we all remember the nightmare that veterans suffered during the v.a. scandals that were exposed a few years ago. veterans were put on secret wait lists, given the wrong medication, given the bad treatments, and ignored in moments of crisis for them. many veterans died waiting for a simple doctor's appointment. what happened was a national disgrace, and yet some of the employees involved in these scandals remained on the payrolls. outdated laws kept the government from holding those who failed our veterans accountable. today we are finally changing those laws. it wasn't easy, but we did have some fantastic help to make sure that the scandal of what we

suffered so recently never, ever happens again. and that our veterans can get the care they so richly deserve. so you just heard from sergeant michael varardo. great. i didn't get to shake your hand, michael. huh? [ applause ]ael. he gets up better than i do. thank you, michael. michael lost two limbs in defending our country, and yet he had to wait 57 days to get his prosthetic leg repaired. that's a long time, michael. and over 3 1/2 years for modifications to make his house

more accessible. what happened to michael is happening to many, but it's rarely happening under our leadership and david's leadership anymore. that i can tell you. our wounded warriors have given everything they have to this nation, and we owe them everything we have in return, and we're taking care of it. today we are taking a very historic action to transform the v.a. by enacting the v.a. accountability and whistle-blower protection act. this was not easy. this was not an easy one. and it's one that they've wanted to do, michael, you know, for a long time. for many years. couldn't get it done. we got it done. this is one of the largest reforms to the v.a. in its history. it's a reform that i campaigned on, and now i am thrilled to be

able to sign that promise into law. v.a. accountability is essential to making sure that our veterans are treated with the respect they have so richly earned through their blood, sweat and tears. this law will finally give the v.a. secretary who is, by the way, just doing some job, and he's doing it with this and with the heart. believe me. it gives the secretary the authority to remove federal employees who fail and endanger our veterans and to do so quickly and effectively. it's been a long time since you've heard those words. those entrusted with this sacred duty of serving our veterans

will be held accountable for the care they provide. it's a big statement. at the same time, this bill protects whistle-blowers who do the right thing. we want to reward, cherish and promote the many dedicated employees at the v.a. this legislation also gives the v.a. secretary the authority to appoint new medical directors at v.a. hospitals. something which was almost impossible to do in the past. and these are going to be talented, talented people. i applaud chairman phil roe and the members of congress here's with us today which we have many, who fought so hard for this legislation, and i want them up here when i sign. and i just want to thank the members of congress. they have been really dedicated to getting this done.

it was not easy for them either. thank you. thank you. thank you, everybody. thank you. thank you. thank you. now, very sincere gratitude as well to the veteran service organizations who have joined us for this tremendous occasion, and for everything they do for the veterans and for so long. they've been fighting for this and other things so long, and, by the way, other things are happening. we've done a lot. this is a big one. we have a lot of good ones coming. i also want to express our appreciation for secretary shulkin, who is implementing the dramatic reform throughout the v.a. it's got to be implemented. if it's not properly implemented, it will never mean the same thing, but i have no doubt it will be properly implemented. right, david? ah, better be, david.

ah, we'll never have to use those words. we'll never have to use those words on our david. we will never use those words on you. that's for sure. that one never fails. does it, tom? science my first day in office, we've taken one action after another to ensure our veterans and make sure, we have to make sure, that they get world-class care. and the kind of care that they have been promised by so many different people for so many years. we've created a new office of accountability at the v.a. which will empower and really has been empowered by this legislation. we've launched a new website that publishing wait times at

every v.a. hospital. we've delivered same-day mental health service at all 168 v.a. medical centers. that's a big operation, when you think of it. we've announced that the v.a. will finally solve a problem that has plagued our government for decades. seamlessly transfers veterans' med records from the department of defense to the department of veteran affairs. now -- [ applause ] -- that doesn't sound like such a big deal. it is. believe me. that was a big one. we thought this would be easy, but the people like david and all that have been here and understand the system, he said, that's going to be a tough one. we got it done. so that was a good one. but it is something we're very proud of, to have been able to do it this quickly. i've also signed the veterans

