captioning sponsored by cbs >> dickerson: today on "face the nation," the republican senate health care bill is on life support. and the president blames the obama administration for not stopping russian interference in the election. when senate republican leaders finally removed the veil of secrecy from their health care bill, they were met with stinging criticism from all sides, including their own. even president trump, who once prime minister missed a beautiful plan that would cover everyone at lower cost has put away his trademark hyperbole. >> i speak from the heart. that's what i want to see. i want 2 -- to see a bill with heart. health care is a complicated subject this from this standpoint, you move it this way, this group doesn't like it, you move it over here, a very narrow path. honestly, nobody can be totally happy. >> dickerson: republican

leaders long ago gave up on total happiness and are just trying not to lose the two votes that wound sink the bill, but opposition appears to be growing. >> hey, toomey, we'll afraid you'll take grandma's medicaid. >> dickerson: we'll talk to two key republicans, pennsylvania senator pat toomey, who was part of the team who negotiated the bill, and louisiana doctor-turned senator bill cassidy, and we'll break down a blockbuster "washington post" report that unveiled top-secret efforts of the obama administration the head off russian attacks on our election process. we'll talk to a key democrat on the senate intelligence committee, west virginia's joe manchin. plus we'll take a closer look at what, if anything, can be done to stop the north korean nuclear threat as the president of south korea prepares to visit the u.s. we'll have plenty of political analysis and a final word on taping at the white house. it's all coming up on "face the nation." good morning and welcome to "face the nation." i'm john dickerson. we're juggling two big stories

today, but we begin with the investigation into russian efforts to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. this week homeland security officials told congress that the russians targeted voter databases in 21 states, and pbs news justice correspondent zoila peguero -- jeff pegues has learned nearly twice that has showed a brief. a obama administration attempt to combat russia interference, reporting that the administration knew as early as last august that vladimir putin had ordered the effort specifically to help defeat hillary clinton. the obama team included a number of package, including cyber bomb strikes, that ultimately they left behind for the trump administration. yesterday president trump launched several tweets criticizing the obama administration for inaction. he spoke about it in a fox news interview. >> well, i just heard today for the first time that obama knew

about russia a long time before the election, and he did nothing about it. if you had the information, why didn't he do something about it? he should have done something about it. >> dickerson: there's a lot to process. so we turn to cbs news senior national security contributor and former number two at the c.i.a. michael morrell, plus "washington post" columnist david ignatius, as well as his colleague adam entous, who was on the team that broke the "washington post" story. adam, let's start with you. lay out this story for us. >> well, the story opens with a dramatic scene, which is the delivery of this telegram to the white house with instructions "eyes only" to be given to the president and three top advisers only. there was intelligence from a highly reliable source of information describing directly putin's order to carry out this operation and the goal of trying to help trump and hurt hillary clinton.

once they read that, they were instructed to put it back in the envelope and tell the courier to take it back the langley. that's just an example of, you know, what was being given to the president at that point. this was a c.i.a. assessment early, this was raw intelligence. and it was not good enough for obama. he instructed the intelligence community to go out and see if they could validate what the c.i.a. was picking up. >> dickerson: michael, the validation happened. give us a sense from your expertise, i know we've talked about this before, but the president has been sceptical about whether this happened, whether it was the russian, it could have been the chinese. put this latest story into context in terms of the intelligence, how solid it was and what really administration officials know. >> one of the important things, john, about intelligence is that the information doesn't come just at one time, right? it comes in very slowly over time, and so intelligence stories build. i don't know about this particular source, and if i did

i couldn't talk about it. but this seems to have kicked off the process. and then more intelligence comes in over the months. and by the time we get into the fall, there's high confidence across the intelligence community that russia's trying to interfere in the election, it's trying to hurt secretary clinton, it's trying the -- to help donald trump, and the orders come from the highest, vladimir putin. so by early fall, that's what the obama administration knew. >> dickerson: david ignatius, put this in context. is this a huge deal, small deal, how do people process this? there's been a lot of hyperbole in the coverage over the last several months. in terms of this year's american threats and relations... >> it's a big deal. it was an assault on our election process. in the history of covert action or even the history more broadly of intelligence operation, you wouldn't put this at the very top. there were three things that struck me about the reporting by

adam and his colleagues at the "post." first, they revealed that as of august, we knew, our intelligence agencies knew this was vladimir putin orchestrating this. i heard the same thing in moscow three weeks ago from russian investigative reporters, this was personal, this was vladimir putin himself directing this attack. second thing that i... >> against hillary clinton. >> because of intense feelings about clinton, i think more than anything. second thing that he is clearly in this reporting is the obama's administrations fears if they retaliated, if they did something, i heard that in my own reporting right after the election. they were scared the russians would do something. and finally, this opens the door, a new era of covert action, which information itself becomes the domain of warfare.

