starts right now. thanks, kate. welcome to inside politics. i'm john king. thanks for sharing your day with us. a snow day in most places in the northeast. it makes for beautiful images and more than a little disruption. >> the storm will bring heavy snow. the kind of snow you want to stay ahead of. i want to emphasize, this is on the heavier side. be careful out there. >> good advice from the governor there. be careful out there. disruption on a different sort here in washington. a new report card on the new republican health care plan says the government will save a fortune, but it will add 24 million americans to the list of uninsured. >> the cbo has reported that the republican bill pushes 24 million people out of health care. off health coverage. this is a remarkable figure.

it speaks so eloquently to the cruelty of the bill that the speaker calls an act of mercy. >> plus, silly you for taking the president literally. a november promise to a federal prosecutor meaningless in march. now, wiretapping doesn't necessarily mean wiretapping. >> he doesn't really think that president obama went up and tapped his phone personally. i think the president used the word wiretap in quotes to mean broadly surveillance and other activities during that. >> got it? you got it? you got that? back to that one in a moment. with us to share their reporting and insights, julie pace, jeff zeleny, malika henderson, and jackie of the daily beast. this is wcbb in boston, massachusetts, my home town. i guess we lost that shot. other winter shots. we'll show you interesting snow

pictures as we go, but it snows in winter. i don't think we should get too worked up about this, but we'll check in in a moments. we have correspondents throughout the northeast. we'll get back on that, the travel, the wallet, the impact on travel. >> first, the political struggle on whether republicans have the recognize plan to fix your health care. a new congressional budget office plan says it will nearly double over the next decade the number of americans without coverage. here are the numbers. 41 million americans lacked coverage when obamacare was launched. that number now down to 28.5 million. the cbo says the gop plan if passed, that number will jump again, dramatically, to 52 million in 2026. democrats look at those numbers and see a giant political opening. >> the only winners in this cbo report are health insurance executives and the wealthiest americans. people who make over $250,000 a year. they get a huge tax break. everyone else gets a cold shoulder from the republicans in

congress and from president trump. >> and so i guess the big question is, what is different today than yesterday? we get this report late yesterday afternoon. we knew yesterday at this hour, and throughout the day, republicans were having a tough time getting the votes for this bill. first in the house, where they had a challenge. then even if they pass the house, they have a different challenge in the senate, where it's 52-48. what's different now than the congressional budget office says and republicans say, of course, there's not a mandate anymore. of course, fewer people will have insurance. that's a pretty big number. >> i think the difference is republicans now know the exact number that will be on the political ads running against them next year. if this bill goes forward. and that has a big psychological impact. the problem for republicans with this cbo report is it squeezes them from the right and the left. if you have moderate republicans who could be convinced to vote for this, this may scare them away. if you have conservative republicans who look at this bill and say, idealogically, it's opposed to everything i believe in, it's going to make

it harder for them to both cast that vote and then know that they're going to be taking this political hit. >> it's also given members of the senate license to say, okay, this isn't what we want to do. let's slow down. let's look at this again. and you're hearing that from across the republican idealogical spectrum. it's not necessarily tea party. it's not necessarily moderate. you're hearing it from a lot of republican senators who just want to take a step back. >> let me jump in for one second. this is one of the fascinating challenges. for wow watching at home, there's a washington process. senators say slow down. and the leadership would say no, we reconciliation. we have to speed up. you're going to hear a lot of talk. you care at home, what's going to happen to my coverage. in washington, we have tuke about reconciliation and scores. >> speaking of home, this is a local story. if you look at the front page of every newspaper, pretty much every newspaper in the country, the headline is 24 million americans or 14 million

