Inside the Polarization — Divided States of America Part 1 (full documentary) — FRONTLINE (PBS)

[0:04] there is not a liberal america and a conservative america there is the united states of america it [0:10] was a promise of change to a divided country the president walked into the presidency [0:15] with an expectation that he would be able to reach across the aisle but in washington [0:20] an epic battle the sky was blue they said no dealing with the white house was like dealing [0:25] with a bowl of jello you could almost see the polarization it was palpable we elected them [0:30] to block obama a resistance that became a political revolution so how are we jane working out for you [0:38] the tea party rose up to say enough is enough you want to kill my grandparents you come through me [0:44] first they were just upset now with both parties the speaker of the house turns out he's a coward [0:56] why be here if you're not going to fight and the anger that paved the way for a political outsider [1:02] how stupid are our leaders his nomination was the hostile takeover of the republican party [1:08] i am your voice if you wanted the exact opposite of donald trump it's barack obama part one of a [1:16] special two-part series obama came on the mandate of changing washington by his very presence he [1:23] forced more polarization and gridlock than we had seen in the eight years prior divided states of america [1:29] two days after the election donald trump and barack obama old antagonists met each other for the first [1:45] time something surreal about it they had so much of a past trump had said such hurtful and mean-spirited [1:54] things to about obama for years and years and now here they were just feet apart from each other [2:00] well i just had the opportunity to have an excellent conversation with president-elect trump to see the [2:06] two of them in the oval office was kind of the you know the final moment of how in the world did this [2:11] happen and and what have we just gone through white house for trump it was the beginning of a new era for [2:18] obama it was the devastating end to a difficult presidency and i have been very encouraged by the [2:31] i think interest in present present-elect trump's i don't think you could have someone who embodies as [2:40] clear a rebuke to the obama legacy as donald trump does i believe that it is important for all of us [2:48] regardless of party and regardless of political preferences to now come together work together to [2:56] deal with donald trump was a rejection of everything that barack obama stood for as a candidate as a [3:02] politician ultimately as a president inside the oval office that day it seemed civil and we were just [3:09] going to get to know each other we had never met each other i have great respect the meeting lasted [3:16] for almost an hour and a half and it could have as far as i'm concerned it could have gone on for a lot [3:22] longer we really um we discussed a lot of but the differences between the two men and the divisions [3:30] between their supporters were stark i look forward to being with you many many more times in the future [3:36] thank you sir thank you everybody we're not weird obama came to washington with the idea of hope and [3:45] change and in fact he finishes his presidency with the country even more divided and angrier on both [3:52] sides of the divide the great irony of the obama presidency right as someone who came on the mandate [4:00] of changing washington as we know it someone who came on the mandate of ending this gridlock and this [4:07] polarization by his very presence and by his very humanity who he was the color of his skin the sound [4:13] of his name forced more polarization and gridlock than we had seen in the eight years prior years of [4:21] political combat in washington had taken their toll on obama on the republicans and on the country [4:31] liberal america and a conservative america there is the united states of america there is not a black america [4:46] and a white america there's the united states of america the face of difficulty hope in the face of [4:57] uncertainty the audacity of hope obama is expected to be thrown into the limelight can barely show his [5:05] face in public without creating some kind of sensation he is an island of celebration in a sea of [5:11] despair fans who are hungry for a star in 2005 barack obama was the newly elected senator from illinois [5:19] and he arrives in the senate a celebrity he was already a superstar to many democrats he was their [5:28] future he was sort of a person who democrats were placing their hopes in the veterans knew it in [5:35] their bones they gathered around him he came to the senate almost immediately with everyone's high [5:43] expectations with everyone's assumption that this was a man who was on a fast track but at the very [5:52] bottom of the seniority system the new senator quickly grew impatient as soon as he gets to the [5:58] u.s senate he's bored he doesn't obama was never going to be the kind of guy who you know ends up in [6:04] a wheelchair on the senate floor one day during his second year in office at a restaurant near the [6:11] capitol his mentor the former majority leader urged him it was time to run for the presidency we went to [6:19] my favorite restaurant and took the kitchen table in the back where nobody could see us well i tell [6:26] him he should do it and that he shouldn't assume if he passes up this window that there will be [6:31] another because the longer he's in washington the more history he has and the more history he has the [6:37] more he's going to be explaining his votes and his actions and his statements and his positions that [6:44] uh undermine his message he wanted to do it but some of his closest advisors were cautious he asked us [6:53] to challenge him on what he would face in running for president to really ask the tough questions and [7:01] some of the most skeptical people about making this race were some of his very accomplished successful [7:07] african-american support friends they were unsure if america was ready for a black president there were [7:15] four people in this country that thought that the country could elect a black president and they [7:19] all lived at the same address in the south side of chicago he decided to run on the campaign trail in [7:29] iowa he delivered his message he can finally bring the change we need to washington hope we are ready [7:37] to take this country in a fundamentally new direction and change we are in a defining moment in our history [7:51] the state was a crucial test of whether white voters would support obama iowa turned out to be [7:57] the real litmus test did he have the capacity to draw votes from other demographic groups if white [8:06] people would vote for a black candidate in a mainly white state said this guy really has a chance this [8:12] is not this is not playing anymore this is not jesse ladies and gentlemen by the day of the caucuses [8:21] it was unclear whether obama had convinced enough iowa democrats we start to initially get sort of [8:27] turnout reports very anecdotal the lines are out the door nobody foresaw 239 000 people participating [8:38] in the iowa caucuses i mean so when 239 000 people came out it's like they just blew the doors off [8:46] every assumption about the campaign at this defining moment in history you have done what the cynics said [8:55] we couldn't do obama won a critical victory in a state that was over 90 percent white all of a sudden [9:04] people woke up and said my god maybe it can happen that's what happened it was like a jolt of [9:11] electricity going through the entirety of the black community we came together as democrats republicans [9:19] and independents to stand up and say that we are one nation we are one people and our time for change [9:26] has come it was a message that put obama on the road to the white house thank you this is where john [9:46] mccain will appear with his running mate but we still don't know who it is but first his opponent [9:52] republican senator john mccain would have a surprise for the country that senator john mccain is about to [9:59] choose his running mate who will john mccain pick as mccain had become a fixture of the republican [10:06] establishment over his 25 years in washington he was struggling in the polls as voters seemed to want [10:14] change he needed a newcomer to neutralize obama's change candidacy he needed to find someone an [10:24] african-american running you got to find a woman but you have to find a woman who meets some of the [10:30] litmus tests in your own party very privileged to introduce to you the next vice president of the united [10:36] states governor sarah palin of the great state of alaska at the time few realized that the decision [10:47] was a turning point for the republican party and the history of american politics palin was a signal [10:54] moment in the tensions that were developing and would ultimately explode within the republican party [10:59] mccain's advisors thought she was very different than what she turned out to be they didn't realize [11:05] that she would be this um populist crusader uh and turn and turn into a sort of right-wing grassroots [11:14] populist ladies and gentlemen as she arrived at the republican convention palin's down-home straight [11:21] talk was appealing to an emerging group of rebellious conservatives well i'm not a member of the [11:30] permanent political establishment she gave one of the best convention speeches i have ever seen [11:39] and she mesmerized those people i'm not going to washington to seek their good opinion i'm going [11:45] to washington to serve the people of this great country she electrified the crowds with her own [11:52] brand of prairie populism attacks on the washington establishment and those she labeled the elites i've [11:59] learned quickly these last few days that if you're not a member in good standing of the washington elite [12:05] then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone but she didn't talk like [12:23] politicians she didn't she was careful with her words that she didn't make a lot of sense sometimes i [12:29] love those hockey moms you know they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull lipstick i don't [12:42] think there's ever been someone that close to the presidency i mean who at least for for as long as i can [12:48] remember who was that seemingly um let's say did not have the classic qualifications for for the office [13:02] john mccain ushered an insurgent somebody coming in from the outside literally from alaska and then [13:09] also in every other way in terms of her background and her regard for elite institutions [13:14] but this governor of alaska she's something else sarah palin has completely transformed republican [13:21] party and the next presidency boy were you right about this one did you for her base she was heroic [13:28] but in new york she was made into a joke i present governor sarah palin first off i just want to say [13:38] how excited i am to be in front of both the liberal elite media as well as the liberal regular media [13:45] i am looking forward to a portion of your questions so let's get started yes you you said [13:52] that you'd like to visit the quote pro-america parts of the country are there parts of the country that [13:57] you consider un-american yes new york new jersey massachusetts connecticut delaware california [14:05] when she was asked in an interview with katie kirk what she reads every day what newspapers and [14:13] magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this she was embarrassed and sort of [14:20] squirmed a bit on camera all of them any of them that have been in front of me over all these years [14:30] i have a vast variety of sources where we get our news too she didn't just not have an answer she was [14:38] contemptuous of the question kind of suggested it seems like wow how could you keep in touch with [14:43] what the rest of washington dc may be thinking and doing when you live up there in alaska believe me [14:48] alaska is like a microcosm of america to some people they thought well okay that signals the [14:53] end of her candidacy in some sense but for another segment of americans this was validating this was [14:59] vindicating there was somebody now who had a similar suspicion and sense of alienation from these [15:06] east coast defeat intellectuals and that was really the first time that you had this establishment [15:13] versus grassroots conflict and you had it because for some people sarah palin was margaret thatcher [15:20] for others sarah palin i don't even know who the analogy would be [15:26] but just someone who was not qualified to be where she was i was reading today a copy of the new york [15:32] times