hello. i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. in washington, 6:00 p.m. in london, 8:00 p.m. in moscow. wherever you are watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us. we are following three major stories right now. first, president trump trying to get back to business as usual over at the white house, as his legal team fights back against allegations in the russia investigation. the white house press secretary sean spicer will likely face lots of questions on that investigation later this hour in an off-camera briefing. earlier, president trump welcomed the president of panama to the white house and during their oval office meeting, a reporter tried to get some

clarity from the president on the status of the russia investigation. >> reporter: mr. president, are you under investigation by the special counsel? mr. president, are you under investigation by the special counsel? >> no answer from the president. we are also keeping an eye on attacks in europe and london. police are investigating what the prime minister is calling a sickening attack on a crowd outside a mosque, while a man in paris rammed a police van with a car full of weapons and explosives. we will have much more in just a few moments on both of those developments. also, there is now the potential for catastrophe in the skies over syria, as russia expresses deep anger over the united states' downing of a syrian military jet. we will talk about what russia says they will do now when confronting u.s. and coalition planes. first, let's get back to the russia investigation and denials from the president's expanding legal team that says the president is not under investigation by the special

counsel, robert mueller. let's go to our white house correspondent, jeff zeleny, joining us from the white house. laura jarrett is with me here in the studio. jeff, what are you hearing from the white house on the status of the investigation? >> reporter: you can see the president as he was meeting with the leader of panama that he's not answering the question whether he's under investigation. he's the one who started this when he said last friday he is being investigated as part of this widening investigation here. but his lawyer over the weekend and again this morning on "new day" said the president is not under investigation. let's watch. >> have you been notified by the president, by the special counsel that the president was under investigation, the answer to that was no. >> if you are going to spend so much time on this, why not pick up the phone and get the answer? then you can tlactually say i asked mueller, we are not. why not pick up the phone?

>> you are asking me to pick up the phone on an investigation that right now we don't know exists. >> so the president again on friday said in a message online on social media that he was being investigated. later white house aides say he was responding to news reports that he was being investigated. then his lawyer out on the sunday shows as well as this morning saying he's not the subject of the investigation. wolf, the reality here is when you talk to officials at the white house, they do believe the president is not yet under investigation, he likely will be under investigation because of the firing of the fbi director. that's one of the focuses here of the special counsel's investigation. >> let me bring laura into this. the deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein, he was under attack from the president last week. what is his status right now? will he recuse himself? will he be fired by the president? lots of questions. >> i think those tweets from last friday raised the red flag. what is actually going on here. it's hard to tell what the president's mindset is on this. you hear from various

administration officials that he's angry, he's upset about this probe, but over the weekend, we were told there are no plans to fire the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. i think that issue of recusal is definitely still lingering out there because some say he essentially became a witness in the case because he was involved in the firing of james comey. of course, he wrote that letter that was relied on in part for the firing, where he discussed james comey flouting doj protocols. at least from the justice department perspective, we are not there yet. on friday, they say look, he has said many times if he needs to recuse, he will. but so far, nothing has changed. >> we will see if he's called as a witness. then presumably he would have no choice, right? >> that's a different ball game. >> very quickly, jeff zeleny, sean spicer will be having a briefing later this hour, but the white house not allowing cameras to roll on that, no audio. what's going on? why is this off camera? >> reporter: wolf, this is something that's becoming something of a pattern here at

the white house. we saw it last week, we have seen it before, we are seeing it today as well. sean spicer will be having a briefing but the white house simply does not want the world and america to see the questions about the russia investigation. they are trying to change the subject, move on and focus on substance and policy. they believe by having the press briefing, essentially a private briefing, we can attend, we can't broadcast it, that is something they are hoping to stay on focus. the challenge here is it's the president himself who sends out his own messages who is getting this white house off focus. we will not hear or see sean spicer today but we will be there covering it and will report it back the old-fashioned way, in printed quotations. >> the briefing room inside the white house, where there are plenty of cameras, lots of microphones but unfortunately, the white house has decided they won't allow us to show the world the nature of that briefing. certainly not live. thanks very much, jeff zeleny, laura jarrett, for that.

