David Gregory took Meet The Press to an even lower low by ignoring all reality about the ACA website and shilling for a delay in the individual mandate.
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Transcript:
DAVID GREGORY: Here’s a bottom line question, which goes to will this be fixed? Look at this poll from CNN/ORC back in the November 18th to the 20th. Will current problems faced in the new health care law by solved? 54% do believe that it will be solved. That’s a level of credibility and belief in the system that presumably is very important. But let me ask you, Congressman Van Hollen.
We have seen delays kind of in the still of the night. Here are some of the headlines. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, now saying that small businesses will have extra time before they can actually start signing up for health care benefits. Should the individual mandate be delayed? This is the big part of health care. Should that be delayed, if you want all of this to work as well as it can?
REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: David, as you know, they’ve already moved the deadline twice. They moved it to the end of March for the individual mandate. We’ve extended the period until December 23rd for people to sign up. Let’s see how this is working. The answer to your question is we need to adapt. We need to make sure we address problems as they come up and try and work with them on a bipartisan basis.
You know, Mike says it’s not political. I have in my pocket right here, Eric Cantor, the Republican whip, issued this called “playbook” against Obamacare the other day. They are not trying to work with us to try and address these issues. Yes, there are problems. There’s no denying that. Let’s work to fix them. We know what it looks like when they’re fixed. It looks like California, it looks like New York, it looks like Kentucky.
DAVID GREGORY: But you’re not saying it’s a Republican’s job to execute, right? Because these were the federal government’s idea, this President’s idea, and it’s his responsible to execute. The federal government’s responsibility to execute.
REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: No doubt about that. You’ve got a lot of groups out there running ads, telling young people not to sign up. You have efforts to interfere with the navigators, people who are trying to get more Americans to sign up. When we had the prescription drug bill, there were lots of problems. We didn’t think it was the greatest bill the way it was originally designed. But Democrats worked with Republicans–
DAVID GREGORY: –encourage seniors. I’ve done the research.
DAVID GREGORY: He did not encourage people to sign up.
REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN:–worked with us to get the job done. And that’s–
DAVID GREGORY: Should the individual mandate be delayed, if that’s what it takes to get the program right?
REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Well, as of today, no. But, you know, you obviously, if you can’t sign up. But right now, we’re making progress. Looks like people will be–
DAVID GREGORY: Congressman Rogers, same question to you. It’s really important whether the individual mandates should be delayed, along with some other things.
Gregory’s question was absolute B.S. The website is already fixed, but he couldn’t accept that or else it would destroy his whole premise for asking if the individual mandate should be delayed. Why would the individual mandate need to be delayed if the website is working?
David Gregory was twisting himself into knots trying to set up the softball question on the individual mandate question for Republican Rep. Mike Rogers. This is a behavior that has been visible across the media today. ABC News was in denial, and basically accusing the White House of lying about the status of the website. CNN played dumb about the improvements to the website in order to question President Obama’s competence. In general, the media refuses to believe that a website on the Internet is capable of being repaired.
News watchers have come to expect nothing less than disinterested regurgitation of Republican talking points from David Gregory. However, today’s break from reality was big even by his own standards. None of this is ever a surprise, because David Gregory is a man who treats Meet The Press like he would rather be hosting the Today show.
Gregory has managed to do the impossible. He has made Meet The Press even more unwatchable with his slavish devotion to Republican talking points.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
