Complete transcript. Excerpt below:
SEN. HARRY REID (D), MAJORITY LEADER: We are learning toward talking about a public option.
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OLBERMANN: Why the endless pussyfooting around? Our guest: Congressman Anthony Weiner.
Medical bankruptcy: We`re going to let people go broke trying to save their children from things like cystic fibrosis. At least we can make it easier for them to file for bankruptcy to save families, like the Burns, who are getting 60 collection calls a day in the E.R. because they could not go bankrupt past enough.
We`re joined by the chairman of the Senate subcommittee on administrative oversight, Sheldon Whitehouse -- to whom Elizabeth Edwards also testified.
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ELIZABETH EDWARDS, JOHN EDWARD`S WIFE: I sit in a chemotherapy chair once every few weeks and listen to people wondering how they`re going to pay for the kinds of care that they -- that they need in order to stay alive.
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OLBERMANN: The White House versus the evil empire: Now, two fronts are open. Press Secretary Gibbs on how FOX noise differs from news networks. "You and I should watch sometime around 9:00 tonight or 5:00 in the afternoon."
But the less obvious influence of FOX`s opinion shows has side doors through which to push phony news stories onto their supposed non-opinion shows and then into the real news media. Like, all the TV networks get together to do special theme weekend dramas and sitcoms on volunteering. Or, as Lonesome Roads put it.
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GLENN BECK, FOX NEWS HOST: It`s almost like we`re living in Mao`s China right now.
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OLBERMANN: Uh-huh?
And the reality show Richard Heene was publicity-stunting in hopes of getting, he had already written a theme song.
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OLBERMANN: Michael Musto on the American family Heene.
All that and more -- now on COUNTDOWN.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is fantastic!
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OLBERMANN: Good evening from New York.
The day after a new poll confirmed not only that do most Americans want a public option, but that most Americans want a public option even if not a single Republican would vote for it.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is asked about the public option -- and in our fifth story tonight: He gets cute about it while Americans are going bankrupt, dying.
But first, the new poll as Reid, Senators Chris Dodd and Max Baucus continued to hash out with the White House whether the Senate`s final health care bill will or will not include the public option. A new "Washington Post"/ABC News poll echoes the findings of an earlier one from Daily Kos/Research 2000 that we had discussed on this news hour, namely, Americans want a public option. Fifty-seven percent, more than elected Mr. Obama, want a public option; 36 percent, more than one out of three Americans, strongly want the public option.
Support up five points since the Republicans went on a town hall rampage against the public option on August. The numbers strongly opposed is down four points.
And bad news from Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, to whom Mr. Obama and Mr. Reid have granted considerable say in this process in hopes of winning her vote, despite her opposition along with every other Republican to the public option -- most Americans would rather have a public option than Senator Snowe`s vote for a plan without a public option. Fifty-one percent preferring a totally partisan, Democratic-only bill; only 37 percent of the country is saying, no sacrifice the public option to win some kind of bipartisan support.
And to all those who treat as axiomatic, the notion that Americans consider health care reform too much government, this wake up call, only 42 percent of the country thinks it`s too much. Fifty-five percent, the clear majority, say it is just right or not enough.
Nevertheless, when Mr. Reid was asked today whether talks are leaning toward a public option, he first joked that they are leaning about a public option -- whatever that was supposed to mean -- and then that they are leaning toward talking about it.
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