choice improvement act so that more veterans can see the doctor of their choice. already this year using the choice program, veterans have received nearly double the number of approvals to see the doctor of their choosing. and this is only the beginning. we will not rest until the job is 100% complete for our great veterans. [ applause ] >> we can all be inspired by the story of a retired air force veteran named earl morris, who served as a physician's assistant at the v.a. centers in ohio and indiana. 13 years ago earl began asking his patients if they planned to visit new world war ii memorial,

which is beautiful, right here in washington, d.c. nearly all said they planned to visit, but when he saw these patients at their next appointment, almost none of them had made the trip. one day he had an idea. earl is a private pilot. he asked one of his patients, who was a world war ii veteran if he could fly with him to the memorial. he was so honored to do it. the 80-year-old veteran wept, openly cried. he never imagined he would see that beautiful monument to his service. that is how first honor flight was born. honor flight. very beautiful thing. since then, over 100,000 veterans have been greeted with cheers of gratitude as they arrive in our nation's capital.

we want all of american veterans, all of them, every one of them, to experience and to at least have the opportunity to experience that same gratitude every time they walk in to the v.a. that's what today is all about. keeping our promises to those who have kept us free. kept us happy. saved our lives, and saved our families. so i just want to thank you, our incredible veterans. we stand with you. we salute you, and with this new legislation, we strive to better support and serve you every single day. thank you. god bless you. god bless our veterans, and god bless america. thank you very much. thank you.

[ applause ] >> come on up. welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. we'll stay in the room at the white house. the president of the united states inviting members of congress, veterans as well, about to sign the veterans accountability and whistle-blower protection act of 2017. let's listen. >> it's a tremendous honor for me. it's a tremendous honor for everybody on stage and we're taking care of our veterans, and we're taking care of them properly. thank you, david. congratulations. thank you, again. congratulations.

[ applause ] >> again, you're watching the president of the united states in the white house there, a signing ceremony. he considers this a big achievement. veterans affairs accountability whistle-blower act of 2017. keep an eye on the room as the president hands out pens. key members of congress, veterans, veterans affairs secretary. you see the president applauding him. with me in studio, julie herb feldt davis of the "new york times," karen of the "wall

street journal." the "globoston globe" and we wi get to the russian investigation and in a few minutes to the senate republican health care bill. this is a pretty much a bipartisan moment for the country and for this president who says he's following through on a campaign programs. this is legislation wanted to be passed before the president came into office. he's the president. he gets to sign it. essentially the big reform designed to improve the disaster of veterans health care during the obama administration. the president says he'll make those better. this particular legislation allows the department, makes it easier to fire people for misconduct. one of the things they learned after the scandals was people had jobs in place, found to be incompetent but federal government rules prevented the administration, then the obama administration, now the trump administration, a favorite phrase of the president, i don't mean to make fun, "you're fired." this days, an accomplishment in what way? >> as you say, a bipartisan

achievement. he hasn't had many of those, hasn't had any, no major achievements yet. for him to showcase this is a win some in ways. the big complaint after president obama signed his veterans reform bill, even with enhanced disciplinary action that could be taken at the v.a., they still had trouble firing people. president trump said he took it a step further. that said, i'm not sure how much momentum pe gets out of this to bhaut he really needs to do next, health care bill. a heavy lift. he talked about this being a heavy lift. that's a really heavy lift. >> he said bad things are rarely happening in his administration. let's hope that's true for the veterans and the issue, a problem a long time. democratic and republican administrations. irony here, david shulkin is a hold jover from the obama

administration. the number two at the department of veterans affairs and it was recommended keep this guy. we think he is part of the solution. some say, wait. you were there when there was a problem. that relationship is a fascinating one. >> also something that candidate trump talked about almost every time he was on a stage. was veterans. and veteran affairs. fixing the v.a. in that sense he is able to point to something he's able to sign here. how much credit he gets for developing it is maybe another matter. the only discordant note during that whole ceremony, him joking about firing, you know, shulkin. his cabinet secretary. you know? so who was the obama holder. we love our david. don't have to say that. we're not going to fire you. kind of an odd moment. >> but for a president who most of the moments we see him, again we'll get to them in a couple moments. this is important for the country. this piece of legislation and the emphasis we can put on reminding politicians to double, triple, quadruple check to make