and that i think should scare everybody. >> dickerson: michael, grade the obama administration response. >> so i thought three things in adam's piece, too. i saw, okay, what can we, the obama administration, do to make sure that this interference doesn't get worse? and i give them a pretty high grade on that piece in terms of the warnings that they gave directly to moscow. john brennan to his counterpart. >> dickerson: former c.i.a. director. >> former c.i.a. director to his counterpart, president obama directly, the work they did with states the lock down the voting systems. i think they get a high grade because i think they prevented this from being worse than it would have been otherwise. that's first thing. the second thing is the decision not to share fully with the american people what was happening. the obama administration did not tell the american people that putin was behind this and did

not tell the american people what putin was trying to do. hurt hillary clinton. support donald trump. that's a big, big decision. you know, the white house i think was exactly where david said they were, which is they didn't want to make this worse, but by not entering the playing field, they ceded it to vladimir putin. i give them a c on that, and i think historians will debate this for a long time. the third issue is how to deter the russians in the future from doing this again, and here i think they failed miserably. i give them an f because the package they put together, the kicking the diplomats out of the intelligence officers out, closing down a couple of compounds, putting limited sanctions on in no way... it was a slap on the wrist to vladimir putin. he sees it that way. it will not deter him in the future. >> i think the fear that anything they did was going to be tapped as partisan was amplified when brennan went

about meeting with the gang of eight, as it's known, when they met... >> dickerson: congressional leaders. >> right. when he met with the democrats, they were alarmed by the intelligence. when he met with paul ryan, the speaker, he was also alarmed by the intelligence, but when they met with senator mcconnell, he was extremely sceptical. and he raised questions about the intelligence. he thought it was being it will will -- being politicized. talking the administration officials who were part of that, that sent the white house back to the drawing board. they were afraid that if they moved unilaterally it would be seen as playing to trump's public statements as a candidate that this all was rigged in favor of hillary clinton. >> dickerson: finally, david, to you, what now? the president... president trump is saying that the obama administration choked, suggesting now he believes it in way he might not have before. now it's on his plate. give us a sense of the retaliation. >> well, we don't know what options he's considering, but i must say, for trump to in effect

blame this on the obama administration, it is true they were slow to act, but one reason was resistance from republicans, mitch mcconnell and the gang of eight when briefed did not want to take action. there was a strong voice against it when democrats wanted to do more. the second thing, crucial, i mean, it may be right as michael said that expelling the 35 russias, closing down their compounds was insufficient retaliation, but it was something, and donald trumpen the day that that happened said, "let's move on to other things." we know that michael flynn on the day that that happened talk to the russian ambassador, you know, and there's suspicion they talked about those very sanctions and how we can undo them. the next day putin said, "we're not going to retaliate, and instantly donald trump tweeted, this man is as smart as i thought he was." now he's going to blame obama

for not having taken sanctions. >> dickerson: we have to leave it there. thanks the all of you gentlemen. we turn now to democratic senator joe manchin who sits on the intelligence committee. he joins us from charleston, west virginia. senator, you read the "washington post." you heard this discussion. give the obama administration your grade on how they handled this. >> well, hindsight being 20/20, i guess we can grade any way. first of all, you have to have confidence in the intelligence community that we have, that you trust them and they're accurate and they do their job. i feel very confident that our intelligence community is the best in the world. you have to spend some time with them to understand their job and how well they're doing it. if you don't have confidence in the intelligence community. if the gang of eight is a higher level than what we are in intelligence are getting briefed on, then there's a concern. there's a concern there. i don't have that concern. when they come and tell me something, the c.i.a., f.b.i., the n.s.a., i take it as gospel

