Inside Obama's Presidency (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

Barack Obama is projected to be the next president of the United States tonight on front line they thought success would breed success we'll move for a quick kill that's how they refer to it a quick kill on Capitol Hill their leadership told the members no just say no there was a polarizing quality about Barack Obama that came roaring forward he was in a position to make demands and he did he's the first Nobel Peace Prize winner with a kill list I think he understands that the Glory Days Are Over everything's going to be more challenging now he gets another chance to be the guy who United the country in the week before his inauguration a look back inside Obama's presidency [Music] [Applause] we watched the making of the president 2008 there are 10 key standards scheduled tonight he is now at the Hyatt Regency Hotel he will watch the election returns in Ohio is gone before about 11 o'clock on the east coast and Keith we can report history Barack Obama is projected to be the next president Senator Barack Obama of Illinois will be the next November 4th 2008. on this night in Chicago inside Barack Obama's private world the news began to sink in I kept watching Obama as he transformed from this young man to the next president United States this was a different man so maybe hundreds of thousands who have gathered in Grand Park the next first family of the United States only four years earlier he'd been a state legislator the look on his face to me looked like someone who finally understood the weight of the job that he had just won almost as if the weight of the world had rested on his shoulders the road Harrell the worst financial crisis in a century but America I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there I promise you we as a people will get there God bless you and may God bless the United States of America if he had any idea that night how difficult this would the next day would prove it [Music] much for that election just in the past three months and all eyes are now on Barack Obama from it around the Cascade of bad news began with the economy fear swept through the markets we had to start thinking about this the day after he was elected this was the most eventful and consequential presidential transition in American history we were all worried about what we were seeing we knew that the credit system was pretty quickly headed towards something that looked a lot like seizure the president-elect was told that in the two months since Lehman Brothers crashed the Panic on Wall Street had only gotten worse what we were facing was something that really had never contemplated never experienced unemployment was nearly seven percent and climbing the stock market was down more than 6 000 points there was a growing sense of Calamity this could be the most climactic economic crisis in all of American history that we were that close to a complete meltdown Obama at that moment gets a real glimpse of the future disaster is coming at the end of the conversation there's basically no bright spots and I say to the then president-elect wow that had to been the uh the worst economic briefing a new presidents had in a in a you know in almost a century and uh President says that not even my worst briefing this week there were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the pursuit of Al Qaeda and above all a huge political challenge [Music] during the campaign he had promised Americans he would fix the partisanship that plagued and divided Washington there is not a liberal America and a conservative America there is the United States of America [Applause] it's the inauguration day of the nation's first African-American president this is the biggest inaugural of all time in a country that likes the words the first couple to arrive at the neighborhood ball the first on the very night Barack Obama was inaugurated a group of Republicans quietly gathered to develop plans for taking on the new president a meeting at dinner took place in the cleanest Steakhouse in downtown Washington with Newt Gingrich as sort of the the MC as it were the thing I found disturbing this week was the Gathering of GOP luminaries top conservative Congressman Eric Cantor Kevin McCarthy Paul Ryan better alternative party Senate power Brokers Jim DeMint I think the biggest fight will be over John Kyle the biggest fight there will be over there Tom Coburn an event organizer Frank Luntz the room was filled it was a who's who of ranking members who had at one point been committee chairman or in the majority who now wandered out loud whether they were in the permanent minority is United States many of them had attended Obama's inauguration they had seen that breathtaking spectacle of a million and a half people on the mall and it felt like a wholesale repudiation of the Republican Party they walked into that dining room as depressed as I've seen any elected members of Congress they lost every senate seat they could lose they lost all these House Seats the numbers were so great that they thought that they weren't coming back again not for an election or two but maybe a generation or two as the night wore on The Talk turned to the Future three hours some of the brightest Minds in the Republican Party debated how to be relevant the point I made was that that we had to be prepared in the tradition of wooden at UCLA to run a full court press and we had to