americans in 2018, so that's why this is much more different. totally different than any other washington fight they're having. but the reality here is, the white house was bracing for this. speaker ryan was bracing for this. they can't completely trash the cbo report because that, it saves $337 billion, which is one of the arguments for why it's good, by taking away that mandate. they're really in a box here. sean spicer's briefing today, this afternoon at the white house, will be interesting to see how they decide to embrace cbo or not because there are differences in the administration and paul ryan already coming out on this. >> absolutely. to jeff's point, if you pick up "the new york times" and "washington post," the wall street journal, health care on the front page. these are places where donald trump did quite well in the election. youngstown, ohio, 14 million people will lose coverage. macomb, daily, trump carries mucome. millions to lose coverage under gop bill. the arizona republic, a red

state for trump. millions could lose coverage. these headlines, they add to the political debate because, guess what, this is personal to people out there. they don't care about scores and reconciliation. they care about their wallet and their health care. >> what does it mean for then. the interesting thing about this bill is there's still a question of whether or not this document matches with the populist movement of, that donald trump ran on. he promised no cuts to entitlements. he essentially ran and used rhetoric that was familiar to liberals, which is what republicans were so skeptical about. so when people in these particularly small towns, when they hear about the cuts that are going to be made to medic d medicaid, when they hear about the rhetoric from democrats particularly, this idea of war on seniors, though are the voters that voted for donald trump. they thought they he was going to make their lives better. so now it's up to him to figure out how do you frame this. it's very difficult, i think, to do that. they're trying to frame it in

the language of free enterprise and competition. that's kind of meaningless to people who have to figure out how to pay their bills. >> several stages of that. now they're debating a bill. now it's theory that the congressional budget office projects it will do this to you. then they pass it in the house, and then to the senate. and then if something passes. then we find out, like in obamacare, maybe, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. didn't turn out that way. but to your point about what the president promised, this is what he told "the washington post," he said this many times in the campaign. this was five days before he was inaugurated president of the united states. we're going to have insurance for everybody. there was a philosophy in some circles if you can't pray it it, you don't get it. that's not going to happen with us. people covered under the law can expect to have great health care. it will be a much simplified form, much less expensive and better. this bill does not deliver on that promise? >> definitely does not. and he said that line repeatedly, even after the election. he would make this case that

what he would sign would give everyone a chance to have coverage. he's going to have to make a decision, i think, if this starts to look, and it does, like this current form is not going to be able to pass in the senate. where does donald trump come down on this? there is an interesting element to this in that trump is not an ideolog ideologue. he has the potential to worth both sides of this debate. he doesn't have to join onto the paul ryan bill, but whether he wants to put in the muscle to do that -- >> but to do that, he would have to get democrats to help him. democrats are in no mood to help him. we'll talk much more about this. i want to bring into this, related to this, breitbart news, the alt-right conservative website whose former ceo is at the right hand of trump, another editor is at the right hand of steve bannon. this is an old story. cnn and other news organizations reported the day after it happen, the day after the access hollywood tape came out, paul ryan had a call with other members who said i can't support trump when he says things like

this. we have to worry about ourselves. breitbart months later publishes audio. >> his comments are not anywhere in keeping with our party's principles and values. i'm not going to defend donald trump, not now, not in the future. i had real concerns about our nominee. i hope you appreciate that i'm doing what i think is best for you, the members, and not what is best for me. so i want to do what is best for our members. i think that this is the right thing to do. i'm going to focus my time on campaigning for house hpens. >> why did breitbart news right now at this very sensitive moment in the health care debate decide to roll these grenade into the room? >> it's almost like they have given him an out because they have also said they don't liex the bill. they have railed against it, called it ryan care, and tried to keep it as far away from the president as possible. >> throwing him under the bus there, and he's already close to it, but look, the timing is fascinating on this. what we still don't know is how the president reacts to all of

this. he's said he is open to negotiation on this. and by all accounts over the last, you know, couple months or so, he and paul ryan, speaker ryan, have had many conversations. they talk on the phone all the time, we're told. he's more -- president trump is more establishment than we have ever seen him. that does not sit well with some breitbart people here. it's the president's next move on this, and i think it will be fascinating to see what that will be. >> sit tight. we'll continue the politics conversation. we're also keeping an eye on this massive winter storm making its way across the northeast. about 18 million people at the moment under a blizzard warning. maryland, virginia, new york, pennsylvania, all under states of emergency as we speak this hour. more than 6,000 flights cancelled today all across the country because of the impact. public schools are closed in philadelphia, boston, new york city, and the snow is continuing to fall in much of the northeast. let's check in with our kraunlts out there in the cold snow. miguel marquez in hartford, connecticut. ryan in westboro, massachusetts.

