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Think Progress posted part of this interview yesterday, but IMO they cut the clip a little bit short and left off the best part. Here's the post from Think Progress--Grassley: ‘I’ve lived off the public tit’ as a congressman.:

On C-SPAN’s Washington Journal this morning, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) was asked if he thought the health care reform bill before the Senate amounted to socialism. “No,” Grassley said, but he then attacked the public option aspect of the bill, calling it “socialism.” Later in the program, a caller argued that as a public official, Grassley has been, in some ways, living off the government. After Grassley noted that he was a farmer for 50 years, the caller asked if he had ever received government subsidies. “Yes I participate in the farm program,” Grassley replied. The Iowa senator continually interrupted the caller but eventually acknowledged that he has been receiving substantial government assistance.

What followed was fairly comical and the caller left Grassley speechless and looking to be saved by C-SPAN's Steve Scully.

GRASSLEY: For the first 16 years I made $3,000 every other year as a state legislator. Now do you expect me to live on $3,000 every other year? No I was a factory worker for 10 years and I was a farmer for that period of time and I farm with my son now. So if you’re trying to make a case that I’ve lived off the public tit all these years, I think you’re saying correctly in the years I’ve been in the Congress but not the years before I came to Congress.

CALLER: Well my dad earned a lot less than $3,000 during those years, but don’t you know that the Lewin Group is also owned by United Health Care? You keep injecting The Lewin Group.

GRASSLEY: Yeah, I quote The Lewin Group because Democrats quote The Lewin Group and I think it’s, if it’s a bipartisan respect and is quoted by both parties then it’s legitimate for a Republican to quote from them.

CALLER: I’ve never heard a Democrat say The Lewin Group.

GRASSLEY: Well, Sen. Baucus used…er…Sen. Wyden used ‘em to cost out his bill that he put in a year ago. Sen. Wyden’s a Democrat from Oregon.

CALLER: They’re owned by an HMO.

Followed by Grassley with a severely pinched look on his face and looking from side to side for someone to save him, which C-SPAN's little winger Scully was happy to oblige and move the conversation along for him. Good for that caller and shame on Steve Scully for not asking him to respond.

Citing one Democrat who has used The Lewin Group in a cost study hardly excuses the fact that Republicans like Grassley constantly cite research from a company that has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo for private insurance companies to keep their profits up to make arguments against reforming our health care system.

I for one agree with the caller. I follow a lot of media and I have never once heard a Democrat cite The Lewin Group as a credible source for their arguments on health care reform, including Ron Wyden. I have never heard Wyden quote The Lewin Group in any interview I've seen him do on television. I have heard Republicans like Grassley and his buddy Orrin Hatch among others, quote them on a regular basis.

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Wendell Potter takes Chuck Grassley to task on Democracy Now when asked about his reaction to his rejection of the public option amendment offered by Chuck Schumer.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to yesterday’s debate in the Senate Finance Committee. Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, who introduced one of the public option amendments, questioned Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa over his rejection of government-run health insurance option.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: I’d just like to know what you think of Medicare, a government-run program that’s far more government-run than what Senator Rockefeller has proposed? Do you think Medicare is a good program? Because most of the amendments on the other side have been aimed at preserving Medicare, a government-run program.

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY: I think that Medicare is part of the social fabric of America, after forty years, just like Social Security is. And I don’t say that because it’s perfect. There’s a lot of things that need to be changed, and a lot of the things in this legislation are changing a lot of things that’s wrong with Medicare. And to say that I support it is not to say that it’s the best system that it can be.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: But it is a government-run plan, isn’t that right?

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY: It is a government-run plan.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: Thank you.

