>> come on guys, let's go. andrea. >> andrea, please, they're not going to talk to you. that does it for us tonight, raise your children to be reporters, see you again on monday. good morning. i'm dara brown. it's new word from jeff sessions in the coming days on his meeting with the ambassador. will it change the narrative for the white house. what is the fbi's role in the russia investigation and why is at least one senator suggesting there are transcripts of trump team members talking to russians? the battle over obamacare, what is new today after one senator went walking through the holes with a copy machine in search of the gop bill. plus the first arrest in connection with a rash of threats against jewish community centers. we now know who the suspect is,

but what is the motive? details in a live report ahead. we begin with new calls for a russia investigation this time from president trump casting suspicion on top democrats. hallie jackson has the story. >> reporter: this 13-year-old photo-op back in focus for the president, trying to turn the russia spotlight to democrats with diversionary twitter tactics, blasting old pictures. senator chuck schumer with vladimir putin, nancy pelosi with the russian ambassador in 2010. official meetings that as senator schumer points out happened in full public view. >> and he everyone enjoyed a krispy kreme doughnut. >> reporter: the president clearly frustrated with continued questions about talks with the russian ambassador, some only disclosed in the last 48 hour, like carter page, now acknowledging he did talk with

the ambassador at the republican convention reversing what he said before. >> i'm not going to deny that i talked with him. >> reporter: and then there is attorney general jeff sessions who just recused himself from any campaign investigation by the justice department after not disclosing his conversation as a senator with ambassador kislyak. >> i think tfrit was hyped beyo reason and unfair. i was glad to be able to address it. >> it's part cold war spy novel, part keystone cops. what will happen next. that is an interesting story, but for the white house, a huge distraction. >> reporter: the white house insisting the story simply isn't one, defending the attorney general. >> he could have answered more clearly, but clearly unintentional. >> reporter: the vice president on defense himself after the indy star reported the personal aol account he used at times as governor may have been hacked. but mike pence says he broke no laws and dismissed compare 10is

to hillary clinton's e-mail server. >> there is no comparison at all. >> that was hallie jackson reporting. and a new series of tweets this morning, we'll go live to the white house in a few minutes to get details on these. he is very busy this morning. let's bring in msnbc military analyst colonel jack jacobs. great to have you here this morning. >> good morning. >> so is there any way to determine why these trump team members met with the russian ambassador, does anybody have an answer to that, and what is russia's angle when it comes to these so-called meetings? >> well, americans and russians is officials and people who are not officials, businessmen, so on, meet all the time. and for pretty good reason, too. there is no way of telling exactly what the conversation was especially in an environment in which the officials deny that they have met in the first place, which gives a very

unsavory aspect to the whole thing. russia has two objectives always in almost everything that it does. one is power and the other is money. there is no doubt about the fact that meeting with americans under any circumstances has at the back of it those two objectives. but we won't know anything until one of two things laps, either everything leaks out and washington is the leakiest vessel in the entire universe, or second there are investigations, formal investigations, in which people are under oath and disclose everything that actually happened. >> we know this there is a little back and forth because president trump is now citing senator schumer's meeting with putin in 2003 and nancy pelosi's meeting with russian officials in 2010 which included the same russian ambassador. how common is this practice of these meetings? >> yeah, it's very common.

we have military people meeting with russian military people. and state department people meeting with foreign ministry people is in moscow and in washington and so on. it's extremely common. but don't forget there are two things that are really important here. the first is intent. what were we trying to do and what were they trying to do. intent is extremely difficult to tell unless you ask people particularly under oath. and second and the thing that really overarches this entire discussion is the way it looks. appearances are often reality if these were in-oknocuous discussions, there was no point lying about the fact that you had them in the first place and it really is a distraction is for the white house which has a lot do and the rest of the goempt which has a lot do. if something took place, best thing is to talk about it up front and then you can get down to the business of government. >> colonel jacob, stay with us

for a moment. another developing story out of the trump administration, secretary of state rex tillerson is reportedly pushing back against a white house proposal calling for drastic budget cuts to the state department and the u.s. agency for international development. and that kcould total up to 37%. tillerson is making a formal appeal to preserve some of the funding to help cover a proposed 54$54 billion aboost in defense spending. so colonel, back to you. in your assessment, where is the greater need for those funds? >> there is a need for those funds in all aspects of our foreign policy. we rely very heavily on the military. and we spend a lot of money do it so that we can project our power. but there are other instruments of power, economic instruments and continue low madiplomatic i.

