captioning sponsored by cbs >> dickerson: today on "face the nation". the president claims yet again that president obama wiretapped trump tower. >> deal making skills between the obamacare replacement plan. >> we have been talking to everybody, it is a big fat negotiation. >> dickerson: undeterred by estimates tens of millions could lose coverage under his healthcare reform plan. this week the president -- >> they are all yeses. >> dickerson: from mrs. -- >> let me give you the bad news. >> a judge has just blocked our executive order for travel. >> dickerson: and some awkward diplomatic moments. >> as far as wiretapping, i guess this past administration, at least we have something in

common, perhaps. >> dickerson: visiting german chancellor angela her kel was wiretapped during obama's watch but this week top republican congressmen said there is no evidence that mr. trump was. >> texas senator ted cruz will be here to talk about that, and his efforts to fix the trump healthcare bill. then we will hear from the top democrat in the house, nancy pelosi. we will get the administration's view from white house director mick mulvaney and check in with the cbs news nation track tore get a sense of how the rest of the country views what is going on in washington. and as always we will have plenty of political analysis. it is all ahead on "face the nation". >> dickerson: good morning and welcome to "face the nation". i am john dickerson. we begin this morning with texas senator ted cruz, who has been working with the white house as a part of that big fat negotiation the president talked about. welcome, senator. i want to get to the negotiations in a minute but i want to start with the president's reassertion on friday that president obama

wiretapped trump tower. intelligence officials, republicans, senate and the house said this shouldn't happen. should the president drop this? >> well these are serious allegations and i think they need to look into seriously. you have open investigations in the house senate intelligence committee and next week fbi director comey is testifying we need to know what the facts are. we do know or at least it the reportedly reported there is fisa request for surveillance, one turned down by the guy is a court and one which was granted. i think it is important to know a little more detail as to what was contained this the fisa applications and i think the investigations will bring that out. >> the reason i ask is because there are a lot of questions about whether the president is carrying on something here with kind of his own idea of things. you in the campaign went back and forth with the president about the question of veracity. he told stories about your father and jfk assassination. there seemed to be as much

evidence for that as for this wiretapping claim k people trusa trusted part of your home remodeling team this president? >> well, i don't know what basis the president has for these allegations. they are serious allegation it is. he is now the president of the united states. the department of justice, the fbi, the cia, they all report to him. and we should examine what the evidence is. i think it would be quite good for the administration to put forward what evidence there is. you know,ly point out, this is not necessarily as outlandish as everyone in the press suggests we do know the obama administration targeted their political enemies, we do know the irs, for example, targeted citizens groups who spoke out in defense of -- spoke out against obama, and so the notion is not necessarily outlandish but it is serious, so it needs to be based on facts, but we should see what the facts are behind this. >> dickerson: but that equivalencies in this case he says the united states, president of the united states wiretapped him, that is a different order. >> we should see the application behind it. the fisa applications are significant,

they could be, they have been publicly reported in the media, it is not often the guy is a court turns down an application, they usually turns down the application, that suggests the application was overly broad, it is looked, it is worth looking at was there fishing expedition the obama administration was trying to do oar not. >> let's move to healthcare you are in the thick of trying to make it better what are you trying to fix with the healthcare plan? >> the number one issue is premiums, premiums, premiums, premiums. when i am back home in texas, what i hear from texans every single day is i can't afford health insurance, that obamacare, the average family's premiums have risen over $5,000 under obamacare, that's central problem. now, the current house bill as drafted, i do not believe it will pass the senate. it doesn't fix the problem. my biggest concern with the house bill is it doesn't lower premiums and cbo in fact projected in the first two years premiums would rise ten to

20 percent. although they did say then it would go down. >> dickerson: it did but i will say if republicans hold a big press conference and pat themselves on the pack we repealed obamacare and everyone's premiums keep going up they will tar and feather us in the video street and rightfully. >> dickerson: about the coverage question, 24 million the cbo said. >> the coverage question is interrelated to premiums, if premiums keep going up one of the big problems with obamacare, people can't afford health insurance. you know, a couple of weeks ago i did a debate with bernie sanders, two hour town hall on obamacare, the next day i was having dinner here in washington and two waitresses i know well, they both came up to me and said, one said you know what? my premiums have tripled in the last three years, they went from 400 a month to 1,200 a month, she said for the first time in my life, i don't have health insurance, she also said for the first time in my life this restaurant put me at under 30 hours a week and put me 29-point '99 and i don't have insurance, the second insurance i know well said she was four months

