Three times on "Meet the Press" last Sunday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said the payment individuals must eventually make for failing to buy insurance under the health-care law is a penalty, not a tax.

"It's a penalty that comes under the tax code," Pelosi said, "for the 1%, perhaps, of the population who may decide that they're going to be free riders" by not buying insurance.

Moderator David Gregory persisted. "But it's a new tax. It is a new tax on the American people," he said.

"No, no, no, no," Pelosi responded. "It's not a tax. It's a penalty for free riders."

So what is the payment that virtually all citizens must make if they decline to obtain health insurance when that provision of the Affordable Care Act takes effect in 2014?

In his Supreme Court opinion declaring the law constitutional under Congress's taxing authority, Chief Justice John Roberts called it a tax no fewer than 26 times. The health-care law itself repeatedly refers to the payment as a penalty, but Roberts said that didn't matter. The conclusion about what it is, he said, "should not change simply because Congress used the word 'penalty.'" 

For him, the issue is how it actually works, not the label attached to it in the statute.

Penalties, Roberts said, work much differently from taxes. Quoting an earlier Supreme Court decision, he said a penalty "is an exaction imposed by statute for an unlawful act." But failing to buy health insurance is not unlawful, because a citizen has an alternative -- either buy insurance or pay a tax. The conclusion: It cannot be a penalty.

"Neither the Act nor any other law attaches negative consequences to not buying health insurance, beyond requiring a payment to the IRS," Roberts wrote. "The shared responsibility payment merely imposes a tax citizens may lawfully choose to pay in lieu of buying health insurance."

It is, he put it succinctly, “a tax on going without health insurance.”

Is all this semantics, or does it matter? It made all the difference to Chief Justice Roberts. His opinion makes it amply clear that if he thought it wasn't a tax, he would not have voted to find it constitutional. Under the law of the case, the Supreme Court declared that payment a tax, not a penalty.

In lieu of our regular First Thoughts, here's the news and reporting we're watching this morning.

The Obama campaign is up with a new TV ad resurrecting the charge that Romney is an outsourcer. “Mitt Romney’s companies were pioneers in outsourcing US jobs to low-wage countries,” the ad goes, citing a recent Washington Post piece, which the Romney camp disputes. "President Obama believes in insourcing. He fought to save the US auto industry. And favors tax cuts for companies that bring jobs home.”

The Obama camp is also highlighting a new Vanity Fair piece looking into Romney's complicated offshore accounts in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

The Wall Street Journal notes that Obama and Romney finally agree on something: a health-care mandate is a penalty -- not a tax. "Mitt Romney's campaign is aligning itself with President Barack Obama—and breaking from Republican leaders—by saying the government will be imposing a penalty, not a tax, on people who don't buy insurance as required by the new health-care law."

NBC's Garrett Haake confirms that New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R) -- a potential VP pick -- will appear with Romney tomorrow at a July 4th parade in the Granite State.

Haake also confirmed yesterday's New York Times report that Romney will visit Israel later this summer.

And in an interview with the Washington Post, Attorney General Eric Holder said this about last week's vote holding him in contempt of Congress: “I’ve become a symbol of what they don’t like about the positions this Justice Department has taken,” he said. “I am also a proxy for the president in an election year. You have to be exceedingly naive to think that vote was about ... documents.”

President Barack Obama's re-election campaign is launching a new attack on Republican rival Mitt Romney's business record.

In a television advertisement released Tuesday, the campaign says Romney invested in companies that moved jobs overseas and supports tax breaks for companies that do so. The ad, titled "Believe", says Obama believes in "insourcing" and favors tax cuts for companies that bring jobs back to the U.S.

Democrats believe a drumbeat of ads accusing Romney of shipping U.S. jobs overseas is starting to take hold in battleground states and impact voters' views of the presumptive GOP nominee.

The ad is running in nine politically important states, including Colorado and Virginia. 

Mitt Romney will travel to Israel this summer on a leg of a foreign trip for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee before the height of the fall campaign season.

