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>> hi, everyone this story has been all over today. probably your and social media feed is definitely on cable news and here on fox5 we're talking about the victory on a key campaign promise the first step towards repealing the affordable care act moves forward. >> that's right. as you can see from the rundown over there on the side of your screen this of course is the hottest story tonight at 6:30 we mention everyone has been talking about it. >> welcome to the beginning of the end of obamacare. [applause] >> make no mistake, this is a repeal and a replace of obamacare. make no mistake about it. >> all right and with that the white house claimed a huge victory today. house republicans passed that healthcare law they've been fighting for to pass for the past seven years. >> you can't argue this is a massive win for president trump because he campaigned on repealing the affordable care act and key republicans made their way to the white house to celebrate their win. now we should point the house passed it today. senate still has to take care of it so they're just halfway

and maintains coverages of preexisting conditions. the democrats say not so fast. >> what's really important what this means to american people and they know. they are listening. they know what it means to me them and it means trump care does it forces families to pay higher premiums and deductibles increasing out-of-pocket costs. >> all right. so we heard there nancy pelosi talking about this. the democrats came out against this. we also heard the aarp the american medical association and a number of other consumer advocacy groups came out and said this is going to be a bad thing in the end for people with those preexisting conditions and 24 million americans who may lose coverage. >> there were a handful of republicans that voted against it. barbara comstock was one of those but they passed the house, they got it by the margin they needed. now it goes on to the senate where it cou

of a tougher fight because there are senator who's are already being pressured to weigh in against this. >> check in now our own ronica cleary is on capitol hill with maryland senator chris van hollen. ronica. >> reporter: yes, we're here with the senator from maryland van hollen. tell me about your reaction. were you surprised that it passed today because i know there were a lot of last minute efforts from even outside the hill i saw a tweet from governor mcauliffe today saying make calls. i called -- i tried to call barbara comstock's office busy signal for hours. did you think maybe it wouldn't get through. >> well, we weren't sure but clearly there was a lot of political pressure just to get this through no matter what, no matter what damage it might do. after all they voted on it before they even got the analysis from the nonpartisan congressional budget office about the negative impact it would have on healthcare. they decided to close their eyes and are you sure this through for political purposes. i think the good news is this isn't going anywhere fast in

dramatically changed if we do anything at all. >> that's right. i did speak with a handful of people out and about today about this and one person just responded and said it means nothing to him and this was just a layperson walking by and he said because there's still so much ahead so as a democrat and for our viewers who may be have fear or concern about what lies ahead, and for those who maybe are excited to, you know, temper that excitement, what is your strategy as a part of democratic senator base? >> sure. well, we've already said that we're happy to work with republicans to fix the issues in the healthcare exchanges specifically. unfortunately what the house does is they actually blow them up, they make them more expensive and they allow in certain cases for states to resume discrimination against people based on preexisting conditions. we hear a lot about how -- right. >> it's like okay i promise i'll cover you no matter what the preexisting condition but guess what? i'm going charge

you $50,000 a year if you have diabetes or something else. so, it's easy to say it but if it's totally unaffordable it's not really there for you. >> reporter: is there anything good in this because frankly there is a lot of very real criticism in fact i think i spoke with you about this awhile back around the time of the first attempt. there is real criticism of the affordable care act and obamacare that democrats have acknowledged and of course we've heard republicans acknowledge. could this salvage any of the real concerns that are out there? >> well, two things. unfortunately this makes the situation in the exchanges even worse. so, if you want to fix the exchanges, we should do something like have a public option. which is a medicare for all type option within the affordable care act exchanges. that does two things. it creates competition which drives down prices and it takes care of the situation where there's some parts of the country where you have no provider at all right now. you would be guaranteed a provider