pregnant, and she had just gotten a notification from her insurance that the doctor that she likes and trusts can't deliver her baby because he is not covered. we have got to fix it. we can do that in the house bill, but the only way to drive down premiums is we need to repeal the insurance mandates, there are 12 insurance mandates that are in obamacare, the house bill only touches two of them. we need to repeal those mandates to drive down costs and we need to allow purchases across state lines, we need to allow association health plans and we need to allow people to pay premiums from health savings accounts, all of those will make it much more affordable for people to get health insurance. >> dickerson: the president and the house speaker say that will happen, it is a two step process, first the american healthcare act goes through and the second set of legislation comes on and you are chuckling, that ain't going to happen, so-called three bucket solution which is all the good stuff is in bucket 3? bucket. >> bucket three takes eight democrats, right now, senate democrats are opposing everything, you can't get eight senate democrats to agree on saying good morning.

anything in bucket three, i call bucket 3 the suckers bucket, and what i have been urging the president and the administration and leader in both houses take everything in bucket 3, put it in bucket one, we have got to actually fix this problem. >> dickerson: their a argument is you can't do it all in this what you are calling bucket one in in the american healthcare act that you support because the rules of the senate won't allow it so that is what you are up against. >> that is fundamentally false, the rules of the senate, it is governed by the budget act of 1974, it lays out a test for what is permissible on reconciliation, six part test, the central part of the test is that it is budgetary in nature, if it is budgetary in nature you can do it if you can't, you look at the insurance mandates, they impact billions of dollars of federal spending, and i will point out the obama justice department went before the u.s. property twice and argued the mandates are integrally related and intertwined with the

subsidies, you can't sever them, under the statute, we can do this now in bucket one, and if we don't, this bill doesn't pass, and if it doesn't pass, it is a substantive and political disaster for everyone. >> dickerson: it doesn't have the reforms about the man, reforms you can't vote for it. >> i can't vote for any bill that keeps premiums rising. texans have -- look, there has been no issue i have devoted more time and energy to than obama care, stopping this disaster. we had a chance for an incredible substantive win for american people, and i have got to tell you, i am spending night and day meeting with house members, meeting with senators, meetings with the administration. just yesterday i spent three hours at mar-a-lago with mike lee and meadows associating with the president's team trying to fix this bill. >> dickerson: does the president get this? >> we have had multiple conversations, the vice president and i have had multiple conversations as he said on what you played a minute ago, president trump said this

is one big fat negotiation. here is the central prize. if we lower premiums and hopefully lower them a lot, that is a victory for the american people, if premiums keep going up that is a victory for insurance companies and lobbyists but a loss for the people who elected us. >> dickerson: we have very little time and wayn't to get to the supreme court. does the president get your central point this has to be all moved into one thing, one approach? >> i think the president right now is listening to the arguments on all sides. he wants to get to yes but i want to get to yes, but we have got to actually solve the problem. that is my focus right now. >> 30 seconds 0 tub supreme court nominee, judge gorsuch is it going to be filibustered and what will republicans do? >> i think it is 50-50 whether the democrats filibuster, they don't have think good arguments against gorsuch but furious we are going to have a conservative nominated and confirmed. i will tell you this judge gorsuch will be confirmed and either get 60 votes and be confirmed or otherwise whatever procedural steps are necessary, i believe within a month or two neil

gorsuch will be an associate justice of the supreme court. >> dickerson: so republicans will go that far, if democrats do filibuster? >> mitch mcconnell has said we will do whatever is mess, a democratic filibuster will not succeed, i agree with the leader. >> dickerson: all right, senator cruz, thank you so much. tomorrow, fbi director james comey is scheduled to appear before the house intelligence committee, friday we sat down with democratic leader nancy pelosi and asked her why she she thinks fbi director comey, what he should say in public that is no evidence for president trump's wiretap allegations. >> i think it is really important, because that is a terrible accusation to make. and what are they doing? they are downing down on it this, quoting sources saying that the president worked with the british intelligence to also spy on the president. of course it is not true. so let's just grow up. grow up, the justice department, the fbi, has to really clear this. because otherwise this administration has decided that they with impunity can say

anything, can say anything, and it is really damaging. >> dickerson: so you think director comey should come to the hearing and just put this on the table and clear this up right away? >> i think he should. and certainly if he doesn't i think he should be asked to do so, and why wouldn't he? >> dickerson: you have faith in director comey to carry out the investigation into russian efforts to med until the election and any connections with the trump campaign? >> i think it is possible he can do that. i think what he did -- during the election, i don't know who they would appoint, the question is that. but i always had admiration for director comey before, when he was assistant attorney general. he acted very courageously in the bush administration when it came to surveillance and the rest of that. there is a mixed record there, and i am hopeful that he could go forward in a very positive way and i think it is important for director of the fbi not to be subjected to the president,