see how Obama behaved and to offer an alternative to what he wanted to do so they decided that they needed to begin to fight Obama on everything this meant unyielding opposition to every one of the Obama administration's legislative initiatives he could be defeated partly by his own ideology and by his own behaviors the feeling was that if that group could cooperate and if that group could lead that the Wilderness might not be a generation away by the end of the evening you began to reorient and realize wait a second you got Nancy Pelosi as an opponent you got you know you you have a clear choice of ideologies we have a tremendous amount of hard work to do but it's doable they all talked about this and they began to get more and more optimistic and they and they left feeling practically exuberant a full of events 10 count of ten official across Washington that evening the new president had no idea what the Republicans were planning United States surrounded by supporters at the inaugural balls the mood was hopeful [Applause] [Music] did not have a full sense of what Washington was going to be like for him he had not been in the middle of these kind of uh down and dirty fights the ugly reality of governing in Washington today you have in Obama's case gone within four years from being an Illinois State politician to the most famous person on Earth and you have confidence in both your judgment about what's the right way to go and your ability to make it go that way if he was too confident about being able to bring people together one can understand given the way he'd spent the previous four years ball gowns are on their way to the cleaners the party is over for both the new president what does Obama Americans right now that first week the president had two goals this is an ambitious turn the economy around so we're talking about massive I'm doing by working together with the Republicans so he's got some selling today the big debate in Washington is how big should the stimulus package be he is facing many silvering challenges hammering out details for his massive economic recovery we knew that he was dealing with a set of circumstances that required people to put politics aside and to address this crisis before it got worse this is a particular challenge he'd put together a huge 800 billion dollar stimulus package designed to kick-start the economy and he tailored it to appeal to the Republicans Obama thought you know what I'm going to start off with something that is going to look pretty appealing to these guys I'm going to have about 35 40 percent of this 800 billion dollar package be in the form of tax cuts a lot of Democrats are going to hate that but Republicans like tax cuts and we can just get everybody on board from the beginning he was told right from the start the stakes couldn't be higher this is the first of a series of tests and if he failed this one what would it say for his administration and his ability to deal with all the other challenges we're going to face President Obama promised the American people he would bring bipartisan Solutions he decided to make a symbolic gesture he'd come to them Mr Obama is hoping for support from both sides of the aisle take his proposal to the Republicans on their own turf the hill to try and sell his plan to Republicans he headed right for the meeting of the Republican caucus it's a rare day when a president goes to the Capitol to meet only with members of the other party how are you he spoke extemporaneously about the the stimulus he walked us through it probably 15 or 20 minutes just his thought process and why he was advocating these policies and then he opened it up for questions Republicans were ready for him and it was really during that q a as the members stepped forward and asked some pretty um I think appropriate questions about the amount of money that we were spending uh the the debt that would be taking on and I don't ever remember him saying you know okay we'll take a look at that it was more just defending his proposal as is and the Republicans had a surprise for the new president he arrives there thinking they're all going to talk and come up with some kind of agreement he's got all these tax cuts to offer them and he finds that they've already had a meeting and decided they're going to pose the stimulus package and he was deeply burned by it before he showed up Eric Cantor sent out an email said worried not that I'm voting against it Eric cantor's emails were against this their leadership told the members were not for any of it no matter what it is no just say no he came out empty-handed and had to face the waiting press Corps we had a wonderful exchange of ideas and I continue to be optimistic about our ability to get this recovery package done and we saw the president standing in the halls of the senate in the Capitol I'll never forget that it's he still looked like a senator of course he's now the president of the United States what's he even doing sort of lobbying for this I think everybody there felt good about that I was willing to explain how we put the package together how we were thinking about it and then we continue to welcome some good ideas it was a very strong signal that we were not going to get a lot of cooperation on this issue and if we weren't going to get it on this issue it was uh doubtful that we were going to get it on many others on this vote the yeas are 246. but Obama's party controlled the Congress the