presidential candidates about their marathon battle. >> and your child or grandchild may be the target of identity theft. it turns out youngsters are at high risk for a crime that could scar their financial record for years to come. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." it's looking more and more as if the united states supreme court will cut the heart out of the health care reform law, that's the part which would require americans to buy insurance. if that mandate is found unconstitutional, it's an open question whether the rest of the law could survive. the court held three days of historic arguments this week. kate baldwin and jeff riff toobin were both inside for every minute of those oral arguments. let's start with kate. first of all, what was your take? >> you know it's impossible to predict. but after three days, as you mentioned, and more than six hours of oral arguments on the fate of the sweeping health care law the justices are looking at four issues but the entire law hinges on one key issue, the manned day. high drama outside the supreme court. >> here's what we say to obamacare. >> but the real action was inside the courtroom as the justices examined the key question in the historic health care case, is the individual mandate constitutional? the argument did not appear to go well for the obama administration and its supporters. even swing vote justice anthony kennedy seemed skeptical, signaling the law goes too far. >> the government is saying that the federal government has a duty to tell the individual citizens that it must act, and that is different from what we have in previous cases. that changes the relationship of the federal government to the individual in a very fundamental way. >> though chief justice john roberts was tough on both sides, giving some hope he might be persuaded with the administration on the mandate question. >> once we say there is a market and congress can require people to participate in it, as some would say, it seems to me we can't say there are limitations on what congress can do under its commerce power. all bets are off. >> they posed multiple hypotheticals. testing the boundaries. >> you can get burial insurance, you can get health insurance. >> everybody has to exercise because there's no doubt that lack of exercise causes illness and that causes health care costs to go up. so the federal government says everybody has to join an exercise club. >> the obama administration's top lawyer before the high court did find a sympathetic ear from the four more liberal justices, all indicating congress acted within its power in crafting the law. >> the people who don't participate in this market are making it much more expensive for the people who do. so it's not your free choice just to do something for yourself. what you do is going to affect others, affect them in a major way. >> and while the mandate may be in trouble, the justices also looked at what happens to the rest of the law. if this key provision fails, does the rest of the law have to fall or can part of the law survive? the justices appeared more divided on that. we're likely to not get their final opinion until june. >> at least mid june or the end of june. what happens between now and then? >> it's fascinating. the justices have almost assuredly already voted even preliminarily on where the nine justices stand on these four issues. this happens all in private, no press releases, no leaks. it's all done in secret and then they start writing the ever important opinion, which needs to start immediately. they have four issues to decide and little time to finish it up. >> thanks very much. good work this week. >> let's turn to someone who has been closely watch the supreme court for many years, jeffrey toobin. how do they prevent leaks? there are people that are going to want to know what's going on but there are rarely, if ever, any leaks from the u.s. supreme court. how do they do that? >> you start with so few people knowing the answer. washington is a big city full of a lot of federal employees, but that room, the conference room where they meet on fridays to cast their initial votes, only the nine justices are in that room. no clerks, no secretaries, nobody else. they then go back to their chambers. they don't have big staffs. they have four law clerks apiece and there are two or three secretaries in the office. that's it. everybody's sworn to secrecy and as far as i'm aware during this critical period between oral argument and the announcement of the decisions, i have never heard of a decision leaking. >> good point. now, let's go through some of the legal issues they have to consider. the first issue, whether or not to even take up this matter. i assume you agree with almost everyone else that's a done deal. >> that was monday's argument and there was really very little disagreement among the justices. they seemed very committed to the idea that this law needs to be evaluated by the supreme court now. that's not a tough one. >> the much more difficult one is the constitutionality of what's called the individual mandate requiring people to buy health insurance. where do you expect the nine justices to come out on that? >> wolf, one of the privileges of being a journalist is you sometimes really feel like you're watch being history unfold before your eyes. and on tuesday morning at 10:00 when the four conservative justices who speak got up and started pounding donald verilli with questions, con founding all of our expectations that they would sort of let this case pass through, you could see so much changing so quickly. the core of the argument against the individual mandate is that this requirement of individuals to buy a commercial product is somehow different from what our usual obligations are on citizens. to make that affirmative step is something different. now, that argument seems to have appeal for at least the four conservative justices and presumably justice clarence thomas, who didn't speak, but is more conservative than the others. there really did seem to be five votes to strike done the individual mandate. >> if they strike it down that, individual mandate, the third issue they have to reach agreement on is whether or not everything else goes down or whether some key provisions of the law can remain in effect. >> you know, in