Be purchased and what it will cover. Standby for that. And this what else is going on in the white house right now . New reports today from vanity fair that white house is once again in chaos and insiders are saying that the president is quote unquote unraveling. Even his former chief strategist voicing concern according to the report that the president has a 30 chance of finishing out his first term. And, then theres this while most of puerto rico is still without power and clean water, three weeks after hurricane maria, the president had this message today. We cannot keep fema, the military and the First Responders who have been amazing under the most difficult circumstances in puerto rico forever. Theres that message. The White House Press secretary quickly playing cleanup, quickly after, saying dont read too much into that effectively. Weve got a lot to cover. Begin with Kaitlan Collins at the white house. Caitlin, with re moments away now from President Trump signing this executive order. Tell us what this is about . So hes going to sign this executive order that relaxes the rules on these Small Companies that ban together to buy insurance in order to free them up from these regulations, and hes going to sign it in about 15 minutes in the white house in front of some Small Business owners, kate, but what this really is a larger effort is, is the president s first step in dismantling obamacare. Despite multiple efforts, congress has not been able to replace the Affordable Care act, to repeal the Affordable Care act, and the president has not hid his frustration over that, repeatedly calling out senator john mccain of arizona who famously voted no on a bill to do just that back in the summer, and the president even as recently as last night in an interview said that he sees this executive order as a way for him to take matters into his own hands frankly, since congress hasnt been able to do so. Kate . Yeah. But taking matters into his own hands is tough when there are so many examples well get into them of the president railing against the president doing just that, taking matters into their own hands and using executive orders. Also this, more and more reports coming out of white house in chaos, effectively. Vanity fair the latest pointing a pretty dark picture of what things are like in the west wing. Things have been tense. Theyve been tense essentially the entire time the president has been in office. Weve seen it ramped up lately with the fight between him and his secretary of state rex tillerson, after reports surfaced last week that tillerson referred to the president as a moron. Were actually learning more, that that came after a particularly tense meeting with the president at the pentagon that one official described to cnn as a, quote, rough day. Now the president denies that theres any rift between him and the secretary of state. He says that the press just doesnt understand their relationship, but some of those public disagreements have really spilled out into the public eye and then all of this comes as john kelly, the new chief of staff, his deputy, is leaving the white house. The president is going to announce this afternoon in a ceremony here at the white house that theyre going to nominate her to be the Department Homeland security secretary, a position left open and filled by acting secretary elaine duke since john kelly came over to the white house in july to replace Reince Priebus as chief of staff, but some are wondering what this could mean for john kellys future here in the west wing because this is someone shes worked at dhs before, has a long background in cyber security, and Kristjen Nielsen has been john kellys eyes and ears as he came in to quiet this really chaotic west wing and some people are speculating that it could mean that john kelly is not long for the job here because they dont see how he stays in this west wing without her by his side, kate. The intrigue. Caitlin, thank you so much. Were there. Were keeping our eye on the white house as i said for when the announcement comes and the president takes to make his executive order, sign this executive order. We have a lot of coverage on that coming up. With me to discuss everything, josh holmes, former chief of staff to senator mitch mcconnell, angela rye, former director of the Congressional Black Caucus and mark preston, cnns political analyst. Mark, i think weve gone over this before but start here, more talk of a white house influx, more talk of a president that cant be controlled. Gabe sherman in vanity fair kag unstable, unraveling. When things are going well in a white house do leaks like this happen . They do, but not at this pro penny and as vicious and were seeing right now. You will always have a disagreement in the white house about direction and policy but this has gotten very, very personal right now and for good reason. When donald trump, President Trump, took office, he was lauded for someone who likes to bring chaos in, he likes to create rivals to get the best results. However, let me just go over a list right now, kate, this is why were in chaos right now. National security adviser, chief of staff, senior adviser, two communications director, a press secretary, and your director of advance have all left the white house. Those are all your top aides. They are integral to trying to get things done and they have all left well not all of them, because the nsa director left for other reasons, but the others left because they couldnt get along with donald trump. Josh, sharon also citing bannon citing sources that bannons biggest concern wasnt impeachment of the president , but the 25th amendment where the v. P. And cabinet could determine that the president is unfit for office. Just lets be real, would the trump cabinet ever invoke, go through this process of the 25th amendment and try to get him removed . No, no. No, theres no chance of that ever happening. These are trump loyalists. Theyre in the job for a reason. You know, the consistency here is that drama follows wherever steve bannon is. The funny thing about this whole story in vanity fair its been a while since weve had a lot of palace intrigue. First eight months calling it intrigue is the most Important News here. Keep going. I love it. No. I mean for the first eight months while steve bannon was there, it was nothing but naval gazing and who did what within the white house and accusing each other of everything under the sun and for the last two months basically theyve been on the same page here. This is, obviously, a disruption if that. But i think by and large general kelly has done a lot to straight than out. I think thats a very fair point there, my friend, josh. Angela, today, as caitlin was laying out, you a new dhs secretary to be nominated. Shes john kellys deputy. Well respected, all across the board. But give me your take on this . Do you see this as a move that, a, an yacht goioutgoing kelly trying to give a top staffer a soft landing or b, a show of how powerful he is now and he is in the white house to stay . No, i think it may be that donald trump may have been fresh out of options as to who to put there. Theres a lot of backlash about a sheriff david clarke going there and i think since then, we havent really heard many ideas coming from donald trump about dhs, although he did kind of swipe at what their whole mission is with the fema tweet earlier. I would also say, that there are a lot of concerns from democrats, particularly, the topranking democrat on the Homeland Security committee, benry Benny Thompson who put out a statement calling into question the job she did and how accomplished she was under the bush administration. There is a challenge there but she is consistent with traditional republican picks and while you may be giving kelly some credit here, i think that it may just be he was fresh out of options. Either way, he has this option. This just in, i mentioned you mentioned talking about fema, angela, mark, we got this in, so the president tweeted this morning about puerto rico. We cannot keep fema, the military, First Responders who have been amazing under the most difficult circumstances in puerto rico, forever. The white house says basically dont read too much into that, reaffirming their commitment today to puerto rico, but the mayor of san juan, where theres been a lot of back and forth and tension with the president , just tweeted a couple things. Potus, your comments about puerto rico are becoming are unbecoming of a xhanzer in chief, seem more to come from a hater in chief and also it is not that you do not get it, you are incapable of fulfilling the moral imperative to help the people of puerto rico. Shame on you. Is this just i dont know, tell me, talk to me. Right. Well a couple things. One is, lets just compare his response to puerto rico this morning to what he said about texas and the days following the hurricane that hit texas. Well be with you today, tomorrow, well be with you until the end, pair a ra phasing it. And we heard essentially that from the Vice President. Right. About puerto rico as well. But but when it comes from the president s mouth, whether he knows it or not and i think he knows it, weve been giving him too much leeway in saying oh, hes just putting out statements here and there, the fact of the matter he knows what hes doing, when he likes the wick of a firecracker it is going to blow up and whats more disturbing from tweeting that this morning the last time i looked at it over 30,000 people liked it. Are you kidding me . 30,000 people liked the idea of pulling out of puerto rico right now where about 90 of the people are without electricity and for everybody out there that doesnt understand this, puerto rico is part of the United States. Right. Josh, and its not there is there are two separate things here, i think, right. Yeah. One is the president s statement, fema and First Responders cant stay there forever, thats correct. They cant stay there forever. Thats a true statement. Its maybe that the statement was made now. Yeah. You know, look, i think that the reality is, is what the president is talking about here, is a Real Infrastructure problem that they had in puerto rico long before they got hit by two hurricanes. I mean, weve had an economy down there that has been mismanaged to the hill for generations and theyve gotten to a point where their infrastructure is just flat broke. And these hurricanes have just devastated the island and i think the president and this administration have had a real commitment with fee in and First Responders to go down there. To this mayor, look, i think weve proven over the last week to ten days that this mayor sees a real political opportunity in attacking donald trump and theyve got 76 mayors that are on large part on the long side of the administration and one who is consistently taking the opportunity to make headlines whenever she gets a chance. Im not saying she doesnt have a legitimate gripe. There are people that are suffering, but i think fema has proven that theyve got a real commitment to try to make sure that we get everything back up and running in puerto rico. Angela . Yes. So let me first say, that that is remarkable. I dont know how thats remarkable. This