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY: And not—and the reason I say it’s part of the social fabric of America is there are private health insurance plans and retirement plans that are connected with Medicare and Social Security, and it’s not easy to undo a Medicare plan without also hurting a lot of private initiatives that are coupled with it. But that does not make it perfect. And I’ll bet, based upon fifty years of experience, if we had to do it over again, we’d do it other ways, even if it were a government-run plan.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Chuck Grassley. Wendell Potter, your response?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, clearly, this senator has the insurance industry’s best interests at heart, not the American public and not his constituents. The Medicare program is, as he said, part of the social fabric of this country and has been for many years. And it is a government-run plan that has meant a great deal of difference to a lot of people in this country, including certainly his constituents.

He has said that he didn’t think a public plan would be fair, compete fairly with insurance companies who—the private insurance industry. I’d like to ask him what is fair about the way that the insurance industries operate today, the companies that dump sick people when they need insurance most. What is fair about the way the insurance industry operates, Senator Grassley?

AMY GOODMAN: Forty-five million new customers, that’s what the private insurance companies can now look forward to, if a bill like what came out of the Senate Finance Committee moves forward with the mandate. Explain how they will make out and how important, how significant, how profitable this is for the for-profit companies.

WENDELL POTTER: Yeah, this is the first time that the insurance industry has really seen great opportunity in healthcare reform, with an individual mandate, which would require all of us to buy insurance if we are not eligible for a public, government-run program, which, fortunately, many people are. We would have to buy it in the private market from insurance companies, many of whom—many of which are for-profit companies. We would not have the option of buying or getting insurance through a government-run program like the public option would create.

So, not only would our premium dollars go into this—into the private insurance industry, but a lot of tax dollars would. Most people who don’t have insurance can’t afford it, and they wouldn’t be able to afford it after healthcare reform is passed without the government subsidizing their premiums. So billions and billions of taxpayers’ dollars will flow right into the treasuries of these big for-profit insurance companies. So we will be essentially paying a tax that will help support these insurance companies. It will be an enormous bailout of the health insurance industry.

From The Daily Show:

The Democratic supermajority fails to pass health care reform, but succeeds in funding abstinence-only education.

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Eric Cantor clutches his pearls and repeats the Republican's latest talking point du jour; the President's speech was too partisan. That's rich coming from Mr. Party of "No" Eric Cantor. These statements didn't sound too partisan to me.

OBAMA: Well the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action. Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together, and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. Now is the time to deliver on health care.

[.....]

OBAMA: Finally, many in this chamber – particularly on the Republican side of the aisle – have long insisted that reforming our medical malpractice laws can help bring down the cost of health care. I don't believe malpractice reform is a silver bullet, but I have talked to enough doctors to know that defensive medicine may be contributing to unnecessary costs. So I am proposing that we move forward on a range of ideas about how to put patient safety first and let doctors focus on practicing medicine. I know that the Bush Administration considered authorizing demonstration projects in individual states to test these issues. It’s a good idea, and I am directing my Secretary of Health and Human Services to move forward on this initiative today.

[.....]

OBAMA: But those of us who knew Teddy and worked with him here – people of both parties – know that what drove him was something more. His friend, Orrin Hatch, knows that. They worked together to provide children with health insurance. His friend John McCain knows that. They worked together on a Patient’s Bill of Rights. His friend Chuck Grassley knows that. They worked together to provide health care to children with disabilities.

Newshounds has more on the segment- Hannity And Cantor Complain About Partisanship In Obama’s Health Care Speech, Ignore GOP Heckling And Disrespect:

Sean Hannity and Republican Congressman Eric Cantor last night (9/9/09) blithely accused President Obama of being too partisan in his health care speech to the Joint Session of Congress while they just as blithely ignored the heckling and disrespect from Republicans that included booing, holding up antagonistic signs, using Blackberries during the speech and, in one case, shouting out that the president is a liar. With video.

Hannity opened his post-speech show last night with a commentary that accused Obama of delivering “an attack speech that could have been written by James Carville.” He forgot to mention that the Republicans’ reaction would have been scripted by middle schoolers.

Hannity went on to complain about Obama’s “cynicism and intimidation… Everyone disagrees with him is either a liar or a thug.”

