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Republicans Replacing Obamacare; First Day of Congress Lessons; Leadership in Congress. Aired 12-12:30p ET
Aired January 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] JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Just day two of the new Congress, but a very busy one. After a rocky day one, the Republican majority turning today to a more unifying policy goal, and getting an assist from the next vice president of the United States.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are 16 days away from the end of business as usual in Washington, D.C. Today our message is very simple, working with the leadership here in the House and in the Senate, we're going to be in the promise keeping business. The first order of business is to repeal and replace Obamacare.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Now on that front, Democrats promise a big fight and they got some advice this morning from President Obama, who leaves office in a little more than two weeks but made a rare visit to Capitol Hill to discuss ways to preserve key elements of his signature domestic policy initiative. After that meeting, the president summarized his advice.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUESTION: Mr. President, what -
QUESTION: Repeal Obamacare without paying a price?
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you, guys. Thank you.
QUESTION: Mr. President, what was your advice to Democrats on how to fight?
OBAMA: Look out for the American people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: You heard the president there. After that, the president left the building. His Democratic allies then rolled out their new theme, make America sick again to frame the big fight that will shape the next year and likely shape the next election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), MINORITY LEADER: The Republican say repeal and replace. The only thing that has going for it is alliteration. They have no replacement plan. They have no replacement plan because they just - they can't - they can't agree. They don't have the votes for a replacement plan. So to repeal and then delay is an act of cowardice. That means we don't really know what we're doing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: That big fight.
Plus, other big news in the hour ago, including tracking live events at the White House and at the Capitol, and the president-elect's latest attack on U.S. intelligence agencies.
With us to share their reporting and their insights, Margaret Talev from Bloomberg Politics, NPR's Domenico Montanaro, Jonathan Martin of "The New York Times," and CNN's Nia-Malika Henderson.
Now, Republicans have the votes and they'll soon have a Republican president, so the repeal part is relatively simple. Relatively. And Republicans are trying to make, listen here, the replace part sound manageable.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PAUL RYAN (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: Obamacare is a story of broken promise after broken promise after broken promise, followed by failing program, higher premiums, higher deductibles. So we want to make sure that as we give relief to people through Obamacare, we do it in a transition that doesn't pull the rug out from anybody during that transition period.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: They make it sound easy. The speaker saying it will be a stable period. But as we sit here today on the second day of this Congress, Republicans have been talking about this for years now. They don't have a plan, do they?
DOMENICO MONTANARO, NPR: No. And Ryan went on to say, when he was asked, what is the plan to replace, he said, look, we have a plan. We have ideas. You know, those are different things. And, you know, there's a reason that Republicans came up with repeal and replace because just simply repealing is not popular. It's not practical. It's not productive. They want to sound like they're going to do something with it, but they really can't agree quite yet on what to do. And you heard Chuck Schumer four times use the word "chaos" if Republicans were to repeal it without adding something in to replace it, to offset some of those potential costs.
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, and Democrats, obviously, are hoping that as soon as they repeal this, this becomes Trumpcare. And whatever the chaos is, whatever premium hikes people see or whatever sort of things go on in terms of the health care industry during this repeal period, the Republicans essentially own it. It is true that they have plans, but like you said, they can't agree on them. There's the Ryan plan. Hatch has the plan as well. How much it will cost, how many people will lose their health insurance under their - what happens with Medicaid? All those questions unanswered because they can't agree.
JONATHAN MARTIN, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": As the great philosopher Bill Clinton once said, it depends what the definition of "is" is. It depends what the definition of repeal is because Republicans are, in fact, going to repeal, at least symbolically, Obamacare this year. I mean almost certainly that's going to happen. The question substantively is, are they going to take away the benefits that are offered under the Affordable Care Act? And that is the question that is unanswered.
So there's going to be some kind of a delay. We don't know if it's going to be two years, four years, somewhere in between, somewhere more, somewhere less. And I think that that's the real crux of the matter is. Yes, they will put a bill on Trump's desk to repeal the law, but they'll sunset it down the road a few years. And what happens when we come to that point, and it's on the doorstep of the midterms or the 2020 campaign.
KING: Well - right.
HENDERSON: Yes.
MARTIN: Do they then take away benefits from folks without a replacement plan?
KING: Well, part -
MARTIN: Politically that's very dangerous.
