roads, airports and railways. steve kornacki, thank you for sharing the air time with us. as we were covering this breaking event, the president's comments in the light of this extraordinary day in washington. time now for "meet the press daily" with chuck today frd fro washington. good evening. i'm chuck today frd from a shell-shocked washington. and this closed out a bad week for trump's white house and the republican party. the question is, where does the president go from here? because he needs to find a win, fast and big. and is neil gorsuch enough? despite a series of increasingly aggressive ultimatums from president trump including the ultimate tim that a vote would happen today, the plan to repeal and replace

health care is dead. the bill is possibly dead for good. we just heard president trump address the setback from the white house. and he made sure to blame democrats. >> we were very close, it was a very, very tight margin. we had no democrats' support. we had no votes from the democrats. they weren't going to give us a single vote, so it's a very difficult thing to do. i've been saying for the last year and a half, that the best thing we can do politically speaking is let obamacare explode and it is exploding right now. i think what will happen is, obamacare, unfortunately, will explode. it's going to have a very bad year. and i think the losers are nancy pelosi and chuck schumer, because now they own obamacare. they own it. >> there you go. you had to deflect, deflect, deflect there, the understandable spin from the president. he also said when democrats are ready to make a deal, he'll come back to the table. that's an interesting hidden invite there that probably is

more meaningful than you folks realize. he also said he's moving on. he wants to move on to tax reform and do that now. moments ago speaker house ryan said despite a republican congress and president in power obamacare will remain the law of the land. >> moving from an opposition party to a governing party comes with growing pains. and, well, we're feeling those growing pains today. we came really close today but we came up short. i spoke to the president just a little while ago, and i told him that the best thing i think to do is to pull this bill and he agreed with that decision. i will not sugar coat this. this is a disappointing day for us. doing big things is hard. all of us. all of us. myself included. we will need time to reflect on how we got to this moment. >> house democrats led by their minority leader nancy pelosi held a press conference hailing

the no vote as a victory for their caucus and the legacy of this law. this setback could send shockwaves through american politics. the president's signature campaign promise or one of them is dead, for now, the law, of course, is the signature promise. his credibility is a master negotiator. they have been tarnished for good. and the future viability of the agenda is arguably in question. on issue it was such a campaign promise for the party. and it is also an apparent rejection of the urgency they create in an attempt to get weary members on board right now. >> this is the closest we will ever get to repealing and replace on obamacare. the time is here, the time is now. this is the moment. and this is the closest this will ever happen. >> '17 would be a disaster for obamacare. that's the year it was meant to

explode. because obama won't be here. that was when it was supposed to be getting worse. as bad as it is now, it will get even worse. >> this is the only vehicle that seeks to achieve what people on our side of the aisle have been talking about since 2010. this is it. >> the president wants to get rid of obamacare. he's looked at the republicans in the house and said, look, you've had seven years to work on this, now is the time. >> well, that didn't work. let's get right to the field. kelly o'connell on capitol hill, chris jansing at the white house. kelly, let me start with you. i thought it was remarkable, at least in public, that the only faction of the republican party getting any sort of public blame from either speaker ryan or the president, more so from speaker ryan, is the freedom caucus. >> reporter: and they have been a thorn in the side of leadership before. we saw what happened with john boehner, we see that they are largely the most immobile of those members of the conference. and the speaker acknowledged

there were some who moved his way, there doesn't seem to be an issue for them withstanding the pressure from either their president now or their speaker. that's one thing you really get from that group of lawmaker who is have principled reasons why they believe what they do. but they don't seem to have any kind of a lever that they can pull to make them move, even if they now end up with less than they might have had if this bill had advanced. that's one of the things that has always been attached to this most conservative group, that they end up with less by resisting their own party. so that is going to be some more soul searching within this republican conference going forward. and when the president talked about democrats quite a bit in his remarks, i was here with the lawmakers here from the democratic side, and i said that they, that the president was speaking a lot about them, in one way, blaming them saying they own obamacare. big laughs about that. saying that the president thought they owned obamacare a few days ago as well. and so this notion of could they

