welcome to "kasie dc." i'm kasie hunt. we're live every sunday from washington, from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. eastern. michael cohen sentenced. michael flynn set to be sentenced. george papadopoulos, out of prison and ready to run for congress. but where are federal investigators going with all of these cases? michael cohen's spokesman lanny davis joins me live on set as cohen's former boss calls him a rat. later, senator bob corker on why this may not be his last chapter in politics. i talk to him exclusively about why there may be a 2020 challenger in the republican party.

and just a few minutes, we'll talk about a new report out about the lengths the russian-backed disinformation campaign went to tilt the election in favor of republicans. the draft report prepared for the senate intelligence committee found that russia used every major u.s. social media platform to try and elect president trump. we'll talk more about this new reporting that "the washington post" got their hands on in just a moment. first, the president himself is facing legal challenges on more fronts than ever before. "the washington post" writing today, quote, two years after donald trump won the presidency, nearly every organization he has led in the past decade is under investigation. among them -- >> the trump campaign. the transition. the inauguration. the trump foundation. the trump organization. great, great company. >> and according to brand-new polling, the sheer tonnage of those investigations may be taking a toll. in our nbc news/"wall street

journal" poll, 62% say the president has not been honest and truthful about the russia probe. and 50% say the investigation has given them doubts about his presidency. meanwhile, 43% say they approve of the job the president is doing. 54% say they disapprove. that is a negative swing of 9 points since october. and for this president who is who better to blame than his former attorney general. the president tweeting today, jeff sessions should be ashamed of himself for allowing this total hoax to get started in the first place. want to welcome my panel. joining me on set, intelligence and national security reporter ken dilanian. shawna thomas, former spokesperson for vice president mike pence, the national reporter for "the washington post," matt visor and former u.s. attorney and msnbc contributor joyce vance. thank you all for being here tonight. joyce, i want to start with you.

to try and put the weight of these investigations around the president into some context, there's been some conversations and quotes i've seen come up. john dean had a tweet suggesting that this was perhaps worse than what happened during watergate. is there any scenario where, if this wasn't the president of the united states, and you were just a businessperson or somebody in -- maybe even in public life who is facing the sheer number of investigations that the president is facing, that there wouldn't be one somewhere that would come up with something that was a major criminal offense? >> you know, as a prosecutor, i always like to wait and see what the evidence says when it's all in. but with that caveat, if the president was a businessman who wasn't protected from indictment by the doj's policy, his lawyers would be in the process of negotiating some kind of a global settlement, global plea deal for him.

just based on the publicly known information. there's good reason to believe that there are criminal charges against the president ranging from campaign finance to obstruction. we haven't seen all of the information about the foundation and inauguration yet but that looks problematic as well. and so the president's repeated cries of witch hunt or they're out to get me. at some point that wears very thin as layer upon layer of wrongdoing and misconduct is weighted down by the president's changing stories, his constantly shifting stories, which is such a hallmark of a guilty mind. >> shawna thomas, how is the president get anything work done that's not about this. there are some reports he's on key days sitting in the residence just watching television. >> and tweeting apparently. >> i don't really know how he's get anything work done especially because he has a chief of staff on the way out. that's the kind of person who helps make sure all of these things run. he's trying to pick a new chief of staff.

yes, mick mulvaney will be the acting chief of staff. he still has to pick one permanently. he still has to fill a lot of cabinet positions. ryan zinke is on his way out. doesn't seem like he's focused on his job that much. but he does still travel. he went to the g20 a month ago and talked to china. at least we have that. >> although that was consumed with everything happening here at home. mark lauder, how do republicans defend this? >> well, i think a couple things. what we've seen from "the washington post" report and what we've seen from others is it really reinforced what many already believe is that this is an investigation of a person in search of a crime. this is not how our justice system works. this is the entire weight of every justice agency, the acting -- or incoming attorney general for the state of new york and many others saying we are going to investigate donald trump until we find something that he did wrong. but as to how things get done -- >> so you're saying that the -- you're saying that the justice department is acting outside of

the normal boundaries in order to pursue all of this? that all of this is simply a fraud? >> what we have seen is the bar keeps moving. it started off with alleged collusion, which -- >> the story keeps changing, though. the president -- every new fact we find out, we find out more information about what the president lied about. >> but every time we find something, there's another new investigation. they are finding something new to go after. we saw some reports that they are looking for his taxes going back decades. there are things -- they are looking and looking until they find something that they can try to pin to this man, which is also, i believe, one of the reason yes they have tightened the screws on just about everyone who knows him trying to get them to flip, trying to get them to say something that he did wrong. >> but they are apparently saying things. michael cohen is saying that he helped commit a crime on behalf of the president of the now president of the united states. >> what he admitted to was not necessarily even a crime.

