now, in terms of the house, they were able to resurrect their own bill in the spring. the real question this morning is, can the senate do the same. >> if we don't get it done, it's just going to be something that we're not going to like, and that's okay and i understand that very well. >> reporter: senate republicans again reworking their health care bill after another stinging setback to the gop's seven-year effort to repeal and replace obamacare. >> we will not be on the bill this week, but we're still working toward getting at least 50 people in a comfortable place. >> reporter: senate majority leader mitch mcconnell looking to win over the nine republicans currently opposed to the bill. >> either republicans will agree and change the status quo or the markets will continue to collapse and we'll have to sit down with senator schumer.

>> reporter: president trump convening republican senators at the white house flanked by two key skeptics of the bill. >> we're getting very close. >> reporter: the president optimistic despite fundamental divisions by the country between conservatives and moderates. >> the central focus needs to be on lowering premiums. the current draft doesn't do nearly enough to fix that draft. >> i have so many fundamental problems with the bill that it's difficult for me to see how any tin kerg is going to satisfy my fundamental and deep concerns. >> reporter: multi-al senators voicing concern over this attack ad against vulnerable republican senator dean heller because he's against the senate bill. >> if you're opposed to this bill, we are opposed to you. >> reporter: sources tell cnn heller raised the issue with the president himself after mcconnell personally reached out

to the white house chief of staff reince priebus calling the ad a stupid move that set the cause back significantly. >> i was amazed and appalled to learn that any republican group would be running negative ads against dean. >> we know the fight is not over. that is for sure. >> reporter: senators expected to take heat from their constituents when they head back home for the july fourth recess. >> i'm an angry constituent into. >> sit down you're done! >> some members have town halls and some don't. we'll see what happens. >> reporter: get ready, many prominent groups, medical associations, advocacy groups are expected to lobby senators over the break. it's hard to tell whether more time for the republicans will garner more support for the bill or if there will be significant changes. clarissa, chris? >> suzanne, we'll see what happens. those are uncommon words for mitch mcconnell. he usually dictates what

happens. not this time, though. let's discuss that with our panel. cnn political analyst maggie haberman and david gregory and cnn politics editor at large chris cillizza, the author of the new cnn newsletter "the point with chris cillizza." that es a catchity title. mitch mcconnell known for getting his ducks in a row. what went wrong? >> mitch mcconnell kept some people who could have been a moderating influence, let him know this was not headed for a good end out of the process early on, the president also hat not been very involved. some of that is by design. it's hard to understand the length to which the andy dean heller ad played a role. that freaked out members of the gop caucus.

it was meant to send a signal, many into to say there was going to be a price for going against the president. however, dean heller is really embattled. it created the position of chaos. you saw what happened. you saw mitch mcconnell call reince priebus, the chief of staff to the president and say this is beyond stupid. this is not something we should do. those ads then came down. it can make the argument it hurt their case. mitch mcconnell as an institutionalist is going to try to preserve the institution. he yanked it pretty quickly. the question is where this goes now. it's not clear to me in this short time frame they will be able to basically soothe everyone's concerns about medicaid cuts, about tax cuts for the wealthy, about the things that are problematic for them to take back to their constituents. >> you mentioned, maggie, the role or the involvement of the president there or perhaps the lack thereof. david, i'm curious to get your

response. we saw the images of the president sitting with the senators. it seemed jovial. how tough a time is president trump going to have persuading up to nine senators opposing the bill? and do you think he'll even have a hands-on approach? so far he doesn't seem to get into the nuts and bolts of making policy. >> certainly in terms of health care that's been the case all along. i've spoken to people who met the president in earlier iterations of the health care fight in terms of coming up with a policy. he appeared totally disengaged from the complexity and the detail of it. i think he was happy to outsource this to senate leaders to work on as much flak as they took for the process. i think he's doing what he can do at this point which is to use the bully pulpit, but also to work it internally and to work it more quietly. the heavy lifting has got to be done by senate leaders. and you have a mix of