now to the breaking news out of europe, where two terror attacks in the past 24 hours, a van plowing into a crowd of worshippers nearing a mosque in london last night. now an armed suspect, dead after ramming into a police van in paris. cnn's melissa bell is joining us with the latest on the incident in paris along the champs-elysees. what have you learned? >> reporter: another terror investigation here in france, the fifth in as many months. what happened today, just a few hours ago now, is a white car drove down the champs-elysees, overtook a police convoy, rammed into one of those police trucks. it was then discovered his car contained large quantities of weapons and explosives. i will show you, you can still see the parked car down there on the champs-elysees. it is still being picked through by explosive experts. the man driving it has now been killed, that's been confirmed by authorities, but no one else this time. you will remember back in april

when another attacker took on police forces, this time with a cla kalashnik kalashnikov. this is becoming something of a regular feature here in france. just a reminder, we are still in a state of mj emergency in france. it was due to last until july. it will be extended further given the threat remains so high. but this is quite different from what you have seen in london the last few weeks including overnight. it's not civilians targeted. you have to go back to july to see an attack against civilians. it is security forces. the last five attacks have targeted both security forces and the kinds of places where large numbers of tourists happen to be. these are very targeted attacks against security personnel often by a single man, often at the wheel of a car. >> very disturbing developments in paris. melissa bell on the scene, thanks very much.

now to the attack in london. here's what we know. a man drove a van into a crowd of people near a ugh police say it's unclear at this point if that person died as a direct result of the attack. ten people are wounded. police have arrested a 47-year-old man on terror charges. cnn has obtained exclusive video from a witness. it is said to show the alleged driver and the van used to ram into the crowd. both the british prime minister and london mayor visited the scene. mayor khan says the city has zero tolerance for hate crimes. he also spoke about the harrowing events over the past few weeks and what the impact has been for his city. >> this attack behind me at seven sisters, the attack in manchester, the attack on london bridge and westminster bridge are all an attack on our shared values of tolerance and freedom

and respect. we will not allow these terrorists to succeed. >> let's go to our cnn international diplomatic editor, nic robertson in front of the prime minister's residence. was this man on police radar? >> reporter: wolf, it's not clear if he was on the police radar. they certainly haven't indicated that he was. we do know he was 47 years old. the prime minister said that he was a white male taken into custody, we understand he was taken to hospital, given some sort of psychiatric analysis in the early hours, is now being questioned by the police on terrorism charges. what the prime minister also said here is that she's determined to root out extremism in british society, extremism she says that includes islamophobia, an indication of what she believes motivated this particular attack. she has said she will form a new

commission to counter extremism in the same way the british government countered racism in recent years. that's the way she wants to tackle it. she said the police will put more officers on the streets around mosques, that they will be in conversation with the leaders of mosques, with community leaders who feel under threat, particularly during ramadan when people want to come out and pray without the fear of attack. so at the moment, the indications are from the police and the prime minister this man was acting alone, not entirely clear yet if he was on their radar in any capacity. i think we have yet to get full details on that. >> this investigation clearly just beginning. thanks very much. coming up, why russia has reportedly stopped military cooperation with the united states in syria and says they will treat all coalition area craft, including u.s. aircraft, as targets. plus up on capitol hill here in washington, senate democrats

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welcome our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer in washington. there are rising tensions right now between washington and moscow. russia now says it will treat all u.s.-backed jets or drones flying over parts of syria as potential targets. this after a u.s. fighter jet shot down a syrian war plane, that allegedly bombed u.s.-backed rebels. our pentagon correspondent barbara starr is monitoring this very dangerous situation. what's the latest you're hearing about how the u.s. and coalition partners are responding to these latest russian threats? >> reporter: well, wolf, within hours of the kremlin issuing that threat, and it was a threat, verbal but a threat, actually the coalition came back and said and issued a statement saying it would, in fact, reposition aircraft over syria and those are mainly u.s. aircraft flying over syria. they wouldn't be specific about what they're doing but it was clearly an answer back to the kremlin, we will take care of

