has not been willing to offer evidence or go beyond what they have said all last week. so, i expect he'll be asked about it and the answers will largely be the same. wolf? >> i suspect you are right on that. jeff, we also could here as early as today the republicans plan to repeal and replace obamacare, how much it will cost and how many people will get that kind of insurance. how important, though, is this cbo's assessment? >> i think the cbo score is very important. the republicans i'm talking to an capitol hill are nervous about the number. they are not expecting it to be a good number in terms of how expensive it will be and how many people will lose coverage as well. we saw last week people in the administration trying to down play the accuracy of the cbo, the congressional budget office and it was not accurate in the affordable care act but it was the most approximate estimate

anyone gave at that point. i do expect sean spicer to be asked about that budget score which we expect later today, perhaps this afternoon. i'm told speaker paul ryan is likely to address it to talk about the cost. they believe it is probably not a good piece of information to come out. we have to wait and see what it says, wolf. >> we will wait and see together with you, jeff. thanks very much. we will wait and hear from sean spicer coming up momentarily. in the meantime, let's bring in two members of congress, ted lou, a democrat from california, a member of the house judiciary and foreign affairs committee and republican congressman, frances rooney of florida, member of the foreign affairs committee. thanks for joining us. let me start with you, congressman rooney. republicans, john mccain, paul ryan and kellyanne conway said they have seen no evidence to back up the wiretap claims made

by the president more than a week ago. if the president, congressman, doesn't come forward with solid evidence, do you believe he should apologize to president obama and to the american people? >> well, i don't think that we can make -- tell the president what to do unless he did something that was illegal. to make a comment about a wiretap, you know, i don't think that we can sit and say now you need to apologize. we need to bring the people in that issue warrants to the intelligence communities and find out what happened first. >> even if it wasn't illegal, congressman, if he makes an accusation, the president of the united states, that the former president committed a felony, wiretapping him during the campaign at trump tower in new york city, even if that weren't necessarily illegal what the president was saying, wouldn't it require some explanation, some retraction and some sort of apology? >> well, it's unfortunate the

state of the country where everything is so partisan, so harsh, so bitter. some of the things said during the campaign were difficult. things that were said since the campaign were difficult. my two months watching the partisanship on each committee on the house floor is not the way our country started out to be. >> i think you agree, and i want to bring in congressman lou in a second, he is no longer a candidate. he is no longer a business leader. he is the president of the united states. he has to be very precise in his words and when he tweets more than a week ago, four tweets, 6:35 in the morning, terrible, just found out obama had my wires tapped in trump tower just before the victory. nothing found. this is mccarthyism. he says it former president is a bad or sick guy. this is nixon watergate. if there's no evidence to back that up, let me press you one more time, should he retract and apologize? >> you know, mr. trump has his

own unique style. this is not the first time things like this would have been said. >> he is now the president. he is now the president of the united states. >> that's true. he is the president of the united states and he's continued to use his tweeting style and say things that many people might not say. i would like to get to the bottom of were there warrants or not, first, then look at the circumstances suburb rounding that. >> let me bring in congressman lou. respond to what we just heard. >> thank you, wolf. there's only two reasonable explanations. either u.s. intelligence officials and independent fisa court judge believe there were foreign agents at trump tower of donald trump is making stuff up again. let me say, lying is not a unique style, it's lying. my belief is donald trump likely lied about this wiretap.

donald trump needs to apologize if he cannot come up with evidence. >> what if there was something else going on. you heard what congressman rooney suggested, maybe there were some wiretaps that were legal having nothing to do with the then candidate but others at trump tower in new york city and the president got confused. what about that? >> it's possible a warrant was issued if a judge believed there was probable cause of criminal activity happening at trump towers. i fully support an investigation. i think we need to get to the bottom of this and we need to know why do intelligence officials or the fbi believe there was criminal activity or agents of a foreign influence at trump towers. >> congressman rooney, let's get to the other big issue of what's going on, health care. i assume you are with the president, right? are you with the president on the paul ryan sponsored legislation? >> well, it's a good start, you know? obamacare is in such a death spiral as a ceo of aetna said

this week, we have to do something. a third of the counties in the country have one insurer. in my state. half the counties have one insurer. if we can bring choice and competition back, i think it can function. >> do you like the legislation as it currently stands or with some of the more conservative republicans in the house calling this obamacare-lite? >> i understand the limitations of the reconciliation process and the speaker's determination to do all he can do under reconciliation as a phase one of the three-faze process. i like the fact they are talking about a penalty for people that gain the system and drop coverage. we are going to keep pre-existing conditions in all circumstances. i like the fact you can raise the price for age because that coverage is more expensive. aligning the coverage with market realities and health realities. i think it's very important to get rid of mandates and i think it's important to have the

