bring moments like this to every family. shop top-brand appliances including kenmore at sears. ♪ >> announcer: "this week" with george stephanopoulos starts right now. the president takes a victory lap. >> the collusion delusion is over. >> democrats are pushing back. >> we're going to let the mueller report. >> show us the report. >> they've seen opening on health care. >> the republican party will be known as the party of health care. and immigration at the president threatens to close the border. >> the president is playing a cheap political game. >> so, will president trump follow through on his border threat and at what costs? without a gop plan to replace obamacare, will the president's push to terminate the affordable care act backfire?

and what will the mueller report reveal once it's made public? those questions and more for acting white house chief of staff mick mulvaney. and this is our moment of truth. >> beto makes it official. what's next to jump in? >> i'm open to all options. we'll talk live to amy klobuchar who's already in the race. plus, jussie smollett stunner. >> i have been truthful and consistent since day one. >> from top to bottom this isn't on the level. >> was this a miscarriage of justice? who's telling the truth? insight and analysis from our powerhouse roundtable. good morning. welcome to "this week." the president is feeling vindicated, relishing robert mueller's no collusion conclusion. the special counsel's 22-month

investigation determined russia interfered in the 2016 election but did not collude with trump's campaign, putting a damper on the democratic drumbeat for impeachment. but was the president's rush to claim victory too much too soon? attorney general william barr has announced plans to release the mueller report in the coming weeks. and the nearly 400-page report may reveal perhaps most importantly why the special counsel chose not to exonerate the president on obstruction of justice. in the meantime, president trump is already picking new fights, threatening to close the southern border as soon as this week. if mexico doesn't stop migrants from entering the u.s. the number of people illegally crossing the border in a single day has hit its highest point in over a decade. even jeh johnson who served as president obama's ho homeland security secretary calls that a crisis.

raising questions not only about trump's policy but what democrats will do about it. the president also reigniting the health care debate, attempting to strike down obamacare through the courts. right now, neither the administration or republican leaders in congress have a viable option on the table. putting it front and center for the 2020 campaign. joining us now president trump's acting chief of staff mick mulvaney. thank you for joining us. the president has said over and over again that he is okay with the mueller report being released, because of those public statements. attorney general bill barr said he won't submit the white house for a privileged review, can you assure us that the american people that the president will not change his mind on this, that he won't first ask to see that report before being released? >> from the very beginning, we have said that mr. barr gets to

handle it. that's how the law works. mr. barr made it clear that he's going to release it to congress before he shows it to us. that's his decision. we'll let the system work. keep in mind, this is an extremely thorough report, it took two years, hundreds of people, thousands of subpoenas, it worked the way it was supposed to work. we don't think it should have taken place in first place, but since it did we're glad as it's thorough as it was. it said there was no collusion or obstruction. we're happy that it's over. at the same time not surprised by the conclusions because it's exactly what we said it was going to be. so, if mr. barr wants to show it to congress first, he's going to do it. if he's going to redact part of it, he is. that's how the system is supposed to work. very happy to let the system play out the way the law intended. >> so, there's no question that barr quotes mueller directly in saying that he did not find that there was collusion between the

campaign and the russians, but why do you and why does the president say that mueller found no obstruction? in fact, he makes no such statement, let's look at his exact words. this as quoted by bill barr, while this report doesn't conclude president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him. so, the president's out there saying full exoneration. the words are does not exonerate him. >> keep in mind, i think that's a pulled quote from the mueller report. that's not barr's interpretation. >> yes, that's right. >> keep in mind, that's not what these documents do. when you do an investigation like this, there are two outcomes, either indictments come down or it quietly goes away. what you'll see here is mueller saying, you know what i'm going to let barr call this one.

he had plenty of evidence on collusion, absolutely not. he punted over to barr, again, that's the way the system can and does work. it says he and rod rosenstein, up until last week was a darling of the left, found that not a single piece of conduct, not a single act that constituted obstruction. that's why we're absolutely comfortable saying that the president has been fully exonerated. yes, mueller does use those words. but, again, those words you would typically find in this type of investigation. >> but the president's saying that the special counsel exonerated when the special counsel said he didn't exonerate him. let me ask you, another thing that the democrats are asking for here, in addition to the full release of the report is the underlying materials, but there's one thing that the white house could release right now and that is the president's written q&a, you know, he answered questions in writing from the special counsel. will the white house release

