>>> now. on eouse is set to whether to hold attorney general eric holder in contempt of the senate. a number ? of democrats are expected to join with their republican colleagues in voting for contempt. as many as 30 dems could dessert holder making him the first cabinet member in history to be held in contempt of congress . we have luke russert on the hill. thanks for coming back.
>> so, luke , what's going on? when do we expect this vote to happen?
>> right now we're in a series procedural votes and we're having a debate from both sides floor. p.m., you will that aretwo occurring in the house. a vote to hold criminal contempt and a vote to hold eric holder in civil contempt of .ongress essentially the ouse if they wanted to could lawyer, their own pursue this case into various courts that would hen try to instruct mr. holder cooperate with the congressional investigation. the problem with that is that and the house's authority on this when a new congress is voted in. what we're really seeing here is a political show. the red meat of the -- they want eric holder 's head, so they're ? going to get it today out of the house, but a lot of democrats say, and gop leaders admit that the timing is not -- it will not be the lead story, which it would be on any other day and the minority whip steny hoyer on the house floor, usually the market is 87 days this. will happen in a week. it's a fascinating development here on capitol hill , eric holder will be the first cabinet member held in contempt of congress in the history of the republic .
>> thank you, luke for joining us again. so, guys what are we to make of this vote.
>> i think luke hit the key point there at the end is that the timing is not a coincidence. and this is everything about -- it has pretty good political instincts about what's good for his party and what's bad. he has very little room to maneuver. this is a scandal that was born sort of on the fringes, it's come into the main stream, but it's starting to look like a fringe theme, some members of congress are saying that what this really was was a conscious attempt to bring drugs to mexican drug gangs, it's starting to sound really fringy. we're going to do it in the deadest period for that.
>> but now we see the ? fortune magazine take on the story, they're not actually trying to let --
>> that was never atf policy.
>> but the guys did walk. that's not a lie. the fortune magazine piece is alleging that the gun walking wasn't the plan of the atf, but the guns walked. we know they walked.
>> who debunked the fortune magazine article?
>> town hall. nobody's disputing that piece. so curious timing on the vote today and speaking of curious timing let's go back to the story that we have been talking about today in the cable news world and on the twitter-verse.
>> they have said that it can't be upheld under the commerce clause , the individual mandate can't.
>> the individual mandate is surviving as a tax.
>> millions of americans heard that the supreme court has upheld the health care law .
>> big news day.
>> yeah, fun day to be in news.
>> for pete williams .
>> one thing that they keep talking about is that it's upheld as a tax, but the other four justices, said no, the commerce clause fits here, but we want to make a deal, we want to get this done. you want to have it as a tax, fine. four justices say that this does fit as interstate commerce . roberts found an idea that's consistent in his mind with jurisprudence. but i'm looking at the reaction on ? the right to chief justice roberts today. he did not appreciate the needle that they're threading here. i think they actually called him a traitor to conservatism. a conservative republican saying i lost two friends today, america and chief justice roberts .
>> not overdramatic. it is a great tweet and if you look back at what these republicans have been saying about chief justice john roberts in the past. it was slightly different. i think we have a tweet from john boehner , supreme court justices john roberts and samuel alito , president bush 's two successful appointments to the supreme court aren't who they hoped and thought they were, justices committed to a fair and justice interpretation of the constitution.
>> if that group is mad about what roberts has done, then clearly he's done the right thing. and he's not the partisan person that we thought he was. i'm just thrilled.
>> you love john roberts now.
>> i love john roberts today. i'm wearing a john roberts t-shirt under all this.
>> i woke up this morning to howard dean on " morning joe ." he doesn't know that, but i woke up to him this morning on " morning joe " doing what howard dean does best which is spin. and he put on this incredibly impressive performance, we all love howard dean as the network. this is amazing agility, take a look.
>> romney claims victory but obama gets victory, this is the most unpopu i don't think it should ever have been there in the first place. there's a lot of things that people like, so i believe that even though the obama folks have put up a huge fuss about the individual mandate, romney is going to say the president's initiative got ruined and all this kind of stuff. but the truth is people now have a lot to like in this bill.
>> when it comes right down, huge bin for obama . by that logic, it was upheld, it was a huge loss?
>> democrats were moping and saying what are we going to do to get over this. and republicans were excited that we're going to win this thing finally, this is going to move us toward victory in november. this is a huge momentum gainer for obama . this is a huge legitimacy gainer for obama . let's -- like i was saying before, we have had a lot of false alarm predictions on what the turning point is for public opinion. i remember about a week before this thing passed, bill clinton made a lot of news, he said the minute this thing actually gets passed. the approval rating is go to shoot up 10 points. now i'm hearing it again, the way i look at this is, look, this is a big controversial thing before today , it's a big controversial thing of the polling around gay marriage and that before obama spoke, the numbers were one thing, and then after -- there's very specific reasons for that.
>> can i recommend we drop spiking the football? we need a new one. can we say doing ? the hula? something totally unrelated. i am so over this.
>> we'll have to think of something better than spiking the football.
>>> coming up, a doctor tells