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tv   Anderson Cooper 360  CNN  July 25, 2017 10:00pm-11:00pm PDT

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on a very busy day today in washington, crucial votes in congress. trump team members behind closed doors in the russia investigation. the president of the united states lashing out at his own attorney general. the fate of jeff session' job is in limbo tonight. he was determined to stay put as of a few days ago. cnn has confirmed sessions' chief of staff told rinse priebus the attorney general had no intention of stepping down. that conversation happened over the weekend. the president has criticized sessions several more times since then, right up until today. sara murray is in youngstown where the president had a rally. the president finishing up the rally a short time ago. did he mention sessions? he talked about him several times today. >> that's right. he was asked about him several times today and seems to intentionally leave him out there twisting, not getting any kind of answer about whether he wanted sessions to step aside or whether he might fire sessions. we were all waiting to see if trump would unleash on his attorney general here at this rally in youngstown, ohio.
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he was clearly feeding off the crowd but didn't mention sessions by name. here's what trump did have to say about presidential behavior, though. >> sometimes they say he doesn't act presidential. and i say, hey, look, great schools, smart guy. it's so easy to act presidential. but that's not going to get it done. in fact, i said it's much easier, by the way, to act presidential than what we're doing here tonight. believe me. and i said with the exception of the late, great abraham lincoln, i can be more presidential than any president that's ever held this office. that i can tell you.
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>> now clearly president trump has been taking some flack, including from members of his own party for his treatment of jeff sessions. that seemed like a not very veiled riff about what was going on there. as for sessions' fate, trump gave no clue as to which way he was leaning. >> joining me is michael bender who interviewed the president. attorney general sessions was the first sitting senator to endorse the president during the campaign. you had a fascinating exchange with him about sessions and about loyalty and about that early endorsement. what did he say? >> we tried to ask him a couple of times about what he was going to do with sessions and wouldn't take the bait. just kept saying he was disappointed and started talking about white house personnel and mentioned anthony scaramucci who is his new communications director. what trump wanted to do was retell the story about how scaramucci didn't endorse scott walker first in the presidential
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campaign. when walker quit, he endorsed jeb bush. when jeb bush quit, there wasn't a whole lot of options left and he endorsed trump. scaramucci came to me first and offered his support but i wasn't ready to run so it's important to know that he wanted to endorse donald trump first. and then almost right after that he offered up this anecdote about how sessions endorsed him -- not only the first senator to endorse him. he was the only senator throughout the entire primary process to back donald trump. i mean it was an influential, it was a big moment in that primary campaign but trump said, i drew 30,000 and in trump's math he said 40,000 people to mobile, alabama. sessions who is from alabama looks at that crowd and says, you know, might as well endorse him. >> basically, i think trump also says something to the effect of, it wasn't a loyalty thing. it was basically, he's saying that sessions jumped on the trump train because he saw a
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large crowd. >> that's right. and jeff sessions is a politician. i'm sure there was some calculation. and he's probably not 100% incorrect there. but sessions backed trump because of philosophical alignment with what trump was saying on immigration at a time when the almost entirety of the party, certainly in washington, was criticizing what trump was saying. so, i mean, they lined up perfectly back then which is why sessions endorsed trump over ted cruz which you remember back then was pretty -- was a big blow to ted cruz who was trying to win the south and evangelical voters and try to lever aage th immigration issue. >> sessions, whether you believe in him or not or believe in his positions or not, executing the president's policy over at the department of justice right now. the president also talked about the safety of robert mueller's job as well. what did he say?
