welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. just moments ago, the president of the united states at the white house energy round table. let's listen. >> with state and tribal leaders from around our great country. i would also like to thank

secretary perry, and epa administrator pruitt, for their work to help to united states achieve true energy dominance. we have made so much progress just with respect to energy in the last four months. it's been an incredible journey. we have learned a lot and we have made a lot. we're here to talk about how we can create new prosperity for our citiy citizens by unlockingt energy reserve. i'm proud to have such a large gathering of tribal leaders here at the white house, i look forward to more government to government communications about the importance of indian country. we love indian countries. many of your lands have rich natural resources that stand to benefit your people immensely. these untapped resources of

wealth can help you build new schools, fix roads, improve your community and create jobs, jobs like you have never seen before, all you want is the freedom to use them, and that's been the problem, it's been very difficult, hasn't it? it will be a lot easier now under the trump administration, for too long the federal government has put up restrictions and regulations that has put this new wealth out of reach, just totally out of reach. it's been really restricted, the development itself has been restricted and vast amounts of deposits of coal and other resources have been taken out of your hands and we're going to have that changed. we're going to put it back into your hands. tribal sovereignty has been unfair to native americans and the communities who are being denied access to the energy and wealth they have on their own

lands. many of our states have also been denied access to the abundant energy resources on their lands that could bring greater wealth to the people and benefit to our whole nation, we're becoming more and more energy dominant. i don't want to be energy free, i want to be energy dominant throughout the word. we are lifting the crushing restrictions on american energy. scott pruitt has done an amazing job. most people love him, but that's okay, right? we're also putting our people back to work by doing this. today's conversation is a chance for these state, local and tribal leaders to cooperate and we can support them in unleashing these energy reserves, they are tremendous reserves that we never appreciated, we never understood, but now we understand them very well.

i'm confident that working together we can usher in a golden age of american energy dominance and the extraordinary financial independence it brings not only to native americans but all over the country and we're seeing it more and more and it's happening all over the country more and more. yesterday republican senators met on health care and the meeting went really well. we're talking about a great, great form of health care, obamacare is dying, it's essentially dead, if we don't give it the subsidy, it would die within 24 hours, it's been a headache for everybody, it's been a nightmare for many. we are looking at a health care that would be a fantastic tribute to our country, health care that will take care of people finally for the right reasons and also at the right cost.

it would be a tremendous reduction in cost from what obama care is. yesterday in alaska it was announced a 216% increase. so we have a plan, that if we get it approved. it's very tough, every state is different, every senator is different. but i have to tell you the republican senators had a really impressive meeting yesterday at the white house. we had close to 50 of them, we have 52, we need almost all of them. that's never easy, but we had essentially show up to the meeting and the two other are on our side. i think we're going to get at least very close and i think we're going to get it over the line. there was a great, great feeling in that room yesterday. and what also came out is the fact that this health care would be so good, would be far better than obamacare and would be much less expensive for the people and also much less expensive for the country. we'll see what happens, we're

working very hard, we have given ourselves a little bit more time to make it perfect. i think this has a chance to be a great health care at a reasonable cost. people can save a lot of money, we get rid of the mandates, we get rid of so much. we have a lot of the taxes, all of the bad parts of obamacare are gone, it's a repeal and replace. i know rick is very excited about the health care that we're talking about. >> actually having these governors sitting around the table is a great example of it. one of the thinks, i know kim and paul, they would like to be able to put health care into place that they helped write and their citizens helped write, because i know -- i don't know bill that well, but my bet is the same, you give him the authority to take care of their citizens, they can have more

people covered and do it at less cost. i'm quite confident. >> we're sending a lot of it back to the states where it belongs, and this will be something really special if we can get it done. this is always tough from the stand point of approval, because every state has different needs, we have a tremendous opiod problem and some states are more affected by that than others, overall, this will be a tremendous plan, it will really -- we'll have a lot of very happy people in this country if we can get it done. so we're working very hard on health care and we're going to have a great answer. and hopefully we'll have it soon, and we will keep you informed. thank you very much. >> can you tell us about the medicaid part of the health care bill? >> it will be great for everybody. i always say it. >> mr. president -- [ inaudible ]. >> thank you all very much.

