of engagement. he likes to sit down and talk about ideas, talk about the future of this country and get their input on ideas. and they talked business and a lot of personal last night. it was an enjoyable thing. with that, thank you, guys. i look forward to seeing you morrow. i think tomorrow will be one question friday. thank you. >> sean spicer kindly ending the white house briefing at the top of my hour today, at 2:00 p.m. eastern on the east coast. i'm katy tur here at msnbc. to break down a little of what happened in that briefing a moment ago. sean spicer was asked about the department of justice refusing to confirm whether or not trump is under investigation. sean spicer saying that he is not aware of any investigation going on. he also declined to deny that the cia lost a cache of cyber weapons, but he did criticize the cia's technology calling it

outdated. and on general mike flynn, the former national security adviser, who has now registered officially as a foreign agent for his lobbying before the campaign in turkey, sean spicer was asked whether donald trump would have appointed him to that position of nsa if he did know that? and sean spicer said, i do not know. we have a team of analysts and reporters here to break down what happened in that press briefing. joining me here on set, david, alease, joel benenson, and in the briefing room itself we have hallie jackson at the pentagon. we have hans nichols. hallie, i would -- i think your ear piece doesn't quite work yet. can you hear me? >> reporter: yes. >> wonderful. give me the major headlines from that briefing. >> reporter: sure, katy, as i juggle notes and notebooks. a couple headlines on the topics making news. number one, health care. the secretary reaffirms the

white house commitment to making sure that this bill gets through. saying emphatically the president will sign this bill once it gets to his desk. the repeal and replace will happen. also talking about -- he does think -- the president does think this movement is sort of working great, if you will, despite the fact that you do have not just conservative groups from the outside, not just skeptical republican lawmakers, but you have doctors groups, for example, medical associations, the aarp coming out in opposition to this as well. i'm just ticking through my head a couple of other headlines. on julian assange we saw that news conference earlier, two days after what could potentially be this bombshell breach, one of the biggest intelligence leaks if it is authenticated in modern history, although the cia has not authenticated this information. the press secretary saying in response to assange's comments that essentially as assange claims, the cia has lost control of its cyber security arsenal. sean spicer says the president

believes its cia technology needs to be updated. you also heard him talk about a little bit relating to the relationship between the president and some members of congress as it relates to health care as well, katy. back to you. >> hallie jackson mentioning the repeal of obamacare and the gop and house health care bill is also a big topic on the minds of everyone. we'll talk about that further in this hour. first, i want to focus a little more on the wikileaks dump as well as news coming out about michael flynn. let's go right to our panel on this. first off on wikileaks, this cache of information about cia techniques and what exactly they can do. talk to me about the timing of this, david. >> well, it's interesting. we've seen with wikileaks in the past and the russian hacking that it's quite conceivable they've held on to material for long periods of time, whether it was the dnc e-mails or the john podesta e-mails and waited until

they thought there was a strategic reason in order to presumably help donald trump to release that information or to hurt hillary clinton as much as they could. so, have you to ask yourself if they had this information and they've redacted, you know, some names on it, which they haven't done in the past, meaning they've had it for a while to process it, why did they do it this week? is it because donald trump has put his foot into it again in terms of claiming president obama illegally wiretapped him, which is absurd and crazy and makes him look like a crazy man? they want to throw the subject and throw it back on the intelligence community? and, you know, take the attention away from donald trump's own mistakes. is this the only thing they have? it believes the intelligence community believes the leak came from a disgruntled employee or someone inside. not a foreign power, which would have more interest in using this stuff against the cia secretly than putting it out there. so, there seems to be a lot of politics to how and why this came out now. >> let's listen to sean spicer's

answer on this question a few minutes ago. >> there is grave concern that the president has about the release of national security and classified information that threatens and undermines our nation's security. obviously, he believes that the systems that the cia are outdated and need to be updated. he has compromised in the past and undermined our national security. i'll leave it up to the department of justice to further comment on their disposition of him. >> he's talking about julian assange there. we also mention this when we talk about this that donald trump on the campaign trail said he loves wikileaks. obviously, he doesn't feel so friendly towards leaks now that he's the president, at least. with what is going on with assange, does the republican party and does -- well, the republican party. does the president himself need to come out and say, this is not okay and we're going to do