he is going to investigate him so terminate his service. >> dickerson: let's switch to healthcare. when you were trying to get the affordable care act through, you said, it needed to pass in order for people to experience what is in it and you knew what was in the bill but people in order to experience what it was offering, they needed to have some interaction with it. isn't that a essential what paul ryan is saying? >> thank you for asking that question. because you can put in, put it in context, the senate had not acted they were asking about the impact of the bill so we have to pass it, we have to get through the legislative process, but all of us learned of the limitations of the bill, there are some things we could do to improve to the limitation of the affordable care act right now, and i wish the republicans would work with us to do that, we can work with them to do that, but what we have put forth is a terrible bill, 24 million people kicked off of health insurance, which the speaker calls an act of mercy. an act of mercy. and at the same time they put

out a budget which the director mulvaney says is compassionate, to take money from -- and give it to the department. we all want to support, we have taken an oath to defend and protect our country but the strength is measured in more ways than just taking money from the health, education and well-being of the american people, which is a source of our strength. so compassionate acts of mercy? i don't know what that is. >> dickerson: let's look at this healthcare bill that has been put forward. is it ryan care, is it trump care? is it republican care? how do you think about it? >> i think it is trump care. the president really -- doesn't know or doesn't care about what is in the affordable healthcare. the affordable healthcare's purpose was to lower costs, expand access, and improve benefits. it has succeeded in all three. it should be respected for what it does, we should judge it for what it doesn't do and try to

improve it. some places need improvement, the republicans obstructed that implementation of it. so when he talks about his bill, imagine a bill that takes 24 million people all with health insurance and gives it the biggest transfer of wealth in our country's history. $600 billion taken from working class families in our country, middle class and those who aspire to it, to the top one percent. $600 billion. robin hood in reverse. some people call it ryan hood, but this is trump. republicans will find any excuse to pull money up to the high end at the expense of the working class. and what is so strange about it all is, many of the people, many of the millions of people who are benefiting from the affordable care act voted for donald trump. they live in red areas. that money will be taken from those areas and many of the people who will be advantaged by the money going to the high end

will be in blue areas. how is that? it is so wrong. >> dickerson: as you have said, there are issues with the affordable care act. >> >> yes. >> dickerson: there are high premiums, high deductibles, in some places only one insurers, insurance companies are leaving. had the democrats offered something that could meet them halfway, meet republicans half way or to the deal with some of the -- >> it is not a question of halfway, it is a little bit pregnant, you either have healthcare or you don't. i you have an agenda that is public-private partnership or you don't. but the individual market is challenging, and we can do more to help the market. the copays and the out of pockets will go up under trump care, you can't maintain any of the benefits of no existing, preexisting, no discrimination on preexisting condition, no lifetime limit, that benefit that people have -- you can't do that unless you have the big

fold that the obamacare has and you have a mandate. you can't have all of the good things and none of the responsibility and that's what the president is saying. but i think listening, when i listened to him very carefully, i respect the office he holds, i respect the people who voted for him, he doesn't know what he is talking about. and when he says death spiral and this and that, he really doesn't know what he is talking about. it is most unfortunate, and for this product is trump care. >> dickerson: the president says, if we submitted the democrats' plan and drew everything perfect for the democrats we wouldn't get one vote for the democrats. what he is saying, essentially, is -- >> when he speaks, understand he is projecting. >> dickerson: would you work with president trump -- >> first of all, we are not working with in anybody that is going to repeal the obamacare act. >> dickerson: basically -- >> no, it isn't, he is saying, he is saying you have to have a bill, and we have something that actually was developed at the

heritage foundation, a republican institution, a conservative institution, romney care. >> dickerson: the individual mandate. >> the individual mandate. romney care in massachusetts, a republican governor. so would it have been the bill i would have written, i would have had a public option, i would have done a different bill, but this was a private sector market economy piece of legislation that worked. it is implemented. so it is rolling something back, you have to be responsible to do that. >> dickerson: senator pelosi, thanks so much. and we wil will be back in justa moment with the cbs news nation tracker. stay with us. >> information about every tical 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.

