CQ Transcriptswire

SPEAKERS: JOHN KING, HOST

SEN. SHERROD BROWN, D-OHIO

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET, D-COLO.

SEN. JEANNE SHAHEEN, D-N.H.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, R-KY.

HOWARD KURTZ, CNN ANCHOR

MATT CONTINETTI, WEEKLY STANDARD

JOAN WALSH, SALON.COM

JULIE MASON, WASHINGTON EXAMINER

JERRY SPRINGER, TALK SHOW HOST

JUDY MILLER, FORMER ABC CORRESPONDENT

MARY MATALIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR

JAMES CARVILLE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR

CARLY FIORINA (R), CALIFORNIA SENATE CANDIDATE

[*] KING: I’m John King and this is “State of the Union.”

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING: The magic number, 60.

SEN. CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, D-CONN.: The motion is agreed to.

KING: Senate Democrats clear a critical health care hurdle, but will differences within the party unravel the sweeping measure? We’ll go inside the deliberations with three leading Democratic senators, Sherrod Brown of Ohio; Michael Bennet of Colorado; and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.

Then in an exclusive interview, we’ll hear the Republican reaction and strategy from Senate GOP leader, Mitch McConnell .

And our “American Dispatch” from Arkansas. Two small business owners showcase the policy divides that make health care politics so dicey for vulnerable Democrats.

This is the “State of the Union” report for Sunday, November 22nd.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: We begin this Sunday morning with the Senate’s dramatic step to open debate on major health care legislation. It was a rare Saturday night session, and in the end, a big win for the Democratic majority, but just barely. Leader Harry Reid needed 60 votes and he got just that. All 58 Democrats and both independents voted aye on the motion to proceed. Every Republican voted nay. Their leader will join us in just a moment for an exclusive conversation about the Republican strategy going forward, but first, the many challenges still ahead for the Democrats.

Let’s talk those over with Democratic Senators Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and, in his first Sunday show interview, Michael Bennet of Colorado.

Congratulations are in order on this morning for the Democrats, but you got across the starting line. Let’s talk about what it will take to get to the finish line. And the big divide in the party still is over the public option. Three supporters of the public option at the table here. But you saw Senator Lincoln of Arkansas says, I vote to go forward in this debate, I don’t like the public option. Senator Landrieu, I don’t like the public option, at least in its existing form. Senator Lieberman has said he will not vote for a bill that includes a public option.

Senator Shaheen, to you first. Will you have to get that up to get 60 in the end? You had 60 in the beginning, but to have 60 in the end, will you have to go to a trigger or some other form and give up what you would like?

SHAHEEN: You know, first of all, I think it’s important to again what a milestone it is for us, after 50 years of debating health care, that we are now finally on the floor of the Senate, going to be able to debate this issue is significant progress forward.

You know, I support a public option. I think it’s important for us to get competition in the health insurance industry so we can lower costs for people. But there are a number of ways to do that. We’re at the beginning of this debate, and I think we’ve got to see how it plays out.

KING: Senator Bennet, you want to go home -- you’re on the ballot next year -- you want to go home and say, we did this. It’s not only is it important, not only did we debate it, but we passed it. Will you have to give that up to get 60 at the end?

BENNET: I don’t know. My sense of it, John, is that people understand that there’s a requirement in this bill that they have insurance. What they’re saying to me is, even though they didn’t say this early in the summer, what they’re saying now is I want all the options. I want a public option, I want a private option, I want nonprofit. I want to be able to make the choice that’s in the best interest of my family. I think other people are going to be hearing that too.

So I think last night was a big step forward, because it allows us to debate not just this issue, but a range of issues around health care that the American people, you know, deserve to have. As Jeanne said, after 50 years of delay, delay, delay, we finally now have the opportunity to debate these issues on the floor of the Senate.

KING: Let me try asking you it as a yes or no. If in the end, you cannot get Senator Lieberman, Senator Lincoln, Senator Landrieu and you can’t pass a bill without at least going to a trigger, would you make that compromise?

BROWN: I’m not going to answer yes or no, because I don’t think we get to that.

I think what happens, John, is there are two weeks, three weeks, whatever, of debate. Senator Lieberman, everybody has a chance to offer amendments. I’m going to offer amendments on some pharmaceutical issues, because I think the bill could be strengthened there. I know that my colleagues are going to do the same on some other -- that and some other issues. So they will have their chance to do this.

And I think, in the end, I don’t want four Democratic senators dictating to the other 56 of us and to the country, when the public option has this much support, that it’s not going to be in it.

And I echo what Michael said, is that people want every option. If we’re going to -- if we’re telling people you have to buy insurance, we shouldn’t tell them they’ve got to buy insurance from a private insurance company.

But in the end, I think that all four of our colleagues surveyed this -- look at this bill in the end and say, I don’t think they want to be on the wrong side of history. I don’t think they want to go back and say, you know, on a procedural vote, I killed the most important bill in my political career. I don’t think they want to be there on that. So I think in the end, we get them.

KING: I was just in Arkansas this week, though, and if Senator Lincoln cast that vote, this is the most important issue, I’m going to cast the vote -- she may lose her job. Do you think that if that’s the calculation, she should do it?

BROWN: I certainly can’t -- I don’t know what Arkansas looks like. I mean, I’m not an expert on Arkansas politics. But overwhelmingly, the public option is popular. The people that don’t like the public option are people that oppose this bill anyway. I mean, it really gives people additional (ph) choice. It bends the cost curve down. It injects competition. In southwest Ohio and Cincinnati, two insurance companies have 85 percent of the market. That means low-quality, high-cost insurance. Provide another option, like the public option, and you get better prices and better quality.

KING: We’ve got some time to air this out. So let me give each of you, take a minute. You say you’re going to have an amendment. Tell me how you would like to make this better.

BROWN: I would start on the pharmaceutical issue, that we need drug reimportation. We neat direct negotiations with the drug companies for Medicare to bring prices down, the same way the VA does, the same way most countries do. We need a generic path for biologics, where it’s just too expensive for some of these new drugs like Herceptin and these biologic drugs which are an increasing percentage of our health care dollars are going into these biologics. They can be $20,000 to $50,000 to even $100,000 a year. There’s no competition, no generic competition. Those are some of the things I would start with.

KING: Senator Bennet?

BENNET: I think there are three things that are all related to cost, because no matter where you fall out on public option, not a public option, the thing that our working families need more than anything else is to end these double-digit cost increases that they’re having every single year with health insurance. So the first is to make sure we really have done all we can do to change the Medicare incentive structure so that we’re driving quality and we’re driving lower cost.

I think, second, we need to do a much better job of making transparent what things actually cost. No one knows in this country what it really costs to get a knee replacement. No one knows what it costs to get other medical procedures. And they can’t compare across a range in the geographic area. So I think that’s very important for consumers and for providers.

The last piece is administrative efficiency. You know, our insurance companies and doctors have to fill out -- the doctors in particular -- multiple forms. The coding is all screwed up in a lot of ways, and people -- and it just isn’t as easy as it should be. People are spending 30 percent of their overhead just trying to get paid by insurance companies. I think there’s more we can do to streamline that too.

SHAHEEN: I agree. I think we’ve really got to address cost as part of this bill, and how we deliver health care to people. I have -- I agree with Sherrod’s comments about the pharmaceutical industry, especially now as we see increased prices. There’s more we can do there. I have talked about a current drug labeling laws that need to be changed so that there’s more competition with generics.

And I also think we’ve got to do something about emergency room care. We’ve talked about how to improve emergency room care to reduce costs.

But that’s what we’ve got to do in this bill. I was talking to a businessman from New Hampshire over the weekend, and he’s got something called Highliner Foods (ph), it’s a fish processing plant. He said that he can’t afford the cost of his health insurance, and so he’s got three choices. Either he can go out of business, he can automate, or he can go overseas. None of those choices are good for New Hampshire, good for America, or good for workers.

KING: Let’s talk about how we pay for this. The Senate bill would cost about $850 billion over 10 years. Here’s how it’s currently paid for in the proposal before you. A 40 percent tax on so-called Cadillac insurance plans, those that cost over $8,500. $436 billion in Medicare savings or cuts depending on how you look at it, and we can talk about that. Increase in the Medicare payroll tax for those making over $250,000 a year, and a 5 percent tax on elective cosmetic procedures, already lovingly called the botax here in Washington, D.C.

As you know, a number of these proposals are quite controversial, and your friends in the labor movement particularly don’t like the Cadillac insurance plan tax. Here’s what Jim Hoffa, the president of the Teamsters, says. “This provision is really a massive tax increase on the middle class by calling it a tax on insurers. But it is naive to think that insurers won’t pass this tax directly on to workers. The idea that this tax will curtail rising premiums is just dead wrong.” Is Jim Hoffa right?

BROWN: Generally, he is.

KING: Will you (inaudible) that proposal?

BROWN: I would prefer that we look more at the version that the House did on a surtax on people making $500,000 a year or more. Even with the House proposal, I know we’re talking -- when you talk about either bill, but even with the House proposal, it’s still -- the tax rate is still significantly less for upper-income people than it was before the Bush tax cuts for the rich that were unpaid for and caused us huge budget, in part, with the war and the Medicare privatization, that caused these huge budget deficits.

BROWN: And I know that Mitch McConnell , when he speaks after this, is going to spend a lot of time talking about the budget deficit.

But it’s the Mitch McConnells of the world that voted for the war and didn’t fund it, voted for the tax cuts for the rich and didn’t fund it, and voted for the Medicare privatization and didn’t fund it. That’s why we’re in this situation and the economy we have.

So it’s just important as we listen to Mitch in the next segment that people kind of keep that as a...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: I will remind him of that point, but the Democrats are in charge now.

BROWN: I understand that. That’s why were...

KING: They have the White House and both branches of Congress.

BROWN: That’s exactly right. We’re in charge now. And Jeanne Shaheen and Michael Bennet and I, all of us, have made sure this bill pays for itself. We’re embarking on something very new and very important, this health care bill. And we’ve all committed that it be paid for, something that hasn’t happened in 10 years.

That is no longer business as usual. And that’s why -- that’s one of the reasons why this bill is the right way to go.

SHAHEEN: And it’s not just that it’s paid for, it actually is going to reduce the deficit over the next 10 years by about $130 billion. That’s real progress.

KING: And to make that happen, if you read the Congressional Budget Office analysis, if you talk to interest groups around town, even those who support you, academics, they say you have, you know, the $400 and something billion in Medicare savings. And some people call it cuts, other people say this is waste, fraud, and abuse, let’s make a run at this.

But what we do know will happen is that next year and the year after, whether it’s the hospitals, the hospices, the senior groups, will come back saying, this is too hard on us, this is too hard on us, give us some of that money back. Will you all commit today that if you pass this bill and it sets that target to save in Medicare, that you’ll say no when they come back. And you may have to cast the tough votes against your friends saying, no, we committed to doing this, it is the key to bending that curve, and you will make the tough votes?

SHAHEEN: But, listen, I think there’s a lot of misinformation about where the cuts from Medicare are going to come from. They’re basically from two places. One is we’re going to make private insurers who offer Medicare Advantage plans pay the same amount that everybody else is getting under Medicare. There are significant savings there.

And then the hospitals have said, we’re going to be able to charge less for Medicare, because we’re going to have a lot more patients, because a lot more people are going to be insured. And then there’s a third provision that I think is reflected in a number of ways in the bill that Michael and I have been working on, which is hospitalizations, and making sure that people on Medicare, when they’re let out of the hospital, are able to stay out because they’ve got better transitional care.

BENNET: I would say, John, I think it is critically important that we maintain the fiscal discipline that’s represented by this bill. We maintain it as the bill works its way through the floor and also in the years to come. Because one of the things that people are really cynical about here is whether Washington actually can pass a piece of legislation and pay for it.

You know, they’re worried about -- they don’t like the existing health insurance system, that’s clear, but they’re very worried about our capacity to make it even worse. And so for those of us that are proponents of reform, I think we carry a heavy and very appropriate burden to make sure that we really are paying for it, not just in the near-term, but in the out years as well.

BROWN: And there are a number of components to this bill that aren’t even counted in terms of cost savings, the discharge procedure, the first 30 days out of the hospital that Michael and Jeanne -- or that several are working on in the Senate, where a dietitian or a nurse or some home health care person spends -- monitors and stays with those people in those 30 days, continues to talk with them, that’s not reimbursed now.

And there are ways of doing that. That will save a lot of money. The checklist that the physician at Johns Hopkins, Peter Provost, developed that saved hundreds of millions of dollars in Michigan. That’s not counted in the savings.

All the wellness and prevention parts of the bill that Senator Harkin wrote in our Health, Education, Labor, Pension Committee that Michael and I sit on, all of that will be additional cost savings that are not so-called scored, too much inside-the-beltway...

(CROSSTALK) KING: Let’s take a quick break -- let me take a quick break, we’ll be back. Plenty more to talk about with our senators about what’s in the health care bill for you. Don’t go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’re back with Democratic senators Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and Michael Bennet of Colorado.

Let’s talk about another tough issue in the health care bill. And Senator Bennet, I was listening yesterday on the floor when you were talking about your views on this, and that is, how should abortion be dealt with national health care reform?

I want to show our viewers, here’s what the Senate bill before you right now does. It bars the use of federal funds for abortion coverage. The public man that would be created could provide abortion coverage, but money from the premiums must cover the procedure, not tax dollars.

The exchanges that would be created in each state must have one plan that includes abortion coverage and one that does not. And people who receive federal subsidies to buy insurance could choose a health plan that covers elective abortions. But, again, the private insurance would have to make sure that money comes from premiums, not federal tax dollars.

Here’s what the House bill does in contrast. It is much more restrictive on this issue. It bars the use of federal funds for abortion coverage. The public plan would not provide abortion coverage. And private plans in the health care exchanges could not provide abortion coverage. People who receive federal subsidies to buy insurance could not choose a health plan that covers elective abortions.

I heard you on the floor yesterday saying the House goes too far. Again, in the end, would that be a make or break for you? We’re going to have to cut a deal at some point if you get this bill through the Senate. And some people say, oh, if there’s no public option, that’s not good enough, I’ll walk away. What about on abortion?

BENNET: I don’t think there’s any reason to change what the long-standing policy has been from the federal government about...

KING: But what if the reason is, you don’t get a bill unless you do?

BENNET: I think -- I don’t know, John. I don’t think we will get that bill and I think that it would be very unfortunate if we did. We shouldn’t be using health care reform to rewrite long-standing policy from the federal government on abortion. It’s just not right. It’s not the place we should be doing it.

I think the Senate bill strikes a very good balance. It’s the balance that we’ve had for many years around this issue. And I think there are also very important things in the health care legislation that deal with long-standing issues around discrimination against women in a way health care is provided and insurance is delivered.

And I think that’s where we should end up. I don’t see a reason to be where the House is on this issue.

KING: Well, let me talk to you about the process a little bit. If you look at the front page of The Washington Post today, “Sweeteners for the South.” To get Senator Landrieu’s vote, just to proceed, just to go across the starting line, language was inserted in the bill that gives her state up to $300 million. To get Senator Nelson’s vote, the leader agreed to drop a request that you take away the antitrust exemptions for insurance companies.

This got us to day one of the debate. Is this the way to do things? The central promise of the Obama campaign was to change the way Washington works. That’s Washington as usual, is it not?

BROWN: It is and it isn’t. I mean, I -- this bill is extraordinarily complicated.

BROWN: This legislation is -- you know, as Jeanne said at the outset of the show, 50 years, you could maybe even say 75 years -- Franklin Roosevelt attempted it, Harry Truman really attempted it in earnest...

KING: But is it important enough to buy votes?

BROWN: I don’t say it that way. I think there are a lot of things that we all go to the leader and talk about things in our state. And news reports sometimes aren’t accurate about what might have been done for somebody or what might not have been done for somebody.

I want to see this bill pass. Nobody likes these kinds of -- any kinds of deals. I think anything that’s done needs to be in the best -- in the best interest of those states and this country. I think those probably helped, if that, in fact, really happened -- I have no way of really knowing if it did. I suppose that helped a lot of people in Louisiana that don’t have insurance, and so I think we move forward.

We do what we need to do, within ethical bounds. We do what we need to do within practical bounds. Keeping this, as we’ve all said, keeping this bill, keeping the costs down and keeping this bill budget-neutral or better, as Jeanne points out.

KING: Does it make it harder to do that? Does it create a climate if you’re on the fence, legitimately on the fence, you think, all right, well, maybe I want to be a good Democrat and swallow my pride or swallow an issue or two and vote for this in the end, but I’m going to get something for it, and that’s going to cost money?

SHAHEEN: Listen, in the end, this is going to be a compromise. It’s not going to be a perfect bill, but it’s going to be a very important starting point. And I think it’s important to point out that this bill is not just about how do we deliver health care in a way that is more cost-effective, because families can’t afford it anymore, business can’t afford it anymore, and the economy can’t afford it.

But it’s also about how do we do it in a way that improves people’s health and their lives. And, unfortunately, we’re spending more money right now on health care in this country than any other industrialized nation. And yet, we’re not healthier. And so we’ve got to change the way we do things. And that’s what this legislation is about. BROWN: John, 400 Ohioans every day are losing their insurance. And you know, the Republicans, it was amazing last night, 39 Republicans, every Republican that voted, said, we shouldn’t even debate this. We shouldn’t even move forward. We shouldn’t even have a chance to go to the floor and offer amendments to improve it. 400 Ohioans every day. You know, dozens of Coloradans and New Hampshire -- people in New Hampshire -- I mean, we need to do this, and we aren’t hurrying it. We’ve taken the whole year, and not to mention 75 years, and this is done right, and we need to do what we need to do to get this bill enacted, and it’s just so important.

KING: We saw this week how hard it will be to bend that cost curve in the example of when the mammogram study came out and the pap smear study came out, and you had groups outside of the government but affiliated with the government saying, change the policy on mammograms. Make it 50, not 40 for the screening, the pap smear thing. Do you believe -- use this dustup as an example -- when it comes to evidence-based medicine, comparative research, that we need -- do you believe we need that to bend the cost curve, but what’s going to -- it’s going to be men for prostate next, or somebody’s vision test after that?

BENNET: I do, and I think that we’ve got to -- this bill does a very important thing, which is it gets some of those decisions out of the hands of Congress. You were just talking about how, doesn’t this look like it’s the same old thing? You know, the same old political, inside-Washington, D.C. special interest game? And it does look like that to a lot of people. This has been about moving the ball down the field, getting through to a place where finally we can now debate the bill comprehensively, end to end, and Americans can see whether or not this is something they want to support, which I think is great.

And I think it’s very important as part of that, that we get, for example, out of the hands of Congress, making these decisions on a one-off basis about how people are reimbursed, for example, for oxygen. I mean, you can imagine what lobby day looks like for oxygen in the United States Congress. People come in and say, you should use this much oxygen at that price. It has nothing to do with patients, it has nothing to do with the quality of care, or comparing a certain kind of treatment in one place to another. And I think that if we can establish an infrastructure to really do that in a thoughtful way over time, not only can we bend the cost curve, we can take the politics out of it, and the quality of care will improve as well.

KING: I want to move on to some other issues. Before I do, I want to try one yes-or-no question on you, a new senator who’s on the ballot next year in a tough state. If you get to the final point and you are a critical vote for health care reform, and every piece of evidence tells you, if you support that bill, you will lose your job, would you cast the vote and lose your job?

BENNET: Yes.

KING: All right. That tape will be held -- I hate to tell you that, but that tape will be held right now. I want to move on. There’s a lot of criticism this week. We saw unemployment in 29 states went up. In two of your states, it went down a little bit. In one of your states, it went up a bit. In 29 states, the unemployment rate inched up again. And there’s been a lot of criticism of the president’s economic team, including from Peter DeFazio, who is a Democrat. And he said this, Congressman Peter DeFazio. “It’s pretty embarrassing for a Democratic administration and a Democratic Congress to be identified with total attention to Wall Street and nothing for Main Street and jobs. I still support the president, I just think he’s being poorly served by his economic team.”

Some Republicans went further and said Secretary Geithner should resign.

Is this administration and its economic team in touch, in sync with the people of Youngstown and Cincinnati and Cleveland at this moment, or more in touch with Wall Street?

BROWN: I think the president is. I think that the vice president is. I think the advisers are mixed. I spoke with secretary -- I was with Secretary Geithner at the Treasury Department this week at the small business summit, Senator Warner and I with a bunch of small-business people with Karen Mills, the administrator of SBA, and Secretary Geithner. And I took him aside and said, we need more focus on manufacturing, we need an industrial policy. Manufacturing creates middle-class jobs, and there’s not been the -- there’s not been a manufacturing policy in this country for forever, really. And the former presidents haven’t had it, and -- and President Obama’s moving in that direction. I mean, Ron Bloom and others in the administration really are beginning to focus on that. So I think they’ve turned a corner. I think, particularly next year, the focus is all about creating jobs, and I think we’ll begin to see changes.

BENNET: What’s staggering to me about this is it’s not just that we’re in the worst recession since the Great Depression, although we are. It’s also that in the last period of growth, working families income in the United States actually declined during the Bush recovery. So our working families are trying to recover not just from one recession, but two. This is not just a short-term issue about stimulus. It’s a long-term issue about where we’re headed with this economy. And I think we do need to turn more of our attention to that.

I think we need to do much more to get small business access to loans again so they can start hiring again. We haven’t done a good enough job at that. We really do need to turn our focus in a very meaningful way to Main Street.

KING: And as he makes that point, he says we, he’s being polite. Does the president’s team need to do a better job?

SHAHEEN: Sure. I think we all need to do a better job. I voted against the TARP funding because I thought we weren’t holding the financial community accountable enough for how that money was being spent. So I think we’ve got to look now at what more we can do. Both Sherrod and Michael made the point, we need to make sure business gets access to credit. We need to have a manufacturing policy. We need to do more to give business access to international markets so that they can export more. So there’s a lot more we need to do. We need to invest in our infrastructure, and I think the president and his economic team recognize that, and we’ve all got to work together and work harder.

KING: Senator Shaheen, Senator Bennet, Senator Brown, thanks for coming in on this Sunday morning. Appreciate it. We’ll continue the conversation. We’ve got a long way to go here on both the health care and the economic front.

And up next, the Republican perspective on health care, Afghanistan, and more from the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell . Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: I’m John King and this is “State of the Union.” Here are stories breaking this Sunday morning. Chinese media say 87 people have died in a coal mine explosion in the northeastern part of the country. And a rescue effort is under way for another 21 workers trapped underground. Officials say it appears the cause was a gas explosion.

Students at the University of California-Santa Cruz are refusing to leave the administration building where they have been staging a sit-in since Thursday. They say they expect police will soon forcibly remove in.

The students are opposing a 32 percent tuition hike. The demonstration in Santa Cruz is just one of the several protests at U.C. campuses across the state this past week.

An out-of-this-world experience for astronaut Randolph Bresnik. He celebrated the birth of his second child while in orbit. Bresnik’s wife gave birth to their daughter back home in Houston last night. Just hours earlier, Bresnik was taking a space walk outside the International Space Station. He and the rest of the Shuttle Atlantis crew are scheduled to return to Earth on Friday.

Those are your top stories here on “State of the Union.” Up next, the Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell joins us for an exclusive conversation about health care, Afghanistan, and more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: With us now exclusively, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Mr. Leader, thank you for joining us. You don’t like the way the vote went down last night. You were on the losing side.

Now that the Democrats have 60 votes to start debate -- a long way to go, a lot of issues to debate, but do you believe, like it or not, that that vote means that the Senate will pass and the Congress will send to the president a health care bill late this year or early next?

MCCONNELL: Yes, not necessarily. First of all, we’ll have an extensive debate. The Senate’s not like the House. They had three votes on one day and it was over. Just to look at recent legislative activities on the Senate side, we spent four weeks last Congress on a farm bill, seven weeks creating the Department of Homeland Security a few years ago, eight weeks on an energy bill. The Senate doesn’t do things quickly.

So we’ll have multiple amendments, John, from both sides, a free- ranging, open debate. And as we begin the debate, the one thing we know for sure, that didn’t come up in the last segment -- I know why it didn’t; they don’t want to talk about it -- we know the American people don’t want us to do this.

The CNN poll is the same as all the other polls. The American people are opposed to this particular health care bill. They thought this was all going to be about controlling costs, but, in fact, we’ve ended up with a $2.5 trillion budget-busting proposal that CBO, the scorekeeper in Congress, tells us, after it’s all over, will not control costs.

KING: The scorekeeper does say, after 10 years, it brings down the deficit, if the Democrats cast all those tough votes.

MCCONNELL: Yes, but, you know, it was full of gimmicks. They delayed for five years the benefits. If you look at 10 years for the whole program fully implemented, it’s $2.5 trillion.

So this proposal picked the most favorable 10-year period in order to get the CBO to say, within this framework, it would actually bend the deficit some. But that -- it’s not the truth. I mean, everybody knows it’s not the truth.

KING: Is the Republican strategy just get in the way and block it? Or is the Republican strategy, try to improve it and then maybe vote yes on a final bill that you don’t like some of it, but it’s better than today?

MCCONNELL: Well, this bill is certainly not better. It drives the costs up for Americans; it cuts Medicare dramatically.

KING: Now, the Democrats say it saves Medicare, but it doesn’t cut a benefit.

MCCONNELL: Yes, let me tell you, five years ago we passed, when my side was in the majority, a rather modest reduction in the rate of increase of Medicare, at about $10 billion over five years. My counterpart, the majority leader, called it immoral. This is half a trillion dollars over 10 years, higher taxes on individuals and on businesses, higher insurance premiums for 85 percent of the American people who already have insurance.

That’s not reform. That’s not what the American people thought this was all about.

KING: Answer the skeptic out there who’s watching right now. You just made the point. You were the majority leader. The Republicans ran the Senate; they ran the House, as well, and you had a Republican president in the White House in George W. Bush . Answer the skeptic out there who says, well, why should I listen to you now, Mitch McConnell ? Where was the McConnell bill to deal with pre-existing conditions? Where was the McConnell bill -- as Republicans say, let’s do this; let’s sell insurance across state lines -- where was the McConnell bill to help bend that cost curve in a helpful way? So how can you say no now, when you didn’t -- and say, let’s do this incrementally now, when you didn’t do it then?

MCCONNELL: Well, we didn’t have the votes to pass it. They were against doing something about junk lawsuits against doctors and hospitals which would save $54 billion. They were not in favor of the kind of wellness programs that we think would drive down the costs. They were not in favor of insurance competition across state lines. They were not in favor of equalizing the tax cod, so that individual purchasers of insurance are treated the same way corporate purchasers of insurance are.

KING: Again, the skeptic might say, why didn’t we have all these issues on the floor, though? Harry Reid may lose this. He may lose this.

MCCONNELL: We had myriad health care debates during the period that President Bush was in office and during the time when there was a Republican majority. The Democrats simply don’t want to do incremental changes.

John, we feel that we ought to go step by step to fix our current health care system. We do not believe, take -- the government taking over one-sixth of our economy, completely restructuring one-sixth of our economy is a good idea at any time. It is a particularly bad idea when we’re looking at double-digit unemployment.

This bill is a job-killer. If you were running a small business, John, and you wanted -- thinking about whether or not to expand employment next year, and you looked at what’s coming your way with this health care bill, you’re going to have health care taxes, you’re going to have expiration of the Bush tax cuts, so your tax rates are going to go up. The cost of hiring additional employees will be greatly exacerbated by the steps that they’re taking. This is the wrong direction to go.

KING: And you mentioned you would prefer incremental reform. I want to ask you a question in the context of what you know is coming from the Democrats over the next several weeks as this debate goes on. Leader Boehner was here a few weeks ago; he heard it in the House. Senator Durbin and the Democrats say, Well, we have a plan. Maybe it’s not perfect, but where’s the Republican plan?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DURBIN: I challenged Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans to produce a health care bill that will save us $127 billion in the deficit over the next 10 years, and there’s nothing posted on the Internet. I challenged Mitch McConnell to come up with a bill that makes sure that 94 percent of Americans have the peace of mind of health insurance coverage, but the Republicans put nothing on the Internet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Will you continue to say, “We want to do this incrementally,” or will, because of the politics of the moment, do you feel compelled to come up with a comprehensive Republican alternative?

MCCONNELL: Yes, what we don’t think is America wants another 2,000-page bill. It’s this high. We had it on the floor. We don’t think that’s the way to go. We think we ought to go step by step to improve the -- the system that you and I have just been talking about, some of the steps we would take that would have an impact on the cost of health care.

The American people are not complaining about the quality of American health care. They’re complaining about the cost of it. This proposal that the Democrats voted to proceed to last night will explode cost; it will make the situation worse. We think you ought to go in a different direction.

So don’t hold your breath. We’re not planning on having a 2,000- page bill.

KING: Let me -- well, before I shift gears, let me ask you this. You’ve been at this a long time, both as the majority leader and as a minority leader. On a scale of 1 to 10, the likelihood the Senate will pass a health care legislation this year and that Congress will send the president a bill before the State of the Union address next year?

MCCONNELL: Well, we don’t often ignore the wishes of the American people. They are literally screaming -- many of them -- telling us, “Please don’t pass this. Don’t pass this bill.”

If the majority is hell-bent on ignoring the wishes of the American people, they have 60 votes in the Senate. You would think that they might be able to do this, but I believe there are a number of Democratic senators who do care what the American people think and are not interested in this sort of arrogant approach that everybody -- sort of shut up and sit down, get out of the way, we know what’s best for you.

Now, we’re hearing from the American people, they don’t want us to pass it. So I would -- you know, it’s hard to handicap the ultimate outcome, whether the majority will ignore the American people or not, but they’ll be heard. The American people will be heard. They’ll either be heard sooner or they’ll be heard later.

KING: Let me shift to the economy. Unemployment went up in 29 states this week, down in 13. I’ve traveled to 45 states in the last 45 weeks. And as much as they care about the health care debate, they care, first and foremost, about jobs and the economy.

There’s been a lot of criticism of the president’s economic team, including from a House Republican who said this week the secretary of the treasury should quit. Let’s listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN BRADY (R), TEXAS: Conservatives agree that, as point person, you failed. Liberals are growing in that consensus, as well. Poll after poll shows the public has lost confidence in this -- in this president’s ability to handle the economy. For the sake of our jobs, will you step down from your post?

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Now, Secretary Geithner, of course, says no. Are you among those who think that he’s the problem? Does he need to go? Or is that just a little political pinata?

MCCONNELL: You know, look, I’m not here to call for anybody’s resignation today. I think we ought to go in a different direction.

First of all, we ought not to pass this job-killing health care bill; that would be a good place to stop.

Second, we ought to repeal the balance of the stimulus package, which has been a failure. We added almost $1 trillion to the debt earlier this year, presumably to hold unemployment below 8 percent, which is what the administration said it would do. Now unemployment’s over 10 percent.

In my state, John, it actually went up last month, unemployment getting worse. Rather than passing this job-killing health care bill, why don’t we concentrate on getting the economy in better shape?

KING: I want to ask you -- last time you were here, you were pushing the president to make his decision about Afghanistan.

MCCONNELL: Yes.

KING: The White House now tells us it will probably come not this week, but the week after, and they’re working with NATO allies. As he makes this decision, you know the pressure from the left, and I want you to listen to the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi . She did an interview with National Public Radio. She says this is a bad idea, not worth the money and not worth the American blood.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PELOSI: The president of Afghanistan has proven to be an unworthy partner. How can we ask the American people to pay a big price in -- in lives and limbs and also in dollars if we don’t have a connection to a reliable partner?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Does the speaker have a point?

MCCONNELL: Look, I wish that we had a better regime in Afghanistan, but this is really about us, not them. Has everyone forgotten that when the Taliban was running Afghanistan, that’s when Al Qaida planned and launched the 9/11 attack? We’re not in Afghanistan for any reason other than to protect America.

And I had hoped -- and I still hope -- that the president’s going to make the right decision here, which is to keep the pressure on. He said during the campaign that the war in Afghanistan was the good war, the war in Iraq was the bad war. Well, this is the good war and -- by his own definition.

And we need to keep on offense against both the Taliban and Al Qaida -- and by the way, this is not just Afghanistan, it’s also Pakistan -- if we want to continue to protect the homeland.

So I haven’t given up hope the president’s going to do the right thing. I think, John, the military people are getting a little frustrated with the delay in making the decision. It’s really time for the president to make the call.

KING: Let me ask you, lastly, Chairman Levin of the Armed Services Committee has said that he thinks we need a war surtax of some sort, a surtax on those making $200,000 or $250,000 a year to help pay for this. He says that’s the way we need to go, and some in the House have called for something similar, not exactly the same as Chairman Levin. Do we need that, a special tax that says this is to pay for the cost of these wars?

MCCONNELL: Well, we’ve -- we’ve paid for both of these wars by borrowing money. There’s no question about it. We did it in the previous administration; we’ve done it in this administration. It’s a tough call as to whether or not we try to fund it through existing Defense Department resources or not, but we have had a tradition...

KING: You don’t rule out some kind of a war tax?

MCCONNELL: I do, because I think we ought -- this is about our national security, you know? The Democrats are willing to bust the budget to pass a domestic program that the American people are against, but all of a sudden find it offensive to do something that is absolutely essential to the security of Americans here in the United States, which is to keep on offense in the war on terror.

KING: The Republican leader of the United States Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, thanks for joining us.

And up next, Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln was the critical 60th vote to move the health care debate along. When we come back, we’re going to take you to her home state of Arkansas and show just how that vote might cost Senator Lincoln her job.

MCCONNELL: Thanks, John.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: The health care policy and political debate forces some tough choices. The pressure perhaps greatest on the woman who cast the 60th vote to open debate last night in the Senate. She is Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. She was once the youngest woman elected to the Senate. Prior to that serve served in the House of Representatives.

Look at her approval rating, 54 percent a year ago, down to 43 for Senate now. So in our “American Dispatch” this week, we wanted to travel to Senator Lincoln’s home state of Arkansas to get a sense of the pressure on her as she asked the voters to re-elect her in a very conservative state.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): Aisha’s Fish and Chicken is a family business, known for its friendly service.

STANLEY WALKER, OWNER, AISHA’S FISH AND CHICKEN: We’re going to hook them today, huh?

KING: Wings and catfish.

WALKER: A five-piece wings, extra sauce on it.

KING: And a spicy signature sauce.

WALKER: 131.

KING: Tough times in a bad economy, so owner Stanley Walker says health care is out of the question.

WALKER: It’s too expensive right now. We’re kind of having a little bit of trouble keeping our head above water.

We had it at one time, but it was so expensive that we finally dropped it. I get a lot of complaints from my wife about it that we don’t have health care.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Five-piece, no sauce.

KING: It is both a business decision and a personal risk. Stanley has diabetes and takes just half of his four-pill a day prescription because he can’t afford the $500 a month bill for the full dose.

WALKER: Because I work by myself a lot and I’m always moving all the time, I don’t want to get somewhere and go into a coma, you know, because my sugar dropped too low. It’s a situation where you actually take a gamble, but you can’t afford not to.

KING: Stanley hopes Congress makes it makes health care more affordable and thinks creating a new government-run public option is the best way to do that.

WALKER: If they don’t do that, then I don’t think I will vote for them.

KING: It’s an important statement because African-American votes in places like Pine Bluff will be critical in next year’s midterm elections. And Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln faces a tough re- election race.

PROF. ART ENGLISH, UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK: No question they see an opportunity here and an opportunity to win a Senate seat doesn’t come often for Republicans in Arkansas.

KING: Senator Lincoln opposes a public option, and while that angers liberals, political scientist Art English says Lincoln needs to worry about conservative Democrats and independents in a state President Obama lost by 20 points.

ENGLISH: It’s tough. It’s like that show, “Malcolm in the Middle,” but this time it’s kind of, you know, Senator Blanche Lincoln in the middle, and it has been tough on her.

KING: Larry Levy owns this Little Rock brake shop, and has gone from paying 100 percent of employees’ health care to 60 percent.

LARRY LEVY, OWNER, STUART’S BRAKE SHOP: It kept going up and as my employees got older, the premiums, they began to get so high we just couldn’t realistically afford it.

KING: But Levy sees disaster in Democratic plans to create a public option or a mandate that everyone buy health insurance.

LEVY: We don’t know what it’s going to cost us. We have health issues, I agree. There needs to be reform. But let’s identify the problems that we have and let’s fix those problems. Let’s just don’t throw out everything and start all over.

KING (on camera): They say that if taxes go up, it will only be on people above 250 grand a year, but you don’t buy it?

LEVY: No, no, I don’t. I don’t buy it. We middle-class people will shoulder the burden. I have no question about that.

KING (voice-over): Levy describes himself as a conservative who did not vote for Mr. Obama, but does sometimes votes for conservative Democrats. He is not a fan of Senator Lincoln.

LEVY: She is playing games right now, I think, you know? She is just kind of swaying back and forth. I know she’s in a tough position, but if she’ll listen to her constituents we don’t want her to vote for this, I think.

KING (on camera): You think that she has -- she had better listen?

LEVY: I think she needs to listen if she wants to keep her job, yes.

KING (voice-over): But Levy says Lincoln has already lost his vote. He sees Washington as veering too far left and sees the midterm elections as a chance to vote Republican and put the brakes on the Obama agenda.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: I’m John King and this is STATE OF THE UNION.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): Sarah Palin is back under the media spotlight with a new book. Is the former vice presidential candidate faring any differently with reporters and commentators this time around?

And after 25 years at the top of daytime TV talk, Oprah Winfrey announces she’s moving on. Jerry Springer weighs in on how his fellow talk show host has changed the nation’s media and cultural landscape.

In this hour of STATE OF THE UNION, Howard Kurtz, as always, breaks it down with his “Reliable Sources.”

KURTZ: The hottest author of 2009 has hopscotched from Oprah to Barbara to Rush to Hannity to O’Reilly this week, slamming the media, ripping her former campaign colleagues, and kicking up the kind of fuss that, well, sells truckloads of books. And every news show that Sarah Palin didn’t go on just talked about her anyway.

The former VP nominee has put herself at the center of a raging media debate over politics and ideology and motherhood and sexism and fundamental fairness toward a compelling yet polarizing figure. All of that came into play as Palin sat down with a carefully-selected mix of big-name TV personalities and sympathetic conservatives. She said she’s even been approached about reality shows.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARBARA WALTERS, “GOOD MORNING AMERICA”: You say no to that?

SARAH PALIN (R), FMR. ALASKA GOVERNOR: Absolutely not. I would never. No, I would not ever want to put my kids through such a thing. Shoot, our life has become kind of a reality show.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS: Look, I follow this president every day. I think he’s a socialist. Do you think he’s a socialist?

Is the president then more radical than he let on? Do you think the president’s radical?

PALIN: I will not hesitate to say that his associates have been extremely radical.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: So, how did the journalists and commentators fare at pinning down Palin, and are the media devoting ridiculous amounts of attention to one losing candidate’s book?

Joining us now here in Washington, Matthew Continetti of “The Weekly Standard,” author of the new book “The Persecution of Sarah Palin : How The Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star”; Julie Mason, White House correspondent for “The Washington Examiner”; and in San Francisco, Joan Walsh, editor-in-chief of Salon.com.

Julie Mason, Sarah Palin keeps sniping at the media as she uses the media to promote her book. Smart strategy?

Yes, it’s a great strategy. It’s us versus them. And the media is using her, too.

MASON: We were so sick of that health care debate, and here comes Sarah Palin with this book and all this controversy and these outrageous statements. I think one of the most interesting things about this has been the fact-checking that’s been going on about her book, the point and counterpoint. That’s been really interesting to watch, and just watching her and trying to figure out, what’s her end game here?

Maybe Matt knows.

