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House Votes Next Hour on Health Bill; Mood on Capitol Hill; Interview with Rep. McCarthy on Health Care. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired May 04, 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] CAITLIN HUEY-BURNS, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, REALCLEARPOLITICS: Seen this signing of the policy. They've seen a Supreme Court justice.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: We'll see.

HUEY-BURNS: They've seen him sign the Mexico City policy. They're staying (INAUDIBLE).

BOLDUAN: We'll see what's next, right, with President Trump embracing the day and also then all eyes on Capitol Hill for another big moment with a health care vote in the House.

Thank you so much for joining us AT THIS HOUR. "Inside Politics" with John King starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you, Kate.

And welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. Thanks for sharing this big, breaking news day with us.

The House now in its final hour of debate on a revised Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. House Republican leaders, after a humiliating retreat just six weeks ago, say today they finally have the votes. And because of that, the White House believes the president just said moments ago he believes he's going to get a big win today. At what gain or cost is the big political and policy debate rippling through the nation's capital.

Members will vote next hour without knowing how much the legislation will cost the government, how much it will increase the deficit, or how many people are likely to lose their health coverage or face higher costs or reduced benefits. Those numbers and projections aren't available because the White House and Republican leaders are in such a rush to show progress, the vote will come without the traditional score report from the Congressional Budget Office. As you might expect, Democrats and Republicans have a very different take on today's vote and on the substance of the legislation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), MINORITY LEADER: Republicans are in a lose/lose situation. They'll lose if they don't bring it up and win -- and it doesn't win. They really lose if they pass it.

REP. MARK MEADOWS (R), CHAIRMAN, FREEDOM CAUCUS: This is what legislation is all about, making it better for the American people. And I think at the end of the day, what the president signs will be infinitely better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: A very busy hour ahead. Hope you stay with us as we watch the action up on Capitol Hill.

With me here in studio to share their reporting and their insights, Matt Viser of "The Boston Globe," Margaret Talev of "Bloomberg Politics," Perry Bacon of FiveThirtyEight, and CNN's MJ Lee.

Though to Capitol Hill out of the gates, CNN's Phil Mattingly watching this drama as it plays out.

Phil, I assume they wouldn't bring this unless they had triple checked and quadruple checked that math. Tell us what's happening up there starting with the question. Is the Republican leadership absolutely positively confident they have the votes?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I don't think ever making a statement that declarative with this House Republican conference is maybe the best idea based on history over the last couple of years or even the last couple of months but, look, they feel good. There's no question about it. They were very clear, they were on a good path to 216 votes, the votes needed to move this forward last night. As of this morning, they were in an even better place. They've had a number of "no" -- firm "no" votes flip over to "yes." A lot of undecided come out as "yes" too. So they are feeling like they're in a very good place right now.

Now, interestingly enough, John, in a closed door Republican conference meeting this morning, I'm told from a couple of people in the room that Speaker Ryan was very clear, very concise, this is the moment to move this forward. He understood -- I think everybody understands -- this is not a perfect plan. As you noted up top, there is a lot of political liability, a number of political landmines in voting for this. But they believe that based on campaign promises over the last seven years, based on what everybody has said they came to Congress to do, this is a necessary step. Basically, there's bigger problems if you do nothing at all than if you do something and let the Senate take a whack at this as well.

So they believe that argument is going to win the day and if they needed a little bit of extra motivation, I'm told that as members were walking into that closed door conference meeting, the "Rocky" theme song was playing. And when Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy came up to give his piece after Speaker Paul Ryan gave his kind of clear and concise argument as to why now is the time, well, Kevin McCarthy brought up a picture of General George Patton and then proceeded to read off several motivational quotes from General George Patton, trying to rally the troops, get them there as well. They came out of that meeting feeling good. I still feel like, at least based on everybody that I've talked to, that they think they're in a good place. But as you know, they don't really know until 216 little green lights show up next to the name in that House floor.

KING: It will be fascinating to watch the back of the chamber as the lawmakers go forward. The leadership, I assume, Phil, has in its back pocket, it thinks, three or four or five extra votes if they get a little surprise, people who would like to vote "no" so they can go home and say they voted "no," but have told the speaker, if you need me, I'll be there.