yeah. Just let me finish. This is a mayor who wading in water what of it deep to save her waist deep to save her consti wepts in puerto rico while donald trump was doing whatever on twitter. To me this is interesting at a time when this this place is in crisis, he is continuing to nudge and to prod. It is a very, very delicate situation. People are suffering trauma right now and for him to take this opportunity to tell them that the resources, the only resources they have left to rely on, could be taken away from them at any moments notice is very, very scary and its unfortunate. That is the sign of a bully. That is a sign of someone who is unraveling. That is the sign of someone who needed a psychological evaluation to begin with, to be sworn into office and should still get one now. That is wrong. Like at there shouldnt be any partisanship attached to this. One other thing, the crisis in puerto rico could have been solved by these United States if we really cared about them to marks point, they are a part of the United States, and we turned a blind eye to that. That is the Republicanled Congress that refused to give them any type of debt relief when theyve been asking for it for several months before the crisis hit this. Are you and there was a manmade wait a minute. Go ahead. Are you aware that they passed a huge relief package within the last two years . Are you aware it wasnt sufficient . Are you aware it wasnt sufficient. Okay. Nothing ever is. But i but i think where we are right now is, i dont know, its time and place and tone and thats one of the things we can talk about because factually, factually, fema cant stay there forever. But theres a thing called empathy that comes with being empathy that comes with being the president. Where im trying not to read into a president ial tweet too much because we read into them too much all the time, when it comes to this issue, you did have the press secretary who then had to come out and say we reaffirm our commitment to puerto rico and be there for the long haul, theres something to that right, maybe it cant be summed up in 140 characters. A lot more to come. Thank you. Were standing by for this, the president of the United States, at the white house at the roosevelt room, expected to make a major move to dismantle obamacare. Taking matters into his own handses. Folks are gaths tlerg for the big moment the announcement President Trump set to speak any minute. 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Its got to be tide any minute now, President Trump will begin unwinding obamacare with the stroke of his pen. He is set to sign an executive order very shortly that will help trigger the biggest change to the Nations Health care system since he took office. Under the new rules that he will be putting in place through an executive action, Small Businesses, some individuals will have expanded access to cheaper plans that offer fewer protections. Groups will be able to Purchase Health care across state lines. This undermining the protections that people some people like about obamacare. This, of course, comes after republicans in congress, they failed to make good on their promise for seven years to repeal and replace obamacare. Joining me now is one person who helped craft obamacare, dr. Zika emanuel, former Obama White House Health Policy. Thank you for coming in. Good to be with you. Thank you. So you helped craft obamacare. You also have been very consistent in saying that the law needs fixing. Is what were going to see today, is this the fix . No, this is terrible, actually. So there are three parts to the executive order as we understand it. One allows these socalled Association Health plans to operate across state borders, a second expands the opportunity for shortterm Health Insurance the Obama Administration had three months as the limit that doesnt have to fully comply with the essential Health Benefits and other aspects of obamacare and the third is to change the Health Care Reimbursement processes. All of the what the executive order does is tell the departments of health and Human Services treasury and labor to relook at these regulations. The real worry is that, especially under the Health Association plans is fraud. The Association Health plans have had a checkered history, almost every time we permit them, hundreds of thousands of people end up being affected because their bills are not paid, a lot of scam artists go into this because theres less oversight, and as you point out, some people will win. Theres definitely some people who will get lower rates. Right. In sma Small Business is that have younger, healthier workers some businesses will be adversely affected and have their rates go up tremendously because remember, what were trying to do is create a big pool of people and if you siphon off Healthy People into another pool, you actually create a smaller pool, increase the risk that any one Single Person who gets sick will affect the rates for everyone and leaves older people in the interim, Nothing Congress has done nothing to try to fix the problems with obamacare, but are you saying that this move is terrible, doing something here is worse than doing nothing . Yes. This is a case where doing something is worse than doing nothing. Theres many things look, we all want to get health care more affordable, premiums to actually decline. Theres a lot of things we could do. The president talked about drug pricing. There are other pieces of legislation changing how we pay doctors so they have an incentive to conserve money and not spend as much money when you can get to the same result. Thats very