Yet Hannity made no mention of Republican Congressman Joe Wilson yelling, “You lie!” during the speech.

Continue reading...

Transcript below the fold.

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Watching August finally come to a close, I couldn't help but notice that the strategy being used by David Axlerod on the health care reform debate is pretty much the same one he's used throughout the primaries and the general election: David allows the debate to drift off, loses the messaging almost completely, the media runs afoul with wingnuttery and then Axlerod brings President Obama back in so he can swoop down and save the day at the last second.

How's that working for him now?

It might have had a better chance of working if the President had given more definitive answers to what he wanted in health care reform. Instead, he turned the entire legislative process over to Congress, the Baucus Dogs, the Blue Dogs and the Chuck Grassleys, and now it's a mess.

If a bill is passed without a public option, President Obama is in jeopardy of losing his base now. If he doesn't want to lose the left, he must speak out and make clear what he wants in the bill that includes a vibrant public option.

Rahm Emanuel, his Chief of Staff, has always been the biggest supporter of the Blue Dogs and it seems like it's part of his strategy to let them block real change to the system and is making sure that the insurance companies still rule the world. Without ever going out on a limb and saying what exactly he wants to pass in health care, he's allowed the right ring fanatics to spew their Beckerwocky, brandish their assault rifles at his events and it shows in the polls. If President Obama loses his base, then who will be there to get his back as his presidency continues? As Mike Lux has written, it's Bush's base that kept him afloat when things got rough and without them, he surely would have lost the 2004 election.
Chris Bowers writes:

In both branches of Congress, Democrats already have the votes and procedural options in place to pass a public option on health care reform. This means it is possible to pass a public option now. it also means that if a public option does not pass as part of health care reform, it will be a because of a political calculation made by the Democratic leadership, not because there was no way to pass one...read on

We have the votes and we have the power, but does the will to really change health care exist? Only time will tell, but the Obama administration is at the precipice now on health care. When Congress comes back in session the time for games, trial balloons and focus groups are over. We voted you in to make real change and not phony compromises. Allowing conservatives to dictate health care and his agenda was never something the almost 70,000,000 who voted for him wanted.

I didn't vote for Rahm Emanuel, did you?

He still has time to make it work, but that time is running out.

UPDATE: I watched Chuck Todd say on MSNBC a little while ago that we should all circle the date 09/15/09. That's the day of reckoning. He also is reporting that President Obama's true health care bill of love is the Baucus Bill and that's the one he'll get behind. How does Chuck know that? I'm not sure, but he's an elitist Villager.

Digby writes:

Chuck Todd is a bit of a dim bulb, but he is a perfect purveyor of beltway conventional wisdom. His proclamation is what the Village believes and regardless of whether or not it's true, the debate will be shaped by that preconceived notion.

Just a word to the wise: as of September 15th, if the committee reports out a bill as promised, the proponents of real health care reform will be fighting the notion that the debate is over and anything more than minor cosmetic changes to the bucket of corporate compost the Finance Committee serves up will be portrayed as Obama caving to the hippies. Plan your arguments accordingly.
{}
Update III: Ooooh. The plot thickens. "Robust" public option or nothing? Brian Buetler reports...
The Republican obstructonism, from a number of anlges, is pushing Obama to choose between a good plan or nothing.

If he picks a good plan, maybe we should send them all thank-you notes.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America has a new ad campaign aimed at moving Sen. Chuck Grassley off the dime and get him to support healthcare reform. If you can, donate here:

Meet Kevin from Iowa. Kevin voted for Reagan...and Nixon...and George W. Bush...and Republican Senator Chuck Grassley. Kevin supports the public health insurance option. And in our new TV ad -- called "Main Street Bipartisanship" -- Kevin calls out Chuck Grassley for being out-of-touch with voters back home. It's powerful.

Real health care reform is in danger right now because some Democratic senators like Montana's Max Baucus crave "bipartisanship." But in DC, "bipartisanship" doesn't mean policies that Republican and Democratic voters back home support. It means "whatever watered-down reform insurance companies will let Republican senators vote for."

