Progressive columnist Sally Kohn and The Blaze's Will Cain were gusts on Thursday's Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield. The three were discussing the failures of the Obamacare introduction and how it was dragging down President Obama's approval ratings. Each time a point was raised about the President or the failure of his signature legislation, Kohn or Banfield would drag the conversation toward the progressives' tried and true strategy--changing the subject. In this case, they brought Congressional Republicans into the conversation. Finally, Cain had enough. "How is it we can turn every conversation about President Obama’s failures to something about Republicans?"
Host Banfield began the conversation by asking if Rep. Darrell Issa's (R-CA) subpoena of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelilus was grand standing.
Banfield:
Will is it necessary? I think I just heard during the marathon testimony yesterday, will you come back and testify again? And she said I’ll make every effort to do so. So is this subpoena necessary? I'll shut up now.
Cain:
Of course, because there are so many unanswered questions. Of course they want to know how many people have signed up, but let's set that question aside. Let’s suggest that number can wait.
How about answers to questions like why doesn't the website work? When did you know it wasn’t going to work? More importantly, why are there security problems? How many people who have submitted their financial data have actually had their data compromised? There’s apparently security problems with this site. I’ve got a news flash for you, Healthcare.gov doesn't work. The government works for us. We might want to know why and when they knew it doesn't work.
Banfield:
Okay. I keep hearing healthcare.gov doesn't work, but I already know that and so does everybody else.
Kohn:
Exactly. I know that's where it works.
You know, somebody get Darrell Issa a pointy hat because he's on a witch-hunt for Halloween. And this is not the first time he’s done this. That's what the Republicans in Congress do right now they do these massive data dumps. And part of it is, look. Kathleen Sebelilus has been nothing but cooperative and compliant throughout this entire process. She said she would testify again. Part of the point here is to delay them from actually doing, to delay HHS from actually doing the work to implement Obamacare by making them comply with all the paper dumps. Issa and the House Republicans did the same thing with all of the local navigators.
Banfield:
Hey, Sally. You know how politics work. You're one of the smartest people in the business. That approval rating stinks. And you know what? A lot of it has to do with marketing. The Obama administration perhaps hasn't done a very good job at A. Telling people how this works, B. Getting them the website to help them get in to this law, and C. Then dealing with the aftermath. You can't argue with that.
Kohn:
You know, I’ve been one of the President's strongest critics in how he has rolled out some of these things. He was a really good explainer when he was running for office but he hasn’t been as President. So that's all true. But you want to know whose rating is lower, Republicans, 22%. Cockroaches are more popular. Let’s put it in perspective.
Let’s also put it in a little historical perspective, just for kicks, Truman right around now was at 22%, Nixon at 24%. Although, do we want to be in that category?
Cain:
No. Right. And it’s amazing, why are we talking about Republicans' approval rating. How is it we can turn every conversation about President Obama’s failures to something about Republicans? You want to know the answer about those numbers? It’s about credibility. You know that’s too benign. Talking about marketing is incredibly too benign. Talking about credibility is too benign. It's about whether or not the American people, Ashleigh, believe president Obama. For your the past year, we're talking about foreign policy and whether or not we're going to bomb Syria, whether or not it's about chemical weapons and regime change. Well then we’re talking about the AP scandal. Whether or not we’re talking about the IRS scandal. “I didn't know till the news knows, till the news media told me about the story. And now finally this one, this is the apex, the ultimate indictment of credibility.
Not please with having her bias pointed out, Ashleigh Banfield cut him off:
I got to wrap.
