gop healthcare plan in about 30 minutes. not clear what will happen. we'll be here. i'm dana parino. here's shep. >> shepard: it's noon hahn the west coast, 3:00 on the capitol hill. a vote on the republican healthcare bill is set to happen in a half hour according to the white house. with paul ryan just paying a visit to trump apparently to tell him they don't have the votes. the president says it's now or never. the president is taking aim at opponents with a warning on twitter. but what a holdout is telling the white house to back off. the head of the house intelligence committee cancelled a hearing on russia. the pop democrat says the chairman may be too close to the white house to run a fair investigation. now the president's former campaign chairman paul manafort

is offered to talk to the committee. lots of questions about his ties to allies vladimir putin. a busy news day. let's get to it. first from the fox news deck this friday afternoon, the rub push to replace obamacare may be on the verge of collapse. paul ryan has been meeting with the president at the white house and our senior capitol hill producer that could be a sign that the republicans may not have the votes to pass the gop healthcare plan. democrats stand unanimous ago it. right now, the "washington post" says there's 36 no votes and 15 members leaning no. if true, the healthcare bill is dead. the white house says today's house vote is going to happen. and that it is scheduled to go down just minutes from now. president trump's approach now, take it or leave it. a vote today could make or break -- be a make-or-break

moment for years for republicans that promised to repeal obamacare. the white house press secretary sean spicer says president trump understands that this is it when it comes to republican healthcare reform. >> you can't force someone to vote a certain way. i think in the sense that has he done everything, has he pulled out every stop, has he tweaked every tweak, done everything he can possibly and used every minute of every day to get this through, the answer is yes. has the team put everything out there? yes. absolutely. at the end of the day, this isn't a dictatorship and we have to expect members to vote how they will according to what they think. i think the president made clear, they're the ones that have to go back and answer to their constituents. >> sean spicer said republicans are making progress rallying support for the bill but refused to say if they had the votes to

pass it. >> if you vote no today, what is your alternative? what do you want? there's a lot of folks that have said they're going to vote no, which is their prerogative. at the end of the day, the current obamacare system will collapse on its own. >> a live look at the house floor where lawmakers have been discussing this bill for hours now. we'll listen in the news breaks. president trump refused to predict whether the bill would pass. >> mr. president, will the healthcare bill fail? >> we'll see what happens. >> shepard: president trump told paul ryan should keep his job even though the bill fails. the budget director mick mulvaney told members the

president is through negotiating and wants a vote on the ball and is moving forward after the vote. the president trump treated after seven horrible years of obamacare and sky rocketing premium, bad healthcare, this is finally your chance for a great plan. the president took a shot at the conservative freedom caucus tweeting the irony is that the freedom caucus, which is very pro life and against planned parenthood allows planned parent hood to continue if they stop this plan. sources say the gop is trying to isolate caucus members and they're feeling the pressure. one republican house member is pushing back against the president and his ultimatum. his congressman thomas massey. he said if the legislative branch tells us how to vote and

where to vote is that a republic? house gop leaders unveiled changes to the bill to try to bridge the gap to more moderate republicans and conservative brethren. a new report shows the revised bill would leave 24 more million republicans without insurance and reduce the deficit by $150 billion over a decade. the health and human services secretary tom price spoke out in support of the revised bill in an interview on fox news. >> i wouldn't put any stock in a new cbo score. the fact of the matter is, what they're looking at is the first step. it's not the entire plan. if you look at the entire plan, you see that prices will come down, premiums come down, choices will increase. >> tensions have been high on the house floor as lawmakers brace for the scheduled

healthcare vote minutes from now. at one point a democratic congresswoman claimed somebody set the democrats microphones at lower levels for healthcare discussions. >> i'd like to ask why the democratic microphone is turned off. this happened to me the other day when the republican microphone was on over there. the last two speakers we have not been able to hear as well as we heard before. i hope somebody hears my plea and this problem will be taken care of. this debate is too important to have our microphones at a lower scale. >> the chair heard the complaint. the chair will look into it. >> shepard: fox news cannot confirm microphone malfunction. the bottom line is this. it's a serious. the gop has complete control in washington. republicans own majorities in the house and the senate. they elected a republican president.