KURTZ: Matthew Continetti, before we get to that, after those first two interviews with Oprah and Barbara Walters, Sarah Palin was interviewed by you, “National Review,” O’Reilly, Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Christian Broadcasting Network.

It sounds like she’s preaching to the choir, by and large.

CONTINETTI: Well, right now she’s trying to reach her base of support, and the way to do that is to speak to conservative audiences through conservative media.

KURTZ: Other people buy books.

CONTINETTI: Other people, and they’re buying her books, too. But I think the question -- you’re right about this, Howie -- if she wants to broaden her appeal, which is crucial if she wants to run for elected office again, she’s going to have to sit down with, I think, personally, Katie Couric, among others, in the future.

KURTZ: Boy, that would do a big number, Joan Walsh.

Do you think Sarah Palin ’s finger in the eye criticism of the media is just payback, pure and simple? Is she playing to that base?

WALSH: I think she’s playing to the base. I think she also feels like she has a grievance. You know, I’m very hard on her in policy ways, but I think she feels like she’s been held to a different standard.

On the other hand, I mean, I’m excited to be here with Matt today, because he wrote a column about how she can redeem herself and possibly run for office last week. I think it was in “The Wall Street Journal.” And it really read like either science fiction or satire in the sense that Matt had high hopes that she could do that, and she didn’t take any of his advice this week.

You know, she really is poking her finger in the eye of the media, really ignoring Independents. Matt called her more popular than John Edwards, or less unpopular than John Edwards, and that’s a really low bar.

KURTZ: Let me get Matthew to comment.

CONTINETTI: Well, Joan, since you bring -- I’m glad you’re closely reading my work, but the fact is, public perceptions of political figures change over time. And look at Hillary Clinton, who has gone from one of the most polarizing figures in American politics to now one of the more popular members of the Obama cabinet.

Or look at Bill Clinton, whose career was declared dead over and over again. Ronald Reagan, the same thing, ran for the Republican nomination in ‘76, lost it, and then people declared him as an out of work actor.

KURTZ: All right. Let me jump in, because I want to bring this back to the media.

And I’ll come back to you in a second, Julie.

In your book, you lump together, it seems to me, with the big news organizations -- “The Nation” and “Daily Kos” and “Gawker” and even “The National Enquirer” -- all as part of the media that are beating up on Sarah Palin . But shouldn’t we make distinctions here between left-wing Web sites and “The New York Times”?

CONTINETTI: You know, yes, absolutely. And I think I make those distinctions in the book.

But I would say what’s interesting about the reception of Sarah Palin , which I talk about at the beginning of the book, is that things that originated in left-wing Web sites ended up being parroted on the front pages of places like “The New York Times,” or highly trafficked blogs, like TheAtlantic.com. So, sometimes the line between the far left Web sites and the mainstream media, for lack of a better word, is very thin, Howie.

KURTZ: Julie, do you think that Palin and the book tour and the rollout is being covered -- that she’s being covered as a personality, as a cultural figure, or because we all want her to run in 2012 because she’s such a great story as a potential presidential candidate?

MASON: Absolutely. All those reasons.

KURTZ: All those reasons.

MASON: All those reasons and more. And we don’t know. Is she going to run again?

KURTZ: She probably won’t run. I mean, she quit after two and a half years as governor of Alaska, and I think that we’re -- that it’s sort of an interest that journalists have in kind of ignoring that and saying, well, she’s going to run, so let’s...

MASON: Or speculating about it, and therefore legitimizing all the attention she gets. She’s a public personality now, and I don’t see what else she is.

KURTZ: Joan Walsh, I think in your earlier comments you kind of conceded that there was some unfair coverage of Sarah Palin during the campaign, particularly on personal stuff involving her family. But when reporters -- I mean, this is a woman who was virtually unknown in the other 48 states -- and when reporters went to places like Alaska to check her record, which Matthew Continetti takes issue with in his book, isn’t that our responsibility when somebody is running for a job a heartbeat away, to use the cliche, from the presidency?

WALSH: Of course it is. I mean, you know, I differ with Matt on a lot of points here.

“The New York Times” wrote about Bristol’s pregnancy after she herself confirmed it. I think that the barrier from the blogs to the “mainstream media sites” is thinner, but she did a lot to put certain things into the national framework. And then she’s made enemies now from Wasilla to Washington, D.C.

She had basically run a very tiny town before she became governor, so I think most of what the media did really was fair and was our job. I think she did face sexism. I’m on record saying I happen to think that the “Newsweek” cover was sexist to depict her legs that way on a national magazine.

KURTZ: Let’s put that up so people can be reminded.

WALSH: OK.

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: Here she is, actually, wearing the jogging outfit that she originally posed for “Runner’s World.”

MASON: I thought it was exploitative, but I didn’t think it was sexist.

KURTZ: Well, she did pose for it, obviously.

MASON: She obviously posed for it, and now she’s playing the victim, which is the role she loves to play.

Sorry, Matt.

WALSH: Well, and I think that’s a really good point, Julie, because I feel that that was sexism. We can disagree. But what’s striking now on the right is, you know, the right has now adopted identity politics, and the right has now adopted the politics of victimhood.

And you see these people at her rallies who -- and you saw them -- last October we started to see them -- who feel that their country is being taken away from them. Some of them have a kind of populist anger that I think the Democrats should be afraid of to try to tap into.

KURTZ: Let me jump in again.

Now, you make a lot about the liberal media, the elite media, but some of your colleagues on the right during the campaign, whether it’s David Brooks, David Frum, Kathleen Parker, Christopher Buckley, who hit Sarah Palin pretty hard -- they didn’t think she was qualified to be VP.

CONTINETTI: And I think it gets to the heart of the reason that we’re fascinated about Sarah Palin . She’s become this lens in our politics that refracts all these different ways that people see the different world views and ideologies. And, you know, so even -- that applies even on the right. They’ve recoiled from the same things that the left does with Sarah Palin .

KURTZ: Let me play some of her interviews this week where she’s asked about those famous or infamous interviews with Charlie Gibson, who had questioned Sarah Palin about the Bush doctrine, and Katie Couric, who, among other things, asked what kind of newspapers and magazines she read.

Let’s roll that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O’REILLY: Do you think Gibson did that to demean you, to make you look stupid?

PALIN: Those are the “gotcha” techniques that some in the -- what some people call mainstream, others call now the lame stream media, who want to participate in a tactic like that.

OPRAH WINFREY, TALK SHOW HOST: You’re saying now that the reason why you had the responses to Katie Couric is because you were annoyed with her?

PALIN: Well, I was annoyed with where we were, what we were doing at the time. She opens the curtain for me to get backstage, and there’s the perky one again with the microphone and the cameras rolling.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Julie Mason, as a representative of the lame stream media, why is she still fuming about this? And here she’s calling Katie Couric “the perky one,” as opposed to, say, a journalist.

MASON: Because the media really made a fool of her. They really did. And she made a fool of herself in the campaign.

KURTZ: Did the media make a fool of her intentionally, because they did not like Sarah Palin ?

MASON: I think there was a definite subtext of that. I do think a lot of people were doing a credible job of trying to cover her, trying to figure out who she was. But I think in the end, the combination of her ambition and journalists’ ambitions just created this firestorm.

KURTZ: Matthew, you take her side there, too. You say Katie Couric was biased. Most people think that she asked no question that was out of bounds and that Sarah Palin , who at times has kind of hinted that it was not her finest moment, but that she just blew it. CONTINETTI: I write in my book that Katie Couric is not known for her sympathy with conservatives, which is actually true. But I would say that I also write in my book that it was a bad interview, and Sarah Palin now admits that it was a bad interview and that she made mistakes.

It’s funny. As I talk about my book and Sarah’s book over the course of the past week, that one interview did so much to shape people’s opinions of Sarah Palin , and it may have derailed her future ambitions.

KURTZ: I hear her book is doing a little better than yours.

Joan Walsh, you want to weigh in on this?

CONTINETTI: Why am I on your show, Howie?

KURTZ: You want to weigh in on this?

WALSH: Yes, I do, because, you know, let’s leave Katie aside. I think there’s -- speaking of sexism, there’s just a weird vibe between her and Katie, calling her “the perky one.” That’s diminishing, so she’s the pot calling the kettle black.

WALSH: The Charlie Gibson interview, for me, was actually of a turning point. Everybody picked up on it later, when Katie sat her down. But she was stumbling and idiotic in the Charlie Gibson interview.

I’m sorry. The Bush doctrine is a “gotcha” question? The questions of war and peace and our defense policy were and are central to the governing of this United States.

KURTZ: Right.

WALSH: So, she can’t call that “gotcha.” It wasn’t like a pop quiz on, you know, obscure foreign leaders.

And the other thing is she really is nursing this grievance against the media, and she loves it. She loves it.

KURTZ: Well, and maybe it’s working for her.

Now, with all the fact-checking, there are times when she has contradicted herself. I want to play you back to back something she said about her decision to run for vice president, first last year on “Hannity,” then this week on “Oprah.”

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PALIN: It was a time of asking the girls to vote on it anyway, and they voted unanimously yes.

This time, there wasn’t a family vote. No.

WINFREY: This was the mommy rules.

PALIN: This was -- yes. Yes, this was, I’m going to make the decision.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: So her...

(CROSSTALK)

MASON: Yes, I know. So it’s a lot of revisionist history. The truth is a moving target with her sometimes.

And I don’t think it’s a very important point. I don’t think how she decided to run...

KURTZ: Yes, sure.

MASON: But it underscores why people are uncomfortable with her, the people who are uncomfortable with her.

KURTZ: All right. Meanwhile, she sold 300,000 books the first day. This thing is going to be a huge blockbuster.

And thank you all for stopping by this morning, Julie Mason, Matthew Continetti, Joan Walsh in San Francisco.

When we come back, journalists push back against that federal panel’s recommendation on delaying mammograms, particularly female journalists. We’ll talk with one cancer survivor about the line between the personal and political next.

And later, Jerry Springer joins us to talk about, who else? Oprah.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: News organizations routinely report what experts say because, well, they’re experts. But when a federal advisory panel said this week that there was no need for women in their 40s to get regular mammograms, there was something of a media-led revolt led by female journalists.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HODA KOTB, NBC NEWS: Women between 40 and 49, they say there’s a one in 1,900 chance that you will be diagnosed with breast cancer. I was one of those.

MEREDITH VIEIRA, NBC NEWS: But you can’t get away from the fact that a lot of women believe that they were saved because of a mammogram.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Forget the death panels, but this is rationing, saying, OK, we could do this, we could save some lives. It’s just not worth the money.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: And joining us now to talk about the coverage of this breast cancer controversy is “TIME” magazine’s Karen Tumulty.

Karen, it took about 10 seconds before the media started pushing back against this federal advisory panel’s recommendation. Was that surprising?

KAREN TUMULTY, “TIME” MAGAZINE: Not at all. Not to me, at least, because, you know, the message on cancer, and particularly breast cancer, for decades has been one of hypervigilance. It was just two or three weeks ago that we had a big pink ribbon hanging on the front of the White House. So, the idea that suddenly we have a bunch of experts, yes, but, you know, looking at only the statistical aspects of medicine coming out with these recommendations was pretty jarring.

KURTZ: This, for you, is a very personal issue, as you wrote this week. Explain why.

TUMULTY: Well, because I actually had my first mammogram, my first breast biopsies, when I was 19 years old. And I think that -- I mean, I am a thyroid cancer survivor, and at the time that I had my first breast cancer scare, I had no family history at all.

Since then, both my mother and my aunt developed it. My mother survived it; my aunt didn’t.

KURTZ: So, ,you can’t look at it as, let’s see what statistics the experts have come up with and what percentage chance that if you were in your 40s and didn’t get a mammogram, that you might develop cancer. You can’t look at it that way.

TUMULTY: No, but I think the statistics are extraordinarily valuable. And I think that this is a debate that we need to have. But I think, ultimately, that this -- that in this health care debate, we are looking at a country where the vast majority of people, blessedly, do have decent health care coverage, and they don’t want to feel like, you know, some government panel or scientific statistics are going to come between them and the conversations they should be having.

KURTZ: But when you write about this and when you talk about this, you can’t separate your real-life experience from the scientific arguments, can you? Or should you?

TUMULTY: You know, I didn’t. And that was one reason I decided to blog about this, because, you know, certainly, in some ways it’s bringing more transparency to journalism. I mean, when people read what I have to write about these things, they can know that I’m a human being who brings a personal experience to this.

KURTZ: And Gail Collins did that in “The New York Times,” writing about that she was a breast cancer survivor. And I found these perspectives very valuable.

Isn’t the problem here with any kind of health care recommendations that, while there may be a marginal chance for the system as a whole that cancer would be detected from these routine tests -- one in 1,900, I guess, is the figure -- that it looks very different if it’s you or your sister or your mother.

Who wants that take that chance?

TUMULTY: And it’s also that different people have different amounts of risks that they want to tolerate. So I think it’s very important that you have the evidence that tells you what the real trade-offs are, the dangers of too much screening versus what you might miss. I think the thing that threw a lot of women back on this panel’s recommendations, though, was the recommendation that women not be taught self-exam. I mean, that is what, to me, had a little bit of paternalism to it, because it felt as though, you know, they were trying to essentially keep information from women so they wouldn’t be sort of wasting their doctor’s time.

KURTZ: Yes. And this whole business about anxiety, because if you got a positive you might be anxious about it, I think most women would rather make that decision themselves.

Did you get a lot of reaction to that blog?

TUMULTY: I did. I did. And I was also interested in some of the other women who wrote about it.

For instance, Michelle Cottle, at “The New Republic,” in a situation very much like mine, wrote that it had been recommended to her that she should have more screening. And she took into account other factors in her life and decided no. And I think that’s the kind of decision that people want to have remain with them and their doctors.

KURTZ: Let’s turn to last night’s vote in the Senate.

You’ve covered the health care debate every single day. Big headlines this morning about Harry Reid and the Democrats mustering 60 votes to get that health care bill to the floor, but was that really much of an accomplishment?

TUMULTY: You know, I think for weeks it’s been pretty clear that in the end, he was going get his party together. And also, it’s very clear that the really hard vote is the one that’s going to come a few weeks down the road to get this bill off the floor.

KURTZ: Right. So, the big headlines and the lead stories about what a big deal this was, I mean, if the Democrats couldn’t even bet the bill to the floor, then they’re not much of a party, are they?

TUMULTY: Well, that is true, and that is the big question, is -- you know, that they’ve got all of the levers of government in their hands right now.

KURTZ: Has there been enough journalistic attention to the deals that are made here? For example, Dana Milbank writing in this morning’s “Washington Post” about what’s called the Louisiana purchase. In other words, that Senator Mary Landrieu got a provision that could be worth up to $300 million for the state of Louisiana for her vote. I mean, she was bought off and maybe there’s an age-old tradition of that on Capitol Hill.

TUMULTY: Well, and the bigger deals are the ones that have been made with the various industries. And I do think we have been writing too much about process and not enough about these deals, because those are things that are going to affect everyone’s health care costs.

KURTZ: All right. A story that’s clearly going to continue for some time to come.

Karen Tumulty, thanks very much for chatting with us this morning.

Coming up in the second half of RELIABLE SOURCES, Oprah Winfrey shakes up the TV landscape by announcing she’ll pull the plug on her daytime show. We’ll examine the impact with someone who knows the talk show racket -- Jerry Springer.

Nightline’s Cynthia McFadden on her interview with the former Senate aide whose wife had an affair with John Ensign and whether both ran afoul of lobbying laws.

Plus, musical chairs. Why it’s hard to keep up with who’s up and who’s down in media land.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: I’m John King, and this is STATE OF THE UNION. Here are stories breaking this Sunday morning.

A Democratic senator says moderates in his party should not be allowed to dictate the terms of the health care debate. Earlier here on STATE OF THE UNION, Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown said he believes the final bill should include a government-run option for Americans who do not have insurance.

Federal officials are investigating the cause of a radiation leak at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. The leak happened yesterday during a refueling outage when the reactors were shut down. Officials say the leak posed no threat to the public, and they add about 20 workers were affected, but were quickly decontaminated.

Students at the University of California Santa Cruz are refusing to leave the administrative building where they’ve been staging a sit- in since Thursday. They say they expect the police will soon forcibly remove them.

The students are protesting a 32 percent tuition hike. The demonstration in Santa Cruz, just one of several protests at UC campuses across the state this past week.

Those are your top stories here on STATE OF THE UNION.

KURTZ: She is such a dominant figure on the media landscape, that the announcement that she’s ending her daytime talk show two years from now made the front page of “The New York Times.” Oprah Winfrey is abdicating her throne as the queen of daytime talk to concentrate on her new cable channel, modestly named the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Let’s face it -- this is a woman who transcends the role of television host, who’s become a cultural icon for millions of women. And she’s been building that brand for 25 years.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WINFREY: Welcome to the very first national “Oprah Winfrey Show!”

(APPLAUSE)

I have lost, as of this morning -- as of this morning, 67 pound pounds.

The boy is gone. The boy is gone.

Did he ever beat you?

MICHAEL JACKSON, SINGER/SONGWRITER: Yes.

WINFREY: I’m going to surprise the winner with $1 million.

I feel duped, but, more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers.

A few of my favorite things!

These years with you, our viewers, have enriched my life beyond all measure.

So why walk away and make next season the last? Here is the real reason. I love this show. This show has been my life. And I love it enough to know when it’s time to say goodbye.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Joining us now to examine Oprah’s decision and the impact on the television business, in Las Vegas, Jerry Springer, who has hosted a syndicated talk show for nearly two decades. And in Los Angeles, Judy Muller, former ABC News correspondent, now an associate professor of broadcast journalism at the University of California’s Annenberg School.

Jerry Springer, I’ll start with the obvious question. You launched your talk show in 1991. That was about five years after Oprah went national.

Was she something of an influence on you?

JERRY SPRINGER, TALK SHOW HOST: Well, she’s the best there ever was. I’d say she and Phil Donahue. And it’s really hard to put me and her in the same sentence. I mean, because she does a real talk show. We do pretty much of a circus.

But her impact on the whole industry has been enormous, because she probably was the first to take the genre of a talk show and to turn it into something personal for the viewer. In other words, people would go on and actually talk about something that was going on in their lives rather than a broad, general issue.

KURTZ: You say you do pretty much of a circus, but in 1998, for example, you were beating Oprah Winfrey in many markets across the country. But then she continued to soar. So what happened?

SPRINGER: Well, there’s no accounting for public taste. I don’t know why people would watch what we do, but, you know, it’s a totally different element of it.

But with Oprah -- and it’s really been something that’s going in our society all together -- is that the individual -- the viewers have become the entertainment. I mean, that is true with the Internet. That is true in -- even in journalism now, where people with computers are suddenly becoming the journalists. You know, people sitting at home are going on the Web with their own information.

I just think the whole landscape is changing. But I think Oprah was very influential in making it OK for people to talk about their personal lives.

KURTZ: Right.

Judy Muller, everyone is trying to put a finger on this connection, this bond that Oprah Winfrey has with millions of women. What do you make of it?

JUDY MULLER, FMR. ABC, CBS CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think women relate to Oprah. Obviously, she’s very rich, so, you know, as Gail Collins said in her column yesterday, she’s worth a trillion-billion dollars.

So, even so, she seems like everybody’s best girlfriend. She preaches the gospel of self-empowerment, and that’s because of her personal story, raised on a poor farm in Mississippi and now one of the 300 richest people in the world, according to Forbes. This is a rags to riches story that everybody wants to believe in. So I think she really connects with women.

KURTZ: And people forget what a long shot she was considered to be. “TIME” magazine -- this was 1986, when she was launching -- wrote that, “In a field dominated by white males, she is a black female of ample bulk.” She did not sort of fit the usual subscription for a successful television personality at that time.

MULLER: And the ample bulk is part of her appeal. I mean, we all relate to weight gain and loss and her struggle with that.

And speaking of Jerry Springer, she really became the anti-Jerry Springer, as he pointed out. While he was looking at sort of the tawdrier side of human nature, she looked to inspire and elevate. And as I said, talked about self-empowerment. So, she marked out turf that nobody had done before.

KURTZ: Although, Jerry, you are the perfect person for me to ask this, because I look at your Web site, and some of your videos are entitled “Stripper Showdown,” “Hotheaded Homewreckers,” “My Pimp Wants to Marry Me.”

KURTZ: When Oprah started out, she was also seen as kind of working the tawdry side of the street. She did a lot of pretty tabloid stuff, and then she decided to kind of take a higher road.

Do you remember that?

SPRINGER: Yes. Whether we call it a higher road, it’s certainly a different road.

What we do is tongue-in-cheek, and it’s crazy. And as I said, I don’t think Oprah ever really did that. She may have spoken about the same subjects, but she did it seriously.

With us, you know, basically, our show is a fraternity party. It’s aimed at high school and college-age kids, and they kind of get it, and that’s all it is.

So again, I think Oprah really created new ground. She opened the doors and says it’s OK to talk about yourself.

Look, Phil Donahue had been on for 29 years. He created the genre, in a sense. But Phil Donahue never talked about himself. It really wasn’t -- most of his shows had nothing to do with the individual person. It was a larger issue.

You know, he would talk about things like, let’s say, health care or a war that was going on. With Oprah, it was really, I can tell you about my personal life.

She let people in, and that kind of became an OK thing then, to say, you know what? If she can talk about her personal life, I can talk about mine. And I think that has been happening across the media.

KURTZ: Oprah once said that without Phil Donahue, there wouldn’t have been an Oprah. He started that show out of Dayton, Ohio.

But, Judy Muller, Oprah’s not exactly disappearing. For one thing, the syndicated show continues until 2011, and then she’s got the network that she’s launching with Discovery, and she’s got the “O” magazine and the whole empire.

So, I don’t think she’s going to disappear, but do you think she’ll ever again have a platform as broad as this syndicated daytime show? MULLER: Well, I wouldn’t put anything past her. Most of what she touches turns to gold. And I think the fact that we are talking about this and the -- is a testament to the impact of Oprah Winfrey on the industry.

This isn’t going to happen for two years, and yet we’re all analyzing the impact. And, of course, there are a lot of people who are going to feel the pain. All those ABC stations that count on the Oprah lead-in to their newscasts, they’re wondering, who’s going to fill in that spot? Who’s going to bring that large audience as a natural lead-in to their newscasts? That’s real money; that’s real advertising dollars.

CBS, which owns the syndication rights, is going to see a loss. All those publishers who love touting their authors on Oprah, which is a natural bestseller route, they’re all crying. I mean, she was tearing up yesterday, but quite frankly, there are a lot of other tearing up as well.

KURTZ: Right. And also, celebrities coming out of rehab like to go on Oprah Winfrey. And politicians who are in need of imagery, as we saw this week with Sarah Palin kicking off her tour on the Oprah Winfrey show.

Jerry Springer, but, you know, she has made mistakes. She’s had problems with that South African girls school that she founded. We saw a brief clip there of her with author James Frey, and she says she got duped by a book that was full of fabrications.

So, I wonder -- there are even say that by endorsing Barack Obama , she give a major boost to the White House. I wonder if we kind of make her too much larger than life as we talk about Ms. Winfrey.

SPRINGER: Well, I think that, you know, in fairness, that’s probably true, simply because we in the business of television or the media tend to be pretty self-absorbed. In other words, we really think that everything we do, wow, the whole rest of the world is just watching and changing their life because of what we say on the television tube.

KURTZ: That is a stunning admission. Let me write that down. We’re kind of self-absorbed.

Go on.

SPRINGER: Yes. So, in other words, no. I don’t think the rest of the world, the rest of America -- I think most people go about their daily lives, frankly, not watching any of us.

I mean, for example, Oprah Winfrey, on a normal day, will get seven million people watching her. Well, OK. That means about 293 million people aren’t. And, you know, it’s going to be fine.

It’s going to be like -- you know, people will watch something else. And it’s not just watching television. They go on the Internet. Some people still read books. I mean, there are lots of other source of information. Politicians will find other shows to go on.

You know, I remember when they said Johnny Carson was leaving, oh, my God, there goes “The Tonight Show.” And the reality is that “The Tonight Show” continued. Television will continue and there will be other people coming on.

KURTZ: Right.

SPRINGER: So, I don’t think this is the end of the world, I just think it will an effect on the industry for a while.

KURTZ: All right. It’s not the end of civilization as we know it, but there are very few personalities, even in television, even people who have big numbers, who have that kind of personal connection with the audience that I spoke about.

So, Judy Muller, a number of programs, including some I’ve been on, the question always comes up, who’s going to be the next Oprah? I wonder -- and names have been kicked around -- Ellen DeGeneres; Dr. Phil, who Oprah syndicates; Katie Couric, when her contract expires at CBS. But I wonder whether there can be another Oprah in this fragmented age of blogs and podcasts and cable channels?

MULLER: I think you’re absolutely right and Jerry Springer is absolutely right that we’re fractionalizing the media. And I think Oprah saw this and is acting on it.

She’s creating a new cable network, OWN, Oprah Winfrey Network, and I think she sees the writing on the wall. Cable is doing much better than the broadcast shows, the big four, because they count on advertising alone. Cable gets the subscription fees and the advertising, and it’s more profitable. So, she’s making that change at a very good time, at a time when we sit down to watch one show and talk about it the next day.

KURTZ: Right.

MULLER: Those times are over in the way that Walter Cronkite did. That’s over.

KURTZ: That’s a past era. I’ve got to get going here.

MULLER: I think she’s what’s coming and is acting on it.

KURTZ: All right. Well, at least we’ve established that this is not the end of television as we know it.

Thanks to Jerry Springer and thanks to Judy Muller as well. Appreciate you joining us.

After the break, is the John Ensign saga just a beltway sex scandal or a case of potential lawbreaking?

ABC’s Cynthia McFadden on the man who says Ensign should quit the Senate for carrying on with his wife.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: Washington has had a spate of sex scandals this year, but the John Ensign saga stands out as one of the most troubling. The Nevada senator has admitted having an affair with his former campaign treasurer, Cindy Hampton. She is married to Doug Hampton, one of Ensign’s top Senate aides before he left that job.

Doug Hampton later became a lobbyist who traded on his ties with the Republican lawmaker, but Hampton remains very angry at his former boss. And in an interview airing tomorrow night on “Nightline,” says Senator Ensign continued the affair after claiming it was over.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CYNTHIA MCFADDEN, CO-HOST, “NIGHTLINE”: He’s still sleeping with your wife, you think?

DOUG HAMPTON, FMR. ENSIGN AIDE: Yes, that’s hard to hear. Yes. I think he’s absolutely at this time pursuing her. He’s absolutely fixated on Cindy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: I spoke earlier to Cynthia McFadden from New York. She, of course, the co-host of ABC’s “Nightline,” who reported the Ensign story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: Cynthia McFadden, welcome.

MCFADDEN: It’s a pleasure to be with you.

KURTZ: John Ensign admitted having this affair with a former aide back in June. I know there’s still ethical questions, but why dredge all this up now?

MCFADDEN: You know, I think the key question is -- we know he admitted the affair, but the question is was there more than an affair? Was there, in fact, some kind of ethical or even legal violations associated with this affair? And so we decided it was time to dig a little deeper and have the opportunity to do that.

KURTZ: But this is, at heart, a sex scandal, a story that’s good for ratings, right? MCFADDEN: Boy, I think it is at heart a question of whether there was an abuse of power. It is at heart a question of whether or not a sitting United States senator knowingly violated ethics laws, knowingly violated tax laws. That’s what it’s a question of, I think, Howie.

KURTZ: OK.

MCFADDEN: Now, is there a sex case to go around it? Yes, there is. But I don’t really think that’s the selling point.

I think the real question here is it’s a political story, and I hope that after you’ve seen it on Monday night, you’ll agree with me there’s a very intriguing political tale here.

KURTZ: Now, this story that you’ve reported is basically a single source story. When Doug Hampton, who you interview extensively, he’s angry. He’s angry that John Ensign slept with his wife. He’s angry that John Ensign fired him and his wife.

Should you, as a journalist, be very wary of what he says, because, clearly, he is out to get John Ensign ?

MCFADDEN: Absolutely, we should be wary. And there are a lot of supporting documents around what Doug Hampton has to say, and the documents have been very important to our reporting of the story.

You know, I have to show that Doug Hampton certainly has an axe to grind here. He was John Ensign ’s chief of staff. John Ensign had an affair with his wife. John Ensign fired both of them. Yes, he has a big axe grind, so as a journalist you have to be super conservative and very careful about following the trail.

KURTZ: Right. Yes, and Hampton acknowledges that. He says he thinks Senator Ensign should resign.

Now, there was a letter that came out a few months ago that Senator Ensign actually wrote to Cindy Hampton, Doug Hampton’s wife, former campaign treasurer for Ensign’s campaign, in which he said, “I have done wrong. I have sinned. I have betrayed what I believed in.”

And yet, after he wrote that letter, Doug Hampton is telling you that he believes that the affair actually continued.

Is that something that he believes or is that something that can be proven?

MCFADDEN: He says that, in fact, John Ensign called his wife and that he had the telephone records to prove it. Called his wife, subsequent to mailing that letter, and said, “Disregard the letter. I’m in love with you.”

And Doug Hampton says that that very weekend -- which, parenthetically, was Valentine’s weekend -- he confronted John Ensign and said, “What’s going on?” and Ensign said to him, “I’m in love with your wife. I’m not going to apologize for it. And we’re going to see where this goes.”

KURTZ: And of course it’s all the more poignant because the two families were friends for years in the Las Vegas area.

MCFADDEN: Well, they weren’t just friends, Howie. They were super friends.

This is a friendship of two families for 20 years. You’ll see on Monday night lots of photographs to document the families we’re close. They called one another brother, Ensign and Hampton.

In fact, Ensign recruited Hampton to come work in Washington despite the fact that Doug Hampton had no political experience. Really because of their common faith, both devout Christians -- and John Ensign -- Hampton says John Ensign said to him, “I need a brother in Christ to walk with me in the corridors of power,” encouraged, by the way, by the C Street fellowship.

KURTZ: This is of course the house that Ensign lived in and that Senator Tom Coburn also lived in.

But let me move on back to your reporting of the story.

We know that Ensign’s parents mysteriously, suddenly, abruptly gave the Hampton family $96,000. They said it wasn’t hush money, it was just a goodwill gesture. And then Doug Hampton’s lawyer asked Senator Ensign for $8 million after Doug and Cindy had lost their jobs.

MCFADDEN: Actually, $8.5 million...

KURTZ: Excuse me. Didn’t mean to understate.

MCFADDEN: Even more. There you go.

KURTZ: Did you ask him whether this was some sort of blackmail?

MCFADDEN: Indeed, I did. He said that it wasn’t. He said that it was simply a question of his lawyer attempting to talk to Senator Ensign’s lawyer about severance, about some sort of compensation, some sort of recompense to the fact that both Cindy and Doug Hampton had lost their jobs at this point since both of them had been employed by Ensign.

KURTZ: Right.

MCFADDEN: The $8.5 million figure was rejected, and Doug Hampton claims that Senator Coburn from Oklahoma got involved and attempted to negotiate a $2 million settlement, and that that was rejected by Senator Ensign as well. But Doug Hampton says he wasn’t threatening anything, that he was asking for good faith.

KURTZ: All right.

After both of the couple lost their jobs, Doug Hampton says that Senator Ensign set him up, basically, as a lobbyist. You asked him about that.

Let’s roll the clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCFADDEN: So, there is not doubt in your mind that John Ensign understood that ethics laws were being broken as well?

HAMPTON: There’s no doubt in my mind.

MCFADDEN: This is a serious allegation you’re making against a sitting United States senator.

HAMPTON: Why would a client hire Doug Hampton if he didn’t think that he was going to have access to John Ensign ’s office? It’s the only reason why I would hire him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: There is a federal law that bars former Congressional staffers from lobbying anybody in the chamber, let alone their ex- boss, for one year. So, in asking him about whether or not he thinks John Ensign broke the law with this lobbying business, isn’t Doug Hampton also a potential lawbreaker here? Did you press him on that?

MCFADDEN: Yes, and as you’ll see in the broadcast, one of the reasons that Doug Hampton’s credibility starts to go up is because Doug Hampton implicates himself in having broken ethics laws while he’s trying to implicate John Ensign .

He says, look, clearly, I was doing what I just sent a document saying that I wasn’t supposed to do, which was to lobby the Senate for which I had just left. Not only the Senate, the very Senate office that I just left as AA for.

So, Doug Hampton, in saying that, certainly implicates himself, but he says it’s important to him that the truth come out. He claims that John Ensign set him up with clients and then told him to call his AA. And that then, in fact, he was lobbying the senator that he just stepped down as a chief of staff for, a clear violation of ethics law, if in fact that’s what happened.

KURTZ: I’ve got about half a minute.

Do you have any concern, given how angry, perhaps understandably, Doug Hampton is, that he is using “Nightline” to pursue a personal grievance?

MCFADDEN: You know, journalists are always concerned about being used. I think that our responsibility as journalists is to make sure that we can substantiate the facts with the -- as to the extent that we can. We have certainly contacted everyone for comment, and you will see what people had to say in regards to Doug Hampton’s allegations on Monday night.

KURTZ: Cynthia McFadden, thanks very much for joining us. MCFADDEN: My pleasure.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: Senator Ensign recently told CNN he’s confident an investigation will show he complied strictly with all of the laws and rules and ethics of the Senate. You can see that “Nightline” interview tomorrow night, 11:35 Eastern.

Up next, from George Stephanopoulos to Diane Sawyer, to Lou Dobbs, trying to make sense of the media’s revolving door.

KURTZ: As a media reporter, you get to grapple with all kinds of thorny issues from bias to plagiarism, to plain old sensationalism. But you’d be surprised at how much of the job involves keeping track of who’s in, who’s out, who’s up, who’s down, who is coddling whom, and who is stiffing whom?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LOU DOBBS, HOST, “LOU DOBBS TONIGHT”: Immigration policy...

KURTZ (voice-over): When Lou Dobbs resigned from CNN, he said he doesn’t know what he’s doing next and hasn’t talked to other networks. But he did show up on “The Factor,” and apparently he’s welcome there.

O’REILLY: I would like you to come back on, like, a semi-regular basis. Would you be willing to do that?

DOBBS: It would be my honor.

O’REILLY: OK.

KURTZ: Bill O’Reilly asked whether Dobbs abruptly quit because CNN was unhappy with his stance against illegal immigration.

O’REILLY: Then your ratings leveled, as well as all the ratings for CNN, and began to go down. Correct me if I’m wrong.

DOBBS: No. No, you’re absolutely right.

O’REILLY: OK. So then they didn’t like your anti-immigration stuff so much. Did they?

DOBBS: You know, I discern more of a difference between then, which was under the Bush administration, whom I was criticizing, and now, when it is the Obama administration. And an entirely different tone was taken.

KURTZ: Very interesting. But wait. In the rest of the sentence he exonerated the CNN brass.

DOBBS: Not so much in the case of CNN management, certainly, because there’s no -- my contract was very explicit. I had absolute editorial control.

KURTZ: The Obama White House, as you know, has been blowing off Fox News as part of an attack that viewers first heard on this program.

ANITA DUNN, FMR. WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Certainly, the way we view it is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party.

KURTZ: But while the administration has been boycotting hosts such as Chris Wallace, the president did grant an interview this week to Fox correspondent Major Garrett, who Anita Dunn told me is fair, along with other network reporters on the Asia trip.

George Stephanopoulos, who worked for Bill Clinton, has been getting good reviews lately as ABC’s man in Washington and the host of “This Week.” Now the network is strongly considering moving him to “Good Morning America,” where he’ll have to deal with this sort of thing...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And also tomorrow, we have a day in the life of Martha Stewart. So, Martha Stewart, Shakira, a lot to look forward to.

KURTZ: Stephanopoulos has told management he kind of doesn’t want the job unless the morning show is revamped with more hard news and less fluffy stuff. “GMA” news anchor Chris Cuomo, the son of former New York governor Mario Cuomo, very much does want the job of succeeding Diane Sawyer, who is moving to the evening news to replace Charlie Gibson. Follow the musical chairs.

Those chairs are almost impossible to follow at “The Washington Times,” which is owned by followers of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. And Reverend John Solomon has resigned after the owners ousted three top executives.

Editorial page editor Rich Miniter wanted to keep his job, but was fired, though the paper didn’t tell anyone. And now Miniter has filed a discrimination complaint against The Times, saying he was coerced into attending a mass wedding presided over by Sun Myung Moon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: “The Washington Times” denies any discrimination and says it will be vindicated in the case.

Now, I know, it all gets a little confusing. Will Lou go to Fox? Will George jump to “GMA”? Will Diane trump Katie? Or will Brian benefit as the only male network anchor? Will Jay go back to 11:30 and bump Conan?

It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to keep score.

Still to come, Twitter talk. Your feedback on whether the media are unfairly skewering Sarah Palin .

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: Time now for some Twitter talk, where you get to sound off. I asked my followers, “Has the coverage of this week’s book blitz been fair or unfair to Sarah Palin ? And does she warrant this media attention?”

Here’s what some of you had to say.

Philip Sorensen, “SP does not warrant the attention. Even a sitting VP doesn’t get nearly the attention an unsuccessful VP candidate is getting.”

Maybe Tweet: “She does not warrant this much media attention. I sense reporters covering her feel that same way, so are harsh on her.”

Laurano: “I think the media are indulging themselves while I know next to nothing of what’s been going on in the U.S. Big health care clinic in New Orleans, Iraq?”

MSSSTAG: “The media has made this woman of no substance relevant... even if it is unwarranted. Thanks a lot.”

ToeDog10: “Palin’s ‘Newsweek’ cover is unfair since it tries to demean her. And I’m a hardcore Democrat.”

And ThreeWickets says, “Fairness aside, it has been unfair. The media likes and needs the bumps to ratings and circulation like last year.”

And John King, as I turn things back over to you this Sunday morning, a lot of people out there not that happy with the tone and the sheer volume of the Sarah Palin coverage. But on the other hand, she’s a heck of a story.

KING: I think there are open questions about the volume of the coverage, the total -- totality of it, why it’s everywhere. But she is a fascinating story, Howie, whether you like her or not. She is as polarizing a political figure as Bill Clinton was, as George W. Bush became late in his term. And she is somebody right now who is out there trying to write the next chapter, literally, with this book.

And she is a fascinating figure. Those who say, oh, she has no future, I would remind you, the American people have been forgiving over time to actors like Ronald Reagan, to a guy like Bill Clinton, who nobody said could ever win, to a guy like George W. Bush , who nobody said could ever win. So, she’s trying to do something quite fascinating in her politics, and she’s worth attention.

Is it too much? That’s debatable.

KURTZ: She’s having a fine time skewering some of us in the media as the media giver her the platform.

KING: Yes, she is.

KURTZ: All right, John. Take it away.

KING: Howie, you take care.

I’m John King and this is STATE OF THE UNION.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): It’s 11:00 a.m. Eastern, time for STATE OF THE UNION’s “Sound of Sunday.”

Sixteen government officials, politicians and analysts have had their say. the Republican and Democratic senators in the health care debate, including the top Republican, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell .

We’ve watched the Sunday shows so you don’t have to and we’ll break it all down with James Carville and Mary Matalin, and the best political team on television.

STATE OF THE UNION “Sound of Sunday” for November 8th.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Democrats are spending Sunday celebrating their big vote to begin Senate debate on major health care legislation, but there are still big differences within the party. And more liberal senators argue that a few Democrats who don’t support creating a government-run insurance plan should not dominate this debate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. SHERROD BROWN (D), OHIO: ... to the other 56 of us and to the country, when the public option has this much support, that it’s not going to be in it, and I echo what Michael said, is that people want every option. If we’re going to have -- if we’re telling people you have to buy insurance, we shouldn’t tell them they’ve got to buy insurance from a private insurance company.