first, miguel, sorry, we're indoors. my apologies. i would much rather be out. i would much rather be outside with you. i mean that. these other people like to be inside. tell us about it. >> reporter: it is about as miserable as it can get here right now, john. you came to us at just the right point. look at this wind just whipping off the freeways here. this should be a busy freeway intersection in downtown hartford. 91 and 84. almost no vehicles on it. they are moving a lot of snow here. they obviously get big snows in connecticut, so they're not unaware of the stuff. they're moving a lot of snow. they're expecting up to 24 inches. the wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour in some places. wee starting to feel some of that. the worst of this should go through about 2:00 p.m. eastern time. we have another couple hours unless this thing sticks around and keeps going. it's very difficult to move out here, painful to be in the snow.

in part because it's very heavy. it's like a lot of water and almost ice like this snow. they're concerned about roofs in the area, concerned about electrical wires and trees. going forward, they're going to have a lot of engineers checking on that. they're also concerned about the tides and the full moon happening at the same time. so far, the winds seem to be blowing the tide out, so hopefully things go well, but they're in the middle of it here in heartfund. john. >> miguel marquez, we'll keep in touch throughout the day. i don't mean to make light of the travel. i'm just a new englander, i love to be outside. ryan, let's move up into patriot nation, red sox nation in massachusetts. what's the latest there? >> john, this is like old home for you. i feel like you as a child standing out here in westboro, massachusetts. just another day in new england. pretty, but as miguel said, very difficult to be out here. the wind pounding in your face.

these snow pellets are not soft, they're hard. and take a look at the massachusetts turnpike, i-90. a few cars periodically, a nice beep there on this road. officials here in massachusetts really strenuously suggesting to people that they stay home today. all the schools are closed. a lot of businesses are. there's no real reason to be out and about today unless you're a television news reporter like me. let me give you an example. you have a big line of tractor trailers here. these are guys whose bottom line, their livelihood depends on getting somewhere by a certain time. we talked to one of these drivers who is actually on his way to richmond, virginia. and he told us he's going to wait this out because it's just too dangerous right now. that's what we're seeing from a lot of people all across massachusetts right now. john. >> caution makes a lot of sense. ryan, take care. don't let too much of that snow stick. the red sox open at home this year. fenway park, april. might have to shovel it out for me. take care. up next, a deeper dig into the health care analysis, the

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we're not going to have one size fits all. instead, we're going to be working to unleash the power of the private marketplace to let insurers come in and compete for your business. you'll see rates go down, down, down, and plans go up, up. up. you'll have a lot of choices. you'll have plans nobody is even thinking of today. >> that was the president of the united states yesterday speaking about health care reform just before the new congressional budget office estimate came out. let's take a look. does the congressional budget office estimate match up with the test just outlined by the president. here's the hard part for republicans. if obamacare were kept in place, the congressional budget office says 28 million people would lack insurance a decade from now. under the republican plan, if it's passed and signed into law, that number will dearly double to 52 million americans who don't have insurance. politically, that's a tough sell for the republicans.