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>> well, he left that open, too. he wouldn't say what he wanted to do. he wanted to see what mueller did. you know, which is newsworthy and striking in itself. this is the special counsel. you know, there's a certain level of independence implied in this. and expected in this and trump is saying that, you know, that he's the one who is going to decide basically what -- whether mueller is going down the right path or not. and this -- he talks about him in the same way he's talking about sessions. it's not about loyalty for donald trump. for all the talk about trump's loyalty, this is a very transactional president, not -- it's what you've done for me lately, not a resume of what you've done for me in the past. >> michael bender, appreciate it. with me is maggie haberman,
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kef ker sten powers. jeff, this donald trump, the president downplaying jeff sessions early endorsement. is that fair? he was a key -- >> right. >> surrogate. >> this is part of a larger kabuki theater thing. one thing that strikes me is this is news to us, but i imagine he had this discussion over his disapoinrkppointment o recusal months ago. we're finding out out. he's dragging this out. doing this. i honestly don't think it helps him with conservatives because jeff sessions is himself -- >> conservatives coming to jeff sessions' defense. >> i sort of softened on the recusal thing, but the more i think of this, the president is probably right. he shouldn't have recused himself. but he did. i'll leave it to jeffrey to say whether or not you can unrecuse,
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if you so choose. >> you can't unrecuse. recusal is a voluntary act. you -- there is no law requiring recusal, but once you recuse yourself, it makes no sense to unrecuse yourself. >> it's interesting you have rudy giuliani saying he was right to recuse himself. >> and mitch mcconnell. and half the republicans in the senate. the reason they say he was right to recuse himself is that he was right to recuse himself. that is not a close legal question. the only person who thinks he was wrong is donald trump. now admittedly, he's an important person in this equati equation, but on the merits, there's just not a -- this is not a complicated or difficult question. >> joshua, the focus of your book is on steve bannon but you write a lot about jeff sessions. >> he was the heart and soul of trumpism before it ever existed. sessions was out 10, 15 years
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ago fighting against things like immigration reform. it points in the 2013 bipartisan immigration reform effort, sessions was sometimes the lone vote in favor of immigration amendments so aggressive that even people like ted cruz couldn't support him. so this guy is the heart and soul of what trump believes. i'd imagine it would have to be very painful to be enduring this drawn out ritual public humiliation from a guy he bent over backwards to support. >> i remember after the "access hollywood" tape came out where some in the trump camp wouldn't defend him and go on television and jeff sessions said the man has changed. this was ten years ago. so i think it's a bit ironic for the president to say the only reason he's rallying or was rallying around me was because he saw crowds. he stood by this man. more than stood by him and it's an important point. had this whole conversation with reince priebus, now the chief of
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staff, who is having this conversation about whether jeff sessions will leave. when rinse priebus asked him to consider dropping out of the race and jeff sessions had said to priebus, according to a bunch of people familiar with the conversation, let's wait and see how this plays out and what happens. do not rush to judgment. there were not a lot of people doing that, to your point. and he did do it. so again, this question of, what loyalty means to the president, somebody e-mailed me a very good point during the break before. this is not about loyalty for the president. he demands feelty. he wants the -- him to prove some level to the president which is not what the attorney general's job is supposed to be. >> i think that all these people are self-interested. it's not -- jeff sessions wasn't doing something out of the goodness of his heart for donald trump. it was good for him. it was because he saw trump as being a vessel for his world view, right? and so this was his way to get a person in the white house who
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shared his views on critical issues he cared a lot about and to get into a position like he's in right now. so i think that the idea that any of these people are particularly loyal to each other, i don't think they purpose they're loyal to themselves and their own interests, and, you know, if donald trump hadn't been espousing the views he liked, he wouldn't have gotten behind him. it's simple. the truth is donald trump owes him a lot. there's no question that jeff sessions getting on board with the campaign was better for donald trump probably than it was for jeff sessions. it was a risk for jeff sessions. but ultimately, these are all people who are just operating in their best, own interest. >> generally, these relationships are transactional, but i really do believe that sessions believed in trump's policies and did take a big risk. sessions thought at the time that he had been punished, passed over for the chairmanship of the budget committee. a very powerful committee after republicans won back the senate in 2014. punishment from his own party's
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leaders for being so aggressive on immigration and some of these things. so he was very worried that if he did endorse trump and trump lost, which at that point in time, most people expect that he would pay a real price. i think sessions more than almost anybody else in trump's orbit really did kind of take a leap of faith because he believed in what trump purported to stand for. >> and the president's rationale that he continues to espouse and that jeff sessions should have told him early on that he was going to recuse himself in any sort of russia investigation because had he done that, that he would have never appointed him to be attorney general just doesn't make any sense. obviously, this all happened after the fact and nobody knew what would end up coming out bit by bit by bit as far as this administration and campaign's affiliations with russians. we'll have more of the conversation hade. later, an emotional moment in the senate. senator mccain returning to washington to cast a crucial vote in the health care fight.
