words matter. they matter a great deal. they have repercussions around the world. that's not hyperbole. i mean, they literally do. >> welcome back to "the 11th hour." former vice president joe biden back on the hill today to talk health care. took a few questions as you saw on the president's wiretap claims. but the question remains, what will be the political fallout from just today's news and developments? eli stokols remains here with us in the studio. and with us from washington, "washington post" white house reporter ashley parker. and pulitzer prize winning columnist eugene robinson. welcome to you all. ashley, i've been so anxious to get you on the record. what does today feel like at the white house? what did these developments today feel like at the white house? and i should tell you, fox news tonight is running a graphic under their conversation that says, "trump surveillance confirmed." was the entire nunes visit in service to donald trump's tweets

alleging specifically illegal wiretaps by a former president? >> well, we've sort of described this process in general of donald trump sort of tweeting something out or making a statement that is -- aides are not aware of, is often not based in fact, as sort of reverse engineering. he says it and then his aides and everyone around him kind of scramble to make it true or provide supporting evidence to sort of buttress the claim. and i think that's what we saw with the chairman of the house intel committee sort of trying to reverse engineer something that might fit into this framework but in fact, actually, you know, it was not what the presidentwted and sort of a totally different issue but can so obe used to buttress what best we can tell is still a completely false claim. >> eugene robinson, we were just saying i'm not sure what, but something feels a little more

inexorable as of today. do you share that? >> yeah. i -- it does feel like this has got legs and that wheels are grinding and wheels will continue to grind. what chairman nunes said was interesting not just the part that as ashley said was obviously intended to sort of reverse engineer donald trump's false comments, in support of them, but also if, indeed, there was incidental collection of intelligence about or conversations, communications of trump campaign people, then that meant it was collected while there was surveillance of people who needed to be surveilled or who our intelligence authorities felt needed to be surveilled under a fisa warrant or because there were international warrants not covered by fisa. again, we know nothing about that but it sort of suggests, again, there's something going on here and then, of course, you

have adam schiff's comments about evidence that's not just circumstantial. i think this has some momentum now. >> eli, have you ever heard schiff talk that way? >> no, nobody heard him say exactly what he said today go as far as he did. he's been pretty strong on this from the start, but he's been measured. i think he was trying to be measured today but be emphatic in response to what devin nunes said today. i think the fox, trump tweets, surveillance, you have don trump jr. out there tweeting, boom, then tweets about nunes' visit. you have the president, retweeting some sycophants saying the same thing. this is an ecochamber they live in, hermetically sealed world the trump administration and supporters choose to live in and maybe progressives live in their own hermetically sealed world and maybe that's the state of

our country, but when you look at the other metrics, stock market getting shaky about this administration. there's no vision here, number one. just little problems and bigger problems and problems everywhere. there's no accomplishments. there's no vision. there's nothing to show for it. republican majorities they have on capitol hill, yet, and republican in the white house. this was supposed to be this dawn of a republican era of government and right now it looks like a huge mess and the stock market that was optimistic about this initially, you're starting to see signs that folks may not have as much confidence that the new leadership in washington is going to be able to do anything. >> and ashley, in the industry of creating their own truth, their own reality, the other jaw-dropper this week was the

effort to diminish the role of paul manafort. >> it certainly was. i mean, you know, this was a guy who was brought on -- i remember because we all covered it with great fanfare. he was the campaign chairman. he, you know, at the convention he was one of the people along with sean spicer who was briefing reporters every single day as if he was, in fact, in charge of something, which he was, so it was sort of laughable to see sean spicer yesterday stand up there and say, you know, this is someone who had a very limited role. he is correct that he was only there for five months. he was sort of one of three people who was in charge of the trump campaign. but for the time he was there, he had a crucial role and one other thing to keep in mind, like all of these people in donald trump's orbit, they never go away. so paul manafort is still -- he's told friends he's still speaking to the president, you know, a couple times a week. or at least once a week. so even when he's not in charge, he's sort of always, always present. >> and ashley, as someone who sits in that briefing room, has it felt incrementally different this week, in any way? >> i think the question to become sort of -- you've seen the questions have become a

little sharper and more pointed and the exchanges more contentious. although i will say that that was sort of the case to begin with, but i think what you sort of described it as inexorable but we're sort of seeing it on steroids or playing out in, you know, hyper time. >> and eli, our next segment is about health care and the backdrop to our next segment is the new quinnipiac poll tonight. this president is at 37% popularity. >> that's the lowest since he's taken office. correct? i mean, this is not going well. and i think they can try to paper over it as much as they want, but there is some awareness. they won't let on publicly but they know this is not going well. they're trying to do everything they can to sell the health care bill to get the votes to get it through the house. we'll talk about that coming up. everything that is a heavy lift feels like it's that much heavier because this administration can't get out of its own way. donald trump can't not wake up in the morning and tweet something that turns into a month-long, perhaps months-long

