captioning sponsored by cbs >> dickerson: today on face nation, it is a new year with a new congress and new administration, but now the hard part, governing, gal hill was the hub of activity this week as republicans started their push to repeal obamacare and quickly confirm president-elect trump's cabinet, high level lobbying to save the health bill and debate on how to replace it is to a quick start and the bleak assessment from the agent's top spy agencies about vladimir putin's actions to help elect mr. trump has chilled relations between the intelligence community and the president-elect. >> there is a difference between skepticism .. and disparagement. >> dickerson: how damaging is the split? we will kick off the new year with senate majority leader mitch mcconnell plus the

incoming chief of staff reince priebus and two top intelligence experts, former cia director ambassador james woolsey and former acting cia director mike morell. >> new jersey senator cory booker will tell us how democrats plan to fight republican efforts. and we will have plenty of political analysis too. it is all ahead on "face the nation". good morning and welcome to "face the nation", i am john dickerson, we are here thon very chilly morning with senator majority leader mitch mcconnell who is making his first appearance on the sunday show since the election, welcome, mr. leader. >> good morning. >> dickerson: let's start with the russian efforts to medal in the u.s. efforts. >> yes. >> dickerson: you strongly condemned those efforts, why do you think donald trump hasn't? >> the way to look at his attitude towards the russians is look at the incoming national security leaders, general mattis, general kelly, congressman pompeo, senator coates, none of these are people who are in any way conflicted

about the view that the russians are not our friends and are a big problem. i don't think it is all that unusual for a new president to want to get along with the russians, i remember george w. bush having the same hope. my suspicion is these hopes will be dashed pretty quickly, the russians are clearly big adversary and they demonstrated it by trying to mess around in our election. >> dickerson: do you think given the findings of the intelligence agency it is most recent briefing on friday to president-elect trump, that he should say sort of i agree now with what you found, is there any damage done by his skepticism of the findings with the intelligence agencies? >> look, i won't critique his performance, what i will tell you is that i accept the, what the intelligence community has unanimously agreed to that they were trying to affect the election, that they knifely in my, naively thought they would be advantaged if donald trump

were to be elected. i think that was a bad bet. and that it really in the end made no difference, there is no evidence whatsoever it changed the outcome of the election. >> dickerson: let me scwhimp to obamacare, why do you think they were naiïve in thinking donald trump. >> look at the security team. these are clear-eyed people that understand fully that the russians are not our friends. >> dickerson: let me switch to obamacare, there is a question of you want to repeal it. you are going to repeal it. when is the replacement part going to -- >> well, soon. you have to both repeal and replace, and i think there ought not to be a great gap between the first step and the second. look, bill clinton said it is the craziest thing he has ever seen, this is bill clinton, on obamacare last year. eight out of ten americans either one replaced entirely or significantly changed. i don't think anybody ought to think that the status quo is acceptable. if hillary clinton had been elected they would be revisiting

obamacare. it is in a full-scale meltdown, so no action is not an option. >> dickerson: so eight of ten want to repeal but only two in ten want it just repealed. in other words, repeal without replace -- >> well, either want it repealed or significantly changed. >> dickerson: right. >> that is eight out of ten. >> dickerson: i guess the gap is where the debate is, and senator rand paul say he spoke to the president-elect and quoting now from rand paul he said he, meaning mr. trump, fully supports my plan to replace obamacare the same day we repeal it. the time to act is now. you talked about a gap, there is the same day. >> well, i haven't heard senator paul's plan to replace it but we replacing it rapidly after repealing it. >> so can you give me a sense of what rapidly means? >> very quickly. >> dickerson: a month, days? >> quickly. >> dickerson: all right. but it is going to be repealed by the end of this week you think? >> the first step will be taken in the senate by the end of this week, yes and then go over to the house. >> dickerson: on replacing it,

if i have, if i am covered as part of obamacare will i be covered by the replacement? >> what you need to understand is that there are 25 million americans who aren't covered now, if the idea behind obamacare twowz get everyone covered that is one of the many failures. in addition to premiums going up, copayments going up, deductibles going up and many americans who actually did get insurance when they did not have it before have really bad insurance that they have to pay for and the deduct sbl so high it is not worth much to them so it is chaotic. the status quo is simply unacceptable and at the risk of being repetitious, if hillary clinton had been elected we would be revisiting obamacare. >> dickerson: let me move on to nominees. office of government ethics asked to slow down the process. i am not aware of any occasion in the four decades since oge was established when the senate held a confirmation hearing

