Halperin: Whatever SCOTUS rules on health care is bad for Obama

>> good morning. it's monday, june 25th . welcome to " morning joe ." monday, monday, monday. with us on set msnbc and "time" magazine senior political analyst mark halperin . hello.

>> good morning.

>> the president of the council on foreign relations richard haass and former treasury official and " morning joe " economic analyst steve rattner.

>> good morning.

>> hello, rattner. how are you doing?

>> lot going on.

>> lot of news. start over in egypt .

>> you want to go there?

>> financi" financial times " trumpeting the headlines, islamist wins the election.

>> 16 months after millions of egyptians forced hosni mubarak to step down the head of the muslim brotherhood is set to take over as the country's new president. the announcement of mohamed morsi's victory met by widespread celebrations in tahrir square. he becomes the arab world 's first elected islamist head of state. he took in 52% of the vote in a runoff election against egypt 's former prime minister. the transition, however, still faces significant hurdles, including long-standing tensions between the muslim brotherhood and the nation's secular military rulers. the army has recently seized new control over legislation and sharply limited the reach of presidential power.

>> richard , what's the import of this?

>> the answer is that the military in egypt decided they couldn't have a confrontation with the muslim brotherhood . they didn't want to have things move to the streets because they didn't want to face the choice of backing down or killing place. as mika said, there's still no constitution, there's no parliament and they've stripped the presidency of most of its power.

>> i was going to say, how much power by the end of the day will he have?

>> by the end of the day i think he will have a lot. this sets the stage for a confrontation between the military and muslim brotherhood . and over time , i would put my bet with the muslim brotherhood . this is just the end of the beginning. long way to play out and there's a showdown coming between the muslim brotherhood and the military that doesn't want to let go of power and sooner or later , that showdown is going to be resolved and then i think we're going to find out what is the muslim brotherhood really plan to do with political power ? a year ago these guys were in the streets or in jail. now they're one step away from running egypt . so, this just simply sets the stage for the confrontation.

>> so the -- so the egyptian military this morning still in charge?

>> absolutely. this is still mubarak is in charge of egypt , the military in charge of egypt . i don't see how they endure.

>> we have a developing story where dozens of syrian troops have reported defected to turkey including colonels and soldiers. turkey is warning nato action after one of its military jets was shot down by syria over the weekend. straining a tense situation in the region. turkey 's president says the f-4 was testing radar inside turkey 's brordser when it crossed into syrian territory. 15 minutes later the plane was shot down without warning after turkey says the jet had already returned to international air space . turkish officials are dismissing speculation that the plane was running a spy mission. the search continues for the two missing pilots. secretary of state hillary clinton called the attack brazen and unacceptable. turkey has backed international plans to transition syrian president bashar al assad from power. nato is expected to meet about the incident tomorrow.

>> richard , back to you. it seems that now the syrians have unnecessarily upped the ante.

>> it does. turkey is bringing this to nato . turkey doesn't seem to be jumping all over this. not if they're looking for their version of a gulf event to try to go to war. what's happened to me, the larger story, beginning to see some unraveling around assad and i take that as good news. i actually think that this regime doesn't have that much longer to survive and not so much you're going to need a turkish or nato -led military intervention but more sanctions, diplomatic isolation, more arms with cia guidance. you're beginning to see the defections, the sunnis are peeling away interest the assad regime. that's the trend we want to see.

>> mark halperin , what a huge week this week in washington , d.c., the eyes of the nation, of washington , the nation, on the supreme court . momentous decision coming down that could shape not only the way people get their health care , but how the auto he lex turns out in the end of the day .

>> we've all tried to game out who's going to win. we can't say who's going to win the election until we see what court decides and how both sides handle it. one interesting thing that became more clearer over the weekend governor romney is going to put himself front and center. he he's not going to leave it to members of congress and other people who have been involved in this debate. he's going to be front and center and an interesting debate about politics but policy. as you said, health care is going to have to be figured out whatever the court rules.

>> and mika, certainly everybody was talking about it yesterday on the sunday shows.

>> leading voices from both parties addressed the potential fallout to the health care ruling on nbc's "meet the press."