KING: Right, part of taking things away from people, it's a big deal. But part of the problem here is for Republicans, the conservatives want to just go back to a market-based system and, you know, have at it. And some subsidies for lower income people, of course. I don't want to be too harsh there.
But Trump has - candidate Trump has boxed them in.
MARGARET TALEV, BLOOMBERG: That's right.
KING: He has said, I like that, you know, you can't kick somebody off your insurance plan because of preexisting conditions. I like and want to keep the fact that you can stay on your parents' health insurance until you're 26. He has listed about a half dozen of the most popular provisions of Obamacare. They happen to be, though, Margaret, the most expensive.
[12:05:10] TALEV: Happen to be the reason why Obama wanted that mandate.
KING: Right. TALEV: So this is - Donald Trump has given both parties a really important lesson from his years in business, which is never apologize, never declare defeat, always declare victory no matter what. This is a branding and messaging opportunity for the Democrats to get right the message that they never could while Obama was president, and it's an opportunity for the Republicans potentially to figure out how to keep all of these expensive parts but make it seem like it was their idea so it's OK. If they don't, if they remove those protections for people who come in sick, for children who are in their mid-20s, for, you know, all of these issues, they're going to have a major political fight when it comes to the midterm season.
KING: This has been one of the defining issues in our politics for the entire Obama presidency and certainly sense Congress went through this in 2009 and in 2010 and enacted a law. Republicans will tell you, and I think the numbers support them, that in the midterm elections, and even in this past presidential election, this issue worked in the Republicans' favor. Now the Democrats think the tides have turned. You heard Nancy Pelosi at the top of the show saying the only thing good about this repeal and replace is alliteration. We'll see what the Republicans do. Listen to Chuck Schumer, the new leader of the Democrats, who helped them come up with this new theme. Democrats say Republicans now want to make America sick again.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), MINORITY LEADER: We had a great meeting with the president. Virtually all of our caucuses attended. He was very inspiring, telling us we worked out - we were working out our strategy, and we have a great deal of optimism that the good things that have happened in ACA are going to stay and that our Republican colleagues don't quite know what to do. They're like the dog who caught the bus. They can repeal, but they have nothing to put in its place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Now, there's actually one way to do this, if we could roll the tape back to about 20 years in Washington, the way it might happen is that the Democrats and the Republicans would go into a room and the Republicans would say, we have the votes now, but our president wants to keep this, this and this. Let's cut a deal. The odds of that happening are about the same as the odds of my levitating, right?
MONTANARO: I think - I think you mean - I think you mean 30 years, because 20 years ago Hillary Clinton tried this and it didn't quite work for her.
KING: You are correct, sir.
MONTANARO: But if you talk about Social Security, right, and Tip O'Neil and all them, sure.
KING: Right. Yes.
MONTANARO: But, yes, I mean, I think that the odds of something happening here are very difficult. And I think the midterms are still, you know - I mean we're - we haven't even seen Donald Trump sworn in yet and the - and the, you know, the Senate map at least for Democrats is not very good. So, you know, I think -
KING: But that could be the key, right?
HENDERSON: Yes.
KING: Conservative - Joe Manchin, conservative senator, Democrat from West Virginia, wouldn't even go to the meeting with the president. He has said the president was like somehow meddling. I think if this were Joe Manchin's signature initiative if he was governor and a Republicans were taking his place, he might feel differently about it. There might be a little bit of -
MARTIN: Politics, yes.
KING: Might be a little bit of, you know, (chicken noise) going on there, but -
TALEV: But, you know - but to be really cynical for a minute, on the flip side there -
MARTIN: No.
TALEV: I know, right. There have been so many - so many problems with the exchanges in some of the more conservative states -
MARTIN: Right.
TALEV: Especially in Texas and Arizona.
MARTIN: Yes.
TALEV: Obamacare is very popular among the people who absorb the benefits of it in states that have robust exchanges.
KING: Right.
TALEV: It's a little bit less popular in places where it got really expensive and really hard to get and there's only one or two places to get it.
KING: Right. Right. No question - there's no question - and I think this is one of the failures of President Obama. He did not get out ahead of the, of course we're going to have to fix this, of course we're going to have to go back. If you look at the Massachusetts experience, whether you like it or not, they've gone back and amended and fixed the financing and other provisions of the Massachusetts law repeatedly, but it was passed with bipartisan consensus at the beginning so they can go back.
MARTIN: Well, to your point -
KING: Obamacare was not. Therefore, the Republicans won't come to the table. As you jump in -
MARTIN: Sure.
