Opportunity to grill the administrations technology officers. Chairman darryl issa wasted no time taking the president to task. President obama said, using it would be as easy as buying an Airline Ticket on kayak. Com or buying a television on amazon. This is an insult to amazon and kayak. This wasnt a scaling mistake. This was a monumental mistake to go live and effectively explode on the launch pad. But underscoring the deeply political nature of the health care proceedings, the testier exchanges took place not between republicans an white house officials but between republicans and democrats. After delivering a typically selfserving and longwibded hoping statement, chair darrell issa was determined to keep democratic questions to a minimum. Although i understand the gentlemans time has expi expired. I just asked for the same amount of time you had. Im asking gentlemans recognized. Youre not going to run a fair hearing. Youre going to do this all the way. The gentleman from florida is recogni recognized. The partisan signs are emerging that several jittery democrats are inclined to support it. Despite pleas for unity, roll call reports said a House Democratic leadership aide predicted ominously there will be defections. The question now is how many. Joining me today, Senior Writer for politico magazine, glen thrush, anchor for bbc world news america, katty kay. What do you make of the white house pushback that these glitches and the problems were hearing about now are problems now but will not be problems in two weeks from now . Right. Obviously its a little hard when youre predicting the future. Thats an absolutely fair charge to make. That said, what our reporting shows is that right now the site is handling between 20,000 to 30,000 people, which was half of what they projected was going to be the original traffic, which was quite low compared to how many people were logging on. In addition, cgi, one of the main contractors, has been able so far to fix six out of every ten defect theyre identifying. When you have those statistics, it certainly raises questions about how fully the website will be fixed by the end of the month. I think you might have a lot of debate now about what constitutes being fully fixed. In your reporting, did you get the sense that they did not expect to be in the place they are in now at this point . Well, you know, i mean, i think the issue is theyve been part of it is they set this end date at the end of the month and really were not clear what the benchmarks are along the way. Its hard to know. Certainly theyre not satisfied with where they are. Thats very clear. Theyve shown some of that publicly and were definitely getting that privately. Glen, whats the game here for the white house . Is it to now manage expectations in the next two weeks . Is it to throw all i dont know how many more hands you can have on deck. Maybe people from kayak and amazon. Com. But how does the white house deal with this . I think more issa hearings would be very useful for the white house. Every time these guys seem to be going under water, issa throws them a life raft. Its amazing to me the extent to which he keeps making the same mistake over and over again. I think in general, and my colleague wrote a story this morning which makes this point as well, is to keep the president as far away from this mess as possible. We see them throwing a new person under the bus every day. Henry chow, marilyn tavenner. I think the key is to sort of create this, i think, an illusion of collective irresponsibility as opposed to having a buck stops here moment. Thats interesting. You think they would just keep president obama isolated, have other people take the fall as it were, even if no one gets fired. But this is part of actual strategy. Yeah, and also and i think the Washington Post reported just to change the benchmarks constantly. Were going to keep this vague as to what we will subscribe a successful month to. Define success downward. I think they will be able to buy themselves enough time to get something that works reasonably well. What did you make of former president bill clinton . Some conspiracy theorists will argue this is part of giving red state democrats or vulnerable democrats some room to operate. Im of the mind that if puff enough ground swell of action in and around some of these bills to delay the individual mandate, to let americans stay on their crappy insurance plans, its not good for the law as a whole. Theres going to be even more pressure to enact this stuff. If you want a reason for why its not good to go back and try and change this law in congress, you just saw it on television. The prospect that this could possibly change, could possibly get through the house at this point is fan its a call. So i think the other Conspiracy Theory around bill clinton is that perhaps he was speaking with hillary in mind in 2016. Why not distance her from it. He has a history of saying things that the white house doesnt like, this causes a whole load of fluster. I was at the white house yesterday. Causes a lot of flap in the building at the time. Thats what he does. Especially because, john, the president calls president clinton the explainer in chief. He was the guy at the Democratic National convention explaining all this policy stuff. Here he is doing something ill read what was written in new york magazine. If you want to make sure every healthy person paying low rates in the individual market right now can keep their plan, you have two choices. One is to abolish obama care altogether. Clinton doesnt want to do that. He continues to endorse the law. The second is to come up with some other source of funding to compensate Insurance Companies for their losses. When clinton delivered a wellreceived speech last summer, obama joked he