premiums, depends on how you look at it. in the short term, the republican plan would increase premiums, including 2018, next year, the midterm election year. but they say take the long view. over the next decade, your premiums would drop. that's good news for republicans. this is part of the big sales pitch to conservatives. republicans say the government would be spending less, especially on the subsidies under obamacare and the federal deficit would drop by nearly $340 billion under his republican plan. a major selling point to fiscal conservatives. want to look at this in particular. what about this group of voters, older voters. if you're a 64-year-old on a limited modest income, under obamacare, your premiums are $1700. on this new plan, it will be $14,000 for older americans with not much income. why did i pick this number here? because those are the voters who were donald trump's die-hard, biggest group of support were older voters. so by the time 2020 rolls

around, is this group, so good to donald trump in 2016, are they mad about this in 2020? one of the political questions to go forward as the debate goes, the house speaker paul ryan says i looked at the study, i thought it was going to be worse. >> i think if you read this entire report, i'm encouraged by it. it exceeded my expectations. the cbo is going to say if you're not going to force people to buy something they don't want to buy, they won't buy it, but at the same time, they're saying our reforms will kick in and lower premiums and make health care therefore more accessible. >> more accessible. this is the argument we're going to have. republicans, and they have said this for years, idealogically, philosophically consistent, free market. not mandated. you have options. but if you choose not to have health insurance, that's where the argument goes up. >> that's a fine argument to make, but you need a certain number of people in the marketplace. so the democrats position was to require them to do so. republicans are arguing that the

sheer cost and accessibility will draw people in. but there's a lot of skepticism around that, particularly for younger, healthy people, which have been actually a hard group to get into the obamacare system even with the mandate. so without that pressure on how will you compel those people to buy a plan, that is a huge unanswered question. and without answering that question, lot of the other factors ryan is talking about are much less certain. >> access doesn't mean affordable. that's the other thing. people might drop off because they can't afford what they're going to have to pay under this new plan. and that's a big problem. for republicans, if these people are ending up using the emergency room again. as their main source of health care. >> this idea that health insurance companies are going to compete to take care of poor people who are very sick. who might have heart disease or diabetes, it's very expensive. i think people have experiences with the health care industry already. and insurance, and having their doctors be on the phone arguing for, you know, for care and not

getting that care. this idea that all of a sudden everything is going to be great and health insurance markets are going to be wonderful. i think that's a really hard sell for the gop to make. >> this, i think, is where the president comes in. he's shown a willingness to reach out directly to individual businesses. is he going to we willing to reach out to insurance company ceos and say be more competitive in rural areas. >> pass the bill first. >> exactly. but the one thing that's been so interesting over the doers of this long health care debate, insurance company ceos have largely remains in the shadows and there haven't been people running at them with pitch forks, sort of like the bankers in the fiscal crisis. if he uses the power of his bully pulpit to call out insurance companies, that's one thing, but you're right. you have to pass the bill first. >> i just showed the premium increase for older voters. they're the most politically active, the most reliable come election day. they supported donald trump in

majorities, his largest group of supporters. look at them ask this morning, does the plan essentially pull the rug out from some of his most loyal voters? >> we're not pulling the rug out from anybody. you heard us say that again and again. the bill is specifically tailored to do that. and to everybody else who has had an insurance card under obamacare and looked at that deductible and said, you know what, i can't afford to go to the doctor. i can look you in the eye and say things are going to be bet whr the bill passes. >> even for the elderly that the cbo score has them hittal about $14,000 deductibles? >> because again, they have programs now that they can't get to the doctor with. again, you're talking about coverage. i'm talking about care. that's the fundamental disconnect here. >> i think there's a larger question of whether or not mulvaney and tom price are the right salesman for this, and paul ryan. sometimes mick mulvaney comes

off as a little glib, jokey at times, certainly on our air this morning. tom price comes off as a little bit of a ceo. he doesn't have the bedside manner of a primary care doctor, and paul ryan, sure. he's going to take off his jackets and have the charts and graphs, but they have to work on this. there's not a lot of emplthy. it's just, trust me, this is going to be great. this is coming from a white house that has had a problem in terms of being truthful with any number of things. >> is part of that their skill set or lack there of, or trying to do an inside washington game right now, which again, we're talking about getting votes, twisting arms. reconciliation, budgett scores, not john and jane doe, this is what it's going to do or your health care provider binot provide coverage. >> they have not done the hard work of bringing on the outside groups, doctors groups, aarp, other things. really, if you look at all of them, almost all of these major