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want to just introduce you to him for a second. you know who i'm talking about. who am i talking about? nobody knows right now because we've kept it a surprise. senator jeff sessions! >> wow! what a crowd this is! >> back now with the panel. maggie, just in terms of the president's mind-set, what does it say that he so easily went from that to where he is now? >> it says that he is exactly the same person we've known for the last three years and he is the same person he was before that. he is a deals guy. everything is all about making deals. everything is a transaction. i think michael bend areer allu to that before. he sees everything in terms of a sliding scale of what can be done for him. if anyone is useful to them, they are terrific and a
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wonderful person. otherwise he has this habit as we've seen, when he wants to seek distance from someone such as paul manafort, it's, i barely know that person. he was his campaign chairman and started inching away from him in a pronounced way. this is who he is and how he is. anyone who is surprised by how he's treating jeff sessions should only be surprised he is doing it from the west wing, not that he's doing it at all. >> but it's fascinating he does this from a distance, that he talks in front of a crowd about jeff sessions but doesn't talk to jeff sessions' face. >> we don't actually know what their private conversations are. we know that jeff sessions, and this i continue to not understand to your question about what's real and what's not and what's known and what's not. jeff sessions offered his resignation several weeks ago and the president wouldn't take it. i don't know why it is the president is tormenting him. is there something the president has learned about where mueller is going or something else related to this investigation that concerns him but it's heated up again.
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>> jeff, if -- jeff lord, if jeff sessions did step down, resign or was fired, how damaging for the president in terms of his base. one thing one can say all along is the president's base has held. this is the first time you are hearing rumbling from hard-core supporters of the president saying do not do this to jeff sessions. >> i think there may be a bit of a problem with that. and more to the point, i think it would be hell on wheels to get a successor appointed because he would want to, if he did this, get somebody like to pick a name at random, not so at random, ted cruz. in that kind of environment, i think it would be almost impossible or if not very -- just very difficult to get said cruz or someone of that conservative -- those conservative bona fides approved. i think he's really mad. he sees this as an assault on his presidency. that he won the election fair
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and square. he's the outsider. and as rush limbaugh was saying today, others have said, there's a silent coup here with the washington establishment trying to take him out. he's very aware of that. gary tuchman's report shows that there are a lot of people out there that really believe in him and they see that there's an assault on him. >> you know why they believe in him, because according to the president, he's the second best president in the history of the united states after abraham lincoln. i think -- >> second most presidential. >> second most presidential. he says so many crazy things that we don't even pay any attention. can you imagine what he said tonight? >> it's like the boy scout stuff yesterday. people oar. >> it's just like, who talks that way? >> jeff, there's the disconnect. >> i know. you're in touch with the people in pennsylvania. tell me what the -- the people think he's the second best president in history, right? >> a lot of people think that he is a great president and is doing a great job. that is the -- i mean no
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disrespect. that's just the disconnect here between loosely washington media,lites and -- >> those of us on 58th street, we think thomas jefferson, george washington, franklin roosevelt are better. and what fools we are. >> it isn't even that. his approval rating is 37%. if we're suggesting he's doing something that has overwhelming popularity, that isn't true. doesn't mean if there's a binary choice of him versus another person in 2020 that he doesn't win again. but suggesting that he is somewhere that he isn't is a problem and as he's often said, these polls are fake. in terms of silent coup, he has an inability to not turn all of these institutions into something personal and something about him. this is not an investigation into an attack on democratic institutions during the election is not somehow a delegitimizing of him. he sees it that way. >> there are a lot of people
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that -- >> that's fine but his own national security establishment doesn't see it that way. >> what we have here is a problem where -- when archibald cox was fired, the media made him a saint. >> does he even have in his own national security cabinet -- the acting fbi director he accused of corruption today based on something to do with his wife. >> for the second time. he did that with us in an interview last week. dan coats, his director of national intelligence said last week that there is no disagreement among the national security apparatus. this is a trump appointee. there's no disagreement that russia tried to meddle in the election. it's the president who has refused to accept that. i don't understand why that's the media's fault. >> we're going to have more with the panel, breaking news in the russia probe. why the judiciary committee is dropping its subpoena of paul manafort. more coming up.