maximum flexibility to insurance companies to price their products according toly. >> let me get congressman lieu to weigh in. is there any part you can support? >> absolutely not. republicans chose not to work with democrats. i am on obamacare. i am fine working with republicans to make obamacare better. repealing obamacare and replacing it with this disaster known as trumpcare is not the way to go. keep in mind, it is a direct attack on senior citizens that aarp came out opposing the bill because it will raise health costs for senior citizens and threaten the insolvency of medicare. >> go ahead and respond, congressman rooney. >> i think we have to do something. it's a defective socioeconomic experiment that needs to be fixed by the free market. if we can get insurers to come out isolated high risk often that $100 billion fund so the

underwriting gives a stable platform where everybody can afford insurance and stimulate groups. one thing that works in this deal is group insurance, like companies. we passed a bill last week to allow smaller employers to band together to come up with enough covered lives to be efficient. i think that's an important thing. >> congressman rooney, you seemed to suggest this. let me press on this and get congressman lieu to respond. elderly, more senior americans are going to pay more money out of their pocket to get health insurance under the republican legislation. are you okay with that? >> yeah, i think the law allows the insurers to multiply the price up to five times instead of obamacare's three times to align the premiums with the cost of care. yes. >> so you are okay if out of pocket -- they have to spend thousands of dollars. a lot of constituents, a lot of

people that voted for you are between 50 and 64 years old. they are not going to be very happy, congressman rooney, when they hear that? >> the prices are going to go down so they shouldn't be paying as much as they are now. >> congressman lieu? >> i stand with the aarp and i oppose charging senior citizens more for health coverage. not only does this bill threaten medicare and make cuts to medicaid so senior citizens that require long term care get hurt. keep in mind, this entire proposal is not only opposed by democrats, but opposed by republican organizations such as growth, heritage action. there are a lot of organizations that oppose this as well as the american medical association. this is a really bad bill. >> are you worried, congressman rooney, say you get it passed in the house of representatives but fails in the senate. the senate republicans only have a 52-48 margin. they lose three republicans on this, it goes down to defeat.

there's no repeal. there's no replace. are you afraid that could undermine the republican majority in the house of representatives in the 2018 election as some of your republican colleagues are now fearful of including senator tom cotton of arkansas? >> i saw what senator cotton said. he knows more about this than i do. he's been in a long time. i think we need to concentrate on getting the best possible bill put forward now to solve the problem to bring competition and lower prices. i don't want seniors to pay more. i want to see the free market work to bring prices down so they don't. >> congressman rooney, congressman lieu, thanks for joining us. >> thank you very much, wolf. >> thank you. on wednesday night, the health and human services secretary tom price will be taking your questions on health care in a live cnn town hall. dana bash and i will moderate wednesday at 9:00 eastern here on cnn. coming up, we are standing fwou

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these are live pictures coming in tr the white house. in a moment, press secretary sean spicer will walk in, make a statement and answer questions from reporters. coming up later this afternoon, president trump will hold his first cabinet meeting of the new administration. they will let cameras in, we are told. cnn will bring that video when it comes in as well. in the meantime, health care reform is expected to be a major topic. republicans are bracing for the budget office to release their analysis of the obamacare replacement plan as soon as today. already, they are down playing the cbo score as it's called. here is what the director, mick

mull vany said. >> if they are right about obamacare, there would be 8 million more people on obamacare today than there are. i love the folks at the cbo. they work hard. sometimes we ask them to do stuff they are not capable of doing and estimating a bill of this size isn't the best use of their time. >> let's bring in theage, amy, editor for real politics. columnist for usa today and john king, the anchor of "inside politics." i suspect they fear these number that is are about to be released as early as later today are not going to be benefit fish to the paul ryan strategy of trying to get this passed. >> they want to look at this as their bill will increase access. if you have health care, you will have more choices. if you are in a county with one, x million people will lose their coverage under this bill. the republicans try to do

something that they are trying to take away benefits and roll back a government entitlement. because of that, people are going to lose their health care. cbo is a giant land mine. they don't have all the republican votes lined up. no democrats are going to be with them. this is going to scare people. the president said something significa significant. prices will go down, down, down, choices will go up, up, up. president trump better hope that is true. i can trust you, every democrat in america rolled on that and is holding that. if the statistics a year or two down the road don't show that to be true, it is a campaign ad. >> there are concerns among republicans. if this doesn't work out as wonderfully as it has president suggested, 2018 could be a serious problem for the republican majority in the house. >> yeah. definitely. looking at the plan, there doesn't seem to be anything that would necessarily change the