those answers? >> keep in mind, we followed the law. we'll continue to do that. congress, mostly democrats, all democrats in congress want to keep going. our attitude is sort of, enough is enough. you had your two years, you had all this money, you had all this opportunity to look everywhere and you did and there's nothing there. there's no there there. it's time to move on. enough of this. apparently democrats refuse to accept that. we don't know what more mueller could have done. in fact, in another part of mr. barr's letter, you see that they gave the president zero special treatment. there was a lot of conjecture that somehow the president would get special treatment about the doj not indicting a sitting president. the barr letter makes it very, very clear that special treatment wasn't applied here. there's still no grounds for any criminal charges. there's no collusion or obstruction. i know a lot of friends in the other party are still upset that

donald trump is president. but it's time to move on. because enough is enough when it comes to collusion and obstruction. >> but i asked about the president's written answers, will he release those? >> mr. barr is going to decide what he releases. congress doesn't get to do criminal investigations. that's not an article 1 authority. the law has been followed. again, we didn't think it was necessary in the first place, we think the basis for bringing the special investigation was wrong. but now that it's done it's been done properly. congress needs to find something else to worry about. >> so, i want to play what the president said to me about the democrats shortly after the release of barr's letter. >> there are a lot of people out there who have done some very evil things, i'd say treasonous things against our country, those people certainly will be looked at. >> and here's what the president said just last month in his state of the union address. >> we must reject the politics

of revenge, resistance and retribution, and embrace the boundless potential of cooperation, compromise and the common good. >> so, why is the president talking about his opponents being evil and treasonous and suggesting that he wants revenge or retribution, isn't that directly in contrast to what he told the american people in state of the union? >> you can make the case the reason it played out the way it did was that there was a small group of people within the law enforcement community, specifically the fbi and doj, who really did want to overturn the election. they were completely stunned by the fact that donald trump won. we call it trump derangement syst syndrosi syndro syndrome. they can't accept the fact that he's president. before the election that

actually set the table to try and prevent him from becoming president. if that happened, that's a challenge to our republic, the likes of which we haven't seen for a long time. the president would only be doing his job if he tries to make sure whether or not that happened and if it did, to make sure that people who committed those acts are brought to justice. that's not revenge. that's simply protecting the democracy. you heard the president said multiple times, it should never happen again to any president, republican, democrat, or whatever, you can't have the state, the deep state, have the ability to try and overturn an election. >> rand paul suggested that congress should actually investigate barack obama. does the president think that's a good idea? >> i haven't paid close attention to this. but there have been some folks

who have suggested that perhaps folks in the oval office, certainly in the west wing, might have known about this at a very early stage. that's conjecture on my part. if we do investigate, i think you need a full investigation to find out exactly who made these decisions to try and overturn an election. okay, let's move on. the president threatened closing, shutting down entirely the mexican border as soon as this upcoming week. he obviously made the same threat back in december. what would it take for him not to do that this week? >> something dramatic. keep in mind, when jeh johnson says it's a crisis, i hope people now believe us. they didn't believe us. democrats didn't believe us a month ago or two months ago. what's happening at the border is a humanitarian crisis and a security crisis. i'm very glad to see that jeh johnson is admitting we were

right and people coming across this border this month, that's a crisis. why are we talking about closing the border? because not for spite and not to try and undo what's happening, but to simply say, look, we need the people from the ports of entry to go out and patrol in the desert where we don't have any wall. we hate to say we told you so but we told you so. we need border security and we're going to do the best we can with what we have. the democrats won't give us any additional money to do this, additional people, and they won't change the law that's acting as this giant magnet for people from south and central america to come into this country. faced with those limitations the president will do everything he can. >> the mexican foreign minister has responded to this, to the president's words by saying, mexico does not act on the basis of threats. your response to the mexican government?