general mattis says if you're going to cut lot of money from our state department so the diplomatic capability is reduced, then i, general mattis, i have to buy more on ammunition. it's not a question of moving it from one place to another, it's making sure that we have sufficient resources in all of our capability. otherwise we'll have to not only continue to rely on the military like we have in the past, not necessarily a great effect, but we'll have to rely more on the military and that is not necessarily the best way to achieve our foreign policy goals. dropping the capability of the state department by 37%, i think most military people will agree with you if you say that you will do it will say that that is not the way to do it. so i think the administration needs to revise exactly where it will spend its money. arbitrarily cutting the state

department is not the way to go. >> colonel jacobs, thanks for your input. we turn to some breaking news now. president trump is in florida for another working weekend where he is up tweeting some pretty serious allegations. case ci kasie hunt is in west palm beach, florida. what is he saying this morning? >> reporter: these are potentially is explosive new allegations from president trump. he is accusing the obama administration of wiretapping his phones in the days leading up to the presidential election. so he is still walking through this -- the most recent one just five minutes ago. first one, he says terrible. just found out that obama had my wires tapped in trump tower just before the victory. nothing found. he calls it mccarthyism. he goes on continuing to on say that question, is it legal for a sitting president to be wiretapping a race for president

prior to an election? turned down by a court earlier. a new low. i bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that president obama was tapping my phones in october just prior to the election and in the most recent one, he says how low has president obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process? this is nixon/watergate. now, we do not know where these explosive allegations are coming from. there does not appear to be something that he is reacting to, although we are still obviously looking for that. we've also reached out to former obama administration officials to ask about this to try to get to the bottom of just what the president is referring to. now, in something like this, it's likely-hfr and he mentioned the courts in his tweet. when the government wiretaps phones, they typically have to get what is called a fisa warrant to surveil. and so it could be that he is referring to an attempt to get a warrant that maybe was denied

for some reason. but again, i have to emphasis we on do not know what the president is referring to. of course he receives daily classified briefs and would have access to information from the intelligence xhun aboutity that is not available to most members of congress and obviously not available to the general public. so this story as we have been saying unfolding just in the last few minutes. so we are going to get back to work to figure out exactly what else we can tell you about what is going on here. is. >> thank you, we'll let you go do that and hopefully have you back on in a few. joining me now, jonathan allen, co-author of hrc, and jane timm. so here we're talking about the tweets that president trump is already up tweeting about. do you think there is something behind these tweets? jonathan. >> i have no idea. obviously president trump would have access to that information

internally if it were true, if there were wiretaps being put on trump tower. at the same time, it would be odd to say something about it public publicly. there is no legal jeopardy probably for the president in doing it because he can declassify information whenever he wants. but it would be very odd to talk about government secrets like that if it were true. >> and these are pretty serious allegations. is this just possibly another way of diffusing what is actually going on with the russia investigations? jane, what do you think? sgle absolutely seems keen to push this on to obama, to blame it on other people. one of his tweets said ambassador that sessions met with had been to the white house 22 times. of course he had been at the white house dwigquite a bit. he is an ambassador from a very large nation speaking with another very large nation. trump does very well in a campaignlike setting where he's going against someone else is, he's lobbying against and say that guy did worst.

and he's the president. he xncan't have is this constan campaign battle. he tries to make it with boobam who is koois dit surfing these . is we're talking about russia continuously and trump is not changing the subject. this is a president who does not want to say maybe we didn't lanl it the best way, let's move forward with our agenda and put to the side. >> jane, jonathan, stay with us. right now we'll move on for a bit. is the trump/russia connection a nothing burger? and what does that mean? lilly.