everything in our power to make sure this sort of thing does not happen again? and wikileaks and julian assange are not helping the american public regardless of what he chooses to leak at any time? >> well, i can see president trump coming out and condemning the leak, but i would be surprised, pleasantly surprised if he condemned julian assange and wikileaks' role in this. he's shown incredible loyalty as people he believes supporting him, soy don't necessarily see him coming out hard against wikileaks. in julian assange's remarks, he was stoking the president's suspicion about what he calls the deep state. and his mistrust of intelligence community already and trying to just, you know, provide donald trump with more fodder that there are a lot of people out there within the intelligence community who are out to get him. so, i think that's a big part of why the timing. >> and the question of whether, you know, donald trump throws out this accusation of wiretapping and says, i think president obama potentially was spying -- i think he was spying on me or know he was spying on

me. the intelligence community refusing to back him up on that. the republican party going back and forth. some saying we need an investigation, others say, show us the evidence you have. this would allow essentially trump to say, they did have all these capabilities and maybe they were doing it. joel, you were affected by wikileaks during the campaign. so, give me your response. >> look, one of the things we have to recognize is in the past these leaks have come from inside the cia. 2010 there was. the chelsea manning documents came from inside. these came from someoneinside, not disrupting the cia cyber securityystem. if you're the president of the united states, you have to get on the high ground and say, look, we're going to take every step possible to make sure our intelligence agencies are as secure as they need to be for us to do the work we need to do in this world. i think you take it out of the world of politics. i think you try to get on the

high ground because i think there isn't anybody in america who isn't concerned about the fact that the russians can meddle with our elections or potentially some actor can get into our cia computers and cause some disruption. >> hans nichols at the pentagon. what are your conversations with those in the defense field and the intelligence field, what are you gleaning from them about this leak from wikileaks? >> reporter: it's significant sean spicer didn't refute this idea, that the cyber arsenal has been taken and out there potentially in the hands of wikileaks. he didn't confirm it either. i think when you think of cyber capabilities, think of it as offense and defense. and most of what wikileaks did, they're talking about defensive measures. having your smart tv listened to, these kind of things. what assange was alleging is that they actually have something on the offensive side, which is to say cyber capabilities to, say, disable north korean rockets when they're still on the launch pad or in iran a few years back.

both stories reported by "the new york times." on the offensive side what assange is alleging is truly scary. the offensive capabilities of cyber command of the nsa, if they do, indeed, have that, if wikileaks does have that, as spicer said, that's of grave concern. one quick note on that. whenever you heard the word grave from an official spoectionz person, that's code for war. the fact spicer used grave, and i'm assuming spicer has been brought up to speed on the importance of diplomatic language, whenever you hear grave, that's really the strongest language that you can use. that's what mr. spicer used from the podium today. guys? >> well, that happy note let's leave this topic for a moment and move over to the other major story of the day, which is health care. the house republican health care bill passed and overnight it went throughout ways and means committee. david, back when obamacare was being worked on were accusing them of working in the dark and pushing this through, jamming it down people's throats.

>> not only back then. they've been saying it the past two days. sean spicer has been saying this repeatedly in his press briefings that obamacare was jammed down the throats, done in the dead of night and we never got to see the bill. we didn't know what was in it until it passed. all those things are outright lies. obama had subcommittees and committees do full deliberations after it was scored by the congressional budget office. he tried to work with olympia snowe and chuck grassley, republican senators to try to bring in republican concerns. it took about a year of deliberations before there was a vote. they locked it up in a room for a day or two. rand paul went through the congress, where's the bill? like where's the beef commercial. they pass it in two days without it being scored for anyone. for paul ryan, who claims to be a policy meister, this is a complete fraud. >> david set you up perfectly. how do they get this passed the house, the senate, and then someone like rand paul?

>> i don't see how they get this passed. i think they set this up on a path to disaster here. the fact they did not score this budget, the congressional budget office has not given an estimate of how much it is going to cost the country, and so they're accountable, these republican congressmen and women are accountable to grassroots constituency who's really concerned about the deficit, and yet they want to sell these congressmen and women on voting for someone they don't know the cost of -- >> the score will also say how many people will lose insurance, which is a key point. >> the white house has already tried to discredit the score saying it wasn't accurate when it was score obamacare. joel, he hasn't necessarily reached across the aisle to democrats. when i say he, i mean president trump. and also speaker paul ryan. democrats don't seem to being consulted at the moment on this bill. >> well, they have succeeded in unifying some very diverse groups on the health care issue. the doctors and the ama are against it, the hospital

