Return to Transcripts main page

Inside Politics

Senate Republicans Meet about Health Care; Eighth Person Identified in Trump Meeting; McConnell on Health Care Bill Collapse; Trump Jr. Meeting Attendants; Kushner Secretary Clearance; Aired 12- 12:30p ET

Aired July 18, 2017 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Able to get so far.

Scott, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

Thank you all so much for joining us AT THIS HOUR. "INSIDE POLITICS" with John King starts right now.

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you, Kate.

And welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. Thanks for sharing your day with us.

And a big day it is here in Washington. The seven-year Republican promise to repeal Obamacare is in shambles and Republican senators gather this hour to try to decide whether to try again or to move on to other stalled agenda items.

Plus, the president calls it a hoax and a witch-hunt. But after his White House gives yet another version of a campaign meeting with Russians, a key conservative voice raises the trust question and calls for, quote, "radical transparency."

And, get this, is germ phobia the source of the falling out between President Trump and the New Jersey Governor Chris Christie? A new book about campaign 2016 says, yes, and there's a "thanks, Obama" twist. To that in a moment.

We begin, though, with the collapse of the Senate Obamacare repeal effort and what it means for a Republican Party and a Republican president who promised, if given power, to make giant health care changes a top priority. Now six months in to all-Republican Washington, the finger-pointing is in full force and the path forward for health care, and other big GOP agenda items like tax reform, is unclear.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PAUL RYAN (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: The Senate's got to pass a bill for us to even move the process forward. That's the next step. So we're hoping that they can achieve that next step so that we can bring real relief.

I'm worried that Obamacare will stay in and the law will continue to collapse and people will get hurt in the process.

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Senate should vote to repeal now and replace later, or return to the legislation carefully crafted in the House and Senate. But either way, inaction is not an option. Congress needs to step up. Congress needs to do their job. And Congress needs to do their job now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Busy day here. With us to share their reporting and their insights, Jackie Kucinich of "The Daily Beast, Matt Viser of "The Boston Globe," CNN's MJ Lee, and Michael Shear of "The New York Times."

First, though, to Capitol Hill. Senators meet every Tuesday for lunch. And today's gathering comes at a defining moment for the Republican Party. President Trump is blaming Congress for the health care mess and sending contradictory messages of about what he would like next. Many Republicans in Congress say, no, the president and his team share the blame for sending mixed messages and for not using the power of the bully pulpit to move the debate in the right direction. There are giant questions now about other big ticket agenda items and about the 2018 political impact of what would be a GOP epic health care failure.

CNN's Phil Mattingly is tracking those questions and other questions as Republicans gather for lunch.

And, Phil, I guess the big question in the lunch is, what next?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, Senator McConnell made very clear about 14 hours ago, in a very late-night statement after two more senators came out opposing the Senate draft plan that he was going to try for a repeal-only effort. Now, what does that actually means? Well, the last Congress, Republicans while a Democratic president was in office, voted to repeal large portions of the Affordable Care Act via reconciliation, same process they're using right now through the budget rules. And while conservatives have often asked for that, the president has as well, they didn't believe they had the support to just do that, so they wanted to try and repeal and replace.

Senator McConnell, John, making very clear, they don't have the votes for that. Their plan has essentially collapsed. So they'll try for repeal only.

Here's the issue. They might not just not have the votes for repeal only. They might not have the votes to take up the bill. And I want to kind of walk you through where things currently are.

Obviously, Senate wonks appreciate this. John, I know you do as well. But to be able to actually vote on legislative text, you need to vote to proceed to that text. It's a procedural vote but it's a very important one in situations like this.

If Senator McConnell cannot get 50 votes, they can't even take up the health care bill, let alone vote on the repeal only option, which would be an amendment. Here's how that stands. Senator Susan Collins, already a firm no on that motion to proceed to move on to that health care bill. Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Senator Mike Lee saying they are yes, but with conditions. Now, what are those conditions? Well, they're polar opposite of one another. Senator Capito wants a clear replacement option at the end of the effort. Senator Lee (INAUDIBLE) only option at (INAUDIBLE). Problem there, following the repeal-only vote, if they got to that point, would be a votorama (ph). Any number of amendments would be coming up, dozens upon dozens, very politically, potentially damaging amendments, I would note. So the ability to give assurances to either Senator Capito or Senator Lee is very tough in question at the moment.

