as of this moment, there's going to be a vote. it's going to be in a half hour time. >> as the outcome is looking less likely. the dow is down. >> thank you so much for watching "power lunch." "closing bell" is right now. you can't miss the vote so stay tuned. hi, everybody. welcome to the "closing bell." i'm kelly evans at the new york stock exchange. >> wow. here we go. i'm bill griffeth. this could be it. the house expected to begin voting on the gop health care bill in about 30 minutes. the voting will begin. president trump saying he wants the vote to happen today despite continued reports that there are not yet enough votes to pass it. we are all watching capitol hill. we're watching the white house and the potential market reaction with the dow down right now 70 points at the lows of the session.

>> we're going to debate whether a potential failure to send the trump rally into a tail spin. let's get to it. we have team coverage of the house vote. kayla tausche is on capitol hill counting noses and eamon javers is at the white house watching that as well. kayla, what are you finding right now? >> reporter: well, we're doing our darndest to count, bill. while we still are in wait and see mode with this bill, no update on whether it's still happening. the feeling is much like yesterday. this frenzy with leadership hustling over to speaker paul ryan's office. we saw greg walden the chairman of the energy and commerce committee entering and also cathy mcmorris-rodgers who's the head of the entire republican caucus. the status is just to figure out what the status is because the holdouts are in a holding pattern just a few blocks away at the capitol hill club. that's where the freedom caucus has been holding before this vote is taking place.

the vice president made his way over there earlier this afternoon and gave what was described as an emotional speech, an emotional meeting to the group that was there. interestingly, aides that have come through this media gauntlet have said that they haven't heard that the vote has been canceled. i've been told by one senior aide that there hasn't been an update to the schedule yet. they say there is a big game changer this morning and that was when the chair of the appropriations committee decided to turn on speaker of the house paul ryan posting publicly on facebook that he was not going to support this bill. i want to read you part of this statement. he said, unfortunately the legislation before the house today is currently unacceptable as it would place significant new costs and barriers to care on my could nstituents in new jersey. it's wear that such a high profile congressman would turn on a vote supported by the leadership on capitol hill.

that's what's happened as some of the moderate support has deteriorated. they expect the vote to happen at 3:30 p.m. they did not comment whether they would have the votes. the expectation is that it could still happen. the anticipation is still building. we'll let you know what we hear, guys. >> to your knowledge, there have been no changes to the bill itself from yesterday? i mean, right now they're not talking about making changes, they're just trying to get people to vote yes or no to the bill as it stands, right? >> reporter: that's correct, bill. part of the meetings are taking place, but it's unclear what was discussed as potential barters for potential votes. i mean, with the absence of earmarks here, i heard so many congressman lament the fact that they really don't have anything to offer in place of votes. the white house does. the white house can trade horses. congress really isn't empowered to do that. this could be one example of

that happening. >> kayla, thank you. by the way, we should note the down is briefly down almost 100 points a moment ago. take a look at the chart on your screen. we tipped lower precipitously in the last several minutes. we're approaching the 3:30 deadline for the vote. it's a good point to get to eamon javers to get to all of that. >> reporter: as if we didn't already have enough drama at the white house. we just got an unexpected visit from fbi director james comey who was spotted by reporters going into the west wing. he was here, we believe, for about half an hour. the white house officials that i've talked to about this won't say anything about why he was here. of course, comey making headlines earlier in the week talking about the president's wire tapping allegations and also talking about the fbi's investigation into the trump campaign and any possible collusion between trump campaign officials and the russian government. high drama there but we don't know exactly why comey was here.

another visitor not necessarily as much of a surprise today was paul ryan, speaker of the house. sean spicer during the white house press briefing just a little while ago was asked what paul ryan was saying to the president of the united states behind closed doors here at the white house. here's what he said. >> they are continuing to discuss the way forward on this. the speaker is updating him on these efforts. as i mentioned to many of you, the president has been working throughout the week on this calling early, starting early in the morning and working late until night calling with members, visiting members. by our count, over 120 members. the president and his team have committed everything they can to making this thing happen. >> spicer also said the president feels very much that he has left it all on the field here. they've done, as you've heard, everything they can. here's a little bit more from spicer. >> at the end of the day this isn't a dictatorship. we've got to expect members to ultimately vote to -- you know, how they will according to what they think. i think the president made clear

they're the ones that have to go back and answer to their constituents why they didn't fulfill a pledge they made. >> guys, i think we've now got some video here of fbi director comey moments ago leaving the white house. let's roll that video if we do have it. there you see the tape there, comey, a very tall guy so he stands out in that shot. we'll rerack it there. there is the fbi director walking out. not clear who he is with there and not clear what this was all about. so there will be some questions to the white house press office here about exactly why he was here, who was he with, what was the subject of this briefing if he was briefing the president on anything at all. so many questions swirling around this white house today, guys. we're doing our best to figure out what exactly is going on. back over to you. >> what next if i can say. eamon, thank you. trying to make that. let's do that now. the dow now down more than 100 points for the first time today as we head toward what we

believe will be the beginning of the vote on the health care bill in about 25 minutes. let's get to our closing bell exchange, meg green from meg green and associates. keith bliss is here with us at post 9 and rick santelli is there in chicago. so, keith, what do you make of this selling beforehand? i mean, clearly the bias is to the down side now as we head towards the close. >> it is. obviously something spooked investors and traders as we get more and more reports, as we get closer to the vote. i wrote earlier today that we are in an over sold state. we have been since tuesday especially in the banks, brokers and financials. we can't get off of our back. it all has to do with politics. we're hanging on every noise that's coming out of the beltway. a little bit of a troubling sign, by the way, is that the early imbalances here at the new york stock exchange are very much to the down side on the sell side of that.

i think people are taking a mind set right now. let's just get out of the way. let's wait and see if the dust clears. if there is a vote at 3:30, what it's going to be, if it's a yeah or a na voty vote. they don't want all of this disruption coming out of one of their parties. >> the dow is down more than 100. the vix is 1214 which we haven't seen in a while. meg, what are you doing in this market? >> you know, this is like a aye bloom market. there's good news and bad news. everybody keeps jumping on whatever news they hear. you can't do that. i think you basically have to take a ride. look, if the president and the congress has not passed the health care bill, which it's looking kind of iffy, everybody is going to say, wait a minute. we elected him because we want tax reform. i don't see how you can put tax reform through unless you pass the health care bill because what are you going to do that 3.9% that pays for it, the .9%

extra tax that pays for it. so you have everything very entwined and it's a really, really difficult thing. the essential benefits that they're fighting about. >> are you -- do you sense any opportunities here? i mean, with a selloff like today, we had one on tuesday as well. do you sense any opportunities to jump into some beaten up sectors here? >> i don't think this is a selloff yet. i think we're going to see a selloff because i think the volatility is going to be much huge ger than 1% here or there. we haven't had a good 10% selloff in a while. i think my point is also why are we just focusing on the u.s. market. we're in a global world. europe is up over 7%. you have the s&p up over 5. if you're just looking at the u.s. markets, you're missing a big, glorious world out there. so i really think that you need to be diversified.

if you have some cash, great. is this the correction we're all waiting for? i don't believe so. >> okay. >> i think this is natural volatility. >> by the way, the dow is about halfway back down towards 20,000. we're at 20,560 having briefly closed above 21 k just a couple of weeks ago. all right. mr. santelli, you know, so stocks are going to stop trading in about 50 minutes' time here. you know, bond yields, the dollar, a lot of this stuff is going to keep moving. you know, what are people to do as we head into the weekend? >> well, you just nailed it in your last comment. see, this is like starting your taxes two hours before midnight on the last day with respect to trading the markets. in front of a weekend with this vote going to the wire, nothing is going to be looked at as half full. everything is going to be half bad and that's the way traders are and it makes sense. they're going to be, you know, void of trying to make any adjustments after about another 50 minutes so i would look for

the trends to continue. but one trend we're not seeing which goes right to meg's comment. i won't comment about the sustainability of the corrections in europe or the emerging markets looking good but they're definitely some major channels that the fixed income and foreign exchange markets are paying a whole lot more attention to than the political theater in washington. we're only down ten basis points. dollar index down a little bit. much of those dynamics are more global. as far as the equity markets, it's hard to dismiss the triple digits. it's not being directly aimed at what's going on on that floor. but exactly how they follow through or how they look on monday no matter how the vote goes, it's still a bit hard to say. but you are definitely seeing some tangible effects in my opinion that you could really write home about right now in a thin market in equities. >> okay. we have 49 minutes left. what do you expect to happen here in the next -- as we head to the close?

