Friday Lightning Round: Health care politics
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This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," June 1, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: Every week viewers vote for your choice online in this, our Friday Lightning Round. This week the big winner, health care won with 33 percent of the vote. This of course comes as we are waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on the health care challenge. And we learned a little bit more up on Capitol Hill this week, as well.
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REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN, R - TENNESSEE: The White House was over here working with Pharma, trying to construct this language. The White House was not going to let special interests influence any of this. But yet you've got an organization that is out here basically writing the health care bill.
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BAIER: Republicans are point to go e-mails released that came out this week that said that the administration was doing, as was suspected, some dealing with the pharmaceutical companies before the health care bill was put together. What about all of this and how it factors in in the big picture? Steve, it doesn't seem like health care overall, the law, has been very popular according to the polls, depending on how you ask the question.
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STEVE HAYES, SENIOR WRITER, THE WEEKLY STANDARD: It hasn't been. I would say, those E-mails had the potential had they gotten more coverage too have been quite damaging. But people have sort of moved beyond the construction of the health care bill and they're now, everybody is waiting for the Supreme Court decision and a potential debate about where this goes if the court upholds the mandate.
BAIER: But the e-mails do kind of shatter the whole transparency talk from the administration about anything that was happening in the construction of that bill?
RICK KLEIN, SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER, ABC NEWS: I this it was pretty well shattered and has been for a while. The bill itself, in part was so unpopular because those negotiations weren't televised on C-Span and the cornhusker kickback and on all of that. And now the court is gonna jump in the middle of this and have a decision later this month that is potentially going to upend all of the politics we're talking around this.
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Interestingly, talk to some Democrats, there are some who quietly aren't that scared of the prospect of this being thrown out, the idea of removing this albatross from them going into the fall, taking away this big issue and giving them something to motivate their voters out there -- the politics of this may already be settled, even though it's going to very much change the equation to have the signature accomplishment of President Obama's first term potentially thrown out.
BAIER: Charles?
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, that's a three-cushion shot interpretation of what would happen if the court overturned it, which I've entertained because it's so interesting and perverse.
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But I think in the end it's gonna be a straight shot. If it's overturned it's gonna be a huge setback for the president. His signature achievement, he spent a year and a half on instead of working on the economy. And the idea that this professor of constitutional law got it so wrong, he and the Democratic leadership, that they weren't even aware of the constitutional issues, in the most important thing he did in the Congress, I think psychologically it will be devastating
BAIER: But to Rick's point, for moderate Democrats especially, it may be a bit of a relief not to have to defend the health care --
KRAUTHAMMER: In their Congressional races, yes. But for the president who is so closely linked with this, I think it's a net loss and it's a big loss.
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BAIER: OK, the next topic is this cyber warfare that a big article again in the New York Times talking about how President Obama secretly ordered the increase of sophisticated attacks on computer systems in Iran, including the Stuxnet virus we've heard a lot about. There's been some angst about this story and others in recent days. Steve, intel officials -- not happy about all this.
HAYES: No, it's very interesting. I started the morning with some responses that I was getting from intel people, national security people who are concerned about the leaks and the fact that this was laid out on the pages of the New York Times, and that increased as the day went on. And I finally talked to a couple of very senior former intelligence officials who said David Petraeus needs to do a crimes report on this and start an investigation into the leak. The bigger problem I think from some of these people as one person said it appears to professionals that the information that they have been sworn to protect is being used for political purposes by the White House. That's a problem in the intelligence community.
BAIER: Rick?
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KLEIN: Interesting and you played a little bit earlier in the show something that Leon Panetta said about cyber warfare and the idea that it actually wouldn't be warfare. The implication here is that we may be at war with Iran over what's going on. It's stunning, and it's a stunning revelation. And it comes, as you mentioned, we are learning more about -- about the president and how aggressive he's been in some of the national security areas. And I think this is just -- it's a really fascinating development with a lot of potential tentacles. And it gets us into some hot water potentially. The idea, the concept of a retaliation would very much need to be on the table.
KRAUTHAMMER: It's beyond a problem, it's a scandal. Leaking the details that we saw in that plan about a very, very highly secret operation, the name of the operation, how it worked, when it worked, how it leaked out, the fact that we had Israeli cooperation, the name of the secret Israeli unit. All that was missing were the Hebrew names of the Israeli agents and their street addresses in Jerusalem. You wonder how an administration could do this, could allow all of these secrets out and jeopardize what we have done simply as a way to boost the president in an election year. I think it is a scandal.
BAIER: Down the road, Democrats worried about Charlotte, North Carolina, being the convention site?
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KRAUTHAMMER: It's going to be embarrassing.
KLEIN: Yes, but they can't do anything about it. They chose it for their political reasons and they're stuck for it.
HAYES: But they just allowed sales for booze on Sunday which alleviates one problem.
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(LAUGHTER)
BAIER: That's it for the panel. But stay tuned for something all realtors emphasize -- location, location, location.
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