unless theres last minute vote flips, the repeal and replace is dead. the first legislative backed by the republican president could fail. me in washington with more. >> it's an odd an tense time here on capitol hill. very normally chatty sources have gone quiet trying to count votes in the final hours ahead of a scheduled vote, a final push to convert holdouts. vice president mike pence was on capitol hill meeting with the house freedom caucus. some members say there's no votes. there's buzz about blaming the freedom caucus if this fails. a fellow republican tried to keep the peace. >> i think it's untrue. anybody that tried to do that would be absolutely unfair. look, we have support from freedom caucus members for this

bill and from tuesday group members, moderate counter parts. we have opponents in both camps as well. to blame any single group would be a huge mistake. >> there's plenty of time to play blame game if this fails. they're trying to figure out the next move, if they go forward or perhaps as members do, pull the bill. >> shepard: a lot of talk about the freedom caucus, the more conservative buns. but there's moderates pulling away. >> yeah, we've seen a lot of meetings with the white house trying to get the conservatives on board, trying to negotiate some concessions. the moderates are saying that they serve in democratic states like new york and new jersey and they have issues with this healthcare package. >> i'm an opponent. i will be voting no today on the bill. i don't think it lowers premiums. that's what the the american

people want. i think the democrats should come to the table on this issue. they're after all responsible for obamacare. so far they refuse to do so. >> democrats are not showing any sign of participating in any kind of repeal effort. they say if republicans give up repeal, they'll consider on working fixing obamacare, shep. >> mike emanuel on the hill. thanks. let's turn to chris wallace who is live in washington. is this over? >> well, i don't know. we'll have to see. i certainly can't tell. mike emanuel is much closer to the scene. i will say as somebody that has been around for a while, listening to sean spicer, he sounded like a guy that was trying to spin the defeat than he did like somebody that was pushing for victory when he talked about how president trump has left everything out in the field. it's not a dictatorship and people will vote the way they will vote. that doesn't sound like somebody that thought would win. >> shepard: they picked a date,

the seven-year off of obama before they get a head count. nancy pelosi said that was a rookie error. is she right about that? >> well, look, there's going to be a lot of people that will be blamed if this fails. success has a thousands fathers. failures is an orphan. there's plenty of fathers to this and plenty of blame to go around. the first person to blame would be paul ryan. he was the architect of this. he's had seven years to try to put together a coherent plan. the house republican caucus, all of the republicans, the freedom caucus, as you pointed out earlier, they've been saying for seven years, give us a majority in the house, the senate and the white house and we'll repeal and replace obamacare. finally got it and looks like a good chance they won't do it. raises the question as to whether they're a governing

party. it's a big defeat for donald trump. he decided to make this his first big legislative issue. he said he was the big deal maker in chief. if he doesn't pull it off, it raises questions about the rest of his agenda. >> shepard: you say serious questions about the rest of his agenda. tax care particularly. this bill at least as it was originally put together, would have saved about $880 billion as i read it. medicaid and otherwise over ten years. that was a way to get at some of these tax cuts they had been speaking about. is the tax agenda in jeopardy? >> it hurts. one of the reasons trump was persuaded by paul ryan and others on the hill to go with healthcare first, it was an iffy proposition because the fact that there would be savings that would create a lower budget baseline and you could -- it would be easier to pass tax

reform, meaningful tax remember form with big cuts to tax rates. it's harder if you don't have the savings from obamacare. tax reform is a tough issue anyway. there's huge differences just to pick one. this whole idea of the border adjustment tax that a lot of people in the house like. the idea that we're going to tax imports going in but not experts. if you're a senator from a state who has a lot of retailers that input goods, lg tvs, you won't like that. that will damage business. so tax reform is no easy proposition either. i'm a big believer that success in washington begets success and failure begets failure. if the president loses today, it will hurt the momentum. >> you wonder how hurt the legislators that voted against this plan would be. this president is not one who

