New Developments On Russia Investigation; White House Defends Border Wall; House To Vote tomorrow On Obamacare Repeal Bill
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Thanks for watching. We'll be in D.C. Tomorrow night for the vote on that health care. Time to hand things over to Don Lemon. "CNN tonight" starts right now.</s>DON LEMON, CNN TONIGHT NEWS SHOW HOST: The breaking news, is it the end of Obamacare? The house says they have the votes to do it tomorrow. Will they or won't they? This is "CNN tonight." I'm Don Lemon. A big day in the Russian investigation as well, what the FBI director said and what the former Obama official Susan Rice won't. We have the latest on that. Plus, when is a wall not a wall? When it's a fence?</s>SEAN SPICER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: That is when it's actually called. That is the name of it. It is called --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fencing.</s>SPICER: No, no.</s>LEMON: I guess you can say it's an alternative wall. We'll explain. Let's get right to our breaking news on health care, though, with CNN's justice correspondence Pamela Brown and Congressional correspondent Phil Mattingly, good evening to both of you. Phil, you know we are discussing this, I've seen your reporting and I thought they didn't had the votes and now they say they are going to repeal and replace Obamacare tomorrow, fill us in. Do they have those votes?</s>PHIL MATTINGLY, NEW YORK BASED CNN CORRESPONDENT: They claim they do. House Republican leaders say very clearly they have the votes and they made it crystal clear over and over again over the last couple of weeks. They would never bring anything to the floor if they didn't have the votes. Here's the reality. I'm told that they are right on the edge. They have been working really the last 12 hours. President Trump, Vice President Pence, house leaders, member after member pulling them into private meetings one on one making promises trying to get them right to the point where they can actually pass this to get themselves there. I'm told they're close enough to go. They feel like they can get enough members when they get there on the floor. It doesn't take a lot of memory to go back and recognize that they've tried this before and haven't quite got there. They say this time will be different. We should find out probably around noon tomorrow.</s>LEMON: And does this bill have the same exceptions for pre-existing conditions, because that is the sticking point of Obamacare has.</s>MATTINGLY: It is different. It's structured differently than what Obamacare is. That is the real problem. The regulations are extremely popular in the Obamacare. The fact that this bill would give states the opportunity to opt out of the price protections related to pre-existing conditions is what has made Republican members so uncomfortable up to this point. There was a change today. They are adding $8 billion more into this fund to specifically address those who might have their coverage's dropped because of price increases in states that opt out. Is that going to make all of the difference in the world? The reality is, probably not. What I'm told from house Republican leaders is it's enough to get their members on board for this vote for this vote. To get this off their plate so they can move on to other items and send this over to the senate to make sure this gets going. I will tell you this, though. You talk to Democrats and anybody who is involved in campaigns, who is watching this play out, recognize how important and how popular the pre-existing provisions are, this is a political attack ad into making Democrats are kind of licking their chops knowing that they are going to address this issue specifically. It will be interesting to see how the members stick with this vote going forward after the cast tomorrow.</s>LEMON: Everyone is watching. Pamela Brown, as if there's not enough happening on Capitol Hill already. Let's have the FBI Director James Comey defending how he handled the Clinton probe and his decision that he reopened the investigation back in October just days before the election. Here's how he described it.</s>JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: Look, this is terrible. It makes me mildly nauseous to think we might have had some impact on the election. But honestly, it wouldn't change the decision. Everybody who disagrees with me has to come back to October 28th with me and stare at this and tell me what you would do. Would you speak or would you conceal? And I could be wrong, but we honestly made a decision between those two choices that even in hindsight and this has been one of the world's most painful experiences, I would make the same decision. I would not conceal that on October 28th from the congress.</s>LEMON: So he is insisting Pamela, that he made the right choice. How do you explain not speaking publicly on the Trump campaign investigation at the same time?</s>PAMELA BROWN, CNN NEWSROOM SHOW HOST: that is the big question and he said, he claimed today during the testimony that he handled both of these high-profile probes consistently under the same principle that you don't acknowledge the existence of an investigation involving U.S. person and he said particularly with the Russia investigation, he described it as a classified counterintelligence investigation that opened up last July that was in its very early stages and he felt like he shouldn't talk about it publicly before the election. Of course, that is in contrast to how he handled the Hillary Clinton e-mail probe and he explained that by saying it was already public from the beginning with the candidate herself talking about her private e-mail server with a referral of this FBI investigation becoming public. Of course, he eventually, Don, did acknowledge the Trump campaign associates and Russia's possible connection that the FBI has been looking at this past March, nine months later after the FBI opened up its investigation. So his answer was a little bit muddled in trying to understand what that same principle was, Don.