association, it is insurance companies, the aarp. all these groups have come out and said, this group will dom harm to people who need coverage. and i think that's going to compound the problem from rnz. you've also got republicans like tom cotton coming out overnight saying, whoa, hit the pause button, to david's point about jamming this through. they have done nothing to get people behind this or, and i think as elise and david just touched on, and paul ryan did a whole whiteboard today. two things missing, what is this going to cost taxpayers, what is this going to cost americans, and the third thing, how much people are going to lose coverage? you talk about medicaid as a remedy. medicaid is a recipe for people walking emergency rooms which is the most costly thing in america. >> kasie hunt, you get the last word. paul ryan literally rolled up his sleeves today and gave a powerpoint presentation to try to convince his party, potentially try to convince his

president. was it effective? >> reporter: hey, katy, yeah, this is paul ryan in his element. forgive us here, we're talking about another subject. this is the intelligence committee where they're heading into review materials in this russian investigation. back to health care. look, the speaker -- he was in his element today. this is what he likes to do. he does this at town hall meetings. he rolled up his sleeves and went through a powerpoint presentation. really it was a sales pitch and the audience, it seems to me, many members of his own republican caucus in the house who, you know, apparently he wanted to say, look, this is all we can do under these reconciliation procedures. so, they're really limited to a certain set of things substance-related to the budget. they can't do anything that's not related to the budget and still get this passed in the senate with 50 votes. so, he was trying to explain that. he was also trying to argue that, look, this is our one shot at repealing and replacing this health care law. this is our one shot at doing

what we promised in the campaign. if we don't do it now, we'll miss this opportunity entirely. i thought that was a significant stat acknowledgment, hey, if they screw this up there isn't necessarily a path to do this major thing. there's also been some reporting on breitbart. they quoted senator rand paul saying the house speaker is trying to pull the wool over the president's eyes. of course, the president, we know, is a consumer of capabble news and likely seen or heard about the speaker's kind of presentation today to reporters. so, i think that as we move forward, president tweeting today, look, contrary to reports in the press, my health care bill is all in the fine and clear. the reality is, republicans are telling me privately, they doubt they can get to 50 votes in the senate on this bill as it stands right now. and, you know, if this is really their one and only shot, as speaker ryan says, i'm having trouble seeing how it's going to move forward.

>> and donald trump ending that tweet by saying health care will end in a beautiful picture. kasie hunt with one of the other truthisms of this administration so far, which is no matter the news of the day, russia is always a topic as well. that's why she is standing outside of that intelligence committee hearing. kasie hunt on capitol hill, hans nichols, elise jordan, joel benenson, david korn, thank you for being with me on this thursday. up next, damage control. the cia is scrambling to control the fallout from julian assange's explosive claims. how should the agency, i.e., the cia respond? we'll ask the author of "how to catch a russian spy" and double agent. our microsoft pulse question of the day. assange says cia has lost control of its entire cyber weapons arsenal. should tech companies work with him to prevent hacking? cast your vote at pulse.msnbc.com. home, car, life insurance obviously, ohhh...

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arsenal. what appears to be the largest arsenal of trojans and viruses in the world that attacks most of the systems that journalists, people in government, politicians, ceos and average people use, didn't secure it, last control of it. and then appears to have covered up that fact.

>> that was julian assange making an explosive charge today against the cia, accusing the spy agency of historic incompetence. assange speaking about wikileaks' recent release of thousands of cia hacking methods. what do we do now and what questions remain? first, the biggest question, who do it? was it a disgruntled agency employee? could it be a contractor? like an edward snowden. or was it russian hackers once again meddling in u.s. affairs? two u.s. intelligence officials tell nbc news they, right now, are the major focus, or option "d," all of the above? what was leaked? the first batch was 8,000 documents of alleged cia hacking methods but wikileaks says only 1% of what they hacked was of that. some of the information is classified as top secret. lastly, what does it all mean? it showed terrorists and other adversaries how the cia does