haven't wanted to engage on that. the other thing i would remind people is all their original stuff in the first round here that was really bad, $800 billion in cuts to medicaid plus a 900 billion-dollar tax break that goes to insurance companies and mostly the wealthiest americans, that's part of it. all the conversations now have been about the exchanges but i'm not sure why a 900 billion-dollar tax cut mostly to very wealthy americans is any kind of healthcare reform especially when you're cutting $800 billion in medicaid which helps people with disabilities and kids and all sorts of people that desperately need that help. >> senator thank you so much and there was certainly talk today at the white house in the rose guard didn't about these tax cuts that are a result of this plan so it is interesting and certainly complicated. i think i'm going to be back in just a bit giving you all the pulse of the people but for now back to you jim and shawn. >> thank you ronica and senator vanol

about this. we testimony send ron cam out to get the pulse of the people on this topic. >> to hear what they had to say about the passage of this. take a listen. >> clearly it's really unpopular and i mean it seems like it's a rush job to get the votes in to pass it. 'cause it failed last time and i don't think it's one that anyone is going to be happy with. >> it's just one step and they still got to go a little further. once they get to the senate then they have to determine what they're going to do next and if it's really going to mean something. >> it's so many mixed emotions. sometimes you don't know whether to be for it or against it. i don't think necessarily that the obamacare was bad for people. so i don't -- i mean -- i don't really know how to feel. like i just -- i think it's just 'cause maybe it's his name. >> i'm feeling good that something has passed that they're doing their jobs that's w

i think that's what i want to see is them work together to govern. >> i think it's prime time for democrats and republicans to work together for the good of the country rather than the good of the party. >> and that is an excellent point at the end but let's talk about there are a lot of people today who have that sounded off on social media and i have a couple friends who -- a friend of mine on her third bout of cancer at age 39 she says she has healthcare she's fine at this point the question is if she ever got out of that you have top wonder what the preexisting cost would be. if somebody would come out and say these are what the surcharges have been we've seen some analysis come out but all we've heard is yes preexisting conditions are covered. >> some lawmakers were concerned about that. we did not get the figures from the congressional budget office to determine that and they were concerned this was pushed through so quickly people just didn't have those answers. another thing i heard critics talking about today of course we saw the big celebration right after the vote. house gop members got in a bus went down to the re

at the white house for a big celebration rally and it was sort of like the equivalent of celebrating at halftime of the super bowl even though there's still another half to go so you don't know who is going to win yet. >> which is exactly the same argument sean spicer made at the briefing which is why hillary clinton didn't win because if they had given up after the third quarter but they kept fighting. we know it has an impact on a lot of you out there pro and con. we'll explore that. there's a lot of time and a a lot of debate left to go. >> a lot of debate for sure. president trump also today signed a new executive order that could allow churches and other religious organizations to become more politically active. what it does is allow tax exempt organizations to voice their political views without losing federal funding. >> not only are we a nation of faith but we're a nation of tolerance. we will not allow people of faith to be targeted bullied or silenced anymore. and

for religious discrimination. never, ever. >> the order also allows religious groups to waive certain health services including contraception. >> travis weber from the family research council joins us. thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having us. >> from your take is this a win or a loss for religious organizations. >> i think it's a win. it's good to see more free speech any time we can get it and what this does is it simply allows organizations to voice their views when engaging in pure speech and not fear the hand of the government for speaking their minds a fear well is the government going to investigate me any time i might say something the government would define as political and thus inappropriate for me to say. that's really what this does, it frees up those organizations to not worry about that but it allows them to speak and not use their money and become political campaign hubs while retaining tax exempt status.

>> critics have said what about the separation of church and state here. >> yeah, i mean, so that notion i think is just inappropriate really to think about when we're looking at at this here. what we want is a separation, we want a separation from the government being able to intrude into churches and religious organizations and oversee them be their overlords of a sort but merely allow them to be free and maintain their space in the public square maintain their voice in the public debate. so i think it's inappropriate to say that this is some type of violation of some notion which is not even in the constitution itself. >> let me ask you i mean sort of along those lines critics say this where was to gut the johnson amendment which is sort of what jim was talking about the separation of church and state and actually more about giving the religious right more power to use their pulpits to spew partisan politics or to build upon that base. how do you respond on that. >> i think those are off base. you know, i mean, if you look at what this a