groups are opposed to this. so what is the white house going to do to sway them, convince them? this cbo report makes it incredibly difficult. >> another tough part of the sales pitch is democrats hitting on the fact that this bill gives tax cuts, tax benefits to a lot of wealthy people. again, listen to the budget director say so what. we promised at the outset we were going to repeal all of the taxes. who cares if somebody else benefits? why do you have to have a system that punishes somebody in order to help somebody out? we think we have created a system to save money and alow people to get affordable health care. why would it be bad if folks benefit from a small tax reduction at the same time. >> that gets back to the point about the salesmanship and what to say and maybe what not to say. >> it gets back to the people who voted for donald trump who are by and large working class voters who responded to the financial crisis and a lot of the benefits for wealthy americans by turning toward trump.

>> and believe the system is rigged. >> this is a child alert, if you have a child in the room, put the hand over the ears. this is in a bloomberg article quoting a trump supporter. it pisses me off, but my wife does, too, and we're still married. that was dan in wisconsin. i won't say his last name. >> up next, the white house is walking back a key talking point of the president's wiretap claim. part of their defense, air quotes. we'll explain. ettin' you go. it's that splenda naturals gal, isn't it? coffee: look, she's sweet, she's got natural stevia, no bitter aftertaste, and zero calories. all the partners agree? even iced tea? especially iced tea. goodbye, sugar. hello, new splenda naturals. won't replace the full value of your totaled new car. the guy says you picked the wrong insurance plan. no, i picked the wrong insurance company. with liberty mutual new car replacement™, you won't have to worry about replacing your car because you'll get the full value back including depreciation. and if you have more than one liberty mutual policy, you qualify for a multi-policy discount,

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welcome back. now, a little rosetta stone trump edition. a week ago saturday, president trump launched a presunrise tweet storm attacking his predecessor. here's one. how low has president obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process. this is nixon, watergate, bad or sick guy.

another one. terrell, just found out president obama had my wires tapped in the trump tower just before victory. nothing found. this is mccarthyism. it took ten days. but yesterday, white house press secretary sean spicer offers this explanation or translation. >> he doesn't really think that president obama went up and tapped his phone personally. i think -- but i think there's no question that the obama administration, that there were actions about surveillance and other activities that occurred in the 2016 election. that's 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. >> if that was -- after ten days, if that was supposed to make things more clear, i, for one, vote it didn't. any takers? >> initially, sean spicer said the tweets will speak for themselves. the white house will have no more comment. but yesterday, sitting in that briefing room, you could almost feel the evolution here.

and the walk-back of exactly what the president meant in terms of wiretapping. of course, coming at the same time, yesterday, the department of justice was supposed to turn over any evidence, if any existed, to the house intelligence committee. they didn't. they asked for more time. we don't know if they're slow walking this. there simply isn't evidence, wore what, but the house intelligence committee yesterday, the chairman, republican chairman, said that they want to see any evidence if there is any by next monday or they're going to potentially subpoena them. this is still escalating, air quotes or not. >> a key point, this is the republican chairman, devin nunez, who has been a trump supporter. they're frustrating because they're trying to do stuff, whether it's the russian meddling, health care and tax reform, and they keep getting asked about tweets from the president, where they don't know where they're coming from. youminationed the justice department. the deadline was yesterday.