should appoint the president as secretary of explaining stuff. Of course, if he had a job like that, he would be fired within days. I mean, i dont pretend to ever understand the calculus that goes on inside of bill clintons head. To a certain degree, this may be a bit of a honey badger moment. Im just going to say what i want to say. The people happiest with that are the republicans on the hill. This gives them a lot of cover, frankly, to bang on the administration for a lot of problems that are already justifiable, but this really takes it out of a political context for a few days, which i dont think the administration is very, very happy about. I take a slightly contrary view on this. I think clintons doing him a favor. In clintons convoluted mind, he thinks it hes doing him a favor. How so . I think this is an escape hatch from the current predicament. Never mind that its from a policy perspective in the strictest way nonsensical at the moment because we havent figured out an a to b on this. I think youre seeing some momentum with the fred uptons in the house and some movement in the senate in terms of these conservative democrats who might be willing to go for some sort of a patch. And this is presumably perhaps like the only fix to this that could possibly but a patch . Its not really a patch, right . From a policy perspective, its really difficult. I was on the phone with Insurance Commissioners across the country who are the folks who really have to deal with this on the ground. Yes, what you could do is encourage people, for example, to renew their policies, their subpar plans and other individual market plans early so that this would carry them through november 14th. But thats difficult for a host of reasons. Theyre not going to get access to the subsidies they would have otherwise. Again, for the Insurance Companies, this is a huge headache. You need their buyin and you need them to constrain rates. How vocal are the Insurance Companies and pharma and the Health Care Industry . Do they have the ear of any republicans in congress saying, guys this is a terrible idea . Thats a great question. Theyre certainly in close communication with the white house. Theyve been excomplaplaining t dont like it and appealing to republicans. Whether or not the republicans will listen is a big question. I have to ask you, as the exchanges are sort of as our confidence has eroded around the december 1st everythings going to be okay date and the administration is more reliant on insurers and direct enrollment, it further creates tension in an already tense relationship, which is the president has long said, you know, there are big problems with the insurers. They have to be regulated. This is part of the reason were changing the Nations Health care guidelines. Now the administration is very much dependent on insurers to help sail them through very choppy waters. Exactly. They really want to boost direct enrollment, so it takes pressure off the website. But the problem with that is when you have, for example, an individual insurer making a pitch, they will say, by the way, you can check out other plans on healthcare. Gov, but they dont tell what their competitors plans are. So this really does create certain market distortions, which the administration was hoping to avoid and it ties them more tightly to frankly companies who are going to make individual decisions about their customers that might not be great from a political perspective. Aye, aye, aye. Julia, thank you. Thanks again for the great reporting. Thanks so much. After the break, while the white house focuses on november 30th, Congress Faces a deadline of its own. Will House Republicans prevent lawmakers from reaching yet another budget deal . Guess the answer to that. Well discuss when congresswoman Loretta Sanchez joins us next on now. So if you have a flat tire, dead battery, need a tow or lock your keys in the car, geicos emergency roadside assistance is there 24 7. Oh dear, i got a flat tire. Hmmm. Uh. Yeah, can you find a take where its a bit more dramatic on that last line, yeah . Yeah i got it right here. Someone help me i have a flat tire well its good. Good for me. What do you think . Geico. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. Hey, thats the last crescent oh, did you want it . Yeah. Well split it. [ female announcer ] made fresh, so light, buttery and flakey. Thats half. Thats not half guys, i have more. Thanks, mom. [ female announcer ] do you have enough pillsbury crescents . Her busy saturday begins with back pain, when. Hey pam, you should take advil. Why . You can take four advil for all day relief. So i should give up my two aleve for more pills with advil . Youre joking right . For my back pain, i want my aleve. Four weeks ago after a republicanled 15day Government Shutdown, both parties gave themselves a new deadline. The Budget Committees of both houses currently have until december 15th to agree on a comprehensive budget, Something Congress hasnt done since the year 1997. In the days after the shutdown debacle, Budget Committee chairs were eager to put on a happy face. Were going to find the two the Common Ground between our two budgets that we both can vote on. Thats our goal. Were going back to regular order. This is the budget process. The house passes a budget, the Senate Passes a budget, you come together to try to reconcile the differences. Thats the way were supposed to do things. Today the optimism is less pronounced. Were trying to find Common Ground, but were not there yet. Theres a big gap between our two budgets. Indeed. The gap is big enough that it might better be described as a yawning chasm. But at least one side has put forward something in the way of a starting point for negotiations. In exchange for undoing sequester cuts set to hit in