hack, meaning they could use the same methods against us. it also gave them a crash course in defending themselves against the cia's only methods. i want to bring in msnbc contributor and former fbi double agent naveed jamali, also the author of the book "how to catch a russian spy." thank you for joining us, number one. first off, how damaging is all of this? >> no, it's a great question. and i think it is extraordinarily damaging. you know, these are -- these are tools that we use to collected intelligence. and if they are compromised, which they have been, then you can't use them. so, if there are operations where these tools were employed, those operations are potentially jeopardized or compromised. it actually does have a real world impact? >> so, assange is alleging competence by the cia, which is what you were talking about. do you believe, though, that the cia is incompetent in this case? and how in the world does a

cache like this get leaked to assange? is it russian hackers or is it somebody who is disgruntled within the agency? >> listen, since manning and since snowden, the likelihood that someone from the outside, an external adversary, external target could actually get in and steal stuff and retrieve it, that would be a significant effort. i find that the least likely. this is going off my gut. it's much more likely to someone who had access to that information for legitimate reasons, their work, is the one that actually took it out. whether it's a contractor or employee, it's hard to say, or some in between. there's a third option here, too. nonetheless, it got to wikileaks. the big question, i fully believe, wikileaks is really a laundromat for russia. it's embarrassing the cia is clearly benefits russia. that's clearly what julian assange was seeking to do. >> what could the motivations be if it was a contractor, someone employed by the u.s.? >> that's a tough one.

when we look at manning and snowden, there is a mass amount of ego that is at play here. snowden -- manning has come out since his release and said that -- he has a lot of strong feelings towards wikileaks and he felt manipulated about him. with snowden, we've had movies about him, he's been glamorized. everything i've heard of him, this was a spur of the moment decision, had a massive ego, thought he was smarter tha he was. to a lot comes down to the personality and a lot comes down to egos. egos can be clearly manipulative. >> regardless of how they got the information, what is the motive? is it just to cede this doubt, this discomfort among americans with their own intelligence agencies, to feel like the government can spy on them? >> absolutely. i mean, that's part of it. now, to take it one step above that, what is -- russia, for example. when russia launches intelligence operations, they

look for nonattribution. that is to say if their operation is compromised, that the country of origin cannot be clearly identified. wikileaks provides a perfect vehicle for them to attack us through propaganda without us easily being able to point the finger directly at russia. we all assume it's russia but it's going to be very, very difficult to actually trace the line back from wikileaks to russia. i would assume. so, i think that in that regard, wikileaks really isn't acting independence and being directed in some regard by russia. >> former double agent naveed jamali, thanks for your expertise and pnz today. the latest document dump comes days after donald trump accused president obama of wiretapping him. is there a connections between these two events or is it just a coincidence? joining me from capitol hill, senator chris murphy, democrat from connecticut, who sits on the foreign relations committee.

now, i know, senator, you're not comfortable talking about the validity of wikileaks and what exactly they were able to find, if anything, or release of anything. but do you suspect -- are you suspicious of the timing of this? >> i think you have to asme that this is purposely tim, coming at a moment in which we seem to be getting closer and closer to understanding the true nature of the connections between the trump campaign and the russian government. a moment when investigations are stepping up inside congress and pressure building for investigation outside congress. you know, if you look at everything the russians did during the campaign, they were all timed according to moments of weakness in the trump operation. the john podesta e-mail dump came out a day after the "access hollywood" tape was released. so you know, all of this seems a little suspiciously timed to

believe it's independent. you know, i think feeds that argument that your prior guest was making, that wikileaks and the russians are, you know, certainly connected. >> two your colleagues, are both asking for an investigation into whether or not donald trump's phones were tapped by president obama. if they get that investigation where do you think it will lead? >> well, inc. it will be a pretty short investigation. the answer is, no. it's a much more complicated question to understand whether there was or is an active fbi investigation into people in the trump operation. but if the question is, did president obama order the tapping of those phones, i think pretty clearly the answer is going to be no. and potentially in a hearing that the house is going to have, they'll get that answer from the fbi director as we've already gotten it from the director of national intelligence under president obama. >> senator chris murphy, i know you've got to go. thank you for being here. the democrat from connecticut.

>> thanks. breaking news regarding the president's revised travel ban. washington state is set to join the fight again to keep from being implemented. we'll talk about that next. for lower back pain sufferers, the search for relief often leads... here... here... or here. today, there's another option. drug-free aleve direct therapy. a tens device with high intensity power that uses technology once only available in doctors' offices. its wireless remote lets you control the intensity, and helps you get back to things like this...