And on top of all of that, John, before we'd even gone into this lunch, where Senator McConnell will present to his members the plan, you have people like Senator Rob Portman, Senator Bill Cassidy raising concerns about what repeal-only would mean. Look, the idea of moving forward on a repeal only with a two-year transition period but no clear kind of way or pathway to replace makes a lot of senators very uneasy. The CBO scored this proposal earlier this year. It's not good numbers by any stretch of the imagination.

[12:05:00] So basically where we stand right now on kind of the micro level, on the health care bill is, they might not even get to the opportunity to vote on repeal-only. We'll have to see. You noted that lunch is very big coming up. But we'll have to see. As of now, things aren't looking good for plan 3.0, I would say.

BERMAN: Well, 3.0, 4.0. We'll see where this one goes. Phil Mattingly live on Capitol Hill.

Phil, if you grab any of those senators coming out of the lunch, or if anybody's late going in, grab them, give us a call, we'll get you back on TV, see how this one goes forward.

Want to pause now, back to the health care conversation in a minute, but some more breaking news now.

CNN has identified the eighth person who was on hand for that meeting back in June 2016. Donald Trump Jr. had a meeting with a Russian lawyer. He was told that lawyer would bring to the table some dirt on Hillary Clinton. Our justice correspondent, Pam Brown, joins us with the new details.

Pam.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: We're learning more about this mystery eighth person, as you point out, John, who attended the June 2016 meeting with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower. He is a senior vice president at the company founded by the Russian oligarch who initiated this meeting the Agalarovs. CNN learned his name is Ike Kaveladze. His identity was confirmed by his attorney Scott Balber (ph).

Now, Kaveladze is a senior vice president at Crocus Group, the real estate development company, as we pointed out, run by the Russian Azerbaijani oligarch Aras Agalarov, according to his LinkedIn page. His personal web site says that he holds responsibility for multiple elements of the company's Russian development projects. He also studied at the Moscow Academy of Finance and also got an MBA from the University of New Haven in Connecticut according to his web site.

Now, Kaveladze has worked for the Agalarov's business since 2004, we're learning, which means he was with the company when it partnered with the Trump Organization to pull off the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow.

We've also learned this morning that special council investigators are seeking information from Kaveladeze, his attorney told us. And so we've also learned that he is a longtime U.S. citizen according to his attorney. And when I asked him why he was at that meeting at Trump Tower last June, he said that initially he thought he would be the translator for the Russian attorney. And so that is why he went because he speaks fluent Russian. But when he got there, he realized that the Russian attorney had brought her own translator.

And so there have been a lot of questions surrounding this mystery eighth person. CNN has learned the name, Ike Kaveladze. And, again, his attorney did confirm that once we went to him with that name.

Back to you.

KING: And significant, Pam, as we have the name cooperating as well with the special counsel investigation. We'll continue to keep track of that.

Pam brown with that breaking news. Pam, thanks very much.

We'll return to the Russia story in just a minute.

Back let's come back to the health care debate and what we just heard from Phil Mattingly. Republican senators going into this room to have a debate about what next. And, yes, it's a debate about, should we just repeal and then consider replace? But it's also a debate about the future of the Republican Party and its ability to govern. This is a giant failure Not President Trump. He's new to the scene. But the congressional Republicans campaigned in four consecutive election cycles, we will do this. And then President Trump, candidate Trump, said he would do it. He took it on. He -- in that first speech at the Trump Tower and during the campaign said it would be easy. Now what?

MJ LEE, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER: Yes, and I think, you know, it's a really telling sign that Mitch McConnell has chosen to go down the route that they almost pursued earlier this year, the repeal and delay tactic, right? But Republican leaders decided that that was not something that, you know, there was appetite for within the Republican conference. But which, to me, sort of signaled that McConnell wants a sense of finality to this, right? There has not been a vote in the Senate.

And even if he decides, look, the votes aren't there, but this is going to be what shows to the world that Republicans took a vote and, if it fails, then that's where things are going to stand. But I think it's clear that McConnell wants to take some sort of action, even if it's looking really hard right now that he may even have the 50 votes on the motion to proceed.