work together? privately democrats say they will, but right now they are savoring their victory, their protection of a signature law for president obama and something that so much is a part of the dna of the democratic party now. chuck? >> we forget here, this whole thing got started in some ways thanks to the town halls that clearly, i think, had a much bigger impact politically on congress than i think any of us are talking about today. kelly o'donnell, thank you very much. let me turn to the white house, chris jansing. chris, we heard him say democrats, democrats, a lot in his talk. on one hand, he's trying to deflect blame. and i get that. but there was an invitation hidden in there. and i guess i feel as if it sowned to me like the president at least learned one less son. he can't get anything done in congress if he doesn't learn to build a relationship with congressional democrats. >> reporter: i thought that was one of the most revealing things he said in that ten minutes, chuck. we learned a lot here. i don't think it was his vice

president or his hhs secretary who have spent many years on the hill, who needed that schooling. i think this was a big lesson for him. at the same time, he can't say that this is not a massive defeat. and help can't say he didn't leave it all on the field. and that is exactly what many members of the senior staff have been saying until this finally ended badly for them. >> wait a minute, chris. they really think they left everything on the field? >> reporter: they said he left everything on the field. and where was -- >> where was the speech to america? >> reporter: weather was t >> reporter: where was the speech to america? and on the front of this, he said he was going to go out and speak to the american people, he ended up not going that, but he did do 120 phone calls or person-to-person meetings with republicans. he did send mike pence, price to the hill, he did call in the freedom caucus. look, if i heard one thing over and over over the course of the

last three weeks from senior staff members, chuck, it was almost like off-handed, he's a deal maker. that's what he does. there was a level of confidence early on in this that he was going to be able to use those skills to get it done. and i think one of the key questions here as he tries to put the blame on nancy pelosi and chuck schumer is, who is going to pay the price? chuck schumer and than se pelosi did not say that on day one they were going to repeal obamacare. not only did the president say that, but it was on his website. and he did, he did make a show of making an effort of inviting people here, of making all those phone calls, so the question is, for the folks who voted to put the republicans in the white house in charge of both houses of congress, what do you say to them? and the bottom line is, they couldn't get it done. and already, i'm sure you are, chuck, i'm getting e-mails from democrats who are already fund-raising off of this. >> there's no doubt. but i think a lot of the base republicans that really care

about this issue are going to ask themselves, is 64 days really enough to try and say and give up on something? and i think that that will be an interesting question for say some of the leaders of the conservative grassroots members. >> that is one of the big criticisms now. he's going to move on to something in his wheelhouse as a businessman, which is tax reform. another incredibly complicated subject. how quickly did they try to move through that? >> well, i think they think, i think they think jamming is still the way to do things in congress. i don't know after this one. we shall see. chris jansing, what a day. >> thanks, chuck. >> it's a day ending in y. joining my by phone is the republican charlie dent. congressman dent, i use y'all the time to explain the divide.

>> thank you, chuck. thank you for having me on the program. we have a diverse set of opinions in our conference. and we have always had a channel getting some of our members to yes. that was before president trump and that is certainly the case with us today. i think at tend of the day, you know, we have to assemble a bipartisan coalition and do anything significant in this country, whether on health care, infrastructure or tax reform. one of the challenges that we saw with this health care debate, and i'm opposed to the bill, i announced my opposition a few days back, but the challenge is, we're going to need at least -- >> oh. >> -- you need 60 votes. but we'll get more than that. but in the house, we need to assemble the bipartisan coalitions. on the big issue of this, coalitions must be built and developed and allies sought to go into this kind of a major change on health care or infrastructure. i just don't think we can throw

the bill out there and think you're going to be able to just pass this thing without the necessary legwork and hard work. >> i'm curious about the hard sell the president put on you. i've heard that among other things he said to you during trying to make a pitch is, he made a political argument. less of a policy argument by saying, hey, failure is bad for the whole party. and you don't want to contribute to that. what was your response to that argument? >> well, here's my response. yeah, i met with the president twice this week, first time was pretty good. second time, you know, he wasn't pleased with my answer because i was obviously not for the bill. but the bottom line is, my answer is, we need a bipartisan coalition here to pass health care reform, that we've got to do a lot of changes like planned parenthood. that shouldn't be in the bill. the medicaid issue, the