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break news out of washington state. you're looking at the attorney general of washington, bob ferguson, who got a temporary restraining order against the president's initial travel ban. he's holding a press conference right now saying he intends to join the fight against trump's revised executive order, the new travel ban. msnbc chief legal correspondent ari melber joins me in the studio to talk about this. ari, so does he stand a chance from stopping this ban? >> he has a shot. this is significant and different from most of the cases. the man up on the screen and the only attorney general here who got a nationwide blockage. what they're doing is interesting, quite aggressive and may or may not work. they're saying, hey, remember when we won last time? we think that should basically automatically apply to the new ban because the new ban is so much like the old. that is an aggressive strategy. it's not a new lawsuit. >> they took out all the religious wording from the new

ban. they took off iraq from the new ban. they changed it in a way their legal advisers, those terns and those they vetted it with said would get through the courts. does he stand a chance? it's an aggressive move? >> you're right. there's two questions. is this the same and then is this legal? they're starting with this aggressive or some are saying this overreach position of basically this is the same. the trump administration has impa sised and many independent analysts have confirmed, whatever you think of either ban, there are substantive differences. that is to say it's not just clerical. it's not just a light rewrite. there are a bunch of things. the real question is what does judge robart want to do. he was very skeptical of the trump administration's approach. does he want to take this as kind of a piggyback or boot strap on the original thing, which would be one way, and he could say yes or no to that. or he could say to the parties f you want to have a new lawsuit

over a new executive order, bring me that. don't tell me you automatically win because you won once before. >> my question is, do these -- does each ban liv in its own box? are they completely separate from each other? does -- is there legal argument to say this is brand-new, or is there an argument to be made it's not brand-new, it's just an amendment from the first one and everything that applied to it and all the implications of it and all the negative attention it got and all of the fact donald trump called for a muslim ban and rudy giuliani said he wanted a muslim ban, does that apply to the new one? >> legally on march 16th the new law revokes the old ban. that raises the question in law school that would be theoretical, but we're talking about. how do you block something that doesn't exist? it's metaphysical. the washington attorney general is making an aggressive argument saying, give me a break.

we all know this is the same basic policy. the things we objected to in the original ban exist more or less in the second. he's telling the judge, you shouldn't let the government get its way by constantly trying something new. that's the argument. legally, though, it's hard to think of a lot of cases where a court would issue a temporary restraining order, that's the court using a force of law to say you cannot do something, before having a full briefing and hearing on it, which is what you would do if you got a new lawsuit, not just to piggyback. >> so, it's complicated is the term of importance today. >> katy, the facebook status of this litigation is, it's complicated. >> relationship status, it's complicated. love it. thank you. we should also mention the hawaii attorney general is going to be having a press conference at 3:30 to talk about its lawsuit against this ban. and new york attorney general says it does intend to join the washington a.g. in fighting against this ban. moving on to health care.

by now, you've probably seen how the house speaker schooled everyone on the party's health care plan earlier today. is the medical community sold on the obamacare replacement? that is next. look closely. hidden in every swing, every chip, and every putt, is data that can make the difference between winning and losing. the microsoft cloud helps the pga tour turn countless points of data into insights that transform their business and will enhance the game for players and fans. the microsoft cloud turns information into insight.

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fullcourt press. speaker ryan came out with rolled sleeves, literally, you see him there, and a powerpoint presentation to make his points to republicans, fellow lawmakers and some might say the president himself. let's talk about the realities of this new plan with nbc's medical contributor dr. emily azar and notable canadian ali velshi. doctor, let's start with you. a lot of -- i guess almost all health care groups are coming out against this plan. why? >> literally when you look at the list, it is probably every notable and important and influential group who represents doctors, hospitals, nurses, senior citizens as well as independently the american association of heart disease, diabetic association, american lung association. even offshoots, particularly the

acp, why? because there is nothing about e proposed bill that represents a move towards universal health care. this is supposed to be health care reform when almost line item this is regression. absolute regression. >> so, covering less people? >> switching medicaid to the per capita funding model, taking away the subsidies, the income-based subsidies, defunding planned parenthood. think about all the women that's going to affect. planned parenthood serves, you know, underserved and rural populations. more importantly, the prevention and public health fund is going to be eliminated. they fund so much of the cdc. i stell feel like i'm in a little bit of a nightmare i'm not waking up from because i don't understand what parts of the bill appeals to our

populous. i really, really don't. >> it hasn't been scored by the cbo. it hasn't been scored by the cbo yet, but from appearance of it, ali, tell me what its going to cost. >> a couple things. the credits that they are giving out, in addition -- as opposed to the subsidies that existed under obamacare, they are less generous. in theory it should cost the government less. i don't want to ask you what you earn but under obamacare i wouldn't have qualified for a subsidy. under this, i actually will. i might get $3,000 a year if i buy my own health care. that doesn't make any sense at all. that's an extra cost that doesn't make sense at all. >> people who are well off -- >> as long as i'm under 60 years old i'll get money from the government. this is where theonservates are having a problem. they didn't like the subsidy because they thought that was a new entitlement.