takes likely to being told no. >> no. he's made it clear. he joked about it, but he said i'm going after you. i'd be very surprised if they pull this bill. we'll see. i would think that the white house would demand let's have a roll call. let's put people on the record. you want to oppose this, you want to vote to keep obamacare there, let's put that on the record. you'll have to face your constituents and face me. >> shepard: i'm told a president wants a vote, that would be the reason. get them on the record. >> the whole point of the vote saying we're not going to negotiate anymore. it's time to put up or shut up. you don't want people to block it and not take responsibility, have them own it. >> shepard: and they will in about 15 minutes unless things change. chris wallace, we'll see you this weekends on "fox news sunday." chris will take with the iraqi

prime minister on your local fox station. healthcare, not the only drama playing out on capitol hill. the republican leader of the house intelligence committee called off a public hearing on russia's meddling in our election. now his democratic counter part is suggesting that's a political move. we just saw the fbi director arrive at the white house. the very man invest greating president trump and his associates and possible ties to russia. that would be the first meeting between the two since he announced he was investigating. that and the bill to replace obamacare, 15 minutes away on capitol hill. live coverage on fox news channel. america's choice for news and information on cable.

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president's claim that president obama wiretapped trump tower. sean spicer said he was almost 100% certain that president trump and comey had not spoken since then. first, we learned today the republican chair of the house intelligence committee called off a hearing on the investigation. he said it's to make room for another briefing. the top democrat on the committee said maybe the white house didn't like what they heard about the fbi director. several obama officials were set to testify at tuesday at a public hearing. former national intelligence director james clapper, john brennan, sally yates were set to testify. but now it's being told the hearing won't help because they have more questions for comey

and rogers. >> we're asking mr. comey and mr. rogers to come back in. until we can get them in a closed session, it's not worth the open session. so we're hopeful that they can come in next tuesday. >> shepard: the republican chairman news denied that the hearing was bad for republicans, a few minutes after chairman nunes spoke, the democrat adam schiff, the top democrat, said cancelling was a serious mistake. he gave his own theory about why it happened. >> there must have been a very strong push back from the white house about the nature of monday's hearing. it's hard for me to come to any other conclusion why an agreed upon hearing would be cancelled. >> shepard: schiff has been questioning whether congressman nunes was in cahoots with the white house ever since schiff called the chairman's dead of

night excursion. he brought information to the white house. today chairman nunes denied that the white house orchestrated his visit. catherine herridge is live in washington. let's start with the comey meeting at the white house. what do we know? >> i spoke with a veteran nsa officer. he said it takes a high profile issue to get the fbi director to the white house. so briefing on a plot or personal briefing on what they have learned in london. that does not really sound consistent with what we just heard from the white house that characterized this as a routine meeting. we'll see if that where's sits. >> shepard: three former trump aids have offered to meet about russia. that's right?

>> it was confirmed that paul manafort has offered to be interviewed and fox news has independently confirmed that carter paige and one time adviser roger stone have offered to cooperate. stone's attorneys sent this letter to the committee that reads -- >> catherine herridge, thanks. >> you're welcome. >> the white house says that we're nine minutes away now from a vote on repealing and replacing obamacare. will it happen? and if so, can it pass? live coverage on fox news channel next. fun in art class.

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>> shepard: the vote is scheduled to begin in just more than five minutes on the republican plans to repeal and replace obamacare. clad pergrin is live on the hill. i've been reading the vote counts, chad. sounds like they have problems to the right and left. >> absolutely, this is the same problem that former house speaker john boehner used to have. remember, when they got to votes with the debt ceiling or trying to keep the government open, he could rely on the democrats, this is why john boehner is no longer the speaker. we have a new speaker of the house, paul ryan. it's the same membership. when you're trying to pass a bill with only your folks on the republican side of the aisle, that's why it's very tough. we should have a vote, i would think, shep, in about an hour an hour and 15 minutes here. sean spicer was saying that's if you gave the four hours of debate, this is like soccer. injury and booking team takes