palin became the voice of a growing number of republicans who were fed up with politics as [15:40] usual in their party and she was in fact an early indicator that things were changing in the republican [15:47] party that it was not the same party of the george hw bush and and richard nixon gerald ford and ronald [15:54] reagan era she was not even really conservative she was just a bomb thrower and i think that it took [16:04] a long time for people at the top of the party to recognize what the anger that palin was channeling [16:10] it wasn't just the democrats but the republican elites as well palin was the beginning of a [16:17] challenge to the establishment that would only grow in time on the campaign trail barack obama was [16:28] facing his own challenge he was being forced to deal with a subject he had hoped to avoid [16:35] just to sing god bless america no no no not god bless america god damn america that's in the bible [16:44] for killing innocent people god damn america for treating us citizens as less than human [16:52] suddenly the issue of race was at the forefront of the campaign for president [16:57] obama's campaign manager the last said that was the episode that could have destroyed our campaign [17:03] he called it a direct torpedo to the hall so inside they were absolutely terrified that it all [17:09] could have ended with right it was that big a deal at the time yes 91 101 happened to us [17:17] and so did slavery happen to us it seemed to threaten obama's message that america could rise [17:25] above its divisions i think for a lot of conservatives this prototypical angry black man in chicago was [17:37] for them anyway a clue into the real obama the the one he didn't want the public to see [17:51] obama had grappled with issues of race for his entire life [17:56] barack has had to deal with dueling identities all of his life nurtured by a white family and [18:02] identifying with that family but at the same time when he's out when he goes out he's identified as [18:08] something else and he has had to make sense of that duality his entire life the history of obama is a [18:17] belief in his own ability to bring people of disparate views and cultures and backgrounds together [18:26] to solve difficult problems today obama promises to tackle the issue of race now his candidacy was [18:33] in jeopardy because of his longtime pastor jeremiah wright his ability to bridge differences would be put [18:40] to the test his campaign is calling this speech an important moment maybe the most important speech of [18:45] his campaign i mean this is a moment of you know sort of maximum peril for a candidate and his goal was to [18:50] elevate out of that moment into something broader jeremiah wright god bless him allowed barack obama [18:57] to confront this issue sooner rather than later and i think it allowed him to regain the upper hand [19:06] i can no more disown him than i can disown the black community i can no more disown him than i can disown [19:15] my white grandmother a woman who helped raise me a woman who sacrificed again and again for me a woman who [19:22] loves me as much as she loves anything in this world but a woman who once confessed her fear of [19:28] black men who passed her by on the street and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic [19:36] stereotypes that made me cringe these people are part of me and they are part of america this country [19:47] that i love it worked obama had spoken from the heart grow stronger many of his supporters hoped it would be [19:56] the first of many conversations about race in that speech barack obama said that this is an opening this [20:05] is a a vista that allows us to think critically about the issue of race and it should be the first of [20:13] many to come of course in truth in reality it was a summation it was a stopgap after he was successful [20:21] with that speech he wanted nothing of it obama would move on but the issue of race wouldn't go away but it [20:28] never was about jeremiah right really it was about barack obama how much more evidence do we need [20:33] about where obama is coming from the people he surrounded the association with reverend right [20:38] has demasked for some americans suspicions about obama only deepened throughout the campaign talk radio [20:46] fueled questions about just who barack obama really was here is the man that obama listened to for 20 [20:52] years over and over and over again one thing that was observable and yet um ignored was the degree to [21:00] which there was real hostility toward barack obama on the right obama's opponent john mccain saw the [21:14] grassroots anger firsthand i can't trust obama i i have read about him and he's not he's not he's a [21:22] uh um he's an arab he is not no no no man no man he's a he's a he's a decent family man citizen that [21:34] i just happen to have disagreements with mccain believed in the old rules of politics they had a [21:41] rule in the mccain campaign that if you if if there was any hint that um that that that that the mccain [21:50] campaign was going to use racial animus against barack obama you would have been fired and banned [21:57] from republican politics it was a red line that was never crossed in 2008 my wife and i are expecting [22:04] our first child um april 2nd next uh next year thank you and uh frankly we're we're scared um we're scared [22:14] of an obama presidency mccain tried to reassure his supporters i have to tell you i have to tell you [22:21] he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared as president united states now [22:28] i i just i just now now look i you could see the seeds of the kind of divisiveness that happened [22:38] almost immediately john mccain is not my idea of a great candidate we have to defeat the marxists [22:44] and then we have to take back the republican party i just it's dropped 45 percent but that fall [22:54] with the election just over a month away something else would shake the presidential [22:59] campaign the stock market dropped by hundreds of points right from the open a catastrophic collapse [23:04] on wall street means the turmoil in the mortgage market is far from over and the number of u.s [23:09] banks in danger of failing gasolines up food prices up stocks way way way way down [23:18] system stopped all forms of payment froze we got to the depth of the panic banks wouldn't [23:25] lend money to each other the first money market mutual fund the united states quote broke the buck [23:31] commercial paper the most basic one of the most basic instruments in finance that market failed [23:36] aig plunging at one point they were down 70 percent now down about 50 percent on the trade [23:42] the entire global financial system and the american economy were at stake risks of a recession rising now [23:49] some say they see one lurking right around the corner this is defcon 4 or whatever this was the [23:56] complete nightmare by wednesday basically had a complete shutdown of the world capital market it's [24:01] just um no this is absolute terror the situation was so dire that candidate barack obama was [24:10] receiving regular updates from president george w bush's secretary of the treasury hank paulson secretary [24:18] paulson and the administration are calling then candidate obama and they're saying look we think [24:26] the world is is close to coming to an end and we really need your support for years paulson had been [24:33] the ceo of wall street giant goldman sachs now he said the government needed to act to save the wall [24:41] street banks paulson traveled to capitol hill for an emergency meeting he urged congress to authorize [24:50] seven hundred billion dollars to bail out the banks we just had what i believe was a very productive [24:57] but as the bill was rushed to the floor outrage even among republicans angry at their own president [25:05] the reaction on capitol hill was toxic they were furious i rise in opposition to the emergency economic [25:11] stabilization act america you should be outraged about washington is about to do but this is essentially [25:17] mr paulson's bill to help his friends and i can't buy it it is an unprecedented and an affordable [25:24] and unacceptable expansion of federal power that our kids cannot afford that we have you could see [25:29] the seeds of the division in the republican party and the muscle flexing by the more radical [25:37] element of the party against its own leaders please please don't betray this nation's great history [25:44] that may be the moment where in a sense the tea party began to get formed up they're going after [25:50] their you know they're rebelling against their own leadership thank you for your thoughts with [25:54] president bush unable to convince members of his own party to support the bill [25:59] the bailout was stuck suddenly presidential politics intervened tomorrow morning i'll suspend [26:07] my campaign and return to washington after speaking senator john mccain called for an emergency [26:12] meeting to deal with the crisis and resolve the impasse with republican congressional insurgents [26:19] it's time for both parties to come together to solve this problem the president has invited [26:26] senators mccain and obama to the white house mccain is gonna have this meeting kind of a summit today [26:32] with the president of barack obama on september 25th a hastily called meeting at the white house [26:38] paulson arrived first then barack obama john mccain and prominent members of the house and senate [26:47] democrats senate republicans and treasury we're in a serious economic crisis in the country if we [27:03] don't pass a piece of legislation they sit around the cabinet room table and president bush says if [27:09] we don't get the money flowing if we don't get the credit flowing this sucker could go down meaning [27:13] the economy as a whole and then he opens it up mccain walks into the meeting with like a cue [27:19] card with a couple things scribbled on it uh obama doesn't even wait for mccain to start he just [27:25] moves right in parties to resolve these issues senator obama has been talking to paulson has been [27:30] talking to warren buffett and paul volker and larry summers and you know a host of other economic [27:37] advisors very important for us obama is prepared and he talks about what needs to happen and we'll pull [27:42] together and he's been he doesn't want to take over in a country which is in depression so he's [27:48] extremely supportive of this whole emergency bailout thing we are senator obama said well i'd really [27:55] like to hear from senator mccain because he's the person who called for this meeting mccain is fumbling [28:03] with his cue cards he doesn't even barely get started obama kind of patronizes him saying [28:08] i think senator mccain has something to say mccain just melts on the spot mccain was in a bind [28:15] republicans were at war with themselves over the bailout obama took charge had authority john mccain [28:22] had no plan no strategy i don't think he understood what was happening or didn't have a plan for what [28:27] he wanted to accomplish president bush whispered to nancy pelosi who was sitting next to him when mccain [28:34] was talking he said you guys are going to miss me and she kind of laughed the meeting ends up breaking [28:41] up into a into a uh cacophony of shouting and and and and and screaming back and forth and bush stands [28:47] up and says well i've clearly lost control of this meeting and he walks out and another republican [28:54] at the table uh joked to the person sitting next to him after this even we're going to vote for obama [29:04] that was the level of obama's dominance in this meeting for republicans in congress about to vote [29:14] on the bailout the meeting had changed little i was in the cloakroom of the senate watching that vote [29:21] and uh and i didn't have a good feeling about it the house republicans pull their support everything [29:30] falls apart we're literally sitting in the newsroom everyone expects that bill to pass then they have [29:35] the vote and the bill fails they did not pass it and i see that the dow traders are standing there [29:45] watching in amazement and i don't blame them look at the dow jones industrial average the market right [29:49] now is down 521 points in that moment it was terrifying i remember paulson calling me that night [29:55] thought the rivets were coming off the submarine we really thought the the system was past the point of [29:59] return it was going to collapse it would it would be like the great depression a history-making 777-point [30:07] nosedive plunged to the single greatest point loss in the dow average in one day ever i think that [30:13] that was the the foreshadowing of so much of what we've seen since an anti-elite