and it has been proven by many times that this is a civil action. >> giuliani said that today, but it is not necessarily a civil action. i mean, if it is found -- we're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars two weeks ahead of an election. he's directing what michael cohen said were specifically dirty deeds. >> we've also seen in the past that campaign finance violations have been handed civilly. president obama took millions of dollars in misreported donations. he was fined $375,000. bernie sanders had illegal foreign assistance during his campaign in 2016. he was fined $14,500. >> i would just point out none of that was deliberate. it was discovered. >> but what we also know, and this was brought up in a very good piece this week on the hill is that to knowingly and willfully violate the law, you actually have to know that it's against the law. you have the fec commissioners and many campaign finance lawyers say because of the john

edwards case and many post-fec rulings that this was not even against the rule. >> if this was any of us normal americans, the justice department would be going after all of this. let's walk through the timeline. the president was first asked about the stormy daniels hush money payment ahead of air force one in april and denied having any knowledge of it whatsoever. >> did you know about the $130,000 payment to stormy daniels? >> no. >> then why did michael cohen make it, if there was no truth to the allegations? >> you have to ask michael cohen? michael is my attorney. and you'll have to ask michael. >> this week, somebody did ask michael cohen. >> he directed me to make the payments. he directed me to become involved in these matters. including the one with mcdougal. >> and he knew it was wrong? >> of course. >> and he was doing that to help his election? >> he -- you have to remember at what point in time that this matter came about.

two weeks or so before the election. post the billy bush comments. so, yes, he was very concerned about how this would affect the election. >> this morning, the president's lawyer rudy giuliani called cohen a liar repeatedly and insisted the hush money payments were not illegal. >> it's not a crime. it's not a crime, george. paying $130,000 to stormy whatever and paying $130,000 to the is not a crime. the edwards case determined that. >> the edwards case is the precedent. it's the only time they've ever prosecuted campaign finance under this theory and john edwards was acquitted, but the judge did rule this is a crime, can be a crime, and the fact -- >> they just said he didn't commit it. >> the jury said he didn't commit it. the facts in this case were stronger. in the edwards case, there were no witnesses who said we paid this money to influence the election. in the trump case we had two

witnesses now saying that. michael cohen and david pecker. mark's got a point. if donald trump wasn't the president, if he was just donald trump the businessman, he wouldn't be under all this scrutiny and there's a relentless momentum when you have a special counsel who has one case and one target essentially. he's also the president of the united states. we hold him to a higher standard. and he hasn't released his tax return. the first president in modern history to have a lack of transparency. he has massive conflicts of interest, a giant business he hasn't divested from. the american people expect these will be investigated and if he's committing crimes, he'll be held to account. >> matt, is there a point at which -- our poll is showing movement on this. what people believe about what the president is saying about this. given how marc is talking tonight, i think you're seeing an example of how republicans may dig in and refuse to say that they are going to change their opinions. >> i mean, i can't imagine scenarios where republicans peel away en masse from donald trump. i mean, he's proven again and

again that this is his party more than any other. in the midterms, that proves that. but i do think the wider electorate. there is signs of people, you know, sort of having enough. of sort of the obfuscation and the lies that he has. and so i think there is room to maneuver for mueller as he continues the investigation. >> and i think that's the question. it's about the lies. everyone keeps showing that clip of president trump on air force one talking about michael cohen because, it is one of the clearest versions of, okay, this is a story that changed. so does the american public get to the point they don't like being lied to? maybe this particular thing isn't the important thing the american public cares about being lied to. whether he paid on stormy daniels or whatever. but what is the thing that gets more people there? and i think it's a good question. like shouldn't be expect their president not to lie in public?