conference report is adopted and without a single Republican vote in the house stimulus bill passed so much for the president's charm offensive today it was all partisan Rancor and name calling one Republican voted for it turning a cold shoulder to the president's appeal for bipartisan Obama learns that being president is about understanding the constraints and frankly working the system rather than changing the system rowing glass against Wall Street as to the compensation for the CEOs at four of the biggest 18.4 billion then just a few weeks into his presidency another Wall Street problem the huge bonuses highest total on record the bonuses fueled public anger over the hundreds of billions of dollars in federal bailouts initiated by the Bush Administration it really really grades with most people that our tax money went to support these institutions and then when the rest of the country was in the worst of the recession you saw the the big Traders and the heads of the Goldman Sachs of the world walking out with these multi-million dollar pay packages do the banks need to be held accountable for their party and in Washington the news about the banker bonuses millions and bonuses didn't go over well in the Oval Office 18 billion dollars in bonuses the bonus and the compensation stuff made him more Angry than I'd ever seen him I remember him like really standing up out of his chair in the Oval Office and just being really pretty livid I mean the one thing he would one thing he would not stand for was you know the American people being played for as Chumps by these by these Banks and that that was something he he just really didn't like some on the president's staff saw this as an opportunity to get tough on the banks David Axelrod Obama's top political advisor very much wanted some scallops Robert Gibbs who was the press secretary but also a very senior political aide wanted Scouts White House economic adviser Larry Summers pushed the president to take strong action even seizing a troubled Bank one school of thought was well we need to take over to shut down to nationalize the weakest of the banks Wall Street would see that if you gamble with the country's fortunes and you fail you're going to get shut down you're going to lose but there was a deep divide among the president's economic advisors treasury secretary Timothy Geithner urged Obama to take a cautious approach Geithner didn't want to do it because it would kind of create this risk it would create this conception that the government was going to come in and mess with these Banks and that would frighten off private investors only the president could make the decision bold action against Wall Street Banks or cautious support to strengthen them while the bankers waited Obama kept his own Council is what Free Fall feels like when will the recession end the nation's top Bankers were summoned to the White House Leveling some very harsh words to the white the president wanted to talk to them looking for accountability from the nation's banking leaders today President Obama 13 Bankers were called into a room to meet with the president of the United States they were told that they were going to be chastised that this was going to be the opportunity for the president to vent The public's anger yeah they headed some of the largest banks in the country throughout the crisis they had received massive bailouts walking into that meeting these guys have not been this nervous since they're in Nursery School they're ultimately powerful Sovereign men atop their institutions but now they know that they really could get whacked [Music] no one knew what to expect Summer's bold action or geithner's cautious encouragement now they'd find out what the new president wanted to do Obama comes in and he's all business obviously there were a few pleasantries exchanged Obama spoke first the president made it pretty clear when he talked to us you know we're between you and the pitchforks guys and you need to just acknowledge that the bankers have essentially made a decision that they're prepared to go along with what needs to be done to resolve this problem to get the public back on the side of Corporate America but as the meeting progressed to their astonishment it became clear the president was in no mood for confrontation a particular challenge what's interesting is that the next statements and the rest of the meeting essentially is Obama's skinning back as fast as he can on that pitchforks punch and he says right after that what we have gentlemen is a public relations disaster that's turning into a political disaster and I'm here to help I interpret it as as kind of a watershed time banks with a catalyst to get us out of Miss morass that we're in you can talk so long about the past but at some point you've got to look at the present and the future and and I thought that's what he was saying the president had decided he would wait on reforming Wall Street and adopt the cautious approach the president sees himself as a pragmatist let's get through this let's be pragmatic let's not shoot for the moon and Miss let's accomplish as much as we can but let's do it with the certainty that we know we can produce by taking this a little more cautiously and the president required no firm commitments from the bankers I think it was clear it was an opportunity lost he had a room full of very frightened CEOs he was in a position then to make demands and he didn't he didn't want to disturb