The Romney campaign confirmed a New York Times report on a long-suspected trip by Romney to Israel. While the exact timing of the trip is unclear, a previous campaign aide told NBC News that it's likely that he'll travel to Israel from London, where the GOP nominee will head at the end of this month for the opening of the Summer Olympics.

Romney's approach toward Israel has been one of the main areas in which he's distinguished himself from President Obama on foreign policy issues. Romney had previously accused Obama of having thrown Israel "under the bus" for outlining preconditions of a peace process. Romney's also been hawkish toward the prospect of an Iranian nuclear program, a major concern of the Israeli government.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, the GOP's presidential nominee in 2008, made a similar trip to Israel. A visit to Israel has traditionally been seen as a way to appeal to evangelical voters in the Republican base, and perhaps pick off Jewish voters who tend to favor Obama.

A major donor to pro-Romney efforts, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, has been a major proponent of Israel's, and has cited it as a motivation for defeating Obama this fall. Moreover, Romney has maintained a relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both of them worked decades ago at Boston Consulting.

Alex Moe and Michael O'Brien contributed

Video edited by NBC's Jordan Frasier.

It's Monday, and we need some Jersey talk to keep us on our toes.

And we've got some for you.

During a Saturday press conference, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie got a bit fiesty with a reporter who asked a question off topic.

NBC New York notes:

Reporters were told in advance that the governor was only taking questions about a water emergency caused by collapsed mains in Monmouth County. At the end of the briefing, one reporter tried to ask Christie a question about a special joint legislative session the governor had called for Monday. 

“Did I say on topic?” Christie asked the reporter. “Are you stupid? On topic, on topic. Next question. Thank you all very much and I’m sorry for the idiot over there.”

Updated 12:04 p.m. - The Supreme Court's determination last week that health care reform could be sustained as an extension of the power of Congress to tax has launched a battle of political semantics in Washington over taxes. 

Republicans have latched on to the high court's ruling that the individual mandate -- the requirement that individuals have insurance, or pay a penalty to the IRS -- was essentially a tax. Though the majority decision was authored, ironically, by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, it offered an affirmation of Republicans' long-held contention that President Barack Obama's signature domestic achievement represented a tax hike.

Democrats have preferred, instead, to call it a "penalty" rather than a tax, parrying Republicans' attacks by using language presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney has used in defense of his own similar health reform law in Massachusetts.

As recently as this Monday morning, the Romney campaign was using the same language.

"It was a penalty, and the governor had all the authority he needed under our state constitution to put in the reforms that he did put in place," Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said this morning on MSNBC. "The governor has consistently described the mandate in Massachusetts as a penalty."

Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom

The aftermath of the court's ruling, in short, has resulted in a bizarre situation. Republicans -- including Romney -- attack "ObamaCare" as a tax, even as the party's standard-bearer uses language to defend the Massachusetts law that closely resembles Obama's law. (The Romney campaign is also quick to note that there are other taxes included in the health care law beyond the mandate.)

“The Supreme Court left President Obama with two choices: the federal individual mandate in Obamacare is either a constitutional tax or an unconstitutional penalty. Governor Romney thinks it is an unconstitutional penalty. What is President Obama’s position: is his federal mandate unconstitutional or is it a tax?” asked Amanda Henneberg, a spokeswoman for Romney.

And Democrats are uncomfortably wedded to a Supreme Court decision that handed them their desired outcome, but created for them a new political headache. Mindful that embracing a new tax could be politically treacherous for them in November, the White House and Democrats downballot are scrambling to spin the mandate as anything but a tax, despite the court's ruling and the fact that the "penalty" is paid to the IRS.

Republicans pointed to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's comments toward the decision on "Meet the Press" this Sunday as an acknowledgement of that.

"It's a penalty that comes under the tax code for the 1 percent, perhaps, of the population who decide they're going to be free riders," said the California Democrat, who as House speaker was one of the law's chief proponents.

The GOP is likely to find much more success in using this tactic downballot. They have been hammering away at House and Senate candidates since the decision was first announced.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, for instance, has targeted Democratic candidates in releases and videos throughout the weekend for supporting, they assert, a tax hike.

For its part, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has pushed back by launching automated calls against Republicans that accuse them of wishing to "put insurance companies back in charge of our health care."