>> and you even see it with this argument where it's gone from -- he didn't do it to, if he did it it's not breaking the law. so even the terms of argument from trump on air force one to trump now is different. now he's conseeding, yeah, so i paid her, but so what. so i think that having truth from the white house is an important on this one. >> i get the sense to the point about republicans that the shift may come if there is actually a shoe in the russia collusion question. that's when they may start to lose senators. i want to get your take on something rudy giuliani said this morning. take a look. >> did donald trump know that michael cohen was pursuing the trump tower in moscow into the summer of 2016? >> according to the answer that he gave, it would have covered all the way up to november of -- november 2016. he said he had conversations about them -- >> earlier they said those conversations stopped in january 2016.

>> the date -- until you actually sit down and answer the questions and you go back and look at the papers and the -- you're not going to know what happened. >> did giuliani make a mistake there or did he indicate that, in fact, like the president knew more about this until a later date because before we'd not known this happened all the way up to the election. >> you never know with giuliani but my read is he knew what he was saying. november 2016, which is news, by the way. and this goes to the lies shawna was talking about. we know from the michael cohen plea that he lied to congress about the timing of this trump tower moscow deal which means that donald trump lied when he said during the campaign and then became president, i had no deals with russia, no investments in russia. if they were negotiating this not only through the primaries but the general election and -- they did hide it from the public, contrary to what giuliani said. this was a business deal that needed vladimir putin's approval, by the way. in the cohen court documents

they describe a meeting between donald trump and michael cohen about approaching the russian government. so that clearly contradicts what trump is saying about, i didn't have any dealings with russia. >> joyce vance, can you weigh in on the significance of this from a legal perspective, if we do know the president lied about this during the election? >> i think ken makes a really important point when he talks about the john edwards case and reminds us it was a jury that ultimately decided john edwards hadn't violated campaign finance law. here the jury is maybe not a jury inside of a courtroom. trump and giuliani, they are playing to the american people because their jury is folks who will talk with their congressional officials about whether or not impeachment should take place. and that's why we repeatedly see giuliani as the guy who fronts out bad evidence before it can come to light some place else. that's why i think we're learning from giuliani today that the relationship with moscow went on up into november. so that the public is desensitized to it. they are numb to it.

there's no outrage calling for senators to take action. and that, i think, has been the legal strategy that trump has played to all along knowing that it's very unlikely that there will be an indictment. that mueller will seek a formal grand jury indictment against him because of the longstanding doj policy that we've talked about. so this notion that it's the american people sitting as a jury and that the mounting lies, the question becomes whether at some point there's a tipping point where people understand if you are lied to repeatedly, and if you have to lie about all of your contacts with russia, and if you have to lie about the contacts of so many people in your campaign with russia, that there's an underlying problem that needs to be addressed. we haven't reached that point yet, but i think the american people are a very savvy jury, and they'll get there. >> it's certainly a political strategy that they're running. some people are starting to have conversations about whether the founders intended for, if, in fact, the crime was committed in the course of winning the

election that the precedent should stand. we've got more to come. republicans run for cover as the president's legal challenges mount. and later, senator bob corker says the intelligence is so clear, it would take a jury just 30 minutes to convict the crown prince of saudi arabia for his role in the death of jamal khashoggi. "kasie dc" back after this.

a new report out tonight is shedding new light on how

extensive russia's disinformation campaign was during the 2016 presidential cycle. "the washington post" obtained a draft for the senate intelligence committee that analyzed millions of posts provided by the major tech companies. it found the operation used most every major social media platform to deliver messages tailored specifically to voters' interests in order to help get donald trump elected. ken, we're still working on obtaining this report but what stuck out to me in "the post's" reporting is this idea that it was all aimed at helping republicans and then donald trump specifically, and it was over quite a period of time. >> because the intelligence assessment on the entire russian effort which included the hacking of social media stuff was a little more equivocal. it said, yes, the russians -- >> took longer to come up with -- >> this is very definitive, this report by a unit of oxford university. this is one of two prepared for the senate. and the other one is even more

damning and elaborate. and they analyzed millions of social media posts across twitter, facebook and google and readit and saw a massive campaign in favor of trump that continued after he was elected president and is continuing for all we know to this day. >> i want to talk also about republicans, though, in all these investigations because there's an excellent piece in "the washington post" about the awkward position that rank and file republicans continue to find themselves in when it comes to these investigations into the president. oh, i don't do interviews on any of that stuff, senator james risch said when questioned about trump's shifting explanations on efforts to silence women's claims of affairs with him. i don't know anything about that, shelby shed. stop, senator grassley said. i have not heard what you told me. until i read what the president said, i won't comment on it. honestly, i don't think that's a fair question senator kennedy

