mr. wilkie, as you know, mr. solace and sullivan, senator rounds, and bozeman, senator tester, other members of this committee represent states where our veterans are a long distance away from our va facilities. sometimes a full day's drive in some cases, montana as big as it is. as you may know in the debate on the mission bill, and in the markups, a choice program that works to make va health care services available to the veteran is a key to that argument and that debate. will you work as hard as you can and tell us what you plan to do to see to it that choices are retalt and timing of appointments is good? and we end the problem we have with veterans not reach the benefits they earned? >> yes, sir. and this talks to something we talked about, and i'll say that those of us from the east even in the 21st century do not understand the scale of the american west. in montana, a normal journey will sometimes take 600 miles round trip to get to a va facility. what choice means is giving those veterans and their fami

mr. wilkie, i think of the right man for the job. senator sanders. >> and mr. chairman. thanks for being here. let me be blunt and tell you what my dilemma is. the veterans organizations in the veterans in the state of vermont are quite proud of the va. they feel everything being equal, once they get into the va they receive high-quality care. there is, to the best of my knowledge overwhelming opposition to the privatization of the va from the american legion, the vfw and all the major veteran organizations. we have a statewide veterans meeting a couple months ago and they all say varney do everything you can to prevent the privatization of va. the president introduced the budget that called for a trillion dollars cut in medicaid over a ten-year period. $500billion cut in medi-cal. we have a congress who wanted to and the affordable care act. we have a sentiment here that is not terribly in favor of public health or government run healthcare. and yet of course, the va for all intents and purposes is a socialized healthcare system. then on top of all that we have the form

mr. wilkie, as you know, mr. sullivan, senator rounds, senator boseman, senator tester, other members of this commute tie, represents states where our veterans are a long distance away from our v.a. facilities. sometimes a full day driving in some cases. as you may know in the debate on the mission bill, and in the markups, a choice program that works to make the healthcare services available to the veteran is a key to that argument and that debate. when you work as hard as you can and see to it the choices is a reality and the timing of appointments is good and we end the problem we had with veterans not able to reach the services they deserve and earned. and this goes to something that senator chester talked about. those of us from the east, even in the 21st century do not understand the scale of american west. in montana, a normal journey would sometimes take 600 miles round trip to get to a v.a. facility. what choice means is giving those veterans and their family care givers the opportunity to engage with v.

mr. wilkie. >> he ought no be out. they ought to approve him and get him to the job. >> harris: the president alluded to as much. he thanked the acting secretary of the v.a. who was also, mr. o'rourke, also in the audience. he said my guy i have chosen as the nominee is also here, too, and it would be good to get him going. what happens, what is the calculation of raw politics that we have heard some democrats say? what happens when you don't let an administration staff up? >> if you are a democrat, you love it. >> harris:s it's happening to you. >> plus the professional full-time bureaucracy tends to be liberal democrats. so if you don't have a trump person in there running a department, the department is run by a temporary person who often doesn't share trump's values, didn't vote for him and doesn't want to implement his program. >> harris: there are plenty of the people in the administration that love what they do and don't let politics get in the mix, right? >> but the president has a right to appoint a set of peo

mr. cohen on the hook for that whole bill. >> josh gerstein and christina wilky, thank you both. >> i'mned by legal analyst nick akerman and jil wine-banks. nick, i'll start with you. it's worth noting that gates a similarly orturous situation in which he was -- there was interest from investigators and then was he or was he not going to cooperate. he hired new lawyers right before he pled guilty. >> right, but that doesn't necessarily mean that because cohen is gettingrs s cooperating. you have to look what's been going on the last month or so. he has been coopeng with trump's lawyers to go through all of those documents and all of those tapes that were seized in the search warrants. they're getting prediscovery, discovery that they normally wouldn't get. exactly what people saw trump trying to get with respect to that the informant at that point time spoke to carter page, spoke to other members of his campaign staff. hat's in those docg to find out >> what do they have. >> what liability lies out there for donald trump. skoen cooperating with that. you've g donald trump who has the privi