before the nominees will you slow down process. >> we are still in the process of getting the papers in. i think at least five of the nominees have all of their papers in, you know, what this is about, john, the democrats are really frustrated that they lost the election. i was in senator schumer's position eight years ago. i know how it feels when you are coming into a new situation that the other guys won the election. what did we do? we confirmed seven cabinet appointments the day president obama was sworn in. we didn't like most of them either. but he won the election. so all of these little procedural complaints are related to their frustration in having not only lost the white house but having lost the senate. i understand that, but we need to sort of grow up here and get past that, we need to have the president's national security team in place on day 1 and papers are still coming in and so i am optimistic that we will be able to get up to seven

nominees on day one just like we did eight years ago. >> dickerson: should it be a rule that the papers come in and then you have the hearing? >> well, on hillary clinton for example we had a hearing before her fbi report was completed. the real sing the vote on the floor, and we want to have all of the records in, all of the papers completed before they are actually confirmed on the senate floor. >> dickerson: so nothing is slowing down? >> nothing is slowing down in terms of -- >> no, i don't think so. we want to treat, they should want to treat president-elect trump just like we treated president-elect obama. >> wouldn't their response be there is a qualitative difference between the obama nominees and trump nominees, you have people who have these big private industry successes but also pa lot of complexity. >> we could have made the same argument eight years ago. >> dickerson: were they as complex -- >> they were wildly liberal people. >> dickerson: well, that is ideology though. >> yes but what is the difference? we found most of his cabinet

appointments just as disturbing as they would find president trump's, and that is what happens when you lose the election. >> dickerson: and guess what, democrats would stay is this, these are ethical questions and they would say, but they would quote you back from your book about the senate, which is that the senate, as you say, there is a value to slow and steady deliberation. >> yes most of the time that is true but you have a brand-new administration, coming into office, you want to have at the very least a national security team in place on day one, and i am hopeful and optimistic that will be the case this time as well. >> dickerson: and what is your relationship like with chuck schumer in working out these -- >> oh, it is fine, i like chuck, we don't have a problem. he has a job to do and i have a job to do, and i think he has a little harder job to do right now in trying to convince people we ought to slow down and impede the new administration getting

up and running. >> dickerson: all right. senator majority leader michelle bachmann, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> dickerson: thank you for being with us. joining us now from the republican national committee headquarters here in washington is the incoming white house chief of staff, reince priebus, you still chairman of the party so mr. chairman, what exactly does incoming president-elect donald trump believe about russian efforts to medal in the election? >> well, i believes many of the things we all believe that russia and other countries have been hacking and attempting to attack american institutions for years, that russia's attack on american elections has been going back for over 50 years, so this is nothing new, and the fact that this particular hack was perpetrated by russian entities is something that no one is disputing but i think one of tissues here, john, and one of the issues that isn't really being covered is that we have one of the two biggest political parties in the world, the dnc,

that sat there like a sitting duck, allowed these entities into their computer systems, by their own admission, they said that they lacked the training, and that they didn't respond to the fbi when they called. >> dickerson: i understand, but he will be president of the united states not the head of the dnc, so on this question of you say is, no one is disputing this but over the last couple of months donald trump resoluting disputed the findings of the intelligence agancies and gone beyond that, not just been skeptical he has compared the findings on this question of russian hack nothing the biggest blunders the intelligence agencies made since iraq and part of a wimp hunt and he has been solid in disputing it so it seems like you are saying he changed his mind. >> i think you are just con nate, conflating two different things, on one thing you have the fact that russia, china, other countries, cyber attacked the united states all the time but on the other hand you also

have a president obama who truly before he leaves office after he knew about these things had been going on since 2015 decides to then put out the biggest sanctions we have ever put out on russia in this regard in the history of america, when the chinese hacked the opm, we didn't hear anything that happened after that, so there is a political angle here. >> dickerson: there is a political angle here john that is clearly politically motivated to discredit the victory of president-elect trump. i think that is absolutely indisputable. the reason why the dnc piece matters is that the reason this particular hack was so large wasn't necessarily because the effort was so great by the russians. it was that it was so easy. i mean, john podesta's a password into his system, you know what his password was? pass worth. the fact that he haddon naah brazil admitting that the dnc