ideological opposition to how health care has emerged as essentially obamacare light. those who are more technocratic and want to get in there and figure out what's wrong with ba obamacare, that's where this may go and may work with the help of democrats as well. i think the president is left to cheerlead for this on the sidelines and mitigate how much damage is done by exposing this process to all the opposition senators will face when they go home. >> chris, let's talk about the why here, why they're in this fix. you have competing interests. you have the fact there's undoubtedly less money that's going to go into medicaid that's going to affect poor kids, affect people in nursing homes, and it's going to disproportionately affect trump voters, non-college educated people from 50 to 64, especially

in states where he needed those voters. then you have the ted cruz, paul johnson wing who say, by the way, you're not bringing down premiums. those are going to be two tough things to put in balance. >> yeah. because they just work at counter purposes. donald trump said on the campaign trail obamacare care is bad, i'll fix it. it doesn't take a policy man to understand that is not a policy. he is not engaged in any meaningful way in the policy, views himself as sort of the face of the brand with the brand being the united states. if you engage even in the smallest way with the policy, you realize you can't get your cake and eat it, too. that's sort of what this is. i just find it hard to believe that you are going to find a solution that susan collins can

be for and rand paul can be for. you have to decide which side you're going to move it. the problem is, the early reporting suggests they'll move it more conservative which is what they did in the house. you have susan collins, the aforementioned dean heller, rob portman in ohio, lisa murkowski in alaska. remember, you can only lose two. this isn't the house where you have 20-odd seats to work with. this is two seats. and i just -- i'm very skeptical. mcconnell has to come out and say, well, look, we're going to fix it. there's a reason he wanted the vote before july fourth, because he knows it's going to turn into more of a political piñata over this recess. >> we should remember, too, they faced long odds in the house and it looked like all the momentum was gone and they came back to do it. we've seen this play out on big health care-related bills in the past going back to prescription drugs under medicare, and they can pull it out in the end if

there's a feeling -- mcconnell i'm sure is making this point, which is the political prois for failing this will be really high, higher than you think -- >> to the point you were making with maggie, clarissa, they weren't attacking their own in the house the way they did this time with these ads. >> chris, the margins are different. it's just -- when you have two seats or two people to work with rather than the 20 -- >> this was the easy route. this was done on the reconciliation path which they only need 50 votes. obamacare they did with 60. >> joust to go back to the point of attacking their own, one of the complaints you heard out of the white house during the first round of negotiations, the one where the vote was yanked before they came back, we had no air cover. nobody was supporting it from our side. all the opposition groups were going at it. you can argue this didn't work out the way they thought, the anti heller ads. those came pretty late in the

process and i think that is true. you can see where the white house was coming from on it. they basically felt as if their flank was exposed. >> to quickly add to maggie's point, if you go back and ask the obama folks what went wrong with the messaging on obamacare, politically speaking they will tell you we didn't have enough outside groups playing tough. that was always -- the idea that this is something that the, oh, i can't believe trump's people did this. this is what the obama people wanted, maybe not those exact tactics as heller, but they always wanted outside messaging to sell this thing and defend and serve in some ways as the stick. >> clarissa, what do you make of the "wall street journal" article? >> that's what i wanted to talk about. a couple blistering editorials today, one in the "wall street journal" says americans know

that republicans run congress and the white house and that they promised to do something about the problems of obamacare. do republicans really believe voters in 2018 will blame gop failure on the president who left town two years ago? democrats can tell you how well that strategy worked out in 2010. pretty strong words there, david, coming from the "wall street journal". is this essentially now the only interest democrats have is to step out and let it fail essentially? >> i think there's an ironic possibility here that maybe this process will actually work in the end. the conservative cause was to repeal obamacare, to pull that back, to lessen what the federal government does in the individual insurance market. that is likely not to prevail. but they may get to a point where they realize they've got to work with democrats and attack those failures in the

