"The Elephant In The Room"
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome back to THE LEAD. Time now for the Politics Lead. Some would call it a heavy-handed pun. Others, a fat shaming cheap shot, but I don't think anybody would call it subtle. This is the new cover of "Time" magazine. which is owned by our parent company, Time Warner. It features freshly re-elected New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has battled with weight issues along with the headline "Elephant in the Room." It's funny because he's battling a serious weight problem. Let's bring in our panel, "Time" magazine's Deputy Washington Bureau Chief, Michael Crowley, CNN political commentator and Democratic strategist, Hillary Rosen and senior editor for the "National Review," Ramesh Ponnuru. Michael, you did not write the cover, I am not blaming you for the cover --</s>MICHAEL CROWLEY, DEPUTY WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "TIME": Nothing to blame.</s>TAPPER: Well, defend it. We are trying to teach people, kids especially, don't bully, don't make fun of how people look if they look differently, et cetera, and this is rude.</s>CROWLEY: Well, look, figuratively speaking it's very true. The 2016 race that's going to form around Christie, he's the elephant in the room in the race. Is he going to run and the other candidates will be anti-Christies in various ways. So I think fundamentally, that's what the cover's about. There is a literal element to it and I would just point out that Governor Christie himself has poked fun at himself. He pulled out a doughnut on David Letterman and I think that his weight is part of who he is and his political persona. Basically this is a story about how he is a huge political player in the Republican Party right now and will decide the early contours of the 2016 race. That's what the story is about.</s>TAPPER: I'm sure it's a fantastic story, but we're not talking about the story. It's the cover.</s>HILARY ROSEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, you know, actually, the elephant in the room means the person who nobody talks about. Certainly everybody's talking about Chris Christie. Even the analogy doesn't work. Look, I feel for Chris Christie here. I'm sure he is -- you spent the day with him -- it is constantly talked about. Everybody asks him about it. He lives with it and I assure you as somebody who struggles with weight myself, I'm sure a day doesn't go by where he doesn't find his own reminders of it. But you know, for the media to kind of take it and exploit it that way is just kind of -- I agree. It's just rude.</s>TAPPER: He has this historic win, wins 60 percent in a blue state. Obama won by 18 points, he actually won by more than 18 points, he won by 22 points. He wins the Latino vote, the women's vote running against a female. "Time" magazine comes out, you're fat.</s>ROSEN: There's a lot to criticize him for, believe me.</s>CROWLEY: I think there's a literal component, but there's more to it than that.</s>RAMESH PONNURU, SENIOR EDITOR, "NATIONAL REVIEW": I read the article. It's a good article. It doesn't go into is his weight something that should weigh on voters' minds, so to speak, is it something that's going to be a problem. It doesn't discuss that. The only time it comes up in this cheap shot on the cover.</s>CROWLEY: I'm glad you pointed out that's not what the story is about. The story is about how he is so important to the Republican Party right now, the direction it decides to take, is it more of a centrist moderate tack or more of a Tea Party tack and how the 2016 presidential race will be defined around him, and in that sense, he --</s>TAPPER: Let's get meta for a second. If whoever is in charge of the cover, if they hadn't done that, we might be talking about the great story in "Time" magazine about Governor Christie. Probably not, we probably wouldn't be, not to say you wouldn't be here. But on the other hand, you didn't write the story. It was an attempt to get buzz and generate conversation about "Time" magazine and it did so, making the construction like it's worth it, we'll take some raps for fat shaming. Is that a fair analysis?</s>CROWLEY: I'm not sure -- look, I'm not sure that's right. I think that the point that the cover makes is an accurate one, that this is the guy who is figuratively, it is also literally true the biggest player in the room and in the republican party right now, and I just think that's a true way --</s>TAPPER: I'm putting you in a tough spot.</s>PONNURU: They thought they were being high-minded by not using 800 pound gorilla.</s>TAPPER: God bless them for that. Let's turn to Obamacare. Of course, yesterday the president met with 15 Democratic senators who are up for re-election next year to talk about the dismal rollout of Obamacare. On the list, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, who is already the target of this political ad.</s>ANNOUNCER: She sided with Barack Obama.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If I had to vote for the bill again, I would vote for it tomorrow.</s>TAPPER: They already put their political careers on the line to get this bill passed. Many in the House were not re-elected. How big a price will we see when it comes to Senate elections next year?</s>ROSEN: You know, I think it's a little too early to say there's going to be fallout, but I think these senators are putting the administration on notice that unless, you know, the administration can actually keep its promises that it's made to have this thing fixed by the end of the year, that they are going to be calling for an extension and they may even pass it over some objections and see where that goes. You know, so far, the senators I talked to still have the administration's back, still have Kathleen Sebelius' back. I think they just want to know that on this next round, their concerns have been heard and the problems get fixed.</s>TAPPER: Ramesh?</s>PONNURU: Well, I think that if you're a Democrat who is up for election in 2014 and you're not concerned about how this is going, you don't have your head screwed on right. I think there is a lot of nervousness on the Hill and a lot of gleeful anticipation of this among Republicans, and I think also, although there has been a lot of debate as to how much of a factor this was in Virginia, a lot of people, even on the Democratic side, have sneaking suspicion that this helped make that a close race.</s>TAPPER: You think so? What's your take on this? Do you think this had an effect in Virginia, I think there's a lot of debate about that, and do you think this really could cause Mary Landrieu or any of these Republicans -- I'm sorry, any of these Democrats in purple maybe red- leaning states or maybe solid red states, to lose their jobs?</s>CROWLEY: I do, and there are a lot of them. I think the biggest problem, the substance of this is terrible, but it also changed the subject, right. So the Democrats had this wonderful story line where the Republican Party was threatening to tank the economy with the shutdown and they were all fighting with one another, and some of these tea party figures were saying things that were far outside the political mainstream, and that conversation just screeched to a halt. Now these poor Democrats who really didn't have much to do with the actual implementation of the plan suddenly are finding themselves in the hot seat for things that, you know, have to do with technology problems that were managed out of the federal bureaucracy far from their day to day lives and their offices.</s>TAPPER: It's not just that, not just the technology. We are talking also about individuals who are losing their health plan despite President Obama's -- I think we moved on from the web site in some ways.</s>PONNURU: But they intersect in such a damaging way because you've got these people whose current insurance plans are being canceled who are going to have to get new insurance and will be fined if they can't because the websites aren't working.</s>TAPPER: That's what really is unfortunate about this. There are a lot of people who support Obamacare, who want to sign up for these plans, and because of the problems with the web site, they're not able to right now.</s>ROSEN: I think we're a long way from this, you know, being that kind of crisis.</s>TAPPER: We're not there yet. No, no.</s>PONNURU: Deadline's in a couple weeks.</s>TAPPER: You said end of the year. They actually said end of November was what they originally said. We'll see. Hillary, Ramesh and Mike, thanks so much. Great to see all of you. Coming up next in the POP CULTURE LEAD, it's the country music song of the year, based on true life heartbreak. We'll catch up with the real star of the song written about the son he lost. Plus, he's the terrorist mastermind who allegedly planned the attack on Nobel Prize nominee, Malala and he just got a big promotion. Stay with us.