said when asked if he believes trump's explanation. here's orrin hatch earlier this week. >> i think the democrats will do anything to hurt this president, anything. >> this is the southern district of new york, the u.s. attorney that's making this allegation. >> you think he's a republican, do you? >> he's employed by the president. employed by this president. >> okay, but i -- i don't care. all i can say is he's doing a good job as president. >> he later said in a statement in part, i made comments about allegations against the president that were irresponsible and a poor reflection on my lengthy record of dedication to the rule of law. he said he's confident in bob mueller's investigation. this goes back to the question we were discussing earlier which is, at what point -- i mean, it's like patently absurd on its face. you walk around to talk to these

republicans. paul ryan has become the champion of this. the president tweeted today. the president has legal troubles? i'm sorry. i haven't seen that tweet. >> to be fair if you'll look at this from a political standpoint, what do they gain in what do those republican senators gain or paul ryan gain by calling out the president or calling out an investigation or talking about something they don't totally know what's going on. as all of us have some issues in knowing what mueller is doing because we don't have all the information. from a pr perspective, you don't want to end up in the orrin hatch clip so you say nothing. is that fair to the american public or to the media? does anyone care if it's fair to the media? probably not. it's self-preservation to an extent. >> mark pence's -- vice president pence's top aide in the white house, someone we all at this table, i think know,

decided he didn't want to be a white house chief of staff. there's been a lot of suggestion that's because nobody wants to be at the helm of a sinking ship as it's going down into the ocean. do you agree with that assessment? >> absolutely disagree. i talk to nick on a regular basis. he's one of my closest friends and a colleague. i worked with him through the campaign, even when vice president pence was running for re-election as governor of indiana. it was widely known in the vice president's circles that nick was planning to leave at the end of the year and go back to georgia. he'd been chief of staff for about 18 months to the vice president. it's a long job that takes you away from 6-year-old triplets, and he wanted to go home. the opportunity, he was honored to be considered for it and gave it a lot of thought. >> why was the president under such an assumption he was going to take it? >> i'm sure he was giving it serious consideration. he was probably very close. when it came to signing on the dotted line and the thought of not looking into those 3-year-old kids for the next two

years, into their faces, waking them up or tucking them into bed, i know nick. he's very successful, but at the center of his life is his faith and his family. it always has been. >> i'm not going to question his family man credentials. however, he has historically been an ambitious operative. >> i would agree with that. i don't think he could do that for two years. >> joyce vance, i'm curious for you, i mean one of the big questions we've always been asking and there was some pressure over the summer. republicans started saying, hey, it's time for robert mueller to wrap it up. i'm wondering, from your perspective as somebody who has seen at least -- i'm not sure we've seen anything like this, but for someone who has worked in this arena, are there any signs that tell you this investigation is on its way to coming to a close or should we expect this to drag out for six months, a year? >> people forget how incredibly quick the mueller investigation has been. a typical public corruption case, just a domestic one, can take years. there's a lot of information you have to go through and assess. but i think in many ways,

mueller spoiled the country by indicting so quickly. he also, i think, understood how important it was for the country to get closure. if this was any other investigation, i would say that we're not close. there's a lot left to be done. but mueller has worked at a fast pace, and it's also increasingly apparent that mark's comments, not to the contrary, that the goal posts keep moving in this investigation. what's happened is that mueller has followed the jurisdiction that rod rosenstein gave him very carefully. he's clearly looking at whether or not there's collusion with the russians, whether or not there's obstruction, and anything else that arises from that investigation, he seems to be sending to other u.s. attorneys' offices to handle. that's why cohen is in the southern district of new york. i suspect that's why we're seeing other cases in the district of columbia. so mueller's been efficient. whether he can wind this up in six months seems improbable to my prosecutor sensibility, but

maybe he's getting close. >> joyce vance, ken dilanian, thanks for being here. when we come back -- he has called you little bob corker. you've earned a nickname from this president. does that get under your skin? >> no. i mean, i am little. i'm only 5'7". so, no. >> i'm short. once mentioned as a running mate or even secretary of state, he leaves the senate as one of the president's most outspoken critics. just ahead, my interview with senate foreign relations chairman bob corker. don't go anywhere. today is the day you're going to get motivated...