later. i'm thinking 4:45 and maybe 5:00. i'm going to give you a vocabulary term here. "recess subject to the call of the chair." if they don't have the votes and might get there, you see them might recess and subject and you'll see all the screens go to the blue screen of death. that means that they're trying to make a last minute decision as to whether or not they should forge ahead. remember, this is a dicey proposition. if the president wants to go ahead, you could have members voting for something that won't pass and they're docked with this vote. the minority leader, nancy pelosi said members will be tattooed with this vote and that's what could happen if they go forward and they don't have the votes. >> shepard: what are they using as persuasion? do they have some candy to give out? >> yeah, i always remember on

christmas morning, i would get up and got most of the things i wanted but not everything. i determined i needed a manager's amendment. that is what they kept doing this week. they did one monday and last night. they kept putting things in the bill to get some members to vote yes. at this reading, doesn't seem like they're there. the final elements of persuasion, the vice president pence, he didn't come to the capitol. he went to the capitol hill club, which is behind the office building and talked to members of the freedom caucus. they're not quite there. you have the mix of moderates and conservatives. if everybody was voting, it would be 2016. we have several vacancies. earlier votes, the threshold would be 211, 213. it was 220 in 2009 to 215.

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>> an updates of terror attacks in london. police say they made two more significant arrests and a total of nine people in custody. investigators say they're looking for more information about the attacker himself to figure out whether he acted alone or if somebody else directed him. they also released this photo of the suspect. the manager of a hotel where he stayed the night before the attack described how he was acting before he went on the rampage. >> very friendly, laughing and joking, telling the story about what he needs.

he was just like any other guest. >> shepard: investigators say khalid masood drove a car into a crowd of people killing three and injuring 50 others and then stabbed an officer before he was shot and killed. isis has claimed credit for the attack. authorities are still investigating in london and their posture calm and carry on. when my doctor told me i have age-related macular degeneration, amd, he told me to look at this grid every day. and we came up with a plan to help reduce my risk of progression, including preservision areds 2.

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>> shepard: our producer on capitol hill mentioned the blue screen of death. there it is. his words, not mine. the house is in recess subject to the call of the chair. that means that that could mean that what they're doing is trying to wrangle a few more votes. maybe this is closer than observers thought. it's possible, of course, that they might be able to get a few more votes at the last minute. that's not what we believe is happening. the original call was for the vote to begin at 3:30. that's what they've said by sean spicer at the white house. we just got word that republicans on capitol hill are

going to meet at 3:35, which is 1:10 from now. there's various reports that this is in flux. we know the vote was to be called, but the overall thinking has been if you don't have the votes, if you have gone to all of your republican members and realized, i don't have the votes to pass this, do you go ahead and vote anyway? it's possible the president might want those people on the record. if you voted against this, i want to know who you are. your constituents should know who you are. it wouldn't be quite fair really to just not have the vote. well, it's possible that may be what happens. peter doocy is on capitol hill. what has happened? >> hello, peter. >> hey, shep. sorry. telling your producer i was looking down the hallway to see if there's any members with a scoop. we do know if this bill goes forward and makes it to the

senate, is a version of this american healthcare act now based on changes that would have a meaningful change in the way people are covered? now based on the input of the very conservative house freedom caucus, the plan is to let states decide what people must be covered for whereas right now that's something that the feds are deciding. so right now the feds require every american is covered for a dozen different things -- >> shepard: excuse me, peter. i apologize. we just got word the vote has postponed. that happened just seconds ago. we got word in that our politics team that just a moment ago that the healthcare vote, the vote on the bill has been postponed. a number of things happening at the same time. republicans are gathering on capitol hill at this very moment to decide what to do next. i'll tell you behind the scenes how confusing this has been. the reuters news agency said

that they were convening on capitol hill and at the same time, reported they postponed the vote. now they have corrected their vote. they need 216 votes to win. instead, we have the blue screen of death, which says the house is in recess subject to the call of the chair. our producer, chad, what just happened? >> either they're pulling the bill around that's what we're hearing that they're going to have a meeting here very soon and walk them through this. this is what i was referring to a few moments ago or if they think they can get the votes or you want to be really circumstance couple -- check every vote. we've had indications for a long time they didn't seem to have the votes. this was well north of the 21 votes that they could lose. but they won't make any formal announcement until they can talk