But in the end, I think that all four of our colleagues survey this -- look at this bill in the end and say, they -- I don’t think they want to be on the wrong side of history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: But they needed 60 votes Saturday night, and getting to the finish line will require 60 votes again. And one of the senators Democrats will need says he won’t vote aye if that final bill has the government option.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM “MEET THE PRESS”)

SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN (I), CONNECTICUT: We have a health care system that has real troubles, but we have an economic system that is in real crisis. And I don’t want to fix the problems in our health care system in a way that creates more of an economic crisis. If we create a government insurance company, it’s going run a deficit and it’s only the taxpayers who are going to pay for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The Senate Republican leader says his party will not offer a comprehensive alternative, but instead continue to make their case that Congress should deal with health care problems one issue at a time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCONNELL: The Democrats simply don’t want to do incremental changes. John, we feel that we ought to go step by step to fix our current health care system. We do not believe take -- the government taking over one-sixth of our economy, completely restructuring one- sixth of our economy is a good idea at any time. It is a particularly bad idea when we’re looking at double-digit unemployment. This bill is a job-killer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Also this Sunday, a former top federal health official lashes out at a government task force recommendation that women wait until they’re 50, not 40, to get mammograms to screen for breast cancer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM “FOX NEWS SUNDAY”)

DR. BERNADINE HEALY, FORMER NIH DIRECTOR: I’m saying very powerfully ignore them because unequivocally, and they agree with this, this will increase the number of women dying of breast cancer. Women in their 40s have a very aggressive kind of breast cancer. They tend to progress fast. And to not screen women in that age group is astounding to me, and it goes against the bulk of individuals who are actually caring for patients. You may save some money, Chris, but you’re not going save lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: As you can see, we’ve been watching all of the other Sunday shows so maybe you don’t have to. Joining me now where you can see them only together right here on STATE OF THE UNION, Democratic strategist and CNN political contributor James Carville, and Republican strategist and CNN political contributor Mary Matalin.

Welcome on this Sunday. Let’s start with a big vote, a rare Saturday night session. They get 60 votes, James Carville, but it is also clear that a number of Democrats who voted to start this debate won’t vote for this bill if it’s the same at the finish line. How significant of a moment?

CARVILLE: Well, look. It’s going to be tough all the way. The expression is, we keep moving the chain. We can move the chains like LSU did last night and run out of time with a second left to go in the game, but they do keep moving the chains. And they...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: That’s not stuck in your craw at all, right?

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

CARVILLE: Oh, God, I couldn’t sleep last night. Stuck in my craw is not the word.

I think Senator Reid has got it this far, and you know, they’re going to have to make some amendments on the floor, politics will be done, and there’s some sense that they can hold the 60 together with some amendments. We’ll wait and see.

I mean, and then, you know, they’ve got to reconcile all of this at the House. So we’ve still got a ways to go, but it’s still in the game, it’s pretty far downfield now.

KING: As someone who doesn’t want this bill, is getting over 60, now that the Democrats have brought it to the floor, they do have a majority, they -- I would assume they understand the burden on them, they started it, now people will hold them accountable if they don’t finish it, you assume something will pass?

MATALIN: Well, it would have been dog meat if they didn’t get that procedural vote. But as you said, particularly the three L’s that kicked them over, Lincoln, Landrieu, and Lieberman, made it clear the procedural vote to allow a debate was not the equivalent of supporting the substance of the bill.

I think Republicans should, and the country looks forward to having this debate. I’m glad there’s going to be a debate. The more people have heard about this from the outset, the less they like it. Much of this -- what has been put before the people now has taken place behind closed doors.

So to have this debate, we will quickly show what Lieberman was saying, which is people want, and Senator McConnell was saying, people want targeted, narrow, incremental reform, and they don’t want to take over one-sixth of the economy.

That is not the number one issue. And this has catapulted the debate into something we need to do in the country, what is the role of government? By our own polls people are now saying they do not think that the provision of health care is the role of government.

KING: Let me add a fourth now, you mentioned senators Lieberman, Lincoln, and Landrieu, all seeking leverage. There is a fourth now, I’m going show you the front page of The Times-Picayune, your hometown paper in New Orleans. “Landrieu yea vote moves health care bill.”

But she voted yea only after getting some concessions from the Senate leader, she got between $100 million maybe $300 million worth of funding for the state of Louisiana. After getting that promise from the majority leader she went to the floor and she said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARY LANDRIEU (D), LOUISIANA: After a thorough review of the bill, as I said, over the last two-and-a-half days, which included many lengthy discussions, I’ve decided that there are enough significant reforms and safeguards in this bill to move forward, but much more work needs to be done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: So she gets a big sweetener, they call it here in Washington. maybe $300 million for the state of Louisiana, but she still says it’s not enough.

CARVILLE: Well, first of all, let’s start with the bill itself. It has been reviewed by health care expert, including the director of Medicare under the Bush administration. They think this is the most significant cost-saving piece of legislation we’ve ever had in health care. So we’ll start with that.

What Senator Landrieu is accused of doing is having a health care amendment to a health care bill that was requested by her governor who is a Republican, and had been trying to get this done for eight months and who was effusively praised by the health secretary in Louisiana, Mr. Levine, who I think was Governor Bush in Florida’s health secretary.

This is not a -- this is not a piece of pork or something. This has to do with the Medicaid reimbursement formula from Hurricane Katrina, which, by the way, a federal judge, in a 176-page ruling, said was a result of negligence on the part of the federal government.

So this just had to do with a distortion of income figures. And this was a health care amendment to a health care bill that the Republican administration of Louisiana was desperate to get. Senator Landrieu was effective enough to get that. I think she should be praised and praised effusively for getting this thing done for her state.

MATALIN: He’s right. I mean, it should -- but it should not have been...

KING: OK. I’m going to be (inaudible) this tape a few times. He’s right?

(LAUGHTER)

MATALIN: Well, Bobby Jindal needs this, it’s an anomaly and it’s federal negligence in the first place what is -- it should not to have had to have been part of this legislation if the Obama administration could have figured out how to just do a waiver or something easy enough to fix a red tape problem. So that was not a sweetener. And she will be in a lot of political trouble if she votes for anything that remotely resembles what is going to go to debate now.

KING: You say, and I’ll trust the judgment of the two New Orleans residents, especially when they agree, that this is something that was necessary for the state. One of the questions is, though, what will it do to the climate here in Washington, because if I’m a senator on the fence now, and Harry Reid needs my vote, and she gets that from Louisiana, I’m thinking the market might be open.

Let’s listen to Sherrod Brown , saying that, you know, this is -- he agrees with you, James, that this is probably a good thing and a necessary thing, but he does worry about the impact.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: I want to see this bill pass. Nobody likes these kinds of -- any kinds of deals. I think anything that’s done needs to be in the best interest of those states in this country. I think those probably helped, if that, in fact really happened. I have no way of really knowing if it did. I suppose that helped a lot of people in Louisiana that don’t have insurance.

And so, I think we move forward. We do what we need to do within ethical bounds.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: This may not be fair, but if you travel the country, a lot of people say, you know, Barack Obama promised to change Washington. never mind the particulars, health care, the economy, climate change, promised to change Washington. When they see this debates like this, they say, more of the same.

CARVILLE: Well, you know, I can understand that. You know, this is a pretty -- and we’re going see a lot more as they go down to try to hold these 60 votes together. But the amount of -- on just Senator Landrieu’s thing, the amount of disinformation that I heard on talk radio -- in fact, saw on the front page of The Washington Post today.

The Washington Post had -- I assume he still works for him, Michael Grunwald, who knows as much about the Corps of Engineers as anybody and what happened in New Orleans. They could have checked with them before they put out this kind of thing, like this is some kind of a backroom bargaining deal.

This is nothing more, as I’ve said, is a health care amendment to a health care bill that the Republican governor wanted.

CARVILLE: But, sure, the interest groups, they’re all over this. But in the end -- I just want to make this point -- experts have looked at this, and they all conclude -- their four recommendations of the Medicare commission, this bill contains all four. This is a very, very good piece of legislation that could save this country enormous amounts of money.

MATALIN: No, it isn’t. It’s going to raise taxes. It’s going to raise the cost of care to people. It’s going to diminish quality. All of this is documentable. And it’s going to accelerate our debt crisis.

What Senator Brown should have been concerned about, if he’s concerned about deal-making, was the stimulus, AKA “porkulous,” or the budget, or any number of non-defense and nondiscretionary spending that have -- has kicked this deficit up, has tripled the deficit in under a year. That’s the problem.

Why this rings true -- Mary is completely innocent and is not a sweetener in this case -- but why it rings true is every other piece of major legislation this administration has done has been full of the things he pledged to do away with.

KING: Well, James makes a point of the costs. Let’s bring two other voices into the conversation. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison , Republican of Texas, is out this morning, and she says, go ahead, Democrats, keep moving this bill, because, she says, it’s a disaster and it would help Republicans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUTCHISON: I think this bill is a disaster for our country. President Obama said that it would be under $900 billion. It is not. President Obama said it would not add to the deficit. It will. President Obama said that no one would lose the health care that they have, and they will. This is a terrible bill.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: And that’s a Republican voice there. Let’s continue the conversation, but first, let’s listen to a conservative Democrat. To your point, you say this bill will control costs. Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska says he’s not so sure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) NELSON: It doesn’t do enough to control the costs, that’s for sure. And we do need to address that cost containment. I’m very concerned about that, but I certainly couldn’t say it does nothing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: So we’re going to watch the Senate make the sausage?

CARVILLE: Yes, and it cannot be avoided. And 60 votes is there. It’s reality. People -- the Democrats come up and they say, “Well, you ought to think for this (ph).”

Senator Reid -- and he’s done a pretty good job so far -- full disclosure, I’ll be hosting a fundraiser for Senator Reid in New Orleans in a couple of weeks...

MATALIN: (inaudible)

CARVILLE: ... has done -- has done a really good job on this. And -- and, again, I go back to the fact that experts, as they -- as -- as this bill gets more and more light, we’re going to find out that there’s much more in here than meets the eye, and this really has a chance to really affect long-term health care spending, which is exactly what we need.

And, actually, I thought Senator Nelson’s comment for him were pretty moderate, and he said, yes, I can’t say there’s not things in here that don’t control costs, because there are.

MATALIN: There -- it is a major, massive cost-shifting. It’s not a cost-controller. What it purports to be able to save over the course of 10 years is less than the deficit that they rang -- rang up every month now. It’s $130 billion over 10 years. That’s if every cost containment is enforced, cutting provisions to Medicare providers, which it has never been, and we have a history.

We’re not -- I’m not making this up, not (inaudible) there’s no history of any of these enforcement mechanisms being put in place. The unions -- your unions that are your base -- are completely against the biggest tax increase on Cadillac plans. So none of the cost- cutting things can be enforced, and they’re cost-shifting after that. They tax everybody, from pacemakers to wheelchairs.

KING: We’re going to take a quick break. When we come back, I’m going to walk over to the magic wall. We’re going to have some talk about the economy and also where a certain Mary Matalin factors into the Sarah Palin book. Don’t go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’re back with James Carville and Mary Matalin. We’ve been talking health care, but Americans views on health care and just about everything else are shaped by their position on the economy. I want to show you a map here.

Here’s the United States. I want to take you to the unemployment rate. If you notice, the elevation, the higher the state, the higher the unemployment rate. That is the rate right now. This is what happened last month. If the state is red, the rate went up last month. If the state is green, it came down a little bit in the last month.

So Michigan still has the highest in the country, but it came down a bit last month. Nevada is still very high, came down a bit last month. But look at all of the red; 29 states, the unemployment rate went up last month.

So we asked the American people in our CNN polling, what do you think of economic conditions today? Eighty-two percent say the economy is in bad shape. And then you asked, of course, the follow-up question. Politically, who’s to blame for this? Right now, 38 percent blame the Republicans, 27 percent the Democrats. In May, it was 53 percent Republicans, 21 percent Democrats.

So, James Carville, if you’re looking at that 10 months or so into the Obama administration, you see a trend in the polling. You’re in charge now, so you’re going to get more of the blame.

CARVILLE: You started off -- my first question is, who are the 18 percent that don’t think it’s bad? I’m like -- I’m always curious about these people.

MATALIN: (inaudible)

CARVILLE: Look, as -- as you would expect, as you get further into an administration, the -- the blame-shifting or whatever you want to call it will continue. And I -- I think the president needs to explain to people that -- who are in a -- in a tight fix, be very, very -- talk to them often, explain to them what’s going on, what -- what -- what we need to try to do to get out of this to assure people that there is some kind of plan...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: But let’s listen to him. Let me -- I’m sorry to interrupt, but let’s listen to him. He sat down with our Ed Henry on the Asia trip, and this is how the president talked about the bad economy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: My job as president is to help navigate through this tough year. And, you know, people who don’t have a job right now, people who have lost their home, you know, I’d be mad, too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The -- the difference in style. The president says, “I’d be mad, too,” but you famously helped the guy who could feel our pain. Does the president need to be less cool, less detached when it comes to something like this and be more like President Clinton, get out and reach and touch people? CARVILLE: I think -- I think that’s valid. And also, I think the president is not just saying, “I see why people are mad.” He said, “These are some things that we’re doing. They may take some time.”

I remember my grandmother telling me about President Roosevelt during the Depression, and he’d have the fireside chats. He’d bring people in and say, “We’re trying these different things.” I would like to see the president do a little bit more of that and -- and -- and tell people exactly what’s going on and -- and -- and what he’s trying to do to deal with this. And I think -- I think people want to hear that kind of thing.

KING: How hard is it? You worked for George H.W. Bush. And at the end of his administration, fairly or not, you would say unfairly, people thought he was detached from their economic concerns. That’s what Bill Clinton, then the governor, tapped into.

KING: How hard is it for a president of the United States to get that -- make the people see and feel that they...

MATALIN: Just for the record, Ross Perot lost that race in ‘92, but we don’t go there.

I don’t think the -- I think the president’s presentations have been plentiful and OK. He sounds better than the rest of his people that come out there and blame the voters, or they’re always attacking somebody.

It’s not his style. It is the substance. People understand it. That’s why this health care debate is going to go to the heart of this issue, which is we’re adding on to the deficit.

We have the same level of deficit we had in World War II. There have been 10 recessions since then, no -- no deficit the equivalent of this one. People understand that. They don’t want to add more debt. They do not want to accelerate our debt crisis by adding new programs, new policies, new entitlements.

This health care bill has two new entitlements. We haven’t reformed the existing ones that are unsustainable. So that -- it’s substance. It’s not style. His style is fine.

KING: Go ahead.

CARVILLE: No, I just -- one of the -- again, one of the difficult things of being president -- we certainly had difficulty in doing this even as the economy was improving, is talking about it in a way that you give people where (inaudible) some things are happening, and, you know, good things.

There are some things that have happened out that are, sort of, positive. I mean, the stock market is up. There are indicators that are positive. But, right now, people don’t want to hear that. And that’s always a -- a difficult thing for any president to do. I’m just saying a president should talk to us more, take us more into his confidence, and give us a greater sense of what he’s doing because some of it does make a lot of sense.

KING: If you go through the 400-plus pages of a best-selling book in the country, right now, “Going Rogue” by Sarah Palin , you will see a lot of shots and criticisms at Republican strategists, at her own handlers during the McCain-Palin campaign.

But she has very nice things to say about one Republican strategist, and she happens to be sitting right here at the table.

Here’s what Sarah Palin says about Mary Matalin. “One of the only commentators who called it right was Mary Matalin, who noted that my strategy would disarm my opponents and free me up to travel and raise money and awareness for worthy causes.”

MATALIN: You know, the problem with the masters of the conventional wisdom universe is that they’re trying to apply conventional wisdom templates to an unconventional person.

She’s an unconventional candidate, if she is a candidate. She’s an unconventional person. We’ve seen nothing like this. So I thought her strategy at the time, even if it wasn’t applied to running in the future, was -- was very smart. And she is a phenomenon. She sold -- this doesn’t happen; I’m in publishing -- 300,000 copies on the first day. She was the best -- the highest-rated show that Oprah had since the whole Osmond family there was.

She’s this combination of charisma and principles. And the book -- I did not like what was said about particularly John (sic) Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace, but it was infinitesimal compared to the rest of the book, that had a lot of substance, a lot of principles and a lot of personality. It’s a good book. Those things -- those kind of fights happen inside campaigns.

KING: I want to get to what you didn’t like in the book in a minute, but to the -- to Sarah Palin . We just talked, a few minutes ago, about people out in the country -- again, fairly or unfairly, but perception is reality in politics -- don’t think Washington has changed much.

I know a lot of Democrats say, “Bring it on,” you know, “She can’t win.” But she is so different that, do you think, in the back of your mind, if you’re in one of those wave years, something like that might have power?

CARVILLE: It -- it could. I agree completely with Mary. She’s unconventional. She’s more than unconventional; she’s compelling. And -- and she connects with these people in an unbelievable way.

What I said about Sarah Palin on the day that she was nominated is still true. She’s uniquely and supremely unqualified to be president of the United States. That -- but a lot -- but she does have -- and she’s got real presence about her. I find myself wanting to watch her more than I do most -- most other politicians.

And Mary’s right. She’s not going to -- it doesn’t do her any good to go by the, sort of, normal playbook that people go through. And what she’s accomplishing out there is something real. Look, she might be the top -- she might be the number one person in the Republican Party, right now. And she’s out discussing conservatism on -- on Rush’s show and with Sean Hannity. I think she’s -- maybe she’ll have depth out there and bring some intellectual heft to the party.

KING: Number one, we’re going to have get breaking news (inaudible). There have been more “James is right,” “He’s right,” “Mary’s right,” in this segment than we’ve ever...

(LAUGHTER)

... than we’ve ever had -- than we’ve ever had.

(CROSSTALK)

MATALIN: It’s your fault.

KING: It’s my fault.

(LAUGHTER)

The cover of Newsweek, last week, said she was a problem for the GOP. And you wrote a column for CNN.com, and you said this. “Bottom line, the book is a good read, but its impact on personal and professional relationships is a sad one indeed and one I hope conservatives don’t let it divide us when we’re marching toward a promising midterm.”

KING: So you’re worried, what, internal fighting in the party, refighting old battles? What’s the worry?

MATALIN: Well, I -- just as a mom about it, I know what this is like inside a campaign or inside a White House. And you have these fights and they’re heat of the moment, and then all I know is Steve and Nicolle loved her, were the deciding votes for her being on the ticket. And something happened and (inaudible). And we do need to come together.

She’s good for the party. Newsweek is bad for journalism. That was despicable. They took an embargoed photo from a -- from Runner’s magazine without permission, and that -- I don’t usually charge sexism. That was degrading and sexist and despicable journalism.

She is not a problem for the party. She’s healthy for the party. We’re ascendant in 2010, and -- but we need people who can communicate the framework, the philosophy into which policy prescriptions can be put. And she does that better than almost anybody.

CARVILLE: I don’t want to end this on an agreement. I completely disagree.

(LAUGHTER)

You pose for a picture and people are going to use it. If you don’t want to -- don’t pose for the picture. If it was some kind of thing where they have Obama and they get him from, you know, long lens on a beach, that’s one thing. She posed for this picture. And so I -- I wouldn’t complain about it.

So we can’t agree on everything. I think, you pose for a picture, it’s just in the public domain.

MATALIN: OK, you can agree on this. She looked good on it.

CARVILLE: She does.

MATALIN: All right.

CARVILLE: Ain’t no doubt about that. You and her are the two best-looking women in the Republican Party.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: You were -- you were -- you were just trapped by your brilliant wife into ending on agreement.

(LAUGHTER)

Mary Matalin, James Carville, thanks for being here.

Up next, we’ll be joined by more members of the best political team on television. We’ll break down the “Sound of Sunday,” talk health care, talk the economy and much, much more. Don’t go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: For our conversation, joining me here in Washington, CNN’s senior White House correspondent Ed Henry, senior political analyst Gloria Borger and senior congressional correspondent Dana Bash.

KING: Morning after a big Saturday night...

(LAUGHTER)

... vote on health care, a rare Saturday night session. Somebody was working very, very late. I was watching.

BASH: Ed there was, too.

KING: Ed was here.

(LAUGHTER)

BORGER: I was watching.

KING: Yes. Two members of the best political team were on TV late last night. I was actually in the office. We don’t -- they don’t need to know that.

Let’s talk about where we go from here, and there are a number of tough calculations. And for the first time on a Sunday morning, the new senator from Colorado, Senator Bennet, came in this morning. And he knows, like Senator Lincoln of -- of Arkansas and like several other senators up next year, at the end of this, they might have to cast a vote that could cost them their job.

I put the question to Senator Bennet. He said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING: If you get to the final point and you are the -- you are a critical vote for health care reform and every piece of evidence tells you, if you support that bill, you will lose your job, would you cast the vote and lose your job?

BENNET: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Yes. Now, we’re going to talk a lot about the substance of the bill, Dana, but as they debate this on the Hill, how much does that question weigh on all those senators, the Democrats on the ballot in what they know will be a Republican year next year?

BASH: Oh, it -- it weighs hugely. You saw Senator Lincoln, who has probably the toughest reelection battle and was the last person to formally announce that she was going to vote. She gave one of the most political speeches on the Senate floor. Really, it was intended to hit back at Republicans and all their arguments against her, and then, in the last breath, was, this is not political; this is not about my reelection.

But, you know, take that for what it’s worth.

But there’s no question that this has been incredibly hard for her, for others. You went to Arkansas. You saw firsthand how hard it is. And that is why, when it comes it Senator Lincoln; when it comes to others from conservative states, they are going to push very hard and demand that this bill will be changed in a way that some liberals might not like, and that’s going to be a tough compromise.

KING: Hang on just one sec because you brought Senator Lincoln into the conversation, so let’s bring her directly into the conversation, Senator Lincoln on the floor yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BLANCHE LINCOLN, D-ARK.: I will vote to support -- will vote in support of cloture on the notion to proceed to this bill, but, Madam President, let me be perfectly clear. I am opposed to a new government-administered health care plan as a part of comprehensive health insurance reform and I will not vote in favor of the proposal that has been introduced by Leader Reid as it is written.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: So, Gloria, Leader Reid wins. He gets across the starting line.

BORGER: You bet.

KING: But, boy, he’s got a lot of work to do to get to the finish line.

BORGER: Yes, it’s kind of like a game of whack-a-mole, you know.

(LAUGHTER)

The minute -- you know, the minute you get somebody on this measure...

KING: You guys have a great whack-a-mole on this table.

(LAUGHTER)

BORGER: ... somebody pops up and says, I can’t do that on abortion; somebody says, this is the only way I’m going to vote with you, if it has this. Somebody gets $300 million, Senator Landrieu for Medicaid in her state. Somebody says, OK, you got her down. Somebody says, what about this in my state?

So it is a very, very complicated process, and also something, really, that we don’t see very often, which is one party is all out and one party is all in, politically, on different sides of history, making very, very different calculations. We just don’t see that very often. Even Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts, he had Democrats voting with him on those.

KING: When you sat down with the president in Asia, that’s -- he called it “whack-a-mole,” right?

(LAUGHTER)

HENRY: He didn’t use that phrase...

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

HENRY: You know, let me explain the Oprah factor here, how she applies. This is taking a little risk. I don’t know if I can explain it...

KING: The Oprah factor -- good luck.

(LAUGHTER)

HENRY: ... which is basically that she was the big story this week, and she’s not going leave for two years, OK?

And yet this health care bill, even if the Democrats win, is not going to kick in, really, until 2014. So, long after Oprah has given up her show, they still will not be getting the political benefit.

So if you’re Blanche Lincoln and you’re taking the vote, the taxes are kicking in sooner. The tough medicine is kicking in, but the benefits are years down the road. That makes that vote even harder.

BASH: And that’s why you heard Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, another one of the last holdouts, talk about that specifically on the Senate floor.

And I actually talked to her after she made her speech yesterday in the halls, and she said that one of her big concerns is about the fact that, look, we’re going to make these changes, and there’s such a lag that I’m afraid that insurance companies are going to say, oh, look at all this time I have; I’m going to jack up premiums, and people are going to end up paying much more now than they...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: And it works both ways. It works at both ends. Because you mentioned -- you know, conservatives say this is big government; this is higher taxes. And whether they’re exactly right or not, the conservatives are ginned up. We know that. There’s great intensity out there.

The question is, on the other side, will progressives stay home if Senator Lincoln votes no on a public option, or unions are mad about the way the Senate health care plan is financed because it would put a tax on those Cadillac insurance plans if they’re worth more than $8,500.

Now, the members of Congress who support this say this isn’t right; it won’t hit union members. But Jim Hoffa, the president of the Teamsters says this is a back-door tax on the middle class.

I asked Sherrod Brown -- he’s from a Teamster state, of Ohio -- Is Jim Hoffa from the Teamsters right? Does this punish the middle class?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Will you fight that proposal?

BROWN: I’d prefer that -- that we look more at the version that the House did, on a surtax on people making $500,000 a year or more.

Even with the House proposal, I know we’re talking -- we can talk about either bill, but even with the House proposal, it’s still -- the tax rate is still significantly less for upper-income people than it was before the Bush tax cuts for the rich that were unpaid for and caused this huge budget, in part, with the war and the Medicare privatization that caused these huge tax -- these huge budget deficits.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: To continue the whack-a-mole metaphor, though...

(LAUGHTER)

... if you -- if you do what Sherrod Brown wants and go more to the House, you lose votes in the Senate. And if you do what the Senate’s going to do, you lose votes in the House.

BORGER: Yes, it’s completely difficult to see how you get to the end game here. But for the Democrats and for this president, they need to prove they can govern. They need to prove they can govern. They need to prove that they can govern together. They need to prove that their majorities are actually worth something.

And, yes, there’s going to be the law of unintended consequences. We all know that, when you pass large pieces of legislation, which is why we haven’t done it lately, right?

BASH: There’s one thing that -- probably only one thing that is going to be able to solve all of those differences, from the public option to how you tax people, and that is the guy that Ed Henry covers, the president of the United States, period, end of story.

I mean, he’s gotten more involved now, but he’s going to be the deal -- the deal breaker or maker with his fellow Democrats on all of these issues or else it’s not going to happen

HENRY: I asked him this week. I said, you know, there’s some Democrats who say, why aren’t you more like LBJ? why aren’t you enforcing these deadlines? Why aren’t you being more specific?

And he said, well, one reason is that LBJ didn’t have the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office.

And some people read that comment, thought that was a little bit...

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

HENRY: ... you know, that getting into the budget stuff was a little bit of a side issue. But, you know, what top people at the White House say is, look, back in May, when the Congressional Budget Office first started scoring all these bills and came up with high numbers, a lot of people in the media, a lot of Republicans were saying, “This is dead.” August, town hall meetings, sound and fury; “This is dead.”

And yet, while there’s a lot of risk that we’re talking about, here we are, late into November, and this president is getting these votes. They’re going through. It’s gotten through the House. And as you remember from covering Bill Clinton, he never got these votes. He never got this far. SO it is an achievement so far.

KING: All right, a quick time out. We’re going to take a quick break. When we come back, more “Sound of Sunday.”

END

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’re back with CNN’s Ed Henry, Gloria Borger, and Dana Bash.

Let’s take a look at the Republican argument on health care. They lost the vote last night, with 58 Democrats, two independents voted aye, so the debate will continue. Republicans see a great chance to shape the political environment, not just the health care debate, but the political environment heading into next year.

Listen to Tom Coburn , Republican of Oklahoma, essentially saying, watch the Democrats, follow the Democrats, what you get is big government.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM “THIS WEEK WITH GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS”)

COBURN: This bill creates 70 new government agencies with thousands of new bureaucrats, with 1,500 -- and I’m talking about the Senate bill, with 1,597 different instances where the secretary is mandated to write rules and regulations. If you think that isn’t going to affect patients and their doctors, I have a whole lot of swampland in Oklahoma I would like to sell you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We should note that the guy offering to sell the swampland is a doctor. Senator Coburn is a doctor. This is going to be the Republican mantra, big government, big spending, government puts bureaucrats between you and your doctor. It worked in ‘93 and ‘94. Do we think it will work this time?

BASH: You know, that’s why almost every Republican senator brought out the printed out copy of the 2,000-plus-page bill to show it as a prop to illustrate this is how big it is. Look, so far with the -- like we were talking about before, the conservative Democrats from tough states, it is -- that is the argument that is hardest for them to overcome.

What you hear Democrats talk about is they try to overcome that argument by saying there already is somebody between you and your doctor and that’s the insurance company. And really the battle is between whether or not people hate insurance companies or the government more. That really is the battle -- the messaging battle, Republican versus Democrat right now. BORGER: But, you know, the Republicans are talking about big government. If they had wanted a smaller, more circumscribed bill, pre-existing conditions, all of the kinds of things the Democrats and Republicans agree on, that is something that could have been introduced to the president of the United States earlier on in this process and you might have been able -- I know, I don’t want to be Pollyanna here, but you might have been able to get some kind of legislation from both parties and leave the complicated stuff and the more controversial stuff for later.

But that didn’t happen here either because a political calculation was made that opposing big government is better than jumping in with the president of the United States.

HENRY: Well, and the president’s position has been, if you just do all of the easy stuff, the low-hanging fruit, and you save the much harder stuff, you are never really going to get to that because the easy stuff is easy, obviously. Now the Republicans have been making the big government argument from the very beginning of the debate, suggesting they really don’t want to work with this president.

And maybe the argument is not working because the president is still standing, as we were saying a moment ago. And I think though that the big test for the president ahead is, does he want to reach out to the Republicans?

He has maybe one last chance. Here in the Senate debate, as Mitch McConnell was saying earlier, much different than the House where they just kind of rammed it through. In the Senate, as Dana, there is going to be amendment after amendment.

And the president, you know, months ago, said, we want to have malpractice reform, something Republicans really want and Democrats don’t want because the trial lawyers don’t like it. But an amendment on that is likely, many of them on the floor...

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: What’s he going get for it? What’s he going to get? One vote, two votes.

HENRY: And maybe one or two votes, but at least show that he’s willing to move the bill to the middle.

BASH: Look, real quickly, the bottom line is politically for Republicans, the reason why Mitch McConnell wouldn’t answer the question about Republicans having a plan, is because they have a very strict calculation politically that they don’t want to have a plan because they want the focus to be entirely on Democrats.

That’s why in the House, even though Republicans got a plan, they didn’t do a press conference, they didn’t do a big rally, they did it as quietly as they possibly could because they wanted to focus on Democrats.

KING: All right. We’re going to take a quick time out, when we come back, we will have our “Lightning Round” with Ed Henry, Gloria Borger, and Dana Bash. We’re going to shift subjects. We’re going to talk about the terror trials and the criticism of the Obama administration’s decision to bring 9/11 conspirators to New York City. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’re back for our “Lightning Round” with Ed Henry, Gloria Borger, and Dana Bash. We’re going to shift the subject and talk terror politics.

The attorney general, Eric Holder, went to Capitol Hill this week to explain and defend the controversial decision to take Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other alleged 9/11 co-conspirators from Guantanamo Bay, bring them to New York City to stand trial in the federal courts.

It’s a risky decision from a legal standpoint. It’s controversial politically. Senator Lindsey Graham , Republican of South Carolina, had a question for the attorney general.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAHAM: Can you give me a case in United States history where an enemy combatant caught on a battlefield was tried in civilian court?

ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I don’t know. I would have to look at that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: He is the attorney general of the United States, I don’t like to speculate, but I’m willing to bet he actually knew the answer.

HENRY: Yes. I think he did and I think he didn’t necessarily want it on camera because it is controversial, and I think what he said after that as well in that hearing about basically saying, look, don’t worry, even if someone like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is acquitted, we’re going to keep him in prison indefinitely as a combatant.

Where have we heard that before? The Bush administration. And that was what the Obama campaign and Democrats were saying was wrong, that we had to follow the Constitution, and that the Bush administration was -- you know, was on the wrong side of history.

But they are now saying, even if we don’t get a guilty verdict, we’re going to keep him in prison. That’s not really change.

KING: So we’re going to put them on trial in open federal court with all of these better rules of evidence for the defendant to prove we’re the United States of America, and we’re open and we’re transparent, unless we lose.

BORGER: Right. I mean, it’s very complicated. you know, I mean, a lot of of -- you know, I mean, a lot of -- you know, it’s -- I look back on it kind of it as like the Ford pardon of Richard Nixon, which I remember at the time we all scratched our heads and thought, you know, that’s a crazy thing. Why did he do that?

BORGER: And then in hindsight, to me at least, it looks like it was the right thing to do.

So, you know, he might -- what looks like the wrong decisions being made for the right reasons, you know, rule of law, et cetera, et cetera, we’re better than everyone else -- they turn out in the long term, in the sweep of history to look like the right thing. But very, very difficult politically right now.

BASH: The other question that Lindsey Graham asked that he didn’t get an answer to is what do you do when you catch Osama bin Laden? Do you read him his Miranda rights? And he couldn’t answer the question, because it is so complicated, based on the current way they do things and the way that they want to do things in the future.

And Lindsey Graham obviously is somebody who is a JAG lawyer, and he is very attuned to this subject. He also is, when it comes to Republicans, probably one of the Obama administration’s behind-closed- doors best allies on this. So if he can’t get answers from Eric Holder in open session, who can?

HENRY: And that follows the president’s top lawyer, Greg Craig, just a few days earlier essentially being pushed out because of in large part of this Guantanamo issue. They are going to miss the deadline to close it down by the end of January 2010, which the president promised in his first week in office. It’s shown more than anything how much harder it is to govern than it is to campaign.

BORGER: Welcome to Washington.

KING: Welcome to Washington. All right, a quick time-out here. You say welcome to Washington. When we come back, welcome back to Little Rock. Our weekly diner conversation in Doe’s Eat Place in Little Rock, Arkansas, one of my all-time favorites. We’ll talk health care, economy and the native son who became president, Bill Clinton. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: In our travels this week, we visited Arkansas, which was in part for me a trip down memory lane. I spent a lot of time there in the early 1990s when Governor Bill Clinton was gearing up to run for president, and was back more than a few times during the Clinton presidency.

This week was the fifth anniversary of the opening of the Clinton presidential center, and the former president, well, he stopped by to say hello.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I wanted people to come through this library and leave, and I don’t care if they were Democrats or Republicans, I didn’t care if they were Americans or people from other countries, I wanted them to believe that decisions have consequences in real people’s lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The message from the former president there. Arkansas is a great state for politics. It’s the home state of President Clinton and the Republican presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, both former governors of Arkansas. The Clinton presidential library, of course, is right there in Little Rock. 7.6 percent unemployment in Arkansas. That’s below the national average.

One of Little Rock’s landmark food establishments back when Bill Clinton was governor was Doe’s Eat Place. It’s still thriving, still a great place to grab a bite and to talk politics.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING: So should health care wait if it’s a big-ticket item that is going to cost so much money?

CHARLIE GROPPETTI, SMALL BUSINESS OWNER: How can you afford something when you’re already in debt? To me, I just feel like we’re slipping back and it’s become more evident to me that it’s the same old Washington.

KING: Same old Washington?

GROPPETTI: I really believe that. I think...

KING: Doesn’t look any different to you?

GROPPETTI: I think the packaging was pretty glossy during the campaign, but we’ve had the package open for a while, and it’s just the same old stuff inside.

KING: If you voted for Obama, raise your hand?

ALICIA TAYLOR, WORKS AT KROGER: I didn’t vote.

KING: You didn’t vote, OK. If you voted for McCain?

GROPPETTI: I voted for McCain because I was an unhappy Hillary Clinton supporter.

PAUL BERRY, LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS RESIDENT: Former President Bill Clinton would tell you domestically his worst mistake was not accepting incremental addressing of our health care system.

GROPPETTI: We’re afraid to do things sensible. It has to be so radical. We need do things sensible and practical.

KING: Let’s project this forward, then. They’re having this big debate in Washington right now. The Democrats are trying to vote on it and they are trying do it this year. You have a Democratic senator who’s in a very tough spot.

BERRY: Yes.

KING: Blanche Lincoln is getting a lot of pressure from her leadership to vote for the bill. If she votes for a bill that costs somewhere around $1 trillion and that raises taxes, they will say on more wealthy Americans, $250,000 or above -- create this -- does this dramatic change, not the incremental exchange. Will you vote for her?

BERRY: I don’t think she’ll vote for that kind of health care bill. I will vote for her because I’m from a little state. She’s chairman of the Senate Agricultural Committee, which is extremely important in a lot of other ways. And I’ll declare my bias immediately. I’m for her all the way.

KING: How about you?

TAYLOR: I think she’s been pretty awesome for...

KING: You like her?

TAYLOR: Oh, yes, I do like her. I like a lot what she’s done, so I would definitely vote for her.

KING: What do you worry most about?

TAYLOR: The taxes raising up. Just the government taking over. And just the way the economy is right now. I don’t know if it would be good.

GROPPETTI: If she compromises and sticks to a party line that doesn’t make sense to us individually, and it could backfire on her.

KING: If you look around this room, there are pictures of the former governor who became the president, who’s now the former president, and this week is the fifth anniversary of the opening of the library, the Clinton center.

Let’s just play a little word association. I say Bill Clinton, you say?

GROPPETTI: I am going to think Doe’s, because I’m here, and this was the political center where a lot of deals were made, and talk and discussions.

TAYLOR: I liked Bill Clinton.

KING: As governor, as president?

TAYLOR: President. I think he did some really good things for Arkansas. I liked him. BERRY: He’s our friend, OK? We all knew him and we’ve all (inaudible) and we’ve all hugged him.

KING: There is a big debate in this state about whether it was Hillary Clinton or Hillary Rodham Clinton . She went on, of course, to be first lady, then she was a senator from New York, now she’s the secretary of state. Is she going to be a presidential candidate someday? Do we know what her future is?

TAYLOR: I think she will be.

BERRY: She already has been.

GROPPETTI: Chelsea will be.

TAYLOR: Chelsea.

(CROSSTALK)

GROPPETTI: Chelsea will be. But down the road.

KING: Sarah Palin .

TAYLOR: Don’t quite know about her. We’ll still learning a little bit more about her.

KING: Are you interested to learn more about her?

TAYLOR: A little bit. She’s kind of a fascinating background that she did quite well for herself. We’ll just see and see in the future what’s going to happen with Sarah Palin .

BERRY: Her book is -- going rogue is what all the media are covering, and I don’t consider her a literary figure.

GROPPETTI: I think we were very intrigued for her first speech, which I thought was out of ballpark. I want to hear more from her because I’m intrigued, but I want her to take responsibility for her own actions, not talking about handlers. You just have to stand up. You can’t be -- you can’t blame your handlers.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Good eats at Doe’s, but if you go, I recommend you carve out a little extra time for the gym.

We would like to welcome back our international viewers.

KING: I’m John King and this is STATE OF THE UNION.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): The magic number, 60.

DODD: The motion is agreed to.

KING: Senate Democrats clear a critical health care hurdle, but will differences within the party unravel the sweeping measure?

We’ll go inside the deliberations with three leading Democratic senators: Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Michael Bennet of Colorado, and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.

And then in an exclusive interview, we’ll hear the Republican reaction and strategy from Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell .

And our “American Dispatch” from Arkansas, two small business owners showcase the policy divide that makes health care politics so dicey for vulnerable Democrats.

She was a top CEO and a leading adviser to Senator John McCain ’s presidential campaign, now she has her sights set on a Senate seat while fighting a very personal battle. Carly Fiorina gets the “Last Word.” This is the STATE OF THE UNION report for Sunday, November 22nd.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: We begin this Sunday morning with the Senate’s dramatic step to open debate on major health care legislation. It was a rare Saturday night session. And in the end, a big win for the Democratic majority, but just barely. Leader Harry Reid needed 60 votes and he got just that. All 58 Democrats and both independents voted aye on the motion to proceed. Every Republican voted nay.