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and anywhere. plus for the first time ever, you'll get access to exclusive fitness programs a $95 value free with membership. start a 30-day trial today and your first audiobook is free. cancel anytime and your books are yours to keep forever. audible. the most inspiring minds. the most compelling stories. text "listen5" to 500500 to start your free trial today. as we approach the end of 2018, a long list of lawmakers are preparing to leave the chambers on capitol hill. senator bob corker is among the most prominent republicans who have openly criticized the president. it's an open question now whether corker or other republicans like jeff flake might challenge the president as a candidate in 2020. i sat down with the chair of the foreign relations committee to talk about whether a run for the white house is in his future and whether the current president is in serious jeopardy.

the michael cohen sentencing memo that was laid out last week. it outlined payments that were made to women right before the 2016 election that were designed to help the president get elected, to cover up his affairs. and those memos indicate the president was involved in directing michael cohen to do that. potentially directing him to commit a felly. do you think there's an impeachable offense? >> so, impeachable, that's a big step. i think the first part, the first time we talked about it, is it illegal, improper? i don't know. i mean, i truly do not know. i'm not -- i'm not a judiciary person. that's something that i think will obviously be litigated, but i just don't know. and i can see on one hand somebody coming into a campaign and feeling like they're being extorted, potentially, you know, wanting something to go away. on the other hand, i understand if it was done to influence a campaign, i can understand the

argument on the other side. so i don't really feel qualified to weigh in. i just don't. >> should donald trump junior be prosecuted if he lied to congress? >> look, i don't want to -- again, you know, i have no real knowledge of what's happening inside these committees. let me say something much more broad. and that is anybody that's lied to congress should be prosecuted. anybody. >> on khashoggi, do you think that saudi arabia has been punished enough for what happened in the killing of jamal khashoggi? >> no. and so we have a difficult situation here. we have a relationship with a country. i think blow out of proportion it's important, but it say relationship that we've had for decades. we've got a crown prince that's out of control. i was in the most recent intelligence briefing, the most crisp and clear intelligence briefing i've been a part of in 12 years, by far.

if he was before a jury, the crown prince, he would be convicted in my opinion in 30 minutes. okay. i've never seen such compelling evidence in an intelligence briefing. never. so you cannot have a crown prince who is 33 years old feeling that he's able to get away with murdering a journalist inside a consulate. you cannot let that stand. now there's also a legislation that menendez is working on. he's going to bring it up this next year. i support the thrust of it. some of it operationally. needs to be worked on, in my opinion. i think then making the country, yes, pay a price for his behavior is the appropriate thing to happen. and i hope that in my absence that the house and senate next year will move toward that end. >> a lot has changed over the course of the last couple of years in your republican party. you, during the campaign, were out with the president, considered for his secretary of

state. now you're leaving washington as one of his most vocal critics. what happened over that arc? >> i don't know. i've served with three difference presidents and worked in different ways with each. certainly when things have happened that i felt like needed to be spoken out against, i've done so but we've also worked very closely with him on so many other things. i came here as a very independent person. i was a business guy in a rough and tumble world, and i've always been that way. i've always been independent. i challenged president bush. i challenged president obama. >> in fairness, you never said either of them were in an adult day care center. >> well, i was trying to be funny and, as it turned out, maybe it was. but i received an incoming tweet over something. and i just responded in my normal way. so -- yeah. >> he has called you little bob corker.

you are somebody who has earned a nickname from this president. does that get under your skin? >> no. i am little. i'm only 5'7". so, no, that's -- i mean, if that's -- you ought to see our social feed from people elsewhere. so, no, it doesn't bother me in the least. >> what do you say to people who are concerned that you're leaving washington at a time when critics of the president are important to have in the republican party. >> look, i do think it's important for people to come here with significant independence. i think there will probably be fewer voices after this last race. there still will be some, but, look, it's very important that our politics not be about tribalism but about what is good for our country. and to strongly support those things that are, but to strongly oppose those things that aren't. and i've cherished my role here.