thank you. >> you're listening to the president of the united states, quite interesting, this is a round table on energy issuine sd energy production. but also focusing on health care, the president said we're going to get a beautiful bill. very telling, the president of the united states brought in a group of people to talk about energy issues, he understands the urgent issue of the day is health care, and he had some things to say about that. we have michael and dana bash. we'll get to capitol hill in a minute, where the negotiations that matter are under way. the president has now said he wants this bill to be the solution.

how open is he to having the president involved on a minute by minute, senator by senator basis? >> i think as much as the president could potentially help the majority leader is certainly willing and open to getting that help. it's just an open question of how much it helps. i talked to senators who the president has called in the past couple of days, one senator in particular who was and is on the fence, who, you know, was very respectful but made very clear that the president's not a detail guy. and that's not his thing, it's just not. the voters didn't say let's get him in there because he can, you know, recite policy up and down from health care to anything else. he's a closer, the question is whether or not he has just enough of a grasp of the specifics to close. because this is very complicated. and i thought it was really interesting that the vice president was up on capitol hill yesterday early in the morning,

he was meeting with mitch mcconnell, he was meeting with dean heller saying get on the bus please. >> to your point about he's not a detail person, that is of course his reputation. the president seemed offended by that, and was tweeting out this morning, i know this issue, this is fake news. i saw the president turning an energy event into a health care eve event is an extension of him saying i get this. >> again, people didn't elect donald trump thinking he was a health care policy wonk and his aides have been saying for weeks that his goal is not to push for something specific in this bill. he said he wants it to be not as mean as the house bill. his goal is to get something done and now i guess he's offended by that effort. one of the things the president

had not done that maybe could give these other senators cover is he hasn't gone out and sold the merits of this plan to the american people. people are not excited about this health care bill. he has not gone out and said this is going to be a better bill because of x, y and z. >> in some ways this is a window into the -- the previous white house used joe biden a lot on capitol hill in places they didn't think barack obama would be particularly helpful or useful or in situations where biden was better building on the relationships he had in the senate. but, you know, this president seems particularly offended by that in a way that may be -- >> i don't want to interrupt, but leader mcconnell is on the floor of the united states senate right now talking, you guessed it, health care. >> obamacare's failure in the seven years since they passed them. they continue to demonstrate an

unserious attitude about it. but it's increasingly clear that obamacare's trends will only get worse unless we act, hurting even more americans all along the way. this should not be acceptable to anyone sitting on the sidelines and accepting the status quo won't bring help to anyone's constituents. we have the opportunity to provide relief to those struggling families and mr. president, we should take it. senators will have more opportunities to offer their thoughts as we work toward agreement and every member will have the ability to engage in a robust debate out here on the senate floor. but if one thing is clear, it's this, obama care is a direct assault on the middle class, a direct assault on the middle class, it's getting worse and we have to act and move finally beyond it's failures. >> that was the majority leader

mitch mcconnell talking about health care on the floor. phil, stand by for just a second as i try to help you with the math here. but if you follow this debate, they need 50, they have 52, so mitch mcconnell is only lose two. a lot of moderates are upset. here's rand paul saying sure, i'm having to negotiate, but we have already given the moderates a lot, it's time for us to get. >> we have given the moderates in our caucus, lots of money to keep spending, they get to keep the obamacare subsidies, they get to keep the obamacare regulations, those are all things that big spending republicans want. now if they want conservatives to be on board, they have to start talking about what we promised to repeal, why don't we make the bill look a little bit more like a repeal. >> they like some pieces of obama care, especially the

medicaid subsidy. >> i think the 184,000 west virginians, i have said repeatedly, i'm not going do drop you off of a cliff. and in my view, the senate bill was too much of a cliff. >> here's your math test. there's 52 republican senators, nine have publicly said already they can't vote for that bill, how do you make 52 minus 9 equal 50? >> we'll see, i guess, if you want to know where the parameters of that debate is listen to those quotes. what rand paul is very indicative of what -- feel about the process of this bill. they feel like they haven't gotten anything yet, even though in the working groups, behind closed doors, there were a lot of alternatives that were put out, specifically with how to