permits any 501 c3 organization a church, any type of a churn political persuasion theological views to engage in the same type of speech political speech when it comes to matters which the i.r.s. might construe as political so it doesn't give the religious right the religious left or anyone else any more power than any other group and secondly it doesn't gut the johnson amendment per se. this, you know, has to -- this order has to be construed in light of statute and it's a first step towards increased religious freedom, the free speech fairness act currently pending in congress is really what's needed to build on this and allow this type of speech as a permanent fix instead of just something temporary. >> all right, travis weber from the family researchers council thanks for coming. in we appreciate your perspective. >> thank you. well, today we learn that president trump will be doing some traveling. he'll head to the vatican israel and saudia arabia at the end of this month. >> the president says his goals for the trip include building a coalition to fight

ground among the different faiths. the president in new york for the first time since taking office planned to m meet the australian prime minister and deliver a speech on the u.s.s. intrepid so we'll see that as well. >> let's talk about the weather. a little bit chilly outside today. gary mcgrady people had on coats and sweatshirts this morning. >> i know because it was so cold. we started off at dulles this morning in the low 40's and 50's low in town so it's a pretty chilly air mass. you know what it's going to stay cool after tomorrow. tomorrow we'll be in the mid seventies. let's get to the rain because vain starting to spread on in here and it looks like itological continue to spread on up from the south and southwest. this is just one wave and then we're going to end up with more overnight tonight, okay. temperatures out there right now 65 here in the city right now. dulles is at 62 degrees. bwi marshall is sitting at 63 degrees. and so there's the 60's that shawn talked about and temperatures will that continue to cool off just a little bit as we head through the evening out there, okay, so

that. obviously the afternoon planner is that wrong so we won't even worry too much about that. just keep in mind we're going have rain for the morning commute and then thunderstorms, too, and then we'll dry out tomorrow afternoon, chilly for the next several days after that. back over to you guys. >> thank you gary. >> thank you gary. >> jinx. >> we always do that. >> i call jinx. >> all right. >> lawmakers speaking out about the hate crime at american university. more on that when we come back. >> ♪ >> ♪♪

>> we just really wanted to hear specific actions in regards to what the administration was going to do to address the actual problem at hand and what was going to happen after the investigation so i think just wanting that kind of information would have given us peace of mind which we just didn't receive. >> really just did more of

same which is kind of just talking around the issue instead of actually addressing what they want to do going forward. >> ♪ >> congressional members of kappa alpha kappa sorority publically denounced the hate crime. >> the university released surveillance video right here that you saw. they believe this is the person of interest who hung those bananas tied to nooses around campus. the bananas had the words harambe bait and aka written on them referencing the predominantly black sorority. >> there should be an audit of campuses across america because there are a lot of students suffering in silence. i. frightened about the atmosphere the students are in fact studying under. >> as you can see there were members of congress who are members of alpha kappa

rallied today on the hill to talk about this. the fbi is now helping american university investigate the hate crime. there is a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. i should mention i am a member of alpha kappa alpha and there were so many people, there was a town hall today also at american university and not just members of alpha kappa alpha but other greek organizations and the community came out to ask questions and rally to find out what they can do to move forward to not only help au but the community as a whole. >> i know some of the students didn't feel that the university was doing everything it could. what was the sense, i mean, does it seem like that community, the old greek community is rallying around aka. >> absolutely. and some of the images and video that we saw from the meeting we saw people with all different kind of greeks. >> sure. >> so, i know that the head of the student government association met with administrators tonight. hopefully we'll have much more on that tonight at 10:00 and 11:00. >> in the meantime we're back after this.

