VICE (2013) s04e00 Episode Script

1 Obama: Let's do it.
You got speed? Man: Rolling.
Speed.
- Hey.
- Shane Smith: How are you? - How you doing? Good to see you.
- Good to see you.
Did you know how crazy - the sheer bull goose lunacy - (laughing) that was gonna happen the minute you came in here? You know, uh There's a real question about the birth certificate.
President Obama, are you listening? Dealing with the White House is like dealing with a bowl of Jell-O.
I had read enough about the presidential experience - through biography - Mmm.
to know that you don't know what is gonna come at you.
Well, Obama's a Socialist.
I think he's a Marxist.
He's a radical Communist.
I don't think you know until you get here - Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
- how you're gonna respond to all of it.
I am not a dictator.
I'm the president.
There's got to be kind of a Super Bowl moment (clears throat) when you're like, "I know their defense is good.
" - "I know they're fast.
" - Right.
- "Here we go.
" - Yeah.
And then they come at you and you go, "Oh, I didn't know that they were that good, that fast, and that big.
" (laughs) Newsman: The federal government will shut down tonight at midnight, Eastern time.
I've always felt, "Well, this is what you should expect - if you're gonna be the President of the United States.
" - Mm-hmm.
The one certainty is that there are gonna be a lot of responsibilities and there's gonna be a lot of stuff thrown at you.
Don't you see this election and the dysfunction around it as a problem, in that sanity needs to prevail of somebody who knows how to actually get things done? Sanity didn't prevail in the presidential primaries.
- Mmm.
- And we're not in that cycle.
We're not in that zone.
- What cycle are we in now? - Craziness! - (laughing) - Come on! It's crazy! - And what's gonna happen? - The American people are looking at this, going, "What in the hell happened to America?" (punk rock song playing) A lot of people in this town can never say, "Yes.
" Man: Right now! (laughs) Not one Republican will vote for this bill.
I am an anti-Christ If I said the sky was blue, they'd say, "No.
" It's not hope.
It's not change.
It's partisanship.
I want to destroy the passerby 'cause The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.
- (Joe Wilson shouts) - (people boo) in anarchy And it is time for our colleagues across the aisle put something on the table! Tell us where you are! Moran: Because of the Ted Cruz Tea Party faction, you are willing to bring this country to its knees! Stand with us this evening and keep this government going! Hell no, you can't! How many ways to get what you want? The White House moved the goalpost.
I've been left at the altar now a couple of times.
When's he gonna take responsibility for something? - Really? - This isn't some damn game.
Anarchy, 'cause I They are here because our government is tearing apart their families, Madam Speaker.
We came here to do our job! We came here to work! (Louie Gohmert shouting) - Man: Order, Mr.
Speaker.
- (gavel pounding) Trump: We are going to Washington, D.
C.
, and we are going to drain the swamp.
- (cheering) - I get pissed, destroy! (punk rock song ends) A year ago, Vice began making a documentary about the growing dysfunction in Washington and the rise of extreme partisanship that was crippling the government's ability to function.
- (people cheering) - Now, the presidential election of 2016 not only mirrored the hyper-partisanship between the two parties, it magnified it, which in turn fueled the electorate's frustration with our political system's continued paralysis.
Now, Donald Trump won a hotly contested and, quite frankly, weird election that was torn by controversy and scandal and that became fueled by broad-based anger and disillusionment.
This victory, however, actually began its evolution over the past few election cycles, so we met up with the key players from both sides of the aisle to get the inside story on exactly how we ended up where we are today and get a blow-by-blow of the reasons why we remain such a divided country.
Now, one of the paradoxes of this election is that President Obama himself is still broadly popular.
In fact, his final year approval ratings are among the highest in history.
Despite this popularity, however, he knows as well as anyone that the policies he put in place caused deep rifts in the country.
So, let's start at the beginning.
When you announced your candidacy in Springfield, you said, "Washington must change," and you talked about building consensus, ending petty politics, So, two terms later, where are we? - Well, that didn't work out, did it? - (both laugh) I You know (sighs) I could not be prouder of the work that my administration has done.
- Mm-hmm.
- But there is no doubt that one of the central goals that I had had, which was to make the politics in Washington work better - Mm-hmm.
- to reduce the knee-jerk partisanship, to elevate the debate I haven't accomplished that.
- Mm-hmm.
- This is a humbling job, and so sometimes I say to myself, "Well, if I had had the vision and humor of Lincoln, "or the charm and persuasiveness of FDR, maybe things would've turned out differently here in Washington.
" So, I'm happy to own that I wasn't able to change attitudes among politicians as well as I would've liked.
If people aren't looking to cooperate, if they're not rewarded politically for cooperation, then things can grind to a halt.
Smith: President Obama has presided - (shouting) - over some of the fiercest partisan fighting that the American political system has ever seen.
Congress is gridlocked and has passed fewer laws over the past eight years than during any other period in modern times.
This political stalemate has harmed our international standing, our economy, and even jeopardized our security.
Robert Gates: The greatest national security threat to this country at this point is the two square miles that encompasses the Capitol Building and the White House.
Smith: So, we wanted to find out how an administration that was supposed to transcend partisanship ended up making it even worse, so we spoke to the decision-makers and the advisors who watched it all unfold from the inside, starting with legendary Republican strategist, Frank Luntz.
Newswoman: America's top pollster, Frank Luntz.
Jon Stewart: The famed Republican spin doctor.
Newsman: The man who makes a living on schooling up Republicans on how to win the sound chamber.
What we try to do is bring out what people are actually thinking, not what they might say to you on national television.
They forget Smith: Frank Luntz is a public-opinion guru and one of the architects of the Republican strategy to fight President Obama.
We joined him for lunch at the Capitol Hill Club, a private haunt for the GOP elite.
because you have a relationship with Biden, you have a relationship with Obama.
Did they have a chance to change the political culture in Washington and did they lose that chance? Absolutely.
In fact, for me, the most memorable day in politics after the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan - was January 20th, 2009.
- Mm-hmm.
- Luntz: And I got downtown early - (cheering) because I wanted to see how people reacted.
I wanted just to take this in, - 'cause it was a very historic day.
- Smith: Mm-hmm.
Luntz: At least one out of five people I spoke to did not vote for Obama, but they still wanted to be there.
And everybody was in a celebratory mood.
This was something special.
We gather because we have chosen hope over fear - (cheering) - unity of purpose over conflict and discord.
He, on that day, had America in his hand, and he could've done what FDR did completely reshape the national politics.