sure promised improvements in veterans care is made. we should. but for a president to normally in our conversations about him and will be in a minute about big partisan fights or the investigations are rare moments? >> this was a nice moment. bipartisan bill, seems to be common sense reform. some of the care at v.a. facilities for years has been very, very bad. the idea that people who are overseeing the phoenix situation could stay in place is ludicrous. one of them, head of the hospital, which ugly just won a court battle to appeal for her job again. she was padding her own bonuses making up fake wait times. it's insane she should stay in that job and you would get better results as a result. so i'm glad this happened and he had a nice little ceremony there, which was what you want as a president. >> what you want as a president. sit tight, everybody. back in a moment to move to other issues here in washington including the president essentially say heg made up a story about having white house tapes so jim comey would tell

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when heartburn hits fight back fast with new tums chewy bites. fast relief in every bite. crunchy outside. chewy inside. tum tum tum tum new tums chewy bites. welcome back. if you believe the president which is often a risky bet, he deliberately misled the country to make sure james comey told the truth. >> i didn't tape, and i don't have any tape and i didn't tape. but when he found out that i -- you know, there may be tapes out there, whether it's governmental tapes or anything else and who knows, i think his story may have changed. i mean, you'll is a to take a look at that.

>> you'll have to take a look at that. at the root of all this, remember, the tweet launched by the president a little more than a month ago. it read, james comey better hope there are no conversatitapes of conversations before he starts liking to the press. comey ended up confirming publicly he told the president he was not personally under investigation. okay. but that white house also ignore as long list of damaging things comey says he put in the public record only in response to the tape tweet including memos details how the president asked him in comey the words to shut down the investigation with former national security adviser michael flynn. >> i don't think there is any other explanation, other than he's a bully and he doesn't want this russia investigation to continue, but at the same time, just the way he conducts himself, he's like, he only is matched by wile e. coyote in terms of self-inflicted wounds

and keeps acting this way, and i think the american public can see what's going on. >> senator ed markey, if you want to do it from where i'm from. a couple things to come at here. number one is it okay for the president of the united states, or anybody, to deliberately mislead people if your internal caucus tells you, if i mislead people here somebody's going to tell the truth? really? a., do we believe that's why he did it and, b., really? >> well, it's hard to believe that he, this wasn't at least in part a fit of pick on his part. i mean, there had been a story that ran in the "new york times" that talked about this exchange he had with jim comey and was angry about it and you saw in the wording of the tweet. he better hope. that's the way you word a threat. he wanted to send a message to comey that he was not going to stand for him talking about their private conversations in a way that was unflattering. in terms of self-inflicted

wounds, you can only say that's true because, of course, what has happened in the aftermath. that comey saw that. said, you know, i really hope there are tapes, and then set about this process in motion to make sure the public knew what had happened in those conversations and it's so striking that the president is willing to say and to admit that he said something that was completely untrue. >> right. >> even in the interests of making sure someone else told the truth. that's an extraordinary thing for a president to admit openly. >> extraordinary for anybody to admit. but he's the president. deliberately misled or miskas t mischaracterized? >> better to look he wasn't in control or acknowledge, yeah, he was spinning this? the right or wrong question, yes, make a moral judgment. shouldn't do that. especially to an entirp country publicly but say politically does it matter? does he feel he got what he

wanted out of it? lookingality the whole spectrum, not just that comey put out information in the memos that didn't reflect well on the president but did it with the intention trying to get them to a int positive of special counsel, which they did and now trump is going after that special counsel and the next target of his side comments about not appreciating mueller's relationship and mueller and comey are close friends and all that stuff. yeah. this is -- seems this is cleanup after six weeks of 4rletting th run. didn't go so well. this has always been my plan. right? >> often sends others out to do the cleanup. listen more from the same part of the interview. interviewed by "fox and friends." the interview aired this morning. talking how he thinks comey was more of a truth teller after he put out the fake word about tapes. >> my story didn't change. my story was always a straight story. my story was always the truth. but you'll have to determine for yourself whether or not his story changed. but i did not tape.