truth because they're doing their job, and they have cross checked it before they give it to us. i have never detected one ounce of split similar. i can't tell one side or the other how they're favoring, if they're democrats, republicans, or whatever. so i don't know why there's so much scepticism, not believing what the intelligence community is telling you. i do, and i have found it to be extremely beneficial to me to make decisions with. >> dickerson: and do you see the scepts similar as you look at the administration, do you see scepticism simply from the president, or do you see it from other members of the administration in terms of what we know now, not necessarily as michael morrell mentioned, the building of a case, but what now seems to be the case, what is now known in total about what the russians tried to do? >> well, what was known back in august and once it was verified and cross checked should have been made public. it should have been made public. okay. that wasn't done. i can't second guess that. but i know that when... at that time president obama and his

administration took action, and they took action basically on december 29th and closed down two compounds, threw out 35 diplomats, we knew it was a serious problem and it was verified. i can't understand why we don't go forward and put more sanctions. we've done that. you know we voted 97-2 to enforce more sanctions against russia. 97-2. i have not seep that happen in any type of scenario in the senate in a long time. so... >> dickerson: is that enough, senator? >> you mean the sang shungs? >> dickerson: yeah, is that enough? >> john, here's the thing: we've got oligarchs. there are certain people that benefit in the russian sphere, if you, will the oligarchs who basically feed putin, they have to be hurt without hurting the people. the people are hurting bad enough in russia and they're very sceptical of what's going on and all of the corruption that goes on in russia. russia is not our ally.

russia is not our friend. to treat putin as an ally and a friend is wrong. i don't look at him as a friend. i don't look russia, and i'm very sceptical of their intentions. there's a lot of good people in russia that don't have any say whatsoever, and they're starting to basically express their frustration and start marching and hopefully getting their point across. so we have to make sure we put the hurt on the oligarchs, all the money, to where the money flows through russia and the people that benefit from it. >> dickerson: senator manchin, we'll take a very quick break. stay there. when we come back we want to talk about the republican health care bill that's schedul

>> dickerson: senate majority leader mitch mcconnell says he'll bring the senate republican health care bill to the floor this week, just days after it was unveiled. the bill would end the individual mandate to buy health insurance and would reduce and eventually eliminate federal funding for the obamacare medicaid expansion, leaving it up to states to fill in that gap. it allows states to seek waivers

so they can drop services currently required, like maternity care, substance abuse benefits, and mental health treatment. it repeals taxes put in place the pay for obamacare and also rolls back some tax credits currently given to help individuals buy insurance. republicans need 51 votes to pass the bill or 50 if vice president mike pence casts the tie-breaking vote. but five g.o.p. senators say they can't vote for the bill in its current form, which is more than enough to kill it. kentucky's rand paul summed up one side of the g.o.p. opposition. >> i just didn't run on obamacare light. >> dickerson: while nevada's dean heller voiced another. >> i cannot support a piece of legislation that takes insurance away from tens of millions of americans and hundreds of thousands of vets. >> dickerson: that means leader mcconnell will have to find a way the change the bill to attract more votes from conservative members without losing too many moderates. senator manchin, i want to get

you response first to the bill and whether you think there's anything you can do to improve it. >> john, there is an awful lot that can be done to improve it. we can't even get in the room. you know, if mitch would just expand to a bipartisan working group to repair it and quit talking about repealing it, we have pathway forward. i think we could fix it. there are some good people on both sides of the aisle that know it needs to be fixed. there is not one person in west virginia that's not been touched by the bill that was sent by the house, which was horrible, and the bill they have now, which makes it even worse. so i've said, work with me. den work against us. they've proven they will need democrats to pass this. if mitch doesn't have the votes, call off this bill right now and let's sit down and start working toward repairing the basic concept of what we have in the affordable care act. we're willing to do that, john. >> dickerson: let me ask you, specifically, senator, on this bill and the theory that perhaps senator mcconnell is not likely to call the whole thing

off, what in it do you think needs improvement and is there any chance it could be improved? >> well, sure. first of all, the private market, john. you can't force people to buy a product and then say, if you don't buy it, you fine them. i knew that was a mistake from the get-go. i wasn't there in 2010 when they passed it. they went threw an orderly process. at the end of the day, not one republican voted for it there. should have been a way for us to sit down, major pieces of policy such as, this and that's the reason for the purpose of the senate having 60 votes for cloture, is to get bipartisan buy-in. now they're going to get rid of it with not one democrat. and, john, if they don't have me sitting down, someone is who is in the meadow, who wants to work with them to get good policy, they have serious problems. the private sector needs to match up. john, go ahead, e-mail sorry. >> dickerson: has the white house reached out to you at all during this process or senator mcconnell? >> no, not yet. some of my colleagues have,