>> when you have imbalances on the sell side or buy side, you'll see them pair off as we get into the close. that's going to be real key. if we get people to come in and put a bid under the market. if we don't, i expect a lot of selling. and then as we come in on monday i would expect more selling pressure but i'll tell you this, we have all the major indexes oversold right now. if the s&p were to trade all the way down to 2320, i think it's an excellent buying opportunity. watch the dollar. the dollar is really weak. on the verge of getting over sold. typically that is a very good set up for u.s. equities. >> very good. thank you, folks. appreciate it. momentous day. everybody, great to see you. stay liquid if you can. >> we will. >> and keep breathing. >> and breathe. exactly. thanks, meg. see you later. about 45 minutes to go here. dow is down 100 points. that's a half a percent decline. goldman is one of the worst performers. the s&p 500 down 1/3 of a point.

nasdaq interestingly enough is barely lower and apple has now been the best performer since the election. taken the crown from goldman. russells are down 1/4 of a percent today. the house is expected to vote on the american health care act within the next half hour. a leading health care analyst tells us that she think it will get hit if the vote fails. >> the biotech etf is higher. we'll run through the standout performers there. you're watching cnbc first in business worldwide. we don't want you to go anywhere right now. plant floor. right, but now ge technology monitors every machine. yeah, it brings massive amounts of information right to you. so you don't need that. well, it makes me look young and uh..."with it." time to move on. oh i'll move on... right into the future. ...backwards.

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the debate on the house floor tips at this hour. we believe that the vote itself will get underway in about 15 minutes at 3:30 eastern time. as we get closer to that vote, the market continues lower. the dow down 117 points, 118 just off the lows of the session. the s&p, the nasdaq and the russell all in minus signs. micron is rising on earnings it

hand di handily beat the chip giant's prices. manufacturing efficiencies helped drive gross margins higher. that stock a real stand out to the up side today. a gain of about 7%. >> it was up almost double that earlier. it's interesting the way this turn here overall has taken a stellar performer like micron down a couple of notches. >> we're awaiting a house vote which is supposed to take place during this hour. for more on the health care sector impact, let's bring in two guests. welcome to you both. ipsida, let's start big picture. when we're talking about the health care sector itself, let's say the bill doesn't pass because that was the latest reporting kayla was bringing to us right now. if it does not pass, who does that help and hurt the most? >> well, high drama here in washington today. thanks for having me on such a busy day. if it fails, well, if it fails

that's obviously bad for republicans. and i would say that likely the hospitals would rally because it means that health care reform might not be happening. managed care could see a little bit of a dip simply because there is the health care industry fee that was supposed to be repealed, but honestly as this administration and congress pivots to tax reform, i think a lot of the industry taxes, including the health insurance fee could get repealed. you could see relief from them in a tax reform bill. >> paul, we should point out you advised governor romney during a previous campaign on health care issues. he famously implemented a health care plan something like obamacare in massachusetts when he was governor there. this is such a complicated bill. there are so many moving parts and pieces. what do you make of what's going on right now in this battle between the tuesday group and the freedom caucus and everybody in between? >> look, i take from it that

governing is hard. you had the easy position of opposing obama. now you have to find a position between the right wing and centrists. they were hoping this would set the table for tax reform in terms of reducing potential outlays so they could say, look, we're spending less money. we can take a bigger tax cut later. i think drug makers would like to see this get done later because of the fee on pharma. can the republicans govern? >> ipsita, this might be a knock if the president said, okay, this didn't happen, perhaps there's more bipartisan consensus about doing something about drug prices, for example, where would that leave that industry? >> exactly. if you fail on health care tonight, then the president could be thinking, hey, i'm going to send some tweets, i've been talking about it in speeches anyway, let's get something done on health care and drug pricing is a populist issue. he likes to talk about it.

and, indeed, we think -- we've thought for a while that he's apt to do something on reimportation, on part d drug negotiation. that's for the medicare program. and also part b. b as in boy. these are the high cost specialty pharmaceuticals that are -- that are injected and are quite expensive. >> you know, we don't have time to talk about the content itself because that's unfortunate. that's what this is about. it's about the politics. can i just get your thought here with the president's threat that if this thing fails he's just going to leave obamacare in place. how many of those conservative republicans do you think will allow that to happen? >> look at it this way. next november we're going to see a lot of stated changes. more insurers pulling out. that could be an emergency situation where the white house can say you have to come back to the table or these exchanges are going to collapse. your members are going to be left there. >> in that regard it may not be dead. >> i don't think it's dead. >> in the long run.

>> we should just update everybody. closer to 4:00 p.m. is when this vote will begin. thank you for joining us as we do await to find out what happens in the house this afternoon. in the meantime, it's anybody's guess. the motivation for the markets right now. we've got 40 minutes left in the trading session with the dow down 116 points. as we continue to watch the drama on capitol hill. veteran technician raffl acampora, president trump was helping to bring, quote, the rebirth of capitalism to the markets. does that change if the health care bill fails? he will join us coming up. president trump also giving a formal green light to the controversial xl key pipeline. we'll have reaction to that next.

welcome back. that's a live shot of the floor of the house of representatives there on capitol hill where the debate is still going. as we understand, they have about an hour's worth of debate left. at 4:00 or thereabouts, perhaps even later before this happens. quick note of context, terry haines was saying earlier he thinks the later this all slips the closer it might be. it indicates there might be some vote getting. if it happens more quickly it's probably more of a clear yes or no. in any case as the reporting has leaned towards perhaps a no. the markets have sold off. the dow is down 100 points. of course, it's changing by the minute. we'll keep you a breast of all of that. another interesting consequence

is that hospital stocks which have been hit early in the year are now rising. look at community health, tenent, life point, universal health services are up 2% and in community health's case up more than 7%. >> i don't know if it's good or bad for the markets to have them delay it. i know we weren't going to get the final result anyway. you'd get a sense of the trend as we were heading to the close if the vote got underway while we were still trading. now it's afterwards. now you really are flying blind in that regard. >> you're exposed to the market. he says they just want clarity. >> got clarity on the keystone pipeline today. transcanada is trading higher after president trump officially green lighted the pipeline after meeting with builder transcanada's ceo at the white house this morning. watch. >> today i'm pleased to announce the official approval of the presidential permit for the

keystone xl pipeline. transcanada will finally be allowed to complete this long overdue project with efficiency and speed. >> as you probably know, it spans from alberta to u.s. refiners. heavy crude today. president trump says the project will lower energy costs and create thousands of jobs and reduce the nation's reliance on foreign oil. president obama, of course, rejected the pipeline back in 2015 citing environmental concerns among other things. carbon emission issues as well. >> and there you have it. keeping an eye on the oil price here. tilted a little bit this morning. a little bit more. >> 34 minutes to the close. we think it will happen with the dow down 105 points. the house vote on the ahca could start soon. we'll take you back to d.c. for the latest developments after the break. plus, veteran market

technician ralph acampora, whether it will send the trump rally into reverse. ( ♪ ) it just feels like anything is possible here in upstate new york. ( ♪ ) at corning, i test smart glass that goes all over the world. but there's no place like home. there's always something different to do like skiing in the winter, jet skiing in the summer. we can do everything. new york state is filled with bright minds like samantha's. to find the companies and talent of tomorrow, search for our page, jobsinnewyorkstate on linkedin.

welcome back. as we continue to monitor the house there on capitol hill, the debate continues the vote that was supposed to begin in 15 seconds time is going to happen clearly at 4:00 p.m. centene, molina health care and humana and cigna. they're understandably moving higher by 3% today as it looks like this may, emphasize may not pass. humana and cigna going the other way. interesting. you don't want to emphasize too much why they might be behaving this way this afternoon, bill. there's a lot of uncertainty as this all plays out. >> boy, that is for sure. we've got 30 minutes left as we head to the close. the dow down 99 points. kenny polcari here. we've been discussing the market bias is definitely on the sell side. do you think that is tied to the vote in washington? >> that's what they're trying to say. everyone is trying to position

themselves because they think the vote will fail. if the vote fails it's not something everyone is expecting. they're expecting the market to collapse. it's going to say so much about trump's agenda. >> i have to interrupt. we apparently have breaking news out of washington. surprise, surprise. kayla tausche. >> reporter: what do you know as we're getting so close to the timing of the vote. i learned from a source that the republican conference, which is the entire population of the house republicans will be meeting in a closed door session that's going to happen in the basement of this building and that is expected to start any time between 3:30 we heard from one source and 3:35 from another source. so this is going to be closely watched. i asked what the announcement is. radio silence as of now, but as soon as we know exactly what the speaker of the house and the chair of the republican conference plan to announce after all of their meetings throughout the day, we will let you know. this is going to be closely watched as everyone here on capitol hill is on pins and

needles to know exactly what will be happening with this vote. >> all right. can the drama get any higher here? all right. so now you're a trader. what do you do with this? clearly the vote happens, if it's going to happen, after the close so you're flying blind here. >> yeah, ybut i think you play the fence. you know that the tone is that it's not going to pass. you've built yourself up defensively. even if the vote doesn't pass it says more about the state of the republican party which is what causes all the concern about tax reform, fiscal reform, all of the other stuff. that's where i think the market will come under pressure. that being said, i think the big bank is going to be called into action to hold the market steady. there's a pattern there. every april 16th the market gets under some pressure. just funny how that works. >> yeah, isn't that amazing. thanks, kenny. have a good weekend. kelly? >> thank you guys. time for a cnbc news update with sue herera. >> hi, kelly. here's what's happening at this

hour. 11 migrants have died, another 4 are missing after a boat sank in the agean sea. seven people were rescued. turkish television said the migrants had been traveling in a rubber boat. thousands of iraqis attending a protest in baghdad calling for reforms and an end to corruption in iraqi government institutions. protestors carrying flags and championing slogans in favor of the religious leadership in iraq. california corrections officials adopting new criminal sentencing rules that aim to trim the state's prison population by 9500 inmates after four years. they include steps like reducing inmate sentences up to six months for earning a college degree and by up to a month each year for participating in self-help programs. and under pressure. twitter is exploring a possible subscription based version of its tweet deck. it has struggled to attract

enough advertising revenue to turn a profit. that's the news update this hour. kelly, back downtown to you. >> sue, thank you for now. the house scheduled to vote on the repeal and replacement of obamacare very soon. >> we think. >> john harwood is in the capitol with the latest. john? >> kelly, we've got the house in recess right now. not sure when they're going to come back, whether or not we're going to have a vote today. you just heard from kayla a few minutes ago about the republican conference meeting. don't know whether they're going to use that meeting to tell people that this was their -- this is their moment under the lights to try to demonstrate whether they're going to vote to replace or not or whether they're going to announce that there isn't going to be a vote. everybody's been going around various members around the hill including mark meadow, and hallie jackson faced him on the street a few minutes ago. here's what happened in that exchange. >> i'm not making any --

