john harwood. meantime stocks continue to shrug off these geopolitical red flags. nasdaq hits another record high. google finally breaks above 1,000 or all if a bet we should say joining the likes of amazon.com. joining us to talk markets. steve, you've been cautious on the markets. i remember last time you were on a few weeks ago you said time to take some profits. in the meantime stocks have made new record highs. do you still have confidence in that call? >> i think so. when we take a broader, longer term perspective and looking globally as well in a multi-asset space and not just the u.s. when we look at valuations in this range they are something that give us a pause. and i think these valuations given where we are with the fundamentals the economy is showing softness. we call it mediocrity. we think there will be two rate hikes this year. with the fundamentals being good and slightly improving, these valuations getting more and more stretched provides an opportunity for an investor to be disciplined, to be balanced, multi-asset and global and rebalance global

john harwood is in atlanta with what the victory means for the white house economic agenda. >> four major take aways from the republican victory yesterday. first of all, the republican political machinery is is operate iing at a high level. they faced challen in six, rose to that challenge. second of all, democrats can look forward to a good environment in the 2018 midterm, not a bad one. even though they've lost the specials in 2017, they all took place in republican leaning districts and democrats closed the gap in those districts. third, though democrats will gain seats in 2018, they have not shown they can break there is in the kind of republican leaning districts they need in house. this is one of those districts. finally, this cooutcome is positive firefighter repht are o move on health care as well as tax reform. and republican leaders know this will calm their member, make it easier for them to keep it .ogether, so president trump a for "nightly business report," i'm john harwood in atlanta. >>> oracle's cloud business helps results. the software giant saw profit and pref re knew

. >> john harwood is in washington for us tonight. john, he answered some questions but he refused to answer others. so did we learn anything new? what was the big takeaway? >> reporter: not a lot new. it wasn't like james comey's testimony last week. what we saw from jeff sessions, as you played in that clip, a very emotional defense of his honor, his patriotism, his integrity, defended himself more than he defended president trump. he provided some additional detail about how he says he responded to james comey when james comey expressed that he was uncomfortable with a meeting the previous day with the president. he affirmed part of comey's statement which is that there was a meeting on the 14th of february, that the president did have everyone else leave the room other than james comey, so he could be alone with the president. however, jeff sessions refused to say whether the president had ordered everyone else to leave or refused to characterize in any other way the president's statements to him about why he fired james comey. so

john harwood is in atlanta tonight. this is the most expensive race, house race in history. why is there so much money an attention? >> $51 million so far, contessa. the reason is is we've had some special elections this year, but this is the first one where democrats have a legitimate shot to win. in fact, this is the kind of district they need to win in they're going to win the house back in 2018. it's very republican, but a lot of college educated republicans, that is donald trump's weakest republican constituency, so money, attention, volunteers have poured this here, democrats are trying to win with the young inexperienced candidate. republicans have karen handle. turnout has been high today, although we have a lot of rain this afternoon. >> i keep hearing how rig there, but yonlt hear the issues. what are those issues that could decide the outcome on this? >> well, really, the backdrop for this race is donald trump. the candidates, handle doesn't like to talk about trump and john isn't talking about him that much either because he doesn't want to inflame republicans wh

joining us now, john harwood, josh barrow and samuel buell. i'll go to you first, john.ford, republican, took an open swipe at president trump after congressman steve scalise and the others were shot there at the baseball park in alexandria. is that fair in your mind? should the president take responsibility for all the rhetoric out there? >> in my mind, no, it's not really fair in the sense that, look, our politics have been uncivil for quite a long time. and there have been various escalation triggers for that over the last 20 years or so. i don't connect that to acts of insane violence like this man who shot steve scalise and others on that baseball field. i just think that's a different kind of circumstance. i don't see a straight line from escalating hot rhetoric to that. now, what mark sanford is talking about in his town meetings, the incivility there, you know, he would know better than i where that comes from. but i'm wary in these circumstances of just as i would be wary of saying violence is caused by television programs. i would be wary of saying it's caused