It proceeded to break down within within weeks.
- At last - (cheering) My love has come along Smith: Now, as Beyoncé serenaded the Obamas for making history, the Republicans were reeling from a devastating defeat.
Not only had they lost the White House, but dozens of seats in Congress falling further into the minority in both the Senate and the House.
You talk about the inauguration, but didn't you have a dinner that night with sort of the Republican brain trust of which you're a leading light? - No, I was just the one who paid the tab.
- (laughs) Luntz: I thought no one was gonna show up, and then, in fact, I'd set the table for 24 people.
- I didn't have enough seats.
- Smith: Right.
Luntz: Everybody came.
And you had significant people in that room.
You had ranking members of committees.
You had three or four of the members of the leadership from both the House and the Senate.
And then you had people like Newt Gingrich who were the thinkers and philosophers of the party.
It was all about a lost movement, trying to figure out how to get back up on its feet.
- What was decided that night? - To challenge when deserved and to cooperate when they should.
Mm-hmm.
So, it wasn't to go attack the president from day one and "If Obama's for it, we're against it.
" - It was more of "What's the new strategy?" - Never.
Is there a new not even "What's the new strategy?" - "Is there a new strategy?" - "Is there a new strategy? Or are we done?" Smith: Now, while Frank Luntz claims that the party did not pounce on him immediately, right-wing media was not as kind.
They attacked the presidency from day one.
Mr.
President, I want to believe.
I want to trust.
I want to hope for change, but I am really failing to see how this is any different.
I shamelessly say, "No, I want him to fail.
" Our country is less safe today.
He's gonna bring about socialist democracy.
Is this the change that America voted for? The Republicans were very shrewd, and they were under a lot of pressure with the election of the first African-American president, this kind of "Kumbaya" moment for the country.
Smith: Michael Grunwald is a political reporter and best-selling author who covered the turmoil of Obama's first term for Time magazine.
Grunwald: Republicans realized that President Obama had campaigned on bipartisanship, he had promised cooperation, and that they could make him break that promise by not cooperating.
(bell ringing) Smith: Obama had taken office in the middle of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and now it was on his administration to fix it.
Newsman: We learned today American workers were laid off the job last month in numbers not seen in over three decades.
Valerie Jarrett: People forget that we were losing 750,000 jobs a month.
The automobile industry was on the verge of bankruptcy.
Smith: Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to the president, and his closest confidant, helped him craft a response to the crisis.
The banks were collapsing, people were seeing their life savings evaporate overnight and their 401Ks.
Newsman: 31.
8 million Americans applied for food stamps last month, an all-time record.
We were heading towards a great depression.
Obama: There were moments early on in the presidency when the economy was still cratering - Mm-hmm.
- where, after a meeting, when I was sitting here alone, I said to myself, "There have been times in history - where the bottom fell out.
" - Right.
"And this could be one of those times.
" - There was a bracing sense of - Oh boy.
- "Well, this is for keeps" - Yeah.
- "and you better get it right.
" - Mmm.
Obama: We are experiencing a unprecedented, perhaps, economic crisis that has to be dealt with and dealt with rapidly.
Smith: Both parties agreed that big steps needed to be taken to stabilize the economy.
What they couldn't agree upon, however, was just how much of the stimulus package should be on government spending, which is what the Democrats wanted, and how much should be on tax cuts, which is what the Republicans wanted.
Now, an important player in the stimulus discussions was GOP House Minority Leader John Boehner.
And we spoke to the man who would later become speaker of the House at his home in Westchester, Ohio.
The US economy is having the hardest time since the Great Depression.
And then, the first thing that happens, the first week is, "Let's get a stimulus package done.
" Take us back to that time.
Well, my Democrat colleagues in the Congress were pushing the president to expand government spending, but we thought it would be better - to give employers - Mm-hmm.
incentives to hire more people, to invest in their businesses to expand the economy that way - Right.
- because I thought it would be real and more long-lasting.
(cameras clicking) Boehner: This is not our money to spend.
We're borrowing this money from our kids.
Smith: Despite the gravity of the crisis that was facing the country, this dispute provided rocket fuel to the fire of political partisanship in America.
Eric Cantor: John Boehner and I and others were invited to the White House, and I remember having come in with a white paper of five ideas as to what we Republicans felt should be in the stimulus bill.
Smith: Eric Cantor was the House minority whip and John Boehner's chief deputy.
I do remember the president taking a look at it and saying, "There's really nothing crazy in here, and we'll take a look at it.
" There was a kind of famous confrontation between Obama and Eric Cantor.
Cantor: We were discussing tax policy and the president says, "Eric, listen, elections have consequences, and I won, so we're gonna do it the way that my administration wants to do it.
" And I can accept that, but again, there was absolutely no inclusion of anything that we had presented at that point.
Grunwald: Obama had said, "Hey, look, this stimulus bill has $300 billion in tax cuts, just like you asked.
" Eric Cantor had complained that some of those tax cuts were refundable, which means that even people who don't make enough money to pay income taxes, even though they pay Social Security taxes, and gas taxes, and all kinds of other taxes they would get a tax cut as well as people with bigger tax bills, and that's what President Obama said was non-negotiable.
We're not just gonna cut taxes for people who aren't poor.
The president listened to the suggestions of all there.
Smith: Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, attended key meetings on the stimulus.
The Republicans are who they are.
They're a trickle-down economics party.
We're a party, and the president is, of middle-class economics.
It's no surprise that they were consistently for the one percent.
Boehner: There's no real daylight between the president and Republicans on the Hill.
There may be some disagreement over how much spending or how much in the way of tax relief, but at the end of the day, we want him to succeed, because America needs him to succeed.
Our job was to find the common ground.
What could we agree on? What could we do? Smith: But Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's first chief of staff, and now the mayor of Chicago, doesn't remember the opposition's motives as being so pure.
While there may be philosophical differences and that's okay and there may be ideological differences and that's politics there was also an attempt to make an opposition that would not allow his presidency to succeed.
Grunwald: President Obama decided that he was gonna do something very unusual.
He was gonna make the trip to Capitol Hill and go talk to House Republicans about the stimulus bill.
Before he even got into the limo, somebody handed him a press release where the Republican leadership had already come out against his stimulus.
He said to an aide, "This shit isn't on the level, is it?" Cantor: When John Boehner and I had found out that we weren't gonna have anything in that bill, we said, "Well, we're gonna oppose the bill.
" Obama: I don't expect 100% agreement from my Republican colleagues, but I do hope that we can all put politics aside and do the American people's business right now.
