reporter: always a good idea to do that. the president has not been known in the past for reaching across the aisle like this. in talking to folks at the white house, it s very clear to me that they believe there are certain things that they can do with republicans. mitch mcconnell has made it clear he doesn t want republicans to be, quote, scary, to use his words, so that perhaps they can get some things done on infrastructure and on trade, maybe even on taxes. but let s not pretend here, there are going to be some show votes on obamacare, particularly in the house. the republicans are going to vote to pass the keystone pipeline, which everyone presumes the president at this point will veto. they re going to try and repeal other parts of the president s affordable care act. they re going to try and cut government spending in various ways. so the republicans and democrats
thanks. happy new year. happy new year. some conservatives are asking is it time for new leadership in the house of representatives? to put it bluntly, i think it s time for a new speaker. let me tell you why. during his tenure as speaker john boehner has proven in my view he s not up for this job for a number of reasons. he seems only interested in well taking show votes on the house floor. in other words, votes that have no meaning. in other words, he s had opportunities to defund obamacare, use the power of the purse that the constitution gives the house and he hasn t used it. and then with cromnibus he sided with stenny hoyer harry reid and president obama and never spoke to conservative republicans. look at the numbers when john boehner became the speaker of the house january 5, 2011. the national debt was more than $14 trillion. now the national debt sits at a whopping $18 trillion. now, that s more than a 29% increase. here with reaction to that is iowa congressman steve kin
have anyone to offer up. there s going to be votes to remind him that the tea party is there and wants to be heard. but these are show votes, not unlike voting to undo the affordable care act. i don t think he ll lose his position. can he get the tea partiers in line for legislation? i don t know if we can get them in line but i see what they re doing. i agree it s up in the air right now. they need to unite in some way. this is rustling feathers and this is what the tea party does. one thing the president has said the republicans have to show now they have majority they need to show they can lead and govern. what these polls are showing, they can t even govern their own party. isn t the problem, julia, that these tea partiers are playing to a different beast in terms of some of them are in very safe districts and some of them don t have to worry about re-election, whereas others that want to run statewide are
the right. tud ted cruz had talked about how they shouldn t have meaningless show votes. had called it purely symbolic. in the end of the seven republicans who voted against this bill, five of them were voting from the left including congressman diaz-balart. these are all people who have a district with a large hispanic constituency and were not comfortable as being seen as pro depror tation. they re not going to be a problem with spending bills. this suggests there may be only weak conservative option to boehner s plan. casey, he does mention several republicans with large latino districts who didn t vote for the bill. how much of a preview did we get of the 2015 gop congress yesterday? well, jose i actually think those seven votes that you mentioned probably are more representative of the trends we re going to see as these two years continue. think about the broader politics
vehicle for house republicans to express their did he say pleasure with president obama s executive action. it asserts that president obama doesn t have the authority to exempt undocumented immigrants from removal categorically, with some caveats for humanitarian reasons, for law enforcement reasons, but some conservatives are unhappy with this. it is a bit of a test vote. ted cruz was railing against meaningless show votes. some conservatives are worried this doesn t do much it isn t attacked too much, funding for the government that may make democrats worry about opposing it risking partial government shutdown. it is an interesting test case. they clearly think they have the votes if bringing it up today, there will be conservative opposition likely. appears democrats and the white house are teaming up to respond to gop attacks like this one. what does this say ahead of what is a republican controlled house and senate next year?