TAPPER: And now we'll turn to the president's chief spokesman and close adviser, Robert Gibbs.

Merry Christmas, and thanks for joining us.

GIBBS: Happy holidays. Good morning, Jake.

TAPPER: The terrorist attack almost happened, had it not been for a faulty detonator. Are you confident that the Obama administration is doing everything it needs to do and did so in this instance to keep the American people safe?

GIBBS: Absolutely, Jake. Let's touch on a few things that the secretary just touched on. The database that this individual was on contains about 550,000 names, OK? A smaller database of about 400,000 of those names are what selectee and no-fly lists are drawn from.

The selectee list has about 14,000, the no-fly list 4,000. So you can see the database that many government agencies and are concerned into is whittled down into much smaller no-fly and selectee lists.

What the president has asked for as a result of this incident are two look-back reviews. First, on our watch-listing procedures, did the government do everything that it could have with the information that they had? Understanding these procedures are several years old. Did we do what we needed to with that information, and how can we revise watch listing procedures going forward to ensure that there is no clog in the bureaucratic plumbing of information that might be gathered somewhere going to the very highest levels of security in our government.

Second, obviously we have to review our detection capabilities. The president has asked the Department of Homeland Security to, quite frankly, answer the very real question about how somebody with something as dangerous as PETN could have gotten onto a plane in Amsterdam. I think those are the two things that -- two reviews that have come directly out of this.

But Jake, the president is very confident that this government is taking the steps that are necessary to take -- to take our fight to those that seek to do us harm. And I'll go through a few things that he's done. First, we're drawing down in Iraq, and focusing our resources on Afghanistan and Pakistan, the places in the world where attacks have previously been planned, and where this planning goes on now. We've strengthened our partnerships and cooperation with a number of countries, including Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan, as I mentioned before, and used all elements of our American power to seek to eliminate heads of Al Qaida, and we've had great success in all three of those countries.

TAPPER: Let me ask you a question. Knowing the president -- I've been covering him for a few years -- I can't imagine that he would hear this guy's father reported to the U.S. embassy that he has extremist religious views, and within a matter of weeks, he boards an airplane with explosives on his person and is not subject to additional security. I can't believe that he would not hear that information and say, "that's nuts." Why did that happen?

GIBBS: Jake, he's heard that information and heard it not long after it was brought to the situation room. That's what has precipitated both a watch listing review and a detection capabilities review, to ensure that one, the information that we have goes through the process the right way and surfaces to those that have to make those decisions. Again, we have a watch list that this individual was on, that contains about 50 -- 550,000 names. So this individual was listed in November of 2009 on that database based on that information. The no-fly list and the selectee list...

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: But who's watching him? If he's on that watch list, who's watching him?

GIBBS: Well, again, Jake, I think if you read the papers this morning, you'll find that the name was listed, concern was brought, but the ability...

TAPPER: Brought to who? Anybody can just write down a name. I mean... GIBBS: No, no, this is a database that a series of agencies enter names into, and a series of agencies draw information from. But again, Jake, the investigation will look backwards and figure out if any signs were missed, if any procedures can be changed about how names are watch-listed. But again, understand there are 18,000 people on either a selectee or a no-fly list. This is a database that contains -- I'm sorry, 550,000 of those names. It's a huge number. We have to ensure and the president has asked that a review be undertaken swiftly to ensure that any information that's gathered and put into any database, that it gets to where it needs to go, to the people that are making decisions.

But again, Jake, understanding, 550,000 are on that one database. The president wants to review some of these older procedures and see if, quite frankly, they are outdated...

TAPPER: They need to be updated.

GIBBS: ... (inaudible) what we're facing today.

TAPPER: I want to (inaudible), just because I want to get to health care reform with the limited time we have left.

GIBBS: Sure.

TAPPER: There was some deal-making that went on as the legislation hit the House and hit the Senate, especially. And that kind of deal-making is one of the reasons that President Obama, then Senator Obama, pledged this on the campaign trail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Well, have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so the people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents and who is making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Now, PolitiFact labeled that a broken promise. I'm not -- I am a little bit more generous this Christmas spirit. You still have one more step in the negotiation process, and in fact President Obama said this to PBS about this final reconciliation between the House bill and the Senate bill.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: We hope to have a whole bunch of folks over here in the West Wing, and I'll be rolling up my sleeves and spending some time before the full Congress even gets into session, because the American people need to know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: With that in mind, will the president open up the doors for this final negotiation? He's in charge of it. It's going to be taking place at the West Wing. You have Democratic leaders from the House and Senate reconciling this House and Senate bill. Will he commit to opening up that process to C-SPAN cameras so we can see how this happens?