MATTINGLY: Yes, that's my understanding basically is there's a handful of, if they get close, if they're at 214 and they need three or four more, or I think also importantly if they're at 216 and they want to give somebody some cushion, make sure that nobody is that last vote or can be -- have campaign ads cut against them as that last vote, that they've got a handful of guys that they feel like will come. There's a sense right now that there's perhaps a strengths in numbers thing starting to happen in the Republican conference where enough people are willing to take this jump, that they might start to juice the vote up a little bit. But, again, the goal, 216. They think they can get there. They feel like they've got enough in reserve to push them there if they have any problems on the House floor.

KING: Phil Mattingly on Capitol Hill, one of a handful of CNN correspondents working the votes, wandering the hall. We'll get back to Phil as developments warrant and our other correspondents as well. We'll also keep an eye -- as you see on the right of your screen there -- that is the debate on the House floor. Again, that vote scheduled a little more than an hour from now as key members of Congress give their final speeches on this bill, we'll take you to the House floor as well.

[12:05:04] Let's come in here for the conversation.

It was six weeks ago that in an embarrassing setback for the speaker of the House and the Republican leadership, but also for the president of the United States, they pulled this. Now as they go forward with this vote, you just came back from Capitol Hill, MJ, so let me start with you. You were up there wandering the halls. Republicans feel this obligation to deliver. Even pre-Donald Trump Republicans believe they've been saying since Obamacare passed, we will repeal it. a lot of them haven't read the bill. They don't know what it's going to do to the deficit.

MJ LEE, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Right.

KING: They -- you know, do they have any fear that -- remember how confident the Democrats were when they passed Obamacare and then in the 2010 midterm elections, the 2014 midterm elections, the 2016 presidential election, Obamacare was used as a 2x4 against them. Republicans worry that they're casting a vote that might look good and sound good but will hurt.

LEE: Yes, I mean the mood right now on Capitol Hill is that Republicans are very, very happy that they finally have a vote on this. I think there was a reason that they're playing the theme song to "Rocky" this morning.

However, you're totally right, there are a couple of reasons that this is going to be a painful process for Republican lawmakers, especially as we head into the 2018 election. You know, I was talking to a member last night on the phone after the amendment came out, after we learned that there was going to be a vote, and he said he was sitting at a restaurant and he hadn't seen the text of the bill yet. That is really problematic because that's something that sends a signal to the public that they have rushed through this process. And I think even Republican lawmakers would concede that.

The fact that here is no CBO, you know, score yet on this final bill, that's also problematic. The fact that they moved through this without actually being able to tell their constituents, this is what it's going to cost, this is the effect that it's going to have on patients.

KING: And so as we watch this, and in the hour ahead we're going to have some conversations that are about the bold (ph) politics, other conversations -- I hope to get to some of the policy choices here because if you're an American watching at home, whether you like or don't like Obamacare, you remember what happened when they passed it. It disrupted a huge piece of the marketplace, the economy and it disrupted your life. Again, whether you liked it or not, things changed. If we look at what's in this bill, now this bill has zero chance of becoming law as written.

If they pass it today, and we expect they will next hour, it goes to the Senate. We'll talk more about this later, but senators have made clear, Republicans, we're going to change this. But this is the template now that Republicans will use in the Senate. Under this bill, things that stay, Republicans say, under Obamacare you -- children can stay on their parents' health care plan until they're 26. That part stays. Some refundable tax credits to help people pay for their health care, that stays.

Out, the individual and the employer mandates. Those are critical from a policy perspective of encouraging or forcing people to get coverage. Out of pockets subsidies disappear here. And things that will change, and that are -- can be confusing, Medicaid expansion, the essential benefits. States will be able to opt out and set their own package or eliminate essential benefits, and the pre-existing conditions policy, which was the key to this final compromise.

Now, again, that, as you see it on your screen, will not become law exactly, but it does set a tone for this political debate in which the Republicans are voting to take things away from people.

MATT VISER, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": Right. And you look also at the -- I mean the pre-existing conditions component was the thing that got this over the finish line, you know, with the compromise as of yesterday, at least in the House. But that is going to be the area for the most debate. Democrats did a pretty bad job at messaging the Affordable Care Act and what it was doing and why it was good. But pre-existing conditions is fairly popular and people like that. So Republicans are tinkering with that or destroying that. You know, they're depending on sort of where you -- where you sit on the political aisle. But it's going to change. It's going to make it harder for people with pre- existing conditions under this bill.