Their leader will join us in just a moment for an exclusive conversation about the Republican strategy going forward, but first, the many challenges still ahead for the Democrats. Let’s talk those over with Democratic senators Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and, in his first Sunday show interview, Michael Bennet of Colorado.

Congratulations are in order on this morning for the Democrats, but you got across the starting line. Let’s talk about what it will take to get to the finish line. And the big divide in the party still is over the public option. Three supporters of the public option at the table here. But you saw Senator Lincoln of Arkansas says, I vote to go forward in this debate, I don’t like the public option. Senator Landrieu, I don’t like the public option, at least in its existing form. Senator Lieberman has said he will not vote for a bill that includes a public option.

Senator Shaheen, to you first. Will you have to get that up to get 60 in the end? You had 60 in the beginning, but to have 60 in the end, will you have to go to a trigger or some other form and give up what you would like?

SHAHEEN: You know, I support a public option. I think it’s important for us to get competition in the health insurance industry so we can lower costs for people. But there are a number of ways to do that. We’re at the beginning of this debate, and I think we’ve got to see how it plays out.

KING: Senator Bennet, you want to go home -- you’re on the ballot next year -- you want to go home and say, we did this. It’s -- not only is it important, not only did we debate it, but we passed it. Will you have to give that up to get 60 at the end?

BENNET: I don’t know. My sense of it, John, is that people understand that there’s a requirement in this bill that they have insurance. What they’re saying to me is, even though they didn’t say this early in the summer, what they’re saying now is, I want all of the options. I want a public option, I want a private option, I want nonprofit. I want to be able to make the choice that’s in the best interest of my family. I think other people are going to be hearing that too.

So I think last night was a big step forward, because it allows us to debate not just this issue, but a range of issues around health care that the American people, you know, deserve to have. As Jeanne said, after 50 years of delay, delay, delay, we finally now have the opportunity to debate these issues on the floor of the Senate.

KING: Let me try asking you it as a yes or no. If in the end, you cannot get Senator Lieberman, Senator Lincoln, Senator Landrieu, and you can’t pass a bill without at least going to a trigger, would you make that compromise?

BROWN: I’m not going to answer yes or no, because I don’t think we get to that.

I think what happens, John, is there are two weeks, three weeks, whatever, of debate. Senator Lieberman, everybody has a chance to offer amendments. I’m going to offer amendments on some pharmaceutical issues, because I think the bill could be strengthened there. I know that my colleagues are going to do the same on some other -- that and some other issues. So they will have their chance to do this.

And I think, in the end, I don’t want four Democratic senators dictating to the other 56 of us and to the country, when the public option has this much support, that it’s not going to be in it.

And I echo what Michael said, is that people want every option. If we’re going to -- if we’re telling people you have to buy insurance, we shouldn’t tell them they’ve got to buy insurance from a private insurance company.

But in the end, I think that all four of our colleagues survey this -- look at this bill in the end and say, I don’t think they want to be on the wrong side of history.

KING: Let’s talk about how we pay for this. The Senate bill would cost about $850 billion over 10 years. Here’s how it is currently paid for in the proposal before you. A 40 percent tax on so-called Cadillac insurance plans, those that cost over $8,500, $436 billion in Medicare savings or cuts depending on how you look at it, and we can talk about that. Increase in the Medicare payroll tax for those making over $250,000 a year, and a 5 percent tax on elective cosmetic procedures, already lovingly called “the botax” here in Washington, D.C.

As you know, a number of these proposals are quite controversial, and your friends in the labor movement particularly don’t like the Cadillac insurance plan tax. Here’s what Jim Hoffa, the president of the Teamsters, says. “This provision is really a massive tax increase on the middle class by calling it a tax on insurers. But it is naive to think that insurers won’t pass this tax directly on to workers. The idea that this tax will curtail rising premiums is just dead wrong.” Is Jim Hoffa right?

BROWN: Generally, he is.

KING: Will you fight that proposal?

BROWN: I would prefer that we look more at the version that the House did on a surtax on people making $500,000 a year or more. Even with the House proposal, and I know we’re talking -- when you talk about either bill, but even with the House proposal, it’s still -- the tax rate is still significantly less for upper-income people than it was before the Bush tax cuts for the rich that were unpaid for and caused this huge budget -- in part, with the war and the Medicare privatization, that caused these huge budget deficits.

And I know that Mitch McConnell , when he speaks after this, is going to spend a lot of time talking about the budget deficit.

But it’s the Mitch McConnells of the world that voted for the war and didn’t fund it, voted for the tax cuts for the rich and didn’t fund it, and voted for the Medicare privatization and didn’t fund it. That’s why we’re in this situation and the economy we have.

So it’s just important as we listen to Mitch in the next segment that people kind of keep that as a...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: I will remind him of that point, but the Democrats are in charge now.

BROWN: I understand that. That’s why we’re...

KING: They have the White House and both branches of Congress.

BROWN: That’s exactly right. We’re in charge now. And Jeanne Shaheen and Michael Bennet and I, all of us, have made sure this bill pays for itself. We’re embarking on something very new and very important, this health care bill. And we’ve all committed that it be paid for, something that hasn’t happened in 10 years.

That is no longer business as usual. And that’s why -- that’s one of the reasons this bill is the right way to go.

SHAHEEN: And it’s not just that it’s paid for, it actually is going to reduce the deficit over the next 10 years by about $130 billion. That’s real progress.

KING: And to make that happen, if you read the Congressional Budget Office analysis, if you talk to interest groups around town, even those who support you, academics, they say you have, you know, the $400 and something billion in Medicare savings. And some people call it cuts, other people say this is waste, fraud, and abuse, let’s make a run at this.

But what we do know will happen is that next year and the year after, whether it’s the hospitals, the hospices, the senior groups, will come back saying, this is too hard on us, this is too hard on us, give us some of that money back.

Will you all commit today that if you pass this bill and it sets that target to save in Medicare, that you’ll say no when they come back? And you may have to cast the tough votes against your friends saying, no, we committed to doing this, it is the key to bending that curve, and you will make the tough votes?

SHAHEEN: But, listen, I think there’s a lot of misinformation about where the cuts from Medicare are going to come from. They’re basically from two places. One is we’re going to make private insurers who offer Medicare Advantage plans pay the same amount that everybody else is getting under Medicare. There are significant savings there.

And then the hospitals have said, we’re going to be able to charge less for Medicare, because we’re going to have a lot more patients, because a lot more people are going to be insured. And then there’s a third provision that I think is reflected in a number of ways in the bill that Michael and I have been working on, which is hospitalizations, and making sure that people on Medicare, when they’re let out of the hospital, are able to stay out because they’ve got better transitional care.

BENNET: I would say, John, I think it is critically important that we maintain the fiscal discipline that’s represented by this bill. We maintain it as the bill works its way through the floor and also in the years to come. Because one of the things that people are really cynical about here is whether Washington actually can pass a piece of legislation and pay for it.

You know, they’re worried about -- they don’t like the existing health insurance system, that’s clear, but they’re very worried about our capacity to make it even worse. And so for those of us that are proponents of reform, I think we carry a heavy and very appropriate burden to make sure that we really are paying for it, not just in the near-term, but in the out-years as well.

BROWN: And there are a number of components to this bill that aren’t even counted in terms of cost savings, the discharge procedure, the first 30 days out of the hospital that Michael and Jeanne -- or that several are working on in the Senate, where a dietitian or a nurse or some home health care person spends -- monitors and stays with those people in those 30 days, continues to talk with them, that’s not reimbursed now.

And there are ways of doing that. That will save a lot of money. The checklist that the physician at Johns Hopkins, Peter Pronovost, developed that saved hundreds of millions of dollars in Michigan. That’s not counted in the savings.

All the wellness and prevention parts of the bill that Senator Harkin wrote in our Health, Education, Labor, Pension Committee that Michael and I sit on, all of that will be additional cost savings that are not so-called scored, too much inside-the-Beltway...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Let’s take a quick break -- let me take a quick break, we’ll be back. Plenty more to talk about with our senators about what’s in the health care bill for you. Don’t go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’re back with Democratic senators Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and Michael Bennet of Colorado.

Let’s talk about another tough issue in the health care bill. And Senator Bennet, I was listening yesterday on the floor when you were talking about your views on this, and that is, how should abortion be dealt with national health care reform?

I want to show our viewers, here’s what the Senate bill before you right now does. It bars the use of federal funds for abortion coverage. The public man that would be created could provide abortion coverage, but money from the premiums must cover the procedure, not tax dollars.

The exchanges that would be created in each state must have one plan that includes abortion coverage and one that does not. And people who receive federal subsidies to buy insurance could choose a health plan that covers elective abortions. But, again, the private insurance would have to make sure that money comes from premiums, not federal tax dollars.

Here’s what the House bill does in contrast. It is much more restrictive on this issue. It bars the use of federal funds for abortion coverage. The public plan would not provide abortion coverage. And private plans in the health care exchanges could not provide abortion coverage. People who receive federal subsidies to buy insurance could not choose a health plan that covers elective abortions.

I heard you on the floor yesterday saying the House goes too far. Again, in the end, would that be a make or break for you? We’re going to have to cut a deal at some point if you get this bill through the Senate. And some people say, oh, if there’s no public option, that’s not good enough, I’ll walk away. What about on abortion?

BENNET: I don’t think there’s any reason to change what the long-standing policy has been from the federal government about...

KING: But what if the reason is, you don’t get a bill unless you do?

BENNET: I think -- I don’t know, John. I don’t think we will get that bill and I think that it would be very unfortunate if we did. We shouldn’t be using health care reform to rewrite long-standing policy from the federal government on abortion. It’s just not right. It’s not the place we should be doing it.

I think the Senate bill strikes a very good balance. It’s the balance that we’ve had for many years around this issue. And I think there are also very important things in the health care legislation that deal with long-standing issues around discrimination against women in a way health care is provided and insurance is delivered.

And I think that’s where we should end up. I don’t see a reason to be where the House is on this issue.

KING: Well, let me talk to you about the process a little bit. If you look at the front page of The Washington Post today, “Sweeteners for the South.” To get Senator Landrieu’s vote, just to proceed, just to go across the starting line, language was inserted in the bill that gives her state up to $300 million. To get Senator Nelson’s vote, the leader agreed to drop a request that you take away the antitrust exemptions for insurance companies.

This got us to day one of the debate. Is this the way to do things? The central promise of the Obama campaign was to change the way Washington works. That’s Washington as usual, is it not?

BROWN: It is and it isn’t. I mean, I -- this bill is extraordinarily complicated.

This legislation is -- you know, as Jeanne said at the outset of the show, 50 years, you could maybe even say 75 years -- Franklin Roosevelt attempted it, Harry Truman really attempted it in earnest...

KING: But is it important enough to buy votes?

BROWN: I don’t say it that way. I think there are a lot of things that we all go to the leader and talk about things in our state. And news reports sometimes aren’t accurate about what might have been done for somebody or what might not have been done for somebody.

I want to see this bill pass. Nobody likes these kinds of -- any kinds of deals. I think anything that’s done needs to be in the best -- in the best interest of those states and this country. I think those probably helped, if that, in fact, really happened -- I have no way of really knowing if it did. I suppose that helped a lot of people in Louisiana that don’t have insurance, and so I think we move forward.

We do what we need to do, within ethical bounds. We do what we need to do within practical bounds. Keeping this, as we’ve all said, keeping this bill, keeping the costs down and keeping this bill budget-neutral or better, as Jeanne points out.

KING: Does it make it harder to do that? Does it create a climate if you’re on the fence, legitimately on the fence, you think, all right, well, maybe I want to be a good Democrat and swallow my pride or swallow an issue or two and vote for this in the end, but I’m going to get something for it, and that’s going to cost money? SHAHEEN: Listen, in the end, this is going to be a compromise. It’s not going to be a perfect bill, but it’s going to be a very important starting point. And I think it’s important to point out that this bill is not just about how do we deliver health care in a way that is more cost-effective, because families can’t afford it anymore, business can’t afford it anymore, and the economy can’t afford it.

But it’s also about how do we do it in a way that improves people’s health and their lives. And, unfortunately, we’re spending more money right now on health care in this country than any other industrialized nation. And yet, we’re not healthier. And so we’ve got to change the way we do things. And that’s what this legislation is about.

BROWN: John, 400 Ohioans every day are losing their insurance. And you know, the Republicans, it was amazing last night, 39 Republicans, every Republican that voted, said, we shouldn’t even debate this. We shouldn’t even move forward. We shouldn’t even have a chance to go to the floor and offer amendments to improve it. 400 Ohioans every day. You know, dozens of Coloradans and New Hampshire -- people in New Hampshire -- I mean, we need to do this, and we aren’t hurrying it. We’ve taken the whole year, and not to mention 75 years, and this is done right, and we need to do what we need to do to get this bill enacted, and it’s just so important.

KING: We saw this week how hard it will be to bend that cost curve in the example of when the mammogram study came out and the pap smear study came out, and you had groups outside of the government but affiliated with the government saying, change the policy on mammograms. Make it 50, not 40 for the screening, the pap smear thing. Do you believe -- use this dustup as an example -- when it comes to evidence-based medicine, comparative research, that we need -- do you believe we need that to bend the cost curve, but what’s going to -- it’s going to be men for prostate next, or somebody’s vision test after that?

BENNET: I do, and I think that we’ve got to -- this bill does a very important thing, which is it gets some of those decisions out of the hands of Congress. You were just talking about how, doesn’t this look like it’s the same old thing? You know, the same old political, inside-Washington, D.C. special interest game? And it does look like that to a lot of people. This has been about moving the ball down the field, getting through to a place where finally we can now debate the bill comprehensively, end to end, and Americans can see whether or not this is something they want to support, which I think is great.

And I think it’s very important as part of that, that we get, for example, out of the hands of Congress, making these decisions on a one-off basis about how people are reimbursed, for example, for oxygen. I mean, you can imagine what lobby day looks like for oxygen in the United States Congress. People come in and say, you should use this much oxygen at that price. It has nothing to do with patients, it has nothing to do with the quality of care, or comparing a certain kind of treatment in one place to another. And I think that if we can establish an infrastructure to really do that in a thoughtful way over time, not only can we bend the cost curve, we can take the politics out of it, and the quality of care will improve as well.

KING: I want to move on to some other issues. Before I do, I want to try one yes-or-no question on you, a new senator who’s on the ballot next year in a tough state. If you get to the final point and you are a critical vote for health care reform, and every piece of evidence tells you, if you support that bill, you will lose your job, would you cast the vote and lose your job?

BENNET: Yes.

KING: All right. That tape will be held -- I hate to tell you that, but that tape will be held right now.

I want to move on. There’s a lot of criticism this week. We saw unemployment in 29 states went up. In two of your states, it went down a little bit. In one of your states, it went up a bit. In 29 states, the unemployment rate inched up again. And there’s been a lot of criticism of the president’s economic team, including from Peter DeFazio, who is a Democrat. And he said this, Congressman Peter DeFazio. “It’s pretty embarrassing for a Democratic administration and a Democratic Congress to be identified with total attention to Wall Street and nothing for Main Street and jobs. I still support the president, I just think he’s being poorly served by his economic team.”

Some Republicans went further and said Secretary Geithner should resign.

Is this administration and its economic team in touch, in sync with the people of Youngstown and Cincinnati and Cleveland at this moment, or more in touch with Wall Street?

BROWN: I think the president is. I think that the vice president is. I think the advisers are mixed. I spoke with secretary -- I was with Secretary Geithner at the Treasury Department this week at the small business summit, Senator Warner and I with a bunch of small-business people with Karen Mills, the administrator of SBA, and Secretary Geithner. And I took him aside and said, we need more focus on manufacturing, we need an industrial policy. Manufacturing creates middle-class jobs, and there’s not been the -- there’s not been a manufacturing policy in this country for forever, really. And the former presidents haven’t had it, and -- and President Obama’s moving in that direction. I mean, Ron Bloom and others in the administration really are beginning to focus on that. So I think they’ve turned a corner. I think, particularly next year, the focus is all about creating jobs, and I think we’ll begin to see changes.

BENNET: What’s staggering to me about this is it’s not just that we’re in the worst recession since the Great Depression, although we are. It’s also that in the last period of growth, working families income in the United States actually declined during the Bush recovery. So our working families are trying to recover not just from one recession, but two. This is not just a short-term issue about stimulus. It’s a long-term issue about where we’re headed with this economy. And I think we do need to turn more of our attention to that. I think we need to do much more to get small business access to loans again so they can start hiring again. We haven’t done a good enough job at that. We really do need to turn our focus in a very meaningful way to Main Street.

KING: And as he makes that point, he says we, he’s being polite. Does the president’s team need to do a better job?

SHAHEEN: Sure. I think we all need to do a better job. I voted against the TARP funding because I thought we weren’t holding the financial community accountable enough for how that money was being spent. So I think we’ve got to look now at what more we can do.

Both Sherrod and Michael made the point, we need to make sure business gets access to credit. We need to have a manufacturing policy. We need to do more to give business access to international markets so that they can export more.

So there’s a lot more we need to do. We need to invest in our infrastructure. And I think the president and his economic team recognize that. And we’ve all got to work together and work harder.

KING: Senator Shaheen, Senator Bennet and Senator Brown, thanks for coming on this Sunday morning. We appreciate it.

BROWN: Thanks, John.

SHAHEEN: Thank you.

KING: We’ll continue the conversation. We’ve got a long way to go, here, on both the health care and the economic front.

And up next, the Republican perspective on health care, Afghanistan, and more from the Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell . Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: With us now With us now exclusively, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Mr. Leader, thank you for joining us. You don’t like the way the vote went down last night. You were on the losing side.

Now that the Democrats have 60 votes to start debate -- a long way to go, a lot of issues to debate, but do you believe, like it or not, that that vote means that the Senate will pass and the Congress will send to the president a health care bill late this year or early next?

MCCONNELL: Yes, not necessarily. First of all, we’ll have an extensive debate. The Senate’s not like the House. They had three votes on one day and it was over.

Just to look at recent legislative activities on the Senate side, we spent four weeks last Congress on a farm bill, seven weeks creating the Department of Homeland Security a few years ago, eight weeks on an energy bill. The Senate doesn’t do things quickly.

So we’ll have multiple amendments, John, from both sides, a free- ranging, open debate. And as we begin the debate, the one thing we know for sure, that didn’t come up in the last segment -- I know why it didn’t; they don’t want to talk about it -- we know the American people don’t want us to do this.

The CNN poll is the same as all the other polls. The American people are opposed to this particular health care bill. They thought this was all going to be about controlling costs, but, in fact, we’ve ended up with a $2.5 trillion budget-busting proposal that CBO, the scorekeeper in Congress, tells us, after it’s all over, will not control costs.

KING: The scorekeeper does say, after 10 years, it brings down the deficit, if the Democrats cast all those tough votes.

MCCONNELL: Yes, but, you know, it was full of gimmicks. They delayed for five years the benefits. If you look at 10 years for the whole program fully implemented, it’s $2.5 trillion.

So this proposal picked the most favorable 10-year period in order to get the CBO to say, within this framework, it would actually bend the deficit some. But that -- it’s not the truth. I mean, everybody knows it’s not the truth.

KING: Is the Republican strategy just get in the way and block it? Or is the Republican strategy, try to improve it and then maybe vote yes on a final bill that you don’t like some of it, but it’s better than today?

MCCONNELL: Well, this bill is certainly not better. It drives the costs up for Americans; it cuts Medicare dramatically.

KING: Now, the Democrats say it saves Medicare, but it doesn’t cut a benefit.

MCCONNELL: Yes, let me tell you, five years ago we passed, when my side was in the majority, a rather modest reduction in the rate of increase of Medicare, at about $10 billion over five years. My counterpart, the majority leader, called it immoral. This is half a trillion dollars over 10 years, higher taxes on individuals and on businesses, higher insurance premiums for 85 percent of the American people who already have insurance.

That’s not reform. That’s not what the American people thought this was all about.

KING: Answer the skeptic out there who’s watching right now. You just made the point. You were the majority leader. The Republicans ran the Senate; they ran the House, as well, and you had a Republican president in the White House in George W. Bush .

Answer the skeptic out there who says, well, why should I listen to you now, Mitch McConnell ? Where was the McConnell bill to deal with pre-existing conditions? Where was the McConnell bill -- as Republicans say, let’s do this; let’s sell insurance across state lines -- where was the McConnell bill to help bend that cost curve in a helpful way? So how can you say no now, when you didn’t -- and say, let’s do this incrementally now, when you didn’t do it then?

MCCONNELL: Well, we didn’t have the votes to pass it. They were against doing something about junk lawsuits against doctors and hospitals which would save $54 billion. They were not in favor of the kind of wellness programs that we think would drive down the costs. They were not in favor of insurance competition across state lines. They were not in favor of equalizing the tax cod, so that individual purchasers of insurance are treated the same way corporate purchasers of insurance are.

KING: Again, the skeptic might say, why didn’t we have all these issues on the floor, though? Harry Reid may lose this. He may lose this.

MCCONNELL: We had myriad health care debates during the period that President Bush was in office and during the time when there was a Republican majority. The Democrats simply don’t want to do incremental changes.

John, we feel that we ought to go step by step to fix our current health care system. We do not believe, take -- the government taking over one-sixth of our economy, completely restructuring one-sixth of our economy is a good idea at any time. It is a particularly bad idea when we’re looking at double-digit unemployment.

This bill is a job-killer. If you were running a small business, John, and you wanted -- thinking about whether or not to expand employment next year, and you looked at what’s coming your way with this health care bill, you’re going to have health care taxes, you’re going to have expiration of the Bush tax cuts, so your tax rates are going to go up. The cost of hiring additional employees will be greatly exacerbated by the steps that they’re taking. This is the wrong direction to go.

KING: And you mentioned you would prefer incremental reform. I want to ask you a question in the context of what you know is coming from the Democrats over the next several weeks as this debate goes on. Leader Boehner was here a few weeks ago; he heard it in the House. Senator Durbin and the Democrats say, Well, we have a plan. Maybe it’s not perfect, but where’s the Republican plan?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DURBIN: I challenged Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans to produce a health care bill that will save us $127 billion in the deficit over the next 10 years, and there’s nothing posted on the Internet. I challenged Mitch McConnell to come up with a bill that makes sure that 94 percent of Americans have the peace of mind of health insurance coverage, but the Republicans put nothing on the Internet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Will you continue to say, “We want to do this incrementally,” or will, because of the politics of the moment, do you feel compelled to come up with a comprehensive Republican alternative?

MCCONNELL: Yes, what we don’t think is America wants another 2,000-page bill. It’s this high. We had it on the floor. We don’t think that’s the way to go. We think we ought to go step by step to improve the -- the system that you and I have just been talking about, some of the steps we would take that would have an impact on the cost of health care.

The American people are not complaining about the quality of American health care. They’re complaining about the cost of it. This proposal that the Democrats voted to proceed to last night will explode cost; it will make the situation worse.

MCCONNELL: We think you ought to go in a different direction.

So don’t hold your breath. We’re not planning on having a 2,000- page bill.

KING: Let me -- well, before I shift gears, let me ask you this. You’ve been at this a long time, both as the majority leader and as a minority leader. On a scale of 1 to 10, the likelihood the Senate will pass a health care legislation this year and that Congress will send the president a bill before the State of the Union Address next year?

MCCONNELL: Well, we don’t often ignore the wishes of the American people. They are literally screaming -- many of them -- telling us, please don’t pass this, don’t pass this bill. If the majority is hell-bent on ignoring the wishes of the American people, they have 60 votes in the Senate.

You would think that they might be able to do this, but I believe there are a number of Democratic senators who do care what the American people think and are not interested in this sort of arrogant approach that everybody -- sort of shut up and sit down, get out of the way, we know what’s best for you.

Now, we’re hearing from the American people, they don’t want us to pass it. So I would -- you know, it’s hard to handicap the ultimate outcome, whether the majority will ignore the American people or not, but they’ll be heard. The American people will be heard. They’ll either be heard sooner or they’ll be heard later.

KING: Let me shift to the economy. Unemployment went up in 29 states this week, down in 13. I’ve traveled to 45 states in the last 45 weeks. And as much as they care about the health care debate, they care, first and foremost, about jobs and the economy.

There has been a lot of criticism of the president’s economic team, including from a House Republican who said this week the secretary of the treasury should quit. Let’s listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN BRADY (R), TEXAS: Conservatives agree that, as point person, you failed. Liberals are growing in that consensus, as well. Poll after poll shows the public has lost confidence in this -- in this president’s ability to handle the economy. For the sake of our jobs, will you step down from your post? (END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now, Secretary Geithner, of course, says no. Are you among those who think that he’s the problem? Does he need to go? Or is that just a little political pinata?

MCCONNELL: You know, look, I’m not here to call for anybody’s resignation today. I think we ought to go in a different direction.

First of all, we ought not to pass this job-killing health care bill; that would be a good place to stop.

Second, we ought to repeal the balance of the stimulus package, which has been a failure. We added almost $1 trillion to the debt earlier this year, presumably to hold unemployment below 8 percent, which is what the administration said it would do. Now unemployment is over 10 percent.

In my state, John, it actually went up last month, unemployment getting worse. Rather than passing this job-killing health care bill, why don’t we concentrate on getting the economy in better shape?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Up next, a quick check of today’s top headlines, then, she was a top adviser to Senator John McCain ’s presidential campaign, now she wants to represent California in the United States Senate, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina gets the “Last Word” next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: I’m John King and this is STATE OF THE UNION. Here are stories breaking this Sunday. The death toll rises. Chinese media say 92 people have died in a coal mine explosion in the northeastern part the country. And a rescue effort is under way still for another 16 workers trapped underground.

It has been three days and students are still occupying an administration at the University of California Santa Cruz over fee increases. They expect the police will soon forcibly remove them.

Those are your top stories this hour here on STATE OF THE UNION. And up next, we will talk to the woman who wants to be senator from California. former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina gets the “Last Word,” next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Eighteen newsmakers, analysts and reporters were out on the Sunday morning talk shows but only one gets the last word. And that honor today goes to Carla Fiorina. She’s the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and now a Republican (inaudible) -- Republican candidate for Senate in California.

I’ll eventually speak English.

(LAUGHTER)

Welcome.

FIORINA: Thanks, John.

KING: I want to ask you -- you’re a Republican candidate for Senate, so let’s imagine you are the Republican senator from California. A big vote last night in the United States Senate. The question is, do we start debate on health care reform?

How would you have voted it?

FIORINA: I would have voted no. And I don’t think that’s a partisan comment. I think, if you just look at the facts of this bill, the facts, which are nonpartisan, are terrible. The CBO says this bill will not decrease insurance premiums; it will raise them. The CBO says that this will cost $2.5 trillion.

In essence, it’s a business case that front-end-loads the revenues and back-end-loads the costs. I used to see those as a businessperson; I’d throw them out because the numbers don’t add.

And as a breast cancer survivor, I have to tell you I’m extremely concerned by the example that the recent change in mammography guidelines indicates, rationed care, what that will mean for women in this country.

KING: I want to spend more time on that at the end of our conversation, but on the substance, the bigger substance of the health care bill right now, when you say CBO says it would raise premiums, I assume you mean the section where says -- talking about the public option, if that is created, CBO speculates that sicker people would get into the public option, and therefore you’d have a pool of sicker people, and premiums might go up. Is that the part you’re talking about? FIORINA: That is exactly right. And also, the CBO also says that we’re leveling tens of billions of dollars onto American businesses, and the CBO acknowledges that the costs of that tax burden will probably be paid by workers, either in wages or in jobs.

So all the facts about the money of this bill are terrible. We’re not solving the problem. We’re not bending the health cost curve down. We’re not helping the American people.

And, oh by the way, there’s this little thing called a $12.5 trillion, $12.4 trillion deficit at this point.

(LAUGHTER)

We can’t afford it. It doesn’t solve the problem.

KING: You list a number of policy reasons. There would be some that disagree with you, but you list all the policy reasons. What about the political calculation, because Carly Fiorina is running to be a United States senator from the state of California.

And the Los Angeles Times did a poll recently with USC, and they said, “Do you want a senator who will mostly support President Obama’s policies?” And nearly 6 in 10 Californians, 59 percent, said yes. The answer you just gave me was no. Do you worry about that?

FIORINA: Well, you know, it’s interesting. Because, if you listen to what President Obama said about this health care proposal, even he agreed with me. He said he wouldn’t sign into law a bill that increased the deficit. He said he wouldn’t sign into law a bill that increased the cost of health care. If this bill goes through, President Obama will have to eat his words or break his promise.

I agree with the goals of health care reform. What I strenuously disagree with is that this bill or the one that made its way through the House solves the problem in any way.

And I also think you’d find it interesting that, in California, the independent vote, which will be critical, as it has been in Virginia, New Jersey and other places -- independents are basically saying they don’t want Barbara Boxer back in the U.S. Capitol; they’ll take almost anybody instead of her.

KING: We’ll watch the health care debate, and we’ll come back to the mammogram issue in a minute.

But another question that Senator Boxer could end up voting on in the near future, and you would vote, if you were there instead of her, is how to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Carl Levin is the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. And he says it’s time to make this more transparent, to give the American people a more open assessment and accounting of how much this costs overseas. So what he says is, let’s have a war tax. Let’s listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. CARL LEVIN, D-MICH.: I think the finer way to pay for it -- I don’t know that it has to be a war tax, but I think we’ve got to find revenues, particularly in the upper brackets, folks earning more $200,000 or $250,000 -- they have done incredibly well. And I think that it’s important that we pay for it if we possibly can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Is that the way to do it, some new revenue stream dedicated solely to paying for the wars, or should it come out of general fund as it does now?

FIORINA: Well, first let me point out that a new tax has nothing to do with transparency. I’m all for transparency. I think every bill ought to go up on the Internet for public comment. I think every budget ought to go up on the Internet for public comment.

However, to say that we’re going to pay for the war with a tax on the rich ignores the fact that we know that doesn’t work.

California is a test case of how big government, big tax doesn’t work. California, right now, has huge government, and yet the quality, the services, the government produces is deteriorating; higher and higher taxes. And the consequence of that kind of regime is we are losing more and more jobs in California, losing more than we’re creating. And, in fact, the tax bases are eroding. It doesn’t work.

So, no, I think it’s a bad idea.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: And what about -- the question at the core of that is, the president’s likely to send more troops to Afghanistan. Should he send more? Should he send 20,000, 30,000, 40,000, or enough?

FIORINA: You know, I agreed with the president’s strategy when he laid it out for Afghanistan. And what he fundamentally said was, Afghanistan and Pakistan are inextricably linked. I agree.

What he fundamentally said was economic development and diplomacy were as important as military power, I agree. And what he said was, I’m put a new general in charge to lead our military efforts.

My own view is you either accept that general’s recommendations at this point or find someone else. But I think trying to change his mind about what he thinks he needs is a recipe for failure, not victory.

KING: Much of the country is captivated, and certainly the political parts of the country are captivated by the Sarah Palin book, right now.

She was, of course, the Republican vice presidential nominee. You were a senior economic adviser to the John McCain campaign. I want to read something she writes in that book about the economy. “It would later concern me that, when the tanking economy began pushing the war out of the headlines, Steve Schmidt” -- the campaign manager -- “was slow to turn the campaign ship into the wind. It seems clear that there was an assumption at the center of the McCain camp that the war would retain center stage come hell or high water.”

Is Governor Palin right? Was the campaign too focused on Iraq, too focused on military strategy and not concerned enough about dealing with the economy?

FIORINA: You know, I haven’t read her book, but I guess my own experience -- I signed on with John McCain early on in 2007. And all of my conversations with him were about the economy, for essentially two years, and all of my conversations with the campaign were about the economy.

KING: All politics is local. Let me ask you a California question. Those students -- we just talked about them. They’re staging a sit-in, right now, at the university of California-Santa Cruz.

(LAUGHTER)

They’ve had 32 percent tuition and fee hike. They think that’s an outrage, and they’re staging this sit-in.

Number one, are they right? Do they have every right to be outraged?

And, number two, would you, as a senator, support the governor or anybody in local authority sending the police in to forcibly remove them, or should they be heard?

FIORINA: Well, A, I think they should be heard. And, B, of course it’s an outrage. I mean, how do you say to their students and their parents, “Surprise, you’re going to have a 32 percent increase,” just as it was outrageous to say, “Surprise, we’re going to pay you back with IOUs.”

But, again, California is a test case of the fact that bigger and bigger government and higher and higher taxes just don’t work.

We are now facing, as a nation, an unsustainable deficit. There are only two things that can be done to bring that deficit under control so that we don’t leave our children and grandchildren with unsustainable levels of debt.

We have to grow the economy and we actually have to reduce federal government spending. And those two platforms are what I will run on. And those two issues, interestingly, are the number one issues for the people of California, regardless of party affiliation.

KING: I want to circle back to your personal experience and how it relates to the health care debate. You mentioned this advisory panel came out with these new recommendations, saying, no longer should women start getting mammograms at 40; move it up to 50, because their calculation was -- and they spelled it out pretty plainly. They said going at 40 does save some lives, but they also think it had caused unnecessary grief, unnecessary stress, some unnecessary testing.

FIORINA: Well, first, the panel was specifically asked to look at costs as well as care. Secondly, the panel did not include an oncologist or a radiologist; that is, people who know something about it.

Breast cancer is among the most common forms of cancer among women and among the most curable. In my own situation, I found my own lump two weeks after a clear a mammogram. Had I followed these new recommendations and not received another mammogram for two full years -- I’m over 50 -- I could well not be sitting here.

The truth is all of these preventive techniques, self-exams, mammograms, MRIs when necessary -- in my case I had to have several -- are saving lives.

Who is to say that a nameless, faceless bureaucrat government in Washington, D.C. should determine that my life is too expensive to save?

KING: Then who is to say, though, to your point -- because if the goal of health care reform is to control costs, somebody, something has to regulate -- “We’re doing too many of this test, too many of that test.”

Somehow, you have to control costs, do you not?

FIORINA: Well, you know what, first the decisions about care should rest between a patient and their doctor, the people who know the science. Secondly, if we would focus more on quality of care, we would lower costs. That has been proven over and over again.

In the places where people are focused on, for example, integrated patient care, costs are lower. Patient-centric care, costs are lower. If we’re really interested in lowering costs then let’s pass the kind of medical malpractice reform that we passed in California. It saved money. It lowered insurance premiums. It would save probably $54 billion here nationwide. I don’t see this debate really focused frankly on the real issues: quality, and let’s make sure that everyone is covered.

Sadly, we have a business case that doesn’t add up. Quality isn’t going to be improved. And costs are on the rise.

KING: Carly Fiorina, a Republican candidate for Senate of the state of California, we appreciate your coming in here today for the “Last Word.”

FIORINA: Good to be with you, John.

KING: We’ll come out to the West Coast and watch the campaign as it plays out.

And up next, Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln was the critical 60th vote to move the health care debate along. When we come back, we’ll take you to her home state of Arkansas and show you how that vote just might cost Senator Lincoln her job.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’ve been talking most of the hour about health care and the tough policy and political choices the congressional debate is forcing. Those feeling the most pressure are those who face the voters next year. Perhaps none more than the woman who cast the 60th vote, the decisive vote to go forward with the debate. She is Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. She served two terms in the House, now she is in the United States Senate. She is on the ballot next year.

In our “American Dispatch” this week, we traveled to Arkansas for an up-close look at how the state’s conservative politics factor into the health care debate and Senator Lincoln’s re-election hopes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KING (voice-over): Aisha’s Fish and Chicken is a family business, known for its friendly service.

STANLEY WALKER, OWNER, AISHA’S FISH AND CHICKEN: We’re going to hook them today, huh?

KING: Wings and catfish.

WALKER: A five-piece wings, extra sauce on it.

KING: And a spicy signature sauce.

WALKER: 131.

KING: Tough times in a bad economy, so owner Stanley Walker says health care is out of the question.

WALKER: It’s too expensive right now. We’re kind of having a little bit of trouble keeping our head above water.

We had it at one time, but it was so expensive that we finally dropped it. I get a lot of complaints from my wife about it that we don’t have health care.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Five-piece, no sauce.

KING: It is both a business decision and a personal risk. Stanley has diabetes and takes just half of his four-pill a day prescription because he can’t afford the $500 a month bill for the full dose.

WALKER: Because I work by myself a lot and I’m always moving all the time, I don’t want to get somewhere and go into a coma, you know, because my sugar dropped too low. It’s a situation where you actually take a gamble, but you can’t afford not to.

KING: Stanley hopes Congress makes it makes health care more affordable and thinks creating a new government-run public option is the best way to do that.

WALKER: If they don’t do that, then I don’t think I will vote for them.

KING: It’s an important statement because African-American votes in places like Pine Bluff will be critical in next year’s midterm elections. And Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln faces a tough re- election race.

PROF. ART ENGLISH, UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK: No question they see an opportunity here and an opportunity to win a Senate seat doesn’t come often for Republicans in Arkansas.

KING: Senator Lincoln opposes a public option, and while that angers liberals, political scientist Art English says Lincoln needs to worry about conservative Democrats and independents in a state President Obama lost by 20 points. ENGLISH: It’s tough. It’s like that show, “Malcolm in the Middle,” but this time it’s kind of, you know, Senator Blanche Lincoln in the middle, and it has been tough on her.

KING: Larry Levy owns this Little Rock brake shop, and has gone from paying 100 percent of employees’ health care to 60 percent.

LARRY LEVY, OWNER, STUART’S BRAKE SHOP: It kept going up and as my employees got older, the premiums, they began to get so high we just couldn’t realistically afford it.

KING: But Levy sees disaster in Democratic plans to create a public option or a mandate that everyone buy health insurance.

LEVY: We don’t know what it’s going to cost us. We have health issues, I agree. There needs to be reform. But let’s identify the problems that we have and let’s fix those problems. Let’s just don’t throw out everything and start all over.

KING (on camera): They say that if taxes go up, it will only be on people above 250 grand a year, but you don’t buy it?

LEVY: No, no, I don’t. I don’t buy it. We middle-class people will shoulder the burden. I have no question about that.

KING (voice-over): Levy describes himself as a conservative who did not vote for Mr. Obama, but does sometimes votes for conservative Democrats. He is not a fan of Senator Lincoln.

LEVY: She is playing games right now, I think, you know? She is just kind of swaying back and forth. I know she’s in a tough position, but if she’ll listen to her constituents we don’t want her to vote for this, I think.

KING (on camera): You think that she has -- she had better listen?

LEVY: I think she needs to listen if she wants to keep her job, yes.

KING (voice-over): But Levy says Lincoln has already lost his vote. He sees Washington as veering too far left and sees the midterm elections as a chance to vote Republican and put the brakes on the Obama agenda.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Our thanks to the people of Pine Bluff and to Little Rock for opening their homes and their businesses to us. Arkansas is a great state and has fascinating politics. We’ll keep an eye on that race.

But as you know, one of our goals is to get out of Washington as often as we can. We’ve made it our pledge here on STATE OF THE UNION to travel to all 50 states in our first year. So far, we’ve been to 45, including Arkansas, Alabama, and Vermont, and many in between. Check out cnn.com/stateoftheunion where you can take a peek whether we’ve learned when we’ve visited your state. We’ll be right here again next Sunday and every Sunday at 9:00 a.m. Eastern for the first and last word in Sunday talk. Until then I’m John King in Washington. Please take care.

For our international viewers, “AFRICAN VOICES” is next, and for everyone else, FAREED ZAKARIA: GPS” starts right now.

