New Congress Coming In; Chief of Staff Change Possible
VELSHI: It is time for "The Stakeout" with our senior White House correspondent Ed Henry. Now he's been away for a while. He was in Hawaii because the president was in Hawaii. The president is now back. He has arrived back from Hawaii. New Congress is getting sworn in very shortly. President Obama talked on Air Force One about his expectations. Let's listen to what he said.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My expectation, my hope, is that John Boehner, Mitch McConnell will realize that there will be plenty of time to campaign for 2012 in 2012 and that our job this year is to make sure that we build on recovery. We started making good progress on that during the lame duck and I expect to build on that progress when I get back.</s>VELSHI: Let's go right to Ed. He's at our D.C. bureau. Ed, welcome back, first of all.</s>HENRY: Happy New Year.</s>VELSHI: We enjoyed your hula lesson that you had while you were in Hawaii, but that's --</s>HENRY: I understand you were ripping on me yesterday when I had a day off. And I just wanted it noted that if you -- you just played that tape of the president. I wanted it noted that the president took a longer vacation there. He just came back now. I actually took the red eye --</s>VELSHI: That's true. You got there --</s>HENRY: I got back Friday morning to do a little bit of anchoring this weekend, as you know. So you were ripping on me yesterday when I wasn't here and, you know, the president</s>VELSHI: Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. OK, good, so you got back five days before he did and you started your vacation -- work trip, I mean, five days before he -- it all evens out in the end.</s>HENRY: You know, you've got a good point there.</s>VELSHI: All right. He's got -- he had a very busy period, so did Congress, before the Christmas break. And now he's got a lot going on right now. But the first thing, which is really a thumb in the eye of the president, is it does look like Congress, the Republican controlled House, is going to move to repeal health care. Not necessarily going to be all that effective, but they look like they're going to do that pretty early on.</s>HENRY: Yes, they're going to do it. And I think as Brianna Keilar has been noting all morning, look, I mean, while the repeal is going to go nowhere in the Senate with a Democratic controlled Senate, and he's still got the president with the veto pin. What it looks like the Republicans are going to do is have this symbolic vote at the beginning. But over the long haul, they can try to do this a death by a thousand cuts and just try to cut off funding for various pieces of this, try to have stand alone bills that repeal, you know, particular unpopular parts of it. But, look, the White House is going to fight fire with fire and you heard Nancy Pelosi outlining some of this as the outgoing speaker today. There's a lot of popular parts of this. You know, letting kids stay on their parents insurance until their 26. Making sure that people who have breast cancer, you know, are not just thrown off by insurance companies. I man if the White House pushes back harder this time than they did say August of 2009 when they let Republicans define this debate in some ways, there's a lot of popular parts of this health reform that I think could blow up in the Republicans face if they start dismantling it.</s>VELSHI: Now what is this talk about investigations that the Republican controlled House might conduct into the White House, into this administration?</s>HENRY: Well, the man who's at the center of it is Darrell Issa. He's a Republican from California. And while I was taking that vacation you mentioned this weekend, I was actually anchoring "State Of The Union" because Candy had a well-deserved Sunday off. And we had Darrell Issa on. And I kind of pressed him on this. And we wanted to play you a little clip of that because he has been throwing out a lot of allegations at the president even before he started these investigations. Take a look at what he said and then I'll sort of explain where we are.</s>HENRY: Well, you also went over -- went after President Obama in the Joe Sestak case in Pennsylvania and you called it Obama's Watergate and you said it was an impeachable offense. So I know you're -- you seem to be back-pedaling now.