you know, you build up a lot of political capital in these jobs, and to me, the important thing to do is to use it in a manner that enhances our nation. and i have tried to do that every single day that i've been here. >> what are your plans to keep trying to do that after you leave office in the senate? >> i have absolutely no idea what i'm going to do january 3rd. i will walk my successor down the aisle at about noon on january 3rd. i'll catch a flight back to tennessee, and i have no idea what the future holds. i was fortunate to have two really good runs in business, and so, you know, i don't have any economic pressures. i love business and may well likely throw myself into that. what kind of job would you need to have if you wanted to have a bigger impact than the one you hold right now in the senate? >> this is a very important job, and i'm glad to have done it. for me, to do it the way i wanted to do it was to serve two terms. as far as other jobs, i don't

know. obviously, the most important job, there's one that changes the whole context of our country and just -- it's amazing how each president comes in and how things change so dramatically based on that person's views and personality and conduct. you know, the same time, doing something like that, you know, is a huge step and very few people take that step. >> are you actively thinking about running for president? >> you know, i -- i'm not one of those people. i never have been. you know, the old adage is there's 100 senators who wake up every morning and when they look in the mirror, they feel they're looking at the next president. i've never been that way. i'm not obsessed with it. i do understand the role it plays, the magnificent role it plays in our country. so sometimes i think about it. obviously, the question comes up, whenever i'm going home from here or coming up here, going through the airports, it never fails that someone asks about

that. but that's not something that this moment, as you and i are talking, that i'm focused on. at some point, maybe. >> do you think that president trump should be primaried? >> i do think that we've got to remember what the republican party is. >> that's not a yes or no answer. >> so i don't know that -- i want to get away from here and think about it. this isn't an everyday in the hallway question. i want to get away from here and think about that. what is happening right now is not the standard republicanism that we've had in our country for many, many years. and it's very different. so is it important for someone to get out there and at least remind people in the republican primary what republicans generally speaking have been about for generations? which i think is important to

remind people that we're going through an anomaly right now as it relates to much of the standard republican focus that's been around for a long time. at the same time, a lot of good things are happening. as a republican, i love the fact that we have so many judges that are being confirmed. i love the fact that the animal spirits are being even more so released in the economy. i do. i love all that. >> animal spirits? >> i've had those animal spirits and perspiration on the upper lip when something is getting ready to happen. it's exciting to be in business when things are happening. so i love all those things. the tariffs just willy nilly throwing tariffs around the world. destroying institutions that have served or trying to destroy institutions that have served our country so well, that's a little different. >> is there a world in which you think a democratic president would be better for the country than a re-elected president trump? >> i don't think the democrats

yet are capable of electing a centrist. it just feels like they're being pulled to the side. but i think, for some, you know, someone like that might be appealing. but i don't know. i don't want to speak to that yet. let's see what happens a year from now. let's look at it a year from now. >> refusing to totally rule out voting for a democrat over president trump in 2020. my thanks to senator bob corker. listen to the entire interview on the kasie dc podcast. subscribe wherever you download your favorite podcasts. still to come -- i'm going to talk live with michael cohen's spokesman lanny davis. but first, in the midterms, health care was the top issue according to voters in texas. now a federal judge there has struck down obamacare. we'll talk about what could be a very consequential ruling up next.

a federal judge in texas ruled the affordable care act unconstitutional in what is just the latest blow to obamacare. the health care law has been systematically chipped away since the president took office and the ruling came on the eve of the open enrollment deadline. the white house anticipates the decision will be taken up eventually by the supreme court which voted to uphold obamacare in 2012. after the confirmation of 12 trump appointees, the court looks much different now than it did then. joining the conversation now, chief white house correspondent for kaiser health news, julie. she helped me when i first -- how long ago did we start covering this? ten years ago at least. and our conversation off camera has already been pretty spirited. what do we think this is going to mean for people who are worried about making sure if they don't have full-time employment that their kids will get covered if they have a

health care problem? >> immediately it should mean nothing. the judge didn't actually issue an injunction to the law. the law goes on. we'll be watching the trump administration. they said they'd continue to enforce the law as it stands, and a lot of things the trump administration is doing on drug prices, on medicare and other things all come from authority from the affordable care act. so they'd basically blow up their own health agenda if they agreed with this ruling that the entire law had to be eliminated. >> so we know that congress, at least democrats in congress, plan to try to intervene in this case. can you explain why that's possible based on how this ruling was crafted? >> it's a very strange case. 18 republican attorneys general and two republican governors. and suing the trump administration because they are in charge. and the trump administration said last summer that they didn't agree with the suit but they didn't want to defend the law because they thought maybe just the pre-existing condition provision should be struck down now that the tax is gone. it's not so much the mandate is gone but the tax penalty for not

