karoun, what do you see?, ohio governor john kasich said the $45 billion is a nice number, but it's basically a drop in the bucket, a band-aid on a gushing wound of the opioid crisis. i think the problem for a lot of republicans is that they have governors at home who won't be convinced by all this at all. that's the case in ohio, those are two moderate republicans looking at this. we haven't heard all that much from the arizona republicans. they're also from states that have issues with opioids and other drug crises and also a population that's not all that young. so you're looking at basically who it is that has to make the decision to vote for this based on the changes. yes, it will make them unpopular in the national gop, but will it make them more unpopular at home to vote yes? that's a very critical decision for anybody who is up in 2018 or frankly even 2020. sometimes what you end up seeing in matters like this that are very politically controversial when there's a lot ot stake, is that you'll see a ne

karoun, the president ploeted a little how he'll respond. he said everyone would have taken the meeting that don junior took. he said there was zero coordination, the dumbest thing i've ever heard. this is a hoax, this is made up by the democrats, greatest con job in history. a party sits down the day after they got their ass kicked, he said it, not me, what's their excu excuse? the white house has two lines, everyone would have taken the meeting, it's still a hoax. >> i don't think that's it. this is chapter 4, less than a week since this first came out. the president's traditional point the finger and blame game is not quite as probable as it usually is when he's saying don't believe the media and their fake sources. this is his own son who put out those e-mails in which it says very clearly, hey, we've got russian government information that's damaging to your opponent. great. i love it. it would be ideal if it came out in late summer. more discussion about, okay, this is a russian lawyer with government ties. it's there in black and whit

whatever new strategy of the trump administration, karoun hasn't worked either. january 2nd a bold statement about the north korean missile tests and north korea said it's in the phenfinal stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching the continental u.s., he says it won't happen. it's possible the president is learning limits of some of these statements. >> it's interesting to note his tweets about doesn't north korea have big better to do came before this might be an intercontinental ballistic missile. he hasn't comment since that bit came out from north korea. the president clearly thought that north korea is a major threat. it's been in the forefront of his mind, well reported that that was something that concerned them the most, he was getting his earliest briefings about the situation in the blown. he hasn't defined his strategy from north korea even though he's taken steps to suggest he may be trying to sur sue a different strategy. thanks for trying, china, didn't work out as well as we hoped it to. is he going to deploy those milita military

joining us cnn political commentator errol louis, congressional reporter for "the washington post," karoun demir jan and a.b. stoddard. great to see all of you. errol, do we know how this press conference will work? can anybody ask questions? will it be tightly controlled? will american journalists be allowed to ask? >> we've seen lots of different variations. the tradition has been, and i assume they'll sort of adhere to form is both leaders will take questions from foreign and their domestic press. what we don't know is who is going to be in the room and how much they want to sort of press french issues in the way that any of us would do. so, for example, president trump has been critical of immigration policy in france. there's been talk about terrori terrorism and whether or not it is linked to immigration policies. >> he's talked terrorists dangerous. that it's a dangerous place to go. >> if you were a parisian journalist, you would probably ask about that. why are you insulting paris? have you consulted with armed forces? what we'll get i think is going to be a pretty aggressive set

gregory, reporter and editor at large chris cillizza and "the washington post" congressional reporter karoun dermijian. last week susan collins of maine and rand paul said they could not support this. mitch mcconnell still believed and the white house still believed at least what they said publicly that they could have the votes and they were going to get this across the finish line. then last night president trump invited seven senators over to the white house for dinner, these were all as we understood it yes votes, but influencers who could go out and spread the message. i'm forgetting one part of this chapter, john mccain got surgery, emergency surgery, and so he was needed and mitch mcconnell said he was going to delay the vote. they had this dinner and during the dinner the two senators, mike lee of utah and jerry moran of kansas held hands figuratively and announced together at the same time via twitter that they were not going to support this bill, neither one becoming the 51st vote but together, announcing this and it all unraveled. how do you see it? >> well, look, the clash all al

avlon, cnn politics reporter chris cillizza and congressional reporter for "the washington post," karoun demirji demirjian. it seems as though the stiff resistance isn't going to go anywhere as long as what's on the table is let's take away what's there and -- >> mystery meat is not a plan and that's basically where we are. a lot of plans, there's a so-called skinny repeal, repeal-like. >> i think the visual will help people. repeal and replace -- walk it through. something like 9:30 that failed. now repeal and delay they'll vote on today. so for two years, a delay of repeal. then the skinny repeal which you can expound on for us. and then the graham-cassidy amendment he outlined to us on friday evening that has the votes. that gives governors and states more autonomy and control. >> giving more power to the states is standard issue republican fare that's hard to oppose. skinny repeal, they'll remove the individual mandate. the problem with removing the individual mandate, it's a game agenda with the health care system. it will allegedly increase freedom but also take away a couple medic

. >> karoun, one thing that helps us are the president's tweets, tweet leaves i like to call them. it seemed to express consternation in the ongoing russia investigation. interestingly, he wasn't singling out cnn as he often does. that's because fox was also covering the russia developments and the russia investigation. he was angry at the media as a whole because all the sunday shows were doing that. so, today they're trying to flip the switch, obviously, and move on to made in america week. it's hard to know how these efforts will go. >> well, the trump effort to focus on made in america week, they have planned events, things they will be doing. that will go forward. the question is how much will be interspersed by the president's constant commentary on twitter about how he's feeling about the russia investigation. it rattled him i'm sure if fox news is taking a stern look at this. they've been more sympathetic to the president than other networks, let's just say. the president does consistently try to say there's nothing here, there's nothing here and divert attention away from

. >> karoun, it's hard to think all these different russia developments are impacting the president's approval rating as well as the idea that because of those he's not able to get to the agenda items he promised. this weekend there were more developments, and president trump's personal attorney, jay sekulow, did the rounds on the sunday morning shows and he basically said, if everybody was going b to be so bothered by these russians or russian americans who met with don junior, why didn't the secret service flag it? they could have flagged it. they could have said that he shouldn't be meeting with these people. secret service has come out now in a highly unusual statement. they rarely talk. they said, no, we didn't know. donald trump jr. was not a protectee of the secret service in june of 2016, they say. thus we would not have skreends anyone he was meeting with at that time. your thoughts. >> right, if we are to take what the president's lawyer said in the most generous light, you could say, well, because the meeting was in trump tower, if trump was in trump tower at the time, ther

cnn political director david chalian and congressional reporter for "the washington post," karoun demirjian. david, i'll start with you. investigators today, it seems as though they are trying to figure out what the president knew about this meeting, what the president knew about the e-mails requesting the meeting, and whether or not the president was involved in crafting that damage control statement that first was erroneous that the meeting was only about russian adoption. investigators have their hands full because there are all sorts of conflicting statements about these three things. >> right. those are certainly the questions. the president in his remarks at the press conference yesterday seemed to indicate, well, he brought the adoptions thing again. he said adoptions and other things were discussed, which makes me wonder, well, what do you know about those other things that were discussed. the other question to add to your list of questions is the actual content of the meeting. that to me is going to be a big avenue for investigators. we don't know what was actually discussed, what