republican governors needed to be included in this discussion. john kasich, hutchinson, they set up a proposal that didn't get the consideration that it should have that the allies needed to take this on. and hopefully going into the next issue, that will change. >> do you want this dropped for now? are you now in the -- it's time to -- it's time to be a repair obamacare republican rather than a replace obamacare republican? >> well, that's an -- there are democrats who love obamacare. but they recognize that it needs to be repaired. there are republicans who detest obamacare, but they recognize that parts of this law must be maintained. we should start the conversation there. parts of the law may need to be repealed, parts replaced, parts overhauled and parts retained. and let's not throw in the unnecessary issue that makes this health care reform more

challenging. so that was the argument we were trying to make all along through this thing. >> congressman charlie dent, i know you're on a train trying to get home. i have a feeling i'll be talking to you a little later this weekend. joining me now by phone is republican senator bill cassidy of louisiana. and he was an early, senator, you and senator susan collin, you went out there early before anybody with the potential replacement vehicle at the time. and it didn't get the attention of house leadership. it didn't get the attention of the president. make your case now as to why you should, your bill, your and senator collins' bill should get more attention. >> hey, chuck. because he can seek the problem of obamacare. it's taking power from the state capitol and put it in washington, d.c. and told the states what to do. what the cassidy/collins plan does is returns it to the state to let them decide the future of their plan.

if we had taken cassidy/collins, this would already be off our plate and back at the state capitols for them to decide with guidelines that the federal government would say to you. on the other hand, it wouldn't be a big policy debate up in d.c. because the powerful debate would be in the state capitol. that's where the american people want it. that's where it should be. >> how do you restart this health care conversation? do you need to sort of change the politics of it? is repeal and replace because of what happened today in the house, because the words have no meaning anymore? so you have to sort of -- you know what i mean, you have to say, okay, let's repair the system. >> first, let's just be honest, when the democrats are yelling and screaming and isn't this great that this went down, what the consequence of this going down is is that people are still going to be seeing escalating costs of their premiums.

this is facing $39,000 a year. that was a quote for the policy. folks are cheering that there is no alternative to obamacare. they are cheering that people continue to pay that. by the way, that tells you or continues to be an issue. because we've got to address the obamacare drivers that are escalating premiums for everybody and leaving 20 million some people inuninsured. >> is this a moment that you think senate democratss, it looks like wholesale rip it from the roots, do you think you can have a conversation with the democrats, one of the republicans from pennsylvania was indicating that maybe now the air is cleared and there's a way to have a bipartisan conversation? >> i sure hope so. i have spoken to democratic colleagues about the cassidy/collins plan which is written to be bipartisan and

written to invite others to come along because we return power to states. so that the blue state can do a blue sort of thing. god bless you. on the other hand, i've been told point-blank that schumer right now doesn't want the deal. that he just wants the whole thing off. if that's the attitude, if politics continue to trump people getting affordable health insurance, that's not good. >> it definitely seems like everybody needs a time-out for a few weeks. so we'll see where things go from there. senator cassidy, thank you for taking some time. i know everybody is rushing out today. appreciate it. >> thank you, chuck. all right. let me get to the chief correspondent for "the washington post." and we have somebody who helped design obamacare. and former congressman tom davis from virginia, a former chairman of the nrcc who knows what it is like to try to do things with one party with bad luck. anyway, welcome all. dan, you're the chief, you wrote, i thought, just sort of the perfect summation of where

things were going last night. preview your -- what the heck does all this mean column that we'll read on sunday morning at this point? >> i'm still working that through in my own mind. i think this is a huge defeat, both for the president and in many ways more for speaker ryan. i think the question going forward is what is that relationship going to be like when the president said he learned things from this? what did he really learn? i don't know. i'm not convinced that he's going to go in a bipartisan direction, but i think it is very possible he will say, look, i'm going to go on my agenda, not somebody else's ageneral dachlt i thi day. the problem for him is he's not had developed policies on these things. he was not able to sell this bill to the republicans on the basis of policy issues. it was simply a kind of, in the end, it was we have to pass it because we have to pass it. but even before that, it was, we've got a problem here and you guys need to solve it. and i want to get it solved. >> it is interesting, in your final days, when house democrats

