to end this obamacare nightmare. i think what this comes down to is what it said on the banners last night at his rally in pro. the president just came here and knocked the ball out of the park and knocked the cover off the ballpark and explained to our members how it's important to unify and work together and i think our members are beginning to appreciate what kind of ren d rendezvous destiny we have right here. >> quite an interesting take on capitol hill. the president may have knocked the cover off the ball, but he hit it in the stands behind him. a foul ball. still having a lot of trouble getting republicans on board right here. looks like it's going to fall down. the most surprising thing from yesterday, before we open up, the "the wall street journal" editorial page has been, i won't say an aapologyist for donald

trump. they have had enough along with the wall street crash yesterday. a president's credibility, they say two months into his presidency, gallup has his approval rating at 39% and no doubt mr. trump considers that fake news. if he doesn't show more respect for the trunth, many americans will consider him to be a fake president. willie, that is how we start the day today on one of the most -- gosh. one of the most explosive weeks of our lifetime away from a presidential contest. >> we haven't talked about the confirmation hearing for judge gorsuch yesterday and get into that this morning. director comey earlier in the week. . you're right, joe. the president has spent a lot of his political capital on this health care bill that looks like it won't pass the house. they don't vote until tomorrow so maybe that will change.

it's wednesday, march 22nd. mika has the morning off. we are joined by the vet. >> old vet. >> mike barnicle and the great katty kay of bbc news america and jim vandehei and kasie hunt, and senior political analyst for msnbc and nbc, mark halpern. good morning, all. last night at a represent party fund-raiser president trump continued his pitch to pass that health care bill. >> that legislative effort begins with thursday's crucial vote and it is a crucial vote for the republican party and the people of our country. to finally repeal and replace the disaster known as obamacare. that's what it is, a disaster. >> look at the numbers. head count shows 27 republican no votes right now. and senator rand paul estimates that number at 35. in the last few days, the bill was modified to try to woo both

conservative house members and more centdrist the president told republicans behind closed doors, pass it or lose on seats. yesterday morning the trpreside called out mark meadows saying the following. mark, did you hear that? you can blame me, trump said, according to a source in the room, oh, mark i'm going to come after you. trump added drawing laughter in the room and he said i hope mark will be with us in the end. >> when he talked this morning in the closed door meeting about people paying a price, losing seats and not getting the majority, is that an implied threat from the president to the members who don't back this bill? >> i think it's a presidential relate. when you promise the voters and on a scale like this, as a party we have made very clear if you give us this american people, we will get this done. and i think that to go and make a promise of and a pledge of

this magnitude and not to follow it through i'm sure that voters will be upset. >> are you worried, mr. meadows, that you'll lose your seat like the president said if you vote no? >> you know, i serve at the pleasure of the people of north carolina and when you serve at their pleasure it's only those 750,000 people that can send you home. it's a temporary job and i've known that from day one. >> mo brooks told "the new york times" he thinks if they do vote for the bills, republican will lose their majority. in the senate, there are three solid no votes including mike lee of utah saying they should not put it up for a vote but senate majority leader mitch mcconnell told the associated press, quote. so, joe, just for some context here. we talked about 27 no vote according to an nbc news count in the house. they can only afford to lose 22.

as of this moment this cannot pass the house but there is still time as the vote is tomorrow. >> there is still a little time but this is a massive bill and, you know, for republicans who said that the affordable act was pushed through by barack obama, we were talking about that for six, nine months, maybe even a year. this is just -- they are doing this in an extraordinary speed and, you know, mark halpern, what is so surprising is this is an even a bill that donald trump, himself, promised his voters he was going to pass. he has one broken promise after another broken promise after another broken promise in here. and so for him to say promises made, promises kept, something that we also used in 1996, actually, that's probably going to fall on deaf ears with voters because this doesn't do anything, it doesn't come close to doing anything he promised that he was going to do.

>> it doesn't allow everyone to get insurance and it doesn't preserve medicaid and medicare, those are two big promises that not embodied in the house bill. look. their promise is the opposition who is pofg it is not based on politics. for the most part, it's based on they don't care it's a good bill. they say it on the merits and i think in this case it's accurate, they would risk losing their seats rather than voting for sustaining what they see is a big entitlement. they can still get the votes but appellate on politics will not work and still possible they will make some changes and side deals but the argument that failure is not an option is, i think, in the end, going to be the argument that carries the day. if it does it's going to be fascinating tomorrow. do they go to the floor short of a majority in shanhand? i think they have to and if they pull the vote and delay it, does that make it more likely or does the whole thing start to unravel? they have to face a tough choice the next 24 hours. >> earlier this morning, mark sent me jim vandehei, mark send

me the "the wall street journal" editorial. usually, what the president has is the power behind him. he's got the bully pulpit behind him and donald trump, we can't overstate this enough, since that barack obama tweet, has undercut his credibility with his closest allies. he's at 39% in the latest gallup poll as "the wall street journal" points out. the stock market took a big tumble yesterday, almost 300 points on investors concerns that donald trump is getting this away to pass his agenda. so when you're whipping this bill you know this as well as anybody, as long as you've been around the hill, it matter bls you're at 39% or 59%. you know all of the times we were threatened back when you were covering us in the house, there's really not a whole lot more you can do to help a little congressman like me when i was

in there, than to have a president or a powerful speaker threaten you. you go, okay, come on. you take the fight to the town hall. hey, i'm going to stand up. i don't care if it's the president, la, la. i'm going to stand up for you and people love that. trump doesn't seem like he is misplaying this? >> listen. if he were at 50% this would be different calculation. step back for a minute. the politics of health care are awful when you're the party that is reforming health care because somebody is losing something in almost every single case. you start with a difficult hand to play and the problem here for donald trump is that he is getting opposition from conservatives. they don't think it's conservative enough and these conservatives, when they ran, they did not run as trump republicans. they ran as very conservative members in very conservative districts. so i don't think they are sitting there super scared that donald trump is going to come after them and somehow destroy their political career because they know they are kind of damned if they do and damned if

they don't. they will have conservatives upset if they do this and you'll have moderate voters and moderate republicans who don't like the bill at all because they don't think it goes far enough. >> but, willie geist, what is so -- has to be so frustrating for people who are working for donald trump, 30 days ago, they would have been scared to cross donald trump. they are not scared of donald trump today. i've talked to them. they are frustrated by him. the constant tweets. he's wearing his own supporters down. i mean, i hope that tweet three weeks ago was worth it to him, because by trashing the fbi, the last president, by trashing great britain, by trashing angela merkel and by trashing nato, and by tracker all of our allies he has a lot of conservatives in places where i'm from going, wait a second. what is he saying? and it's hurting him right now on the vote count. >> i don't think he rois that maybe some of the people in the

white house don't realize the credibility question matters and it matters to people who voted for him and it matters to members on the hill considering voting a bill he is pushing along. can they trust what he says? should they be behind him and is it worth getting in line with him? some republicans on the hill who are against the health care plan say the president is being misled about the chances of the bill passing. listen to this. >> president trump's message has been hijacked. his gaenagenda of -- we do need repeal it and does doesn't repeal of obama as we need. a false promise of providing americans are meaningful health care cost relief. >> i don't know why they are playing this game of chicken for on thursday. this time the leadership shouldn't mislead trump into thinking this is a home run in the house when this bill was probably dead on arrival. the whip team is still telling

him it's a slam dunk and it's not so he is still being misled in my opinion, as far as i can tell. on thursday, reality is going to come crashing down. >> kasie hunt, you cover the hill very closely every day and talking to all of these congressmen and congresswomen and senators. what are the odds this makes it thirty-two you hout tomorrose t? >> i think it's pretty low. our nbc news whip count is officially 27. my sense from reporting and talking to people in the hallways a lot of people won't say if they are for this and if leadership decides to play that game of chicken and without knowing they have the votes on the floor, it's possible if they watch no votes increase you could see many more republicans than we might otherwise expect vote no on this bill. the reality here, leadership has been insisting from the very beginning and ramming this

through and saying you better get on board of this because it's inevitable. the reality they didn't do the legwork they need to take and want to do things as big as the obamacare bill and affect health care for 24 million people and on the same scale as the aca. when president obama did this he had hospitals and pharmaceuticals and doctors on board. this is an enormous legislative thing they are trying to do in a short amount of time and right now, it feels like that lack of legwork is coming back to bite them. >> another public the republican governor rick snyder is reaching out to his delegation reminding it of the potential impact of the bill although no asking them to reject it. the governor's office pointed

out staestistics. one of the letters reads, quote. in arizona, a state analysis obtained by the associated press this week suggests 380,000 people could lose medicaid insurance coverage and the state could see 2.5 billion dollars less in health care spending. former governor jan brewer supported the medicaid expansion when he was in office and donald trump. she told the a.p., quote, it weighs heavy on my heart when she thinks of the current republican plan to repeal and replace obamacare's law and went on to say, quote.

joe, that was one of the most ardent supporters, jan brewer, of donald trump throughout the campaign. you could go state-by-state and talk about john kasich and the state of pennsylvania. there are a lot of republicans concerned about what the rollback of medicaid. >> nobody can say jan brewer is a moderate -- >> right. >> one of the most ardent donald trump supporters all the way through. mike barnicle, she was on the front lines and understood the impact of support for the poorest, for the hospitals. and, you know, sometimes i hear conservatives talking about how much money it's going to cost for health care. it's always -- it's always pretty surprising me that they dooned that in america already, we have a guarantee for health care. you show up in an emergency room, the hospitals are required to take you in.