important. Those will keep prices down much more effectively than this because while this will lower prices for some Healthy People, it will raise prices for Older Workers and people in Small Businesses that tend to be riskier businesses. Its not going to solve the problem at all and remember, it effects a very small number of people. What the president is going to do today will affect maybe a few Million People. It wont do anything for the 178 million americans who get Health Insurance through their employers already. It wont do anything for a lot of the people on the exchange who are not members of franchises or trade associations. So this is more show than actual reality in terms of making Health Care Affordable for americans, and it undermines parts of the exchanges and donald trump will own that if the exchanges see a big exit of Healthy People and no longer can function. Donald trump did it. That is an important question when you put your finger on it and hand on it, is it yours . Well, he can no longer blame no longer be able to blame obama. This will affect the exchanges and donald trump decided to do it and explicitly did it. You have talked to President Trump more than once about Health Policy and we know he wants a legislative win. Yes. That didnt work. But what does he really want when it comes to Health Care Policy in the country . Have you gathered that from your conversations with him . Well, i think for political reasons, he wants something he can call repeal and replace. I think his real heart is in he wants to make it more affordable and i have suggested to him, as i did to you, a number of policies that will make it more affordable and that would be historic. Nn remember, bringing Health Care Costs down would be a first time in history and that would be pretty wonderful for the country and for americans, not just in this small group of Small Businesses, but americans rit large in medicare, medicaid and those of us americans who get our insurance through our employer. That is a much bigger challenge, but its ironically something where theres bipartisan agreement and what i think the president should focus his attention on and what ive said over and over, is focus on where theres agreement. Thats where we can push forward. What hes doing today is totally partisan, very fringe, its opposed by not just liberal Health Policy experts like myself, but most conservative Health Policy experts think this is a bad idea and it really doesnt solve the problem at all and as i said, it may make it worse by siphoning off Healthy People and this is an area thats going to be right for a lot of fraud and Small Businesses to be affected by scam artists. Dr. Emanuel, thank you for coming in. Lets listen to the president and see what he says any minute now. Appreciate your time. Also, though, joining me right now republican congressman Ryan Costello of pennsylvania. Thank you for coming in. Nice to be with you. So you heard my conversation with zeke emanuel. I want to ask you, you dont like obamacare. You also voted against the House Health Care bill in may because it didnt do enough to protect people with preexisting conditions. Folks, a big issue for folks in your district. You happy about the move the president is making then today . Well, i, obviously, wont know what is done until he issues an executive order. I did hear what dr. Emanuel said. One thing i would add i do think is good, as i understand it to be, which is looking at the consolidation of Health Care Systems across this country and how it may adversely impact Patient Access and patient protections, is something thats going to be looked at a little bit closer. I think all americans agree that we need to be concerned about that and need to get to the bottom line. Some of the other things dr. Emanuel spoke to were sort of foreshadowing or forecasting why it might be bad. Obviously, i think i want to look closer at that, but the desire to reduce the costs of health care for americans is a good thing. Obviously, in doing so, one of the reasons i did vote against the health care bill, was the concern that if we do a rogue patient protections thats not a good thing. What the president is signing is doing today the regulation, what hes changing is one thing, but what the president how the president is going about it is another thing. By doing it through executive action. Heres a few times, few of the times, that the president himself has railed against executive power. Listen to this. Obama goes around signing executive orders. He cant get along with the democrats. And he goes around signing all these executive orders. Its a basic disaster. You cant do it. I dont think he tries anymore. I think he signs executive actions. Nobody wants to listen to him, including the democrats, so he goes around signing executive orders. How is this any different . Some good splooiss there. Its not different. The president will issue an executive order he feels will enable him to study and get to some policy reforms that would be good. Every president issues executive orders. The question, obviously, and youre probing it, is will this executive order be a good thing or not. That remains to be seen. Obviously, as a house member these are the sort of things you to look at much deeper and get input from a number of different constituencies and stakeholders. That hasnt been done because we just received word of this. But my objective i think is the same as the president s and dr. Emanuel make sure we provide patient protections but also reduce Health Care Costs. The devil is in the details. It always is. Thats the tough fit. You have to make