>> the same response we give to all of our friends to the south, which is, we need your help. we need more action. mexico could be doing more. el salvador could be doing more. honduras could be doing more. we do give these countries hundreds of millions of dollars in aid. we need them to do more. mexico has taken some good steps. i think you saw a record number of people return to mexico. but when you're dealing with 100,000 people a month, taking a couple hundred people a day doesn't help the problem. we need northern triangle countries to do more about not allowing their people in mexico. they can help us. we need them to do that. if not, it makes little sense for us to continue to send them aid. >> can you explain to me, kirstjen nielsen visited central america this week, she met with representatives of the mexican government. she actually praised mexico for

helping on this issue, and announced an historic agreement, her words, historic agreement with the governments of central america, the northern triangle to deal with this problem. literally the next day, the president announces he's going to shut down the border and he's going to take back all aid or stop all aid to central america. how is the president at odds with his own secretary of homeland security? >> he's not -- >> he's not? she said she praised mexico, mick. >> that's fine. kirstjen is right to thank them for their words, but we need action. you can make all the promises you want. when you're still sending 100,000 people across the southern border, actions speak louder than words. we need their assistance. >> the other thing that secretary nielsen has asked for

is authority from congress to detain children for longer period of time, you know, the issue with the court decision that you can't do it more than 20 days. she wants to be able to detain the children with their families for a longer period of time, these asylum cases could take years? >> listen, dhs is in a pinch a bunch of different ways. they're dealing with unaccompanied children. they're only allowed to hold those children for 72 hours. hhs doesn't have any place to put them. dhs cannot release them, because they're unaccompanied children. they can't send them by law back to the countries they came from. dhs has gone to congress saying, look, we need legal help. give us the right to return these children to their country. right now, they're in a box. congress can fix this. but, again, when you have a democratic party, not

able to admit the facts, when you have such a disconnect like that, it's clear that the democrats aren't going to help us. it shouldn't surprise anybody that we're turning to what people think are extreme measures. the way it's supposed to work is not working. we're supposed to fix this by changing the laws, democrats won't do that, we're looking at closing off aid and closing the borders. >> another the big announcement from the white house is joining us, asking the courts to essentially terminate all of obamacare. i want to ask you, 8.5 million people are enrolled in obamacare in 2019. you also had another 61 million at the very least who have pre-existing conditions and have been able to get health insurance in part because of the guarantee under obamacare even if they have pre-existing conditions. also, about 6 million americans

who are 26 and younger are on their parents' health plans because of obamacare. can you guarantee that if you succeed in court, those tens of millions of people who have health care coverage, guaranteed because of obamacare, won't lose their coverage? >> yes, let's talk about pre-existing conditions. every single plan that the white house has put together has covered pre-existing conditions. every single plan considered by the senate covers pre-existing conditions. the debate about pre-existing conditions is over. both parties support them. anyone telling you anything differently is lying to you for political gain. the debate becomes how do you best do it? obamacare is not working. even democrats admit it, which is why this week it didn't get a lot of coverage, they introduced their own fix bill.

because they know obamacare doesn't work. those numbers you gave are accurate. keep in mind, you keep those people together, more people than that, most of them in the middle class paid a fine last year so they didn't have to take obamacare, people are actually paying money to the government not to have to take obamacare, that's a symptom of something that's desperately broken. we would love to work with the democrats on fixing that. we don't think the democrats will work with us unless this court case proceed and obamacare is found to be unconstitutional. which is what we believe. republicans think obamacare is unconstitutional. the position we took this week in court this week is correct. we look forward to working with democrats. and i want to ask you about special olympics. obviously, the budget called for eliminating federal funds for the special olympics. betsy devos said that she was working behind the scenes to protect that funding.

the president overruled his people to guarantee that funding. if not betsy devos and not the president, who exactly was pushing to defund the special olympics? >> keep in mind, debates like this happen every single day in washington, d.c., about various policies. we have disagreements all the time about policy. i would hope folks appreciate the fact that we're having critical review of how we spend government money. what you saw this week is the way the system is supposed to work. the president made the final decision. he actually listened to the public, the public said, you know what, mr. president, we don't like that proposal. in your budget. he said, you're right, i'll change it. this is how the process is supposed to work. this is the president's budget. it's not the omb budget. it's the president's budget. keep in mind, the budget is $1.3

trillion, of which special olympics is about 17 of 1 million 300,000. the system worked like it's supposed to. the president made the decision. it's the right decision. he did it because he listened to people. i'm happy to see that process work out. i think the end result is the right one. >> acting chief of staff mick mulvaney, by the way, are you going to lose the acting in your title? >> listen, we all serve at the pleasure of the president. i enjoy going to work every single day. he enjoys having me there. >> we'll call you today, acting chief of staff mick mulvaney. >> thank you, jon. up next, we'll talk to amy klobuchar. we'll be right back. klobuchar. we'll be right back. please have a seat. it inspires discussions... thank you very much for joining us today. if you'll all turn to page 1, we can get started. ...showcases the best ideas and motivates decisions.