the banks he wanted them on their side so that things were as calm as possible there would be basically business as usual today the orchestration did indeed extend the end them the meeting had already received more than 180 billion dollars from the federal government with almost no conditions many of the president's liberal supporters were outraged and no strings attached I mean everybody else homeowners everybody else who's trying to get a loan everybody on Main Street small businesses not only are they not able to get loans but if they get anything there are huge strings attached how in good conscious in good faith can we not ask the banks demand from the banks some conditions upon getting bailed out that just seemed incredible if you look at their stock prices Citigroup was at 98 cents just a few weeks ago it's now up 75 banks are able to borrow money as the bankers left Wall Street investors breathing inside the White House the president had already moved on he was told at one point by an advisor your legacy is going to be preventing a second Great Depression and he says that's not good enough for me I mean it wasn't enough for him to Simply stop the economic problem he wanted to have a positive transformative agenda he wanted to take on Health Care reform once again his advisors were divided worried about the political consequences the White House had a debate about whether they should actually go forward with it Vice President Biden was opposed to do it absolutely opposed to doing health care so if you're going to do this go into it is opening know what the consequences are and what the potentiality for success is he was presented with all the political arguments and he said I get the politics of this but uh if we don't do this now it probably doesn't get done and he said what are we doing here I mean are we going to put our approval rating on the shelf and admire it for eight years this is a huge issue the president is taking on now question is Health Care reform really he had been in office only six weeks once again he would try to prove that bipartisanship could work he gathered in one room at one time all sides in the debate together lawmakers and interest groups cabinet officials members of Congress the White House team conferring on how to overhaul president kind of get his game on take control of the process many of these players for years if not decades had a record of opposing any sort of Health Care reform efforts and what a remarkable achievement that would be something that Democrats and Republicans business and labor consumer groups and providers all of us could share extraordinary pride in finally dealing with something that has been vexing us for so long the cost of Health Care Now in these first days a fragile Coalition seemed possible so let's get to work thank you but to keep it together Obama had to move quickly and that calculation is we'll move for a quick kill that's how they refer to it a quick kill on Capitol Hill it was thought that we the Senate was going to have a Bill by June we would have a Bill by July and we would go to conference and this would be over the president was reminded things have a way of slowing down in Congress would it take you live to a senate finance committee hearing looking at Health Care the process particularly in the finance committee just felt like that race that was being run starting on January 20th all of a sudden hit some mud and people's shoes got pretty pretty soggy and pretty heavy Republicans sensed opportunity Mitch McConnell was the Senate minority leader and McConnell was saying don't agree to anything don't agree to anything keep me informed but keep talking the Republicans were very clever in what they did they pretended that they were interested in this I call it the dance of the seven Veils I'm gonna I'm gonna be there and then I'm not and then I'm going to be there and I'm not now you see it now you don't it was all an illusion and meanwhile the clock is ticking the calendar is moving and it's getting later and later and later and the weight of public opinion is turning against this health care plan some members of Congress telling the president to slow down long way to go before the House and Senate we are now five weeks that pretty much puts a fork in the massive bill by August has Congress headed home for the summer recess there was still no bill some in Washington wondered whether Health Care reform could survive let's take a breather for a month we're heading into the summer recess he's a period of great frustration for the White House everything was getting stuck everything was slowing down and as they head into August they don't recognize what's about to hit them Victory on his health care plan is still far from issue I want to kill my grandparents you come through me first God will take care of Health Care yeah the anger by the summer of 09 had reached a boiling radical communist and socialists there was a polarizing quality about Barack Obama that kind of came roaring forward he became much more obvious to people with the rise of the tea party and the battles over Health Care the first week of August the anger was spilling out and I think that the members themselves were a bit taken aback by the intensity of that anger there was anger out there and members of Congress listened and they were scared it had been less than eight months Health Care reform had stalled bipartisanship had collapsed and there was still