>> let me just ask you this. can you tell me if there's any deal today, congressman? this is d day. >> i'm not making any comments. i would love to share. this is more about really our nation so i don't want to make anymore comments. >> reporter: now that's not a promising sign for the bill. of course, you've got defections on the right from the freedom caucus. i was told this morning 18 to 20 are hard nosed there. you also have significant defect shuns on the left. not much of a left. people like charlie dent of pennsylvania, people like rod frelinghausen who's the chair of the appropriations committee. very significant that someone that prominent in the house leadership would come out against this bill. all the signs that we've seen from the white house, they are planning for what comes next. it's not looking promising. >> john, i hate to interrupt but

we have even more information now. we are just being told that speaker ryan will now hold a news conference at 4:00. in fact, let's bring kayla in on that. what are you hearing about that? >> reporter: well, bill. we have just learned from our colleagues at nbc news, they are reporting from their sources that the president has asked speaker paul ryan and house leadership to pull the bill and that is expected to be the announcement at the republican conference. it hasn't started or it's getting underway momentarily. it's 3:36 p.m. you saw the speaker has scheduled a 4:00 p.m. press conference. we've learned this week all scheduling on the hill is fluid. that will mean they're not going to be deliberating for much time at this republican conference meeting. the expectation is that it will be a relatively quick turn around. the speaker will then give some remarks and nbc news reporting that the president has asked the speaker of the house to pull the health care bill. >> all right. kayla, let me bring john back in. so now what?

what happens now, john? >> reporter: well, first of all, the administration has been clear they want to get to other items on their agenda. it's also clear that republicans are more unified around some elements of the rest of that agenda, including the issue of tax reform. last night mick mulvaney, the budget director weren't oor we hill and said we're done with this after tomorrow and move on if we don't get it. they're not getting it. mitch mcconnell has also indicated he did not want to linger on this priority. >> right. >> sean spicer repeated that again today. so what i would expect is at some point they're going to have to come back and deal with health care for the simple reason they've said over and over there are a lot of problems with it as it's now being run. they're going to have to also measure the backlash from their constituents. >> john, thank you. john harwood and kayla tausche and look at the market now as we get the word. >> coming back. >> the bill has been pulled.

>> we were down 100 points. we're now down 60. let's ask our next guest what he makes of that. joining us is ralph alcapore. ralph, what's the read on this news that this -- this blil not be voted on this afternoon, that it has been pulled, this repeal and replacement of obamacare? >> well, i think everybody's holding their breath. obviously the results of that vote will dictate what the market does. may i get very technical for a second? >> that's why we're here. that's what you do for a living, ralph. >> we'll talk about liberace numbers. >> okay. >> this week since the post election if you could draw a graph of the market, they were in perfect up trends. on tuesday we had a karate chop when the dow dropped 237 points. most of those trends, i'm talking about the dow and the s&p and the transportation, most of those trends have been broken. >> right.

>> i still have a target of 22,000 for the dow. but that break that we had is not significant in the sense that it caused much damage but it's significant in the fact that we broke those trends. now, forgive me for being too technical. the next rally, and we'll have another rally, that's the one bill the tide has to lift all the boats. these averages have to make new highs. if they don't, then you can have what we call divergence. you can have trends going in different directions. >> right. >> that would signal that maybe the trump honeymoon is over. >> i saw that tweet. >> not yet. >> the other day when you talked about how the up trend from the election had been broken. >> yes. >> since then we have essentially been going sideways. today notwithstanding. we have some volatility as they see what's going on in washington. that has been the hallmark of the market this year is essentially sideways action with with one, count them, one 1% move in the dow this year, and

that was on tuesday. what do you make of that kind of action? >> well, that's -- that's why i'm not pulling the plug on my 22,000 target on the dow. i'm willing to give the market a bit of a breather. i mean, we need the pull back. everybody's been waiting for this. but as i mentioned just a moment ago, it's not the decline that concerns me, it's the next rally, bill. they have to correct those divergences. if not, people like me are going to say, gee, maybe it's over. >> yeah. i mean, that has been the pattern, largely the cycle. it's amazing to watch how sharp the comeback has been just here with the dow down -- it's almost about to go positive. look at this. we were down 100 points just a couple of minutes ago. >> 120 to put a fine point on it. >> down less than 10 points at the moment. again, all of this coming as, you know, the house leaders have pulled the bill to repeal and replace obamacare. as arthur cashin was saying, he

thought you'd have a rally if it was pulled. if they don't have the votes to get it done, they move on to tax reform. that's been the signal. while you're looking at trends in the market i would imagine the prospect of that still happening and maybe getting tackled right away would bolster your bullish view. >> well, that's the point, you know? if they can get past this and not delay all of trump's other programs, then i think the market will breathe a sigh of relief. that's exactly what they're -- they'll look beyond this and see things that will get done. that's positive. >> okay. all right. thanks, ralph. always appreciate your insights. >> thank you. >> ralph alcampora. back to kayla tausche on capitol hill. what now? >> reporter: well, bill. i want to direct you to the twitter feed of robert costa, writer at the washington post, national political reporter and one of the closest chronicles of the white house. is he tweeting about a conversation he is having on the phone with the president right

now. he says president trump just called me. still on phone, in quotes. we just pulled it, he tells me. and then he goes on to say, i don't blame paul, trump tells me. of course, referring to the speaker of the house, paul ryan. one of the questions has been whether the relationship between the speaker and the president and by tangent of that, whether the relationship between congress and the white house has been frayed over this. the white house had thrown its full weight behind this. it was a bill that was shepherded from the beginning by speaker ryan but apparently according to this conversation that robert costa of the washington post is having with the president, he says, i don't blame paul. we'll let you know if there's anything more that comes out of that or of course this news conference that's happening momentarily. >> kayla, the significance of this is big for the markets at least i would think because if there's a prospect of moving quickly to tax reform, to infrastructure, to something else as health care gets left behind, i would imagine you need paul ryan, you need his plans,

you need that leadership and that apparatus largely in place. it would probably be more of a risk, all of that, if the relationship were to be severed, right? >> yes. that is true for policy. it's also true for the figure head that you would have pushing that policy here within the house of representatives because there was some speculation that if the speaker could not actually get this billi through the house, through the senate, on the president's desk that perhaps this job would be in jeopardy. the fact that the president does seem to be going against that -- >> what you find very interesting, this is the twitter president we're talking about. he could very easily just have picked up his blackberry and written on twitter, i don't blame paul and we have pulled the bill. i wonder why he felt the need to call one of the people that has been very -- >> who's now just tweeting it himself. >> -- hard on him. the washington post of all places. he calls robert costa to tell him. >> perhaps he believes robert

koscos costa is not the fake news. for whatever reason he has his ear and they are having a conversation and he does not blame the speaker of the house for the bill's reported failure. >> that is amazing. we knew it would be an interesting day. thank you, kayla. we'll be back with you, i'm sure. 15 minutes left in the trading session here. the dow almost turned positive. hasn't yet. still down 22 points. the s&p, the nasdaq and the russell, they are now in the green. speculating about a lot of outcomes now. largely the reason is because the market is going to be doing the same thing. they have 15 minutes to trade this thing before we shut down for the weekend. >> nbc with the health care bill has been pulled. the biotech industry is something we're all asking. >> house speaker paul ryan set to speak at 4:00 p.m. we're going to bring that live as soon as it happens. a basketball costs $14.