KING: Right, and the final up -- the final -- at the White House yesterday, Fred Upton from Michigan, and Billy Long from Missouri, went to see the president. They had this amendment that they say helps with pre-existing conditions. A lot of experts say it doesn't go anywhere near far enough, it doesn't provide enough money. But the Upton amendment, as it's being called, which is the last piece that got this to the finish line, it includes $8 billion for so-called high risk pools. Now, again, a lot of policy experts say the experience with high risk pools hasn't been great. But there's an extra $8 billion in there, essentially if your state decides it's going to opt out of requiring pre-existing coverage, these pools would be able for you then to get coverage. So it's essentially, you can opt out but I call this the never mind fund. If states do opt out, they're seeing this -- you know, this back-up fund in. The question is, it's over a five year period. A lot of people think it's not enough money. It's just to give people political cover for the vote.

MARGARET TALEV, BLOOMBERG POLITICS: Yes, and if you -- by the way, if you have a pre-existing condition, I think you're hoping you live more than five years down the road. So it doesn't really solve the problem, it creates a political patch that solves an electoral cycle problem because that's every four years.

But that's exactly right, it's this issue of whether you're going to not just keep covering sick people, but make it so that sick people can continue to afford to buy insurance if they lose their job, if they get a new job, if they didn't have insurance before they realized that they were sick. One of the kind of legacies of the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, is that this is now a new expectation among the American public, whether or not the Democrats messaged it well or not.

[12:10:04] And, guess what? It's expensive. And it's more expensive if there's no mandate that doesn't require people who are healthy to get insurance. So, fundamentally, if you're promising lower premiums and you're promising more choice, but you're also promising, don't worry, if you're sick, you'll totally still be OK. Something's got to give. And what it is that's got to give, the answer is going to come in that Senate bill or it's not going to come at all.

PERRY BACON, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT: You know, John, I would say, by the time the vote in 2010 on health care, the Democrats knew it was unpopular. They just want -- they wanted -- that was a core goal of theirs to pass that. So the passed it despite being unpopular.

The Republicans today, they've seen the polls, they live in America, they know this bill is not popular. They want to vote -- this is a core idea of theirs. They're not going to give it up. And I do think, on some of the -- I don't think the details in some ways matter that much. They want to pass an Obamacare repeal. And I do think that means they might get it done in the Senate too because there's a -- this is a huge drive for them. They came back after they failed in March. The base said, what are you doing, get this done. Donald Trump said get this done. So I think it's going to be hard -- this is going to be -- the momentum here I think is driven not by the details, by the energy and the party around this. KING: Right. But by the idea that the president did not get one single

signature legislative achievement through the Congress in the first 100 days. If you're Speaker Paul Ryan, we've been talking about this for five years. To that point, we'll get more into the substance and the policy as we continue through the hour.

But to the politics, I just want to go back in time. This is Paul Ryan back in 2009. Now, remember, back in 2009, Nancy Pelosi was the speaker of the House. Paul Ryan was in the opposition, the Republican Party. He didn't like the way Democrats were doing things.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PAUL RYAN (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: I don't think we should pass bills that we haven't read, that we don't know what they cost. And if you rush this thing through before anybody even knows what it is, that's not good democracy. That's not doing our work for our constituents. We shouldn't rush this thing through just to rush it through for some artificial deadline. Let's get this thing done right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Has that Paul Ryan met Speaker Paul Ryan?

BACON: Speaker Paul Ryan saw the CBO report kill his last bill and got smart and decided maybe the CBO is not going to help me. I think -- you know, the filibuster in the Senate, every party flip-flops all the time, so I'm not surprised he's taken a different view than he took before. And I do think in this case the -- this -- he's doing what he's got to do. They've got to pass this bill and more details and more time is not going to help.

LEE: An artificial deadline has been that, you know, basically the theme of this whole process. You know, the first deadline was that they wanted to get this done, particularly President Obama -- President Trump rather, as soon as he got into office. And then there was the rush to try to get this done last week before the 100 day mark. So I don't know that Republicans have been well served by this artificial deadline that has come directly from the president.