deal with obamacare's -- very clear the changes that they're making not just on medicaid expansion, but in the longer term doesn't work for her. she speaks for -- this isn't something that people -- these are just minor issues that they care about. >> deeply, deeply held policy beliefs and ideologies about what the government's role is in health care right now. and if they can't move off of their doesn't positions right now, they're not going to be able to get to 50. we know where the parameters are, we know where all of you stand, here's some possibilities that we could use to bridge the divide. we have to wait and see if somebody like ted cruz to move

off their positions. >> how adamant is leader mcconnell, who was adam mant that the photowould be this week, they can look at it while they're home over the july 4th resource. they pulled the vote in the house and then they did figure out the compromise. however they had a lot more people to work with in the house. mcconnell only being able to lose two, makes it more complicated. >> what happened in the house and the senate is very different circumstances right now, because senators have a lot more constituents with more deeply held beliefs. the idea of having something finalized or hammered out isn't a hard and fast deadline. they want to make sure that their members have a week to digest this. the reality is they're still

pretty far apart. they just know that they need to move quickly on this. the most interesting element by senator mcconnell who is dead set on voting on this. he and some of his colleagues have said letting this hang out there isn't going to make this any easier, the longer our representatives have to hear from their constituents is going to effect a the vote. this is such a hard issue for so many people, it riles up so many people, that getting it through quickly with more votes on it. moving quickly, even if it girlfriegives themselves another 12 or 13 days is a necessity. >> when you hear mitch mcconnell, he is essentially is warning republicans, if this collapses, we're going to have to fix the obamacare crisis, we're going to have to be in the room with democrats and if we're

in the room with democrats we're going to get even less. what holds more sway with republicans, that we must do something before 2018 because we cannot go into a midterm election having not kept our promise to repeal obamacare, or the argument that you get from some of these individual members, when i go home, this thing is not popular in my state even among republicans. >> this is hard and any change in the health care system is going to be emotional for people and it's going to be demagogued to the end of the earth. the only way that -- there really is a problem for the middle class, there really is a problem for overloaded medicaid, that has more people on it thanks to obamacare. so you have to address that issue, it's more irresponsible to completely leave it alone and let it collapse in the individual market, particularly obamacare which is coming quickly. but threading this needle is

very, very difficult. even mcconnell saying, let's get the temperature, let's see where you are. what people are afraid of, if i vote on these things, are the short-term things that you're giving moderates are going to be expensive and not -- and then you end up with the worst of both worlds situation and you're essentially blamed for the problems that obamacare caused in the first place. >> to the point for anyone watching at home, if you're a house member, the president celebrated your bill in the rose garden, now he calls it mean. mitch mcconnell wanted to do this as a senate deal. you just heard the president there, the president is involved, how involved is the senator by senator, we'll see in the days ahead.

the senators now know this, and the senators who are trying to negotiate know the president's involved and they're using him to make their argument. >> we do what president trump suggested, they would put more money back in to try and improve the coverage for those donald trump voters, their preexisting conditions addressed. if we take care of those trump voters, which is to say all americans, but just the representative that voted for trump that believed his pledge then we'll do the right thing. >> how many times can you say trump? and that's smart politics, you need the president to be on board at the end. the medicaid piece, the elderly piece, about trump voters. >> this speaks to a much bigger fundamental problem with the way the senate republicans rolled this out. and i can't believe this is how this happened. and i can't believe this was

done behind closed doors and a all that, fine, when they threw this together, they just put it online. there was no attempt to frame this legislation as good for the american people. not even close, so the people who were against it zoomed in to fill that vacuum, so it has been defined on the negative side. no one's even trying to do it on the positive side which is what you heard the senator do there. >> npr/maris poll, overall, 17% of americans support the republican health care plan. >> okay, so the republican members are going to go home, they're going to get an earful because people are emotional about health care, and what are you going to say beyond this repeals obamacare. >> it doesn't repeal obamacare.

