still to come on the newshour: oklahoma's republican senator james lankford on the health care debate. a shortage of seasonal workers at one of the nation's top vacation spots. the feuds dividing the white house and capitol, and much more. >> woodruff: back to healthcare now. at this hour, it's fate remains uncertain. republicans have not been able to muster enough support among their own ranks. i spoke to one of them, senator james lankford of oklahoma, shortly before four of his colleagues said they'd vote no without assurances from the house. i began by askng him if he thinks any version of the health care bill will pass. >> i do actually, but i don't think it's the final version. what we have is the house verse. the senate will have a version. neither of us want it to be the final version at this point. it will go to a conference committee and we'll work out the difference, and there will be significant differences between house and senate and bring a final version out after cbo can score it some time in september. so cbo is taking about four weeks to score just about everything w

senator paul rand and james lankford join me. questions remain on whether two other key players will appear at all, we are looking ahead right now on sunday morning futures. the white house ready to hit the ground running next week with a new commander at the helm of the communications team. it comes after a sudden shake up in the west wing. sean spicer announcing his resignation on friday as the president's press secretary. the job now falls to his former deputy sarah huckabee sanders. financier anthony scaramucci is coming on board as the white house communications director, a position that will put him in charge of crafting the messages and strategy for the entire communications operation. joining me now is newt gingrich, he is former speaker of the house, author of the new york times best-selling book "understanding trump" and also a fox news contributor. good to have you. thanks very much for being here. your reaction to scaramucci and the job? how does this change things for the white house? >> first of all, i think he's a

. >> thank you, you heard from eight of the 10@on this letter, jodi ernst and james lankford had conflicts but they have also been supportive and now we will take your questions. >> . [inaudible] >> could this be looked at as a way toavoid going home and talking ? >> only in washington would you answer questions with a negative motive to this of trying to hide away from the questions. everyone in the state goes home every weekend and talk to our constituents every day when we are back home. that's not the purpose of this at all. there's only one purpose and that's to get the results of people back home who we are talking to or asking us to get. >> would you care to respond to the email chain with donald trump junior saying that he wasn't aware of the russian government trying to give him information? >> it has nothing to do with what need we need to get done in august. the process is going to follow out. and we will let the committees of jurisdiction or the appropriate folks in the department of justice sort that out but that's the very thing we need to not be distracted by. we have specif

we asked james lankford to lead us in prayer. >> might stay here a little longer, make some improvementsi have been through worse. >> john mccain considering treatment which usually includes radiation and chemotherapy. the average survival 14 months. if there's anyone who can beat the statistics, it is this american hero. >> people are living longer. as they get more aggressive treatment, many times blues people with a fighting attitude like john mccain tend to be better. >> reporter: from everyone at fox our thoughts and prayers go to the mccain family. shocking news to wake up to this morning. >> never would have appointed jeff sessions if he knew sessions would recuse himself from the russia investigation. the commander-in-chief's remarks revealed in an interview with the new york times. >> he should never have recused himself. if he was going to recuse himself he should've told me before he took the job and i would have picked somebody else. it is extremely unfair and that is a mild word, to the president. >> sessions recused himself in march following public scrutiny over his meetin

james lankford of oklahoma, republican, said you knew of the existence of the meeting, not necessarily the e-mails. roy blount told me that he did not know about this meeting an he's also on the intel committee, republican from missouri. can you clear this up? >> chuck, all i can tell you is we don't share what we know and when we knew it. the fact is this information has now come to light and all of these efforts to say there was only smoke and there's no fire, well, that's all been put to rest. this is clearly brings the investigation to the new level and makes our effort all the more important. >> how many other meetings, because of updated forms, say, by jared kushner and others, do you want to know the details of? sometimes you see on these forms they met with so-and-so but you don't know the details of the meetings. how many of those meetings are there? five, six, ten, a couple? can you at least shed some light on that? >> well, chuck, we don't really know because so far all of the trump officials have conveniently forgotten about any meetings with russians until they see evidenc