decisions. Thats right. That is the fact of the matter. You are cosponsoring the house bill that bans bump stocks. Right. In the aftermath of the las vegas shooting. Paul ryan just said yesterday about the whole issue that a regulatory fix is the smartest fix. Do you agree . I agree with both. Let me explain. Number one, the quickest, most efficient, easiest way to get to the finish line on preventing bum stocks to be purchased the way they are right now is a regulatory fix through atf. I also think, though, that if were going to rely on a Regulatory Agency to make a fix that Regulatory Agency in the future, as it did in 2010 here, could exempt it or could roll it back. Right. So legislation would be the final, full, most effective way of addressing this long term. That will take a little bit longer to do, which is why i think an intermittent atf fix as the speaker suggested is the right away proech, but i still cosponsored this bill and i actually may introduce legislation myself which would basically require that bump stock, if there is any legitimate reason for it, i remain i need to be convinced of that. But if someone can convince one of that, that would at least have to go through the same process that an automatic weapon purchase would require and right now thats not required and that equivalency between taking a semiautomatic and making it automatic by purchasing something off the shelf doesnt make sense and i think every american can agree with that approach. You are also in a tough district for reelection. You said yes. That you are not afraid of what made a lot of news which was Steve Bannons threats from the right. That everyone was under the microscope. What are you more concerned about, a challenge from the right or the democrats . Well, look, i work hard. Any time someone wants to challenge you, you have to evaluate that within the context of what youre doing and making sure you get your message out. To be perfectly blunt with you, i would imagine that a general election matchup would be more so, but look, if this is a time where a lot of stridently protrump voters want to see every member of congress back fully the president s agenda and candidly leave their own evaluation and judgment at the doorstep. I wont do that. I was elected by 705,000 constituents and i need to look at everything issue by issue, speak my mind when i disagree, speak out, when i agree, speak out, but explain why throughout the entire process. I think a lot of members in districts like mine have to be more vocal. Im starting to go on more television because i think my constituents need to hear weekly, if not daily, what im working on, why i think what i think about Different Things and thats the approach im going to continue to take. Congressman, hold with me one second. Im taking a look at our monitor. President trump has just entering the roosevelt room where he will be signing an executive action as you and i have been discussing, an executive action with regard to health care in our country. The labor secretary is going to be introducing him. Congressman, thank you so much. Were going to take our viewers now to the white house. Have access to Affordable Health care. Mr. President , your executive order signed today is an important step in achieving that goal. I want to thank you and your administration for continuing to focus in finding Affordable Health care solutions. In addition to instructions given to the treasury and health and Human Services departments, the president will task the department of labor with considering ways to deliver quality Affordable Health care to the American Work force. I would like to call upon senator rand paul to say a few brief words. Thank you. Thank you, secretary. Today is a big day. President trump is doing what i believe is the biggest free market reform of health care in a generation. This reform, if it works and goes as planned, will allow millions of people to get insurance across state lines at an inexpensive price. 28 Million People were left behind by obamacare. Do not have insurance today. This specifically targets and will help people who dont have insurance or people for whom insurance is too expensive. Im very glad to be part of this and i really want to commend the president for having the boldness and the leadership and the foresight to get this done and i would like to introduce the Vice President of the United States. Good morning. Secretary costa, senator paul, secretary mnuchin, director mulvaney, administrator mcmahon, senator paul, thank you for those thoughtful remarks and to congressman greg walden and congresswoman virginia fox, other distinguished members of congress, and job creators, its an honor to share this moment with you today. A moment where President Trump will take a critical step to lower the cost of Health Insurance for working americans. Since day one of our administration, President Trump has made it a top priority to rescue the American People from the disastrous failure of obamacare. Every day obamacare care survives is another day the American People struggle. All the job creators gathered here today at the white house have witnessed the failures of obamacare firsthand. Premiums have more than doubled since obamacare went into effect. And next year premiums are set to increase even more. While costs have been skyrocketing choices are plummeting. Next year nearly half of americas county wills have only one choice of Health Provider which means they essentially have no choice at all. As the president and i have traveled the country weve heard story from Small Business owners like those gathered here