>> joining me now, john harwood, matthew contanetti, joan walsh and kristina belltran. john harwood, you've been covering washington for a long time for "the new york times" and cnbc. you've seen a lot of things. this was, what everyone thinks politically this was an unusual week in the fbi director calling the president a liar saying he defamed him and the president punching back as we just showed where do we go from here? >> well, i think this was the week, ari, that this scandal this issue began to take on some of the resemblances of what we saw in watergate. remember, richard nixon ultimately was forced from office after it merged on audiotapes from the oval office that he had directed his chief of staff to direct the cia to tell the fbi to drop the watergate investigation. even though we knew before the hearing we heard from james comey in his own words that the president said he hoped that he would drop the flynn investigation. he declined to do that. he subsequently was fired. so there you have and you heard from him in his interswru george steph n -- interview g

as john harwood mentioned, he did undergo surgery. he is out of surgery he is said to be doing well. hodgkinson, the shooter, had a history of violence. law enforcement officials say it is not at this point international terrorism. so that is the latest as i said, it's still a developing story and we'll be back to give you updates scott as they warrant. back to you. >> thank you so much back to our conversation about the market we mentioned that the dow had hit another new all time high today. somewhat muted reaction for stocks today dow's currently up 13. andy chase, we left things off talking about earnings and the impact that improving earnings could have on stocks how reliant are earnings on the market taking another leg higher, the multiple of the market increasing to propel stocks hee eric, the trump agenda and the impact it could have on the multiple to market earnings. >> i'm not sure b i believe in the trump agenda we've seen how hard it has to get something done in washington in general the infrastructure and energy, i'm not

obamacare expanded the pool of medicaid recipients beyond its original intentions. >> john harwood, she doesn't see them as cuts. your response? >> well, that's a ridiculous statement. everyone knows there are massive cuts and one of the things that you see is statements by the hhs secretary today along the same lines saying we're not going to reduce anyone's healthcare coverage. that's wrong. the cbo scored the house bill and said 14 million people would lose medicaid coverage under that bill. the senate bill cuts medicaid more than the house does. they'd slow it down, but that's what they do and this gets to the point that you were just raising a minute ago. this is really about a republican drive to reduce the size of government and reduce taxes. it is not about trying to improve health care and so because the idea of reducing government in the case of health care isn't popular, they have to claim it doesn't have adverse health effects, but is does impeach they're making one argument to achieve another goal which they might achieve if this bill passes this week. >> the 1964 civil rig

john harwood is watching that.already tweeted about the comey testimony and now the choice act. >> that's right, carl. it's a big forlorn this event at d.o.t. it started out to be infrastructure week from the white house, but that's been blown out of the water by the comey testimony and other developments this week. very different to get attention and it's notable that the president has not laid out an infrastructure plan yet. he has indicated that he's going to propose something that uses a relatively modest amount of federal money as a lever to get private sector money, to get state and local money, but this is something that is going to be very difficult to pass through congress if he can do so in the end, and it's completelien overshadowed, of course, by the effort of the white house to defend itself from what james comey said with very damaging testimony. >> i would say, john, he himself is distract from infrastructure week. he continued on the week tweeting about other topics as well. it's not like he's tryin

. >>> our john harwood among the observers today as well. john, i'm coming to you now. you've certainly been on the hill a long time. you've seen a lot of hearings. this was expected to be political theater of the highest order. and it absolutely lived up to its billing. >> reporter: it was. and one thing that president trump has been right about is that james comey is a bit of a show boat. i think he loved this setting. he loved the high stakes, all the attention to what he was saying. nevertheless, this was a very damaging hearing for the white house on a couple of levels. first of all, you had the statement from senator burr, the republican that he issued at the end of the hearing. she is, of course, the chairman of the intelligence committee. he praised jim comey as someone who loves this country enough to tell it like it is. that is an indication that on that credibility fight, who tells the truth between the president and jim comey, that was an assertion of confidence in jim comey and the more the chairman of the investigating committee on the hill believes that,