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please repeat the objective. ♪ thrivent mutual funds. managed by humans, not robots. before investing, carefully read and consider fund objectives, risks, charges and expenses in the prospectus at thriventfunds.com. high drama in that building on capitol hill today and down pennsylvania avenue. the white house where they have announced that they are pulling the health care bill. the dow, which had started to come back, some of the averages

turning positive going negative again. the dow is down 64 points. >> we have 13, 12 minutes to go. let's get back to kayla tausche. >> our heads are on swivels here. we're in the media gauntlet. we're expecting commentary from house democratic leadership in response to the news that the bill has reportedly been pulled. republicans are meeting in the basement of this building discussing how to move forward, next steps, what happens from here. we haven't had an official announcement about that bill, but we do expect that to either come out of the conference meeting or to be announced by speaker paul ryan when he holes a press conference slated for 4:00 p.m. eastern time. that's in ten minutes' time. we'll bring you any news. in the mean time we have been following the twitter feed of robert costa from the washington post. he was on the phone with president trump. trump told him, according to a tweet, we just pulled it, he told me. we refers to the white house or

the we refers to the speaker of the house who reportedly had communicated to the president that he did not have the votes for this to pass the house today. costa then goes on to tweet, i don't blame paul is what the president told him in that conversation, meaning that the president at least on this piece of the legislative agenda does not hold it against the speaker of the house, paul ryan, that he was not able to secure the votes from the freedom caucus and some of the moderates to get that passed. costa said he's going to be writing it up. we're looking for the commentary that should be coming from the democratic leadership as well as the press briefing from paul ryan in just about ten minutes. >> kayla, thank you. before we move on, let me just point out because this is significant. we've been hearing about the market on close orders as they were evolving being heavily on the sell side. art cashin told us it is 2.4 billion with a b dollars to the sell side as we head to the close. that would account for some of that selling we saw there.

it's always possible we can see some pairing off as we go. that's the big number. >> another place to keep an eye is the biotech sector. meg tirrell tells us in the wake of this decision not to move forward with this bill. ipsita told us maybe they go after drug pricing after this. >> reporter: that was the main fear here. we are in the heart of biotech country in cambridge, massachusetts, talking with a lot of folks about the implications about what would happen with the health care bill. people are focused on drug pricing. there is nothing specific in the gop health plan that deals with drugs, the pricing, manufacturing, distribution. so really there wasn't anything specific to the bill that they were particularly worried about. they are talking about the implications of what comes next for drug pricing. to get drug price reform done it may be a false hope that this bill not coming through that

he'll dron drug price reform. trump did address this just this week. take a listen. >> i think we're going to do it in health care or we're going to do it separately, but we're going to bid on drug prices and try to have the lowest prices anywhere in the world from the highest. >> reporter: saying this is something trump is focused on. he will continue to focus on it. i was talking to others who say the implications with what's happening with health care reform may have a lot of speculation on what happens next with other parts of trump's agenda particularly tax reform as it is in this industry. >> thank you very much. bob posani is on the floor. what do you make of the zigs and zags that we've seen? >> i'll tell you something that's very curious, bill. we're debating it from some of the guys on the trading desk. i haven't put up the s&p or the dow.

you'll notice the markets dipped when there were reports that the vote was going to go down, that they were going to lose the vote. very important. and then the markets rose a little bit when there are reports that they were going to pull the bill. now there's a difference between losing the votes and pulling the bill. why does the market rise a little bit when they say they're going to pull the bill. the general consensus down here is essentially because they need to keep health care reform alive because you need to kill the obamacare taxes in the obamacare bill in order to help pay for the tax cuts, the offset for the tax cuts. that's the feeling that a lot of people have right here. so keeping the health care bill alive might be very useful for people who still believe that it's going to help with tax cuts down the road. other than that, i would just point out that we had not a lot of movement in the market. 100 points is not a lot of movement in the dow number one. number two, the vix moves up to

14. that's higher than we've seen it. it's not a big move. finally, volume is terrible. 30% volume below normal. that's a sign there's no panic selling going on at all. whatever the machinations i say very modest move. back to you. >> bob, thank you very much. let me say very, very quickly since we're so tight on time as the president is being quoted on the wires saying they're not going to revisit this bill any time soon, but he's hoping that the democrats can come to him and see if they want to work on health care. >> the democrats? >> yes. >> let's be reminded that obamacare now is still the law of the land for now as the president said it would be if they didn't vote on this thing. as we head to the close after they pull the health care vote and how it impacts the markets, joining us is independent investment consultant david darnst. what a day, bill, kelly. i had sent in earlier the

acronym being frank. your colleague said mate it vote. v is volatility. >> now we want to make it fold. >> volatility, bill, kelly, is very low even though bob posani said it's up to 13. it's still way below the long-term average of 13. volume is low. valuations are high. that's not a great mix. price to earning. the o is oil prices are down about $6 from 54 to 48. i think they are due for a short-term rebound, okay? >> okay. >> the t is the turbid and turgeon. meaning to confuse and bewilder and turgeon meaning to swell or being bombastic. and the e is europe. keep your eye on europe with the

april vote. this morning's poll showed actually emanuel mccall, you might have seen, actually above lorraine le pen. >> vote works after all. >> vote does work after all. >> different country that we're talking about. >> i would like credit for the c concision of my talk. >> so noted. lots of brown any poinbrownie p. >> reporter: how the president feels about all of this, guys. i mentioned bob costa of the washington post earlier, he is on msnbc saying the president said he would come back to health care sometime this year. so this is not done for good, at least according to robert costa, the washington post. trump said he's very supportive of the speaker and eager to work on infrastructure and other items. there appears to be close coordination at hand going forward on other items of the president's legislative agenda. also, i want to flash a tweet

from maggie haberman of "the new york times." also another white house correspondent trump tells me in interviews this is the democrat's fault. when obama care, quote, explo s explodes, they will be ready to deal. he's placing the blame on democrats for putting in place the prior legislation that has created something on which the republicans were trying to build repeal, edit, whatever verb you want to use. he appears to be looking backward and putting the blame on the previous piece of legislation and the prior president rather than the process that unfolded here on capitol hill over the last month. >> kayla, there are so many aspects of the health carey peel and replace plan that follows. you know this market is immediately thinking, wait a minute, are they going to as they indicated today do tax reform? is there any mention of that coming down the pike from robert costa? >> i haven't seen the words tax reform mentioned specifically.

it is something the president talks often about. he's been at rallies to talk about health care reform and he's talked about tax reform. it's no secret the president wants that. there was one school of thought that perhaps why he was talking about it so much and especially saying this week that tax reform would still happen is because maybe that was a hedge. maybe he didn't want the market, the stock market which the trump administration and members of the cabinet have said is a barometer of the administration, if it plummeted after this vote failed if, in fact, they anticipated an unfavorable outcome, perhaps having tax reform as a hedge for market participants was one of their plans. >> we've got just a couple of minutes until we hear from paul ryan. you see a live shot there where he will tell us from his point of view what happened. let's get over to bill. >> what a remarkable day. now as we head to the close the dow is down 50 points.

let's just review for this week. and bob posani is here with me. this will be the worst week of the year because of that one day on tuesday when we had that more than 1% decline. so it's not saying much. we've been going sides ways. look at the trading on the dow. wti crude, watch this. here comes crude oil. tracked almost perfectly, right? a little bump on thursday for crude. it's been going the same direction. stay with me. ten year yield, watch this. as they were selling stocks and buying bonds the yield came down but we're still holding at 240 and it refuses to go below that level there. what went up this week, bob? >> moves. >> gold. >> and gold moved ip versely to those other markets there. and we've all been debating on what that is trying to tell us.

at any rate, i want to go back to this fire thing. why the market seems to be off. we need or at least people who want tax cuts, who want a clean tax cut bill need to have the obamacare taxes removed as a partial offset to the decreases in the taxes that they will see on -- a corporate tax bill. i think that's why the market moved up even though the bill is being 3u8d. being out there in the future i think is useful to the markets. overall, very modest moves in the s&p 500. an unusual day. normal trading day. move 125 points from the high to a low on daily level. volume -- >> not especially heavy. exactly. and i was going to say, what collapsed today was the vix. that was in the 14 raping early on. the dow -- >> back down. right around the 13 now. the important thing is although the markets are down, a lot of

this was on lower interest rates, ten year yield. below the 240 stabilized the markets. >> a remarkable day. we knew -- but we knew not what was coming. what is coming is that news conference with speaker ryan coming up right now. second hour of the "closing bell." it's all yours, kelly. thank you, bill. welcome to the second hour of the "closing bell", everybody. i'm kelly evans. let's begin with how we're finishing up the day on wall street. quite a finish in the last hour there. we went down more than 100 points only to rebound with a drop of 56 on the close. looks like we closed right about at 20,600 today on the dow. again, we're 500 points away from that daily close above 21,000. the s&p 500 dropping a point or two for its part. the nasdaq and the russell today

managed to stay positive. by the way, apple is now the best performer since the election. more so than goldman which had a rough session today and the russell 2000 small caps managed to hang on to a gain of a tenth of 1%. paul ryan is going to hold a news conference on president trump requesting to pull the health care bill that was slated for a vote today. we'll take that live. and joining me on the panel today cnbc market contributor and pro columnist michael santoli. evan newmark and terry haines of evercor isi. terry, let me go to you. wow, what do you make of what happens with health care and the corporate tax bill? >> well, i think two things, kelly. firstly, what you'll hear from speaker ryan this afternoon is trying to fix the health care system is the right thing to do. as he has said and as president trump has said, you know,

politically you could let the system fall apart and they decided they didn't want to do that. so good for them. secondly, they're going to do a hard pivot to health care. excuse me, hard pivot to tax reform. they'll work on tax reform hard. second mnuchin said this morning that they're still shooting for august to get tax reform done. i think that's an ambitious time frame. it's at the early edge of our own time frame in the third or fourth quarter. it shows how committed they are to it. and i think there's a joint interest by president trump and the congress to really push hard on this and turn -- >> we're going to go again to paul ryan the moment he begins speaking, mike. just some thoughts on the market. >> i mean, obviously jumping within a tight range. everyone has decided the first reflex move would be if the bill failed. it will be a test lower. maybe there is unfinisheds business in this.

