'There's a niche for being the jerk in the Senate': Discussing Ted Cruz


joining us now,
ben smith
and in washington, chief
white house
correspondent and “the daily rundown” there. any thoughts on tebow?


i hope he gets a shot at playing quarterback somewhere. the nets never gave him a chance. that is say fact. i never have been a believer that he can be a great quarterback. he will be a great tight end some day, but the jets never gave him a chance and they messed around.


all right, thank you.


i can feel it.


unnecessary hostility.


her love of the game.


all right. we have something going on here. a little conplating of an issue. democrats are having trouble potentially because of obama care and yet they keep refineing it and came out with news today at the
white house
making it easier for people to get access.


it gets to the core challenge the administration has with implementing the
health care law
. getting people to sign up and more importantly getting people under 35 to sign up. that
demographic group
will make or break this
health care law
. if you get healthy people to get insurance that keeps rates down. if they don’t show up, they don’t get 2 1/2, three, 3.5 million folks to sign up for the
health care
, the numbers don’t work. everything breaks. the premiums go up. there is not enough healthy people for it to balance out. why does it matter with the application process? the simple process means you won’t have folks giving up or deciding it’s too complicate and maybe they don’t get enough for their money. that’s what the attempt is. that’s to go after the
target group
that they have to have to make the law work. that’s 18 to 35-year-olds.


it is three pages long. that definitely is a change.


one of the ironies is they are aiming to take the
health care
from the poor and the elderly. you have to get the unhealthy people to pay more than they are getting. it is not obvious.


do you think it will help?


yeah, it can’t hurt. there will be an effort that is incredibly complicated.


i would love to get both of your takes. all of them are seeing a drop since the no votes on backgrounds with people who have a one plus one equals two.


there a lot of reasons right now. i hesitated to suggest it’s just that. this sense of overwhelming dysfunction. whether you can tease out the issue.


what do you make of the numbers? some are dramatic in approval ratings.


some are. i am always leery of the robo polling. i know some do better than others in this technology. i salute them at that. we will follow their numbers more closely than the others how you make it a press one or press two issue. i will be more interested to see, will you get democratic challengers for a guy like this for instance. i don’t think that’s going to happen. do you see democrats try to run against the flake on the issue of guns in arizona? i don’t believe it. there is private polling telling this guy something different. they wouldn’t have done what they are doing. they are somehow missing something and with the sed cruz comments, he is relating embroidered or mythical conversations where the colleagues were saying it makes it look like squishes.


you know, i continue to go and find it remarkable that many privately say a lot of nice things for
ted cruz
for the long time republicans let alone democrats. he is a democratic boogie man. what i noticed is that there is this — i’m sure i’m going to get it on twitter. why do you keep this private republican saying this or that. there is a lot of people uncomfortable with the way
ted cruz
has gone about his first
100 days
. he will say this is what he got elected to do. he’s supposed to shake things up.


he has a niche for being a jerk in the senate.


there is a way to put it.


he was not able to work with them for meaningful legislation. this is the major breech of protocol and fixed in the
health care law
and have seen the jurns attacking and the republican leader and out of line, but also there were a lot of republicans who want that.


one week left before the most watched congressional watch in
south carolina
. elizabeth colbert busch and
mark sanford
had what will likely be their only debate. they got from spending to
health care
to
gun control
. his personal past was brought up as well.


we are talking about in the fiscal house, we need to look at from cutting spending to the costs. during the time that we have gotten all of this fiscal spending and cutting and back to the days where everybody was losing jobs and pulling our belts in, we talk about fiscal spending and taxpayers, it doesn’t mean you take that money we save and lead the country for our personal purpose.


i couldn’t hear what she said.


would you vote both ways again?


i would reverse the question to you. i would say this. do you think that
president clinton
should be condemned for the rest of his life?


during a whole different part of this,
chuck todd
, is that issue
fair game
?


it’s the last thing he did as an elected official. it’s part of the resume. it’s certainly a fair question because he did use taxpayer dollars. you can make the case that it’s there. i was surprised at how aggressive she was on this. it’s proof positive that this race is a lot closer than even republicans say.


is it
fair game
?


of course it is. it’s out there. he brought in his fiance and was it his primary victory and something he is hiding and
bill clinton
is popular and you go to a bar and he said he was unfaithful, do you love
bill clinton
? yes.


in this case, i am not going to make a case and i think it’s
fair game
, but he married the woman and there many of them.
fair game
?


sure. i do think if you are governor sanford, you can’t have it both ways in the sense that you are running as a candidate.


you talk about it and he has throughout his campaign and i think it’s something he needs to do.


we have to fast forward these days and give slightly more than the times. it’s back out there.


that’s where i was going next. it’s so interesting to see who is given a pass and who is not. it will be interesting to see what happens here on a number of levels.


what i think matters most in whether the redemption works or doesn’t work is whether you deliver in office for your constituents. the reason
bill clinton
is popular is he was an effective president. frankly in the first district of
south carolina
to congress is not a matter of great public moments, but if you get one of the folks and they are a force for good.


exactly.


i get uncomfortable when someone is trying to get personal redemption when they are using congress to do it. i have no doubt that
mark sanford
has principal positions and different things, but if he is still going through his own personal
redemption process
, why involve the rest of us. if you are not done, do it on your own. you have to involve the west of us. that was something uncomfortable. if you are not done, don’t get us involved.


the one thing i would say is it proved for some people that politics is an inherent part of who they are.


not enough time. thank you very much.


they are on the couch.


on “the daily rundown.” see you then. up next, we have impressive new work on the 16th president. ”
morning joe
” is back in a moment.