Return to Transcripts main page

Inside Politics

Trump: "I'm 100 Percent Behind" Health Care Bill; House Leaders Set Obamacare Repeal Vote For Thursday; Trump Faces Backlash Over Budget Proposal; Trump Budget: Deep, Potentially Unpopular Cuts; Naming GOP Health Care Bill. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired March 17, 2017 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[12:30:00] DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Every single person sitting in this room is now a yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONATHAN MARTIN, @JMARTNYT: OK.

DANA BASH, INSIDE POLITICS HOST: Just like that. Jonathan.

MARTIN: Let's clarify who was in that room, OK. It's a little bit inside baseball. But there's the Freedom Caucus, which is really the hard liner caucus in the House.

BASH: Right.

MARTIN: Those are the folks who are the true holdouts.

BASH: Correct.

MARTIN: It would be the folks whose are relish to voting no. OK. He was talking to a different caucus within the House GOP which is conservative but it's not for as (INAUDIBLE) say at the Freedom Caucus.

BASH: Right.

MARTIN: Not all of folks in that room with the entry of the door --

BASH: No.

MARTIN: -- were no's. In fact, I would say very few of them were no's.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Yes.

MARTIN: So, a little bit spin are on the baseball.

BASH: Well, not just that. If you want to get into this, you know, calling out the reality here, Deirdre Walsh is reporting that. They did make changes to the bill, the White House and the House Republican leadership dealing with Medicaid issues but those changes were made before going into the Oval Office.

RAJU: Yes.

BASH: They were agreed on last night and the President, I guess in some ways, understandably, but within his character took credit for it.

RAJU: Yes. And probably not a huge surprise. Now the changes of their discussing right now are all around the margins. They're not at the heart of the concerns of a lot of these conservative members who want to either move up the deadline for getting rid of the medicaid expansion. You know, get rid of those tax credits to be given to people who can purchase out coverage or significantly shrink those which some conservatives view as an entitlement.

If you were to do what the conservatives want, then you're going to loss what the moderates want.

BASH: Exactly.

RAJU: The Tuesday group, that centrist caucus within the White House Republican conference is influential itself. So, that is the fine line that Paul Ryan is having -- to deal with now. I mentioned Charlie Denton last segment. I also asked him about moving up to Medicaid timeframe. He said you're going to loss the Tuesday group.

BASH: Yes.

RAJU: You're going to lose me if you do that.

And that is why even that Donald Trump says that all of these guys are voting yes, a lot of them are still voting no. It's very the chance this does not get out of the House next week unless some of these guys just decide to vote to move it forward because they want to keep the process going.

BASH: Let's play one of those still no votes. This is -- but before today's event -- but the feeling that he has and other members of the House Freedom Caucus have on this bill have not changed. This is Raul Labrador yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPRESENTATIVE RAUL LABRADOR (R), IDAHO: Most people are opposed to the bill and it's interesting because it's from both the right and the left. There's no natural constituency for this bill, which is one of the most frustrating things about this bill because we're trying to figure out who exactly it's trying to appease because the left is really mad about, the right is really mad about it, the middle is really mad about it. And so far it just seems to be a constituency of one which is Washington insiders.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARTIN: And that's so revealing, by the way, because that shows right now that Labrador's assumption is this is Ryancare, not Trumpcare. What I knew by that is this. He wants to run the state of Idaho in 2018 and a conservative state I doubt. He is not looking at a long House query. He's looking a statewide campaign. He's looking at a primary night outs (ph).

Right now in March of 17, his assumption is the safe place to be in a conservative primary, in a conservative state is being against the bill that Donald Trump is for. The GOP has got to refrain this bill to make it Trump's bill, otherwise I don't see how it will get out of Congress.

BASH: I think it's too late for that. But I want to -- before -- Molly, I want to hear from you on this. I want to play also something that Paul Ryan said this morning about how he's trying to make it not just a constituency of one.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PAUL RYAN (R), U.S. HOUSE SPEAKER: He just worked with them and they're all on board because they, with the President and the rest of us, have been talking about improvements to this bill. So those improvements are being made as we go through this process. It's basically more federalism, making sure that we respect the fact that states can experiment and tailor Medicaid to meet their needs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MOLLY BALL, THE ATLANTIC: Well -- and, you know, this whole idea of is it Ryancare or is it Trumpcare is really interesting because what you see talkRADIO and Breitbart and a lot of conservatives doing is trying to turn this into Paul Ryan's bill and take Trump out of it.

