Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. Todays speaker of the house emerged to make his first public remarks. And if youre expecteding more plotitudes about working together and finding Common Ground with president obama, well, you came to the wrong press conference. Ive made clear to the president that if he acts unilateral lir on his own, outside of his authority, he will poison the well and there will be no chance for Immigration Reform moving in this congress. Its as simple as that. When you play with matches, you take the risk of burning yourself. Hes going to burn himself. That, in reference to the president s promise, which he reiterated yesterday several times that he would, indeed, take executive action on Immigration Reform before the end of this year. Boehner who will now lead the largest Republican House majority since 1928, claimed the part of the bull yesterday. I think the president choosing to do a lot of things unilaterally is a big mistake. Its an issue that most of our members want to address, legislatively. Its like wraefing a red flag in front of a bull. Speaker boehner today, self satisfied. Triumphant. The house, im sure, at some point, next year will move to repeal obamacare. It should be replaced with doctor patient relationship. I know in the house it will pass. Speaker boehner today seemed all too happy to play the role of bad cop. Now, finding Common Grounds can be worse. But it would be harder if the president isnt willing to work with us. Yesterday, i heard him say that he may double down on his goit alone approach. So my job is not to get along with the president just to get awlong with him. Although we actually have a nice relationship. The fact is, my job is listening to my members and listening to the American People and make their priorities our priorities. I tell my colleagues all of the time. If youre doing the right things for the right reasons, you dont have to worry. The right things will happen. Joining me now is congressman rich van hallen. Boehner seemed pretty defiant. He did say this about acting unilaterally and then he has this clause, outside of his authority. I thought maybe gave him a little wiggle room. Chris, i wish that were the case. I think that may be wishful thinking. I think know matter what the president does through executive action, Speaker Boehner and the republicans claim hes acting outside his authority. You have it exactly right. What we saw today was less than 48 hours after the election. The nice talk was over. With all due respected, if i had 250 votes in my caucus, id be kind of smug myself. The guy has a huge vote in the house. He can do whatever the heck he wants in there. Sure. Theres all this focus on how the change in the senate will affect the dynamics with the president. But the one thing that stayed the same, obviously, is the house. So all of this taurk about how Speaker Boehner is maybe interested in negotiating with the president was kind of dispelled today. And so that means they double down. You run on 56 of the vote, which is low for you. Youre from maryland, a deep, blue state. How do you understand from where you sit in a state that had a surprising red surge, how do you understand what happened tuesday night . So, first off, chris, just an update for my race, im pleased to report i ended the night a little over 60 , which was very close to my Election Results two years ago. But theres no doubt in maryland, overall. Of course in the goef nors kras. Its very clear what happened. Democrats did not turn out. Democratic turn out was way down over 2010, compared to 2010. And the other thing is, you know, when you ask people what the argument was in favor of electing Anthony Brown to governor, there was not really a strong argue. Argument put forward in the race. A lot of people are taking this for granted. So what do you see your role over the next two years as being . Our role is to continue to do our very best to reflect what we thrill are the values and priorities of the american public. I think our focus, chris, has got to be like a laser beam. Its not an easy thing to tackle, but i think the party to put forth will be the party that succeeds. It ice funny you say that. Congressman, its always a pleasure. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Throughout the current congress, Speaker Boehner has always seemed to be as much a follower of husband caucus as a leader. Today, he was pressed about the new ranks. You have a new crop of con servetives coming into the house who have suggested that women need to submit to the authority of their husbands, that Hillary Clinton is the antiyoois. So the caucus is getting bigger. No, no, no. No, now, listen. The premise of your question, i would take exception to. Yes, we have some new members who have made some statements. But when you look at the vast majority of the new members that are coming in here, theyre really solid membersment. By the way, it was congressman ryan pierce elected from montana who reportedly referred to secretary clinton as the antichrist. In any event, 250 will move the house further right, if thats even possible. There is this contrary argument. The sheer size of the argument, Speaker Boehner would be able to lose the votes with 30 hard right republicans and still meet the 217 votes needed to pass the legislation. So, ben, what do you think about that . At the same time, you can give up a lot more votes and still get a win which might give him a margin to operate and a compromise that he didnt have in the previous congress. I have think your rationale is really correct, chris, in the sense that its actually belter for boehner in which he has the flexibility to lose part of