but it is the most inefficient form of health care possible which end up costing us all billions and billions of dollars more money than if we actually have a system that works. and this system that republicans are trying to put in right now -- forgive me for preaching here one second -- they are doing it in like 30 days. they made fun of nancy pelosi for saying we have got to pass a bill so we know what's in the bill. after a year and a half of debate over health care, they are doing this in 30 days. nobody has any idea what is in this bill. it's like the first executive order. they don't know the impact it's going to have on american lives or on impact on the hospitals and makes up one-fifth of america's economy. this is a train wreck waiting to happen. >> well, a couple of things going on here. willie just referenced this and you spoke about it. governor jan brewer syndrome. take the state of pennsylvania. donald trump won the state of

pennsylvania by a margin of 44,000 votes. if obamacare, if that is what you want to call it, is repealed, 663,000 people will be knocked off the medicaid rolls. thaf is a lot of people. they are getting the impression the republican version of this bill done and pulled together in five, six weeks the freedom caucus and saying this bill does too much for the poor, the ill, and the elderly. that's an odd way to confront the american public. the other element here is the elephant in the room. in speaking to a couple of democrats yesterday, and oddly enough, democrats do have republican friends in the house, they are now wondering about the president and his threats yesterday. they are wondering in light of the president's behavior and the president's tweets, will he be around? will the president be around a year from now? will he still be president? >> that is an entirely different

question. the jan brewer criticism is about as damming as it gets. that's somebody who went to the wall, went to the mat for donald trump, supporting him throughout his campaign. for her to say in such specific detail what a negative impact this would have on her state, it's tough to argue against bre. the next 36 hours is a test on what donald trump went on the campaign that he can turn his business acumen and ability to get a good deal into government acumen. the reason he's in this position, in part, he is hopelessly badly stuffed. they do not have the people. they have not done the legwork and not the deputy sectors and assistant sectors and policy people in the white house who could have gone through the hca before it was released and say this is not going to work. we are never going to get this through. it seems they are unprepared to govern at this point and he is paying the price the next 24

hours. >> it's hard to see what could be done in the next 24 hours, joe, that would change the mind of those 27 freedom caucus voters on this bill. >> especially now that they have had their backs pushed against the wall. i tweeted yesterday when anybody in washington, d.c. says i'm going to come and get you, that is just an invitation for you to turn around and political kick them in the teeth any chance you get over the next four years. i know. i've had experience and my buddies that were with me had experience too. you have all of these people, mark halpern that think, oh, they have all of this power and authority. the supreme court taught -- or the court system is teaching donald trump he's not an emperor, even though sometimes he acts like he thinks he is. now it may be congress' turn to teach him the same thing and people inside his own party. i just want to underline what katty kay said. this guy doesn't have the staff to work the hill.

many guy doesn't have the staff to work the numbers. this guy doesn't have the staff to do this right. this is the result of bannonism. if you try to tear down the entire state, like vladimir lennon, you end up with nobody working for you in a very complicated job and that is where you end up being like 20 votes short on one of your most important pieces of legislation. >> right. the one that they have to get to move forward to get to tax reform, the other things the president wants to do. paraphrase woody hayes. they can pass the bill or fail on a vote or pull it which i think would cause a real panic amongst republicans. the argument i think that they are going to have to make in the last 24 hours which "the wall street journal" editorial page and their other editorial makes is what is the alternative? if you want to get rid of the affordable care act what is your

alternative plan to put hump ty dumpy back together. we will have another track at it when it comes back. if that argument doesn't work i don't think they get it passed. the biggest danger so many are on the record saying this is not a conservative bill i'm against it. that's a hard thing to flip because the people have to go back to their members and watch for side deals. that is the one other thing they have is basically cornhusker kickbacks. >> mark, i can tell you that doesn't work with people in the freedom caucus. the one thing that newt gingrich and tom delay always thought they could buy members off that came in in '94. it never worked because you could never pay them off. >> i agree. >> that is the problem. trump is publicly threatened the freedom caucus. it would be much better to go to the washington zoo and publicly

threaten a lion. it's because it's not going to work. the lion or the panda may back down. you have just pushed the freedom caucus into the corner. they now all can go back to their districts and say, i wanted to support trump but he was passing a liberal bill. he is just like everybody else. he gets to washington and he gave us obamacare light. it was just an extraordinary miscalculation on his part and i -- >> sorry. >> go ahead. >> there are three lobbyists. you talk about the pre's staff. there are three lobbyists i think are key to watch the last 24 hours and all former house members. tom price the hhs secretary and mick mulvaney head of the budget office and the vice president. i think all three of them are going to have assignments to say we just need to flip about eight people. can we flip those eight people? side deals, i agree with you probably won't work. it's this argument that this is it. this is our only chance. if this goes down there is no plan to regroup. >> willie geist, this is -- i've

got to say for not only the conservatives but a lot of republican members there, woody hayes, if he were a legislator talking about this bill he would say three things can happen and all three of them are bad. i agree with congressman mo brooks. the worst case scenario not only for conservatives and all republicans in the house today is that they come together and they pass this bill on thursday. if they do, i think it's going to cost them an awful lot of seats in 2018. >> by the way, republicans in the senate have pronounced it dead on arrival if they even pass it through the house. still ahead on "morning joe," this morning we speak with two of the most steadfast critics rand paul and jim jordan. former homeland security chief jeh johnson will join us for an interview. first, bill karins with a check on the storms that hit the

southeast. >> proof you don't need tornadoes to get a lot of nasty weather and weather. georgia and portions of tennessee and south carolina a lot of hail and wind damage yesterday and some of the images and pictures. you can see the tree damage there. the hail there. a lot of quarter to nickel-sized hail throughout the region. in all 186 storm reports. you notice that swath went from nashville north of atlanta and to charleston, south carolina. that is one story. we are done with severe weather today. how about the cold? sorry, guys. arctic air once again. single digits in michigan. new york city the cold front is moving in and windchill to the 30s. later today it will be into the teens. even washington, d.c., baltimore, philly and boston feel it too. d.c. windchill 35 for your ride home. the cold air in place and the rest of the country looks pretty good. the other thing if you're traveling to the airports today around new york city, the windy conditions could cause some delays even if we have perfect sunshine and our camera at times

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our first republican president, abraham lincoln, ran his first campaign for public office in 1832 when he was only 23 years old. he began by imagining the benefits a railroad could bring to his sport port of illinois w ever having seen a steam-powered train. he had no idea, yet, he knew what it could be. thirty years later as president, lincoln signed the law that built the first transcontinental railroad, uniting our country from ocean-to-ocean. great president.

most team don't know he was a republican, right? does anyone know? a lot of people don't know that. we have to build that up a little bit more. let's take an ad and use one of those pacs. >> it's called the party of lincoln! >> someone should really build a memorial to lincoln after hearing that. i never knew that. >> yeah. >> joe? >> willie, i got a great idea. okay? i'm thinking how much further along this party may have been if we had promoted abraham lincoln a little bit better and maybe we could have, once a year, if we only had donald trump leading the way decade ago, maybe every year, we could celebrate being republicans by having something called the lincoln day dinner. i suggest we start doing that. >> that's a good idea. >> we will have lincoln day dinners in every county across america so we can -- wait, i've spoken at like 18,000 of those already. willie, you whispered it. i'm sorry. what is the party called? party of what?

>> i'm being told it's called the party of lincoln. >> it's not the party of trump? >> you need to get that out there. >> a question of pr. also at that dinner president trump may have been send ago message to his supreme court nominee last night. judge neil gorsuch made -- the following statement. >> when you attack the integrity or honesty or independence of a judge, their motivates motives, as we times here, senator, i know the men and women of the federal judiciary. a lot of them. i know how hard their job is. how much they often give up to do it. the difficult circumstances in which they do it. it's a lonely job, too. i'm not asking for any crocodile tears or anything like that. i'm just saying, i know these people and i know how decent they are, and when anyone

criticizes the honesty or integrity, the motives of a federal judge, well, i find that disheartening, i find that demoralizing because i know the truth. >> anyone, including the president of the united states? >> anyone is anyone. >> at the republican congressional fund-raiser last night, president trump did not mention gorsuch by name but mentioned criticism of his language when talking about his struggles and implementing a travel ban from several countries in the middle east and north africa. >> we are also taken decisive action to improve our vetting procedures. the courts are not helping us, i have to be honest with you. it's ridiculous. somebody said i should not criticize judges. okay, ill will criticize judges. >> sean spicer tweeted the following.

although he responded anyone is anyone as you heard there when specifically asked about president trump. very clear that judge gorsuch has talking about president trump there. >> he certainly was and especially because the question came from richard blumenthal, the connecticut democrat, who first got him privately to criticize the president for questioning the judiciary. could we talk for a second about judge gorsuch who has been overshadowed by russians and the fbi and wiretaps and everything else? i thought yesterday was just a masterfall performance by him. i that you had if ronald reagan had ever had a confirmation hearing, it would have sounded a lot like that. several years ago, everybody talked about how john roberts, who was so remarkable in frond of the judiciary committee. i thought gorsuch just hit it out of the park. that is a guy who hit it out of the park and all of the gosh and

golly's may have sounded a little strange to some of us from -- that work in manhattan. but that guy delivered a tour de force and in the age of trump, i think he showed all of the chacke characteristicses that americans are loose for. the subject about when he was speaking i think the democrats will have a hard time stopping this man. >> there some philosophical differences the democrats had but in term of professionalism there was hardly anything there to criticize gorsuch on. the question for isn't that true democrats are they willing to give up on their pledge because merrick garland didn't get a hearing they dewon't give a vot for this candidate? >> in this world this could be a great week for president trump. the economy is decent and he has a supreme court nominee who is going to win approval to the court, making good on a promise

to pick somebody from a conservative list and he did it. that is what frustrates people internally and a lot of internal angst about druf and his inability to have a couple of accomplishments without having to deal with his missteps and so frustrating to people. probably sean spicer and others have to defend things they consider nonsensical when they could be talking about gorsuch. >> i actually hear that democrats have some considerable ideological differences. joe is right. he gave an exceptional performance. they raised the issues of minority rights and of women's rights and there are legitimate concerns in those areas about his record about his role in the bush administration over the issue of torture, for example. they brought those up and his siding with employers over

employees so harshly in some cases. i think to do a better job if they are persuading democrats in the red state this is worth filibustering. >> there are going to be hundreds of legitimate fights that the democratic party has to pick with donald trump moving forward. this is just not one of them. he's replacing scalia, first of all. secondly, the next supreme court choice is probably going to be the one that is going to be the swing. but gorsuch is such a strong candidate that i don't see how these red state democrats like manchin, i don't see how any way they can go against him. i do want to say, mark halpern, that donald trump, once again, steps on positive headlines. he should have been celebrating gorsuch last night. instead, he has to take a veiled swipe at a man who is the only

thing good donald trump has done this entire, you know, his first two months. so instead of saying, hey, did you see the guy that i selected to be supreme court justice? what a great job! he couldn't even do that because he has absolutely no discipline. had he to attack the one good headline he had last night, which shows you just how clueless this man continues to be in the ways of washington, d.c. >> yep. three quick things on gorsuch. i was hearing covering most of the two days. first is the staff that is handling him and helped prepare him did a good job and the pick was a good pick and the staff done a good on job and gorsuch is doing well because he is well-prepared. senator tillis said in hearing you would a lot of senators saying congratulations, president trump, for making this pick. they have tried to keep this

about not as donald trump as has gorsuch. he has taken every opportunity to distance himself, somewhat at least, from the man who chose him. finally, i think what hangs in the balance here because he will be confirmed, is will senator mcconnell have to change rules? i think right now, because of gorsuch's performance, despite their anger over what happened with president obama, they are on the precipice to get enough democrats to vote for closure and maybe not vote for him for confirmation but i don't think they have to change the rules right now and that is a big victory for the senate and big victory for senator mcconnell because he would rather not have to change the threshold to 50. coming up how donald trump was able to win in november because of white voters in rural and blue collar parts of america. best selling author j.d. vance is teaming up with aol founder steve case to bring more economic opportunity for those in the country. they join us next to explain. i think you're a man of the law. and i really want to

congratulate the president who picked you. quite frankly, i was worried about who he had picked. maybe somebody on tv! ♪ ♪ ♪ wanna get away? now you can with southwest fares as low as 59 dollars one-way. yes to low fares with nothing to hide. that's transfarency.