to the rank and file members. so here in the capitol hill, they'll have this emergency conference meeting and tell people officially what the plan is. the house is in recess subject to the call of the chair. that's usually not a good sign. >> what the are republicans doing at this moment specifically? >> everybody was just milling around, waiting to see are we going to vote, did they have the votes. individual members didn't have any more information than staff or leadership. they will go down stairs and presumably the house speaker, maybe the majority leader will lay out the path forward. sometimes they hear from the white house. mick mulvaney, the budget director, he's a former congressman from south carolina, he said that the minute he left the capitol that it's up to them. if they don't have the votes, they can't move it. the perfect appears to have been the enemy of the good. >> shepard: it wasn't good according to people on the right and some of these centrists, the

tuesday group. the tuesday group is upset about their issues and the more conservatives are upset about their issues. looks like it wasn't close to a vote, chad. >> that's where they thought you can bring the final votes over. if you're in a margin of five or six votes, you might get there. in case of emergency, break glass votes. when you get in big votes on tough issues, the whip keeps a few people off to the side. they really want to vote no but the whip says you'll vote yes if we get into a hard spot here. we need your votes. so they usually stand close to the whip in the house chamber. if the vote passes, they release them and vote their conscious. if they don't have the votes, they'll vote that way and vote yes. but it doesn't seem like they're in striking distance. i remember in the debt ceiling bill, they had some of those break glass votes. they weren't within a country

mile of that this time around. >> shepard: we just understand it's the president that asked speaker ryan to pull the vote. at 4:00 p.m., 22 minutes from now, speaker ryan will hold a news conference live on fox news. >> that's the other thing, too. the house speaker was indicates to the president, you really want to go forward? you really want to put people in a tough spot? as i said, nancy pelosi said they will tattoo them with this roll call vote. this will be documented and then you have members from these tough districts, swing districts, battleground districts, the moderates, the tuesday group where obamacare was not popular, many of them represented districts that were carried by hillary clinton. they said this is how you lose the house majority. remember what happened on cap and trade? that was the environmental climate bill in the summer of 2011. nancy pelosi engineered the votes. they passed it and never saw the light of day in the senate. what i said all day long, what

this day has seemed like to me since the moment i hit the door this morning, it was reminiscent of tarp, the troubled assets relief program in september of aw the markets go down in synchronicity 20 the role call vote. 777 points. it never seemed like they had the votes that day. this morning about being in the whip operation, never quite felt right. >> chad pergrin live on capitol hill. a lot of new information coming in all at the same time. we want to get to some new information that's coming to us from the white house. fox stations across the country join us live. from fox news in new york, i'm shepard smith. this is breaking news coverage of the republican healthcare bill on capitol hill. fox news has now learned that the president has just asked that speaker paul ryan and the united states house of

representatives pull the republican version, pull this new healthcare bill and in essence the repeal and replace of obamacare, the new republican version is now dead. the problem was the republicans did not have enough votes on capitol hill to pass it. the early reporting from major newspapers across the country is they can only lose 22 republican votes, all of the democrats were voting against this thing. ney could only lose 22 republican votes. but they were going to lose more than 30. some of the people that were going to vote against it were from a very conservative group of the house of representatives, the freedom caucus. they are tea party types from across the country that said if this is too much like obamacare, too much government intervention. they didn't want it. it was too much big government in the middle of america's healthcare. and then the moderates that said, this eliminates medicaid for a lot of our constituents. a couple of congressmen from new jersey said today, we just can't be on board with this

because of what happens with medicaid. in the long run, this bill was originally scheduled to have saved about $340 billion from the deficit. they had to put a new version together to try to appease more republicans. that was a problem as well. the long and short of it is, in 17 minutes, paul ryan is set to hold a news conference. the president of the united states who as late as last night said they were confident to get the bill passed, the white house press secretary sean spicer spoke just a short time ago saying there's no backup plan, they want to repeal and replace obamacare. in fact, they have not gotten the votes. there's some degree of paralysis on capitol hill. on the tv screens in washington, all over the capitol at a time the vote was supposed to be happening. instead, there's the screen with the capitol on the back of it.