KING: And to that point, before you jump in, I want people to hear from Senator McConnell. Because this is interesting. Senator McConnell is the one who decided early on, let's do this as one package because if we just do repeal, there's no guarantee that conservatives will be there when they have to replace and cast tough votes about replace. Or if you craft a plan for the conservatives, this is why this went off the rails, that the moderates will be there when you get to replace. So McConnell is miffed -- I'm using a polite word -- at the White House which he believes helped conservatives get to this point where, let's do it in two pieces. Here's the majority leader this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), MAJORITY LEADER: In the coming days, the Senate will take up and vote on a repeal of Obamacare combined with a stable two-year transition period as we work towards patient-centered health care. A majority of the Senate voted to pass the same repeal legislation back in 2015. President Obama vetoed it then. President Trump -- President Trump will sign it now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: He says that, you know, he's not very emotive guy, but the little cock to the head there, he understands the politics here. He's trying to -- he has 52-48. He's trying to defend that in 2018. He knows a lot of his more vulnerable members are afraid to vote for repeal, which they promised to do but then if there's not a replace, they're on the ballot in 2018 haven taken away health care from people without giving them alternative replacement.

[12:10:14] MATT VISER, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": It's a striking moment for Mitch McConnell. I mean we've all covered him and covered The Hill and normally he is a master legislature with a grand strategy and a grand plan. In this case, he seems to be sort of drifting between different strategies. And, in this case, you know, normally he's protecting his members and in this case he's not. I mean he's forcing them to take a very, very dicey vote on just a straight repeal. And you're already seeing some blowback from people like Susan Collins.

JACKIE KUCINICH, "THE DAILY BEAST": Well, and you're also seeing members that -- a lot of these members have never been in charge before. They've never had a president who is a Republican who actually will sign what they voted for. So, for, off the records or on background, that some of these members took that 2015 vote knowing full well it was a symbolic vote, saying what they wanted to do.

Now they've caught the car.

KING: Right. Yes.

KUCINICH: And governing is very different. But you have a lot of legislators that we might know and have been around for a while but they've never been in charge and we're seeing what happens now.

KING: Yes, voting to repeal was great when you knew a Democratic president would veto the bill.

KUCINICH: Right.

KING: You could send it down there. You could tell the conservative base, I voted to repeal and you know it wasn't going to happen. So you knew you would not be responsible then for, well, then, how do you replace or how do you deal with Medicaid? How do you deal with pre- existing conditions? How do you deal -- and one of the frustrations, and I know McConnell shares and he won't say it publicly -- is that they don't think the president has led the party on this. He keeps tweeting Republicans should do, as opposed to "we" should do. And he thinks the president sent mixed signals, including in the last 24 hours or so.

Last night the president said Republicans should just repeal failing Obamacare now and work on a new health care plan that will start from a clean slate. Dems will join in. Skeptical that they will. But that was -- that was one -- that's one tweet. Then, we were all let down by Democrats and a few Republicans. Most Republicans were loyal. Terrific. Worked hard. Then he said, as I've always said, let Obamacare fail and then come together to pass a great health care plan. So which is it, Mr. President? What do you want?

MICHAEL SHEAR, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Well, and, look, there's so many things that are -- that have been dysfunctional in Washington, but one of the central pieces is this relationship to the extent that it exists between the Congress and the White House. And, you know, typically, I mean there's always problems. There's always tensions. But typically The Hill looks -- the party on The Hill, who has the president, looks to the White House, looks to the president for both internal strategery and also for, you know, a kind of public, you know, bully pulpit. And, you know, there's more bully than pulpit in what President Trump does. And he hasn't been out there.

We all covered President Obama, you know, multiple road trips --

KING: Months.

SHEAR: Months and months, town hall meetings. There was one time where he was asked a health care question at a town hall meeting and the answer was 17 minutes long without stopping, you know? I mean this was a guy that was steeped in it. And it didn't work and there were a lot of times that it was problematic, but that kind of -- you know, sort of persistent leadership is something we haven't seen from the White House.

LEE: And not only has he not been out there, President Trump, he has been sending mixed signals, as you pointed out, even just within the last 24 hours or so. It's really not clear what it is that President Trump wants. Does he -- does --

KUCINICH: It's about winning.