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who adds the two sides have agreed to continue talking. the decision comes after mr. manafort spoke to the senate intelligence committee today. meanwhile, jared kushner was back on capitol hill for a second day in a row to speak with the house intelligence committee. congressman himes is part of that panel. did your committee learn anything new from jared kushner today, anything beyond his comments in the statement he released yesterday? >> we did. whatever it was, three-plus hours of questioning, we got a lot of detail on many of the things he mentioned in his written testimony, which we all saw yesterday. so, yeah, i do think we learned, as would be expected, a fair amount of detail. >> chairman conway said his answers were forthcoming and complete. he also satisfied all my questions. do you agree with that? >> i will tell you mr. kushner really made a good faith effort, and he came here voluntarily. he told us repeatedly over the course of the deposition he was willing to stay as long as it
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took. and so i kind of welcomed that attitude. we haven't seen that from all of the people involved in -- or possibly involved in this investigation. whether it was complete or not, an investigation is a lengthy thing. we have to cross-check testimony by a witness like mr. kushner against what we know from other witnesses. i don't want to opoint on comprehensiveness and completeness. but mr. kushner made a strong, good-faith effort to answer the committee's questions today. >> the chairman said he had no reason to have at this point mr. kushner come back before the committee. do you agree with that? >> i think it's a little early to answer that question. we're looking forward to having a number of other witnesses just to give you an example. the sort of lead story now on the whole question of possible links to russia is the president's son, don junior's admission that he had that meeting at which jared kushner was present and he confirmed that gave and more details.
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we have to hear from the others in that meeting as to what happened. it's a little early to draw any conclusions about the testimony, but it was good that he came forward with an attitude of answering whatever questions we had for him. >> does it seem credible to you that donald trump jr. would get an e-mail in which he's told russia is backing his father in the election and not tell anybody else about it? not mention it to his father? not mention it to jared kushner or paul manafort or anybody else? >> well, there's certainly at least two areas of questions that i have. number one, and using don junior's own words, you know, i think he said, i love the idea that there may be some incriminating information on secretary clinton. that means we need to understand what was offered, exactly what was taken and any follow-up that might have come out of that meeting. i love it suggests you go into that meeting as don junior, i expect, would have done, with the expectation you were going to get something pretty hot, pretty valuable. he did invite jared kushner and
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paul manafort, who were the most senior members of the campaign. so for me, the question is, okay, what came next? what was said in that meeting? what was promised? what was delivered? what was the follow-up? >> what is next for your committee? >> well, we, you know, have a schedule of witnesses who will come in. some are sort of minor players in this overall tale. some of whom are not. people like paul manafort. we're in the process of negotiating the timing. and before we bring a witness in and this is the one note i'd raise about jared kushner's testimony today. it probably came a little bit early in the sense that somebody who was that senior to the campaign, you'd like to have had the opportunity to really go through the documents in an extensive and comprehensive way, but the timing was offered. we took it, and we'll continue to review documents and bring those witnesses in. >> congressman himes, appreciate your time. >> thanks, anderson. back with the panel. maggie, there are a lot of players now who are going to be heard from who are no longer with the trump campaign.
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paul manafort, carter page. is that -- are you hearing anything that that's a concern for people in the white house? >> no, look, the more sort of ancillary the circle gets, the harder it gets to control. also roger stone has this lengthy relationship with president trump who is going, at some point, going to be appearing. his testimony was canceled. i think that they are in general concerned not just about the fact of what could be said because i think that when you talk to them, they insist there won't be anything there. but there is a concern about the closed door nature of these appearances so far and that there's no transcript provided. so what leaks out from what's said behind closed doors which can set the tone going forward in terms of public opinion. >> and andirsersoanderson, we as on these witnesses. which witness came in, which witness spoke? these cases are almost always won or lost or broken or not broken on documents. on e-mails, on any sort of --
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think about the one big piece of news that we had. it was the e-mails setting up the june 2016 meeting. those are going to tell the story because witnesses can tailor their stories. they can forget. e-mails are going to -- and the question i have, and i don't really know the answer yet is how much access to the e-mails the congressional committee -- >> i've asked that question and no one really seems to say. >> and mueller will certainly be able to subpoena anything he wants. and there are no privileges attached. there's no classified information issue. he is really going to be able to have the e-mails. and those will, i think, tell the story even more than any witness testimony. >> and also who, if anybody, took notes during that meeting last june and there had been speculation as to whether that was manafort and whether that was something manafort would be willing and open to turn over. the question still regains.