john harwood in our bureau got the guys here, joe, josh, jim, and john. you see health care today exploeting. >> yeah. >> across the entire space. >> it's been building over the last week or so. it overtook technology as the leading sector i think the executive order is a very positive thing when you think about biotech and the potential for m&a. it looks as though onerous pricing systems won't be placed on the industry. faster drug approval gilead is up 5%. amazing enough i can't remember the last time we said that when you look at the four big biotechs, the amgens, cellgene and the capital will be repatriated back for m&a, it's great for the space. >> it's remarkable, jimmy, when you look at our wall and put it into the perspective of the stocks that are moving in tandem today, and not by insignificant percentage moves >> nuts. >> that's exactly where i'm looking, 9%, 10. >> everything is up but the hospitals are clearly up more than anything else what that's telling to me is they think the insurance mandates are going to stay in place. i haven't read t

and john harwood, editor at large for cnbc. on this question of executive privilege, courts have recognized a president's constitutional right to keep his discussions a secret in most cases. does that go for the fbi director that he fired in his own wos to stop him investigating donald trump and his campaign? >> well, certainly the president could -- could ask mr. comey not to testify as to certain subjects. and mr. comey could comply with that request if he wanted to. i suspect he might. if he didn't, however, it's hard to see how the administration could force mr. comey not to testify about certain subjects. it would be completely unprecedented. and the only way that they could do that would literally be to go to court and seek an injunction from a federal court to prevent him from testifying. >> to stay with you for just one second, i want to play for you a little bit of what donald trump said to lester holt. you tell me whether already publicly discussed things, things he said on the record into a tv camera could possibly t

. >> so joining me now is eliza collins, congressional reporter for "usa today" and john harwood, cnbcarge. great to see both of you this morning. john, let me begin with you. "the washington post" reporting that the senator spoke with ted cruz on thursday all in this attempt to try to win him over. he's among the five gop senators declaring a no on the bill. then we have dean heller saying that this is making too many cuts. he was very outfro front on thi. another four senators saying it doesn't roll back obamacare enough. does mcconnell have a process to get the votes he does? >> i suspect he does. there's late amendments to try to mollify some of these senators. senator mike lee of utah has just written a post in the last 24 hours where he says this bill doesn't meet my press, it preserves the broken obamacare system, but just makes it worse for the poor, better for corporations. but he's still open to voting for it. now, he -- what mike lee wants is an on the-out provision for states. others can get smaller rifle-shot type amendments to bring them over. don't know if that's going t

let's get to cnbc's john harwood in washington with more. we were talking about sort of lack of market reaction, even though investors were clearly paying attention to this. that does not mean it created a stir and opened up a lot more questions in washington. >> absolutely it did. you had the former fbi director testifying to the senate intelligence committee portraying the president of the united states as a liar who fired him in order to change the course of the russia investigation. now, republicans interestingly did not dispute the credibility of james comey, they praised him as an honest person, but they tried to cast his account of what president trump did in the most favorable light. check out this exchange between james comey and james risch, senator from idaho, who suggested perhaps when the president said i hope you can see the way to letting mike flynn go, that it wasn't a direction and here is how james comey pushed back. >> i took it as a direction. it is the president of the united states, with me lone saying i hope this, i to

eamon javers and ylan mui on capitol hill and john harwood is in washington., we'll begin with you. it is seth it up for -- it is. set it up for us. >> the big question is whether comey will say what he saw in terms of his president amounted to obstruction of justice or not. but in the q&a section we should get into the smaller issues. senators will have a lot of opportunity to question comey here. i'm wondering about a couple of things. the president told james comey, we shared that thing, you know, when he was saying that he was being loyal to comey. that comey doesn't explain what the president meant by that thing. i would imagine that some senators will be curious and want to know what that thing meant. comey says that the president asked him if an open investigation. he says he didn't have an open investigation into the president personally. he said that was for a number of reasons. one of the reasons was because it would create a duty to go back and correct the record if in fact they did open the investigation. but i think senators will also want to know