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welcome back to "morning joe." last year, 80% of the venture capital in the united states went to just three states. none of those states went for president trump in the election. joining us now is best selling author of hillbilly and founder of revution steve case. aim its focus on start-ups located outside of those three areas. as steve says, talent is evenly distributed but opportunity is not. gentlemen, good morning. good to see you both. >> good to be with you. >> steve, why did you decide to bring j.d. along for the ride? >> we launched this about three years ago. we have done bus tours 6,000 miles and 26 cities and trying to reallynd what is happening and try to stimulate the start-up community. we decided it was time to take to 9 next level and shine the light on the entrepreneur in institutions and j.d. because of

the success of his book and inspired a lot of people and opened poem's eyes to a lot of things plus his experience as a venture capitalist in silicon valley was the great combination to work with him. >> why is 80% of the money flowing to a concentrated area? >> a lot of great things happening in that area but most of the venture capital is there and it's easier to get in the car and fly to the company than drive to the company in a car. that is starting to change and we want to accelerate that and some of that is making sure the vin tour capitalist on the coast realize the gate companies being built in chicago and st. louis and all over the country and not just in san francisco and new york. >> california and new york and massachusetts where the venture capital money goes to. my question how do you get people to stay home in places like southern ohio, western pennsylvania, you know, northern kentucky? how do you get them to stay home? >> i don't necessarily mean them to stay home if they are small

hometowns. a lot of the regional economies are driven by what is happening in the exciting cities some some of these areas. columbus is important to the entire ohio business ecosystem. so i don't think the question is so much how do we keep people home. it's how do we take these other cities, these cities that don't get quite as much venture capital and provide them the capital and the opportunities they need to explode the growth that the potential that is already there because, you know, they have world class universities, they have a lot of talent and they have a lot of benefits but what they don't have is a lot of access to venture capital. >> the president is trying to revive employment in the manufacturing sector and bring those kinds of jobs back. do you see what you and steve are trying to do as a replacement for post-manufacturing job growth? what will your numbers be, do you think? how big of an impact can you have? >> i think it would be great to bring some manufacturing jobs back but i don't think that you

can base the entire future of american economic growth on jobs that frankly were there 30 or 40 years ago. so the question for me is how do we prepare a lot of these regions for the jobs that are going to be there in the 21st century the next 20 or 40 30 ye. . a lot of new jobs come from and not from legacy industries and not from really small businesses, from really high -- >> are they high unemployment start-ups too? >> they are. not qloigemploying a ton of peo. a lot of really high quality jobs in those places. >> two examples. company in detroit that didn't exist five years ago and now a company in chicago that didn't exist three years ago and now nearly a thousand jobs. it happened but we he need to get more capital. the idea is there and talent srnl but we need to make sure the capital is there and j.d.'s example something grew newspaper a small town in ohio and felt the best opportunity is to move

to silicon valley and has moved home and sensing something is happening. we are seeing the beginning of boomerang of talent and hope to accelerate that more capital there people realize more opportunity there and move back and that will create the job that will level the playing field across the country. >> i'm not even a paid spokesman. a great watch. that's all. j.d., i guess four and a half, five months after election day the people you wrote about in hillbilly eligibility for people who want to learn what happened on lex day. how are they feeling now? as they look at this health care bill where a lot of people could lose their health care coverage if medicaid is rolled back in a couple of years. are people changing the way they feel about trump or are they still with him? >> what i've said the past four or five months people will give trump a long leech and republicans a long leash to see

where the negative trends start to get better. the health care bill is the first piece of legislation that i think people are starting to look at and say, i don't know if that is what we voted for. i'm not sure if that is what we bargained for. i think it poses a pretty significant risk for republicans if they continue to go down the path with the bill the way it's written. look. if it ultimately pass i think that means that you need more private sector investment and more private sector activity in these areas which is hopefully something that we can bring. >> what does president -- let's say it passes. it's a long shot in the votes tomorrow and if it gets through, the senate says it won't. what does donald trump say to a person who voted for him who is losing health care coverage under medicaid? >> i don't know what he will say but he has to say something because people will be very frustrated. the biggest issue in my view is the medicaid expansion is the stopgap preventing the opioid crisis become bigger or more of a significant issue. if you take that away without a significant replacement then you have something difficult to

reckon with. >> i hope the focus shifts more towards the job site of things. . a lot of people did feel left behind by digitsization and globalization they only saw the jobs on the coast. focusing on things like the rise should be down the strike zone of the president's agenda so hopefully once health care is dealt with and they focus on some other things this issue of jobs in the kaufman foundation does research on the job creation come from young start-ups and not from big business. the young fast growing start-ups. if you want to create jobs around the country you have to back the start-ups around the country and not on the coast and what it's about and what our journey will be together. >> exactly what president trump hopes, right? move on from health care. >> good for you both for doing something about it. thanks for this initiative. sounds great. still ahead, more from that "the wall street journal" editorial about the president's credibility that joe referenced earlier in the hour. one line from the piece, quote, yet the president clings to his assertion like a drunk to an empty gin bottle. we will be right back. ♪

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just came out with a poll. you'll be liking this poll. this poll is good. yeah, we are going to do a good job. more importantly, we are going to do a great job and then we are going to win it the old-fashioned way. we are just going to win. >> the most recent poll gives the president 50/50 job approval rating but others tell a different story. 56% disapprove. a gap that has grown worse in just the last few weeks as you can see from that graph there. wj wnel editorial board is writing if president trump announces that north korea launched missile that landed within a hundred miles of hawaii would most of the world believe him? would the rest of the world? we are not sure and speaks to the damage that mr. trump is

doing to his presidency. he survived as many sfauls claims as a candidate fsfauls claims as a candidate asfauls claims as a candidate lsfauls claims as a candidate sfauls claims as a candidate esfauls claims as a candidate claims as a candidate gallup has mr. trump's approval rating at 39%. no doubt mr. trump considers that fake news but if he doesn't show more respect for the truth most americans may conclude he's is a fake president. that is an editorial this morning in "the wall street journal." mark halpern, i think one of the nugget in there that a lot of people have clung to is almost three weeks ago that tweet from president trump accusing president obama of wiretapping the trump tower which has been shot down by everyone from republicans in intel committees to now the director of the fbi. >> his credibility is a huge question. that "the wall street journal" editorial reflects a lot of what you hear on republican from republicans. his problems will than

compounded if the house health care bill doesn't pass and gorsuch on track to be confirmed will end in a tough place if that editorial and the health care being down are the dominant stories. if the health care bill passes i think that editorial recede a little bit because the president will show he can get stuff done. this is the biggest thing so far in this young administration. >> a lot has to change by tomorrow if that is going to pass. republican leaders plan to mark p.m. as seventh anniversary of obamacare with a house vote to repeal it. we will talk to rand paul who doubts that the bill will make it to the house floor and jim jordan says tinkering around the edges won't earn his support. jeh johnson will also join us for an exclusive interview.

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seaworld. real. amazing. trump respond to do people saying he hasn't gotten enough done since he took office. >> somebody said to me what are you starting on nafta? i did this, this, this. i've been here i 51 days. give me a chance. >> really he has been in office 60 days and not 51. he corrected himself, kind of. >> do not worry. we are starting on nafta very soon. i've only been there for, what, 52 days, right? >> trump is negotiating time

now. okay, 54 days. that is my final offer. that's all. >> welcome to "morning joe" opinion it is wednesday, march 22nd. mika has the morning off. msnbc contributor mike barnicle is here. that is good news. >> oh, yeah. >> your enthusiasm for that introduction grows, every day, mike. also with us is jim vandehei and kasie hunt and mark halpern. also joining the conversation now contributor to "time" magazine msnbc political analyst and former aid to george w. bush white house and the state department, elise jordan. welcome aboard. >> thanks for having me. >> last night at a republican party fund-raiser, president trump continued his pitch to pass the republican health care bill. >> that legislative effort begins with thursday's crucial vote. and it really is a crucial vote for the republican party and for the people of our country. to finally repeal and replace

the disaster known as obamacare. it's what it is. a disaster. >> so a look at the numbers. nbc news head count shows 27 republican no votes right now. that is more than they can afford to pass it. senator rand paul estimates that number to be about 35. in the last few days, the bill was modified to try to woo both conservative house members and more secentrist senators. the president told republicans behind closed doors pass it or lose seats. in a meeting yesterday morning the president called out mark meadows saying, quote. mark, did you hear that? you can blame me, trump said, according to a source in the room, oh, mark i'm going to come after you. trump added drawing laughter in the room and he said i hope mark will be with us in the end. >> when he talked this morning in the closed door meeting about people paying a price, losing seats and not getting the majority, is that an implied

threat from the president to the members who don't back this bill? >> i think it's a presidential reality. if you go out and when you promise the voters and on a scale like this, as a party we have made very clear if you give us this american people, we will get this done. and i think that to go and make a promise of and a pledge of this magnitude and not to follow it through, i'm sure that voters will be upset. >> are you worried, mr. meadows, that you'll lose your seat like the president said if you vote no? >> you know, i serve at the pleasure of the people of western north carolina and when you serve at their pleasure it's only those 750,000 people that can send you home. it's a temporary job and i've known that from day one. >> another member of the freedom caucus, mo brooks told "the new york times" he thinks if they do vote for the bills, republican will lose their majority. in the senate, there are three solid no votes including mike lee of utah saying they should

republicans should not put it up for a vote but senate majority leader mitch mcconnell told the associated press, quote. joe, a simple question to you as someone who has been there and had to take tough votes, what is the rush exactly on this? why is tomorrow a hard and fast date for republicans? why not step back and at that time time to win over mark meadows or give them something they can like in these bills? >> these conservatives, just like the conservatives i spent my time around, especially the 10 to 15 hard-core conservatives in the '94 class, the thing that was he were always the most suspicious of what a leadership bill that was rushed. because that meant they were trying to jam something through before you could read it all, before you could figure out all of the implications and they were passing a bill just to pass

