Appearing as a guest on Friday's PoliticsNation, Washington Post political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson declared that President Obama had "framed it very nicely" when he asserted that Republicans "want to shut down the government so that they can deny 30 million people health care." Henderson:
This sort of brinkmanship, the public does not like. And this idea I think that Obama framed it very nicely today when he said that they want to shut down the government so that they can deny 30 million people health care. I thought it was a really nice framing and sets the Republicans up in the fall to figure out a way forward.
A bit later, she dismissed the Republican desire to undermine ObamaCare and predicted that Americans will like ObamaCare after it is implemented:
Republicans have this idea that somehow they're going to stop something that has already happened. The reality is we already live in a country where ObamaCare has already been implemented, and it's already affecting people's lives. And the reality, I think, also for Republicans is this is a last-ditch effort, right? Come October, folks are actually going to be able to sign up with those state exchanges.
And then, you know, as things happen, and I think there will be glitches in ObamaCare and Obama talked about that, but once this rolls down, and it really begins to impact and affect a wider slew of people in this country, it's going to be harder for Republicans to raise these same sorts of concerns.
Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Friday, August 9, PoliticsNation on MSNBC:
AL SHARPTON: Shutting down the government to prevent 30 million Americans from getting health care. This is sick. And in recent days, even some Republicans admitted it would be political suicide. But many others are still caught in their own radical rage.
SENATOR TED CRUZ (R-TX): I will not vote for any continuing resolution that funds even a single penny of ObamaCare.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The American people shouldn't fund it. And so, that's what I intend to do.
SENATOR MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): How can you be against ObamaCare but vote for a budget that funds its implementation?
SENATOR RAND PAUL (R-KY): I think that funding ObamaCare is a huge mistake.
SHARPTON: This is the broken logic of extremism. This is what the President defiantly attacked today. And it's the opposite of what Americans want. Joining me now is Ed Rendell and Nia-Malika Henderson.
(...)
SHARPTON: Nia, do you agree if they go through with this that they will pay for it politically, that they are flirting with political suicide.
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, WASHINGTON POST: Well, you know, it's interesting. You have many Republicans, including Mitt Romney, who are making the very same argument that you're making here, that Ed Rendell is making here. You flash back to the last time this happened to Republicans when Bill Clinton was in office and they suffered at the polls mightily because they shut down the government.
This sort of brinkmanship, the public does not like. And this idea I think that Obama framed it very nicely today when he said that they want to shut down the government so that they can deny 30 million people health care. I thought it was a really nice framing and sets the Republicans up in the fall to figure out a way forward.
I think the majority of Republicans are very easily, especially in the Senate side, don't agree with Ted Cruz. They don't think that the government should be shut down, and in states all across the country, ObamaCare is the reality. It might not be known as ObamaCare. It's called something else in Colorado and California and all of these other states like Idaho. But the reality is it's the law of the land. The Supreme Court has ruled on it, and so the question I think for Republicans is how long are they going to keep wanting to fight the same old war?
(...)
SHARPTON: So we are really seeing, Nia-Malika, the President is talking about an act that has helped millions of people and will continue to do so as enacted. That clearly supposed to be the role of government.
HENDERSON: That's right. It also contradicts Republicans. Republicans have this idea that somehow they're going to stop something that has already happened. The reality is we already live in a country where ObamaCare has already been implemented, and it's already affecting people's lives. And the reality, I think, also for Republicans is this is a last-ditch effort, right? Come October, folks are actually going to be able to sign up with those state exchanges.
And then, you know, as things happen, and I think there will be glitches in ObamaCare and Obama talked about that, but once this rolls down, and it really begins to impact and affect a wider slew of people in this country, it's going to be harder for Republicans to raise these same sorts of concerns. But I think for now they are very much looking at 2014 and really exciting their base, especially in some of these congressional races that we'll see in 2014.