lacked the training which allowed all of this material to be released is incredible. >> dickerson: let me go back to donald trump who will be leader of the free world and will have to work with the intelligence agencies, director clearp said there is a difference between skepticism and disparagement, so he categorized the remarks donald trump the made as disparaging of those intelligence agencies, so when donald trump met with the intelligence briefers on friday did he apologize for that disparagement? >> the first thing that donald trump did when he -- after that meeting in his statement was to commend the men and women of the intelligence community, the very first thing he did, the very first thing in his statement but let me just go back for a second, john. when president obama put out the sanctions against russia a week ago, our first reaction was we need to get a briefing on this issue which created, what created this immediate reaction of president obama? and we went into action to get

the briefing as quickly as possible on tuesday that we thought the president had that created the reaction that took place a few days earlier. so when president-elect trump moved forward through the weekend and on tuesday and we attempted to get that briefing, we since learned that the actual report wouldn't be done until wednesday. hang on, i am getting to your point. so it turned out that the report wasn't completed until wednesday and we with respect going to get the briefing until friday. that tweet you are referring to and mr. clapper responded to was the intelligence briefing in quotes was a frustrating situation in that we couldn't even get a briefing on what caused the reaction of obama because the report wasn't done until wednesday. in fact, the disparagement it is a matter of hey can i get the information -- >> dickerson: mr. chairment it is disparagement when you compare the findings to their worst blunder in modern history,

when you compare it to -- >> there was no, hang on, john. you are wrong, there was no -- >> dickerson: compared it to the iraq war. did the trump transition compare them to the iraq war blunder? >> i didn't compare them to -- >> dickerson: the transition did. >> but we are not talking a about that, john, we are talking about what created -- >> dickerson: you did do that -- the transition did that. >> you can say that all day long,. >> dickerson: it is the truth, mr. chairman. >> is that president obama, president obama put out sanctions on the thursday or the wednesday, whatever it was -- >> dickerson: let me ask you -- >> we attempted to get -- we attempted to get the briefing on that particular issue on that tuesday and we found out that the report wasn't even completed until wednesday. a so the intelligence briefing in quotes was in response to that situation. >> dickerson: let me move on to obamacare which is coming up, donald trump would like to see repeal and replace happen at the same time; is that right?

you know, look, i am not going to get into exactly where this is going to go but i will tell you that it would be ideal if we could do it all in one big action, but it may take too many time too get paul of the elements of the replace in place, reconciliation for part of it which is a 50 vote majority, there are other parts of the replacement such as allowing people and companies to cross state lines, allowing for open pricing, allowing for healthcare pooling that may take 60 votes. so the full replacement may take more time than an instantaneous action, but our intent is to make it happen as quickly as possible, repeal and replace as fast as we can. >> dickerson: senator rand paul said something like donald trump would not support what you just said which is more like a repeal and delay. so it sounds like there is some wiggle room there now from the president-elect in terms of the

pacing. >> no. i don't think so at all. i mean if he can get 60 votes within a few weeks and get all of those elements of rand paul's bill into place that would be great but i think we all understand that things sometimes do take some time and the full repeal and replace may take a little bit more time, but it is going to happen as quickly as possible. >> dickerson: quick question on replace, donald trump campaign on the idea of not touching medicare, that will be his position still? >> yeah, i mean, i don't think president-elect trump wants to meddle with medicare or social security, he made a promise in the campaign that was something he didn't want to do but what he wants to do is grow the economy, help shore up medicare and social security for future generations and if we can get create, five, six percent growth we will do that and explode the economy and bring jobs back and make trade more fair across the world, lower rates for everyone and i think hopefully get

businesses going again so people can put more money in their pocket. >> dickerson: all right, the chairman reince priebus, incoming chief of staff, thank you very much and we will be back with senate democrat cory booker, stay with us. >> with the help of at&t, red bull racing can share critical information about every inch of the car from virtually anywhere. brakes are getting warm. confirmed, daniel you need to cool your brakes. understood, brake bias back 2 clicks.

