tried during the health care debate, i worked with him on that, and we re going to renew