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welcome back to "this week." there are more than a dozen democrats officially vying for the chance to take on president trump in 2020. one of them, senator senator amy klobuchar of minnesota. thank you for joining us, senator klobuchar. i want to start with the justice department saying that they're going to release the mueller report in the coming weeks. one thing we already know about the report, because it was directly quoted in barr's letter, you know, talking about the principal findings is this, the investigation did not establish that members of the trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the russian government in its election

interference activities. you obviously, i know, want to see the full report. but do you have any reason to doubt that principal conclusion? and that's the big one, that there was no collusion between the trump campaign and the russians. >> i want to see the report. all we have is a four-page summary and i think the major reason that we need to see the report right now, in addition to getting all of the details, is to know what we should do to protect our elections and to protect our democracy going into 2020. in the report, they definitively in the four-page letter, barr definitively said that we know that russia tried to hack into our elections, they did hack into campaigns -- that they spread propaganda, that's 300, 400 pages of this. we immediate to see. i want to pass my bipartisan bill to get backup paper

ballots, want to make sure we have audits of our elections. holding those social media companies responsible so they tell us what these ads are and these are all things that we can do right now. that report is going to a major way to convince my colleagues to move ahead on security of our nation. lot of things thrown at this report. you got the public, over 80% of them in a poll just taken yesterday that say they want to see this full report. i'm glad they're going to release it. i hope they don't redact major portions that will stop us from being able to understand what happened. >> certainly a much more to learn but we do know directly from mueller, his words, quoted exactly, that he found no evidence of a conspiracy between members of the campaign or the president and the russia government, do you accept that conclusion?

fully understanding you want to see much more, but do you accept that conclusion from the special counsel? >> jonathan, i'm a former prosecutor and i believe in looking at evidence. i don't have the report. i think it is important that the justice department announce that they're going to give us the report and then i can make that assessment myself. i think the main thing here is, the public wants to see the report, 420 members of the house of representatives unanimously voted they want to see the report. let's see the report. but the other thing we have seen being out there in iowa, being in new hampshire, being in south carolina, and in omaha this last weekend, is that people also are most alarmed not only by the chaos that we're seeing in our justice system but what they're most alarmed about is just this

week the president's justice department announced they're going to repeal the affordable care act. which means, people will be kicked off their insurance for pre-existing conditions. condition trar to what mr. mulvaney just said. while i do get random questions here and there about the mueller report at town hall meetings, honestly what i really hear about is, economics and people concern about their livelihood for their family and most significantly, are they going to lose their health care? >> let's talk about health care. nancy pelosi came out with the house democrats' plan to preserve and shore-up the affordable care act. but bernie sanders had an you have a similar plan in the senate. but bernie sanders had an interesting take on this idea of protecting and shoring up obamacare. >> do you support legislation that the house produced today? >> i support the single-payer program -- >> you don't support that incremental reform? >> no. >> what do you make of that senator sanders saying he doesn't want to protect

obamacare? >> i'm open at looking at senator sanders' proposal. but i am someone that wants to see immediate change and help people to afford their health care. so, what i would suggest is, first of all, all-out opposition to the administration's plan to kick people off their health care. then you see the affordable care act as a beginning and not the end. so, what can you do? first of all, you can put in cautionary reassurance immediately, shown in many states including red states to bring down premiums for people. then as president, i'd immediately put in a public option proposal to congress and that could be for medicaid or medicare. then, finally, pharmaceutical prices have skyrocketed. simple drugs like insulin, diabetics not able to afford them. because it's 12 a month for

something that used to be 8 -- so, taking on the pharmaceutical companies by saying, you know what, no, you don't own washington even though you have two lobbyists for every member of congress. you don't own washington. i'd make sure that we have negotiations for prices under medicare, that we bring in less expensive drugs from canada. >> you came out with a big plan on infrastructure, you said it's your top priority. why infrastructure over health care or immigration? or any of the other issues. >> it's not infrastructure over health care, jonathan, i have been out a lot on the campaign trail a lot as you can see. it's not infrastructure over health care. we can do two things at once. to me, infrastructure is an economic need. infrastructures mean things like

