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Rachel Maddow started her MSNBC show last night with a pull quote from this article in The Hill newspaper — “Oh my God, it’s coming”:

[Among Republicans in Congress reacting to the Democrats’ win in New York’s usually reliably GOP 26th congressional district], behind the scenes, several sources reported grumbling.

One source familiar with the internal discussions over the Ryan budget plan described members as frustrated that their leadership failed to prepare them for the outrage they have heard from constituents in their districts over the Medicare changes.

“Members know that you don’t piss off senior citizens, and they know that this was handled badly, that there was no messaging, that Ryan’s not making his case and they are all looking down the road thinking, ‘Oh my God, it’s coming,’ ” the source said.

A separate GOP lawmaker, who faces a tough reelection race, told The Hill that there’s been talk of revisiting the Ryan Medicare plan. “How serious it is … don’t know,” the lawmaker said.

But a GOP official involved in the discussions told The Hill that the House Republican leadership absolutely cannot revisit the Ryan Medicare plan “or the Tea Party will kill them.”

…Former House GOP policy chairman Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (Mich.) said that he’s heard of some bickering “at a higher level than the average member.” Rank-and-file lawmakers, he said, “just want to know what happened.”

McCotter said the National Republican Congressional Committee would have post-election statistics shortly to determine whether Medicare was, in fact, the decisive issue in NY-26.

In her report on Republican disarray in Congress, Maddow returned to her hypothesis that Speaker Boehner is bad at his job, suggesting that the speaker’s decision to force GOP House members to vote en masse to kill Medicare may turn out to be Boehner’s biggest blunder yet.

Here’s the rough transcript from Maddow’s segment, via the MSNBC website:

>> oh, my god! it’s coming. that is a direct quote that appeared today in the hill newspaper in washington, d.c. oh, my god, it’s coming. that quote comes from an anonymous source inside congress explaining to “the hill” how angry house republicans are at john boehner, and the republican leadership right now, for letting this kill medicare paul ryan budget disaster unfold the way that it has.

>>> i don’t really know why this isn’t getting more attention. my sense is actually that this is about to get more attention, although i could be wrong. but i think there is sort of an amazing very mainstream story unfolding right now in republican politics, which is that in the last couple of weeks, ever since the paul ryan kill medicare plan has become so evidently politically horrible for republicans, there has been a ton of republicans talking smack about john boehner and the republican leadership to the beltway press. so much for the unified front. so much for ronald reagan’s 11th commandment about never speaking ill of a fellow republican. look at what republicans are saying about each other now to beltway reporters. this is all recent stuff. “politico” reporting earlier this week — staffers with the national republican congressional committee warned the leadership, quote, you might not want to go there” in a series of tense meeting before the house voted on the budget. another republican source explaining to “politico” — the voices who were saying, let’s do this in a way that’s politically survivable, got drowned out by a kind of panic. people in my district like medicare, one lawmaker told “politico.” and another source told them, quote, the feeling among leadership is we have to be true you to the people who put us here. we don’t know what to do but it has to be bold. another gop insider involved in the process was more morbid. yeah, jumping off a bridge is bold too. “the hill” reporting last week, quote, one gop senator who spoke on the condition of anonymity expressed his belief that ryan made a serious tack cal mistake. the lawmaker criticizing a fellow republican said that by laying out specific medicare reforms, paul ryan gave democrats political ammunition. quote, the only people talking about medicare are republicans and we’re just arguing with ourselves, said the lawmaker. the revolt in the republican caucus is far enough along that in some cases, it is not just anonymous revolt. it is becoming open revolt. republican members of congress, even willing to use their own name when complaining about their leadership to the press.

