GOP Faces Town Hall Turmoil Over Health Care Bill; Will House Health Care Vote Help Trump Agenda?
JOHN KING, CNN HOST (voice-over): Much needed win for the president and with it, a risky promise.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Premiums will be coming down. Yes, deductibles will be coming down.</s>KING: Next up, the Senate. But Democrats already see political goal.</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: You have walked the plank from moderate to radical.</s>KING: Plus, a spending billing conservatives hate and how the White House hopes to turn the page.</s>TRUMP: I'm proposing actually the single largest tax cut in American history. And France picks a president and decides the fate of the European Union.</s>KING: INSIDE POLITICS, the biggest stories sourced by the best reports, now.</s>KING: To our viewers in the United States and around the world -- welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. Thanks for sharing your Sunday. We will take you live to France in about a few moments for an update on today's quite consequential presidential vote and its potential impact, not only on U.S.-French relations but on the eastern economic and military alliances. The final chapter has a familiar ring, one campaign is hacked, and the debate is testy.</s>KING: We begin this Sunday, though, with America's recurring political divide over health care, and President Trump's hope of soon fulfilling a seven-year Republican promise, to repeal and replace Obamacare. Step one is done. The House just barely passed its plan Thursday. The president sees it as a momentum shifting spring board, hoping a Senate victory is next and then another big ticket agenda item.</s>TRUMP: We're going to get this finished and then we're going -- as you know, we put our tax plan in, it's a massive tax cut. The biggest tax cut in the history of our country. I used to say the biggest since Ronald Reagan. Now, it's bigger than that.</s>KING: So, is one House vote really that much of a game changer or is the president overly optimistic? With us to share their reporting and their insights, Julie Pace of "The Associated Press", Jonathan Martin of "The New York Times", CNN's Phil Mattingly, and Margaret Talev of "Bloomberg Politics". Step two for the health care debate is the Senate, where the rules and the tiny Republican majority make things a lot more difficult. Plus, key Republicans already are dismissing the House plan, in part because it likely will cost millions their coverage. It scales back protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions. It allows higher premiums for older Americans, and it caps Medicaid payments to the state, the states use those payments to help low income Americans get coverage. As the Senate begins its challenging work, also pay attention to this, the early voter reaction to the House vote will shape the mood.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are mandating people in Medicaid accept dying. You are making a mandate that kill people --</s>REP. RAUL LABRADOR (R), IDAHO: No one wants to die. You know, that line is so indefensible. Nobody dies because they don't have access to health care.</s>KING: That's Raul Labrador there, conservative from Idaho, going home to a very red state. Now, some of this is organized. But this will shape the mood, Phil -- they're home this week and then they come back to Washington next week. They're all going to watch to see how much blow back they get as the moves over.</s>PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I think, look, everybody wants to see their reaction now. They took the vote. They took the very difficult vote. They went through the extraordinarily complicated, difficult, onerous, whatever word you want to use there to get to this point. Now, the reaction comes back. And you can look to the Senate and see what's going to happen with the bill, but I think for House Republicans right now, who just barely squeezed this out, 217 votes when they needed 216, a lot of individuals took votes that probably they didn't want to take, I know for that a lot of members made very clear, I don't want to be yes on this, I'll be there if you need me. And leadership said, guess what, we need you. And so, now, for those members, a lot whom, 14 of whom, come from Clinton won districts, what happens when they go home? What happens when they come to these town halls? What happens when the attack ads of which I'm told the opportunity to make them is -- they are just trying to figure out what to attack on because they feel like they have so many options -- what happens when those hit? I think it's very early to say that this swings everything. Democrats are going to get with the majority. There's no question at all they feel like they can go on offense here.</s>KING: And how much of this was policy? They like the bill. A lot of Republicans -- I showed you some of the political concerns there and the policy effort as it moves to the Senate, and how much of this was -- there was essentially a message from leadership that we'll worry about the middle later, if we don't do this, our base will abandon us and next year's midterm election when it's all about turning out your base. To that point, Mark Sanford, Republican in the House said, it would have been the apocalypse of Republicans hadn't done this in the House. Now, listen to Senator Ted Cruz, as it moves over there, he's one of the conservatives who don't like parts of this bill, but --</s>SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: For seven years, the Republicans have been promising if only you elect us, we'll repeal Obamacare. I think consequences of failure would be catastrophic.</s>KING: So, they worry about came at that time catastrophe politically? But what about the details?</s>JULIE PACE, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: Right. I mean, you're hearing this line, increasingly, both in the House and now as we move to the Senate, just this broad idea that for Republicans, health care is so central to what they promised voters, that if they don't do anything, that the blowback could be very damaging. But what's so interesting about health care and live this with President Obama, is that you're talking about a really complex piece of legislation, something that has sweeping impact across the country. But it's sometimes the simplest line that end up being the most memorable, with Obama, it was -- if you like your plan, you can keep it, if you like your doctor, you can keep it. As I hear Raul Labrador say no one dies from not having health care, or I hear President Trump talked about premiums going down, all the benefits -- those are the lines that Republicans will be held accountable for if this does move through the Senate.