trouble with the economy it was time to turn things around [Music] in early September he headed for New York to the very Wall Street Banks he had accommodated earlier Obama visits New York today to deliver a major address to Wall Street the day after the fall of President Obama went to Wall Street today to Mark the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Obama came to persuade the big Bankers to join a push for reform down in lower Manhattan he'll be calling for immediate action to reform Financial regulations bailouts stress tests and alphabet soup of Treasury and fed programs he decides to have a meeting it's literally steps from Wall Street right I mean Federal Hull is you can walk down to the to the exchange floors Washington's power Brokers were there Congressional leaders his economic team president of the United States the titans of Wall Street didn't show up essentially none of the big figures from Wall Street show up to hear the speech they all they all just stay in their offices and do their work they don't even show up to the speech and it wasn't like the speech was scheduled uh you know without notice they just had better things to do that day earlier the president had taken the cautious course none of the bank CEOs had been fired interconnected if you go have a speech on Wall Street and people from Wall Street don't even show up for your speech and you're the president of the United States what more public display can you make that to try and force these guys to come and participate and they've apparently just felt like they could just wash their hands and walk away it's a very difficult day for Barack Obama we will not go back to the days of Reckless Behavior and unchecked excess that was at the heart of this crisis where too many were motivated only by the appetite for quick kills and Bloated bonuses once everything's calmed down once the banks have gotten what they want once revenues have gone up again once things seem stable they just completely disengaged and there was no way for the White House to force them to the table there was nothing that the White House could do the speech had not gone well in the end Obama would leave it to Congress to address Financial reform the young president prepares to deliver the most important speech of his first terminal Obama this week faces what some say could be a major meanwhile in Washington the president turned his attention back to healthcare summoned The Joint session of Congress after Consulting with a number of people I think the president concluded I need I need to take back control of this Madam speaker the president of the United States he understood that his presidency was at stake he understood that he was asking people to make a very difficult vote he also tried to explain the historic opportunity his audience really in that speech wasn't the public in general it was the people sitting in that chamber 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 it was an attempt to sort of recapture The High Ground it was an attempt to you know bring the debate back to a loftier level if you misrepresent what's in this but the tone immediately sunk to a new low there are also those who claim that our reform efforts would ensure illegal immigrants this too is false the reforms the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegal [Music] it's not true a lone Congressman says You Lie it was Republican representative Joe Wilson from South Carolina they crystallized this moment in Washington it crystallized the anger it crystallized the fervor of the opposition first that continues to reverberate across the country to tally disrespectful no place for it how did we get to a point where it's okay to yell you lie at the president while he's speaking to Congress the story didn't partisan tensions and the American people increasingly unhappy with the bill before unlikely it becomes many of the president's top advisors believed Health reform was now dead everyone on the team was very discouraged and his head of legislative affairs Phyllis schlero said Mr President you know unless you are feeling lucky I just don't think we're going to get this done and the president got up out of his chair and he walked over to his desk and he looked out the window and he said Phil where are we and Phil says we're in the Oval Office the president said and what's my name he said Barack Obama he said well of course I'm feeling lucky now get back to work and figure out how to get this passed in the end they told him if he wanted to get it done he would have to abandon bipartisanship and take on the Republicans the choice was to do nothing or to do something with the tools you had in the majority that you had he chose to do that once again Barack Obama the campaigner hit the road to sell the bill do not quit do not give up we keep on going we are going to get this done we are going to make history we are going to fetch Health Care in America with your help God bless you and God bless the United States of America first down to the wire on Health Care reform the house votes just hours it had taken more than a year on Sunday March 21st 2010 say 15 minutes the president asked the Democrats in Congress to take what they call a hard vote on this a potentially career-ending vote for an unpopular Bill the Motions adopted the 216th vote comes over a big cheer erupts 219 to 212. no votes are Republicans all Democrats no Republicans not a single Republican