giving them the agility to have speed & precision. because no one knows & like at&t. >> dickerson: and we are back with the key to the democrat cory booker, welcome senator, i want to start with this question of confirmation, it does not sound like the senate majority leader is going to slow in the pace of the confirmation. >> it is frustrating to me, because i have known him for three years but people forget when you face something, it doesn't disappear, just in 2009, mitch mcconnell was the person that was saying, may we need to get all of the ethics information before we do the hearings. i was just reviewing his letter this morning and the problem is, as i think you pointed out is these people that donald trump has put up as appointments to his cabinet are not like president obama's people. these are people, who are billionaires and have vast holdings, vast wealth and the american people have a right to know if they are

going to be entering into those offices with conflicts of interest. and so i don't want to see a secretary of state who is not just doing america's business buzz also has holdings or out comes in chinese companies or in russian companies. so this is, to me, astounding we would actually have hearings and not know the fullness of people's potential conflicts of interest and be able to ask them about them. >> dickerson: what about senator mcconnell's point you want to get the national security team up and running and get them in there because it is a dangerous world and the new president has to have his team in place? >> again, this business, it is not a lot to ask that people give transparency, it is frustrating enough to me we have a president of the united states who is the chief executive officer and the commander in chief who could potentially have conflicts with russia and others that won't release their tax returns for us to see them but it is another thing when we have a tradition in this country, we nearly have a law of he anybodies in government act that puts specific requirements on transparency that are not being

supported by mitch mcconnell right now. this is not a republican or democrat thing, this is about national security and knowing the conflicts of pep that are going to have to deal with other people and negotiate with them .. >> dickerson: what are democrats going to do about this? >> again we are trying to create a substantive process that creates complete transparency, we have an independent ethics office saying this violates 40 years of tradition. so we are going to continue to push and what we have already seen, the republican party over reached, the house gop trying to gut the independent ethics oversight and enough people spoke out they finally backed up. this has got to be one of those case wes don't put a billionaire in a place who has financial interest in other countries who could really undermine what is best for this country. >> dickerson: you are on the senate foreign relations committee, rex tillerson, former exxon head is going to be appearing before the committee next week, what do you want to hear from him? >> he has a lot to talk about.

reviewed a lot of areas, he was with exxon mobil. climate change is real and the science of climate change is real, it was nice to hear him address that and i think he addressed that in a public forum, his relationship with putin is very important, especially given the kind of things that donald trump has been saying. there are other issues on hotspots in our country, around global issues, human rights issues and more. so we should have a thorough vetting of the secretary of state candidate and looking forward to doing that a. >> dickerson: what do you make of donald trump's argument that rex tillerson has a relationship with vladimir putin and that is great, you need to have a relationship with your add very scars? >> that's a version of what barack obama said when he was criticized i will sit down with any adversary because that is the thing to do, not shut them off? >> well, first of all, again, it goes to number one, the transparency of his business relationships in russia and we want to make sure we get to the bottom of that. but, again, this is is an adversary we want to know that he is going to be able to

represent the united states of america in, and our interests and not be compromised with his relationship especially right now we have serious hotspots in places like syria and places like the ukraine. >> dickerson: is there anything in his character that makes you think that he would be -- >> no, again, i agree with some of the things that mitch mcconnell said, the president should have his theme but the american public must make sure there are no serious conflicts of interest that will undermine this. >> dickerson: let me ask you about the affordable care act, the republicans will repeal it it looks like in some form, democrats i talked to seemed pretty happy about the fix that the republicans are in a fix they will get a penalty for repealing without replacing. do you think the democrats will help them with the replacement. a lot of democrats have criticisms of the affordable care act. >> this is a mutual frustration and in a position in the way of politics, the effort to repeal obamacare right now without a

plan to replace it, this is not about politics but about real people in america who will be hurt immediately. you have the american medical association who is against obamacare saying don't repeal this without having a replacement plan. you have doctors associations, nurse associations, hospital associations all screaming, even some fellow republicans, what are you trying to do? you are going to repeal this law which will plunge many americans into health crisis. this is an intent of shoving someone offer the cliff and say don't worry we will figure it out before you get to the bottom stocht my plan is very simple and i think my fellow democrats agree with me and hopefully some republicans who have been speaking out against not doing it this way, we are going to do everything we can to stop them, if they have a plan, put up your plan, show the american people, donald trump says we are going to have healthcare and it is going to be terrific. well, show me what that is. >> dickerson: john boehner was can criticized once for saying the, measure numbers by what they keep barack obama from doing. is that the new way of measuring democrats, what they stop donald

trump from doing? >> i go to any home state of new jersey, people don't care about politics and want to make their liefts better, what mitch mcconnell has done when i was mayor of the city when he came into a position when america was in a financial free fall and crisis all over the country, he announced to america the number one priority he had is keeping president obama from getting a second term. that is irresponsible, and that is dangerous, my number one responsibility is finding ways to make a difference in the lives of ordinary americans and what the republicans are doing, the first days of congress by repealing planned parenthood by putting the healthcare system in crisis, that is reckless and dangerous and i am going to fight that. >> dickerson: we have run out overtime, thank you, senator and we will be back in a moment. increasing the risk for me, the shingles virus. i've been lurking inside you since you had chickenpox. i could surface anytime as a painful, blistering rash. one in three people get me in their lifetime, linda. will it be you?

