>> what an ominous note to end on. one of the 100 u.s. senators who have responsibility over this tonight. thank you so much. ali, thank you so much. that is our broadcast for tonight. thanks for being here with us. senator al franken is going to be joining us live in just a minute tonight as the senate keeps wrangling toward and away from and toward and away from the republicans' effort to kill the affordable care act. the current iteration of their plan is estimated -- the estimated cost of it in terms of the human cost said it would take all health insurance away from 16 million americans who have insurance now. that is -- that remains the plan, such as it is on the table tonight. there's going to be a votorama on a gazillion amendments on the plan. there may be a vote on the bill itself. we've got eyes on the floor as

they go through this strange procedure they're going through to try to do this. we've got al franken here to give us his take on what's happening and why we may need to be flexible in terms of when we bring the senator on in terms of his voting schedule. as you can see, everybody is there in the senate. that said, thanks to the "new yorker" magazine and interview they just posted with the white house communications director, tonight we learn that the white house is safed by some sweary staffer who don't mind telling the press in great detail about the human drama inside the white house and the conflict among white house staffers. got it. i think i knew that before but now definitely got it. i have to say, though, even though we've got a lot of clear evidence of what i just explained in this "new yorker" piece tonight, this is just the

newest proof of that hypothesis we've understood for quite a while tonight. this is tonight from the white house communications director anthony scaramucci telling the "new yorker" that the white house chief of staff is an f'ing paranoid schizophrenic. saying that the white house chief strategist steve bannon is someone who performs an anatomically difficult but apparently not impossible act upon himself which suggests metaphorically that he's more interested in his own self than in serving the president. at least i think that's what that means. i'm not super familiar with all of the implications of the numerous genital metaphors that were employed here so i might have gotten some of that wrong. i might not be the best equipped person to understand all of the different things steve bannon is doing to himself. so tonight it is the white house communications director proving that this is the way this white house operates. this is how the president -- the

kind of folks that the president likes to surround himself with. this is the kind of environment he likes to create around him, a working environment. these comments tonight from the white house communications director, these are just the latest iteration of this, though, which i think is worth appreciating. before this stuff tonight from the communications director, it was the president's then personal lawyer and top political adviser michael cohen. i remember that, him threatening a reporter at "the daily beast" on the record. remember that quote? i'm going to mess up your life for as long as you're on from freakin' planet. you'll never know how to get out from underneath it. rest assured you'll suffer the consequences. you want to ruin your life at age 20, you do that. i'll be happy to serve it up to you. i will make sure you and i meet one day while we're in the white house and i will take you for every pen new you don't have and i will come after your daily beast and everybody you possibly know.

i'm warning you trade very f'g lightly because what i'm going to do to you is going to be f'g disgusting. you understand me? that was on the record from the president's then top political adviser and personal lawyer michael cohen. very similar to what we heard from anthony scaramucci in terms of his threats toward his fellow white house staffers. it does feel a little different when it's coming from the white house rather than just from some dude associated with donald trump. but that's our life now. two weeks ago tonight the president's then lead lawyer on the russia case, who is apparently disappeared now, two weeks ago tonight it was trump lawyer marc kazowitz sending this stuff to random strangers over e-mail. remember this? f you. you are just such a piece of -- i'm on you now. you're f'g with me. let's see who you are. watch your back b --.

that was two weeks ago tonight. that was the president's lead lawyer on the russian investigation. although it should be noted he promptly disappeared after those outbursts. and he was replaced by this guy. >> get the [ bleep ] out of here. okay? that's what i got to say to nbc. >> so we got some new evidence tonight. but this is what the presidency is like now. we have this new evidence tonight from the white house communications director and what he said to the "new yorker." but we have known this about them for a while. we've known this is the way they operate, we've known this is the environment that the president creates around himself. in terms of what's newly important about this tonight, though -- actually, do we have that from last night? can we put up the list of fired -- yes, thank you, fired or resigned senior officials. we put this up last night. in terms of what's important