were struggling and had to write executive orders to try to get the last vote that you could, because you weren't going to get republican support, president obama did have sway with his members. and i think there was some thought, republican leadership in the house thought they would, just look at this week. i'm going to put together a match of the house republicans banking on trump to close the deal. >> the reason i feel so good about this is because the president has become a great closer. >> he's the closer that knows how to put this together. he's got great negotiating skills and we are coming together with it. >> he is a closer. >> do you embrace that label as it relates to health care? >> absolute. >> i. i think we had 100 members in the house yesterday, the president is a tremendous closer, i wouldn't count him out. >> absolutely. the reality here is that the president is called on to finish the job, get this bill done. and he didn't do it. and he campaigned on being a deal maker and being able to solve problems.

solve health care on the first day. not the 64th day, the first day. and this is his failure. and i think the reality here is, when you're trying to pass a bill, i worked on the first health care bill in the affordable care ability, you need a president that knows the policy, who can defend the policy, who can argue the policy in and out. and i think the problem here is that president trump is not able to do that. and the reality is, this is going to hurt his entire agenda because there's going to be a lot of people who question his ability to get any deal done ever again. >> by the way, neera, you were naive in '09 when you thought you could get health care by labor day. the whole thing was going to be signed. >> okay, labor day is a little bit longer than three weeks there, chuck todd. >> no doubt about it. the point is -- looking at history, tom davis. look at history. democrats had bigger majorities and a president more popular. >> he had 60% approval versus 30s. >> and it still took him a year

and a half to get this passed. there were a lot of mistakes made. what were two or three of the biggest mistakes here that president trump and ryan made? >> they didn't get any troops on board. the hospital associations, the doctors, seniors, they could have made some outreach to the groups. they did not make that effort. secondly, that cbo score, i think, was very bad in the end. because nobody really knows what this does, but the cbo may or may not be right. i think you can argue. but their judge is the empire. >> on coverage numbers, okay, fine, say it's even half, it's still a bad number. but the deficit number, it wasn't that great. it was not going to be a huge wind fall? >> it was an asterisk. that was the problem. and then they lost the messaging more. nobody knows what is in this bill. this bill is never going to become law or pass. this is just the senate fixing it and it comes back. this is an easier vote in that sense that it doesn't become law, but they lost the messaging war. >> cap and trade was an easy

vote. >> but that was more regionalized. >> excuse me, there was more on what this takes to get done. there was a transition document that went to the trump inner circle on in week of the legislation that laid out the legislative agenda. it talked about having many prothis process done by february 24th. that was the goal. as part of a bigger legislative strategy to take them through the first 200 days. they had -- they had outsized ambitions about what could be done and no idea of what it was going to take to do it. >> i agree. the issue here was really you had two people at very different conceptions. donald trump wanted to do this quickly. paul ryan wanted to do it and donald trump only wanted to do it quick lip. so agreed to the process to do it fast. it is impossible to do this for one-sixth of the economy in three weeks. this was introduced three weeks ago. they had no testimony, price

never testified, they just voted it out of committee. honestly, it's an insane process. >> this reminds me of something that is interesting, so you had, in first attempts, jimmy carter came in as an outsider. and didn't listen to tip o'neal, and he had problems with congress from day one. bill clinton came in as an outsider and said, i'm going to roll pat monahan. there were some of those things and he found out. barack obama said, i'm going to put rahm emanuel in charge and get a member of congress because i don't want to create the same problems with my own party in congress. realizing he had it. now, that may have caused him problems with independents that he went along too much with congress, but there's a lesson in there. >> he's surrounded by south sou. he have no governmental experience. but the republican conference itself has been fractured before. they drove boehner out. >> what is boehner doing right now. >> making money. >> laughing or crying or both? >> he's having a great life. but chuck, the problem is they've got to be able to get

together as a caucus and show they are not just an opposition party, that they can govern. if they don't, they will go to midterms of the collapsed base, and midterms are on who shows up. >> what is freedom, because ryan did put the blame on the freedom caucus. they had some votes but not enough. >> let me start with that, first of all, they are the ones in the safe republican districts that could have voted without political damage. but the members in the marginal districts, if you will, that were walking the plank. they are the ones likely to lose if this goes south and were the ones supplying the votes. >> well, i think the problem is, it's almost as if none of them paid attention to the election. you know, donald trump trampled on the republican party and the republican coalition. he was the one who won the election. it wasn't that house republicans carried him across the finish line. he won the election. >> this wasn't mike pence's republican victory. >> correct. >> even though, they did health care in the way of mike pence