a bill. that's clearly what is going on here and i think mo brooks from alabama has it exactly right. they face far more of a risk by passing this bill than by not passing this bill. just donald trump -- they know this. donald trump wants to pass a bill. he just wants a signing ceremony. he wants to check this off the list so he can move on to the next thing. and i think, mark halpern, a lot of these conservatives are rightly skeptical and understand and know that trump is not a conservative. he's never been a conservative. and he just wants a trophy in his trophy case and they are going to be left with, you know, with what happens after this is all over? i wonder how do they get to the 216, 218 votes when you have all of these conservatives that just simply aren't going to budge? >> the only way i think is to

argue that failure is not an option. a lot of these house republicans are skeptical not just of it being rushed but they know full well if they vote for it tomorrow it goes to the senate. it's going to move more to the center and less to their liking. then it's coming back to the house and they are told once again you have to vote for a bill you don't believe in. they don't want to let it get to that phase. they don't have a good answer to okay the bill gets pulled or the bill goes down, then what do you want to do? that is what paul ryan argued yesterday. and what he is arguing to members individually. this is the only option to move forward to try to get rid of the affordable care act and move to more market on the other hand system and only way i think to carry the day. it's tough as you said before the ones who are balking are not afraid of the president and they don't agree with his view on the substance or on the politics of a no vote. >> there is nothing stronger than what mark meadows just did. again, i say this because i know this. there is nothing stronger than standing up to your own

leadership and say, i love him, i respect him, but i don't work for leadership. i work for the people in my district and they didn't send me up to washington, d.c. to vote for a big spending bill or obamacare light just because my leadership is telling me to do that. it's a losing argument whether it's coming from donald trump or paul ryan. let's bring in the founding member of the freedom caucus, jim jordan. jim, i think you'd agree with me. when we had guys like matt salmon and steve largent around, the trick they always tried on us was if you don't pass this bill, the leadership crafted in the dead of night and jammed all of these things into and if you don't pass it tomorrow, the republican majority is at risk. that argument never worked then and i find it hard to believe that it's going to work now, is it? >> no it's not going to work now because they rolled this bill

out three weeks ago and didn't allow any witnesses to testify in the hearings and no amendments were allowed to be offered except the manager's amendment which is a leadership amendment and only makes technical changes and said it's a binary choice which is not the way the process is supposed to work. you're right. our job is to do what mark meadows do. do what we told the american people we were going to do when they gave us the privilege to serve. this bill does not repeal obamacare and why we are opposed to it. unless it changes i do not see the votes there to pass this legislation. >> they always act like it's binary. they say you have to vote for this bill exactly like the leadership crafted it without any of your input or it's going to go down and we are going to lose the majority. when you know it can be amended a thousand times and it can be made in a way that you'll vote for it, right? >> yes. what is even worse is just 15 months ago, we had a bill that we all agreed to and we all

passed and we put on them president obama's desk. he vetoed it. we said if you can't find anything that unites us and this bill doesn't. every major conservative group is opposed to it and why not go back to the bill we all passed before and we put on president obama's desk and put the same thing on president trump's desk and we know he will sign it. why not repeal it and a separate piece of legislation to replace it. >> jim, you're telling us there are not enough votes in the house to pass this bill, right? >> not today, there aren't. unless there is real change, fundamental change, i i don't want see how they get to the 216 number that they need to pass it tomorrow night. look. we are still willing to talk. we want to do what we told the american people we want to do.

we are willing to work with them but you have to do something consistent what we told the american people, what we promised them we would accomplish when they gave us the privilege to come here and serve. >> kasie hunt is with us and she has question. >> congressman, when president obama was trying to sell the affordable care act, he went closed doors with democrats and said, look, this is a major piece of legislation that is worth losing your job over if you vote with me and you lose your job that is something that is worthwhile. sounds like president trump came behind closed doors yesterday and said to all of you look you're going to lose your seats if you don't vote for this. do you agree with that assessment? >> i think we should do what we said. the only thing worse than doing nothing is congress dog the wrong thing. we think this is the wrong piece of legislation. does it repeal obamacare? no. even one said it's obamacare light. sd it uni-- does it unite republicans? no. does it, most importantly, lower

premiums? even cbo said premiums are going to go up under this plan. so the fundamental test is that they just aren't met and as i've said so many times it's not consistent with what i told the people in the fourth district of ohio what mark meadows told his voters in north carolina and what we told as a republican party the american people. that is what we are focused on. let's do it right. once we do it right, yeah, then let's accomplish what we set out to do and what we told them we were going to do. >> congressman jordan, good to talk to you this morning. let me ask you one of the criticisms from john kasich the eventual rollback of medicaid. some 50,000 people in ohio ooevenlted would lose their medicaid coverage under this new bill. is that also one of your concerns? >> this is the fundamental difference the left and the right have. some people view success as signing people up for government health care and medicaid. we actually view success and we believe if our plan is

implemented full repeal and replacement if our plan the conservative plan is implemented you will bring back affordable insurance and that is how we define success. bringing back insurance that is affordable for working class people, middle class people, they can pick the plan that fits their family's needs but private insurance that actually is affordable premium levels. >> that is not a criticism from the left. that is a criticism from the republican governor of your state john kasich. the medicaid aspect of this. >> i respectfully -- medicaid, right. i respectfully disagree with our good governor. i think he is wrong on this. what we want to do is bring back affordable insurance. we know our plan will do it if, in fact, implemented. >> would there be a gap for the people who would lose their medicaid? what would happen to those people? >> even under the plan we passed 15 months ago, that every republican was for that we went out and campaigned on and told the american people was real repeal. that plan had a two-year wind down. we understand you need time for this market to develop and bring

back affordable insurance. even our plan said there has to be a transition period and that is common sense. we understand that but over time we believe if you get rid of the mandates and regulations that drove up the cost 6 insurance if you do that you bring back affordable insurance for the working class and middle class families of this country. >> congressman, the white house theory is that members fear donald trump going after them if they aren't with him on this vote. when you talk to other members are they more worried about donald trump in his tweets or more worried about the conservative activists. >> we were campaigning with campaigning with president trump. sometimes when other republicans weren't willing to do that, frankly. we want the president to succeed. we have told him that. he did a great job in his presentation yesterday but that doesn't change what's in the legislation and doesn't change in the four corners of the documents. what we are focused on, most importantly, is accomplishing what we told the voters we were going to accomplish. plain and simple that is our

focus. i believe if you do what you said, that is not only good policy but good politic so let's focus doing what we said and forget the other stuff that everybody wants to talk about and do what we told the american people we were going to do. >> mark halpern? >> congressman, let's say tomorrow the vote doesn't happen. vote gets pulled or it happens and the bill goes down. what happens next that advances your cause of repealing the affordable care act? >> you start talking some more. you figure out what you have to do to get votes to go forward. that is how the legislative process works. sometimes you don't win. my background is in the sport of wrestling and sometimes you learn a lot more from the losses than you learn from the wins you learn what you have to do different to succeed the next time and that will be the point where we are at. some people say that can't happen. sometimes that the best thing that can happen. start over. figure out what you have to do right. figure out what you have to change and then let's get along with accomplishing what we said and get along with being successful for the american people. i don't view that as some big favor. i view that as sometimes the way

it works and you learn valuable lessons from those type of experiences. >> congressman in your back and forth with willie a couple of minutes ago, at least to me, listening to your responses, it sounded as if your proposal, bill to repeal obamacare right away, it sounded like more than access to care, it was an access to insurance bill. what is the difference here? i'm not getting that. >> think about where we are at now. people may have coverage but they can't afford it under obama. people in the individual market paying all -- hundreds of dollars every month and thousands of dollars every month for their premiums and if they can afford that, they can't afford the deductible. what we want to bring back is i think they work together. you bring back lower insurance and insurance that actually meets the need of the famiversu some specific plan to find under obamacare and here is what you have to do. i think that is a better option. fundamental difference that i think some of us have with

others and that is we don't define success as government health care coverage. we define success as bringing back affordable insurance so you can choose the plan that fits your needs. >> congressman jim jordan, thank you so much for being with us. >> you bet. thank you. >> good luck. >> thanks. elise jordan, it does look like donald trump was taught a lesson by the courts, his first weekend. he tried to attack them, tried to intimidate them. and it only made them more angry. it looks like the other coequal branch, the legislative branch, is about to teach him a lesson today. threaten him yesterday. the only thing that does is make -- actually, allies in this case even more committed against your cause. >> joe, i'm just really confused by what the political calculus was here the way the trump white house has approached this, because in the very beginning, the president seemed very

lukewarm about this bill and it just looks like this last-minute panic. and that he is suddenly throwing his weight behind it and going to the hill and for a bill that just doesn't, the votes just aren't there. so really setting himself up to be delivered a failure and while, you know, i feel like president trump will inevitably blame everyone else, i judon't understand what his point of wading into this was almost for a bill he doesn't seem to support. he really has never been, you know, for a more draconian health care system. and, suddenly, you know, the reckoning time has come and it just doesn't look good for him. >> you know, jim vandehei, elise really touches on a really important point. we have all known from the beginning donald trump is not ideological. in 2011 he took on birther attack, thought it might help him in the republican primary. he became a republican at the

last minute after giving money to schumer and everybody else, democrats in 2010. so ideology doesn't matter to him but you would think that he would look back at all of the promises he made on health care during the campaign and say, well, wait a second. i better not go with paul ryan's vision of health care reform. i better go with donald trump's vision of health care reform. but elise is right. it's baffling that just at some point last week, he said i'm going to embrace this bill and we will try to shove this over the finish line when it breaks his promises to the voters in wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, ohio,' all of these these states he need to get re-elected. >> this is what happens when you're making it up as you go. like had they had a regular transition, had they thought about things he would have thought i need tax reform and good infrastructure bill. because they didn't have a team in place, because they didn't have sort of an ideology hammered out and legislation to

back it up, they are doing it improvisational improvisationally. paul ryan loves this bill. it's much bigger moment for ryan. if he can't get the ryan bill this is his baby. if he can't get it through the house he looks like a weak defeat speaker and why i think he will get it through the house and make it more conservative and pull the bill and make it more conservative and get it through the house. >> when? tomorrow? >> it doesn't matter. you can pull it whenever you want to and make it more conservative tonight. every time you make it more conservative the headline in the boston glob, jan brewer in arizona, the republican governor of michigan, they are the ones -- every time you make it more conservative you make it harder to give coverage in those states because you have to pull back on medicaid. that is the trap and i have no

idea how they get out of it. i see how they get out of it in the house but not the house and senate and get a signature on it. >> jim jordan sounded like his mind would not be changed by tomorrow. >> i can't repeat this enough. the biggest trap for republicans in the end in 2018 are passing this bill as is. that's why everybody sometimes gets so obsessed with, you know, succeeding in the task at hand. if they pass this bad bill, there will be a lot of republicans that pay for this why 2018. why i think in the end it's going to either undergo really significant changes or they are going to have to go back to the drawing board. >> jim van dah heine kasie hunt, thank you both. still ahead, we talk to one of the republicans leading the health care opposition over in the senate rand paul who joins us. before leaving office, our next guest took steps to make sure no other country is able to meddle in our elections.