about tonight's new evidence for our old hypothesis about the charming gentlemen this president likes to work with. i think what's important about it, rather than the sort of spectacle value of it is the question of whether or not this sort of thing is going to add to this list. is the work environment at the top of this white house disgusting enough to the people who are working in senior roles. is the environment in this white house such that it's going to result in yet more senior officials leaving the administration? obviously after what the white house communications director said about him tonight, there are clear and present questions about whether the white house chief of staff, reince priebus might be next to go. the outbursts by mr. scaramucci were followed by blind quotes from people in the white house saying reince priebus is out. he's cooked. maybe. we'll see. while the white house is clearly enjoying that speculation about

the chief of staff, reince priebus, i think it's worth watching another couple of jobs. today you might have seen the boy scouts of america issued an apology for the president. it is unbelievable to think this the president would behave so unbelievably that the boy scouts would have to apologize and reconsider their age old tradition of asking the president to address the jamboree. again, that happened, this is our life now. one cabinet official we haven't heard much from since then is the very recent president of the boy scouts of america. their past national president is secretary of state rex tillerson. and while i think there are a lot of reasons why rex tillerson is in the job of secretary of state, it's also not impossible that the culture and environment of this white house, including the behavior of this president

himself, may be rising to levels that rex tillerson finds objectionable on a personal level. if secretary tillerson does surface anytime soon, he will at least be expected to put that possibility to rest if it's not true. also keep an eye on another cornerstone of the cabinet, james mattis, the secretary of defense. the president waited until james mattis was on vacation until he announced -- for him to announce this major controversial disruptive policy change for the military. the president wanting to suddenly ban transgender troops from serving even though thousands of transgender troops are serving on duty. defense secretary james mattis has been silent on the president's announcement of that policy change since the president said it, even as one by one, the service chiefs have started to announce that basically they're not going along, not at least until they get further direction.

it is worth noticing i think that the white house seems to be in meltdown mode in terms of its senior staff. they at least appear to be in tantrum mode. i think which shouldn't necessarily see that as surprising given what we knew tonight about the charming culture mr. trump creates around himself and his behavioral expectations for the people who work around him. i do think it's worth keeping a list of firings and departures in mind though, keeping our eyes open for the firings as the white house in the upper levels of the administration really continue to tremble and the infighting is put on display for everybody's pleasure. swearing insults aside, though, here's what i'm most focused on tonight. do you remember that when james comey testified in the senate about the president firing him, and the president pressuring him to stop the russia investigation, he said pressuring him to lift the cloud

of the russia investigation that was looming over the trump presidency, when james comey testified about that, he testified that he contemporaneously shared that information, he described his inner actions with the president and the president's words to him with senior people at the fbi. >> and i discussed the lifting of the cloud and the request with the senior leadership team who typically, and i think in all of these circumstances was the deputy director, the general counsel, my chief of staff, the deputy director's chief counsel, and i think in a number of circumstances the number three in the fbi and a few of the conversations included the head of the national security branch. so that group of us that lead the fbi when it comes to national security. >> that group of us that lead the fbi when it comes to national security. that's the group of people, the group of senior fbi officials he clued in contemporaneously to what the president was doing, leading up to firing him after

trying to get him to stop the russia investigation. he gave it by job title. that's an important list of people. if the president is potentially going to be on the hook in a criminal sense for obstruction of justice, or for anything else improper about preserve urg the russia investigation or interfering with the fbi, that list, those people are going to be important witnesses as to the president's behavior. and so if the white house is at all worried about that line of inquiry against the president, they've got to be worried about this list of senior fbi officials. well, look what's happened so far to that list. the fbi director, james comey, fired. not just fired, but smeared and disparaged and insulted by the white house, by the president, by the president's lawyers, by conservative media, by republicans in congress. also, the acting fbi director, andrew mccabe. not fired. but the president now increasingly campaigning against

him by name, deriding him by name, accusing him of corruption, saying that mccabe never should have been hired as the acting fbi director. that attack on andrew mccabe now being joined by conservative media, by republicans in congress. and now tonight, a conservative news source, one that's owned by sinclair broadcasting, which is emerging as kind of the successor to breitbart news to the trump media outlet on the right, they're reporting as of tonight that a third person on this list, the fbi general counsel, another one of these senior officials on this very short list, this right-wing media outlet circa is reporting tonight that, quote, fbi general counsel james a. baker is purportedly under a justice department criminal investigation. saying that he leaked national security information. now, we have no way of knowing if that reporting is true. the fbi wouldn't comment to us about it. the doj wouldn't comment to us

