House Intel Russia Probe Stalls; Health Care Back on the Table; GOP Going Nuclear; Trump: "We're Doing Very Well in Iraq"
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: The House investigation into the Trump campaign ties to Russia on hold. How long until things get moving? Will they ever get moving? Will we ever hear from the former Justice Department official who could have damaging evidence?</s>DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: New signs on health care from the Republicans. After declaring he was moving on, is the president ready to re-engage with lawmakers who spurned him?</s>ROMANS: And Republicans are going all in on Neil Gorsuch. A vote expected next week despite a growing number of Democrats ready to filibuster the Supreme Court nominee. All right. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.</s>BRIGGS: I'm Dave Briggs. Russian salad dressing on the menu today on EARLY START. It's Wednesday, March 29th, 4:00 a.m. in the East. We'll get to that later. But we start with the schedule today for the House Intelligence Committee investigating alleged ties between President Trump and Russia. What's on that schedule? No meetings. No hearings. Well, no nothing. The Trump-Russia probe has completely broken down for now amid a growing divide over whether House Intel Chairman Devin Nunes should recuse himself. Those calls coming from a growing number of Democrats and now even from the ranks of Nunes own party. Elijah Cummings, first, the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, points to a claim made by Nunes that he was on White House grounds to read classified material but no one on the west wing was aware. Cummings says, quote, "The claim by Chairman Nunes no one knew in the White House knew about a visit cannot be true. Chairman Nunes was not a White House fence jumper. He was invited in."</s>ROMANS: And now, there's a Republican House member saying Nunes should recuse himself, Walter Jones of North Carolina. Meantime, Nunes is scoffing at the suggestion he might step aside.</s>MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Are you going to stay as chairman and run this investigation?</s>REP. DEVIN NUNES (R-CA), HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Well, why would I not? You guys need go ask them why these things are being said.</s>RAJU: Can this investigation continue as you as chairman?</s>NUNES: Why would it not? Am I not briefing you guys continuously and keeping you up to speed?</s>RAJU: But they're saying that it cannot run with you as chairman.</s>NUNES: You got to talk to them. That sounds like their problem.</s>ROMANS: All right. Before the investigation resumes, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, he wants Republicans to agree to reschedule hearings that had been set for yesterday. Among them, one of which the former acting Attorney General Sally Yates was expected to testify about communications between former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn and Russia's ambassador to the</s>U.S. BRIGGS: "The Washington Post" reported Tuesday that the White House sought to block Yates from testifying, a claim Press Secretary Sean Spicer adamantly rejected.</s>SEAN SPICER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The 24th, Miss Yates' attorney sent a letter to the White House counsel requesting that consent specifically stating that if they did not receive a response by March 27th at 10:00 a.m. They would, quote, "conclude that the White House does not assert executive privilege over these matters. The White House did not respond and took no action that prevented Miss Yates from testifying." I hope she testifies. I look forward to it.</s>BRIGGS: There's at least one investigation moving forward in a bipartisan spirit today that's the chairman and ranking Democrat on the Senate Intel Committee. They will offer an update on their Russia investigation today at 2:30, in a news conference.</s>ROMANS: Crickets from the House, but we'll hear from the Senate at 2:30. All right. Spicer, Sean Spicer may be running out of ways to downplay the Trump administration's ties to Russia. Listen to the press secretary getting into a heated exchange with reporters after suggesting the media is looking for Kremlin connections that simply don't exist.</s>SPICER: I said it from the day that I got here until whatever, that there's no connection. You've got Russia. If the president puts Russian salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow there's a Russian connection. But every single person -- no, well, no, that's -- I appreciate your agenda here but the reality is -- no, no, hold on. No, at some point, report the facts. The facts are that every single person who has been briefed on this subject has come away with the same conclusion. Republican, Democrat, so I'm sorry that disgusts you. You're shaking your head. I appreciate it.</s>SPICER: But, OK, but understand this, that at some point, the facts are what they are.</s>ROMANS: Sean Spicer accusing that respective reporter of having an agenda. April Ryan of American Urban Radio asked the question that sets Spicer off. She was also a reporter Spicer told her to stop shaking her head. She's going to join us live in the 8:00 a.m. hour of NEW DAY. April Ryan.</s>BRIGGS: Russian salad dressing. I mean, that really was the headline of the day. Really. I mean, it exploded online. I brought you a gift this morning.</s>ROMANS: Oh, no, are you kidding me?</s>BRIGGS: Our producer, Leslie, resourceful at 3:00 a.m. Apparently, people still do use it.</s>ROMANS: And you did a little bit of research. What is the -- what is the preferred dressing in America?</s>BRIGGS: The 17th most popular salad dressing in America. Seventeenth. So, if he was using it, yes, that would be suspicious. Ranch dressing is your number one.</s>ROMANS: On my eggs, this morning.</s>BRIGGS: Number one.</s>ROMANS: May not this morning.</s>BRIGGS: Meanwhile, Republicans insisted they had no plan B on health care. So, since we're talking about insurance, we'll call this a rider number one. Just days after the GOP effort to repeal Obamacare ended in disaster we're learning the issue is now back on the table. If it was really ever off. Officials telling us the president and vice president spoke with several house members over the weekend about a path forward. Even so, the White House now keeping a lower profile, encouraging talks between members of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus and the moderate Tuesday Group.