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>> dickerson: some our stations are leaving us now, but for most of you we will be right back with a lot more "face the nation". >>

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>> dickerson: welcome back to "face the nation". i am john dickerson, we are joined by two men who each ran the central intelligence agency, michael morell served as the acting cia director in the obama administration and advised hillary clinton's campaign, ambassador james woolsey was cia director in the clinton administration and served as an advisor to president-elect trump's campaign until last week. ambassador woolseyly start with you, you advised the trump campaign for months, he is skeptical about this idea that russia mid meddled in the election, prince reince priebus says president trump, donald trump beliefs in what everybody else believes, russia meddled with the election. >> i worked a bit on the campaign, but i was not an advisor on the transition, because the they were not comino me for any advice so i came off the list. i didn't want to fly under false

colors. i think that the evolution of his views is really quite clear. i think he started out with one set of views and they have evolved as he has learned more. i think a lot of people were enlightened by the 25 page memo that the intelligence committee put out, and made it a lot clearer how involved the russians have been. i have been saying for some weeks that disinformation, otherwise known as lying is more or less a permanent fixture of the russian propaganda system, and that is something that they have now transitioned over into using it -- or adopting that technique with cyber, not just with publications and so forth

as that's have for the last 50, 60, 70 years. >> dickerson: how should people understand the level of certainty here? i mean, with this report as they think about how to interpret this and donald trump has been skeptical, so how tight are the findings here? >> when you read the report, it seems thin in evidence. it is mostly the assessment. here is what we think. the evidence isn't there because it is classified. so the declassified report has taken out the evidence. what caught my attention was the intelligence community saying they have high confidence in these judgments. and we don't attach that label to just any judgment. to have high confidence you have to have multiple sources. you have to have direct evidence, more than circumstantial case. so i think the case that the russians meddled in the election broadly, not just hacking the

dnc, but broadly in all the ways jim talked about is solid. >> dickerson: ambassador woolsey let me ask you this question, you mention donald trump's evolution on this issue. when he has been -- when it was first announced that there were these findings he didn't just -- he wasn't just skeptical about the information but made a broader claim about the intelligence agencies, remember this is the crowd that got weapons of mass destruction wrong in iraq, donald trump has said that in his view as the worst blund never american history so he has tied the findings to what he thinks is the worst blund never american history. we have heard reporting that that has not been well received is that right? what is the fallout from that larger claim he seems to be making about the worthiness of the work the intelligence agencies are doing? >> well, it is a complex set of issues. i think probably the .. press and much of the public does think that the weapons of mass destruction characterization was

a very -- was very wrong. the problem is that it is an old soviet hatchet prop phrase and covers biological and nuclear and there were chemical and biological weapons in iraq, quite clear, what there was not was nuclear, and people really need to get into that in order to explain thoroughly what their views are and i don't think we haven't seen that yet from donald trump. >> so, john, the president-elect has done two things, right? he has questioned the capabilities of the intelligence community publicly, but the other thing he has done which is actually more damaging, i think, is he has questioned the intelligence community's integrity by implying that their assessment was politically motivated and that is a gut punch to people who go to work every day, nonpartisan, apolitical trying to call it

like they see it. so there are two different issues here. the president-elect is wrong about the capabilities question. the cia, for example, looks at every single judgment they make a year later and they say did we get it right or did we get it wrong and the batting average is very high. it looks like a free throw percentage in basketball, and on the intelligence question he is just as wrong. this is the most apolitical institution i know, they actually, it doesn't have a political bone in its body so he has both of those points wrong and it has undermined morale in the intelligence community and the cia, and that is a big issue. >> i think you are going to find that the 140 character rule of tweets, that basically governed a lot of the behavior during the campaign is looked at differently as one moves into governance.