>> i think it's a huge defeat of the supreme court moves forward to strike any part down, even just the individual mandate for the american people , just this week, several million kids got their health insurance . i think there's going to be a real uproar against a politicized supreme court . here they're making political decisions. this is a clear constitutional issue. the interstate commerce clause of the congress dictates that this can happen. it's going to energize the democratic base and that is important for the president.

>> the health care laws currently structured is discouraging job creation and expansion of business in america and that issue will continue to be faced through the laws of health and if the law is overturned republicans hopelefully we have the majority and president romney will have to come up with a way to replace what obama care does.

>> steve rattner, looking at the week ahead, the big question is whether anthony kennedy decides to overturn obama care or not. what are you looking at?

>> i have no idea what they're going to do. i think chief justice roberts is a complicating factor. he's made clear he'd rather not have a totally partisan court , he would like to have decisions by something other than a 5-4 majority. how he can make this work i don't know. the stakes are very high. from purely political and did-point losing this would be very tough for him during this election campaign and personally i think a wrong decision for the country.

>> could he build a bad outcome as -- into the narrative that the republicans, even the conservative court are part of what's stalling this country?

>> i think it's hard.

>> you know, rich, i have thought along, mark halperin , a loss could be a win for the democrats, then goy back to -- then i go back to --

>> a loss is a loss.

>> bill clinton in '93 and '94, and '94 and '96, the guy got hammered around, loathed by a lot of people, but he figured out how to win. that's when i learned politically americans love winners. things can be going terribly for you, but if you get the big win, legislatively or any other way, they turn your way. they sense strength, sense power and my opinion is sort of shifting now. i think a loss here on the health care plan this week is bad news for the president politically.

>> i actually think whatever the court rules it's bad for the president and that's not my opinion, based on reporting including with a lot of democrats. if they uphold the law which is unpopular it's going to be a rallying cry for republicans. even if the law is upheld, advertising and campaign rhetoric from republicans will be all about health care . democrats will largely -- not more than a handful of democrats in the country who will put health care front and center.

>> why are democrats hiding from health care ? they spent -- they waste 18 months of a filibuster-proof majority fighting for health care reform . why are they all running away from it?

>> personally, i think the health care bill law that reflects lots of compromises would be a great step forward . i think it would be up there along with medicare and a number of other things that have happened in terms of social programs that really make a long-term impact. but what you have to understand about this health care bill, is that it is heavily devoted toward insuring the uninsured who come on. it does things for the other 320 million americans, children under 26, preexisting conditions, but fundamentally this bill is about insuring the uninsured. that's not the most popular thing.

>> it's supposedly about controlling costs and the president believes that it will. he's not convinced any of the constituencies in the country, couldn't convince the media, republicans, business.

>> cbo, everybody else has come out and said it's not going to control costs. we knew that when it passed.

>> the idea you could extend insurance to 30 million more people and revenue or budget neutral nobody bought into that.

>> and they kept fighting for it. so, i don't understand and so when do we expect -- when do we expect -- tuesday, wednesday?

>> maybe today?

>> thursday i think.

>> yeah.

>> i don't think it will be today.

>> wow.

>> how -- it could be a defeat for president obama clearly, clearly. i think we've come back to that. how much of a gain for mitt romney looking at this purely politically in terms of the election?

>> he wants to run on the lack of specifics and say i'm going to do things differently than the president. on the pipeline, on --

>> yeah but --

>> on health care .

>> he's the godfather of this health care .

>> godfather of it in massachusetts .

>> can he run against a health care plan that he helped write?

>> he can say what he said, which is i'll replace it, washington shouldn't tell the states what to do on health care . he survived the republican nominating fight finessing health care . that was the real challenge. in the general election his message is simple, the court , whether they -- if they strike it down he's going to say it needs to be replaced who do you want to replace it, me or the guy that wasted a year and half of the country's time and if they uphold it, country, you don't like the law only way to replace it is not through the court but a new president. i think he'll be very aggressive and yes, people in the press will continue to say, you passed a law like this in massachusetts , but he will bold through it the way he did in the nominating fight.

