from the people and the power players on the hill, people tend to perform a little bit. they want to show both sides that they re, you know, with them. so sometimes there is a little show boating or holding the cards close to the vest and not revealing what they intend to do. neil: so someone is going to nancy pelosi saying, i know i m officially undecided but you can count on me and you don t have to pin me to a wall. that sort of deal. that can happen. i don t think pelosi would go to the house flr unless she thou she house floor unless she thought she had the vote. sometimes there is a shell game going on in washington. it s as old as we are in the country. thomas jefferson did it in 1807. we had an embargo act. it wasn t popular. the senate passed it in four hours, and took the house three days so the people wouldn t find out until it was a done deal. neil: that was the first time we ever deemed
who joins us. good to have you. happy st. paddy s day. same to you. i think it s unconstitutional and there are a couple of press debits, supreme court ruling that ind precedent and supreme court rulings that deal with that. one had line item veto. i don t want to get into arcane stuff but there were decisions indicating that bills have to be passed by both houses of congress. it doesn t seem like that s too hard to figure out for most of the colleagues, so i think there is a real constitutional challenge there. by the way, i was entertained that the president today said well, it really didn t matter. back when senator obama was faced to within attempt on the republican side to have 51 votes for the confirmation of judges he said it was a violation of our founding fathers beliefs about how we should behave. my, how times change. neil: this issue and other similar ones regarding how it s crafted, the healthcare
reconciliation package, figure out the cost. as you have seen a lot of wavering democrats are beginning to come into the fold so i don t think we can say democrats are in trouble and in danger of not getting this done. clearly keeping the president around is a tool that nancy pelosi needs to accomplish this. the president has a lot of more pull with members of the congress of his party than the speaker of or majority leader but let s see where we are on friday. neil: can i ask awe dumb question. i believe air force one is equipped with phones and when he goes to asia, whether innearby or australia, there are phones in those places too. so what s the big deal? the big deal is the president would like to sign the senate bill and enable the senate to act on reconciliation the minute the house is finished. if the president hangs around through saturday or sunday added house does it s part, the
writes its rule. if they want to write a rule saying vote for slaughterhouse rule, that s the same as voting for healthcare, the court will say we re not going to interfere. if the people don t like it, vote the bums out of office. while i sympathize with mark and wish this could be undone, i don t think it will successful. neil: when the president dismisses this and white house doesn t make a big deal and the leadership and house and senate don t make a big deal and smart guys like you don t make a big deal of it, something s amiss. it s a big deal politically when the senate uses reconciliation. when people perceive members of congress are not reading what they re voting on or voting what they re voting on. changing the rules to get something passed, the legislation will not resonate well with them come november when a third of the i agree but there s a lot of
would be concerned about constitutional issues as he was the last time we went through a process like this. but, look, i think the president is vastly underestimating the attention the american people are paying to the process as well as the product. the sleazy deals, the louisiana purchase, cornhusker kick-back. the pharma deal. the sleaze that chicago style sausage making going on in the formation of this bill. to top it off, to have it deemed to pass or vote in a fashion that s not an up-or-down vote on what was passed through the senate is going to rouse the american people in a way unprecede unprecedented. neil: i m not putting words in the president s mouth here but it seems to say whatever you vote for, whether it s the senate changes, agreed to at the house, if you vote for that, you are for healthcare anyway. if you don t, you re not.