All right? Smith: The final draft of the stimulus bill provided $288 billion in tax cuts and $499 billion in additional government spending.
Grunwald: Behind the scenes, not only had Republican leadership decided to oppose the bill, but they had decided to whip the entire caucus against it.
They wanted a unanimous vote against the stimulus.
Newswoman: Today, the House is expected to approve President Obama's economic stimulus package, but still unclear is how many Republicans might support it.
- (gavel bangs) - Pelosi: The House will be in order.
The stimulus ultimately passed without a single Republican vote in the House.
- Man: The yeas are 60, the nays are 38.
- (gavel bangs) They got it through the Senate with just a handful of Republican votes.
Smith: Senator Lindsey Graham was one of those Republicans who voted no.
The content of the package was more of the left's dream of how to grow the economy than it was a bipartisan product.
Smith: To Republicans, those first few weeks of the presidency set the tone for much of what would follow.
What was a real bipartisan moment turned into a partisan fight that sort of tainted the entire first year.
People don't fully appreciate how close we came to a great depression as opposed to a great recession.
- Mm-hmm.
- And we made some good decisions early that made a difference.
- Man: Where you going? - I'm going down to Rahm's office.
Grunwald: The stimulus also showed how Obama was gonna handle the presidency - Have a seat, everybody.
- Grunwald: After this campaign where everybody had marveled about his brilliant messaging, in office, he's had much more problems selling a bill like the stimulus, which almost instantly became a national joke.
Graham: Well, you're gonna need a shovel when this bill passes.
Not to build anything, just to get the money out the door.
Grunwald: Republicans made it sound like a $800 billion boondoggle.
Boehner: $200 million to fix up the National Mall.
Over $200 million for contraceptives.
How is this gonna fix an ailing economy? Some of the provisions they pointed out were real, some of them were completely made up.
Newsman: What got me was the honeybee insurance.
Newswoman: $3.
4 million for a tunnel in Florida that will let turtles cross a highway.
More than $71,000 of stimulus funds are going to a project examining how cocaine affects the brains of monkeys.
Tom Coburn: A dose of common sense on where this money goes is sorely lacking.
They made it sound like this was $800 billion worth of honey-bee insurance, and turtle tunnels, and studies of cocaine-addicted monkeys.
It was really kind of absurd, the negative tenor of the coverage while ignoring the larger picture of what the stimulus was doing.
Economically, there's just no question that the stimulus did what it was supposed to do.
It increased employment by two to three million jobs, compared to the no-action alternative.
But it was an extraordinarily unpopular bill.
Smith: Now with opponents of big government still fuming, the president announced a new mortgage-assistance program the day after signing the stimulus.
The plan I'm announcing focuses on rescuing families stuck in subprime mortgages they can't afford as the result of skyrocketing interest rates or personal misfortune.
Smith: The government, which had already spent billions to bail out the banks, was now spending even more in an attempt to stabilize the economy.
But when the president proposed bailing out individual homeowners, the rift between the two parties split even wider and marked a turning point in American politics.
On the Republican side, it really became "No more bailouts.
No more handouts.
No more cop-outs.
" It became a rejection of the philosophy that put tons of government money which is your tax dollars putting that into the economy without any sense of accountability.
- (bell rings) - (people shout) The government is promoting bad behavior! Smith: CNBC pundit Rick Santelli responded to the signing from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
This is America! How many of you people wanna pay for your neighbor's mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills? - Raise their hand! - (booing) I President Obama, are you listening? How about we all stop paying our mortgage? It's a moral hazard.
We're thinking of having a Chicago Tea Party in July! All you capitalists that wanna show up at Lake Michigan, - I'm gonna start organizing.
- (whistles) Smith: Now, this seemingly innocuous rant on daytime TV actually became a rallying cry for the most powerful American political movement in modern history.
Help the revolution! Help the Tea Party! Newsman: There are groups around the US who are holding tea parties of their own, protesting massive government spending.
Newswoman: They're fed up with footing the bill for big business and they want bailouts stopped.
In fact, the word "tea" stands for "Taxed Enough Already.
" People of the Tea Party are out.
Conservative ideas.
They want this country to be ran by the country, not by the government.
Newswoman: It may be the biggest political movement in years.
Smith: Now, over the coming months, polls show that up to 30% of Americans identified with the growing Tea Party movement, giving it even more power to disrupt business as usual in Washington.
Can you hear us now? There would've been no Tea Party movement without the first two years of Barack Obama.
It was a complete backlash against an overreach by the government.
So, you had the stimulus package, where people went back to their districts and Republicans were saying, "This is big government run wild," followed by Obamacare.
And this sort of became the blow-up of all blow-ups.
Smith: Now, with the Democrats in control of both the House and the Senate, President Obama had the numbers in Congress to pursue another big goal that had eluded many presidents before him universal health care.
- All right, let's go.
- (chattering) Let's start with legislative.
Phil? Health care is the next three weeks in committee.
Smith: But even within the president's inner circle, advisors warned that it could be political suicide.
Hey, guys.
How are you? Emanuel: If you looked at every president since Teddy Roosevelt who campaigned on national health care, they either walked out empty-handed or they had to scale back to a different form of health care.
Smith: Now, Rahm Emanuel's caution was based on his own experience 16 years earlier.
I was in the Clinton White House and I was working on the crime bill then.
Smith: In 1993, the president had put then First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, in charge of reforming the health care system.
It's time to bring about fundamental change, control our nation's soaring health care costs and provide security for American families again.
Smith: An effort that went up in flames, nearly derailing the Clinton presidency and tarnishing Hillary Clinton's legacy to this day.
Health insurance reform cannot be enacted this year.
Emanuel: It's something that people, in theory, want until you're reorganizing a lot of furniture.
And, you know, that's a big threat to people.
So, I said, "Look, you've got to understand "that this is gonna be "from the moment you announce it "a huge suck of both time, "energy, and political capital "with a chance of success that narrows with every day.
" Smith: While the battle to pass the stimulus bill lasted one month, the battle to pass health care reform would take more than a year of intensely partisan politics played out both on the floor of Congress and in the press.
I've had the good fortune of being able to work on a lot of stuff, but there is no question the most difficult, elusive thing I've ever worked on was Obamacare.
Obama: There's been some talk that we're in the midst of an economic crisis and that the system is overloaded, and so we should put this off for another day.
There is always a reason not to do it.
And it strikes me that now is exactly the time for us to deal with this problem.
Obamacare was the most visible example of the giant divide breaking apart even further.