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there are transcripts that provide very helpful, very critical insights into whether or not russian intelligence and senior russian political leaders were cooperating, consider colluding with the trump campaign at the highest levels to influence the outcome of our election. >> let me just clear up very briefly, do such transcripts exhibit, is that what you're saying? >> i have not seen them. i believe they exist. >> that is a democrat from delaware suggesting that there may be transcripts that the fbi has of trump associates meeting with russian officials. joining me again jonathan allen and jane timm. so i don't know than, let's start here. is there any consensus in washington or whether there really are transcripts that exist and would these transcripts be of actual meetings between trump associates or russian officials or possibly something else? >> i don't know that there is a consensus about transcripts existing. what i do know is there are a

lot of democrats who have access to information that is not public who believe that there is a lot more to this story. we've seen them push on the fbi director jim comey to release more information to the public, to talk more openly about what he knows. so whether there are transcripts or not or what they would say, if i knew that, i'd be reporting it right now. but obviously senator coons believes it exists. it could be trump officials talking with russians, talking about contacts with russian officials. what is interesting is that if you pull the lens back, the russians were trying to 234 influence other election and donald trump was at the very least encouraging them and their alleys to do that publicly. forget what was going on privately. so at one level it sounds seemly at best and then the question what was going on behind the

scenes. the extent to which trump officials were maybe being duped by russians or in some cases maybe being in collusion with them i think remains to be seen. >> and jane, you covered the trump campaign and you probably heard many of the denials from the trump camp of meeting with the russians. here are some ever those. >> can you say with 100% confidence that mr. trump or anybody in his campaign had no conversations with anybody in russia during the campaign? >> no, i mean i'm just telling you, it's all phony bologna garbage. >> did any adviser or anybody in the trump campaign have any contact with the russians who were trying to meddle in the election? >> of course not. >> i have nothing do with russia. to the best of my knowledge, no person that i deal with does. >> and jonathan touched on the various scenarios where you would possibly have meetings with russian, but is there any clear reason why so many meetings took place? >> we just don't know. and because the trump administration never wants to go

back and say there we were wrong, here we will clarify, they don't want to go there, it's just not something that the trump campaign is ever okay doing because donald trump himself is never okay saying i was wrong and here is the real truth. we're not going to know. and because we don't know, we'll keep talking about it because when journ are allists don't have the full fact, we keep digging until we comdo. and that won't change. >> how close is donald trump to attorney general jeff sessions? he was the first big gop official to endorse him and given that, if jeff sessions is the last person donald trump would ever ask to resign over this. >> they're quite close. sessions is sort of the intake leng intake length all grandfather of donald trump. steven mirl miller writes a lot trump's speeches.length all gra donald trump. steven miller writes a lot of trump's speeches. is this is someone who is a lower level adviser and when he was in congress, but now with sessions, and now he's really incredibly powerful and i think

you see with the advisers that have gone over with him and the intellectual roots and policies that you see talked about by sessions early on and now picked up and championed by donald trump, you can see just how close they are. >> and jonathan, i want to turn to obamacare and the episode this week that saw senator rand paul carting a printer around hoping to copy the house version of a health care bill. here is senator paul. >> we showed up and we asked to have a comb of the bill and we were told we couldn't have a copy. and then later on, mysteriously everyone inside the room disappeared and there was no bill. >> for those who missed that, what was that about? >> that was a magic trick where the house republicans made that bill disappear. no, basically the house republicans are writing their obamacare repeal and replacement or repair or whatever word you want to use for it. and in secret they're not releasing a draft of to the public, they're letting members

of the house republican conference look at it, but not democrats, not senate republicans. this is reminisce cents of what they accused democrats of doing with obamacare the first time.c they accused democrats of doing with obamacare the first time. we'll see it when they vote on it, but clearly not comfortable that it's popular enough to pass if given a lot of light of day. >> jonathan allen, jane timm, great to have you here. suspect in bomb threats against jewish community centers have been arrested, but police say he's not the only suspect thi they're looking for. that's ahead.

