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Inside Politics

White House on Obamacare Decision: "A Big Win for the American People"; White House Cheers Court Decision to Leave Obamacare Intact; Supreme Court Upholds Obamacare for the Third Time; Supreme Court Sides With, With Catholic Foster Agency That Refused To Work With Same-Sex Couples; Progressive Skeptical of Slimmed Down Infrastructure Proposal. Aired 12-12.30p ET

Aired June 17, 2021 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:00:00]

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JOHN KING, CNN HOST: I'm John King in Washington giant news today with some free from the Supreme Court. The justices reject the challenge to the Affordable Care Act leaving Obamacare in place again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Today's Supreme Court decision is a landmark victory for Democrats work to defend protections for people with pre existing conditions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me say definitively the Affordable Care Act has won. The Supreme Court has just ruled the ACA is here to stay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Plus, the High Court makes another major ruling this one pitting first amendment rights versus same sex discrimination. And President Biden is home from the big Putin summit and facing consequential agenda questions here at home starting with this yes or no to backing a bipartisan deal on infrastructure that would anger progressives in his own party.

But up first for us this hour that major Supreme Court decision with a giant impact on your healthcare. The new ruling is 7-2 and it dismisses a challenge to the Affordable Care Act. The decision leaves intact how millions of you pay for your doctor's visits pay for your prescription drugs.

It is the third challenge to the health care law since President Obama signed it. And it is the third time a conservative tilted Supreme Court agreed the same. CNN's Joan Biskupic joins us now with the big headlines highlights. John, this is a wow?

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: This really is John, it's very important for the millions of Americans who depend on the Affordable Care Act. It's important to the legacy of Barack Obama. It's important to the administration of Joe Biden, but it's really important to the Roberts' Court.

In those two prior rulings upholding the act they were narrowly divided by four then six three back in 2012 and 2015. This one 7-2 Chief Justice John Roberts had a strong majority. He assigned it to Justice Stephen Breyer, who said that the challengers Texas and the other Republican led states that sued to get - tried to get rid of the Affordable Care Act had no legal standing to even bring a complaint.

They had no injury. They were complaining that the individual health care mandate that required people to obtain assurance. There was no longer any penalty. Congress had zeroed out that penalty. But what the court said again by Justice Stephen Briar, the senior liberal on this court, was that there's no injury, nobody was hurt here.

They ruled on no other part of the case and just essentially said, go home. We're finished. And again 7-2 that's a major headline for this court that's been so closely divided on Obamacare. John.

KING: 7-2, a very big deal. Joan, appreciate you're setting that up for us. Let's get straight to the White House now. CNN's Jeremy Diamond, Jeremy obviously it was Vice President Biden when this law was signed into action now it is President Biden saying thank you to the High Court.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And it was then Vice President Biden with that hot mic moment saying this was a big blanking deal. The White House fully using that term today, as they react to this Supreme Court ruling, you see a tweet from the president just a few moments ago, calling this a big win for the American people.

And he also went on to say, with millions of people relying on the Affordable Care Act for coverage, it remains as ever a BFD and its here to stay. That followed a tweet from the White House Chief of Staff just moments after that Supreme Court decision, who said it's still a BFD.

So the White House is fully re appropriating and using that term in a new meaning, today, as they celebrate this victory at the Supreme Court. I mean, just imagine the scene that we would have been seeing here today at the White House had the Supreme Court ruled the other way and struck down this law?

The White House would be dealing with trying to find some kind of way to keep 21 million people from losing their health insurance and probably not coming up with many good options. This administration, though, is not only celebrating this win, but also as you can see, in that tweet there using this as an opportunity to encourage more Americans to continue signing up for the Affordable Care Act.

The Biden Administration had extended that special enrollment period. And so they're fully looking to capitalize on that as well. And also very glad that they are - this is not adding to their plate of issues that they are already dealing with, including that nascent bipartisan infrastructure deal that is blooming on Capitol Hill. KING: It gets complicated but this a little welcome home president - for the President of the United States, from an unlikely source a conservative Supreme Court. Jeremy appreciate live reporting from the White House.