END

.ETX

Nov 22, 2009 15:04 ET .EOF

CNN’S “STATE OF THE UNION”

NOVEMBER 22, 2009

SPEAKERS: JOHN KING, HOST

SEN. SHERROD BROWN, D-OHIO

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET, D-COLO.

SEN. JEANNE SHAHEEN, D-N.H.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, R-KY. HOWARD KURTZ, CNN ANCHOR

MATT CONTINETTI, WEEKLY STANDARD

JOAN WALSH, SALON.COM

JULIE MASON, WASHINGTON EXAMINER

JERRY SPRINGER, TALK SHOW HOST

JUDY MILLER, FORMER ABC CORRESPONDENT

MARY MATALIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR

JAMES CARVILLE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR

CARLY FIORINA (R), CALIFORNIA SENATE CANDIDATE

[*] KING: I’m John King and this is “State of the Union.”

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING: The magic number, 60.

SEN. CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, D-CONN.: The motion is agreed to.

KING: Senate Democrats clear a critical health care hurdle, but will differences within the party unravel the sweeping measure? We’ll go inside the deliberations with three leading Democratic senators, Sherrod Brown of Ohio; Michael Bennet of Colorado; and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.

Then in an exclusive interview, we’ll hear the Republican reaction and strategy from Senate GOP leader, Mitch McConnell .

And our “American Dispatch” from Arkansas. Two small business owners showcase the policy divides that make health care politics so dicey for vulnerable Democrats.

This is the “State of the Union” report for Sunday, November 22nd.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: We begin this Sunday morning with the Senate’s dramatic step to open debate on major health care legislation. It was a rare Saturday night session, and in the end, a big win for the Democratic majority, but just barely. Leader Harry Reid needed 60 votes and he got just that. All 58 Democrats and both independents voted aye on the motion to proceed. Every Republican voted nay. Their leader will join us in just a moment for an exclusive conversation about the Republican strategy going forward, but first, the many challenges still ahead for the Democrats.

Let’s talk those over with Democratic Senators Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and, in his first Sunday show interview, Michael Bennet of Colorado.

Congratulations are in order on this morning for the Democrats, but you got across the starting line. Let’s talk about what it will take to get to the finish line. And the big divide in the party still is over the public option. Three supporters of the public option at the table here. But you saw Senator Lincoln of Arkansas says, I vote to go forward in this debate, I don’t like the public option. Senator Landrieu, I don’t like the public option, at least in its existing form. Senator Lieberman has said he will not vote for a bill that includes a public option.

Senator Shaheen, to you first. Will you have to get that up to get 60 in the end? You had 60 in the beginning, but to have 60 in the end, will you have to go to a trigger or some other form and give up what you would like?

SHAHEEN: You know, first of all, I think it’s important to again what a milestone it is for us, after 50 years of debating health care, that we are now finally on the floor of the Senate, going to be able to debate this issue is significant progress forward.

You know, I support a public option. I think it’s important for us to get competition in the health insurance industry so we can lower costs for people. But there are a number of ways to do that. We’re at the beginning of this debate, and I think we’ve got to see how it plays out.

KING: Senator Bennet, you want to go home -- you’re on the ballot next year -- you want to go home and say, we did this. It’s not only is it important, not only did we debate it, but we passed it. Will you have to give that up to get 60 at the end?

BENNET: I don’t know. My sense of it, John, is that people understand that there’s a requirement in this bill that they have insurance. What they’re saying to me is, even though they didn’t say this early in the summer, what they’re saying now is I want all the options. I want a public option, I want a private option, I want nonprofit. I want to be able to make the choice that’s in the best interest of my family. I think other people are going to be hearing that too.

So I think last night was a big step forward, because it allows us to debate not just this issue, but a range of issues around health care that the American people, you know, deserve to have. As Jeanne said, after 50 years of delay, delay, delay, we finally now have the opportunity to debate these issues on the floor of the Senate.

KING: Let me try asking you it as a yes or no. If in the end, you cannot get Senator Lieberman, Senator Lincoln, Senator Landrieu and you can’t pass a bill without at least going to a trigger, would you make that compromise?

BROWN: I’m not going to answer yes or no, because I don’t think we get to that.

I think what happens, John, is there are two weeks, three weeks, whatever, of debate. Senator Lieberman, everybody has a chance to offer amendments. I’m going to offer amendments on some pharmaceutical issues, because I think the bill could be strengthened there. I know that my colleagues are going to do the same on some other -- that and some other issues. So they will have their chance to do this.

And I think, in the end, I don’t want four Democratic senators dictating to the other 56 of us and to the country, when the public option has this much support, that it’s not going to be in it.

And I echo what Michael said, is that people want every option. If we’re going to -- if we’re telling people you have to buy insurance, we shouldn’t tell them they’ve got to buy insurance from a private insurance company.

But in the end, I think that all four of our colleagues surveyed this -- look at this bill in the end and say, I don’t think they want to be on the wrong side of history. I don’t think they want to go back and say, you know, on a procedural vote, I killed the most important bill in my political career. I don’t think they want to be there on that. So I think in the end, we get them.

KING: I was just in Arkansas this week, though, and if Senator Lincoln cast that vote, this is the most important issue, I’m going to cast the vote -- she may lose her job. Do you think that if that’s the calculation, she should do it?

BROWN: I certainly can’t -- I don’t know what Arkansas looks like. I mean, I’m not an expert on Arkansas politics. But overwhelmingly, the public option is popular. The people that don’t like the public option are people that oppose this bill anyway. I mean, it really gives people additional (ph) choice. It bends the cost curve down. It injects competition. In southwest Ohio and Cincinnati, two insurance companies have 85 percent of the market. That means low-quality, high-cost insurance. Provide another option, like the public option, and you get better prices and better quality.

KING: We’ve got some time to air this out. So let me give each of you, take a minute. You say you’re going to have an amendment. Tell me how you would like to make this better.

BROWN: I would start on the pharmaceutical issue, that we need drug reimportation. We neat direct negotiations with the drug companies for Medicare to bring prices down, the same way the VA does, the same way most countries do. We need a generic path for biologics, where it’s just too expensive for some of these new drugs like Herceptin and these biologic drugs which are an increasing percentage of our health care dollars are going into these biologics. They can be $20,000 to $50,000 to even $100,000 a year. There’s no competition, no generic competition. Those are some of the things I would start with.

KING: Senator Bennet?

BENNET: I think there are three things that are all related to cost, because no matter where you fall out on public option, not a public option, the thing that our working families need more than anything else is to end these double-digit cost increases that they’re having every single year with health insurance. So the first is to make sure we really have done all we can do to change the Medicare incentive structure so that we’re driving quality and we’re driving lower cost.

I think, second, we need to do a much better job of making transparent what things actually cost. No one knows in this country what it really costs to get a knee replacement. No one knows what it costs to get other medical procedures. And they can’t compare across a range in the geographic area. So I think that’s very important for consumers and for providers.

The last piece is administrative efficiency. You know, our insurance companies and doctors have to fill out -- the doctors in particular -- multiple forms. The coding is all screwed up in a lot of ways, and people -- and it just isn’t as easy as it should be. People are spending 30 percent of their overhead just trying to get paid by insurance companies. I think there’s more we can do to streamline that too.

SHAHEEN: I agree. I think we’ve really got to address cost as part of this bill, and how we deliver health care to people. I have -- I agree with Sherrod’s comments about the pharmaceutical industry, especially now as we see increased prices. There’s more we can do there. I have talked about a current drug labeling laws that need to be changed so that there’s more competition with generics.

And I also think we’ve got to do something about emergency room care. We’ve talked about how to improve emergency room care to reduce costs.

But that’s what we’ve got to do in this bill. I was talking to a businessman from New Hampshire over the weekend, and he’s got something called Highliner Foods (ph), it’s a fish processing plant. He said that he can’t afford the cost of his health insurance, and so he’s got three choices. Either he can go out of business, he can automate, or he can go overseas. None of those choices are good for New Hampshire, good for America, or good for workers.

KING: Let’s talk about how we pay for this. The Senate bill would cost about $850 billion over 10 years. Here’s how it’s currently paid for in the proposal before you. A 40 percent tax on so-called Cadillac insurance plans, those that cost over $8,500. $436 billion in Medicare savings or cuts depending on how you look at it, and we can talk about that. Increase in the Medicare payroll tax for those making over $250,000 a year, and a 5 percent tax on elective cosmetic procedures, already lovingly called the botax here in Washington, D.C.

As you know, a number of these proposals are quite controversial, and your friends in the labor movement particularly don’t like the Cadillac insurance plan tax. Here’s what Jim Hoffa, the president of the Teamsters, says. “This provision is really a massive tax increase on the middle class by calling it a tax on insurers. But it is naive to think that insurers won’t pass this tax directly on to workers. The idea that this tax will curtail rising premiums is just dead wrong.” Is Jim Hoffa right?

BROWN: Generally, he is.

KING: Will you (inaudible) that proposal?

BROWN: I would prefer that we look more at the version that the House did on a surtax on people making $500,000 a year or more. Even with the House proposal, I know we’re talking -- when you talk about either bill, but even with the House proposal, it’s still -- the tax rate is still significantly less for upper-income people than it was before the Bush tax cuts for the rich that were unpaid for and caused us huge budget, in part, with the war and the Medicare privatization, that caused these huge budget deficits.

BROWN: And I know that Mitch McConnell , when he speaks after this, is going to spend a lot of time talking about the budget deficit.

But it’s the Mitch McConnells of the world that voted for the war and didn’t fund it, voted for the tax cuts for the rich and didn’t fund it, and voted for the Medicare privatization and didn’t fund it. That’s why we’re in this situation and the economy we have.

So it’s just important as we listen to Mitch in the next segment that people kind of keep that as a...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: I will remind him of that point, but the Democrats are in charge now.

BROWN: I understand that. That’s why were...

KING: They have the White House and both branches of Congress.

BROWN: That’s exactly right. We’re in charge now. And Jeanne Shaheen and Michael Bennet and I, all of us, have made sure this bill pays for itself. We’re embarking on something very new and very important, this health care bill. And we’ve all committed that it be paid for, something that hasn’t happened in 10 years.

That is no longer business as usual. And that’s why -- that’s one of the reasons why this bill is the right way to go.

SHAHEEN: And it’s not just that it’s paid for, it actually is going to reduce the deficit over the next 10 years by about $130 billion. That’s real progress.

KING: And to make that happen, if you read the Congressional Budget Office analysis, if you talk to interest groups around town, even those who support you, academics, they say you have, you know, the $400 and something billion in Medicare savings. And some people call it cuts, other people say this is waste, fraud, and abuse, let’s make a run at this.

But what we do know will happen is that next year and the year after, whether it’s the hospitals, the hospices, the senior groups, will come back saying, this is too hard on us, this is too hard on us, give us some of that money back. Will you all commit today that if you pass this bill and it sets that target to save in Medicare, that you’ll say no when they come back. And you may have to cast the tough votes against your friends saying, no, we committed to doing this, it is the key to bending that curve, and you will make the tough votes?

SHAHEEN: But, listen, I think there’s a lot of misinformation about where the cuts from Medicare are going to come from. They’re basically from two places. One is we’re going to make private insurers who offer Medicare Advantage plans pay the same amount that everybody else is getting under Medicare. There are significant savings there.

And then the hospitals have said, we’re going to be able to charge less for Medicare, because we’re going to have a lot more patients, because a lot more people are going to be insured. And then there’s a third provision that I think is reflected in a number of ways in the bill that Michael and I have been working on, which is hospitalizations, and making sure that people on Medicare, when they’re let out of the hospital, are able to stay out because they’ve got better transitional care.

BENNET: I would say, John, I think it is critically important that we maintain the fiscal discipline that’s represented by this bill. We maintain it as the bill works its way through the floor and also in the years to come. Because one of the things that people are really cynical about here is whether Washington actually can pass a piece of legislation and pay for it.

You know, they’re worried about -- they don’t like the existing health insurance system, that’s clear, but they’re very worried about our capacity to make it even worse. And so for those of us that are proponents of reform, I think we carry a heavy and very appropriate burden to make sure that we really are paying for it, not just in the near-term, but in the out years as well.

BROWN: And there are a number of components to this bill that aren’t even counted in terms of cost savings, the discharge procedure, the first 30 days out of the hospital that Michael and Jeanne -- or that several are working on in the Senate, where a dietitian or a nurse or some home health care person spends -- monitors and stays with those people in those 30 days, continues to talk with them, that’s not reimbursed now.

And there are ways of doing that. That will save a lot of money. The checklist that the physician at Johns Hopkins, Peter Provost, developed that saved hundreds of millions of dollars in Michigan. That’s not counted in the savings.

All the wellness and prevention parts of the bill that Senator Harkin wrote in our Health, Education, Labor, Pension Committee that Michael and I sit on, all of that will be additional cost savings that are not so-called scored, too much inside-the-beltway...

(CROSSTALK) KING: Let’s take a quick break -- let me take a quick break, we’ll be back. Plenty more to talk about with our senators about what’s in the health care bill for you. Don’t go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’re back with Democratic senators Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and Michael Bennet of Colorado.

Let’s talk about another tough issue in the health care bill. And Senator Bennet, I was listening yesterday on the floor when you were talking about your views on this, and that is, how should abortion be dealt with national health care reform?

I want to show our viewers, here’s what the Senate bill before you right now does. It bars the use of federal funds for abortion coverage. The public man that would be created could provide abortion coverage, but money from the premiums must cover the procedure, not tax dollars.

The exchanges that would be created in each state must have one plan that includes abortion coverage and one that does not. And people who receive federal subsidies to buy insurance could choose a health plan that covers elective abortions. But, again, the private insurance would have to make sure that money comes from premiums, not federal tax dollars.

Here’s what the House bill does in contrast. It is much more restrictive on this issue. It bars the use of federal funds for abortion coverage. The public plan would not provide abortion coverage. And private plans in the health care exchanges could not provide abortion coverage. People who receive federal subsidies to buy insurance could not choose a health plan that covers elective abortions.

I heard you on the floor yesterday saying the House goes too far. Again, in the end, would that be a make or break for you? We’re going to have to cut a deal at some point if you get this bill through the Senate. And some people say, oh, if there’s no public option, that’s not good enough, I’ll walk away. What about on abortion?

BENNET: I don’t think there’s any reason to change what the long-standing policy has been from the federal government about...

KING: But what if the reason is, you don’t get a bill unless you do?

BENNET: I think -- I don’t know, John. I don’t think we will get that bill and I think that it would be very unfortunate if we did. We shouldn’t be using health care reform to rewrite long-standing policy from the federal government on abortion. It’s just not right. It’s not the place we should be doing it.

I think the Senate bill strikes a very good balance. It’s the balance that we’ve had for many years around this issue. And I think there are also very important things in the health care legislation that deal with long-standing issues around discrimination against women in a way health care is provided and insurance is delivered.

And I think that’s where we should end up. I don’t see a reason to be where the House is on this issue.

KING: Well, let me talk to you about the process a little bit. If you look at the front page of The Washington Post today, “Sweeteners for the South.” To get Senator Landrieu’s vote, just to proceed, just to go across the starting line, language was inserted in the bill that gives her state up to $300 million. To get Senator Nelson’s vote, the leader agreed to drop a request that you take away the antitrust exemptions for insurance companies.

This got us to day one of the debate. Is this the way to do things? The central promise of the Obama campaign was to change the way Washington works. That’s Washington as usual, is it not?

BROWN: It is and it isn’t. I mean, I -- this bill is extraordinarily complicated.

BROWN: This legislation is -- you know, as Jeanne said at the outset of the show, 50 years, you could maybe even say 75 years -- Franklin Roosevelt attempted it, Harry Truman really attempted it in earnest...

KING: But is it important enough to buy votes?

BROWN: I don’t say it that way. I think there are a lot of things that we all go to the leader and talk about things in our state. And news reports sometimes aren’t accurate about what might have been done for somebody or what might not have been done for somebody.

I want to see this bill pass. Nobody likes these kinds of -- any kinds of deals. I think anything that’s done needs to be in the best -- in the best interest of those states and this country. I think those probably helped, if that, in fact, really happened -- I have no way of really knowing if it did. I suppose that helped a lot of people in Louisiana that don’t have insurance, and so I think we move forward.

We do what we need to do, within ethical bounds. We do what we need to do within practical bounds. Keeping this, as we’ve all said, keeping this bill, keeping the costs down and keeping this bill budget-neutral or better, as Jeanne points out.

KING: Does it make it harder to do that? Does it create a climate if you’re on the fence, legitimately on the fence, you think, all right, well, maybe I want to be a good Democrat and swallow my pride or swallow an issue or two and vote for this in the end, but I’m going to get something for it, and that’s going to cost money?

SHAHEEN: Listen, in the end, this is going to be a compromise. It’s not going to be a perfect bill, but it’s going to be a very important starting point. And I think it’s important to point out that this bill is not just about how do we deliver health care in a way that is more cost-effective, because families can’t afford it anymore, business can’t afford it anymore, and the economy can’t afford it.

But it’s also about how do we do it in a way that improves people’s health and their lives. And, unfortunately, we’re spending more money right now on health care in this country than any other industrialized nation. And yet, we’re not healthier. And so we’ve got to change the way we do things. And that’s what this legislation is about. BROWN: John, 400 Ohioans every day are losing their insurance. And you know, the Republicans, it was amazing last night, 39 Republicans, every Republican that voted, said, we shouldn’t even debate this. We shouldn’t even move forward. We shouldn’t even have a chance to go to the floor and offer amendments to improve it. 400 Ohioans every day. You know, dozens of Coloradans and New Hampshire -- people in New Hampshire -- I mean, we need to do this, and we aren’t hurrying it. We’ve taken the whole year, and not to mention 75 years, and this is done right, and we need to do what we need to do to get this bill enacted, and it’s just so important.

KING: We saw this week how hard it will be to bend that cost curve in the example of when the mammogram study came out and the pap smear study came out, and you had groups outside of the government but affiliated with the government saying, change the policy on mammograms. Make it 50, not 40 for the screening, the pap smear thing. Do you believe -- use this dustup as an example -- when it comes to evidence-based medicine, comparative research, that we need -- do you believe we need that to bend the cost curve, but what’s going to -- it’s going to be men for prostate next, or somebody’s vision test after that?

BENNET: I do, and I think that we’ve got to -- this bill does a very important thing, which is it gets some of those decisions out of the hands of Congress. You were just talking about how, doesn’t this look like it’s the same old thing? You know, the same old political, inside-Washington, D.C. special interest game? And it does look like that to a lot of people. This has been about moving the ball down the field, getting through to a place where finally we can now debate the bill comprehensively, end to end, and Americans can see whether or not this is something they want to support, which I think is great.

And I think it’s very important as part of that, that we get, for example, out of the hands of Congress, making these decisions on a one-off basis about how people are reimbursed, for example, for oxygen. I mean, you can imagine what lobby day looks like for oxygen in the United States Congress. People come in and say, you should use this much oxygen at that price. It has nothing to do with patients, it has nothing to do with the quality of care, or comparing a certain kind of treatment in one place to another. And I think that if we can establish an infrastructure to really do that in a thoughtful way over time, not only can we bend the cost curve, we can take the politics out of it, and the quality of care will improve as well.

KING: I want to move on to some other issues. Before I do, I want to try one yes-or-no question on you, a new senator who’s on the ballot next year in a tough state. If you get to the final point and you are a critical vote for health care reform, and every piece of evidence tells you, if you support that bill, you will lose your job, would you cast the vote and lose your job?

BENNET: Yes.

KING: All right. That tape will be held -- I hate to tell you that, but that tape will be held right now. I want to move on. There’s a lot of criticism this week. We saw unemployment in 29 states went up. In two of your states, it went down a little bit. In one of your states, it went up a bit. In 29 states, the unemployment rate inched up again. And there’s been a lot of criticism of the president’s economic team, including from Peter DeFazio, who is a Democrat. And he said this, Congressman Peter DeFazio. “It’s pretty embarrassing for a Democratic administration and a Democratic Congress to be identified with total attention to Wall Street and nothing for Main Street and jobs. I still support the president, I just think he’s being poorly served by his economic team.”

Some Republicans went further and said Secretary Geithner should resign.

Is this administration and its economic team in touch, in sync with the people of Youngstown and Cincinnati and Cleveland at this moment, or more in touch with Wall Street?

BROWN: I think the president is. I think that the vice president is. I think the advisers are mixed. I spoke with secretary -- I was with Secretary Geithner at the Treasury Department this week at the small business summit, Senator Warner and I with a bunch of small-business people with Karen Mills, the administrator of SBA, and Secretary Geithner. And I took him aside and said, we need more focus on manufacturing, we need an industrial policy. Manufacturing creates middle-class jobs, and there’s not been the -- there’s not been a manufacturing policy in this country for forever, really. And the former presidents haven’t had it, and -- and President Obama’s moving in that direction. I mean, Ron Bloom and others in the administration really are beginning to focus on that. So I think they’ve turned a corner. I think, particularly next year, the focus is all about creating jobs, and I think we’ll begin to see changes.

BENNET: What’s staggering to me about this is it’s not just that we’re in the worst recession since the Great Depression, although we are. It’s also that in the last period of growth, working families income in the United States actually declined during the Bush recovery. So our working families are trying to recover not just from one recession, but two. This is not just a short-term issue about stimulus. It’s a long-term issue about where we’re headed with this economy. And I think we do need to turn more of our attention to that.

I think we need to do much more to get small business access to loans again so they can start hiring again. We haven’t done a good enough job at that. We really do need to turn our focus in a very meaningful way to Main Street.

KING: And as he makes that point, he says we, he’s being polite. Does the president’s team need to do a better job?

SHAHEEN: Sure. I think we all need to do a better job. I voted against the TARP funding because I thought we weren’t holding the financial community accountable enough for how that money was being spent. So I think we’ve got to look now at what more we can do. Both Sherrod and Michael made the point, we need to make sure business gets access to credit. We need to have a manufacturing policy. We need to do more to give business access to international markets so that they can export more. So there’s a lot more we need to do. We need to invest in our infrastructure, and I think the president and his economic team recognize that, and we’ve all got to work together and work harder.

KING: Senator Shaheen, Senator Bennet, Senator Brown, thanks for coming in on this Sunday morning. Appreciate it. We’ll continue the conversation. We’ve got a long way to go here on both the health care and the economic front.

And up next, the Republican perspective on health care, Afghanistan, and more from the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell . Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: I’m John King and this is “State of the Union.” Here are stories breaking this Sunday morning. Chinese media say 87 people have died in a coal mine explosion in the northeastern part of the country. And a rescue effort is under way for another 21 workers trapped underground. Officials say it appears the cause was a gas explosion.

Students at the University of California-Santa Cruz are refusing to leave the administration building where they have been staging a sit-in since Thursday. They say they expect police will soon forcibly remove in.

The students are opposing a 32 percent tuition hike. The demonstration in Santa Cruz is just one of the several protests at U.C. campuses across the state this past week.

An out-of-this-world experience for astronaut Randolph Bresnik. He celebrated the birth of his second child while in orbit. Bresnik’s wife gave birth to their daughter back home in Houston last night. Just hours earlier, Bresnik was taking a space walk outside the International Space Station. He and the rest of the Shuttle Atlantis crew are scheduled to return to Earth on Friday.

Those are your top stories here on “State of the Union.” Up next, the Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell joins us for an exclusive conversation about health care, Afghanistan, and more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: With us now exclusively, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Mr. Leader, thank you for joining us. You don’t like the way the vote went down last night. You were on the losing side.

Now that the Democrats have 60 votes to start debate -- a long way to go, a lot of issues to debate, but do you believe, like it or not, that that vote means that the Senate will pass and the Congress will send to the president a health care bill late this year or early next?

MCCONNELL: Yes, not necessarily. First of all, we’ll have an extensive debate. The Senate’s not like the House. They had three votes on one day and it was over. Just to look at recent legislative activities on the Senate side, we spent four weeks last Congress on a farm bill, seven weeks creating the Department of Homeland Security a few years ago, eight weeks on an energy bill. The Senate doesn’t do things quickly.

So we’ll have multiple amendments, John, from both sides, a free- ranging, open debate. And as we begin the debate, the one thing we know for sure, that didn’t come up in the last segment -- I know why it didn’t; they don’t want to talk about it -- we know the American people don’t want us to do this.

The CNN poll is the same as all the other polls. The American people are opposed to this particular health care bill. They thought this was all going to be about controlling costs, but, in fact, we’ve ended up with a $2.5 trillion budget-busting proposal that CBO, the scorekeeper in Congress, tells us, after it’s all over, will not control costs.

KING: The scorekeeper does say, after 10 years, it brings down the deficit, if the Democrats cast all those tough votes.

MCCONNELL: Yes, but, you know, it was full of gimmicks. They delayed for five years the benefits. If you look at 10 years for the whole program fully implemented, it’s $2.5 trillion.

So this proposal picked the most favorable 10-year period in order to get the CBO to say, within this framework, it would actually bend the deficit some. But that -- it’s not the truth. I mean, everybody knows it’s not the truth.

KING: Is the Republican strategy just get in the way and block it? Or is the Republican strategy, try to improve it and then maybe vote yes on a final bill that you don’t like some of it, but it’s better than today?

MCCONNELL: Well, this bill is certainly not better. It drives the costs up for Americans; it cuts Medicare dramatically.

KING: Now, the Democrats say it saves Medicare, but it doesn’t cut a benefit.

MCCONNELL: Yes, let me tell you, five years ago we passed, when my side was in the majority, a rather modest reduction in the rate of increase of Medicare, at about $10 billion over five years. My counterpart, the majority leader, called it immoral. This is half a trillion dollars over 10 years, higher taxes on individuals and on businesses, higher insurance premiums for 85 percent of the American people who already have insurance.

That’s not reform. That’s not what the American people thought this was all about.

KING: Answer the skeptic out there who’s watching right now. You just made the point. You were the majority leader. The Republicans ran the Senate; they ran the House, as well, and you had a Republican president in the White House in George W. Bush . Answer the skeptic out there who says, well, why should I listen to you now, Mitch McConnell ? Where was the McConnell bill to deal with pre-existing conditions? Where was the McConnell bill -- as Republicans say, let’s do this; let’s sell insurance across state lines -- where was the McConnell bill to help bend that cost curve in a helpful way? So how can you say no now, when you didn’t -- and say, let’s do this incrementally now, when you didn’t do it then?

MCCONNELL: Well, we didn’t have the votes to pass it. They were against doing something about junk lawsuits against doctors and hospitals which would save $54 billion. They were not in favor of the kind of wellness programs that we think would drive down the costs. They were not in favor of insurance competition across state lines. They were not in favor of equalizing the tax cod, so that individual purchasers of insurance are treated the same way corporate purchasers of insurance are.

KING: Again, the skeptic might say, why didn’t we have all these issues on the floor, though? Harry Reid may lose this. He may lose this.

MCCONNELL: We had myriad health care debates during the period that President Bush was in office and during the time when there was a Republican majority. The Democrats simply don’t want to do incremental changes.

John, we feel that we ought to go step by step to fix our current health care system. We do not believe, take -- the government taking over one-sixth of our economy, completely restructuring one-sixth of our economy is a good idea at any time. It is a particularly bad idea when we’re looking at double-digit unemployment.

This bill is a job-killer. If you were running a small business, John, and you wanted -- thinking about whether or not to expand employment next year, and you looked at what’s coming your way with this health care bill, you’re going to have health care taxes, you’re going to have expiration of the Bush tax cuts, so your tax rates are going to go up. The cost of hiring additional employees will be greatly exacerbated by the steps that they’re taking. This is the wrong direction to go.

KING: And you mentioned you would prefer incremental reform. I want to ask you a question in the context of what you know is coming from the Democrats over the next several weeks as this debate goes on. Leader Boehner was here a few weeks ago; he heard it in the House. Senator Durbin and the Democrats say, Well, we have a plan. Maybe it’s not perfect, but where’s the Republican plan?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DURBIN: I challenged Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans to produce a health care bill that will save us $127 billion in the deficit over the next 10 years, and there’s nothing posted on the Internet. I challenged Mitch McConnell to come up with a bill that makes sure that 94 percent of Americans have the peace of mind of health insurance coverage, but the Republicans put nothing on the Internet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Will you continue to say, “We want to do this incrementally,” or will, because of the politics of the moment, do you feel compelled to come up with a comprehensive Republican alternative?

MCCONNELL: Yes, what we don’t think is America wants another 2,000-page bill. It’s this high. We had it on the floor. We don’t think that’s the way to go. We think we ought to go step by step to improve the -- the system that you and I have just been talking about, some of the steps we would take that would have an impact on the cost of health care.

The American people are not complaining about the quality of American health care. They’re complaining about the cost of it. This proposal that the Democrats voted to proceed to last night will explode cost; it will make the situation worse. We think you ought to go in a different direction.

So don’t hold your breath. We’re not planning on having a 2,000- page bill.

KING: Let me -- well, before I shift gears, let me ask you this. You’ve been at this a long time, both as the majority leader and as a minority leader. On a scale of 1 to 10, the likelihood the Senate will pass a health care legislation this year and that Congress will send the president a bill before the State of the Union address next year?

MCCONNELL: Well, we don’t often ignore the wishes of the American people. They are literally screaming -- many of them -- telling us, “Please don’t pass this. Don’t pass this bill.”

If the majority is hell-bent on ignoring the wishes of the American people, they have 60 votes in the Senate. You would think that they might be able to do this, but I believe there are a number of Democratic senators who do care what the American people think and are not interested in this sort of arrogant approach that everybody -- sort of shut up and sit down, get out of the way, we know what’s best for you.

Now, we’re hearing from the American people, they don’t want us to pass it. So I would -- you know, it’s hard to handicap the ultimate outcome, whether the majority will ignore the American people or not, but they’ll be heard. The American people will be heard. They’ll either be heard sooner or they’ll be heard later.

KING: Let me shift to the economy. Unemployment went up in 29 states this week, down in 13. I’ve traveled to 45 states in the last 45 weeks. And as much as they care about the health care debate, they care, first and foremost, about jobs and the economy.

There’s been a lot of criticism of the president’s economic team, including from a House Republican who said this week the secretary of the treasury should quit. Let’s listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN BRADY (R), TEXAS: Conservatives agree that, as point person, you failed. Liberals are growing in that consensus, as well. Poll after poll shows the public has lost confidence in this -- in this president’s ability to handle the economy. For the sake of our jobs, will you step down from your post?

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Now, Secretary Geithner, of course, says no. Are you among those who think that he’s the problem? Does he need to go? Or is that just a little political pinata?

MCCONNELL: You know, look, I’m not here to call for anybody’s resignation today. I think we ought to go in a different direction.

First of all, we ought not to pass this job-killing health care bill; that would be a good place to stop.

Second, we ought to repeal the balance of the stimulus package, which has been a failure. We added almost $1 trillion to the debt earlier this year, presumably to hold unemployment below 8 percent, which is what the administration said it would do. Now unemployment’s over 10 percent.

In my state, John, it actually went up last month, unemployment getting worse. Rather than passing this job-killing health care bill, why don’t we concentrate on getting the economy in better shape?

KING: I want to ask you -- last time you were here, you were pushing the president to make his decision about Afghanistan.

MCCONNELL: Yes.

KING: The White House now tells us it will probably come not this week, but the week after, and they’re working with NATO allies. As he makes this decision, you know the pressure from the left, and I want you to listen to the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi . She did an interview with National Public Radio. She says this is a bad idea, not worth the money and not worth the American blood.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PELOSI: The president of Afghanistan has proven to be an unworthy partner. How can we ask the American people to pay a big price in -- in lives and limbs and also in dollars if we don’t have a connection to a reliable partner?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Does the speaker have a point?

MCCONNELL: Look, I wish that we had a better regime in Afghanistan, but this is really about us, not them. Has everyone forgotten that when the Taliban was running Afghanistan, that’s when Al Qaida planned and launched the 9/11 attack? We’re not in Afghanistan for any reason other than to protect America.

And I had hoped -- and I still hope -- that the president’s going to make the right decision here, which is to keep the pressure on. He said during the campaign that the war in Afghanistan was the good war, the war in Iraq was the bad war. Well, this is the good war and -- by his own definition.

And we need to keep on offense against both the Taliban and Al Qaida -- and by the way, this is not just Afghanistan, it’s also Pakistan -- if we want to continue to protect the homeland.

So I haven’t given up hope the president’s going to do the right thing. I think, John, the military people are getting a little frustrated with the delay in making the decision. It’s really time for the president to make the call.

KING: Let me ask you, lastly, Chairman Levin of the Armed Services Committee has said that he thinks we need a war surtax of some sort, a surtax on those making $200,000 or $250,000 a year to help pay for this. He says that’s the way we need to go, and some in the House have called for something similar, not exactly the same as Chairman Levin. Do we need that, a special tax that says this is to pay for the cost of these wars?

MCCONNELL: Well, we’ve -- we’ve paid for both of these wars by borrowing money. There’s no question about it. We did it in the previous administration; we’ve done it in this administration. It’s a tough call as to whether or not we try to fund it through existing Defense Department resources or not, but we have had a tradition...

KING: You don’t rule out some kind of a war tax?

MCCONNELL: I do, because I think we ought -- this is about our national security, you know? The Democrats are willing to bust the budget to pass a domestic program that the American people are against, but all of a sudden find it offensive to do something that is absolutely essential to the security of Americans here in the United States, which is to keep on offense in the war on terror.

KING: The Republican leader of the United States Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, thanks for joining us.

And up next, Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln was the critical 60th vote to move the health care debate along. When we come back, we’re going to take you to her home state of Arkansas and show just how that vote might cost Senator Lincoln her job.

MCCONNELL: Thanks, John.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: The health care policy and political debate forces some tough choices. The pressure perhaps greatest on the woman who cast the 60th vote to open debate last night in the Senate. She is Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. She was once the youngest woman elected to the Senate. Prior to that serve served in the House of Representatives.

Look at her approval rating, 54 percent a year ago, down to 43 for Senate now. So in our “American Dispatch” this week, we wanted to travel to Senator Lincoln’s home state of Arkansas to get a sense of the pressure on her as she asked the voters to re-elect her in a very conservative state.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): Aisha’s Fish and Chicken is a family business, known for its friendly service.

STANLEY WALKER, OWNER, AISHA’S FISH AND CHICKEN: We’re going to hook them today, huh?

KING: Wings and catfish.

WALKER: A five-piece wings, extra sauce on it.

KING: And a spicy signature sauce.

WALKER: 131.

KING: Tough times in a bad economy, so owner Stanley Walker says health care is out of the question.

WALKER: It’s too expensive right now. We’re kind of having a little bit of trouble keeping our head above water.

We had it at one time, but it was so expensive that we finally dropped it. I get a lot of complaints from my wife about it that we don’t have health care.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Five-piece, no sauce.

KING: It is both a business decision and a personal risk. Stanley has diabetes and takes just half of his four-pill a day prescription because he can’t afford the $500 a month bill for the full dose.

WALKER: Because I work by myself a lot and I’m always moving all the time, I don’t want to get somewhere and go into a coma, you know, because my sugar dropped too low. It’s a situation where you actually take a gamble, but you can’t afford not to.

KING: Stanley hopes Congress makes it makes health care more affordable and thinks creating a new government-run public option is the best way to do that.

WALKER: If they don’t do that, then I don’t think I will vote for them.

KING: It’s an important statement because African-American votes in places like Pine Bluff will be critical in next year’s midterm elections. And Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln faces a tough re- election race.

PROF. ART ENGLISH, UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK: No question they see an opportunity here and an opportunity to win a Senate seat doesn’t come often for Republicans in Arkansas.

KING: Senator Lincoln opposes a public option, and while that angers liberals, political scientist Art English says Lincoln needs to worry about conservative Democrats and independents in a state President Obama lost by 20 points.

ENGLISH: It’s tough. It’s like that show, “Malcolm in the Middle,” but this time it’s kind of, you know, Senator Blanche Lincoln in the middle, and it has been tough on her.

KING: Larry Levy owns this Little Rock brake shop, and has gone from paying 100 percent of employees’ health care to 60 percent.

LARRY LEVY, OWNER, STUART’S BRAKE SHOP: It kept going up and as my employees got older, the premiums, they began to get so high we just couldn’t realistically afford it.

KING: But Levy sees disaster in Democratic plans to create a public option or a mandate that everyone buy health insurance.

LEVY: We don’t know what it’s going to cost us. We have health issues, I agree. There needs to be reform. But let’s identify the problems that we have and let’s fix those problems. Let’s just don’t throw out everything and start all over.

KING (on camera): They say that if taxes go up, it will only be on people above 250 grand a year, but you don’t buy it?

LEVY: No, no, I don’t. I don’t buy it. We middle-class people will shoulder the burden. I have no question about that.

KING (voice-over): Levy describes himself as a conservative who did not vote for Mr. Obama, but does sometimes votes for conservative Democrats. He is not a fan of Senator Lincoln.

LEVY: She is playing games right now, I think, you know? She is just kind of swaying back and forth. I know she’s in a tough position, but if she’ll listen to her constituents we don’t want her to vote for this, I think.

KING (on camera): You think that she has -- she had better listen?

LEVY: I think she needs to listen if she wants to keep her job, yes.

KING (voice-over): But Levy says Lincoln has already lost his vote. He sees Washington as veering too far left and sees the midterm elections as a chance to vote Republican and put the brakes on the Obama agenda.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: I’m John King and this is STATE OF THE UNION.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): Sarah Palin is back under the media spotlight with a new book. Is the former vice presidential candidate faring any differently with reporters and commentators this time around?

And after 25 years at the top of daytime TV talk, Oprah Winfrey announces she’s moving on. Jerry Springer weighs in on how his fellow talk show host has changed the nation’s media and cultural landscape.

In this hour of STATE OF THE UNION, Howard Kurtz, as always, breaks it down with his “Reliable Sources.”

KURTZ: The hottest author of 2009 has hopscotched from Oprah to Barbara to Rush to Hannity to O’Reilly this week, slamming the media, ripping her former campaign colleagues, and kicking up the kind of fuss that, well, sells truckloads of books. And every news show that Sarah Palin didn’t go on just talked about her anyway.

The former VP nominee has put herself at the center of a raging media debate over politics and ideology and motherhood and sexism and fundamental fairness toward a compelling yet polarizing figure. All of that came into play as Palin sat down with a carefully-selected mix of big-name TV personalities and sympathetic conservatives. She said she’s even been approached about reality shows.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARBARA WALTERS, “GOOD MORNING AMERICA”: You say no to that?

SARAH PALIN (R), FMR. ALASKA GOVERNOR: Absolutely not. I would never. No, I would not ever want to put my kids through such a thing. Shoot, our life has become kind of a reality show.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS: Look, I follow this president every day. I think he’s a socialist. Do you think he’s a socialist?

Is the president then more radical than he let on? Do you think the president’s radical?

PALIN: I will not hesitate to say that his associates have been extremely radical.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: So, how did the journalists and commentators fare at pinning down Palin, and are the media devoting ridiculous amounts of attention to one losing candidate’s book?

Joining us now here in Washington, Matthew Continetti of “The Weekly Standard,” author of the new book “The Persecution of Sarah Palin : How The Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star”; Julie Mason, White House correspondent for “The Washington Examiner”; and in San Francisco, Joan Walsh, editor-in-chief of Salon.com.

Julie Mason, Sarah Palin keeps sniping at the media as she uses the media to promote her book. Smart strategy?

Yes, it’s a great strategy. It’s us versus them. And the media is using her, too.

MASON: We were so sick of that health care debate, and here comes Sarah Palin with this book and all this controversy and these outrageous statements. I think one of the most interesting things about this has been the fact-checking that’s been going on about her book, the point and counterpoint. That’s been really interesting to watch, and just watching her and trying to figure out, what’s her end game here?

Maybe Matt knows.