we're down 1 1/2% from the week. i don't think we'll know what that means thereafter. i don't think you want to extrapolate too much. >> vix jumped to 14. glacially calm. not anymore. >> no, no, no, i think today this afternoon is much to do about nothing. i'll be honest with you. i see they're -- >> just 1% of the economy. >> wasn't a bill about to be signed. this was a bill that was going to enter a process that the senate was going to turn down. >> do you like the fact that now we have clarity that it has been pulled so they can move on? >> i think that's probably a net benefit. i think the one take away is even tax reform is not going to come that easy. >> that's for sure. let's get to kayla tausche. john harwood will have more on what's happening in washington. kayla, to you? >> reporter: 4:03 p.m. we are expecting any moment now

the speaker of the house paul ryan to make a public address to pull the health care bill from a scheduled vote today. of course, it was supposed to happen yesterday. which was the seventh anniversary of the affordable care act. that is postponed. i would say indefinitely. the president has said to reporters in watching to be that he will revisit it. until now the event is on the table. move to compromise over the last several days. further alienated byte the conservative and the moderate parts of the party. we are awaiting comments from the democratic leadership who no doubt will be taking a victory lap after the failure to bring the bill to the house floor for a vote. we'll bring you the comments as soon as we have them. until then i believe the conversation will remain on what happens next for the trump administration. what is the next priority in the agenda? what does that mean for

companies? we know they want certainties. at least for now there is a certain decision reportedly that this bill is not happening. >> kayla, thank you. we turn to john now for your take on how this all played out. john, the prospects for tax reform or what happens next? >> reporter: well, it's a short-term blow to president trump. he's billed himself as a master negotiator. his negotiating failed in this case, but i think it's possible there's a long-term benefit for the republican party in getting off of this issue. this is a bill, after all, that according to the congressional budget office was going to raise deductibles, put 24 million people off of insurance, give older patients especially those with moderate incomes a hit. this would be great fodder for them to go after him on. not having to vote tn it provides release. tax reform in my view is much

easier to accomplish. it's more broadly shared within the party. there's some democrats who also believe in corporate tax reform even though they're going to have a disagreement with republicans on how they do it, i do think there's a question of whether it's broad tax reform, comprehensive, individual or corporate. my guess is where they end up. because it's -- broad tax reform is extremely difficult to do. that's why we haven't done it for 30 years. i do think the administration has got to take some lessons from this defeat and the fact that it's got to figure out a better strategy both for locking in on a proposal and pushing it with more compassion than donald trump spoke about. >> that's the podium we'll hear from paul ryan. keith learner from sun trust. what are you going to do with these markets? >> i don't know if anything changes the equation. there's been a lot of focus on

health care. at this point there seems to be -- this morning we got the best european pmi in about four years. it will start to focus on earnings where s&p are up 9%. >> you know, keith, even as you say that, the u.s. services pmi weakened a little bit. it got better. >> the risk is economic data are still positive. trying to instill positive as well. i go back to the earnings picture. the earnings picture is improving. at the end of the day, that's what's going to pitch stocks. >> we're coming off having closed the markets the worms day

of the week because of the election and the worst week because. election. >> we've been pulling back for a while. s&p down 1.4%. down 2.5%. big question, is this going to be a bigger fat pitch? or a lot of this muddle and trudging along? >> sounds like it's not just the speaker we're going to hear from. eamon javers has more from the white house. >> reporter: i just had the opportunity to speak to sean spicer very briefly here at the white house along with a crowd of reporters hoping to get a reaction from him. he said he's not going to give his reaction but the president of the united states will give his reaction. they say they're going to do that event, the medal of honor recipients will leave the oval office and then the president is going to make some remarks here on the health care bins bill, the pulling of it, what he makes of it and what higgs plan is

going forward. we're not sure whether the president is going to take questions from the full reporters covering that event. we imagine he'll get questions from them. we'll see if he does a spontaneous press conference. the reporters have already gone in for that medal of honor event which should be ongoing right now. we could be a few moments ago from hearing from the president and his take. we've already seen him. now we'll get his reaction on camera in front of a wider audience. >> we're expecting speaker ryan any moment now. >> tell me how this is going to affect me and my health care. what does it mean? there's still a lot of businesses in the community. >> it wasn't clear what the actual impact would have.

it wasn't clear. after it came out of the senate because it had to go through a reconciliation process. that would have been the problem with -- they tried changing it. >> waited longer. >> the problem is the american people want everything and as voters they're not willing to make the tough call on you should subsidize this person, you shouldn't. until people have clarity on what the policy means to you, there will be no clarity on what the policy means going forward. >> mike, how much damage has been done now in the sense of just as we're trying to understand the state of play in the health care industry today, you know, it's still unclear. by the way, this idea that the obamacare exchanges are going to get precipitously worse or some who argue after you move through

2017, 2018 was more stable. there's no report. >> the hospital stocks rallied hard after it became learned that that was a major bet. in fact, there will be an implosion as he and others have been saying for so long. it may not be the case but it could be meddling along. can the administration on an executive basis do anything to push things one way or the other that will force the democrats? i have no idea. >> weaken the underlying economic plan. >> we talk all the time what impact does this have on health care. 80% of americans get their health care through their employer. >> not directly. this is the important point

which is if you thought eight years ago, yeah, this doesn't really affect me. you soon learned, yes, it does. my dedublgtdibles go up. as long as the president and they're only a little bit affected. you still have the problem with the other 20%. >> terry, we're about to hear from the speaker. as you just heard, we'll hear from the president tonight. what would you adhere? >> well, i think they'll say they're not going to give up the fight and they'll do their best to do that. meanwhile, there are many other priorities that need to have the attention of dock -- congress and the president and they're going to move to tax reform and the economic agenda. i think you're going to see a pretty quick down shift both from trump and from congress.

>> it appears as though the speaker is walking in now. let's take a listen to what he has to say. >> you've all heard me say this before. moving from an opposition party to a governing party comes with growing pains and, well, we're feeling those growing pains today. we came really close today but we came up short. i spoke with the president just a little while ago and i told him that the best thing i think to do is to pull this bill and he agreed with that decision. i will not sugar coat this. this is a disappointing day for us. doing big things is hard, all of us. all of us. myself included. we will need time to reflect on how we got to this moment, what we could have done to do it better. ultimately, this all kind of comes down to a choice. are all of us willing to give a little to get something done? are we willing to say yes to the good, to the very good, even if it's not the perfect? because if we're willing to do

that, we still have such an incredible opportunity in front of us. there remains so much that we can do to help improve people's lives and we will. i've got to tell you, that's why i'm here. i know that's why every member of the conference is here, to make this a better country. we want american families to feel more confident in their lot in life. we want the next generation to know that, yes, the best days of the country are still ahead of us. i'm really proud of the bill we produced. it would make a dramatic improvement in our health care system and provide relief by those hurting under obamacare. what's the most troubling is the worst is yet to come with obamacare. i'm part of the long, inclusive member driven process that we had. any member that wanted to engage, to improve this bill, they could. i want to thank so many members who helped make this bill better. i also want to thank the

president. i want to thank the vice president. tom price, mick mulvaney, the entire white house team. the president gave his all in this effort. he did everything he possibly could to help people see the opportunity he could with this bill. he's really been fantastic. still, we have to do better and we will. i absolutely believe this. this is a setback, no two ways about it, but it is not the end of the story because i know every man and woman in this conference is now motivated more than ever to step up our game, to deliver on our promises. i know that everyone is committed to seizing this incredible opportunity that we have and i sure am. >> [ inaudible ]. do you plan to try to help it along and prop it up? do you -- >> that's the problem. i worry -- the question is do we prop it along and try and prop it up? it is so fundamentally flawed i

don't know that that is possible. what we're really worried about is -- and you've heard me say this all along. is the current premiums with the death spiral. we just didn't quote get consensus today. what we have is a member driven process. we came very close. the wise thing to do is not to proceed with a vote but to pull the bill and see what we can do. but i don't think the law as it is fashioned or anything close to it is really going to be able to survive. >> [ inaudible ]. >> we'll see. we're going to go back and figure out what the next steps are. yes. >> can you explain if it is the conservatives that drove out your predecessor, john boehner, are they responsible for the block here? >> i don't want to cast blame. there is a block of no votes that we had that is why this didn't pass.