about it. our efforts to do our own reporting about this were not met with any confirmation one way or the other. it is possible that the front page of this pro-trump conservative media outlet looking like this tonight, exclusive top fbi lawyer, allegedly under investigation for leaking classified information. the picture of him and everything. it's possible that the front page of circa looking like this tonight is just a brushback, designed to make the fbi general counsel think that maybe he potentially is under criminal investigation. or it's possible that this trump connected news outlet is right, and they've got a source, in jeff sessions' justice department who told them about this investigation. when jeff sessions said in the last couple of days that he was going to make an announcement soon about leaks to the media, maybe what he's going to announce is that he suspects the fbi general counsel is a leaker. just like comey is a leaker. either way, right, whether it's just a pro-trump conservative

media threat or whether it's a true report of a real criminal investigation launched by sessions in the justice department, this means that of the six potential witnesses against the president, in terms of his firing of the fbi director, and what that fbi director that the president's request to shut down the russia investigation before that firing, of the six men on that witness list, three of them are now in the barm. the director comey, fired. the acting director mccabe, smeared daily by the president. now the top lawyer baker threatened if not under investigation by sessions at the justice department. if the fbi investigation into the president, now led by the special counsel, if that is the biggest threat to this presidency, not just the special counsel but the fbi must at least be discredited. disparaged. taken apart. or somehow scrambled by this white house.

and it appears that's what they're working on. the president tipped his hand about this last week, that as far as he understands it, the fbi should report directly to him. immediately after saying that, the president immediately enthused about how excited about the new fbi director he's nominated. apparently with that understanding of how the fbi director will henceforth be employed. that is a huge hard core thing for the president to be proposing. because the fbi is part of the department of justice, and is kept independent of the presidency and the white house for a reason. are they really going to undo that? are they really going to put the fbi under the president reporting only to him? the president says that's what he's going to do. he said he's excited about his new fbi director. unless and until the president makes that kind of a radical

change, which he now says he's going to make, unless and until that happens, the fbi still reports to the justice department, to the attorney general at the justice department. of course, this attorney general is recused from any investigations related to the presidential campaign, including the russia investigation. attorney general sessions has been the subject of days and days of public abuse from the president who started criticizing him in "the new york times" interview for having recused himself from the russia matter. but the president hasn't stopped criticizing him about that since. if the president does find a way to replace jeff sessions, or if jeff sessions somehow figures out a way to unrecuse himself from the russia investigation, since apparently that's the president's beef, well, it's interesting. what could happen then? charlie savage at "the new york times" today lays out what an unrecused attorney general could do to shut down mueller and the fbi's investigation. quote, an attorney general who is not recused from the

trump-russia investigation could fire mr. mueller, either by declaring that mr. mueller has overstepped in some way, or by changing justice department regulations to eliminate the rules protecting special counsels. once he's gotten rid of those rules, he can fire him thereafter for any reason he wants to. or unrecused attorney general could declare that, you know, the regular justice department can handle this investigation after all. we don't need a special counsel. an unrecused attorney general could disband mueller's staff. or he could direct mueller's investigators to swiftly tell them to narrowly interpret their jurisdiction by calling it off-limits to whether the firing of james comey might have been an obstruction of justice. if any of that is going to happen, the fbi and the fbi's investigation of the trump campaign and russia needs to be discredited as much as possible.

and so watch those forms of pressure. we saw a number of those forms of pressure emerge today. we're watching this short list of high-ranking fbi officials, who apparently were able to corroborate james comey's testimony, who could potentially be witnesses here in a obstruction of justice probe. they're getting picked off. and we don't know where this thing with publicly berating the recusal from the russia investigation is going. and now today in the senate, senator chuck grassley and lindsey graham, they started a new -- they've opened up a new wing of this as well. today senator lindsey graham and senator chuck grassley started a counterattack against the russia investigation, claiming that the fbi's whole trump-russia investigation is suspect because it all stems from the christopher steele dossier published in january. they started claiming today in the senate hearing that that dossier is somehow a russian