KING: We're going to take a quick break. As you see on your screen there, that's Greg Walden. He's a key member of the House leadership team trying to sell this health care bill to the Republican conference. We'll watch the debate on Capitol Hill.

A quick break here. When we come back, the House counting down to vote on a very key priority, not only for the Republican Congress, but for the president of the United States, repealing and replacing Obamacare. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:17:21] KING: Welcome back to inside politics. I want to remind you, you're seeing there on the right of your screen, the House of Representatives. We're about an hour away from a critical vote here in the new Trump administration and the new all-Republican Washington. House Republicans believe they finally have the votes to pass a key legislative priority of the GOP, repealing and replacing Obamacare. They're going to do so without details about how much it will cost, how many people could lose their health care.

A bit of a rush by the House leadership to get this done before lawmakers leave for a break. One of the key architects of this political strategy, the House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is going to join us in just a moment up on Capitol Hill. We'll bring you that interview.

In the meantime, here's an interesting political fact for the Republicans. They have wanted to do this since the day Obamacare was enacted. Look at our polling. It's actually fairly popular right now. Forty-seven percent of the American people say they like the existing health care law, 49 percent was a tie in January. But if you look down there at March 2010, Perry made note of this before when it was passed because of the months' long debate, it was pretty unpopular. Now that the American people hear Republicans might take things away, Republicans might disrupt the system again, this is a much more decrier political challenge for Republicans.

And I want to read this statement from Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, is a Republican congresswoman from the Miami area, she's retiring. She's not a rebel rouser. She's not someone who stirs up trouble for her leadership. This is what she said today on her FaceBook page. "Despite amendments and changes, the AHCA," the American Health Care Act, "still fails to provide for the needs of my constituents. If enacted, the older and poorer south Floridians will be worse off and will find it more difficult to obtain quality health care. My constituents should not have to take a step backward in their ability to obtain treatment for any illness and thus I will vote no."

How does the Republican leadership -- again, she's not a troublemaker. She does not deliberately go out and cause trouble for her leadership. How do they answer somebody like that who represents a district where she says older people, poorer people, people with pre-existing conditions are getting a worse deal here?

VISER: I think it's going to be tough. And I think the politics going forward, it's almost like Republicans right now are more afraid of being primaried by a fellow Republican than -- they're not scared of the Democrats at this point with the -- with votes like this, because if they were, they've got some problems and Democrats are going to have a lot of advantages heading into the midterms to argue this on the political grounds. But right now they just want that vote, like Perry was talking about earlier.

TALEV: It is the flip side of the -- this is just a political argument, by the way, not a policy argument, but the flip side of this is the idea that if you have a majority and you're not using it to get the stuff done that you said that you were going to get done, what's the point of having the majority? And I think that's what a big part of this is, right, that if -- if they wait, if it didn't happen today, if they go into that recess, if people get cold feet, if they change their mind, then does -- then you lose all the momentum on the health care vote. And if you -- and if you can't do that, you know, what can you do? And that's -- that's part of what's guiding the timing on this.

[12:20:09] BACON: Big factor here, John, is the leadership has told the members the Senate's going to fix the big -- the bad stuff. The Senate's going to come back and change it. It will make it better. It wasn't be as bad on the poor, it won't be as bad on the old. So let's make the members feel like, OK, I'll get a second chance at this. Again, some of the (INAUDIBLE) we're still working on. This is like part one of a process, not the final thing. So that's an important message members are getting.

KING: And that -- that can be a -- that can be important to say, we just need to keep this ball rolling. We promised the American people we're going to do this. However, if you live in a tough district and you're still casting this vote today, you're still voting for the stuff that is in this bill, and we've seen in the past, I could give you -- I'm old enough to remember Marjorie Margolies Mezvinsky walking down the aisle to cast the final vote in favor of the Clinton budget. She quickly became former congresswoman.

LEE: That's right.

KING: And so I'm guessing there are 15 or 20 House Republicans who are thinking today, is this walking the plank politically.

LEE: Right. And I think that the -- you know, the latest addition, the amendments that got some of the previous no members on board, the $8 billion, as you said before, is a drop in the bucket according to a lot of health care experts. But that just goes to show that it was less of a policy decision and more of a political decision. Republicans just needed something to be able to point to and say, see, we heard people's concerns and these are the changes that we made.