But that appears set to be a separate battle from the one between Romney and Obama. Republicans' most visible figure this election year will have trouble explaining to voters how his proposal in Massachusetts is not a tax, but Obama's is. That was a chief conservative criticism of Romney during the primary: that he was the worst possible candidate to challenge Obama on health care, because of the similar law he had passed.

Four month to go until Election Day… GOP’s tax argument on health care cuts both ways… Roberts switched his vote?... Why this matters to conservatives: They realize they were thisclose to overturning the whole law… Obama makes plea to his donors… And RGA/DGA announce 2ndQ fundraising numbers.

*** Four months to go: Heading into this July 4 holiday week -- and with both President Obama and Mitt Romney without events today and tomorrow -- it’s not a bad time to look down the road to see what remains ahead of us in the presidential contest. At the end of this week, we’ll reach the four-months-out point of the race. In addition, now that we’ve cleared the Supreme Court/health care mile marker we have three more markers to pass: Romney’s VP pick (coming either this month or next), the conventions (in late August and early September), and the presidential debates (in September and October). And those are just the things we know are coming down the road; the unexpected also awaits us.

Nam Y. Huh / AP

Health care overhaul supporters hold signs during a rally at Daley Plaza in Chicago.

*** A taxing issue: As for Thursday’s Supreme Court decision, so far it appears to have created a political status quo. But the right has done their best to make lemonade out of the health-care lemons by taking advantage of the court’s rationale that the mandate is a tax. Make no mistake: House and Senate Republicans want to run against something, and this gives them their opening. (Then again, don’t forget that Republicans -- in 2010 -- ALREADY used this strategy, arguing that the health-care law raised taxes.) But this strategy puts Romney in a box. After all, he signed into law legislation creating a mandate, too. So was that also a tax? Indeed, the Obama campaign highlighted this exchange yesterday between FOX’s Chris Wallace and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Wallace: “If the Obama mandate is a tax on the middle class, isn't the Romney mandate a tax on the middle class?” McConnell: “I think Gov. Romney will have to speak for himself on what was done in Massachusetts.” Ouch. By the way, how many Democratic candidates for House and Senate will use Romney to push back against these attacks? We’re betting many of Romney’s health-care sound bites will become more well-known on the congressional level.

*** Roberts switched his vote? Over the weekend, CBS reported what many had been speculating ever since the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the federal health-care law: that Chief Justice John Roberts had switched his vote. “… Roberts initially sided with the Supreme Court's four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President Obama's health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals to uphold the bulk of the law, according to two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations.” More from CBS: “Roberts then withstood a month-long, desperate campaign to bring him back to his original position, the sources said. Ironically, Justice Anthony Kennedy - believed by many conservatives to be the justice most likely to defect and vote for the law - led the effort to try to bring Roberts back to the fold.”

*** Why this matters to conservatives: This reporting has raised the obvious question: Who leaked these deliberations? Supreme Court clerks? The justices themselves? Whoever it was, this explanation is now going to be the only one conservatives will believe and accept, even if somehow other leaks from the court end up contradicting this storyline. Until they go to their grave, most conservatives will believe Roberts somehow flipped and did so under pressure. Here’s another question: Does it even matter? But to conservatives, it matters A LOT. Why? They now realize they were thisclose to overturning the whole law. Trust us, many still can’t believe they had Kennedy for a full overturn.

*** Spare some change? Also over the weekend, the Daily Beast got its hands on a recording of a fundraising call Obama made to his donors while he was returning from Colorado aboard Air Force One. His message: Given all the GOP-leaning outside money, he needs help from his contributors. “‘The majority on this call maxed out to my campaign last time. I really need you to do the same this time,’ the president said in a highly unusual (and presumably legal) fundraising pitch from Air Force One on his way back to Washington from Colorado Springs, where he’d been assessing the terrible damage caused by uncontained wildfires. A special phone on the government aircraft is dedicated to political calls that are paid for by the campaign. More: “‘I’m asking you to meet or exceed what you did in 2008,” the presidential pitchman continued… ‘Because we’re going to have to deal with these super PACs in a serious way. And if we don’t, frankly I think the political [scene] is going to be changed permanently. Because the special interests that are financing my opponent’s campaign are just going to consolidate themselves. They’re gonna run Congress and the White House.’”