they are a sufficient number of votes and they didn't change their votes. we were close. some of the members of that caucus were voting with us but not enough were and, therefore, that -- i met with their chairman earlier today. he made it clear to me that the votes weren't going to be there for their team. that was sufficient to provide the balance to not have the bill pass. >> mr. speaker, you all swept the house, won the majority with a promise to repeal obamacare. majority in the senate to repeal obamacare. >> that's right. >> the white house, with a promise to repeal obamacare. how do you go home to your constituents and send all of your members home to their con strit two went saying, you know what, it's not even 100 days into the administration. sorry, folks, we can't figure it out. >> dana, that's a really good question. i wish i had a better answer for you. i believe obamacare is a law that's collapsing, it's not working. it was designed in a fundamentally flawed way. we believe this bill is the best way to go. we didn't get the right consensus to go there. >> a few questions if you don't

mind. the bottom line obamacare remains the law of the land. >> that's right. >> reporter: is that going to change in 2017? >> yeah. i don't know what else to say is that obamacare is the law of the land, it's goings to remain the law of the land until it's replaced. we didn't have quite the number of votes to replace the law. >> we're living with obamacare until it's so long. i think we were doing the democrats a favor. i think we were doing the architects of obama a favor bypassing this law before it gets even worse. i guess that favor is not going to be given to them and it will be worse. the effects of obamacare, i'm sure they may be pleased. when they see how this works, all the plans that are hitting obamacare, i don't think they're going to like that either. five states, one plan left, one choice. over 1/3 of the counties in america, one plan left. the kind of projections we're

being told from the people providing health insurance to these people, it's going to get even worse. so i don't think the architects of obamacare envisioned this future. it's certainly not one we want from the american people and i wish we had the kind of consensus we needed to bring a bill to the floor to pass and replace it but we don't have that now. >> if you don't mind -- >> thank you. >> what about the political capitol that this burns. you have to keep the government open in five weeks, the debt ceiling. you still want to do tax reform. i know you say this part was integral to getting to that part. how much capital did you burn on this today and how does that potentially injure those other bills? >> i think our members know we did everything we could to get to consensus. this is how governing works when you're in the majority. we need to get 216 people to agree with each other, not 210, not 215, we need 216 people in the house to agree with each other on how to write a piece of legislation. we didn't have 216 people.

we were close, but we did not have 216 people. and that's how legislating works. now we're going to o move on with the rest of our agenda. we want to secure the border. we want to rebuild our military. we want to get the deficit under control. we want infrastructure and we want tax reform. the last question you asked about tax reform, chad, yes, this does make tax reform more difficult but it does not in any way make it impossible. we will proceed with tax reform. that's an issue i know quite a bit about. i spoke with the president, the treasury secretary, his economic advisers earlier today about tax reform so we are going to proceed with tax reform. this makes it clearly more difficult to know how the numbers work, about $1 trillion, but that means the obamacare taxes stay with obamacare. we're going to fix the rest. >> this portends bad things? >> i don't think so. >> why? >> members realize there are other parts of our agenda that

people have even more agreement on on what to achieve. we have even more agreement on the need and the nature of tax reform on funding the government, on rebuilding the military, on securing the border. this issue has a big difference of opinion not whether we should repeal/replace obamacare but just how we should replace it. that is the growing pains of governing. we were a ten year opposition party, you have to be against it. in three months time we try to go to a governing party where we have to get 216 people to agree with each other on how we do things. we weren't there today. we will get there but we weren't there today. >> i was wondering if you want to move ahead with phase 2 or 3. hhs and phase 3 legislation and also if you can talk about how the conference is doing right now? >> the conference is let down.

the conference is disappointed. we were on the cusp of fulfilling a promise that we made. we were on the cusp of achieving an ambition that we all had for seven years. we were a little short. we were close but not quite there. on other i shall use, this bill would have made phase 2 much, much better. nevertheless, there are some things that the secretary of hhs can do to try to stabilize things. really we need this bill to make it better. risk pool. we believe the smarter way to help people with pre-existing conditions get affordable coverage while bringing down the health care costs for everybody else is through reinsurance risks or risk sharing pools. that's not now going to happen and, therefore, we won't be able to deploy that policy tool that we think is better than obamacare. so we do -- we do use a lot of the tools that we wanted. >> yes, i do. >> thank you.

>> that is speaker paul ryan leaving the news conference in which he detailed what happened today. how they did not have the votes that would pass the repeal and replace obamacare act. larry kudlow's here as well joining us. >> a number of the things you think the speaker made. it's interesting how much power the freedom caucus made. how much power do they have at this juncture? >> speaker ryan is an old friend of mine. he made a large mistake. he misinterpreted the reconciliation package. there's a great story in "national review" online. my friend wrote it. he and be others spoke to elizabeth mcdonagh, the senate parliamentarian. for many months nobody talked to her. you can expand the reconciliation, you can put regulations into reconciliation. the leadership coming out of the

leadership was wrong. they could o have done mandatory, essential benefits, small businessman da tori. the tax credits all could have been put into reconciliation. what got their back up originally was the essential benefits package. >> hang on one second. let's bring in kayla tausche and john harwood from washington. kayla, just walk us through the defeat now that the speaker has suffered and we just heard at this news conference. >> reporter: well, he acknowledged multiple times, kelly, the growing pains as he described them of moving from an opposition party to a governing party and to be sure the freedom caucus, which he didn't cite by name but referenced a large block of no votes sufficient enough to cause this bill to fail, he mentioned that basically the onus was on that group. of course, this is their first legislative test. they have been successful in putting up opposition while they

were in the opposition party, but this is really the first instance where the republicans have been in control and have had the presidency and had a president that would be willing to sign a bill and they chose to effectively use their veto power, for lack of a better phrase. but it was interesting to hear the speaker answer the question about how much political capital was burned in this process. larry just called it a miscalculation, but the fact that he went ahead with what he now calls a fundamentally flawed bill, how much capital did he burn? he said that they are going to be pushing ahead with other parts of the agenda. the order that he referenced them in, according to the speaker, was securing the border, rebuilding the military, investing in infrastructure and then he also acknowledged tax reform. he said it will be more difficult because they will not have the tax components of health care as the building blocks towards tax reform, but he didn't say it would be impossible. he said, in fact, it won't be impossible and that there is a lot of agreement on that. interesting to hear him comment

on the political capital that was perhaps spent throughout this process. >> that's for sure, kayla. thank you. we may be hearing from nancy pelosi in response to all of this. let's get to john harwood, john, for the next steps here. >> reporter: well, i think the next step is for everybody to regroup. you're going to have speaker ryan and the president gauging the blow back from their base. the republicans who have been hearing for seven years that they were going to repeal obamacare. it is true as kayla indicated that this is the first time republicans have had unified control of government, but i think we need to point out that republicans have controlled the house of representatives since 2011 and they have consistently shown a difficulty, partly because of the freedom caucus and the tea party members and other things to function as a governing party. remember the debt crises, the government shutdown, all of the things that a normal governing party is able to work out in

that case with the democratic president, now with the republican president. so, yes, they are growing pains but the question is how long are those growing pains going to go on. now i do think as i discussed before that tax reform, i believe, is going to happen and specifically tax cuts. i don't know how comprehensive reform will be, but i think you're going to see members jump to go to that issue because it's something that feels much more natural and better. >> all right. >> let's get a quick break here. we haven't taken one in a while. pay some bills. come back. we've got larry, terry haines, so many people standing by. we're going to hear from house minority leader nancy pelosi and president trump all expected to speak on the health care bill being pulled. we'll bring those to you live as soon as we come right back.

uh, yeah. it's over, larry. what is? the whole wheelie thing. what do you mean? i just got this baby to get around the plant floor. right, but now ge technology monitors every machine. yeah, it brings massive amounts of information right to you. so you don't need that. well, it makes me look young and uh..."with it." time to move on. oh i'll move on... right into the future. ...backwards. you're going backwards. the future's all around us! not just on your little tablet, my friend.

today victory for the affordable care act and more importantly for the american people. the 51st anniversary of reverend martin luther king jr. saying in a speech that mr. clay burn quotes often to us that of all of the forms of inequality and health care is probably the most inhumane and can sometimes lead to death. that was the spirit in which we

came into this debate honoring the vows of our founders, of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. so it's about our country and the vision of our founders. it's about our faith and it's about the unity of the democrats united by our values. with that i'm pleased to yield to our discontinuitinguished ma. sorry. not sorry. democratic whip. >> not yet. >> this is a good day for the american people. we worked over years to assure that the american public would have access to affordable quality health care. we went a long way towards that effort in 2010 when we adopted the affordable care act.