having insurance was taken out by last year's tax bill. because the trump administration was not defending the case, we had 16 democratic attorneys general step up, and they are defending the law in the case. they are interveners. congress could also intervene and that's -- it's an important question in this lawsuit because the question is what was congress' intent last year when in the tax bill they got rid of the tax penalty. did they mean to leave the rest of the law intact which is what most lawyers said because that's what they did? this judge is reading it that without that tax, the whole rest of the law has to fall. >> if congress were to actually vote to say, no, this is what we meant, that would have some sway with an appeals court. >> interesting. marc lotter, i can't find a republican on capitol hill who will say that they want to take away coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. it's part of why they couldn't get their obamacare repeal across the finish line. we heard it over and over again in the campaign. scott walker in wisconsin was out there running ads about members of his family, even though he was on this lawsuit.

how do republicans defend this? >> well, very easily. we want to protect people with pre-existing conditions. we want to be able to protect children who are 26 years old to stay on there, but you don't need to create government-run health care to do that. >> if you strike all of this down in this lawsuit, where does that leave the american people? >> hopefully it will allow us to start over again and go back to the free market principles and put in the guidelines -- >> health care legislation is like impossible to pass on capitol hill. >> unfortunately it is and it's not going to get any easier with democrats taking control of the house and republicans even the senate. we can craft ideas and come together and do this. there are areas. i believe we saw vermont that had a high risk pool that protected people who had pre-existing conditions that was eliminated when obamacare went into effect. we saw how businesses used to pool their resources together to be able to provide more coverage to people that got eliminated -- >> if you had a pre-existing

condition you paid way more money in health care premium costs. often times uninsurable. that went away. i'm unclear how you'd propose to put it back if -- >> you had states already taking the lead on that. i believe it was vermont. >> there were actually -- florida had a high risk pool closed for 13 years to new entrants. they said we'll give you insurance but won't cover you for the thing you need it for. i did a story about a woman who had breast cancer and was a high risk pool. we'll take you but won't cover your breast cancer. >> we can work together to find ways to do it. i know republicans have wanted to do this. they will continue to do it. they'll want to protect people with pre-existing conditions. let's keep the best part of the law and get rid of the bad parts of the law and get rid of the basic fundamental concept that the government is going to tell the citizens you must buy a consumer product or else. >> i just go back to the reality that you can't have both of those things.

>> the reality is, after the affordable care act was passed -- there are certain things that probably needed to be done to the law. there are still things that need to be done. they didn't have the votes and no one wanted to make a deal on that until they tried to help people. you had republicans trying to repeal and replace for the last two years. and they didn't have a good enough replacement to get enough votes to peel off a couple of democratic votes to get that through.

we want to update you on a pair of stories that could have played a role in two of the most closely watched governors races in the country. first, remember this looming question about andrew gillum, the democratic candidate for governor in florida? >> so the gillum race seems interesting, especially interesting, because there's this edition of apparently an fbi corruption investigation in the middle of it, what is that, exactly? >> well, based on a newly released fbi indictment, we now know that the probe implicates another former tallahassee mayor, not gillum. in fact, gillum's name doesn't appear once in all 66 pages of that indictment. you may recall that gillum's republican opponent, ron desantis, who went on to win that race, repeatedly tied gillum to the probe. and republicans spent at least $7 million on tv ads that did the same. and then, of course, there was the claim by george's governor-elect, brian kemp, that the state democratic party tried

to hack into the state's voter database. that charge came just days before he faced off against democrat stacey abrams. "the atlanta journal-constitution" reports that the claim stemmed from a tip by a georgia voter who found two significant security flaws on the secretary of state's website. that voter then reportedly sent an e-mail to the democratic party in georgia and apparently that was the extent of the democrats' involvement. more than a month later, state democratic officials say they still haven't heard anything from law enforcement about the alleged crime.

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president trump spends his sunday on a twitter tear. he attacked law enforcement, called his former fixer michael cohen a rat, slammed his former attorney general jeff sessions and a whole lot more. plus, as a number of investigations move closer to the oval office, president trump's lawyer rudy giuliani goes on the offense, but is he helping or is he hurting? mick mulvaney has been tapped to replace chief of staff john kelly for now. interior secretary ryan zinke is heading for the exit door. ♪