And while Trump, you know, was just -- we just had him saying 100 percent behind the bill, he has not gone out and publicly made the case in detail in the way that presidents do when they're campaigning for this own legislation for why this bill, why House Republican should vote for it. And so there is a feeling that there's always a possibility if this thing gets too hot, if the potato gets too hot or the bill becomes unpopular, Trump could just drop it and leave Paul Ryan holding the bag.

BASH: And let me just ask you this. I'm just a sort of counter the notion that there is not a natural constituency for this. There is generally not a natural constituency for compromise. That's why compromise you're taking parts of this and parts of this and you're putting together. It's called the art of legislating and go back to the beginning, governing.

AMY WALTER, COOK POLITICAL REPORT: Yes.

[12:35:03] BASH: So, you know --

WALTER: But that's -- that is a great question --

BASH: Yes.

WALTER: -- and I think this is a fundamental challenge in this new era that we're in the Trump era which is Donald Trump did not come from the party, he is not of the party. He is like a skin graft that you put on the body and right now in 2016 it's stuck, but we don't know that it's going to continue to stick.

So, the fundamental challenge isn't just within the conference. It is that you have a nationalist, populist --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

WALTER: -- none -- that it didn't come from a establishment Republican politics coming against in establishment that isn't also many parts, that includes Paul Ryan, that includes the Freedom Caucus, that includes Tuesday group, the includes the sort of fiscal conservatives and all -- that's the bigger challenge. If it were just this one pot, that would be called legislating. Now you're talking about fundamental differences in the views of the world.

RAJU: And this is a real miscalculation I think from Paul Ryan himself who believe that he have gotten buy-in --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

RAJU: -- from his conference last year when he built that so called better way agenda to campaign on, but really what that was is just a broad, you know, broad brush view, is a messaging document. And certainly people signed onto it. But when you get into the (inaudible) of legislation when actually it has an impact --

MARTIN: Right.

RAJU: -- people will revolt and that's what happened here and they cut this deal largely behind closed doors, and a lot of people were excluded.

BASH: As you're discussing that, you know, it's one thing when it's a political document, he's dealing with a caucus that has -- the majority of them have never --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

MARTIN: Yes.

BASH: -- been in office when they've been in charge.

MARTIN: A lot of these folks were not there when Bush was president.

BASH: Exactly.

MARTIN: All they've done is opposed. It's different avid actually. Govern and get stuff done. And also, a wide gulf, you know, between a largely ideological house, an ideological pure house. There are free market conservatives and a president who is nominally Republican. He ran on universal healthcare. He ran -- I think nationalist not a conservative promising, we're going to take care of our folks.

And every time, by the way, his pressed (ph), he sounds more like candidate Trump and President Trump. When he's off the cuff like he was this week, a different network (inaudible) that he said if we don't take care of our folks, I'm not going to sign it.

BASH: All right. Standby everybody. We want to get take a quick break. And up next, we are going to talk about the President's budget proposal which is sparking outrage. What programs could it take away? Standby for that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:41:43] BASH: Welcome back. The Trump administration put out its budget yesterday, and it does spend less on what's referred to in Washington speak as discretionary domestic spending. But in real terms and in real life, what does that mean. Well, one example, the budget would eliminate money that fund programs designed to feed those who cannot afford to feed themselves.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICK MULVANEY, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET DIRECTOR: We can't spend money on programs just because they sound good and great. Meals on Wheels sounds great. I can't defend that anymore. We cannot defend that anymore. We're $23 trillion in debt. We're going to spend money -- we're going to spend a lot of money but we're not going to spend it on programs that cannot show that they actually deliver the promises that we've made to people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Also mark for elimination in Trump's budget, some programs designed to help kids get better grades.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER ALEXANDER, NBC NEWS: There's a program called the Shine that's in Pennsylvania, rural counties of Pennsylvania that provides afterschool educational programs for individuals in those areas, which so happens to be the state that helped propel President Trump to the White House.