today, working families struggling under the weight of obamacare. Today President Trump will take Decisive Action to provide the American People with flexibility and freedom from the burdens of obobamacare and expand the numb of Affordable Health care options for working americans. Mr. President , i can say i speak for everyone here and for millions of americans, when i say, how grateful we are for your determination to repeal and replace obamacare and your commitment, demonstrated today by this action, to provide the American People with more choices for more Affordable Health care in the 21st century. And with that, ladies and gentlemen, its my privilege to introduce the president of the United States of america. [ applause ] thank you. Thank you very much to Vice President pence for that wonderful introduction and for the great job you do and i want to thank secretary acosta, secretary mnuchin, acting secretary hargen and administrator mcmahon for joining us today. We are all gathered together for something i believe is going to be very, very powerful for our nation and very good for a lot of people. But before i begin, i have an important update. Yesterday the United States government, working with the government of pakistan, secured the release of caitlan coleman, joshua boyle, and their three children from captivity from the haqqani network, a terrorist organization with ties to the taliban. The pakistani governments cooperation is a sign that it is honoring americas wish that it do more to provide security in the region and i want to thank the pakistani government. I want to thank pakistan. They worked very hard on this and i believe theyre starting to respect the United States again. Its very important. I think right now a lot of countries are starting to respect the United States of america once again. We hope to see this type of cooperation and teamwork in helping secure the release of remaining hostages and in our future joint counterterrorism operations. So with that, i want to begin by saying its my pleasure to welcome so many great Small Business and Association Leaders to the white house as we prepare to make this truly historic announcement, and thats exactly what it is. Weve been hearing about the disaster of obamacare for so long. In my case, many years, most of it outside in civilian life, and or a long period of time since i started running and since i became president of the United States, i just keep hearing repeal and replace, repeal, replace, well, were starting that process. And were starting it in a very positive manner. I can say when you get rand paul on your side it has to be positive. That i can tell you. Boy. [ applause ] hes getting up and saying all these wonderful things about what were going to be announcing. I said, boy, thats pretty unusual. Im very impressed. But seven years ago, Congressional Democrats broke the american Health Care System by forcing the obamacare nightmare on to the American People and it has been a nightmare. You look at whats happening with the people numbs and the increases of 100 and 120 and one case alaska, over 200 . And now every congressional democrat has blocked the effort to save americans from obamacare. Along with a very small, frankly handful of republicans, three, and were going to take care of that also because i believe we have the votes to do block grants at a little bit later time, and well be able to do that. Premiums have gone skyrocketing. But today, one third of all the counties in america have only a single insurer selling coverage on an exchange and next year, it looks like nearly half of all counties in our country, think of that, all of the counties, one half, will have only one insurer and many will have none, many will have absolutely created roadblocks for people to have any form of the insurance were talking about. This is why in a few moments i will sign an executive order taking the first steps to providing millions of americans with obamacare relief. It directs the department of health and Human Services, the treasury, and the department of labor, to take action to increase competition, increase choice, and increase access to lower priced, High Quality Health Care options. And they will have so many options. This will cost the United States government virtually nothing, and people will have great, Great Health Care. And when i say people, i mean by the millions and millions. First we aim to allow more Small Businesses to form associations, to buy affordable and competitive Health Insurance. This would open up additional options for employers to purchase the health plans their workers want. Im also directing secretary acosta to consider ways to expand these associations and these Health Care Plans all across state lines. This will create tremendous competition and transformative, in so many ways, change, aimed at creating more and lower prices for millions of americans. But the competition will be staggering. Insurance companies will be fighting to get every Single Person signed up and you will be hopefully negotiating, negotiating, negotiating, and youll get such low prices for such great care. Should have been done a long time ago and it could have been done a long time ago. This will allow thousands of Small Business employers to have the same purchasing power as large employers to get more affordable and generous Insurance Options for their workers. Rich and leslie bordray, where are they, nice to see you, how are you, come on, get up here, come, how are you . Nice to see you, leslie. Theyre here today from louisiana, great state, just left, little hurricane damage, little they got