problem and investigatn. they're just creating more messes for themselves. what they're realizing is even without doing that, governing is pretty difficult. >> as we said, another break. when we come back, we will talk about what sean spicer said today. no plan "b." just this health care bill. he vowed the president will get the votes and get it passed, but with less than a day remaining, the votes are not there yet. "the 11th hour" will continue right after this.

tonight the president's first signature piece of legislation, the health care

bill, to repeal and replace obamacare, where do we hear that before, does not have the votes to pass in the house tomorrow. two notes here, that's as of tonight. and that is according to every available vote tally. our own nbc news vote count has at least 29 house republicans as no votes or leaning no to the republican plan to repeal and replace. only 22 no votes are needed to keep that bill from going on to the senate. we're back with our panel. eugene, much was made of donald trump on the hill threatening members that they may not get re-elected next time around, but this is not lyndon johnson and the civil rights act, and threats are best served with a side order of cajole. what if this goes down? what does that do to the agenda? >> well, it would be catastrophic for the agenda, really. this is an administration that desperately needs a win, and they -- so they decided to think of the toughest thing to do which is health care and the most perilous thing to do politically, again, health care. they're trying to get it through in a big hurry. it's a total mess. as you said, right now they obviously do not have the votes. we know they do not have the votes not only because of the

vote counting but because tonight they seem to be rewriting the bill, essentially, trying desperately to get the freedom caucus in, as they bring in the far right members of the house, that group, they start losing moderates who can't quite stomach some of these changes. and they also seem to be changing the bill in a way -- we don't want to get too deep in the weeds, but in a way that won't pass parliamentary muster in the senate. so it's a total mess. paul ryan may well get something through tomorrow, but i'd say it's no better than even money right now. >> ashley, you've got conservatives and moderates saying that at the heart of this, to gene's point, is a bad piece of legislation. and some of these men and women are willing to see how much damage 37% popularity can do to them back home where they're hearing nothing but critical calls from constituents. >> yeah, that's absolutely true. on the one hand what we're seeing play out in the house

sort of you need to move it further to the right to get some of these house freedom guys onboard but then you lose even more moderates is a microcosm of what we're going to see if it ever does pass the house and move to the senate where whatever comes out of the house is probably going to be, again, too far to the right and have a tough time passing the senate and then, you know, coming back through the house. so this is just a very early preview in a very early little taste of what's to come. >> the eli stokols theory is that if it wasn't called obamacare, the reaction to this wouldn't be this way. you've got -- there's an upstate new york member of congress

tonight who said his calls are running 1,000-1 against repeal and replace. >> the public opinion nationally is now suddenly obamacare is over the 50% mark. took obama leaving office and talking about repealing it, but that's where we're at now as a country. you see tom cotton in arkansas, a place where the medicaid expansion has been implemented and has helped a lot of people, and he's sitting there trying to caution this white house. that's a senator that this white house is close to and trusts and they are -- he's telling them, you know, tap the brakes here. i think it's pretty obvious that if they hadn't campaigned on this for six years, they hadn't beaten this drum, you know, during the obama administration, they would not feel so compelled

to do something that really when you look at the policy, it only really looks like paul ryan actually likes the policy, itself, and i think it's just the first example of why it is easier for the republican party, was easier for them to be the opposition party than a governing party. i think that's the first -- this is the first obvious example of that. i don't think it will be the last. >> eugene, there's nothing in the dna of this white house that could let us foresee an announcement, you know what, we've pulled back the bill, it wasn't perfect, we're going to try again and bring in both sides. it's just hard to foresee. >> it's hard to foresee. i mean, look, if this white house didn't so desperately need to win something and to be seen to move forward, you could argue that a decent political outcome for the white house would be, you know, that the congress can't really get it together and the president says, you know, i promised health insurance for everybody and those, you know, yahoos in congress, they can't do anything so here's my plan, we're going to fix obamacare,

we're going to call it something else and then move forward. but i don't think that's possible now. may not be just in trump's nature, but, again, the position they're in now, they almost have to win this house vote and do anything they can to win it. >> our thanks tonight to eugene, to ashley, to eli. so much material. so little time to talk about it all. we'll take our next break here. the news today that terrorism struck very close to the beating heart of the british government, we'll talk about that. we'll have an update on the investigation when "the 11th hour" continues.