GIBBS: Well, Jake, first of all, let's take a step back and understand that this is a process legislatively that has played out over the course of nine months. There have been a countless number of public hearings. The Senate did a lot of their voting at 1:00 and 2:00 in the morning on C-SPAN. A lot of this debate -- I think what the president promised and pledged was so that you could see who was fighting for their constituents and who was fighting for drug and insurance companies...

TAPPER: But he was talking about negotiations, not voting.

GIBBS: Well...

TAPPER: The bill being put together.

GIBBS: Well, but the bill gets put together on the floor of the Senate. That's where the bill got augmented. And I think if you watched that debate -- I don't know -- I wasn't up at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning for a lot of those votes, but I think if the American public had watched -- has watched the committee process play out in both the House and the Senate, watched the process play out on both the floor and the -- the floor of the House and the floor of the Senate, you'd have seen quite a bit of public hearing and public airing, and I think quite frankly, people have a pretty good sense of who is battling on behalf of thousands of lobbyists that are trying to protect drugs profits and insurance profits, and who's fighting on behalf of middle-class Americans hoping once and for all to have access to affordable insurance and removing insurance company restrictions like discriminating against people that are sick.

TAPPER: All right, Robert Gibbs, we'll have to leave it there. Thanks so much for joining us. Happy holidays and good luck.

GIBBS: Happy holidays and to you, your family and to all your viewers, happy new year.

TAPPER: Thank you.

And joining us now from Louisville, Kentucky, the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell .

TAPPER: Senator McConnell, thanks so much for joining us.

MCCONNELL: Good morning, Jake.

TAPPER: Well, turning back to the terror attack or the attempted terror attack, the Obama administration was following procedures established by the Bush administration in creation -- in the creation of the TSA. Are they doing enough? Does more need to be done?

MCCONNELL: Well, our leader on this issue, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, suggested to me yesterday, when we were talking about this, a question she's going to be asking, which is, how does a person on the terrorism watch list get a U.S. visa? I mean, particularly when you consider that his father was concerned about his son's proclivities this fall?

I think there's much to investigate here. And in addition to that, he obviously had some kind of connections with Yemen. And we know there was an imam in Yemen who may have been the inspiration for the Ft. Hood attack. There is much to investigate here. It's amazing to me that an individual like this, who was sending out so many signals, could end up getting on a plane going to the U.S.

TAPPER: Do you think individuals who are on either of the two terrorism databases that Robert Gibbs referred to, do you think that they should automatically be at the very least subjected to additional security searches at airports?

MCCONNELL: It only makes common sense.

TAPPER: All right. Well, turning to health care reform, which is another big issue on the plate of the administration and of course on your plate as well. You've been criticized by several conservative voices, Rush Limbaugh, Erick Erickson at Redstate.com and others, for not doing enough to stop health care reform. As the Senate Democrats passed the bill, you said this fight is not over, my colleges and I will work to stop this bill from becoming law. So what are you going to do and what can you do with only 40 votes?

MCCONNELL: Well, first, every single Republican opposed the measure. All of the procedural devices that are available to slow down a measure were employed. It didn't pass until Christmas eve at 7:00 a.m. The American people are overwhelmingly opposed to the bill. I'm not sure what's to criticize about that from a conservative point of view. And of course, the bill is not law yet. It's still got be reconciled between the House and Senate. There are deep differences among Democrats. Every single Democrat in the Senate provided the one vote that passed this 2,700-page monstrosity. It cuts Medicare by half a trillion dollars, raises taxes by half a trillion dollars, and instead of curbing the rate of increase of insurance premiums, most Americans' insurance premiums are going to go up.

This bill is a colossal failure, and that's why the American people were literally screaming at us, you know, please, don't pass this bill.