anti-wall street feeling [30:23] that crystallized in that vote but was much larger than that i mean it was a it was they're rebelling [30:29] against their own leadership it would take another four days before enough democrats and republicans [30:35] relented for many republicans that vote would be a turning point it doesn't help the folks be [30:49] nationalizing the economy assigned to them that their party cared more about wall street than [30:55] ordinary americans we folks we believe in capitalism a lot of people felt like they were betrayed by the [31:01] party that the party was actually doing something that they should not have been doing that the [31:06] president should have vetoed this is not the constitutional government that our founders had in [31:11] mind we have a run on the treasury today some of the insurgent republicans laid the blame on the [31:15] president george w bush george w bush actually by the time he left office had a lot of problems among [31:22] his own republicans it was a real sign that a lot of the old order had begun to change and really could have [31:30] been a um a warning bell i think for president obama as he was coming in by november the economic [31:41] crisis and the growing divisions in washington would soon be barack obama's problem that night when he [31:50] came out the look on his face to me looked like someone who finally understood the weight of the job [31:56] that he had just won and you saw this seriousness and this weightiness that had come over him suddenly [32:02] as if he knew that this giddy ride that resulted in his election was in effect over and it was as [32:08] if the burden of the presidency fell upon him in a split second but that night obama insisted the unity [32:17] he had promised was now within sight americans sent a message to the world that we have never been [32:25] just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states we are and always will be [32:33] the united states of america you have in obama's case gone within four years from being an illinois [32:40] state politician to the most famous person on earth and you have confidence in both your judgment [32:47] about what's the right way to go and your ability to make it go that way america can change our union [32:55] can be perfected if he was too confident about being able to bring people together one can understand [33:05] given the way he'd spent the previous four years this is our moment yes we can thank you god bless you [33:13] and may god bless the united states of america across the country in arizona there was a different mood [33:25] this campaign never had a prayer and everybody knew it from the get-go it never had a plan mccain [33:33] is a disaster a complete unmitigated disaster at a time in our history where we need leaders [33:38] a little while ago i had the honor of calling senator barack obama to congratulate him please [33:49] to congratulate him on being elected the next president of the country that we both love [33:54] in a con that evening john mccain knew his time as leader of the republican party was ending i am also [34:04] of course very thankful to governor sarah palin one of the best campaigners but he also knew that [34:13] sarah palin had tapped into something powerful and he worried something potentially dangerous [34:22] i'm glad at least he didn't blame palin and when it ends he goes up to sarah palin and says you know [34:30] we've lost but now you're the future of the republican party and the crazies are going to [34:37] come to you and the talk radio hosts on the far right are going to come to you and they're going [34:42] to want to make you their standard bearer do everything you can to resist them if you're someone [34:48] republicans conservatives and others can rally behind we love what you're doing for the republican [34:53] party it's a breath of fresh air come on every week talk directly to millions of americans [34:58] about these issues we hope you'll come back so much for that the election day euphoria stocks [35:05] are back on the downside the economy has now lost 650 000 jobs in chicago as obama's transition team [35:12] went to work talk of hope was immediately confronted by the reality of the country's growing economic [35:18] crisis fear swept through the markets he had to start thinking about this the day after he was elected [35:24] this was the most eventful and consequential presidential transition in american history [35:31] we were all worried about what we were seeing we knew that the credit system was pretty quickly [35:37] headed towards something that looked a lot like seizure we're not claiming this all [35:41] obama chose timothy geithner a financial insider and president of the new york federal reserve [35:47] as his treasury secretary we'd already thrown trillions and trillions of dollars at the problem [35:53] and i think uh it was you know it was very perilous moment very existential moment at that point [35:59] unemployment was nearly seven percent and climbing the stock market was down more than 6 500 [36:07] points 700 000 americans were losing jobs every month the housing market was in total collapse [36:16] financial sector was imploding the auto industry was about to go under deficits were exploding [36:22] this could be the most climactic economic crisis in all of american history that we were that close to [36:33] a complete meltdown obama at that moment gets a real glimpse of the future disasters coming [36:42] at the end of the conversation there's basically no bright spots and i say to the then president-elect [36:49] wow that had to have been the uh the worst economic briefing a new president's had in a you know in [36:55] almost a century and uh president says that's not even my worst briefing this week it's the inauguration [37:03] day of the nation's first african-american president so hundreds of thousands of people already with [37:09] their dunny proud of people yet on inauguration day the history of the moment transcended the nation's [37:15] problems i looked out never forget from the west front of the capitol all the way down to the monument [37:23] and i think it's about a mile and all you could see were people a sea of people the fact that our [37:30] country elected a black president is just it was huge in significance to the black community what it [37:40] obviously meant was that the highest offices of governance and decision making in america were in [37:45] fact open to black people it's a big deal a big big deal the thing i remember most about that day [37:54] was a an older white man turning to me and my daughter and him saying to her young lady you [38:02] could be up there one day you could be president of the united states i will never ever forget that moment [38:12] the first inauguration of obama was magical realism it's hard to overstate not only american pride which [38:21] was extraordinary but black pride that unapologetically looked upon this man and this figure as the [38:32] fulfillment of so many dreams and aspirations are you prepared to take the oath senator this is our [38:38] national wound the deepest and longest standing wound race i barack hussein obama do solemnly swear [38:44] and this whole thing is taking place in front of the capitol dome built by slaves constitution of the [38:49] united states so help me god congratulations mr president and barack obama is about to go spend his [38:55] first night as president in a house built by slaves those closest to the president thought it was a [39:03] transformational moment they believed things were about to change the president walked into the [39:10] presidency with an expectation that he would be able to reach across the aisle and that republicans [39:16] and democrats alike would be willing to come to the table and address these issues that were a [39:21] significant problem and needed to be addressed if we were going to move the country forward first couple to [39:35] arrive at the neighborhood date full of events ten count of ten official inaugural balls that night in [39:41] washington it's the official it's a lot of them the first ever neighborhood ball open to the public [39:49] as the president celebrated he had no idea that across town new battle lines were being drawn [40:02] a group of republicans quietly gathered to develop plans for taking on the new president [40:06] a meeting a dinner took place in the famous steakhouse in downtown washington with newt gingrich as [40:15] sort of the the mc as it were the thing i found disturbing this week was the gap at the gathering of top [40:20] gop luminaries conservative congressman eric kantor kevin mccarthy paul ryan senate power brokers jim de [40:31] mint john kyle tom coburn and event organizer frank lutz the room was filled it was a who's who of ranking [40:43] members who had at one point been committee chairman or in the majority who now wondered out loud whether [40:51] they were in the permanent minority many of them had attended obama's inauguration they had seen [41:01] that breathtaking spectacle of a million and a half people on the mall and it felt like a wholesale [41:06] repudiation of the republican party they walked into that dining room as depressed as i've seen any [41:13] elected members of congress they lost every senate seat they could lose they lost all these house seats [41:19] the numbers were so great that they thought that they weren't coming back again not for an election [41:24] or two but maybe a generation or two they came and went but as the night wore on those who stayed [41:32] began to talk about the future three hours some of the brightest minds in the republican party [41:38] debated how to be relevant the point i made was that that we had to be prepared in the tradition of [41:46] wooden at ucla to run a full court press and we had to see how obama behaved and to offer an alternative [41:52] to what he wanted to do the republicans agreed on a tough new strategy to block the president fight his [42:00] agenda he could be defeated partly by his own ideology and by his own behaviors feeling was that [42:09] if that group could cooperate and if that group could lead that the wilderness might not be a [42:18] generation away by the end of the evening you began to reorient and realize wait a second you got nancy [42:23] pelosi as an opponent you got you know you you have a clear choice of ideologies we have a tremendous [42:29] amount of hard work to do but it's doable they all talked about this and they began to get more and [42:34] more optimistic and they and they left feeling practically exuberant all gowns are on their way [42:42] to the cleaners the party is over for both the new president what does obama need to do to reassure [42:47] americans right now and the market obama and his team what we're looking at is a pack this is an [42:51] ambitious plan he is facing many sobering he would start with the economic crisis hammering out details [42:57] for his massive economic recovery plan he wanted congress to immediately pass a massive spending bill [43:03] that would stimulate the economy he was told we were on a cliff about to fall into a depression he had [43:10] to do something big and he had to do it he had to do it quick he had to act right away and he saw an [43:16] opportunity to persuade the republicans to join him president obama felt that the nature of the problems [43:23] are so severe and so significant and so consequential that he could find some way to work better with the [43:30] republicans in congress to try to fight some common ground but as he met with republican leaders to sell [43:37] his stimulus bill he discovered that minority whip eric kantor had his own ideas i asked the president [43:46] with all due respect could i distribute a white paper that i had come up with at his request because [43:51] he said bring us your ideas to the new president determined to work with republicans it seemed reasonable [43:59] and i'll never forget what the president said he looked at it and he said well i don't want to get [44:02] into all this now but he took a look at it and he says well there's nothing crazy in here [44:07] so i took that as a really good sign but the president's staff experienced in the ways [44:13] of washington didn't trust kantor congressman kantor wanted to dictate what the package would be [44:19] the republicans weren't interested in reaching a compromise with the president if they could get [44:24] 100 of what they wanted they'd be happy but if they couldn't get 100 of what they wanted [44:29] they didn't want they didn't want any part of it obama delivered the news to kantor they weren't [44:36] going to go along with everything he wanted and we had an exchange the president and i and the [44:41] president said look eric let me just tell you real right up front you