they asked for this information. this is the department of justice. this afternoon, the department of justice placed called to representatives of the chairman and ranking member of the permanent select committee on intelligence to ask for additional time to review the request in compliance with the governing legal authorities, and the key part, to determine if any responsive documents may exist. an if and a may. >> it really underscores how isolated the president has been on this point within his own administration. you have the justice department that's saying we don't even know we have anything to turn over to the house and senate committees. now you have his team, after ten days, saying well, he's not exactly talking about what you all thought he said and what we let you think he said. there is no evidence at this point. if there is evidence, i'm not sure that helps his case, either, because that would suggest there was a reason why the obama administration through likely the normal fisa court process or over processes had a reason to tap phones in trump tower. >> and in the record, answers

are on the way. there is a hearing in the house intelligence committee on march 20th. fbi director comey will be there. he will be asked about this. i think adam schiff, the ranking member, has already said he's going to ask him. there will be something on the record, not on background, on television that will give an explanation here. >> the justice department is either by being there or through a representative, some republican quotes is going to say, we gave them another week and they haven't sent us anything. >> in the meantime, what has this done to the president's credibility and the credibility of people around him? he had kellyanne conway go out yesterday and talk about microwaves turning into cameras. sean spicer yesterday talking about air quotes. and then a real question about whether or not, when do we believe the president? when we do need the trump translator to figure out what he means. so i think it's been a damaging stretch. >> and for the president and for sean spicer. i want to play more because he's trying to defend his boss. a tough job. i covered the white house for

nearly a decade. the press secretary has a very difficult job. more of his answer here, peter alexander of nbc news is asking this question, can we trust the president. here's more of the answer. >> i think if you look at the president' tweet, he said, quote, choirtapping in quotes. there's been substantial discussion in several reports that bret baier from fox, on march 3rd, talked about evidence of wiretapping. there's been reports in "the new york times" and the bbc, and other outlets about other aspects of surveillance that have occurred. the president was very clear in his tweet that it was wiretapping. that that spans a whole host of surveillance type options. >> he wasn't clear. >> he wasn't clear. none of those reports -- there have been nor definative reporting about wiretapping at trump tower. there was talk, odd communication between a russian bank and a computer within the trump tower complex, and the presumption is someone looked into that at some point. he lists these reports as if

there's a thick, well documented reporting of trump tower. there's not. >> some of the reports he's referring to make clear that some of the communications that apparently the fbi is looking into may have been picked up through regular monitoring of foreign governments. that would be a different way of picking up communications. look, they're in a really tough spot. the white house does not want to come out and say the president was wrong. that would not sit well with the boss. but they also have nothing to -- no ground to stand on here because there is no evidence. >> this is not a silly argument about a crowd size. whether you want to call that an ego argument or whatever. this is about saying the former president of the united states did nixonian, mccarthy, something illegal. >> the reason is matters now, ever since he has sent that out, for ten days now or so, the president has been as quiet as we have seen him since he got into this business of politics. it has made him small. it has made him unable to use the bully pulpit at a time when

he needs it most to change the conversation. no one can change a conversation in this town, in this country, or the world indeed than the president of the united states, and his bully pulpit. it has been nonexistent over the last ten days. largely because he'll be asked something like this. >> he is trying today, to your point. trying in his quiet way. we don't have access. he's been tweeting all morning about economic news. first, screen grabs from the fox business channel, now other bloomberg reporting. he's trying to get in the mix, maybe to encourage some people the think not about the health care report, gnaw about wiretapping or anything like that. >> next, empty chairs at the first trump cabinet meeting and empty offices across washington. who's to blame? nobody does unlimited like t-mobile.