I'm curious what you say to those Americans in the community when they tell me today that 800 individuals will no longer -- children who need it most -- will no longer be provided in those most needy of communities, the educational care they need.

MULVANEY: Let's talk about afterschool programs generally. There's supposed to be educational programs, right, and that's what they're supposed to. They're supposed to help kids who can't -- who don't get fed at home, get fed so they do better in school. Guess what? There's no demonstrable evidence they are actually doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: OK. Let's talk about this with our panel. Look -- I mean, let's just say flat out that the President's budget is a political document. It is Congress that does the money. MARTIN: Yes, it's an important point to make.

BASH: Very important. But, nevertheless, it is a political document with the President laying out what his priorities are.

RAJU: Yes.

BASH: And, you know, he is maybe a nationalist in a Republican Party but these are very much Republican ideals to cut things that they don't think is a federal government's job to be involved in.

RAJU: Right. I mean, overall big picture, more spending on defense, national security, border security, deep cuts on domestic discretionary programs but the real problem is once you get into the fine print, where are those cuts coming from? How deep are those cuts? And that is what is making a lot of Republicans uneasy, even, you know, a lot of people who sit on the -- we have influential (inaudible) Hal Rogers, who sits on the Appropriations Committee, the former chairman, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and also members of the Senate, Susan Collins --

BASH: You mentioned Hal Rogers. Actually we have a sound bite from him on that very point. Let's play it.

Oops, sorry, it's a full screen so I'm going to read it for you. It's a quote. He's going to say -- he said the following, "While we have a responsibility to reduce our federal deficit, I am disappointed that many of the reductions and eliminations proposed in the President's skinny budget are draconian, careless and counterproductive. We will certainly review this budget proposal but Congress ultimately has the power of the purse."

MARTIN: (Inaudible) that's Hal Rogers is from Trump's America. His district which he's had now for almost 40 years is the -- the most poor region of Kentucky, far eastern Kentucky, cold country. This is a place the one overwhelmingly for Trump. Those voters were not supporting Trump because they suddenly became free market conservative at, you know, evangelist overnight.

And by the way, neither is Trump, and this is what so puzzling is because the President himself know the degree to which his OMB director does not reflect his own politics, that his own OMB director is former libertarian, conservative, this is not what Trump ran on.

[12:45:15] I just -- I don't know, it's not clear to me how much Trump is following this whether he knows about (inaudible) of each agencies cuts. But what is clear about is that this is not the kind of campaign that Trump ran. And a lot of his voters supported him with the assumption that there's going to be some continued government role in helping their lives.

BASH: One thing the President Trump does know is New York City, and there have been -- the proposed cuts go pretty deep in counterterrorism in New York City and so forth. I want to put something up on the screen, the New York Daily News cover. And I was -- it is a left-leaning publication. But wow, look at that. It's in his own hometown, a target on what has replaced the World Trade Center, saying, "Madness". Pretty stark. Pretty stark.

WALTER: Right. And look, even if you're going to go with the assumption that, yes, I agree if Trump ran as a nationalist, as a populist, not as a free-market conservative but he also ran on government is so big, we need to get government out of the way. We need to reorder our priorities.

He's doing a terrible job of marketing that, right? He's allowing Mick Mulvaney go out there and have to defend cuts to the most popular programs in the world like Meals on Wheels rather than having the President himself come out and say, here's what we stand for. This is what we stand for. This is the guy who is the master of marketing, master of marketing and yet they're letting it be defined on the terms here.

MARTIN: Find some blow in the Pentagon. You know, what's the famous, the golden toilet in the Pentagon or whatever --

WALTER: This is what we're -- we're cutting a bad stuff so that you guys get more of --

(CROSSTALK)

BALL: Yes, I mean, it's almost as if you're saying that in the campaign he said whatever people wanted to hear without having a fully coherent governing philosophy where the numbers --

(CROSSTALK)

BALL: But to Amy's point, he does know marketing. But all of these programs have a popular constituency, right? Hal Rogers is from coal country but he's also -- he's in appropriator, former chairman of the Appropriations Committee. He's a Republican whose job -- has been for many years to spend money. He knows how to put budgets together.