making sure we have drinking water that is safe in flint. it means making sure those floods in iowa we have a levee system that works and we have protection for our farmers. it means a transit system that works, it means roads and bridges. literally, i'm about a mile away from where that bridge fell down in the middle of mississippi river, that was because we weren't putting enough money into our infrastructure. this is an economic problem for our country. the president has never really put together the coalition or the funding to get it down. i have the funding. as president, i'll get it done. >> you want to raise the corporate tax rate, which the republicans just cut, that might be a heavy lift. but let me ask you -- >> look at what they did, jonathan, they went down to 21% and every point, even to put it at 25%, which is a significant decrease from where it was, we

would bring in $400 billion to pay for roads, bridges and schools. that's a lot of money. or, how about the way they did the overseas ince? instead of taking an average rate, they took an average rate instead of having assessing for each country. guess what that means, going back to each country, $150 billion in savings. all of these benefits went to the wealthy instead of the people that have their house 2 1/2 miles away from a river who now have been flooded and lost everything in their lives. that's a problem in this country, that's a value statement. >> i want to ask you about the new allegations against former vice president biden. he's facing an allegation from a former democratic candidate who he campaigned for in 2014, who said that biden kissed her on the back of her head. put his hands on her shoulder

and quote, i had never experienced anything so blatantly inappropriate and unnerving before. he was there to promote me as the right person for the lieutenant governor job. instead he made he feel uneasy, gross and confused. former vice president biden is out with a statement this morning, he says in many years on the campaign trail and in public life, i have offered countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support and comfort and not once did i believe i acted inappropriately. it's suggested that i did so. i will listen respectfully. but it was never my intention. so, what do you make of these allegations? is this the kind of thing that could be disqualifying for biden? >> i have not read her interview but i know the vice president. he addressed it there in that statement. he'll continue to address it if he decides to get into this race. >> he's also one who has said in

situations like this is that the default is to believe the woman, the accuser, do you believe lucy flores? >> i have no reason not to believe her, jonathan. and i think we know from campaigns and from politics that people raise issues and address them and that's what he'll have to do with the voters if he gets into the ration. >> okay, also you're a former prosecutor, i want to ask you before you go about the jussie smollett case. charges dropped. former prosecutor, what do you make of it? >> i don't understand why the prosecutors could not explain why they did what they did. i don't think anything prevents them. they brought these charges. it's a major public case in which major resources are expended. i would agree with the mayor here. it makes no sense to me. you have an obligation when you represent the public to explain what you're doing. they made a decision to bring

those charges and they made a decision to make those charges public. then they need to describe why they decided to go the other way and they didn't do that. i think that leaves the public hanging. one of the reasons i'm running for president. i think we need people to understand what you're going to do, stop the chaos and just be clear with people and get things done. whether it's criminal charge or getting an infrastructure plan. let's be honest with people, look them in the eye, tell them what you're going to do. that's what i've done my whole life. >> all right, senator amy klobuchar, thank you for joining us on "this week." >> thank you. and when we come back -- our roundtable takes on the 2020 race, immigration and health care. we'll be right back. 20 race, immigration and health care. we'll be right back. with soft surfaces that trap odors and release them back into the room. so, try febreze fabric refresher.

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my dbut now, i take used tometamucil every day.sh it traps and removes the waste that weighs me down, so i feel lighter. try metamucil, and begin to feel what lighter feels like. paper prepares us please have a seat. it inspires discussions... thank you very much for joining us today. if you'll all turn to page 1, we can get started. ...showcases the best ideas and motivates decisions. we reported a net revenue of $100 million. well, how does that sound? we're in! when making a big impression matters, use paper. paper and packaging. how life unfolds. comcast business built the nation's largest gig-speed network. then went beyond. beyond chasing down network problems. to knowing when and where there's an issue. beyond network complexity. to a zero-touch, one-box world. optimizing performance and budget.

beyond having questions. to getting answers. "activecore, how's my network?" "all sites are green." all of which helps you do more than your customers thought possible. comcast business. beyond fast. cake in the conference room! showing 'em you're ready to be your own boss. that's the beauty of your smile. bring out the best in it with crest 3d white. crest removes 95% of surface stains... in just three days. i always say they say the elite. they're the elite. i'm not. well, i have a better education than them. i'm smarter than them. i went to the best schools they didn't. much more beautiful house. much more beautiful apartment. much more beautiful everything. and i'm president and they're not, right?