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welcome back. president trump held his first cabinet meeting yesterday. and he wasn't happy about the empty seats. >> unfortunately, not all of our cabinet members could join us. we have four empty seats, which is a terrible thing. because the senate democrats are continuing to obstruct the confirmation of our nominees for the department of labor, the department of agriculture, the director of national intelligence, and the united states trade representative. somebody i want very badly. and in the midst of getting going, will wr, and they won't approve someone who is very qualified. >> the president airing his grievance there. he's complained about this repeatedly. his trade representative nominee has a confirmation hearing today. as he mentioned, his agriculture

secretary, that's not the democrats' fault. he's the former governor of georgia. he has not filed his ethics paperwork. he has to go through the process, what will you divest. that's not filed yet. in the case of the director of national intelligence, that paperwork has been filed. we're still waiting on that. yes, the democrats are stalling every bit as they can, but not in every case. >> with alexander acosta, the labor nominee, apparently, that confirmation hearing was supposed to be tomorrow, but instead of doing it tomorrow, acosta is apparently going to nashville for this rally. so again, that probably wasn't the democrats' doing. it was probably donald trump, who said, hey, come along with me to this rally. >> and per due is still very much tied up in his businesses. the daily beast has a story today about how some of his businesses have already benefitted from some of the regulations the president has rolled back. so yeah, he's got paperwork to do at this point. that's not the senate's fault.

>> beneath the headline, you have heard complaints, whether it's nomsean hannity or even sean spicer at the white house, about this alleged deep state. people in the government. no question there are hold overs, bureaucrats, obama administration political nominees who rgalize there's a changing of the guard. no question they exist, but there are more than 500 positions where president trump has not even named each other. these are the deputy secretari s secretaries, assistant secretaries, the people in charge of those people, the people who can say, listen, no, that's not our new policy. so that's the president. that's on him and his people. that they haven't even named people for these jobs. >> and in some cases, these are jobs that actually do more of the day to day work than the actual cabinet secretaries do who are traveling around, promoting the president's agenda but aren't in the building making the day-to-day conditions. the president has suggested with some of these jobs he's not even interested in filling them. that is causing a lot of concern at the agencies because they're essentially on hold. they hear overall broad messages

from the president, but the actual work they're doing, which spans not just what happens in washington but what happen across the country is stalled. >> i would argue the empty seats that are a bigger problem are not the ones in the cabinet room, although it's an issue, but the number two positions at state, at defense, at treasury. still not even nominated because there's such a, you know, a rigorous, i'm told, process here to go through. if you have said anything against this president or administration, you might be out the door. you might gnaw be, like jon huntsman is an example. who, you know, has certainly had his point of view, but the bigger problem here is the, all these agencies, people like you said, hallways literally are empty in some of these suites, which is an issue if you like government or not. >> is it on purpose? is this part of their plan to sort of shrink the footprint of the federal government so they can control most of the work of the government in the white house and with a few key people

in the cabinet? and also, i think you have to wonder if it's going to be a problem to fill some of these positions, given the record of the white house over these last many days. 50 days or so. do people really want to go and work for this white house? and this president. >> if it is by design, they're right, they won the election. they can staff the government at any pace they want and any way they want in the reasons of the positions. but they have to stop complaining about the bureaucrats doing stuff counter to the boss if they don't have a boss, if they don't have a supervisor to tell them what to do. one of the issues that has gotten attention is the firing of these attorneys. preet bharara met with the president, went to see him at trump tower. came down and talked to reporters in the lobby and said the president told him he wanted him to stay on the job, and told him to stop and tell the reporters, i want you to say on the job. now he said he wouldn't resign. the justice department called and said you must go. he said he was fired. preet bharara is gone. sean spicer was asked what about

the president's promise? >> did the president change his mind about keeping him on or was it only supposed to be for a finite period of time? >> i'm going to refer you to the department of justice on that. >> preet bharara came down to the lobby and said the president made that commitm. did the president in fact make that commitment? >> i don't think it really matters. at the end of the day, the attorney general followed the practice and asked every attorney general from the last administration to submit their resignation. >> i don't think it really matters. >> the president's word. >> the president's word, i mean, if the president changed his mind, fine. but explain the president changed his mind. i don't think it really matters. we're told, wiretapping. and it doesn't matter what the president says to a federal prosecutor. his word doesn't matter. >> that's not a mistake. sean spicer said that several times. that was the message, that it doesn't matter. by all account, yes, he was offered the job. things have become much more