high drama in the rose garden this afternoon. >> john harwood, thank you. now live in ottawa, canada for the meeting with his counterpart. ylan? >> reporter: here in ottawa on his home turf taxes and trade. canada is speaking to clarify mnuchin position on the border adjustment tax. the two economies are deeply int intertwined. mnuchin is meeting with ge, gm, ford, google and are there to hammer home the message that goods need to be able to travel across the border. some uncomfortable items will come up, climate change and defense. canada announced it would be increasing its spending on military by 70% over the next decade. the canadian foreign minister said as the u.s. steps back from the world stage canada needs to, quote, step up and chart its own clear and solvent course. officials tell me they are developing a partnerships . that relationship will be crucially important as they head into the g-20 next month, guys, and look forward to renegotiating nafta in the fall. back to you. >> ylan, thank you very much. now to the developing news overseas as the

john harwood is here to talk about them with us. john, good to see you, as always. let's start with jeff sessions, the attorney general testifying tomorrow on russia. why should investors specifically be watching closely? >> well, this is key testimony in the investigation for the senate intelligence committee, and it may factor into the special counsel's investigation as well. because jeff sessions, the attorney general, has been involved at both ends here. first of all, he had undisclosed meetings with the russian ambassador that he had not initially told congress about, when he was up for confirmation. and then in addition to that, having recused himself from the russia investigation, he was involved in the firing of james comey, who is leading that investigation. this is a scandal that has the potential to destabilize the administration, and jeff sessions by testifying in public is raising the stakes. >> yeah, it certainly seems that wa what about the impact that this might have, the investigation, the testimony, et cetera, on the president's agenda, most immedi

john harwood joins us now with the highlights.ntage trump, off the cuff yet again, taking questions on a wide range of issues. what stood out to new. >> reporter: well, kayla, on any other day, you would have had two big news stories coming out of there, which was in the first instance, the president said he was committing the united states to article 5 of nato, which he had failed to do, taken out of his speech when he spoke at nato a couple of weeks ago. that was striking. the second thing is he contradicted his secretary of state rex tillerson who was sitting in the front row of the news conference by going hard after qatar for its funding of terrorism just after rex tillerson in the morning had said -- appealed to other gulf states, including saudi arabia, to ease tensions, to ease the block aade on qatar. but all of that was overshadowed when the president got questions about james comey's testimony yesterday at the senate intelligence committee. when he was asked whether he would be willing, having called comey out for givin

. >> john harwood are in washington following this story and had some comments of the future of tax reformsistration is 100% committed to get tax reforms done by the end of this year john harwood, mr. mnuchin cleared and repeated that this was not directed at china. how can it be read any other way? >> the president last week sent out a tweet saying that china had tried and he accepted that china had tried and had worked as the administration notes with alarm that north korea appears to be going forward with tests under those nuclear programs this is the step that they took and they're trying to separate finding fault with china from this particular financial institutions i don't think anybody is going to expect this is going to be consequential. >> there is some history here. back in 2007, they did sanction, chinese bank in makcao and that brought the koreans to the ta e table. they seized $25 million of north korean money this is a play book that's been in place right now >> well, that's right and i think the administration also said they're not taking military options off the table, just