exchanges, those regulatory failures that are raising premiums. and maybe there could be some modest work done and maybe it's better than modest that makes some of the fixes that are really necessary to the obamaca obamacare, original obamacare system. that would be washington actually working. we may actually get to that place even if conservatives in the end are -- >> david, chris, maggie, we'll be talking to you. you can sign up for "the point with chris cillizza" at cnn.com/thepoint. we have a big show ahead. coming up on "new day," we'll talk to players in the process. senators ron johnson and shelly moore capito. there you have two senators on different sides but joined in their reluctance to this bill but for different reasons. we also have ben cardin and

angus king. we'll give you takes on where your health care is going to wind up. president trump's long-time confidant roger stone set to testify before a house panel in a closed-door hearing next month about russia's election interference. the news comes just one day after hillary clinton's former campaign chairman john podesta was grilled by the same committee. cnn's joe johns is live at the white house with more. what can you tell us? >> reporter: clarissa, the significance of this is that house investigators are digging down into one of the big mysteries of russian interference in the 2016 election. whether roger stone, a long-time ally and confidant of president trump was somehow forewarned that damaging information was about to come out about the hillary clinton campaign, including the e-mails of hillary clinton's campaign chairman, john podesta. roger stone, what he's saying is he's denying knowledge that this

information was going to come out, even though he did have some online twitter contacts with lucifer 2.0, the hacker who claimed responsibility for hacking the democratic national committee e-mails. there's a statement from roger stone that says, i'm confident that podesta most likely repeated his lie that i knew in advance about the hacking of his e-mail and am anxious to rebut this falsehood. i'm still unhappy my testimony will not be in public but i believe it's more important to resolve the question of russian collusion with the trump campaign which i believe was non-existent. after podesta's appearance before the committee in closed-door session just yesterday, he refused to blame the obamacare administration for failure to respond properly to russian interference in the election. back to you, chris. >> joe, appreciate it. up next, we'll have more on roger stone's upcoming testimony

before the house intel committee. we had him on the show here. he was adamant he wanted this to be in public. the question is why isn't it public? why is it behind closed doors? there may have been political concern about his grandstanding. we'll put it to the panel next. i'm ryan and i quit smoking with chantix. i tried to quit cold turkey. i tried to quit with the patch; that didn't work. along with support, chantix (varenicline) is proven to help people quit smoking. for me, chantix worked. it reduced my urge to smoke. compared to the nicotine patch, chantix helped significantly more people quit smoking. when you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. some people had changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, agitation, depressed mood or suicidal thoughts or actions with chantix. serious side effects may include seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking or allergic and skin reactions which can be life-threatening.

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i think the president and the entire administration were dealing with an unprecedented incidence of the weaponization of fruits of russian cyber activity and i think they were trying to make the best judgments they could on behalf of the american people. >> hillary clinton's campaign chairman, john podesta defending president obama's response to russian election interference moments after a closed-door meeting with members of the house intelligence committee. meantime, tpresident trump's associate roger stone set to g before the same committee. let's bring back our panel. maggie, let's start with you. we know roger stone going to testify next month. however, it will not be public, as he had originally wanted. it will be private.

what are perhaps some of the factors that went into making this private rather than public? >> i think the biggest factor is that roger stone is known for showmanship, shall we say, in terms of public displays. and i think there was a concern by the committee that it would become something of a show, that he would make statements that might be far afield, that it would not be relevant. they thought this would be a more containable hearing. it's not dissimilar to what we saw for john podesta. we have seen other people in things related to this investigation testify in public, but this is different. i do think it was interesting. stone's statement we read before was he was eager to talk to them, eager to testify and to talk about collusion which he believes doesn't exist and that i believe, caveat, is something i have not heard him say before. >> gives some wiggle room. >> not really for himself but about other people. i can't speak to the actions of