KING: Here's the - here's the problem for Republicans. They have promised repeatedly to do this. They won the presidential election.
MARTIN: Right.
KING: They kept their House majority. They kept their Senate majority. So they can make legitimately the case that this is what the American people want.
MARTIN: Yes.
KING: But now 20 million people have gained coverage since 2010.
HENDERSON: Yes.
KING: And 6.1 million young adults have gained coverage since Obamacare passed into law. If it is repealed and Republicans say they're not going to just blindly repeal it, but if they did, nearly 60 million people could lose their insurance. That's the problem for Republicans. How do you keep those people, or most of them on the books, keep the preexisting conditions issues on the books and somehow pay for it and then call it new and yours.
TALEV: You either subsidize it with taxpayer money or you have - you subsidize it by making everyone get insurance, which is Obamacare.
HENDERSON: Well, yes, right. Yes. Yes.
KING: But it's a mandate - or a mandate of a different shape.
HENDERSON: Yes, which is what conservatives used to think they'd want to do, this mandate (ph) (INAUDIBLE).
KING: Right.
HENDERSON: And, you know, some of those folks are in - a lot of those folks are in red states, right? Some of them are in Kentucky. Some of them are in Ohio. States with Republican governors. Folks who wanted to actually expand Medicaid. So it is - you know, it's one thing for these six years to be on the - on the opposition to pass this repeal when you know it was going to get vetoed by the sitting president, but it's a whole different ballgame where we are now.
[12:10:05] KING: And can Republicans settle their own differences on this because you do - you do have - you do have, you know, sort of the free market -
MARTIN: That's right.
KING: Conservatives who say this is not the federal government's business.
MARTIN: That's right.
HENDERSON: Yes.
KING: I mean, you know, Medicaid, yes, help the low income through the Medicaid program, Medicare for older citizens, although some Republicans - the speaker of the House hopes to change that too.
MARTIN: (INAUDIBLE).
KING: But you have such a debate just within the Republican party and then they can repeal with Republican votes. To replace -
HENDERSON: They need Democrats.
KING: They most likely need Democratic votes in the Senate.
MARTIN: Right, there's no consensus in the party about what to do because there are folks who want a more sort of robust replacement, and then there are folks, John, to your point, who don't want to do the kind of redistribution that you have to do with rich people, frankly, and their money, to subsidize poor people. That's -
TALEV: Poor, unhealthy people.
MARTIN: Yes, exactly. And so there's an ideological challenge there.
I just step back for a moment on this. When in the history of American politics has there been a broad-based benefit that was offered to people for a few years and then taken away a few years later?
KING: Right.
MARTIN: I mean that's a lot of people who are getting a benefit from the government. And, yes, it's one thing for them to kind of vote against Hillary or vote against Obama because it's a bit theoretical. If that benefit's taken away from them, it's not theoretical anymore. That's a political challenge that Republicans know is looming out there iceberg-like.
KING: And so what - do we get - when do we get to the policy part of it? Kellyanne Conway, the president-elect's senior advisor said the other day, this could take years. There are Republicans who say they want to get it done by the end of this year in the budget process. Right now we have the blame game going on. The Democrats say the Republicans are the dog who caught the bus. Now they don't know what to do. Donald Trump, the president-elect, tweeting this morning about the massive increases, he says, of Obamacare will take place this year and Dems are to blame for the mess. So they're - right now it's about, if it's messy in the year ahead, who's to blame for it? Do the - the Republicans, we know they still have to debate a plan. Do they have a real timetable?
MONTANARO: They really don't at this point. And I - you know, but I think - if you look alternatively, maybe it's an opportunity for Republicans. You know, they - they want to be able to say that they can manage better than Democrats. That used to be the way that Republicans used to talk about these things. They used to say, we can manage government better. They didn't used to say we want to squeeze government into a bathtub. You know, that's sort of the message now. Or don't have government involved at all.
So maybe it's an opportunity for them. They have Tom Price at HHS most likely if he were to be confirmed. He was an opponent of the ACA, has some other ideas. We'll see if they can come up with something.
KING: An actual policy debate on Washington, D.C., wouldn't be such a bad thing. We'll see what happens.
Everybody sit tight.
Up next, from Obamacare to ethics, a lot of lessons learned on Congress' first day back at work. We'll see what that means looking forward.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:16:34] KING: Welcome back.
