President Reaches Out To Top Senate Dem On Health Care; Tillerson Denies He Threatened To Resign.
WHITFIELD: All right, welcome back. President Trump is reaching out to the top Democrat in the Senate about a possible deal on health care reform. This morning, the president tweeting, "I called Chuck Schumer yesterday to see if the Dems want to do a great health care bill. Obamacare is badly broken. Big premiums. Who knows!" Senator Chuck Schumer had a different take on the conversation and said in a statement, quote, "The president wanted to make another run at repeal and replace and I told the president that's off the table. If he wants to work together to improve the existing health care system, we Democrats are open to his suggestions." Correspondent Ryan Nobles is joining us now from the White House. So, Ryan, the president said earlier he would consider working with Democrats on health care, but doesn't sound like the Dems or the president will have exactly the same approach and the same goal.</s>RYAN YOUNG, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Fredricka, this back and forth this morning between the president and the minority leader demonstrates in a very crystal-clear fashion exactly what stands in the way of any sort of bipartisan grand bargain when it comes to health care. Most Republicans are not going to support any form of health care reform that is not a repeal and replacement of Obamacare, and no Democrat will support a repeal plan that means taking Obamacare off the books. So, when you have that sort of an impasse, it's almost impossible to come to some sort of a bargain, and, you know, Donald Trump campaigned on the idea that he was going to get rid of Obamacare. So, for him to backtrack on that puts him in a difficult position and there's really no motivation for someone like Chuck Schumer and the rank and file Democrats in the U.S. Senate to get on board with a plan that's repeal and replacement of Obamacare. So, we're really right back where we started in terms of the debate over health care. The Republicans just don't have the votes right now when it comes to repeal and replace, and you're not going to find any Democrat to get onboard with a plan that involves that level of repeal.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, Ryan Nobles, thanks so much. All right. Let's get more perspective on this from our panel. David Swerdlick is a CNN political commentator and assistant editor for the "Washington Post," Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, also a historian and professor at Princeton University. Good to see you both. All right. So, David, to you first. We know this president doesn't, you know, like being corrected or, you know, put in his place, especially not publicly, but is that what just happened with Chuck Schumer's statement saying, you know, we do not have the same goal?</s>DAVID SWERDLICK, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Sure, good morning, Fred. And I think Ryan just laid it out pretty clearly. There's a reason that repeal and replace of the Affordable Care Act hasn't already happened. It's that Republicans want to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, Democrats want to keep it. Both sides are probably willing behind the scenes to tinker with it, but that's not what President Trump campaigned on. You know, if you go back to 2009, if Democrats had done Medicare for all or remember the public option, then Republicans could come along now and repeal that and replace it with the Affordable Care Act, because that used to be a Republican plan. It was Romneycare, but Democrats wound up using that Republican plan eight or nine years ago and now Republicans don't have a plan they can get the votes for to repeal and replace Obamacare with.</s>WHITFIELD: So, Julian, Senator Schumer, you know, also mentioned in a portion of his statement that efforts by Republican Senator Lamar Alexander and Democratic Senator Patty Murray, you know, trying to draft a bipartisan bill to stabilize health care might be the more plausible route. But what are the chances that something like that does come about and that the president would endorse that?</s>JULIAN ZELIZER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, you could imagine the president endorsing that. He doesn't have a fixed set of principles on health care, and he's shown many times he'll move around. The problem is many Republicans on the Hill, particularly in the House, the Freedom Caucus, would really not be happy if that's the health care reform that comes out of Congress and that the president signs, and the president is aware of this. So, the best possibility for legislation is fixing the markets, but it's going to run right up into partisanship, where many Republicans won't be able to sign on to that. So, the odds are incredibly low at this point.</s>WHITFIELD: So then, Julian, what is all of this doing, you know, to his calling card as the great negotiator, the great deal maker, and going back, you know, on this issue that has had so many failings already? Why does the president still feel so confident that he could prove to be the great deal maker on this issue?</s>ZELIZER: Well, the calling card isn't worth much at this point. It's now been many months and he hasn't been able to put together a deal, and although he likes to blame the Republicans, a lot of the blame is on him and the way he has handled this issue. I think part of this is about rhetoric. It's about getting out the idea that he could reach a grand bargain if everyone else was willing to do it, so that his voters hear that, so that reporters hear that, but there's not much there, so I don't think his tweet or statements about this at this point is really worth that much. And many legislators in both parties just don't trust the president at this point so it's hard to make a deal when no one trusts you.</s>WHITFIELD: And then this president has a knack for keeping people guessing. The latest example of that was this remark of the calm before the storm, when meeting with his top military brass. Take a listen.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, what did you mean by "calm before the storm" yesterday? What did you mean by that?</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Thank you very much. You'll find out.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We'll find out?</s>PRESIDENT TRUMP: You'll see.</s>WHITFIELD: First he said that in front of his military, you know, leaders, and then he was asked again about it when he met up with the manufacturers there, and so, you know, David, this ominous, you know, you'll see. Is this really just the president who wants to continue to kind of keep people, particularly his adversaries, on their toes, keep them guessing about what he really means and what he could potentially do?</s>SWERDLICK: Yes, Fred, he does like to keep people guessing, and the phrase we'll see is something that the president uses in all types of context. You have to assume that this at least was a reference to the military, since he said it initially while doing a photo op with members of the military. But I don't want to go too far inside the president's head at speculating exactly what he was trying to say, but it seems to be of a piece of this idea he wants to keep people off balance, he wants to suggest he's got some plans that he's ready to unleash at any moment that he's unwilling to share in advance. But the similarity between that statement and what we were talking about before with health care and some of his tweets is that we're at a point now in the administration as Julian pointed out that his time- honored tactic of sort of bluster or half hyperbole or sort of the salesman game or the big reveal is not as effective in terms of marshaling members of Congress to get on his side. It's not as effective at making world leaders do what he wants. It's already a tactic that's been diminished over the course of this first year of his presidency.</s>WHITFIELD: And then, Julian, the whole issue of his secretary of state and him reportedly being on thin ice after also reportedly, you know, calling or describing the president as a moron and how enraged, you know, the president has been, even furthermore once that reporting became public. But if Rex Tillerson were to step down or if he were to be encourage to step down or fired, how much more difficult does it make for the president on global affairs push forward or you know, is that even a consideration of this president, how potentially crippling it would be without this secretary of state after so many have stepped down or been shown the door.</s>ZELIZER: I'm not sure he's really thinking of it that way. In many ways, he has isolated the State Department and Secretary Tillerson long before these comments. That's part of what Tillerson's frustration in July seems to be about. So, I'm not sure the president sees him as a very valuable player, nor does he see the State Department as a valuable player, but if he stepped down, it's possible he ends up replacing him with someone who has a little more political savvy or a little more clout, even, on the Hill, and maybe can push back against some of the more bellicose tendencies in the administration. It would be a big deal if Secretary Tillerson stepped down, but I'm not sure the president is as concerned with it as he is about the insults and about the reports in the media.</s>WHITFIELD: And also a big deal because it's who wants the job after such tumult. All right. David, we'll leave it there and Julian, thank you so much. And we will be right back.