the house is in recess subject to the call of the chair. in essence, what this means, they've hit a snag. paul ryan has met with the president. said we just don't have the votes. since then, we're waiting for a paul ryan news conference. our chief political anchor, bret baier is live in washington. brett, it's not as if this is a surprise but it's a set-back for the president's agenda. >> i think it is. they thought they could squeak it out and twist arms. there were many ploys to get if freedom caucus members off the fence. we're told there were numerous meetings with congressmen meeting, talking about the subject stance of the bill. this became about the policy itself versus the personality and the agenda of the president. these congressmen fought on principle and said, this bill in

and of itself doesn't get it done for us and they were continually saying nos. they were trying to get to yes. we're talking about 31, 34 no votes as of late this afternoon. now we're told that the president at 3:00 this afternoon asked speaker ryan to pull the bill. i guess we'll get more detail from the speaker himself about next steps and what happens. what you can def fifinitively s this is a major setback. >> shepard: interesting wrangling for capitol hill. i'm guessing there's people at home going what does this mean for my health coverage? >> right now, it doesn't change a thing. it does mean that this year there will have to be some fixes. because the reality is, that obamacare is not working across the country. that there are fixes that have to be made in order for insurance companies to stay in

some of these pools. the reality is that all of this talk is true that some states only have one choice when it comes to healthcare and health insurance companies. so there will have to be fixes. but right now it's status quo if this bill doesn't me have forward. >> shepard: chad pergrin is our producer. i wonder what the blow-back will be on capitol hill especially for paul ryan. >> recrimination. they talk about, you know, who has success on capitol hill, that it has a thousand fathers and one for defeat. they're going to have to look at president trump. this was the art of the deal. he was supposedly the deal maker. he came to capitol hill to make his plea. that was unsuccessful. this doesn't always work out. president obama came up here in june of 2015 to try to get his party to get behind the frame work for a major trade package.

that didn't work out. the power of the president, this is the issue of who is in charge and who can be the chief whip in congress. president trump has failed his first test. now we turn to paul ryan. he tried to get people on board. he tried to get the freedom caucus and the moderate group of republicans, the tuesday group. each time he would do something to get more con suffer ives -- conservatives on board, they would lose the moderates. i talked about it in terms of goldilocks. not too cold, not too hot. they could never get there. when they had the big votes when john boehner was the house speaker, they would rely on democrats. near trying to do it unilaterally with republicans. they could never pass any bills with just republicans. this bill is not going to have any democrats vote yes. that's why john boehner would rely on republicans and democrats to pass the debt ceiling, keep the government open.

when you're trying to do things unilaterally and only lose 21 votes, that is a narrow balance beam. they have fallen off that beam today. >> shepard: chad, republicans voted to repeal obamacare more than 50 times when the they didn't have a president in the white house that would sign it. now they have a president that will sign it, they can't get it done. it's easier to be the no vote than it is to govern. is anybody coming to terms with that today? >> that was the thought with the conservatives, the freedom caucus, they were so engrained in voting no, being opposed to the leadership, john boehner, being opposed to president obama. they don't have that foil anymore. they're not used to getting to yes. it's like trying to sell somebody a car. if they don't want the car, they're not growing to buy it. that's where they ran into the trouble at the end of the day. what the does this mean for the rest of the agenda going forward? this is a major body blow.

it does show there's political kryptonite out there. you know, easy to vote to repeal and replace or have all these 50, 60 repeal votes over the years when you weren't firing with live ammo. they were firing with live ammo today and it blew up on them. >> bret baier, for this president that stakes so much of his political capitol on winning, winning, you said you'll be tired of doing so much winning. today he has a defeat. how will he react? >> it's interesting. "the new york times" cited four sources in the white house that the president had regrets. that's something that you don't often here. doubts about going with healthcare first. a source saying that vice president pence had warned the president not to get too close to paul ryan's bill is how it was phrased in that piece. i don't think that's far from the truth as they lay the groundwork for what happens after this. one thing to point out that chad