. >>> to john harwood with a news letter from washington john >> it appears "the wall street journal"president trump and the white house on their promised announcements about whether there are tape recordings of the president and james comey. wall street has posted a story saying in response to an information request, the secret service told them there are no audio recordings of the meetings in question. that's not a definive answer to the question, if president trump himself had some sort of device separate from the secret service that's questionable. he hasn't spoken to that sean spicer in a briefing a moment ago declined to answer the question we have the heard from the secret service which in the past has in stalled recording systems for the preponderates, they do not possess any recordings of that meeting interesting step heading thwart jeff session's testimony tomorrow >> when did do we find out if he did tape them? >> that's what we'll wait to see. >> lordy i hope there are tapes, james comey last week. john thank you john harwood with an update there. >>> turning back to the b

handel defeating democrat jon ossoff in a high stakes special election for the georgia house seat john harwoodoins us from atlanta with the latest. good morning, john >> good morning, sara. this was a big sigh of relief for the trump white house and the republican party after all the spending, more than $50 million by all sides and all the hype they held on to this house seat. it's been republican for a long time there are still big signs of concern looking ahead to 2018. they had to fight hard to win a direct that the republican who last held it, tom price, now the hhs secretary, won by more than 20 points. in another special election in south carolina, that got much less attention, the democrat came within four points of beating the republican in the district of mcmulvaney, now the budget director. nevertheless, this is good for the agenda in the immediate sense because what that means is the jolt of fear that would have surged through the republican caucus had the democrat won this race is not there. it comes right as republicans are taking up their healthcare bill in the senate this will i

our john harwood is in the state that everyone was watching, georgia, with more on the big win for republicansr: it was a big win, sara, demoralizing loss for the democrats. they had hoped to break through on the strength of anti-trump enthusiasm, but republicans succeeded in turning out their vote and in a very republican district, that was enough to give karen handel a margin over jon ossoff, the democratic candidate. karen handel avoided the subject of donald trump but last night she thanked the president. >> special thanks to the president of the united states of america >> trump, trump, trump, trump. >> reporter: and it's no surprise that donald trump tweeted out, congratulations to himself as well as karen handel last night and chided democrats going 0 for 5 in special elections. now that shouldn't give too much comfort for republicans about 2018 because democrats -- all of these were republican districts and democrats did better than their congressional candidates had done in the fall of 2016 or 2014 by that matter. on the other hand, this does calm the republican party down just as the

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john harwood >> it is very close between the democrat jon ossoff and republican karen handel. to regain the house next year there are 23 republican seats that hillary clinton carries that district. there is another dozen where he came really close. it is one of those large number of college educated, republicans which are the weakest constituents for donald trump in the republican party in this district the last polls of a narrow of 2/10% for karen handel and one wild card for this afternoon of this pouring rain behind me and you can see water coming out of the gutter of this high school where there is a place where karen handel needs to win the election jon ossoff won the earlier vote. the real question is what then happens after this two republican agenda, donald trump is at 35% approval here in the district 26% of republicans disaprovprovd it could have effect on the debate >> thank you, john harwood >> ahead of the national association joins us next. cisco is launching a new network to help stop cyber attacks chuck robbins is joining us ahead. >> the big drop in oil is cou

john harwood in washington.ore out of the news in washington and the impact on the markets we bring in brian gardner, senior washington analyst. happy friday to you. >> happy friday. >> the markets are not rattled by the open warfare by comey on the white house. why not? >> i don't get the disconnect to be honest with you, carl. i think yesterday was generally a bad day for the future of policy. especially tax policy. we'll talk about financials in a second, but tax policy yesterday took a hit because yesterday's hearing didn't resolve anything. these investigations are going to go on. they're going to consume copious bands of -- amounts of bandwidth so washington is preoccupied with them. they're not going to be spending time on tax legislation. i think tax legislation has a pulse, but i think it's getting more and more crowded out so i think it was a bad day for the prospect of tax reform. >> sanford said that legislative bodies can be side tracked by this and then paul ryan said we can walk and chew gum at th