susan collins and i have been speaking about it. bill cassidy and i have. i said, if you take the repeal off the table, sit down and talk about repair and fixing it, i'm with you, and i know more democrats will sit down. chuck schumer says if we can get a repair group sitting down, that's fine. so we're not hippeddered from our side whatsoever, but this is about our country and it's about you have to have the policy to get your people the healthier, get them in a productive workforce if you will, and we can do that by intervening. we have given 20 million people health care without one word of instruction. for people in west virginia, the only health care they had before, the 175,000 john, they had to go to the emergency room. if you gave them now a health care card and they're still practicing the same procedures they did before, they're using it at the highest cost. can we help them more and better as far as being in tune to how to use it, better educated on how to use it? but not just throwing them off. why does it have to be so mean

spirited? why can't there be some compassion? here's how you can keep it? here's how you're going to use your health care. it's going to make you a better person and give you opportunities. that's what we should be doing. >> dickerson: okay. senator. we'll have to leave it. there we'll be back with two senate republicans who get their thoughts about the bill.

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with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance..." through the tuition assistance program, every day mcdonald's helps more people go to college. it's part of our commitment to being america's best first job. ♪ >> dickerson: we're joined now by republican senator pat toomey, who is in bethlehem, pennsylvania, and louisiana's bill cassidy, who is in new york this morning. senator toomey, i want the start with you. there seem to be two criticisms of the bill. we just heard senator manchin on the democratic side, but on the public side, there are two criticisms that too much obamacare is left in place and then criticisms from say senator heller, which is that these medicaid cuts are too big. how do those get solved? >> listen, it's going to be a challenge, but i have to strongly disagree with the characterization that we're somehow ending the medicaid expansion. in fact, quite the contrary. the senate bill will codify and

make permanent the medicaid expansion, and we'll have the federal government pay the lion's share of the cost. remember, obamacare created a new category of eligibility. working age, able-bodied adults with no dependents for the first time became eligible for medicaid if their income is below 138% of the poverty level. we'll continue that eligibility. no one loses coverage. what we are going to do, gradually over seven years is transition from the 90% federal share that obamacare created and transition that to where the federal government is still paying a majority, but the states are kicking in their fair share, an amount equivalent to what they pay for all the other categories of eligibility. as far as some of my conservative friends who are concerned the bill doesn't go far enough, i'm sympathetic about the kinds of reforms they would like the make the lower premiums through more market forces and greater freedom on the part of consumers, but i see

this bill as a first step, a first important step in the direction of repealing those portions of obama cair that we can, stabilizing the individual market, which is collapsing, and making important reforms to medicaid. it's not the last thing. >> dickerson: let me ask, senator cassidy, you served in a hospital with a lot of low-income folks when you were practicing as a doctor. picking up on what senator toomey said, the worry is on medicaid that as the amount of money shrinks, states just won't be able to cover all the people that need to be covered. what's your sense of that, and is that something that can be solved? >> people will move off of the medicaid expansion on to the private health insurance market. and that can be a good thing. it isn't so much whether we are spending lots of money on medicaid, it's whether or not people are covered. i have concerns about the bill, but let's acknowledge as folks would move off medicaid, they would go on private insurance, coverage would continue, and in some cases that gives the patient more options for doctors they can see than does medicaid.

so i think coverage will continue. >> dickerson: will you support this bill, senator? >> right now i am undecided. there are things in this bill which adversely affect my state that are particular to my state. a couple things i'm concerned about. if those can be addressed, i will. if they can't be addressed, i won't. so right now i'm undecided. >> dickerson: senator toomey, on this question of people moving off of medicaid into the private market, the concern from critics is this puts them in a market where they will be unable because the subsidies are going away or are low nerd this bill or the tax credits are shrunk in this bill, and because the people basically will with into a private market where they can't afford, if the premiums are low, the deductibles will be too high, or both, premiums high and deductibles high. >> john, we've thought about this. this bill provides very generous tax credits, considerably more generous than the house. they're more oriented toward lower-income people, those are

the people who obviously need it. i would also point out, i think it's important to note, the federal government spending on medicaid is going to grow every year. it's never going to be cut. it's never going to shrink. it will eventually be growing at a slightly slower rate, and we need that in order to make the program viable and to deal with these massive deficits in the mounting debt that we have. >> dickerson: all right. senator toomey, senator cassidy, we're going to be right back in a moment. we have a hard break here, so we have a hard break here, so we'll take that break and we'll be back with more on health care in a moment. the long lasting scent of gain. now available in matching scents across your entire laundry routine.