midjanuary, democrats on friday proposed a list of 12 of the most egregious tax loopholes to close, including deductions for shipping jobs overseas, the Corporate Jet loophole, and tax subsidies for yachts and vacation homes. But at the mere suggestion of revenue, even revenue from yachts and jets and fancy vacation homes, republicans pounced. Senator oren hatch told the national journal, they would like to snooker republicans into just doing one part of tax reform. We cant do that. Indeed, senator john thune, the third Ranking Senate republican, was not going to be snookerred. Every time you close a loophole, said thune, youre raising taxes on somebody. In the end, it appears that all this yacht outrage may ultimately be displaced. Speaker boehner is unsurprisingly ready to throw in the towel. Never mind the december 13th budget deadline or the january 15th government funding deadline or the february 7th debt ceiling deadline. According to politico, in a recent meeting with his Republican Leadership colleagues, Speaker John Boehner joked that it the house shouldnt even remain in session in december. Joining the panel now is former White House Press secretary robert gibbs and joining us from capitol hill is democratic congresswoman from californias 46th district, congresswoman Loretta Sanchez. Congresswoman, thanks so much for joining us. There are deadlines looming, and it sounds like nobody is at the captains wheel. How confident are you that House Republicans are going to do anything to avoid another Government Shutdown in january . Well, i think they got burned by this last Government Shutdown, and i believe that theyre going to work hard to ensure that that doesnt happen. There are plenty of republicans and democrats working together right now. I spoke to chairman david camp yesterday. Hes working towards some tax reform. Im hoping this Budget Committee will come together, and what im hearing out of that committee is not that theyll come out with the grand budget for the year or a grand plan to solve all of this but there will be baby steps. Theyll get something under their belt and put it forward and well be able to agree on it. But theyll also agree to next steps maybe. So it is a process thats ongoing, and im confident we can get there. I do not believe for one minute that Speaker Boehner will not have us here in december. Ive been here for 17 years, except for well, every year ive been here december, usually december 23rd, december 18th. So we will be here working. Congresswoman, im going to open this up to our folks in d. C. Robert, i like that decidedly optimistic take from the congresswoman and reaffirmation that the congress is not going to be out of session for the entire month of december because there are just a couple things that need to get done. But in the wake of all of the Government Shutdown there has been a very strong focus on the Affordable Care act, which i think has provided smoke screen for a lot of republicans who otherwise have some very tough questions to answer about the future of their party. And i think much of that remains highly unresolved. There are 25, 27 senators who rescinded or disavowed their vote reopening the government, preventing economic catastrophe. There is still a huge amount of tension over where to go next. I guess i wonder what, you know, your thinking is for the months ahead. Well, look, i think maybe john boehner wasnt joking because its entirely possible congress built on its 9 Approval Rating and wont be in session in december. I think were going to dumb down success. Success is probably going to be something on the order of, you know, a 10 billion to 20 billion change in the budget outlook, something little on one side, something a little bit on another side to get past some of the sequester cuts. But i think look, you know, the fact that legislating is probably largely done for the year, i dont think is totally surprising. Immigration reform wasnt going to happen this year. If you looked at the news recently, that was confirmed last week when they said the house wouldnt vote on it. We may not get Immigration Reform done next year. I dont see theres going to be a huge impetus to legislate, particularly when i think congress will be wrapped around a lot of aca hearings. Well, and may not get Immigration Reform i think is probably more optimistic than most. I think most folks are going to say john, nothing is going to get done. We dont know where the farm bill is. Comprehensive Immigration Reform effectively is doa. A budget that reaches beyond, you know, sort of a continuing resolution is a unicorn these days on capitol hill. Absolutely. The interesting thing about how democrats have handled this is theyve been pretty masterful in turning this into a question of republicans once again not wanting to close these loopholes. It gives them a little bit of cover, frankly. Democrats are absolutely opposed to any kind of changes to entitlement reform. Progressives have already come out and said weve killed this deal because were going to make sure were going to protect the entitlement reforms. Theyre not catching much heat because republicans are sort of viscerally reacting to these questions about the loopholes. So long as theyre able to do that, i dont see any reason for certainly democrats to move towards them and republicans are further entrenched. It sets up this dynamic like you say. Youre not going to have the form bill. Youre not going to have Immigration Reform. How about we dumb down success even further and just keep the government hope . It becomes a standard. Thats where were at now. I think we could well be in that position where absolutely nothing gets done. Theyll claim that we managed to keep the u. S. Government managed to stay open in january. It was a triumph. Thats the new