dynamics that are problematic with obamacare. obamacare is not perfect. there are some problems. some people's premiums have gone up. a lot of analysis looked at it. the cbo will find things. it may make some people's premiums go up, not down. that's something to look at the cbo numbers. the other thing is to use reconciliation, they have to show they are going to save $2 billion over ten years. a possibility they will come in with that. they have to use reconciliation with this. they tried to delegitimate the cbo. maybe they will say the numbers don't matter. they have to come up with some sort of reasonable measure for us to know what they are voting on. >> we should get the numbers as early as later this afternoon. have you ever seen such an effort in advance of a cbo assessment that's about to be released to diminish the process, make it look like they were so wrong in the past, don't pay attention to these numbers.

i don't remember a time when the congressional budget office was not partisan. often, usually highly respected has been smeared like this. >> right. it's a little bit sort of a cue from president trump how he treats judges or courts before decisions come that might be unfavorable. this is a new tactic. it will be interesting to see when they come out with their criticism if democrats skramp up old quotes from 2009 and cbo scoring and how important it was. they have previewed the talking points behind the findings. speaker ryan says they won't mandate coverage. it's true, not as many will be covered because they are forced to. you will hear that as a way of smoothing over the numbers. it's true. if they get into math issues, combined with the political hard hit of the coverage number dropping, it will be a real scramble. you hear in president trump's

comments a distancing. he says, first of all, the press, no matter what they have said all these years or what president obama said even if they had a functioning website, people on obamacare and found the deductibles too high and coverage unaffordable, they didn't care what the press said. if it is still impractical coverage plan and still unaffordable, the voters will know. he's saying the republicans when he talks health care. it's an interesting way of distancing himself from what they end up passing. >> let me play a clip. there seems to be a difference of opinion between paul ryan and the health and human secretary tom price when it comes to how many will lose coverage under the replacement plan. listen to this. >> i firmly believe that nobody will be worse off financially in the process we are going

through. >> how many people are going to lose coverage? >> i can't answer that question. it's up to the people. >> i will answer that question later. in the meantime, let's go to sean spicer. >> the president spent his weekend in a series of meetings planning for a full and productive week. saturday, as many of you saw, the president had a working lunch with several members of the team including homeland secretary kelly, commerce secretary ross and members of his white house staff. during which they discussed immigration reform and their effort to repeal and replace obamacare. over the weekend, the vice president went to louisville, kentucky. he was joined by a governor for a listening session with with over a dozen small business owners to discuss the burdened obamacare inflicted on their business zs. the kentucky business owners shared how obamacare is negatively affecting their businesses and reiterated their support for the current health care system and replacing it

with one that works. this morning, after receiving his intelligence briefing, the president led a listening session on health care with secretary of health and human services, dr. price. he heard from nine americans across the country who were failed by the broken promises of obamacare as well as two doctors who saw their patients suffer from the laws, misguided rules and requirements. this was an important step in the process of crafting and implementing a patient center health care. americans have been watching health care skyrocket whether choices of providers and providers dwindled for years. they received the cancellations in the mail three times. they have seen urgent care and emergency rooms filled with people that can't afford high deductibles and enduring pain and sickness. they have had family members with chronic pre-existing conditions whose cost of health

care has more than doubled and they have been forced to let go of valued employees or unable to hire more due to staggering workers compensation. the president campaigned on a pledge to repeal and replace this unraveling system. the american health care act is one part of fulfilling this pledge. it's far from the only one. he is using administrative action and relief to insurers, increasing coverage choices and lower premium options to individuals and family. he will work with congress on additional legislation, part of the strategy to increase choice and decrease prices, including allowing health insurance to be sold across state lines, adding to the list of health related costs. streamlining the process of the fda so lower price generic medicine gets to the market faster, inviting small business to ban together to negotiate for lower health insurance for all

employees and reforming the medical malpractice system so doctors are not forced to perform costly procedures and tests out of future litigation. our health care system is large, complex and critically important not only to the health of our citizens but to the health of our economy. through common sense, patient focus reforms, the president will work with congress to create a new system that doesn't impose a one size fits all government knows best vision on the american people. we will empower the american people to make their own choices about health care that make them best work for themselves and their family that will bring cost for everyone down. after the listening session, the president had lunch with vice president pence and secretary of transportation chow. later this afternoon, the president will welcome all his confirmed cabinet members to the white house for their first cabinet meeting. this is an important opportunity for the president to share his vision with the country with his cabinet members to bring back