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>> we'll be right back with a lot more face the nation. stay with us.

>> dickerson: welcome back to "face the nation." we're back with more from pennsylvania senator pat toomey and louisiana senator bill cassidy. senator cassidy, i want the start with you. in reporting on this and talking to republicans, two things they really like in this bill are that it changes the medicaid entitlement, something republicans have been trying to do for a while to shrink costs, and it repeals a lot of the tax increases that are part of obamacare. how do those two big items make people healthier? >> first, medicaid in its current form is not sustainable. if you look at even under the affordable care act, the state portion of the medicaid expansion cannot be sustained. in my state, it will be $310 million a year. in california $2.2 billion a year just for the state's portion. now, i worked in a public hospital for the uninsured and saw many medicaid.

why was i seeing medicaid at a hospital for the uninsured? because states could not afford their match. they paid doctors so poorly that patients crowd not see a private physician. if we can put medicaid on a sustainable path, where the state is receiving a certain amount of money and can budget for that, and the state in turn gives over the managed care, the patient will have certainty as to their access. i actually think that's better for patients. i this it can improve outcomes, and it's certainly better for the state and federal taxpayer. >> dickerson: you mentioned there won't be cuts. it would be the rate of gloat slowing on the specific question of medicaid, but governor john kasich knows about budgeting. he was the former budget chairman of the house. he knows the difference between cuts and slowing the rate of growth, and he said that in talking about this plan, that he worries it cuts resources needed to help our most vulnerable. that's a republican governor. another republican governor, brian sand, says, "these are our friends, these are our families,

and these are our neighbors who he worries will get hurt as the rate of growth slows because they don't feel that will be able to cover future medicaid participants." so they know the issues here. why are they wrong? >> well, senator kasich was very much in favor of this very approach when he was the chairman of the budget committee in the house. look, i get that gives like having a lot of federal money come in and spent when they don't have to even raise it. but the reality is this is going to grow. this is going to grow for the permanent future. we're going to fund the lion's share of even this new population within medicaid that most republicans didn't support in the first place. but, you know, there is another fundamental aspect to this. what we're trying to do is free the states and free the marketplace to discover ever-better ways to deliver services. there's wonderful innovation that's happening all across the country. in pennsylvania, whether it's independence or guisinger, an surer and a health care provider, they are finding great

new ways to deliver ever-better care at lower costs. but there are constraints on the ability of insurance companies and providers to do that. we want to diminish those constraints so that we can continue to create and discover better ways to do this. this legislation at least takes us in that direction. >> dickerson: senator cassidy, 20 second, the majority leader wants this done by july 4th. why the rush? >> i don't know quite why the rush. i think we need more days to consider this. there will probably be a discussion coming back. i think a few more days to consider would be helpful. >> dickerson: senators we're very grateful. thank you both for being here. we turn now to our politics panel. amy walter is the national editor of the "cook political report." michael duffy is the managing director of "time" magazine, domenech is the publisher, and ed o'keefe covers congress for the "washington post." let's start with health care. we'll talk about other news in the week, but ben, what's going to happen?

is this bill going to live in its current form or passes in its current form? >> it's important to understand that this is not the bill. this is a bill. this is to get to the point where you have the bill. getting to that conference is something that i think ultimately will be supported by a number of the senators that have come out with questions early on. this is frankly an insult. they could do a better job. this is a group of senators who really will be there at the end of the day. >> dickerson: meaning the crit knicks. >> right. >> dickerson: they're saying they're against it to get leverage? >> they want a few changes. it's important to step become and look at the picture of obamacare after it's been in existence for quite a while. the truth is obamacare failed to do what president obama wanted it to do when it came to this middle portion of the private insurance market. it really did not lead to the kind of competitive exchanges that he wanted to see. what did succeed and what you've been talking about with these senators this morning is the medicaid expansion. it added millions more people