</s>KING: Premiums will go down, deductibles will go down is going to be in an ad before we're off the set today. The president was part and he deserves credit, he needed a victory. He got a short term victory. We'll see what the finish line is, he was part of the effort to get those final votes that Phil mentioned, bringing in two of the members who proposed one of the key amendments to this. Does he understand, they're obviously very happy at the White House, does he understand it gets a lot harder. Now, you're going to try to cut a deal in the Senate. And then, if they get something through the Senate, which is still a big if, as we have this conversation, then a much harder task, the Senate is going to pass something over here, the House bill is over here, and good luck, Mr. President.</s>MARGARET TALEV, BLOOMBERG NEWS: That's right. I mean, I think we've seen with President Trump during the campaign season that he -- his instinct generally believed that never let strategy get in the way of good tactics and that it makes sense to bite off taxable pieces to take your victories where you can and to move forward. The White House I think believes that you threat the Senate a little differently than you treat the House, that Mitch McConnell has different negotiating skills and different expectations and different abilities than Paul Ryan. They also understand the complications. So I think you will see some different treatment and maybe more deference even as the public posture from the White House is, we have to take control and be involved every day, I don't think they're going to treat Mitch McConnell the same way. But as you mentioned, for President Trump -- President Trump's line, his guarantee is that people with pre-existing conditions are going to get even better coverage than they did with President Obama. If this actually should pass the Senate and become law in some form, that is the measure that he and the entire Republican Party will be tested against.</s>KING: This bill as it now stands, Jonathan, does not keep a lot of the president's campaign promises. Some -- in some cases, not even close.</s>JONATHAN MARTIN, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Right, he vowed to cover everybody more than once and to offer them terrific care. And he said even during last few months he was asked in interviews that if it didn't reflect those promises, he wouldn't sign it. His instinct on this I think is much more expansive than his actual adoptive party, right? He's not a free market guy. I think his instinct is to help people and not pay a sort of political price for signing something that is not popular. That said, it got to the point where he just wanted to sign something and wanted to get a victory because he was getting sick of bad headlines. And I think that is why there was some sigh of relief that you saw in the Rose Garden. But I think to say, I'm reminded of the James Carville dictum, that the mover on health care pays a political price. It doesn't matter which party it is or what you're doing in health care. If you're moving on health care, if you're tampering with health care, you are intervening in the lives of Americans in a profound way and the history of that in this country politically is that the party that does that pays a price.</s>KING: And so, the Democrats certainly did in 2010, the first midterm election after Obamacare, and then again in 2014.</s>MARTIN: In '94, you can say, right?</s>KING: Yes, in '94, Bill Clinton and they didn't get the bill, and they still pay the price. We just heard Raul Labrador, a conservative out west. Now, here is Tom Reed, a moderate member in the Northeast at a town hall back home again getting pushback.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at me, a 14-year-old boy in the eye and justify how you can vote for a bill that will take away mine and millions of other guarantees about being discriminated against because of a pre-existing condition?</s>REP. TOM REED (R), NEW YORK: The fact that pre-existing condition is in the bill and it's in this bill is going to continue, you will have access to health insurance just as you do today.</s>KING: The line that you will have access to health insurance just as you do today. We all have access to Maseratis and Ferraris, too. The question is, can you afford it? If states -- and it depends on what state you're in, it depends on what states you're in, but some states can change the rules. And so, yes, that young man, his family will have access, but states can change the premium structure dramatically.</s>MATTINGLY: Right. So, the interesting thing is -- having covered this bill from start to where we are now, and knowing the in the weeds details of it. There is a way Republicans can explain that they believe they are maintaining pre-existing conditions, that the price controls that exist in Obamacare can be maintained, that there's protections underneath. There is a lot of different -- to continue your coverage, there's other $8 billion to help you with premiums, if you can't. All of these types of things that take a long time to explain. You know what doesn't take a long time to explain, one sentence saying Republicans have changed pre-existing conditions in a campaign ad. And that's the difficult position they're in right now and I think in covering this the last couple of weeks, to your earlier point, and, John's, too, the main pitch was let's just get this over to the Senate, OK? Let's get it over to the Senate. To the moderates, they will change it, they will strip out a lot of these things and then they will send it back, and it will be a better bill when we get it back if you're moderate and you're concern about your sweet. Guess what? You took that vote anyway, despite. And I think one the wildest thinks to me talking to some of these Northeastern members, talking to some of these members from Clinton districts who said, look, we just have to get did over with. You know, we'll take the vote and moving on because we think it will come back. And the idea that that vote in the House, even if it comes back, looks a lot better to them for their constituents, is not going to -- it's not going to negate the vote that they took in the House right now. So, again, there is a way for Republicans based on this proposal to explain the pre-existing issue, but they have to explain it. And it takes time. And in politics, it's difficult to win when you're explaining things that take time.</s>MARTIN: And the reason they added that tweak, as Phil well knows, is because they had to get the votes, the Freedom Caucus, the hard right element of the House --</s>KING: Raul Labradors.</s>MARTIN: Yes, to vote yes. Those folks needed some kind of cover and this was it. And it would be ironic if they lose their majority next year because they made this change because guess what, guys, in 2018, it ain't the Freedom Caucus who are facing the competitive races. It's those who walked the plank from the Northeast, from parts of the West and Midwest who voted yes reluctantly or even voted no and could still pay a price. The folks on the far right don't have tough seats.</s>KING: And as Nancy Pelosi said, Democrats are going to make those lawmakers, in her words, glow in the dark.</s>MARTIN: Tattooed.</s>KING: We'll see how that debate plays out. Up next, today's consequential presidential vote: will France follow the U.K. out of the European Union?