>>> i know what happened. what happened is that house speaker john boehner for some reason decided that at the start of a presidential election cycle, all of the republicans should all vote to kill medicare. we have advanced this thesis before. and i want to reiterate that i do not mean this in a personal way. i do not mean to say that john boehner is a bad person. i have no idea what kind of person he is. my sense is that he’s probably nice. i for example, tend to like people who cry in public. i thinking about unabashedly emotive can be a sign of good character or at least an interesting person. but honestly, i have no real sense of john boehner as a man. john boehner as house speaker, however, i do have a sense of. and i think that there is a good chance that he is not very good at his job. there were signs of this early on, when for example he botched even the swearing in of the members of congress at the start of the new session in which he was in charge. mr. boehner left two republicans out of the swearing in. also under mr. boehner, the house’s first act was the reading of the constitution on the house floor. but they left out some parts of the constitution. they say on purpose. and they left out other parts of the constitution not on purpose because some of the pages they were reading from got stuck together. john boehner made a big show about having all of these new rules for their legislation in the house under his leadership. but then the very first bill, he moved in the house under his big new rules, the bill to repeal health reform, he exempted it from his big new rules. then there was mr. boehner’s failed pledge to cut $100 billion this year out of the federal budget, even though though he put the figure in writing quite directly it kept getting revised downward over and over again by tens of billions of dollars. he explained that one as a complicated math issue. there was also that one week in february when speaker boehner scheduled three separate bills that he wanted the house to pass, and then none of them did. in addition to just the logistics of getting politics done, there has also been the trouble that john boehner has had just talking about politics.

>> when we say we’re going to cut spending, read my lips. we’re going to cut spending.

>> read my lips. the only famous thing that george h.w. bush ever said. the phrase famous, of course, for costing him the presidency. after inexplicably saying the phrase himself, saying read my lips, although nobody prompted him to say anything like that, john boehner walked away from the podium and was close enough to reporters that they heard him when he said, as the next thing as he walked away from the microphone, quote, i can’t believe i just said that. talking about politics thing has proven very difficult for mr. boehner. it was just a few weeks ago boehner made sure he was caught on tape saying, yes, sure, it would be fine to cut subsidies for oil and gas companies. and a few days later, his entire republican caucus, including him, moved to defend those oil and gas subsidies. there was also the dualing state of the union responses delivered by two different republicans. more recently, mr. boehner made a big show of announcing he had hired a law firm to defend an anti- gay marriage law for house republicans. making the announcement apparently before checking with the law firm to make sure it was ok. a move that not only reversed the decision but all but destroyed said law firm and caused one of its marquee partners to quit. there’s also that thing about the house not being allowed to commend the navy s.e.a.l.s team that killed osama bin laden. they were allowed to rename post offices in the week after that happened, but not to commend the s.e.a.l.s team. i’m sure that john boehner is a nice guy. honestly, he seems like a pleasant person. people seem to enjoy his company. john boehner as house speaker seems to have whatever you call the opposite of a midas touch. and this whole paul ryan kill medicare thing is really just the latest example in what’s becoming a very long and hard to keep track of list of stuff thee has really screwed up in a way that has hurt republicans and embarrassed his party. today with his caucus all but bursting at the seams over the political damage that has been done by him making them take that kill medicare vote, the latest example being the loss of the new york 26 special election, speaker boehner himself today acknowledged that medicare maybe did have something to do with the new york 26 loss.

>> part of the — the small part of the reason we didn’t win clearly had to do with medicare.

>> very small part. you think? this paul ryan thing has gotten so bad for john boehner that now his republican counterpart in the senate, mitch mcconnell, is starting to turn on him in a way that is being leaked to the press, and these to leak stuff except on purpose. an anonymous source, of course, telling “politico” that during a meeting of senate republicans this week, quote, mitch mcconnell told his colleagues that he warned house speaker john boehner of the political risks in proposing a major medicare overhaul as part of the ryan budget. mcconnell dressing down john boehner through the press like this? republicans behind the scenes and increasingly to the press are acknowledging that this paul ryan kill medicare vote that john boehner arranged was a mistake. republicans are not dumb. republicans can read all the same polling as everybody else can on medicare. they know how this is going. they should have known how it would go. but think about what john boehner just did to his party. the only power republicans have in washington is that they control the house, right? and their fearless leader, john boehner, for reasons still not explained, made all of the house republicans vote to kill medicare, 235 of 239 of them, voted to kill medicare. unwilling to get beaten over the head with that vote by not only democrats but by republicans every single day for the next 18 months until the next election, republicans may have realized that vote was a mistake, but they seem to be trying to save the situation by protecting john boehner, by protecting the house, by trying to keep their sides in line on this at least publicly. presidential candidates like newt gingrich are forced to reluctantly sign on to the paul ryan kill medicare budget or face the wrath of the rest of the party. republicans who dare oppose the ryan budget in public like scott brown of massachusetts get berated in the press and threatened with the republican primary challenge for doing so. republicans who try to ride the fence on the issue like presidential hopeful tim pawlenty are being pressured into endorsing it, as tim pawlenty did today.