plot. they have a new counterargument that explains what's going on, that there isn't a real russia plot to help donald trump in the election. the russians are faking that there was a russian plot. and really, they're out to hurt -- it's a little nutty. but that was the subject of a congressional hearing today in the united states senate. and conservative media is jumping on it now. and the fox news channel is jumping on it now. and the republican party blasted out talking points about it now. it's on. they have come up with their counternarrative here. and all of these different things that they're doing are all designed to discredit the fbi and the trump-russia investigation. going after senior fbi officials. calling the acting director of the fbi corrupt, firing the director of the fbi, insisting that the fbi must report directly to the president. raising the prospect that this attorney general was wrong to recuse himself of an fbi investigation into a campaign he was involved in.

pressuring to the point where nobody would be surprised if he tried to get rid of that recusal. and now launching this counternarrative that the whole vismt investigation is fruit of a poison treat. that the fbi-russia investigation is itself a russian plot. all of these different attacks all happening simultaneously, all attacking and trying to undermine and discredit the federal bureau of investigation, while they investigate this president. what is the fbi going to do about that? i have just the guy to ask. he's here next. ...it starts a chain reaction... ...that's heard throughout the connected business world. at&t network security helps protect business, from the largest financial markets to the smallest transactions, by sensing cyber-attacks in near real time and automatically deploying countermeasures. keeping the world of business connected and protected. that's the power of and.

finding the best hotel price is now a safe bet. because tripadvisor searches over 200 booking sites - so you save up to 30% on the hotel you want. lock it in. tripadvisor.

it's just a burst pipe, i co(laugh) it. no. with claim rateguard your rates won't go up just because of a claim. i totally could've - no! switching to allstate is worth it.

this keeps happening.

it's starting to make me feel that somebody is spying on the inside of my brain. just because i'm paranoid doesn't mean it's not happening. i told you a moment ago that the new sort of counternarrative is taking shape on the right to try to discredit the fbi from a number of different angles, going after senior fbi officials, going after the fbi trump-russia investigation in general. right on cue we have this new from 20 house republicans. they're calling for a new special counsel, a second special counsel in addition to bob mueller because they believe bob mueller isn't doing the real job that needs to be done and they are now demanding a new special counsel be appointed to investigate hillary clinton and james comey. the fbi director, and president obama's attorney general loretta lynch. lock her up. lock her up. lock her up. house republicans sent this letter to attorney general jeff

sessions and deputy attorney general rod rosenstein tonight. it says, quote, while we presume that the fbi's investigation into russian influence has been subsumed into special counsel robert mueller's investigation, we are not confident that other matters related to the 2016 election and aftermath are similarly under investigation by special counsel mueller, including actions taken by previously public figures like ag loretta lynch, and former secretary of state hillary clinton and james comey. then they list 14 specific items they want investigated related to the individuals by this new special counsel they demand to be appointed by the justice department. that letter signed by 20 republicans on the house judiciary committee. the reason you haven't heard anything about that house judiciary committee recently is because that committee thus far has shown zero inclination to look into anything having to do with the russia attack, let

alone the trump campaign connections, let alone the obstruction of justice questions. joining us is tim winer, the author most recently of one man against the world, the tragedy of richard nixon. before that he wrote enemies. which makes him a good person to talk to tonight. good to have you here tonight. >> hi, rachel. >> i feel like i'm observing the fbi facing basically a campaign of discrediting at a bunch of different levels. the fbi director having been fired. do you see it that way? >> the fbi can take care of itself. the fbi is conducting a major counter intelligence and counter espionage investigation into what the russians did during the last election. more importantly for the fate of the trump administration, the

special counsel, robert mueller, is conducting a broad based criminal investigation into the conduct of the president and his team. nothing can stop bobby mueller, unless the president wants to create a situation that would be somewhere between the saturday night massacre and the stag fire. >> you raise that knowing how inflammatory it is to hear it because i can see it in your eyes when you say it. >> we're talking about a constitutional crisis that he could provoke with two or three tweets. >> if the president does take steps to try to shut down the investigation, and it does not seem far-fetched to me -- it seems far-fetched to me in history, but it doesn't seem far-fetched to his history from having asked so many officials to shut down that investigation. having fired james comey, having gone after his own attorney