To the left, this whole idea of having some national health care plan goes back 100 years.
And then, to your average Republican, this idea that all these decisions are gonna be made in Washington about what my health care looks like, is like dropping a stick of dynamite in a small crevasse in the earth.
All we're gonna do is raise taxes and increase the debt.
They have spent so much time trying to discredit the program.
Smith: Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn was the House majority whip and led the fight for many of the reforms featured on the Obamacare bill.
Clyburn: What we failed to do is to be as vigilant.
They don't care what the truth is.
All they care about is winning the issue.
Pence: Taxes on individuals, taxes on small business owners, taxes on businesses making inadvertent filing errors.
He just portrayed it as big government, big taxes, big spending.
This bill is a fiscal Frankenstein.
It's a government takeover.
- Government takeover.
- Government takeover.
Government takeover of health care.
Grunwald: The Republicans did a really excellent job of not only mobilizing their base to oppose Obamacare, but of dominating the public debate about Obamacare.
We do not need socialized medicine of any type.
We need to have freedom of choice! Smith: Now, during Congress's summer break, Democratic members went home to rally support for the bill, but they were totally unprepared for what awaited them in their respective districts a full-on revolt against the bill at a grassroots level.
No! Just say no! Smith: Now, at the center of the controversy was a deep-seated fear that it would lead to so-called socialized medicine and the rationing of health care I don't think I'd last long under a government health care plan as I get older, because of this rationing.
It's bound to happen.
Smith: meaning the government would actually decide who should live and who should die.
When people began to read and hear about the fact that Washington was going to change their health care, they got very upset.
80% of us recognize the anti-constitutionality of this health care.
This is anarchy! (shouting) Newsman: Members of Congress are back home, holding town hall meetings.
And in meeting after meeting, there's been a pattern of disruption.
(people shouting) His health care bill to me is very scary, because I know what happened in Germany under Hitler.
Smith: Now, the opposition to the Affordable Care Act became so heated that President Obama called for a special session of Congress just to diffuse the situation.
Some of people's concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost.
The best example is the claim made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts but by prominent politicians that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens.
Now, such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical and irresponsible.
- It is a lie, plain and simple.
- (cheers, applause) Smith: But the fury that had swept through the country had emboldened the president's critics in Congress, especially those who thought the law would promote abortion and give free health care to illegal immigrants.
The reforms I am proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.
- (Joe Wilson shouts) - (people boo) Smith: South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson shouted out to the president, in Congress, "You lie!" and it immediately made him a conservative celebrity.
The gentleman from South Carolina, Joe Wilson! Smith: Now, while he was formally rebuked by Congress, Wilson became a hero to the growing ranks of the Tea Party for daring to shout down the president from the House floor for the first time in modern history.
But Vice President Biden remembers the episode as a new low in partisan friction.
I think it was a confirmation of how off-track relationships have gotten between between the political parties.
When you attack another man's judgment hammer and tong, you can still reach a consensus, you can still work something out.
But when you attack his character or her character, when you attack their motive, then it's almost impossible to get to "yes.
" And that's one of the things that has changed so negatively in American politics in all my years, over the last 10 years in American politics.
And it's dangerous.
(crowd chanting) Kill the bill! Kill the bill! This bill is the greatest threat to freedom that I have seen in the 19 years I've been here in Washington! You were quoted as saying that Obamacare was the greatest threat to America.
- Why is that? - It's set up as a social welfare program.
It's not set up as an insurance program that has reserves and has backing, and so it's fundamentally unsound.
Cantor: We are committed to making sure that not one Republican will vote for this bill.
(cheering) Smith: And with the atmosphere in Washington becoming increasingly toxic, President Obama took an extraordinary step.
He headed to the House Republicans' annual retreat to face down their criticism directly on live television.
And Frank Luntz was in the audience.
In fact, he called you out.
What happened there? Barack Obama wanted to address them and House Republicans wanted to hear from him.
(applause) You know what they say.
"Keep your friends close, "but visit the Republican caucus - every few months.
" - (laughter) And both sides thought that this would be good for each other and just maybe you'd be able to get something done.
- Right.
- And it didn't work out that way.
If you were to listen to the debate and, frankly, how some of you went after this bill, you'd think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot.
Luntz: So, he's about 25 feet away.
And he's going through his answers to some of the hostile Republican questions, and he's getting hostile himself.
- (applause) - No, no, no, no, no, hold on a second, guys.
You know my I've read your legislation.
I mean, I take a look at this stuff.
It can't be all or nothing, one way or the other.
And I'm taking notes to be able to present to House Republicans how to respond to what Obama just said.
And unfortunately, that's how our politics work right now.
That's how a lot of our discussion works.
And I see him kind of do a shuffle, and he says, "You know what?" You know, I see Frank Luntz up here, sitting in the front.
He's already polled it, and he's said, "You know, the way you're really gonna "I've done a focus group, and you know the way we're gonna really box in Obama on this one or" Luntz: And my computer's got notes on it, and he's comin' at me, - and so I just casually put the screen down.
- (laughs) I like Frank.
We've had conversations between Frank and I, but that's how we operate.
It's all tactics, and it's not solving problems.
- All right.
Thank you, everybody.
- (applause) Luntz: When the thing was over, he went and shook hands.
I came over to a line and we talked for a couple seconds.
Newsman: Pollster Frank Luntz called out by President Obama.
- And every news outlet picked it up and ran it.
- Mm-hmm.
And they did so because how often do you have a strategist for the other side talking to the president? - Mm-hmm.
- It just doesn't happen in Washington.
- Right.
- And that's one of the problems.
The moment you get to Washington, there's a red side and a blue side, - and there is nobody in the middle.
- Right.
Obama: This became a very ideological battle.
Smith: Now the president's visit failed to break the logjam in Congress, and the campaign to pass the bill dragged into its 11th month.
The American people want us to scrap this bill.
- (crowd chanting) Kill the bill! - Smith: Now, in reality, the public was almost evenly split about the Affordable Care Act, but in American politics, the voices of the opposition are almost always louder and more intense and the Republicans were able rally their base for a vicious fight against the bill.
Sheila Jackson Lee: Over the last two days, human beings who happen to be members of Congress have been called the N-word, have been spat on.
Just recently someone asked me why my braids were so tight.
(chanting) Kill the bill! Kill the bill! The yeas are 220, the nays are 211.
The bill is passed.
I don't think there's any question that the Affordable Care Act is our proudest boast.
It stands right there with Social Security, - Medicare, and Medicaid - (applause, whistling) as a pillar of economic health security for America's families.
