Sen. DeMint: Obama Has ‘FDR Complex’; ‘Lost Battle’ on Health Care

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: Sen. Jim DeMint famously declared that it would be President Obama’s “Waterloo” if he can’t enact health care reform. With the very real possibility that Obama will fall short, I asked him today if he felt like he defeated Napoleon:   “I had never hoped that it would be his Waterloo, but I said if he continued to push through this massive government-run health care system, that it could be. And it turned out that it certainly slowed him down, it’s a battle that he’s lost,” said DeMint, R-S.C.   DeMint said he likes the president’s proposed freeze in discretionary spending. But he said it’s not enough, particularly since he’s set to announce expansions in areas including education.   “I’m concerned as I look at the talking points of his speech tonight, that even though he seems to have gotten to message to some degree on the debt problem and the spending problem, that he is going to talk about more massive reforms — education, energy, financial — just go across the board.”   “I’m concerned that he’s going to throw a lot more things at the wall with this FDR complex he appears to have, trying to get more massive programs through at a time when people are just concerned about spending, the debt, and their job,” DeMint said.   And if the president continues to fight for health care reform?   “It will be his Waterloo,” DeMint said, repeating his now-famous refrain.   We’ll play a clip from the DeMint interview during ABC News NOW’s live coverage of the State of the Union, starting at 8:30 pm ET, with me, Terry Moran, George Stephanopoulos, Rachel Martin, and ABC political analyst Matthew Dowd.   Our coverage will stream at ABCNews.com — and follow along at Twitter, @thenote, during the speech.