direction to agencies and departments to ensure the entire administration is working toward the same goals. unfortunately, this afternoon, you will see empty chairs representing the president's four nominees yet to be confirmed by the senate. secretary of agriculture, governor perdue, director of national intelligence former senator coates and robert lightheiser. these key agencies and departments will not be represented at the president's first cabinet meeting. the president is confident these unquestionable abilities of the confirmed cabinet members will be in attendance. he is just as confident of the individuals who will not be able to attend. their absence will be felt as they come together for the first time to receive guidance from and provide counsel to the president on these unique areas of jurisdiction. the president will sign and

executive order to reorganize the government. it's a thorough examination of every department and agency to identify money where money is wasted and how services can be improved and whether or not the programs are truly serving the american people. this is the beginning of a lang, overdue reorganization of the government and a step toward the president's goal of making it more efficient, effective and accountable to the american people. the president will have dinner with secretary of state tillerson and naxal security adviser mcmaster. he hopes to see the administrative senators for medicare and medicaid services a questionably qualified nominee prevented from taking her position. let me touch on the week ahead. tomorrow, based on the current forecast, we are currently in conversations and contact with officials in the chancellors

office in germany regarding the visit. we'll have an update regarding that visit later today. wednesday, the president will visit detroit focusing on job creation and automobile manufacturing. he will meet with autoexecutives and manufacturing suppliers. also on wednesday, the president will visit nashville, where he will lay a wreath at president andrew jackson's tomb. as i told you last week on thursday, the president will welcome ireland for the traditional st. patrick's day visit. the deputy crown prince of saudi arabia will have a meeting with the president on thursday of this week. i'll have further details of that visit soon. friday, the president will travel to mar-a-lago for the weekend. the president is aware of the forecast for the storm that is currently threatening the northeast. the president has been briefed by homeland security adviser and

the acting fema administrator on fema regulations. he directed inner government staff to remain in contact with governors and mayors in the path of the storm. he directed as fema administrator to lean forward and be prepared to help states should they require federal assistance. we urge everyone to listen to state and local leaders and public safety officials to follow their warning and closure notice. they are the best source of information during that storm. with that, i'd be glad to take your questions. john? >> sean, come back to the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york who was asked to resign along with 45 other u.s. attorneys. the president seemed to indicate not too long ago he wanted him to stay on in that job and he was asked to resign like the others. he says he was fired on saturday when he refused to resign. did the president change his mind about keeping him on or was it only for a finite period of

time? >> i'm going to refer you to the department of justice on that. this is a standard operating procedure for a new administration to ask for resignation of all u.s. attorneys. a good chunk of them already submitted their resignation letter. this is the final swath of individuals who had not at this time. this is common practice of most administrations. >> i understand this happened at the doj and the request from the doj, but it seems to be a white house connection because the president asked him to stay on. then the president apparently called him a couple days before he was allegedly fired. can you tell us what that was about? did the president change his mind? >> the president was calling him to thank him for his service. this is a standard, as z i said, a standard action that takes place in most administrations. then attorney genere know sent an identical letter in 1993. bush administration sent out a

similar one as well. this is a very common practice for all political appointees throughout government. >> sean, yesterday, john mccain said the president should provide information about the allegation he put on twitter about his phones being tapped at trump tower. today is the deadline. what is the president going to do? >> let's be clear, the department of justice was asked to put, to send information down to congress, it wasn't the white house that was asked to do that. so we are clear on what the request was. i understand that. with a tweet -- hold on -- >> senator mccain said to clear it up. >> if you look at the president's tweet, he said wiretapping in quotes. there's been substantial discussion in several reports, brett bair talked about wiretapping and reports from bbc about aspects of surveillance

that occurred. the president was very clear in his tweet, it was wiretapping. that spans a host of surveillance options. the house and the senate, intelligence committees will now look into that and provide a report back. i think there's been numerous reports from a variety of outlets over the last couple months that seem to indicate that there has been different types of surveillance that occurred during the 2016 election. >> what you are saying is the president doesn't have an obligation to provide -- >> i'm not saying that at all. what i'm saying is the request made from the house is from the department of justice. i think that's an appropriate question to ask them. from a white house perspective, there's no question that there had been an abundance of report regarding surveillance and other activity that is occurred during the 2016 election.