>> a smart way to make sure he stayed honest in his hearings. >> well -- it wasn't -- it wasn't very stupid. i can tell you that. he was -- he did admit that what i said was right. and if you look further back, before he heard about that, i think maybe he wasn't admitting that. so you'll have to do a little investigative reporting. >> well, let's set asides the tough probing questions on state tv there. but my story was always the truth. we haven't actually heard the president's entire story. have we? >> no. and i mean, if he's sort of suggesting that comey was only telling the truth because of this threat, the truth that comey told was not a good one for president trump. i mean, once he detailed what was in the memos, testifying under oath, before congress it was pretty damaging news for president trump. so i mean, if he's sort of moving him towards the truth it didn't ends up so well. >> and at a minimum, if you

believe comey, the president acted grossly inappropriately with the director of the fbi. democrats say obstruction of justice. several investigations underway. we'll get into that in a moment. if you believe comey, bringing up things the president is not supposed to bring up with the fbi director. >> doesn't seem to be that good a thing for the president trying to explain that and also have to ask which story was told consistently? the thing about not being under investigation. true as far as comey corroborated later. what about the clinton investigation, the russia thing? he's gone back and forth. it's his words, his tweets that self-contradict. maybe telling two stories consistently but they don't match. >> it's not out of character for trump. you know? i mean, the birther stuff that went on so long. the questioning the of ted cruz

and was his father involved in kennedy's assassination? trump has done this throughout his life. >> become good friends with ted cruz and are you saying he'll become good friends with jim comegy. >> i would like to take hick seriously when tweets. i'm not surprised there aren't tapes and he seems to have paid a price. maybe discourages of that in the future. on the point of telling a consistent story and combing assuring him he wasn't under investigation, he's told more about that, leakers and was correct. >> on that part, correct. what he focused on. important to get it into public record. when james comey left the fbi the president of the united states was not under investigation. striking to hear jay secula saying that's not illegal. it's not illegal to lie or

mislead interesting you defend a president of the united states doing that. in the conversation, bob mueller the special prosecutor. some republicans said mueller hired people who made contributions to the clinton campaign. noose gingrich a bold move the day it was done since then, a horrible, terrible thing. this is a democratic partisan investigation. the president was asked does he think bob mueller can do the job. >> he's very, very good friends with comey. which is very bothersome, but he's also -- we'll have to see. we'll have to see in terms -- look, there has been no obstruction. there has been no collusion. there has been leaking by comey, but there's been no collusion, no obstruction and virtually everybody agrees to that. robert mueller is an honorable man, and hopefully he'll come up with an honorable sluice. >> solution. >> goes around a bit. strikes me, whether you agree or

disagree with the president, repeating, no collusion, no obstruction. attorneys tell him, talking about this, keep it short, tight and on basic points. to that point, the president seemed undisciplined. seems quite disciplined in that part of it. he says that, moves on. >> he says that in an interview, although still tweets when he gets angry. it's a witch-hunt. the whole thing is a hoax nap can get him into trouble that his lawyers really can't control. the interesting thing about what he's saying about mueller, reminds me of the vast right wing con speary during the clinton years. clearly it's an effort on the part of the president and supporters to paint this all as a partisan witch-hunt. no substance there. but the fact is that comey and mueller are not best friends. that is a narrative that is false. they work together. worked closely. were in really tough situations together during the bush administration when comey was the deputy attorney general and mueller was head of fbi. but it's not like they hang out

on the weekends. this is not a pal situation, and even though it may make the president unconferrable they're close, putting that out there, it's just not right. just not true. >> we did a fair amount of reporting as others did on their relationship and couldn't find, as julie is saying. they worked professionally close. had a lot of professional respect for each other, but they didn't vacation together. they didn't have dinners together. their families didn't get together. there was not a close, tight-knit relationship. even the word mentor, uses sometimes, is not universally thought of between those two men. they are -- have respect for each other but are not -- close. >> that's clear by the president, doubt among his own supporters. up next, top secret packets. proof of a direct line to vladimir putin? new details of the campaign twist to spygate 2016.