With me in studio to share their reporting and their insights CNN's Nia-Malika Henderson, Paul Kane from "The Washington Post", Margaret Talev from AXIOS and Catherine Lucey of "The Wall Street Journal".

This is a BF deal to borrow the Former Vice President now President's term in the sense that Obamacare the Affordable Care Act has been a driving force, if not the driving force in American politics really since 2009 when it passed. 2010 midterms, Obama loses the House.

He gets reelected in 2012 and 2014. It's part Obamacare of the Tea Party movement. He loses the Senate but then Nancy Pelosi is Speaker today because it swung and chained so much. Why is this important in the sense that it essentially takes Obamacare off the table in 2022?

PAUL KANE, SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yes, I think you're not going to call it Obamacare anymore. You're just going to call it health care. It's the law of the land.

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KANE: They've now had three straight rulings that the Supreme Court over nine years and margin has only grown. Even as the courts gotten more conservative the margin supporting the law has grown.

Republicans, honestly, they don't want to talk about this anymore. They know it's just not in their wheelhouse. Their voters don't really like it, but they have no idea how to create a law that they can get enough support around.

And if they don't have control of the House of Senate now anyway, so they want to move on and just get into other topics that, you know, both excite their base and try to win back some of those suburban voters that they lost in 2018, in part because they tried to get this law without any way of helping of how to replace it.

KING: We all live through that in the early days of the Trump Administration, where the House actually passed a plan and then the president pulled the rug out from under it, then President Trump pulled the rug out from under.

I just want to go through the numbers because it is quite striking Obamacare passes in 2009. In 2010, it had a 46 percent favorable rating 46 percent. But that's not a big number, you know, in the sense of a big 50 year legacy Democratic initiative.

Now look at it now, it is overall popular when you move forward a decade. More importantly, as Paul noted, Republicans still don't like Obamacare. But if you look among independent voters, this is why Republicans and competitive races don't want to touch this issue.

Back in 2010 in the first midterm, it was critical to them, only 36 percent of independents liked it. Look at that 55 percent favorable rating now among independent voters, if you are Republican running statewide in a Pennsylvania or in an Ohio or in a suburban district somewhere that's competitive. You do not want this issue back on the table.

CATHERINE LUCEY, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: We talk a lot about bipartisanship here and how Washington is doing with that? But certainly, there are probably some bipartisan sighs of relief today on - from on both sides of the aisle.

And you're right, Republicans see the numbers, they know what they issues that they want to talk about next year. And increasingly, you know, we've just been through a pandemic, and a lot of Americans were relying on this for health care.

KING: Right. And imagine to Jeremy's point, imagine if the court had thrown this out now. Number one, you would have the burden on Republicans have an alternative but number two, President Biden's challenge managing the Democratic Party right now.

We're going to get to some of the specifics later is quite difficult because of the diversity of the party. Can you imagine if Obamacare was thrown out, the Affordable Care Act was thrown out; they had to start from scratch? And then "Medicare for All" progressives would have said we have a plan.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Right, we have a plan. And we saw this debate, right in 2020, among the Democratic primary folks who were trying to get the nomination, single payer plan with a progressive, that's what they want people like Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris back and forth, and not really deciding which one she necessarily wanted.

But that was the debate you'd have. And I think going forward, we're going to have this debate anyway, among Democrats, the idea that the ACA now, at one point, sort of a dream of Democrats now is sort of the floor right? And where do you build on it from there? That was the big debate in 2020. It'll be the debate going forward.

KING: It's a great point in the sense that it's now the floor. And how do you build on it because people don't like it even people who controversial at the time don't like when you take things away. People have gotten used to whether it's your kids on - child 26, or no coverage, pre existing conditions or other things you like about it, it's hard to take things away. The question is where do you go?