other people. it's not dissimilar from what we heard the president say which is i can only speak for myself. >> we had stone on here. we tested him on these different principles, his main avenue of discussion with them is going to be about his own social media activities, what he knew from some of these sympathetic hacker types. it was an interesting match-up, david gregory, of podesta and stone. you can look at it in two ways, political candy, but i wonder what it means in terms of what path they're on in terms of the investigation. where does talking to podesta and stone really take you? >> i think podesta and his e-mail are part of the underlying offense here. what happened, what didn't they do to better protect themselves. there's kind of an evidence trail there of what the actual interference was on the part of the russian government. but this is a political process, and i think roger stone

complaining about not being able to speak publicly is part of, a, his grandstanding, but if you're a trump supporter, you do shake your head and say, wait a minute, i thought we'd have a chance to attack this process as being off base and going after the president incorrectly and give him his due. i think the work the committee does when it does it more quietly is more effective. it's like a kbrand jury. we're trying to understand based on who shows up what direction they're going. i think they're going in all kinds of directions to try to fully understand this. there's a lot of the public record that we do know. there's so much we don't know, at least how all these things fit. i think whether it's a podesta or a roger stone, we're still operating much more on the margins of what that the activities were. >> you heard podesta's statement talking about baem's response to the interference. did it sound strong enough to you? it sounded a little weak to be

honest in terms of the allegations that have been leveled at the obama administration about the response to russian hacking or i should say about the lack of a morre robust response. do you think his statement was likely in any way to curtail those fears or accusations? >> no. but i also think it's probably unreasonable to expect a statement from john podesta who we know but the average person doesn't, to have that effect, clarissa. if i had to describe it in a word, it was sort of dutiful. he knows coming out saying, yeah, given his prominence, his ties to the clintons, given who he is, if he comes out and says, eh, obama probably could have become more, it becomes a massive story. he essentially says we did what we could at the time, we were dealing with something we had never seen before. >> couldn't he have offered a more robust defense. hold on a second, we did this, we did that, we did this? >> yeah, of course he could

have. that's why i would say dutiful. certainly not over the moon in defense of barack obama. it seems to me that on the merits, they could have done more. obviously you've got hindsight being 20/20. they could have been more aggressive. the way you give them a pass is to believe that even they were not aware of the scope of this. they saw the tip of the iceberg above the water and there was a huge piece underneath that they were only marginally aware of until they dug in. the less kind analysis of that is, they knew they were concerned about its impact. thoi thought hillary clinton was going to winnie way, so what was sort of the point? but john podesta is not going to solve that problem for barack obama even if he had been full-throated which, to your

point, clarissa, he wasn't. >> i think part of it is, if you were one of the clinton people, you see president trump -- the only time we've heard president trump acknowledge with no cav t caveats, yes, there was russia, was so he could blame president obama. we've seen that repeatedly over the last several days. looking at it, if you're a clinton person, my guess and not based on reporting, my guess is they don't want to drive a further wedge, given that the current president is already trying to. >> what's your read on manafort registering as a foreign agent? that doesn't have much retroactive impact to his lobbying activities, who he worked for, what money he made and how that was handled. what does it suggest? >> it suggests a couple things. it's tripped up other people. i believe it came up with michael flynn and is one of the things being looked at with him. what it tells me is that one of

the things that could be happening is the lawyers probably told him he needed to take care of this before any other thing came up in these various investigations. it could mean a wide range of things. it's a lot of money he acknowledged being paid by a pro kremlin party. what it's going to do -- at minimum, we don't know what it means legally. we know politically it's going to make it all the harder for anyone close to the trump team to say nobody around us had anything to do with russia. it just becomes one more thing to point to. >> his guys pushed back very hard on the notion that manaf t manafort's activities in the ukraine benefited russia. they pushed back very hard on that. maggie, chris, david, thank you. another story, a helicopter opens fire on venezuela's supreme court. that's right. it may have been a failed coup attempt. what the country's president,

