Plotting Against the Tea Party
TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. Some breaking political news: CNN has confirmed that tomorrow, President Obama will nominate Jeh Johnson to replace Janet Napolitano as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Johnson previously served as general counsel for the Department of Defense during President Obama's first term. As to whether there will be a battle over his confirmation, well, if you thought the bipartisan slap fight in Washington might finally be over, then you obviously didn't hear the president say this today.</s>OBAMA: Last night, I signed legislation to reopen our government and pay America's bills, because Democrats and responsible Republicans came together --</s>TAPPER: Hmm. Democrats and responsible Republicans. One hundred forty-four Republicans voted no last night and with fewer than three months to go before the next budget battle, the White House doesn't seem quite ready to make complete nice. Let's bring in our panel. Tim Pawlenty, president and CEO of the Financial Services Roundtable and, of course, former governor of Minnesota. CNN's chief congressional correspondent, the tireless Dana Bash. And former Clinton White House press secretary, Joe Lockhart. I want to start with this "Washington Post" report. Business groups stand by Boehner, plot against Tea Party. There's a quote from a man named Dirk Van Dongen, long-time chief lobbyist for the National Association of Wholesale-Distributors, who has known Boehner since the lawmaker's first election. He says, "I don't know anybody who takes the side of the Taliban minority." I assume he's referring to the Tea Party. Tim, is that how the business world views what happened over the last three weeks, the Taliban minority seized control of the House Republicans?</s>TIM PAWLENTY, PRESIDENT & CEO, FINANCIAL SERVICES ROUNDTABLE: Well, a few things. First, I don't think people should put a Taliban label on any elected representative or public servant. I think that's over the line, just in terms of rhetoric and what that implies. Two, the business community, of course, is more pragmatic than, say, the Tea Party in terms of their politics and desired outcomes. But the idea that they are going to come in and take out Tea Party members is probably misunderstood. The Tea Party members for the most part are in districts or states that lean pretty substantially in their direction and the idea that they're mostly politically vulnerable is probably not going to materialize. There will be some groups that will try that but I suggest to you, Jake, it won't be successful. And then, lastly, as to the Tea Party, keep in mind, you know, it's one slice of a broader coalition. They overplayed their hand here. One of the adages you have to keep in mind is when you negotiate, the person with the leverage wins.</s>TAPPER: Right.</s>PAWLENTY: They didn't have the leverage here.</s>TAPPER: Or any -</s>PAWLENTY: But, you know, there's an analog in the Democratic Party to the Tea Party, when you look at groups like Occupy, when you look at groups that want to just recklessly defund the Department of Defense. They don't represent the whole Democratic Party and the Tea Party represents only one slice of the Republican Party.</s>TAPPER: Is that a fair analogy?</s>JOE LOCKHART, FORMER CLINTON WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It is, but it misses an important point, which is within the Republican Party, the Tea Party does have the leverage. We just spent 16 days painfully, Dana hasn't slept in 16 days, because of the leverage they had. The business community doesn't have that much influence with the Tea Party. The Tea Party and most Republicans are more worried about someone coming from their right, coming from the Tea Party to challenge them, than anyone on the left. So, this all has to be resolved. I think it's very fair analysis, but the difference between the Tea Party and Occupy or a group on the left, those groups don't have leverage within the Democratic Party right now. The Tea Party does. And that's the fundamental problem for the party.</s>TAPPER: And, Dana, let's talk about the future of Democrat, Republican negotiations because that's obviously where this is going to go now. There's going to be negotiations over a budget. When President Obama came out last night before the House vote had finished, there were a lot of House Republicans who were very worried that he just was misreading House Republicans all over again.