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given the number of people in the room and the nature of that meeting, i wouldn't be surprised if one of the aides did take notes. >> thus far another day with no there, there. we're listening to a democratic congressman say that he was relatively pleased. n that's because jared kushner has nothing to hide. there is nothing there. and they keep looking for this. and every day they come up empty, i mean, this is just being -- this is the source of the president's anger, i'm sure. >> this is how investigations work. you can't say on every day, well, there's nothing today, that means there's nothing there. >> they like that he's being transparent. they are welcoming the fact he's coming up and he's -- or at least seeming to be transparent. he's laying out a lot. he's giving some explanations for things that we knew one side of the story before and he's provided another side of the story. i think in some cases he's given some plausible explanations for some of the things why he wanted the secure line, for example, which originally looked
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suspicious and looks less suspicious with his explanation. these are his explanations. this is his story and there has to be some sort of follow up to make sure these are right. >> the idea that nothing has been learned. remember, the president, the vice president, we've heard them all say for months, there's no evidence that there were any connections between the campaign and the russians. nothing at all. the whole thing is fake news. the whole thing is a joke. then the e-mail comes out of the june meeting and suddenly, jake sekulow is on tv saying, well, there's no crime here. that's a big difference. >> well, there is no crime here. >> there may or may not be, but the story has changed because new facts are being developed. >> it's the partisan nature of this. the very fact that there no investigation of hillary clinton on this. >> why? because -- >> because she might run for city council in chappaqua? what do you care? >> because if the subject is russian meddling in the
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election, she was the other candidate, right? >> but it's been established, jeffrey, that russia was trying to help donald trump. so i don't understand, what would hillary be doing? that doesn't even make sense. and i think the other problem is, donald trump really acts like the victim in all of this. that why is everybody so interested in this russia thing and this russia investigation when, in fact, the intelligence community has said that russia tried to swing our election and donald trump has never expressed any interest in actually investigating that. and had he done tharkt, i think people would be a lot less suspicious of him. you have people saying we've never inquired about this. we've never asked. i mean, that's -- >> i think one other variable. we don't know what happens in this closed door testimony. but the one thing we can look at it donald trump and his behavior and twitter feed. clearly he's agitated and upset about what -- about the information he's getting about his hearing because he's been so
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fixated on sessions. and we can see this from his public behavior and in speaking to white house officials. this has been going on privately before it kind of broke out into the public. >> now that he's bringing up hillary clinton again, which is something he dismissed a long timing -- >> i don't think it's these hearings. one is mueller and the scope of what mueller is doing and what you have heard white house aids, particularly the white house council's office get concerned about has been the degree to which robert mueller's office is beginning to look like a finance crimes office. like that is what they are looking at. i don't know if it's mission creep, but that is what the type of specialist that he is hiring. so there's one thing that concerns them. and the other is, don't forget, the prospect this week, it's not happening now, but there was this prospect of trump's son, his namesake son, openly testifying at a hearing and being asked questions. and trump's aides were very, very worried about the effect that was going to have on him. the degree to which this is getting close to his family
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should not be ignored. a key vote only barely
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to our other breaking news. a crucial senate vote moves the ball forward on republican attempts to repeal and replace obamacare. the motion barely passed earlier today after vice president pence cast the tiebreaking vote. the democrats are trying a stall tactic on the gop effort. ryan nobles joins us from capitol hill with the latest. republicans clearing a big hurdle today. there's a vote tonight. do we know the results? >> it's happening right now. this is part of the 20-hour process of debate before the amendments get put down on the floor. essentially what's happening now is they are dispatching with some of these different versions of the health care plan that republicans have proposed. and what they are voting on tonight was an effort by senator rob portman and a few other republicans to try to bring the moderates and conservatives together. this was a bill that offered up some expansions for medicaid
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payments and also expanded the cruz amendment put up by ted cruz. this is expected to be voted down today, but this is just the beginning of this process. and they'll reconvene again tomorrow and then the process continues on. and then we're going to get to a point where we call it vote-o-rama. almost every member is allowed to put amendments up on the floor. this is where you'll see democrats put amendments up of all different stripes in an attempt to get republicans on the record as it relates to health care. at the end of the day, they don't have the votes and republicans are still going to attempt to come up with some sort of negotiated deal that they can get 50 votes for and get health care moving forward. >> there was obviously a very big moment when senator john mccain took the floor to vote today. >> it was very dramatic. that's what we expected. what we didn't expect was the passionate speech that senator mccain gave on the floor of the senate where he first said he was going to vote yes to move the bill to the floor, but then