would have done it, not in the way -- >> that is a different issue. >> yeah. >> but it was as if the members of the freedom caucus said, this is business as usual. it doesn't matter what really happened. we're going to continue to operate the way we have operated the last several years. >> i mean, a lot of people, a lot of the obama/trump voters voted for trump because they thought he was a different kind of republican. and the thing is now, in the first couple of months, he's shown he's an it logical republican. >> and lack of strategy. >> and don't forget deal making. >> stick around, we have a lot more to talk about after this quick break. so stick around. so how old do you want to be when you retire? uhh, i was thinking around 70. alright, and before that? you mean after that? no, i'm talking before that. do you have things you want to do before you retire? oh yeah sure... ok, like what? but i thought we were supposed to be talking about investing for retirement?

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i don't know what else to say other than obamacare is the law of the land. it will remain the law of the land until it is replaced. we did not have quite the votes to replace this law. so yeah, we'll be living with obamacare for the foreseeable future. i don't know how long it will take us to replace this law. >> turning now by phone to somebody that is already interviewed by president trump, robert costa, of the "washington post." robert, what was, i think, somewhat remarkable in the trump era since he's taken over the republican party is that the closest thing to message discipline that you can get with trump is what ryan and trump did today. he did his presser, trump did

his mini presser, and they were sort of on the same page, even though the blind quotes from inside the white house and inside congress show that this party is not on the same page. where is the president really at? >> the president told me over the course of our conversation that he was disappointed he couldn't get democratic votes. he was disappointed with freedom caucus and is willing to just sit back and let the law move forward. he doesn't have a plan b. he's not trying to bring a floor to the house any time soon. he thinks the democrats are going to want to work with him on some kind of bipartisan deal. and i said to him, maybe that is more of your style to just kind of wait and cut a deal with democrats, you're not ideological kind of president, and he said, well, some people may say that. so he seems to be kind of open to the idea of not having some kind of right-wing health care replacement down the line. >> i find it fascinating the blind quotes are noting in the white house and certainly white house officials that are making it clear, hey, it wasn't his idea to start with health care.

this was told to him that he had no choice. and look, there was a mathematical argument for starting with health care because it would make tax reform easier because it doesn't have a baseline so the deficit number didn't get out of whack with tax reform. but that is not going to happen. is this a case where the president leaned too much on pence and priebus? is that what he thinks now? >> i pushed him on some of that. i said, do you blame paul ryan for this? a lot of your aides and friends are frustrations with the speaker. and he said three times, i don't blame paul, i don't blame paul, i don't blame paul. if you don't blame him, will you work with him on health care moving forward? if not health care, what about taxes and infrastructure, the whole agenda? he said, yeah, i'm going to do it and work with him. so there's not the animous, at least on the phone with me today, that a lot of people near trump's orb have, but he told me there's so much anger and hate inside the house gop. he seemed kind of shocked by how much of the factional policies

they have in the house that made this a stumbling block. >> that's interesting. does he -- does he, at this point, is he secretly relieved that the health care is dead? >> he really thinks it's dead. until obamacare, in his mind, explodes. that's the word he kept using over and over again. and he started to lay out his message. he's going to keep blaming the democrats, even though this was a republican failure to pass the replacement. >> we shall see. bob costa, always a pleasure, sheriff. thank you. go back to your reporting. and we will be right back with a lot more. and we came up with a plan to help reduce my risk of progression, including preservision areds 2. my doctor said preservision areds 2 has the exact nutrient formula the national eye institute recommends to help reduce the risk of progression of moderate to advanced amd after 15 years of clinical studies. preservision areds 2. because my eyes are everything.