all right, on that note, let's bring in the roundtable. jonathan swan, national political reporter for axios. ayesha rascoe. white house reporter for national public radio. david bossie, citizens united president and former trump deputy campaign manager. heidi heitkamp. former democratic senator from north dakota. let me start with you, david, you traveled with the president to grand rapids, flew on air force one. as a matter of fact, i think we have a picture of you with him backstage. i'm a little confused, does he feel vindicated or hellobent on revenge? because i'm kind of hearing both things from him. >> both things can be true, right, he feels completely vindicated that after two years of lies by the mainstream media and by the democrats in congress that he has been completely exonerated from this fake russian hoax investigation, which all americans now know was not true.

so, the president wants to move on policy but he also wants to make sure that the important questions get answered. that's why what did barack obama know it and when he did it? what did the fbi do with this fake russia dossier? how did it get to the fbi? we all know the answers to some of these questions. i think those are the important ones. lot of smoke here to quote james comey. we need an investigation of the investigators. >> so, it sounds like he's not ready to move on. >> i think that's true. first off, just a moment for common sense, can we all wait until we read the report and not the four-page summary? the principal findings of the report. let's read the report and if the report is as the president has described it, and it exonerates him 100%, then fine, he should want everyone to be able to read it. the president is the one who's

not moving on. let's talk about policy, let's talk about the border, let's talk about the budget deficit. the president now has hammered away at a second investigation that's going to suck up the energy from important work we need to do. >> is he serious about investigating the democrats? rand paul was out saying obama should be investigated. >> absolutely, they're serious about this. i spoke to lindsey graham about this last week. lindsey graham was playing golf in florida in palm beach and he promised, i promised the president i would look into the fisa process. within the context he was trying to calm the president down. don't worry, just be happy. take the victory lap. trump is frustrated. he's angry and he wants answers on this stuff. they're dead serious. lind see graham is going to use judiciary in this way and you'll have support from certain people in this house, mark meadows,

for the investigation. >> ayesha, are you struck that -- the president talking about his victory lap, his advisers were clearly giddy with what they felt vindication. the president's almost first reaction was anger. >> i don't know that's quite surprising having seen president trump's history. it does kind of negate the argument, when you say i don't want any other president to go through, president obama was a president. you want him to be investigated. you want to continue the investigations. it kind of undercuts that argument that we want to take politics out of this when you say let's go after the other side now. that's the question. >> i understand but if you look -- let's talk about adam schiff for a second and nadler, in the house, these guys are unhing unhinged. their hatred for this president is greater than their love for country in my opinion. these folks have lost their way.

little adam schiff, this guy has lost his credibility. i believe you'll see the intelligence communities stop wanting to give this liar who uses intelligence as a political -- that's what's gone on in the house. >> i think be careful what you ask for. if you want to continue this, that's the last thing the president should want. in spite of this, already people in this country don't believe the report. everybody's become so, you know, i got my camp, that's what's i'm going to believe. it's time to do policy, fix problems. >> it's nice to say it once you guys -- >> that's what called leadership. leadership, let's put it aside and address the problems of this country. that's not he's doing. he's out promoting grievance and that's not good for the country and it makes people even more cynical than what they are, david. >> having been lied by the main

stream media. >> open up the report. david, open up the report. let's all see it. >> first of all, we'll get to see what we'll see from the report. we have executive privilege issues. >> why executive privilege? >> do you think the president is going to balk at this? he seemed to hint at a tweet over the weekend, maybe we give them nothing. what was he talking about? >> i wouldn't give congress anything -- it's illegitimate investigation -- >> they have to give congress. >> i wouldn't give them the time of day, jon. >> this congress. >> why exert executive privilege if you want the public to see report -- >> i don't know what they're going to do, i take that seriously. >> bossie wants privilege review. >> i think there has to be a

privilege review. irresponsible not to. >> why? >> so, let me ask, the president also surprised a lot of people by coming out for this move in the courts to terminate obamacare, all of obamacare. jonathan, you remember what kevin mccarthy said about what health care did to republicans during the course of the midterms. let's play a little bit of it. >> there's one issue we lost overwhelmingly, it was health care by 66 points. now, you and others reported that mccarthy actually called trump and said, don't do this. >> mccarthy had a private conversation with the president which we reported in which he said he doesn't understand why they're doing this, that it makes no sense, that after an election in which they got absolutely crunched on this issue, you know, why would you do that. i have done a bit more reporting since then. lot of people -- republicans on