Chuck Grassley, the main Senate Republican negotiator, has taken over $2.9 million from health and insurance interests that oppose reform. He's also said he won't support a public option because it would beat private insurance in the marketplace! So why are some Democrats still negotiating with Grassley and letting him water down reform -- instead of going on offense? One word: "bipartisanship."

We're redefining "bipartisanship" to mean what mainstream voters want. Thanks for being a bold progressive.

-- Stephanie Taylor, PCCC co-founder

P.S. According to a national Quinnipiac poll in August, 40% of Republicans and 64% of independents support the public option. In Iowa, the latest Des Moines Register poll showed 36% of Republicans and 56% of independents. For context, 36% of Senate Republicans would be 14 votes -- huge "bipartisanship."

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Chuck Todd walks through the Republicans phony argument on why they won't be able to negotiate with the Democrats on the health care bill. Now that Ted Kennedy is gone there's no one else that will "have a conversation with" them "the way Ted Kennedy would have done it". As if they ever had any intention of working with Democrats on anything. Good bill, bad bill, doesn't matter. They were never going to do anything but obstruct.

The Mayo Clinic, the world famous institution cited by all sides in the contentious health care debate, defines schizophrenia as a serious brain disorder "in which reality is interpreted abnormally" resulting in "hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thinking and behavior." Apparently, that affliction is now running rampant among supporters of the Republican Party. As recent polling about conservative beliefs regarding Medicare, taxes, supposed "death panels," President Obama's citizenship and more shows, the crisis of Republican schizophrenia has reached epidemic proportions.

Here, then, are the five symptoms of incurable Republican schizophrenia:

(If you exhibit one or more of these warning signs, see your physician immediately. If you don't have health insurance - and if your state voted Republican, you're much more likely not to - Democrats will try to provide it for you.)

1. "Keep Government Out of Medicare." In July, Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) described an angry constituent who confronted him at a South Carolina town hall meeting, "keep your government hands off my Medicare." Despite his best efforts to explain that Medicare is a government program, the voter, Inglis lamented, "wasn't having any of it."

But as new data from Public Policy Polling revealed, that same cognitive failure is now far more widespread than swine flu. While 39% of all Americans responded that the government should "stay out of Medicare," 59% of self-identified conservatives and 62% of McCain voters hold that oxymoronic view.

2. "Barack Obama is a Muslim." An April survey by the Pew Research Center showed that 11% of Americans believe Barack Obama is a Muslim, a figure largely unchanged since its polling started in March 2008. Yet 17% of Republicans and 19% of white evangelicals (74% of whom voted for John McCain) insist the President is an adherent of Islam, despite his repeated pronouncements and decades of church attendance to the contrary.

3. "Barack Obama Was Not Born in the United States." This contagion is running rampant among the ranks of Republicans. And even with repeated treatments of birth certificates and Hawaiian newspaper announcements from 1961, there is apparently no cure.

A DailyKos/Research 2000 poll found that a stunning 58% of Republicans did not believe (28%) or were unsure (30%) that President Barack Obama was in fact born in the United States. To be sure, this is a Southern pathology, a region home to 69% of all birthers and the only part of the country to increase its Republican presidential vote in 2008. This week's PPP survey only confirmed the chronic birtherism plaguing the Republican Party:

Only 62% of respondents reported believing that Obama was born in the United States. 10% thought he was born in Indonesia, 7% thought he was born in Kenya, 1% thought he was born in the Philippines, and 20% weren't sure. Among Republicans 44% think he was not born here while just 36% believe that he was.

(In a promising development, only 10% of respondents weren't sure if Hawaii is part of the United States. On this score, conservatives were only slightly more confused than liberals and moderates.)

4. "Government Death Panels Will Euthanize My Grandma." Sadly, the Republicans' Birther and Deather psychoses represent a cradle-to-grave illness.

