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Video: House OKs debt bill; Senate vote looms
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Transcript of: House OKs debt bill; Senate vote looms
MATT LAUER, co-host:
Now more on the reason for
Gabby Giffords
' return to
Capitol Hill
, that key vote on the debt deal.
NBC
's
Capitol Hill
correspondent
Kelly O'Donnell
has the latest on that.
Kelly
, one down, one to go. It's passed the
House
. How does it look in the
Senate
?
KELLY O'DONNELL reporting:
Well, actually it does look pretty good in the
Senate
, and that come off of all the energy that we saw in the
House for Speaker John Boehner
. He was able to get this bill across the line with a comfortable 50-plus vote margin. And,
Matt
, after all the drama in the lead-up to this, where there was so much concern about would
tea party
conservatives fall in line and that kind of thing, it was actually
Democrats
,
liberal Democrats
, who voted no in greater numbers. The reason behind that, many of them were upset that the president had signed on to a deal that included cuts that total about $2 1/2 trillion but no new taxes. They're worried that there'll be just too much burden on those who need social programs. So there was really a lot of push-back from
Democrats
. The vice president was here and he got an earful in a private meeting with
House
Democrats.
Part
of the energy there was directed right at him from members who said that they believe the
tea party
had acted like terrorists and hostage takers.
Biden
was caught up in that conversation. Later his office said that he did not believe using a term like terrorist was appropriate in political discourse. So that gives you a sense of kind of how the earth was moving there with a lot of anger directed at the
White House
and at
Democrats
like the vice president who helped bring this deal together. Conservatives weren't happy in some cases, too, with defense cuts, and some of them wanted a more sweeping reform that might help reduce the debt in a greater way. But it got through the
House
and today the
Senate
is the last big test,
Matt.
We should expect to see some resistance there, too, but certainly leaders in the
Senate
feel a lot more relieved that the
House
, which was more unpredictable got this across the line and then it's just left to the president to sign if the
Senate
follows through today.
LAUER:
All right,
Kelly O'Donnell
on
Capitol Hill
for us this morning.
Kelly
, as always,
thank you very much
.
“ ”