</s>LEMON: It was an interesting justification, a lot of people sort of boggled by that. Listen, CNN's also learning that President Obama's national security adviser Susan Rice is declining a request to testify on Capitol Hill in the Russian hacking next week. What do you know?</s>BROWN: So we've learned that through a letter that was obtained by CNN through her attorney that she has rejected this request for her to testify in front of senators next week on Capitol Hill, the same hearing that the former acting Attorney General Sally Yates and James Clapper will be testifying and basically she said that she learned from Senator Whitehouse, the Democratic Senator that he disagreed with Senator Graham's request for her to testify, that he didn't think it was pertinent to the topic at hand and she felt like it wasn't appropriate for her to testify so she rejected that request.</s>LEMON: Pamela Brown, thank you very much. Phil Mattingly from Capitol Hill, we will get back to both of them. I want to bring in CNN Chris Cillizza and also Gloria Borger, good evening to both of you. Where do we start in we'll start with health care. I'll start with Chris since he is right here with me. Republicans say they are going to vote tomorrow. They can repeal and replace Obamacare. What turned this around for the president?</s>CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: First of all, important to understand this is sort of repeal and replace. They are not repealing the whole thing but for the most part --</s>LEMON: It's similar to Obamacare, isn't it?</s>CILLIZZA: There's a lot in there that remains with Obamacare. They are not gutting this and putting their own bill in. How did Donald Trump or Paul Ryan get the vote? You know, when you say here's $8 billion to fund these high-risk pools, which was the concern, had been the concern, $8 billion solved some problems. I think also what they thought was, we're two, three votes one way or the other on this. It's going to be close. The only way that we're going to make a decision is to say there's going to be a vote. Because you put it off, put it off, you put it off.</s>LEMON: But, again, $8 billion. And wasn't the question the problem money at the end of the day?</s>CILLIZZA: To your point, Don, the whole question here is the way in which they got the freedom caucus to be on board with this. They weren't on board in the first place. The way they got them on board was to say, ok, Obamacare mandated insurance companies cover pre- existing conditions. We're going to say that states can waive that. The issue if you do that is now, how do people with pre-existing conditions get covered? They go into these high-risk pools. You take $8 billion and help minimize those cost that is how you build that patch work that they think it would get them to 216.</s>LEMON: We had this discussion with Austin Goolsbee and Stephen Moore and he said, yeah, they should be put in that separate category and Austin Goolsbee said that is a really expensive category to be in and once you're in that category, you're always in that category. Gloria, let's take a step back here, did President Trump make this happen with these calls and visits to members who had once said no?</s>GLORIA BORGER, AMERICAN POLITICAL PUNDIT JOURNALIST AND COLUMNIST: Look, I think the president wants a win and I think he deserves credit here for trying to get one and so did the vice president. You saw the vice president up on the hill today. And, you know, the president is not ideological the way lots of members of the freedom caucus are. That means he is not as conservative as a lot of them are. He was looking for a way to kind of bridge the gap between the moderates and the conservatives. And I think one of the reasons that this could get done tomorrow -- and by the way, I reached out to the White House chief of staff Reince Priebus tonight who told me they are optimistic about getting this done. But not to be too cynical about it, one of the reasons that they might get this done is because there's no congressional budget office score on this. We do not know how much it's going to cost. And we don't know how many people will be uninsured or will lose insurance as a result of this. You remember, last time we went around, you know, the track on this --</s>LEMON: 4 million or something?</s>BORGER: 24 million people losing insurance and that were one of the reasons a lot of Republicans backed away from it because that was really bad news for them.</s>LEMON: Yes.</s>BORGER: And at this point, you know, you have the major health care lobbying groups, like American cancer society, the American medical association, not to mention the AARP against this. So if they get this done quickly before members go home from recess, before everybody's had a chance to even read the bill --</s>LEMON: I was going to say, this is like Nancy Pelosi. We have to pass the bill before we know what's in it.</s>BORGER: Right.</s>LEMON: And essentially they could pass this bill before knowing what's in it.</s>BORGER: Right. And the reason is that speed is in their own self- interests.</s>LEMON: Got it.</s>BORGER: It's not a great way to run a railroad, obviously. But that is the way they'll get this done.</s>LEMON: Let's move on, because we have so many topics. Gloria, I want you to weigh in on this. This is part of the Russia investigation. I spoke with Pamela just moments ago about this. One of the key figures in Comey's current investigation is former national security adviser Michael Flynn.</s>BORGER: Right.</s>LEMON: You have new reporting on him. What can you tell us?