>> the only evidence are these reports? >> that leads you to believe that. i'm saying to you, what we made clear on that sunday was that the house and senate intelligence committees have the means, process and access to look at the entirety of the evidence that is presented to them and make a determination they can report back to us. >> sean? following up on major's question, does the president feel he has an obligation once the investigation is over to release some sort of statement in response to whatever the findings are? that's my first question and i have a second. >> let's get there first. i think to start to presume what the outcome is going to be before they look at the evidence and information in reports presented to them would be presumptuous. let's slow down, let them look at everything. >> my second question, has trump donated his paycheck from the month of february like he promised to do during the

campaign? >> the president's intention is to donate his salary at the end of the year. he kindly asked that you all help determine where that goes. the way that we can avoid scrutiny is let the press corps determine where it should go. in all seriousness, his view is he made a pledge to the american people. he wants to donate it to charity and he would love your help to determine where it would go. >> correspondent association -- >> that would be a great way -- that would be a great way to do it. >> thanks a lot, sean. i wanted to follow up with you on questions regarding michael flynn who is no longer in the administration. there's a five-year lobbying ban that's been imposed upon all trump administration employees. does that apply to michael flynn? is he not permitted to lobby now for five years because of the agreement he signed when he became a national security adviser? >> that would be correct. i would have to check and figure out when he signed or if he

signed the form. yes, all administration officials are required to sign that ethics pledge banning them from lobbying five years and a lifetime ban of lobbying on a foreign government. >> what are the remember cushions in an employee of this administration joblies. where is the teeth. what is the penalty. what is the punishment that would be imposed on that particular trump administration employee? >> i would have to get back with you, john. i don't know whether it's department of justice aspect or not. i will get back. yeah. >> i was wondering did the president ask preet to stay on? >> i was not privy to that conversation. again, i'm not sure how it's relevant at the end of the day. the department of justice asked all remaining 46 at this time, they all submit their letter of resignation based on the same precedent set during both the

clinton and bush administrations in terms of the time line. jessica? >> i just want to ask about the reports about the president visiting mar-a-lago. can you confirm that visit and what you want to accomplish with that less formal visit and secondly, with respect to that visit, we don't have a confirmed ambassador or secretary of state for east asia affairs. how does that affect your ability to brief the president so he has a strong position? >> planning is ongoing between president trump and president xi. we are not ready to confirm. we'll have more details. it's the purpose of this meeting to help diffuse tensions over north korea and the recent deployment of military battery between south korea. any meeting between the president of the united states

would cover a broad range of mutual concern. secretary tillerson is traveling to the region now. as we go forward, we'll have additional details on the timing and location of that. >> traveling and setting up the visit -- >> i'm sorry. >> the implication of you talking about tillerson's visit -- >> he's in the region. i'm sure in his visit to japan, south korea, then china, preparations will come up as well as areas of mutual concern. >> let's go one at a time. >> any rash of effects on community centers throughout the nation. over the weekend, the community center in d.c. was attacked and a staffer was assaulted. this follows similar attacks that took place in orlando, florida, new jersey and oklahoma. this is not unlike the anti-semitism the president announced. will he denounce these?

>> sure. i think one of the points we have made in previous statements on this is that this is not the way that we, as americans, solve our differences. we don't attack each other. we don't engage in this kind of behavior. i think we have a first amendment that allows us to express ourselves. that's the appropriate way. violence and vandalism is inappropriate in all forms. >> is it all connected? >> i don't believe there's any connection between -- i think that would be a stretch to say the least. yes. >> thanks for taking my question. i wanted to ask about north korea. you mentioned north korea. can you tell us about the review of north korea right now and the direction the administration is going in trying to diminish the threat? >> secretary tillerson is headed to the region and will meet with china, japan and beijing. that's going to be a major

subject. as i mentioned, when we ultimately meet with president xi and others, that will be a discussion he talked about prior to the resignation of the last south korean president, something that was an ongoing discussion. there's an internal review that we continue to have. but then there's obviously a geo political partnership as we detain the military threat. >> cooperation with russia in regard to syria is off the table and if not, is it fair to say that the forthcoming anti-isis plan does include some sort of cooperation with russia? >> i'm not going to get into -- the plan is not done yet as i mentioned a couple days ago. secretary mattis was briefing the principles and that plan is continuing to evolve. i'm not going to rule out one country. the president is clear in the past, the country shares our

commitment to defeating isis and we can work in an area of shared, mutual concern then we will do so. >> second question. kremlin spokesperson said that russian president putin and president trump will meet at the g-20. can you confirm that? and would the white house rule out a possibility of a meeting before that? >> i will follow up on that. i don't have a date. i know that the team is working very actively with respect to bilateral meetings at the g-20. i don't have anything for you on that. >> they said yesterday the obama administration had been manipulating the unemployment rate. what evidence is there? >> referring to obamacare with a number of people. i would refer you to him and his comments with respect to how he characterized that. i think he can discuss the precise nature of what he meant