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anthony when we talked a month ago you had four groups. let's check in with the four groups. let's start with the beliefers. >> the beliefers are the groups we identified, about a fifth of the country, they are the base of the base for the president. they support him, they support him strongly and they are really defined by and as people process all of the news that came out in the last few weeks, they are defined by singular trust with him, you can see where they trust to get accurate information, they say it comes from him above all others. for example this is the group that says he was wiretapped. other groups are more skeptical this is a group that doesn't think they are, the legislation is nonpartisan and also see them trust him when it comes to congress and legislation or speaker of the house paul ryan and even over at the republican party as a whole. and this for me echoes a little bit of what we saw even last year in the primaries where donald trump was running against the establishment, the republican so-called establishment, and these

supporters still got that. they still see him as the singular figure that can make washington work. >> dickerson: quickly, what are their thoughts on healthcare? >> well interestingly they are not yet sold on the healthcare bill and more adopting a wait and see attitude, which is sort of like a lot of his supporters, not yet sure it helps them. >> dickerson: let's go now on to the conditional voters they like donald trump but they are not as firm as the beliefers. they perhaps listen to other voices or might run away from it. >> right. this is the kind of folks who really liked his address to congress, a month ago. they taught it was presidential but now what they have seen in the last few weeks is starting to make them a little more nervous. so they are still optimistic but yet not confident. they stay the president might be distracted, not focused, they prefer for him to focus on the economy, they don't like the tweeting so much, and so that is got them a little bit wavering but they are still supporting, they still like the economic news that has come out. they still give him credit for a lot of that, but on the healthcare bill, it is

interesting too, they also don't see what it would do for them, and again so much of this is transactional, and unless they see that connection, they are not yet ready to support him. >> dickerson: all right. let's move now on to the curious group, which is a portion of the country that is available for donald trump, they are not set against him but not in his camp. >> right. available, they want to be optimistic. they want him to deliver for them on the economy. we have seen this throughout, but they are not sold, and they are not on his side just yet. because if they don't like the other policies that have come out, they don't like the travel ban as much. they don't like what he is doing on immigration. they want him to focus on policy and jobs but here again as it pertains to the healthcare bill, when they look at it you see this pattern, it is interesting, the more they learn about it the more they say they don't think it will help them the more nervous they become so that, and this is where you could see it is really pivotal this piece of

legislation and whether or not he can draw support to him or not. >> dickerson: and the final group is the resisters. remind us how many of them there are. >> yes. that is about a third of the country. the bulk of them are democrats. a lot of them who did vote, voted to, voted for hillary clinton, a lot of them didn't vote either. so this is a group that is waiting for donald trump to reach out to them and they don't feel that he has. well, what you see there, a lot of folks have said the democrats and the people who are opposed to the president can become more motivated now. a lot of them report that, in fact, they are. they say that they are paying more attention to the news. they say they are paying more attention to social media and limping up up to people who share their views. so that is part of it. some even say they are going to the town hall meetings. at the same time, a lot of those folks are folks among the resisters group who did vote in 2016, and the folks among the resisters who did not vote in 2016 are still not paying as much attention and don't think the democrats in congress are being effective right now. >> all right.

and anthony salvanto, thanks, we look forward to another update and we will be right back with this very unusual road trip. stay with us. >> woman: on the gulf coast, new exxonmobil projects are expected to create over 45,000 jobs. and each job created by the energy industry supports two others in the community. altogether, the industry supports over 9 million jobs nationwide. these are jobs that natural gas is helping make happen, all while reducing america's emissions. energy lives here.

>> dickerson: when a priest, spring blizzard shut down air travel on the east coast, two a republican and a democrat hit the road together. you say you don't know a person until you are crammed a in a car with them. after 1,600 miles from san antonio to washington in a chevy impala, democrat be toe o'rourke and republican will hurd have become a little closer. >> on the road, they found a mutual appreciation for country music, fast food, whataburger unites us all. >> and topics that you will never find in any buddy movie. >> we need to be bringing more people on to healthcare roles, not fewer. >> building a wall from sea to to shining sea is the least,

most expense if the and least effective form of border security. >> dickerson: there were a few bumps in the road which is why road trips are like life in congress but in the end they made it to the capitol and forged a new friendship, now in, it is, is there a way their colleague accounts find a way to find a joint destination? we will be back in a moment. >> sting for that low? that's three times less than fidelity... ...and four times less than vanguard. what's next, no minimums? ...no minimums. schwab has lowered the cost of investing again. introducing the lowest cost index funds in the industry with no minimums. i bet they're calling about the schwab news. schwab. a modern approach to wealth management.