Despite the vaccinations administered by PolitiFact, ABC News, the New York Times and countless other care-givers, Republicans persist in their virulent health care death panel delusions. This out-of-control CTD (conservative transmitted disease) has spread like wildfire, thanks to vectors like Betsy McCaughey, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin. (Even a Republican like Senator Chuck Grassley, previously diagnosed by President Obama as sane, came down with the deather flu.)

An NBC poll this week quantified the deather madness: a staggering 45 percent said it's likely the government will decide when to stop care for the elderly. (Majorities also wrongly believe that reform proposals on the table would constitute a government "takeover" of the health care system, one which would cover illegal aliens.)

As MSNBC noted, viewers of Fox News - a strong predictor of Republican allegiance - were overwhelmingly afflicted by this health care dementia:

In our poll, 72% of self-identified FOX News viewers believe the health-care plan will give coverage to illegal immigrants, 79% of them say it will lead to a government takeover, 69% think that it will use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions, and 75% believe that it will allow the government to make decisions about when to stop providing care for the elderly.

5. "President Obama Raised Taxes on Working People." The Republicans' profound cognitive disorders are not limited to their hallucinations about Barack Obama's birth or the health care imbroglio. As the Tea Party movement shows, furious right-wing zealots are outraged by no taxation with representation.

As promised, Barack Obama in the stimulus package delivered on his pledge of tax relief for 95% of American households. Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) didn't only jump start gross domestic product and refill empty state coffers in the second quarter of 2009. As Nate Silver thoroughly documented, "Obama has cut taxes for 98.6% of working households."

Nevertheless, frothing at the mouth Tea Baggers spouting Republican Tax Day lies took to the streets not to thank the President, but to blame him for the tax cuts they received. While Andrew Sullivan described their unreasoning mania as "adolescent, unserious hysteria," the Daily Show's Jon Stewart diagnosed their disorder:

"I think you might be confusing tyranny with losing."

Back in April, I appropriated Daniel Patrick Moynihan's classic statement to conclude that with their rag-tag band of revolutionaries, secessionists and agitators for violence, Republicans were "defining political deviancy down." Sadly, the delusional and the deviant are now descending on town hall meetings with guns. The Republican schizophrenics are no longer just a danger to themselves.

UPDATE: Newsweek adds the "Five Biggest Lies in the Health Care Debate" to its list of "Seven Falsehoods About Health Care." Meanwhile, the RNC added to a new pathology, suggesting in a poll that "GOP voters may be discriminated against for medical treatment" under a Democratic health care plan.

(This piece originally appeared at Perrspectives; the image via Huffington Post.)

Ezra Klein on the real reason Chuck Grassley is trying to sandbag healthcare reform:

The more plausible argument is that Grassley fears his fellow Republican senators. I'm hearing that Grassley is getting reamed out in meetings with his colleagues. The yelling is loud enough that staffers in adjacent offices have heard snippets. But the real threat isn't the yelling of his colleagues. It's their capacity to deny Grassley his next job. Ruth Marcus hints at this in her column on Chuck Grassley today, but it's worth explaining in a bit more detail.

This is the final year that Grassley is eligible to serve as ranking member — the most powerful minority member, and, if Republicans retake the Senate, the chairman — of the Senate Finance Committee. His hope is to move over as ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, or failing that, the Budget Committee. But for that, he needs the support of his fellow Republicans. And if he undercuts them on health-care reform, they will yank that support. It's much the same play they ran against Arlen Specter a couple of years back, threatening to deny him his chairmanship of — again — the Judiciary Committee. It worked then, and there's no reason to think it won't work now.

So once again, I ask the question: Why are we negotiating with Republicans at all?

As someone recently said, what planet do they live on? Chuck Grassley and Ken Conrad fall all over themselves praising their co-op proposal, while Howard Dean, the Last Semi-Honest Man, calls it out as the political theater it is.