in the house or the Senate voted for the health care bill it's a huge piece of legislation and it is extremely unusual when any of the other major programs were were passed signed into law they were ultimately done with both Democrat and Republican votes at a time it was victory experienced Washington knew the president would pay for it it came at a high price the entire first year basically dedicated to this having their hopes for bipartisanship dashed now he and his party would have to wait for a verdict from the electorate the midterm elections [Music] Republican party is a whole new political world for the president in November of 2010 the president's party suffered a significant defeat now the Republicans back in power in the house for them the midterm elections were a disaster it was really one of the first times when the country had a chance to register their opposition to Obama election a game changer and boy did they repudiation of the president and his policy no sense in sugarcoating last night and that I think came as a surprise to this person who thought that people pretty much loved him the GOP gaining at least 58 seats I can tell you that you know some election nights are more fun than others some are exhilarating some are humbling every election many of those Democrats who had taken the hard vote to support Obama's health care bill had lost now the house belonged to the opposition trying to figure out what he does with President Obama acknowledged that he'd taken a shellacy I now pass that goes with it to the new speaker God bless you speaker Dana Speaker John Boehner had 87 new Republican lawmakers many of them deeply conservative these were not people who spent 25 years in politics in fact that was a big strike against you they were elected not to sell out the way so many politicians had done that they were elected to speak truth to power they'd spent the last two years running around particularly a lot of these new congressmen in their districts saying absolutely horrible things about the president his ability to lead his ideology his Integrity his birth certificate right these are not easy people to deal with this this is this is a very difficult ideological caucus with a with a very strong sense of self-righteousness and great ritual and animosity for the president for the president it was a whole new game I think he understood that the Glory Days were over at the moment of celebration of Barack Obama was passed and he was heading into a much tougher uh more trenchant period of his presidency when everything was going to be difficult when everything was going to be more challenging like all his predecessors the president had one Arena where he could act on his own let's go roll it in good job all American presidents hit that moment where they come to the conclusion that dealing with Congress is simply too difficult and they become foreign policy presidents in part because they have so much more leeway but for Barack Obama I think this happened early today we got the Obama plan for leaving President Obama announced the current phase of the war is coming to an end early on Obama had set a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq came into office promising to get out of Iraq his rise had a lot to do with his opposition to the Iraq War and I don't think you know he ever looked back but there was another secret sign to Obama's approach to the world candidate Obama had been critical of much of the Bush administration's top secret war on terror as president it was a different story his people made it clear that in the terrorism Arena he was going to be as tough if not tougher than the Bush People he was going to be extraordinarily aggressive he and his people reviewed all existing ongoing CIA covert operations and with the exception of aggressive interrogations endorsed all of them and doubled down on a number of them at the center of Obama's covert War targeted killings death by drone it was the right thing to do the fact that Barack Obama would be the guy that leads America into this world of predator drones and Navy Seals and cyber warfare and sort of the you know the dark arts of the special forces and the CIA and that would be a major part of his foreign policy I don't think anyone would have predicted that he's the first Nobel Peace Prize winner with a kill list and it is very disappointing to his base it's very disappointing to the civil liberties supporters who thought he was going to be much more of a stereotypical liberal in the spring of 2011 Obama's covert War scored a significant victory it began with a single piece of intelligence CIA director Leon Panetta had learned Osama Bin Laden might be living in a compound in Pakistan intelligence case was entirely circumstantial nobody saw Osama Bin Laden had a full ID on him how could he live for many years inside a walled compound and never leave why would Osama Bin Laden want to be 35 miles from Islamabad why would he want to be steps away from Pakistan's equivalent of West Point did any of this make sense the president called together his National Security team he said to his National Security team in the situation room I want everybody to tell me what your view is what you would do what your recommendation is and you got a very mixed response I think of the people in the room it was probably 50 percent roughly were in favor of the raid option that we ended up taking only the president could make the final