</s>BORGER: Well, I wrote a column today about the vetting process of Michael Flynn. And I will tell you what I learned. One is that at a meeting General Flynn had with members of the transition committee as well as Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, he was asked which three jobs he would like and he said Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and National Security Adviser. The problem with that, Don, is that he wasn't on the transition's list for any of those jobs, including National Security Adviser. But then the transition got fired, if you'll recall, Chris Christie and the rest of the transition got fired and who becomes the first big presidential appointment? General Flynn to become National Security Adviser and I was told that by people who were involved in the transition, that he had never even had a cursory vet beyond a public vet and we've heard what the administration has said is that the Obama administration vetted him. These people said of course that is not enough when you're appointing somebody to be a national security adviser.</s>LEMON: Yeah.</s>BORGER: So it was woefully inadequate.</s>LEMON: All right now there is a lot talk about Chris, the wall.</s>CILLIZZA: Yes.</s>LEMON: Something we saw today at the White House briefing room, which is very interesting, it's similar to what we saw yesterday but this one was even --</s>CILLIZZA: Spicier, if you will. I've been working on that for an hour.</s>LEMON: Good. Getting grilled by a Breitbart reporter over building the border wall, take a look, whether it's a fence or not. Here it is.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why is the government focused so much on existing border security measured rather than fighting for the wall that he promised that he would build?</s>SPICER: This is the kind of barrier that exists throughout the country. You see a place where cars can literally create little things and drive over. Places that can get burrowed under. That one they've cut through. And to replace this with 20-foot-high bollard wall will protect our country, something that the DHS has designated the most effective way to do this.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are those fences or walls?</s>SPICER: That is called a bollard wall. That is called a levee wall. There are various types of walls that can be built. Under the legislation that was just passed, it allows us to do just that. That is called a levee wall on the left. That is called a bollard wall.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So it's a levee wall?</s>SPICER: That is what it's actually called. That is the name of it.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's fencing. Not a wall.</s>SPICER: No. No. In this current bill, it allows us to do the following. What we've done is taken the tools that we have -- and if you look at that one in particular, you have a chain link fence which is at the southern border. That is down there now. We are able to go in there and instead of having a chain link fence replace it with that bollard wall. Hold on. Jim, we're going to take turns. Just to be clear, because Charlie asked the same thing so I'll give you help on this one, this is the 2017 budget. The president -- this is a down payment on what the president is going to prioritize in the 2018 budget that starts October 1st.</s>LEMON: I'm sorry.</s>CILLIZZA: Are you all right?</s>LEMON: It's -- this is better than "SNL." if you look it up, it's called a bollard fence and a levee fence. It is not a wall.</s>CILLIZZA: Two things. I guarantee you Sean Spicer didn't think he'd be getting into the technical aspects of walls versus fences. Number two, this is spin. President Trump asked for -- demanding $1.4 billion in funding for the wall. Not a wall. Not a bollard fence, a wall, a big, beautiful wall. He backed down from that because he knew that that would shut the government down. He smartly and his advisers said it's not smart to pick this fight now. They are trying to muddy the waters. We're going to put up these bigger steel fences or walls. So technically, we're winning. The truth of the matter is, in that funding bill, there is no money for the border wall. That is an indisputable fact.</s>LEMON: Gary Tuchman did a great job earlier of explaining it, Gloria.</s>BORGER: He did.</s>LEMON: The fencing part was part of a construction site that had nothing to do with the border wall. The wall part is part of a repair, a normal repair of the border fence that George W. Bush allocated and was re-upped with the Obama administration and has nothing to do with the Trump administration. This is not the big, beautiful wall that the Trump administration or President Trump promised. This is spin.</s>BORGER: I want to know, where is Mexico in all of this?</s>LEMON: And they are not paying for it.</s>BORGER: Because it was Mexico originally that was going to pay for the big beautiful wall. And we haven't heard a lot about Mexico paying for this wall. In fact, you know, the administration is still saying, although they were smart, as Chris says, in taking the money out of this spending bill, because they didn't want to shut the government down, but we -- they're still going to have to ask for an awful lot of money for this. They are also -- how are they going to pay for tax reform? They've just added money into this health care replacement. There are a lot of things that eventually add up and you're talking real money here. And some Republicans that have been worshipping at the shrine of the deficit reduction are going to start complaining that they can't afford everything.</s>LEMON: Chris, Gloria, thank you.</s>CILLIZZA: Sure.</s>BORGER: Thanks.</s>LEMON: I enjoyed the conversation. When we come back, more on our breaking news, the White House is set to vote tomorrow to repeal and replace Obamacare. But to Republicans have the votes to pass their bill?