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like this -- >> there has been no obstruction. there has been no collusion. there has been leaking by comey. but there's been no collusion, no obstruction, and virtually everybody agrees to that. >> or this -- >> this didn't have an impact on the electoral result. not a single vote was changed and we stand by that. we know donald trump wore fairly and squarely. 630 elech tort votes and had nothing do with interference. >> team trump almost never talks at the crime at the root of all this. russian interference in the 2016 election. if you like crime stories receipt "the washington post" featuring a detailed story how the obama administration came to realize the extent of the r russian plot and came to realize they could trace it definitively to vladimir putin. this is full of eye-popping reality. linking interference shared with

president obama. the cia package came with instructions it will be returned immediately after read to guard gets leaks. they followed the same protocols at plans sessions for the osama bin laden raid. and this about how to respond. aggressive options set aside for the most part. little done before the election. "it is the hardest thing about my entire time in government to defend" what one former top obama official told the "post." i feel like we sort of choked. a riveting story. haven't read it at home, go online and read it. what was your take, how it played, how sensitive? only a few people, about as many as this table, eyes-only access to it at the beginning? >> what was striking, it was, they were under, the obama administration was under a huge amount of political pressure and also security pressure. they were watching the reality of this unfold and how deeply

russia had been able to infiltrate into the election and on how many fronts putin was able to sort of carry out this plot, and yet they somehow felt handcuffed by the fact there was an ongoing election, and by the fact that some of the sanctions and some of the other retaliatory measures were afraid would prompt action by russia and this was, remember, all at a time when donald trump was talking how the election was rigged. so what really i think tide the obama administration hands in the end was a sense that if they were to do some of the more dramatic actions in retall dwri iation to stop this, playing further into putin's hands. he would escalate and they would be accused of trying to rig the election for clinton. >> and you hear from senators and people in the classified briefings, no doubt about putin's ininvolvement. we sort of understood that. this made it even more clear.

the other thing that came out was obama -- a reminder of his slow and painstaking deliberations. you know? he was very slow a lot of times to make decisions that got him into trouble with syria. this was another example where they had some clear eford aest response slow to take place, perhaps because of the political complications of an election. >> and felt republicans would push back and fairly confident clinton would win. >> exactly what was going on. >> figured why stir this up if she's going to win anyway? i want to read details. cia out ahead of our intelligence agencies linking it to putin. other agencies took a while to get there. they're all there now. just about everybody in washington, we don't hear it directly before the president, just about everybody else. captured putin the specific instructions on the audacious objectives. defeat or at least damage the democratic nominee hillary

clinton and help elect donald trump. packet send to the white house, an intelligence bombshell, source deep inside the russian government, vladimir putin's direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the u.s. presidential race and went further. the intelligence captured putin's specific instructions about the objective. the spes physicf specificity ofd it to the kremlin. no way this could happen without putin. the specificity with intelligence deep inside the russian intelligence, if i were putin, i'd be looking around my shoulder today. >> yes. confirm apgs of everything president trump didn't want to hear and trying to deny. which has been almost consensus with everybody else in the intelligence community for a long time. i point out two other things in there are fairly striking. matt talked about the obama administration's characteristic indecision, want add bipartisan

backing to actually do anything and didn't do it. other interesting thing, in the article, until he commissioned that study to look back, the intelligence communities kamt out in early january didn't realize the full picture seeing it through blinders. didn't realize going back how it was another step and a litany of steps take tn to do active mesh. had they had peripheral vision, might have changed the decision-making. and put's in implants. revelation of implants in the russian infrastructure, which president trump has not taken a away. it takes another presidential act to undo it. the fact president trump hasn't undone that given everything else saying, smoke thrown in this direction, notable and more difficult for him to do it now giving this is public information. >> the president himself doesn't like to talk about this, sees it as making his win illegitimate, somebody meddling the election. but, accept conclusions of the