LEE: Right, does he now want repeal and then move on later, or does he want Obamacare to collapse? And his statements are so inconsistent that you talk to Republican senators, you talk to Republican aides, and they will say, look, this is much easier for us, and it's hard enough already if President Trump just stays out of it.

KING: And it's not just on him. It's not just on the president. He is the leader of the party now. Sometimes he's reluctant. He says "the Republicans." He doesn't include himself in that. But just on him, they ran for the majority promising to do this. So without -- the buck should -- the buck is shared, shall we say.

But one of the frustrations of the president is that the White House now is saying he was annoyed, he was caught off guard. The final two senators who made clear this was going to collapse, Mike Lee and Jerry Moran of Utah and Kansas didn't give the White House a heads up. Well, if they'd been paying any attention as all, we don't -- we didn't know which two senators but it was going to -- this was going to happen. It was clear this was going to happen now. The question was when more people were going to come out publicly and collapse.

He was at dinner last night with seven yes votes. If you're the president of the United States and you're trying to win votes for the legislation, I -- great, bring in the leadership, bring in some of the key players. But why, after at least one or two of the wavering people at that dinner, for the president to sway them? Who is directing the White House political strategy?

VISER: The other part, to Michael's point about him rallying, you know, he does like these rallies, but we have not seen him at rallies to motivate people on health care. To use his own dichotomy, and last week he was not rallying in Pittsburgh, he was in Paris, you know? I mean he was doing things abroad and focusing on Bastille Day and not sort of pushing things to the finish line on health care, which I think is a frustration for a lot of Republicans.

SHEAR: Well, and look at what -- we're in what the White House has dubbed "buy America week," right? And last week that's been infrastructure week and energy week. Where was health care week? I mean if this was the sort of -- if we were in a period where ewe were leading up to a kind of climactic moment on health care, where was the sort of organized, you know, White House, Republican Party, Capitol Hill kind of effort to sort of focus the country's energies behind it? And it really didn't happen.

[12:15:16] KING: Everybody sit tight. Ahead we'll have much more on this. The Republican health care mess and what it says about the party's ability to govern.

Next, though, a call for radical transparency for a major conservative voice as the Trump White House again changes its tune about a campaign year meeting with Russians.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Welcome back.

More on a story I brought you a few moments ago, developments on the Russia saga unfolding this hour. CNN has now learned Special Counsel Robert Mueller's staff in contact with the eighth person who was at that June 2016 meeting Donald Trump Jr. held with Russians. That meeting is now part of the investigation into whether team Trump improperly coordinated or colluded with the Russian government as the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 election. The Kremlin's goal, of course, to hurt Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump.

[12:20:21] At the White House yesterday, Press Secretary Sean Spicer insisted the big focus of that meeting was a U.S. law restricting Russian adoptions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN SPICER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I will say that it is quite often for people who are given information during the heat of a campaign to ask what that is. That's what simply he did. The president's made it clear through his tweet, and there was nothing as far as we know that would lead anyone to believe that there was anything except for a discussion about adoption and the Magnitsky Act.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Well, actually there are some things to make you believe otherwise. So add that to a long list of Trump White House answers that flunk a fact check and don't take my word for it. Donald Trump Jr. last week released his e-mails about that meeting, including one for an intermediary saying, Russians, quote, "offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father." That e-mail to the president's son goes on to say, quote, "it is part of Russia and its government's support of Mr. Trump."

And Donald Trump Jr. responded, quote, "if it's what you say it is, I love it. Especially later in the summer."

How can the White House press secretary, paid for by the taxpayers, stand at the podium, knowing the president's son has released those e- mails, and say, it was a meeting about Russian adoption? And the act that prohibited those, restricted those. How?

LEE: You know, recently we've started hearing one answer from Sean Spicer with a little more frequency, which is, that I haven't spoken to President Trump and I don't know the answer to that. I think this is a situation where that answer probably would have been better than this answer that he gave, which is so to the contrary to some of the, you know, frankly proof that we have in black and white print, the e- mails, the statements that Don Jr. has made, those statements that President Trump has made defending his son for taking this meeting.

You know, the White House is not helping itself by trying to contradict all of the proof that's already out there that this meeting happened because Don Jr. believed that there was going to be incriminating information presented at this meeting about Hillary Clinton.

KING: Love it. Love it.

