on the news tonight senate republicans fail to repeal obamacare congressman kevin kramer joins us for what's next and the president continues to hammer attorney general jeff sessions on twitter for refusing to investigate hillary clinton and despite their differences in syria turkey and the united states will conduct joint military exercises with the qatari armed forces i'm ed schultz reporting tonight from washington d.c. you're watching our t.v. america. good evening friends we start tonight in the senate and the legislative nightmare

surrounding health care the republicans just can't seem to get it done the president will not get a clean repeal of obamacare as promised the senate rejected a proposal today to repeal parts of the affordable care act without providing a replacement the vote was fifty five to forty five seven republican senators opposed the measure the effort was reminiscent of the year twenty fifteen when the republicans in the house and the senate passed a similar bill vetoed by president obama senate leadership is now trying to put together a scaled down version of repeal this would protect the preexisting conditions and reduce the impact on medicaid cuts for more on this let's turn to night to north dakota congress and kevin kramer a staunch supporter of the president congress a nice to have you with us tonight i guess with the backdrop of what has unfolded the basic question tonight is can the republicans government can. they get this

done your thoughts on all this that i well first of all thanks for the opportunity had to be with you good to be with you i first want to say i'm very proud of leader mcconnell for forcing the issue forcing his caucus to cast aborting a lot of senators who are feeling real comfortable proposing their their perfect bill that was never going to get fifty votes and they have that great luxury of being able to vote to not vote and when he forced their hand and forced a vote to proceed i think it was the right thing to do and here here we are having debate on several amendments and i don't expect this to be the end of it they've got some work to do but i will be honest i think that whether republicans can govern or not is somewhat dependent on whether the senate can pass some form of a repeal or a repeal and replace frankly i was a little surprised they got as many as forty five votes on the straight repeal even though they should have been able to pass it since it was nearly identical to the bill that they did pass two years ago but that that two fleshed out some senators who seem to be willing to cast ceremonial votes but not real voice if they're

calling it now a skinny repeal meaning that there would get rid of the mandate get rid of some obamacare taxes but preexisting conditions in the matter care cuts would not be as deep which of course is very big in rural america where you come from would a skinny repeal if it came back to the house passed you know it's a good question ed because skinny repeal on its face seems inadequate in i think many of our minds at the same time it is no small matter to repeal the mandate as you know that really is the heart of obamacare it's really the part that violates the principles of freedom that the republicans hold so dear so i don't know i would never dare predict for sure but i was encouraged this evening when i heard that senator paul said that given his you know given the fact he couldn't get fifty votes for his no more comprehensive repeal he was willing to vote for something that incrementally moves the ball in the right direction i've. find that

encouraging and i think of senator paul would lead that sort of a charge the possibilities exist over here in the house as well but you know it's the medicare cuts isn't it i mean this is a big voting bloc and those folks vote and it almost seems as if the republicans were afraid to mess with that voting block or let them down in any way and you're talking about a lot of americans that would suffer if these cuts were to go through is it that the linchpin i think that this medicaid cuts i think you're speaking of in the medicaid expansion in particular and i think part of this is a has been a problem of republicans being able to sell or convince the people that would transition over the course of years off of medicaid expansion to a more market based program with the safety net of. tax credits and whatnot that we haven't done an effective job of selling that however that said i think your point is accurate i think that the political bloc of people on medicaid and it's not just the people on medicaid expansion but their ability to influence others and so yes i think it's an important point but i think the repeal of some of the taxes is also

important as we move forward into tax reform next what is the reaction among your caught colleagues on capitol hill the back chatter about this constant pounding the president is giving the jeff sessions what has sessions done wrong yet good good point ed because i think it's for those of us who have who have been stunned supporters of the of the president i was as you know an early supporter not as early as jeff sessions no one was in congress i think a fact that we always have to keep on the table it's an uncomfortable situation i don't mind telling you for me personally because it's just there's something of course just unseemly about him being so hard on somebody who is so loyal and who spent some political capital to support the president now that said donald trump does air his grievances rather publicly he you know moves people a certain direction through his twitter account jeff sessions knows this jeff the ones the once in jeff sessions probably committed that's hard for a lot of people except. that is when he didn't not only consult but didn't even