business, we will continue to bomb isis targets, but we are warning you, stay out of our way. that was the message back in this statement about we will reposition. it's all very curious, because a short time after that, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff was appearing here in washington. he was asked if he was confident that a u.s. aircraft would not be shot down by the russians, and he didn't really go there. he said that he was confident that u.s. pilots could take care of themselves, essentially. so we're seeing a lot of verbal jockeying, a lot of verbal language here, very threatening on some points. very cautiously worded, trying to tone it down, perhaps, from the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. but make no mistake, since the u.s. shot down that syrian war plane, it says in self-defense over the weekend, the rhetoric is stepping up. >> yeah. amidst all of this, on sunday,

iran fired missiles on various isis targets they said inside syria. what can you tell us about that? >> reporter: they did do that, by all accounts, firing a number of missiles into eastern syria at when they said were isis targets in the east where isis is known to operate. the iranians saying that was in response to an isis claimed attack in tehran earlier this month, that they were engaging in their attack because isis attacked them on their homeland. what this is really going to is this entire battle space by the day is becoming more complicated. the iranians now entering it in a very assertive fashion. the russians making threats, the syrians flying where they know the u.s. is going to see them, the u.s. having to say come on, everybody, push back, we're not going to have this, but by the

day, this is a battle space that is growing more complicated and you have so many factions on the ground, supporting the u.s., supporting the regime, supporting russia, fighting isis, and now an awful lot of players in the skies above syria. >> yeah. very very complicated. very dangerous situation unfolding. barbara starr, thanks very much. let's get some more analysis on this. joining us are cnn military and diplomatic analyst, retired rear admiral john kirby, served at the state department and the pentagon as press secretary. sounds like a pretty dangerous situation where you have the russians issuing this warning to u.s. and coalition planes and drones, to stay out of the way. >> it was a very weirdly worded warning and it was a warning, i agree with barbara. it also talked about escorting as well. so it's not quite clear just how overt the threat was. obviously the pentagon is taking it seriously as they should, and repositioning as they need to.

what the chairman said today, we need to pay attention to that. he talked about that communications between the militaries is still ongoing. they are going to do what they can to restore this deconfliction arrangement and he also said it's not helpful for anybody for the rhetoric to get hyperbolic or shrill, let's work on communicating and trying to rachet down the temperature. >> is this an escalation from the u.s. perspective now in the trump administration that the syrian jet fighter going into a target, the u.s. decides to knock it out of the sky, because it's been years since i remember an air-to-air combat situation between a u.s. war plane and a war plane of another nation. >> certainly significant in that regard. it is rather historic. it hasn't happened in a long, long time. but i don't think there's any reason why this has to become escalatory and if there was such action, it was by the syrian

regime who chose after being warned off not once, but twice, to drop bombs in and around raqqah. so what the united states did with this f-18 pilot is act in defense of forces on the ground that we have said for months before president trump was elected when we knew we were going to have to work with syrian democratic forces on the ground, we said we are going to come to their aid, to their defense, primarily from the air. this is not something new, not something we shied away from talking about publicly. so there's no reason this needs to become escalatory. barbara raises a good point, it gets to the iranian missiles. this is a complicated battle space. every day, we continue to see it become more convoluted. it's not simply anti-isis to other partners on the ground -- sorry, other people on the ground, other nations on the ground and other parties on the ground. the fight against isis is mixed very much in with the civil war. we look at the military effort purely as anti-isis, as does the coalition. but the rest of the people on the ground don't necessarily.