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there is a global cyber attack crippling businesses around the world. so far, those hit ukrainian firms and the chernobyl nuclear plant. the ransom wear attacks are spreading to other firms in russia, the uk and here in the u.s., raising concerns that many businesses still have not secured their networks from aggressive hackers and raising the concern that maybe they can't. venezuela's president condemning a helicopter attack against the country's supreme court calling it an act of terrorism. grenades launch friday the helicopter. witnesses recount hearing gunfire between the guards and

the helicopter. this video surfaced online of the alleged pilot who stole the helicopter, declaring opposition to the venezuelan government, police and civilian officials. about a mile away clashes broke out between opposition lawmakers and national guardsmen at the national assembly. one journalist was injured. three chicago officers are charges with conspiring to cover up the shooting death of 17-year-old laquan mcdonald. david march -- to prevent officer jason van dyke from being investigated and charged. van dyke shot mcdonald 16 times killing him in 2014. he said the teen lunged at him with a knife. dash cam video shows a different story. van dyke has pleaded not guilty but is suspended without pay. the white house doubling down on its warning to syria

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donald j. trump, red lines mean red lines. what would you do, harry, in his position, if the most powerful nation in the world common streeted to you that we can see what you are doing? wouldn't you think again about actually executing on that decision? i know i would. i wouldn't test donald j. trump. >> joining us now to discuss this is former brigadier general tony tatum, best-selling authority of "the siege wrrk and retired lieutenant general mark hertling. do we have any sense that this is working? >> i think we do. it's bounced off the intended targets of russia and iran. the message is a good one, backing up a u.n. mandate from 2013 that said syria should not have chemical weapons and they should eliminate them. in and of itself it's a good

message. unfortunately when you send a message like this, you do have to back it up with force. in some cases you ought to get congressional approval for the use of military force in these kind of situations. >> we could argue, general, this is one of those situations, the documentation, the agreement about chemical weapons that general hertling is referring to does not include any unilateral action clause in it. it does raise the question, to have trump's surrogate out there beating his chest and saying don't cross donald j. trump, that sounds very muscular, but on what authority does the united states take unilateral action against assad against actions of his own people? >> two things first. you have the national security strategy developed by the obama administration that talks about denying the spread of weapons of mass destruction and enforcing an international order based on the rule of law in syria as

actually violating both of those. what you have is really a need to go after that. and then you've got the authorization use of military force that president obama has been using for the past eight years. >> from 2001. >> right, since 2001, that's right. but in december 2016 the white house lawyers gave a brief that said this thing is still in effect and it's still good. i imagine that was probably to cover president obama, but that doesn't mean it doesn't apply to president trump. >> but lawyers are irrelevant here. this is about political authorization from congress. and you can very easily ar kbu, and we have many times on this show, that this is congress bucking its duty under the constitution to declare war and insist a president comes before, general hertling, makes the case for what he or she wants to do, and then they either authorize or don't by vote. that hasn't happened.

should it happen now? >> it should happen, chris, and i agree with you. that's a different kind of war than the authorization of use of military force, drafted against terrorism and al qaeda. this now has the poe testimony of being a conventional fight against multistate actors in a different part of the world. that's why i think congress does have to get behind it, not only for their approval as part of the constitutional authorities, but also to show the american people as their representatives that they are, in fact, representing them whenever you send young men and women into harm's way which could be possible when you make the threats. the threat has to be backed up. mr. gorka's comment last night is interesting, but i don't think he's ever seen combat. it's unfortunate that he has to realize when you send people into harm's way, you ought to have not only the government's backing, but the people's backing to do so. we don't have that right now in syria. >> i think you also want to have arguably a clear and coherent

strategy for dealing with syria. after the last strikes on the assad regime, after the last chemical attacks, we heard a lot of talk about the need to formulate this coherent strategy. general tata, are we any closer to formulating it? on the one hand we say our priority is to fight isis. on the other hand, assad also now appears to be an enemy. in the meantime we are teaming up with assad allies in the fight against isis. it starts to look like a very muddy picture. >> well, clarissa, unfortunately it's three-dimensional chess you're playing in syria. we are trying to get syrian rebels to help us in the fight against isis. that doesn't mean at the same time we don't have geopolitical and strategic interests to fight the assad regime and prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. we just need to show the pictures of those young children running through the streets with blood coming out of their ears and nose and dying and twitching in the middle of the street.