much of the credit for passing that bill goes to then speaker pelosi, now leader pelosi. who was emphatic in her advocacy for ensuring that every american would have the security of having the availability of health insurance. this bill went down today. it went down today because the majority of the representatives of the american people in the house of representatives thought this was a bad bill. went in the wrong direction. left 24 million people behind. raised costs for seniors between 50 and 64 very substantially. and everybody else would have paid more and gotten less insurance and, in fact, it was made worse last night where the requirements for covering essential services was

essentially gutted. the american people are still going to rely on us. >> that's steny hoyer speaking just after nancy pelosi, the democratic leadership responding to the failure of the repeal and replace obamacare bill. john harwood has more reaction. john? >> reporter: well, democrats in an all republican washington don't have a lot of power, but one power they do have is if they can hold their members together, they can really narrow the window through which republicans can pass to achieve legislation. they did that on this health care bill, and as a result as paul ryan said in the news conference a few minutes ago, we're going to be living with obamacare for the foreseeable future. i do think there is the possibility that the failure of the trump/ryan partnership on health care as we move to some other issues may involve getting some support from democrats. for example, on infrastructure. you've got a lot of republican members who don't support any big increase in infrastructure

spending. trump says he wants $1 trillion program. not clear how much of that comes from washington, but some. and many of those freedom caucus members who opposed him on health care don't favor that higher infrastructure spending. so it is possible that there is a slightly greater role, not necessarily on tax reform but on some issues like infrastructure, for democrats and president trump to work together if the white house wants to do that. >> thank you, john. larry, you're bursting here. >> no. i agree with john's first point, that this enhances tax reform. let me just clarify something in my opinion at least. the freedom caucus didn't break with donald trump. in fact, donald trump was the guy who arranged the deal so the so-called mandatory essential benefits would be put to the states, not to the -- >> last night. >> that -- that was late in the game. freedom caucus liked that a lot. it's a pity it didn't come at

the beginning of the game. the freedom caucus's complaint was with mr. ryan, because his first bill which i looked at and said, this is a good start but we can build on it, he never wanted to build on it. it was only when trump got involved and did yo man's work that suddenly the leadership started with manager's amendments. that came very late in the process. >> you're saying the speaker should have listened to -- >> interesting. >> the bill could have been different and would have worked through the senate and all of that? >> i don't know that. this is a bitter sweet for people like me who wanted to repeal and replace, okay? if there had been a nay vote that would have done obamacare for the rest of our time. that means no changes, a nay vote. you department get a nay vote. >> it's better to not get a thing. >> it's better to yank the thing. that was my last tweet here today before i came down here. the house bill is not the law. the senate makes its adjustments

and goes back to the house for a conference. this could have played out over the next couple of months. yanking the bill was better than losing the bill. the other point i want to make is it's too bad a lot of these tax hikes will not be repealed. yesterday i spoke about -- >> the original bill was a $900 billion tax cut. whether it was on the medical key advice tax, capital gains tax. >> right. >> that now is -- that's not going to flow through. >> right. this was very important to the economy. i believe one of the reasons the economy has been slow for so many years is obamacare and tax increases. cap gains tax, 3.8% i calculated could be worth 1,000 points. that's not going to happen. >> more importantly though is the topic we are all anxious to debate which is what needs to happen now, larry, so that the house freedom caucus will support raising the debt ceiling, making corporate tax reform that will increase the deficit? infrastructure funding, are they

going to get behind those? is this ideologically problematic? >> there are two things. one is a question and financial economic question. the freedom caucus is pro growth and supply siders on tax cuts so they want to get this done. what i would something to mr. ryan and his team is to open the door to them. and bring them in to the tent right away. >> yes. >> and to recognize, i don't want to make this technical, but it is, reconciliation essentially is what you want it to be. do not use that as an excuse to come in with a position that will be rejebted. now, in terms of infrastructure and the rest, i don't know. we'll wait and see. the good news here is tax reform will start earlier. >> okay. >> particularly business tax reform, which i think has a great chance to pass, and that will be good for the stock market and very good to the economy and for better paying jobs. that's the good news. the bad news is we're stuck with

obamacare and its taxes and its implosion and its premium increases for a long time. >> chris meek kins is here, brian gardner. chris, to that point, what does happen with obamacare now? what happens with our whole health care system if nothing will change for the next couple of months? >> i think everyone needs to take a deep breath and realize that while the president and other leaders may want to move on past the affordable care act, it's really up to the members to decide what they're going to do. government funding expires april 28th. republicans shut down the government over obamacare funding a few years ago. then you have cost sharing subsidy lawsuit in the house, then you have the new rates are going to be rolled out for fy dsh or for calendar year 2018. so there's a lot of trigger points that at some point they're going to have to do something on. >> hang on one second. we have more news out of the white house. eamon javers for the latest. >> reporter: hi, kelly. we're getting a readout on what

the president has said to reporters in the oval office. we're going to see the tape in a few moments. we have a transcript of the president's comments. i can tell you he does say that he believes obamacare will explode. this is going to have a very bad year. he says, we were very close. we had a very tight margin. no democrat support. he said, the best thing we can do is let obamacare explode. it's exploding right now. he's also asked a couple of questions here, particularly whether or not tax reform is going to be next on his agenda. he says, probably going to be going for tax reform next. he's also asked if he's confident in paul ryan's leadership. he said, yes, i am. a lot of actions and a long history of liking/disliking. great relationship with the gop. he said, he's not going to speak badly about anyone. he said, paul worked hard. there you have it from the president. united states. we'll hear it as soon as they can get back to the briefing room and play that tape for us. but the president saying tax reform is coming up next. and i can tell you that i asked

sean spicer in the white house briefing room earlier today whether or not there were any lessons learned with how this was handled to how the white house will handle the tax reform proposal. clearly there are lessons to be learned here, but sean spicer was not willing to go there yet. he told me, come on over this weekend and we'll talk about it but we're not ready to talk about lessons learned yet. >> yeah, i caught that little exchange. >> this is a very important point though. >> briefly. >> the freedom caucus so far as i know is very opposed to a border adjustment tax, which would increase import and consumer prices. they're very much opposed to that. so is mr. trump's own base. so my advice to leadership, let's get to tax reform right away. benefit the economy, markets, job. >> and forget the b.a.t.? >> but listen to what the conservatives are telling you. open the door first. >> that's the lesson. >> not the day before. so you have a unified republican

caucus. these are smart guys with a lot of integrity. >> yeah. >> they represent people who feel very strongly about this. brian, you are also hitting this deregulation theme quite hard now. what else moves forward in this whole agenda? >> well, you know, first of all, i think people have to step back. the regulatory agenda of the trump administration remains in tan tact. what we're talking about is in peril or at risk. looking at the financial world. the financial deregulatory agenda that goes through the banking regulators, that's fine. it's not going anywhere. that's on track. it's going to take time. that's fine. the legislative side, it really comes down to tax reform for two reasons for the financials. one is the obvious cut in rates and how it's good for banks because they pay a high effective tax rate. they benefit probably more than most other industries do. the other is that larry's talked a lot about reconciliation. republicans were thinking about

using reconciliation to also tag along with some changes to dodd-frank. >> yes. >> if they do -- if tax reform dies, then those changes to dodd-frank that can be hitched to the tax reform wagon, they also die. >> well, you're putting out a hypothetical about the very issue we're thinking we're about to get to. if tax reform dies you're saying? >> well, i'm just -- i'm talking about the risk that are out there to the agenda. >> yeah. yes, it's clear that the plan b is going to be going to tax reform. i don't know how easy that's going to be. for some of the reasons that larry and john harwood have gone through, john also mentioned the idea of not doing a comprehensive tax bill. >> right. >> just doing something on the corporate side. >> right. >> that's not easy because of the popular sentiment in the country today. if you do not do corporate tax

reform properly, most companies file as s corps. their taxes flow through their company and they pay at the individual rate. >> right. >> therefore, if you cut just corporate and not do comprehensive, you're leaving millions of business men, small, you know, mom and pop shops behind and in a populus era -- >> everybody knows we're about to hear from the president any second. >> brian, real quick though. you could -- you're right. you make a great point but as someone who helped draft the tax bill for mr. trump in the campaign, you could separate them out. >> here's the president. >> thank you very much. we were very close. it was a very, very tight

margin. we had no democrat support. we had no votes from the democrats. they weren't going to give us a single vote so it was a very difficult thing to do. i've been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing we can do politically speaking is let obamacare explode. it is exploding right now. it's -- many states have big problems. almost all states have big problems. i was in tennessee the other day and they've lost half of their state in terms of an insurer. they have no insurer and that's happening to many other places. i was in kentucky the other day and similar things are happening. so obamacare is exploding with no democrat support. we couldn't quite get there. we're just a very small number of votes short in terms of getting our bill passed. a lot of people don't realize how good our bill was because they were viewing phase one, but when you add phase two, which was mostly the signings of

secretary price who's behind me, and you add phase 3 which i think we would have gotten, it became a great bill. premiums would have gone down, would have been very stable, would have been very strong. but that's okay. but we were very, very close and, again, i think what will happen is obamacare unfortunately will explode. it's going to have a very bad year. last year you had over 100% increases in various places. in arizona i understand it's going up very rapidly again like it did last year. last year was 116%. many places 50, 60, 70% i guess it averaged whatever the average was, very, very high. and this year should be much worse for obamacare. so what would be really good with no democrat support, if the democrats when it explodes, which it will soon, if they got together with us and got a real health care bill. i'd be totally open to it, and i