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i have proposed a budget that eliminates the defense sequester and fully rebuilds the united states military. we need it more than ever. we need it more than ever. we have got a lot of haters out there. they hate. we got some people running some countries that are bad people. >> bad people. hey, willie. so this "the wall street journal" editorial, i got to to do a shout-out to sean spicer this morning. i was having dinner with some friends last night and we were all -- they were saying is sean

spicer like that? no, sean is not like that. this is sean 2.0 since he started working for donald trump but the guy is not like the guy you see on tv. "the wall street journal," i love this part of the editorial. says yet mr. trump clings to his assertion about barack obama like a drunk to an empty gin bottle rolling out his press spokesman to make more dubious claims. sean spicer, who doesn't deserve this treatment, was dispatched last my to repeated ashergs by a fox news commentator that perhaps the obamacare administration had worked with the british. i just thought it was very interesting that sean spicer getting, i think, sympathy appropriately from the editorial pages of "the wall street journa journal". you do wonder at what point sean says, enough. mr. president, i can't go out and repeat this nonsense any more. >> he knows he has to go back off that podium and go through that door that we all see when

it closes and answer to the president based on his performance every day. joining us now here in new york, joe, former homeland security secretary jeh johnson. mr. secretary, good to see you this morning. >> thanks for having me. >> let me ask you about news the tsa and dhs announcing a terry ban on some electronic devices from certain countries, namely in the middle east and north africa. what do you read into that? >> i think it's significant. we have been concerned for some time now about explosive material, nonmetallic explosive material in electronic devices. several years ago, we took steps to increase the security around that. an outright ban on things larger than an iphone from these ten airports in eight countries is significant. i haven't been -- i haven't accessed the intelligence the last two months but folks, aviation security experts and our intelligence community must be seeing things that are significant to prompt this action.

>> it tells you something probably that the uk is set to join the ban as well? >> yes. we are in very good company. a couple of years ago we enhanced security at foreign airports and the british and other european countries did the exact same thing so we are in good company there. >> mr. secretary, in the countries where this is taking place, this ban, and actually i think the uk and u.s. have slightly different countries on their lists. >> yes. >> the risk is the counterrisk is this is seen as one more step in the direction of america is waging war on islam to stop the majority muslim countries. these are allies, these countries. what are is the downside risk in terms of america's national security of something like this? >> i think it's a little unfair in this context to refer to this as a ban on electronics coming from muslim majority countries. after the crash a couple of years ago, we took actions to increase the security around certain airports in the region

and i think it was unfair then and i think it's probably a little unfair now to characterize them as muslim majority countries. we look at where the direct flights are coming from and we look at the security around the airports, and we make the appropriate judgments. this judgment was almost certainly a judgment made at the tsa, dhs, intelligence community level. and very often, we get good cooperation from airport authorities, from security officials in these countries in the region. so they are very much partners, i agree with that. >> leading up to this ban, this recent ban, there seems to be a lot of lack of understanding among ordinary americans about the level of sophistication involved in developing these kind of explosive devices. the bomb maker in yemen still at large. >> yes. >> could you talk about the level of sophistication that they have acquired? >> well, there is still a

terrorist threat around, directed at aviation airport security that we need to be concerned about. 16 years after 9/11, we still need to be concerned about aviation security, very much so. and terrorist organizations continue to make active efforts to develop explosive materiels that can be struggled on aircraft either in cargo or in the cabins and why we need to continue to be vigilant. there is still a threat around aviation security and these organizations are making active efforts to try to figure out way to get stuff on airplanes. they have not given up in this regard very definitely. >> secretary johnson, it sounds like you feel that this is a legitimate threat and that this is not a decision that was made casually or for political reasons. how do you feel about the

executive order on immigration? the revised executive order? do you feel that suggests a true threat? >> first of all, my law firm, which i'm now apart, just across the street, has filed an amicus brief against the latest travel ban so i should make that disclosure. i used to tell my lawyers in the department of defense and in dhs, bad facts make bad law. and when you bring a case to a court on bad facts, sloppy facts, it's harder to defend certain basic legal principles. it is the case that the president, the secretary of homeland security have considerable legal discretion to regulate our borders. but when you tell a judge my authority is unreviewable, almost every judge will say, oh, we will see.

so we are in this now where a matter of border security is something litigated in the courts which many of us would have considered unprecedented as rent recently as a couple of months ago but here we are. this latest version of the executive order has more exceptions built into it. it's a more refined version of the first one. and we will see what the courts do. there is already a tro in place, as we know, and we will see what the courts do with this. >> mr. secretary, you've been out of office for, what, six weeks? >> two months. >> two months now. >> two months. >> you sold your house in washington and moved back to new jersey. >> i went out with a bit after flare. i was the designated survivor for seven and a half hours into the trump administration. it makes a great trivia question. who was donald trump's first cabinet office? it was me. >> what do you make of this administration watching from the outside of what donald trump is doing and how he is handling

america's security and how he is handling relations with the rest of the word and speaking candidly with somebody who is no longer in government? >> i actually believe that donald trump -- and i told him this when i met with him in december. i actually believe donald trump has the potential to be a great president in sort of the nixon goes to china way or reagan goes to the soviet union way. if he can find a way to rein in some of the more unhealthy impulses, listen to his staff, bring on a full compliment of political appointees who will help him govern. and i'm very concerned about the tweets, obviously. and very concerned about the direction we are taking in a lot

of national security areas. i'm concerned that we are -- when it comes to homeland security, we may be fighting the last war. we may be responding to the terrorist attack of ten years ago versus the next one. i used to tell my people, don't respond to the last terrorist attack and prepare for the next one. and given where we are right now with the current threat environment, we need to focus on home-grown home-born violent extremist which is something we did a lot of in the last administration. i visited about every major metropolitan area with a significant muslim population to talk to them about building bridges. that used to keep me up at night. the next terrorist attack by someone who lives in this country, who lives in our communities, who may have been raised and may be born here and that is where i think our lot of our focus in homeland security needs to be. dhs was created on the assumption that terrorism is something that would penetrate

our borders which is why we consolidated them all in one cabinet level department. now, because isil has effectively outsourced terrorism to home-ground bound extremists, we need to focus there as well. i hope that this administration will do that. i know my successor believes in that. he said that at his confirmation testimony. but i think that needs to be a major, major focus. >> before i let you go, mr. secretary, you still hopeful that donald trump can be a great president two months in? >> we have to remember this two months may seem like two years, but two months is not a very, very long time. and i hope that there is considerable on-the-job learning. every president grows in office. every president makes mistakes, learns lessons in office. and for the success and the sake of the country, i think we all

have to hope that this president can do the things necessary to fix a lot of problems that we have. >> former homeland security secretary jeh johnson, thank you for being here this morning and welcome back to jersey. >> ahead, did donald trump know carter page or not? apparently, it depends who you ask. we will talk about the administration's efforts to distance itself from some associates who it did say it knew previously. plus a new bombshell report about paul manafort's russian interest before he joined the campaign. the reporter who broke this joins us this hour. we will be right back. various: (shouting) heigh! ho! ( ♪ ) it's off to work we go!

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exactly one year earlier on march 21st of last year the president told "the washington post" editorial board that carter page was a member of his foreign policy team. carter page went to serve in the campaign from the spring and summer of 2016. in september, conway said page was no longer a member of that campaign team.

and this morning, there are new allegations about paul manafort's ties to russia. the trump campaign claims its former chairman never worked for russian interests. but how does the white house explain a memo obtained by our next guest in which manafort pitched plans that could, quote, benefit the putin government? the reporter for the associated press who broke this big story joins us next. ♪

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are there any ties between mr. trump, you or your campaign and putin's his regime? >> no, there are not. it's absurd and no basis to it. >> that was paul manafort last july denying ties between himself and the trump campaign and russian president vladimir putin.

the report quotes from a 2005 memo wrote to this man who became one of the wealthiest men in putin's russia and manafort reportedly signed a 10 million contract in2006. they say manafort told him he was pushinging policies, quote, at the highest levels of the u.s. government. the white house capitol hill and the state department. according to the documents and according to the report, manafort wrote in his memo we are now of the belief that this model can greatly benefit the putin government if employed at the correct levels with the appropriate commitment to success. end quote. the a.p. says manafort did not disclose details about foreign lobbying work to the justice department during the period the contract was in place. joining us now is one of the reporters who broke this story,

jeff horowitz of the associated press. thank you for being with us. talk about the time period we are talking about and what exactly it was that manafort did. >> sure. so starting in sort of around 2004 to 2005 paul manafort did work in europe and our key player found he is subsidizing a lot of work in including ukraine was pasca who is a billionaire known to be sort of among putin's closest allies in the russian business world. >> so this was a proposal, jeff. did manafort ever carry out any of the work? >> so most certainly he was helping dareposka i guess with promoting independence of

montenegro. since then and also he was doing work in ukraine that was very definitely pitched as pro-russian. there was, however, a much larger and grander plan to undercut future. refgs like the one that overthrew a russia friendly government in ukraine. a plan to do that that we are not sure whether or not it was fully realized but what we know is paul manafort was offering his services and claiming his ability to pull strings in moscow and in the west and was doing his very best basically to pitch this as something that he was going to provide to dareposca and the putin government. >> manafort replied to your piece confirming he did work for him in the various countries but the work is unfairly cast as inappropriate or nefarious as part of a smear campaign. quote.