some respects wednesday's argument, which was about that issue of so called severability was even more shocking to me than tuesday. there was a serious case made, certainly by justice scalia, at times by justice kennedy that you have to throw out the whole 2,000 plus pages of the law, even though everyone concedes that much of it is clearly constitutional. i idea that they would do that is something frankly that was outside the realm of possibility, as i understood it, you know, going into these arguments but it's certainly a live possibility. it doesn't seem as clear cut, as likely as striking down the individual mandate but it is on the table striking down this whole law. >> harry reid, the senate majority leader, after you told all of our viewers and said it looked like a train wreck for the obama administration, he came back and said this. >> i wouldn't bet on this but i'll bet i've been in court a lot more than jeffrey toobin. and i've had arguments, federal circuit, supreme court and hundreds of times before trial courts and the questions you get from the judges doesn't mean that's what's going to wind up with the opinion. >> a lot of times these justices play devils advocate. they don't necessarily agree but they want to ask tough questions. >> it does happen and i certainly defer to the experience of my fellow legal analyst harry reid, but, you know, this court devils advocate is not a lot of what they do. it could be. i mean, this is not a guarantee and i certainly offer that caveat but in my experience when you have justices in big cases pounding people with questions from a clear ideological perspective, that is not an academic exercise. that is usually, not always, but usually a good indication for how they stand on the case. >> jeff toobin, thanks for your excellent work this week. we'll be watching. no one will watch it more closely than you. >> that's for sure. >> how will this historic health care showdown play in the presidential race? 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[ spokesman ] when you refinance your mortgage with quicken loans, you'll find that our rates and fees are extremely competitive. because the last thing you want is to spend too much on your mortgage. one more way quicken loans is engineered to amaze. ♪ newt gingrich is downsizing his campaign. ron paul is basically treading water. that leaves the republican race between two front-runners, mitt romney and rick santorum. there's no love loss between the two men. i spoke to romney about that this week. your opponent, rick santorum, he is really going after you big time. over the weekend he said this. listen to this clip. >> why would we put someone up who is uniquely, pick any other country in the country, he is the worst republican in the country to put up against barack obama. why would wisconsin want to vote for someone like that? >> i want to give you a chance to respond to santorum. >> i'm not going to worry too much about what rick is saying these days. i know that when you fall further and further behind, you get a little more animated. but the truth of the matter is that i have been able to connect with the american people. as you go across this country, you're seeing more and more enthusiasm for my candidacy and a recognition on the part of the american people that we have to replace president obama. if i'm elected president, i will repeal obamacare and i'll stop it in its tracks on day one. i believe it's unconstitutional, i believe the court will find it unconstitutional and one more thing i'll tell you about it, we can't afford trillions of dollars of new federal spending. it's a power grab by the federal government, it violate the tenth amendment, it violates the economic principles of economic freedom in this country. it's wrong. it needs to be repealed. >> why is it okay for states to have health insurance mandates but not the federal government? >> well, first of all, it's a matter of constitutional direction. states have the power to provide mandates if they wish to do so, the federal government does not. but, number two, we're talking about trillions of dollars of federal spending and we can't afford more federal spending. in the case of my state, there was no new tax that was required. in the case of baulcare, he's put in place $500 billion in new taxes, $500 billion of medicare cuts. and then he is planning on stepping in and telling people what kind of insurance they have to have. ultimately i believe he's going to be telling people what kind of treatment they can receive. it's a bad piece of legislation. the american people know it. that's why we're going to repeal it. >> the president's senior adviser was on television yesterday and said you, mitt romney, you're the godfather of the president's health care plan. you want to respond? >> i think we said he's the rumplestillskin of the campaign. he's trying to turn straw into gold. it's not going to work for them. as someone who knows about health care and cares about the american people having health insurance that the way they went about it with their 2,700 page bill and trillions of dollars in new spending is absolutely wrong. the wrong course is for the federal government to take over health care from the states, from the physicians and from the people of america. >> rick santorum isn't limiting his tough attacks to mitt romney. he's also going after president obama. i spoke with santorum this week about his campaign strategy. let's talk about the president of the united states. you used some pretty harsh rhetoric in going after him. i'll play a little clip of something you've said repeatedly. listen to this. >> i'm asking each and every one of you to act over the next 24 hours as if your freedom is at stake, because it is. >> your freedom is at stake, that makes it sound as if there's going to be a tote tallian regime here. >> the freer dom is at stake. will you buy what the government tells you to bite bye. a private citizen on the condition of living in america is going to be forced to do something that never before governor has imposed upon. and as we've seen with these regulations, even if it violates your deeply held religious convictions, the federal government will force to you do something that violates the teachings and tenets of your faith, economic freedoms, religious freedoms