It's a giant accomplishment.
Biden: Health care is not a privilege, but a right.
Every American is entitled to have health care.
It's a gigantic step forward.
- (Biden speaks) - (applause) Thank you.
Thank you, everybody.
It's not yet universal health care, although we've gotten 20 million people health care.
And we've done so in a way that promises to insure even more in the future.
I think about it as a pretty good starter home.
The same way that Social Security when it started was imperfect, or Medicare and Medicaid, when they started were imperfect, but over time were improved and eventually became bedrock social welfare programs that everybody relies on.
Smith: Now Democrats celebrated the bill's passage as an historic achievement, but for Republicans, it only solidified the idea that government was out of control.
The biggest change in health care in generations I think has been a miserable failure, and right now it still, to this day, lingers over the body.
Cantor: This stimulus bill passed.
The Obamacare legislation passed.
But honestly, these are big, big pieces of legislation with policy implications all passing without any Republican votes.
(crowd chanting) USA! USA! Cantor: So I do think that that gave impetus to the Tea Party.
It was sort of this sense that the government had grown too big, taking too much of taxpayers' money, and I believe that the electorate in 2010 wanted some balance.
Smith: And as the Party mustered its forces to take on the Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections, they had a powerful new weapon: a massive change in the way elections are financed.
Pelosi: 2010 was about big money following the Supreme Court decision, Citizen's United, that unleashed endless special interest, dark, unreported money into the campaigns.
Smith: The Supreme Court decision called Citizens United had come down earlier in the year, and it ruled that political contributions are a form of free speech, and that outside groups could spend as much money as they wanted to influence elections.
And that gave rise to what are called "Super PACs.
" And one of the most active Super PACs is American Crossroads, founded by Republican strategist Karl Rove and run by Steven J.
Law.
What distinguishes us from other players in the political sphere is we're able to raise money in unlimited amounts from individuals, and companies and associations.
We started out in early 2010, we had one contribution that got the doors open, and over the course of the next 27 weeks we raised $71 million.
The largest part of our budget probably 70% of what we spend goes on communicating with voters on television or cable.
(announcer speaks) and Robin Carnahan is one of them.
Carnahan stands with Obama's health care law.
Law: Obamacare summed up, in a lot of voters' minds, everything that they didn't like about what was going on in Washington.
They saw it as partisan.
They saw it as big government.
It just created this desire to get back at the people who had done this to the country.
(announcer speaking) Smith: Now, the 2010 election was the first since this new ruling, and outside groups spent nearly $310 million to influence its outcome, which is almost five times what outside groups had spent during the previous midterm election.
Much of that money went to support candidates aligned with the Tea Party.
Newsman: We have a big story to report tonight.
Republicans have won control of the House of Representatives.
Newsman 2: Sweeping, stunning Republican victories all across the country.
Smith: On Election Day, Republicans trounced the Democrats and handed the GOP control of the House.
Newsman 3: Voters that went to the polls tonight sent a message to Barack Obama.
Smith: It was the worst loss for Democrats in more than 50 years.
Some election nights are more fun than others.
Some are exhilarating, some are humbling.
- (applause) - Smith: Now this election marked a pivotal moment in the presidency, because, from this point on, President Obama would face obstruction in Congress more intense than he'd ever experienced.
- God bless you, Speaker Boehner.
- (cheering) Smith: And John Boehner, who had been minority leader, became the face of the opposition as the newly installed speaker of the House.
By this point, the partisan tensions between the Republican majority in the House and the White House, it was it was pretty serious.
In the 2010 election, you have the rise - of the Tea Party.
- Correct.
Smith: But even as the Republicans celebrated their newfound power, there was growing dissent within its ranks because of the new infusion of hyper-conservative Tea Party members.
Now, a key player in this new force on Capitol Hill was Congressman Raúl Labrador, co-founder of the powerful Freedom Caucus, a main bastion of the Party's strength in Congress.
There were a lot of people here who had not been in government before.
We really believed when we came here that we were coming to change Washington, D.
C.
And one of the first fights that we had in Congress was the spending fight.
Smith: With their newly-won majority in the House, Republicans created a new mechanism to exert control.
We put in place a rule requiring there to be a separate vote on the increase in the debt ceiling of the country.
Smith: Now the debt ceiling is the routine authorization for America to borrow money to pay its bills.
And if the ceiling isn't raised when needed, the government ceases to be able to pay its debts, which in turn means, quite simply, it ceases to be able to function, which is why it's always been raised as a matter of routine.
Jay Newton-Small: Speaker Boehner had a lot of worries that he wasn't going to be able to control this new raucous caucus of his, of Tea Party fiscal conservatives.
Smith: Jay Newton-Small is a Washington correspondent at Time magazine and reported extensively on the brewing crisis.
Newton-Small: It was a way of satisfying his fiscal conservatives, right? "Here, we're going to cut a ton of money from the federal budget, potentially trillions of dollars.
" I made clear in early 2011 when I became speaker that we were not going to raise the debt ceiling without doing something about our spending problem.
- Right.
- Secondly, I made pretty clear to the president that the best time to do big things is when you have divided government.
We got a Republican House.
We've got a Democrat in the White House.
Both parties have their fingerprints on the deal.
Smith: In June of 2011, Speaker Boehner began meeting privately with President Obama to negotiate what became known as the Grand Bargain.
I went down to the White House and snuck into the White House.
I couldn't walk in, because you walk into the White House, the right wing press goes, "Oh, what are they What's he up to?" - Right.
- The left wing press, "Oh, what's the president up to?" Everybody goes crazy.
- Mm-hmm.
- The president and I end up in the Oval Office.
It was about 5:30, six o'clock, and I said, uh, "Hey, boss, why don't we go outside on that patio outside here that Reagan had built?" And we're having a conversation about this budget deal - that we've been trying to put together.
- Smith: Mmm.
I look up at one point, and I'm smoking a cigarette, drinking a glass of red wine.
I look across the table and here is the president, drinking an iced tea and chomping on Nicorette.
- (both laugh) - It's just one of those moments - Right.
- that you really just can't make up.
Smith: Now partisan politics in Washington had become so vitriolic, that not only did the speaker of the House have to actually sneak into the White House, but that just by speaking to the president, he was immediately seen as tainted by his own party.
Labrador: What I always had a problem with is that whenever he had these secret meetings with the President of the United States, it was to negotiate something that wasn't even related to what we were discussing in the Republican conference.
Boehner: People were sniping at me from every direction.