it's getting very complicated. >> these two developments, air-to-air combat, u.s. planes, syrian planes and iran now launching missiles at various targets, isis targets in syria. it's getting very dangerous, even more dangerous, much more complicated. >> which is why the chairman was right today to talk about let's find a way through this, calm it down, keep the communication occurring. >> thanks very much for that. want to take a moment to remember the seven u.s. sailors killed aboard the "uss fitzgerald" after a collision with a merchant ship off the coast of japan. the ship was bdadly damaged whe it crashed into a massive container ship. officers now say only the skill of the crew kept the "fitzgerald" from sinking. on sunday the u.s. navy released the names of the seven sailors. dwrung e the youngest, 19 years old. the oldest, 37. rescue divers managed to recover the bodies in a flooded part of the destroyer. our hearts, our deepest con

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all your tv at home. the most on demand, your entire dvr, top networks, and live sports on the go. included with xfinity tv. xfinity the future of awesome. president trump and his legal team sending rather conflicting messages concerning the russia investigation. the president's personal attorney, jay sekulow, made the rounds on tv yesterday as well as this morning, repeatedly insisting the president is not under investigation, despite the president's tweeting on friday that he is under investigation. listen to this exchange between jay sekulow and chris cuomo earlier this morning. >> do you know mueller's looking at this, why didn't you just pick up the phone and find out

if it matters so much to the president whether or not he's being looked at, find out. >> you know there's a difference between investigations, inquiries. there's a whole series of matters you look at. >> the white house press secretary sean spicer certainly will be asked plenty of questions about this topic in an off-camera briefing that is about to begin at the white house. our reporters are there. unfortunately, the white house has decided that we can't broadcast that briefing from the white house press briefing room live. they won't even let us use the audio. we will discuss that and more. meantime, let me bring in our panel. our cnn legal analyst, former federal prosecutor, laura coates is with us. our senior political analyst, mark preston. our cnn chief political correspondent dana bash. and our chief political analyst, gloria borger. gloria, is it semantics because it's very confusing, sekulow says the president is not under investigation but the president himself tweeted on friday that he is under investigation. >> let's try and put the

semantics aside for one moment, the difference between an inquiry and an investigation. what we do know and evan peres has done a lot of reporting on this. we do know law enforcement sources are telling cnn the special counsel is gathering information right now. maybe that's the best way to do it. he's trying to consider whether there is enough evidence to launch some kind of investigation, potentially into the issue of obstruction. so he is at the fact-finding part of this right now, gathering information, as one would expect, before reaching a conclusion about whether it is obstruction that he needs to really hone down on. >> from a legal perspective, there are differences between fact-finding, between gathering of information and inquiry as opposed to formal investigation? >> there -- not really.

we are talking about how it comes to the fbi and department of justice, their overall game is to make it secret so you don't have to answer or ask questions about what stage they are presently in. the whole purpose of the justice department having covert investigations is two-fold. number one, it helps them to advance an investigation by not having people alerted to what they are trying to find out and it doesn't dissuade people from being forthcoming in the long run. the semantic argument does come into play but under investigation, under inquiry means the same thing. the fbi, department of justice, is trying to ascertain what facts they have to support any, if any, allegation or criminal statute violation. >> it's interesting, because in that tweet, on friday, the president tweeted i am being investigated for firing the fbi director by the man who told me to fire the fbi director, witch hunt. sekulow says he was referring to the "the washington post" story but he didn't say i'm referring

to "the washington post" story. he didn't say "the washington post" reports i am being investigated. he said i am being investigated by the fbi director. >> and jay s eshg ekulow could right but this is one of the many, many, many dangers of the president of the united states using twitter to communicate. there are a lot of pluses to it but also a lot of minuses and this is one. the fact of the matter is, the fact jay sekulow was out not just yesterday on the sunday talk shows but today on cnn and other networks just punching back donald trump style, it doesn't take a big leap knowing donald trump, we covered him for more than two years and the way he operates in the political arena. he wants the public to see and hear from the guy, from a guy who is representing him, this is not happening because we know from james comey's testimony, from his memos, this is what