>> they can go home, whatever, we promised you repeal obamacare, that's what we're doing with this, but then what? it doesn't cover more people, the cbo score says the premiums will go down but you'll end up paying more out of pocket. so what's a the other half of that promise that republicans are trying to make? >> this is a president who was involved in the details and did have an ideological bent and is involved here, the essential argument is we're doing really hard work and that's what you sent us washington to do, and sometimes you have this very hard legislation. the other argument you can make is on medicaid and obamacare, and you can go to people and

say, please give an argument for not reforming this program. that it's not working for the most vulnerable, and it's making us broke, trump is not the guy that makes that argument. >> and you have 35 republican governors who would be the natural echo chamber. except that most of them oppose that plan. the communications part here has been a disaster for the republicans, so we'll look at the details of the bill. up next, one superpac close to the republicans attack -- the source of constant complaints and head scratching from his fellow republicans. (baby crying) ♪ fly

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if you were with us a few minutes ago, republicans were there to talk about health care. the complaints was about this ad run by a superpac led by former campaign operatives. >> senator heller has made his position clear, heller is now standing with pelosi. unacceptable. if you are opposed to this bill, we are opposed to you. >> senator heller happens to be a republican, one of the most vulnerable republicans.

>> this ad's been pulled, and i'm really glad it's been pulled, i think every last senator republican has been pulled. >> did it alarm you that it even happened in the first place? >> i did not think it was a very good strategy. >> you heard from a republican senator, not a very good strategy. that super pac ad, questions the validity of the -- this has been the complaint from day one, there's been a lot of people from day one that didn't commit to the administration, and who started this super pac. and a lot of republicans scratch their heads and complain why aren't they supporting the president, instead of attacking the health care bill. we'll get to another ad in a minute that attacks the special couns counsel. where's the inherent political

strategy. >> presidents and members of congress often have different interests and senators often complain as they did in the obama years that the political operatives at the white house aren't often in sync with the ones on capitol hill. this seems particularly clumsy, the republicans need to maintain their majority in the senate. as you said today, they're only up by two. you can't attack the most vulnerable republican that you have, you know, over something like this and hand the democrats a messaging strategy that's going to help them defeat him. >> and that's about keeping his seat. and then the other question was what their goal was in the short-term was to get his vote on health care. >> it backfired. >> it certainly didn't seem to help. i will tell you from talking to sources at the super pac, what they have been talking about the last three or four days since

this became an issue, they wanted to send a message to h l heller. don't go out and give a press conference where he was seemingly suggesting he was not going to come to the table to negotiate. the other thing is this is the way, they argue to fire up the trump base. in the state of nevada they argue that the state was depressed because there was a republican on the ballot who actually lost, he was actually one of the republican losses and he distanced himself from trump. those are all valid political arguments, but the negative and angry is missing the other hand, which is the positive, this is why this is good, these are reasons why this policy or other policies from president trump are things that you should back,

joe viewer. >> like they succeeded in really angering a lot of senators who were sitting on the fence and maybe were sitting quietly on their concerns about the health care bill, and they said okay, do you think this is going to make any of us move. and when we do get a chance to go to the white house sended ea message to the president directly. this is not a way for senators to behave. >> the efforts to build trust with the republican senators who are afraid the same thing's going to happen to them that happened to the house members. but it's not just the president and his team inside the house, trump campaign aides outside the white house are saying this preside president's base is unlikely to grow. you can't run this through the fact check machine but this is

an ad attacking the special counsel investigation. >> what was the the independent special investigation look like? the ploy works and his good friend and former boss bob mueller was appointed to direct it. only in washington could a rigged game like this be called independent. >> but to the idea that if you're trying to keep the trump base stoked, that works. if you're trying to convince independents or democrats, give the president a second look, the election is not for 18 months, give him a chance. if you're trying to expand your base, that's money wasted. >> the base stoking ad is actually okay if you're not shooting yourself in the foot in other ways, and that's the

problem with the heller one. why are we trying to take ourselves out when you're trying to stoke the base. i would say, this doesn't seem to be doing as much good like poking them in the eye, at least they were in the other party. this is not strategically helpful and that's as mad as you'll see a midwestern senator get. he's saying it very nicely, but he's upset got this strategy because they're not getting these guys back and they're in for a pretty rough vote perhaps. >> you might stoke your base, but if you're telling your base that dean heller is the same as nancy pelosi, those folks aren't going to be stoked to go out and

