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PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: There is a legitimate debate taking place about how best to ensure taxpayers are held harmless in this process. And that is a legitimate debate, and I encourage that debate.

But what is not legitimate is to suggest somehow the legislation being proposed is going to encourage future taxpayer bailouts as some have claimed. That makes for a good sound bite but it's not factually accurate.

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BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: President Obama pitching his financial regulation overhaul at Cooper Union College in lower Manhattan today as the Senate, the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he is plowing ahead no matter what toward a vote on financial regulatory reform. And the Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell saying shouldn't we understand what is in this? There are a lot of potential consequences for small banks and lending institutions. Let's take our time to reach a bipartisan agreement.

That is what we're dealing with. Let's bring in the panel, Steve Hayes, senior writer for the Weekly Standard; Mara Liasson, national political correspondent of National Public Radio; and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer. Charles?

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: I am glad you played the package from the president's speech. We knew what the content was, but I was intrigued and appalled by the tone of the speech and the rhetoric in the sound bite.

The way, and he has done this before - he tries to denigrate, cast- out, and de-legitimize any argument against his. And here he is talking about that it's not legitimate even to suggest that the bill he is supporting might encourage a bailout. It's certainly possible there had been strong, very good economists and others who have argue because of the provisions in the ball, and one in particular, where a treasury has the right to designate any entity, private entity a systemic risk and then to immediately, even without Congress approving and appropriating money to guarantee all the bad loans, that is an invitation to a bailout.

Now the president could argue otherwise, but to say that to raise the issue is illegitimate is simply appalling. What he is doing here is he is making a lot of provisions that will be changing a very complex financial system. At least have the intellectual honesty to admit you can't predict all the outcomes. The president has a tick in which he presents himself as having this sort of academic, reasonable discourse, but it really has inside of it a sharp edge of partisanship. He won the presidency. That gives him a big house, a lot of power, and a fabulous airplane, but does it not make him the arbiter of American political discourse.

BAIER: Mara, we talked about how it's a tough issue for Republicans to push back on. And Republicans are saying, hey, listen, we want financial regulatory reform but we want to do in a bipartisan way that takes our time, and it's a 1,500-page bill. Let's go through this.

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: I don't think Republicans are actually saying we want to kill the bill. There are two things they are doing that are not completely consistent, but they are trying to negotiate. Mitch McConnell says over and over again he thinks we can get a deal.

BAIER: Senator Shelby says he's very close, from Alabama.

LIASSON: Yes. At some point, either Shelby and Dodd have a deal or the Republicans put amendments on the floor that they can get, that they can pass or certainly have the votes to block parts of the bill if they want to filibuster it.

I actually think that the argument being made that this bill does not solve the too big to fail problem is a legitimate argument. I haven't heard the Republicans proposing a solution. One way it solves too big to fail, if you are too big to fail, you're too big, and do something about that. But I haven't heard a solution to that from the right.

Certainly from the left there is. Some people say the big banks should be broken up.

BAIER: But Republicans say if you don't deal with the core of the bill it's going to be tough to amend on the floor with 41 votes. You need the 19 Democrats to sign on to the deal.

LIASSON: There is no doubt a political game is being played and the Democrats think they have the upper hand. But it's also true that Senator Dodd did spend a lot of time and would like a deal with Shelby or Corker or whoever it is to do this.

BAIER: Steve, we talked about the tone in the speech. Here's another little clip from President Obama's speech today.

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OBAMA: Unless your business model depends on bilking people there is little to fear from these new rules.

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BAIER: He's talking to a Wall Street crowd. There aren't too many business models built that way.

STEVE HAYES, SENIOR WRITER, THE WEEKLY STANDARD: What he is trying to do is suggest that the problems we saw that manifested themselves in the collapse or near collapse of our economic system are far more widespread than we think they are. That's not to minimize the problems we saw as a result of them.

I think his speech was an incredibly cynical speech, and one reason I think it was is he called for an end to cynical politics. And then he did exactly that. He talked about not having specialists and not giving favors to people. He suggested that the Republicans were in bed with Wall Street, once again. We've heard this rhetoric before.

What the bill does in effect in some cases is enshrine exactly those politics by giving gifts to organized labor. You have got these provisions where the labor gets a proxy, they get a say in executive compensation. You've got a specially designated position for labor to come in and work the negotiators, one thing after another.

This is sort of a give-away to big labor, at least in some of its provisions. I think he has to explain that.

BAIER: With a 1,500 page bill, as we saw with the health care bill that was more than 2,000 pages, potentially there are unintended consequences in the middle of there.

HAYES: There is no question there are unintended consequences. That's one reason I think Republicans want to slow this down. But I agree with Mara that ultimately most Republicans want to be on board with some bill in part because they are afraid of politics but also because they agree with some limited regulations on these things.

KRAUTHAMMER: As the speaker of the House said about the health care monstrosity, once you pass it you'll discover what is in it. That's what this is. If you have a bill this size about regulatory reform, we're going to be discovering stuff in it, some intended like the goodies to the unions, and some unintended for months. It's very unwieldy.

And the president is doing exactly what he did in the summit he had with Republicans over health care in which whenever they would raise an objection he would rule it out and say there are legitimate arguments over this, however, that's a sound bite or talking point, as if he never engages in that.

This kind of partisan rhetoric where he refuses to accept the legitimacy of those who argue against, which I think is distressing in a president, and particularly one who paints himself as he did in 2008 and does today as a man who stands above the partisanship and all the pettiness and all the special interests.

He is a politician like all of us, and when he pretends he hovers above the fray like a neutral arbiter, it's grating.

BAIER: Mara, Senator Reid and Senator Schumer said time has run out. We need to move fast, we need to move now. Republicans say we're on a bipartisan track. What about the politics of this?

LIASSON: First of all, although Democrats feel certain this is an issue the public is on their side, Wall Street is so unpopular, Republicans don't seem that worried being tarred with the accusation they're on the side of the big banks. I think it's possible you get a filibuster vote where it worked once.

BAIER: To head back to negotiations.

LIASSON: Yes, head back to negotiations. But something has to come up to get a couple Republicans or at least one to vote for the bill.

HAYES: That could be useful for Chris Dodd as he goes back to work on the House and Senate and come up with a compromise.