*** Must be the money! Speaking of fundraising… The Republican Governors Association says it raised $16.7 million in the second quarter, which it notes is twice the amount it brought in during the second quarter of 2008. And so far this year, the RGA has raked in $29 million -- slightly more than it raised at this point in 2010, when there were 37 gubernatorial races around the country. (Think the Walker recall helped here?) For its part, the Democratic Governors Association says that it raised $13 million across all of its entities (including its Super PAC and 501c4) this quarter, and that it has raised a total of $21 million for the first half of this year. The RGA number doesn’t include the money it raised through other entities.

*** A final note: Our morning column will be off tomorrow and Wednesday, but we’ll return on Thursday. As always, of course, we’ll update the blog as news warrants. Happy Fourth of July!

Countdown to GOP convention: 56 days
Countdown to Dem convention: 63 days
Countdown to Election Day: 127 days

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JINDAL: “On a call with reporters, Jindal said that the decision to uphold the healthcare law as a tax is a ‘blow to our freedoms,’” The Hill reports. “ What's next?’ he said, expressing concern for people who ‘refuse to eat tofu’ or ‘refuse to drive a Chevy Volt’ — a popular hybrid car.”  

He also nearly called the health law, “Obamaneycare.”

MCDONNELL: “In an interview published on Tuesday by WTOP, McDonnell said, ‘I’m not discussing the vice presidential vetting process.  You can address those questions to the Romney campaign.’”

PAWLENTY: He gets two Pinocchios for saying, “Anyone who understands the budget crisis facing this country understands that entitlements have to be talked about. And we need a leader to address that in detail. I’ll come to your house, Bob Schieffer, and mow your lawn if you can find President Obama`s specific proposals on reforming entitlements in this country.”

Glenn Kessler: “Pawlenty’s challenge sounds a lot like a bluff in light of the facts. Perhaps he knew that the yard-less Schieffer couldn’t collect the spoils.”

Speaking of specifics… here was Pawlenty also on Face the Nation about Romney: “So he hasn’t put out a specific plan to eliminate any of the particular deductions within the tax code, but he has talked pretty specifically about how he would reform, reduce and slow down government spending overall.”

RUBIO: He’s on his book tour.

As the presidential election heats up, Republicans are hoping to put Democrats on the defensive over the Supreme Court's ruling in favor of President Obama's health care insurance law. NBC's Chuck Todd reports.

After the Supreme Court upheld President Obama's health care law, Republicans vowed to block the law's implementation. NBC's Mike Viqueria reports.

A panel of experts analyzes the effects the Supreme Court's decision will have in the 2012 presidential campaign.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean discuss the health care case with NBC's David Gregory.

House Democratic Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) accused her Republican colleagues of acting as a "mouthpiece of the health insurance industry," and said their calls for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act are "unrealistic."

Pelosi, who spent a lot of political capital to get the bill passed in 2010, disagreed with critics who say the new law amounts to a tax increase on the American people. "It's not a tax," she said, adding, "it's penalty for free riders."

Politically, it's unclear yet whether the Supreme Court's ruling this week will be an asset or a liability for the president. Governor Bobby Jindal - a possible Vice Presidential pick for Mitt Romney - argued the best way to challenge the president's health reform law is to "elect Mitt Romney to repeal [it]."

However, former Governor Howard Dean (D-VT) contended Jindal's argument did not make sense. "Mitt Romney is the one that showed [the individual mandate] could be done for the whole country," he said. "I don't get this at all."

You can watch the entire program on our website, and be sure to check out our roundtable that broke down what comes next for the President's health care bill. We were joined by: NBC’s Political Director Chuck Todd; Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson; the National Review’s Rich Lowry; and new co-anchor of the Today Show, NBC's Savannah Guthrie.

Meet the Press will not air next week due to NBC Sports' coverage of the Tour de France. 

If it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi tells NBC's David Gregory that the health care overhaul has already fought the hardest of its battles.