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he scolded his fellow senators, both republican and democrat, saying they're not doing enough to work together and that the body, the greatest deliberative body in the history of the united states, has not done a very good job living up to that reputation. he even suggested that he doesn't think that this effort is going to be successful. that he said it's likely that this bill will ultimately fail and then perhaps everyone can take a deep breath, start from scratch and work together. and even though there's no doubt that senator mccain's words were heard, you could hear a pin drop in the halls of the senate. there's no real evidence that that's going to lead to any bipartisan cooperation up here any time soon. especially when it relates to something as divisive as health care reform. >> ryan nobles, appreciate the update. back to our panel. john boehner said he doesn't think this is going to happen. that is repeal and replace is not going to go forward. >> all indications suggest that right now. that having been said, i think there is going to be something of a zombie process where you
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are going to see this keep going for a while. they have until the end of september for reconciliation process to end. people in the white house believe this is going to continue and be taken up again if it fails next year because they are very concerned with the fact that the republicans campaign forward three consecutive cycles on repeal and replace. the president has said this as well. and it can't get done. i think this is, for republicans, becoming something of a spectacle right now. >> and there's a reason it's not going anywhere. it's a very unpopular bill. 12% approval rating and obviously senators who have to go home to constituents and be held accountable for this bill. the president, i'm afraid, will view this as a victory, the motion to proceed, and view his tactics in getting senators to vote, whether it's bullying through twitter, criticizing them publicly, as a right move on his part and continue to do so. he's already in "the wall street journal," however, talking about tax reform and moving on to that. so there really does seem to be a lot of confusion. >> he's kept a foot in each camp
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on this for a while. at number one, in a bunch of red states, you have senators who have constituents who are on obamacare and like obamacare. there are some who do not. you had all these house members go out and basically walk the plank on that first vote for that first bill and they are facing backlash from it. we have yet to see what will happen at some of these recess town halls and what happens going into the end of december. the midterms are not looking particularly great right now -- >> it doesn't help when the president himself supports the house measure and then calls it mean later on. >> correct. >> midterms, we should say, that most presidents have a hard time with midterms. i can think of just off the top of my head jfk, george w. bush and bill clinton did all right in their second events. jfk in his only one. >> that doesn't make it better for the path that they face ahead. no one is saying that it's specific to this president. it is just what they're facing. >> but you're going to see --
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what i think is interesting here is a lot of people in the base of the republican party turning against their own members if they feel they have not come through with their repeal obamacare. >> this is why republicans face such a squeeze. there are a lot of republican base voters that benefit from obamacare and don't want to see it gone and are showing up and getting very angry. but on the other hand, conservatives who have been promised this will be repealed for years and years and years. i think republicans are afraid in a sense for this to end with any kind of finality and admit failure. so all the political incentives are aligned toward dragging this out, even having some kind of promise of doing this next year which would never happen in an election year, simply to avoid having to admit an ultimate defeat. >> also, the midterm election issues, you know, presidents doing badly in the midterm elections don't happen in a victim. it didn't just happen because it was 1994 and they all just magically showed up and voted against him.
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they were reacting to his leadership or lack of leadership in that case. >> health care. >> right, exactly. it's not a foregone conclusion that's what has to happen. the republicans have put themselves in a situation where it's becoming a foregone conclusion because they've just backed themselves into a corner where there doesn't seem to be any good answer because they've created this problem by promising to do something. they never had a plan for. and now even if they somehow did get it through, they are probably still in trouble. really, either way, whatever happens here, they'll end up in a bad position. if they do pass it, nobody likes the bill. and people are going to lose their health care. if they don't pass it, everyone is going to say, you promised -- >> having not passed something or the danger of -- >> i think they are both bad. >> at some point they'd be better off moving on. >> right. if you cut people off health care, 20 million, 30 million, whatever it is, substantial numbers of them are going to die. that's what happens when people -- >> oh, jeff.