The new leader of Senate Democrats has a message for the president- elect.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), MINORITY LEADER: With all due respect, America cannot afford a Twitter presidency. We have real challenges and we have real needs to get things done. And many Americans are afraid, Mr. President-elect, that instead of rolling up your sleeves and forging serious policies, for you Twitter suffices.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: But, with all due respect, Senator Schumer, in the first day and a half of the new Congress and the new world order here in Washington is any guide, Twitter will remain a constant tool, or weapon, you choose the word, of the new administration. And the quick Republican retreat yesterday from a plan to gut an ethics watchdog agency suggests a timely Trump tweet can make a big difference.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. TOM COLE (R), OKLAHOMA: Oh, I think he deserves a lot of the credit. Look, I think it's absolutely the right thing to do. There's bipartisan concern that the outside ethics committee, frankly, has not worked very well and has incorrectly accused a lot of members of wrongdoing who were later exonerated. But it probably wasn't the right time to do it. That was the message that the speaker and the majority leader delivered last night. President-elect Trump reinforced that today. It had a big impact.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Now, we're only a day and a half into this. So we will learn, and learn as we go forward. But what have we learned in the first day and a half of the new players? Senator Chuck Schumer, the one new face in the leadership. Donald Trump did tweet yesterday and Republicans later retreated from this idea that they were going to pull the teeth out of this independent ethics watchdog.
Now, it wasn't just Trump. The phone calls were lighting up on Capitol Hill both from liberal groups and Tea Party groups saying this was a bad idea. But Trump timed it right -
HENDERSON: Yes.
KING: In terms of the theater. He got involved in the fight right. There's no - and he was willing to shame his own party publically.
HENDERSON: Yes.
KING: What tells you something. You're going to have a new Republican president who's willing to shame his own party. But what did we learn on day one? This ethics debacle, a joke with the Republicans, I think it will soon be forgotten, although Democrats will try to make hay of it, but what lessons are there?
HENDERSON: Yes, I think it was a good day for Donald Trump. He had his timing right. I think from Schumer, he sounds like he's reading from Hillary Clinton's old speeches as she was running and criticizing Donald Trump for using Twitter too much. I think Democrats have to step up their game in figuring out how to counter this incoming president because the old playbook is probably not going to work, and say, you know, the American people don't like him or he's using Twitter too much.
But, yes, I mean, I think Trump has figured something out. With Twitter, also with the announcements around Michigan and the Ford plant, I think we learned that these companies like to get good headlines and like to associate themselves with Trump. So, you know, Democrats have got some work to do, and I think Trump had a good day yesterday.
MARTIN: The lesson to me is that gravity may not apply to Donald Trump, put it sure as heck does on Capitol Hill.
KING: Right.
MARTIN: Donald Trump may not retreat when there's a blow back on social media, a blow back with angry folks calling or all this, but, guess what members of Congress still do? And that, to me, was a sort of reminder that politics hasn't changed that much. You know, maybe Trump has upended some of the rules, but we have seen so many of these kind of firestorms where one party or one politician says or does something, and there's huge blowback and the next day they walk it back.
We've kind of forgotten that in the last year and a half because Trump is so adamant about not apologizing, you know, never walking things back. But, you know, gravity does still apply on Capitol Hill. And I think that that, to me, even more than Trump's intervention, is what the lesson was because they were besieged with calls from angry folks back home and so I think that response shows that politics hasn't entirely changed as a dawn of a Trump era.
[12:20:18] MONTANARO: I think partisanship, though, is, you know, as high or higher than it's ever been. I mean when you look at the response that Democrats or opponents of Trump had yesterday, they were virulent to say, don't give Trump any credit for this, you know, even though they agree that the Office of Congressional Ethics should still be around and, yes, Google searches had spiked before Trump had actually put his tweet out.
But there's no question that even though members of Congress will tell you, no, of course, Trump didn't have anything to do with me changing my mind, of course they're going to say that. They're never going to want to say that they let the president change their mind. But, you know, he piled on to the - on top of that pile of people calling in.
MARTIN: Yes.
MONTANARO: So it's not one thing, but it was a number of things, and Trump has a microphone. He has Twitter. He has these millions of followers and he's going to be able to obviously weigh in at times even when he disagrees.
TALEV: But also it was really a missed opportunity for Paul Ryan and for Kevin McCarthy to assert their leadership early on in this caucus. Now, maybe they did in some subtle backdoor way where they sent the smoke signal to Reince and say, save us from ourselves.