on that. >> does the president feel the obama administration -- >> i think you know what the president's view is. he made it clear in the past on his comments and how the numbers were articulated in the past. there's a question of the number of people that reflected his big concern was getting to the bottom of how many people are working in this country and that the denominator, meaning the percentage rate of the total number of people is not the most accurate reflection of how many people are employed in this country. how many jobs are created and people getting back to work. how the companies are hiring is much more accurate as to where we are headed as a country. to look at a number and say we have 4.7 or 4.8 or 5.9 percent unemployment is not how many people are working, seeking work or want to work. if you know how they conduct the

survey, it's how hold they are, or younger they are not statistically viable anymore. how you look at the percentage of people working is a manipulated number. the number of people added to the role every month, rather is a much more accurate understanding of what's happening in the economy. cecilia? >> i want to clarify your answer to major's question. will the doj and the administration comply with the deadline? >> remember, it's the do -- again, it's not -- the request was made of the doj. it's the proper venue to answer that question. >> surely the white house knows whether -- >> no. you can't because it's interesting in the past when we have had these conversations, the accusation is we are interfering. you can't have it both ways. you can't say we are interfering with someone when we talk with them. when we don't -- major, cecilia

is asking a question. i saw the tick tok. i understand it. that doesn't mean you get to jump in. cecilia? >> to follow up, this is a tweet from the president. doesn't he have an obligation. >> we have made it very clear we expect the house and the senate intelligence committees to do their job. i think there's a preponderance of reports that come out about surveillance and actions that occurred during the 2016 election. once they come up with their report, it was asked earlier today, we can talk about the conclusions of the report. you can't say we are going to ship it to the house and senate. that was the entire goal of asking them to look into this further. >> the doj comply -- >> i understand. my understanding is they will. again, i would ask them what their intention is. i believe there are certain things they can and can't do in terms of classification and stuff. i would leave it up to the department of justice to answer

to the department of justice. caitlin? >> how is it making president obama look good? >> when you see the comparesons and who is going to win and who is going to lose, it misses a lot of competition that is going to take place. it doesn't talk about the increased choice. right now, as the president noted and secretary price noted, in a third of all counties and five states, you have one choice. those analysis trying to look at how much you will pay. a, don't take into consideration the competition that's going to occur and the choice. right now, you have one choice. you have no decision about how much you are going to pay and what you are going to get. choice allows you to determine what scale of health care you need, what kind of package is good for you, your family, your business. when you look at the analysis, when you open up major papers, they make it so simple. how much are you going to get paid for in this plan or the current plan. it misses an entirety of the whole process, which is you don't have competition.

number one. number two, the bigger point that the president and a lot of others are getting to is the system is failing on its own. it makes it seem like it's rainbows and puppies. at the end of the day, if you have a card and you are getting a subsidy, but not getting care, you have nothing. walking into a doctors office, when you can hand them a card and say i have a $5,000 tax subsidy f the doctor doesn't take the care of subsidy, you don't have anything. to do an apples to apples comparison is hardly accurate. >> back to what you mentioned earlier -- the president under the campaign said within 30 days he wanted the plan presented. >> right. >> is the president upset he hasn't received it yet? does that point to a difference between campaigning and governing that things take longer? >> there's a difference. the plan has been received.

the issue as you point out in your question, now it becomes an aspect of principles discussing dicht priorities and staffing levels and funding levels. the plan is here as we noted. it's being reviewed and there's providing input from different members of the principles and security apparatus to make sure the plan continues to evolve and is able to attack isis in a way that -- >> when is it going to take effect? >> some pieces are in the sense he talked to commanders on the ground and noted the military action that's taken, some of the authority that's given to the commanders on the ground. that is actually taking the fight to isis on a daily basis. the more holistic approach he asked for will continue to evolve through the national security process, but make no mistake, we are on it right now. sharon? >> thanks, sean. on the executive order this afternoon, do you have a numeric

goal for reducing the size of government or saving a certain amount of money through the review of agencies? >> i don't know that the director has a target, per se. that's part of the issue. go through each one and evaluate them on the merit of what they do or don't do and whether they are bloated or, frankly, outdated or in need of tech know logical advances. there's a lot of -- there's no set number we are driving down to as we review government. sometimes you walk into an agency and realize that agency's mission is no longer relevant or it's depliktive of three other agencies. or that there are too many people performing a function that no longer exists for a variety of reasons. that's why the mission is critical that the director was given the mandate to go out and get all of these different agencies and departments to review themselves and provide