president know that he was going to recuse himself from the russian. if he had listened to the testimony that was given in front of the confirmation hearings the president would have known exactly where he stood on that that points been profoundly point that pointed out i want to go to the russian investigations right now jared question are somewhat of a flop yesterday where is the smoking gun here congressman i mean it would seem to me that if you want to get to the heart of value of an investigation and get right to it and get the public on your side you're going to come away with something the first day the first tell you there was no there there were your thoughts well there hasn't been a there there for several months and i think the you know the cushion are much anticipated. testimony flopped largely because there wasn't anything to say for him the only reason it was elevated was because of the fact that it was a a late revelation that this meeting that occurred but still once again pretty much

nothing burger in typical of most people hadn't heard him speak before yesterday i have been in private means but not a lot i think a lot of people looked at him and thought well you know this is probably you almost couldn't script this if you're if you're president much better than i think things played out for well the political fallout i think is going to be pretty damaging if there is no wrongdoing found in these investigations and they are going to take a long time but unable to produce any new information after a three hour meeting i find that rather interesting congressman kevin kramer nice to have you with us tonight pre-budget always mind thanks said turning to international news european leaders continue to criticize american sanctions meant to punish russia for alleged election meddling manila chan is following the story tonight manila that's right at today we're hearing more out of one of america's closest allies who will be most affected by this and that's the germans. i tried to describe that we fundamentally cannot accept that the american government american

politics and congress under the guise of sanctions conducts industrial policy in favor of american energy supplies this position has not changed and will keep saying that loud and clear to the us the north stream to project is supposed to be an offshore nat gas pipeline that will carry gas from the russian federation to germany the germans will be the most impacted by the tougher russia sanctions along with austria the netherlands and france who will all benefit from this new supply line this is just the short list of companies who stand to be fined for doing business with russia under the conditions of the new u.s. sanctions passed by the house of representatives last night those sanctions though starting suspicion by some due to statements like this on the house floor. we must continue to focus on how we get our gas here in the united states our natural gas to europe to our allies so they're not so dependent on russia. these new sanctions

still have to be passed by the senate but all signs point to this bill moving towards president trump's desk white house watchers believe this will put the president in a tough spot because while he does want to improve relations between the united states and russia he also doesn't want to appear soft on moscow over allegations of collusion and at the same time he has to allay concerns from allies in the e.u. who say this will pose a threat to the blocked energy security and the harshest words perhaps coming from the e.u. president john claude's yoker saying quote if our concerns are not taken into account sufficiently we stand ready to act appropriately within a matter of days america first cannot mean that europe's interests come last so add you heard right there cryptic and strong words it's unclear at this time what those appropriate measures will actually be will have to stand by and see how the president responds when this lands in the oval office and i wonder if the u.s. house expected this reaction from european union leaders thanks minal for shit

a former house i stare for was arrested in washington's dulles airport on monday and a moron or one is charged with bank fraud and pleaded not guilty one is also accused of stealing equipment from democratic members of congress or to use a lecture euro shop he reports tonight on monday a former house staffer iran a one was arrested at dulles airport trying to leave washington d.c. for pakistan charged with bank fraud according to the f.b.i. document a one along with his wife defrauded the house credit union of almost three hundred thousand dollars do i quote the money by means of false pretenses and of quote it is believed that he has already wired all the money to buy interest on which eventually became the reason for his arrest and also that he. the money for funeral arrangements but who is a one not sure average specialist working for the house he started his career at florida congresswoman debbie wasserman schultz's office back in two thousand and