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>> dickerson: and now for the administration's take on the budget and healthcare, joining us now is white house budget director mick mulvaney. welcome, mr. director, i want to start with something the president told tucker carlson on fox about the healthcare plan. he acknowledged that the people who voted for him and sent him to washington bear the brunt of a lot of these changes in the healthcare bill panned he said, quote, we need to take care of our people -- meaning the bill, how will he take care of his bill without fundamentally changing the bill? >> the same way we have taken people for a long time in this country which is through competition, i think it is one thing that doesn't get heavily reported is that part of the problem with obamacare right now, and i discovered this first time, i live in south carolina, we are down to one provider, you can imagine what that does to price competition on costs, it doesn't do anything, but increase the costs, and one, the key points of the plan that is in the republican house right

now is it is going to encourage more competition, which will lower the cost for everybody, not just trump voters. >> dickerson: but the president's remarks here were having taken all of that into account, knowing there is competition in the bill, what he is responding to are studies that showed the tax credits go to the wealthy and that there are tax breaks i should say and the tax credit doesn't really help people who are just above medicaid and he was saying that part of this is being negotiated in this interview with tucker carlson, he says that is part of the negotiation, i so so i am wondering if this is part of the negotiation what is he asking for to make it better for the people -- >> your first comment about how the wealthy get all of the tax cuts, we promised, the president promised to repeal all of obamacare and that's what we were taxed at the beginning, so i keep wondering why folks just want to focus on who gets a little bit of a tax benefit instead of focusing on the fact we are replacing truly broken system. but to your point about what we are trying to do is to make sure the folks that various options available to them, they are going to get the tax credit, we are going to have hsas that don't exist anymore and lower

their net costs on an after-tax basis and also introduce this competition, so the president knows, belief me, we know who his voters are and we are going to take care of them, there is no question about that, but it doesn't mean we are leaving obamacare in place because that would hurt them dramatically. >> i guess the president, if i am in the middle and a working class person, you know, and i voted for president trump, what am i getting out of this? just as a political thing, what am i get something. >> you are getting something which you don't get right now which is care you can afford. and that is important. the affordable care act was. really obamacare, it wasn't really the affordable care act, it was the affordable coverage act. of an those people that just, you just described could afford to buy insurance but they couldn't afford to go too the doctor because the deductibles were so high. >> dickerson: but what are the studies that show 64-year-old, his premiums going from 1,700 to 14,000? that is not affordable. >> does, it doesn't take into consideration, first of all the other things we will be doing, keep in mind the reports you mentioned don't deal with any of the regulatory reform that tom price at hhs is trying to put in

place and doesn't take into account any of the other the what we call the phase three programs that we are trying to push through congress, such as medical malpractice reform, sales the across interstate line and it also doesn't include a couple of the amendments we agreed to in the last couple of meets, the estimates are not reflecting the true bill. >> dickerson: so in terms of this first phase, the president is basically going to have to, isn't going to take care of those, those states aren't being taken care of now but they hope through legislation they will get the relief the president is asking for. >> i disagree, i think those folks will immediately be better off, because again you are focusing on what it costs to buy a health insurance policy, coverage. but that doesn't allow you to go to the doctor. so the real question is, when you get sick, whether you be able to go get care? and i think without exception, those folks would be better off under the new plan than they are under obamacare. >> dickerson: you mentioned a new plan. the president said as a

candidate, about healthcare there was a philosophy in some circles if you can't pay for it you don't get it, meaning healthcare, that is not going to happen. with us. he said he meant universal care there. you are not going to have universal care -- >> the only way to have universal care, that, if you stop to think about it, is to force people to buy it under penalty of law. so what we are replacing, what you have now is we are forcing to, we are forcing people to bye-bye it under penalty of law and people are looking for a way not to buy it so the government mandate doesn't work, the better function is what we are trying to do now which is to encourage people and enable them to buy a policy they want and can afford. >> dickerson: but universal care a was not really a promise he could -- >> the only way to get true universal care is to throw people in jail if they don't get it and we are not going to do it. >> dickerson: talking about the bunt, one of your guiding principles was when you start looking at places where we reduce spending one of the questions we ask was, can we really continue to ask a coal

