Obama’s Private Remarks Caught on Planned Parenthood, Obamacare

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Apr 15, 2011   |   10:34AM   |   Washington, DC

A White House reporter last night caught pro-abortion President Barack Obama talking privately to donors using a microphone that transmitted the audio to the main correspondent press room.

CBS Radio News White House correspondent Mark Knoller had no idea the audio feed from Obama’s microphone would be fed live into the White House press room until he happened to be the last reporter left in the room on Thursday night. In the candid remarks Knoller heard, Obama talked about his private dealings with pro-life House Speaker John Bohener in the budget negotiations that led up to votes Thursday on de-funding Obamacare and Planned Parenthood.
“I said, ‘You want to repeal health care? Go at it,” Obama told supporters. “We’ll have that debate. You’re not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. You think we’re stupid?’”
Obama said he told Boehner that Democrats spent a year and half getting Obamacare, which has loopholes allowing abortion funding ad presents rationing concerns, in place and that he and his party paid “significant political costs” in enacting it — to the point that Obama said he would not allow Republicans to start dismantling it via the budget.
The CBS correspondent also heard Obama talk about Planned Parenthood de-funding and his demanding of Boehner that a separate vote be held.
“Put it in a separate bill,” Obama told the Democratic donors about what he told Boehner. “We’ll call it up. And if you think you can overturn my veto, try it. But don’t try to sneak this through.”
Obama also told Democratic supporters last night that he expected Republicans to continue doing everything they can to stop or reduce the effectiveness of his political agenda.
Conservative blogger Ed Morrissey responded to the candid Obama remark and said Republicans should have every opportunity to de-fund Obamacare.
“Part of Congress’ role is to prioritize funding, since — contrary to Beltway belief — the US can’t just spend whatever it wants on everything it wants.  If the House believes that ObamaCare is bad policy and that its central provision is unconstitutional, then it should act to defund it,” he said. “This isn’t rocket science.  In fact, it’s basic civics.  One might think a “Constitutional scholar” would recall the concept of checks and balances in the federal system of government, where three coequal branches limit the power of the others.”
“The power of the purse is one such check and balance, a way to ensure that the executive branch doesn’t run roughshod over the legislature, and over the rights of the people. After all, Congress is the “people’s branch” of government, and the House is the people’s chamber of the legislature, which is why the Constitution gives it the authority to create tax policy and initiate budgets,” he added.
Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted for the Continuing Resolution funding the federal government that contains a ban on abortion funding in the nation’s capital. House lawmakers also supported efforts to de-fund Planned Parenthood, but senators voted no.
On a 260-167 vote, lawmakers approved a funding bill that reinstates the abortion funding ban in the District of Columbia that President Barack Obama and Democrats overturned in their budget bills last year. Following that vote, House members voted 241-185 for a resolution that would prohibit the Planned Parenthood abortion business from qualifying for family planning funds. The vote saw almost all Republicans supporting de-funding while Democrats generally opposed it.
After the House voted, members of the Senate voted 58-42 against the resolution to de-fund Planned Parenthood. The vote was mostly partisan — with Republicans supporting de-funding and Democrats voting no — though pro-abortion Republicans Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Mark Kirk of Illinois, and Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine voted no as well.
Also, on a 240-185 vote yesterday, the House of Representatives voted to strip the Obamacare health care law of its federal funding. The Senate voted immediately afterwards 53-47, on a party-line vote, and defeated the Obamacare de-funding measure.