mentioned, the body blow here and the agenda. next up is tax reformed. they looked at it like you had a train. the first car was health care, tax reform and then infrastructure. the healthcare care was going to take some of the taxes away, provide deficit reduction, my knowledge -- originally $300 bill and that enabled the rates to be lower for tax reform. now if they want to keep the numbers for tax reform as republicans have laid out, they have to find another funding mechanism that makes it deficit neutral. it's in the weeds, but it's a major problem as far as the infrastructuring of the next big item, which is tax reform if they go to that right away. >> shepard: bret baier live in washington. the long and short, the republican plan to repeal and replace obamacare is dead on arrival in the united states house of representatives. the republicans don't have the votes to pass it alone. democrats are a lock solid

against it and the new bill, the american healthcare act, will not see the light of day. for those of you watching on local fox stations across the country, we'll have speaker paul ryan's news conference live on fox news channel on satellite and cable minutes for now, for the rest of you, back to local programming. i'm shepard smith, fox news, new york. here on fox news channel, we wait for speaker ryan. back to chad pergram on capitol hill. you wonder how the positioning game will begin. paul ryan staked a lot on this. he wrapped himself around the president in the process and talked about they worked in lock step. sounds as if this was going down and paul ryan's name would be on it, he would take others with it. >> paul ryan was attached to the hip of donald trump. that started. they were not aligned with one another after the access hollywood tape last fall. paul ryan said some very negative things about the

republican candidate at that stage. you never thought they would meet. once they got a republican in the white house, everybody said we have unified government. paul ryan has said this a thousand times the past couple years since he's been in leadership, since he's been the speaker. he said look, we have to have unified government to move this big issues. tax reform, repealing and replace obamacare. they stumbled very badly today. something i want to point to. it is a four-year term for the president. you always have these hiccups early on. i don't know if sometimes they can maybe resuscitate this bill. sometimes they have to fail before they can pass. i mentioned tarp. that was a bill that had to fail before it could pass. maybe this actually puts pressure where they can get to yes down the road. again, it's a four-year term. but it makes one wonder about the members of congress. they got on board because it appeared he would be the

nominee. paul ryan denounced him in wisconsin about a month before the election. and then ever writ thing is honky dorie. that's where you have recriminations and second guesses. >> bret baier, what happens in the halls of power behind the scenes when the first major legislative initiative goes down in this way after the president had so thoroughly embraced it? what the is happening behind the scenes now? >> they're freaking out. they're literally freaking out. all of the desperate groups and partying and the moderates have come to a point where they were thinking that some of them could vote for it. i have congressman mcarthur on the set last night. he said they had gotten to a point they had said yes. some freedom caucus members came over. others stood their ground. now what? where do they go? i think that's where you'll hear in eight minutes or so the speaker lay out the way forward. don't be surprised though if

there's some blame to the freedom caucus members and some pretty strict firm language from the speaker about getting on board with an agenda that would have taken this bill over to the senate and possibly been worked on on the senate side to be able to fix some of the concerns that they had. the fact that they can't get it out of the station means be that it's not going anywhere. >> shepard: chad pergram, there's a report that the presidents will reach out to democrat to see if the democrats can be brought over. that's brand new to me. the president says he will re-visit this in this legislative year. >> we're back to the art of the deal, aren't we? in that case, chuck schumer, the minority leader said as soon as republicans get off of this repeal and replace montra, we're welcome on ways to tweak obamacare. that's the frame work at the end of the day. we'll see how much progress they can make with democrats, steny hoyer the whip that expressed as

much as so has nancy pelosi. the freedom caucus indicated they were trying to get to yes. mark meadows said he looked beat last night, physically beaten coming out of his office. he wasn't going to put out a statement. people were afraid they were going to blame the freedom caucus for, this there were and signals that that's where certain rank and file were pointing. whether or not they can do something to tweak obamacare, great. that's not the campaign promise that all of these republicans ran on. you have to remember what happens to first term presidents in the first term mid-term election. look what happened to president clinton in 1994. the gingrich revolution. the democrats lost control of the house for the first time in 40 years. it was a catastrophic election for the democrats mainly because they tried to move healthcare around that blew up on them. in 2010, a response to