miner in or a car work never detroit and the answer is no, that a is a good starting technique, what about the president's vacation when he goes down to mar-a-lago? as president trump, obama's vacations, now people are bringing that back to the president. what does a, does a coal miner or single mom say about the trips down to florida. >> you always attack a budget for being political, keep in mind who the president wrote the budget for. people who, he wrote the budget for everybody, we hear a lot of criticism, for example, habit different line items in the budget blueprint from members of congress. that is to be expected. i used to be a member of congress. i used t to represent 700,000 peoe and my first job was to represent their best interests. we have special interests at play on the hill, we have lobbyists that play on the hill. the president wrote this budget without consideration for those things, without being beholden to anybody except the people and that's who this budget is written for. >> dickerson: if you have think about a coal miner and single mom, savings begin at

home, there are things the president can do to cut back on his own, using that test. >> the coal miner doesn't get to fly down to mar-a-lago either. >> i don't have a business card to give you because the in the office of not guilty and punishment we have to pay for our own business cards and it starts at home. >> dickerson: entitlements he says he doesn't want to touch medicare but he seems to be revising his thinking on that. >> the promise was he wouldn't affect anybody and we haven't with this budget. keep in mind what this budget is. this is just a discretionary spending part of the budget, which was a necessary first. i look at future retirement, future medicare -- >> dickerson: let me ask you a question, do you think social security disability insurance is what people think of when they think of social security? i don't think so, it is the fastest growing program, it brew tremendously under president obama and a very wasteful program and we are going to try to fix that. >> dickerson: thank you so much, mr. director for being with us and we will be back in a moment. >> thank you. >> assed relief. it's 24 hour, non-drowsy and prescription strength.

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it can seem like triggers pop up everywhere. luckily there's powerful, 24-hour, non-drowsy claritin. it provides relief of symptoms that can be triggered by over 200 different allergens. live claritin clear. >> and we are back with our political panel. kim 0 voluntaries sell is a columnist for the "wall street journal" and sits on the journal editorial board. jeffrey goldberg is the editor in chief of the atlantic. we are it is joined by ruth marcus, columnist and deputy editorial page editor at the "washington post". and ed o'keefe covers politics for the post, kim i want to start with you. where do things stand on the american healthcare act? in congress? >> uncertain, but moving ahead. i think. look, what we are witnessing here is the return to old-fashioned politics, and nobody is used to this anymore,

in that we had for six years opposition politics, republicans saying no to everything, the president largely ruling from his virtual white house this is a big fat, beautiful negotiation, and i think it is very important, you have ted cruz on, he said he wants to get to yes. this is from a guy who was part of the hell no brigade for years, so he wants to get there, the freedom caucus, you are having all of these negotiations. and at the same time, paul ryan is very ruthlessly marching this on a schedule through the house to try to impose some deadlines and i think we will get a lot more clarity this week when we possibly have a amendment that tries to fix some of the concerns of some of the conservatives. >> dickerson: do you think, the senator cruz said he was trying to make it better and working with the white house on this, and this president, who he had some serious disagreements in the primary but will he get all of the stuff he wants? the senate said it is technically impossible. he also is asking for things that others have asked for and haven't gotten yet. >> yes.

i would say we have returned to old school legislating but i don't know that we have returned to old school politics. i mean, i think the fact that he said i want to get to yes and is willing to work with the white house. the question will be, whether he gets to a point, guys like cruz where maybe they got 80 percent of what they want, will they in the past stand firm and hold things up or will they go along to achieve party's big goal? that is the question and that is something we won't sort out until this thursday when they potentially vote on bail in the house that will have changes, but we don't entirely yet know what those changes are. and then down the road, when all of these things get merged together and they decide whether or not certain things get in or not. remember, this isn't just the most diehard conservative republicans who cause sod much trouble for leadership in the last few years. the other guys represent mike pence, suburban philadelphia, suburban chicago and the areas that could be under the gun next year in the elections when suburban voters stand up and say, you know, i actually didn't

have that big of a problem or not as many problems with my healthcare system. you are not trying to dramatically redo it, you look at the numbers that suggest 10s of millions of people will lose their coverage and that's what gives them pause. we will see, but it is encouraging, yes, that there is some wheeling and dealing going on between both ends of the street. the question will be what happens when they don't get everything they want. >> dickerson: let me ask you this, question, ruth, in the senate, the political dynamic will change if something passes out of the house, it is out of the house and comes to the senate, are you really going to be the republican senator who stands in the way of repealing obamacare this isn't that going to be -- i mean ted cruz mentioned, was very clear to say, nobody hates obamacare more than i do, but in tend, isn't he -- is he really going to stand against obamacare? >> maybe. and there is a long way between getting past the house and getting past the senate, because the senate is going to change what the house does and that will change from where it is now. and then i spoke to one of the smartest legislators tacticians