at senator james lankford's office, disability rights activists staged a protest. blocked from recording video so they took pictures instead. they told the senator's staff as far as they were concerned, they were not going to sit around and let the republican health care plan kill them. over in texas, congressman lamar smith got a visit his group of constituents including this young woman speaking in the foreground here who is a cancer survivor. watch her explain her situation to lamar smith's staffers. >> if i lose this insurance, i don't have insurance. i will be pre-existing again. that's terrifying. one of my best friends two years ago, her life was prolonged because of the health care that was given to her from the affordable care act. she died a horrible death because that's what cancer does. i held her hand as she took her last breath in hospice. the hospice that was available to her because -- because of the insurance. she would not have died as peacefully as she did or had that extra time with her family and friends if it wasn't for that. >> that's what it

at senator james lankford's office, disability rights activists staged a protest.recording video so they took pictures instead. they told the senator's staff as far as they were concerned, they were not going to sit around and let the republican health care plan kill them. over in texas, congressman lamar smith got a visit his group of constituents including this young woman speaking in the foreground here who is a cancer survivor. watch her explain her situation to lamar smith's staffers. >> if i lose this insurance, i don't have insurance. i will be pre-existing again. that's terrifying. one of my best friends two years ago, her life was prolonged because of the health care that was given to her from the affordable care act. she died a horrible death because that's what cancer does. i held her hand as she took her last breath in hospice. the hospice that was available to her because -- because of the insurance. she would not have died as peacefully as she did or had that extra time with her family and friends if it wasn't for that. >> that's what it's like in con

we're told they stopped what they were doing and had james lankford, the republican senator from oklahoma who used to be a pastor say a prayer right there in the meeting for john mccain and then tried to return to their business of discussing health care with this sort of hanging over the room. afterwards, lindsey graham spoke to reporters about his conversations with john mccain and where he goes from here. >> talked to john. said yeah, i'm going to have to stay here a little bit longer. take some treatments and i'll be back. and we talked about five minutes you know it's going to be a tough way forward but he says i've been through worse. and basically then we started talking about health care and the nda. literally it wasn't five minutes until he turned away from what i think most people would have a hard time absorbing and focused on what he loves the best. so pray. i don't know, god knows how this ends, not me. but i do know this. of this disease has never had a more worthy opponent. >> and brian, we've heard statements from people all across the ideological spectrum. john mccain is

at senator james lankford's office, dability rights activists staged a protest.were blocked from recording video so they took pictures instead. they told the senator's staff as far as they were concerned, they were not going to sit around and let the republican health care plan kill them. over in texas, congressman lamar smith got a visit his group of constituents including this young woman speaking in the foreground here who is a cancer survivor. watch her explain her situation to lamar smith's staffers. >> if i lose this insurance, i don't have insurance. i will be pre-existing again. that's terrifying. one of my best friends two years ago, her life was prolonged because of the health care that was given to her from the affordable care act. she died a horrible death because that's what cancer does. i held her hand as she took her last breath in hospice. the hospice that was available to her because -- because of the insurance. she would not have died as peacefully as she did or had that extra time with her family and friends if it wasn't for that. >> that's wha

. >> reporter: republican senator james lankford is also on the intelligence committee. >> in some wayss president trump aligned himself with the ideals expressed by russia? >> yeah, he's pushing out some messages that are consistent with the kremlin policies. and i would tell you every opportunity i have, i try to articulate very clearly, there's no question the russians were trying to hack into our elections, and there's no question we should have a strong nato and that the united states should be a part of that nato alliance. >> reporter: do you believe he's not echoing that criticism because the russians have compromising material on him? >> i don't know. i hope not. but the goal of this investigation to not only reconfirm russian intervention and explain that to the american public, but also to see if there were any contacts between the trump campaign and the russians prior to the election. >> reporter: and just this week, we learned that last june, donald trump, jr. met with lawyer natalia veselnitskaya because he thought she had dirt i spoke to senator warner again last night. >>