KING: Well, a key architect of that strategy is the number two, the man, the deputy to the speaker of House, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. He's standing by on Capitol Hill with our chief political correspondent Dana Bash.

Dana, I'll let you take it away and talk to Leader McCarthy about this. But our conversation here mostly has been is, how -- a, how confident is the leader, and, b, does he have any trepidation? You remember full well the Democrats when they passed Obamacare thought they were doing a great thing, thought they were doing something that was going to help the party, but in subsequent elections they got shellacked.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: They sure did. And, thanks, John, and, thank you, Mr. Leader, for inviting us into your office here.

I'll just start where they were having the conversation about just on the raw politics of this.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA), MAJORITY LEADER: Yes.

BASH: That Democrats, when they passed Obamacare, you know, all those years ago, maybe not so many years ago, they thought that they were going to get applauded by voters and at the end of the day, or at least that campaign, they didn't. And there are a lot -- there's a lot of concern, I'm sure you're hearing it if I'm hearing it -- that Republicans are going home and they're going to face that very same buzz saw for taking a benefit away, or at least perceived to be.

MCCARTHY: We're not taking a benefit away. Nobody on Medicaid is going to be taken away. What you're going to find here, look what -- look at the reports yesterday. Ninety-four counties out of 99 in Iowa will not have health care. You have Etna pulling out of Virginia yesterday as well. One-third of the entire country of counties only have one provider and next year they won't have any. So if we do nothing, we're going to hear a very loud crowd that people are not having health care. We cannot ignore this problem. They've got to stop playing politics with this. We can solve this problem and this is the first start of making that happen today.

BASH: OK. I mean, but you know, and you can admit that both sides play politics. They are doing to you what you did to them successfully when Obamacare passed, which is to basically, you know, look at some of the potentially pretty scary things that could happen. Take pre-existing conditions for example.

MCCARTHY: We protect pre-existing conditions.

BASH: But do you really?

MCCARTHY: Yes, we really do. Show me one point. We have guaranteed issue in here (INAUDIBLE). We just added the Upton amendment. So any state, the only state that took a waiver that didn't have health care coverage for 63 days, this actually buys down the premium. So, yes, we protect everyone.

So what do you say to those 94 counties that have no health care? They don't have health care. They don't have pre-existing conditions. We're actually solving a problem. The difference here is, we have Obamacare today. We know the failures when it comes to the exchanges. We know the Medicaid that was crowding people out. This is actually solving the problem.

BASH: But, I mean, you're making a pretty big statement. You're saying it's solving the problem, which means that you, your colleagues, your Republican president, you own this. So if at the end of the day this process doesn't bring the insurers back to Iowa and to other areas that don't have it and to decrease premiums, decrease costs, it's on you.

MCCARTHY: Well, the one thing we do know, Obamacare has failed. So what do we say to the people in Iowa? What do we say to the people in Tennessee? What do we say to the people in Virginia? We know Obamacare has failed. So as statesmen, do we just sit back and say, I told you so, or do we find a solution to the problem? I think as statesmen on both sides of the aisle, people should come forward with their ideas to solve the problem. If the Democrats are arguing nothing should happen, I want them to look in the eyes of those people and those counties, or what about the 23 co-ops that were given more than $2 billion? What about the collapse of 19 of those? Where are they defending that? Where are they helping those people with health care? Some --

[12:25:03] BASH: Well they argue -- I mean because they're not here to defend themselves -- they argue Obamacare is not perfect, but the answer is not to completely repeal it, it's to try to fix it and to work together to do that.

MCCARTHY: It's far from perfect. We found you have less options, you have no health care. How are you going to pay for Medicaid? We just passed an omni (ph) yesterday. It was roughly a trillion dollars.

BASH: A budget bill.

MCCARTHY: A budget bill, to pay for all discretionary funding of government. A trillion dollars. Well, you know what, in less than ten years, just Medicaid will cost us $1 trillion. So where's the solution for that? Where's the solution for funding of our government and (INAUDIBLE). We are taking a forward look. We're repealing it, the posing of all those taxes. We're replacing it, giving people an option to actually go into the market to choose and have the free market actually push prices down, which we show premiums will come down, and provide health care for all those counties that have now lost it because of Obamacare.