trump administration says this morning, quote, it would be inappropriate for us to comment on a person who is not a white house employee. joe, i'll let you take it but clearly manafort was working in some regard whether directly or indirectly, for vladimir putin. >> yeah. he certainly was. and tom brokaw, another example of, again, more smoke, if not fire, around the donald trump/russia connection. you've had now, the past two days, the trump administration

pretending that paul manafort was a player when he ran it in donald trump's campaign. >> anyone who is around the trump campaign during the important summer last year at the convention was around the trump campaign, paul manafort was the go-to guy. i remember seeing him just before trump's speech at the convention in cleveland, and he said i think we are going to be okay. it was pretty much, as you know, go to the bunkers, and here i stand and i will defend all of you kind of a speech that the president gave at that time, saying i alone will be your voice, and when i saw manafort on the way out, he said this is what we had in mind, and so you cannot discount the important role he played, and he did give the campaign a sense of organization, and he worked with

jerry ford after he took that office. so it's impossible for the white house to now say that he had a min minor role. we are just two months into the trump presidency and there are burning fuses everywhere. i have been in presidential politics for a long time, and i have never seen anything like this, and they are not small and we are talking about russia and the tax returns we have not yet seen and we are talking about what is going to happen on the hill with health care, and the president saying you will pay a price if you don't pass this, and we don't know what the health care bill is like because they are making compromises, and the obamacare totality, you had to go through it piece by piece. and if this was being done by hillary clinton or barack obama, the republican party would be on

fire at this point and they would be speaking out, so i am waiting to see what senior members of the republican party and the senate and the house have to say about what's going on. i have talked to a couple very prominent businessmen in the last couple of days, and they are appalled at what is going on. >> catty kay, i think one of the things that surprised me in the last week, and what surprised me before, when i spoke to business people they discounted almost everything trump had done in the last couple of months, and that bubble seemed to burst yesterday, the stock market went down and this morning "the wall street journal"s attack donald trump, and finally for telling one lie after another, and digging in deeper and even saying the president clings to his assertion about obama like a drunk to an empty gin bottle,

and it's like his allies said enough, no more. >> it's going to be interesting to watch the markets over the next couple of days, and have they concluded that promise of deregulation and tax cuts they will have to wait for and the chaos and confusion in the administration is making it all that more difficult. and it seems paul manafort's statement contradict your reporting which is he did offer to do things that would greatly benefit the putin government, and if that is the case, if that's what he offered what we have to distinguish between is what is legal and legitimate lobbying, and lots of people have been in politics doo-doo that for foreign governments, and what is illegal, and that we have not got yet, right? >> to your first point, i don't know that dar darthat, but to g

legal question, there are questions about whether paul manafort's work would have qualified him as a foreign agent saying he was in touch with people at the white house in relationing to ukraine issues and his work for dare paus skau, and that's not for me to decide. it is potentially something that we could cross. >> you are talking about a time period, as you laid off, beginning in 2004, 2005, and ending in 2009. did you find any link in here where paul manafort was promoting russian interests within the trump campaign? that's the question people are concerned about. >> absolutely. i understand that that question is sort of the really big one. that said, the reporting that we have got does not touch on

contacts that paul manafort may have had during the campaign. it's historical. it's what our research found and what these memos demonstrate, paul manafort had the contacts and the geographic involvement and certainly had the willingness to work as a gun for hire here to promote the russian government, the putin government, as he was writing in these memos. while it reflects on the background and the context, this has nothing to do with what president trump might have known or, you know, things that touch on the months of the campaign when paul manafort was there. >> jeff, thanks for being with us on this piece this morning. >> thank you. joe? >> mark halperin, let me bring you in re, and this is another piece of the puzzle where we see piece by piece by piece showing more connections between donald trump's associates and russia,

even if it predates the campaign, and you had sean spicer and other people at first, and reince priebus denying there being any contact between the trump campaign and russia, and we found out those were lies and you have the manafort piece that predates the campaign, and of course what happened at the rnc as far as language regarding ukraine, and then yesterday we heard that this is an investigation that may last two to three years. as tom brokaw said, this is just, again, in the first two months of the campaign, there's almost been nothing like this. this is historical, and the chaos that is swirling around this administration is -- it just seems unsustainable. >> you have to know if the white house knew this story was coming when sean spicer tried to suggest paul manafort was a low-level part of the campaign, and not the chairman.

this contract, based on what is undisputed, a massive amount of money and a plan to help one of the most powerful people in russia and close to vladimir putin, and it begs a lot of questions, what work was done for the money, and did president trump know that paul manafort had this contract, and does it mean there are more ties to russia between manafort's business interests than previously disclosed beyond this one, a very major contract where it couldn't be closer to putin. >> tom brokaw, i remember in 2009 asking you to compare some of the chaos during the tea party town hall meetings during the obamacare rollout, to compare that to what happened in '68, and you said there were no comparisons. i want you to compare what you are seeing now from all different angles, and compare it

to, let's say, 1973. i am not suggesting that we are moving towards watergate at all. but just the clouds hanging over administration, any comparisons to '73 or any comparisons to any president you ever covered with what we are seeing now? >> each of those cases is unique, joe, and we have to keep that in mind. the world is constantly changing. i want to make one quick observation about the putin government. the russian ambassador to the united nations, a long-time friend of mine and a year ago we had lunch, and we unfortunately lost, and he said tom, you have to understand my country is a hypocrisy, and he was talking about putin laying it out table, and what we have to find out now, joe s. how the health care bill goes through the house and then the senate, and that will

be very telling. if it comes apart or if it's jury rigged in a way. i watched his entire pep rally the other night when he was in louisville, kentucky, and it was just the campaign played out again, and it was not anything that had to do with the details and how we are going to get there and people are having real reservations about how we are going to get there. >> we will pick up that conversation about health care right now as the next hour of "morning joe" begins. >> president trump is here to do what he does best, and that is to close the deal. he is all in and we are all in to end this obamacare nightmare. i think what this comes down to is what it said on those banners

last night at his rally in kentucky, promises made, promised kept. the president just came here and knocked the ball out of the park. he knocked the cover off the ball and explained to the members how it's important to unify and work together, and i think our members are beginning to appreciate just what kind of rendezvous we have right here. >> and that rendezvous with destiny is on a collision course, and the bill set for a full floor vote tomorrow and it doesn't look like they have the numbers needed to pass it. welcome back to "morning joe." mika has the morning off and we are joined by the vet, veteran columnist, mr. barnicle, and

kasie hunt, and mark pal treuha and katie kay. >> that legislative effort starts with the crucial vote. to finally repeal and replac y the disaster known as obamacare. >> and in the last few days the bill was modified to try and woo both conservative house members and centrist senators, and when that did not work the president told republicans behind closed doors, pass it or lose seats. the president called mark meadows saying, quote, i ask for your support. you can blame me if you want,

and oh, mark, i'm going to come after you, and he drew laughter in the room, and he went on to say i hope mark will be with us in the end. >> when you talked this morning in the closed-door meeting about people paying a price and losing seats and not getting an majority, and is that the implied threats for those that don't back the bill? >> no, it's a political reality. when you promise voters something on a scale like this, this is something as a party we made clear, if you give us this, we will get this done. and to not follow-through, i am sure voters will be upset. >> are you worried, mr. meadows, you will lose your seat like the president said if you vote no. >> when you serve at their pleasure, it's only those 750,000 people that can send you home and it's a temporary job

and i have known that from day one. >> and some say if they do vote for the bills, the republicans will lose the majority. senate majority leader, mitch mcconnell told the associated press, i would hate to be a republican whose vote prevented us to repeal and replace barack obama's health care law. for context here, we talked about 27 no votes according to an nbc news count in the house, and they can only afford to lose 22. as of this moment it cannot pass the house, but there is still time and the vote is tomorrow. >> there's still a little time, and this is a massive bill, and for the republicans who said the affordable care act was pushed through by barack obama, and we were talking about that for six,

nine months, and even a year. they are doing this in extraordinary speed. this is not even a bill that trump himself promised he was going to pass. he has one broken promise after another broken promise in here, and so for him to say promises made, promised kept, something we also used in 1996, actually, that's probably going to fall on deaf ears with voters because this doesn't do anything, it doesn't come close to doing anything. >> it doesn't allow everybody to get insurance and preserve medicaid and medicare. for the most part, this is based on they don't think it's a good bill. they think on the merits, they say and i think in this case it's accurate, they would risk losing their seats rather than

voting sustaining what they see is a big entitlement. the appeal on politics is not going to work and it's possible they will make changes and side deals and the argument that failure is not an option is in the end going to be the argument that carries the day, and it will be fascinating tomorrow. do they go to the floor short of a ma yojority in hand, and if t pull the vote and delay it, does that make it more likely or does the whole thing start to unravel. they have to face tough choice in the next 24 hours. >> earlier this morning, mark sent me "the wall street journal" editorial. usually what the president has is the power behind him and the bully pulpit behind him, and we can't overstate this enough, since the obama tweet undercut

his ties, and the stock market took a tumble almost 300 points on investors concerns that donald trump was getting in his own way, and so when you are whipping this bill, you know this as well as anybody as long as you have been around the hill, and it matters if you are at 39% or 59%. you know, all the times we were threatened when you were covering us in the house, there's not a whole lot more you can do to help a little congressman like me when i was in there than to have a president or a powerful speaker threaten you, and you take the fight to the town hall. i don't care if it's the president, i am going to stand up for you and people love that. trump doesn't seem like he's misplaying this? >> if he were at 50% this would

be a different calculation. the politics of health care are awful when you are the party reforming health care because somebody is losing something in almost every single case and you start with a difficult hand to play, and the problem for donald trump is he is getting opposition from conservatives and they don't think it's conservative enough, and these conservatives when they ran did not run as trump republicans, and they ran as conservative districts, and they are not sitting there donald trump will come after them and destroy their political career, because they know they are dammed if they do and dammed if they don't. thil have cservative you are going to have moderate voters and moderate republicans who don't like the bill at all because they don't think it goes far enough. >> but willie geist, what is so -- what has to be so frustrating for people working for donald trump 30 days ago, they would have been scared to cross donald trump.

they are not scared of donald trump today. i have talked to them. they are frustrated by him. the constant tweets. he's wearing his own supporters down. i hope that tweet three weeks ago was worth it to him, because by trashing the fbi, the last president, and by trashing great britain and angela merkel, and by trashing nato and by trashing all of our allies, he has a lot of conservatives in places where i am from going wait a second, what is he saying? it's hurting him right now on the vote count. >> i don't think he realizes and maybe some of the people in the white house, the credibility question matters and it matters to those that voted for him and those on the hill, and can they trust what he says? it is worth getting in line with him? some republicans on the hill who are against the health care plan say the president is being misled about the chances of the bill passing.