>> i think ryan should be applauded. i like his courage and leadership of getting the plan out there. if that was the only bill that came to my desk and i wouldn’t be able to pass my own, then i would sign his bill.

>> after days of dodging that question today, tim pawlenty took the plunge. i would vote to kill medicare. the only potential presidential candidate who hasn’t signed on is mitt romney. so far he has avoided to sign onto the kill medicare thing. i think he is the only one so far. republicans like karl rove are trying to do damage control on this now. in publications, friendly publications like the ” wall street journal,” mr. rove writing today that republicans need a political war college that schools incumbents and challengers in the best way to explain the kill medicare plain now that they have all signed onto it. that’s the kind of stuff the party has to deal with right now. karl rove saying let’s make the best of this. let’s turn that frown upside down. can we set up a college for this? and then at least 15 republican sources already over the last couple of weeks squawking to the political press about how this is not something they can put a shine on. this is a huge political error. this is an unforced republican error for which they still do not have an explanation, let alone a solution. that’s what john boehner has done. for anybody who does not like the chosen policies of house republicans, anybody hoping that the house republicans therefore do not succeed at getting what they want, at this point i think it is an open question as to whether or not you should be hoping that john boehner remains as speaker of the house republicans. joining us right now is chris hayes, washington editor of “the nation” magazine and msnbc contributor. great to see you. thanks for being here.

>> great to see you too.

>> what does it mean when washington, politics, when everybody is running to the from es to deride and mock their own party leadership, the speaker of the house of their own party?

>> well, they love metaphors in washington politics, and that means people are starting to head for the hills instead of beating an orderly retreat. in some ways, i’m shocked that there isn’t more of this. i mean, if you take a step back in some ways, the degree to which party discipline has and continues to be maintained is as surprising as how politically idiotic this enterprise was from the beginning. i talked to a republican consultant today and said, what do you think about 26 and medicare? and he said i hope it’s a wake-up call, because most of the members still think to themselves we’re right about this and people will come around to it. and as much as it’s shocking to see that article in request the hill” and the leaked comments about mcconnell, remember democrats never got started running all over the place the day after scott brown. you had everyone, barney frank, saying on the record to “politico” well, that’s it for health care. in some way, it’s a real study in the kind of difference between the level of sort of party unity in both parties, and in this case, it’s proving to be — it’s sort of this double edged sword. because that party unity could be a powerful tool when wielded behind things popular. but in this case, it’s looking like a death match.

>> i think there is something to be said for the idea that now they have done it, they have to try to survive it, and try to survive it together.

>> which is the same logic of health care, right? we were all saying after this, you can’t unring that bell. you cannot walk away from that vote you’ve taken. if you drop it now, have you the worst of both worlds. but the big difference here, it’s one thing to take a really difficult vote politically or one that will expose you to political risk in ex-change for a substantive accomplishment. but that was never on the table here. it was clear that it was not going to pass a democratic senate and be signed by a democratic president. that’s what is so mind boggling about this.

>> that’s why the segment is john baner is bad at his high poth thesis. he let paul ryan put forward that plan that was adopted as the official republican party budget, and he made everybody vote on it, which did not pass, and picks the fight. an astonnishingly bad move. and i guess i feel like my new task is to convince john boehner to explain to me the thinking. there has to be something.

>> here is the thinking. i think i can tell you the thinking. i think they had this shock doctrine moment, to quote my colleague naomi klein, which is that there was sort of a panic on capitol hill about deficits and debt. there was an intense conversation about the entitlement crisis and the debt crisis. there was a backlash expressed through the mid-term elections. and they thought they could pull off this bait and switch, basically run against democrats and kill them for voting to, quote, cut medicare, and then kind of sneak in this agenda because everyone in washington was kind of behind this. and i think they just forgot, frankly, how much people like social insurance and like the welfare state. that’s just a core fundamental fact of american politics. and they are fundamentally ideologically opposed to. squaring that circle is difficult, even in the best of times. i think they thought they could get away with it. it was one of those crisis moments when they could strike when the riern iron was hot, and they forgot.

>> that would be about the humans that would be reacting to them. chris, thanks a lot. appreciate it, man.