than the cbo estimated to a program that frankly was already strained in a number of different states. fixing that fiscal problem is the key question when it comes to all of these issues. you mentioned governor kasich. when governor kasich pushed for the medicaid expansion in ohio, he had to throw 34,000 disabled people off of the program because it incentivized adding these working, able-bodied adults over people who actually were in the system who had disabilities or had other dependents some getting that fix right is the key argument internally i think. i expect the republican bill will be more generous than it currently is. >> dickerson: ed, what's your sense? >> i think the fact that you see doctor and senator cassidy and others saying, let's notlessly do it this week, don't be surprised if mcconnell is convinced to wait one more week, allow things to percolate. trying to get it done by saturday morning at this point, that would be abugly rush job. but ben is correct. this bill more than any other this year has gone through more

horses than the school house rock song than how bills become law. they skipped the committee, but the fact this is still in play, still being negotiated and if passed will go into a broader negotiation with the house is important. this is by no means over. you're going to see this week all sorts of proposals to tweak this, to favor people like those that are holding out, ted cruz and mike lee, but also potentially some changes including restoring funding for fluid what would spark an uncomfortable vote on the floor of the senate. >> dickerson: the longer it's alive, the longer it's out in the public, the more potentially problematic it becomes. >> it already has been. another piece is the policy piece, the whether it's going to pass, and then there is the how do republicans actually sell this out on the campaign trail, and, of course, to their constituents. what we've seen in the time where it's been in this legislative bergtory between when the house passed it until now, support for the bill has gone down, even among

republicans. democrats know what happens when the other side defines your bill and you don't. in 2010 there were 40,000 ads run during the to 2010 campaign that mentioned obamacare, affordable care act. 380,000 of those ads were negative. democrats have now spent the last five years trying to make the... actually, i think they slb eneckively made the case for obamacare as well as as they're doing it right now as a defense of it rather than a promotion of it. so can republicans promote this bill i think is going to be very important once they actually pass it. democrats didn't do a particularly good job of it. will republicans this a better job? >> dickerson: michael, give me you thoughts, but also, what role does the present play. duds he come off stage or stay off? >> i think members on the hill prefer he stay off at the moment. what happens next, ben talked about it, kabuki.

give people more time and money or whatever they want. but kabuki mostly serves the two great big pieces of russia -- i'm sorry, republican orthodoxy at the center of this measure, which is massive $1 trillion tax cut mostly on high-wealth individuals other the next the ten years. it happens quickly. the second is this... for the first time in 22 years, a reduction in the federal entitlement program. it was only put into place in 2010, but this is going to reduce the number of people who get federal payments, tens of millions of people. that hasn'ted by a congress since welfare reform. normally, and that's political suicide. but i don't think any of us would think this is a normal political time. >> dickerson: the senator said it's going to slow the rate of growth, but there are no cuts, but the congressional budet office has said of the 23 million that lose cover, 14 or so will come to medicaid.

so who wins in that debate, somebody who is saying, suggesting essentially this is going to be as it is and then cbos saying only a few hundred are going the lose coverage. >> one thing i'm scent cal about is not an ideological bit of scept kim but a practical one. this is a massive undertaking. reforming something that affects the lives of so many different millions of americans in a very direct way can always have unexpected consequences. president obama certainly saw that with his bill and hhs had to work very hard under kathleen sebelius to try to mitigate a lot of those different changes that happened. i think you'll see the same thing happen here. this is a doing's breakfast of a bill. there are all sorts of different things thrown in there that senators have issues with. but again, they want to get to the point of actually being able to said this to the president's desk. i've sauls you should never underestimate mitch mcconnell'sable the toy get

something like that done. i think he'll plow through a lot of different concern, add various aspects of the bill to try the satisfy individual senators and get there eventually. >> dickerson: how does that work over time? that's great and that's all that matters? >> that is the test amy is talking about. you can keep the promise, but how good will you be next year at selling this and promoting it and defending it? i think we don't know. i agree the big test right now is mitch mcconnell has never had to steer, i've said this before, he's never had to steer a significant piece of legislation like this through the senate in these times of social media pressure and the polarization of politics. if he can get this flew, it bodes well i think for his tax reform debate he really want to have, but he's got a lot of other tricky things coming this tal. he had to do a budget. if this goes south, it's going to be very difficult for him to hold together, especially as the president is still as unpopular