huge fan in john harwood coach k.hat he sees happening he will be ringing the opening bell on the nasdaq today >> we look forward to it coming up on "worldwide exchange," a discussion about what to expect trading today futures at this hour, still pointing lower mixed actually we improved a bit in the last few minutes. the dow higher by 3 points the nasdaq by 5. let's discuss markets with j.j.j.j. j.j. killihan. front and center is oil prices down about 2% yesterday. they were down half a percent a couple hours ago now in positive territory for this morning is that encouraging to you do you think we reached the bottom of this oil price slide >> i don't know if we reached the bottom 44 was a big level we slid down the next true support is at 40 you may see people start to bottom pick here or some shorts start to cover, which would be good because as it affects the stocks, i think one thing that you'll start to see is people question earnings now. we had great earnings cycles but at 40 it certainly becomes a drag on earn

john harwood has been listening in. a week that was billed to be about infrastructure finally gets to it. albeit on friday. what do you make of o the comments and where do you think the president's agenda goes now? >> these comments were familiar. they're complaints about the regulatory process that the president has made before. the president still has not laid out a proposal on infrastructure. so i can't be evaluated until they do that in general. his approach is to lay out $200 billion over ten years in public money as a lever to try to get private sector money investment through tax credits, also get state and local money and democrats are likely to resist that kind of a instructionture of a plan, which makes it propmatic a because a lot of republicans aren't that enthusiastic, they're looking to cut the debt, so this is something that's as you indicated, overshadowed all week by the attention on first terrorism and the lond attacon s and the fight with the mayor then. then the james comey temperaturtemperaturstimon

john harwood, we'll await more developments out of washington as the house meets to hold a moment oftisan unit coming out of the alexander shooting. over to the headquarters and the half >> thanks. we start this hour with breaking news the latest from the shooting at a congressional baseball practice in alexandria, virginia one congressman wounded, three others injured president trump announcing minutes ago the shooting was also shot has now died you're looking at a live picture of capitol hill where speaker ryan is expected to make comments any moment now. we also expect nancy pelosi to do the same. we'll go there live when those events happen. kayla is at the scene in alexandria a j

. >> well, our colleague john harwood of cnbc was not having any of that and he he quickly wrote this in response, quote, never has there been a president with few exceptions who has passed more legislation, done more things, trump declared, even though congress, which is controlled by his party hasn't passed any major legislation. he hailed his plan for the single biggest tax cut in american history even though he hasn't proposed a plan and congress hasn't acted on one. he said no one would have believed his election could have created so many new jobs over the past seven months, 1.1 million. even though 1.3 million were created in the previous seven months, but the part of that cabinet meeting that was instantly compared to the adoration that surrounds the man they call dear leader in north korea was this. we will show this more later, but here's a taste. the president went around the room as members of the cabinet took their turn praising him. >> greatest privilege of my life to serve as vice president to the president who is keeping his word to the american people and assembling a

joining me to talk about this, molly hooper, congressional reporter for hill and john harwood, welcomeu both. molly, i'll start with you. what's the mood among republicans on capitol hill this morning as they face this tough testimony from sessions? >> well, i think lawmakers are looking forward to this. ultimately they want to get to the bottom of this and move on. i think that comey's testimony, which by all accounts was brutally honest according to one senator up there asking those questions, leaves a lot of questions for sessions to answer. in fact, you know, why did he linger after that february 14th meeting? did the white house advisers including sessions warn trump not to have a one on one meeting? did trump suggest that idea to his advisers and not take their advi advice? who knows but that's something lawmakers want to get to the bottom of and go away -- >> i'll bet they do. >> they do and they just want him to quit tweeting i think. that's the general consensus. >> i like how you said they want to get to the bottom of this and move on. i think a lot of people wishing it was t