general, going after robert mueller, talking to people in his administration and lawyers trying to impugn the credibility of mueller. i don't know if they've figured out how to do that but they are aiming to do that. why do you believe that the mueller investigation itself can be fired? >> under the law only the person who appointed him, rod rosenstein, can dismiss him, and then only if he commits some impropriety. bobby mueller doesn't do improprieties. bobby mueller does investigations. he's one of the best and most respected legal minds in this country. and he loves investigations. in order to get rid of him, the president of the united states has to get rid of the attorney general and the deputy attorney general, somehow install two useful idiots in their place and get those people to somehow do his will and fire bobby mueller. >> at which point what happens to his investigation? >> the fbi takes it over.

there are so many ways in which to block this from happening. in the senate, in the courts, that the president would essentially have to say the rules and the laws that have governed american democracy since the 18th century are over. i'm the king. i get to say what happens. i am the law. and bobby mueller isn't. >> in terms of what the president describes as his understanding of the fbi. i feel like one of the most underreported -- not underreported, sort of -- it hasn't received enough focus. the president speaks in inflammatory ways, he picks fights that get news coverage. i think we all tend to follow that. i think the thing that he said about how the fbi works has been underplayed in terms of the amount of attention we've given it. he expressed overtly to "the new

york times" that he believes the fbi director is accountable to him, should answer to him, and in the next breath, there are no ellipses in that transcript, he started praising his new nominee to be fbi director. what was your reaction to that? >> he's mistaken. he does not understand the role of the fbi. when he went to jim comey and said, i want a loyalty oath from you, i want you to pledge loyalty to me. i want us to have a patronage relationship and i want you to drop the russia investigation and leave mike flynn alone, comey was horrified because the rule of law in that conversation was being broken like a dry twig. the president does not understand what the rule of law is. the president in his previous existence as a businessman, growing up here in new york, doing real estate deals consistently flouted the law and now he's under the mistaken

impression that he's above it and that the fbi is there to do his bidding. bobby mueller is independent. he's a special counsel and under the law he can work his will without the president's interference. the president goes after him, that's a second obstruction of justice. firing jim comey is one, messing with bobby mueller is two. >> the author of enemies, a history of the fbi. your title is getting better all the time. it's getting better with age. tim, thank you very much for being here. i really appreciate your time. >> anytime, rachel. much more to come here tonight. senator al franken is going to join us live. on the versatile midsize lincoln mkx. or go where summer takes you in the exhilarating mkz. the lincoln summer invitation sales event.

ask about complimentary pick up & delivery servicing. right now get zero percent apr plus 1,000 dollars summer savings on the lincoln mkx, mkc and mkz my bladder leakage was making me feel like i couldn't spend time with my grandson. now depend fit-flex has their fastest absorbing material inside, so it keeps me dry and protected. go to depend.com - get a coupon and try them for yourself.

edible arrangements for summer. go to depend.com - order in store or online. so being cool comes naturally. hmm. i can't decide if this place is swag or bling. it's pretzels. word. ladies, you know when you switch, you get my bomb-diggity discounts automatically.

♪ no duh, right? [ chuckles ] sir, you forgot -- keep it. you're gonna need it when i make it precipitate. what, what? what?

cory gardner has been a u.s. senator a little over two years. his constituents have not seen much of him in that time. senator gardner has not been at a town hall with his constituents in 486 days, 7 hours, and 0 minutes, not that they're counting or anything. so his constituents dragged this cardboard cutout of him -- see, he's flat. they drag him all over the state and they let ran don coloradoans vent their frustrations since their life size version will not come home and talk to him. cardboard corey they call him. he's been in three different

colorado cities just today as his constituents came out to tell their two-dimensional stand-in senator to please vote no on killing the affordable care act. in louisiana today, the heat index was 110 degrees. constituents of senator bill cassidy stood outside his office in the blistering heat to protest the health care bill. their umbrellas were dual use, kept the sun off of them, but stuck with the theme of the demonstration, which is keep us covered. in alabama, there was a silent protest outside luther strange and richard shelby's offices today. they put tape over their mouths and said no voice. at least some version of the republican bill to kill the affordable act got scored last night by the cbo. it said 16 million people who have health insurance now will lose all health insurance if the republican bill passes. tonight four republican senators said they would torpedo the republican bill if their demands weren't met. their demands are fascinating though.