being taken away by a government who believes they know better how to -- >> you have a brand new web ad that paints an apocalyptic image of what could happen if president obama is re-elected. i'll play a little clip from that. >> imagine a small american town two years from now if obama is re-elected. small businesses are struggling and families are worried about their jobs and their future. >> just to be fair to the president of the united states, when he took office, the country was near a recession, a great recession, losing 700,000 jobs a month. now over the past few months gaining 200,000 jobs a month. the stock market was around 7,000, something like that. now it's over 13,000. it doesn't look like -- and the economic indicators are moving in the right direction as opposed to the wrong direction. >> well, first off, this has been the most anemic recovery in the history of our country. >> but it's been a recovery. >> it's anemic and rates that are not sustainable to increasing jobs. this president has exploded the credit card, $5 trillion added to the national debt. that's going to come a cropper at some point for the american people. we'll either do it by having huge amounts of debt payments we're going to have to pay which will further balloon the deficit or huge tax increase, his energy policy is driving up -- >> but in terms of the right track, wrong track, the country was clearly on the wrong track in 2008. >> three and a half years, wolf, and we're still talking about a p pathetic economy. >> but a lot of workers, auto workers have jobs now because of the president -- >> for almost four years this president has governed an economy that is suffering and struggling and blowing holes through our deficit. >> major endorsements in the republican race for the white house but will they help mitt romney seal the deal in the coming days? also, starbucks' secret ingredient. you may not want to know what's in one rather popular drink. stay with us here in the situation room. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] with 50 horsepower, dual overhead cams and fierce acceleration, the gator xuv 825i will shatter your expectations. ♪ and so no one gets left behind, check out our affordable xuv 550s at johndeere.com/gator. ♪ the republican presidential candidates are gearing up for the next big primary showdown this coming tuesday. certainly health care on their radar, new endorsements in the mix as well. let's bring in gloria borger and ron brownstein. assuming the supreme court rules the mandates unconstitutional, politically how does that play out looking into november? >> it's very hard to say at this point, wolf, because there's lots of ways the courts could rule. could you say the mandates are unconstitutional. you could keep other parts of the law which people like, for example, requiring that insurance companies keep your preexisting conditions covered. and that would be a very different political impact than in you threw the whole thing out. to me the democrats could then rally their base, it would be a blow to barack obama, no doubt about it, huge embarrassment. democrats could rally their base. and by the way, then, republicans would be forced to come up with a plan for health insurance, which they haven't done. >> i completely agree. i think if they do throw out the mandate, it would have the effect of probably rallying both parties' bases. >> james carville says it would be great for the democrats. >> you'd have five republican appointed justices outvoting four democratically appointed justices to overturn the biggish accomplishment of a democratic congress, so the immediate political impact i think would be somewhat offset. each side would rally. the long-term impact would be greates on the court, a 5-4 party line vote on something of this magnitude i think really would erode the sense this they are anything other than combatants in this broader political war. >> our poll this week showed when we asked the american public whether we thought the court would make a political decision, half of the people said yes and that's not good for the court. it's not good for any institution. i would argue that health care reform should have been passed with a bipartisan majority. it was passed along party line, the court looks ideological, the congress looks ideological, the president looks ideological. it's not good for any of the institutions. >> let's look ahead to tuesday. three contests in the republican race for the white house, wisconsin, maryland, district of columbia. this new poll in wisconsin likely republican primary voters 40% for romney, 33% santorum, 11% for paul, 8% for gingrich. all of us assume romney will win in maryland and in d.c. wisconsin is what most people are looking at. >> because if is the kind of case that will test the real reach or limits of santorum's campaign. on the one hand 60% of the voters in 2008 in wisconsin did not have college degrees. but only 38% of them are evangelicals. that has been the core of santorum's support. we did analysis this week and you look at it and santorum's support is almost exclusively confined to evangelicals who are very conservative. even the non-evangelical voters are very conservative he has struggled with. wisconsin is the kind of place if he can't win shows he's overly dependent on this one narrow slice of the republican coalition. >> romney's getting a whole bunch of endorsements. former president george h.w. bush, marco rubio. it looks like the republicans want this thing over. >> you think? yeah, they do want it over with. and that's why you see the establishment republicans now coming out of the woodwork saying, all right, it time for this to be over. the question is whether these things matter at this point anymore and i don't think they do. i really don't think they do. >> especially given who is voting for santorum the core of his constituency, the voters, are least receptive to the endorsements. >> they'll be receptive to a paul ryan or marco rubio. >> he's so dependent on evangelical voters. he's got a very tough stretch. april 24th it's bad. if he can survive till may, the calendar could allow him to win a bench more states. >> the endorsement mitt romney would need would be evangelical christian leaders. if those folks came out, family research council, if they came o