congressman charlie dent.ng us. >> thank you for having me on the program. >> are you concerned about the senate version of the bill as well? republicans have been talking about repealing and replacing obamacare for nearly a decade with majorities in the house and senate, where do you feel you got it wrong? >> well, i would say this. first, in 2010 and 2012, after obamacare was initially passed, the mantra was repeal and replace. but after president obama was re-elected in 2012, it became obvious to me that obamacare would be in for another four years. so here we are, and i think the reality is, parts of the health care law do need to be repealed, parts do need to be replaced, part needs to be overhauled, and other parts need to be retained. i think one of the challenges we face is our bumper sticker slogan was never matched by the policy. so here we are, and we have a challenge. the senate will, as i understand it, is -- i'm still reading it, but the bill is structurally similar to the house version. in some

republican congressman charlie dent is once again sounding the alaron

i'm joined by andrea mitchell, and katy tur, eugene robinson, and charlie dent of pennsylvania. i want to go to katy tur. you've had to deal with this president -- i should say our president, you've dealt with him in the same ring atmosphere where he is very close to you in terms of his swing, his reach, his punch definitely this surprise you today at all? >> no. it isn't surprise me. donald trump said he would be more presidential when he was elected. he has not been more presidential. that's not the way he operates. that's not who he is. he is exactly the same person now as he was on the campaign trail. and speaking to members, people close to him and close to the white house today. they were saying that the white house feels like it is under siege. the president himself feels like he is being attacked all the time. so when it comes to taking on twitter and lobbing a personal attack against a morning anchor, most people in this country, most members of congress were able to ask today found it d distasteful and beneath office that he holds. the white house feels they need to do

capital, a delayed vote for the senate health care bill, and joining me is republican congressman charlie dentgainst the house version. congressman dent, appreciate your being here. let's get right to this. mitch mcconnell out there today effectively saying the democrats aren't going to work with us, but we have been hearing from a series of republicans, senators, john mccain, graham, murkowski, saying a bipartisan bill is the way to go. will mcconnell need to change his strategy here? >> well first peter, thank you for having me on the program. i believe we need to work this legislation from the center out. i said the same thing during the house tlibratideliberation. the mistake democrats made with obamacare in 2010 they muscled this through on a partisan basis and we've been fighting about health care ever since. i feel republicans are making the same mistake. we should work this from the center out and also, peter, get involved, many of our governors, governors like john kasich, governor sandoval, charlie baker in massachusetts. these governors are popular and they have some very constructi

joining me is charlie dent. congressman, good to see you. this has been a rough week all around.-away at the end of the week after james comey's testimony and the president's pushback? >> my take-away, thank you for having me on the program. i would say that my take-away is the president is not -- wasn't you should an investigation, and it's clear, though, that his interference and interventions, though, we could make it more likely that he could be under an investigation. i think that the attorney general sessions didn't have a particularly good day yesterday. nor did loretta lynch. nor did general flynn. i guess i'm worried about the broader context here. i just returned from germany, and i'll tell you, i think the world is looking at america right now, and they think there's political instability. they have taken america strong leadership for granted. nas that is no longer the case. whether it's on security, whether it's on trade or the environment, there's a feeling that america is a little bit adrift. i'm worried about that broader context in addition to all the day to day n

republican congressman charlie dent is once again sounding the alarm on his party's approach to repeal and replace obamacare. here's what he told my colleague robert thomas earlier. >> our policy's never caught up with the rhetoric of repeal and replace. when the truth is, we know we have to maintain certain aspects of this law, while other parts need to go and others need reformed. i think that's been the problem. we have the bumper sticker slogan but not the policy, you know, to back it up. >> his comments come days before the senate is expected to vote on its version of the republican health bill. the congressional budget office is set to score it tomorrow. >>> moderate republican susan collins remains undecided on whether she will vote for the bill. >> it makes absolutely no sense to eliminate federal funding for planned parenthood. there are already long-standing restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortions so that's not what this debate is about. you can't take over $800 billion out of the medicaid program and not expect that it's going to have an impact on a rural nurs

pennsylvania republican chairman charlie dent said explicitly he was not including that choice money because he wanted authorizer's to tackle problem -- authorizers to tackle the problem. it goes to the strange treatment of this program. it is not a program that is overseen annually by the appropriators in congress. because of that, when they run out of money it becomes kind of a little bit of a tap dance of the authorization committee working with appropriate ors -- appropriators. they ended up just using emergency money straight out of the treasury. that is because there is not or'sly a lot of good pay f or ways to pay for this measure beside saying it's a priority and we will take it out of the general fund. are aoblem is that there lot of top political budgetary complications that come with it. so, what we have seen over the past two years is this patching up on the problem. now is really coming to the floor. greta: more to come on this issue. we will be watching congress along with you. elected thank you for being on "newsmakers." honor of brine with politico and kellie mejdrich

and pennsylvania republican chairman charlie dent said explicitly he was not including that choice money because he wanted authorizers to tackle the problem. a lot of that goes back to the kind of strange budgetary treatment of this program. it is not a program that is overseen annually by the appropriators in congress. because of that, when they run out of money it becomes kind of a little bit of a tap dance of the authorization committee working with appropriators. in the 20 14th legislation that started this whole thing they , ended up just using emergency money straight out of the treasury. that is because there is not really a lot of good pay for's or ways to pay for this measure besides just saying that the national priority and we will take it out of the general fund. the problem is that there are a lot of top political budgetary well we have seen over the past few years is as patching above the problem. connor o'brien with politico -- thank you so much. thank you both. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning instit

i want to bring in our republican congressman charlie dent of pennsylvania. he sits on the house appropriations committee. you were against the house version of the health care bill. you're now against the senate version of this bill. you feel it is too similar to what the house was able to pass. what are the extra sticking points for you that make you against what the senate is doing? >> well, like i said, thomas, thanks for having me on the show. i have some concerns about the senate bill as i understand it. i'm still reviewing it, i look forward to receiving the cbo score to get a better idea where it is, but my initial reaction to the bill after the first read is that the bill is structurally similar to the house bill. the medicaid provisions, i think, are still -- well, in some cases they're a little better than the house bill, in others a little harsher. it doesn't provide a soft enough landing, in my view, to the state. still too much of a cost shift particularly for expansion states like mine. >> and we talk about the issues, the cbo score is expected

dent. it's unclear to me how it changes long-term policy for the united states in a way that could be effective. charlieee some significant difference coming out of otto warmbier's death, something that could be tried that hasn't been tried before that might actually have an impact on north korea? >> no. i think you put your finger on it. north korea is maybe the number one dilemma in the world, meaning a terrible situation for which all the options are bad. and it has nuclear weapons. it could destroy south korea or japan in the event of any nuclear sort of any conventional strike by american forces and sanctions haven't worked. we've tried sab talking their mysterprogram. it's not satisfying because it's covert and obviously what you want here is something that feels good that's overt but there's no option on the table that seems to make any sense that would make things better rather than worse. so when you see president trump say we can handle it, we're going to handle it, it sounds hollow. it's the sort of thing that two or three years ago when he was just tweeting and running for president from the