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>> when people lose their health insurance, they day. not all of them, but certainly more because they look health insurance. that is something that i think argues for keeping people on health insurance. you disagree? >> all i'm saying is when you say people are going to lose their health insurance. people who didn't want it in the first place. >> no, that's not what's going to happen actually. it's not -- if you just -- if they just pass this bill, the skinny bill where you get rid of the individual mandate, the cbo has said 15 to 20 million will lose their insurance. just with that. and so 15 million to 20 million did not, not want insurance. let me finish. and the reason that will happen is the people you're talking about, the healthy people will stop buying insurance but that leaves all the sick people with the insurance and premiums going up and it will collapse. >> the cbo said there would be 26 million people on obamacare by 2017? it's 2017 and the number is --
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>> is 8 million okay? 5 million okay? >> what i'm saying is these estimates are bogus. they are just -- cbo -- >> you will admit some people will lose their -- a large percent a percentage, whether the num sber exactly right. >> a guy who died because of obamacare. there are people throughout who really have a problem with it. >> he died from getting health insurance? >> he died because obamacare rules and regulations that he was not to be treated for something that had like a two-night stay mandatory. i'm telling you, this is what his family said. they were told this by the doctor. quote/unquote, you can thank president obama -- >> from all realms, does that not raise -- >> against? >> against trumpcare? >> the aarp, the doctors -- >> which isn't always the case. >> they seem pretty, nited which to me seems unusual they're all on the same page which doesn't happen every day. we're going to take a break and come right back and talk about something the president said if his rally about criminal aliens
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slicing and dicing beautiful girls with a knife. we'll talk about that next. to qe 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. stop chantix and get help right away if you have any of these. tell your healthcare provider if you've had depression or other mental health problems. decrease alcohol use while taking chantix. use caution when driving or operating machinery. the most common side effect is nausea. i'm so proud to be a non-smoker. ask your doctor if chantix is right for you. many insurance plans cover chantix for a low
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will find no safe haven anywhere in our country. and you've seen the stories about some of these animals. they don't want to use guns because it's too fast and it's not painful enough, so they'll take a young beautiful girl, 16, 15, and others and they slice them and dice them with a knife because they want them to go through excruciating pain before they die. and these are the animals that we've been protecting for so long. well, they're not being protected any longer folks. >> back now with the panel. some of the president's supporters will say he was talking about gang members. >> well he was talking and sure he's going to do some event
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related to gangs in new york on friday as well. this is the play book that the president resorted to repeatedly as a candidate when he was having rough moments, which was he'd play very hard to the base. i don't think it's a coincidence it's on the issue jeff sessions has focused on which is illegal immigrants. i think he's trying to cleave people who are upset from this situation with sessions toward him in general. >> he points word pictures, he's very good at this what ever the subject. i think this comes out of his skill as a reality t.v. host. he knows, you know, don't stand up there and give some boring policy speech. say thing of this nature here that paint a vivid image in people's mind's and of course they responded to it. he does this over and over and over again. >> here's a problem with paying -- the voters he's reaching with that imagery, the
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slasher movie and the thing he did tonight, these are people who care about immigration. this goes back to sessions, because the one guy in his cabinet whose actually doing something and enforcing the law, arrests are up. sessions are spending administration orders to the immigration office to help enforce -- today he sanctioned cities who cot ld these supposed killers. session has been the one guy who delivered on trump's promise when the rest of the agenda that seems to be bogged down. i think that's when you saw this timid push back from the hazing that sessions has been getting from the president. >> if i can mac a boring point about accuracy, i'm unaware of my prosecutor or police officer in this country who cot ls people who carve up young women. what does that even mean?
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i mean, it's just not true. what does it mean about codling people. >> sure. i'll give you -- >> we get -- >> jamil shaw senior, the african-american whose 17-year-old son was killed, he was killed by an illegal out of the jail one day and he kills jamil shaw's son, coddled. >> how was he coddled was he arrested afterwards? crest he was in jail before this happened. >> we're out of time. we got to take a quick break we'll be right back. kind never had to. we choose real ingredients like almonds, peanuts and a drizzle of dark chocolate. give kind a try. ♪
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call or go to xfinitymobile.com. xfinity mobile. it's a new kind of network, designed to save you money. that's all the time we have, time to hand thing over for don lemon for "cnn tonight." see you tomorrow. president trump tells a cheering crowd in ohio this -- >> with the expectation of the late great abraham lincoln i can be more presidential than any president that's ever held this office. >> this is "cnn tonight." i'm don lemon. how presidential is he really? president trump starting his day at the crack of dawn, where