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because trump won the white house. >> all of my friends in washington said there is one thing you can do, fight. fight. oppose, oppose. >> stewart says becoming a citizen is the best way he can take on the president. next more on this breaking news this morning, a new series of tweets from president trump making serious allegations. also, why is ted cruz comparing jeff sessions' meeting with the russian ambassador to a nothing burger? what is a nothing burger? that is ahead.

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welcome back. i'm dara brown. just before the half hour, here's what we're monitoring. bringing news from president trump making some serious allegations in a series of tweets this morning. nbc's kasie hunt is with us in west palm beach, florida near where the president is for a working weekend. what is president trump saying

this morning? >> reporter: promising to be another very busy potential lir working weekend for the president trump down here at mar-a-lago, his estate in palm beach. and right now i will tell you we're still trying to sort through exactly what the president is referring to, so i'm just going to take you through the series of twooeeets that we've already seen this morning. shortly before: 7:00, terrible, just found out president obama had my wires tapped in trump tower just before the victory. and he goes on this is one in a series, he questions whether it's legal for a sitting president to be wiretapping a race for president prior to the election. notes he was turned down by a court earlier, a new low. he says a great lawyer could make a case out of the fact that president obama was tapping my phones. and he says he's gone so low that it reminds him of nixon and watergate. i want to emphasize that we do not have any confirmation or reporting about any of these allegations being true and w are trying to sort through where

it is that president trump, notice, why it is that he has focused on this. he of course does have access to classified material, but there also have been some conservative media outlets that have focused on the series of events around the investigation into trump campaign contacts with russia. there has been some reporting around fisa warrants that would have potentially granted the government access to look into some of these contacts at various points over the course of the last year. again, we are still sorting through this, we have reached out to former obama administration officials to ask them about this. but again, these accusations potentially very explosive and they come at a time when the contacts between the trump campaign and russians are under intense scrutiny increasing. this has really threatened president trump's attorney

general. intelligence committees are looking into this and the fbi director is under intense press to show more what the fbi may be investigating around russia. they don't of course comment publicly on these investigations. but nbc's reporting has shown that the fbi is in fact conducting an investigation around trump campaign contacts with russian associates. now, some about reporting the "new york times" for example has gone further and said that they are investigating contacts between russian officials, potentially intelligence agents, and the trump campaign. that is not what nbc news reporting reflects at this point. but again, just want to emphasize question are still at the beginning of trying to sort through what it is the president is focusing on here. these allegations potentially veryexplosive. >> a busy morning for you, kasie hunt in west palm beach. we'll have you back in the 8:00 hour. and new details about the success perkts behind sospect b

threats against jewish nu institutions. police arrested juan thompson who allegedly used these threats as a vehicle to get back at an ex-girlfriend. morgan rat forward has tdford h. >> reporter: juan thompson's arrest is the first in connection with a rash evof threats made against jewish community centers in 36 states. prosecutors paint a picture of a disturbed man and sworned lovco, in some cases saying her ex planted the bombs and other cases using his own name. after month of bomb threats looefing jewish communities on high alert -- >> this puts everybody on edge. >> reporter: the fbi says 31-year-old juan thompson made at least eight of those threats. his arrest coming as a relief and sobering reminder of a threat that still lurks. >> just because there has been an arrest today around our bomb threat does not mean that the

threats have disappeared or will stop. >> reporter: according to the fbi, thompson was a copycat making those threats to get back at an ex-girlfriend after they broke up last julgd. through a series of e-mails and phone calls, authorities say thompson said his ex-xchlgt wwa the bomb threats and that she placed bombs in dallas, san diego and at their headquarters. and he also made threats under his own name, but later claimed the ex had made the t set him up. thompson appeared in a st. louis federal court friday afternoon charge with one count of cyber staurk i stalking. he has a colorful past, seen here working for and online news sight called the intercept which fired him last year. prosecutors also cite comments allegedly posted from his twitter account last week saying