TAPPER: You criticize this bill for cutting Medicare. And there are Medicare cuts in this. Medicare Advantage is cut. Doctors' fees are cut 21 percent next year. But you have a history also of voting for Medicare cuts as well. In a 1995 deficit reduction plan, you voted to cut Medicare by $270 billion. In a 1996 budget resolution, you voted to cut it $158 billion, and in the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, you voted to slow its growth by $393 billion. How do you square those votes from when Senate Republicans ran the Senate, with your current criticism of the bill for cutting Medicare?

MCCONNELL: Easily. Those reductions were related to making the Medicare program itself, which is going broke in seven years, more sustainable. What they're doing here is using Medicare as a piggy bank. They're taking half a trillion dollars out of Medicare, not to save Medicare or to make it more sustainable, but to spend it on a new entitlement program for a whole different set of Americans. So we don't think you ought to take grandma's Medicare and start a new program for someone else.

TAPPER: Do you think that Republicans running for Senate in 2010 should run on a platform of vowing to repeal the health care reform bill, should it become law? And will that be one of your first items should you regain control of the Senate, repealing what you guys call Obama-care?

MCCONNELL: Well, certainly, politically, it's a big problem for them. They all kind of joined hands and went off the cliff together. Every single Democrat provided the vote that passed it in the Senate. You have seen what's happened already with Congressman Parker Griffith in Alabama switching parties. There are rumors there may be others. There is great unrest in the Democratic Party. And the reason for that is, the surveys indicate the American people are overwhelmingly opposed to this effort to have the government take over all of their health care. It will be a huge political issue next year, and that's why you hear the Democrats saying, let's don't tackle any more big issues. I mean, I was reading an article this morning indicating they don't want to do cap-and-trade anymore, they're nervous about financial reregulation. What they understand is the new administration and the new Congress has squandered its goodwill with the American people, leading to what could be a big setback for them a year from now.

TAPPER: Respectfully, sir, you didn't answer my question, which is should Republicans campaign on a platform of repealing the health care reform measure? And will that be one of the first items on your agenda should you become the new Senate majority leader after the 2010 elections? MCCONNELL: Well, I'm sorry, I thought I did answer your question. There's no question that this bill, if it were to become law, and frankly even if it doesn't become law, will be a big, if not central issue not only in the 2010 election, but in the 2012 election.

TAPPER: All right, I'll take that as a yes, that they should campaign on repealing Obama care.

You cut a deal with Harry Reid to secure a vote on the debt limit issue for the first week that Congress returns, a stand-alone vote on the debt limit plus five Republican amendments. Why was that important to you?

MCCONNELL: Well, look, this administration has run up more debt in its first year than the previous one in four years. They passed a budget that will double the debt in five years, triple it in 10. Raising the debt ceiling is no longer an automatic. This is the nation's credit card we are talking about, and so we think it's important to have a debate with amendments about what we intend to try to accomplish for the American people to get this debt down. Americans are afraid that their children are no longer going to have the kind of country they have had because of this burgeoning national debt. And raising the debt ceiling is a good time to have that debate.

TAPPER: The Congressional Budget Office says that the health care reform bill will actually reduce the deficit by $132 billion. But there's also this criticism from Bruce Bartlett, an official in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, who wrote in a "Forbes" magazine article, titled "Republican Deficit Hypocrisy," that the 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit offered by the Republican Senate was, a quote, "pure giveaway," that quote, "had no dedicated financing, no offsets, no revenue raisers. 100 percent of the cost simply added to the federal budget deficit." Quote, "As far as I'm concerned, any Republican who voted for the Medicare drug benefit has no right to criticize anything the Democrats have done in terms of adding to the national debt."

Senator, you voted for that Medicare prescription drug benefit, which some say will cost $1 trillion over 10 years and was not offset by revenue or spending cuts.

MCCONNELL: Well, the first thing, you should notice that it came in 30 percent underbudget because of the competitive mechanisms that are involving in extending a prescription drug benefit to seniors. The Democrats criticized it at the time because it was not generous enough. And look, they have gone far beyond any deficit spending discretions -- indiscretions that Republicans might have had. In their first year alone, they ran the deficit up more than the last four years of the Bush administration combined.

Enough is enough. The American people are expecting us to stop this effort to spend, tax, and borrow us into oblivion, which has been going on for the last 12 months.

TAPPER: All right, Senator Mitch McConnell , have a good holiday. Thanks so much for joining us.

MCCONNELL: Same to you, Jake.