</s>ROMANS: A senior administration official says members whose opposition helped kill House bill last week are, quote, "terrified" of backlash, backlash that some are getting from their constituents who elected them to repeal and replace Obamacare. The official says White House believe its threat to move past health care helped jolt House Republicans into action. And last night, President Trump all but admitted he's not done with this issue. For the very latest, I want to bring in CNN senior White House correspondent Jeff Zeleny.</s>JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Dave, five days after the collapse of the health care bill, President Trump, the White House and some members on Capitol Hill are talking about reviving the bill and doing another type of deal. Now, they are in the very early beginning stages of talking about this. One is the pressure from the outside. Republicans, of course elected many of these people for years really to do something about health care and after the dramatic failure last week, of course, it fell apart. But now, there are serious talks going on. And President Trump invited senators from both parties to the White House last night. And he mentioned health care actually isn't that hard. Let's watch.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know that we're all going to make a deal on health care. That's such an easy one. So, I have no doubt that will happen very quickly. I think it will actually. I think it's going to happen, because we've all been promising, Democrat, Republican, we've all been promising that to the American people. So, I think a lot of good things are going to happen there.</s>ZELENY: Such an easy one the president says. But, of course, he knows all too well health care legislation is so much more difficult than that. But the fact that he invited bipartisan group of senators to the White House is the latest in a series of steps this White House is calling a course correction. They want to bring some Democrats on board as well to try and get some difficult pieces of legislation through. We'll see if health care falls in that list or not. But, Christine and Dave, he certainly talked about it here last night.</s>BRIGGS: Yes, bringing on Democrats. That will be a difficult haul. Thank you, Jeff. The number of Senate Democrats declaring opposition to Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch is growing this morning. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has now set a date for the floor vote on the floor nomination, defiantly predicting that Gorsuch will be confirmed next Friday. The Judiciary Committee is already set to vote on Monday and McConnell says he wants the full Senate to vote before lawmakers head off for a two-week spring week.</s>ROMANS: McConnell and Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer already squaring off over the Republican threat to invoke the nuclear option. That would change Senate rules to end the filibuster on high court nominees so they can be confirmed by 51 votes instead of 60.</s>SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: We're going to get Judge Gorsuch confirmed. It will be an opportunity for Democrats to invoke cloture. We'll see where that ends, but it will really up to them how the process to confirm Judge Gorsuch goes forward.</s>SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D-NY), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: It's going to be a real uphill climb for him to get those 60 votes. It's such an important position. It should have bipartisan buy in. If a judge can't meet, if a nominee can't meet the 60 vote standard, you don't change the rules.</s>BRIGGS: As of now, 27 senators plan to filibuster the Gorsuch nomination. Three Democrats haven't said whether they will join the filibuster but said they would vote against Gorsuch on the floor and only two had said they won't take part in the filibuster. That's out of eight that Republicans need to break it.</s>ROMANS: All right. The future of online privacy is now in President Trump's hands. The House of Representatives and the Senate have voted to repeal Internet privacy protections that were approved in the final days of the Obama administration. The rules have not yet gone into effect. But they would have required Internet service providers to get permission before collecting and sharing your personal data such as web browsing history, app usage and geo-location. There's big money in using your information. Providers would also have to notify customers about the data they collect. The goal was to give consumers extra control over their personal data online, the time when everything from smartphones to refrigerators can be connected to the Internet. Lawmakers who back the repeal say it's a duplicate regulation, getting rid of it will increase competition they say among Internet companies and cut the cost for those big companies. Democrats and privacy advocates argue the move effectively hands over your personal information to the highest bidder.</s>BRIGGS: She's emerged from the woods and now re-entered the political debate. Last night, speaking at a women's conference in San Francisco, Hillary Clinton gave her most pointed speech since election and got fired up talking about the Republican health plan.</s>HILLARY CLINTON (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When Congress and the administration try to jam through a bill that would have kicked 24 million off their health insurance, defunded Planned Parenthood, jeopardize access to affordable birth control, deprive people with disabilities and elderly and nursing homes of essential care, they were met with a wave of resistance. I mean really take away maternity care? Really? Take away mental health and substance abuse care? I mean, who do these people talk to?</s>BRIGGS: Clinton also told the crowd, quote, "There's no place I'd rather be here than with you", before clarifying other than the White House.</s>ROMANS: Interesting to hear from her, first really extended remarks I've heard in sometime.</s>BRIGGS: Yes, continued questions of who is the leader of the Democratic Party. Is it still her? Are they still -- is it Elizabeth Warren? Is it Chuck Schumer?</s>ROMANS: She's clearly plugged in and has things to say about the news of the day new question.</s>BRIGGS: Yes. All right. Comment from the president on Iraq raises some eyebrows this morning. And his assessments of the situation on the ground, let's just say, running afoul of the fact checkers. We're live in Iraq, next.