BASH: Let me ask you another piece of substance of this. Under this plan --

MCCARTHY: Yes.

BASH: Is there a chance that people who get health coverage through their employers could lose protections that limit out of pocket costs in a case of catastrophic illness?

MCCARTHY: No, because this deals nothing -- this is at the individual market. If you're getting your health care, if you have Medicare, you're getting your health care from your business or others, this doesn't deal with it. You know what else it does do?

BASH: Are -- I just want to ask you just -- are you sure because there's a report "The Wall Street Journal" is reporting that there's a loophole in the fine print that would allow just that.

MCCARTHY: (INAUDIBLE) --

BASH: Are you telling me you are confident that is not true?

MCCARTHY: We are confident when we went through the amendments. The one thing I will tell you as well, when you look at what Obamacare has done, even to the business climate, that so many people now, because of the 30 hour workweek, or just the 50 employees, so many small businesses that people are now having to work two part-time jobs because they can't add people to the work, they can't continue to expand. This is going to change from business to health care and help move the economy.

If somebody has a better idea, this is the legislative process. We're moving it through the House. The Senate is a legislative body. They will be able to do what they want with the bill and then we can go to conference. So if there's any other ideas that people have, bring it forward because the one thing we do know, day after day, more insurers are pulling out of the market so fewer people are having health care because Obamacare continues to survive.

BASH: Now, a lot of Democrats are -- think that they're kind of whistling past the graveyard here saying uh-oh, this is the same kind of vote that cost so many of my colleagues their seats on the gun issue, on the budget issue back in the '90s. Are you confident you're not making your members take a vote that will make them lose their seats and maybe even you lose the majority leader status?

MCCARTHY: Well, every vote that you just said the Democrats took, took more power -- gave more power to government and took more freedom away from people. We are giving people actual freedom.

And remember this, more people took the option and paid the penalty than signed up for Obamacare. So you have people pulling out of health care that don't have any health care now in county. More people taking the option and penalty than signed up for it. And the Democrats continue to take more freedom away. This bill provides more freedom to the individual, more choice and more opportunity.

BASH: OK, before I toss back to John, I have to ask, did you really, inside the private meeting with Republicans today, speak in front of a giant picture of General Patton?

MCCARTHY: No, I spoke in front of the podium.

BASH: Was there a Patton -- a picture of Patton there?

MCCARTHY: No, they have a screen and I put a Patton quote up.

BASH: And you had some quotes.

MCCARTHY: A quote from Patton, yes.

BASH: And what was the quote?

MCCARTHY: (INAUDIBLE).

BASH: What was the quote?

MCCARTHY: Off memory, you -- I don't remember exactly.

BASH: It's a general -- the gist of it.

MCCARTHY: The general is, if you have challenges in life, you have to face your challenges to ever know what the exuberant of victory is.

BASH: OK. A general trying to rally your troops.

Thank you very much.

And we just heard, obviously, the beginning of what is going to be a very intense messaging war as to what this really means, John. KING: Yes, I think General Patton (INAUDIBLE) he told them to storm

the hill I guess is the best way to do it. We'll see -- see (INAUDIBLE).

Dana Bash and our thanks to the majority leader, Kevin McCarthy, for taking some time on a very important day.

As we come back into the room.

A, we should be very clear, one of the things the -- his -- part of his central argument is absolutely correct, there are fundamental problems with Obamacare, especially in the exchanges where you have pulling out in Virginia, pulling out in Iowa. There's no question there are fundamental problems with Obamacare that need to be fixed. The issue here is, are -- the Democrats passed Obamacare with all Democratic votes. Are Republicans inviting the same problem and certainly the same ownership as Dana asked, if they do an all Republican replacement? At least it's step one in the House.

[12:29:45] VISER: And they are. I mean it's almost the inverse in every way of seven years ago with the Democrats. Passing it and ramming it through, you know, and Nancy Pelosi had that famous quote of, we have to pass this to figure out what's in it. you know, I mean you can imagine this is the same -- same scenario. And there are the same political risks and Democrats now have potentially the messaging advantage. And as Republicans, they're trying to pass this right before they go back to their districts.