listen to this. >> president trump's message has been hijacked by people who don't share his values, by people who don't share his desire to repeal obamacare. we do need to repeal it and this bill, unfortunately, does not repeal as much as obamacare as we need. it has a false promise of health care cost relief. >> i don't know why they are playing the game of chicken for thursday. this time the leadership shouldn't mislead trump into thinking this is a home run in the house when this bill was probably dead on arrival. the whip team is telling him this is a slam dunk and it's not and he is being misled as far as i could tell, and on thursday reality will come crashing down. >> you talk to the congressmen and senators, and what are the odds it makes it through the house tomorrow? >> i actually think right now

they are pretty low, willie. we are looking at the whip count and our nbc news whip count is officially 27, and my sense from reporting and talking to people in the hallways is that there are a lot of people that won't say one way or the other if they are for this, and if they decide to play the game of chicken and put it on the floor without knowing they have the votes it's possible if they watch no votes increase, you could see many more republicans than we might otherwise expect vote no on this bill. i mean the reality here, they have been ramming this through and saying this is inevitable and you better get onboard with this, and they did not do the kind of leg work it normally takes, and they do want to do something basically as big as the original obamacare bill, and this is going to affect insurance for 24 million people, and that's on the same scale -- when president obama did thrbg

he had hospitals and pharmaceutical companies on board and they talked about it for months. this is a enormous thing they are trying to do in a very short amount of time and right now it feels like that lack of leg work is coming back to bite them. still ahead on "morning joe," by some counts republicans don't have the votes to pass their bill. senator rand paul believes there's as many as 35 no votes in the house. he joins us just ahead. >> and governors have reservations about the president's plan, and we will talk about that ahead. you are watching "morning joe." ! happy birthday, sweetie! oh, millies. trick or treat! we're so glad to have you here. ♪ what if we treated great female scientists like they were stars? ♪

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♪ timthank you so much forture that down home welcome. show me female vocalist of the year. thank you so much. thank you so much acm's, i appreciate it. show me acm best moments. i could never have wished for, asked for and dreamt of anything more than this. catch your favorite moments from the acm awards and afollowing thencore performshow on xfinity x1.erini the acm awards. live on sunday, april 2nd 8/7 central on cbs. ♪ ♪ before the break we were talking about divisions on capitol hill about the plan to repeal obamacare. a number of republican governors also expressed their concerns. the detroit free press reports the republican governor snyder is reaching out to their

delegation reminding it of their specific bill but never asking them to reject it and he pointed out specifics about the potential loss and coverage for tens of thousands of their constituents. one of the letters reads, quote, altogether there are 1.75 million children, seen surz and pregnant women and disabled individuals residing in your district. in arizona a state analysis obtained by the associated press this week suggested 380,000 people could lose medicaid coverage. former governor january brewer supported the medicaid expansion when she was in office and trump, and she told the ap, quote, it weighs heavy on my heart when she thinks of the concern the republican plan to repeal and replace obama's law, and she said it affects our most

vulnerable, our chronically mental hill and our drug addicted and it will devastate their lives and the lives that surround them because they are dealing with an issue very expensive to take care of in a family with no money. she was one of trump's supporters. can you go state to state and there are a lot of republicans concerned with the roll back of medicaid. >> nobody can say january brewer is a moderate squish, and she was one of the most aur dent trump supporters all the way through, and she was a governor who was on the front lines and understood the impact of support for the poorest, for the hospitals. and sometimes i hear conservatives talking about how much money it's going to cost for health care, and it's always -- it's always pretty

surprising that we don't understand in america already we have a guarantee for health care. you show up in an emergency room and the hospitals are required to take you in, but it's the most inefficient form of health care possible, which ends up costing us all billions and billions of dollars more than if we actually have a system that works. and this system that republicans are trying to put in right now, and forgive me for preaching here for one second, and they are doing it in, like, 30 days. they made fun of nancy pelosi for saying we have to pass the bill to see what's in the bill, and they are doing this in 30 days and nobody has any idea of what is in the bill. it's like the first executive order. they don't know the impact it's going to have on american lives and in hospitals, and it makes up one-fifth or one-sixth of america's economy.

>> and governor jan brewer syndrome, and trump won the state of pennsylvania, and if obamacare f. that's what you want to call it, is repealed, 630,000 people will be kicked off the medicare rolls. and the republican version of the bill pulled together in five or six weeks, and the freedom caucus and conservative caucus is saying this bill does too much for the poor and the elderly. north korea rattles the sabre again, and we'll get a live report. first, here's bill karins with a check on the forecast after a deadly night of storms in the southeast. >> no tornadoes and it was winds that caused the problem, and we had a lot of hail reports that covered the ground.

this is in claremont, georgia. a lot of reports in tennessee. and this storm rolled quickly, and now they are gone all the way off the coast and a few showers left around northern mississippi and memphis, and zero tornadoes, and the swath went from nashville to augusta. and nobody wanted this after a beautiful day yesterday, and it's frigid out there. the windchills in single digits and in teens in most areas. the temperatures are quickly plunging, and d.c., philadelphia through virginia, and then when you come home from work and school today, it's in the 20s and single digits in northern new england. windchill in atlanta is at 39, and raleigh around 20. the rest of the country mild, and the southern half of the nation stood in with a lot of wet weather. air travel today, if we are going to get delays, watch out

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welcome back to "morning joe." this morning north korea attempted to launch another miss and this failed almost immediately, and it exploded seconds after the launch. joining us live from beijing, nbc news correspondent, janice mackey frayer. good morning. >> this is the latest in a series of provocations, and north korea stepped up its testing all month. also yesterday there was a north korea propaganda video that surfaced showing the "uss karl vincent" engulfed in flames and superimposed with threatening messages. it was seen as a response to the warning last week by secretary of state tillerson that with north korea all options are on the table and that includes a

preemptive military strike, and so the tension keeps escalating, and there was a rocket test earlier in the month, and the threat from kim jong-un that they are close to having a missile capable of reaching the united states. even though the test today failed, it shows that north korea is making at least incremental progress in its capabilities despite u.n. sanctions, so in terms of trying to formulate a policy response, it's unclear what measures might work. the u.s. will step up on beijing for china to use its influence, and china has strategic concerns, and china in the game of optics is not going to be seen as the u.s. tool. the trump administration is

setting up north korea as public enemy number one, and nikki haley saying that's the number one threat, and trump is tweeting on why china doesn't do more. >> and meanwhile in the real world, what is happening with the threats america faces, and we talk about alternative options, and it's true, america's policy towards north korea has not been successful for the last two decades but can they come up with anything better, and the threat is clearly mounting and the question for national security people from republican and democratic sides in washington at the moment is, is this white house remotely prepared if a crisis happens, and how does the white house cope with it? >> what do you make of the posture of the trump administration towards north korea, and tillerson said the last 20 years have been a total

failure in terms of u.s. policy towards north korea. >> i think secretary tillerson, a lot of what he said was a continuation of previous policy. my problem with it was because he didn't speak to the press very often at all on that trip, those comments were so isolated and he was not allowed to elaborate on what our actual policy was. my bigger problem with the trump administrati administration, is donald trump cannot tweet about north korea, and he cannot tweet about north korea, and my heart palpitates every time. >> the chinese have a huge problem with north korea as well. the degree of difficulty in dealing with north korea is just off the screen right now given the level of danger they present

to the world and to china and to us, and also in terms of the chinese, the enormous refugee problem that china would have to deal with if you topple the regime or don't. >> as janice suggested they are not doing everything they could with the sanctions, because they want to prop up the government in pyongyang. and it's the single biggest threat that america faces at the moment. still ahead on "morning joe" this morning, first signs of cracks in the trump rally on wall street. is it a hiccup or a sign of things to come? we will speak live with senator rand paul as he battles his own party on the health care bill up for a vote, as of now, tomorrow in the house. i realize that ah, that $100k is not exactly a fortune.

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i don't know if you are a drinking man, but you may want to have a cocktail tonight and just kind of relax. i'm done. just don't drink vodka. stay away from vodka for a while. >> senator, i will hit the hay. >> you never have been to russia, have you? i meant to ask that. >> my family has been texting me throughout this process and asking me to ask questions that they would ask, and i asked a few of them, you know, for suggestions, and my son, a teenager said, ask him if he would rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck?

i never have heard it either. >> my wife also sent me a text a little bit ago and i am sure she didn't expect me to read it, and she said how many hours is gorsuch able to go so many hours without peeing, and i won't ask you to answer that. >> when you get ten or 11 hours of a hearing you get a little punchy. and the hearing resumes this morning at 9:30 washington time. the white house is responding this morning to a new report about paul manafort's connections to a billionaire that has ties to vladimir putin, and last hour we spoke to the reporter that broke that story. >> paul manafort was a guy who had the contacts and had the geographic involvement, and

certainly had the willingness to work as a gun for hire to promote the putin government, as he was writing in these memos. >> that's jeff horowitz of the ap filling us in this morning, and joining us now is peter alexander with more detail on the report of the potential fallout and the response from the white house? >> reporter: let's get to the reaction from the white house, and i spoke to secretary spicer an hour ago, and he said it would be inappropriate to comment on a person that is not a white house employee, and we will get another chance to pepper sean spicer on that topic later today, and remember within the last 48 hours they basically said paul manafort had a limited role in terms of his relationship to the campaign, and of course he was the campaign's chairman throughout the campaign. and donald trump's former

campaign chairman seworked for secret russian billionaire, and the report quotes from a 2005 memo that manafort wrote to a business tycoon, dara pass skau. the ap goes on to say that manafort told him that he was pushing policies at the highest levels of the u.s. government, the white house and the capital and the state department according to the documents. he wrote, quote, we are now of the believe this model can greatly benefit the putin government if employed at the appropriate levels with the commitment to success, and the

ap adds manafort doesn't include details with his work with the justice department during this period, and he worked with da deripsks. the bottom line, nunez of california said there's a gray cloud over the white house. and this is just more evidence how dark that cloud is getting. >> and deripaska, and manafort said his work was for personal and business matters and not having to do with russia. peter, thank you so much.