acrimonious. this was a senator schumer hire. used to work for senator schumer. at the time, it almost seems, you know, senator schumer was going to be so close to the president. all that is out the window, but there are some other larger examples of questions of cases that he had in his office that he's investigating things. is that why he's being let go, or is it simply, you know, a time to clean house? the phone call between the president and preet on thursday, he said he wanted to call and say you have done a good job. he didn't call any other u.s. attorney who was shown the door. this is very interesting. >> interesting, and again, could be a perfectly innocent explanation because he had made the promise, he felt he owed him a phone call. they don't say that. the president is meeting with two visiting saudi dignitaries. saudi officials in the oval office. if they wanted to -- here you go, let's take a look at this right here. this is president trump.

let's listen. see if we hear. >> cbo score, mr. president? >> this way. thank you. thank you so much. >> you can see the president not taking questions from reporters there. meeting with two members of the saudi royal family. important ministers in the saudi government. this was supposed to be a luncheon. the president clearly decided to get them in the oval office and get the photo opout. this is the day we were supposed to have angela merkel in town. she postponed it by a couple days. it is interesting as we go through the nitty-gritty of health care, of the president's promises. we're only 60 days in. it's still interesting to see the president when he meets with different visiting foreign leaders and dignitaries how he likes to handle it. >> it's really fascinating to watch this guy who has not been

in politics at all but is so well known, to watch him in these settings in the oval office. he's proud of the oval office. he's often bringing visitors in there, spending lots of times in these listening sessions. but this meeting with the saudis is a really crucial meeting, given what's happening in the middle east, given a lot of u.s. ties with saudi arabia. i think it's fascinating to a point that jeff made earlier, though, about the president trying to avoid questions. we have had a lot of sprays like that over the last several weeks where the president will take a question from the press, will take a shouted president on an off-topic matter. the the last ten days. it's been silence when we have asked the questions. you saw that again there. >> silent again there. a chance if he wanted to nudge the health care ball forward to say something. silent again. we'll take a quick break. inside politics back in just a second. the more...ysterious they sound, powerful you'll think they are. it's time to see what power really looks like. new neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair

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a little short on time. let's go quickly inside the table, ask our reporters to share a nugget. >> one part of trump's agenda that does appear to be on track is the nomination of neal gorsuch to the supreme court. you're not hearing a lot from his meetings with senators and the white house likes it that way. there will still be a lot of grassroots pressure on democrats when he ends up in his nomination hearings, but the white house is confident this could be a straightforward conference. >> it's re-election time for donald trump in 10ten. he'll hold a re-election rally paid for and sponsors by his re-election committee. he's going to be selling health care. the question is why have a campaign rally as opposed to an

official event. a couple reasons we're trying to figure out. answers are in short supply on this. one, they want to control the event, to try to limit protes r protesters and things. two, they want to use their list of supporters they have from the campaign to pack the auditorium tomorrow night in nashville. interesting that we have a president already campaigning. i recall him criticizing the last president for campaigning. >> that was then, this is now. >> an official event tomorrow in michigan. he'll meet with rick snyder, who is the governor of that state. one tough nerd, that was his selling point. and also car company ceos, talking about rolling back obama fuel standards. this will give him a chance, obviously, to be out of washington, in the midwest, and to focus on things he wants to focus on. jobs and rolling back regulations. >> jackie, quickly. >> speak of michigan, one of the republican states that has medicaid expansion. i'm watching snyder and 16 other -- 15 other governor in

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hello, i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. in new york. wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us. we start with the fate of the republican effort to repeal and replace the affordable care act, as many in the republican party are now pushing back against new numbers that show the effects of their bill. among the highlights from the congressional budget office, 24 million americans would lose health care over the next ten years. 14 million of them lose it by next year alone. as you can also see, premiums will go down for some, up for others. good news for younger americans. but a bigger burden for older americans who could be