one can conduct and donald trump showed successfully a campaign for president on largely 140 character statements. but you can't really govern that way. and he is in the middle of several transitions. i think that he is tending in a positive direction. we will see. >> there have been a lot of tweets this week. there is no signs of slowing. >> he is not governing yet. >> dickerson: what is the practical effect of the morale and the challenge -- help people explain how this can create chajts for the new president. >> so the first is, i think, that the men and women of the cia don't believe a president is listening to what they have to say, the facts they put on the fact based information they put on the table. their interest in working there is going to go way down. and if this continues, i think the president-elect took an

important first step in the comments he made after the friday briefing in a positive direction, but if his disparagement the continues, people will walk, and that will do serious damage to the cia and the intelligence community. the other practical effect it maz is we tell people who are spying for us, who are actually putting their life on the line to spy for us that their information is going to the highest levels of our government and is being used to make the world a better place. so if we can't tell spies that, if they see that on tv, they are not going to spy for us. so i think there are significant effects here if the disparagement continues. i was going to say, one of the things that donald trump supporters say this is a part of his kind of run and gundies rupp if the chaotic approach that was so successful in the campaign and that's just the way he is. >> i don't think that is the way he is generally, i have been in a couple of meetings with him and he is reasonable and asks good questions and he makes

smart comments .. his overall conduct in small meetings, at least in my experience is different when he is standing up in a stadium before 40 or 50,000 of my fellow oklahoma-ans when he performs in front of big audiences. i think you are going to see growth and evolution on a number of these issues over the course of the next several weeks, and i think i would advise people not to hold him to a detailed support of everything he said on twitter for -- during the campaign. >> dickerson: all right. we will have to leave it there, gentlemen, thank you so much and we will be right back with our panel. >>

befi was active.gia, i was energetic. then the chronic, widespread pain drained my energy. my doctor said moving more helps ease fibromyalgia pain. he also prescribed lyrica. fibromyalgia is thought to be the result of overactive nerves. lyrica is believed to calm these nerves. for some, lyrica can significantly relieve fibromyalgia pain and improve function, so i feel better. lyrica may cause serious allergic reactions or suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor right away if you have these, new or worsening depression, or unusual changes in mood or behavior. or swelling, trouble breathing, rash, hives, blisters, muscle pain with fever, tired feeling, or blurry vision. common side effects are dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain and swelling of hands, legs and feet. don't drink alcohol while taking lyrica.

don't drive or use machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. those who have had a drug or alcohol problem may be more likely to misuse lyrica. with less pain, i can be more active. ask your doctor about lyrica. >> dickerson: and it is time now for our politics panel with susan page, washington bureau chief of usa today, ed o'keefe who covers politics for the "washington post", we also welcome back washington times columnist and fox news contributor tammy bruce and ezra klein, who is the founder and editor in chief of vox.com. tammy i want to start with you on this question of russia. donald trump according to what

mr. reince priebus said today had habit of evolution from his previous empty skepticism and he now believes what everyone else does, the russian it is hacked into the election. >> you have to, they hacked into the dnc, didn't hack into the election, and wha what we also w of course, and this is what is interesting is you have got james clapper who is advising of course, donald trump who just in 2013 when we talk about how seriously we can take this and why the american people want to know more about what happened and why president-elect wants to know more. james clapper lied about the spying on every single american to congress, was asked specifically about whether or not there was a program where americans were being spied on and he said no, still years later they are saying, well he said it was the least untruthful thing he could tell congress. so the american people for the last several years have looked at a system that hasn't take them seriously and has lied to them, first couped with of

course the iraq situation but ultimately right now americans want america to be first, of course we want a cabinet that is going to take russia seriously and he put together one that will, and also it seems like there is an interest in either having a new cold war or that there is an effort to gin up the problems even when hillary clinton one of the first things hillary and obama did is embrace the russians and wanted a reset, so this is not unusual, i think there is a difference between the narrative that the election was hacked versus, and i will remind you the first thing that was released when the podesta e-mails were hacked was a info dump on trump, it was the democrats opposition research on donald trump, so the entire notion that this was about to help donald trump, i think, is belied by that especially. >> i think susan, there are two things, there is the question of the russians in the election but also donald trump's reaction to, this which has now changed, it appears, although we are still