KING: Right.
TALEV: But, look, they apparently talked - told their caucus they didn't think this was a great idea. Didn't do anything to stop it. Couldn't stop it or wouldn't stop it. And it took this playing out in public and this really embarrassing blow-up -
KING: That's an enormous point because you have the new order here in Washington. We will have a Republican president in 16 days. We have a Republican House and a Republican Senate. Paul Ryan wants to get a lot done. Listen to him yesterday, and then I want to come back to your point because it's very important. Paul Ryan publically saying, what a gift the American people have given us.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PAUL RYAN (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. This is the kind of thing that most of us only dreamed about.
The people have given us unified government. And it wasn't because they were feeling generous. It was because they want results. How could we live with ourselves if we let them down?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: And, yet - and, yet, on the first day, on the very first day to your point, you know, yes, we're going to have a new sheriff at the White House, Donald Trump. He's a Republican, but he's not always a Republican on some of the policy issues and so that will - that will be interesting on Capitol Hill. But on the day one - this wasn't some back bencher who challenged Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy, the speaker and the majority leader who said, we don't want you to change the ethics agency this way. They said, if you want to come back to this later, if you want to have public hearings, fine. Don't do this on day one. Don't make this the first act. Don't sort of do it behind closed doors. It was the committee chairman -
HENDERSON: Yes.
KING: Who did this. So what does that tell us about Paul Ryan's hold - you know, last year we were talking about, was he going to be forced out. Now the Trump people say he's essential. Well, you have Mike Pence -
TALEV: This is a total freebee. If there's one day where you get to assert your speakership, it is on the opening day when you say, guys -
KING: Right.
TALEV: This is bone-headed.
MONTANARO: But one of the -
TALEV: If you want to kick me out over this, kick me out.
KING: Right.
MONTANARO: But one of the big problems that John Boehner had, which eventually led to his ouster, was that he was seen as taking too heavy a hand sometimes with these members. So Paul Ryan has tried to be more egalitarian and say he wants to listen to everybody. He's going to bring in their input. Yesterday was an example, or the day before, of how that can be problematic and why you do need leadership to say, let's get, you know, one voice speaking here.
And, by the way, Paul Ryan probably learned he needs to coordinate with Donald Trump a little bit. Had he given a phone call to Trump and said, listen, they're trying to do this thing, give me something to say to them, you know, so that - say that you'll call them out tonight -
KING: Right.
MARTIN: Well, the irony is that the right complained so much about the media coverage. Well, guess what, it was the media that bailed out Ryan and McCarthy here. Were it not for the intense coverage on Sunday evening and Monday morning about this snafu, Trump never would have suspended on Twitter, which then gives cover to all the conservatives in the conference to abandon these rule changes. So in a funny way it's the media coming to the aid of Ryan and McCarthy here, because that's what so motivates Trump.
KING: Well, and to your point about Paul Ryan listening to everybody, that's fine. It's probably a good philosophy given what's happened in the Republican conference in the last few years. But you would think that on day one the speaker would stand up and say, I need you all today. We've got to get day one right. We've got to get - but we'll see.
HENDERSON: Some boundaries, yes
KING: Yes. That's just interesting - you know, just an idea, get day one right.
Up next, who does Donald Trump trust more, U.S. intelligence or the guy who started WikiLeaks?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:28:57] KING: Welcome back.
Julian Assange is the founder of WikiLeaks. Most of you probably know, that's the organization that spiced up the presidential campaign by releasing reams of hacked e-mails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. Now, among Assange's stated goals is to undermine the United States Government because he considers it too authoritarian. Assange is a frequent contributor to a state-run Russian television network that is blindly loyal to Vladimir Putin. And this week, a guest on a cable show fiercely loyal to Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JULIAN ASSANGE, WIKILEAKS FOUNDER: We have said repeatedly over the last two months that our source is not the Russian government, and is not a state party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Now the president-elect apparently considers Julian Assange a credible source, tweeting this, "Julian Assago said a 14-year-old could have hacked Podesta. Why was the DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info."
Just about every other leading Republican national security voice here in Washington, though, thinks the president-elect is making a bad choice here.
[12:30:02] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TOM COTTON (R), ARKANSAS: I have a lot more faith in our intelligence officers serving around the world that are very smart and experienced analysts that we have here in the nation's capital than I do in people like Julian Assange.