five and since then has managed to get at least four of his own family members to to work on the hill and just recently in run a one was part of a criminal investigation after five current and former house staffers were accused of stealing equipment from members offices without their knowledge and thus committing serious potential illegal violations again iran a wanted was not just another guy on the hill in twelve years he had worked for twenty five house democrats including a high representative marsha a new york democrat gregory meeks and those two were among the list of lawmakers who cut ties with the one after his name surfaced in the equipment after allegations the only one who did not and kept him ron on the payroll was debbie wasserman schultz the former chair of the d.n.c. she kept him employed despite a one being stripped of access to house networks for months speaking of which before the scandal one enjoyed huge access to emails and files of dozens of

congress members including password to the i pad of wasserman schultz which she had been using for business while serving as chair of the d.n.c. one was also mentioned in one of the d.n.c. cables leaked by the week you'll eeks which as you can imagine has already generated a flurry of theories about a one potentially being the leaker all of those e-mails especially when the fire over those theories was fueled by this emerged exchange between wasserman schultz and the police chief with the former demanding that the x. staffers confiscated equipment to be returned to her under my understanding the capitol police is not able to confiscate members equipment when the member is not under investigation it is their equipment and it's supposed to be returned. to do it's genuine circumstances in this case and the see you. there were three counsel. in the sort of personal use of that in the facts of the case and with the permission of the university of the return but i'm told that accomplished what.

i think you're violating the rules when you're going to conduct your business that way. interesting that there would be consequences the a one story at this point certainly has more questions than answers the man himself pleaded not guilty on tuesday we also reached out to debbie wasserman schultz office for comment but there's been no response as of yet alexa rushes to our tea reporting from washington d.c. the president continued his assault of the attorney general jeff sessions on twitter today in a series of tweets the president criticized sessions for not replacing acting f.b.i. director andrew mccabe for his links to the clinton campaign meanwhile reports indicate the attorney general has no plans to resign for more on this we go to the host of america's lawyer might happen tony and mike nice to have you on tonight you know everybody's a political target with donald trump and something tells me that there's

a lot of folks in america that kind of like this maybe this is part of draining the swamp but it is rather unusual to just bombard the attorney general on what some people are calling old news how's this going to play out. well he hopes that constantly demeaning jeff sessions on twitter is going to help him push out push sessions out the door but sessions has made it absolutely clear he has no intentions of stepping down part of the reason that he won't leave his own on his own is because he sees his allies on the right wing media and some of the right wing senators and representatives coming to his defense rush limbaugh tucker carlson matt drudge even briber news are telling trump to back off sessions because he is one of them absolutely one of them he's trump's few allies at the moment it's in startling to me that trump can't see that but the real reason these guys want sessions around is because he represents the classic republican party they helped create that party they control jeff sessions in

a way that they can't control donald trump and that's why he's so willing to come to their defense right now it makes no sense when you look at the republican agenda to say that we're going to push sessions out he's delivering forum yeah he's going after illegal marijuana users he's going after the immigration issue he's going after virtually everything that they want and they can't quite understand why trump would want to push him out not to defend the president but to ask the journalistic question here does the president have a point he's concerned about leaks the first three four months of his presidency it was one leak after another and really bogged down the progress that he wanted to make and now the attorney general doesn't open up any criminal investigations as the who is doing all the leaking when you know it's against the law what about that . well i think well and i think we're actually seeing the edge of some of this already the story that you just reported on wasserman schultz that's a much deeper story that we're going to start saying give this guy

a little bit of time is what i would be telling say look if you really believe in the republican agenda leave sessions right where he is they will open those types it's happening slowly it's amazing to me that it's been so slow for the republicans to do what's obvious and that is to fight fire with fire sessions is the guy to do it if i were advising trump i'd say sit down with sessions make up tell him what you expect going forward and understand you have no control of what mueller is going to do anyway on this russian investigation so far they've shown nothing it could be a disaster for the democrats in the midterm elections and so right now i think if one really was if i were telling him what to do on this i'd say sit down with sessions he's do i think he's a terrible attorney general don't get me wrong yeah on issues that i think import i think is deplorable but for republicans he is a gold mine the irony of it is the president gives a talk to the boy scouts of america and says we need more a loyalty and yet he's going after a guy who's been more loyal than anybody else has been around and i find it rather