the hill assuming this was a mick mulvaney puppet string. that's not the case. this is really trump. something he thinks they absolutely thinks they need to hammer on and some of his staff are now coming around to his point of view on that. >> this goes back to this idea of president trump feels like he has to keep his promises. they promised to repeal obamacare and they haven't done it. that's why he keeps talking about john mccain after he's been dead for months. this is something that he continues to go back to, it's not really ideological, it's this idea of i have to get this done the problem is, republicans don't have a plan, they're divided. >> no one thinks this lawsuit is going to succeed, they all think it's going to fail. whatever, i kept my promise. >> we know obamacare is broken. we know that obamacare is not working. the democrats are moving for medicare for all. by the way, jon, ten years ago when we had the debate over

obamacare, we had the debate and conservatives said it's the first step toward socialized medicine. the medicare for all is the next step towards socialized medicine. this is part and parcel of what the left always wanted for america. >> let's talk about politics. i have as a college student i have the protection of my parents' health insurance. i have protection against pre-existing conditions. this administration now has said, we're going to take them away from you. we'll promise to give them back, this is horrible politics. i think that there are good things and bad things in the health care law. we need to stop politicizing health care. it's too important. >> we need transparency. we need competition. we need insurance across state lines. >> you don't have a plan. you never had a plan. go to the congress with a plan. instead of going to the court.

>> let's get to 2020. because it's not just donald trump. we had beto o'rourke announced. he's become the latest. big announcement in el paso. what's your assessment? it's interesting if you look at the polls, we had a poll out this week that looks at the, you know, big name recognition thing. you see biden at the top. you see bernie sanders. you see beto o'rourke. would you have predicted three white men would be at top of the democratic field now with a big percentage of the vote? >> this to me speaks more to name i.d. than anything else. we're so early. donald trump hadn't even announced at this point in the last cycle. like, we forget that. these numbers can move pretty quickly. if biden gets in, he's potentially at his high-water mark right now. >> and maybe going down.

>> well, he has a lot -- biden has a lot that he's going to have to answer for and deal with. these questions aren't going to go away. this is something that he's going to have to kind of answer for and the question is -- >> these lucy flores allegations. >> the lucy flores allegations. the question is, when you get in, more of this stuff is going to come out. what does that mean for him and his legacy? >> joe biden has to be concerned, does he want to be remembered as barack obama's vice president or does he want to be remembered as a another failed presidential candidate? he has a lot of issues. i think this story about ms. flores is the tip of iceberg. i think that's a high fastball to him. it's also the corruption issues joe biden will have to deal with ukraine and other places. >> i'm with jonathan. ncaa if you could predict who's going to win you'd have

billionaires in this country. we're going to find out who's going to be winning. it may not be duke at the end. >> what do you make of the allegations against biden? >> i'm with ayesha. i think you need to be prepared to respond to them, but i think also -- i thought the vice president issued a thoughtful statement. i think he understands that there's going to be a level of scrutiny that maybe there hasn't been in the past and that you have to respond to these concerns. >> it was kind of a weird statement, wasn't it, if someone accuses of you coming up behind a young woman, holding their shoulders, sniffing their hair and kissing them, of course i didn't do that. i would never do anything like that. it was sort of this, i don't recall but, you know, i don't think i did it. >> i think it was honest. i think it was honest. i think it was an honest statement. >> even before this, didn't biden have problems?

anita hill said she never got an apology from joe biden. we saw biden actually supported an amendment to nullify roe v wade. we've seen that he floated the idea of running as a ticket and we saw that didn't go over well. pretty tough rollout. >> i mean, i think that kind of floating stacy abrams without her buy-in. it was so tone-deaf, whoever's idea that was was completely tone-deaf, especially when it seems like you're pushing a black woman, a politician, very polished to the side and saying, be my number two, when she could run on her own. what was the thinking about it? >> this is an incredibly weak field from the republican standpoint. president donald trump is looking forward to this long and bloody contest. it will probably go to democratic convention.

we'll see how the democrat party handles what their business at the convention. >> final word. >> final word is that, wait, wait to see what happens. i think that trump should be afraid of anyone who's in this field. because he can't break 44% in the polls. >> all right, that's all the time we -- >> he hasn't broaden his base. >> okay. we'll be right back. thank you.

thank you for sharing part of your sunday with us. check out "world news tonight." and have a great day.

up next, pleading for justice. what his wife said he heard on the phone when attacked. good plormorning to you. 51 degrees. aother 15 degrees of warming today. it will be pretty fantastic. i have a look at close up diier, cooler and

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