as he is and as some of the these democratic attacks are working. the other thing, and i had some senate republican folks point this out, and i think it's a fair point. what they're doing is a later, more diet version of what the house did. what's being polled right now is the house bell. we haven't seen a poll yet on the changes made here. we may not see that for another few weeks to get a real sense of the changes. so they point out, we haven't even really started to explain what's in our bell yet since it only just came out. i suspect the numbers may change, especially among republicans, as this negotiation continues. >> dickerson: you want the jump in there? >> no, go ahead. >> dickerson: let's talk quickly about the race in the sixth district of georgia. we're talking about how this played out politically. everyone was watching that race to see if it was a hash general of 2018. give us your takeaway, the democrat loss, the republican win, what does it mean? >> right. what does it all mean? one race 18 months outback steakhouse from an election. of course it will tell us everything we need to know. >> there's a little something for each party to like and to be

scared about. the republican candidate won in a district donald trump barely carried. that's good news for them, because there are only 23 seats now that republicans hold that donald trump did not win. guess what, they have a 24-seat majority. if they lose all of those, they still have a one-seat majority. the bad news is when you look at not just georgia six but all the other special election that have taken place all in very republican districts, democrats have been outperforming their generic performance by seven points. if they did that, if democrats outperformed what they normally get, they would win 80 seats. so there's somewhere there is going to meet in the middle. this is where the issue like health care is going to play. you don't know how that issue will play out. it didn't play here. once there is a bill or quite frankly, even if there's not, republicans control washington. obamacare is an issue. they fix it or they don't, but it's now theirs and they own it. >> dickerson: michael? >> there's a moment when people were asking about nancy pelosi

and was she the leader that democrats want. the fives were out for nancy pelosi, but in the end, it seems like the butter knives were out. she's not going anywhere. >> she'd probably tell you they were butter knives, too. the most important thing is $50 million was spent. that's a record. i think the nearest one was $20, $24 million. this is $200 per vote. that's astonishing even in our campaign finance system. it can't be sustained. the other things happening is the republican interest groups unified around the idea of hanging nancy pelosi around jon ossoff's neck. they called him a san francisco-style liberal, and they worked together in ways they typically don't, which suggests republicans are a little more cohesive, as well. >> dickerson: that's all they have. >> that's right. one thing worth noting. even in the case of the u.s. chamber of commerce got local chambers of commerce in the

district to work with their members and get their employees to get active. so there is a level of grassroots involvement. but there are two key things about this race we need to keep in mind. first, this race was truly nationalized in a way i think negatively affected the democrats. the amount of money flowing in from california, the national attention it received actually worked against them in this race. you saw how close the race was in south carolina, which had none of that national attention, but where the democrats are sniffle overperformed. secondly, you had the shooting in alexandria by a radical leftist who had been very public about that on his social media, including talking about this race, and talking about beating the republican in that race. well, that didn't receive a lot of attention, but it got significant attention on local news programs in georgia six. you saw the polls in the days running up to that election go for two or three points down for the republican to two or three points ahead. we should not underestimate that

that shooting had a significant impact and frankly, john, this week we saw in washington, we talk a lot on this program about the deg immigration of faith and institutions, and you saw the f.b.i. come out with this report that said that effectively this shooter was just someone who had anger management issues, that this was some random attack for someone who sat out in a van across from this non-descript baseball park in alexandria and clearly had the intent of doing what he did. that had an extraordinarily negative effect for democrats. >> real quick, spent most of the week outside of washington talking to these democrats who are starting to run, and they made very clear, stop talking about russia. they said to party leaders. nobody out here cares. talk to us about the economy, about how you defend or preserve obamacare, let's see whether party leaders pay attention to that. >> dickerson: excellent. thanks to all of you. that's where we'll end for now. we'll be right back with a lack at whether north korea can be stopped.

>> dickerson: we're back with mark bowden, the author of "blackhawk down." his latest book is "sway: 1968, the turning point in vietnam." today he's here to talk about whether north korea can be stopped. let's start with that answer. >> i don't think so, john. our best hope is china will apply significant pressure to get them to back away from this nuclear program, but nothing that the united states has done over the past 30 or 40 years has slowed their progress. and if you look at the actual

military options that we have there, they're, you know, none of them are things that we would want to do. >> dickerson: you have written about vietnam. you know about the kind of public consensus that forms around ideas and they kind of create a momentum of themselves. and as you write in the piece, there is this consensus on both the left and the right that north korea cannot have a nuclear weapon. why? >> because they have been a serious threat to obviously south korea and to the region for many years now. particularly over the last ten years. i think for the united states, the threshold has always been building a missile that could potentially reach the united states mainland. most estimates are tree, four years away. so that means they couldn't wreak havoc in their region. >> this week is south korea president is coming to visit

