Today’s Qs for O’s WH

As mentioned in an earlier blog post, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs came to the briefing wearing a Canadian jockey jersey, having lost a bet with his counterpart with the Canadian Prime Minister’s office that would have required him to wear the jersey for fifteen minutes of his on-camera briefing.

TAPPER: Has it been 15 minutes yet?  Do you want — do you want to put your jacket on?
  
GIBBS:  Do you feel uncomfortable, Jake? (Laughs)

TAPPER: I feel like if I show this to the viewers of ABC News,  World News, we'd have to explain the whole thing.  They're going to be a little confused why on a story about health care you're wearing a hockey jersey.   I'm saying –   
 
GIBBS:  I — it can't be any stranger than some of the other  stuff I see on the news, so — (laughter) — so I'm not entirely sure  that — I'm not entirely sure what — somebody give Jake the Canadian  one and we'll just do a quick two-shot and we'll –

TAPPER: A face-off.

GIBBS:  — yeah. Would you feel more comfortable if I switched?
   
TAPPER: I'm just glad it was a hockey, not a wrestling bet.    
  
GIBBS:  (Laughs.)  Yeah, well — (laughter).  
  
 (Cross talk.)
 
TAPPER: So –  
   
GIBBS:  I was going to say something, but I –
 
REPORTER: It's a family program.  
 
GIBBS:  Yeah.
  
TAPPER: Other than talking to members of Congress, what is so important that the president needs to be here for those extra two days?  I understand that the members of Congress were asking President Obama to do this, that you're — that you're not imposing his presence.  But what can he — what difference will it make?   
   
GIBBS:  Well, look, I — Jake, I think the president will use  the time, as I said earlier, to speak either individually with or in small groups with members that may be at this point undecided on how they'll vote.  The president, I think, will take the opportunity to  once again reiterate his case for why this reform is so important, why  it's important to do this now, why it's important not to stop or to  start over, why we're dealing with dramatic spikes in health insurance  right now and why we have to deal with this problem.  
   
TAPPER: Why do you think so many members — I mean, 216 members of the House who voted for it in November, voted for the House bill, are still there, and that's a majority.  Why do you think so many of them are having second thoughts?

GIBBS:  Well, Jake, I think some of them are likely waiting for finished CBO scoring.  I think — I think that's a natural thing to wait for, and I think they'll have time to evaluate that scoring and to evaluate the legislation in full.  But again, I think the president believes that he can make a very strong case for why this is important to do right now.

TAPPER: And lastly, as you know, a lot of House Democrats are distrustful of the Senate, of Senate Democrats.  And they're worried  that, with the way the parliamentarian has ruled, they are going to be  tricked somehow into passing the Senate bill and then the fixes to the  Senate bill, and the Senate won't pass the fixes, and they will have been tricked into passing the Senate bill that a lot of them don't like without those fixes.  Is President Obama reassuring them, telling these House Democrats that if the reconciliation — if the fix doesn't  pass, the Senate bill in itself, he won't sign that bill or –  

GIBBS:  Well, look, again — and I mentioned some of this yesterday — I think some of this — I don't want to wade into the  parliamentary politics on Capitol Hill, except to say this.  I — the president is talking with — not just with members of the House on the  vote that they're going to have to make, but also with members of the  Senate to — look, I — to ensure that the corrections that the   president sees as so important — not just the House, but the  president sees as so important — are also acted on.  And so I don't  — this is — it's a dual track.  It works together.  But the  president is working on both of those issues.  
 
TAPPER: But will — is it possible, in any way you look at it, that one would happen that the Senate bill would pass but the fixes would not, and the Senate bill would become law?  Because that's what House members are worried about.   
   
GIBBS:  I — they are concerned.  I think that's why the  president is spending time also dealing with senators, to ensure that  they are supportive of those legislative fixes on their side of it, too.  
 
-jpt