i mean what else do we need to see? we're talking about the use of chemical weapons in this day and age, and so it's not really america's red line. it's not trump's red line. it's the world's red line, that we need to prevent the spread of wmd. clearly assad wants to use wmd, he has in the past and it looks like he's going to continue to do it. the strategy is to live up to our national security strategy which is to enforce an international order based on the rule of law and prevent the spread of wmd. i think it's very clear what the president is doing. >> we have new video of assad kind of making the rounds, showing his determination as a leader. showing off basically. >> having his top gun moment. >> he's out there on the airfield and they showed him a little bit with the citizenry as well moving around. but the most stark images of his citizenry are those who have been victimized by his forces

according to u.s. intelligence and the suffering of women and children. general, you make a very compelling case. nobody is going to argue that anyone should stand by and watch what clarissa ward has brilliantly reported for over a year that is an obvious and on going humanitarian crisis in that country. you could argue we've ignored it. but that doesn't mean you have the authority -- i keep coming back to that general. while it is emotionally compelling to say we don't want it, it's in our national security interest, that's not an easy leap to say that assad using chemical weapons on his own people is somehow a national security threat to the united states. that's why you have rules, you have votes, you have procedures. they've been ignored, and it does suggest we're at a tipping point. this sounds like war against syria, not a simple battle against a bad guy terrorist. >> i think you're right, chris. that's exactly right. we do not have a strategy for syria. i disagree with my friend tony

in the fact that an action -- it does not mean a strategy. a strategy means you have an end state in mind. if that end state is to get rid of chemical weapons, we already have that. we have to get the authority to go after that with military force. the other thing i'd point out, too, in your film on mr. assad climbing into that jet, right next to him was a guy by the name of jared gary seem move, a soviet general who pushed the efforts of asymmetrical warfare in places like ukraine, georgia and moldova as well. >> we'll see what the congress does, what the president does in addressing the american people. we'll have you back on. general tata and general hertling, thank you. massive wildfires out west. the troubling question is whether or not firefighters can get a foothold. the environment, the conditions are against them. live report next. why not? your hotel should make it easy to do all the things you do.

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this is just a terrible combination for fighting wildfires. you've got triple digit temperatures and low humidity. what does that mean?

it's going to be dry and hot, they're going to burn. you have more than 1,500 residents chased from their homes in southern utah where the largest fire has burned through nearly 50,000 acres. meantime, evacuations ordered for 200 residents of southern california as a fire east of san bernardino spreads over 900 acres. >> the central and eastern u.s. looking at severe storms this weekend. it could sadly impact your holiday weekend. cnn meteorologist chad myers has your forecast. can we get out the barbecue, chad or too early to say? >> i think so -- it's going to be all right. new york city, maybe sunday afternoon you could see a storm or two. great to have you with us. this weather is brought to you by xyzal, the allergy medicine for continuous 24-hour allergy relief. let's get to it. minneapolis getting storms right now. new york city, great shape. flying out of the city this afternoon, great day to do that.

great weather could impact chicago, all the way to omaha. tomorrow into kansas city. here is into this afternoon, into tomorrow. we will see some scattered showers through the appalachi appalachians. saturday, still dry along the i-95, but wet in the ohio valley. by sunday, the storm is very close here. that front close to the big cities. by monday, drying out. a good looking sfourgt of july, chris, at least now. this is the seven-day forecast. midwest looks wet, the northeast looks dry. >> i'll take it. you have a good gift of letting people know, always judge your own weather by what others are dealing with around the country. it could be a lot worse for us here in the northeast. chad, appreciate it. we'll check back with you, my brother. we are divided in the united states. that's not a secret to anybody. there is especially a partisan divide. we're seeing it play out in the health care battle. here should be the question, how

do you bridge the gap to take care of the american people? let's dig a little deeper, bring in david axelrod and talk about progress ahead. your insurance company 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. switch and you could save $782 on home and auto insurance. call for a free quote today. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance.