</s>HENRY: And so -- it was supposed to be a longer clip. But bottom line is that he started kind of back-pedaling and saying, well, I didn't call it Obama's Watergate. Well, he did call it Obama's Watergate. And he said, I didn't call it an impeachable offense. I was quoting Dick Morris (ph) saying it might be an impeachable offense there in that Joe Sestak case in the Pennsylvania Senate race in trying to get him out of the race with some sort of inducement. And at the end of all of that, the bottom line was Darrell Issa said, even though he had once called it Obama's Watergate, he's now not going to investigate the Sestak case because he thinks that everybody does it. That Republicans have done that, Democrats have done it. So there's no point in doing it. He also, earlier, you know, acknowledged that he kind of regretted going on the Rush Limbaugh show last October and saying that this was one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times and he clarified to me by saying, this is one of the most corrupt administrations in modern times. Which is not that much of a difference. It's still throwing the word corruption around before you've actually kind of confirmed any of the allegations. And so I think it's going to be something big to watch because Republicans want the agenda to be about repealing health care, they want it to be about jobs, they want it to be about cutting spending, which is a big deal in November. But if some of these investigations get a little carried away, that could overshadow the rest of the year.</s>VELSHI: Yes, Darrell Issa, it will be interesting to watch. He was active when he was not on the majority side. It will be interesting to see how he does. All right, let's talk about this information you kept bringing us. You brought us the information first about Rahm Emanuel and then Pete Rouse filling in for him and then the names of people who were involved who might fill in, in that chief of staff position. William Daley now being put into the mix. This is something you had told us about earlier. Where do we stand?</s>HENRY: Well, it's interesting. Bill Daley, in early December we started picking up information that maybe the White House was interested in bringing him in because even though I'm told the president is very happy with the job that Pete Rouse has done as interim Chief of Staff, that Pete Rouse himself is feeling that now that he's been in the job for a couple of months, when you talk to various senior Democrats, they say he, himself, Pete Rouse feels that like someone like Bill Daley, somebody like Tom Daschle -- elder statesmen -- somebody with more stature than Rouse has, as sort of a behind-the-scenes player, might be needed now as the president does battle with the Republican Congress, number one, partly a Republican Congress. And, number two, gets ready for the 2012 re-election. And so where we stand now is that when I first picked up this information early December, a White House official told me, now look, it's off base, there's nothing there. We talked to -- Gloria Borger and I were working on this and we talked to someone else close to Bill Daley who said there was nothing there. Now Bloomberg yesterday reported, look, maybe this will happen after all. Maybe he'll be chief of staff or some other big roll. I think the president's still sorting all this out. It's not a done deal with Bill Daley yet. But I think it's very possible that he could wind up as either chief of staff or council in the White House. And I think what it shows is, they're still searching for other solutions because there's a whole new dynamic that they're going to be dealing with, with John Boehner as Speaker. And there's going to be little moves on the margins. But they're also thinking, maybe they need a big move at the top to really send a statement that they've got some fresh blood in there.</s>VELSHI: Ed, thank you, by the way, for wearing a purple tie like me today. What is this nonsense about the WashingtonPost.com naming your colleague Jake Tapper from ABC as the favorite political wonk of 2010? I didn't get a vote in that, apparently.</s>HENRY: Well, I'd say a few things. I mean, I think Jake's a great guy. I think he's a great reporter. I think -- however, I think being a favorite wonk, isn't that like an oxymoron, or you know, Military intelligence? What, like favorite wonk? Isn't that like a left-handed kind of compliment? I mean, I think Jake's more than just a wonk so I'm not sure I wanted that title. But also Jake does not have a title that I have and I've just been named this and I'm going to reveal it now -- there's a magazine that just came out, named me sexiest man alive. "Hula Magazine." I'm very proud of this.</s>HENRY: And Jake Tapper does not have that.</s>VELSHI: Interesting. Were the any other contestants for that in "Hula Magazine?"</s>HENRY: No. Nobody else did the hula in Hawaii. So, I won.</s>VELSHI: There you go. You got it.</s>HENRY: So, I took a lot of grief from you, I took grief from others. But, you know, I got the magazine cover.</s>VELSHI: You did. Well, congratulations on that. And congratulations to Jake. And great to see you back here. And we will do this every day. Our senior White House correspondent Ed Henry in the Stakeout. OK. DNA evidence clears a man of a rape conviction, but only after he spent 30 years in prison. His incredible story coming up next.