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty tired of these expedient political solutions to real-life problems. After reading Matt Taibbi's latest Rolling Stone piece on health care reform (no link yet), I now understand just how thoroughly the Blue Dogs screwed us on the public option and I would cry no tears if it disappeared in its present form:

(CBS) Former Vermont Governor and doctor, Howard Dean said the health care co-operative proposal is purely for political strategy and has not worked in the past on "Face the Nation" Sunday.

"That proposal is a political compromise, not a policy compromise," Dean said. "No one knows what it would look like and when it has been tried in the past it mostly hasn’t worked."

Dean, a strong advocate for the public insurance option, said people need the choice of a government-run plan to compete with private insurers. He argued that because private insurance companies are investor-owned, they are spending less money on health services and more on equity.

Medicare, Dean said, "is by nature much more efficient" because currently seniors can move, leave their job and get sick without having their coverage discontinued.

"Everybody over 65 has it and the question is 'Why don't we open up that program,'" he said.

[...] Dean said "we are getting pretty mixed signals from Senator Grassley. … I think the Republicans owe it to this country to give us a clearer sense of what they will and will not support."

Senators Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, appeared earlier on "Face the Nation," saying that the public option plan would not find enough support in the Senate. The co-op solution, they said, would be the only hope for a bipartisan agreement.

Dean also said the $600 billion dollar House price tag on health care is "reasonable" because it is less than we are spending in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Here's the person that President Obama has been holding out as an example of a Republican he can work with. Chuck Grassley's latest excuse for his the government is going to "pull the plug on grandma" nonsense. Obama made me do it.

From Think Progress:

Today on CBS’s Face the Nation, Grassley struggled to explain why he made that statement. Clearly uncomfortable with the question, Grassley stumbled over his words and even blamed President Obama for his word choice. He said that even though he knew the House bill “doesn’t intend to” kill senior citizens, he felt that he had a responsibility to nevertheless play to those fears.

[....]

Obama did use the phrase “pull the plug on grandma.” But he used it as an example of the lies his opponents were pushing around to scare the American public. Despite Grassley’s claim, he did not respond in “exactly the same way.” Obama said the right-wing myth was completely baseless; Grassley said that it was definitely something to be feared.

Grassley can't even stop the fear mongering while acknowledging there's no basis for it. Stay classy there Chuck.

Transcript below the fold.

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David Brooks as usual, is wrong on just about almost everything that comes out of his mouth in this segment. Health care reform is popular. This mess that looks like it's going to be a sell out to the insurance industries is losing popularity. Obama's numbers are going down among his base and with independents as this thing plays itself out and it appears that not only was single-payer not on the table, but the public option wasn't either. It's not losing popularity because the President didn't look like he showed enough love to the Grassley's and Blue Dogs of the world.

And the democratic process has not made Chuck Grassley do anything. Chuck Grassley is out to destroy the chances of anything meaningful being done with reforming our current system, and listening to his constituents at town halls has not changed that one way or the other.

From The Newshour with Jim Lehrer Aug. 21, 2009.

JIM LEHRER: What would you add to that or subtract?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I'm not sure it was inevitable.

JIM LEHRER: You don't think it was inevitable?

DAVID BROOKS: No, I mean, he's lost the independents, a group I don't think he had to lose. If he had taken a stimulus package of $400 billion instead of $787 billion, I think he would have held the independents, held a lot of the Republicans.

If he had taken sort of a more moderate version of health care reform, I think he could have held on to -- there's a Wyden-Bennett plan that he, I think, would have held on to some of those independents.

I mean, the major reason he's falling down now -- the secondary reason is the economy is still not -- you know, unemployment. But the major reason is health care reform. His major domestic initiative is unpopular. The majority -- a slight majority of the American people disapprove of it, and there's no sign that that's let up.

And so he really is in a sort of not freefall, but a serious slide. You know, Charlie Cook, who knows more about congressional elections than just about anybody, has a memo out today saying there's as much of a chance the Democrats will lose more than 20 seats in the next House elections than fewer than 20 seats, and that's a pretty serious thing. That's a terrible climate in which to try to enact health care.