now we have a refundable tax credit which they say is an entitlement. it doesn't sofl the problem. it pays some a little less so guys like me might get some money. it takes benefits away. there were taxes on the highest income people, including ceos of health care companies, which have been removed. mathematically this doesn't advance the cause, as natalie was saying, in a meaningful way, which is why some people are confused about it. it doesn't idealogically satisfy the right or those that need health care. >> you had a fascinating conversation with a lawmaker at 11:00. go to brad jaffes twitter, he's posted a clip of it, but he was making the argument that single parent addition single payer health care systems don't work because ultimately those people end up coming to the u.s. for better coverage. your argument was? >> three points. one, they don't work so much that canada, sweden, norway,

denmark, great britain, everybody uses them. there's no other system that actually works to cover your entire population. there aren't -- there's no influx of canadians or swedes or danes coming to america. for advanced cancers that you can't get back there, you can come here to go to m.d. anderson or sloet kettering but there's no inflex of canadians coming to united states. grew up in canada. never knew anybody coming to the united states for a test. it just doesn't -- the outcomes are better because they pay for preventive health. so people live longer. the american insurance system rewards treatment. so if you're not going to be treated f you're healthier and take preventive care and not get treated, there's no incentive here in america. that's part of the problem. single pair health care systems reward outcomes. as a result in all of the other developed nations we spend half as much per person on insurance than we do in the united states. >> i would like to have this

conversation for the entire hour, but, unfortunately, there's so much more news to do today. guys, thank you so much for joining me. thanks for lending your expertise. if you want to see that video, i will retweet it. up next, the art of the deal. >> i'm donald trump. i wrote "the art of the deal," i say not in a bragadocious way. >> i've been making lots of wonderful deals, great deals. that's what i do. >> you're supposed to sit down with the democrats and the republicans and the liberals and the conservatives and everybody else and you're supposed to hammer out deals. >> trump has talked the talk, but can he walk the walk and find more support for the gop healthare plan? i'll ask alabama congressman bradley bern coming up next. me . i like that. [ all sounds come to a crashing halt ] ah. when your pain reliever stops working,

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shaft. >> that was senator king, the independent from maine, joining a chorus of democrats opposing the replacement plan. oddly enough, it's the gop's opposition that threatens the bill. paul ryan working hard today to convince his party to get in line. critical republicans are under threat as outside group target those lawmakers, some ofwhom face re-election in just two years. take this ad from id id. >> the new plan eliminates them. obamacare stuck families with soaring premiums. the new plan provides more choices and lower costs. >> repeal and replace obamacare. >> tell congressman to vote with president trump. >> joining me from capitol hill is republican congressman bradley byrne, who sits on education, workforce and rules committee as well. thank you for joining me, number one. number two, do you support this

plan in its entirety or do you think it needs to be negotiated or amended? >> i do support the plan but i think it could do with some amendments. i think we'll have an orderly process to do that. both committees met yesterday and today and completed their work and budget committee next week. lots of people are still reading this bill, lots of discussions going on. can it be approved? sure. we have all campaigned on the republican side to repeal and replace obamacare. and we're going to do that. that's being negotiated now. i'm confident those negotiations will work. >> as it stands at this moment, you do not believe in it? you do not support it? >> i do support it. any bill can be improved. there are discussions. i believe those discussions will not only give us a better bill but enough votes to pass it through the house comfortably.