i know who gave this about a 50-50 chance in a conference committee. because you have to satisfy -- the dynamics of this have really changed. there are moderate senators that you have to satisfy in your own party and moderate house members, people who are in 20 something who are in districts that hillary clinton won. they all have issues. they all have people who are demonstrably going to be potentially hurt here. that all has to be staffed and then you have the freedom caucus types who have ted cruz joining his line in the, drawing his line in the sand, while he says he wants to get to yes he also undercut a very major argument that the trump administration officials are making this weekend. but there is this third phase that will somehow magically happen, ted cruz said ain't going to happen. he is right. so -- and the stakes here, if it is 50-50, that is a huge thing, because this is not like bill clinton's attempt to launch healthcare or george w. bush's attempt to do social security

reform after he was re-elected. this is a central promise of congressional republicans for years now, of president trump during his campaign, if it doesn't get done it has serious ramifications for his governing going forward. >> dickerson: knows how to put a name on the thing to make it popular, what do you make of the pickle, what he has to face here, which is i mean the idea of a three part plan which the president talked about, but ted cruz says, you know, not going to happen. >> i actually will step back even further, going, going back to the roots, i don't even understand why they are doing this now. and if you are donald trump, you know that your infrastructure plan, your idea to rebuild america, bridges, tunnels, airports, this is a sure winner because you are daring republicans not to go with you, and the democrats are all with you. i simply don't understand why they have phased this the way they have phased it.

i understand it was a core promise, i get it, but infrastructure has core -- >> when you have the -- for six years -- >> i am just questioning. as a marketing question, it seems to me that one of the things you would want to do is put as many right male high school educated americans to work as quickly as possible, so i am not sure that -- i think when to the history of this is written, i am not sure this is going to be seen as a genius political move. >> dickerson: let me ask you this. sort of building on that. there have been the studies and the president acknowledged it it in his interview with tucker carlson that say the trump coalition working class folks are not getting the sides of the tax break that the upper end get, that the tax credit, part of the healthcare doesn't really help them as much as obamacare did. so to jeffrey's point, if i voted for the president, wouldn't bit better to have an infrastructure that has got jobs associated with it, where this,

you are getting a theory that hopefully will play out and work in practice? >> look, obamacare obviously affects many different people in many different ways, but there are many, many self-employed people out there, anyone on the individual exchange for whom this is a big hurt at the moment, and it is something republicans ran on. for six years. and whether or not it was the correct decision to move on at first, if they fail in this now, it potentially derails everything else that they want to do, whether it is infrastructure or tax reform and i think the other thing that gets missed here, there needs to be some fixes to this bill, it is not by any means a perfect bill, and especially in ways thathat will reduce premiums, bt when you step back, this is the largest entitlement reform that has ever been contemplated in this country, it will save one t$1.2 trillion, cutting out $900 billion of taxes that are going to be imposed so there are some economic benefits to this, and just some wide philosophical

principled points here that are also making it a worthwhile endeavor for republicans. >> dickerson: and medicare in there too -- >> what she calls entitlement reform i would call somebody something that could hurt trump core voters, if you are a lower income voters, an older voter who voted for donald trump, this plan is not for you. and you could hear president trump in some interviews this week recognizing that that was true. i would keep an eye on the amount of credit that is going to older people -- when i say older people between 50 and 64, some of us may be there. i think -- >> dickerson: actually -- >> -- very well could be increased, i, it is an effort not just to get it through the senate but the house. they need to do that and that -- and then you put in some work requirements for medicaid, that copies down a different group of people. but there are clear core trump

voters who are going to be hurt by this, as laid out -- >> that is clear. >> if you believe the cbo -- >> right. obviously if you believe the cbo -- >> look at logic. if you reduce -- if you allow insurance companies to charge other people more, if you reduce the credits to them, if you allow people in rural areas to be charged more rather than making the credits, change amounts based on where you are geographically, then it is simple logic and arithmetic that there are going to be these people who are hurt. >> well, not necessarily, the insurers are allowed to have plans that don't include all of these mandates and you give people more flexibility to -- anyway -- >> it will be very

disinteresting -- >> that number there is a lot of discussion this week about congressional budget office, they have been off in the past, but 24 million is still as a political matter a number that floats out there, a huge problem for a lot of -- again the more moderate republicans that will be in ricky erases next year and a few senate candidates and a few republicans could face reelection. nevada has said i can't do it because of that. all right. we are going to take a break here and be back with our panel, so stay with us. >>

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>> dickerson: and we are back with more from our panel, i will start with you. monday, the director of the fbi is going to testify in the house on the question of russian meddling in the election. nancy pelosi wants him to come out and up to bed this wiretapping claim. the president in the press conference on friday, on angela her kel says they shared a common bond of being wiretapped by the obama administration. what. >> let's say she doesn't feel like calming down on donald trump for anything. and dash breathing organisms breathing air. >> dickerson: in the conversation, what dot you make of where we are now with the president on this claim?