. >> john harwood is with us as well. what do you think of this? >> it happened in 1974 after the resignation of president nixon, and he was called to congress to give testimony which was unsworn about his decision to pardon president nixon. there is a precedent for this. i don't know if president trump will avail himself of that opportunity. everyone has been trying to parse whether or not he meant what he said on friday, and sean spicer, as you just heard in that briefing, didn't shed any light, just said the president said exactly what he said, and we will see what happens after that. >> key word there, unsworn. kacie, back to you. tapes. there is a deadline now for the white house to say whether or not there are tapes. >> yeah, in theory. the white house has set how many of its own deadlines? these tapes have been demanded by both the senate and the house, intelligence committees. we'll see if they follow through on threats for these subpoenas or not. >> and the other thing that's going to be happening tomorrow, peter just mentioned it a moment

. >> with me john harwood, cnbc editor at large, and reporter for the associated press. n this city, we sometimes don't wait for the facts, we take sides. it's politics. but you were in the rose garden today. what was it like there and why did he pick jonathan carl? any idea? >> it was an unusual situation, greta, because usually the president has names ready who he's going to call on. and he did have david bowyer, the washington times ready to be called on. then he sort of threw it out there and tried to get the reporters to seek his attention by saying, well maybe i'll call one of these killer network guys who has been treating me bad for fake news and he finally settled on john carl after moving his finger around. >> jill, what's the environment like at the white house now? i mean post press conference? >> i mean, the president right now has departed. he is in bedminster, new jersey. he took off shortly after the press conference. whenever he leaves there is kind of a sigh of relief you can hear throughout the building. but i think it was also this extraordinary moment

john harwood joins frus washington with his take on this. ning. >> good morning, becky. but just before i get to that report, i just want to make sure we don't bury the lead. the did joe kernen just admit that he was a sociopath? >> he's done that before. >> many times. >> many times? >> aren't we all? >> no. >> really? okay. that's -- you know, the first step out of the twelve is accepting that, you know, what you are and that there's a higher power and you have no control over it. you're not a sociopath? >> well, i -- i -- i admit that there's a higher -- no, no. i admit there's a higher power. >> i'm using it as a compliment. in this case. not as a pejorative. >> i admit there's a higher power. >> john, could you -- i can argue both sides of any issue. you're right, i don't think you are -- have that ability actually now that i think about it. i can, you know, i can go -- you know, i can make -- i can present positive aspects of both sides. >> he's talking about from a debate perspective. >> which we have to do in this business. >> i agree

. >>> new poll numbers about what americans think about the new gop health care bill john harwood is ohn. >> reporter: the senate intends to vote on this bill next week and now we have "wall street journal" poll numbers showing how they feel about the house passed bill which resembles the senate bill. very unpopular 48% of americans say it's a bad idea rather than a good idea and as that effort has proceeded, obamacare has become somewhat more popular. that's happened throughout 2017. these numbers, 41% say obamacare was a good idea. 37% say it was a bad idea. where to go from here? the public is split and it's a very partisan split. 38% say continue with the repeal/repeal effort that's more than 70% of republicans. 39% say don't. that's about 70% of democrats. independents are divided so the public is not it and that is likely to propel gop leaders to try for one more week in the senate. >> we were asking how on earth would they know? the thing came out at 11:00 this morning. >> how do they know they don't like it? >> because this is a poll about the house-passed bill. that's what i

let's get john harwood to join us at this point he's on the phone. hese are early reports, but very concerning reports >> yes and i've just been listening to a phone report from congressman mel brooks of alabama, who was participating in the practice, who described in detail how this shooter with a long gun came out and started targeting people, including steve scalise, congressional aides, and two security -- members of the security detail. and it was a chaotic situation security detail answered fire with handguns. and eventually took the shooter down but, it was a horrific scene that he described. and one that appears to be over. in terms of active shooting. but the kind of tragedy that we experience every couple of years. everyone remembers the shooting of gabby giffords in her district in arizona. and as horrible as you can imagine, this from what we've heard, again, with a gathering of congressional republicans who were there for this practice for the baseball game, and from what we've heard again, early reports, but 50 to 100 shots fired. type o