almost comical mike papantonio great to have you with us tonight thank you my friend. the manufacturing sector got a big shot in the arm today but it comes with a real serious price tag the company foxconn known for its poor labor standards abroad will land a factory in wisconsin the president touted a ten billion dollar investment today. today i am pleased to announce that foxconn a world leader in manufacturing for computers communications and consumer electronics one of the truly great company is of the world will build a state of the art manufacturing facility for the production of l.c.d. panel products in wisconsin. investing many many billions of dollars right here in america and creating thousands of jobs and i mean american jobs that's what we want

the factory comes with a staggering tax incentive for the company foxconn will get three billion dollars in subsidies from state taxpayers in the badger state more than the annual state funding of the university of wisconsin system and the state's prison system combined for more on this let's turn to amy tarkanian former nevada g.o.p. chair amy nice to have you with us tonight and i know that you've been involved in job creation and tax incentives every state leader has from time to time but many people are viewing this as somewhat of a sellout the democrats tonight in wisconsin are pulling their hair out saying who's going to be paying the taxes is this the trump model what do you make of this . well from what i understand the three billion in tax breaks are going to be a combination from the state and the federal government you know it's necessary to have states and localities basically entice new businesses with tax breaks however

i do have a slight problem there when the federal government gets involved with picking winners and losers so it'll be interesting to see how they divvy up those incentives when we have three billion in tax incentives for thirteen thousand jobs would you would take your money to do a lot but you have to remember to with with those thirteen thousand jobs will be three thousand and mediately and hopefully upwards of thirteen thousand and then on top of that you'll have to build new homes you'll have to build new stores bring in produce bring in clothing so it's going to expand beyond those walls and then from also what i understand there's a highway project that they're looking to push forward so this should hopefully help that as well what is this the new bar is this is this the new model i don't recall any kind of deal ever being done like this to bring jobs back to america or create them in the country with this kind of a number. well also from what i've read this is probably one of the largest if not

the largest deal to ever be done and i know it's definitely the largest in the state of wisconsin the president did make this promise last june when he made a trip to go to wisconsin so this is something that he's followed through with all right let's turn to health care your senator dean heller from your state. he's in the storm right now how is this being received by folks in nevada. well he's not very well at all. he is somebody unfortunately on the republican side who has gone the political route he's up for reelection and has shown his true colors of not having any strong convictions in this particular area in two thousand and fifteen he was one of the senators who voted in favor to repeal the affordable care act so we're very dangerously flip flopped so what we're i think he's up for it reelection and he realizes he's in a state that is heavily purple almost blue it went to hillary clinton it did not go

to president trump and even though senator reid is no longer in his seat he still is heavily involved. you also have governor sand of all who was the very first republican governor to expand medicaid so they have the same staff they listen to the same folks and he's got a lot of pressure on both sides now basically scream at him saying no don't do it and then the republicans are saying hey what the heck are you doing down we're really angry with you are a pleasure to have you on tonight appreciate your time thank you early this morning the president made a surprise announcement on twitter transgender americans will no longer be permitted to serve in the united states armed forces according to the president the medical costs associated with transgender transgender sex reassignment surgery and treatment is burdening the military president from formally claimed to be an ally of the l g b t community on the campaign trail nato allies turkey and the

united states will hold joint military drills and cutter with the good tory armed forces carter continues to suffer under a blockade by its neighbor saudi arabia after a dispute last month turkey has remained by cutter's side and reinforce its military forces there earlier this month meanwhile the united states continues to maintain. an airbase in carter were over eleven thousand u.s. personnel and coalition forces are stationed cutter's defense minister said turkey in the united states will have no problem cooperating despite their recent split over the role of the kurds in syria for more on this we're joined tonight by johnson the ladies former foreign policy principal at a trilogy advisors great to have you with us tonight to be with you read this is a hard one to figure out the picture is somewhat distorted here and i mean you're an ally in certain parts of the world but maybe not an ally in other parts of the