know the elections have [44:47] consequences and i won so we're going to do it my way and i think that that was an indication to me [44:54] that this was going to be a one-way street we really weren't going to be engaged in this [44:59] mutual discussion here of a collaborative approach to solving problems the president [45:05] decided he'd make his own republican friendly proposal nearly 300 billion dollars in tax cuts [45:12] as part of the stimulus and you know it was an example of how obama again and again would propose [45:19] things he assumed that republicans should like rather than actually trying to talk to them in a way [45:25] that got what they wanted really wanted president obama promised the american people he would bring [45:31] bipartisan solutions and then in a symbolic gesture the president traveled to the capitol to sell his [45:37] plan to cantor's members directly he has a tough sales job ahead to try and sell his plan to republicans [45:43] it was an unprecedented move mr obama is hoping for support from both sides of the day when a president [45:49] goes to the capitol to meet only with members of the other party it was an extraordinary moment in [45:55] many respects because a president rarely comes to the capitol hill i'm going to demonstrate by my [46:01] actions how much i want to find the kind of opportunities for consensus and common ground that [46:08] were so essential to his agenda he arrives there thinking they're all going to talk and come up with [46:14] some kind of agreement he's got all these tax cuts to offer them he spoke extemporaneously about the [46:21] the stimulus he walked us through it probably 15 or 20 minutes just his thought process and why he [46:28] was advocating these policies and then he opened it up for questions the republicans didn't want to be [46:33] told what their beliefs were or how this proposal would meet their beliefs and it was really during [46:40] that q a as the members stepped forward and asked some pretty i think appropriate questions about the [46:47] amount of money that we were spending uh the debt that we'd be taking on and i don't ever remember [46:53] him saying you know okay we'll take a look at that it was more just defending his proposal as is [46:59] we said you know what they have summarily decided that we're not going to be a part of this [47:04] so we're going to oppose the bill obama came out empty-handed and had to face the waiting press corps [47:12] hello everybody we had a wonderful exchange of ideas and i continue to be optimistic about our [47:20] ability to get this recovery package done and we saw the president standing in the halls of the senate [47:27] in the capitol i'll never forget that it's he still looked like a senator of course he's now the [47:31] president of the united states what's he even doing sort of lobbying for this i think everybody there felt [47:37] good about that that i was willing to explain how we put the package together the president is [47:46] very transparent you can read his facial expressions quite easily this was one of those [47:52] cases this was his baptism by fire the obama administration's plans had a bit of a rough [47:57] but there's still deep republican opposition the president is now saying do it my way failed complete [48:03] at his goal for bipartisan support it was a very strong signal that we were not going to get a lot [48:08] of cooperation on this issue and if we weren't going to get it on this issue it was doubtful that we [48:15] were going to get it on many others their leadership told the members were not for any of it no matter [48:22] what it is no just say no on this vote the yeas are 246 obama's democrats controlled the congress the [48:33] conference report is adopted the stimulus bill passed the house without a single republican vote you watch the [48:39] republicans going to come under severe criticism for this not one republican voted for it turning [48:44] a cold shoulder to the president so much for the president's charm offensive today it was all [48:49] partisan i think from that point forward uh we saw a very downward tilt towards the possibility of [48:55] bipartisanship and that was very odd that was very early on that was in january and february of 09 [49:02] i hope the stimulus bill fails he is addicting this country to heroin the heroin that is government [49:09] slavery i want once and for all the american people to see full frontal nudity on what liberalism [49:18] is and what a lie it is they have been sold a bill obama had been in office just over a week you could [49:25] almost see the polarization it was palpable it was very very real it was uh just the beginning backlash [49:38] against wall street it's a frustration with the economy and the economic crisis was creating another [49:42] problem anger in america was growing over the ongoing government bailout anger from the u.s public [49:48] toward bankers is high to the streets to express their anger frustration with financial [49:52] banquets wall street banks had received hundreds of billions while unemployment skyrocketed destroying [49:59] the savings of millions it really really grades with most people that our tax money went to support [50:06] these institutions and then when the rest of the country was in the worst of the recession you saw the [50:11] the big traders and the heads of the goldman sachs of the world walking out with these multi-million [50:17] dollar pay packages this is exactly the kind of story the obama administration doesn't need [50:23] the average american begins to think that the entire game is rigged against them and in favor of the fat [50:31] cats much of the outrage was directed at washington where protesters and police clashed something [50:47] significant is happening people don't believe that the government has saved them most americans believe [50:57] that george bush and barack obama and all their economic advisors bailed out wall street and did not [51:04] bail out main street the heels of growing public anger aimed at banks the public outcry only grew as news [51:11] broke that the bailed out bankers had paid themselves massive bonuses [51:15] four billion in bonuses now obama faced a crucial decision the banks need to be held accountable [51:21] that sparks another wave of just understandable human aversion anger we're trying to figure out how [51:28] we preserve some political capacity uh to continue to um throw as much firepower at this crisis as we [51:37] could outrage over executive salaries for obama the news of the bonuses was infuriating [51:43] billion dollars in bonuses the bonus and the compensation stuff made him more angry than [51:48] i'd ever seen him i remember him like really standing up out of his chair in the oval office [51:54] and just being really pretty livid i mean the one thing he would one thing he would not stand for was [52:00] you know the american people being played for as chumps by these by these banks and that that was [52:04] something he he just really didn't like some in the white house wanted the president to side with a [52:11] growing outrage and aggressively take on the banks a lot of the communications political uh people [52:19] worried about the president's uh popularity and his political capital saying the banking industry and [52:25] and banking executives ought to pay a price david axelrod obama's top political advisor very much [52:31] wanted some scalps robert gibbs who was the press secretary but also a very senior political aide [52:38] wanted scouts but treasury secretary timothy geithner urged caution warning that giving into populist [52:47] fury could further destabilize the financial system you had to make sure you kept concentrated and focused [52:53] on the core basic imperative was going to affect the fortunes of you know hundreds of millions of [52:58] americans not get too wrapped up in trying to design political theater that might create the hope of [53:05] taking some of the sting out of them i hadn't seen anything like this geithner didn't want to do it [53:09] because it would kind of create this risk it would create this conception that the government was going [53:15] to come in and mess with these banks and that that would frighten off private investors in the end [53:21] it was up to the president to decide whether to support the banks or take them on and heed the public's [53:27] anger for the economy this is what free fall feels like when will the recession end the nation's top [53:35] bankers were summoned to the white house the president invited 15 of the bank after leveling [53:40] some very hard the bankers feared the president would deliver the punishment many americans were [53:45] demanding from the nation's banking leaders today president obama 13 bankers were called into a room [53:51] to meet with the president of the united states they were told that they were going to be chastised [53:57] that this was going to be the opportunity for the president to vent the public's anger some held [54:05] these men responsible for a crisis that had destroyed 5.1 million american jobs and sent the stock [54:12] market down 50 percent walking into that meeting these guys have not been this nervous since they're [54:18] in nursery school they're ultimately powerful sovereign men atop their institutions but now they know [54:27] that they really could get whacked now no one knew what to expect whether the president would be their [54:34] punisher or their protector it was his decision he'd been through hours of those conversations so and [54:42] i'm sure he knew exactly what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it and what his strategic [54:46] approach was going into that meeting with the bankers obama comes in and he's all business there [54:52] were few pleasantries exchanged obama spoke first the president made it pretty clear when when he talked [54:58] to us you know we're between you and the pitchforks guys and you need to just acknowledge that the bankers [55:05] have essentially made a decision that they're prepared to go along with what needs to be done [55:11] to resolve this problem to get the public back on the side of corporate america but as the meeting [55:19] progressed to their astonishment the president was in no mood for confrontation what's interesting is [55:28] that the next statements and the rest of the meeting essentially is obama's skinning back as fast [55:33] as he can on that pitchfork's uh punch and he says right after that what we have gentlemen is a public [55:41] relations disaster that's turning into a political disaster and i'm here to help i interpreted it as [55:50] it's kind of a watershed time banks are the catalyst to get us out of this morass that we're in you can [55:56] talk so long about the past but at some point you got to look at the present and the future and and i [56:02] thought that's what he was saying the president had made his choice he would not give in to the [56:08] outrage and risk upsetting the markets he was deeply aware of and pained by the basic sense of injustice [56:15] the immorality of what the bailouts meant in that case but he also felt you had to try to keep your [56:21] eye on the fundamental moral obligation about what set of policies were going to produce the the fairest [56:28] outcome in terms of getting people back to work and preparing some of the damage and the president [56:34] required no firm commitments from the bankers i think it was clear as an opportunity lost he had [56:41] a room full of very frightened ceos he was in a position then to make demands and he didn't he [56:47] didn't want to disturb the banks he wanted them on their side so that things were as calm as possible [56:56] there would be basically business as usual today the obama administration did indeed extend them [57:01] an olive branch it looks like the country's financial giants may have turned it was almost two faces [57:06] of obama publicly he wanted to tell you that these were the fat cat bankers but privately when he [57:13] was with the bankers he wanted to get them on board there we go well good afternoon i'm johnson with [57:21] wells fargo i just want to thank you the bankers made it clear the president had let them off we had a [57:30] wonderful meeting today with the president the basic messages were all missing together we're quite [57:36] pleased with the cooperation that's evidence with the group and with the white house i think the bankers [57:41] came out of that meeting realizing that they had dodged a bullet and that what was required of them [57:46] was to go out stand before the cameras and speak as though everyone were in harmony that that they [57:52] and the president were on board to make this great expression of confidence and reassurance [57:57] all of us walked out of there knowing fully