What does it tell us about the town in the sense that if you just look to Paul's point, the cement is drying, or at least many legal scholars will tell you the cement is drying? 2012 was a five to four decision in 2015. It was a six to three decision today a seven two decision.

This is a very conservative; this is the most conservative court to weigh in on this. And again, they're not weighing in constitutional questions. They're essentially saying these Republican attorneys generals who brought this case that your case is political, you don't really have standing. We're done. MARGARET TALEV, MANAGING EDITOR, "AXIOS": Yes, this is different

fabrics. This is ties like this is the legacy of the Trump court making this ruling, and that plus the impact of health care on the 2018 midterms and on the 2020 presidential election.

I think really do cement this. Interesting side note that it is Briar who was at the helm of this decision, he's 82-years-old, he'll turn 83 later this summer; there's a lot of pressure among the progressive wing of the Democratic Party for him to retire.

When I think of Stephen Breyer, I don't think of individual court rulings to that define him, I think of how he has used his role to define the judiciary's role in democracy and kind of how the American democracy functions?

This could end up being a really important ruling to the extent that it cements healthcare essentially as a right and as an entitlement, in the same way that Social Security and Medicare have become part of the fabric of being in America.

KING: And again for the history of it Justice Breyer was a staff member for Senator Ted Kennedy, who fought for years. Who fought for years for health care for all didn't do and then helped Obamacare get to the finish line in his later days in the Senate.

And now, Justice Breyer, the debate over Justice Breyer will continue but this is a bit - if you want to go "Inside Politics". That's a little Justice Breyer saying hi. You love you love me today, don't you? But let's put the court back up there again, because again, it's just fascinating.

We're still learning about the Trump court right? This is the first big term since Amy Coney Barrett is on the set, on the bench. You know, Brett Kavanaugh was a relatively new member.

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KING: They were they were among those who you know said leave this in place. Again, if it were the first case, maybe they would have voted differently. But part of it is here it comes back again. And they viewed the argument is you don't have standing.

The Republican Attorney General is not affected by the individual mandate, per se. They said, so go away.

HENDERSON: Right, but it is also does the Supreme Court what to be in a position of taking away health care from 21 million people in a pandemic, right? We're coming out of a pandemic, but you know, more people are on this than ever, and we see the favorability ratings higher than ever as well.

They are essentially saying if the legislature wants to do this if the Senate and the House and the Republican President all want to do this, sure have at it. And again, we've seen what happened when they tried to do that. LUCEY: And the role of Barrett I think is significant here, because you remember the fight getting her on court, one of the big warnings you heard from a lot of Democrats was what will this mean for healthcare going forward?

And you'd say at least this is, as you say, this isn't maybe this isn't the final word. But this is certainly a key moment. We'll she's ruled here.

KING: Yes, we will have abortion right decisions, we we're going to talk in a few minutes about another same sex discrimination issue. But on this issue of healthcare, and again, just listen, this is Andy Slavitt. He's was the President's Advisor on COVID. He came into the White House, the beginning to help to coordinate COVID response.

If you think about this, in the context of Democrats for this for 50 years, then they finally passed it. And they spent a decade essentially fighting over it again in election after election after election court challenge after court challenge after the court challenge. Andy Slavitt says game over.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDY SLAVITT, FORMER ACTING ADMINISTRATOR, CENTERS FOR MEDICARE AND MEDICAID SERVICES: I think it's great news for people who have been in a whirlwind over the last 10 years being told to just be nervous at the coverage might be snatched from them at any moment so American summer is easier one more step towards a better country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: And yet, Paul and Capitol Hill there will be healthcare debates.

KANE: Yes.

KING: Right. There you know there'll be some Democrats still want "Medicare for all". Joe Biden campaign you mentioned the primaries that was a testy issue early on, is it Medicare for all or is it build make Obamacare better? This will continue.

KANE: Bernie Sanders, who is the Senate Budget Committee Chairman is trying to work healthcare pieces into this budget resolution. That is mostly supposed to be about infrastructure, some human infrastructures, Nancy Pelosi call it but he wants to push on prescription drug issues. He's talking about Medicare expansion, things like that.

