The way David Gregory was carrying on during today's Meet The Press, you would have thought that he was irked by Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's revelation of only 105 thousand dollars in secret ObamaCare funding instead of the actual astounding 105 BILLION dollars. A clearly irritated David Gregory kept insisting that he only wanted to stick with "narrow budget questions" and acted increasingly frustrated as Bachmann kept returning to the 105 BILLION dollars of hidden ObamaCare funding that he did not want to even briefly talk about.
Here is a portion of the interview of a clearly upset David Gregory as you can see in this video who obviously did not want to deal in the slightest with Bachmann's revelation which would have been major news to the viewing public as well as a more detailed transcript below the fold:
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN: ...There was a Congressional Research Service report that just was issued in February, and we discovered that secretly, unbeknownst to members of Congress, over $105 billion was hidden in the Obamacare legislation to fund the implementation of Obamacare. This is something that wasn't known. This money was broken up, hidden in various parts of the bills. And we have worked very hard to discover $61 billion in cuts that we could put forward, get to the president. So, in effect, David, we've taken one step forward and two steps back because we've found now that $105 billion had already been implemented.
MR. GREGORY: All right. But that--but, Congresswoman, you heard the president this week offer...
Notice how often during the interview that Ms Bachmann keeps returning to the topic of the $105 billion of ObamaCare funding during the interview which is countered in each instance by David Gregory desperately trying to change the subject.
MR. GREGORY: We are back, joined now by the head of the tea party caucus in the House of Representatives, Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota Michele Bachmann. Welcome to MEET THE PRESS.
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN (R-MN): Thank you, David.
MR. GREGORY: Nice to have you. You heard the chief of staff, Bill Daley, say that he's optimistic that it's possible to avert a government shutdown. Are you as optimistic as he is?
REP. BACHMANN: Well, I'm hopeful. I don't think anyone wants to see the government shut down, but it is shocking the revelations of all the money that's been spent. There was a Congressional Research Service report that just was issued in February, and we discovered that secretly, unbeknownst to members of Congress, over $105 billion was hidden in the Obamacare legislation to fund the implementation of Obamacare. This is something that wasn't known. This money was broken up, hidden in various parts of the bills. And we have worked very hard to discover $61 billion in cuts that we could put forward, get to the president. So, in effect, David, we've taken one step forward and two steps back because we've found now that $105 billion had already been implemented.
MR. GREGORY: All right. But that--but, Congresswoman, you heard the president this week offer...
REP. BACHMANN: Or appropriated.
MR. GREGORY: ...an accommodation to the states to opt out of the individual mandate, where necessary, to tailor it toward their own states.
REP. BACHMANN: Well, David...
MR. GREGORY: Why isn't that the sort of--the give that Republicans wanted?
REP. BACHMANN: David, that's not a give at all. In effect, all that is, is a pretext for implementing a single-payer plan. If you--if you recall, the president's entire statement, he said the states can opt out as long as they stay within the, the requirements of all of Obamacare unless they want to go with a single payer--again, from the very beginning it has been said that Obamacare is a crime against democracy. It has been a deception from the beginning. Remember, the president told us it was a mandate, not a tax. Now in the federal court he's arguing it's a tax, not a Band-Aid.
MR. GREGORY: Will you--I want to stick with the...
REP. BACHMANN: We were also told that our premiums would go down $2,500 and instead, they're spiking up by 20 and 40 percent.
MR. GREGORY: Let me get in here, Congresswoman.
REP. BACHMANN: This has been a fraud.
MR. GREGORY: Let me get in here. I want to stick with the, the narrow budget questions. Are you willing to vote to shut down the government over some of these add-ons to these spending bills, to defund funding for the healthcare legislation, for Planned Parenthood, for the EPA?
REP. BACHMANN: I think this deception that the president and Pelosi and Reid put forward with, with appropriating over $105 billion needs to be given back to the people. There was no debate. There was no discussion. $105 billion is a lot of money. You can't just slip that into a bill and not tell members of the House and not tell members of the Senate, and then when they go to vote for the bill, did it just slip Harry Reid's mind to not tell the senators that this was in the bill?
MR. GREGORY: Congresswoman, my question is a very, is a very direct one: Will you vote to shut down the government over those riders?
