BILL MAHER: For the folks who watch this show to catch up on what they missed during the week, here’s what you missed: the House Republicans, led by the tea party, really, I think, are holding hostage — and I don’t say that in a snarky way, I’ve heard them use that phrase themselves, I’ve heard Mitch McConnell say that — holding hostage, both the government — threatening to shut that down — and the world economy, if they don’t vote for the debt ceiling increase, because they have this coke addict’s obsession with repealing Obamacare.
Now, my question, because I don’t want to, you know, be just a liberal show and it’s all just a liberal point of view from the beginning — I don’t want to assume — this holding hostage to get what you want, is this a fair tactic?
DAVID FRUM: It’s an unstrategic tactic, it’s what you do when you don’t have a plan.
MAHER: And you’re the Republican.
FRUM: We need a plan, but I’m unhappy because we don’t have a plan. This is about to become law. Everything portends it’s about to be –
MAHER: It is law.
FRUM: Well, it’s going to go into effect the beginning of next week
[unintelligible]
FRUM: It is about to have a very likely devastating impact on American employment. We can already see the rise of part-time labor –
MAHER: We don’t know that.
FRUM: We do see that. If your workers work less than 30 hours, you’re exempted and we see that is where the growth in the labor market is. There are many other negative effects.
The Republican party needs to build a coalition in the country, it needs to have a plan to win elections and repeal the law that way. These parliamentary tactics are not done for the country, they’re done for the party. They’re for party management, but not for seriously winning.
JOY BEHAR: Didn’t President Obama run — this is what he was running on, right? He’s was elected on Obamacare.
MAHER: Reelected.
BEHAR: And reelected. So what are they bitching about? This is what the country obviously wanted.
CHRIS HAYES: Like the president said today. I ran against somebody who pledged to repeal Obamacare. It wasn’t a hidden part of the election, right. There was a national mandate for this law. (HBO’s Real Time, September 20, 2013)