know any good lawyers? need to stop this nasty racist white girl i dated. thompson's arrest comes as more than 100 bomb threats have been made against jewish organizations across 36 states since the beginning of the year prompting rallies of solidarity to support jewish communities. >> if someone wants to try to instill fear that we are people that stand up and inspire courage. >> reporter: leersd who saders hate should never be met with silence. thompson did not enter a plea and he's not suspected in other threats still undecember investigation. meanwhile, states like new jersey have beefed up security hoping to protect the vulnerable communities. >> morgan, thanks so much. the fallout over the meetings with with the russian ambassador, why it has more republicans joining a call for the president to release his taxes. >> does trump know anyone who doesn't talk to the russians?

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i think what we're seeing is a lot of political theater. could jeff have been more clear in what he said? yes. the underlying meeting is a nothing burger. it's what senators do every day. i think that is a nothing burger. >> how do you know it's a nothing burger? there is clearly now an appearance issue even if as you've suggested the thing is a nothing burger. >> i don't think there is any credible allegation that jeff did anything wrong. >> senator ted cruz of texas on the controversy surrounding the white house and attorney general jeff sessions. sessions plans on monday to provide amended testimony regarding his contacts with russia's ambassador to the u.s. and sessions is also expected to

respond to questions raised by democratic senators. and this week sessions acknowledged he had contacts with a russian ambassador during the campaign. he says this happened in his capacity as u.s. senator and he was not misleading a 123409 pse panel when he said he had no contacts with russians as a campaign surrogate. sessions said he would recuse himself from any investigations into russia and the campaign. joining me now, joe watkins, rick tyler, and zerlena maxwell. great toe have you three this morning. before we get to sessions, ir i want to start with president trump tweets saying that he found out president obama had his wires tapped before the election. he called this mccarthyism.

and another tweet, more allegations about tapping phones abo . trump calling it nixon/watergate. zerlena, let me start with you. it's been a busy morning. what is your sense of this? about. >> it seems like it's a lot of projection on the president's part, but that is part and parcel with donald trump's persona. often he blames others or points the finger at others for things that he himself is guilty of. so we don't know what is going on with russia. what we are seeing is we want to get to the bottom of it and the problem is that this administration just has no credit ability on this issue and many other issues. and so he's trying to distract the american people from this very serious and substantive story that we've been talking about all week with russia and the ties to russia. you have at least six people under investigation for their contacts with russia and the russian government during the campaign. and we have the intelligence agencies confirming that russia interfered in the election in

order to help donald trump. and so we have-to-get tget to bottom of that. so the tweets are entertaining, but a distraction from something that is really serious. >> and rick, this is your former boss who called this a nothing burger. trump has callinged ed called witch hunt. >> is there are is there there with the investigations? >> what he was referring to is the meetings between ambassadors and members of congress are not uncommon. and that is true. but in this context, all of this is in the context of the russians hacking the laerelecti. i might agree with lena th zerl this may be another distraction but if we know that the russians were hacking the election it looked like in favor of donald trump and numerous campaign people we now are learning have met with rush be shsian officia

ambassadors, it wouldn't surprise me at all that the administration had tapped trump tower phones. ma maybe he's right. but interesting the way it's coming out. >> and we should have more information in the next hour on that. and i want to talk about the amended testimony that will happen possibly on monday along with sessions' recusal. will this stop the bleeding by having him produce more information on this? >> awell, if mt may be too litt too late. i don't think democrat senators will let attorney general sessions off the hook. everybody in the country has seen the videotape played all week this week of his testimony before the u.s. senate during the confirmation process. and obviously now he has recused himself which is the right thing to do. but i don't think that the call for him to step aside is going to son on the stop on the part of docrat senators. they will statistic beat the drum.