intelligence community, and things need to be done about it, his party. >> he's concerned about legitimacy part. not correct he thinks there's no russian invochblt at all. he's mad about the collusion part and those allegations. comey in fact testified he was telling him, well, if someone on my staff did this i would like to know about that. gecht to the bottom of it. there's a distenkz and the distinction sometimes doesn't get made in media. the russians succeeded in changing the media story and changing the news story of the election but not the actual vote totals, an important thing to note. surprising numbers of people when polled think that's the case. >> right. >> here we have, this was a bombshell. something that's really important for national security. trump is assisted by senior obama official who used one of his favorite tweetable words "choked" saying they should have done somebody about this but in a very hard situation just as comey was. like the way you take actions during a heated election is tough, but i think this was

bombshe bombshell. they didn't move on it. >> another point. important to distinguish he didn't met with vote totals. important distinction and important to realize we knew they did it in other countries but never thought they would do it to us. changing the media environment and the understanding people have of what's going on and this is their m.o. bought felt we were immune to it and weren't. people weren't aware of a it until way too late. >> and a president using the word "if" referring to the whole campaign. we saw laid out in striking detail. he still -- casts doubt on the fact this actually happened. it was actually russia and putin that did this, and never asked comey in any of those private meetings about any of this. the lack of concern he's shown and interesting to see if there's going to be a response from the white house to this story, but to the degree to which they infiltrated our electoral system is amazing. given he's the president.

this is a, it's a huge national security breach. >> and either been briefed on all this and knows all of this in great detail or hasn't been curious enough to sort of figure some of it out. >> you have to imagine some was briefed to him in january. >> right. kelly kellyanne conway says it's in the paper. read it. the president has this, had for five moss or longer and more. the president has access to everything. that's not a genuine answer we're just finding about this in the newspaper. and the senate republican health care plan. final vote is next week. still plenty of time for horse trading. with type 2 diabetes a lower a1c is a lot about choices. but it can be hard sometimes, 'cause different sides of you

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rumor confirmed. they're playing. -what? -we gotta go. -where? -san francisco. -when? -friday. we gotta go. [ tires screech ] any airline. any hotel. any time. go where you want, when you want with no blackout dates. [ muffled music coming from club. "blue monday" by new order. cheers. ] ♪ how does it feel ing it's travel, better connected. welcome back. mitch mcconnell has a tough choice to make. win over conservatives like rand paul? >> the bill has to get better and has to get more to our liking. the current bill keeps the fundamental flaw of obamacare. we have more government

subsidies in our bill than perhaps obama's bill. our bill may cost more in the first two years than obama's cost. that's not repeal. >> or should the comments be like moderates susan collins. >> i can't support a bill that's going to greatly increase premiuming for our older americans a, out of pocket costs for those not quite old enough for medicare yet and i cannot support a bill that's going to make such deep cuts in medicaid. >> leader mcconnell, it's as crafty as they come. he can only afford to lose two votes. at the moments, four senators or no votes. for more senators are concerned and not ready to commit. four more. and another 27 republicans are still reviewing the legislation before making a decision. we talked about it during the break. in anybody can pull this rabbit out of a hat it's mitch mcconnell but hard to only lose

two votes and rand paul likely and ted cruz on the right, susan collins, they prefer the middle, not the left. how does he do this? what is the legislative compromise because the policy differences are so big to get you to do 60? >> may not be in the bill. put opioids in the bill, one senator would sign on. how you get the millions who fall off insurance to get back on at this stage through a few amendments. probably get them through -- people like portman through certain additions. cruz and lee, maybe through other incentives, or -- threats? i mean, but i don't know that you -- you can't get everybody. people like rand paul don't particularly care if the leader approves of her vote or not and people like susan collins, if they go away from the party, they're going away from the party. they'll lose some people.