irked him more than anything else, the notion that the public thinks he's under investigation. >> i have no doubt the president himself, i'm sure you agree, told jay sekulow go out there and tell the world i'm not being investigated, because dana is absolutely right. this irks the president, the thought he's under investigation. he doesn't mind if his so-called satellites may be under investigation. he called them satellites in one of those tweets. meaning people who work for him during the campaign or transition. but he wants the american people to believe he is not under investigation. >> which is why he says believe me every time he's trying to reinforce a point he wants you to actually grasp. this is the problem with president trump and twitter and the use of social media. he has not mastered how to use social media. he thinks he has but he hasn't. in fact, he's caused more problems for himself. when you look at the russia investigation, there was never really any talk about president

trump himself colluding with the russians. it was the so-called satellites, did trump maybe know about it, maybe he didn't, but there was no real direct connection. the problem for trump is, though, did he try to obstruct justice, try to end an investigation into his former nsa director flynn and did he try to put pressure on comey, the fbi director, who he subsequently fired, and did he also try to get other high ranking officials within his administration to do the same to comey. he really has created his own mess at this point. >> he heard rod rosenstein testify publicly and say i don't see any good cause to fire mueller and that he was going to let this investigation take its course. i'm sure that that grated on the president, too, because of course, he doesn't like that and he would have to fire him. if he fired him, he knows it would create even more problems than he already has. he would like to fire mueller,

fire rosenstein, and both those things are things he should not do. >> remember, talk about obstruction of justice. talk about satellites. the obstruction issue is pretty much a tangential issue to the counter intelligence probe where this all began. it may in fact be the president is making his bed of tweets and will eventually lie in them for a criminal obstruction charge. he may. but the realistic approach for the fbi and doj right now is this has begun as a counter intelligence probe. whatever the president is doing to try to deflect away from that or in order to figure out whether or not he's trying to undermine that investigation, their focus is singular and autonomous in many respects. his statements, what he's doing on twitter may deflect attention away from other issues but for the fbi, the doj, they are remaining focused on the goal at hand. >> do you think so? clearly the underlying question still is and everybody wants to know, was there collusion between anybody in trump world and the russians and then more broadly, just as american

citizens, how exactly did the russians try to impact the election. but you know this better than i. these investigations tend to take on a life of their own. >> jared kushner, the president's senior adviser and son-in-law, is among those welcoming tech executives to the white house today. moments ago, he spoke at the summit meeting that is going on. the president will be meeting with all the tech leaders later in the day. listen to this. >> this is technology here at the white house and we are proud to be kicking it off with your engagement and assistance as we work to modernize the government's technology infrastructure. we created the white house office of american innovation in an effort to bring business sensibility to a government that for too long has relied on past practices as automatic justification for their continuation. >> you don't often hear from jared kushner. he's a busy guy.

he's got all these tech executives. for a lot of people that's the first time probably they have heard his voice. >> he just got a speaking role. >> he's got this big summit today with all the tech executives that he's organizing. later in the week he's heading to jerusalem, to meet with israeli and palestinian leaders, trying to get some sort of peace process under way. he's a busy guy. >> the right-hand man for president trump. we talk about the chief of staff and reince priebus, steve bannon, the senior adviser. the fact of the matter is, trump really, really only trusts those who are really related to him. that's why we see ivanka trump and jared kushner move to washington, d.c. in some ways you can say it's admirable they are trying to do something with the peace process but no disrespect to jared kushner, i'm not sure he can be the one to broker a truce and peace for a religious war by all stretches of the imagination. we will see more and more of

jared kushner in situations like this where he will be out really being the mouthpiece for the president. >> he's not here testifying before congressional committees which have asked for his appearance and they are in the process of negotiating that and working that out. we now understand i guess that he can't be in two places at once. >> at least they are trying to get some sort of peace process under way. hopefully they will get something moving. you never know. let's see what happens. we have been down that road many times over the years. hopefully something positive can emerge. guys, thanks very much. coming up, live pictures from capitol hill where senate democrats say they won't conduct business until they see the republicans' secret health care bill. a live report on that. issing] uh- i-