they want a promise from the house before the senate votes tonight that the bill they're voting on in the senate won't ever become law. but the house and the senate will make changes to it later and that this thing that they they're voting on won't be real. we don't know what it's going to come down to in the end. speaker paul ryan released a statement tonight saying he's open to making the changes after the vote if it passes the senate tonight. senator mccain says no, he wants a commitment to that. the statement from paul ryan isn't sufficient for that. republican senators are supposed to start the process of tacking on their own, tacking on a slew of amendments to the bill. control room, are they starting? they're gearing up to start tacking on a gazillion amendments to this frankenstein bill. you see what time it is now, and the fact that they're all

milling around there. this thing is expected to go on all night, literally all night until tomorrow morning. one photographer today caught this foldup bed, this cot trucked into the capitol earlier today, in case any senator needs to take a nap between votes. before the night is over we are told to expect a vote of some kind of mitch mcconnell's mystery meat health care bill. we have no idea what is in the bill and we think senators don't either. we also don't know if he's going to have the votes when it comes down to it. this is going to be a very interesting night. anything can happen between now and then in terms of the substance and the politics. the only thing i can tell you for sure is it's going to be a long night and senator al franken joins us live next. i no longer live with

the uncertainties of hep c. wondering, what if? i let go of all those feelings. because i am cured with harvoni. harvoni is a revolutionary treatment for the most common type of chronic hepatitis c. it's been prescribed to more than a quarter million people. and is proven to cure up to 99% of patients who have had no prior treatment with 12 weeks. certain patients can be cured with just 8 weeks of harvoni. before starting harvoni, your doctor will test to see if you've ever had hepatitis b, which may flare up and cause serious liver problems during and after harvoni treatment. tell your doctor if you've ever had hepatitis b, a liver transplant, other liver or kidney problems, hiv or any other medical conditions and about all the medicines you take including herbal supplements. taking amiodarone with harvoni can cause a serious slowing of your heart rate. common side effects of harvoni include tiredness, headache and weakness. ready to let go of hep c?

ask your hep c specialist about harvoni.

is to always keep track of your employees.r micromanage them. make sure they're producing. woo! employee of the month! you really shouldn't leave their side. vita coco coconut water, hydration comes naturally. over the course of 9 days sthe walks 26.2 miles,. that's a marathon. because he chooses to walk whenever he can. and he does it with support from dr. scholl's. only dr. scholl's has massaging gel insoles that provide all-day comfort to keep him feeling more energized. so he even has the energy to take the long way home. keep it up, steve!

dr. scholl's. born to move. there are protesters outside the u.s. capitol tonight who we just a second ago had a live shot of and then the live shot disappeared. we'll try to get that back up. protesters are there trying to persuade the senate to not vote for the republican plan to kill obama care. i'll tell you -- there we go. it is hard to follow exactly what the republicans are doing tonight inside the senate to try to get their repeal bill passed. it's also very hard to follow the chances, the prospects that these efforts on their part might succeed. as we watch the protests, as the we watch the senate floor, joining us now to help us understand the plan tonight and what may happen tonight is senator al franken. it's really nice to have you

here tonight. thanks for making time. >> it's great to be with you, rachel. >> where do things stand tonight and what should we understand about what's going to happen over the course of the evening >> we don't know. democrats don't know. i don't know if mitch mcconnell knows. we don't know if they're going to present their bill. we have no bill that we've seen yet, but we expect there will be what's called the skinny bill, that has preliminary score from the cbo that 16 million fewer americans will be covered, that costs of coverage would go up 20% above what the current law is. every plan that the republicans have come up with have millions and millions and millions of americans not covered, losing coverage. and costs more. this is exactly the opposite of what donald trump promised during the campaign, what republicans promised they would do.