there are ads going out tar getting the 30 gop lawmakers who aren't necessarily on board with this as of right now. my question is, is the party eating its own to get this through? >> no, i don't think we are. democracy is a messy process. unlike what the democrats did several years ago, this is being done in the light of day. you get to see how it actually works. how it works is there's giving and taking and back and forth. that's what we're going through right now. at the end of the day, we'll get the votes, pass it as law. >> you're saying this is being done in the light of day. it passed through ways and means last night in the middle of the night. certainly not the light of day. >> only because of democratic obstruction tactics. it would have passed in the light of day except for democratic obstruction tactics, including those on the floor -- >> this health care bill,

obamacare's health care bill took a number of months, went through public hearings. this is intended to get passed in a few weeks. do you really stand by this notion that it's being done in the light of day with everybody on board? >> yes. >> some of your republican senatorson't believe it is. >> i completely disagree this hasn't been above board and completely out there for people to see. we've been talking about the principles for this bill for months now. there have been drafts of bills out there. i co-sponsored one of them, that have been out there for more than months. there's nothing new here. details have been worked out in the last couple of weeks, but the actual principles of this piece of legislation have been discussed for a very long time. and we've given everyone plenty of time two bills that have been put together, 130 pagwhereas obamacare was 3,000 pages.

>> it was over 2,000 pages. the 130 pages that are being used to repeal and replace it a all that's needed to give people back their freedom in health care. >> your bill is smaller, you're saying it's better? >> yes, because it makes things simpler. it gives more freedom in choice to people. when you're about freedom and choice, you don't need 2,000 pages of laws. can you keep it short, get to the point and get the job done. >> let's talk about the people who this is going to affect. a few days ago you had a town hall. i want to play you a specific question from one of your constituents. >> the pre-existing conditions, so my question for you is, will you promise me tonight that you will not vote in favor of any legislation that would allow insurance companies to once again discriminate based on pre-existing conditions? >> for people who don't have

insurance right now, in the future themight have a pre-existing condition, we're going to have the state high-risk pools that the federal government is going to subsidize. >> you know, it didn't sound like anybody liked the idea of high-risk pools. the bottom line -- it's not just you getting pushback, it's lawmakers across the country when they're holding town halls. people are scared. they're scared about their own health care. they're scared about the health care of their loved ones and they're scared this bill is going to make it harder for them to get the health care that they need when they need it. how can you assure your frightened constituents that they won't be put in a position that they're not going to get the health care they need when they need it? >> well, let's start with where we are right now, which is these exchanges are failing all over the country. we have one carrier left on the exchange in alabama. they happen to continue to lose

money, even though they have gone up on their premiums. what i can assure my constituents that are on this plan is they're going to lose everything. for them, i want to make sure we have something in place that will continue some sort of health care for them that will work. for that young mother, i can assure her, as we have since that meeting, that her young son who needs care will continue to be on that insurance plan that's working for them. so, i don't have any problem assuring my constituents that doing something to take care of the situation is the right thing to do. and i can also assure them doing nothing is going to hurt a lot of people. >> let's hope so. congressman bradley byrne, republican of alabama, thank you so much for joining me, sir. before we go to break, let's get to a check of today's microsoft pulse question. julian assange says the cia has lost control of its entire cyber weapons arsenal. so, should tech companies work with him to prevent hacking? so far 88% of you say no, tech

companies should not be working with julian assange. can you still cast your vote, get your opinion in there. a little time left in our hour. go to pulse.msnbc.com. will your business be ready when growth presents itself? american express open cards can help you take on a new job, or fill a big order or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. find out how american express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open.com. find out for your pet, express to do the best ces you should know more about the food you choose. with beyond, you have a natural pet food that goes beyond telling ingredients to showing where they come from. beyond assuming the source iss. to knowing it is. beyond asking for trust...

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that will do it for me this hour. go to my twitter to check out that interesting exchange from ali velshi and his lawmaker. in the meantime, kate snow picks things up right here, right now on msnbc. >> great to see you. good afternoon, everyone.

i'm kate snow. here are our top stories this hour. pitching the plan. house speaker paul ryan rolling up his sleeves, literally, to break down his party's obamacare replacement. but could this bill hurt the people who got president trump into office in the first place? on the topic of health care, a major update in a story that i first started investigating three years ago. one that really exploded online. it's about patients who go to the hospital, suddenly stuck with massive rehab bills, thanks to two little words in the fine print. whataakers are doing today to try to fix that situation coming up. it is a wry that crosses party lines. what grade would you give to our nation's infrastructure. well, the society of civil engineers just gave us one. guess what, it's not an "f" but not much better than an "f." more on that in a few minutes. let's get to it with our team of reporters. we have my colleague chris jansing covering the latest there. joining us today, john