And yes, we're going to this is now the floor. And you know what you build on top of it; it will go on for years inside the Democratic Party, because health care is an issue that they like to talk about. Republicans basically don't like to talk about it except to complain about it. So that's where you stand and you know, we've, we know what the floor is.

KING: Right. That is the biggest flip if you go back to the 2010 midterms to where we sit today. This is an entirely different conversation than it was. And now everyone sit tight up next for us another big decision from the Supreme Court why the Justice has sided with a Catholic Foster Agency that refused to work with same sex couples?

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KING: To another big ruling from the Supreme Court right now the Justices say the City of Philadelphia violated the first amendment rights of a Catholic Foster Agency that when the city froze a contract with the Catholic Social Services, because the nonprofit refused to work with same sex couples looking to foster children. Joan Biskupic is back with us help us explain what the court ruled and why this matters?

BISKUPIC: Yes, John, this is June at the Supreme Court all the biggies are coming. First of all, the Chief Justice John Roberts was able to get a unanimous court for the basic principle that Philadelphia could not stop Catholic Social Services from excluding same sex couples for their screening for foster care.

The Chief said that this violated the free exercise rights because there had been exemptions in the law also for you know for other kinds of situations like marital status and disability. And there could have been a religious exemption here.

But then here's the important part, John, three justices really wanted to go further in terms of benefiting religious interests, religious exemptions from general laws and accommodations for religious believers. And those three were conservative Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas.

And the Chief tried to write an opinion that was narrow and confined only to this case, which is certainly a loss for the city of Philadelphia. And it's certainly a loss for same sex couples who wanted to be part of this.

But the one thing I should note, John, is that the Chief did note that other social services agencies in Philadelphia do screen same sex couples for foster care. So they're not being outright excluded from everything. And that was at least how he justified allowing Catholic social services to go that far.

KING: We just talked about the Supreme Court in the context of the Affordable Care Act ruling and what does it tell us about this new Trump centric conservative centric court? Is there a lesson here when it comes to the alignment of the especially the newer justices?

BISKUPIC: Yes, Chief Justice John Roberts is very carefully trying to divide and conquer the Trump justices because Neil Gorsuch went the other way here. He wanted to give much more of a religious accommodation go stronger in terms of Supreme Court precedent for down the road in terms of favoring religious believers.

But Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, stuck with Chief Justice John Roberts, as did our liberal members of this court. Justice Elena Kagan signed on to this, as did Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Stephen Breyer. There was some variation in the legal reasoning there.

But this decision showed that for now, Chief Justice John Roberts has not been overcome by the Trump appointees in a very conservative generally court that he's still trying to work the middle, even though as I say this was a blow for the City of Philadelphia and for same sex couples.

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KING: The chess of this is fascinating when we know we have several more cases in the pipeline that we will watch with you over the next several days John Biskupic grateful for the reporting and insights. Up next for us, the President back home now from a big international trip and facing yes, big democratic tensions over stalled domestic priorities.

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[12:25:00]

KING: President Biden is back from Geneva and his Putin confrontation to yes a confrontation within his own Democratic Party, a bipartisan framework on infrastructure now has signed on from 20 plus Senators, still some details to work out.

But in any event, selling a slimmed down deal to progressives is a major challenge, because there is no guarantee that bigger and bolder democratic priorities like climate and health care and more will come next. And we'll have enough votes.

Let's continue that conversation and welcome home Mr. President. He gets his win at the Supreme Court on the Affordable Care Act today. But let's just put up on the screen the 21 Senators who are backing this and what makes this group significant, is it 11 of those Senators you're seeing there, Paul Kane are Republicans.