feedback for him as to where we could govern. >> thanks, sean. you said previously the republican plan wouldn't be a one size fits all approach. the current plan preserves obamacare health requirements. how do you reconcile those two things? >> what's missing right now is choice. that's the number one issue. we tried to solve a problem, when i say we, the government, with respect to obamacare back in 2008-2009. the issue was, in order to solve a problem for several million people being without health care insurance, we up ended the system for everybody so you have employer based health care, medicare, medicaid, it was the opposite approach. we went in to solve a problem that a small fraction of americans had. we up and did the entire system forcing premiums to go up and choice to go down for everybody. i think when you can institute choice and competition in the

system, that's going to benefit everybody. that's exactly the opposite of what's happening. >> two of three of this eliminate the requirements? >> phase two will look at the requirements and phase three, again, they are not necessarily -- they can run concurrently. the house is looking at starting that legislation. so, dr. price is already starting to look through that in the administrative aspect of it as well at hhs and figure out how do we achieve this and unravel the pieces there. the choice in competition, allowing people to buy their insurance over state lines and small business to pool and expansion of health savings accounts are the factor that is are going to drive down cost. having the insurance companies be able to offer additional choices and options for people is, in itself, going to be a huge bonus. charlie? >> a lot of conservatives are

complaining or suggesting the president doesn't fully back the paul ryan health care plan. has the president spoken to paul ryan about the plan and have they had any conversations about the future in congress? >> the -- they have spoken, yes. the -- i don't know when the last time they have. the president is fully committed to the plan. he saw secretary price and the director out discussing it this weekend. they are committed to the plan. director mulvaney made it clear through the process, we can find ideas that make it a stronger, more patient legislation that is not -- we're not saying this is the only way forward as it works its way through the house and then ultimately through the senate. if there are ways that we can ultimately enhance the bill through the legislative process,

we'll do that. peter? [ inaudible question ] the president spoke to the chancellor of germany. they agreed due to the weather that the meeting should be postponed, rescheduled to march 17th, this friday. same schedule of events on march 17th. >> reporter: i'll ask my question very quickly. that's news. you spoke on behalf of the president, on friday. you said the numbers were phony in the past but are real now. >> they are very real now. >> reporter: should americans trust the president, is it phony or real when he says that he was wiretapped? >> there's two things that are important about what he said. he doesn't really think that president obama went up and tapped his phone personally. but i think there is no question that the obama administration, that there were actions about surveillance and activities that occurred in the 2016 election.

that is a widely-reported activity that occurred back then. the president used the word wiretap in quotes to mean broadly surveillance and other activities during that. and that is, again, it is interesting how many news outlets reported that this activity was taking place during the 2016 election cycle and now we're wondering where the proof is. it is many of the same outlets in this room that talked about the activities that were going on back then. >> reporter: on the cbo report, did the president think the numbers are phony now? >> what cbo report? >> reporter: three years ago you said the cbo report confirms obamacare is bad for the economy. >> it was bad for the economy. >> reporter: the question is, is it now phony? >> okay. let's look at the cbo's projection. it said their projection on obamacare was in 2016, it would have 24 million people on it.

the actual figure is 10.4 million people. less than half the number of people than it predicted would be insured are on it and it's declining. the only point is to make sure that people understand, if you're looking for a bullseye accurate prediction, the cbo was off by more than half. this is not about what my understanding or my belief of the cbo is. the last time they did this, they were wildly off and the number keeps declining. the question that needs to be asked or the awareness that needs to be brought up, if you're going to look at a number tonight, you need to look at the scope of whether that number is -- it was bad for the economy. you can glean that from the impact that it had. but as far as the numbers that the number of people that they predicted back then would be covered now, they were off by more than half. >> reporter: the question is

when can we trust the president. >> you asked a question about the cbo and conflating it with a question about the president. >> reporter: when he says something, can we trust that it's real? >> yes. >> reporter: or should we assume that it's phony? how can we believe it's real when you told us it was friday? >> i did not -- >> reporter: the president said the numbers are phony then but they're very real now. how do we know he won't later say -- >> hold on. the difference is the president was talking then and now about job creation. the number of jobs. the issue that he brought up in the quote that you're talking about was the percentage of people who are unemployed. there's no question that no matter how you look at this, whether you talk about 4.7 or 4.8 or whatever the number is, that number fluctuates by how people contemplaalculate who is workforce. peter, let me answer the question. the bottom line is the percentage of people unemployed varies widely by who you're