this is why the american people hate all their plans. i think 17% approval rating on the latest iteration of the senate bill, just everything they have said they were going to do, they haven't done. every version they've come up with is terrible. and we -- we're here to defeat it. >> senator, as you just said, there is no bill. the fact that we don't actually have the substance of this thing, one of the consequences for that is that we don't know under senate rules exactly how many votes would be required to pass it, whether they would need 50 votes to pass it or 60 votes to pass it. is it clear to you that they've figured out some combination of things to introduce that would give them a 50 vote threshold which they might conceivably meet? >> i think they may be running elements of the bill past the

parliamentarian. i think it would be silly or stupid if they hadn't been doing that. i think what they'll offer is something that they believe they can pass with 50 votes, and vice president pence casting the tie-breaking vote. >> and in terms of the republican senators, obviously that means that they can do this without -- they don't need democratic votes at all. this has been their strategy from the beginning. >> they can afford to lose two. >> and we have heard different types of objections from different republican senators tonight, most of which seem to be about process and not necessarily about what they want to be in the bill. is it your understanding that if they've got a 50-vote threshold that there might be a question as to whether or not they can get enough of their members onboard? >> oh, absolutely. i don't think he has 50 votes. i think if he had 50 votes he would have presented this bill. >> what do you think has been determinative in terms of the difficulty the republicans have had here?

on paper since they only need their own members, we would have expected them to be able to pass this or some other version of this a long time ago. they had a hard time doing that in the house, they have a hard time doing that in the senate. obviously you're very much against the bill. we've been covering the protests outside the capitol tonight and around the country against this thing. do you think the protest movement about this issue has slowed them down? >> yes. i think the fact that americans hate this bill, i'm co-chair of the rural health caucus, i've been all around rural minnesota, a lot of trump voters hate this. i mean, obviously, if you have 17% approval for this, trump's approval ratings are in the mid to high 30s, that means most of trump supporters hate this bill. because they know it means that they will -- may very well lose their coverage. and to keep their coverage it will cost them a lot more money. this is the exact opposite of

what they were promised. they hate this. and that's why they're having trouble getting 50 bills -- 50 votes. >> senator al franken of minnesota. i know it's going to be a long night tonight, sir. thank your for making time to talk to us. appreciate it. >> thank you, rachel. >> much more ahead tonight. stay with us. ... spendy weekenders. the tranquility awaits. hanging with our mates weekenders and the it's been quite a day... ...so glad we got away weekenders. whatever kind of weekender you are, there's a hilton for you. book your weekend break direct at hilton.com and join the weekenders.

deliit's perfection.ruit. seriously? an epic soundtrack? is there any other way? that's what a smoothie should taste like. visit a store today for fresh fruit smoothies and summer deals.

[ light music playing ] you've wished upon it all year, and now it's finally here. the mercedes-benz summer event is back, with incredible offers on the mercedes-benz you've always longed for. but hurry, these shooting stars fly by fast. lease the c300 for $399 a month at your local mercedes-benz dealer. mercedes-benz. the best or nothing.

this year only two states are holding elections for governor. one is virginia. the other one is new jersey. who's the governor of new jersey? oh, yeah.

two-term republican governor chris christie finishing his second and final term in office, finishing out with approval ratings so low they look like shoe sizes, not poll results. there have been a lot of bad headlines for chris christie in his second term as governor. what started the bad news was bridge gate. his campaign and administration tried to pressure the democratic mayor of one new jersey town into endorsing chris christie's reelection. they said, no. that mayor's town had a traffic lane that fed cars from that town onto the george washington bridge which is the busiest bridge in the world. christie administration shut that lane down, to punish that town and its mayor for not endorsing christie. they deliberately bricked traffic for days. in order to punish that town. you know, it's not like anybody has a constitutional right to an access lane onto the george

washington bridge. but public officials closing down that traffic lane? that public accommodation? as a form of political revenge? and then lying about it, trying to cover it up? that is an abuse of power. that's corruption. and sure enough, the department of justice decided those were grounds for federal charges. the bridgegate scandal ended up with three of governor christie's staffers pleading guilty or getting found guilty on corruption charges. one of the people's name who came up hundreds of times at the bridgegate trials, a person who was never actually charged with anything but who was fired by the governor for his role in the scandal, was christie's campaign director. bill stephian did avoid bridgegate charges. what became of him two months after the bridgegate trial? white house. white house, baby. as andrew burnstein from wnyc, reminded everybody today, after the bridgegate trials, bill