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Via Media Matters:

In an interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) made it clear, again, that current proposals for health insurance reform will not receive any Republican support. "For either the bill that passed the House Committee or the bill that passed the HELP committee in the Senate, I don't think a single Republican in the Senate would support either of those bills," he declared. Kyl went on to say that the three Republicans engaged in talks with Democrats, led by increasingly erratic Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), are finding negotiations "very difficult" because of the "liberals in both the House and the Senate."

Kyl's comments come just two days after he told reporters that "almost all Republicans" will oppose reform, even if Democrats make significant concessions -- remarks that Steve Benen called "the death knell of bipartisan negotiations."

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August 19, 2009 News Corp

VAN SUSTEREN: Voters want answers on health care. What they don't want is for the Democrats to go it alone. Now, according to one poll, 59 percent of people say Congress should not approve a health care plan if it's not bipartisan. But will the Democrats go it alone anyway, shut Republicans out of the health care debate? The New York Times reports that Democrats do not think the GOP is going to cooperate on health care reform. The Times quotes White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel as saying, "The Republican leadership has made a strategic decision that defeating President Obama's health care proposal is more important for their political goals than solving the health insurance problems that Americans face every day."

In a press briefing today, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs pulled back from the report.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We are focused on a process that continues in the Senate with both parties. The president again met with Senator Baucus on Friday in Montana, and they discussed the progress that was being made among Democrats and Republicans on the Finance Committee. That's our focus.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAN SUSTEREN: Senator Chuck Grassley is ranking Republican member of the "Gang of six," a bipartisan group of senators working for a deal in the Senate on the health care bill. and according to The New York Times, the White House sees criticism by Senator Grassley as a sign there is little hope of reaching a bipartisan deal. Is that true?

Senator Grassley joins us live. Good evening, Senator. And is there little hope of a bipartisan deal, sir?

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY (R), IOWA: I haven't given up yet, and I haven't said anything new since we adjourned for the summer break that I've been saying for the last three months. So for the White House to draw any conclusions other than what I've told the president right to his face -- and I've said a couple things that are very important, and I've said them before. I've told him for several weeks that, number one, it would really help get bipartisanship if he would make a statement that he would sign a bill that didn't have a public option, or what some of us call a government-run health plan, in it.

And the second one was, in response to a question he asked me about would I be (ph) three or four Republicans going along with the Democrats to make a bipartisan issue, and on that issue, I answered him the same way I've been telling a lot of people for three or four months, that I would not go along because that's not bipartisan.

What you have to have when you're rejiggering one sixth of our U.S. economy, and when you're dealing with health care because that's life-and- death issue for every American, affecting every American citizen, it's got to be done with lots of Democrats and a lot of Republicans, and that's bipartisanship. And it's my responsibility to do something that would get broad support among Republicans, and it's Senator Baucus's Republican to get something that would get broad support among Democrats.

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"When I say jump, you say, 'How high?'"

That would be Chuck "Don't Let Them Pull the Plug on Grandma" Grassley. Why does Obama want Republican approval so badly? Protective cover for the watered-down version he promised Big Pharma and the insurance companies?

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The lead Republican senator in bipartisan health care negotiations said Tuesday that he urged President Obama this month to make clear he would accept a bill without a government-funded public insurance option.

"I told the president then that he needed to make public whether or not he could sign a bill that didn't have a public option in it," Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa said on Radio Iowa. "He didn't have to take a position against a public option, but would he sign a bill that wouldn't have a public option in it, and I thought a statement from him would be very helpful."

Grassley and the five other bipartisan negotiators met with the president on August 6 to discuss their efforts toward a health care bill that can pass the Senate Finance Committee in September, when Congress returns from its August recess.

On Saturday, Obama said the "public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of health care reform."

Then on Sunday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said a public option is "not an essential element" of overhauling the health care system.

Why is President Obama so much more concerned with what Republicans want? It's a mystery!