[Jessica Yellin, Cnn Anchor:] Thanks, Wolf. I'm Jessica Yellin. John King is off today. An important story is just about to break in California. A jury has reached a verdict in the case of a white former police officer accused of killing an unarmed black man in Oakland. We are standing by for the verdict to be read. Our Casey Wian will have all the details when that happens. But also today, there is big political news. The 2010 election site got a lot more interesting and a whole lot hotter this afternoon. Out in Missouri a few hours ago, President Obama rolled up his sleeves, took off the gloves, and hit the Republicans with everything he has.
[Barack Obama, President Of The United States Of America:] They are trying to sell you the same stuff that they've been peddling I'm just saying. They are peddling that same snake oil that they've been peddling now for years. They say no to everything. Don't they, though? Everything and I go and I talk to them and say, come on, we get something going here. No. We don't want to. So we know how this movie ends, right? We don't want to see it again. We've seen this one. They're trying to run an okey-doke on you. Trying to bamboozle you.
[Yellin:] He sure sounded pumped up. And if there's ever a date we need, Democratic strategist James Carville and Republican strategist Mary Matalin, this is it. So first to you, Mary, does the president have a point?
[Mary Matalin, Republican Strategist:] What's an [okaydoke]?
[Yellin:] I had to Google it.
[Matalin:] It's just he keeps using this has pretty become a classic tactic of his now, the strong man fallacy to just characterize the opposition as something that's not happy. That's not what the Republicans are offering. The Republicans are offering a pushback on things that the majority of the country opposed of these policies that the president's put in place. That's what they're offering. It's a clear contrast. So that's good for the base that he's doing, but it's not doing anything for independents.
[James Carville, Democratic Strategist:] I thought it was pretty good. He was kind of he was kind of good on the attack. He didn't look mean, you know, of course, it wasn't him that said that the banking crisis was act. It wasn't him that defended BP after that $20 billion and there's a lot of Democrats out there that are saying, hey, you know we got we've got to make the case, and I certainly rather see the president doing that than lecturing Michigan graduates about civility or some such thing. Let's be shocked. We've got an election coming up.
[Yellin:] We'll get to the story line in a minute. I want to play one thing for you because the president tried to draw a clear contrast between Democrats and Republicans. So listen to this.
[Obama:] We're going to face a choice in November and I want everybody to be very clear about what that choice is. This is a choice between the policies that got us into this mess in the first place and the policies that are getting us out of this mess.
[Yellin:] So, James, he's been president for 18 months. At this point, is it his economy? Should he be taking a little bit more responsibility right now?
[Carville:] Let me point out the fact that it's very likely in the year 2010, Obama will produce as many private sector jobs as the previous administration produced in eight years. So I think he's entitled to say that he didn't inherit an ant, he inherited the worst recession since the Great Depression. That's certainly his case. Voters are going to hold him accountable. I think he'll be able to talk about these things. But he has every right to go out and people are like shocked the president is out campaigning. My God, what are we going to do? The democracy will fall apart. No, he's out making a case. He should and a lot of Democrats are grateful for that and he can point out in contrast his 2010 compared with the eight years of the previous administration.
[Matalin:] Not making a case and the evidence continues to compile against him. He said his stimulus policies, which have blown a hole in the deficits. Our worst year of deficits is one quarter of his first-year deficit. He's quadrupled the structural debt and that's before the expiration of Bush tax cuts, et cetera. He promised with this non- productive stimulus package to lower unemployment. It's gone up. We have fewer jobs, and we have greater debt. That's what this election's going to be about.
[Yellin:] Well, he's not just taking shots at the Republicans. He's also taking shots at you guys. Listen.
[Obama:] Sometimes these pundits, they can't figure me out. They say, well, why is he doing that? You know, that doesn't poll well. Well, I've got my own pollsters. I know it doesn't poll well, but it's the right thing to do for America and so we go ahead and do it.
[Yellin:] He didn't call you out by name, but he calls out the pundits. Is that a winning strategy? He does it all the time.
[Matalin:] No. Do you think any person out there unemployed or employed who is worried about the future feels that this president has violated the intergenerational promise? Cares what we think or any pundit thinks and wants to see their president doing battle with pundits? It's so disconnected from where people's heads are.
[Yellin:] James, he also goes after the cable [inaudible]. Do you think it works?
[Carville:] He doesn't like us. But that's OK too. I think it's all but I think he does try to get the Joe Kline vote or something like that. That's always a good thing to do.
[Yellin:] You know, one of the things that struck me is how similar some of the things the president said today sounded to what I heard him say when he was on the campaign trail in 2008. First listen to this today.
[Obama:] These folks drove the economy into a ditch and they want the keys back. And you've got to say the same thing to them that you say to your teenager. You can't have the keys back because you don't know how to drive yet.
[Yellin:] And I thought, ding, ding, ding, I heard him say something similar when I was in Missouri covering him in October of 2008. Listen.
[President Obama:] Eight years of trickle down, Wall Street first, Main Street last policies that have driven our economy into a ditch.
[Yellin:] He's riding the same message, James.
[Carville:] Well, so what. That's great. I thought we were supposed to have I thought it was an admirable thing to say the same thing as president as you said in the campaign. Now we're attacking somebody for saying the same thing he said in the campaign. It used that we'd attack somebody for saying something different when they were president than they'd say in the campaign. I couldn't agree with him more. He's making a point. He's doing what a president and a politician should do in an election year. But this consistency and that's a good thing.
[Matalin:] OK. There might be consistency, but there's no delivery. What the voters want is delivery. He's a good talker. We know he's a good talker, but he's a Chinese dinner, you know. Two hours later, you're hungry again and you don't even remember what you ate.
[Carville:] What he's saying has the added benefit of being factual, which is good. That's a good thing that he's not only consistent, but he's being factual. That's a fact that the Republicans drove the economy in a ditch. The recession started in December of '07.
[Yellin:] Didn't he promise to come to Washington and find a way to work with Republicans and change the ways of Washington? And he has not been able to do that. So if he's saying that they drove it into a ditch, nothing's changed since he became president.
[Carville:] He said that during the campaign, he's being consistent. That's what
[Yellin:] Shouldn't he be sharing the keys now?
[Matalin:] No.
[Carville:] Again, his point is that he tried to work with them. But what he's saying is we're accusing him of saying the same thing when you're president you said in the campaign. Generally that's thought to be a good thing.
[Matalin:] Not all of this is so irrelevant to voters out there. What they care about is the size of the debt, which is unsustainable, the unemployment that is not shrinking. They don't care if he's a great campaigner and he did promise. And it was one of his aspiration of promises that people particularly independents were drawn to was that he was going to work across the aisle. He has more splits within his own party he's not even working with his own moderate and conservative Democrats and within the first weeks of being in Washington, both he and leader Reid and Pelosi, we won, we don't have to work with them. And it started out in that direction and never improved.
[Yellin:] OK, I think we've got to take a break right now. When we come back, we are going to have more with Mary Matalin and James Carville and we're monitoring the developments in that trial with the verdict. We'll bring you the verdict as soon as it happens.