region what do you make of this welcome to the world of geopolitics as we like to say first to the best of my knowledge ed the pentagon has not confirmed that these exercises are taking place so i think the news is coming out of the qatari defense ministry but if it's true and we'll condition it with the great if we have a very strange three way situation where we have president trump who in one of the one of his twitter storms recently sought to isolate marginalize and effectively diplomatically punish carter for its support for terrorist organizations and then we have secretary of state rex tillerson who's looking to broker a deal to bring together the cutter rees and our other sunni allies in the region in a containment policy against iran and against and against islamic state and now we have potentially defense secretary matt is coming to the aid of the cutter ease in direct contravention of the president's policy again if this is accurate this is helter skelter foreign policy isn't it i mean this sends mixed messages all over

the globe about will the real united states please stand up and i don't mean to be too critical on our country but figured out well we have an overriding interest in our relationship with carter and that is this massive air base in which the qataris have invested over a billion dollars to give us the ability to project power throughout the middle east we're using this space to attack islamic state we're using it to protect persian gulf shipping lanes and then. i can so despite many of the disagreements that we have with doha on a number of their activities we need that base at least for the forseeable future so we cannot endanger that relationship in any reckless way turkey buying four hundred missiles from russia how concerned you think the pentagon is about that very much so we're talking about one of the most lethal anti aircraft systems in the world it also in a diplomatic way or from our purposes undiplomatic takes turkey out of the interoperability that's so critical for effective nato cooperation on defense matters and it sends the wrong signal from a critical ally in

a very important part of the eurasian landmass saying we're going to take an independent course regardless of what the united states and nato feel are of a larger shared interests could this split on kurdish fighters between turkey and the united states evolve into something spiral out of control and really create some geo political issues in the region it could very much potentially do so this is what keeps president ever to want to wake at night whether or not to actually be an autonomous or potentially independent kurdish state all along his southern border it's the number one security issue and in some ways it may be more important the u.s. turkey relationship in the short term if there do one sees a way to foil the u.s. from providing the syrians that pathway to autonomy want to talk about this house vote on sanctions on russia and the response by the european union do you think they expected that in your thoughts on how europe responded to this it should

be a surprise we have an exceptional exceptional diplomatic corps and all of these european capitals and i believe that as the sanctions bill was moving forward first in the senate a slightly different version in the house now the communications were being made very effectively and remember this is against the backdrop of president trump canceling the european trade agreement that had been put together by the previous administration so i think we need to be very careful over here that we don't set back you. u.s. european trade ties on a number of fronts while presidents from seeks to open up new pathways to a better relationship with russia if possible so this is aggravating the situation it's very very complicated on many fronts said ok john great to have you with us or to be here thanks so much congressman steve school lease was discharged from the hospital today nearly six weeks after suffering a gunshot wound to his hip school lisa's been moved to an inpatient rehabilitation facility after undergoing a series of major surgeries over the last month that med star washington hospital

the congressman is reportedly in good spirits and doctors believe that he will make a full recovery we'll keep you updated on congressman steve scully and the best to him and that is our news tonight follow me on twitter at news where they have like me on the facebook page we got it dot com tonight from washington thanks for watching we'll see you back here tomorrow night.

you are launching an r t america got special report today about the stuff you installed me as one of five basically everything that you think you know about civil society have broken down. there's always going to be somebody else one step ahead of the game. we should not be on the normalising mind. we don't need people that think like this on our planet. this is an incredibly tense situation and. i do not know if the russian state hacked into john podesta emails and gave them to wiki leaks but i do know barack obama's director of national intelligence has not provided credible to support his claims. i also know he

perjured himself in a senate hearing three months before the revelations provided by edward snowden he denied to be n.s.a. was carrying out wholesale surveillance of the us. the hyperventilating corporate media has once again proved to be an echo chamber for government claims that cannot be verified you would have thought they would have learned something after serving as george w. bush's useful idiots in the lead up to the invasion of iraq. it is vitally important that the press remains rooted in a fact based universe especially when we enter an era when truth and fiction are becoming indistinguishable.