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the conference, we were on the cusp of fulfilling a promise we made. we worn the cusp of achieving a promise of seven years. we were close but not quite there. >> joining me now is michael steele, former press secretary to john boehner. michael, you were there, you have been there for various fights when your former boss was

trying to figure out how he was going to get to 217. could he find, in most cases, you usually did have a handle of democrats that would bail essentially the leadership if necessary, if it was on a must-pass bill. is there anything paul ryan could have done differently looking at what happened today with the freedom caucus? >> no, i think this is -- what you're seeing is a transition from a party and opposition to a party with the responsibility to govern. every republican speaker has been bedeviled by the intransient group of members that can never seem to get to yes on anything. and i think that there was some expectation, some hope, that given president trump's deep appeal to the base of the republican party, that he would be able to convince some of this, some of this caucus to come around. and so far, it seems he hasn't been able to. >> look, i think one of the things that i thought they were attempting to do, they hoped

would work, is create a sense of urgency. you had to do it now. this needed to be done now. and that is why you sort of have to compromise here. but i wonder if because of some criticisms over time haven't been fully true, whether that rang hallow. let me play the best of the attacks. >> obamacare is nothing more than the largest tax increase in the history of the world. >> let's repeal this failure before it literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens. >> obamacare is really, i think, the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. and it is, in a way, slavery. >> this is the single biggest job killer in history. >> everything about who obamacare was a lie.

>> everything was in a negative so oversold. and when those things didn't happen, that made the idea of selling, well, you have to do it now. it's collapsing, it's collapsing. that maybe even members didn't believe that there was urgency. >> i think there's definitely urgency given the fact that every republican who has run for office for the past three cycles has promised to repeal and replace this awful law. the lies that were used to sell it were rated lie of the year by politifact. the costs have gone up every single year. the cost is more hypothetical than real. if you don't have access to a caregiver, you're not really being covered. so i think there's no doubt that there are real victims of this law and a real desire to replace it. >> but i guess what i'm trying to get at is, if you oversell the attack on the law and those

things don't come true, we had job gains since obamacare passed, we didn't see jobs go away. and i know the spin becomes, oh, it was slower job growth. you know, the problem is, over time, if it's sort of like the sky is falling, the sky is falling. it comes across as chicken little. and i think the death sprirl stu spiral stuff, that people didn't buy it. >> we have had talented speakers that have made hyper bollic claims, but the facts prove that it is not working as promised. >> let me ask, what do you do know? i remember your boss saying in 2012, right after the election, he goes, i'll read it again, you probably remember it very well because it was used against him, it's pretty clear that the president was re-elected, obamacare is the law of the land, there are parts of the health care law that will be difficult to implement. essentially he's saying, we're going to have to repair this thing, but he was willing to say it was the law of the land and

had to retreat from that comment later on, i know. what do you do now? >> on health care, specifically, the president seemed to indicate that he wants to look to opportunities to work with democrats in the future on this issue. i hope that will be possible. and it sounds as though we're going to be looking more seriously, more quickly, at the other items on the agenda, tax reform, excuse me, infrastructure spending, et cetera. >> should that have gone first in hindsight? >> no, i think that the party was more unified, at least rhetorical rhetorically, on the need to repeal and replace obamacare than they are on the sub fans of tax reform. it was a clearest, most definitive promise and most repeated promise that every republican electedffial made to voters. >> take it n that you're not in congress that you're one of the republicans that say, tax reform will be easier. >> tax reform will be difficult. and i want to remind everyone that it is also supposed to be done under the reconciliation process. so it's also designed, at this

point, at least, to be a partisan exercise, which means you have exactly the same problem in terms of these members in the house. >> that sounds like the lesson president trump is taking away from this. michael steele, as always, i appreciate it. thank you for joining me. >> good to be with you. my next guest is former congressman barron hill. he pushed and ended up voting for the democratic party push for cap and trade legislation that only the house voted on and the senate never did, which is a situation the house republicans were fearing they would be facing today, voting for something that the senate would never do. and congressman hill, you ended up losing re-election in 2010. so take me through the mind of the charlie dents of the world, and folks that were in that moderate republican wing sitting in swing districts the way you were in 2010 when you were walking the plank, as you