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welcome back. normally we would be airing the white house press briefing right now live. sean spicer, by the way, has just started the briefing in the briefing room. unfortunately, the white house says no cameras are allowed, no airing of it live, not even the audio. so it's q & a with sean spicer, but unfortunately, we are not allowed to show it to you live. we will have more on that coming up. meanwhile, the senate up the other end of pennsylvania avenue, is back in session today, but by tonight, democrats plan to bring business on the floor to a halt all because of their frustration over the republicans' handling of the health care bill and the secrecy around its details. let's bring in our congressional correspondent phil mattingly and cnn money senior writer, tammy lubie. phil, the senate minority leader, the democratic leader, chuck schumer, said this morning, i'm quoting, these are

merely the first steps we are prepared to take in order to shine a light on the shameful trumpcare bill. will this actually give the democrats in the senate any leverage sth ? >> to the extent a minority party has leverage in the senate, this is the way to utilize it. nothing moves forward unless all senators agree to allow it to move forward. that's what senate democrats are going to object to tonight. what does this mean in practice? it means the senate floor proceedings will slow to a halt, it means committee hearings can't actually occur. overall, the business in the chamber will start to slow down. the reason why is really two-fold. first and foremost, there is a sense among the democrats not only in the senate but also outside in the activist community that not enough attention has been paid to what senate republicans have been doing behind closed doors. they want to try and draw attention to that. the other issue is they recognize they are not part of this process. this is the way to insert themselves if they can. they recognize this is a problematic process, at least on its face. they want to draw attention to that. one of the most interesting

elements here is it's not just democrats that have problems with this. it's republicans as well. take a listen to what a democrat and republican had to say earlier this weekend. >> i have never seen something like this. this is unprecedented to not have a bill, to not have any sense of the details. >> if it is an effort to rush it from a small group of people straight to the floor on an up or down vote, that would be a problem. >> reporter: i want to kind of underscore a key point here. what senate republicans are doing is also strategic. they understand that they are going to get attacked for this, that it doesn't look good. but the rationale is i'm being told according to senate leadership, this is the best path forward to get the requisite number of votes, 50 at a minimum, to move this forward. they know shielding this from the public and from democratic attac attacks will give their members the best opportunity to hash out serious and significant disagreements on very key components of health care policy. they are not there yet. there's no final bill yet. nothing has even been sent to

the cbo in an official capacity. but that's what's happening. that's the strategy. you will see democrats trying to highlight that as much as they possibly can tonight. >> interesting stuff. tammy, one of the big challenges for health insurance companies right now is that they don't know what the rules of the road will be for the next year. what kind of impact is that already having? could there be some markets with no insurers at all? >> look, obamacare was troubled well before trump was elected but he and the republicans are not making things any better for the insurers. they are saying they don't know how to set prices for next year when they don't know if they are going to get a key set of subsidies and don't know if they are going to get -- if trump will continue to enforce the individual mandate. what are they doing? raising rates. they are requesting rates to go up. in a lot of places by double digits. one analysis says that two-thirds of this is just the uncertainty because they don't know what to do. look at north carolina. they requested a rate increase of 23%.

but if they knew they were going to get the subsidies they were only going to request an 8.8% increase. the bigger problem here is that a lot of insurers just don't want to deal with this anymore and are just pulling out, they are pulling out entirely, pulling out of certain markets. you have anthem leaving ohio, wellmark blue cross blue shield leaving iowa. they don't want to deal with this anymore. at this point we have 47 counties in the u.s. that at this point have no insurer for next year. that's tens of thousands of people. but on the flipside of all of this, you have some insurers saying hey, we like this market, it's stabilizing. they are sticking with it, raising rates a little bit because rates go up every year but not tremendously. so for next year, what happens with obamacare? it's really going to depend on where you are. >> guys, thanks very much for that update. critically important issue, health care, here in the united states. coming up, will senate democrats protest over the republican health care bill?