asking and the way you do the analysis of who is actually in the workforce. the number of people who are working and receiving a paycheck is a number that we can look at. secondly, you asked about the validity of the cbo report. again, i refer you to the cbo itself. the number they issued in 2016 was 26 million people. the actual number is 10 -- excuse me, 24 million. the actual number is 10.4. that's not a question of our credibility. it's a question of theirs. do you have anything more? >> reporter: the bottom line, you haven't answered, whenever the president says something, we can trust it to be real? >> if he's not joking, of course. hold on. >> reporter: let me start over again with joking. >> no, no. your point is, every time that he speaks authoritatively, he's speaking as president of the united states. >> reporter: when he says 3 to 5 million americans voted illegally, was he joking or does

he believe that? >> he believes that. julie. >> reporter: can we get an answer whether the president directed the department of justice to respond to this? >> no. >> reporter: does he plan to? >> i answered the question. >> reporter: on health care, secretary price said on sunday nobody will be worse on financially and more people will be covered than are currently with the plan that you guys are pushing. paul ryan acknowledged that people are going to lose coverage. what is the goal here? you just said you're open to modifications to the plan if you find there's a better way to do it. is the goal that people not lose coverage or -- >> again, there's a false argument there, which is that they have coverage. people have cards. they've been told they have things. but they keep walking in -- the president was with individuals this morning that they're told you're going to get coverage for something, that they'll have all these subsidies. they walk in and don't get covered. they don't have the care they need. there's a difference between someone walking around saying, i have a card, and having care. right now, when you have a third

of the counties in this country that have one choice, and going down, and number of insurers leaving markets, the system is collapsing. so the question has to be to everybody who is not with us on this is, what is your alternative? because right now, the current system of obamacare is failing every american who has obamacare. and frankly, for those who don't have obamacare, for those who have employer based insurance, for those who have tricare, medicaid, it's driving you want cost. especially for those with medicare, medicaid, tri-care, doctors offices are saying they don't accept that. if you keep talking about coverage, care is what matters. if you can't walk in and get seen, if you can't get a doctor to see you, then you don't have coverage. i mean, that's what this is all about. being told you have coverage but you can't go see a doctor or you can't afford to see a doctor is not coverage. john?

>> reporter: thank you, sean. i have two questions. first, democratic leader pelosi said on friday that every single democrat would vote against the american health care plan, the plan backed by republican members of congress and the administration. the freedom caucus in the house has come out for senator paul's plan. when one simply does the arithmetic of democratic members and freedom caucus members, there's a majority against the plan. how does the administration plan to overcome the arithmetic? >> we're going to continue to work with members of the house and eventually the senate. i feel very good, as the president continues to engage with members, that we will have the votes necessary. i think speaker ryan agrees with that as well. we'll have the votes to single pass and move on to the senate. >> reporter: the other question is this. in recent weeks there's been considerable attention on

upcoming elections in the netherlands on wednesday, in france in a few weeks. gert bilders of the netherlands was here for the cpac conference. representatives of marine le pen of france were here. many analogies were made between these candidates and president trump and they offered words of praise for him or did so through their representatives. is he aware of these candidates in europe who invoke his name and image and if so, what does he think of these would-be trumps and trumpettes? >> i don't know the answer to that. i think most of these are -- we'll allow sovereign nations to have their own elections without interference from us. >> reporter: can i follow up on peter's question of, two issues, again. whether the president and director mulvaney put a lot of faith in the congressional budget office, members of the senate will when they get, if they get, legislation from the

house. so my question is, what does the president and the administration intend to do to establish to senators' satisfaction that the numbers coming out of the congressional budget office which the question will question are not substantial and can be countered by other information? in other words, is omb doing its own score? is the president relying on a think tank to counter the messaging? because senators are already indicating they will put waiting on the cbo score. >> yes. and again, this is an ongoing discussion with members as far as philosophical, what do they believe, and a lot of these aspects, is this plan in keeping with what they have supported in the past. obviously they're going to look at the score, i get it. that's part of it. and there are pieces of it they may historically have more weight in than others. but i think, as i mentioned to john, this is an ongoing conversation with members of the house and ultimately the senate with respect to what comes up. in the same way that members relied on the score last time,

they were way off. i think we have to remind them that, you know, if this is what you're basing your vote on, you know, you have to look at the historical context in which that information was provided. i think that's an important, you know, aspect to how they do it. i think there's going to be a ton of factors that people rely on as they do this. >> reporter: i have a followup. i may be confused about the wiretapping, your answers, in terms of the president's response. the president was the one who tweeted this, right, and said that he had learned something. so can you just establish for me, because i'm confused, the president did discuss what it is that he had in mind when he tweeted with the department of justice before the department -- >> no, i'm not going to get into what the president knew or didn't know prior to it. i think we've already commented on this multiple times. >> reporter: how would the department of justice have any idea -- >> i don't know. this was a request made of the house intelligence committee, not to us. i don't want to get into starting to parse what we