KUCINICH: It's not only disrespectful -- LEE: Right.

KUCINICH: It's disrespectful not only to the members of the press assembled in that room. It's disrespectful to the people that they represent. To the people that consume the news. To the people that the White House represents. You're just saying things that aren't true. And clearly somewhere in the White House this has become permissible to do this or they wouldn't do it. So it's not all right and we should be calling it out because it just -- it's -- you know, the news, that was the first -- that was the first thing they said that turned out not to be true.

KING: Right. And, again, if you're a Trump supporter and you've been conditioned by the president and his team that you can't believe anything you hear on CNN or in the quote/unquote fake news, Donald Trump Jr. --

KUCINICH: Yes.

KING: The president's son's e-mails prove that the press secretary was not telling the truth when he talked yesterday about the meeting. It's not us. There's documentary evidence. You can find it yourself if you don't believe us.

And to that point, "The Wall Street Journal" today, in a very harshly worded editorial calling for radical transparency from the Trump team, saying that they keep this trickling out. They deny meetings took place. Then the meetings are acknowledged. Then they give different stories about the meetings. Then they move on again.

In that "Wall Street Journal" editorial it said, "even if the ultimate truth of this tale is merely that Don Jr. is a political dunce who took a meeting that went nowhere, the best case, the Trumps made it appear as if they have something to hide. They've created the appearance of a conspiracy on evidence Don Jr. lacks the whit to concoct. And they handed their opponents another of the swords that by now could arm a Roman legion."

This is a conservative editorial page generally friendly to Republican administrations. Clearly they don't think much of Don Jr. and his intellect, but they also are saying that the president needs to take control of this, pull everybody in a room and say, document it, list it, and put it all out in public at once.

VISER: And by a newspaper that's owned by Rupert Murdoch.

KING: Right.

VISER: You know, who has some control on the editorial page side. So, I mean, I think this is a message to the White House to "The Wall Street Journal" editorial page.

KING: And we know about -- we know about this meeting. Don Jr. put his e-mails out last week. But we know about this meeting in part because Jared Kushner amended one of his form for his security clearance. And there's some worry inside the White House that he's not going to get a final security clearance because he's had to go back and do this. He says these were inadvertent or he wasn't -- he was told it wasn't necessary to list all these. But as he goes through this, that's a giant question.

I want you to listen to some Democrats here saying, you know, if Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, was fired because he didn't tell the truth about these things, why does Jared Kushner have a security clearance?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D), CONNECTICUT: If the Flynn standard still holds, then, frankly, I think there's a question as to why Jared Kushner's still in the White House, but there certainly is a more immediate question about whether it's appropriate for him to have security clearance.

[12:25:04] SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D), CONNECTICUT: If it were anyone but Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of the president, he would be fired. But also clearly his security clearance revoked. And I think it should be.

SEN. RON WYDEN (D), OREGON: As more information rolls in from Jared Kushner's activities, you just cannot make a logical case that he should keep his security clearance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Is that a legitimate question here? There are concerns inside the White House, as I said. But is it a legitimate question or is this just Democrats seeing an opening to raise a partisan issue?

SHEAR: Well, look, it's -- partly it's the latter, right? I mean this is -- Democrats are going to -- are going to pounce when they find an opportunity, and this is clearly one of them.

I think there's some legitimate questions about whether if you just a normal run of the mill government employee and repeatedly had to amend your forms for a security clearance, you probably wouldn't get it.

I want to go back, though, to one of the things that you said about Sean Spicer in the briefing too, which is, Sean Spicer's answer is a symptom of a bigger problem, and that's a lack of discipline, right? The way that White House's get through these scandals is by being incredibly disciplined about, you know, compartmentalizing information, having lawyers answer these questions and methodically getting to the bottom of whatever the question is so that they know what they're putting out there is the truth. And, I mean, obviously we all know this isn't the most disciplined White House and that's coming back to roost.

KING: And the question is, six months in, the first month you said they'll figure it out. The second month you said, they'll figure it out.

SHEAR: Right. KING: We're about to hit the sixth month mark. The president has brought in a new attorney. We'll see if Ty Cobb can make a difference.

Everybody hang in here.

Next, candidate Trump said it would be easy to repeal and replace Obamacare. President Trump now leads a Republican Party having a hard time keeping its biggest promises.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)