the far right. I think that theres something being missed here. Weve seen this before. We saw this in 2006 with a regime that had essentially been in charge for six years that had lost the upper crest of their leadership, had gone down to that second tooer and has more difficulty dealing with crises, has dealt with all sorts of stlets from the middle east and elsewhere. We saw that this time around. If you remember, ancient history, they were borning against the threat of gay marriage at the time. Its really a kind of question now maybe this is just the second term curse of the modern era that everybody has to go through. Im glad youre thinking about that election. That election was, i think, pretty clearly a pretty frank referendum on iraq. That was the dominant theme. Democrats won massively and they won on that issue. It was pretty clear. The president s response to that oh, that war, were going to escalate it. And screw you and youre going to like it. Youve got the democrats to vote from that and now its a surge of success. Now, obama shouldnt listen at all to some sort of repudiation. I would say the one difference there is that the president did work very hard to convince democrats to go along with that on capitol hill. I dont think that the president , in this instance, is still doing that. It looks like in the lame duck, even though you saw these ads run on isis, there wasnt a huge policy objection. And, in fact, what were going to see is lame duck and ratify what is, to my mind, at least, a sort of weird, not fully baked policy around isis that both members are going to come and vote for the lame duck. I think youre completely right. I would say on the immigration front, i do think that this is an example where the president may be sort of, you know, throwing the ability to have a bipartisan discussion on this. The party elite still very much wants to have the 2016. Its the more conservative members who want to kick the can down and save the next election and have everybody run saying well fix this problem. So executive action on that course, i actually think that that may be something that, in the short term, may help the president. But, in the long term, eliminates the ability to make solve this problem. Gh thats interesting. I think that theres this tremendous moral urgency around it. My view is exactly the opposite. I think it will hurt in the short term and help in the long term. It creates this clarifying kind of generational battle. Thank you very much. Always a pleasure. The most important thing obamacare has done besides giving Health Insurance to millions ahead. Plus, tonight, we will have looich on this program for the first time ever, headtohead, Hillary Clinton and elizabeth warrens biggest fans for the first debate of 2016. Stay with us. Helps you be Ready Anytime the moment is right. 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Breaking news tonight for the First Time Since the Supreme Court struck down the defensive marriage act last year, the federal appeals court, a sir cut courts has upheld state gay marriage bans in ohio, kentucky, michigan and tennessee. The court finding in a 21 vote, this means now that different appeals courts have reached different decisions about the constitutionality of marriage ban which all supports the Supreme Court the last term will now have to. Mmm, progressive insurance here. Ever since we launched snapshot, my life has been positively craycray. Whats snapshot, you ask . Only a revolutionary tool that can save you bigtime. Just plug it in, and the better you drive, the more cash youll stash. Switching to progressive can already save ye 500. Snapshot could save ye even more. Meat maiden bringeth to me thine spiciest wings of buffalo. Obama has never ruled elections in obamacare. If they win an election, that election is a referendum on obamacare. Today, in their wallstreet journal ad, Mitch Mcconnell wrote that will honor trust by repealing obamacare which is hurting the job market along with Americans Health departmentcare. Now is the time to go after it. Now is the time to repeal obamacare. The two midterm elections, the gop has seen those elections as inconvertible proof and people support that. There is another election in there. Just in the middle of those two, you might recall, is in the middle of those two. And the guy whose name is before care in obamacare, he was actually on the ballot and he won. For some reason, republicans didnt see that referendum. Having contributed significantly, it appears to slow health care maturation. Recent polling finds that just 36 pnt of americans went through to obamacare and 55 disapprove. Although some of those people disapprove because they didnt think the law went far enough. There are indications that they didnt think it was definitely a very good election. Media group found that gop ran nearly 12,000 obamacare ads in senate races in october. Almost twice as many they ran that week in jobs and unemployment. In many of the states where obamacare has helped the most people, democrats got absolutely crushed in midterms in races where they were supposed to be competitive, particularly in arkansas and kentucky. The law remains unpopular, even as it succeeds. It was designed to disturb as little of the existing Insurance Market as possible. Thats how they got it passed. The flip side of that is its relatively small percentages of the population even as the entire pop youlation has to endure republican rhetoric. Over time, were going to start to see obamacare cement itself in american life. For now, it remains this bizarre political object. Hated by the right, working almost better than expected and nobody defending it politically. Jaime ing