My staff even came to me and said, "Boehner, you know, "you're risking your Speakership, you're risking your job here by continuing these conversations.
" Newton-Small: By July 9th, Boehner realizes that his Tea Party core is never gonna go along with this, and finally Boehner withdraws.
Smith: But with the August 2nd deadline approaching, the White House succeeded in bringing the Republican leadership back to the negotiating table.
They bring in Cantor this time, and Obama really is going after Cantor in the Oval Office.
I asked the president if we could at least bank the savings that we had already come to an agreement with.
He took real offense at that and really just said he shouldn't have to spend all his time working with members of Congress, we should be able to do this without him, and walked out of the room.
My relationship with all the leaders has been cordial, it has been professional, but I think at a certain point, the American people run out of patience if they think that people are playing games and not serious in terms of solving problems.
- - Mr.
Speaker.
Boehner: I did everything I could to push the president to do the Grand Bargain.
It was a long, slow process over many months of discussions.
How you doing? And you were nearly there.
And we were there.
The president, myself, Eric Cantor - Yeah.
- on a Sunday morning, stood in the Oval Office, shook hands.
The deal was done.
Two days later, the Gang of Six happens.
The good news is that today a group of Senators, the Gang of Six, put forward a proposal that is broadly consistent with the approach that I've urged.
Smith: So, the president and the Republicans had finally reached a deal, but at the last minute, the so-called Gang of Six came up with an agreement of their own.
It threw the process into confusion, and the Republicans were unable to get their party back to the table.
It became a perfect portrait of just how dysfunctional Washington had become.
Now let me just say that the White House moved the goalpost.
Smith: But according to Clyburn and the White House, Speaker Boehner was placing false blame.
I was right there in the middle of it, and I never missed a single meeting.
No goalposts were moved at all.
Good evening, everybody.
It is hard to understand why Speaker Boehner would walk away from this kind of deal.
The train had just gone off the cliff and everybody was blaming everybody.
Dealing with the White House is like dealing with a bowl of Jell-O.
Can they say yes to anything? There was an agreement.
I've been left at the altar now a couple of times.
The president demanded $400 billion more.
We have now run out of time.
Smith: Washington's gridlock was now affecting the financial reputation of the United States.
- (bell ringing) - Newsman: The numbers are not pretty.
The DOW fell below 11,000 today, after Standard & Poor's downgraded America's credit rating for the first time in history.
Smith: Losing America's AAA rating was a signal to the world that the US, for the first time in its history, had become a risky investment.
Newsman: It still may come down to this, a last chance option from the Senate's top leaders.
Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell basically negotiate this bill which essentially punts the can.
Here is the amount of money that they need to offset to get this bill through the House.
There was so much unhappiness, so much mistrust.
It was just this utter failure.
One of the hardest things about being president is you're cooped up.
- Mmm.
- The proverbial bubble.
I think Bill Clinton said this was the crown jewel - of the federal penitentiary system.
- (chuckles) And this is my yard.
And every night I'll walk with my chief of staff, and we'll talk about issues.
If nothing else, being president gives you perspective.
It gives you historic perspective, because you go through a week and there's a mass shooting and there's an international crisis and there's an outbreak of disease somewhere.
And you say to yourself, "This is tough, this is challenging, this is bad, "but we can solve this.
We can figure this out.
" Obviously a lot of that is experience, and you've been around the track and you've seen big highs and big lows.
I have confidence in my ability to deal with just about anything.
More importantly, I have confidence in this country's ability to deal with just about anything.
- Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, - (cheering) the President of the United States.
Despite all the frustrations of Washington I've never been more hopeful about our future.
Smith: Now you might think that Obama's reelection in 2012 would've eased some of the tensions in Washington, because he won by a healthy margin and therefore had a so-called "mandate of the people.
" And we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states.
- (cheering) - We are, and forever will be, the United States of America.
I always joke, "You know, America might have done it by accident the first time, "but, you know, they had seen me for four years, and I got re-elected so" Smith: However, despite the president's popularity, Republicans also retained their majority in the House, with even more seats going to the Tea Party, which meant that the polarization already happening in Congress was about to get even worse.
Now, you've had two classes of Tea Party members, and they were much more intractable.
Graham: I think the Tea Party movement was welcomed by Republicans initially.
Then it turned kind of dark.
Labrador: What we learned when we got here is that Washington doesn't change that quickly.
And in fact, it's not so much the Democrats that don't want it to change.
It's actually the establishment of the Republican Party.
And there was a few of us who decided that, no, we were not gonna just follow and obey.
We were actually gonna try to change the way things were happening here.
Smith: Now the Party's experience with the debt ceiling standoff had proven to them that there were weapons they could use if they were willing to go to the extreme.
I intend to speak in support of defunding Obamacare until I am no longer able to stand.
Smith: So they decided to use the same tactics they had used before, but this time go even further.
Ted Cruz had this idea we could shut down the government and force the president to repeal and replace Obamacare.
- Mm-hmm.
- Really? And all my colleagues were talking about this.
They had ginned this up on talk radio.
their constituents were talking about it.
They had been led to believe this is a winning strategy.
Labrador: When the government shut down, it means that the House of Representatives or the Senate are exercising the one constitutional power that we know we have, which is the power of the purse.
If we disagree with the president on any kind of legislation, the only way we can actually effect that change is through the power of the purse.
Shut down the government? I know who's gonna get blamed! - Right, right.
- You know, the Republicans are gonna get blamed.
And secondly, the president's never gonna sign this.
It's not even gonna get through the Senate.
It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of.
I said, "Listen, this is not going to work.
We are playing right into their hands.
" They've got these shit-eating grins on their face.
I mean, really? Well, next thing I know, I'm reminded of the old adage when you're the leader: "A leader without followers is simply a man taking a walk.
" - (chuckles) - I look up and all my colleagues are going this way! So I said, "Okay, fine.
" I get out in front of them.
I led the effort.
- (cameras clicking) - (speaks indiscernibly) Boehner: I and my members have decided that the threat of Obamacare and what was happening was so important that it was time for us to take a stand.
(speaking French) (speaking Chinese) British reporter: The federal government of the United States of America is closed.
Obama: At midnight last night, for the first time in 17 years, the Republicans in Congress chose to shut down the federal government.
Smith: The war between these two parties had now evolved to the point where Republicans were not only trying to roll back everything President Obama had passed in his first term, they were actually willing to shut the entire government down to do it.
In other words, they demanded ransom just for doing their job.
Irish reporter: The president says he won't negotiate with terrorists or with the Tea Party.
