'Meet the Press' transcript for August 16, 2009

MR. DAVID GREGORY: This Sunday: the August heat over health care.

(Videotape)

Unidentified Man: One day, God's going to stand before you and he's going

to judge you and the rest of your damn cronies up on the Hill.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: The president tries to regain control of the debate.

(Videotape)

PRES. BARACK OBAMA: So I need you to keep knocking on doors, talking to

your neighbors, spread the facts, fight against the fear.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: This morning, a special hour-long discussion making sense of

health care. What are the issues at the center of the debate? How would

reform affect your health care? Separating fact from fiction in the

fight. And what does it mean politically for President Obama? With us:

former House majority leader Republican Dick Armey, now the head of

FreedomWorks, a major organizer of protesters at town hall meetings;

Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, a medical doctor and member of

the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; former Senate

majority leader, Democrat Tom Daschle, an informal adviser to the White

House and author of "Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care

Crisis"; and Rachel Maddow, host of MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show."

Plus, additional perspectives from around the country: the chairman of

the House Ways and Means Committee, Charlie Rangel of New York; Bruce

Josten, executive vice president of the Chamber of Commerce; and

Democratic Governor Bill Ritter of Colorado.

MR. DAVID GREGORY: But first, making sense of healthcare reform, for the

entire hour. And welcome to our panel here. You know, the president wrote

on the op-ed page of The New York Times today that this is the great

debate for America right now. And I think what the public also wants is a

civil and informative debate, which is what I think we're going to have

this morning. I want to talk in just a few minutes about three major

areas of contention in this healthcare debate. But first I do want to

talk about the anger, the emotion and the fear that is out there.

And, Senator Daschle, let me begin with you. All of these town halls,

have they altered or derailed the chance for reform this year?

FMR. SEN. TOM DASCHLE (D-SD): David, I think it's actually been a good

thing. I think that it's drawn even greater focus on the issue. You've

got President Obama out there in places all over the country talking and

trying to set the record straight. Obviously, these are emotional issues.

This is the noise of democracy. You ask 300 million people what they

ought to do about health care and you're going to get a lot of different

ideas, some of them very deeply emotional. But the bottom line is I think

this really does help a lot, goes a long way.

MR. GREGORY: But it helps, it doesn't hurt. You really believe that it

doesn't hurt?

SEN. DASCHLE: I--well, obviously there are--the misinformation hurts.

Obviously if you, if you provoke fear, that hurts. But the opportunity

that we have to set the record straight, to keep the focus on the issue,

to recognize that there are millions of people out there who don't have

health care, to recognize that there are so many people out there that,

that are left out, 12 million people have been, have been discriminated

against because they have an illness. We've got huge cost problems, huge

quality problems. And this is our opportunity really to lay the record

straight, to put the focus where it belongs and to, and to get this job

done for the first time in 70 years.

MR. GREGORY: All right. But let's talk about the tone of the debate.

There have been death threats against members of Congress, there are Nazi

references to members of Congress and to the president. Here are some of

the images. The president being called a Nazi, his reform effort being

called Nazi-like, referring to Nazi Germany, members of Congress being

called the same. And then there was this image this week outside of

Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a town hall event that the president had, this

man with a gun strapped to his leg held that sign, "It is time to water

the tree of liberty." It was a reference to that famous Thomas Jefferson

quote, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the

blood of patriots and tyrants." That has become a motto for violence

against the government. Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, had

that very quote on his shirt the day of the bombing of the Murrah

building when 168 people were killed.

Senator Coburn, you are from Oklahoma. When this element comes out in

larger numbers because of this debate, what, what troubles you about

that?

SEN. TOM COBURN (R-OK): Well, I'm, I'm troubled anytime when we, we stop

having confidence in, in our government. But we've earned it. You know,

this debate isn't about health care. Health care's the symptom. The

debate is an uncontrolled federal government that's going to run--50

percent of everything we're spending this year we're borrowing from the

next generation. You...

MR. GREGORY: That's--but wait, hold on, I want to stop you there. I'm

talking about the tone. I am talking about violence against the

government. That's what this is synonymous with.