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welcome back. mitch mcconnell was a master at frustrating president obama, back when republicans were a minority in the senate and even more so when the republicans claimed the majority in 2015. remember the president wanted immigration reform, climate change rules, gun control, campaign finance and more. mcconnell was in charge of the republican party's no. it was part of a bold strategy to even deny a committee hearing for supreme court nominee merrick garland. what about now that republicans control everything, can the master of blocking of obstruction also be the master of deal making? >> 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 and my suspicion is that in any negotiation with the democrats would include not only reforms that we would like to make. >> legislation of this complexity almost always takes longer than anybody else would hope. but we're going to press on. >> i don't for a second doubt his mastery of the rules, his understanding of every mass process of the senate, and his ability to try his tenacity. but he hasn't ever done this. he's never been the leader in an all republican government, trying to bridge a canyon, this is not personal, this is policy divide. can he pull this rabbit out of the hat? >> it's a policy divide that's made so much more complicated because they're working off of a democratic sheet, they have had obamacare which has been the law of the land for years now and we have these republican governors

in these states with a lot of republican voters who are benefits from obamacare, particularly the medicaid expansion, the thing that has him twisted in knots, republicans in general, if they were to craft a health care bill from whole cloth would not be what's out there now. this is not their philosophical approach. including ted cruz and others saying this is not what i signed up for. having said that, he is not only a three-dimensional chess player, he gets the policy. he can sit down with ted cruz and talk about obamacare legendatilegen legislation, getting there, bridging that huge gulf as you said is very difficult when you only have two votes to spare. >> and my question is, when you get to the point where you have done all you can and you're still one or two short, can you look republicans in the eye and say you're going to vote for

this, i know you don't want to, but you have to? >> it's going to be very tricky. i like the idea of this incredibly unscintillating speaker, with apologies to senator mcconnell who instills fear and hope in the magic he can do. the problem with this bill is that it has a chief legislator, it had a guy who wants to be the chief negotiator, who trump elects to be the deal guy. there is no chief order for this bill. >> exactly. >> so the argument part is missing, if you don't have the argument part, legislating becomes much harder. >> exactly. >> everyone has said, it's become gospel in washington, if anyone can do it, it's mitch mcconnell. the house speaker who is a republican ally. >> i would not bet against mitch

mcconnell. he is very, very good at getting things done in the senate, even with this razor thin majority. i have every expectation the senate will move this bill. >> over the next couple of weeks, we know that leader mcconnell will try to use a slush fund to buy off republicans, cut back room deals to try and get this thing done. >> slush funds? back room deals? this is washington that doesn't happen. >> no of course not. >> one of the things i'll give credit to my colleague peter baker, but one of the thinks that is true, is that the republican divide, the i ideological divide is a republican condition of the party. one of the reasons the house speaker can say that and have a kind of smirk is that the ideological divide has been part of the house for a long time. >> speaker boehner can't get in and now some of those nasame

problems, those same divisions are now difficult to bridge. >> the thing that fascinates me, this is not popular, even with republicans, and rob portman states, this is not popular even with republicans. but their signature problem was to do something about this. i want to read this from the national review, a wondrous thing happened, republicans won control, not just of congress but the president itself. now nothing stood in the way of health care reform. >> back to mitch mcconnell, it did surprise me that he seemed to make the same tactical misjudgment that speaker ryan did. we have been promising it on the

campaign trail for years so we're going to make it happen, and it not that easy when you have this brig guig gulf and i o say that democrats are sitting back on the pure kind of theater of this thing saying we had 60 votes back when we passed obamacare, but it wasn't easy getting b getting bernie sanders who wants socialized health care. >> it's one thing to run on repealing obamacare, it's another thing to go home and look people in the eye and say you have health care right now and you won't have it tomorrow. getting health care from the government is the hardest and most politically toxic thing that you can do in washington. and they have to do this in a way that doesn't seem like they're leaving people out to dry. >> it sounds like those benefits are pretty terrible sometimes.

it's become a battle of incrementalism, it's not a sexy argument. and conservatives make the point, which is actually sort of fair, guess what, they're literally going to call us murderers no matter what we offer, so we might as well offer what we want. i do not fault them for thinking that. >> thanks to the president of the united states for the meeting yesterday. so we'll keep track of that relationship that happens to be very important at the moment. up next, it's no secret that president donald trump likes to visit properties where his name is in giant letters, today perhaps the ultimate blurring of business and politics. now it's good for us all. like those who like. sweet those who prefer heat. sfx - a breath of air and those who just love meat. oscar mayer deli fresh. sweet!