>> ♪ >> all right, i'm

in my head right now. >> me too. >> maryland state officials -- we should just hold up the -- >> we are the world. >> maryland state officials calling it the biggest effort in years to protect the chesapeake bay. >> governor hogan signed a series of new laws aimed at protecting maryland's environment. fox5's tom fitzgerald is live in annapolis to break it down for us. hey, fitz. >> reporter: we're trying to wrap our minds around we are the world. good evening from city dock down here in annapolis and i'll tell you a little weather, it is blowing out crazy here today and earlier this afternoon the governor of maryland larry hogan was down here. he brought with him the two top democratic leaders in the state. now, look at this. you want to talk about a welcoming committee. when the governor got down here today, he was backed up by this. this is the pride of baltimore two and they let loose with cannon salute. there it went. literally blew some people out of their socks. the reason the pride

the governor was this what he's doing right there. he's signing bills not just any bills, environmental bills in fact a lot of them. and the governor will tell you one of the reasons he wanted to get democrats and republicans together here in annapolis, yes, they have their differences, yes they go at it at times is because the one thing they do all agree on things like right there electric cars is that maryland's environment is tied to the economy in this state. especially what's been going on with the epa in recent months that some here in this state capitol are concerned about the direction epa is taking under a new administrator scott pruitt. the governor says he's not going to mince words. if he does not like something that the federal government or the epa is doing and he is concerned about the future of the chesapeake bay, the environment here, he says he's going to not stop one second and going to sign bills just like this one today to protect maryland's environment. >> for the first time ever we fully funded bay restoration. we put $3 billion into it so th

lead. we're a little bit concerned and we've expressed our concern about the poe personal cuts in washington which now did not go through but that was 73 million over five states. we put $3 billion in. that's less than what we put in like every month. >> reporter: and you know they're not just doing this out of the kindness of their heart. there's a lot of money at stake here. tourism in maryland brings in $17 billion a year. the seafood industry in this state 600 million so jim and shawn, if they don't keep this environment especially this, you know, severn river the chesapeake bay in shape me they stand to lose a lot of money. they are deadly serious about this legislation and they're healing it as one of the big achievements in this general assembly session that closed up a couple weeks ago. >> fitz thank you very much. the president has been ratings gold for those late night shows. the question is will he appear on "saturday night live" or not? 5 at 6:30 will be right back. >>

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>> google. what is isis? [laughter] oh, my, 59 million results. >> we're used to seeing alec baldwin making fun of the president but he says he's ready to bury the hatchet. baldwin wants presidenttrump to come back on "saturday night live" which he's hosted twice already to diffuse tensions and unpleasantness but mr. trump turned it down. baldwin didn't miss a beat and said he hoped the president would actually do his job. >> a little back handed right there. >> yeah. i have to say at this point the president does have really more important things to do than go on comedy shows. >> you're right about that. >> let's talk about first lady melania trump. fur wearing days is over. mrs. trump wrote a personal letter to anderson who is an animal rights

honorary director for peta saying i very much appreciate you sending the beautiful eco faux fur from only me. >> i think only me if i remember correctly it's like pamela anderson's line. >> nice little way to promote the brand. >> exactly. >> speaking of late night comedy a lot was made the last couple nights about stephen colbert. there was a #fire colbert #trending. didn't apologize but said he would maybe soften the blunt of those words a little bit more, blunt those words a little bit more. >> he said he would, you know, say something similar just not the same thing. people were also calling for a boycott of the advertisers on his concerned. a lot of people were saying is he going to come out and say something but he's stephen colbert. sort of donald down on all of it. the big issue is the house gop passing the repeal and replacement of obamacare bill today. 20 gop lawmakers voted no.

number that would have prevented all of this. we'll be talking about this much more tonight at 10:00, 10:30 and 11:00. >> have a great night. we'll see you tomorrow. >> good night. >> ♪

announcer: today on "tmz" -- harvey: ok, the producer who did "the patriot" is selling a house. it's $100 million, and it is a full hollywood production. >> this whole video is hot chicks. harvey: this is a terrible way of selling a house. >> they're selling a lifestyle. harvey: you think you got to tell somebody who can afford $100 million house that he can get laid? >> no, not laid, laid by four girls in gold. there's a difference. >> serena williams had the baby munchies last night. went to a dollar tree in palm beach, florida. harvey: she's in palm beach. there are other stores. why does she end up in that store? >> because she's from compton. harvey: no! >> every corner in compton. >> casey anthony had a lunch date with a 6-month-old. the grandson of an nbc producer. nbc's been trying to get her to do a sit-down interview for years. harvey: if you're the