that we're all in it together and we're all looking forward [58:03] to promoting the recovery economic recovery the president's message to them wall street and main [58:08] street are in this together banking giant city there were significant moments like when those [58:14] bank executives took those bonuses when he could have read them the riot act and getting the public [58:19] even more angry and supportive of even more dramatic measures in terms of regulating the banks he [58:26] didn't he chose instead to be in effect on their side saying we're all in this together if you look at [58:37] their stock price the citigroup was at 98 cents just a few weeks ago it's now up 75 the banks would [58:44] recover wall street investors breathing a sigh of relief but the building anger against the government [58:49] would not go away you've got to be kidding me what are we putting up with america that'll get the [58:54] economy kicking well did it no it didn't 450 billion dollars down the crapper he's facing anger on both the [59:01] left and the right there's anger on the right that obama's policies are socialist that there never [59:08] should have been a bailout that that this whole thing was a subversion of the free market and then [59:13] there's anger on the left that this was too friendly to the banks and that somehow banks were rescued at [59:18] the expense of taxpayers and homeowners so you have anger coming at him really from from all directions [59:23] he's kind of stranded in the middle the government is promoting bad behavior because we certainly don't [59:30] want to put stimulus and on cable television the talk had already begun of something they called a tea [59:36] party and in terms of modification the word tea party is born in a cnbc uh moment when rick santelli [59:44] a somewhat um agitated even under the best of circumstances uh reporter for cnbc in chicago starts to [59:53] uh uh uh starts an uproar how about this president new administration why don't you put up a website [1:00:00] to have people vote on the internet as a referendum to see if we really want to subsidize the losers [1:00:05] mortgages and reward people that could carry the water instead of drink the water that's a novel idea [1:00:15] they're like putty in your hands did you hear no they're not joe they're not like putty in our hands [1:00:19] this is america how many of you people want to pay for your neighbor's mortgage that has an extra [1:00:24] bathroom and can't pay their bills raise their hand how about we all president obama are you listening [1:00:33] it was a moment that would become iconic digitized uploaded shared for that period the match was lit [1:00:42] on cnbc that started a firestorm we're thinking of having a chicago tea party in july [1:00:49] all you capitalists that want to show up to lake michigan i'm gonna start organizing what are you [1:00:54] dumping in what are you dumping in this time how's it going to be dumping in some derivative security [1:01:00] it gave a name to a movement that would plague obama for the rest of his presidency ramble around [1:01:07] national guard but in those early months obama turned his attention to another booming issue [1:01:14] one that would define his legacy fixing the broken health care system i remember i said well mr [1:01:21] president you've got one obligation which is to prevent a second great depression and unless you [1:01:26] do that nothing else is possible and he he spoke back i would say quite sharply and said i'm not going [1:01:33] to be defined by what i what i prevented and i remember being struck by how ambitious he was in the face of [1:01:40] that storm at that point his ambitions were huge to deal with the tens of millions of uninsured americans [1:01:48] and to get the republicans to help but some on his staff argued it was too politically dangerous [1:01:55] the white house had a debate about whether they should actually go forward with it [1:01:58] vice president biden was opposed to do it absolutely opposed to doing health care [1:02:03] so i said if you're going to do this go into it eye is opening know what the consequences are [1:02:07] and what the potentiality for success is he was presented with all the political arguments and he [1:02:14] said i i get the politics of this but uh if we don't do this now it probably doesn't get done and [1:02:20] he said what are we doing here i mean are we going to put our approval rating on the shelf and admire it [1:02:25] for eight years the president said it's about health care but it's not really about health care it's [1:02:30] also about proving whether we can still solve big problems in this country and this was going to be the [1:02:35] test case for that he headed to capitol hill to try to secure agreement from both democrats and [1:02:42] republicans let there be no doubt health care reform cannot wait it must not wait and it will not wait [1:02:52] another year the president staked his entire first term on this there's no bigger priority than health [1:03:01] care given these facts we can no longer afford to put health care reform on hold we can't afford to do it [1:03:11] for obama and the country the stakes were high i don't think anyone in the white house or on [1:03:18] capitol hill believe that failure's an option here they have to be successful in getting health care [1:03:24] reform done or they'll pay a tremendous political price this is a huge issue the president is taking [1:03:29] the question is could health care reform really happen early on the president made a strategic decision [1:03:35] to pass health care reform he'd work with the establishment's power players lawmakers doctors nurses [1:03:41] hospitals conferring on how to overhaul health care many of these players for years if not decades [1:03:48] had a record of opposing any sort of health care reform efforts and what a remarkable achievement that [1:03:55] would be something that democrats and republicans business and labor consumer groups and providers [1:04:04] all of us could share extraordinary pride in finally dealing with something that has been vexing us for [1:04:10] so long the cost of health care in those first days a fragile coalition seemed possible so let's get [1:04:18] to work thank you but to keep it together obama had to move quickly and that calculation is we'll move [1:04:29] for a quick kill that's how they refer to it a quick kill on capitol hill it was thought that we [1:04:35] the senate was going to have a bill by june we would have a bill by july and we would go to conference and [1:04:41] this would be over but the president didn't just want a bill he wanted democrats and republicans to [1:04:48] get behind it a bipartisan outcome even in a minimalist sense was certainly a very very high priority of [1:04:56] president obama unlike the stimulus bill this time obama wanted congress to work out the details [1:05:04] democratic senator max baucas would take the lead max baucas a moderate from montana who immediately [1:05:13] sets up a working group a gang of six with three conservative republicans [1:05:20] baucas had a close relationship with the ranking republican chuck grassley senator baucas and i working [1:05:28] on what we thought ought to be a not just a bipartisan bill but a kind of a consensus bill in other words [1:05:36] something will get 75 or 80 votes but even from the beginning there were signs it would not be as easy as [1:05:42] the president had hoped i found myself coming out of those secret meetings those private meetings and [1:05:47] criticizing virtually everything they were doing so i talked to max i talked to chuck grassley and others [1:05:53] and said look i i don't think i can support this and grassley was under intense pressure from his [1:05:59] own party charles grassley is in line for a committee chairmanship the republican party plays hardball [1:06:06] with its members i think the message got through that he was jeopardizing his standing in the party [1:06:11] by playing too nice to health care reform it became clear that the republican game plan was [1:06:18] going to be just to say no to deny this president any victories and mcconnell was saying don't agree [1:06:25] to anything don't agree to anything keep me informed but keep talking the republicans were very clever [1:06:32] in what they did they pretended that they were interested in this i call it the dance of the seven [1:06:37] veils i'm going to i'm going to be there and then i'm not and then i'm going to be there and i'm not [1:06:41] now you see it now you don't it was all an illusion however some republicans including the minority whip [1:06:47] eric kantor say there were real disagreements they wanted the government to be a provider in [1:06:55] competition with the private sector uh and to me that just didn't make any sense and i said if that [1:07:01] is the price of collaboration i mean it's basically saying bipartisanship means my way and nothing else i [1:07:09] said we can't work like that members of congress telling the president to slow down as congress [1:07:14] bickered obama could only watch five weeks he didn't carry a big stick he wasn't like lbj of [1:07:21] course because he hadn't sort of come up to the ranks of the senate but it didn't seem like he had [1:07:26] any leverage or any ability to bring people along and some said the president's political style didn't [1:07:34] help he's not the person who's going to be the back slapper he's not an arm twister he has [1:07:40] people who work with him who are able to do aspects of the role of engagement that he that he doesn't [1:07:47] necessarily uh that he doesn't necessarily find um a value in himself engaging in he is not the type [1:07:57] of person that can you know invite uh boehner and the republicans to dinner at the white house every [1:08:03] night and schmooze them like lbj or clinton could that's not him he doesn't even want to do that so he has [1:08:11] this grander vision of what he is and what the world should be but that doesn't mean he can bring [1:08:17] other people along with him to that place because he doesn't have that personality out in america [1:08:24] right-wing radio was fueling people's outrage over health care reform americans are seriously [1:08:30] worried that this is going to destroy the health they were worried about big government taking away [1:08:35] choices it's about too much power going to federal government the whole point of this is to get [1:08:40] everybody enrolled in the government health care plan skyrocketing costs got a plan that increases [1:08:46] deficit spending when we already have trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see and sarah [1:08:51] palin said the government would use death panels she introduced the term death panel you might even [1:08:56] say that uh we got death panels uh going on here that something is stoking fears that obama's plan [1:09:02] would let americans die to save money allegation arose out of an idea to allow the charges made against [1:09:09] health reform like death panels to many of us seem so ridiculous and so absurd that we probably didn't [1:09:16] take it as seriously soon enough we now have leftist radicals in charge of your health care decisions [1:09:23] rather than doctors we're hanging by a thread the president had seen divisions explode over his handling of [1:09:34] the economy and health reform and that summer another flashpoint would re-emerge race standing [1:09:45] parents she had noticed two gentlemen trying to get in a house at that number 17 wear street [1:09:53] it involved a friend of the president's [1:10:02] pener loose gates one of the most prominent and esteemed uh you know black academics and researchers [1:10:08] in the nation um you know he's returning to his home gets himself you know locked out in his cab [1:10:13] driver help helping him get inside and and and a police officer arrives and they're going back and [1:10:19] forth this question of you know should he be there is this his house what's happening um you know and at [1:10:24] one point you know he ends up getting detained by this officer gates was arrested for disorderly conduct [1:10:31] prominent african-american harvard scholar henry lewis gates jr arrested in his own home his arrest is [1:10:38] prompting outrage in the years since his reverend right speech obama had rarely addressed race one [1:10:45] of the paradoxes of barack obama's candidacy was that at the same time that he was on his way to [1:10:49] becoming the first black president he was very uncomfortable talking in overtly in overt terms about [1:10:54] race he tended to be elliptical he tended to try to operate at 30 000 feet good evening please be seated [1:11:02] but now he would not avoid the topic recently professor henry lewis gates jr was arrested at his home [1:11:08] in