>> the thing about our conversation, is part of our conversation is about the normal political course in washington, talking about cbo scoring, and then there is this other part of washington now, which is this kind, what is a nice word, nonlogical part that is going on that,ed is not rooted in fact and observable reality, you asked the question, will comey be able to, will the fbi director be able to put this to bed? no, he won't be able to put this to bed because people believe it and apparently the president of the united states still believes this or at least won't back down from what he has said. i would note that in this sort of whirlwind week that the president managed to alienate two treaty allies anew. i mean he already alienated other treaty allies, but his discussions with angela merkel seem semi disastrously and he gratuitously, he completely

gratuitously or his administration, put out this idea that the british are, our closest ally are somehow involved in spying on him on behalf of barack obama. >> his administration in the terms of trump tower, he chose a press conference with angela merkel to reaffirm it, further inflaming it, it just shows the president is doing a lot of very diligent horse trading, getting to yes work on the budget, like -- i mean not on the budget, on healthcare, like a regular president would, in some ways better than his predecessor in terms of his dealings with members of congress. and then we have crazy town, which is saying things -- >> that is another term. >> i will, i am going to go there. saying something that has no basis in fact before you check it, and then as donald trump has shown us for months now, refusing to back down even when you are demonstrably wrong. >> we do know two things.

that our factsness, so far, at least exhausted by the house and senate intelligence committees, which are, one they couldn't find any evidence of actual wiretapping of trump tower. does that mean that trump was surveilled in some other way? we don't know that yet, and they will continue their investigation. we also now had james clap whore used to be head of intelligence for the obama administration and devin nunes who runs the intelligence committee just today say there is no evidence of collusion between the trump team and the russians with regards to the election. so i think those are important things to get out there. we are learning something. they will continue the investigation. and it is going to go into a lot of other things that don't get as much coverage, for instance who has been going the leaking throughout? >> dickerson: all right. >> well, president trump, as president trump and before he was candidate pushed certain lists, that was offensive but doesn't, it wasn't damaging. here we have an accusation that is damaging on a lot of levels. first of all, it is accusing

whether the wiretapping is in or out of quotes it is accusing his predecessor of a major violation of federal law, and then it is causing these problems with a major ally, with britain gratuitously and -- >> dickerson: i want to get a to a couple -- you spent a lot of time talking to the judiciary committee about the gorsuch nomination, which if any conservatives are worried about the wiretapping claim they are very happy about judge gorsuch. >> yes, and credibly so, i spent the bulk of last week talking, cruz, the most transparent supreme court process in recent times. he had differences with trump. jeff flakes who never endorsed trump said he is inspiring and a good pick. mike lee who is sparring with the white house on healthcare, i don't think he could have done any better and lindsey graham who spars with the president any day of the week calls gorsuch a a plus and the single best thing trump has done is pick gorsuch. the republicans are in lockstep

with the president on this and they are excited about it. they are thrilled about how well the rollout has gone so far and they are confident that gorsuch will sail through this week. what has been most interesting to watch is democrats toiling among themselves about how to react, do you block him? do you throw everything you at him or do you perhaps hold back a little bit, because inevitably another vacancy will come and get to pick that person and it could be more conservative than gorsuch. >> dickerson: we have a short time, jeffrey i don't want to the leave without the rollout to overseas rex tillerson. >> he didn't travel with the press. he said some new things about north korea, give us your sense of that in 30 seconds. >> well, i think there was some innovations he is talk about all options bonn table. he put out there could be a preemptive u.s. attack on north korea, i can't of course north korea has been a problem for decades, the crisis is generated by north korean extremism and ill logic, but i come back to this general conversation about

the way the trump administration does things. on some levels, on gorsuch, it is smooth, on healthcare they are having a reasonable debate, but the question is, on matters of life and death i am not confident yet that these guys can and a crisis, because remember nothing really has happened yet in the trump administration. there has been no terror attacks, nothing both north korean magnitude so remains to be seen. >> dickerson: we will have toned there. thanks to all of you and we will be right back in a ne moment. >> ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪

>> dickerson: that's it for us today. see you next week. >>

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