We cannot allow a handful of right-wing extremists to hold this nation hostage.
Smith: Now the result of this game of political chicken was total government shutdown, costing billions upon billions of dollars, loss of social services, and a government that the taxpayers of America were paying for that had literally ceased to function.
We want jobs, not furloughs! Newswoman: 800,000 federal workers going home without a paycheck.
I'm going to have to dig into my savings to pay my mortgage.
Congress needs to be turned over somebody's knee and spanked real hard, because they're acting like small children.
I'm very disappointed in a system that I think is broken.
Smith: Now the government shutdown did exactly what Speaker Boehner thought it would.
Newsman: A poll conducted by the Associated Press this week shows Congress the approval rating, it's dropped to just 5%.
It's the lowest level ever.
Smith: It brought on massive anger towards Congress and, in particular, the Republicans who were seen as its instigators.
After 16 days, I walked in, and I said, "All right.
This nonsense is over.
" I get a standing ovation.
This the craziest thing I ever saw in my life.
So, it was like letting a kid touch the fire.
Oh yeah, but for 16 days - we looked like idiots.
- Right.
Reid: We had enough Democrats with a few Republicans of goodwill, that allowed us to open the government again and save the country's name in the international community.
Smith: Now, the widespread unpopularity of the government shutdown seemed to have no effect on the continued rise of the more conservative Tea Party.
Newswoman: Breaking tonight, a stunning defeat on primary night as one of most powerful Republicans on Capitol Hill goes down.
Good afternoon.
Effective July 31st, I will be stepping down as majority leader.
Well, we get to the middle of 2014, and Eric Cantor, my number two guy, the majority leader, loses his primary election, shockingly.
Newsman: Dave Brat was outspent by his powerful rival 25 to 1.
Dollars do not vote.
You do.
Newton-Small: He won because he harnessed this anger with an establishment that has failed to deliver on any of their promises.
Republicans promising that they were gonna do all of these things, like repeal Obamacare and cut deficits, was never going to happen, because the president wasn't going to work with them to do that.
Smith: Now, despite the fact that Cantor and Boehner were conservative Republicans who were seen by the Democrats as fiercely partisan for failing to make deals with the executive, they were actually considered too non-partisan by their own party for working with the Democrats at all.
And as such, both were ousted.
Labrador: John Boehner made the mistake of listening too much to his golfing buddies, his drinking buddies, and his smoking buddies, instead of listening to what we wanted to do as members of Congress.
So, this morning, I informed my colleagues that I would resign from the speakership and resign from Congress at the end of October.
It's really interesting when you sit back and look at what the "so-called" Tea Party is.
I was the Tea Party before there was a Tea Party.
- (chuckles) Right.
- And then all of a sudden, I was "the establishment.
" You know, I went to Washington to fight for a smaller, less costly, and more accountable federal government.
- They wanted the same thing.
- Mm-hmm.
The only thing we disagreed on were tactics.
You know? They were ready to burn the place down - Mm-hmm.
- to accomplish what they want to accomplish.
I thought burning the place down was probably not in the best interest of the party or the country.
Newsman: Republicans will control both houses of Congress.
And we are going to make 'em squeal! - (cheering) - (laughs) Smith: Now the 2014 midterm elections brought another landslide victory for Republican candidates.
They not only increased their numbers in the House, they also retook the Senate.
- It's time to turn this country around! - (cheering) Smith: Mitch McConnell, a notorious partisan hardliner, became the new Senate majority leader, making it virtually impossible for the president to work with Congress on almost anything Newswoman: Senate Republicans made it official, there will be no hearings and no vote on anyone President Obama nominates for the Supreme Court.
This appointment should be made by the next president.
Smith: including critical issues like filling an empty Supreme Court seat, reducing carbon emissions, or dealing with gun violence.
What worries me is whether the institutions that we built are gonna be adapted fast enough - Right.
- to meet the challenges that we face.
Because I do believe that if we continue to have a situation in which, - on an issue like gun safety measures - Right.
the majority agrees with it, but because members of Congress are much more concerned about a passionate minority of NRA members than they are about the general welfare in those circumstances, I could see people getting more and more frustrated with our politics.
Smith: In the wake of the mass shooting in Orlando, that frustration boiled over into Congress.
We're calling on the leadership of the House to bring common sense gun control legislation to the House floor.
Give us a vote! Smith: And after Republicans blocked a gun control measure, Democrats in the House, which doesn't have filibuster rules, took a cue from the Occupy Wall Street movement and actually occupied the House floor (Gohmert shouting) (man shouts) Smith: making the government look less like a governing body, and more like a kindergarten schoolyard in the middle of a shouting match.
Now The 114th Congress has been one of the least effective ever.
Not only has it been gridlocked on hot button issues like gun control, but it's also failed to provide adequate responses to emergencies like the Flint water crisis, the threat of the Zika virus, and the opioid addiction epidemic.
In 2016, it narrowly avoided another government shutdown and the Senate is on track to work the fewest days in 60 years.
Washington is now toxic, and it seems to be galvanized into inactivity.
That's not the way politics used to be.
Now they don't even know each other.
- Let me finish.
- I'm waiting on you.
- I'm coming.
Just wait.
- I've been very patient.
Your state is a crazy state to begin with, and I mean that just as I said it.
Mr.
Chairman, I am not delaying! I'm making an extremely important point.
There's a segment of the Republican Party that would rather blow everything up - than try to fix it.
- (crowd chanting) No, no, no Luntz: And they believe that they're acting with principle, but principle is not the be all and end all.
As a junior Senator, I preside over the Senate, I usually do it in the morning, which means that I'm forced to listen to the bitter, vulgar, incoherent ramblings of the minority leader.
Luntz: It is a bloodsport.
It is "How much damage can I do to you? How much can I destroy your reputation?" I think that you are an ignorant bigot.
Luntz: "How can I hurt you so much, "that not only are you destroyed, but your dead relatives in the old country can feel it?" McCain: I don't know what the deal was! I'm going to tell the Senator I'm going to tell the Senator the deal.
(gavel bangs) We fucked up.
We killed the goose that laid the golden egg.
- Mmm.
- We fucked it up.
- Mmm.
- Nobody's listening.
Nobody's learning.
It's all just one big gabfest.
If it's toxic and it can't be fixed, where does American politics go from here? That's why I tell people I'm going to New Zealand, I'm gonna buy 15 acres somewhere, and I'll sell off 14.
So if you wanna buy an acre, let me know.
- I'm not kidding.