-- that is still evolving, what do you make of that? is this an effort to get this behind them? what is your take? >> well, i think what reince priebus and donald trump has pretty grudgingly gotten to the point where all of the intelligence agencies, republicans in congress and deposition, russia made this unprecedented attempt to affect our election, this report that came out this week, unclassified report is incredible and extraordinary and deserves to be read but this doesn't settle it because the issue is now what do you do about it? and you know that people like senator mccain and maybe even senator mcconnell want there to be repercussions for russia for this action against an american democracy, and the question is what will happen? what will the trump administration be willing to do? what steps will it be willing to take to punish russia for what it did? >> dickerson: and, ed, the president-elect tweeted that will not be friends with russia so it doesn't look like, while there is act acknowledgment, acknowledgment they hacked there doesn't seem to be the language we are hearing as susan said from the majority leader who

strongly condemned it and john mccain -- >> yes, he is going to have himself a pretty interesting time with his republican colleagues on capitol hill that want to keep this going, there is another hearing on tuesday that looks to russia and cyber security and other things and the issue isn't going away, but i thought it was important, as you pointed out that president obama came into office and said i want to talk to the pakistanis and talk to the iranians and talk to the cubans and those things were done. look, if there is a way to find a way to work with putin, great, but certainly republicans up on capitol hill are going to continue to express a lot of concern. >> dickerson: the majority leader said, disabused of any warm hearings he has of working with russians. >> that is fascinating, what was going to happen is donald trump is confused about russia coming in. i do want to note something, reince priebus came on and said what happened, the real story is how easy it was to hack the democratic national committee, and there is something to that, by the way, current currently the judgment of the cia is that

the republican the and cia and dnc was hacked, they released the data from the dnc and not the republican committee and that means there is a lot of the information sitting in russian servers and putting aside the question of the election for a second we do have to think as a country in a world where cyber war and cyber espionage are going to be much more common how we are going the manage these kind of things going forward, particularly given from what we know russia is probably sitting on other embarrassing information that could be used for other purposes. >> if i could add something that was happening simultaneously to this, in 2015, we spent over 350,000 taxpayer dollars funding an organization in israel called one voice, which we learned once we gave them those grants they immediately began to build up an infrastructure to oppose netanyahu in israel, this is not a unknown, that's why we reported in the summer of last year it was an obama aligned group of people that worked with his campaign that were consultants to that effort to dislodge netanyahu, an active

campaign in israel. this was happening in 15, reported in the summer of 16, so it involved the same things we are accusing the russians of, trolling on the internet, but on the ground boots, developing a database, actively working against netanyahu, the "washington post" noted this was gross interference, enter fernandez with the only democracy in the middle east. i would assert that obama was limited in what he could say about russia, russia because he was doing exactly the same thing to israel and also when it comes to the issue about not wanting to touch the russians, we were in the middle of the syrian negotiations while this was occurring as welshes and the desire not to interrupt that, just like his red line disappeared for syria, because he didn't want to upset the nuke deal in ier iran. >> dickerson: but for an incoming president, now barack obama is in the rear-view mirror and have an incoming president now. >> let's hope barack obama is in the rear-view mirror. >> dickerson:. >> our new president -- donald trump does seem to have much

more, you know, open relationship and thinking about russia than we have seen before and certainly his republican critics -- >> he hasn't sat down and said i am going to be more flexible when i get in, and nothing has been transmitted to vladimir. so i am sorry. >> as obama -- >> exactly. forgive me. i mean, there have been clearly there is an interest in having a relationship as that is noted with a variety of nations. thinking it will be beneficial and russia, of course, the theye certainly taken over the middle east at this point w have an interest in dealing with them in that regard, at least getting our interests back in that region. >> >> dickerson: let's switch to obamacare and where do things sit now in terms of the repeal? >> the process begins wednesday, mark your calendar, votes all day on the senate floor on a piece of legislation that essentially gives instructions to get the ball rolling, and you are going to see votes on a host of what we call poison pill amendments basically, that won't

pass but allow either party to say things about each other. >> look, repeal is underway, the replacement remains to be seen there is no concrete plan, no one plan from the republican party yet to do something. there have been plans that have been constructive in the bowels of the building over in the dirk son building but have not seen the light of day and certainly won't find unanimous agreement among republicans on how exactly this should be tackled. it is going to be an incredible lift for the republican party alone to figure this out, let alone to get any democrats to go along with them and i think you will start to see democrats do a far better job of defending this law now that it might be taken away. defending it when their guy is in office and when they put it in place is one thing but when a government starts to try too take something away from people it is much easier to sell, i don't have you seen democrats do when it comes to social security, medicare, medicaid, this he will add obamacare to the list going into the midyear. >> dickerson: we set the thraibl and come back and talk about obamacare in a moment, but we need to take a short break. stick around and we will be

right back with more from our panel. >>

>> dickerson: we are back now with our panel ezra klein mentioned the democrats will be robust in their pushing back against this republican effort. what is their line of argument?