cambridge what does that incident say to you and what does it say about race relations in america [1:11:14] obama then addresses it at a press conference i don't think he went out of his way to but he was [1:11:19] asked to and this was an instance where he i'm sure in retrospect felt he went too far because he [1:11:26] dared to say that this could have happened to him in chicago i mean if i was trying to jigger in [1:11:32] well i guess this is my house now so it probably wouldn't happen but let's say my old house in [1:11:37] chicago um here i'd get shot and then he even joked if i had been trying to break into my own house now [1:11:46] meaning the white house i would have gotten shot i don't know not having been there and not seeing [1:11:53] all the facts what role race played in that but i think it's fair to say number one any of us would be [1:12:01] pretty angry what was so striking about the skip gates incident was that obama's very careful [1:12:10] articulation on racial issues in general gave way to a sort of normal human reaction which is [1:12:19] of course they treated the black guy badly number two that the cambridge police uh acted stupidly [1:12:29] in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home obama's comments [1:12:36] ignited a fierce backlash last night ladies and gentlemen as the president obama did after all [1:12:42] listen to reverend right a rookie president unknowingly waded into a media firestorm when he [1:12:47] said that the cambridge police department acted quote stupidly what we got was the reaction of a [1:12:53] community organizer obama was surprised by the intensity of the reaction to what seemed pretty obvious that you [1:13:00] would effectively arrest a senior citizen with a cane because you didn't like how he sassed you [1:13:07] uh seemed pretty stupid seemed pretty stupid what kind of president of the united states immediately [1:13:13] jumps on the police president says the cops are stupid president says the cops are racist that was [1:13:18] something that people were not willing to hear from the first black president certainly not willing to [1:13:23] hear from the person who they voted for hoping that they could you know be done with race once and for [1:13:29] all and now this person's actually saying hey this looks like racism that is unbelievable this president [1:13:34] i think has exposed himself as a guy over and over and over again who has a deep-seated hatred for white [1:13:42] people or the white culture i don't know what it is the uproar that came afterwards uh really singed i [1:13:49] think it really did sort of teach him no don't get near this stuff uh unless you really have to because [1:13:54] it's only going to it's only going to cause trouble and it's going to distract from the things he felt [1:13:58] like he had to do you can't sit in a pew with jeremiah wright for 20 years and not hear some of [1:14:04] that stuff and not have it wash over it matters that it's a black man it matters that his name is [1:14:09] barack hussein obama i think for a lot of people that was very threatening that was not the direction [1:14:13] they wanted to see the country go in listen you can't say he doesn't like white people david axelrod's [1:14:17] white rahm emanuel's white i'm not saying that he doesn't like white people i'm saying he has a [1:14:22] problem he has a this guy is i believe a racist so barack obama in his own way ambled into a moment [1:14:31] that even i don't think he at the time realized what it would represent and that was a constellation [1:14:36] of indicators to a certain kind of far-right american conservative that the situation was changing and [1:14:44] changing very fast and that white americans were going to find themselves as they saw it disenfranchised [1:14:49] and certainly disaffected in front of the press obama went into full damage control these are issues [1:14:57] that are still very sensitive here in america and you know so to the extent that my choice of words [1:15:06] didn't illuminate but rather contributed to more media frenzy i think that was unfortunate he didn't [1:15:14] leave it there he and his staff created a photo op he called it a teachable moment and so obama did [1:15:23] this very awkward thing where he called in henry lewis gates and the police officer and they had this [1:15:29] beer summit what's the big news of the day a beer summit outside president obama will have those beers [1:15:36] with a policeman and a professor he would probably say that that was one of the most ridiculous moments [1:15:42] of his presidency the drinks are on the house tonight the white house see not so much that he brought [1:15:47] a black harvard professor and a white cambridge cop together but the fact that the media anointed at a [1:15:55] beer summit beer summit president obama hopes a cold beer and a conversation will put an end to the [1:16:00] controversial time for a little healing over some beers my friend he wants you to pay attention because [1:16:06] his poll numbers are tanking this is just folk it is a lousy lousy image to present to america and [1:16:12] it's a great example of how obama simply believed at that time that if you simply sat down at a table [1:16:17] of course rational people of goodwill could find a way to join hands and get together hopefully today's [1:16:23] happy hour at the white house will finally put this one incident to rest after 40 minutes the event was [1:16:29] over the president said he had learned an important lesson obama said look you have to remember [1:16:38] that for me to talk about race and if i set a foot a little bit wrong i have the capacity with a [1:16:45] with a word to inflame a huge number of people on this side of that he certainly told me in the oval [1:16:54] office that he didn't want to be seen as the black president which is why he kept telling black people [1:17:00] i am not the president of black america what the beer summit in so many ways further exposed and [1:17:09] underscored was that the black president was actually one of the least equipped or positioned [1:17:15] persons to facilitate this conversation because his very presence or involvement in one of these [1:17:19] issues or one of these flare-ups would only further politicize it the beer summit controversy added to [1:17:28] the growing anger across america directed at the president president obama lying to the people [1:17:36] deceiving the people a giant step backwards in race relations over race it was more carlin banks [1:17:43] over health care reform rammed it down america's throats over wall street bailouts [1:17:49] and obama himself half the country racist what's that going to do for your funding [1:17:55] the discontent sarah palin had first tapped into now exploded they called it the tea party summer [1:18:03] the economic frustration that was being felt blended with a kind of racial backlash that [1:18:09] probably was underestimated that period was sort of a nesting house for a number of kind of shared [1:18:18] resentments that enacted themselves in in great opposition to to the president radical communist and [1:18:25] socialist if you would go to a tea party rally you would see placards for instance of him depicted as [1:18:30] as an african tribal chief very racially charged pictures of obama dressed as hitler obama's face [1:18:38] transposed onto that of the comic book villain the joker uh the pictures of obama um kind of made out to [1:18:46] be ape-like i mean you could just see the intensity on the part of people and just the the anger that they [1:18:52] were expressing no don't do this to us a manifestation of this this fear that you know we've got a [1:19:01] president in the white house who we can't trust his church was based on racism anger by 09 had just [1:19:07] had reached a boiling point the party rose up i give glenn beck considerable credit for it rush limbaugh [1:19:17] sean hannity these are people who encouraged the grassroots to rise up and say enough is enough [1:19:24] you want to kill my grandparents you come through me first the things that obama's doing are the exact [1:19:30] things that hitler did there is an ugliness with these fringe people who are comparing the president [1:19:36] to hitler at the white house they struggled to make sense of what had gone wrong he came into office [1:19:44] with a very naive view of politics and very quickly was was re-educated right i think he would say [1:19:51] that probably his biggest misunderstanding about american politics was that it wasn't polarized it was [1:19:59] literally the essential characteristic of american politics by late summer the president saw the [1:20:07] polarization grow to include republicans who were supporting what was now being called obamacare [1:20:18] healthcare became not just a lightning rod but a driving force behind this movement the specifics [1:20:28] almost didn't matter at that point it was just sort of you know just the very name obamacare was [1:20:32] enough to to generate deep anger and upset and resentment boom the summer town halls literally [1:20:39] blow up in our faces the fat really hit the fire when we went home in august for what usually is a [1:20:45] fairly leisurely stroll through the district the surprise is just how out of hand these town hall [1:20:52] meetings are getting to town hall here you're killing abortion is murder summer parade there and ice cream [1:21:00] social here no it was all healthcare all the time and people were were were red hot about it was a [1:21:07] radioactive issue all summer i never saw town halls like this normally 50 people would show up 500 were [1:21:15] coming in places where you would have 200 people they'd have 1500 people there and they were all angry [1:21:23] and they were very aggressive they were informed they were educated they were persuasive and aggressive [1:21:29] which made for perfect television coverage with money just stuff in your pocket people who had never [1:21:38] been involved in politics before all of a sudden were now speaking up hey wait a minute i didn't elect [1:21:44] this president i didn't think that washington should take my health care from me they were furious at [1:21:54] republicans who had worked with the president like senator charles grassley thank you senator grassley my [1:22:00] question is about you're working with max backus on financing this universal i had people come to [1:22:05] my town meeting with sheaths of paper that thick off the internet and quoting from the bill you know [1:22:11] i've never had that happen before people were up on it and people didn't like what they were reading [1:22:16] democrat or republican for whoever senator congress vote for this bill we will vote you out [1:22:22] suddenly the idea of cutting a deal with president obama no longer looked like it was good politics no [1:22:27] longer like it was good policy there's a bill out of the house of representatives put together under [1:22:32] speaker pelosi's leadership i'm i'm i'm i'm i would not vote for that there the ground was shifting for [1:22:47] republicans to um to having a very difficult time with their base and so it became politically toxic for [1:22:55] a lot of republicans to be associated in any way with the president there'd be a political price to pay [1:23:01] thank you very much for coming once they sort of lost grassley they lost arguably their last chance [1:23:09] to really get a bipartisan bill the summer of 2009 had been difficult for the president and his staff [1:23:20] a new reality was sinking in they were stunned they were disappointed they were very very concerned [1:23:26] about the implications of all of this in the summer for the president there was a clear lesson [1:23:32] very quickly brock obama learns that it's not going to work out the way he thought it was [1:23:38] you could not be a powerful uncompromising liberal champion uh at the same time you are uh you know [1:23:46] reaching across the aisle and building bridges with conservatives and the center you can't mix and [1:23:51] match these things but the president was determined to push on and he hadn't given up on health care reform [1:23:58] he asked his staff if it still had a chance i told him i couldn't guarantee success i couldn't even tell [1:24:06] him how we were going to get from a to z what i thought it came down to was did he feel lucky and [1:24:13] the president walked over to his desk and he looked out the window and he said phil where are we and phil [1:24:20] says we're in the oval office and the president said and what's my name and he said barack obama he said [1:24:26] well of course i'm feeling lucky now get back to work and figure out how to get this passed [1:24:31] a young president prepares to deliver the most important speech to revive health care they decided [1:24:37] it was time to once again draw on obama's strength as a campaigner and orator president obama gets ready [1:24:43] to take the stage in a high he summoned a joint session of congress after consulting with a number of [1:24:49] people i think the president concluded i need i need to take back control of this madam speaker the [1:24:55] president of the united states he understood that his presidency was at stake he understood that he [1:25:00] was asking people to make a very difficult vote he also tried to explain the historic opportunity [1:25:07] his audience really in that speech wasn't the public in general it was the people sitting in that chamber [1:25:13] the time for bickering is over the time for games has passed now is the season for action now is when we [1:25:24] must bring the best ideas of both parties together and show the american people that we can still [1:25:30] do what we were sent here to do it was an attempt to sort of recapture the high ground it was an attempt [1:25:36] to you know bring the debate back to a loftier level if you misrepresent what's the tea party fury [1:25:43] had spread to washington dc there are also those who claim that our reform efforts would ensure [1:25:48] illegal immigrants this too is false the reforms the reforms i'm proposing would not apply to those [1:25:58] who are here illegal it's not true a lone congressman says you lie it was republican [1:26:11] representative joe wilson from south carolina it was shocking when it happened it was unprecedented [1:26:18] when it happened you could see the look on the president's face obama dealt with it in the [1:26:24] obey me in way which to say he just kept on going but again you have to wonder what he really felt [1:26:35] what he really thought about such a moment and it was emblematic of a lot of the rage some of it [1:26:43] racial some of it ideological that was being felt all over the country i think that moment was one [1:26:51] in which people began to realize that we're dealing with something different than we thought [1:26:55] we were going to be dealing with in this administration and the wilson you know you lie [1:27:00] comment was that exclamation point an outburst that continues to reverberate across the country [1:27:06] the washington establishment was outraged how did we get to a point where it's okay to yell you lie [1:27:13] at the president while he's speaking to congress but to some on the right congressman wilson had become [1:27:18] a hero overnight joe wilson voiced what millions of americans have been saying about barack obama for [1:27:24] months joe wilson received a flood of donations and that was a sign that something was happening [1:27:31] he had crossed a boundary of the the kind of civility that used to govern the relationship between congress [1:27:38] and the president joe wilson wasn't punished for it in fact he was celebrated for it that was a blatant [1:27:44] lie i'm going to tell you something it's about time somebody said this to obama it was a lesson [1:27:48] other republicans were paying close attention to on the right going against the president in an [1:27:55] extreme way in a personal way it became not the worst way to get attention you could get attention [1:28:02] and you could get some political capital you could get some political stature by going against [1:28:06] president obama 52 percent of the american people disapprove of president obama's handling finds [1:28:12] there are rising doubts about his approach on domestic issues obama's efforts to restart [1:28:17] bipartisan health care reform had failed we still continue to try to reach out to individual [1:28:26] republican senators individual republican house members but in terms of being able to have [1:28:32] a big agreement that would garner 80 votes that wasn't possible the only path forward to abandon [1:28:41] bipartisanship and rely on the democratic majority in congress the choice was to do nothing or to do [1:28:49] something with the tools you had in the majority that you had he chose to do that it was an admission [1:28:56] of failure really an admission that in spite of his best efforts there was no way he could bring [1:29:02] the republicans along on something that that looked so obvious when it all started the president would [1:29:10] play the washington game unleashing his hard-nosed chief of staff rom emmanuel to pressure democrats to push [1:29:18] through the bill i don't think that rom emmanuel ever worried much about bipartisanship he was focused [1:29:26] on winning they just felt they could ram this right through and to heck with republicans to heck with [1:29:32] conservatives but even winning over some democrats became difficult after special interests like the [1:29:39] insurance and pharmaceutical industries opposed parts of the bill new hidden taxes that congress wants [1:29:46] on your health care hidden health care taxes on medicines medical devices and health insurance [1:29:53] hidden health care taxes millions of dollars went into a tough ad campaign by the chamber of commerce [1:29:58] call congress tell them no hidden health care taxes in a recession and powerful democrats were listening [1:30:07] there were still some senator lieberman was one senator nelson of nebraska was another who still said [1:30:14] there's merit to what the insurance industry is saying and those were critical swing votes the [1:30:21] president had promised to transform washington but now they were doing deals just to win over democrats [1:30:28] they killed a government insurance option pleasing senator lieberman and others they lowered proposed [1:30:35] taxes for medical device makers for evan by the final holdout was the democrat from nebraska former [1:30:44] insurance executive ben nelson ben nelson is one of the more conservative members of the democratic [1:30:49] caucus in the senate and they needed his vote they had to have his vote that meant sitting down and [1:30:56] hammering out a deal really giving him almost what he wanted anything he wanted the focus at the end [1:31:04] in a bill like this is always on how do you get those last two or three votes and compromises are made [1:31:09] and thrown at senators feet in order to get them to vote when nelson complained about a number of provisions [1:31:15] including the cost to states they added 100 million dollars for nebraska's medicaid expansion to a lot [1:31:22] of us we were very very upset about it it was very poorly done but the only way they could get it [1:31:27] through was basically to bribe their members nelson insisted the money didn't buy his vote and that [1:31:35] other states eventually got help too but many in washington and in the media saw it differently [1:31:42] they called it the corn husker kickback prostitution has been legalized in washington dc is this deal for [1:31:50] ben nelson forever and ever amen forever and ever and only for nebraska got a compliment ben nelson for [1:31:57] playing the prices right it's not a pretty process there is deal making that's the way it's been done [1:32:02] for a long long time but those deals can done in your front parlor can be pretty smelly the public [1:32:09] it was already up to here with what they were seeing in washington and i think it just put them [1:32:13] over the side that was very sour stuff to most people in this country they realized that this is [1:32:20] not the way to legislate by christmas eve mr mcconnell no the vote mr menendez the senate convened to [1:32:29] send president obama a hard-fought christmas present miss murkowski no mrs murray its first roll call vote [1:32:35] on christmas eve since 1895. mr nelson nebraska the yeas are 60 the nays are 39 h.r 3590 is passed [1:32:46] tonight the eyes have it the senate passes an historic health care bill and this was a strictly [1:32:54] party-line vote all the democrats voting yes all the republicans voting no the final tally 60 to on [1:33:01] christmas morning everyone was sitting around thinking that he was [1:33:05] an lbj-like genius because it appeared that he was on the verge of accomplishing what no president [1:33:14] had for 70 years they were so close they were inches away from getting this bill they had 60 votes [1:33:23] on record in the senate they had the house bill in hand the the emerald city was right there in a [1:33:28] distance all they needed now was for the house and senate to iron out some details between them [1:33:35] then the unexpected before congress could act there was a special election in the democratic [1:33:47] stronghold of massachusetts for the senate seat vacated by the death of ted kennedy polling numbers [1:33:52] are all over this could be a breakthrough for the republicans the headline in the boston herald [1:33:56] says it all mass hysteria the election was the first test of the power of the tea party and the [1:34:02] the republican insurgents the tea party people are very active in massachusetts we've been hearing [1:34:08] about tea party for months but it was unclear if it was more than a fringe issue campaign surge scott [1:34:15] brown has caught the democrat establishment off guard republican scott brown is riding a wave [1:34:19] brown's campaign language has the aura of a revolutionary crusade is not the business we like and all [1:34:25] those backroom deals for nebraska and others it's just wrong and we can do better scott brown effectively [1:34:33] used that as a way of saying that change has not come to washington the democrat martha coakley [1:34:41] was sinking in the polls for health care reform to survive the white house needed her to win [1:34:50] only belatedly does it dawn on the white house what's about to happen the president's not going to go up [1:34:56] there to campaign for her until the friday before the election when martha coakley calls david axelrod [1:35:01] personally and says i need him to come up they frantically sent obama up to massachusetts the weekend [1:35:12] before he makes very clear to the massachusetts electorate what's at stake here is the obama presidency [1:35:18] and do they want to hand the republicans the power to stop his agenda on health care and on everything [1:35:26] else by election day the president knew they would lose january 19th [1:35:33] 6 30 p.m about an hour and a half before the polls close in massachusetts obama calls for pelosi reed [1:35:44] biden and rahm emanuel to come to the oval office at the emergency meeting they considered what to do [1:35:50] from the very moment that it was clear that scott brown was going to win that seat he began thinking [1:35:56] through what the next steps would be to be able to write the ship and get health care done the president [1:36:03] asked speaker of the house nancy pelosi if she could get the house to pass the senate bill without any [1:36:08] changes pelosi is annoyed and quite adamant that there's no way she can sell that to her house [1:36:17] members almost kind of lecturing saying you don't understand the realities in the house this won't [1:36:24] work and obama finally snaps uncharacteristically for him and he says i understand that nancy what's [1:36:33] your suggestion and there is no suggestion we went from basically beginning to plan how and when the [1:36:43] president would sign the bill so if we could even resuscitate the bill is the winner of the massachusetts [1:36:51] united states senate race it was a victory for the tea party and a sign of what was to come brown's [1:37:01] victory shakes up massachusetts and it shakes up the nation republican taking over the seat that ted kennedy [1:37:07] held for 46 years here is the united states senator from massachusetts scott brown people do not want [1:37:18] the trillion dollar health care plan that is being forced that is being forced on the american people [1:37:27] in one election was a composite of all that ill feeling from the grassroots of america [1:37:33] and if it can be expressed in liberal massachusetts they know it's a lot worse in montana and wyoming [1:37:42] if they replace the so-called kennedy seat with a republican then my gosh you better wake up [1:37:53] the massachusetts seat gave republicans the crucial vote they needed to block changes on [1:37:57] the senate's health bill even mother nature got into the act one of the worst blizzards [1:38:05] in history buried washington but getting a health care bill passed now looks more difficult than [1:38:10] ever all of the options for health care get very i don't see any way you go forward from here [1:38:15] with health care now they're shell shocked they're going to need a whole new strategy on health care [1:38:21] barack obama had to come to terms with what looked like his first significant failure as president [1:38:26] this is a complex issue and the longer it was debated the more skeptical people became [1:38:36] i take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly the american people the process was [1:38:42] messy and so it turned people off it ended up being behind closed doors it was filled with a lot of [1:38:49] partisan wrangling people yelling at each other across the table we ended up having a process that [1:38:56] represented a lot of what the american people hated about washington the president is in some [1:39:01] ways kind of rebalancing himself the year had been very hard on him the massachusetts defeat [1:39:07] symbolically was terrible and practically had a devastating effect the president admitted he's made [1:39:13] some mistakes in his first year in office but said he won't quit he's got an uphill fight here by the end [1:39:19] of the first year the promise of january 20 2009 feels like a slipping away every day he was clearly [1:39:28] aggravated frustrated testy sometimes with his aids not happy that he couldn't get through things he [1:39:33] thought ought to get through not happy that his message didn't seem to get through and he is dispirited [1:39:41] and he says to his senior staff i've lost my narrative i have no narrative which for a guy like [1:39:49] barack obama is like saying i've lost my way i've lost my identity i'm not having a conversation with [1:39:55] the american people anymore the president decided to reclaim the narrative he hit the road got out of [1:40:05] washington fired up the base to pressure the democratic lawmakers in the house to pass the senate bill [1:40:12] to make history we are going to fix health care in america with your help god bless you and god [1:40:29] bless the united states this is the end of prosperity in america forever if this bill passes clearly a [1:40:38] constitutional crisis after an entire year spent on health care reform their last hope was now with the [1:40:44] house democrats five years from now and all that stuff gets implemented i am leaving the country i'll go to [1:40:49] i'll go to costa rica down to the wire on health care reform the house votes just hours from now [1:40:54] after months of ranker in the streets the president's assistant called and said the president wants [1:40:59] everybody to come back to the white house and watch it together and that means everybody from the most [1:41:03] junior staff person who worked on it to the vice president and so everyone was together and watched the [1:41:08] vote members will record their votes by electronic device sitting in the roosevelt room the president the [1:41:15] vice president we said there was a small bit of anxiety as we watched the votes tick up it is a 15 [1:41:23] minute vote we've had victory snatched from us before this vote the a's are 219 the nays are 212 the motion is [1:41:33] adopted the 216th vote comes over a big cheer erupts 219 to 212 uh no votes are republicans all democrats no [1:41:44] republicans this is a huge victory for this president for decades they've been trying to do [1:41:50] it it has now been done he invited everybody up to the truman balcony to celebrate this is about one [1:41:56] o'clock in the morning as the crowd started to to wait out and the president was so happy that night [1:42:02] i mean he was just totally joyful and in a great mood i asked him i said how does this night compare to [1:42:08] election night and he looked at me said valerie there's just no comparison election night was just about [1:42:13] getting us to a night like this good evening everybody this legislation will not fix everything [1:42:22] that ails our health care system but it moves us decisively in the right direction this is what [1:42:30] change looks like it was an historic piece of legislation but neither the president nor his staff [1:42:37] could foresee what the consequences would be it was obviously a big moment of success for president [1:42:42] obama getting it passed but it sowed the seeds for years of division and really leaves open the [1:42:48] question as to whether or when the country might finally come to accept what he's done obama had [1:42:56] failed to convince a single republican in the house or senate to vote for the bill it's a huge piece of [1:43:04] legislation and it is extremely unusual when any of the other major programs were were passed signed [1:43:11] into law they were ultimately done with both democrat and republican votes uh and it and it's very um it's [1:43:19] very telling that not a single republican in the house or the senate ultimately voted for the health [1:43:27] care bill every single republican senator votes consistently against government-run health care should [1:43:37] be a clear indication the vote would fuel the continuing rise of the tea party it's the most brazen [1:43:43] one assault on a fundamental aspect of our republic ever it all came down to one word [1:43:51] obamacare title lies damn lies that's what obamacare was all what happened after it was passed and [1:43:56] because of the way it was passed it became the symbol of of the divide and the reality of it in many ways [1:44:04] and i don't think obama was expecting that welcome back to your nation's capital you know the pelosi-led [1:44:14] congress is about to get a crash course in the consent of the governed the affordable care act [1:44:21] became sort of a turning point for the tea party movement where they were just upset now with both [1:44:28] parties and they wanted to come to washington and change everything that was happening in washington dc [1:44:32] do you love your free sarah palin was back now as a prominent voice of the tea party into our [1:44:42] institution and our guns and religion and you can keep the change now i had social media just [1:44:49] entering you actually had a way for people to organize a way for them to talk to each other [1:44:53] now that you had talk radio fully developed you had a mouthpiece and the combination of those two [1:45:01] and the frustration from the grassroots all came together to create this incredible movement [1:45:09] some republican leaders believe they could harness that energy america is at a crossroads [1:45:15] and washington remains out of touch there is a better way and the new team is ready to bring [1:45:26] america back eric canter kevin mccarthy paul ryan joined by common sense conservative candidates from [1:45:35] across they aimed at taking back control of the congress together they are the young guns and they [1:45:43] decided to target the midterm elections a lot of the angry citizens across america and i think it was [1:45:49] much in response to this health care bill they saw that the democratic majority along with the [1:45:54] president were going in a direction where i don't think people thought they would go i mean they're [1:46:01] seeing something at the grassroots of the republican party uh that says to them we can have a big election [1:46:09] in 2010 as down as we were after 2008 we can come back the republicans were crushed at that point and [1:46:19] the first signs of life if you will came from the tea party movement and there was an initial sense that [1:46:25] we need to figure out how we can harness this movement and take advantage of it canter and the other [1:46:31] young guns set out to recruit candidates who could help them win back the house we need people who want [1:46:39] to come not to be a part of divvying out the goodies here in washington but people who are here intent on [1:46:47] reforming our government the way you do that is you recruit like-minded people to come and join you so [1:46:53] you can succeed as they saw all this grassroots fervor for smaller government and a tea party movement [1:47:00] canter saw an opportunity to build his own power base by building the party's power base by recruiting young [1:47:06] conservatives tea party people around the country he finds conservatives who are fed up with washington [1:47:13] who are fed up with obama and who frankly think that the republicans are not standing up to obama that [1:47:19] they're not standing up to the democrats and the young guns helped put together a platform for their [1:47:24] candidates they called it a pledge to america i always go back to the pledge to america which was put [1:47:30] together by paul ryan kevin mccarthy and eric kantor we will stop out of control spending repeal and [1:47:37] replace the government takeover of health care make congress more open and transparent they're the ones [1:47:43] that promised we could repeal obamacare those are the ones that promised we'd we'd pass a new tax code [1:47:49] in order to win elections in 2010 republicans were promising their constituents that they would stop [1:47:55] obamacare now obamacare was already the law of the land and republicans didn't have a majority in both [1:48:02] houses but they were promising their constituents if you just send me to washington i will get rid [1:48:08] of obamacare polls open across the country be a fierce battle for control in the house and the senate [1:48:13] one of the most closely watched midterm elections in years on election night the strategy of the young [1:48:19] guns and eric kantor paid off cnn is not ready to make a major projection the republicans will take [1:48:25] control of the house of representatives historic election for the republican party it's a whole new [1:48:31] political world for the president now what i saw the republican election in 2010 i saw that as a move [1:48:38] on the part of the electorate to say hey hey wait a minute obama's gone too far we need a check and [1:48:44] balance uh on this president and that's why the republicans i believe we were elected into majority [1:48:50] in 2010. 87 new republicans were elected they were called the tea party class you all are the salt of the [1:48:59] united states of america you all are the light that will shine in the united states of america i credit [1:49:07] young guns with so much of what happened in 2010 because they took that mood out there attached [1:49:13] candidates that best fit that mood found candidates who were really good communicators that could speak [1:49:19] to that anger and they didn't sound like politicians because they weren't politicians house democrats of [1:49:26] every stripe were voted out of office or losses in the white house for barack obama the 2010 midterm [1:49:33] elections would become a humbling and bitter turning point tuesday's election was a game changer [1:49:39] that loss in the fall of 2010 was so massively consequential [1:49:44] because after just two years it essentially ended the hopes of getting anything anything big [1:49:48] done and anything else because they lost the house repudiation of the president and his policies [1:49:54] no sense in sugarcoating last night's election results voters and a message to barack obama and [1:49:59] that i think came as a surprise to this uh this person who thought that people pretty much loved him [1:50:05] the gop gaining at least 58 seats they won democrats lost and we're still paying the price the president [1:50:12] in the united states took their eye off the ball that was more than a shellacking this was an [1:50:17] embarrassing collapse of the democratic agenda in congress president trying to figure out what [1:50:25] he does one democrat called last night i can tell you that you know some election nights are more fun than [1:50:31] others some are exhilarating some are humbling he felt bad for a lot of the people who lost [1:50:40] because he knew that in some ways it was on his shoulders that he had pushed them to take a very [1:50:46] tough vote on the health care bill and people had done that and it had cost them their seats and the [1:50:54] president knew that many of the new republican legislators had won their elections on a promise of [1:51:00] stopping him it's clearly one of the most critical moments in the obama presidency because it says we're now [1:51:08] solidifying and accelerating this polarization this division between the parties we are now throwing [1:51:15] out this idea that washington should be about finding bipartisan compromises and instead it should be [1:51:20] about fighting for principle until the last breath the tea party movement has given life to the republican [1:51:27] party and hope to the nation that we can start to reverse course that election was the beginning of a [1:51:36] political revolution one that would not only transform barack obama's presidency but would also [1:51:43] dramatically change the republican party tomorrow night part two of divided states of america more on [1:52:29] this and other frontline programs visit our website at pbs.org slash frontline and divided states of america is [1:52:46] available on dvd to order visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800-play-pbs frontline is also available for download on itunes