actually said yourself. >> it was challenging, to say the least, chuck. i know the economy was tanking. and there were many of us that felt that health care was important, we aught to be focused on the economy and not taking on a maximum bill like the health care bill. so it was tough. >> and yet you did vote for some of these things. and when you look at cap and trade, was the mistake at the time, if you knew that the senate was never going to take it up, would you have been willing to cast that vote? >> no. i wouldn't have. we were assured by house leadership that the senate was going to pass it. that was one of the reasons why i didded to go ahead and vote for it. so that was a strategic mistake on leadership's part. and it resulted in some problems politically for people like myself and others. >> can you imagine, look, you served in congress at a time, and you represented the swingingest district in the country for a good deck aid, i

think now that belongs to new hampshire's first district these days, but at the time it was a back and forth, and you always, in order to survive, you had to reach across the aisle, right? you had to be bipartisan to survive in indiana's ninth back in the day, whether it was you representing it or a republican representing it. is that even possible in this version of congress that we have news days? these days? >> it is possible, but very hard to do. i remember when i was in congress, i was carrying a bill to increase fuel efficiency standards, which was somewhat controversial. and i reached out to lee terry from nebraska, a republican, and asked him to go on the bill with me. and we worked together. he got a bunch of republicans on the bill and i got a bunch of democrats on the bill and we actually passed it out of the house. and that version eventually became law. but what you have to do in these kind of political environments, chuck, is bite your lip and not throw bombs at the opposition, reach out to them and treat them with respect, even when sometimes you don't feel like they deserve that respect.

but if you'll do that and step up to the plate, you can get things done. that's the only way to conduct yourself. but it's not happening right now. >> all right. but, you know, for instance, i don't think the base of the democratic party is that interested in seeing any democrat work with the other side. >> well, they should be. i mean, the american people don't care about all this politics. all they care about is getting results and making sure that members of congress are doing the right things for the american people. it's one of the reasons why the institution, quite frankly, doesn't have a whole lot of respect right now. and it is very unfortunate because i happen to love the institution of congress and the whole concept called democracy. >> well, former congressman baron hill, appreciate you coming on to share your experiences there. and that last thought, i think there are quite a few people in washington that miss the good old days of when it did seem as if congress, still ugly, but it did work. anyway, congressman, thank you, sir. >> you're welcome. all right, we got a lot more to get to, but i'm going to sneak in a break and we'll be right back.

r. this is the destruction of a cancer cell by the body's own immune system, thanks to medicine that didn't exist until now. and today can save your life. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ lease a 2017 lincoln mkx for $369 a month. only at your lincoln dealer. this debate was pieced to produce a bill that reformed health care in america. instead, we're left with party line votes in the middle of the night, a couple of sweetheart deals to get it over the finish line, and a truly outraged public. >> well, don't adjust your television sets, that was actually from 2009.

not today. tonight, i'm obsessed with the republican push for the american health care act using the exact tactics they excureuated democrats for using with the affordable care act seven years ago. in fact, let's take a quick look, here's then speaker nancy pelosi who was slammed by republicans who said she slammed the bi tgh the house too quickly. pelosi was also slammed for saying this. >> but we ve to pas the bill so that you can find out what is in it away from the fog of the controversy. >> well, compare that to president trump's top house ally chris collins last night. >> in my district, right now there's a lot of misunderstanding about what it is we're doing. and once we get it done and then we can have the chance to really explain it. >> in other words, you got to pass it before you know what's in it. another thing republicans rallied against democrats for, here's then house majority leader john boehner on the floor before the health care bill. >> look at how this bill was written.

can you say it was done openly? with transparency and accountability? without back room deals and struck behind closed doors hidden from the people! hell no you can't! have you read the bill? have you read the reconciliation bill? have you read the manager's amendment? hell no you haven't! >> that was from 2010, not 2009. several republican lawmakers did not read the latest version of the republican bill. and they did this without the committee. the republicans slammed democrats for offering sweeteners like the notorious cornhusker kickback to placate problem servetive debt, nebraska senator bill nelson. well, republican leaders had to weigh a buffalo buyout. a special add-on to woo republicans in upstate new york. back then republicans claimed the unpopular obamacare

provisions were pass in the middle of the night. present day, they are being hit for using identical tactics. those tactics worked to get a bill made into law some seven years ago. it does not look like it worked for republicans today. come back, we'll bring back the panel to figure out, where do we do next? and adapting them to work for you. the ultrasound that can see inside patients, can also detect early signs of corrosion at our refineries. high-tech military cameras that see through walls, can inspect our pipelines to prevent leaks. remote-controlled aircraft, can help us identify potential problems and stop them in their tracks. at bp, safety is never being satisfied. and always working to be better.