It takes 10 Republicans to get you to 60 votes to get you to pass. So you would think the mood today would be great. Let's work out the final details. Let's pass an infrastructure plan. And then we'll see what comes next. But--

KANE: 11 plus 50 gets you past 60. But you have to have those first 50 in the Democratic Caucus. And the problem right now is that there are a bunch of the more liberal members of Chuck Schumer's Caucus, Ed Markey, Bernie Sanders, Jeff Merkley who have said, wait, we were going to do this bipartisan thing on all the traditional roads and bridges and locks and dams, with the promise sort of kind of that we're going to get to the stuff that we want to do on climate change, taxing the rich.

They're very hesitant. Ed Markey has been, you know, running around in that big thick Boston accent no climate no deal.

KING: No climate, no deal.

KANE: Yes, I'm from Philly, I can't really get the Boston accent.

HENDERSON: It is 60 minus 20. And that's before you get to the House, right?

KANE: Yes.

KING: So part of this is they want the Democratic Senators at issue here mainly Manchin and Sinema. But perhaps Maggie - perhaps one or two others to sign essentially in blood, that if we do this bipartisan deal, you will be with us when we do something else.

Senator Sanders Manu Raju just reporting, working on a $6 trillion dollar, that would be the follow up package, $6 trillion, it has expansion of Medicare, it has prescription drugs in there, it has climate issues in there, they might put immigration issues in there.

So essentially, what the progressives are saying is will and that's we're just talking about the Senate and the same problem over the House. We will do this, but only if you promise in advance that you'll be with us when we come back.

TALEV: Yes. Manchin says no way. And then they say, well, if he's not going to do it, I'm not going to do it. And so this is really a deal that needs a deal in order to be able to get the deal. And this is what President Biden and his team now have to unpack and maybe is three and a half decades in the Senate, will help them understand how you begin to negotiate the diplomacy of something like this.

Certainly, he can help them to allow having a test vote that would allow them to go on the board with what they want to do and message about it. But that is different than getting the votes. And even if you could use reconciliation, even if Joe Manchin would agree that reconciliation would be an option, he still needs 51 votes. Just not like we were all watching the same show since January 20th. Like just not sure it's there.

KING: I was just going to say they're going to have to remake Schoolhouse Rock if you needed to get a deal to get a deal. That was not enough.

LUCEY: You can call it just a deal.

KING: I'm just a deal. I like I'm just here's why. Here's why progressives are nervous. This is Ro Khanna one of the key progressives over in the House to "POLITICO" today, many of us have made it clear that we'd have to pass the Senate simultaneously. They don't want to do this one at a time.

You know, I said sign in blood before him but he says pass the Senate simultaneously reconciliation and the bipartisan bill to get the votes in the House. And there are at least 60/70 members who wouldn't vote for a bipartisan bill that didn't have climate inside the reconciliation. So you see that there? Now, you know, if you're watching at home, and maybe you're independent minded, whether you're Democrat or Republican, you're not that progressive. You say why? Why would the progressive to be so doubtful so skeptical? This is why. This is Senator John Barrasso.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN BARRASSO (R-WY): Mitch McConnell has come under a lot of criticism for saying he wanted at one point he said he wanted to make sure that Barack Obama was a one term president. I want to make Joe Biden a one half term president. And I want to do that by making sure they no longer have House, Senate and White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That's why progressives are understandably whether you agree or disagree with their priorities, saying, wait a minute, Republicans are going to vote for this and then they're going to run. They're not going to dig at a block everything else. And so if Manchin and Sinema and anyone else don't sign on the dotted line in advance no way.

LUCEY: They don't want to give basically Republicans some wins on things that they are more OK with. You know, Republicans then get to say, look, we've gave you money. We got money for bridges and roads, and then do nothing else. So they're trying to thread that needle.

But this is a very complicated problem for the president to unpack and the White House is continuing to say that they're talking. They're encouraged that bipartisanship is happening. They would like to do something about partisan space. But this is going to be very challenging tonight.

KING: And so it's - and now we're talking about infrastructure because it is the gateway if you will, that's the one they said we're going to deal with this first and then everything is lined up behind that. If you would either you do bipartisan deals then you go to reconciliation, but whatever you're making infrastructure decision first, and then everything else including voting rights? Mitch McConnell--

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