>> president obama this week, actually we had a long discussion about obamacare and his challenge to the republicans is simply, show me the plan, that gets more people covered at a lower cost than mine and i was thinking about that when i was with, saw senator mcconnell on the show this morning, the thing republicans are going to run into is what they dislike about obamacare and what are unpopular about obamacare is different, michelle bachmann said it doesn't cover everybody which is true, the deductibles in obama care are very high which is also true, i actually read the republican replacement plans floating around every single one of them to my knowledge has low levels of coverage than obamacare has and significantly higher deductibles so the thing mcconnell and others will run into and the things democrats are going to be making their central line of attack is, yes, everybody would love to see obamacare placed with something more terrific but if the replacement actually leads to 5 million or 7 million or more people losing insurance and deductibles at the 9,000,

$10,00thousand dollars range are people going to like that better? i think not. >> dickerson: susan i was interested the majority leader said there will be a gap between repeal and replace, it seemed to be some of his republicans, obviously senator paul says they have to happen on the same day, how does that gap get managed? >> there is going to be a gap, right? because they have been repealing it -- they tried to appeal it more than 60 times and finally going to go through that will happen but they don't have a consensus on a yes, sir placement, in fact, i think the trump team has set up a very difficult situation for themselves, which is to say they don't think anybody who has insurance now should lose it and said they want to keep the preexisting conditions provisions which is very difficult thing to guarantee, here the republicans are talking not about universal coverage, which is what obamacare talked about, they talked about universal access which is something different and presents a whole new set of challenges when it comes to healthcare policy. so there is going to be a gap. how long, rapidly, very quickly, we really don't know how long

that gap is going to be, but i would, i don't think it is going to be years -- >> i don' i don't know if they r get a replacement through, the hard part is not coming up with a plan. the hard part is actually getting the house and the senate to agree on a plan. it is getting into legislative language that can actually work this is very difficult stuff and i will say repeal and delay, the obamacare marketplaces will collapse in the interim, it doesn't just hold steady, the insurers will leave because they don't know what is going to happen next. they won't just manage the status quo but a collapse in the status quo. >> dickerson: why not have a little bit of a delay to get the ducks in a row and all of that? >> look, it is already collapsing, no, it really isn't. >> when it comes to the exchanges, but beyond that, you have got -- you don't need to have a delay at all, and we are looking at this, this is the other problem is, when government is involved. suddenly, this is only a conversation about the government replacing its own government plan, as opposed to maybe like as i am a seeing some people are suggesting an uber

type model putting the marketplace back in charge. but ultimately there is a lot of things, that are discussed, executive orders, there are things you can do to make a difference here and that includes from usa today, heather higgins op ed discussing having congress have skin in the game, removing their wave, but more importantly, making it possible through a one line of language in the bill that allows insurance companies to provide policies that don't adhere too the obamacare standards, so-so you can get a catastrophic policy and also tort reform. but i mean you have got to have a dynamic worthy, where insurance companies can once again go about their business without being constrained by the i are did louisness of having men pay for birth control they don't want, and as a result also risk pools in the state, grant block funds to states for risk pools for people who have preexisting conditions. >> dickerson: and time to man it -- >> these are not complaints -- you can do these in sections

that happen very quickly at the time. but just when it comes to not just legislation but also executive orders that trump can do within a week. >> dickerson: what do you think, susan, searching the confirmation question will happen, democrats want to delay them, it doesn't look like the majority leader is going to delay them. >> he is not going to delay the hearings to wait for the financial paperwork, but i thought he made news in the interview when he said the senate will not vote on nominating nominees on the floor unless the ethics paperwork is rushed. this has been the practice but it is not part of a law. there is nothing that requires it. this is something i think they had not committed to previously. so that means that this is just not a good deal. democrats say because it means when they are having those confirmation hearings they may not know everything they would want to ask a nominee about if they don't have all of the paperwork done. it does mean at least they won't be confirmed for their cabinet office until that work is done. >> dickerson: 15 seconds, ed.

-- i don't have time -- we will wait next week for that question. thanks to all of you. and we will be back in a moment. >> is signature move, the flying dutchman. poetry in motion. and there it is, the "baby bird". breathtaking. a sumo wrestler figure skating? surprising. what's not surprising? how much money heather saved by switching to geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more.

>> dickerson: that is it for us today. thanks for watching. until next week from "face the nation", i am john dickerson. captioning sponsored by cbs captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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