think that's going to happen. i think the losers are nancy pelosi and chuck schumer because now they own obamacare. they tone 100% own it. and this is not a republican health care, this is not anything but a democrat health care, and they have obamacare for a little while longer until it ceases to exist, which it will at some point in the near future. and just remember, this is not our bill, this is their bill. now when they all become civilized and get together and try to work out a great health care bill for the people of this country, we're open to it. we're totally open to it. i want to thank the republican party. i want to thank paul ryan. he worked very, very hard, i will tell you that. he worked very, very hard. tom price and mike pence who's right here, our vice president, our great vice president, everybody worked hard. i worked as a team player and would have loved to have seen it

pass but, again, i think you know i was very clear. i think there wasn't a speech i made or very few where i department mention perhaps the best thing that could happen is what happened today. we'll end up with a truly great health care bill in the future after this mess known as obamacare explodes. i want to thank everybody for being here. it will go very smoothly. i really believe. i think this is something -- it certainly was an interesting period of time. we all learned a lot. we learned a lot about loyalty. we learned a lot about the vote getting process. we learned a lot about some very arcane rules in obviously both the senate and in the house so it's been -- certainly for me it's been a very interesting experience, but in the end i think it's going to be an experience that leads to an even better health care plan so thank you all very much and i'll see you soon. >> is it now your intention to go for tax reform or what's

next? >> we'll probably be going right now for tax reform which we could have done earlier but this really would have worked out better if we could have had some democrat support. remember this, we have no democrat support so now we're going to go forward on tax reform which i've always liked. >> you're confident in speaker ryan's leadership and his ability to get things done? >> yes, i am. i like speaker ryan. he worked very, very hard. a lot of different groups. he has a lot of factions. there's been a long history of liking and disliking even within the republican party long before i got here, but i've had a great relationship with the republican party. it seems that both sides like trump and that's good and you see that, i guess, more clearly than anybody. i'm not going to speak badly about anybody within the party, but certainly there's a big history. i think paul really worked hard and i would say that we will probably start going very, very strongly for the big tax cuts and tax reform. that will be next.

>> mr. president -- >> sir, is this fair to americans to let obamacare explode? >> it's going to happen. there's not much you can do about it. it's going to -- bad things are going to happen to obamacare. there's not much you can do to help it. i've been saying that for a year and a half. i said, look, eventually it's not sustainable. the insurance companies are leaving. you know that. they're leaving one by one and you have states that will not be covered. there's no way out of that. but the one thing that was happening as we got closer and closer, everybody was talking about how wonderful it was, and now it will go back to real life. people will see how bad it is. and it's getting much worse. you know, i said the other day when president obama left, '17 he knew he wasn't going to be here. '17 is going to be a very, very bad year for obamacare, very, very bad. you're going to have explosive

premium increases, and the deductibles are so high people don't even get to use it. so they'll go with that for a little while. and i honestly believe, i know some of the democrats. they're good people. i honestly believe the democrats will come to us and say, look, let's get together plan that is really great for the people of our country. i think that will happen. >> why do you think you couldn't craft the bill? >> we were very close. we were anywhere from 10 to 15 votes short. could have been even closer than that. you never know because you don't know how they vote. i think we would have been 10 votes, maybe closer. it is very hard to get almost 100%. you're talking about a very large number of votes. we were very close. when you get no votes from the other side, meaning the democrats, it is a really difficult situation.

i think we have to let obamacare go its way a little while. i would love to see it do well but it can't. it is not a question of, gee, i hope it does well. i want great health care for the people of the station. but it can't do well. it is imploding and soon will explode and it won't be pretty. so the democrats don't want to see that. so they're going to reach out when they're ready. when they're ready, we're ready. >> they're friends of mine. i'm disappointed. we could have had it. i'm a little surprised, to be honest with you. we really had it. it was pretty much tln within grasp. i'll tell what you will come out is a better bill. able better bill. there were things in this bill i didn't particularly like.

both parties can get together and do real health care. that's the best thing. obamacare was rammed down everyone's throat 100% democrat. and i think having bipartisan would be a big, big improvement. so no, i think this is going to end up being a very good thing. i'm disappointed but they're friends of mine. this is a very hard time for them and a very hard vote. but they're very good people. i think we can have things that i would have liked more. if we could have bipartisan. some day in the not too distant future, that will happen. i never said, i guess i'm here 64 days. i never said repeal and replace, i never said repeal and replace it within 64 days. a long time.

but i want to have a great health care bill and plan and we will. it will happen and it won't be in the very distant future. i believe there will be some democrat support that will happen and it will be an even better bill. i think it will be even better the next time around. and i don't think it will be too long a period of time. >> i don't want to speak with specifics but there are things i would have liked even more. i thought overall, this was a very, very good bill and i thought tom price, dr. tom price who really is amazing on health care and his knowledge, i thought did he a fantastic job. same with mike pence. they really did a fantastic job. thank you very much. thank you. appreciate it. >> and that's president trump speaking with his vice president mike pence by his side from the oval office, addressing the

decision to pull the bill. after that happened the stock market which had sold off on the prospect of a no vote did come back little bit here. the president saying he was hoping someday it would happen they might have a better bill, a bipartisan one. and he said perhaps most significant going into the weekend, they'll work very, very hard for taxes. >> this will accelerate tax reform by three to four months. which sit fabulous. and the president has been telling people in the last week or ten days, we should have done tax reform first. he's right. le of his campaign advisers suggested that. you would have gotten the tax reform until after the august recess, according to senator mcconnell. now you'll get to it in april. that's a big difference and a lot more time to get really important pro growth new incentives for businesses, small and large. >> this goes back to the man

we'll hear from. some breaking news from kevin brady. what is he saying? >> he spoke to reporters while he was moving through halls of the comment. and it seems like he's already moved on to tax reform. he said we have five years of blue print. he says we are so much closer to a final product on tax reform. we are not going to dwell on this a minute longer. when asked about the challenges, the divisions within the republican party posed during this american health care vote, he said there is nothing is insurmountable for the gop going forward. so expressing an optimistic tone and moving to the very next notch on the policy agenda representative kevin brady. moving on to tax reform. >> the next thing is the border

adjustment tax all over again. this is his mantle. >> so for him to say wave finished product, he always thought it was a finished product including the border adjustment tax. i don't know if we know the speed of the reset of priorities will look like. it will be a test next week of the market's tolerance for ambiguity. >> i think the market are get confidence from the stuff that larry has been talking about in terms of tax reform. i get more confidence from trump's demeanor in that press conference in which trump would be, those guys are losers. we lost. it was, it sounded like a politician. he sounded like a president almost. which is a good thing than the technicalities on that. >> i actually agree with you on that. his magnanimous approach was presidential friendly and smart

politics. if you listened to him reach out the democrats. as a former democrat who wrote a book about jfk that so forth, who i love, the democrats should not be the party of no and insult. why don't they try to do some business with arguably a great deal maker? reagan did business with democrats. >> you're wondering why they should do a favor to the party that just walloped they will. >> that's politics. in 1981, ronald reagan did not have the house. the republicans had the senate, not the house. reagan got his tax cuts ifr, i there. with 75 house democrats in favor. i know this is a different era. >> this is the point peggy noonan was just making in her column. the tone is wrong. this goes to your observation about how the tone has changed. >> i liked it.

>> get the help. >> we need more civility and more bipartisanship. and i think mr. trump on his best days can do that. the republican party, it needs become bipartisan with itself. okay. that's an issue. >> ied want to know why you're skeptical. >> i think if you have democrats cooperating on tax cuts, if you put the way it was, if it was the same world that we had back then. reagan came in it was 70. >> they're going to move to block it. >> why not try? why not try? >> they'll to have use the nuclear option. >> obama had a -- listen to me. obama had a 28% corporate tax rate in one of his later budgets. he didn't push and it mrs. clinton never mentioned it.

you can build on that. i'm saying, if you reach out. >> john harwood, let's bring you in here. >> i think this has been one of the roughest weeks for a new president i've seen. we had the fbi director saying that the trump campaign is under investigation for potential collusion with russia. his approval rating fell below 40% in the gallup poll and he lost his first legislative priority. he will have to pick it up. >> as we turn our attention to what that looks like, what's at stake for the markets in. >> we don't know where it is going. it is still out in front. hopefully we'll start turning toward earnings reports and things like that. i think if you were hinging everything on policy momentum, you have to reassess. >> the market is still a glass half full kind of market. they're going to look for every good piece of news they can hang

their hat on. it will take something more than this. >> thank you for being here. >> tax reform is bullish! >> this is what we need to know. thank you for watching lt "fast money" begins right now. >> this is "fast money." no deal in d.c. the gop pulling its health care bill minutes ahead of the expected vote. roll over the story, what it means for the rally. eamon javers outside the white house. they'll be bringing us the very latest breaking news throughout the hour. larry kudlow will be with us as well. we heard from president trump about the failure of the bill. >> a very different tone here from president trump in his first public comments about the failure of the health care bill onol