"newshour weekend" special correspondent jeff greenfield joins me from santa barbara, california, to discuss that. so, what did we miss? >> well, the entire political universe was focused on the comey testimony. up on capitol hill in the senate, majority leader mitch mcconnell took the republican repeal and replace obamacare bill and put it on a so-called fast track. that means it can go right to the floor of the senate with no committee meetings, no hearings, virtually no debate, and it would take 50 votes to pass it. there were some concessions to moderates. it's not clear the most conservative of senators will sign on, but it represents a significant step in that direction. on the other side the house passed significant cutbacks of the dodd-frank bill. that's legislation that puts significant caps on what big banks can do in the wake of the financial meltdown in 2008. what it indicates is that the republican majorities in the house and senate are determined to press ahead with the core republican agenda on matters ranging from financial regulation to the role of health in the gove

back with me for final thoughts, jeff greenfield, award winning journalist and analyst. a campaign been, do you think? >> i think the singular success of president trump, going back to his campaign, he has convinced the core of his supporters that anything you hear critical of the president is by definition fake. and so i think that has served that relentless campaign on twitter and in his comments, fake news, fake news, has been to convince that group of people that there is no such thing as a set of facts independent of your politics. if you are criticizing donald trump, if you're pointing out inconsistencies or outright falsehoods, by definition you are lying. and that has certainly served to continue and accelerate what you've talked about as a long process of declining trust in news. and by the way, it's not confined to the political right. a lot of people on the left think that the press is, you know, the handma maiden of corporate america. that is a key to the fact that even though president trump is unpopular on a national level, something like 96% of his voters t

sreenivasan: for more analysis of the health care debate, "newshour weekend" special correspondent jeff greenfield joins us from santa barbara, california. depends on healthcare and we have a piece of legislation. it's coming down to this. >> it's remarkable. in the old days, big social legislation like social and medicaid used to pass by overwelcoming margins, we seen this kind of down to the wire legislation. one in two vote margin, president george w bush got his prescription drug plan through the house with one vote to spare, obama's and his healthcare eill needed 60 votes in the senate to overcome a filibuster. that's what's happened and that reflects political popularization. they're reluctant to see the president fail. >> whose idea of party versus country and what you should put first, how does it play out in this vote? >> r you can see it dramatically. who is the most endangered. he said he's not on this bill because of medicaid. a pro trump will luggage a 7 figure media bite against him, and what happens now is for him and for the other republicans who expressed reluctant. when it comes

jeff greenfield wrote quts the gop that failed and in it he writes either by cluelessness or willfulrepublican party had put itself in a position where one of the most significant functions of a party, the vetting of the pro inspective nominee was rendered impotent and we are living with that institutional failure every day. was there a failure to vet president trump? >> well, look, i was no fan of president trump during the primary. anybody who watched "meet the press" daily, i was beating the drum of republicans -- get somebody not just learning on the job. that being said i disagree with this article. i don't know how you can call the republican majority that is congressionally stronger than since world war ii, how is that a failure? that makes no sense at all. last week we also saw the passage of the choice act, to repeal and replace substantive portions of the dodd frank regulation bill and health care bill the senate will bring that up for a vote. if that's failure, i'm sick of failing that way. >> thanks for joining me. >> appreciate it. >> coming up, max bacchus will tell us