well, we think we know the time of death, it was sometime around 3:45, i think. and lastly, number four, is gorsuch's confirmation on track?

and the answer is yes. and that's trump's best news of the week. tom, presidents have had a lot of bad weeks, this is a pretty bad one. >> he's got plenty of time to recover, it's still early in the process, one thing that republicans need to understand, this bill is never going to become law, it's going to change marketedly when it goes through the senate. when you look at obamacare, it lost anyway. this is a party branding exercise to a great extent. >> what does that mean then? that republicans are all going to take a hit? >> but the big thing is what does the base do? >> if the base takes any queue from breitbart, they have a discussion about gop replacement of paul ryan as speaker of the house in the white house and congress. i don't know if there's any hidden meaning there, some

republicans, at least the trump aides might decide to retain paul. >> there's been tension between donald trump and paul ryan since early in the campaign. i think the question is what does that do to make that worse over time, and i think that's going to affect what president trump's going to be able to do. >> i think under notice today, and it will get more notice over the weekend. the fact is that the town halls have a big impact. >> a huge impact. >> your side organized, especially in the last month. it had an impact. when you get success, it begets success. where do you guys go next? >> i think the reality is that the singular thing to help the affordable care act was this assault on it. you see its popularity is higher than its everybody been. it's 10, 12 points higher than

trump's popularity, because once it was under think, people hit those town halls, people who have never been interested in politics before. you can't expect democrats to go back. this conservative agenda is mobilizing the opposition and i hope republicans will actually put aside that radical agenda, but it seems like they don't actually have the dna to work with the democrats. >> the thing i'm wondering is what is the impact with president trump with his own base, one thing that he's saying today, that's remarkable. he never said he was going do this on day one. let's take a look. >> it will be repeal and replace, it will be essentially simultaneously. it will be various segments, you understand, but will most likely be on the same day or the same week, but most likely the same day, the same hours.

>> you all heard my speeches, i never said repeal it and replace it within 64 days, it's going to take a long time. but i want to have a health care bill and plan, and it will, it will happen and it won't be in the very distant future. i believe there will be some democrat support that will happen and it will be an even better bill. >> tom, i go back to you, does he take a hit for overpromising and underdelivering? this is his first big one? >> he does. and i think the bigger problem with republicans is if that base starts to collapse, the midterm is going to be a disaster. we know president trump's numbers are not that great for an incoming president this early in the cycle. but they can hold the house and the senate because of the way the senate lines are drawn. but if the base gets disspirited, i think they have real problems. >> he said he was going to come to washington and change

everything. he said he was a deal maker, he said all the politicians couldn't solve your problems, i will. that's what he said every day. and the fact that he had this abysmal failure within the first few months, i think it's going to be hard to live down. >> it's hard to dranindrain any. >> it's hard to determine if this is going to be a successful presidency or not. but on top of the fact that they -- there's the russia thing, but the things they have tried to do, he had great fun signing a lot of executive orders. this is tough, what does he do differently? how does he restructure the white house if necessary? >> all right, i'm going to leave it there. what a day, appreciate you being here with me for it. we have one more thing about this health care battle that you

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now and "in case you missed it" before today, president trump really wanted to move on to just about any other issue. >> i want to cut the hell out of taxes, but, but, before i can do that, i would have loved to have put it first, i'll be honest. got to get the health care done.

>> as soon as we get the health care finished, boy, i'm looking forward to these great deals. >> he didn't really hide his contempt for health care. don't think it's coming back soon. "for the record" with greta, greta, i just passed this hot baton to you. >> don't forget, you'll be back on sunday morning on meet the press. >> go badgers. >> and tonight, well, it's dead, republicans repeal bill yanked from the house floor, president trump and ryan reading the writing on the wall, seeing that the vote was not there, so they called the vote. so now what happens to donald trump's relationship with the speaker of the house, paul ryan? and most important of all, what does this all mean for the future of health care and you. tonight we have more questions than