decision on whether to send U.S troops into Pakistan he also knew that if it had gone wrong there would not only have been dramatically negative consequences for the men he sent in and for our country's security but also for his own politics it very well could have been a career ending decision the president decided to authorize the operation for Sunday May 1st and so I think that was one of the longest days that he sat as president he said to us at the time that the minutes were feeling like ours as we waited for the operation to begin they waited for the signal that Bin Laden was in the compound been Admiral mcraeven he provided that Paul signed Geronimo Kia killed in action and at that point people kind of start to make eye contact and there's a sense of not just relief but great pride and admiration might take in place and nobody spoke until the president said to everybody around him looks like we got him the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama Bin Laden the leader of Al Qaeda the killing of Osama bin Laden was a high point of thousands thank you and may God bless the United States of America bin Laden with thousands of Americans blood on his hands that spring the president would face another dramatic confrontation this time with the new republicans in Congress it began with a warning from treasury secretary Timothy Geithner a country was in danger of running out of cash Geithner says we could trigger a depression worse than the 1930s it will be indelible it will be it will last for Generations Tim Geithner is one scared Secretary of the Treasury the stakes are very high and so there is a great deal of I think you can only call it panic the new republicans in Congress were threatening to vote against raising the debt ceiling if Congress didn't act by August 2nd the federal government would be unable to pay its bills in 2010 when all of these Republicans were running for congress many of them have had Tea Partiers and and the rest of them riding the Tea Party wave the subject of the impending debt ceiling came up frequently and uh and virtually all of them uh campaigned saying pledging not to raise the debt ceiling early on Republican freshmen attended orientation sessions Republican strategist Frank Luntz ran one of them and I asked the question how many of you going to vote for the debt ceiling and only three or four of them raised their hands and I said if you vote for the debt ceiling the people who put you in office are going to knock you out if you vote for the debt ceiling you are voting for your own death certificate political death certificate this is an issue for his part the president decided to try something new personal politics he figured he could connect to the Republican leader John Boehner Obama told his staff John Boehner is a country club Republican a golf plane cigarette smoking deal maker the president invited Boehner to play golf with him at Andrews Air Force Base and afterward they go back to the clubhouse they're having a drink there's a photo op and it's at that point when Boehner says to the president hey you know on this debt ceiling stuff we ought to do something big on and off for weeks Obama and Boehner met in secret Boehner calls these the nicorettes and Merlot sessions the president's having iced tea and chewing a Nicorette and Boehner's having a glass of merlot red wine and smoking a cigarette it was Obama's dream negotiation a bipartisan deal if the speaker and the president could come to a deal and they both as we used to say hold hands and kind of jump off the ledge together then they could they could not Ram through but they surely with the strength of their positions uh would have a very good chance to sell on the package the president offered entitlement cuts the speaker offered increased revenue from taxes with less than two weeks to go they thought they had a deal it became known as the grand bargain it's not every day that the speaker comes to see the president quietly uh and says I'm willing to do a deal that everybody knows is going to be dangerous for him politically back at the Capitol Boehner would have to convince the new Republicans to go along John Banner discovers that deal making is not part of the program for a lot of these freshmen who've just come into office on the strength of conviction politics these freshmen understood what Washington was about and chose not to be of Washington and so they weren't cave like a typical politician did because they weren't typical politicians they got elected on principle not on politics obviously as the week wore on Obama began to worry about the grand bargain he calls Boehner at night he leaves a voicemail Banner doesn't pick so the president Boehner he said get back to me tonight John the president didn't hear I think he'd call me around 10 o'clock 10 30 instead have you heard anything I said no I tried to reach the speaker and I had his cell phone and he didn't answer which is very unlike him because he always answered his cell phone I reported that I hadn't heard back from him yet so we were you know there was trying to figure out what the hell was going on here the White House they get kind of angry as time goes on because they start to understand they're getting double crossed in some way and Boehner won't call back by Friday Speaker Boehner called a press conference we get this announcement that there's going to be a briefing in Boehner's conference room we don't know we still