the location of this attack was no accident. the terrorist chose to strike at the heart of our capital city where people of all nationalities, religions and cultures come together to celebrate the values of liberty, democracy and freedom of speech. these streets of westminster, home to the world's oldest parliament, are engrained with a spirit of freedom that echos in some of the furthest corners of the globe. >> british prime minister theresa may who was in parliament at the time of today's terrorist attack in london. and please notice something important about this attack. the difference between a car and a weapon is a simple turn of the wheel and motive, of course. it was just a car and midday traffic crossing the river thames until it turned suddenly.

hop add low cement divider and started killing and injuring pedestrians. that's why this form of terrorism should worry all of us. the death toll stands at four tonight including a police officer, approximately 40 injured. it started on the westminster bridge, ended up in the courtyard of parliament when the attacker was shot and killed. have we confirmed single male attacker? >> looks like that's the case. as britain enters the day after this day of terror, there does not seem to be any credible sign of a claim of responsibility by isis, by al qaeda, that the acting deputy commissioner -- >> this was potentially a lone lunatic, a maniac.

a british newspaper is describing this. taken it upon himself to do this, strike horror in the heart of british democracy. heard the prime minister theresa may describing it as sick and depraved. >> his face. it's an image that is so evocative about what this means, what this attack means. and as you so evocatively describe it, an attacker who uses a vehicle as far as i can

tell from the pictures, then goes on to use a knife that must be a guess -- >> around 16 inches. >> so what you're left with is the sense that how do you stop this? we may be facing this for years. for decades. because while you can protect places like this, you cannot protect against someone being inspired to do something like this on their own. >> the brits don't like the kind of huge hulking visible security that we've come to accept in this country. and by that i mean look at our presidential motorcades. the enormous black suvs. the shot we saw of the silver jaguar going down the street was theresa may in a single car not surrounded by anyone. they did want to get her out of parliament, however. and so many ofhe police officers are not armed. >> yeah. >> though thankfully there was a semiautomatic long gun in the

hands of the london police department. >> that's right. and yet this guy does appear to have been trying to get into the houses of parliament. he didn't manage to do that. despite managing to run inside the precinct of parliament. he was stopped by armed police officers there. what he managed to do actually is to kill and maim innocent civilians and police outside of that security area. let me just take you back to the brussels bombing, for example. >> a year ago today. >> right. now, that was an attack in the check-in area of brussels airport. so what do you do? if people are going to -- people like this, crazy people, are going to attack innocent folks around a place that is important, and gain headlines like this in that way, you

cannot lock down everywhere. we live in a democracy in which people deserve to have access to the people who represent them. that's what this was an attack on. and that's not something you can ultimately completely protect against. >> we've taken to calling people soft targets. as i said the difference between a car and weapon is a simple turn of the wheel. keir simmons, thanks for being part of our coverage all day and staying up late with us tonight. another break for us and when we come back, something taking place a few city blocks from this studio tonight mat brings with it a staggering cost. all part of the still new presidency of donald trump. when "the 11th hour" continues.

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last thing before we go here tonight, the cost of protecting the president when the president is donald trump. our friends at "washington post" are reporting tonight the secret service has asked for $60 million extra for the 2018 fiscal year. nearly half of that additional

funding would be to protect trump tower here in new york where first lady melania trump and son, baron trump, live. there has never been a security challenge like it. a high-rise steel and glass tower. nonstop traffic at street level. nothing but exposures on four sides and from above. even the floors the first family occupies are a matter of public record. the other half of the funding request is for travel costs. donald trump has spent more than half his weekends as president at his mar-a-lago club in palm beach, florida. those trips would be included in this number. another cost, travel by trump family members. like the recent trip donald jr. and eric trump took to vancouver with secret service in tow for the grand opening of the family's brand new hotel. and a side note, the secret service, itself, is still looking for a director. former director veteran agent joe clancy stepped down at the beginning of the month.

that's going to do it for this edition of "the 11th hour." for all of us here, thank you for being with us. good night from new york. good evening from boston, i'm chris hayes. it's a remarkable day on capitol hill today as the chair of the house intelligence committee in an apparent attempt to cover for the president took actions that have now thrown the multiple investigations into the president's ties to russia into further chaos and prompted this claim from president trump. >> i recently confirmed that on numerous occasions the intelligence community incidentally collected information about u.s. citizens involved in the trump transition. none of this surveillance was related to russia or the investigation of russian activities or of the trump team. >> sounded like nunes was saying