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beginning negotiations with the democrats would include none of the reforms we'd like to make. >> their bill is aimed at helping the very wealthy, where we are trying to help american families. >> and therein, brothers and sisters, you see the problem and the solution, getting the parties to work together for your benefit is what this should be all about. how does that happen? let's bring in cnn senior political commentator and former senior adviser to president obama, david axelrod. ax, as a student of your game and a deep reader on multiple occasions of your book, you've

looked at what affects the ability of sides to go from opposition to a fundamental proposition of any kind of gain. do you see any chance of that here now? >> what was interesting to me yesterday is that senator mcconnell warned his members that if they didn't work something out on health care, they would have to work with democrats later to try to shore up the health care exchanges which are honestly being undermined right now by the inaction of the administration in terms of extending the subsidies that were promised to people to buy insurance policies. so that was interesting to me. he didn't mean it as a proposition, to use your word. he meant it as a threat to them, but there may be something to that. but in the main, we are in a terribly polarized environment. and i think some of it is

positioning, people trying to score points on one side or the other. some of it is an honest philosophical difference. i mean democrats really believe in the tenets of the affordable care act. i think some of them feel like it needs to be fixed. it does need to be fixed, and there are things they could do together to do it, but most of it is just this fierce entren entrenched partisanship and a fear of compromise being seen as betrayal on the part of political bases. so it's a very toxic environment. >> toxic is the word. and you say polarized. it can't help but feel almost paralyzed. it seems from my perch sort of overseas watching this play out, you have democrats who acknowledge that the affordable care act needs work. you have republicans who have been fighting for seven years to repeal it. is there any way in which you can see the two parties could

come together -- they don't have to sing kumbaya at the end of it, but could find consensus on some issues that would make americans happy? >> i think kumbaya is off the table. i think it's going to be very tough. fundamentally, republicans and democrats have different positions on tax reform. i think it's going to be hard to reach consensus on that. one thing that hasn't been widely discussed is that the republicans and the white house really need this health reform for technical reasons to move forward on tax reform. so i think that's going to be very difficult. that's a main priority for the republican majority. there's talk of infrastructure. but the approach that the administration has suggested which is basically to give tax credits to private entities to do infrastructure is not really going to get at if fundamental needs of the country from a democratic standpoint, not going

to build roads and bridges and so on. so i'm not real optimistic about the near term in terms of cooperation. i think both sides are going to the mattresses for 2018 right now. >> to your point, there's usually or traditionally, historically, a bridge in this situation. and we haven't mentioned the name of the bridge once yet in this discussion and its name is the president of the united states. in moments like this when we've seen episodes of leadership, you've had a president who could go to the two sides and say, i know you have problems with her, and i know you have problems with him, but you're both going to have bigger problems with me, because the american people are on my side. we are not seeing that authority in play here in any real way with president trump. that's something that has to be addressed. he is saving most of his ammo for us in the media. that's who he takes on most actively, and that is about him, his notion of respect and his

feelings about marketing and his own personal brand. but he's not getting it done on this bill. >> look, i don't think -- i think one of the big problems here is i don't know he has a philosophy about what should happen on health care. i don't think he's into the details. he wants a win. >> he wants a win. >> he promised his base that he would get rid of obamacare. i think for him personally destroying what he sees as a legacy of his predecessor seems important, but the details don't matter to him. that makes it very difficult to bring people together. i remember president obama meeting with republicans and democra democrats, and he had a goal in mind and he worked with each side -- there were 160 republican amendments in the affordable care act -- to try and arrive at some kind of consensus. so you don't see that today. the country is poorer for it. there are a lot of people desperate for some sort of solution here. >>