immediately and replacing it later if republican senators are unable to pass their current bill john harwood is live in washington with the latest back to square one, john >> we saw the evolution of this new position in realtime this morning. first ben sasse, the senator of nebraska, who indicated in remarks on that fox television program that if they can't pass it in the next couple of weeks, they wanted to go to a straight repeal this was the plan republicans had at the beginning of the year that they then abandoned subsequently, after ben sasse said this on "fox & friends" this morning, president trump sent out a tweet saying if they can't pass their health care bill they should immediately go to repeal and do the replacement bill at a later date subsequent to that, kellyanne conway coming out in television interviews and saying this was a realistic path for republicans to first do repeal and then do replace. this is, however, not something that the senate republican leadership believes is a feasible strategy at this point. i spoke just a few moments ago to a source familiar with mitch mc

john harwood, thank you for setting that up today. >>> amazon unveiling prime wardrobe all the detailssits down with chicago fed president charles evans, talking timetable for rate hikes evans, by the way, is a voting member of the fmoc you won't want to ssmi this interview on "squawk on the street." the power of 100 of the world's top companies. the power of an etf. the power of qqq. the thinking we put in, clients get out. power your client's portfolio at powershares.com/qqq. before investing, consider the fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. call 800-983-0903 for the prospectus containing this information. read it carefully. distributed by invesco distributors inc. >>> i'm contessa brewer. underway in georgia, republican karen handel who voted this morning is trying to claim a seat that's been in her party's hands for nearly 40 years. of course, all eyes on this race because it's consider aid test of republican strength early in trump's presidency we're learning more about the suspect linked to monday's attack outside a london mosque darren osbourne, father of

attorney general jeff sessions headed to capitol hill this afternoon to testify before congress john harwoodhear, which questions we examine thcat him to answer. >> this is not the first time jeff sessions has been before his former colleagues in the senate to testify. he had a contentious confirmation hearing earlier this year. the stakes are higher because the white house is in deep trouble with the russia investigation you were talking about in the previous segment. among the issues jeff sessions will face are his failure earlier to disclose meetings that he had with the russian ambassador including meetings, conversations with senator al franken in his confirmation hearing where he said he had not had contact with the russians. we can expect him to talk about conversations with fired fbi director james comey he said he asked jeff sessions not to leave him alone with the president after the president asked him to drop the flynn investigation. he said sessions did not respond. sessions through the justice department has said he did respond and then finally he'll be asked about his role in

for what's at stake to john harwood, who is in atlanta for us today bill, after $50 million investedo the race, the weather is emerging this afternoon as a big factor in this race. it started pouring shortly after noon and the question is who does that affect terms of turnout democrats are hoping with this race, a referendum on donald trump that intense opposition from their base including a lot of young people is going to power them out to the polls for the last few hours >> much more importantly, get a little wet it's an important race i would imagine it's going to affect the vote one way or the other. it would seem that his base is more motivateded >> but this is a very republican district has been b for a long time and donald trump still has a significant number of supporters here including this 82-year-old woman who said she didn't mind get iting a little wet to expres some support for donald trump. >> so, did you get wet coming in here >> not bad but it's worth it. because i know my vote's going to count >> i think the man has not, he's beencrucified. he hasn't had a chance to

john harwood joins us from atlanta. he has more on that. good morning >> good morning. big sigh of relief from the white house. they won both of these races, too close for comfort in south carolina for mick mulvaney's seat he's the budget director now but a win. and in georgia, karen handel, the republican did better than had been expected by the polls preelection. she won and she ended up after a campaign in which she did not talk much about donald trump, thanking him in her victory speech last night. >> special thanks to the president of the united states of america >> no surprise president trump was on twitter last night saying he had blanked the democrats in the special elections, which is crew they are all republican seats, to replace people he picked in his cabinet. this provides a boost at the president's attempt to get his agenda through it calms republicans jitters as the senate is preparing to take up the healthcare bill and they hope to get on to tax reform positive evening for the trump white house. >> this was watched so closely you point out what the presi