the question, do you lose more than two? >> talking about the politics and these personalities. the reason it's hard to get to 50, the policy divide much like the hughes is huge. conservatives want full obamacare repeal. you heard senator paul say that. less government involved. shrink subsidies, people buy insurance. no federal funding of abortion. conservatives want. the list is longer. those are highlights. the flip side, moderates want more generous coverage, the opioid treatment addiction coverage you talked and and not strip planned parenthood, which the senate bill does one year nap is apples and oranges and how do you -- to get one, if you get one over here you lose three over there. >> and the question is sort of how much so far is posturing, and negotiating early on from people like rand paul and how much is legitimately going to be opposition? i think the difference in the house was that you had a group of 20, 25 people, and it's easy to be in a gang of 20 or 25. as this thing narrows and

there's one or two senators who are holding this up, the whole party is going to be pointing at them. not only mitch mcconnell and back rooms, but president trump and others to drop your opposition and let's pass this. so i think that will ratchet up probably next week. >> yeah. it is a different situation. i will remind everybody that we were having the exact same conversation about the house bill. >> right. >> thought, no way this is coming together. mcconnell is i think clearly better at bringing these together than leadership in the house, just as a matter of course. and then there's the part where -- this was always going to be ugly. it was always going to be complicated. and it was never going to look like a full obamacare repeal. which also makes the arguments against it as if it is the apocalypse look silly, because it is not anything close to obamacare repeal, why conservatives are going to be upset about it. pass or not. i want to thank senator warren for taking on the palin death panel role in this, in this debate early on so we know where

she stands. it's going to be tricky. the underlying problem still exists whether this bill passes or not, which is premiums going up 105% in four you'res. insurers dropping out of many ex-changes. people in the individual market, one or fewer choices and it will get worse if it's left alone. >> a key question, because of the -- the collapse of obamacare in some places. democrats say it's working here, working there. maybe. but in a lot of trouble in other places. the question, if the senate bill fails, then what happens? even if the senate bill passes, remember, they have to reconcile with the house. good luck. it collapses as republican-only initiative. interesting to see what the conversations are are then. a key player, president trump. day one, repeal and replace obamacare. listen to him now, penal sople g why isn't this already done, are wrong. >> obamacare is a disaster and we're trying to do something in a very short period of time. it's interesting.

i've been here only five months. people sayings where's the health care? where's the health care? i've done in five months what other people haven't done in years. >> clear for the record, mr. president we're not holding to you a fault standard, we're holding you to your standard. >> we're going to win on health care. you're going to end up with great health care for a fraction of the price. that's going to take place immediately after we go in. okay? immediately. fast. quick. >> it's over for obamacare. >> obamacare -- has to be replaced. and we will do it, and we will do it very, very quickly. >> depends on your definition of very quickly, i guess. >> nobody knew it would be this complicated. it's not something he figured out how he would do this, or building a coalition for. interesting now we see he

tweeted yesterday he was very supportive of the senate bill and we're going to make it really special and said something at the white house yesterday, do negotiating. it's very clear here he's leaving himself room to negotiate, but that puts republicans who are really on a wire on this measure, both conservatives and the moderates in a really awkward position they don't know if the president is going to, in the end say, oh, this is mean. not enough. or going to be there right behind them saying, this is great. i'm going to sign this. you've delivered the really special bill, or law that i talked about. that is, you know -- that's a strange tactic for a president who really needs a legislative accomplishment here. leaving aside which we shouldn't, the question of whether this bill is going to do what they say it's going to do and improve things, he needs to get this across the finish line, and if you want to do that, you have to do very careful maneuvering and it's not clear

leaving himself an out is going to really accomplish that for him. >> if you live in a state with a republican senator, help us out. home this weekend, let us know how the reaction is back home. see what happens next week. if you have a republican senator back home, drop us a note. be on social media. how are things playing back home? thank for joining us on "inside politics." see you sunday morning. wolf blitzer is next.

hello. i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. in washington. wherever you're watching from around the world thanks very much for joining us. we're following several major stories unfolding this hour, including a brand new bombshell report in "the washington post." the paper detailing today how the cia first learned of russian president vladimir putin's direct and very personal involvement in the cyber campaign to interfere in the u.s. presidential election. the cia's intelligence reportedly came from sources deep within the kremlin, and even