they will say that he's been i don't micompromised as attorney general. >> rodriguez says it was too early to bring in a special prosecutor. >> he's doing what he should be doing. again, i think totally unfair for anyone to expect -- ask for his resignation without giving him an opportunity to explain what he meant to say in the hearing. >> as joe mentioned, we've seen dozens ever members ever congress 2k3457bdi ingdemanding resign. how much of this is political and how much is a real valid concern? about. >> i think it's a valid concern. you have a hire standard when we're talking about the attorney general of the country, the top cop essentially. and so you want that person to be above reproach. and it's not as if he misled and there is no evidence of it. we all saw the tape. he misled at best and intentionally lied at worst when

you look at his response to senator franken in his confirmation hearing. and i think that democrats essentially just need to keep putting the pressure on their congressional colleagues to take this russia -- these russia investigations very seriously. the reason why we're talking about a special prosecutor is because congressional republicans cannot essentially be trusted in this moment to do the right thing and do an investigation in a bipartisan fashion and taking the politics out ever it. no democrats are saying we should redo the election, the outcome is not valid. essentially what democrats are arguing is that the intelligence agencies said russia hacked our election in order to help donald trump and now we're learning that many of his associates had met with the russians and they lied about it after the fact. if there isothing wrong with it, they should stome clean. and that's why people will calling for a special prosecutor because we need somebody who is impartial who can look in toe what happened with our election.

>> rick, if you were working at the white house today, what would be your advice? >> that's a tough one. listen, i think they're in a little bit of trouble here. i think zerlena is right, he is the a.g., there is a hire standard. and it's interesting because al franken asked him if it came to light any of the campaign had met with the russian, what would you do. and it was strange that sessions went on to say that he had not met with the russians. i think sessions would have prepared for that confirmation hearing and he would have reversed the answer when asked about the russians. and then he had another chance to clean it uneven though leahy in a written question didn't -- left him an out saying did you meet about the 2016 campaign and his answer was no. but he had a chance to disclose there. he chose not to. i'm not sure why the communications people helping sessions chose that route. i think they could have said yes, i met with the braes, tham

these were the conditions. and indeed it would have been a nothing burger. >> joe, the same question. if you were at the white house, what would your advice be? >> well, right now obviously a lot of people in america feel where there is smoke, there is fire. and this thing is not going to go away, this investigation on matters pertaining to the white house and white house staffers and key players of the administration and russia is not going to soon go away. i think the best thing is some kind of a fair and dispassionate review of the facts. and maybe that is best sached by some kind satisfied by some kind of an independent counsel, that would put the whole matter to bed once and for all. because as long as it's not dealt with, it will be a huge problem for the house. they will hear about it every day. >> looks like that might take a while. zer lea zerlena, rick, joe, st with us. we'll continue the conversation

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a game of hide-and-seek this week on capitol hill over the new house republican health care bill. on thursday, news reports started circulating that house republican leaders were hiding their plan to repeal and replace obamaca obamacare. republican senator rand paul dragged a copier to the room where the bill was rumored to be in hopes of making a copy and reading it. >> we showed up, and we asked to have a copy of the bill and we were told we couldn't have a copy. and then later on, mysteriously, everyone inside the room disappeared and there was no bill. >> joining me once again, joe watkins, zerlina maxwell, and rip tyler.

here's more of what ryan said about the bill np. >> we're not writing some bill in the back of harry reid's office like obamacare was written. we're going through stem by step, having public hearings, having committees work on legislation. this is how the legislative process is supposed to be designed. >> joe, i'm turn to you. are we sure that's not what's happening here? how can what happened on thursday be explained? >> well, i think paul ryan is right. i worked in the u.s. senate for the u.s. senate before i worked in the white house and the senator for whom i worked never would have gone to a room with a copier machine to try to get information and bring cameras with him. so it was certainly an effort on the part of senator rand paul to bring attention to how he felt about the way this is being done. but i think paul ryan is right on point with regards to how this is being done. this is the legislative process. it's being done in an orderly