KURTZ: Matthew Continetti, before we get to that, after those first two interviews with Oprah and Barbara Walters, Sarah Palin was interviewed by you, “National Review,” O’Reilly, Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Christian Broadcasting Network.

It sounds like she’s preaching to the choir, by and large.

CONTINETTI: Well, right now she’s trying to reach her base of support, and the way to do that is to speak to conservative audiences through conservative media.

KURTZ: Other people buy books.

CONTINETTI: Other people, and they’re buying her books, too. But I think the question -- you’re right about this, Howie -- if she wants to broaden her appeal, which is crucial if she wants to run for elected office again, she’s going to have to sit down with, I think, personally, Katie Couric, among others, in the future.

KURTZ: Boy, that would do a big number, Joan Walsh.

Do you think Sarah Palin ’s finger in the eye criticism of the media is just payback, pure and simple? Is she playing to that base?

WALSH: I think she’s playing to the base. I think she also feels like she has a grievance. You know, I’m very hard on her in policy ways, but I think she feels like she’s been held to a different standard.

On the other hand, I mean, I’m excited to be here with Matt today, because he wrote a column about how she can redeem herself and possibly run for office last week. I think it was in “The Wall Street Journal.” And it really read like either science fiction or satire in the sense that Matt had high hopes that she could do that, and she didn’t take any of his advice this week.

You know, she really is poking her finger in the eye of the media, really ignoring Independents. Matt called her more popular than John Edwards, or less unpopular than John Edwards, and that’s a really low bar.

KURTZ: Let me get Matthew to comment.

CONTINETTI: Well, Joan, since you bring -- I’m glad you’re closely reading my work, but the fact is, public perceptions of political figures change over time. And look at Hillary Clinton, who has gone from one of the most polarizing figures in American politics to now one of the more popular members of the Obama cabinet.

Or look at Bill Clinton, whose career was declared dead over and over again. Ronald Reagan, the same thing, ran for the Republican nomination in ‘76, lost it, and then people declared him as an out of work actor.

KURTZ: All right. Let me jump in, because I want to bring this back to the media.

And I’ll come back to you in a second, Julie.

In your book, you lump together, it seems to me, with the big news organizations -- “The Nation” and “Daily Kos” and “Gawker” and even “The National Enquirer” -- all as part of the media that are beating up on Sarah Palin . But shouldn’t we make distinctions here between left-wing Web sites and “The New York Times”?

CONTINETTI: You know, yes, absolutely. And I think I make those distinctions in the book.

But I would say what’s interesting about the reception of Sarah Palin , which I talk about at the beginning of the book, is that things that originated in left-wing Web sites ended up being parroted on the front pages of places like “The New York Times,” or highly trafficked blogs, like TheAtlantic.com. So, sometimes the line between the far left Web sites and the mainstream media, for lack of a better word, is very thin, Howie.

KURTZ: Julie, do you think that Palin and the book tour and the rollout is being covered -- that she’s being covered as a personality, as a cultural figure, or because we all want her to run in 2012 because she’s such a great story as a potential presidential candidate?

MASON: Absolutely. All those reasons.

KURTZ: All those reasons.

MASON: All those reasons and more. And we don’t know. Is she going to run again?

KURTZ: She probably won’t run. I mean, she quit after two and a half years as governor of Alaska, and I think that we’re -- that it’s sort of an interest that journalists have in kind of ignoring that and saying, well, she’s going to run, so let’s...

MASON: Or speculating about it, and therefore legitimizing all the attention she gets. She’s a public personality now, and I don’t see what else she is.

KURTZ: Joan Walsh, I think in your earlier comments you kind of conceded that there was some unfair coverage of Sarah Palin during the campaign, particularly on personal stuff involving her family. But when reporters -- I mean, this is a woman who was virtually unknown in the other 48 states -- and when reporters went to places like Alaska to check her record, which Matthew Continetti takes issue with in his book, isn’t that our responsibility when somebody is running for a job a heartbeat away, to use the cliche, from the presidency?

WALSH: Of course it is. I mean, you know, I differ with Matt on a lot of points here.

“The New York Times” wrote about Bristol’s pregnancy after she herself confirmed it. I think that the barrier from the blogs to the “mainstream media sites” is thinner, but she did a lot to put certain things into the national framework. And then she’s made enemies now from Wasilla to Washington, D.C.

She had basically run a very tiny town before she became governor, so I think most of what the media did really was fair and was our job. I think she did face sexism. I’m on record saying I happen to think that the “Newsweek” cover was sexist to depict her legs that way on a national magazine.

KURTZ: Let’s put that up so people can be reminded.

WALSH: OK.

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: Here she is, actually, wearing the jogging outfit that she originally posed for “Runner’s World.”

MASON: I thought it was exploitative, but I didn’t think it was sexist.

KURTZ: Well, she did pose for it, obviously.

MASON: She obviously posed for it, and now she’s playing the victim, which is the role she loves to play.

Sorry, Matt.

WALSH: Well, and I think that’s a really good point, Julie, because I feel that that was sexism. We can disagree. But what’s striking now on the right is, you know, the right has now adopted identity politics, and the right has now adopted the politics of victimhood.

And you see these people at her rallies who -- and you saw them -- last October we started to see them -- who feel that their country is being taken away from them. Some of them have a kind of populist anger that I think the Democrats should be afraid of to try to tap into.

KURTZ: Let me jump in again.

Now, you make a lot about the liberal media, the elite media, but some of your colleagues on the right during the campaign, whether it’s David Brooks, David Frum, Kathleen Parker, Christopher Buckley, who hit Sarah Palin pretty hard -- they didn’t think she was qualified to be VP.

CONTINETTI: And I think it gets to the heart of the reason that we’re fascinated about Sarah Palin . She’s become this lens in our politics that refracts all these different ways that people see the different world views and ideologies. And, you know, so even -- that applies even on the right. They’ve recoiled from the same things that the left does with Sarah Palin .

KURTZ: Let me play some of her interviews this week where she’s asked about those famous or infamous interviews with Charlie Gibson, who had questioned Sarah Palin about the Bush doctrine, and Katie Couric, who, among other things, asked what kind of newspapers and magazines she read.

Let’s roll that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O’REILLY: Do you think Gibson did that to demean you, to make you look stupid?

PALIN: Those are the “gotcha” techniques that some in the -- what some people call mainstream, others call now the lame stream media, who want to participate in a tactic like that.

OPRAH WINFREY, TALK SHOW HOST: You’re saying now that the reason why you had the responses to Katie Couric is because you were annoyed with her?

PALIN: Well, I was annoyed with where we were, what we were doing at the time. She opens the curtain for me to get backstage, and there’s the perky one again with the microphone and the cameras rolling.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Julie Mason, as a representative of the lame stream media, why is she still fuming about this? And here she’s calling Katie Couric “the perky one,” as opposed to, say, a journalist.

MASON: Because the media really made a fool of her. They really did. And she made a fool of herself in the campaign.

KURTZ: Did the media make a fool of her intentionally, because they did not like Sarah Palin ?

MASON: I think there was a definite subtext of that. I do think a lot of people were doing a credible job of trying to cover her, trying to figure out who she was. But I think in the end, the combination of her ambition and journalists’ ambitions just created this firestorm.

KURTZ: Matthew, you take her side there, too. You say Katie Couric was biased. Most people think that she asked no question that was out of bounds and that Sarah Palin , who at times has kind of hinted that it was not her finest moment, but that she just blew it. CONTINETTI: I write in my book that Katie Couric is not known for her sympathy with conservatives, which is actually true. But I would say that I also write in my book that it was a bad interview, and Sarah Palin now admits that it was a bad interview and that she made mistakes.

It’s funny. As I talk about my book and Sarah’s book over the course of the past week, that one interview did so much to shape people’s opinions of Sarah Palin , and it may have derailed her future ambitions.

KURTZ: I hear her book is doing a little better than yours.

Joan Walsh, you want to weigh in on this?

CONTINETTI: Why am I on your show, Howie?

KURTZ: You want to weigh in on this?

WALSH: Yes, I do, because, you know, let’s leave Katie aside. I think there’s -- speaking of sexism, there’s just a weird vibe between her and Katie, calling her “the perky one.” That’s diminishing, so she’s the pot calling the kettle black.

WALSH: The Charlie Gibson interview, for me, was actually of a turning point. Everybody picked up on it later, when Katie sat her down. But she was stumbling and idiotic in the Charlie Gibson interview.

I’m sorry. The Bush doctrine is a “gotcha” question? The questions of war and peace and our defense policy were and are central to the governing of this United States.

KURTZ: Right.

WALSH: So, she can’t call that “gotcha.” It wasn’t like a pop quiz on, you know, obscure foreign leaders.

And the other thing is she really is nursing this grievance against the media, and she loves it. She loves it.

KURTZ: Well, and maybe it’s working for her.

Now, with all the fact-checking, there are times when she has contradicted herself. I want to play you back to back something she said about her decision to run for vice president, first last year on “Hannity,” then this week on “Oprah.”

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PALIN: It was a time of asking the girls to vote on it anyway, and they voted unanimously yes.

This time, there wasn’t a family vote. No.

WINFREY: This was the mommy rules.

PALIN: This was -- yes. Yes, this was, I’m going to make the decision.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: So her...

(CROSSTALK)

MASON: Yes, I know. So it’s a lot of revisionist history. The truth is a moving target with her sometimes.

And I don’t think it’s a very important point. I don’t think how she decided to run...

KURTZ: Yes, sure.

MASON: But it underscores why people are uncomfortable with her, the people who are uncomfortable with her.

KURTZ: All right. Meanwhile, she sold 300,000 books the first day. This thing is going to be a huge blockbuster.

And thank you all for stopping by this morning, Julie Mason, Matthew Continetti, Joan Walsh in San Francisco.

When we come back, journalists push back against that federal panel’s recommendation on delaying mammograms, particularly female journalists. We’ll talk with one cancer survivor about the line between the personal and political next.

And later, Jerry Springer joins us to talk about, who else? Oprah.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: News organizations routinely report what experts say because, well, they’re experts. But when a federal advisory panel said this week that there was no need for women in their 40s to get regular mammograms, there was something of a media-led revolt led by female journalists.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HODA KOTB, NBC NEWS: Women between 40 and 49, they say there’s a one in 1,900 chance that you will be diagnosed with breast cancer. I was one of those.

MEREDITH VIEIRA, NBC NEWS: But you can’t get away from the fact that a lot of women believe that they were saved because of a mammogram.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Forget the death panels, but this is rationing, saying, OK, we could do this, we could save some lives. It’s just not worth the money.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: And joining us now to talk about the coverage of this breast cancer controversy is “TIME” magazine’s Karen Tumulty.

Karen, it took about 10 seconds before the media started pushing back against this federal advisory panel’s recommendation. Was that surprising?

KAREN TUMULTY, “TIME” MAGAZINE: Not at all. Not to me, at least, because, you know, the message on cancer, and particularly breast cancer, for decades has been one of hypervigilance. It was just two or three weeks ago that we had a big pink ribbon hanging on the front of the White House. So, the idea that suddenly we have a bunch of experts, yes, but, you know, looking at only the statistical aspects of medicine coming out with these recommendations was pretty jarring.

KURTZ: This, for you, is a very personal issue, as you wrote this week. Explain why.

TUMULTY: Well, because I actually had my first mammogram, my first breast biopsies, when I was 19 years old. And I think that -- I mean, I am a thyroid cancer survivor, and at the time that I had my first breast cancer scare, I had no family history at all.

Since then, both my mother and my aunt developed it. My mother survived it; my aunt didn’t.

KURTZ: So, ,you can’t look at it as, let’s see what statistics the experts have come up with and what percentage chance that if you were in your 40s and didn’t get a mammogram, that you might develop cancer. You can’t look at it that way.

TUMULTY: No, but I think the statistics are extraordinarily valuable. And I think that this is a debate that we need to have. But I think, ultimately, that this -- that in this health care debate, we are looking at a country where the vast majority of people, blessedly, do have decent health care coverage, and they don’t want to feel like, you know, some government panel or scientific statistics are going to come between them and the conversations they should be having.

KURTZ: But when you write about this and when you talk about this, you can’t separate your real-life experience from the scientific arguments, can you? Or should you?

TUMULTY: You know, I didn’t. And that was one reason I decided to blog about this, because, you know, certainly, in some ways it’s bringing more transparency to journalism. I mean, when people read what I have to write about these things, they can know that I’m a human being who brings a personal experience to this.

KURTZ: And Gail Collins did that in “The New York Times,” writing about that she was a breast cancer survivor. And I found these perspectives very valuable.

Isn’t the problem here with any kind of health care recommendations that, while there may be a marginal chance for the system as a whole that cancer would be detected from these routine tests -- one in 1,900, I guess, is the figure -- that it looks very different if it’s you or your sister or your mother.

Who wants that take that chance?

TUMULTY: And it’s also that different people have different amounts of risks that they want to tolerate. So I think it’s very important that you have the evidence that tells you what the real trade-offs are, the dangers of too much screening versus what you might miss. I think the thing that threw a lot of women back on this panel’s recommendations, though, was the recommendation that women not be taught self-exam. I mean, that is what, to me, had a little bit of paternalism to it, because it felt as though, you know, they were trying to essentially keep information from women so they wouldn’t be sort of wasting their doctor’s time.

KURTZ: Yes. And this whole business about anxiety, because if you got a positive you might be anxious about it, I think most women would rather make that decision themselves.

Did you get a lot of reaction to that blog?

TUMULTY: I did. I did. And I was also interested in some of the other women who wrote about it.

For instance, Michelle Cottle, at “The New Republic,” in a situation very much like mine, wrote that it had been recommended to her that she should have more screening. And she took into account other factors in her life and decided no. And I think that’s the kind of decision that people want to have remain with them and their doctors.

KURTZ: Let’s turn to last night’s vote in the Senate.

You’ve covered the health care debate every single day. Big headlines this morning about Harry Reid and the Democrats mustering 60 votes to get that health care bill to the floor, but was that really much of an accomplishment?

TUMULTY: You know, I think for weeks it’s been pretty clear that in the end, he was going get his party together. And also, it’s very clear that the really hard vote is the one that’s going to come a few weeks down the road to get this bill off the floor.

KURTZ: Right. So, the big headlines and the lead stories about what a big deal this was, I mean, if the Democrats couldn’t even bet the bill to the floor, then they’re not much of a party, are they?

TUMULTY: Well, that is true, and that is the big question, is -- you know, that they’ve got all of the levers of government in their hands right now.

KURTZ: Has there been enough journalistic attention to the deals that are made here? For example, Dana Milbank writing in this morning’s “Washington Post” about what’s called the Louisiana purchase. In other words, that Senator Mary Landrieu got a provision that could be worth up to $300 million for the state of Louisiana for her vote. I mean, she was bought off and maybe there’s an age-old tradition of that on Capitol Hill.

TUMULTY: Well, and the bigger deals are the ones that have been made with the various industries. And I do think we have been writing too much about process and not enough about these deals, because those are things that are going to affect everyone’s health care costs.

KURTZ: All right. A story that’s clearly going to continue for some time to come.

Karen Tumulty, thanks very much for chatting with us this morning.

Coming up in the second half of RELIABLE SOURCES, Oprah Winfrey shakes up the TV landscape by announcing she’ll pull the plug on her daytime show. We’ll examine the impact with someone who knows the talk show racket -- Jerry Springer.

Nightline’s Cynthia McFadden on her interview with the former Senate aide whose wife had an affair with John Ensign and whether both ran afoul of lobbying laws.

Plus, musical chairs. Why it’s hard to keep up with who’s up and who’s down in media land.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: I’m John King, and this is STATE OF THE UNION. Here are stories breaking this Sunday morning.

A Democratic senator says moderates in his party should not be allowed to dictate the terms of the health care debate. Earlier here on STATE OF THE UNION, Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown said he believes the final bill should include a government-run option for Americans who do not have insurance.

Federal officials are investigating the cause of a radiation leak at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. The leak happened yesterday during a refueling outage when the reactors were shut down. Officials say the leak posed no threat to the public, and they add about 20 workers were affected, but were quickly decontaminated.

Students at the University of California Santa Cruz are refusing to leave the administrative building where they’ve been staging a sit- in since Thursday. They say they expect the police will soon forcibly remove them.

The students are protesting a 32 percent tuition hike. The demonstration in Santa Cruz, just one of several protests at UC campuses across the state this past week.

Those are your top stories here on STATE OF THE UNION.

KURTZ: She is such a dominant figure on the media landscape, that the announcement that she’s ending her daytime talk show two years from now made the front page of “The New York Times.” Oprah Winfrey is abdicating her throne as the queen of daytime talk to concentrate on her new cable channel, modestly named the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Let’s face it -- this is a woman who transcends the role of television host, who’s become a cultural icon for millions of women. And she’s been building that brand for 25 years.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WINFREY: Welcome to the very first national “Oprah Winfrey Show!”

(APPLAUSE)

I have lost, as of this morning -- as of this morning, 67 pound pounds.

The boy is gone. The boy is gone.

Did he ever beat you?

MICHAEL JACKSON, SINGER/SONGWRITER: Yes.

WINFREY: I’m going to surprise the winner with $1 million.

I feel duped, but, more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers.

A few of my favorite things!

These years with you, our viewers, have enriched my life beyond all measure.

So why walk away and make next season the last? Here is the real reason. I love this show. This show has been my life. And I love it enough to know when it’s time to say goodbye.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Joining us now to examine Oprah’s decision and the impact on the television business, in Las Vegas, Jerry Springer, who has hosted a syndicated talk show for nearly two decades. And in Los Angeles, Judy Muller, former ABC News correspondent, now an associate professor of broadcast journalism at the University of California’s Annenberg School.

Jerry Springer, I’ll start with the obvious question. You launched your talk show in 1991. That was about five years after Oprah went national.

Was she something of an influence on you?

JERRY SPRINGER, TALK SHOW HOST: Well, she’s the best there ever was. I’d say she and Phil Donahue. And it’s really hard to put me and her in the same sentence. I mean, because she does a real talk show. We do pretty much of a circus.

But her impact on the whole industry has been enormous, because she probably was the first to take the genre of a talk show and to turn it into something personal for the viewer. In other words, people would go on and actually talk about something that was going on in their lives rather than a broad, general issue.

KURTZ: You say you do pretty much of a circus, but in 1998, for example, you were beating Oprah Winfrey in many markets across the country. But then she continued to soar. So what happened?

SPRINGER: Well, there’s no accounting for public taste. I don’t know why people would watch what we do, but, you know, it’s a totally different element of it.

But with Oprah -- and it’s really been something that’s going in our society all together -- is that the individual -- the viewers have become the entertainment. I mean, that is true with the Internet. That is true in -- even in journalism now, where people with computers are suddenly becoming the journalists. You know, people sitting at home are going on the Web with their own information.

I just think the whole landscape is changing. But I think Oprah was very influential in making it OK for people to talk about their personal lives.

KURTZ: Right.

Judy Muller, everyone is trying to put a finger on this connection, this bond that Oprah Winfrey has with millions of women. What do you make of it?

JUDY MULLER, FMR. ABC, CBS CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think women relate to Oprah. Obviously, she’s very rich, so, you know, as Gail Collins said in her column yesterday, she’s worth a trillion-billion dollars.

So, even so, she seems like everybody’s best girlfriend. She preaches the gospel of self-empowerment, and that’s because of her personal story, raised on a poor farm in Mississippi and now one of the 300 richest people in the world, according to Forbes. This is a rags to riches story that everybody wants to believe in. So I think she really connects with women.

KURTZ: And people forget what a long shot she was considered to be. “TIME” magazine -- this was 1986, when she was launching -- wrote that, “In a field dominated by white males, she is a black female of ample bulk.” She did not sort of fit the usual subscription for a successful television personality at that time.

MULLER: And the ample bulk is part of her appeal. I mean, we all relate to weight gain and loss and her struggle with that.

And speaking of Jerry Springer, she really became the anti-Jerry Springer, as he pointed out. While he was looking at sort of the tawdrier side of human nature, she looked to inspire and elevate. And as I said, talked about self-empowerment. So, she marked out turf that nobody had done before.

KURTZ: Although, Jerry, you are the perfect person for me to ask this, because I look at your Web site, and some of your videos are entitled “Stripper Showdown,” “Hotheaded Homewreckers,” “My Pimp Wants to Marry Me.”

KURTZ: When Oprah started out, she was also seen as kind of working the tawdry side of the street. She did a lot of pretty tabloid stuff, and then she decided to kind of take a higher road.

Do you remember that?

SPRINGER: Yes. Whether we call it a higher road, it’s certainly a different road.

What we do is tongue-in-cheek, and it’s crazy. And as I said, I don’t think Oprah ever really did that. She may have spoken about the same subjects, but she did it seriously.

With us, you know, basically, our show is a fraternity party. It’s aimed at high school and college-age kids, and they kind of get it, and that’s all it is.

So again, I think Oprah really created new ground. She opened the doors and says it’s OK to talk about yourself.

Look, Phil Donahue had been on for 29 years. He created the genre, in a sense. But Phil Donahue never talked about himself. It really wasn’t -- most of his shows had nothing to do with the individual person. It was a larger issue.

You know, he would talk about things like, let’s say, health care or a war that was going on. With Oprah, it was really, I can tell you about my personal life.

She let people in, and that kind of became an OK thing then, to say, you know what? If she can talk about her personal life, I can talk about mine. And I think that has been happening across the media.

KURTZ: Oprah once said that without Phil Donahue, there wouldn’t have been an Oprah. He started that show out of Dayton, Ohio.

But, Judy Muller, Oprah’s not exactly disappearing. For one thing, the syndicated show continues until 2011, and then she’s got the network that she’s launching with Discovery, and she’s got the “O” magazine and the whole empire.

So, I don’t think she’s going to disappear, but do you think she’ll ever again have a platform as broad as this syndicated daytime show? MULLER: Well, I wouldn’t put anything past her. Most of what she touches turns to gold. And I think the fact that we are talking about this and the -- is a testament to the impact of Oprah Winfrey on the industry.

This isn’t going to happen for two years, and yet we’re all analyzing the impact. And, of course, there are a lot of people who are going to feel the pain. All those ABC stations that count on the Oprah lead-in to their newscasts, they’re wondering, who’s going to fill in that spot? Who’s going to bring that large audience as a natural lead-in to their newscasts? That’s real money; that’s real advertising dollars.

CBS, which owns the syndication rights, is going to see a loss. All those publishers who love touting their authors on Oprah, which is a natural bestseller route, they’re all crying. I mean, she was tearing up yesterday, but quite frankly, there are a lot of other tearing up as well.

KURTZ: Right. And also, celebrities coming out of rehab like to go on Oprah Winfrey. And politicians who are in need of imagery, as we saw this week with Sarah Palin kicking off her tour on the Oprah Winfrey show.

Jerry Springer, but, you know, she has made mistakes. She’s had problems with that South African girls school that she founded. We saw a brief clip there of her with author James Frey, and she says she got duped by a book that was full of fabrications.

So, I wonder -- there are even say that by endorsing Barack Obama , she give a major boost to the White House. I wonder if we kind of make her too much larger than life as we talk about Ms. Winfrey.

SPRINGER: Well, I think that, you know, in fairness, that’s probably true, simply because we in the business of television or the media tend to be pretty self-absorbed. In other words, we really think that everything we do, wow, the whole rest of the world is just watching and changing their life because of what we say on the television tube.

KURTZ: That is a stunning admission. Let me write that down. We’re kind of self-absorbed.

Go on.

SPRINGER: Yes. So, in other words, no. I don’t think the rest of the world, the rest of America -- I think most people go about their daily lives, frankly, not watching any of us.

I mean, for example, Oprah Winfrey, on a normal day, will get seven million people watching her. Well, OK. That means about 293 million people aren’t. And, you know, it’s going to be fine.

It’s going to be like -- you know, people will watch something else. And it’s not just watching television. They go on the Internet. Some people still read books. I mean, there are lots of other source of information. Politicians will find other shows to go on.

You know, I remember when they said Johnny Carson was leaving, oh, my God, there goes “The Tonight Show.” And the reality is that “The Tonight Show” continued. Television will continue and there will be other people coming on.

KURTZ: Right.

SPRINGER: So, I don’t think this is the end of the world, I just think it will an effect on the industry for a while.

KURTZ: All right. It’s not the end of civilization as we know it, but there are very few personalities, even in television, even people who have big numbers, who have that kind of personal connection with the audience that I spoke about.

So, Judy Muller, a number of programs, including some I’ve been on, the question always comes up, who’s going to be the next Oprah? I wonder -- and names have been kicked around -- Ellen DeGeneres; Dr. Phil, who Oprah syndicates; Katie Couric, when her contract expires at CBS. But I wonder whether there can be another Oprah in this fragmented age of blogs and podcasts and cable channels?

MULLER: I think you’re absolutely right and Jerry Springer is absolutely right that we’re fractionalizing the media. And I think Oprah saw this and is acting on it.

She’s creating a new cable network, OWN, Oprah Winfrey Network, and I think she sees the writing on the wall. Cable is doing much better than the broadcast shows, the big four, because they count on advertising alone. Cable gets the subscription fees and the advertising, and it’s more profitable. So, she’s making that change at a very good time, at a time when we sit down to watch one show and talk about it the next day.

KURTZ: Right.

MULLER: Those times are over in the way that Walter Cronkite did. That’s over.

KURTZ: That’s a past era. I’ve got to get going here.

MULLER: I think she’s what’s coming and is acting on it.

KURTZ: All right. Well, at least we’ve established that this is not the end of television as we know it.

Thanks to Jerry Springer and thanks to Judy Muller as well. Appreciate you joining us.

After the break, is the John Ensign saga just a beltway sex scandal or a case of potential lawbreaking?

ABC’s Cynthia McFadden on the man who says Ensign should quit the Senate for carrying on with his wife.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: Washington has had a spate of sex scandals this year, but the John Ensign saga stands out as one of the most troubling. The Nevada senator has admitted having an affair with his former campaign treasurer, Cindy Hampton. She is married to Doug Hampton, one of Ensign’s top Senate aides before he left that job.

Doug Hampton later became a lobbyist who traded on his ties with the Republican lawmaker, but Hampton remains very angry at his former boss. And in an interview airing tomorrow night on “Nightline,” says Senator Ensign continued the affair after claiming it was over.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CYNTHIA MCFADDEN, CO-HOST, “NIGHTLINE”: He’s still sleeping with your wife, you think?

DOUG HAMPTON, FMR. ENSIGN AIDE: Yes, that’s hard to hear. Yes. I think he’s absolutely at this time pursuing her. He’s absolutely fixated on Cindy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: I spoke earlier to Cynthia McFadden from New York. She, of course, the co-host of ABC’s “Nightline,” who reported the Ensign story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: Cynthia McFadden, welcome.

MCFADDEN: It’s a pleasure to be with you.

KURTZ: John Ensign admitted having this affair with a former aide back in June. I know there’s still ethical questions, but why dredge all this up now?

MCFADDEN: You know, I think the key question is -- we know he admitted the affair, but the question is was there more than an affair? Was there, in fact, some kind of ethical or even legal violations associated with this affair? And so we decided it was time to dig a little deeper and have the opportunity to do that.

KURTZ: But this is, at heart, a sex scandal, a story that’s good for ratings, right? MCFADDEN: Boy, I think it is at heart a question of whether there was an abuse of power. It is at heart a question of whether or not a sitting United States senator knowingly violated ethics laws, knowingly violated tax laws. That’s what it’s a question of, I think, Howie.

KURTZ: OK.

MCFADDEN: Now, is there a sex case to go around it? Yes, there is. But I don’t really think that’s the selling point.

I think the real question here is it’s a political story, and I hope that after you’ve seen it on Monday night, you’ll agree with me there’s a very intriguing political tale here.

KURTZ: Now, this story that you’ve reported is basically a single source story. When Doug Hampton, who you interview extensively, he’s angry. He’s angry that John Ensign slept with his wife. He’s angry that John Ensign fired him and his wife.

Should you, as a journalist, be very wary of what he says, because, clearly, he is out to get John Ensign ?

MCFADDEN: Absolutely, we should be wary. And there are a lot of supporting documents around what Doug Hampton has to say, and the documents have been very important to our reporting of the story.

You know, I have to show that Doug Hampton certainly has an axe to grind here. He was John Ensign ’s chief of staff. John Ensign had an affair with his wife. John Ensign fired both of them. Yes, he has a big axe grind, so as a journalist you have to be super conservative and very careful about following the trail.

KURTZ: Right. Yes, and Hampton acknowledges that. He says he thinks Senator Ensign should resign.

Now, there was a letter that came out a few months ago that Senator Ensign actually wrote to Cindy Hampton, Doug Hampton’s wife, former campaign treasurer for Ensign’s campaign, in which he said, “I have done wrong. I have sinned. I have betrayed what I believed in.”

And yet, after he wrote that letter, Doug Hampton is telling you that he believes that the affair actually continued.

Is that something that he believes or is that something that can be proven?

MCFADDEN: He says that, in fact, John Ensign called his wife and that he had the telephone records to prove it. Called his wife, subsequent to mailing that letter, and said, “Disregard the letter. I’m in love with you.”

And Doug Hampton says that that very weekend -- which, parenthetically, was Valentine’s weekend -- he confronted John Ensign and said, “What’s going on?” and Ensign said to him, “I’m in love with your wife. I’m not going to apologize for it. And we’re going to see where this goes.”

KURTZ: And of course it’s all the more poignant because the two families were friends for years in the Las Vegas area.

MCFADDEN: Well, they weren’t just friends, Howie. They were super friends.

This is a friendship of two families for 20 years. You’ll see on Monday night lots of photographs to document the families we’re close. They called one another brother, Ensign and Hampton.

In fact, Ensign recruited Hampton to come work in Washington despite the fact that Doug Hampton had no political experience. Really because of their common faith, both devout Christians -- and John Ensign -- Hampton says John Ensign said to him, “I need a brother in Christ to walk with me in the corridors of power,” encouraged, by the way, by the C Street fellowship.

KURTZ: This is of course the house that Ensign lived in and that Senator Tom Coburn also lived in.

But let me move on back to your reporting of the story.

We know that Ensign’s parents mysteriously, suddenly, abruptly gave the Hampton family $96,000. They said it wasn’t hush money, it was just a goodwill gesture. And then Doug Hampton’s lawyer asked Senator Ensign for $8 million after Doug and Cindy had lost their jobs.

MCFADDEN: Actually, $8.5 million...

KURTZ: Excuse me. Didn’t mean to understate.

MCFADDEN: Even more. There you go.

KURTZ: Did you ask him whether this was some sort of blackmail?

MCFADDEN: Indeed, I did. He said that it wasn’t. He said that it was simply a question of his lawyer attempting to talk to Senator Ensign’s lawyer about severance, about some sort of compensation, some sort of recompense to the fact that both Cindy and Doug Hampton had lost their jobs at this point since both of them had been employed by Ensign.

KURTZ: Right.

MCFADDEN: The $8.5 million figure was rejected, and Doug Hampton claims that Senator Coburn from Oklahoma got involved and attempted to negotiate a $2 million settlement, and that that was rejected by Senator Ensign as well. But Doug Hampton says he wasn’t threatening anything, that he was asking for good faith.

KURTZ: All right.

After both of the couple lost their jobs, Doug Hampton says that Senator Ensign set him up, basically, as a lobbyist. You asked him about that.

Let’s roll the clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCFADDEN: So, there is not doubt in your mind that John Ensign understood that ethics laws were being broken as well?

HAMPTON: There’s no doubt in my mind.

MCFADDEN: This is a serious allegation you’re making against a sitting United States senator.

HAMPTON: Why would a client hire Doug Hampton if he didn’t think that he was going to have access to John Ensign ’s office? It’s the only reason why I would hire him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: There is a federal law that bars former Congressional staffers from lobbying anybody in the chamber, let alone their ex- boss, for one year. So, in asking him about whether or not he thinks John Ensign broke the law with this lobbying business, isn’t Doug Hampton also a potential lawbreaker here? Did you press him on that?

MCFADDEN: Yes, and as you’ll see in the broadcast, one of the reasons that Doug Hampton’s credibility starts to go up is because Doug Hampton implicates himself in having broken ethics laws while he’s trying to implicate John Ensign .

He says, look, clearly, I was doing what I just sent a document saying that I wasn’t supposed to do, which was to lobby the Senate for which I had just left. Not only the Senate, the very Senate office that I just left as AA for.

So, Doug Hampton, in saying that, certainly implicates himself, but he says it’s important to him that the truth come out. He claims that John Ensign set him up with clients and then told him to call his AA. And that then, in fact, he was lobbying the senator that he just stepped down as a chief of staff for, a clear violation of ethics law, if in fact that’s what happened.

KURTZ: I’ve got about half a minute.

Do you have any concern, given how angry, perhaps understandably, Doug Hampton is, that he is using “Nightline” to pursue a personal grievance?

MCFADDEN: You know, journalists are always concerned about being used. I think that our responsibility as journalists is to make sure that we can substantiate the facts with the -- as to the extent that we can. We have certainly contacted everyone for comment, and you will see what people had to say in regards to Doug Hampton’s allegations on Monday night.

KURTZ: Cynthia McFadden, thanks very much for joining us. MCFADDEN: My pleasure.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: Senator Ensign recently told CNN he’s confident an investigation will show he complied strictly with all of the laws and rules and ethics of the Senate. You can see that “Nightline” interview tomorrow night, 11:35 Eastern.

Up next, from George Stephanopoulos to Diane Sawyer, to Lou Dobbs, trying to make sense of the media’s revolving door.

KURTZ: As a media reporter, you get to grapple with all kinds of thorny issues from bias to plagiarism, to plain old sensationalism. But you’d be surprised at how much of the job involves keeping track of who’s in, who’s out, who’s up, who’s down, who is coddling whom, and who is stiffing whom?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LOU DOBBS, HOST, “LOU DOBBS TONIGHT”: Immigration policy...

KURTZ (voice-over): When Lou Dobbs resigned from CNN, he said he doesn’t know what he’s doing next and hasn’t talked to other networks. But he did show up on “The Factor,” and apparently he’s welcome there.

O’REILLY: I would like you to come back on, like, a semi-regular basis. Would you be willing to do that?

DOBBS: It would be my honor.

O’REILLY: OK.

KURTZ: Bill O’Reilly asked whether Dobbs abruptly quit because CNN was unhappy with his stance against illegal immigration.

O’REILLY: Then your ratings leveled, as well as all the ratings for CNN, and began to go down. Correct me if I’m wrong.

DOBBS: No. No, you’re absolutely right.

O’REILLY: OK. So then they didn’t like your anti-immigration stuff so much. Did they?

DOBBS: You know, I discern more of a difference between then, which was under the Bush administration, whom I was criticizing, and now, when it is the Obama administration. And an entirely different tone was taken.

KURTZ: Very interesting. But wait. In the rest of the sentence he exonerated the CNN brass.

DOBBS: Not so much in the case of CNN management, certainly, because there’s no -- my contract was very explicit. I had absolute editorial control.

KURTZ: The Obama White House, as you know, has been blowing off Fox News as part of an attack that viewers first heard on this program.

ANITA DUNN, FMR. WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Certainly, the way we view it is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party.

KURTZ: But while the administration has been boycotting hosts such as Chris Wallace, the president did grant an interview this week to Fox correspondent Major Garrett, who Anita Dunn told me is fair, along with other network reporters on the Asia trip.

George Stephanopoulos, who worked for Bill Clinton, has been getting good reviews lately as ABC’s man in Washington and the host of “This Week.” Now the network is strongly considering moving him to “Good Morning America,” where he’ll have to deal with this sort of thing...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And also tomorrow, we have a day in the life of Martha Stewart. So, Martha Stewart, Shakira, a lot to look forward to.

KURTZ: Stephanopoulos has told management he kind of doesn’t want the job unless the morning show is revamped with more hard news and less fluffy stuff. “GMA” news anchor Chris Cuomo, the son of former New York governor Mario Cuomo, very much does want the job of succeeding Diane Sawyer, who is moving to the evening news to replace Charlie Gibson. Follow the musical chairs.

Those chairs are almost impossible to follow at “The Washington Times,” which is owned by followers of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. And Reverend John Solomon has resigned after the owners ousted three top executives.

Editorial page editor Rich Miniter wanted to keep his job, but was fired, though the paper didn’t tell anyone. And now Miniter has filed a discrimination complaint against The Times, saying he was coerced into attending a mass wedding presided over by Sun Myung Moon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: “The Washington Times” denies any discrimination and says it will be vindicated in the case.

Now, I know, it all gets a little confusing. Will Lou go to Fox? Will George jump to “GMA”? Will Diane trump Katie? Or will Brian benefit as the only male network anchor? Will Jay go back to 11:30 and bump Conan?

It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to keep score.

Still to come, Twitter talk. Your feedback on whether the media are unfairly skewering Sarah Palin .

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: Time now for some Twitter talk, where you get to sound off. I asked my followers, “Has the coverage of this week’s book blitz been fair or unfair to Sarah Palin ? And does she warrant this media attention?”

Here’s what some of you had to say.

Philip Sorensen, “SP does not warrant the attention. Even a sitting VP doesn’t get nearly the attention an unsuccessful VP candidate is getting.”

Maybe Tweet: “She does not warrant this much media attention. I sense reporters covering her feel that same way, so are harsh on her.”

Laurano: “I think the media are indulging themselves while I know next to nothing of what’s been going on in the U.S. Big health care clinic in New Orleans, Iraq?”

MSSSTAG: “The media has made this woman of no substance relevant... even if it is unwarranted. Thanks a lot.”

ToeDog10: “Palin’s ‘Newsweek’ cover is unfair since it tries to demean her. And I’m a hardcore Democrat.”

And ThreeWickets says, “Fairness aside, it has been unfair. The media likes and needs the bumps to ratings and circulation like last year.”

And John King, as I turn things back over to you this Sunday morning, a lot of people out there not that happy with the tone and the sheer volume of the Sarah Palin coverage. But on the other hand, she’s a heck of a story.

KING: I think there are open questions about the volume of the coverage, the total -- totality of it, why it’s everywhere. But she is a fascinating story, Howie, whether you like her or not. She is as polarizing a political figure as Bill Clinton was, as George W. Bush became late in his term. And she is somebody right now who is out there trying to write the next chapter, literally, with this book.

And she is a fascinating figure. Those who say, oh, she has no future, I would remind you, the American people have been forgiving over time to actors like Ronald Reagan, to a guy like Bill Clinton, who nobody said could ever win, to a guy like George W. Bush , who nobody said could ever win. So, she’s trying to do something quite fascinating in her politics, and she’s worth attention.

Is it too much? That’s debatable.

KURTZ: She’s having a fine time skewering some of us in the media as the media giver her the platform.

KING: Yes, she is.

KURTZ: All right, John. Take it away.

KING: Howie, you take care.

I’m John King and this is STATE OF THE UNION.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): It’s 11:00 a.m. Eastern, time for STATE OF THE UNION’s “Sound of Sunday.”

Sixteen government officials, politicians and analysts have had their say. the Republican and Democratic senators in the health care debate, including the top Republican, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell .

We’ve watched the Sunday shows so you don’t have to and we’ll break it all down with James Carville and Mary Matalin, and the best political team on television.

STATE OF THE UNION “Sound of Sunday” for November 8th.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Democrats are spending Sunday celebrating their big vote to begin Senate debate on major health care legislation, but there are still big differences within the party. And more liberal senators argue that a few Democrats who don’t support creating a government-run insurance plan should not dominate this debate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. SHERROD BROWN (D), OHIO: ... to the other 56 of us and to the country, when the public option has this much support, that it’s not going to be in it, and I echo what Michael said, is that people want every option. If we’re going to have -- if we’re telling people you have to buy insurance, we shouldn’t tell them they’ve got to buy insurance from a private insurance company.