Mick Mulvaney is a real conservative. The problem is always when the rubber hits the road, when you have to cut things that people like including Republicans that's really hard to do.

RAJU: Again, they complain (inaudible) blame Congress for raising -- increasing the deficit, they'll say we tried to cut the deficit.

BASH: Yes.

RAJU: The local Congress do.

BASH: Yes. They sure they will. All right. Well, up next, the White House may not believe in labels when it comes to the GOP healthcare bill, but the Democrats want to make sure Trump's name is all over it. Our reporters empty their notebooks next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:52:18] BASH: Let's hit around the "Inside Politics" table and ask our reporters to get you ahead of their big political news just around the corner, J. Martin. MARTIN: The Trump effect, there is a new people that came out last week with some data that to me jumped off the page. Lower income GOP voters who were asked last year whether the government had a role to ensure to people received healthcare, said, pretty small numbers last year. That number has doubled for folks who are making under 70 grand a year, who call themselves Republicans. This is the change (ph) that Trump has brought. There is an expectation that the federal government is going to have a role in healthcare, and the people who call themselves, you know, Republicans who are modest income voters are just fine with that increasingly.

WALTER: Trump voters.

MARTIN: Trump voters, yes.

WALTER: Right. We talked about this quickly a moment ago about what to call the new healthcare plan and that there are many portions of the Republican base especially on the far right, at Breitbart right saying let's call it Ryancare. We don't want to touch Trump's name to it.

Democrats are struggling with that same question too. What should we call this? Do we do what Republicans did to ask call it Trumpcare try to undermine the President going into midterm elections. Remember midterms are a referendum on the person in the White House. It's nit a referendum on Paul Ryan.

Other Democrats saying, look, we've spent so much time on this guy personally and he is always seems to win when we make it about him. We've got to focus instead on the policies. So watching what Democrats ultimately call it, will be fascinating to watch.

BASH: So interesting. Molly.

BALL: I am following how many of President Trump's current critics within his own party are people who ran against him in 2016. Lindsey Graham, of course, never stopped, but you have Marco Rubio being critical of Trump on foreign policy and on Russia. Rand Paul is leading the parade from the right against this healthcare bill. John Kasich has been very critical of Trump and seems to be seeking a platform for himself in that regard.

Ted Cruz recently co-authored an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal against Trump's health care bill. So, I would never allege that these people might be jacking resume in 2020. But you do hear whispering among Republicans that Trump could get a primary challenger or could even not last out the term and people are getting ready.

BASH: Fascinating.

RAJU: Dana, Monday begins the Supreme Court hearing for Neil Gorsuch. The question is going to be which Democrats will break rank and support him on the floor. Of course, they're going to need -- Republicans will need eight Democrats to get the 60 votes to break a filibuster. At the heart of that are members who are up for reelection. There are 10 members who represents states, Trump one, five from deeply red states. It's a real dilemma for a lot of these Democrats.

[12:55:02] I spoke to a number of them who want to be a look like they're pragmatic, supporting a conservative who may be -- who's very well-qualified. But by doing that, it would anger their base voters who want to stop Gorsuch at all costs, not give Donald Trump a nominee. They're going to be in a real bind in the coming weeks. What they decide to do? Well, they determine whether not Donald Trump gets the Supreme Court.

BASH: It's so interesting because we've obviously understandably been focus so much on Republicans, but the Democratic base, to your point, they are really fired up and really trying to hold their elected officials, their feet to the fire --

MARTIN: Yes.

BASH: -- and a lot more -- there's a lot more threat of Democratic primary contests than we've seen in recent years. So that's going to be fascinating.

MARTIN: Deja vu all over again.

BASH: Exactly. Thank you all so much. You're the best. What a dream team. Thanks for joining me. I appreciate it. And thank you for joining us on "Inside Politics."

We are minutes away from the President's joint news conference with Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel. And Wolf Blitzer will bring that to you live after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)