SCOTUS upholds individual mandate

>> you ask people about some of the very individual parts of this, including you covering students, for example, up the age of 26, people with pre-existing conditions, those numbers for support go way up. chuck, give us a sense of what you know. take us inside that white house .

>> yes.

>> are you getting a sense of what the president is thinking and how they are going to approach this?

>> well, you know, it will be a shock to me if they decide to go strident at the supreme court . i think their expectation is the -- the one thing they don't expect a full overturn. in their heart of hearts, they think it is going to be somewhere in the middle. they still think they have a good shot at full uphold. they have always believed that, that at the end of the day , that they, you know, when you look at the various different conservative jurists on lower courts that have looked at this and have upheld the law, they believe that ultimately, this whole thing will get upheld. and that if there's parts of it that are struck down, it will be "severable" that the court will find it that way. so, they are not -- a full overturn and perhaps what chris is outlining, you know, perhaps maybe that changes their political dynamics. my understanding, that isn't the thinking they have, as far as the mechanics of today f it is a full uphold, we will hear from the president sooner rather than later. the more complicated decision is the longer it may take before we hear from him. i have not heard what the ? " wall street journal " reported, which is that there are three speeches already done. trust me, there are not. one speech they have ready, which is the full uphold. other than that not.

>> and i'm just told, am i right, angie, that we have a decision. so we are waiting. it will take just a few minutes. each news organization was allowed one person in there to bring out that decision. pete williams , our chief justice correspondent is in there. it may take him a couple of minutes actually to get to the camera and report that decision, but again, i think it's worth noting exactly what we are looking at here. this could get very complicated. so, it may take a while for us to parse this decision. but it could be upheld, struck down, parts of it could be upheld or struck down. the individual mandate, obviously, is the enter piece here. it is the key. let's go to pete williams . not yet? he is not there yet? all right. obviously, there are other parts of this that people are watching very closely. the court could rule and this is something people are watching extremely carefully, separately on whether new medicaid requirements for the states are constitutional and the court could say that the legal battle was frankly waged too early. that is the least likely of what's probably going to happen here, that that's the decision that they will make. we are expecting, again, for it to be voluminous. this is something that ? was a very long argument. the oral arguments were very heated. and you can see from the people who are standing outside the supreme court right now, just how important, how consequential this is going to be. andrea mitchell , give us your perspective from there in washington this morning about people holding their breath as we are waiting for the results of this to come down.

>> well, just imagine, you're looking at the scene live at the supreme court . only blocks away, mitt romney is supposed to respond at noon to his supporters. you have got all of the pl pelosi, john boehner on the hill, this is probably, as pete williams is reporting, court decision , assuming it is decisive and not muddled, in 80 years. we are talking about the whole future of state versus regulation you can of the commerce clues. that is how you important there is. there is reports the stolen valor act was struck down, one of the major decisions of this term, the final day of the term before the supreme court takes off for the summer. just to reinforce something that chuck todd said. remember that this ruling, the health reform act, affordable care act , which republicans like to call obama care, was upheld by one of the most conservative jurists just below the supreme court , judge larry silverman, who believed that it was constitutional. that was what the white house took as a strong argument, a strong indicate they're it would be upheld if it were given a fair hearing. ? now that we know the decision has been handed down what kind of decision this will be, but as pete and chuck and chris have been saying, you could have nine separate reasons for either upholding, in part or. we have seen major supreme court rulings, chris , they are very, very specific and individual jurists, even among certain blocks, can take certain and very different --

>> let me interrupt you. going