me now, center for the policy research and getting back to full employment. Dean, heres one scenario for obamacare that i thought about. The law is to my progressivehearteds distributive law, its got a tax on a surcharge tarks, it expands medicaid for the working poor. Most of the benefits flow to the bottom of the Income Distribution and maybe its just never going to be popular because redistribution is never popular. I think its basically not popular because most people dont have a clue who it is. Even you, a lot of what you just said was mistaken. Its already helped a very large number of people and they dont know it. Theres a lot of people getting preventive tests and they dont even pay a copay on that. They dont know that. So thats an important point. The people who are gaining coverage under the Affordable Care act were on the exchanges is a relatively small percentage of the overall Insurance Market. The people who are deriving benefits is much, much more widespread, but that is lessknown. Its easier to make that connection than all the benefits that come in sort of patient protections and copays and birth control, et cetera. Exactly. But even there, theres an incredible amount of confusion. Here, the democrats deserve a lot of blame. He had the opportunity. He was in there several times. You want to get rid of kentucky connect. The local exchanges that have been very e sfeblgtive. Mcconnell insisted that has nothing to do with obamacare. He knew because kentucky kinect is very popular. And you have this situation that has actually gotten the medicaid expansion. And you would think, in all of these things, the law is working as intended to. Getting lots of people Health Insurance and it produced no tangible political benefits to the democratic party, it seems. I promise the democrats havent tried to claim it. I did some clicking arnold. Certainly, its not my area. I dont follow politics that area. But if you look at the center for kentucky, you wouldened find anything about obamacare. She wasnt willing to say, look, the democrats, over the complete opposition of the republican party, they put through a program thats giving hundreds of thousands of people in the state of kentucky insurance and also providing these other benefits, including if you lose your job in kentucky. Now you can get through kentucky kinect. You wouldnt know that. I think the question is does the policy out, which is to say if these benefits are durable enough, do they come to obamacare or does it sort of seep into the background and there is never a political benefit realized . Michael jordan trash talks the president. The president trash talks back. Equally enjoyable. Plus, your guide to the man named james moin tanhoff. The republican probably will be the new head of Senate Environment works committee. He has the view that i think youre supposed to call eccentric when youre senator, but you would call paranoid and daft if it were anyone else. Thats all coming up. G . Goej÷c÷c you said in the rose garden, the day after the attack, it was an act of terror. It was not a spontaneous dem stralgs. Is that what youre saying . Please proceed. Get the transcript. He did, in fact, sir. So let me call it an act of terror. Can you say that a little louder . He did call it an act of terror. All talk about Barack Obamas quiet discipline. Mr. President , have you looked at your pension . Mr. President , have you looked at your pension . I dont look at my president. Its not as big as yours. There are a lot of people, at least outside of the beltway who have the gall to trash talk the president back with the exception of michael jordan. A sports caster asked jordan if he had a chance to play a round of golf with four people, who would it be . I never played with obama, but i would. No, thats okay. Ill take him out. Hes a hack. I wouldnt enjoy playing all day with him. I never said he wasnt a great politician. Im just saying hes a [expletive] golfer. The president fired back. So that stings. The nba Team Michael Jordan owns is distinctly unjordanesque. The first three seasons under jordans control, the combined record of 62 to 168 is when the team went 759 for the worst winning percentage in the history of the nba. The team did make the playoffs last season. So theres always that. Youre on the environment public works committee. And now youre going to have a new chairman. He differs sliegtly on Global Warming. Hes got some interesting ideas. He believes it is not happening. And that it is a hoax chlts wheres the middle ground for the two of you . Are you going to come over to his side . Are you going to compromise on that one . Just say its not happening and im sure hell agree with you. The first time oklahoma senator chaired the committee on environmental public works, he said the kinds of things youd expect to see on drudge. Articles headline climate fears reduce to childrens games. And u. K. Add mits Global Warming has stopped. Congratulations, voters, you just made the climate denier the most powerful senator. You know, ive called client depot a place for onestop shopping, the best headlines of the day. You know, ive called client depot a place for onestop shopping, the best headlines of the day. And, now, it appears, once again, hell be running the most powerful Environmental Committee in the senate. Again, denial is his number one cause. In 2012, he authored a book called the greatest hoax of the Global Warming conspiracy threatens your future. Perhaps the most committed denialist in the senate. So james inhoff may seem like an eccentric to avoid climate catastrophe. Joining me now, political blogger for esquire. Com. Charlie, your rea to james inhof reclaiming the gavel in t