washington, that these new republicans came in and they re wreaking havoc on the government itself? that s an unknown. we really can t forecast that, but i can tell you that some republicans are worried about the specter of this thing rebounding in their face the way it did under newt gingrich, which is why you ve seen john boehner trying to sort of condition some of his freshmen members since the time he became the speaker-elect, saying we ve got to deal like adults with this debt limit, which is coming up soon. that s a very difficult vote for members. but he s trying to avoid getting republicans blamed for this, and democrats, of course, are embracing the opportunity to say, hey, look, they went too far again. you know, you re reflecting exactly what was discussed with our colleague, lawrence o donnell, who spoke with margaret carlson the other night about just this, these freshmen gop members that weren t there the last time around. let s listen to what she had to say. they hav
by the speaker-elect s office, john boehner. one of the things that struck me was that he said this is a reminder, this election is a reminder that what we have, the power we have, is on loan from the american people. so he s really kind of stressing in the remarks. we re going to hear from him today that this is really temporary and something that republicans kind of need to treat with respect because the tides could change again. and brianna, i ve heard that some skyline chile from cincinnati has been flown in for the festivities this week. and one sign of the times, if you use google, you may know this, brianna. and google, nancy pelosi, no longer is her web site speaker.gov. speaker.gov. if you if go to that, belongs to john boehner, part of the changi changing of the guard. reporter: it is, and she changed her twitter handle to nobel peace prize, a to nanc
recapture these voters in the middle, he s got to recapture independent voters. it s in his hands. if he decides to work with republicans i think it s going to be a to acue to his political benefit. i agree he has to reach to the middle. i think republicans have to reach to the middle as well. you have a caucus and a republican house that is much more to the right of the american public. untruvment that s not true. they were just elected by the american people! they were elected by the american people, but the fact of the matter is their agenda in k. matt, and you know as well as i do, is a tea party agenda, whether it s repealing health care reform, whether it s cutting spending. you have michelle bachmann equivocating on whether or not to raise the debt ceiling. so the reality of governing is going to set in quick levment i think john boehner has done a smart thing and think the language coming out of the speaker-elect s office and his folks is very promising. i mean, there ar
going to have it easy. if you look at speaker-elect john boehner. john boehner, half of the new people coming into congress, and 34 of them, have never served at all in political office. completely new to politics. you look at senator-elect rand paul, tea party person, and doesn t want to spend any money, and mitch mcconnell, and john boehner were around in 1995 when newt gingrich made some mistakes and decided to shut the government down. john boehner does not want that to happen again and he knows what happened to the republican party when that happened. he has to talk to the new members as is mitch mcconnell and say, we want deficit reduction out of this, and maybe not the $500 billion that rand paul was talking to you about, but we want to get some deficit reduction when we do the debt ceiling, but it may not be as much as you want, and it is going to be test of the purity of the new members, the new republican members, because if they want to remain pure, they
closer, to being able to come to some decisions together, to get this white house as well to listen to some of the ideas that you want to put forward? we have been doing that, the pledge to america is an example of that. we tried to meet with in the with the democrats repeatedly. we put an economic plan literally into the hands of the president. do you expect better cooperation from the president, do you think you will get it? we certainly hope so. the president has spoken to senator mcconnell and speaker-elect, which is a great thing to say, john boehner. we hope that that is there. that s a message that the voters said loud and clear tonight. i have to say one other thing that the voters said loud and clear, after 2008, the republican party was defined as a southern, white male party. when you take the newly elected