REP. BACHMANN: I think that President Obama needs to give back that $105 billion that they already appropriated. They have tied the hands of Congress for the next eight years, David. They already appropriated this money. Members of Congress didn't even know this money was in the bill because we couldn't read the bill before it was passed because it wasn't given to us but hours before we had to vote for it. That's why Speaker Pelosi famously said we have to pass the bill to know what's in it. Members of Congress weren't even given the courtesy of time to read the bill. This $105 billion has to be given back before we can start any other discussions.
MR. GREGORY: Let me ask, let me ask you about some tea party criticism of Speaker Boehner over how far the cuts have gone. The USA Today reported on this on Friday, I'll put it up. "Tea Party leader blasts Boehner over cuts. The founder of one of the largest Tea Party groups said House Speaker Boehner looks like a `fool' ... because he has not cut enough from the budget.
"Judson Phillips ... [the] founder of the Tea Party Nation, Boehner's inability to negotiate," he said, "larger cuts should prompt the Tea Party movement to run a candidate against [him] in 2012 in a GOP primary.
"`The Tea Party movement sprang up in '09 as a reaction to insane government spending,' Phillips wrote on his blog on Wednesday. `In 2010, the American people spoke, demanding change. Everyone realizes that the level of spending cannot be sustained. John Boehner did not get that message.'" Has Boehner failed the tea party?
REP. BACHMANN: The main message that's going across the Internet today among members of the tea party, they are outraged about this $105 billion that was deceptively put in the Obamacare bill.
MR. GREGORY: Congresswoman, you've made, you've made your point.
REP. BACHMANN: That's what they're focused on.
MR. GREGORY: I'm asking you a direct question here about whether you think, as head of the tea party caucus, whether Boehner has failed to live up to the tea party's expectations.
REP. BACHMANN: I think what we're--we--what we're trying to do as Republicans in the House is look for every place we possibly can to cut spending. We've identified $100 billion in cuts off of the president's proposed budget, $60 billion if you compare it to the 2010 budget. So we have done our part to look for cuts. But we can't be--we can't end there. We have to also demand that we claw back the $105 billion that was deceptively already appropriated by President Obama.
MR. GREGORY: The, the speaker has said that it would be irresponsible not to raise the debt limit, as will be called for soon. Will you agree with him on that and do that?
REP. BACHMANN: I am not in favor of raising the debt ceiling. In the last 10 years we have raised the debt ceiling 10 times. We are just giving the Congress a license to keep on spending. And one thing the American people are demanding because they want to see jobs created, they want to see the economy get on a back--good footing. In order to do that, government has to take less so that the American people can keep more.
MR. GREGORY: The issue of the tea party and backlash among voters against the tea party is an interesting area because conservatives and certainly leaders and tea party folks have said, "Look, there was a mandate from the 2010 election, and that was to cut spending." And yet, you have this from--analysis from our Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, written by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday: "Among those most fearing spending cuts," they reported, "were younger voters, independents, seniors, and suburban women--groups that include many swing voters in national elections, who potentially could turn against the GOP.
"`It may be hard to understand why someone would try to jump off a cliff' to solve the debt crisis, [pollster] Mr. [Bill] McInturff said of his fellow Republicans, `unless you understand that they are being chased by a tiger, and that tiger is the tea party.'" Is the tea party chasing the broader GOP off the cliff?
REP. BACHMANN: You know, I think that the political left has been very afraid of the tea party movement because it is not necessarily political. It's not Democrats or Republicans. It's made up of a very broad-based coalition. It's made up of people who want the country to work again. They believe that we're taxed enough already, the government shouldn't spend more money than what its taking in, and that each of the three branches of government should act within the jurisdictional limitations of the Constitution. That's a broad-based group of people. They just want our country to work again. And I think that that coalition is hanging together more strongly now than ever.
So now that Congress is searching for ways to cut the budget, a very good place to start would be with the 105 BILLION dollars in secret ObamaCare funding, However, David Gregory would rather stubbornly stick to his script about supposed dissension between Tea Party members and the GOP as well other relatively trivial matters.
Perhaps someday David Gregory can bring himself to actually say the words: $105 BILLION.