But in the end, I think that all four of our colleagues survey this -- look at this bill in the end and say, they -- I don’t think they want to be on the wrong side of history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: But they needed 60 votes Saturday night, and getting to the finish line will require 60 votes again. And one of the senators Democrats will need says he won’t vote aye if that final bill has the government option.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM “MEET THE PRESS”)

SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN (I), CONNECTICUT: We have a health care system that has real troubles, but we have an economic system that is in real crisis. And I don’t want to fix the problems in our health care system in a way that creates more of an economic crisis. If we create a government insurance company, it’s going run a deficit and it’s only the taxpayers who are going to pay for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The Senate Republican leader says his party will not offer a comprehensive alternative, but instead continue to make their case that Congress should deal with health care problems one issue at a time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCONNELL: The Democrats simply don’t want to do incremental changes. John, we feel that we ought to go step by step to fix our current health care system. We do not believe take -- the government taking over one-sixth of our economy, completely restructuring one- sixth of our economy is a good idea at any time. It is a particularly bad idea when we’re looking at double-digit unemployment. This bill is a job-killer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Also this Sunday, a former top federal health official lashes out at a government task force recommendation that women wait until they’re 50, not 40, to get mammograms to screen for breast cancer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM “FOX NEWS SUNDAY”)

DR. BERNADINE HEALY, FORMER NIH DIRECTOR: I’m saying very powerfully ignore them because unequivocally, and they agree with this, this will increase the number of women dying of breast cancer. Women in their 40s have a very aggressive kind of breast cancer. They tend to progress fast. And to not screen women in that age group is astounding to me, and it goes against the bulk of individuals who are actually caring for patients. You may save some money, Chris, but you’re not going save lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: As you can see, we’ve been watching all of the other Sunday shows so maybe you don’t have to. Joining me now where you can see them only together right here on STATE OF THE UNION, Democratic strategist and CNN political contributor James Carville, and Republican strategist and CNN political contributor Mary Matalin.

Welcome on this Sunday. Let’s start with a big vote, a rare Saturday night session. They get 60 votes, James Carville, but it is also clear that a number of Democrats who voted to start this debate won’t vote for this bill if it’s the same at the finish line. How significant of a moment?

CARVILLE: Well, look. It’s going to be tough all the way. The expression is, we keep moving the chain. We can move the chains like LSU did last night and run out of time with a second left to go in the game, but they do keep moving the chains. And they...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: That’s not stuck in your craw at all, right?

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

CARVILLE: Oh, God, I couldn’t sleep last night. Stuck in my craw is not the word.

I think Senator Reid has got it this far, and you know, they’re going to have to make some amendments on the floor, politics will be done, and there’s some sense that they can hold the 60 together with some amendments. We’ll wait and see.

I mean, and then, you know, they’ve got to reconcile all of this at the House. So we’ve still got a ways to go, but it’s still in the game, it’s pretty far downfield now.

KING: As someone who doesn’t want this bill, is getting over 60, now that the Democrats have brought it to the floor, they do have a majority, they -- I would assume they understand the burden on them, they started it, now people will hold them accountable if they don’t finish it, you assume something will pass?

MATALIN: Well, it would have been dog meat if they didn’t get that procedural vote. But as you said, particularly the three L’s that kicked them over, Lincoln, Landrieu, and Lieberman, made it clear the procedural vote to allow a debate was not the equivalent of supporting the substance of the bill.

I think Republicans should, and the country looks forward to having this debate. I’m glad there’s going to be a debate. The more people have heard about this from the outset, the less they like it. Much of this -- what has been put before the people now has taken place behind closed doors.

So to have this debate, we will quickly show what Lieberman was saying, which is people want, and Senator McConnell was saying, people want targeted, narrow, incremental reform, and they don’t want to take over one-sixth of the economy.

That is not the number one issue. And this has catapulted the debate into something we need to do in the country, what is the role of government? By our own polls people are now saying they do not think that the provision of health care is the role of government.

KING: Let me add a fourth now, you mentioned senators Lieberman, Lincoln, and Landrieu, all seeking leverage. There is a fourth now, I’m going show you the front page of The Times-Picayune, your hometown paper in New Orleans. “Landrieu yea vote moves health care bill.”

But she voted yea only after getting some concessions from the Senate leader, she got between $100 million maybe $300 million worth of funding for the state of Louisiana. After getting that promise from the majority leader she went to the floor and she said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARY LANDRIEU (D), LOUISIANA: After a thorough review of the bill, as I said, over the last two-and-a-half days, which included many lengthy discussions, I’ve decided that there are enough significant reforms and safeguards in this bill to move forward, but much more work needs to be done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: So she gets a big sweetener, they call it here in Washington. maybe $300 million for the state of Louisiana, but she still says it’s not enough.

CARVILLE: Well, first of all, let’s start with the bill itself. It has been reviewed by health care expert, including the director of Medicare under the Bush administration. They think this is the most significant cost-saving piece of legislation we’ve ever had in health care. So we’ll start with that.

What Senator Landrieu is accused of doing is having a health care amendment to a health care bill that was requested by her governor who is a Republican, and had been trying to get this done for eight months and who was effusively praised by the health secretary in Louisiana, Mr. Levine, who I think was Governor Bush in Florida’s health secretary.

This is not a -- this is not a piece of pork or something. This has to do with the Medicaid reimbursement formula from Hurricane Katrina, which, by the way, a federal judge, in a 176-page ruling, said was a result of negligence on the part of the federal government.

So this just had to do with a distortion of income figures. And this was a health care amendment to a health care bill that the Republican administration of Louisiana was desperate to get. Senator Landrieu was effective enough to get that. I think she should be praised and praised effusively for getting this thing done for her state.

MATALIN: He’s right. I mean, it should -- but it should not have been...

KING: OK. I’m going to be (inaudible) this tape a few times. He’s right?

(LAUGHTER)

MATALIN: Well, Bobby Jindal needs this, it’s an anomaly and it’s federal negligence in the first place what is -- it should not to have had to have been part of this legislation if the Obama administration could have figured out how to just do a waiver or something easy enough to fix a red tape problem. So that was not a sweetener. And she will be in a lot of political trouble if she votes for anything that remotely resembles what is going to go to debate now.

KING: You say, and I’ll trust the judgment of the two New Orleans residents, especially when they agree, that this is something that was necessary for the state. One of the questions is, though, what will it do to the climate here in Washington, because if I’m a senator on the fence now, and Harry Reid needs my vote, and she gets that from Louisiana, I’m thinking the market might be open.

Let’s listen to Sherrod Brown , saying that, you know, this is -- he agrees with you, James, that this is probably a good thing and a necessary thing, but he does worry about the impact.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: I want to see this bill pass. Nobody likes these kinds of -- any kinds of deals. I think anything that’s done needs to be in the best interest of those states in this country. I think those probably helped, if that, in fact really happened. I have no way of really knowing if it did. I suppose that helped a lot of people in Louisiana that don’t have insurance.

And so, I think we move forward. We do what we need to do within ethical bounds.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: This may not be fair, but if you travel the country, a lot of people say, you know, Barack Obama promised to change Washington. never mind the particulars, health care, the economy, climate change, promised to change Washington. When they see this debates like this, they say, more of the same.

CARVILLE: Well, you know, I can understand that. You know, this is a pretty -- and we’re going see a lot more as they go down to try to hold these 60 votes together. But the amount of -- on just Senator Landrieu’s thing, the amount of disinformation that I heard on talk radio -- in fact, saw on the front page of The Washington Post today.

The Washington Post had -- I assume he still works for him, Michael Grunwald, who knows as much about the Corps of Engineers as anybody and what happened in New Orleans. They could have checked with them before they put out this kind of thing, like this is some kind of a backroom bargaining deal.

This is nothing more, as I’ve said, is a health care amendment to a health care bill that the Republican governor wanted.

CARVILLE: But, sure, the interest groups, they’re all over this. But in the end -- I just want to make this point -- experts have looked at this, and they all conclude -- their four recommendations of the Medicare commission, this bill contains all four. This is a very, very good piece of legislation that could save this country enormous amounts of money.

MATALIN: No, it isn’t. It’s going to raise taxes. It’s going to raise the cost of care to people. It’s going to diminish quality. All of this is documentable. And it’s going to accelerate our debt crisis.

What Senator Brown should have been concerned about, if he’s concerned about deal-making, was the stimulus, AKA “porkulous,” or the budget, or any number of non-defense and nondiscretionary spending that have -- has kicked this deficit up, has tripled the deficit in under a year. That’s the problem.

Why this rings true -- Mary is completely innocent and is not a sweetener in this case -- but why it rings true is every other piece of major legislation this administration has done has been full of the things he pledged to do away with.

KING: Well, James makes a point of the costs. Let’s bring two other voices into the conversation. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison , Republican of Texas, is out this morning, and she says, go ahead, Democrats, keep moving this bill, because, she says, it’s a disaster and it would help Republicans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUTCHISON: I think this bill is a disaster for our country. President Obama said that it would be under $900 billion. It is not. President Obama said it would not add to the deficit. It will. President Obama said that no one would lose the health care that they have, and they will. This is a terrible bill.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: And that’s a Republican voice there. Let’s continue the conversation, but first, let’s listen to a conservative Democrat. To your point, you say this bill will control costs. Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska says he’s not so sure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) NELSON: It doesn’t do enough to control the costs, that’s for sure. And we do need to address that cost containment. I’m very concerned about that, but I certainly couldn’t say it does nothing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: So we’re going to watch the Senate make the sausage?

CARVILLE: Yes, and it cannot be avoided. And 60 votes is there. It’s reality. People -- the Democrats come up and they say, “Well, you ought to think for this (ph).”

Senator Reid -- and he’s done a pretty good job so far -- full disclosure, I’ll be hosting a fundraiser for Senator Reid in New Orleans in a couple of weeks...

MATALIN: (inaudible)

CARVILLE: ... has done -- has done a really good job on this. And -- and, again, I go back to the fact that experts, as they -- as -- as this bill gets more and more light, we’re going to find out that there’s much more in here than meets the eye, and this really has a chance to really affect long-term health care spending, which is exactly what we need.

And, actually, I thought Senator Nelson’s comment for him were pretty moderate, and he said, yes, I can’t say there’s not things in here that don’t control costs, because there are.

MATALIN: There -- it is a major, massive cost-shifting. It’s not a cost-controller. What it purports to be able to save over the course of 10 years is less than the deficit that they rang -- rang up every month now. It’s $130 billion over 10 years. That’s if every cost containment is enforced, cutting provisions to Medicare providers, which it has never been, and we have a history.

We’re not -- I’m not making this up, not (inaudible) there’s no history of any of these enforcement mechanisms being put in place. The unions -- your unions that are your base -- are completely against the biggest tax increase on Cadillac plans. So none of the cost- cutting things can be enforced, and they’re cost-shifting after that. They tax everybody, from pacemakers to wheelchairs.

KING: We’re going to take a quick break. When we come back, I’m going to walk over to the magic wall. We’re going to have some talk about the economy and also where a certain Mary Matalin factors into the Sarah Palin book. Don’t go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’re back with James Carville and Mary Matalin. We’ve been talking health care, but Americans views on health care and just about everything else are shaped by their position on the economy. I want to show you a map here.

Here’s the United States. I want to take you to the unemployment rate. If you notice, the elevation, the higher the state, the higher the unemployment rate. That is the rate right now. This is what happened last month. If the state is red, the rate went up last month. If the state is green, it came down a little bit in the last month.

So Michigan still has the highest in the country, but it came down a bit last month. Nevada is still very high, came down a bit last month. But look at all of the red; 29 states, the unemployment rate went up last month.

So we asked the American people in our CNN polling, what do you think of economic conditions today? Eighty-two percent say the economy is in bad shape. And then you asked, of course, the follow-up question. Politically, who’s to blame for this? Right now, 38 percent blame the Republicans, 27 percent the Democrats. In May, it was 53 percent Republicans, 21 percent Democrats.

So, James Carville, if you’re looking at that 10 months or so into the Obama administration, you see a trend in the polling. You’re in charge now, so you’re going to get more of the blame.

CARVILLE: You started off -- my first question is, who are the 18 percent that don’t think it’s bad? I’m like -- I’m always curious about these people.

MATALIN: (inaudible)

CARVILLE: Look, as -- as you would expect, as you get further into an administration, the -- the blame-shifting or whatever you want to call it will continue. And I -- I think the president needs to explain to people that -- who are in a -- in a tight fix, be very, very -- talk to them often, explain to them what’s going on, what -- what -- what we need to try to do to get out of this to assure people that there is some kind of plan...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: But let’s listen to him. Let me -- I’m sorry to interrupt, but let’s listen to him. He sat down with our Ed Henry on the Asia trip, and this is how the president talked about the bad economy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: My job as president is to help navigate through this tough year. And, you know, people who don’t have a job right now, people who have lost their home, you know, I’d be mad, too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The -- the difference in style. The president says, “I’d be mad, too,” but you famously helped the guy who could feel our pain. Does the president need to be less cool, less detached when it comes to something like this and be more like President Clinton, get out and reach and touch people? CARVILLE: I think -- I think that’s valid. And also, I think the president is not just saying, “I see why people are mad.” He said, “These are some things that we’re doing. They may take some time.”

I remember my grandmother telling me about President Roosevelt during the Depression, and he’d have the fireside chats. He’d bring people in and say, “We’re trying these different things.” I would like to see the president do a little bit more of that and -- and -- and tell people exactly what’s going on and -- and -- and what he’s trying to do to deal with this. And I think -- I think people want to hear that kind of thing.

KING: How hard is it? You worked for George H.W. Bush. And at the end of his administration, fairly or not, you would say unfairly, people thought he was detached from their economic concerns. That’s what Bill Clinton, then the governor, tapped into.

KING: How hard is it for a president of the United States to get that -- make the people see and feel that they...

MATALIN: Just for the record, Ross Perot lost that race in ‘92, but we don’t go there.

I don’t think the -- I think the president’s presentations have been plentiful and OK. He sounds better than the rest of his people that come out there and blame the voters, or they’re always attacking somebody.

It’s not his style. It is the substance. People understand it. That’s why this health care debate is going to go to the heart of this issue, which is we’re adding on to the deficit.

We have the same level of deficit we had in World War II. There have been 10 recessions since then, no -- no deficit the equivalent of this one. People understand that. They don’t want to add more debt. They do not want to accelerate our debt crisis by adding new programs, new policies, new entitlements.

This health care bill has two new entitlements. We haven’t reformed the existing ones that are unsustainable. So that -- it’s substance. It’s not style. His style is fine.

KING: Go ahead.

CARVILLE: No, I just -- one of the -- again, one of the difficult things of being president -- we certainly had difficulty in doing this even as the economy was improving, is talking about it in a way that you give people where (inaudible) some things are happening, and, you know, good things.

There are some things that have happened out that are, sort of, positive. I mean, the stock market is up. There are indicators that are positive. But, right now, people don’t want to hear that. And that’s always a -- a difficult thing for any president to do. I’m just saying a president should talk to us more, take us more into his confidence, and give us a greater sense of what he’s doing because some of it does make a lot of sense.

KING: If you go through the 400-plus pages of a best-selling book in the country, right now, “Going Rogue” by Sarah Palin , you will see a lot of shots and criticisms at Republican strategists, at her own handlers during the McCain-Palin campaign.

But she has very nice things to say about one Republican strategist, and she happens to be sitting right here at the table.

Here’s what Sarah Palin says about Mary Matalin. “One of the only commentators who called it right was Mary Matalin, who noted that my strategy would disarm my opponents and free me up to travel and raise money and awareness for worthy causes.”

MATALIN: You know, the problem with the masters of the conventional wisdom universe is that they’re trying to apply conventional wisdom templates to an unconventional person.

She’s an unconventional candidate, if she is a candidate. She’s an unconventional person. We’ve seen nothing like this. So I thought her strategy at the time, even if it wasn’t applied to running in the future, was -- was very smart. And she is a phenomenon. She sold -- this doesn’t happen; I’m in publishing -- 300,000 copies on the first day. She was the best -- the highest-rated show that Oprah had since the whole Osmond family there was.

She’s this combination of charisma and principles. And the book -- I did not like what was said about particularly John (sic) Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace, but it was infinitesimal compared to the rest of the book, that had a lot of substance, a lot of principles and a lot of personality. It’s a good book. Those things -- those kind of fights happen inside campaigns.

KING: I want to get to what you didn’t like in the book in a minute, but to the -- to Sarah Palin . We just talked, a few minutes ago, about people out in the country -- again, fairly or unfairly, but perception is reality in politics -- don’t think Washington has changed much.

I know a lot of Democrats say, “Bring it on,” you know, “She can’t win.” But she is so different that, do you think, in the back of your mind, if you’re in one of those wave years, something like that might have power?

CARVILLE: It -- it could. I agree completely with Mary. She’s unconventional. She’s more than unconventional; she’s compelling. And -- and she connects with these people in an unbelievable way.

What I said about Sarah Palin on the day that she was nominated is still true. She’s uniquely and supremely unqualified to be president of the United States. That -- but a lot -- but she does have -- and she’s got real presence about her. I find myself wanting to watch her more than I do most -- most other politicians.

And Mary’s right. She’s not going to -- it doesn’t do her any good to go by the, sort of, normal playbook that people go through. And what she’s accomplishing out there is something real. Look, she might be the top -- she might be the number one person in the Republican Party, right now. And she’s out discussing conservatism on -- on Rush’s show and with Sean Hannity. I think she’s -- maybe she’ll have depth out there and bring some intellectual heft to the party.

KING: Number one, we’re going to have get breaking news (inaudible). There have been more “James is right,” “He’s right,” “Mary’s right,” in this segment than we’ve ever...

(LAUGHTER)

... than we’ve ever had -- than we’ve ever had.

(CROSSTALK)

MATALIN: It’s your fault.

KING: It’s my fault.

(LAUGHTER)

The cover of Newsweek, last week, said she was a problem for the GOP. And you wrote a column for CNN.com, and you said this. “Bottom line, the book is a good read, but its impact on personal and professional relationships is a sad one indeed and one I hope conservatives don’t let it divide us when we’re marching toward a promising midterm.”

KING: So you’re worried, what, internal fighting in the party, refighting old battles? What’s the worry?

MATALIN: Well, I -- just as a mom about it, I know what this is like inside a campaign or inside a White House. And you have these fights and they’re heat of the moment, and then all I know is Steve and Nicolle loved her, were the deciding votes for her being on the ticket. And something happened and (inaudible). And we do need to come together.

She’s good for the party. Newsweek is bad for journalism. That was despicable. They took an embargoed photo from a -- from Runner’s magazine without permission, and that -- I don’t usually charge sexism. That was degrading and sexist and despicable journalism.

She is not a problem for the party. She’s healthy for the party. We’re ascendant in 2010, and -- but we need people who can communicate the framework, the philosophy into which policy prescriptions can be put. And she does that better than almost anybody.

CARVILLE: I don’t want to end this on an agreement. I completely disagree.

(LAUGHTER)

You pose for a picture and people are going to use it. If you don’t want to -- don’t pose for the picture. If it was some kind of thing where they have Obama and they get him from, you know, long lens on a beach, that’s one thing. She posed for this picture. And so I -- I wouldn’t complain about it.

So we can’t agree on everything. I think, you pose for a picture, it’s just in the public domain.

MATALIN: OK, you can agree on this. She looked good on it.

CARVILLE: She does.

MATALIN: All right.

CARVILLE: Ain’t no doubt about that. You and her are the two best-looking women in the Republican Party.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: You were -- you were -- you were just trapped by your brilliant wife into ending on agreement.

(LAUGHTER)

Mary Matalin, James Carville, thanks for being here.

Up next, we’ll be joined by more members of the best political team on television. We’ll break down the “Sound of Sunday,” talk health care, talk the economy and much, much more. Don’t go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: For our conversation, joining me here in Washington, CNN’s senior White House correspondent Ed Henry, senior political analyst Gloria Borger and senior congressional correspondent Dana Bash.

KING: Morning after a big Saturday night...

(LAUGHTER)

... vote on health care, a rare Saturday night session. Somebody was working very, very late. I was watching.

BASH: Ed there was, too.

KING: Ed was here.

(LAUGHTER)

BORGER: I was watching.

KING: Yes. Two members of the best political team were on TV late last night. I was actually in the office. We don’t -- they don’t need to know that.

Let’s talk about where we go from here, and there are a number of tough calculations. And for the first time on a Sunday morning, the new senator from Colorado, Senator Bennet, came in this morning. And he knows, like Senator Lincoln of -- of Arkansas and like several other senators up next year, at the end of this, they might have to cast a vote that could cost them their job.

I put the question to Senator Bennet. He said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING: If you get to the final point and you are the -- you are a critical vote for health care reform and every piece of evidence tells you, if you support that bill, you will lose your job, would you cast the vote and lose your job?

BENNET: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Yes. Now, we’re going to talk a lot about the substance of the bill, Dana, but as they debate this on the Hill, how much does that question weigh on all those senators, the Democrats on the ballot in what they know will be a Republican year next year?

BASH: Oh, it -- it weighs hugely. You saw Senator Lincoln, who has probably the toughest reelection battle and was the last person to formally announce that she was going to vote. She gave one of the most political speeches on the Senate floor. Really, it was intended to hit back at Republicans and all their arguments against her, and then, in the last breath, was, this is not political; this is not about my reelection.

But, you know, take that for what it’s worth.

But there’s no question that this has been incredibly hard for her, for others. You went to Arkansas. You saw firsthand how hard it is. And that is why, when it comes it Senator Lincoln; when it comes to others from conservative states, they are going to push very hard and demand that this bill will be changed in a way that some liberals might not like, and that’s going to be a tough compromise.

KING: Hang on just one sec because you brought Senator Lincoln into the conversation, so let’s bring her directly into the conversation, Senator Lincoln on the floor yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BLANCHE LINCOLN, D-ARK.: I will vote to support -- will vote in support of cloture on the notion to proceed to this bill, but, Madam President, let me be perfectly clear. I am opposed to a new government-administered health care plan as a part of comprehensive health insurance reform and I will not vote in favor of the proposal that has been introduced by Leader Reid as it is written.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: So, Gloria, Leader Reid wins. He gets across the starting line.

BORGER: You bet.

KING: But, boy, he’s got a lot of work to do to get to the finish line.

BORGER: Yes, it’s kind of like a game of whack-a-mole, you know.

(LAUGHTER)

The minute -- you know, the minute you get somebody on this measure...

KING: You guys have a great whack-a-mole on this table.

(LAUGHTER)

BORGER: ... somebody pops up and says, I can’t do that on abortion; somebody says, this is the only way I’m going to vote with you, if it has this. Somebody gets $300 million, Senator Landrieu for Medicaid in her state. Somebody says, OK, you got her down. Somebody says, what about this in my state?

So it is a very, very complicated process, and also something, really, that we don’t see very often, which is one party is all out and one party is all in, politically, on different sides of history, making very, very different calculations. We just don’t see that very often. Even Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts, he had Democrats voting with him on those.

KING: When you sat down with the president in Asia, that’s -- he called it “whack-a-mole,” right?

(LAUGHTER)

HENRY: He didn’t use that phrase...

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

HENRY: You know, let me explain the Oprah factor here, how she applies. This is taking a little risk. I don’t know if I can explain it...

KING: The Oprah factor -- good luck.

(LAUGHTER)

HENRY: ... which is basically that she was the big story this week, and she’s not going leave for two years, OK?

And yet this health care bill, even if the Democrats win, is not going to kick in, really, until 2014. So, long after Oprah has given up her show, they still will not be getting the political benefit.

So if you’re Blanche Lincoln and you’re taking the vote, the taxes are kicking in sooner. The tough medicine is kicking in, but the benefits are years down the road. That makes that vote even harder.

BASH: And that’s why you heard Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, another one of the last holdouts, talk about that specifically on the Senate floor.

And I actually talked to her after she made her speech yesterday in the halls, and she said that one of her big concerns is about the fact that, look, we’re going to make these changes, and there’s such a lag that I’m afraid that insurance companies are going to say, oh, look at all this time I have; I’m going to jack up premiums, and people are going to end up paying much more now than they...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: And it works both ways. It works at both ends. Because you mentioned -- you know, conservatives say this is big government; this is higher taxes. And whether they’re exactly right or not, the conservatives are ginned up. We know that. There’s great intensity out there.

The question is, on the other side, will progressives stay home if Senator Lincoln votes no on a public option, or unions are mad about the way the Senate health care plan is financed because it would put a tax on those Cadillac insurance plans if they’re worth more than $8,500.

Now, the members of Congress who support this say this isn’t right; it won’t hit union members. But Jim Hoffa, the president of the Teamsters says this is a back-door tax on the middle class.

I asked Sherrod Brown -- he’s from a Teamster state, of Ohio -- Is Jim Hoffa from the Teamsters right? Does this punish the middle class?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Will you fight that proposal?

BROWN: I’d prefer that -- that we look more at the version that the House did, on a surtax on people making $500,000 a year or more.

Even with the House proposal, I know we’re talking -- we can talk about either bill, but even with the House proposal, it’s still -- the tax rate is still significantly less for upper-income people than it was before the Bush tax cuts for the rich that were unpaid for and caused this huge budget, in part, with the war and the Medicare privatization that caused these huge tax -- these huge budget deficits.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: To continue the whack-a-mole metaphor, though...

(LAUGHTER)

... if you -- if you do what Sherrod Brown wants and go more to the House, you lose votes in the Senate. And if you do what the Senate’s going to do, you lose votes in the House.

BORGER: Yes, it’s completely difficult to see how you get to the end game here. But for the Democrats and for this president, they need to prove they can govern. They need to prove they can govern. They need to prove that they can govern together. They need to prove that their majorities are actually worth something.

And, yes, there’s going to be the law of unintended consequences. We all know that, when you pass large pieces of legislation, which is why we haven’t done it lately, right?

BASH: There’s one thing that -- probably only one thing that is going to be able to solve all of those differences, from the public option to how you tax people, and that is the guy that Ed Henry covers, the president of the United States, period, end of story.

I mean, he’s gotten more involved now, but he’s going to be the deal -- the deal breaker or maker with his fellow Democrats on all of these issues or else it’s not going to happen

HENRY: I asked him this week. I said, you know, there’s some Democrats who say, why aren’t you more like LBJ? why aren’t you enforcing these deadlines? Why aren’t you being more specific?

And he said, well, one reason is that LBJ didn’t have the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office.

And some people read that comment, thought that was a little bit...

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

HENRY: ... you know, that getting into the budget stuff was a little bit of a side issue. But, you know, what top people at the White House say is, look, back in May, when the Congressional Budget Office first started scoring all these bills and came up with high numbers, a lot of people in the media, a lot of Republicans were saying, “This is dead.” August, town hall meetings, sound and fury; “This is dead.”

And yet, while there’s a lot of risk that we’re talking about, here we are, late into November, and this president is getting these votes. They’re going through. It’s gotten through the House. And as you remember from covering Bill Clinton, he never got these votes. He never got this far. SO it is an achievement so far.

KING: All right, a quick time out. We’re going to take a quick break. When we come back, more “Sound of Sunday.”

END

.ETX

Nov 22, 2009 13:26 ET .EOF

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’re back with CNN’s Ed Henry, Gloria Borger, and Dana Bash.

Let’s take a look at the Republican argument on health care. They lost the vote last night, with 58 Democrats, two independents voted aye, so the debate will continue. Republicans see a great chance to shape the political environment, not just the health care debate, but the political environment heading into next year.

Listen to Tom Coburn , Republican of Oklahoma, essentially saying, watch the Democrats, follow the Democrats, what you get is big government.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM “THIS WEEK WITH GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS”)

COBURN: This bill creates 70 new government agencies with thousands of new bureaucrats, with 1,500 -- and I’m talking about the Senate bill, with 1,597 different instances where the secretary is mandated to write rules and regulations. If you think that isn’t going to affect patients and their doctors, I have a whole lot of swampland in Oklahoma I would like to sell you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We should note that the guy offering to sell the swampland is a doctor. Senator Coburn is a doctor. This is going to be the Republican mantra, big government, big spending, government puts bureaucrats between you and your doctor. It worked in ‘93 and ‘94. Do we think it will work this time?

BASH: You know, that’s why almost every Republican senator brought out the printed out copy of the 2,000-plus-page bill to show it as a prop to illustrate this is how big it is. Look, so far with the -- like we were talking about before, the conservative Democrats from tough states, it is -- that is the argument that is hardest for them to overcome.

What you hear Democrats talk about is they try to overcome that argument by saying there already is somebody between you and your doctor and that’s the insurance company. And really the battle is between whether or not people hate insurance companies or the government more. That really is the battle -- the messaging battle, Republican versus Democrat right now. BORGER: But, you know, the Republicans are talking about big government. If they had wanted a smaller, more circumscribed bill, pre-existing conditions, all of the kinds of things the Democrats and Republicans agree on, that is something that could have been introduced to the president of the United States earlier on in this process and you might have been able -- I know, I don’t want to be Pollyanna here, but you might have been able to get some kind of legislation from both parties and leave the complicated stuff and the more controversial stuff for later.

But that didn’t happen here either because a political calculation was made that opposing big government is better than jumping in with the president of the United States.

HENRY: Well, and the president’s position has been, if you just do all of the easy stuff, the low-hanging fruit, and you save the much harder stuff, you are never really going to get to that because the easy stuff is easy, obviously. Now the Republicans have been making the big government argument from the very beginning of the debate, suggesting they really don’t want to work with this president.

And maybe the argument is not working because the president is still standing, as we were saying a moment ago. And I think though that the big test for the president ahead is, does he want to reach out to the Republicans?

He has maybe one last chance. Here in the Senate debate, as Mitch McConnell was saying earlier, much different than the House where they just kind of rammed it through. In the Senate, as Dana, there is going to be amendment after amendment.

And the president, you know, months ago, said, we want to have malpractice reform, something Republicans really want and Democrats don’t want because the trial lawyers don’t like it. But an amendment on that is likely, many of them on the floor...

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: What’s he going get for it? What’s he going to get? One vote, two votes.

HENRY: And maybe one or two votes, but at least show that he’s willing to move the bill to the middle.

BASH: Look, real quickly, the bottom line is politically for Republicans, the reason why Mitch McConnell wouldn’t answer the question about Republicans having a plan, is because they have a very strict calculation politically that they don’t want to have a plan because they want the focus to be entirely on Democrats.

That’s why in the House, even though Republicans got a plan, they didn’t do a press conference, they didn’t do a big rally, they did it as quietly as they possibly could because they wanted to focus on Democrats.

KING: All right. We’re going to take a quick time out, when we come back, we will have our “Lightning Round” with Ed Henry, Gloria Borger, and Dana Bash. We’re going to shift subjects. We’re going to talk about the terror trials and the criticism of the Obama administration’s decision to bring 9/11 conspirators to New York City. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’re back for our “Lightning Round” with Ed Henry, Gloria Borger, and Dana Bash. We’re going to shift the subject and talk terror politics.

The attorney general, Eric Holder, went to Capitol Hill this week to explain and defend the controversial decision to take Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other alleged 9/11 co-conspirators from Guantanamo Bay, bring them to New York City to stand trial in the federal courts.

It’s a risky decision from a legal standpoint. It’s controversial politically. Senator Lindsey Graham , Republican of South Carolina, had a question for the attorney general.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAHAM: Can you give me a case in United States history where an enemy combatant caught on a battlefield was tried in civilian court?

ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I don’t know. I would have to look at that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: He is the attorney general of the United States, I don’t like to speculate, but I’m willing to bet he actually knew the answer.

HENRY: Yes. I think he did and I think he didn’t necessarily want it on camera because it is controversial, and I think what he said after that as well in that hearing about basically saying, look, don’t worry, even if someone like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is acquitted, we’re going to keep him in prison indefinitely as a combatant.

Where have we heard that before? The Bush administration. And that was what the Obama campaign and Democrats were saying was wrong, that we had to follow the Constitution, and that the Bush administration was -- you know, was on the wrong side of history.

But they are now saying, even if we don’t get a guilty verdict, we’re going to keep him in prison. That’s not really change.

KING: So we’re going to put them on trial in open federal court with all of these better rules of evidence for the defendant to prove we’re the United States of America, and we’re open and we’re transparent, unless we lose.

BORGER: Right. I mean, it’s very complicated. you know, I mean, a lot of of -- you know, I mean, a lot of -- you know, it’s -- I look back on it kind of it as like the Ford pardon of Richard Nixon, which I remember at the time we all scratched our heads and thought, you know, that’s a crazy thing. Why did he do that?

BORGER: And then in hindsight, to me at least, it looks like it was the right thing to do.

So, you know, he might -- what looks like the wrong decisions being made for the right reasons, you know, rule of law, et cetera, et cetera, we’re better than everyone else -- they turn out in the long term, in the sweep of history to look like the right thing. But very, very difficult politically right now.

BASH: The other question that Lindsey Graham asked that he didn’t get an answer to is what do you do when you catch Osama bin Laden? Do you read him his Miranda rights? And he couldn’t answer the question, because it is so complicated, based on the current way they do things and the way that they want to do things in the future.

And Lindsey Graham obviously is somebody who is a JAG lawyer, and he is very attuned to this subject. He also is, when it comes to Republicans, probably one of the Obama administration’s behind-closed- doors best allies on this. So if he can’t get answers from Eric Holder in open session, who can?

HENRY: And that follows the president’s top lawyer, Greg Craig, just a few days earlier essentially being pushed out because of in large part of this Guantanamo issue. They are going to miss the deadline to close it down by the end of January 2010, which the president promised in his first week in office. It’s shown more than anything how much harder it is to govern than it is to campaign.

BORGER: Welcome to Washington.

KING: Welcome to Washington. All right, a quick time-out here. You say welcome to Washington. When we come back, welcome back to Little Rock. Our weekly diner conversation in Doe’s Eat Place in Little Rock, Arkansas, one of my all-time favorites. We’ll talk health care, economy and the native son who became president, Bill Clinton. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: In our travels this week, we visited Arkansas, which was in part for me a trip down memory lane. I spent a lot of time there in the early 1990s when Governor Bill Clinton was gearing up to run for president, and was back more than a few times during the Clinton presidency.

This week was the fifth anniversary of the opening of the Clinton presidential center, and the former president, well, he stopped by to say hello.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I wanted people to come through this library and leave, and I don’t care if they were Democrats or Republicans, I didn’t care if they were Americans or people from other countries, I wanted them to believe that decisions have consequences in real people’s lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The message from the former president there. Arkansas is a great state for politics. It’s the home state of President Clinton and the Republican presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, both former governors of Arkansas. The Clinton presidential library, of course, is right there in Little Rock. 7.6 percent unemployment in Arkansas. That’s below the national average.

One of Little Rock’s landmark food establishments back when Bill Clinton was governor was Doe’s Eat Place. It’s still thriving, still a great place to grab a bite and to talk politics.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING: So should health care wait if it’s a big-ticket item that is going to cost so much money?

CHARLIE GROPPETTI, SMALL BUSINESS OWNER: How can you afford something when you’re already in debt? To me, I just feel like we’re slipping back and it’s become more evident to me that it’s the same old Washington.

KING: Same old Washington?

GROPPETTI: I really believe that. I think...

KING: Doesn’t look any different to you?

GROPPETTI: I think the packaging was pretty glossy during the campaign, but we’ve had the package open for a while, and it’s just the same old stuff inside.

KING: If you voted for Obama, raise your hand?

ALICIA TAYLOR, WORKS AT KROGER: I didn’t vote.

KING: You didn’t vote, OK. If you voted for McCain?

GROPPETTI: I voted for McCain because I was an unhappy Hillary Clinton supporter.

PAUL BERRY, LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS RESIDENT: Former President Bill Clinton would tell you domestically his worst mistake was not accepting incremental addressing of our health care system.

GROPPETTI: We’re afraid to do things sensible. It has to be so radical. We need do things sensible and practical.

KING: Let’s project this forward, then. They’re having this big debate in Washington right now. The Democrats are trying to vote on it and they are trying do it this year. You have a Democratic senator who’s in a very tough spot.

BERRY: Yes.

KING: Blanche Lincoln is getting a lot of pressure from her leadership to vote for the bill. If she votes for a bill that costs somewhere around $1 trillion and that raises taxes, they will say on more wealthy Americans, $250,000 or above -- create this -- does this dramatic change, not the incremental exchange. Will you vote for her?

BERRY: I don’t think she’ll vote for that kind of health care bill. I will vote for her because I’m from a little state. She’s chairman of the Senate Agricultural Committee, which is extremely important in a lot of other ways. And I’ll declare my bias immediately. I’m for her all the way.

KING: How about you?

TAYLOR: I think she’s been pretty awesome for...

KING: You like her?

TAYLOR: Oh, yes, I do like her. I like a lot what she’s done, so I would definitely vote for her.

KING: What do you worry most about?

TAYLOR: The taxes raising up. Just the government taking over. And just the way the economy is right now. I don’t know if it would be good.

GROPPETTI: If she compromises and sticks to a party line that doesn’t make sense to us individually, and it could backfire on her.

KING: If you look around this room, there are pictures of the former governor who became the president, who’s now the former president, and this week is the fifth anniversary of the opening of the library, the Clinton center.

Let’s just play a little word association. I say Bill Clinton, you say?

GROPPETTI: I am going to think Doe’s, because I’m here, and this was the political center where a lot of deals were made, and talk and discussions.

TAYLOR: I liked Bill Clinton.

KING: As governor, as president?

TAYLOR: President. I think he did some really good things for Arkansas. I liked him. BERRY: He’s our friend, OK? We all knew him and we’ve all (inaudible) and we’ve all hugged him.

KING: There is a big debate in this state about whether it was Hillary Clinton or Hillary Rodham Clinton . She went on, of course, to be first lady, then she was a senator from New York, now she’s the secretary of state. Is she going to be a presidential candidate someday? Do we know what her future is?

TAYLOR: I think she will be.

BERRY: She already has been.

GROPPETTI: Chelsea will be.

TAYLOR: Chelsea.

(CROSSTALK)

GROPPETTI: Chelsea will be. But down the road.

KING: Sarah Palin .

TAYLOR: Don’t quite know about her. We’ll still learning a little bit more about her.

KING: Are you interested to learn more about her?

TAYLOR: A little bit. She’s kind of a fascinating background that she did quite well for herself. We’ll just see and see in the future what’s going to happen with Sarah Palin .

BERRY: Her book is -- going rogue is what all the media are covering, and I don’t consider her a literary figure.

GROPPETTI: I think we were very intrigued for her first speech, which I thought was out of ballpark. I want to hear more from her because I’m intrigued, but I want her to take responsibility for her own actions, not talking about handlers. You just have to stand up. You can’t be -- you can’t blame your handlers.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Good eats at Doe’s, but if you go, I recommend you carve out a little extra time for the gym.

We would like to welcome back our international viewers.

KING: I’m John King and this is STATE OF THE UNION.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): The magic number, 60.

DODD: The motion is agreed to.

KING: Senate Democrats clear a critical health care hurdle, but will differences within the party unravel the sweeping measure?

We’ll go inside the deliberations with three leading Democratic senators: Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Michael Bennet of Colorado, and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.

And then in an exclusive interview, we’ll hear the Republican reaction and strategy from Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell .

And our “American Dispatch” from Arkansas, two small business owners showcase the policy divide that makes health care politics so dicey for vulnerable Democrats.

She was a top CEO and a leading adviser to Senator John McCain ’s presidential campaign, now she has her sights set on a Senate seat while fighting a very personal battle. Carly Fiorina gets the “Last Word.” This is the STATE OF THE UNION report for Sunday, November 22nd.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: We begin this Sunday morning with the Senate’s dramatic step to open debate on major health care legislation. It was a rare Saturday night session. And in the end, a big win for the Democratic majority, but just barely. Leader Harry Reid needed 60 votes and he got just that. All 58 Democrats and both independents voted aye on the motion to proceed. Every Republican voted nay.