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the first official trump re-election fund-raiser is being held at the trump international hotel, just blocks from the white house. it's a safe bet the re-election committee will have a big take, and so will the hotel owned by the businessman turned president. it's jusince taking office in january, it's hard to find a weekend where president trump did not visit a trump property. from mara there are people saying you should be more transparent about this. if there's a yellow flashing light at the intersection, he's just going right through it. this shouldn't bother him, should it? >> he clearly doesn't care, so i agree with that point, so if you listen to both the historians who examined past presidents and the ethics experts in both

parties some of whom worked for president bush and are now among mr. trump's biggest tricritic t, it presents a real problem. it presents a question in the mind of the voter who he's working for, is he working for the american people or is he trying to fatten his own wallet. and that's why people, especially politicians avoid these kinds of events. >> in traditional times the consequences are outrage among voters and outrage among colleagues that sort of forces the person who is doing this to take a step back and reassess. and i just don't see that happening here. the people who love donald trump see this through the prism of why is everybody attacking him for this, who cares? and the people who are either on the fence or are moving away from him or don't like him, see it for what it is, which is on

the line of inappropriate, perhaps even crossing the line of inappropriate. >> let me just make this argument, play contrarian, if you own a hotel just blocks from the white house, why should mr. marian make money and not mr. trump? >> i don't think he goes much further than that because his brand and his business were always together. they were together on the trail, they were what people voted for together. they got in unorthodox package and this is part of it. and he doesn't care, even though he should. but the folks who support him don't care that much, and the folks that really are against him or are making arguments against him, think they have much bigger fish to try than this. >> if you look at the campaign, the critics say he actually made money running for president. the trump era group was paid almost $9 million. the trump tower group, $2.2 million and most of those were friends.

and the trump hotel, $1.4 million people are saying this is profiting off the presidency and the trump family says we own this property, they're easy to organize. >> i think it also gets to the fact that trump doesn't like to be cooped up in the white house. he doesn't want to spend his weekends sits around the white house grounds. i think the bizarre thing is the way the white house has handled this, not even admitting he's golfing. he's the president of the united states, if he wants to blow off some steam while he's trying to pass health care, they should say he owns the golf course, he's blowing off some steam. >> the other questions that will

be debated throughout the trump presidency. this president, already before tonight already has raised more than $7 million for the re-election campaign. barack obama liked to raise money, he liked his camp to raise a lot of money. he only had $1.5 million from day one. he has sent a signal to any republicans out there thinking about it, bring it on. >> and on top of that, trump's campaign probably is modeled for not needing a lot of money. he did not need the kind of $750 million, $1 billion massive operation. he's not going to lack for people to cover him. >> he's getting a lot of money out of politics. >> and on that note, thank you for joining us on "inside politics" see you right back here at noontime tomorrow.

wolf blitzer in the chair after a quick break. so there are no artificial colors, no artificial flavors, no artificial preservatives in any of the food we sell. we believe in real food. whole foods market.

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hello, i'm wolf blitzer, it's 1:00 p.m. here in washington, it's 8:00 p.m. in raqqa, syria. thank you for joining us. up first, efforts to revive the senate republican health care bill. just a little while ago, president trump struck an optimistic tone. >> i think we're going to get it over the line, it was a great, great feeling in that room yesterday. and what also came out, is the fact that this health care would be so good, would be far better than obama care, we'll see what happens, we're working very hard, we're giving ourselves more time to make it perfect. that's what we want to do. >> lawmakers are back behind closed doors today, they're trying to find some sort of