obamacare. 63 seats the democrats lost. the republicans have been fearing this. they said if we can't make good on this campaign promise, we're toast. that remains to be seen. a long way to go here. the fact that they didn't do a vote is a big deal. >> shepard: brett? >> the bigger winner today, president barack obama what came out and defended his legacy healthcare law. it's now clear that republicans cannot do at least yet what they planned on doing in the campaign after campaign. from 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, repeal and repeal and replace was the montra. barack obama has the win right now, and it has changed the entire way that we look at healthcare. it's now the democrat's version, the ideology that government does have a role in providing

health care in some way, shape or form. the repeal, drag it up by the roots, get rid of it, has not worked. they can't get it through a republican house, a republican senate and a republican president. today is a win for president obama. >> shepard: the representative loudermilk of georgia's 11, probably a new name to our viewers, now says look, this didn't pass. we're going to come forward and start working on this again. the president said yesterday take it or leave it, we're going to move on, which may have been some art of the deal talking. but what we're about to hear, they want to give this another go. >> another go in essence to fix it. they realize that they have a spiralling deal here. that obamacare is not go to hold up as it is. the win is the ideology that you'll keep the structure in place and fix it. you're not going to repeal it.

that's where you start getting this outreach from president trump and his administration to the democrats. they realize that they have a stinker that they have to deal with in different parts of the country and they have to do something. now the structure of obamacare will be in place. >> shepard: chad pergram, it's democrats that have said, some parts of the bill haven't worked. we need changes. democrats have said, republicans just didn't cooperate enough. they pulled the rug out underneath certain things for political reasons. their argument is now let's try to make it work for the american people for the mom that needs health insurance and all the rest. >> we'll see what they're able to do on that front. there's been other bills that kevin mccarthy, the majority leader. they tucked about this being three buckets. the third bucket of other legislation. some of those bills down the road that mccarthy was promising, some democrats could vote for. there's some progress that can be made on that front. the one thing i want to point everybody toward, how much

political capitol they burned on this process. in about a month's time, they dvd to deal with keeping the government open, the debt ceiling, still want tax reform. how much political effort was burned on this and keep in mind how much criticism that republicans levelled at democrats for their level tomas obamacare. look how this turned out for republicans. not very good. they didn't even get a bill through. >> shepard: chad, over to bret how much rebuilding of political capitol is possible in the short run here before you take on your next set of legislative hurdles? >> have some work to do. i bet you there will be a real outreach before they tackle something as big as tax reform. this will be a painful loss and all kinds of talk about who did the wrong thing, who did the right thing. there wasn't a lot of right thing. the problem was, shep, they couldn't get be to an articulation of what the elevator story was. why to pass this bill, why is it

better for me at home. they couldn't get it. 17% approval in the quinnipiac poll. >> bret baier there on capitol hill. same with chad pergram for us. neil cavuto will take over coverage in just a moment. i want to give you one more headline that i just got in. this is from the house energy congress chairman that said the healthcare bill is dead and it won't come up at a later date. so what is come something some sort of fix of obamacare. the last thing that they can do is let americans go without any health insurance. because that would be political suicide in districts across the country. so now a new plan will come together. you can see on the right-hand side of your screen. we're waiting for paul ryan to come forward and begin this process, which will be slow and cumbersome and politically difficult. just before all of this uncerta uncertain began, the dow took a dive. since they pulled the bill that seemed to make people happy.

i don't understand these numbers. we're down a little. it's not horrible. "your world" with neil cavuto is coming up. should news break out, we'll break in because breaking news changes everything on america's choice for news on cable. >> neil: all right. thank you, shepard. we're waiting for paul ryan to outline why it was that the president recommended just pull this thing. let's be done with it. chuck schumer, the democratic leader also scheduled to speak this hour. nancy pelosi in the house, as you have heard already. this thing is dead. the healthcare law will have to be reworked because some of the finances behind it are not sustainable. that doesn't hide the point that they have to do something to fix it and the