let's turn to the health care battle. earlier this morning we spoke with the founding chairman of the house freedom caucus and one of the leading voices against the republican health care bill. >> jim, right now, regardless of what the white house is saying and regardless of what the press is saying, you are telling us there are not enough votes in the house to pass this bill, right? >> not today there aren't, unless there's real change, fundamental change, i do not see how they get to the 216 number they need to pass it tomorrow night, so look, we are still willing to talk. we want to do what we told the american people we would do, and we will work with them. >> for the view from the senate, we bring in republican rand paul of kentucky. good to see you this morning. >> good morning. >> you have tweeted the house hhca is still obamacare-lite and

i would be a no in the senate but i don't think it could pass in the house. anything, senator paul, that could happen in the next 24 hours that you think would change the mind of the freedom caucus guys? >> yeah, we have to put forward a bill that would actually lower insurance rates. the most visible problem with obamacare are the spiraling upwards premiums in the individual market. we need to do something to bring those prices down, and that means you have to repeal the insurance mandates of obamacare, and also we have to provide hope for the millions of people in the individual market that we are going to give them something better. what i have been talking about is i think everybody in the individual market ought to be buy a group plan through an association, and imagine 37 million people in aarp having one person negotiate their rate, and everybody talks about how drug prices could come down through leverage, and insurance prices could come down through leveraged prices as well, and we

need to offer something that is hopeful to people and we are not doing that yet. >> you are talking about something different than what is currently in that proposed bill. let's be practical about this. is there any way that change comes whether it's tomorrow or whether they postpone the vote at any point to get it through the house? >> the interesting thing, all the things i just mentioned, i don't believe paul ryan or tom price or trump disagree with me on, and they are not putting it in the bill because they are afraid of the senate paul phupb tearen. it looks like the vice president can decide for the senate what is reconcilable, and in order to make it a good bill and have good stuff in it we need to get rid of the obamacare-lite stuff that ryan is giving you half as many subsidies and get rid of the regulations and offer people hope by joining a buying group and do it through budget

reconciliation with the vice president in the chair saying this is reconcilable. >> do you believe that is something that could happen? >> if we have the guts to do it, and i don't know if we have the guts to do, and we have the power to do it. they say the chair rules and not the par law men tearen. the vice president should come to the senate and say we are getting rid of all of the obamacare regulations, and we are also going to replace it with buying groups, and we have something positive we could offer. i hate the idea that there are people out there that get sick and they are stuck in the individual market. i want them all to be allowed to get a group plan and join in an association. we should make that part of what we are doing right now. >> senator paul, i am curious, you are calling it obamacare-lite and have outlined the problems with the bill and i think those are a lot of

problems that the grassroots constituency republican voters that propelled donald trump into office see, and what do you think about donald trump putting his support behind the bill that is obamacare-lite? >> i think he has been told things by house leadership that frankly are not accurate. he has been told this is the only vehicle, and paul ryan has been saying it for weeks, it's a binary choice, you take it and it's my way or the highway, and i think he has been fed a bill of goods on this thing, and there's a bill we could pass that would bring down costs and this bill doesn't do it. i have fought against obamacare for years and i am a physician and i want to repeal it, but not with replace it with something that doesn't work or is just a high. >> you said it a couple times, the president has been sold a bill of goods, and you act like

the president is not responsible, and he owns this now, he's perfectly capable of what he's going to support and what he's not going to support. >> yes and no, and i read the art of the deal and the deal is not done until the deal is done and right now we are in the negotiating phase, and i would say we are in the prenegotiation phase, and when they count the votes up, and the bill can't pass and then the negotiations really begins, we want a real repeal and we want a seat at the table. >> senator, let's talk about the timeline about your proposal, group insurance, and group associations, and sounds good and reasonable. what happens to people who are caught in between as we wait for the insurance companies to bring down their prices? >> even conservatives have acknowledged there's a transition period, so in most of the plans, even in the 2015 plan that we thought was a more clean repeal, i think there was a

two-year window to gradually remove the subsidies, and it will take a little while. i agree with you. it doesn't happen overnight, and i can't tell you how excited i am. look, i don't like the insurance companies, and i don't like being on the phone for two hours and always having to pay cash and still have an enormous premium, and nobody in america, no matter what your income level likes the health insurance companies, and the paul ryan company continues to fund them. since obamacare came into existence, insurance companies double their profits and they segregate their losses in the individual market and then act like they are great human tearens and they want to take care of everybody, as long as the backstop is the taxpayer. they want to privatize their billions in gains. >> you have a seat the rest of us don't have, and you are inside the capitol, and for people watching at home, and let's say people in the state of

kentucky, somebody who is on medicaid who benefits after it was expanded and it might be rolled back in a couple years, how will this end for them? >> the way it ends, as far as me making my decision on what i vote for, as long as i think i get them better, i will vote for something that is better. if i vote simply just to remove something for them but don't replace it for anything better, i am very hesitant and that's why i am a no vote. i have done charity work my whole career in medicine and i have a lot of sympathy for those that can't afford insurance or health care, and i want something better and not another government program. medicaid doesn't work, and have of them don't take medicaid because they don't pay the doctors well in it, and the better health insurance is a good job and good insurance and if you have to work for a small employer, let's let you join a large group. there are 700,000 people in credit unions in kentucky, and

what if the credit union offers as a member of the credit union, we will be your buyer of insurance, and kissing the boots of the insurance companies, they will come on bended knee to the consumer. we have to figure out how to not just enrich the insurance companies and leave everybody else dangling out there and worried about if they get sick. still ahead is wall street coming down from a sugar high after record gains under trump early in his administration, and marke markets suffer their worst day of the year. brian sullivan joins us at the table next. >> we had to go with the health care first, and we're doing well. i think we are going to have some great surprises. i hope it's all going to work

out. and then we immediately start on the tax cuts and they are going to be really fantastic, and i am looking forward to that one. that one is going to be fun. that one is going to be fun. that's called the wheelhouse. >> president trump, who has tried to put his name on nearly everything in his career, ties, sta steaks, water, and doesn't want his name on this bill, and the president is here to sell the bill to republicans, and make no mistake, this is trumpcare. it's not how fast you mow, it's how well you mow fast. it's not how fast you mow... ...it's how well you mow fast. woooh! it's not how fast you mow... it's how well you mow fast! it's not how fast you mow... it's how well you mow fast. they're not just words to mow by, they're words to live by. the john deere ztrak z345r with the accel deep deck to mow faster, better. take a test drive and save up to 250 dollars

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that today's dip in the dow is a result of his performance as president of the united states? >> well, i think to look at anyone day is nothing that we have -- we have always cautioned. overall it continues to be up tremendously. you can't look at one and say that's the benchmark of an entire economy. >> that's secretary sean spicer cautioning looking at one day. and there are parent concerns about trump's agenda. in a moment we will bring in cnbc's brian sullivan on the so-called cracks, and a look at massages, and we'll get into some of that.

first, a look at what we have covered. >> told to pass it or lose seats, and at this moment it cannot pass the house. >> if they watch no votes increase, you could see many more republicans vote no on this bill. >> and somebody is losing something in almost every single case. >> it doesn't come close to doing anything he promised he would do. >> it doesn't preserve medicare and medicaid. >> trump threatened the freedom caucus, and it would be much better to publicly threaten a lion. >> no amendments were allowed to be offered and they said it was a binary choice, and that's not how the process is supposed to work. >> i think he has been fed a bill of goods on this thing, and there's something that could bring down the insurance cost, and this doesn't do it. >> 30 days ago they would have been scared to cross donald

trump. they are not scared to cross donald trump today. >> the next 36 hours are a test of what donald trump promised the american public. >> people are really starting to look at and say i don't know if that's what we voted for. >> this is a much bigger moment for paul ryan than for donald trump, and if he can't get it through the house, he looks like a weak and defeated speaker. >> no man is above the law. >> if ronald reagan ever had a confirmation hearing, it would have sounded like that. >> this could be a great week for donald trump. >> actually donald trump has the potential to be a great president if he can reign in some of the more unhealthy impulses. >> joining us now as promised, brian sullivan. good to see you, bud. >> is it? >> i am not bowing to ask you. let's move on to the news. >> we have not had any massages yet. >> i was not going to say it.

>> what do we read into this, the 1%? >> 1% is not a lot and you have to go back years to have a gap between the 1% drops, and it was something like 40 years since we had that long of a period without a 1% drop. a lot of it is being ascribed to trump. health care to the market is not that important. what is important is health care as a referendum to get everything else done. obviously health care is important to america but to the stock market it's more of a sign. is trump, the gop, going to get their act together and do tax reform, and almost every firm i have read, and there have been three, assigns a 70% chance that health care does get done, and the question is what kind of a bill is it going to be? >> right, and how much capital will he have spent to get there. we know wall street looks at

donald trump at a republican fund-raising dinner last night, and he talked about that, let's listen th en listen. >> our first republican president, abe lincoln, ran for public office in 1832 when he was 23 years old, and he began by imagining the benefits a railroad could bring to his port of illinois without ever having seen a steam-powered train. he had no idea and yet he knew what it could be. 30 years later as president, lincoln signed the law that built the first trance continental railroad uniting our country from ocean to ocean. great president. most people don't even know he was a republican, right? does anybody know? a lot of people know that. we have to build that up a little bit more and let's take an ad and use one of those pacs.

now is the time for a new republican administration working with our republican congress to pass the next great infrastructure bill. >> brian, infrastructure, of course, is one of the places in the beginning of the administration where democrats said we could work with you on that and instead of white house decided to do health care first. what does wall street look at in terms of infrastructure? >> well, we just figured out how the log flume at disneyland was invented, abe lincoln invented it. how are we going to pay for things and how is euit going to look? trump wants fiscal stimulus and spending a lot of money on infrastructure, and there's a plan out there for a private and public partnership, and you put in $500 billion and the government puts in $500 billion,

and we work together. while different in the goal, the method and the problem are the same, and what i mean by that, you talk to anybody on the hill, and i have been down to d.c. much more than i care to lately, and you talk to people and they want the same thing, and the problem is they don't know how to get there. the great fear of the market yesterday is we are just going to end up with a lot of talk and nothing is going to get done before 2018. >> why yesterday? >> i think it's a good point. there's a lot of optimism because you have a super majority of gop. it's not just on the federal level, and it's also on the state level, and gop controls 33 different states, and one would think that would be easy, and i think the goal is that at the end of the day it will all get done. >> do you think comey and mike rogers, that inquiry into the russian investigation has anything to do with the market dipping? >> no. >> no? >> no, i do not. >> no wariness within the market

about this administration? >> i am saying that from the notes i read and what people talk about. people in the market view it not as a side show, it's important nationally, but it's -- if we start to go down the road that joe mentioned earlier, the sort of 1973 route, then, yes, but right now the market is focused on tax reform, tax reform, tax reform. >> and regulations. >> regulation with a side order of tax reform. i am just talking about the stock market. >> this is not after the press saw the 1% drop saying you see we said the trump administration was going to have problems in the markets, and you are saying the concern is getting legislation passed and it's health care. >> and it's not for your audience, but the market has been going up for eight years, but for 15 months it stopped. that's called the campaign. literally we did nothing.

it was tough, and you talk about the market and it was doing nothing, and it resumed its way up. housing is strong, and the job market, there are more job openings than anytime in 15 years. unless something derails that, we should be okay. >> sorry we ran out of time to talk about the impact of the massage industry. >> that's an extra. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. good morning, i am stephanie ruhle, and look where i am, live in washington, d.c. overlooking the white house. no better place to be as the president faces his biggest test yet. it's crunch time for him. president trump making a direct plea to republicans to pass the health care bill, and that vote is just one day away. >> it really is a crucial vote for the republican party and for the people of our country. >>