- Right.
- I'm going in December.
- Wow.
At some point, the economy just stops functioning.
- Mm-hmm.
- The Greeks did not survive.
The Romans did not survive.
The French did not survive.
The British did not survive.
Why should we think the American empire will survive? I don't know, and I, unfortunately, will probably still be alive I wish I wasn't when this whole thing comes tumbling down.
- Leaving office soon, two terms - Mm-hmm.
a lot of partisan politics, a lot of fighting, known for that.
It seems as if it will become even more polarized.
Where do you see politics going? We have some structural problems in our politics, more broadly, that are creating greater polarization.
And until we change those whoever the occupant here is, - is gonna confront some of the same patterns.
- How do you change it? Well, I'll give you a couple of examples.
The fact that our media has gotten so splintered.
You know, as recently as Bill Clinton's presidency, certainly with Ronald Reagan's presidency, the majority of people still consumed their news - from the nightly networks.
- Mm-hmm.
And you had common basis of facts.
- Mmm.
- Then today, anybody with access to a Web site has an opinion.
Obama and Hillary both smell like sulfur.
They smell like hell.
Republicans, they exist in their own fact-impaired miniverse.
Barack Obama is destroying the United States economy.
The Republicans are only concerned about what's on Fox News or what Rush Limbaugh is saying, and Democrats are looking at The New York Times or Huffington Post.
on national television and say that black people are prone to criminality! Well, they are! I don't know you, and I don't want to talk to you.
Smith: Now the fragmentation of news media is one area where the president and Speaker Boehner agree.
Now we've got all these cable channels, and all they do is politics all day long.
And then all of a sudden you've got Facebook, and you've got Twitter.
The American people are choosing, you know, where they get their news.
You know, a lot of people get their news from talk radio.
Ahh! I mean, that would scare the hell out of anybody.
People are being bombarded with information about their government a hundred times more so than what we saw, you know, in the early '90s.
Maybe a thousand times more.
- (chanting) USA! USA! - Man: We're gonna Boehner: It's pushed or pulled Americans to the right, pushed and pulled to the left Occupy Wall Street! Boehner: leaving fewer and fewer people in the middle.
Members of Congress represent their constituents.
All of a sudden, their constituents are going way left or going way right, making it almost impossible to get anything done.
Smith: Now the frustration with Washington's dysfunction only encourages the idea that any attempt at bipartisan consensus governance is actually a waste of time and that the only way to accomplish your goals is to threaten to blow up the entire system - (cheering) - Woo! Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.
Smith: which in turn gave rise to a presidential contest that was dominated by hyper-partisan political heckling instead of serious policy debate.
She's a world-class liar.
You could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the Basket of Deplorables.
Hillary Clinton is a bigot.
He is temperamentally unfit.
Is she crooked? Is is she crooked? Donald Trump's taken what I think is the spirit of our country and our party, and he's abandoned that for the oldest game in politics: demagoguery and scapegoating.
We will keep radical Islamic terrorists the hell out of our country.
One hundred percent.
We want Trump! Luntz: On the Republican side, they end up voting for the one guy who has no political experience whatsoever.
- Smith: But why? - Because they hated Barack Obama so much that they wanted to vote for the antidote.
I believed in government, I believed in the system working, but Barack Hussein Obama has used his status in this country to be a dictator.
Smith: Is Trump the anti-Barack Obama? Absolutely.
Obama's smooth and Trump is rough.
Obama's calm, and Trump is hot.
- Mmm.
Mmm.
- Obama is intellectual.
Trump is emotional.
You could not get someone more different than Barack Obama than Donald Trump.
Obama is the founder of ISIS.
- (cheering) - Right? The founder.
We can't afford to give the nuclear codes to someone so erratic.
We're going to have real change.
Not Obama change.
Cantor: Donald Trump is someone who is representing an outsider's view as to what's gone on here in Washington.
People are very, very angry, and so Donald Trump comes in, and he says, "Look, I'm not a part of any of that stuff.
I'm a deal maker! I can get things done.
" And I think that's a very appealing message, especially when you're running against somebody like Hillary Clinton, who represents the epitome of what this town of Washington is about.
She's been doing this for 30 years, and you do have experience.
I say the one thing you have over me is experience, but it's bad experience, because what you've done has turned out badly.
The American people, especially, specifically Republicans, they wanted somebody to either change Washington or blow it up.
(chanting) USA! USA! USA! Newswoman: It has been a stunning night.
It has been a historic night.
He won Florida, he won Ohio, he won Wisconsin.
Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, the next President of the United States, Donald Trump! It is time for us to come together as one united people.
(cheering) In one of the biggest upsets in American political history, Donald Trump won the White House while the GOP retained control over the House and the Senate.
The people have spoken.
Donald Trump will be the next president, the 45th President of the United States.
Those who didn't vote for him have to recognize that that's how democracy works.
That's how this system operates.
(cheering) Smith: So, upon assuming office, he will have the legislative power to push his agenda through without the participation of the Democrats, much like the power Obama had in 2008.
And Trump will be able to name at least one new Supreme Court Justice, tilting the balance of the court, which is currently gridlocked, for some time to come.
Now add to this his many campaign promises to dismantle the Democrats initiatives, such as the Affordable Care Act, climate regulations, and trade deals, which in effect would wipe out the last eight years of governance.
(crowd chanting) Not my president! Not my president! Smith: Now all of this comes actually after losing the popular vote, which is almost a guarantee for continued partisanship, anger, and frustration, only this time for the other half of the country.
Crowd: Hey-hey, ho-ho, Donald Trump has got to go! Hey-hey, ho-ho, Donald Trump has got to go! You know, the one thing I've learned in this job is that I have really progressive policy beliefs, but I'm more conservative when it comes to our institutions.
I've seen enough around the world when it comes to the results of complete revolution or upheaval to know that it doesn't always play out real well.
Obama: Our Founders had this incredible wisdom to create a basic structure that works to bring about change in a big, diverse, complicated society like ours.
And I think that those values and those institutions are worth preserving.
Well, I just had the opportunity to have - an excellent conversation with President-Elect Trump.
- Thank you, sir.
- Going back to your first question.
- Uh-huh.
You know, you asked me had I changed Washington.
The answer is I I have not changed Washington the way I wanted to change it.
And I what I worry about in our politics is people getting impatient with the slowness of democracy and the less effective Congress works, the more likely people are, I think, to to start giving up on some of the core values and basic institutions that have helped us to weather a lot of storms.
- (distant sirens) - (helicopter whirring)