MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL and to this special edition of HARDBALL. Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina is the Democratic whip. He is one of the top leaders of the House. And he was sitting there. Congressman, thank you for staying with us tonight and giving us your thoughts.

REP. JIM CLYBURN (D-SC), DEMOCRATIC WHIP: Thank you.

MATTHEWS: You were in the room. We weren‘t. Was there any special feel - were you surprised at the partisanship, the civility, what? What did you get struck by as you sat there and watched and felt what we couldn‘t see really?

CLYBURN: Well, I was particularly struck by the substance that came from people like Sen. Coburn. I think he just was right on with his understanding of what we are confronted with and with the reasonable proposals he laid on the table.

Sen. Enzi - I always have a problem with his name. I thought he was just absolutely good with his comments and proposals. I really believe that there was a good spirit in that room. Now, every now and then, it got punctuated with some disagreements because there are some significant disagreements between Democrats and Republicans on how to treat insurance companies. But aside from that, I really was pleased with the way things went today.

MATTHEWS: Looking ahead, Congressman, as a leader, do you think it‘s doable? I suggested that something - well, it‘s based upon some reporting today - I hope good reporting -that what‘s going to have to happen to get this bill through is the Democrats in the House and the Senate are going to have to put together a bit of a choreography, if you will.

They‘re going to have to decide that the Senate is going to make some adjustments through reconciliation through a majority vote or with the help of the vice president, even a 50/50 vote and get something done over there to rectify the difference and that your side of the hill is going to have to pass the Senate bill as part of that to get it all done. Is it doable?

CLYBURN: Yes, it is doable. And I think it‘s very important for us to understand that the will is in the House to get this done. Now, this whole question that‘s floating around as to who goes first - that‘s not important.

What‘s important is to make sure that the final product does not have those special deals in there that the House finds so offensive that we have a very appropriate and fair way to pay for this and I don‘t think the House members will worry about who goes first with the vote so long as the process is one that will guarantee that we have a bill very close to what the president is proposing.

MATTHEWS: Well, that‘s news, Congressman. Let‘s listen now to a Republican leader on your opposite side. Republican Congressman Eric Cantor of Virginia had a printout in front of him of the Senate health Care Reform Bill stacked on top of his desk at today‘s summit at Blair House. And that became a point of contention with President Obama. Let‘s watch and listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC CANTOR, (R-VA): Mr. President, thank you, again, very much for

having us and for staying with us for the six hours. Appreciate that. I

don‘t know if you will after the six hours or not. But -

(CROSS TALK)

OBAMA: Let me just guess. That‘s the 2,400-page health care bill.

Is that right?

CANTOR: Well, actually, Mr. President, this is the Senate bill along with the 11-page proposal that you put up online that really, I think, is the basis for the discussion here.

But I do want to go back to your suggestion as to why we‘re here and you suggested that maybe we are here to find some points of agreement to bridge the gap and our differences.

And I do like to go back to basics. We‘re here because we Republicans care about health care just as the Democrats in this room.

And when the speaker cites her letters from the folks in Michigan

and the leader talks about the letters he‘s received - Mr. Andrews here is

all of us share the concerns when people are allegedly wronged in our health care system.

I mean, I think that is sort of a given. We don‘t care for this bill. I think you know that. The American people don‘t care for the bill. I think that we‘ve demonstrated, you know, in the polling that they don‘t.

But there is a reason why we all voted no. And it does have to do with the philosophical difference that you point out. It does have to do with our fear that if you say that Washington can be the one to define essential health benefits, there may be a problem with that.

OBAMA: You know, whether he we do props like this, stack it up and you repeat 2,400 pages, et cetera, the truth of the matter is that health care is very complicated. And we can try to pretend that it‘s not, but it is.

Every single item that we‘ve talked about on the Republican side, if we wanted to exhaustively deal with fraud and abuse, would generate a bunch of pages. I point that out just because, yes, these are the kind of political things we do that prevent us from actually having a conversation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Congressman Clyburn, what do you think when some member of Congress pulls one of these prop games and brings out a bill? I remember speaker Jim Wright did that years ago and everybody - I mean, when is it going to be the last guy to hold out a big pile of paper and say, "I have an important point to make here. This is long."

CLYBURN: Well, you know, the interesting thing about all of this is we have heard talk about what shape the room will be, how big the room will be. Now, we‘re talking about how many pages the bill has got in it.

That‘s not what this is all about. Let‘s talk about what kinds of proposals, what kind of policy, what kind of programs. What are we going to do for the American people to feel that they can have the kind of health care that will be affordable, that will be accessible and that will be accountable on behalf - on their behalf?

This whole notion about how many pages we got in the bill - what‘s that got to do with anything? If you can do it in one or two pages, fine. But if you need 1,200 or even 2,400 pages, fine.

The question is, when it‘s all said and done, do we have a policy? Do we have programs? Do we have procedures that will make the life of American people better for themselves, their children and grandchildren?

MATTHEWS: OK. Thank you very much. U.S. Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, one of the top Democratic leaders.

MATTHEWS:  Welcome back to this special edition of HARDBALL. 

U.S. Congressman Darrell Issa of California is the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Governor Reform Committee.

Congressman, thank you for coming back tonight and sticking around. 