stepien became the white house national political director. the person in the white house who has been designated as the national political director is the guy who chris christie fired for his behavior during the bridgegate scandal. i was reminded of these turn of events all over today, when the alaska dispatch news this morning, quote, trump administration threatens retribution against alaska over murkowski's health votes. republican senator lisa murkowski of alaska, one of the holdouts from the republican party on the health care bill. her and senator susan collins of maine haven't been joining their part to repeal the obamacare. now in response, the trump administration is threatening alaska. quote, early wednesday, trump took to twitter to express displeasure with murkowski's

votes. the two alaska senators had received a phone call from interior secretary ryan zinke letting them know that the vote from murkowski put alaska's future in the administration in jeopar jeopardy. telling them that stuff that they're working on for alaskans is now on the line, because of her vote. nominating alaskans to post the department of interior, a road that the alaskans want built through federal land, a bunch of other regulatory issues, that they need the administration's help on for the good of alaska, the administration is basically saying, nice state you got here. shame if something happened to it. this is bridgegate north, right? this isn't just something that governor christie's staff got dinged for in new jersey. some of them were investigated

and federally prosecuted with prison convictions and all for doing basically this exact same thing. of course, not everybody got a prison sentence. one of them got to the white house. and now i should mention another bridgegate figure, governor christie's personal lawyer, represented him through bridgegate, is about to become fbi director, pending a senate vote. maybe the fbi will look differently on these matters in the future. now we're starting to see what happens when christie politics enter the white house. whoooo.

going somewhere? here's some advice. tripadvisor now searches more than 200 booking sites to find the hotel you want and save you up to 30%. trust this bird's words. tripadvisor. ...better than a manual, and my hygienist says it does. but... ...they're not all the same. turns out, they're really... ...different. who knew? i had no idea. so, she said look for... ...one that's shaped like a dental tool with a round... ...brush head. go pro with oral-b. oral-b's rounded brush head surrounds each tooth to... ...gently remove more plaque and... ...oral-b crossaction is clinically proven to... ...remove more plaque than sonicare diamondclean. my mouth feels so clean. i'll only use an oral-b! the #1 brand used by dentists worldwide. oral-b. brush like a pro. whuuuuuat?rtgage offer from the bank today. you never just get one offer. go to lendingtree.com and shop multiple loan offers for free! free? yeah. could save thousands. you should probably buy me dinner.

no. go to lendingtree.com for a new home loan or refinance. receive up to five free offers and choose the loan that's right for you. our average customer could lower their monthly bills by over three hundred dollars. go to lendingtree.com right now. we were in a german dance group. i wore lederhosen. so i just started poking around on ancestry. then, i decided to have my dna tested through ancestry dna. it turns out i'm scottish. so, i traded in my lederhosen for a kilt.

nbc's chief foreign correspondent richard engel is in moscow right now. he's putting finishing touches on his new show "on assignment." he's back in russia. he's done some really, really interesting work about russian interference in our election, and some of the ongoing questions about what happened there, and what happened in the aftermath there, specifically in russia. you might remember after the election, one of the stories that we covered in terms of strange dealings in russia, that maybe as americans we maybe should start paying more attention to. after our election, i think it was in december, we found out after the fact, several weeks after it happened, that there had been a handful of arrests in russia, including a couple of senior fsb officers. remember the story about --

there was a meeting, a senior high-level fsb meeting in december? officers burst into the room where this was meeting happening. they threw a bag over the head of a senior russian intelligence official and dragged him out of the meeting in front of all the other fsb guys? well, we later found out that that guy dragged out of the room with the bag on his head, another fsb official and two other russians who worked for a controversial software company, not only were all those folks arrested in december, after our election, they were all charged with treason. which is very rare, and which means the russian state is saying absolutely nothing about the accusations against these guys, or the trial. richard spoke with a lawyer for one of them who was afraid to tell him very much. he wouldn't even say which of the four men was arrested is his client. >> i can't be completely clear with you and say much about this

case, because it's quite dangerous. it's quite dangerous for me, for my clients, and even for you. >> why would it be dangerous for me? i understand your client is in jail. >> it's sensitive information. >> good evening, rachel. richard engel is reporting