Their leader will join us in just a moment for an exclusive conversation about the Republican strategy going forward, but first, the many challenges still ahead for the Democrats. Let’s talk those over with Democratic senators Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and, in his first Sunday show interview, Michael Bennet of Colorado.

Congratulations are in order on this morning for the Democrats, but you got across the starting line. Let’s talk about what it will take to get to the finish line. And the big divide in the party still is over the public option. Three supporters of the public option at the table here. But you saw Senator Lincoln of Arkansas says, I vote to go forward in this debate, I don’t like the public option. Senator Landrieu, I don’t like the public option, at least in its existing form. Senator Lieberman has said he will not vote for a bill that includes a public option.

Senator Shaheen, to you first. Will you have to get that up to get 60 in the end? You had 60 in the beginning, but to have 60 in the end, will you have to go to a trigger or some other form and give up what you would like?

SHAHEEN: You know, I support a public option. I think it’s important for us to get competition in the health insurance industry so we can lower costs for people. But there are a number of ways to do that. We’re at the beginning of this debate, and I think we’ve got to see how it plays out.

KING: Senator Bennet, you want to go home -- you’re on the ballot next year -- you want to go home and say, we did this. It’s -- not only is it important, not only did we debate it, but we passed it. Will you have to give that up to get 60 at the end?

BENNET: I don’t know. My sense of it, John, is that people understand that there’s a requirement in this bill that they have insurance. What they’re saying to me is, even though they didn’t say this early in the summer, what they’re saying now is, I want all of the options. I want a public option, I want a private option, I want nonprofit. I want to be able to make the choice that’s in the best interest of my family. I think other people are going to be hearing that too.

So I think last night was a big step forward, because it allows us to debate not just this issue, but a range of issues around health care that the American people, you know, deserve to have. As Jeanne said, after 50 years of delay, delay, delay, we finally now have the opportunity to debate these issues on the floor of the Senate.

KING: Let me try asking you it as a yes or no. If in the end, you cannot get Senator Lieberman, Senator Lincoln, Senator Landrieu, and you can’t pass a bill without at least going to a trigger, would you make that compromise?

BROWN: I’m not going to answer yes or no, because I don’t think we get to that.

I think what happens, John, is there are two weeks, three weeks, whatever, of debate. Senator Lieberman, everybody has a chance to offer amendments. I’m going to offer amendments on some pharmaceutical issues, because I think the bill could be strengthened there. I know that my colleagues are going to do the same on some other -- that and some other issues. So they will have their chance to do this.

And I think, in the end, I don’t want four Democratic senators dictating to the other 56 of us and to the country, when the public option has this much support, that it’s not going to be in it.

And I echo what Michael said, is that people want every option. If we’re going to -- if we’re telling people you have to buy insurance, we shouldn’t tell them they’ve got to buy insurance from a private insurance company.

But in the end, I think that all four of our colleagues survey this -- look at this bill in the end and say, I don’t think they want to be on the wrong side of history.

KING: Let’s talk about how we pay for this. The Senate bill would cost about $850 billion over 10 years. Here’s how it is currently paid for in the proposal before you. A 40 percent tax on so-called Cadillac insurance plans, those that cost over $8,500, $436 billion in Medicare savings or cuts depending on how you look at it, and we can talk about that. Increase in the Medicare payroll tax for those making over $250,000 a year, and a 5 percent tax on elective cosmetic procedures, already lovingly called “the botax” here in Washington, D.C.

As you know, a number of these proposals are quite controversial, and your friends in the labor movement particularly don’t like the Cadillac insurance plan tax. Here’s what Jim Hoffa, the president of the Teamsters, says. “This provision is really a massive tax increase on the middle class by calling it a tax on insurers. But it is naive to think that insurers won’t pass this tax directly on to workers. The idea that this tax will curtail rising premiums is just dead wrong.” Is Jim Hoffa right?

BROWN: Generally, he is.

KING: Will you fight that proposal?

BROWN: I would prefer that we look more at the version that the House did on a surtax on people making $500,000 a year or more. Even with the House proposal, and I know we’re talking -- when you talk about either bill, but even with the House proposal, it’s still -- the tax rate is still significantly less for upper-income people than it was before the Bush tax cuts for the rich that were unpaid for and caused this huge budget -- in part, with the war and the Medicare privatization, that caused these huge budget deficits.

And I know that Mitch McConnell , when he speaks after this, is going to spend a lot of time talking about the budget deficit.

But it’s the Mitch McConnells of the world that voted for the war and didn’t fund it, voted for the tax cuts for the rich and didn’t fund it, and voted for the Medicare privatization and didn’t fund it. That’s why we’re in this situation and the economy we have.

So it’s just important as we listen to Mitch in the next segment that people kind of keep that as a...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: I will remind him of that point, but the Democrats are in charge now.

BROWN: I understand that. That’s why we’re...

KING: They have the White House and both branches of Congress.

BROWN: That’s exactly right. We’re in charge now. And Jeanne Shaheen and Michael Bennet and I, all of us, have made sure this bill pays for itself. We’re embarking on something very new and very important, this health care bill. And we’ve all committed that it be paid for, something that hasn’t happened in 10 years.

That is no longer business as usual. And that’s why -- that’s one of the reasons this bill is the right way to go.

SHAHEEN: And it’s not just that it’s paid for, it actually is going to reduce the deficit over the next 10 years by about $130 billion. That’s real progress.

KING: And to make that happen, if you read the Congressional Budget Office analysis, if you talk to interest groups around town, even those who support you, academics, they say you have, you know, the $400 and something billion in Medicare savings. And some people call it cuts, other people say this is waste, fraud, and abuse, let’s make a run at this.

But what we do know will happen is that next year and the year after, whether it’s the hospitals, the hospices, the senior groups, will come back saying, this is too hard on us, this is too hard on us, give us some of that money back.

Will you all commit today that if you pass this bill and it sets that target to save in Medicare, that you’ll say no when they come back? And you may have to cast the tough votes against your friends saying, no, we committed to doing this, it is the key to bending that curve, and you will make the tough votes?

SHAHEEN: But, listen, I think there’s a lot of misinformation about where the cuts from Medicare are going to come from. They’re basically from two places. One is we’re going to make private insurers who offer Medicare Advantage plans pay the same amount that everybody else is getting under Medicare. There are significant savings there.

And then the hospitals have said, we’re going to be able to charge less for Medicare, because we’re going to have a lot more patients, because a lot more people are going to be insured. And then there’s a third provision that I think is reflected in a number of ways in the bill that Michael and I have been working on, which is hospitalizations, and making sure that people on Medicare, when they’re let out of the hospital, are able to stay out because they’ve got better transitional care.

BENNET: I would say, John, I think it is critically important that we maintain the fiscal discipline that’s represented by this bill. We maintain it as the bill works its way through the floor and also in the years to come. Because one of the things that people are really cynical about here is whether Washington actually can pass a piece of legislation and pay for it.

You know, they’re worried about -- they don’t like the existing health insurance system, that’s clear, but they’re very worried about our capacity to make it even worse. And so for those of us that are proponents of reform, I think we carry a heavy and very appropriate burden to make sure that we really are paying for it, not just in the near-term, but in the out-years as well.

BROWN: And there are a number of components to this bill that aren’t even counted in terms of cost savings, the discharge procedure, the first 30 days out of the hospital that Michael and Jeanne -- or that several are working on in the Senate, where a dietitian or a nurse or some home health care person spends -- monitors and stays with those people in those 30 days, continues to talk with them, that’s not reimbursed now.

And there are ways of doing that. That will save a lot of money. The checklist that the physician at Johns Hopkins, Peter Pronovost, developed that saved hundreds of millions of dollars in Michigan. That’s not counted in the savings.

All the wellness and prevention parts of the bill that Senator Harkin wrote in our Health, Education, Labor, Pension Committee that Michael and I sit on, all of that will be additional cost savings that are not so-called scored, too much inside-the-Beltway...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Let’s take a quick break -- let me take a quick break, we’ll be back. Plenty more to talk about with our senators about what’s in the health care bill for you. Don’t go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’re back with Democratic senators Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and Michael Bennet of Colorado.

Let’s talk about another tough issue in the health care bill. And Senator Bennet, I was listening yesterday on the floor when you were talking about your views on this, and that is, how should abortion be dealt with national health care reform?

I want to show our viewers, here’s what the Senate bill before you right now does. It bars the use of federal funds for abortion coverage. The public man that would be created could provide abortion coverage, but money from the premiums must cover the procedure, not tax dollars.

The exchanges that would be created in each state must have one plan that includes abortion coverage and one that does not. And people who receive federal subsidies to buy insurance could choose a health plan that covers elective abortions. But, again, the private insurance would have to make sure that money comes from premiums, not federal tax dollars.

Here’s what the House bill does in contrast. It is much more restrictive on this issue. It bars the use of federal funds for abortion coverage. The public plan would not provide abortion coverage. And private plans in the health care exchanges could not provide abortion coverage. People who receive federal subsidies to buy insurance could not choose a health plan that covers elective abortions.

I heard you on the floor yesterday saying the House goes too far. Again, in the end, would that be a make or break for you? We’re going to have to cut a deal at some point if you get this bill through the Senate. And some people say, oh, if there’s no public option, that’s not good enough, I’ll walk away. What about on abortion?

BENNET: I don’t think there’s any reason to change what the long-standing policy has been from the federal government about...

KING: But what if the reason is, you don’t get a bill unless you do?

BENNET: I think -- I don’t know, John. I don’t think we will get that bill and I think that it would be very unfortunate if we did. We shouldn’t be using health care reform to rewrite long-standing policy from the federal government on abortion. It’s just not right. It’s not the place we should be doing it.

I think the Senate bill strikes a very good balance. It’s the balance that we’ve had for many years around this issue. And I think there are also very important things in the health care legislation that deal with long-standing issues around discrimination against women in a way health care is provided and insurance is delivered.

And I think that’s where we should end up. I don’t see a reason to be where the House is on this issue.

KING: Well, let me talk to you about the process a little bit. If you look at the front page of The Washington Post today, “Sweeteners for the South.” To get Senator Landrieu’s vote, just to proceed, just to go across the starting line, language was inserted in the bill that gives her state up to $300 million. To get Senator Nelson’s vote, the leader agreed to drop a request that you take away the antitrust exemptions for insurance companies.

This got us to day one of the debate. Is this the way to do things? The central promise of the Obama campaign was to change the way Washington works. That’s Washington as usual, is it not?

BROWN: It is and it isn’t. I mean, I -- this bill is extraordinarily complicated.

This legislation is -- you know, as Jeanne said at the outset of the show, 50 years, you could maybe even say 75 years -- Franklin Roosevelt attempted it, Harry Truman really attempted it in earnest...

KING: But is it important enough to buy votes?

BROWN: I don’t say it that way. I think there are a lot of things that we all go to the leader and talk about things in our state. And news reports sometimes aren’t accurate about what might have been done for somebody or what might not have been done for somebody.

I want to see this bill pass. Nobody likes these kinds of -- any kinds of deals. I think anything that’s done needs to be in the best -- in the best interest of those states and this country. I think those probably helped, if that, in fact, really happened -- I have no way of really knowing if it did. I suppose that helped a lot of people in Louisiana that don’t have insurance, and so I think we move forward.

We do what we need to do, within ethical bounds. We do what we need to do within practical bounds. Keeping this, as we’ve all said, keeping this bill, keeping the costs down and keeping this bill budget-neutral or better, as Jeanne points out.

KING: Does it make it harder to do that? Does it create a climate if you’re on the fence, legitimately on the fence, you think, all right, well, maybe I want to be a good Democrat and swallow my pride or swallow an issue or two and vote for this in the end, but I’m going to get something for it, and that’s going to cost money? SHAHEEN: Listen, in the end, this is going to be a compromise. It’s not going to be a perfect bill, but it’s going to be a very important starting point. And I think it’s important to point out that this bill is not just about how do we deliver health care in a way that is more cost-effective, because families can’t afford it anymore, business can’t afford it anymore, and the economy can’t afford it.

But it’s also about how do we do it in a way that improves people’s health and their lives. And, unfortunately, we’re spending more money right now on health care in this country than any other industrialized nation. And yet, we’re not healthier. And so we’ve got to change the way we do things. And that’s what this legislation is about.

BROWN: John, 400 Ohioans every day are losing their insurance. And you know, the Republicans, it was amazing last night, 39 Republicans, every Republican that voted, said, we shouldn’t even debate this. We shouldn’t even move forward. We shouldn’t even have a chance to go to the floor and offer amendments to improve it. 400 Ohioans every day. You know, dozens of Coloradans and New Hampshire -- people in New Hampshire -- I mean, we need to do this, and we aren’t hurrying it. We’ve taken the whole year, and not to mention 75 years, and this is done right, and we need to do what we need to do to get this bill enacted, and it’s just so important.

KING: We saw this week how hard it will be to bend that cost curve in the example of when the mammogram study came out and the pap smear study came out, and you had groups outside of the government but affiliated with the government saying, change the policy on mammograms. Make it 50, not 40 for the screening, the pap smear thing. Do you believe -- use this dustup as an example -- when it comes to evidence-based medicine, comparative research, that we need -- do you believe we need that to bend the cost curve, but what’s going to -- it’s going to be men for prostate next, or somebody’s vision test after that?

BENNET: I do, and I think that we’ve got to -- this bill does a very important thing, which is it gets some of those decisions out of the hands of Congress. You were just talking about how, doesn’t this look like it’s the same old thing? You know, the same old political, inside-Washington, D.C. special interest game? And it does look like that to a lot of people. This has been about moving the ball down the field, getting through to a place where finally we can now debate the bill comprehensively, end to end, and Americans can see whether or not this is something they want to support, which I think is great.

And I think it’s very important as part of that, that we get, for example, out of the hands of Congress, making these decisions on a one-off basis about how people are reimbursed, for example, for oxygen. I mean, you can imagine what lobby day looks like for oxygen in the United States Congress. People come in and say, you should use this much oxygen at that price. It has nothing to do with patients, it has nothing to do with the quality of care, or comparing a certain kind of treatment in one place to another. And I think that if we can establish an infrastructure to really do that in a thoughtful way over time, not only can we bend the cost curve, we can take the politics out of it, and the quality of care will improve as well.

KING: I want to move on to some other issues. Before I do, I want to try one yes-or-no question on you, a new senator who’s on the ballot next year in a tough state. If you get to the final point and you are a critical vote for health care reform, and every piece of evidence tells you, if you support that bill, you will lose your job, would you cast the vote and lose your job?

BENNET: Yes.

KING: All right. That tape will be held -- I hate to tell you that, but that tape will be held right now.

I want to move on. There’s a lot of criticism this week. We saw unemployment in 29 states went up. In two of your states, it went down a little bit. In one of your states, it went up a bit. In 29 states, the unemployment rate inched up again. And there’s been a lot of criticism of the president’s economic team, including from Peter DeFazio, who is a Democrat. And he said this, Congressman Peter DeFazio. “It’s pretty embarrassing for a Democratic administration and a Democratic Congress to be identified with total attention to Wall Street and nothing for Main Street and jobs. I still support the president, I just think he’s being poorly served by his economic team.”

Some Republicans went further and said Secretary Geithner should resign.

Is this administration and its economic team in touch, in sync with the people of Youngstown and Cincinnati and Cleveland at this moment, or more in touch with Wall Street?

BROWN: I think the president is. I think that the vice president is. I think the advisers are mixed. I spoke with secretary -- I was with Secretary Geithner at the Treasury Department this week at the small business summit, Senator Warner and I with a bunch of small-business people with Karen Mills, the administrator of SBA, and Secretary Geithner. And I took him aside and said, we need more focus on manufacturing, we need an industrial policy. Manufacturing creates middle-class jobs, and there’s not been the -- there’s not been a manufacturing policy in this country for forever, really. And the former presidents haven’t had it, and -- and President Obama’s moving in that direction. I mean, Ron Bloom and others in the administration really are beginning to focus on that. So I think they’ve turned a corner. I think, particularly next year, the focus is all about creating jobs, and I think we’ll begin to see changes.

BENNET: What’s staggering to me about this is it’s not just that we’re in the worst recession since the Great Depression, although we are. It’s also that in the last period of growth, working families income in the United States actually declined during the Bush recovery. So our working families are trying to recover not just from one recession, but two. This is not just a short-term issue about stimulus. It’s a long-term issue about where we’re headed with this economy. And I think we do need to turn more of our attention to that. I think we need to do much more to get small business access to loans again so they can start hiring again. We haven’t done a good enough job at that. We really do need to turn our focus in a very meaningful way to Main Street.

KING: And as he makes that point, he says we, he’s being polite. Does the president’s team need to do a better job?

SHAHEEN: Sure. I think we all need to do a better job. I voted against the TARP funding because I thought we weren’t holding the financial community accountable enough for how that money was being spent. So I think we’ve got to look now at what more we can do.

Both Sherrod and Michael made the point, we need to make sure business gets access to credit. We need to have a manufacturing policy. We need to do more to give business access to international markets so that they can export more.

So there’s a lot more we need to do. We need to invest in our infrastructure. And I think the president and his economic team recognize that. And we’ve all got to work together and work harder.

KING: Senator Shaheen, Senator Bennet and Senator Brown, thanks for coming on this Sunday morning. We appreciate it.

BROWN: Thanks, John.

SHAHEEN: Thank you.

KING: We’ll continue the conversation. We’ve got a long way to go, here, on both the health care and the economic front.

And up next, the Republican perspective on health care, Afghanistan, and more from the Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell . Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: With us now With us now exclusively, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Mr. Leader, thank you for joining us. You don’t like the way the vote went down last night. You were on the losing side.

Now that the Democrats have 60 votes to start debate -- a long way to go, a lot of issues to debate, but do you believe, like it or not, that that vote means that the Senate will pass and the Congress will send to the president a health care bill late this year or early next?

MCCONNELL: Yes, not necessarily. First of all, we’ll have an extensive debate. The Senate’s not like the House. They had three votes on one day and it was over.

Just to look at recent legislative activities on the Senate side, we spent four weeks last Congress on a farm bill, seven weeks creating the Department of Homeland Security a few years ago, eight weeks on an energy bill. The Senate doesn’t do things quickly.

So we’ll have multiple amendments, John, from both sides, a free- ranging, open debate. And as we begin the debate, the one thing we know for sure, that didn’t come up in the last segment -- I know why it didn’t; they don’t want to talk about it -- we know the American people don’t want us to do this.

The CNN poll is the same as all the other polls. The American people are opposed to this particular health care bill. They thought this was all going to be about controlling costs, but, in fact, we’ve ended up with a $2.5 trillion budget-busting proposal that CBO, the scorekeeper in Congress, tells us, after it’s all over, will not control costs.

KING: The scorekeeper does say, after 10 years, it brings down the deficit, if the Democrats cast all those tough votes.

MCCONNELL: Yes, but, you know, it was full of gimmicks. They delayed for five years the benefits. If you look at 10 years for the whole program fully implemented, it’s $2.5 trillion.

So this proposal picked the most favorable 10-year period in order to get the CBO to say, within this framework, it would actually bend the deficit some. But that -- it’s not the truth. I mean, everybody knows it’s not the truth.

KING: Is the Republican strategy just get in the way and block it? Or is the Republican strategy, try to improve it and then maybe vote yes on a final bill that you don’t like some of it, but it’s better than today?

MCCONNELL: Well, this bill is certainly not better. It drives the costs up for Americans; it cuts Medicare dramatically.

KING: Now, the Democrats say it saves Medicare, but it doesn’t cut a benefit.

MCCONNELL: Yes, let me tell you, five years ago we passed, when my side was in the majority, a rather modest reduction in the rate of increase of Medicare, at about $10 billion over five years. My counterpart, the majority leader, called it immoral. This is half a trillion dollars over 10 years, higher taxes on individuals and on businesses, higher insurance premiums for 85 percent of the American people who already have insurance.

That’s not reform. That’s not what the American people thought this was all about.

KING: Answer the skeptic out there who’s watching right now. You just made the point. You were the majority leader. The Republicans ran the Senate; they ran the House, as well, and you had a Republican president in the White House in George W. Bush .

Answer the skeptic out there who says, well, why should I listen to you now, Mitch McConnell ? Where was the McConnell bill to deal with pre-existing conditions? Where was the McConnell bill -- as Republicans say, let’s do this; let’s sell insurance across state lines -- where was the McConnell bill to help bend that cost curve in a helpful way? So how can you say no now, when you didn’t -- and say, let’s do this incrementally now, when you didn’t do it then?

MCCONNELL: Well, we didn’t have the votes to pass it. They were against doing something about junk lawsuits against doctors and hospitals which would save $54 billion. They were not in favor of the kind of wellness programs that we think would drive down the costs. They were not in favor of insurance competition across state lines. They were not in favor of equalizing the tax cod, so that individual purchasers of insurance are treated the same way corporate purchasers of insurance are.

KING: Again, the skeptic might say, why didn’t we have all these issues on the floor, though? Harry Reid may lose this. He may lose this.

MCCONNELL: We had myriad health care debates during the period that President Bush was in office and during the time when there was a Republican majority. The Democrats simply don’t want to do incremental changes.

John, we feel that we ought to go step by step to fix our current health care system. We do not believe, take -- the government taking over one-sixth of our economy, completely restructuring one-sixth of our economy is a good idea at any time. It is a particularly bad idea when we’re looking at double-digit unemployment.

This bill is a job-killer. If you were running a small business, John, and you wanted -- thinking about whether or not to expand employment next year, and you looked at what’s coming your way with this health care bill, you’re going to have health care taxes, you’re going to have expiration of the Bush tax cuts, so your tax rates are going to go up. The cost of hiring additional employees will be greatly exacerbated by the steps that they’re taking. This is the wrong direction to go.

KING: And you mentioned you would prefer incremental reform. I want to ask you a question in the context of what you know is coming from the Democrats over the next several weeks as this debate goes on. Leader Boehner was here a few weeks ago; he heard it in the House. Senator Durbin and the Democrats say, Well, we have a plan. Maybe it’s not perfect, but where’s the Republican plan?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DURBIN: I challenged Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans to produce a health care bill that will save us $127 billion in the deficit over the next 10 years, and there’s nothing posted on the Internet. I challenged Mitch McConnell to come up with a bill that makes sure that 94 percent of Americans have the peace of mind of health insurance coverage, but the Republicans put nothing on the Internet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Will you continue to say, “We want to do this incrementally,” or will, because of the politics of the moment, do you feel compelled to come up with a comprehensive Republican alternative?

MCCONNELL: Yes, what we don’t think is America wants another 2,000-page bill. It’s this high. We had it on the floor. We don’t think that’s the way to go. We think we ought to go step by step to improve the -- the system that you and I have just been talking about, some of the steps we would take that would have an impact on the cost of health care.

The American people are not complaining about the quality of American health care. They’re complaining about the cost of it. This proposal that the Democrats voted to proceed to last night will explode cost; it will make the situation worse.

MCCONNELL: We think you ought to go in a different direction.

So don’t hold your breath. We’re not planning on having a 2,000- page bill.

KING: Let me -- well, before I shift gears, let me ask you this. You’ve been at this a long time, both as the majority leader and as a minority leader. On a scale of 1 to 10, the likelihood the Senate will pass a health care legislation this year and that Congress will send the president a bill before the State of the Union Address next year?

MCCONNELL: Well, we don’t often ignore the wishes of the American people. They are literally screaming -- many of them -- telling us, please don’t pass this, don’t pass this bill. If the majority is hell-bent on ignoring the wishes of the American people, they have 60 votes in the Senate.

You would think that they might be able to do this, but I believe there are a number of Democratic senators who do care what the American people think and are not interested in this sort of arrogant approach that everybody -- sort of shut up and sit down, get out of the way, we know what’s best for you.

Now, we’re hearing from the American people, they don’t want us to pass it. So I would -- you know, it’s hard to handicap the ultimate outcome, whether the majority will ignore the American people or not, but they’ll be heard. The American people will be heard. They’ll either be heard sooner or they’ll be heard later.

KING: Let me shift to the economy. Unemployment went up in 29 states this week, down in 13. I’ve traveled to 45 states in the last 45 weeks. And as much as they care about the health care debate, they care, first and foremost, about jobs and the economy.

There has been a lot of criticism of the president’s economic team, including from a House Republican who said this week the secretary of the treasury should quit. Let’s listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN BRADY (R), TEXAS: Conservatives agree that, as point person, you failed. Liberals are growing in that consensus, as well. Poll after poll shows the public has lost confidence in this -- in this president’s ability to handle the economy. For the sake of our jobs, will you step down from your post? (END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now, Secretary Geithner, of course, says no. Are you among those who think that he’s the problem? Does he need to go? Or is that just a little political pinata?

MCCONNELL: You know, look, I’m not here to call for anybody’s resignation today. I think we ought to go in a different direction.

First of all, we ought not to pass this job-killing health care bill; that would be a good place to stop.

Second, we ought to repeal the balance of the stimulus package, which has been a failure. We added almost $1 trillion to the debt earlier this year, presumably to hold unemployment below 8 percent, which is what the administration said it would do. Now unemployment is over 10 percent.

In my state, John, it actually went up last month, unemployment getting worse. Rather than passing this job-killing health care bill, why don’t we concentrate on getting the economy in better shape?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Up next, a quick check of today’s top headlines, then, she was a top adviser to Senator John McCain ’s presidential campaign, now she wants to represent California in the United States Senate, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina gets the “Last Word” next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: I’m John King and this is STATE OF THE UNION. Here are stories breaking this Sunday. The death toll rises. Chinese media say 92 people have died in a coal mine explosion in the northeastern part the country. And a rescue effort is under way still for another 16 workers trapped underground.

It has been three days and students are still occupying an administration at the University of California Santa Cruz over fee increases. They expect the police will soon forcibly remove them.

Those are your top stories this hour here on STATE OF THE UNION. And up next, we will talk to the woman who wants to be senator from California. former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina gets the “Last Word,” next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Eighteen newsmakers, analysts and reporters were out on the Sunday morning talk shows but only one gets the last word. And that honor today goes to Carla Fiorina. She’s the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and now a Republican (inaudible) -- Republican candidate for Senate in California.

I’ll eventually speak English.

(LAUGHTER)

Welcome.

FIORINA: Thanks, John.

KING: I want to ask you -- you’re a Republican candidate for Senate, so let’s imagine you are the Republican senator from California. A big vote last night in the United States Senate. The question is, do we start debate on health care reform?

How would you have voted it?

FIORINA: I would have voted no. And I don’t think that’s a partisan comment. I think, if you just look at the facts of this bill, the facts, which are nonpartisan, are terrible. The CBO says this bill will not decrease insurance premiums; it will raise them. The CBO says that this will cost $2.5 trillion.

In essence, it’s a business case that front-end-loads the revenues and back-end-loads the costs. I used to see those as a businessperson; I’d throw them out because the numbers don’t add.

And as a breast cancer survivor, I have to tell you I’m extremely concerned by the example that the recent change in mammography guidelines indicates, rationed care, what that will mean for women in this country.

KING: I want to spend more time on that at the end of our conversation, but on the substance, the bigger substance of the health care bill right now, when you say CBO says it would raise premiums, I assume you mean the section where says -- talking about the public option, if that is created, CBO speculates that sicker people would get into the public option, and therefore you’d have a pool of sicker people, and premiums might go up. Is that the part you’re talking about? FIORINA: That is exactly right. And also, the CBO also says that we’re leveling tens of billions of dollars onto American businesses, and the CBO acknowledges that the costs of that tax burden will probably be paid by workers, either in wages or in jobs.

So all the facts about the money of this bill are terrible. We’re not solving the problem. We’re not bending the health cost curve down. We’re not helping the American people.

And, oh by the way, there’s this little thing called a $12.5 trillion, $12.4 trillion deficit at this point.

(LAUGHTER)

We can’t afford it. It doesn’t solve the problem.

KING: You list a number of policy reasons. There would be some that disagree with you, but you list all the policy reasons. What about the political calculation, because Carly Fiorina is running to be a United States senator from the state of California.

And the Los Angeles Times did a poll recently with USC, and they said, “Do you want a senator who will mostly support President Obama’s policies?” And nearly 6 in 10 Californians, 59 percent, said yes. The answer you just gave me was no. Do you worry about that?

FIORINA: Well, you know, it’s interesting. Because, if you listen to what President Obama said about this health care proposal, even he agreed with me. He said he wouldn’t sign into law a bill that increased the deficit. He said he wouldn’t sign into law a bill that increased the cost of health care. If this bill goes through, President Obama will have to eat his words or break his promise.

I agree with the goals of health care reform. What I strenuously disagree with is that this bill or the one that made its way through the House solves the problem in any way.

And I also think you’d find it interesting that, in California, the independent vote, which will be critical, as it has been in Virginia, New Jersey and other places -- independents are basically saying they don’t want Barbara Boxer back in the U.S. Capitol; they’ll take almost anybody instead of her.

KING: We’ll watch the health care debate, and we’ll come back to the mammogram issue in a minute.

But another question that Senator Boxer could end up voting on in the near future, and you would vote, if you were there instead of her, is how to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Carl Levin is the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. And he says it’s time to make this more transparent, to give the American people a more open assessment and accounting of how much this costs overseas. So what he says is, let’s have a war tax. Let’s listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. CARL LEVIN, D-MICH.: I think the finer way to pay for it -- I don’t know that it has to be a war tax, but I think we’ve got to find revenues, particularly in the upper brackets, folks earning more $200,000 or $250,000 -- they have done incredibly well. And I think that it’s important that we pay for it if we possibly can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Is that the way to do it, some new revenue stream dedicated solely to paying for the wars, or should it come out of general fund as it does now?

FIORINA: Well, first let me point out that a new tax has nothing to do with transparency. I’m all for transparency. I think every bill ought to go up on the Internet for public comment. I think every budget ought to go up on the Internet for public comment.

However, to say that we’re going to pay for the war with a tax on the rich ignores the fact that we know that doesn’t work.

California is a test case of how big government, big tax doesn’t work. California, right now, has huge government, and yet the quality, the services, the government produces is deteriorating; higher and higher taxes. And the consequence of that kind of regime is we are losing more and more jobs in California, losing more than we’re creating. And, in fact, the tax bases are eroding. It doesn’t work.

So, no, I think it’s a bad idea.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: And what about -- the question at the core of that is, the president’s likely to send more troops to Afghanistan. Should he send more? Should he send 20,000, 30,000, 40,000, or enough?

FIORINA: You know, I agreed with the president’s strategy when he laid it out for Afghanistan. And what he fundamentally said was, Afghanistan and Pakistan are inextricably linked. I agree.

What he fundamentally said was economic development and diplomacy were as important as military power, I agree. And what he said was, I’m put a new general in charge to lead our military efforts.

My own view is you either accept that general’s recommendations at this point or find someone else. But I think trying to change his mind about what he thinks he needs is a recipe for failure, not victory.

KING: Much of the country is captivated, and certainly the political parts of the country are captivated by the Sarah Palin book, right now.

She was, of course, the Republican vice presidential nominee. You were a senior economic adviser to the John McCain campaign. I want to read something she writes in that book about the economy. “It would later concern me that, when the tanking economy began pushing the war out of the headlines, Steve Schmidt” -- the campaign manager -- “was slow to turn the campaign ship into the wind. It seems clear that there was an assumption at the center of the McCain camp that the war would retain center stage come hell or high water.”

Is Governor Palin right? Was the campaign too focused on Iraq, too focused on military strategy and not concerned enough about dealing with the economy?

FIORINA: You know, I haven’t read her book, but I guess my own experience -- I signed on with John McCain early on in 2007. And all of my conversations with him were about the economy, for essentially two years, and all of my conversations with the campaign were about the economy.

KING: All politics is local. Let me ask you a California question. Those students -- we just talked about them. They’re staging a sit-in, right now, at the university of California-Santa Cruz.

(LAUGHTER)

They’ve had 32 percent tuition and fee hike. They think that’s an outrage, and they’re staging this sit-in.

Number one, are they right? Do they have every right to be outraged?

And, number two, would you, as a senator, support the governor or anybody in local authority sending the police in to forcibly remove them, or should they be heard?

FIORINA: Well, A, I think they should be heard. And, B, of course it’s an outrage. I mean, how do you say to their students and their parents, “Surprise, you’re going to have a 32 percent increase,” just as it was outrageous to say, “Surprise, we’re going to pay you back with IOUs.”

But, again, California is a test case of the fact that bigger and bigger government and higher and higher taxes just don’t work.

We are now facing, as a nation, an unsustainable deficit. There are only two things that can be done to bring that deficit under control so that we don’t leave our children and grandchildren with unsustainable levels of debt.

We have to grow the economy and we actually have to reduce federal government spending. And those two platforms are what I will run on. And those two issues, interestingly, are the number one issues for the people of California, regardless of party affiliation.

KING: I want to circle back to your personal experience and how it relates to the health care debate. You mentioned this advisory panel came out with these new recommendations, saying, no longer should women start getting mammograms at 40; move it up to 50, because their calculation was -- and they spelled it out pretty plainly. They said going at 40 does save some lives, but they also think it had caused unnecessary grief, unnecessary stress, some unnecessary testing.

FIORINA: Well, first, the panel was specifically asked to look at costs as well as care. Secondly, the panel did not include an oncologist or a radiologist; that is, people who know something about it.

Breast cancer is among the most common forms of cancer among women and among the most curable. In my own situation, I found my own lump two weeks after a clear a mammogram. Had I followed these new recommendations and not received another mammogram for two full years -- I’m over 50 -- I could well not be sitting here.

The truth is all of these preventive techniques, self-exams, mammograms, MRIs when necessary -- in my case I had to have several -- are saving lives.

Who is to say that a nameless, faceless bureaucrat government in Washington, D.C. should determine that my life is too expensive to save?

KING: Then who is to say, though, to your point -- because if the goal of health care reform is to control costs, somebody, something has to regulate -- “We’re doing too many of this test, too many of that test.”

Somehow, you have to control costs, do you not?

FIORINA: Well, you know what, first the decisions about care should rest between a patient and their doctor, the people who know the science. Secondly, if we would focus more on quality of care, we would lower costs. That has been proven over and over again.

In the places where people are focused on, for example, integrated patient care, costs are lower. Patient-centric care, costs are lower. If we’re really interested in lowering costs then let’s pass the kind of medical malpractice reform that we passed in California. It saved money. It lowered insurance premiums. It would save probably $54 billion here nationwide. I don’t see this debate really focused frankly on the real issues: quality, and let’s make sure that everyone is covered.

Sadly, we have a business case that doesn’t add up. Quality isn’t going to be improved. And costs are on the rise.

KING: Carly Fiorina, a Republican candidate for Senate of the state of California, we appreciate your coming in here today for the “Last Word.”

FIORINA: Good to be with you, John.

KING: We’ll come out to the West Coast and watch the campaign as it plays out.

And up next, Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln was the critical 60th vote to move the health care debate along. When we come back, we’ll take you to her home state of Arkansas and show you how that vote just might cost Senator Lincoln her job.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’ve been talking most of the hour about health care and the tough policy and political choices the congressional debate is forcing. Those feeling the most pressure are those who face the voters next year. Perhaps none more than the woman who cast the 60th vote, the decisive vote to go forward with the debate. She is Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. She served two terms in the House, now she is in the United States Senate. She is on the ballot next year.

In our “American Dispatch” this week, we traveled to Arkansas for an up-close look at how the state’s conservative politics factor into the health care debate and Senator Lincoln’s re-election hopes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KING (voice-over): Aisha’s Fish and Chicken is a family business, known for its friendly service.

STANLEY WALKER, OWNER, AISHA’S FISH AND CHICKEN: We’re going to hook them today, huh?

KING: Wings and catfish.

WALKER: A five-piece wings, extra sauce on it.

KING: And a spicy signature sauce.

WALKER: 131.

KING: Tough times in a bad economy, so owner Stanley Walker says health care is out of the question.

WALKER: It’s too expensive right now. We’re kind of having a little bit of trouble keeping our head above water.

We had it at one time, but it was so expensive that we finally dropped it. I get a lot of complaints from my wife about it that we don’t have health care.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Five-piece, no sauce.

KING: It is both a business decision and a personal risk. Stanley has diabetes and takes just half of his four-pill a day prescription because he can’t afford the $500 a month bill for the full dose.

WALKER: Because I work by myself a lot and I’m always moving all the time, I don’t want to get somewhere and go into a coma, you know, because my sugar dropped too low. It’s a situation where you actually take a gamble, but you can’t afford not to.

KING: Stanley hopes Congress makes it makes health care more affordable and thinks creating a new government-run public option is the best way to do that.

WALKER: If they don’t do that, then I don’t think I will vote for them.

KING: It’s an important statement because African-American votes in places like Pine Bluff will be critical in next year’s midterm elections. And Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln faces a tough re- election race.

PROF. ART ENGLISH, UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK: No question they see an opportunity here and an opportunity to win a Senate seat doesn’t come often for Republicans in Arkansas.

KING: Senator Lincoln opposes a public option, and while that angers liberals, political scientist Art English says Lincoln needs to worry about conservative Democrats and independents in a state President Obama lost by 20 points. ENGLISH: It’s tough. It’s like that show, “Malcolm in the Middle,” but this time it’s kind of, you know, Senator Blanche Lincoln in the middle, and it has been tough on her.

KING: Larry Levy owns this Little Rock brake shop, and has gone from paying 100 percent of employees’ health care to 60 percent.

LARRY LEVY, OWNER, STUART’S BRAKE SHOP: It kept going up and as my employees got older, the premiums, they began to get so high we just couldn’t realistically afford it.

KING: But Levy sees disaster in Democratic plans to create a public option or a mandate that everyone buy health insurance.

LEVY: We don’t know what it’s going to cost us. We have health issues, I agree. There needs to be reform. But let’s identify the problems that we have and let’s fix those problems. Let’s just don’t throw out everything and start all over.

KING (on camera): They say that if taxes go up, it will only be on people above 250 grand a year, but you don’t buy it?

LEVY: No, no, I don’t. I don’t buy it. We middle-class people will shoulder the burden. I have no question about that.

KING (voice-over): Levy describes himself as a conservative who did not vote for Mr. Obama, but does sometimes votes for conservative Democrats. He is not a fan of Senator Lincoln.

LEVY: She is playing games right now, I think, you know? She is just kind of swaying back and forth. I know she’s in a tough position, but if she’ll listen to her constituents we don’t want her to vote for this, I think.

KING (on camera): You think that she has -- she had better listen?

LEVY: I think she needs to listen if she wants to keep her job, yes.

KING (voice-over): But Levy says Lincoln has already lost his vote. He sees Washington as veering too far left and sees the midterm elections as a chance to vote Republican and put the brakes on the Obama agenda.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Our thanks to the people of Pine Bluff and to Little Rock for opening their homes and their businesses to us. Arkansas is a great state and has fascinating politics. We’ll keep an eye on that race.

But as you know, one of our goals is to get out of Washington as often as we can. We’ve made it our pledge here on STATE OF THE UNION to travel to all 50 states in our first year. So far, we’ve been to 45, including Arkansas, Alabama, and Vermont, and many in between. Check out cnn.com/stateoftheunion where you can take a peek whether we’ve learned when we’ve visited your state. We’ll be right here again next Sunday and every Sunday at 9:00 a.m. Eastern for the first and last word in Sunday talk. Until then I’m John King in Washington. Please take care.

For our international viewers, “AFRICAN VOICES” is next, and for everyone else, FAREED ZAKARIA: GPS” starts right now.

END

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Nov 22, 2009 15:04 ET .EOF

Source: CQ Transcriptions

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