>> he's got a riff on this. he's got a riff of saying that it was right for massachusetts , doesn't mean it's right for every state and therefore what's the federal government doing mucking around here and let the states decide. if they want a health care like this that's fine. if they don't that's fine too. it's a little like what marco rubio was saying yesterday about the arizona, you know, law on immigration, which is may be right for arizona not right for florida. that's how they're sort of working through these thorny issues.

>> over the weekend i was focused on focused on europe , reasons different than you. i was watching euro 2012 to watch the dreaded italians winning, but front page of the " financial times ," spain is asking for another bailout. "the wall street journal " talks about a new austerity champion in the spanish government . banks, my gosh, all the banks that got downgraded this past -- i guess it was on friday after we went off the air. what does that mean? does it keep getting worse?

>> let's start with europe . so the spanish news isn't particularly new news. they asked for the bailout informally a while ago. this is the formal request. this is a big week in europe . may be a big week for health care but a big week in europe because you have a meeting of the eu ministers which people are going to expect something to happen. what europe really needs next is to do something to shore up its banks. the real scary part of europe which doesn't get as much attention is the idea that you could actually have a run on the bank in europe . you could have people start to pull their deposits from these banks in europe which would be devastating and something that would be very difficult for the ecb to be able to deal with.

>> richard ?

>> so that's -- that's what the ministers are focused on for this week which is to try to put in place at least the framework for some kind of europe -wide banking system of aid and banking system of regulation and it will be another week where if they actually do something, people will exhale and if they don't, it will be another high wire act .

>> with europe on this issue we should prepare ourselves for further disappointment. this is not going to be a break-through week. can i talk about something good in europe .

>> oh, my gosh, yes.

>> i prefer you didn't, but go ahead.

>> there's an extraordinary event this week. martin mcginness, one the leaders of shinfan in northern island, used to be one of the leaders of the provisional ira is going to meet the queen. you are going to have the queen in northern ireland shaking the hand of someone who has, shall we say, a past with terrorism. this is at least as big, if not bigger, in the british/irish context as yitzhak rabin shaking yasser arafat 's hand.

>> it's the next stage in the normalization of the northern ireland peace process becoming a place defined by the troubles for 3,000 people lost their lives in years and years of essentially civil war becoming a normal part of europe now. this is an extraordinary development. literally in some ways brings to an end hundreds of years of tension between britain and ireland.

>> who would have ever believed this, going back to the violence of the '70s, violence of the '80s, who would have believed this. you had a key role there, richard . we're going to give you all the credit for it. it is --

>> yes.

>> george mitchell deserves, tony blair deserves the credit. one of those remarkable sort of milestones where i never thought in my lifetime i would ever see. the ira killed the queen's cousin, lord mountbat, less than 25 years ago. he gets killed along with other members of the family and now you have people willing to put the past behind. this is an extraordinary sort of symbol of what sometimes can happen in politics. we haven't seen anything like it in the middle east that's nice to see it here.

>> so mark, let's go from the middle east to new york state. "the new york times" profiling a guy that many believe will be running for president in 2016 . the "times" talking about andrew cuomo and possibly running out of leverage over the same sex issue matter. talk about what he's doing and how he's gearing up already for 2016 .

>> well, be he got off to a fast start. albany is a tough place. i think the greatest achievement he's had from a process point of view is you had governor spitzer and governor pataki both thinking they were going to go to albany and change it. we have a sophisticated state and city here, entrenched most unsophisticated horrible legislatures in the country.

>> it's just --

>> dysfunctional.

>> it's an embarrassment to the state. part of why he got off to a fast start he figured out how to use carrots and sticks to get things through. he kept a low profile , stays off high-profile national interviews and he wants to be a national leader and if we don't have a biden or clinton running in 2016 he is well positioned as anybody else to run.

>> hillary is running, come on. rattner, hillary is running, isn't she? your friends with hillary and the family. she's running?

>> i hope she does. i hope she does. i think she's incredibly talented and think she has a lot more to give.

>> what did you and all your friends in the european enclave have to say? do they want her to run?