james lankford of oklahoma, republican, said you knew of the existence of the meeting, not necessarily the e-mails. roy blount told me that he did not know about this meeting an he's also on the intel committee, republican from missouri. can you clear this up? >> chuck, all i can tell you is we don't share what we know and when we knew it. the fact is this information has now come to light and all of these efforts to say there was only smoke and there's no fire, well, that's all been put to rest. this is clearly brings the investigation to the new level and makes our effort all the more important. >> how many other meetings, because of updated forms, say, by jared kushner and others, do you want to know the details of? sometimes you see on these forms they met with so-and-so but you don't know the details of the meetings. how many of those meetings are there? five, six, ten, a couple? can you at least shed some light on that? >> well, chuck, we don't really know because so far all of the trump officials have conveniently forgotten about any meetings with russians until they see evidenc

a prayer was offered by senator james lankford, who is, himself, a pastor. john and cindy mccain and their family. steve: they certainly do from all of us. of course, he does have a day job. and i know he would probably like to be back in the halls of the senate as well to try to do something regarding healthcare. where does it stand with him out of the picture right now recovering? >> well, discussions are ongoing. we're still trying to get to something that relieves the american people from the oppressive yoke of obamacare. this is what we have been talking about not for days but for weeks and for months. i continue to believe there is a way to get there but we have to remember, steve, when the democrats built obamacare, they built a berlin wall to keep the american people inside. the consumer freedom amendment that i'm offering tears that wall down. and it's time to do that. it's time to offer the american people the chance to connect with willing insurers to buy the policy that's right for them. this amendment would leave other protections in place for t

let's talk to oklahoma senator james lankford.ght, sir. >> we did beef from oklahoma. steve: indeed. i was hoping from kansas. it looks like what had been on the agenda yesterday has now inflamed out. what -- where do you go from here? because it sounds like the mitch mcconnell may bring up a 2015 bill that was passed in the senate, passed by the house, wound up on president obama's desk and he never signed it. >> right. that was a little more of a repeal but it wasn't total repeal either. again, we are dealing with a budget bill here. it's called reconciliation, steve. get sick of hearing that term. we have to have 60 votes to do a full repeal of obamacare. we have to deal what can we get done and how far can we go to protect people. i don't want to lose track of the fact this is something that has to be done. just in my state in oklahoma insurance rates went up last year 76%. 76% in one year. we have thousands of people that used to have insurance that can no longer afford healthcare insurance anymore. we have some new people in

maria will be joined by senators rand paul and james lankford, probably some answers there.ern here on the fox news channel. >>> president trump today commissioning the uss gerald ford, did it this morning. the gerald ford is now the most advanced carrier in the world. the president saying the state of the art carrier will send a 100,000 ton message to world. its construction has been a bit controversial but that ceremony just spectacular. we have more from norfolk, virginia. >> this is now officially the uss gerald ford, 12.9 billion dollars, just about 1100 feet. do the math. that's 118 million dollars a foot on board this crew will now have new ways of launching aircraft off with an electromagnetic catapult. new ways of retrieving aircraft when they land, and new radar, new weapons systems, all that president trump says is one piece of making america's military mightier than ever. >> your skill and your grit build the instruments of war that preserve peace. this ship is the deterrent that keeps us from having to fight in the first place. but this ship also ensures that if

. >> we asked james lankford to lead us in prayer. >> senator mccain is tough.ow prayers from presidents pouring in. president trump calling mccain a fighter. >> cancer doesn't know what it's up against. give it hell, john. >> reporter: doctors discovered the cancerous tumor after surgery to remove a blood clot above mccain's eye. no timeline as to when he might return to the senate as his family review treatment options can which may include chemo therapy and radiation. his daughter, it won't surprise you to learn that that in all of us the one that is most confident and calm is my father. cancer may afflict he in may ways but will not make him surrender. nothing ever has. feisty, tenacious at times. never afraid to speak his mind, even if that pits him against president trump who two years ago dis paraged the senator sparking one of the earlier controversies. >> he's not a war hero. >> he's a war hero because he was captured. i like people that weren't captured, okay? >> reporter: mccain wants nicknamed the maverick sometimes goes his own way. senator graham e