We heard Jim Clyburn...

REP. DARRELL ISSA ®, CALIFORNIA:  No problem.

MATTHEWS:  ... the ranking—the—the Democratic whip, who basically confirmed the fact that the bottom—the plan for the Democrats now to get health care through is the House to pass the Senate bill, and the Senate to reconcile, through the reconciliation measure, the problems the House has with the Senate bill, and the public, quite frankly, has with it, and to fix the bill in a two-step. 

What will your side do? 

ISSA:  Well, Chris, I‘m from a state where it takes two-thirds majority in order to do budgets or tax increases. 

So, I will go back home, and I think most Republicans will go back home, and say, the democratic tradition of the Senate has been violated in this process. 

But, even if you get past that—and I don‘t have a Frank Luntz moment here—I think what we have is, we have a failure to see that the compromise that they‘re proposing is no compromise, except among themselves.  And the compromise that maybe Massachusetts told us, or certainly the American people told me last summer, is the one that‘s not there. 

And it‘s a shame.  Today was a lost opportunity.  And I think Republicans came prepared to hope for a compromise that they didn‘t see happen. 

MATTHEWS:  Well, that sounds like a strategy of—of basically complaint.  Is that it?  Do you recognize that they have the numbers?  Do you recognize they have the numbers to do what I described it looks like they intend to do? 

ISSA:  Chris, you know, I ran for the Senate, and lost, but I have always respected the fact that the Senate was a democratic process.  It was a process in which everyone felt that the—they didn‘t have a vote when people didn‘t understand things.  They didn‘t have a rush to judgment. 

And, in fact, I think that that‘s—there are a lot of good things there.  Serving in the House, sometimes—and both sides have been guilty of it over the years—sometimes, basically, they throw something in at the last minute, and you report on it weeks or months later all the things that we wouldn‘t have voted for if we had known were in there. 

MATTHEWS:  Yes. 

ISSA:  In this case, it‘s very clear that there are lots of easy gains, easy things we can do. 

We passed something out of the House, overwhelmingly bipartisan, last

yesterday that stripped away the limited antitrust exemption for health care insurance providers.  You know, that was a—that was a good idea of something that, although not universally liked, could be voted by two-thirds-plus. 

I have a bill, HR-3438.  All it says is, let‘s open up the system, if you will, the public option of letting people into the system that members of Congress and members of the federal work force are in, easy enough to do.  Put it on the floor, it will pass in the House and the Senate. 

MATTHEWS:  I like that.

ISSA:  There are dozens of things like that...

MATTHEWS:  Yes. 

ISSA:  ... that would be confidence-builders. 

And, you know, you have followed more than just politics.  You have followed the Middle East peace process.  You‘ve followed a lot of places in which you look and say there‘s so little trust or so little ability to trust that the outcome will be good that what you have to do is prove a few things. 

I think the president should take—I really believe he should take a good chunk of this that can be passed with at least some Republican support and put it out there, get the confidence of the American people that incrementalism to the left or the right is probably in the American people‘s best interests. 

You know, the health care system is not so broken that you must do all at once, even though the American people know—and Republicans had better start saying this in what we do—it is broken enough that it needs to be fixed, but it doesn‘t necessarily need to be fixed all at once. 

Let‘s do what we can agree to do.  That‘s what we didn‘t hear today from either side. 

MATTHEWS:  But the president said it in concluding the session today -

and I heard what you said, and it has great validity—but the president said today, in ending it, there‘s a fundamental difference between him, his party and your party. 

That is to cover the 30 million people that are not insured right now. 

Does your party have a plan to do that?

ISSA:  Well, I don‘t speak for my party.  I do speak for the 49^th Congressional District.  I can tell you that, if we had a bill before us that said we would augment in all 50 states people who could not afford insurance through a means testing, we would come up with a scheme to augment them, like we do with SCHIP and some other areas, that that concept would fly through my district as it—look, as long as they really can‘t afford it, we‘re willing to help. 

And those who can afford it should be told they better buy it, and stop going to emergency rooms and saying they have no insurance. 

MATTHEWS:  Have you run that by John Boehner? 

ISSA:  I have.  And John Boehner is supportive that the poor need to be taken care of. 

Now, in fairness, unless we come together on a bipartisan basis, we‘re not going to work out the nuances of what can work.  Unless we get doctors and hospital executives in and insurance companies...

MATTHEWS:  Yes. 

ISSA:  ... we‘re not going to come up with the most cost-effective way to do it. 

But, at the same time...

MATTHEWS:  OK. 

ISSA:  ... you know, both sides should admit that we need to deal with the fact that our health care cost, insured or uninsured, is escalating and making—and being less affordable...

MATTHEWS:  OK. 

ISSA:  ... while other countries are coming to grips with it.  We have to do that, too. 

MATTHEWS:  You know, it‘s just the problem is that I have watched for this.  As you said, for 30, 40 years, I have been watching politics.  And I have never seen the Republicans, with the exception of Richard Nixon back in ‘70s, really come out for a plan to provide health care for all the people that don‘t have it. 

But I accept the fact that you would do it.  So, Congressman, thank you very much, Darrell Issa from California. 

ISSA:  Thank you, Chris. 

MATTHEWS:  Thanks for joining us and staying around tonight.