with president trump. what... he has said that kim jong-un is not a rational person. he told that to our colleague norah o'donnell but that he's willing to sit down with him. how do you think that gets worked out? >> i don't think kim jong-un is an irrational person. i think he's precisely the person you would expect him to be, a product of that regime and that family, to become the supreme leader of north korea. you couldn't design someone who fits the mold more perfectly. so i don't believe that short of giving him something he really wants that he'll back away from nuclear weapon, which is essential to their whole philosophy of being. >> dickerson: you write in the piece, and this gets back to why would bit dangerous to have north korea with a nuclear missile, because there's a sense

of destiny, almost universal... their future is wrapped up with being a power that fights against a big western aggression. >> sure. i mean, their sort of guiding theory for years has been that the united states is going to launch a huge invasion of north korea, and the buildup of their military and the nuclear program and the missile program is all designed to make it too costly for the united states to take that step. and that's why, you know, none of these military options would be desirable, because they have the capability right now of killing millions of people with one or two weapons. >> dickerson: give us a sense of what the u.s. military options are, and are they live possibilities? >> we certainly hear them talked about a lot. one is to go in all out, take out the regime, destroy the north korean government and eliminate the threat. another would be to ratchet up

pressure, turning the screws i call it, which is the target for neuroleer reactors, their test sites, and ramp up the pressure to get them to back down. a third option is to take out kim jong-un and the people around him, which would be virtually impossible but theoretically, and you wouldn't know what you would get when you are finish. the final option, which is another bad one, is to accept the fact that they're going to succeed in doing this and we're going to have to live with it. >> dickerson: one of the things that came across in the article was that if the u.s. did try any of these, other than just living with it, basically north korean has been preparing for an assault from the west since 1953. they're ready to retaliate. >> the korean war never ended as far as they're concerned. >> dickerson: also made a good point about what in the aftermath, not just the succession, but the clean-up whom is in charge of... >> even if it were possible to somehow take out the threat without him getting a single nuke ore chemical or biological weapon out without him killing millions of people, so we're

successful, what have we got now? we have a destroyed north korean infrastructure, no government, millions of refugees pouring over the chinese border, the south korean border. essentially the united states would have to move in and govern north korea for a generation at least. and i don't think we've been too successful at that. >> dickerson: mark, thank you for laying out these incredibly complex issues for us. and we appreciate you being here. we'll be right back. stay with us.

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as a leader in student lending, we have student loan options that others don't. if you have a question about student loans, ask me. sincerely, michele wright, fellow mom and fellow citizen. call 1-866-999-0152 to apply now. >> dickerson: this week president trump said there was no white house taping system. it ended a mystery he had created. former f.b.i. director james comey described an oval office encounter where the president encouraged him to wrap up his investigation into michael flynn. the president said it didn't happen. and he warned the tapes might contradict comey. well, there are no tapes, and in making this announcement this week, the president was celebrating an anniversary -- 44 years ago on june 23rd, richard nixon recorded what would become known as the smoking gun tape, where he told his staff to have the c.i.a. tell the f.b.i. to stop investigating the watergate

break-in. it sealed knickson's fate. why would president trump encourage nixon obstruction of justice comparisons by talking about tapes? on fox and friends friday, the president offered insight into his gambit. he was trying to keep james comey honest. as a private citizen, donald trump also reportedly hibtded at having made recordings and maybe sometimes did as a way to keep people honest. the press and the president are in agreement on this: a recording keeps people honest, that's why it was a mistake for the white house this week to further limit televised or audio recordings of press briefings. a sketch artist rendering of the audio and video-free briefing makes it look like a courtroom, but it's not a court. the briefing is a place where an administration explains in real time what it is doing on behalf of the people who pay their salaries. there may not be a taping system in the oval office, but there is one in the press room, no understand thelation required. the cameras are there and they

are on. it's designed to keep people honest. back in a moment. that's it? yeah. ♪ everybody two seconds! ♪ "dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance..." through the tuition assistance program, every day mcdonald's helps more people go to college. it's part of our commitment to being america's best first job. ♪

>> dickerson: that's it for us today. thanks for watching. you can keep up to the news of the week to subscribing to the "face the nation" podcast. download it every friday night. it recaps the week and sets the stage for our sunday broadcast. find us on itunes or your favorite podcast platform. until next week, for "face the nation," i'm john dickerson.

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