think there's a deal we think this is to announce a deal and I get to the conference room and Boehner's in there and he's sort of chuckling around with reporters and joking about his tan and been on the golf course and he seems in a good mood he left the waiting press now he was ready to return the president's call the speaker called back and by then everybody knew what was going on the president was pretty ticked we were all pretty ticked in the Oval Office when the president's on that phone call Rob neighbors the head of congressional relations sees the president is so angry neighbors worries that he's going to break the phone receiver Vayner put it quite succinctly he said the the president was angry and so angry and so hot he was spewing coals outraged Obama immediately called his own press conference I just got a call about a half hour ago from Speaker Boehner uh it is hard to understand why Speaker Boehner would walk away from this kind of deal and frankly I think that you know one of the questions that the Republican party is going to have to ask itself is can they say yes to anything can they say yes to anything tensions were unbelievably High the you know this is now one week from D-Day then it was Boehner's turn let me just say that dealing with the White House is like dealing with a bowl of jello they refused to get serious about cutting spending and making the tough choices that are facing our country on entitlement reform so that's the bottom line we're heading into the weekend with you know the best opportunity for preventing economic cataclysm on a on a global level from occurring has now gone there is no deal Congress now has less than a week to come up with a plan to raise the debt ceiling no sign of a deal and the clock is another White House meeting failed to break the deadlock just hours before the deadline expired a compromise that pushed the problem until after the presidential election the deal that finally emerged was one that everybody hated it was the creation of a committee to try to come up with enough spending cuts to meet a Target and if they failed to put in place a mechanism for automatic cuts that would beat those targets the compromise created what would become known as the fiscal cliff bipartisanship had failed Obama would once again have to recalibrate once the grand bargain fails once he frankly is proven that he could not Bridge The Divide between himself and John Boehner that he was wrong about the nature of American politics he was wrong about how close the two parties were to each other ideologically his message shifts to you know what American people we have two ideologies in this country and you've got to pick one or the other president link for his own three and a half years after he came to Washington on a promise of change Obama out on the campaign Trail today Barack Obama returned to the campaign Trail himself changed ahead for the president I think you see today President Obama with with a thicker skin more jaundice eyes has grown more skeptical even cynical perhaps about Washington as he made the case for re-election the man who promised to transcend differences emphasize them if I said the sky was blue if I said there were fish in the sea they said no they figured if Obama fails then we win it's hard to believe that it is the same person who was talking about bringing red America and blue America together because he is now a polarizing figure because of their policies the Republicans messed up so bad having seen the collapse around Washington from the debt ceiling debacle he knew he had to go into a different mode and he was prepared to do it and it was a much tougher campaign it was a grittier campaign it was not a message of uplift in the same way by any means that the first campaign was it's the same agenda that they have been pushing and his entire campaign message is about the differences between the two parties not the similarities this is a CBS News special by November 6th the campaign was over our President Barack Obama President Obama the president won a big electoral Victory but his margin of victory was by no means a landslide most incumbents do a little bit better the second time around he did worse the second time around so he has a lot that he has to deal with I believe we can seize this future together that night divisive rhetoric from the campaign was gone because we are not as divided as our politics suggests First theme he returns to after the election is the old Obama goes back to the famous line more than a collection of [Applause] the first four years he wasn't as successful as I think he promised to be in 2008. he's now won re-election it's a whole new day and he's got another shot Grace we will continue our journey forward but I think it is a lot harder the second time around the words alone won't do it it has to be through a series of actions that we'll see thank you America God bless you God bless these United States [Music] for more on this and other Frontline programs visit our website at pbs.org Frontline thank you front lines inside Obama's presidency is available on DVD to order visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800 play PBS Frontline is also available for download on iTunes foreign [Music]

Channel: FRONTLINE PBS | Official

Views: 1,479,194

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Id: NwLOuwtPAJ4

Length: 53min 16sec (3196 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 18 2023