SEN. COBURN: The, the--but the tone is based on fear of loss of control

of their own government. What, what is the genesis behind people going to

such extreme statements? What is it? We, we have lost the confidence, to

a certain degree, and it's much worse than when Tom was the, the, the

leader of the Senate. We have, we have raised the question of whether or

not we're legitimately thinking about the American people and their

long-term best interests. And that's the question. The, the mail volume

of all the senators didn't go up based on the healthcare debate, the mail

volume went up when we started spending away our future indiscriminately.

And that's not Republican or Democrat, that has been a problem for years.

But it's exacerbated now that we're in the kind of financial situation

and economic situation.

MR. GREGORY: Congressman Armey, FreedomWorks, your organization, advocacy

organization getting together a lot of folks, coordinating a lot of the

efforts to get people out for the protests. Do you bear some

responsibility for the tone of the debate?

FMR. REP. DICK ARMEY (R-TX): Not, not whatsoever. Not when you see the

kind of extreme thing you just saw, the--you know, I had my differences

with President Bush, George W. Bush, there's no doubt about it. They were

well aware of that. But when moveon.org ran those ads that compared

President Bush with, with Adolf Hitler, I thought it was despicable.

MS. RACHEL MADDOW: They never did that.

REP. ARMEY: They did do it. I'll show you the ad.

MS. MADDOW: They didn't do that. They never ran an ad that compared...

REP. ARMEY: All right. Anyway. All right.

MS. MADDOW: MoveOn never ran an ad that compared Bush to Hitler.

REP. ARMEY: All right.

MR. GREGORY: Well, hold on, hold on. Finish your thought and then...

REP. ARMEY: What, what, what, you're going to get your chance to talk.

Well, I, I, I just looked at the moveon.org ad again this morning, and

it, it was a horrible thing. You know, it's horrible to see this. But I

have had town hall meetings since 1984. There are always a lot of

colorful people that show up with town hall meetings, a lot of people

with a lot of colorful statements. When FreedomWorks encourages people to

go to town hall meetings, we encourage them to go and make their points

clearly, assertively and with good manners. So I'm not--I don't know who

these folks are. We certainly bear no responsibility for...

MR. GREGORY: But you say good manners; the, the House speaker, Nancy

Pelosi, wrote an op-ed this week during which she said, "Drowning out

opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts"...

REP. ARMEY: Well...

MR. GREGORY: ..."drowning out the facts is how we failed at this effort

for many decades." Un-American, Rachel?

REP. ARMEY: Well...

MS. MADDOW: I--well, I, I think that anytime you're trying to stop

discussion, I think that's un-American. But I, I mean, I take issue with

the idea that the government has done anything to earn the kind of

threats of violence that we have seen.

SEN. COBURN: I didn't say that.

MS. MADDOW: Well, you--well, David, I...

SEN. COBURN: What I, what I said is what--it is indicative of the loss of

confidence. And when people are afraid, they do all sorts of things that

they normally wouldn't do.

MR. GREGORY: All right.

MS. MADDOW: I don't think...

SEN. COBURN: And we have undermined, by our actions--whether it be

earmarking and corruption and, and disconnection between integrity and

character in what we do and what the people expect, and this--these are

just symptoms...

MS. MADDOW: But whether...

SEN. COBURN: ...of a lack of confidence in what we're doing.

MR. GREGORY: Go ahead, Rachel.

MS. MADDOW: Whether or not, whether or not the government has acted in a

way that you feel is defensible, I don't think the government has done

anything to earn, in your words, the, the, the threat of--that the blood

of tyrants must run in the streets, which is what the literal threat was

from that man with the gun strapped to, strapped to his leg in New

Hampshire. I also don't think that, that there is an equivalence between

what moveon.org has done and with the comparisons of the president to

Hitler that we've seen so often in this debate. I mean, some of the major

organizations who are organizing these events, like Americans for

Prosperity, a group that has some similarities to FreedomWorks but

definitely a different group, they've had speakers going around the

country not only comparing healthcare reform to Hitler, but comparing

them to Pol Pot and Stalin, saying "Put the fear of God into your members

of Congress." I don't think the government has done anything to earn

that.

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