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in the wake of last week's shooting at a republican congressional baseball practice here in the d.c. area, there have been new calls for bipartisanship and end to the divisive political rhetoric. joining us now, new york republican congressman tom reed, new jersey congressman josh scotthimer. congressmen, thank you for having us on. >> you guys are the co-chairs of the problem-solver caucus, a 35-member strong coalition trying to end the partisan bickering. it certainly sounds nice, but with such deep divisions right now, the agendas of the respect telephone parties, realistically is there going to be any significant change in at least tone? >> i completely believe there there is going to be, and with the problem solvers caucus, we have been influential.

a 40-strong members' bloc on the government funding bill we passed about a month ago. >> i assume you agree, that's why you created this caucus. you're pushing for bipartisanship on infrastructure, tax reform, so take health care, for example, there was really no outreach to democrats at all and it was voted strictly along party lines. how do you change that? >> well, i think obviously health care was the wrong approach. i think we're seeing the backlash from that. tom and i and the 40 of us are working hard to find a good place where we can find together -- that means not insisting on 100%, but taking 8 on% and getting things done. from where i'm from, that's what people want, they want us to do something.

>> are you hopesful you'll be able to work together with democrats? >> i absolutely believe that. working with the prosolvers caucus and josh's lead, we're taking a position on debt ceiling, i believe, maybe a budget agreement, but being on the committee of ways and means. i'm reaching out and saying we want you to be a part of this. that's the way we're going to solve america's problems. >> congressman reed, you voted to repeal and replace the affordable care act. as you know, the other day the president was meeting with republicans. he said the bill was strictly along partisan minds, was in his words a mean bill. what do you say to a president who is basically throwing a lot of house republicans under the bus? >> well, i'll let the president speak for himself, but the bottom line is we had to move forward, you're talking about tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands don't have access to

health insurance anylonger. we need to do something. then we can focus on areas of common ground, with things like tax reform we can find common ground if we lead and do the work. that's what we're all about. >> any chance that could be bipartisan cooperation in the house of representatives, let's say the senate passes some health care legislation, you got to then go back to a joint house/senate committee, then more votes. is there any chance there should be cooperation between the democrats and republicans on health care? >> there's a bunch of us who wanted to fix the aca, and still do. it's hard to know what's in it. it's happening in the dark of night. that's not the way we're going to come around together. i'll tell you this. on issues, where we focus on the caucuses, we're willing to work with anyone on things like tax reform, infrastructure, because we know there's areas where we

can get to yes and that's what we're focused on. how do we move forward not screaming at each other, but sitting down and figuring out where where ked make congress. >> how do you deal with rear fellow republicans. they don't want to make any deals with the democrats, because they don't trust the democrats and really don't want to go forward with such deals. how do you do that? >> you lead. that's why -- you know, obviously sticking our neck up and josh sticking his neck up, we're putting people before politics first. i will tell you that's the change in culture that i believe needs to happen. i believe we need to resolve it doing together. practically speaking 218 votes, 0 votes in the senate is generally what you need to get policy enacted. that means we have to work together. that's better policy for the american people. i agree. i think, wolf, what you saw last week after the horrific incident in washington is people more

than ever are saying, sit down, figure this out, look where you can find the common ground. there's plenty of space to find that common ground. i think that's really what people want, but it takes some courage and sticking your neck out, but that's what we're here for. >> very quickly congressman reed, will the president be on your side? >> i think the president is looking to do a deal. when you have that type of attitude, i think you can get a lot done. >> do you think he'll reach out to democrats? >> i believe at the end of the day that's the path forward and i think the president will agree with us. >> just adding to that, i think if it's good for a lot of our districts, which it is. infrastructure and tax reform, we'll get to yes. we have to be willing, though, on both sides to do that. >> let's see if you can do it. congressman joc maman josh gott congressman reed, thank you. that's it for me. i'll be back at 5:00 eastern,

amanpour is coming up for our viewers in north america, more "newsroom" starts after a quick brachy. break. your insurance company

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at the top of the hour you're watching cnn. i'm brooke baldwin. two terror attacks just hours apart. this driver deliberately ramming the -- explosives and weapons, this is the fifth time in four months that security forces have come under attack in paris. melissa bell is standing by. what i've led. is weapons and explosive to blots up his car, melissa.