way. rand paul is bringing attention to the fact he doesn't like some of the secrecy, but this is how things work. >> rick, is this apparent keijiness due to the tax issue? >> the freedom caucus doesn't like the refundable tax credit. you could potentially get more money back than you pay in, help pay for premiums. premium caucus would call that welfare. they don't like it. rand paul doesn't like the idea we're going to repeal and replace potentially in the same bill. he would like it in two separate bills although the same tay. a little bit of a stunt. you know, it's funny how the media treated it a little more cynically. i thought it was a pretty interesting way to bring attention to the bill. but i think rand is right. i mean, we should have more public disclosure about it and see what's in it. but, you know, hand it to the republicans. it's very hard to undo something as large as obamacare. >> zerlina, what's the

democrats' position this? they're watching the republicans back and forth and through all this. are they working behind the scenes? are they upset about the repeal of obamacare? what are they doing? >> certainly democrats are upset about it but certainly american citizens who have benefited from obamacare for the past eight year, not eight years but since it was enacted in 2010 have benefitted from obamacare. >> no. >> they are showing up at town halls and demanding their representatives protect it and expand on it and improve it. it does need fixes so we can work on that. but i disagree with any of the republicans who say obamacare did not have public hearings. certainly there were aspects of obamacare that were agreed to in private. but i would recall a day-long session where democrats and republicans including president obama sat on television and debated aspects of obamacare. i'm old enough to remember that. i don't know why republicans don't remember that. >> because the speaker of the house didn't know what was in the bill. she had to pass it to understand

what was in it. >> we knew what was in it. they didn't need it before they passed it. >> she had no idea. that's what she's saying. >> rick, why did republicans hold no republican hearings on their restructuring ideas? i think they should. because this is -- look, it's one-fifth of the economy. health care is very personal with people. and, yes, obamacare did help some people but it hurt a lot of others. it raised their premiums. they have less access because their deducts are so high. they're still not going to the doctor. a third of the nation doesn't have a choice. and senator baucus said if you leave it alone and don't do something about it it will collapse on its own. what is the democrat replacement plan for obamacare? >> we're demanding fixing for obamacare. >> what are they? but we haven't heard anything from the democrats how they're going to fix it. >> they're not in power right now. the republicans are working to destroy the plan. >> no, because the plan is broken. it's never going to work, zerlina. it won't work. senator baucus said that. >> joe, can you weigh in on

this? >> yeah, sure. i've been saying from the beginning that you just have to approach this in a way that's balanced, which is to say don't throw the baby out with the bath water. parents of obamacare that work ought to be retained and those parts that don't work for people ought to be fixed. i think that republican members of the house and senate are finding when they go back to their home districts, to their states that this is how people feel. people are very passionate. if you've been helped by it, of course you want to keep it, you've been hurt by it like so many americans have because the premiums have gone up and you have less care than you were promised before, and you want to fix it. so they've got to get about the work of fixing it. but so much ofhis is theater, of course. you know, for republicans who campaigned on bringing obamacare down, of course, they've got to stick to their campaign promise. at the same time, american people saying, you know what, don't throw the baby out with the bath water, fix what's wrong about it but keep what's good about it, and that's what they

have to pay attention to. >> joe watkins, rick tyler, zerlina maxwell, great to have you three this morning. great conversation. have a great day. >> thanks so much. thanks. >> that will do it for me. thomas roberts is straight ahead. and among his guests, democratic congressman seth moulton, a member of the house armed services committee, who has some strong words for president trump and attorney general sessions. thanks for spending your saturday with me. have a great day. you don't let anything keep you sidelined. that's why you drink ensure. with 9 grams of protein and 26 vitamins and minerals.

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congress. also new word today that attorney general jeff sessions will submit amended testimony to the senate by monday about his encounters with russia's ambassador to the u.s. while sessions was a surrogate to the trump campaign. will he have to testify again before the senate judiciary committee? and president trump goes on the office saying this picture of nancy pelosi with russians, including the ambassador. is it relevant? the latest controversy. >> no, there's no comparison whatsoever. between hillary clinton's practice having a private server, mishandling classified information, destroying e-mails. >> vice president pence pushing back about his use of private aol e-mail conducting state business while governor of inn. what he delivered in his defense. and it has to be the picture of the day. a still photo of hillary clinton on a plane with a newspaper. this obviously not that image