hit like charles, but we took good care of it, right . Absolutely. Theyre great people. Theyre a Small Business owners and they know personally the benefits of Association Health plans, one of which used to provide Health Insurance for their employees. But after obamacare, they were unable to afford their association plan. So they had a great thing, their employees were happy and it ended. This is something i hear, greg, you know exactly what im talking about, greg has been incredible on the subject and people have plans that worked and then all of a sudden they were just totally cut off. It happened to your company also. Rich and leslie have said that they would love, once again, to use an Association Health plan and there are millions of americans who want more affordable options just like them. And now, with this executive order, americans will likely soon have those options. We will be very happy to provide them to you and you will be very happy, rich, i think youre going to be extremely pleased. If youre not, you can tell them right now. Thank you so much. Thank you, leslie. Great to see you. Thank you very much. In addition my administration will explore how we can expand something called shortterm, limited duration insurance. These Health Insurance policies are not subject to any very expansive and expensive obamacare coverage mandates and rules. The cost of the obamacare has been so outrageous, it is absolutely destroying everything in its wake. They were so attractive that just last year, the Previous Administration crippled the market in an effort to keep people from fleeing the failing obamacare plans. In fact, they prevented these plans from lasting more than three months. They will take action to fix that and to make these affordable, flexible plans, much more widely available. So were going to have a very widely available plan thats going to cost much less and from the standpoint of the United States government, we will be very happy, wont we, virginia . So theyll get better and it will cost us nothing. Thats not too bad, right . We need some more answers like that. Finally, todays executive orders instruct secretaries mnuchin and hargen how they can explore more businesses to use taxfree Health Arrangements or hras to compensate their employees for their health care expenses. Currently only about one third of Small Business employees receive coverage at work, forcing millions of workers to enroll in the exchanges or remain uninsured and to pay the individual mandate penalty, not good, not good. That is one of the most unpopular things ive ever seen in government. I can tell you. This order takes first steps to make it easier for businesses to help their workers afford highquality and more Flexible Health care through reimbursement accounts. With these actions we are moving toward lower costs and more options in the Health Care Market and taking crucial steps towards saving the American People from the nightmare of obamacare. Today is only the beginning. In the coming months, we plan to take new measures to provide our people with even more relief and more freedom. And by the way, on another subject, that will include massive tax cuts. We are going to get massive tax cuts and i believe even senator rand paul, and i know virginia, greg, youre with us, the whole country is looking for these massive tax cuts and we will get them. And we are going to also Pressure Congress very strongly to finish the repeal and the replace of obamacare once and for all. We will have Great Health Care in our country. Thank you all very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. President trump right there, he was announcing he will be signing this executive order with regards to Health Care Policy in america. He will be sitting down at the desk right next to that and sign the executive order, looks like he was maybe about to leave and directing him back to remind him. Trying to listen in. All right. President trump, lets listen in while he makes it official. Choice and competition all across the United States. This is going to be something that millions and millions of people will be signing up for and theyre going to be very happy. This will be Great Health Care. So congratulations to everybody. [ applause ] thank you, everybody. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. All right. There you have it, President Trump signing the executive order right now with regard to health care. Lets discuss what this means for the country, for the president , for the republican party, who couldnt get it done on the legislative side. Joining me chief Political Correspondent dana bash is here, senior political analyst mark preston, reporter m. J. Lee and from the Washington Post [ inaudible ]. Great to see you all. M. J. , cut through it all first, what just happened . Well, what we saw is President Trump literally taking the power of the pen and applying that to weakening obamacare. Of course we all know the political context behind this. The president has tried for almost a year to try to get republicans in congress to pass something to repeal obamacare. We all know how that story ended. Republicans were unable to do that on capitol hill. And now he is signing one of probably many executive orders to come during his presidency to try to weaken these obamacare rules. One big thing that this executive order would do is to allow Small Businesses to ban together to buy into these socalled Association Health plans. Proponents of this, supporters of this executive order, would essentially say this is all about increasing flexibility, that they want to allow people to buy cheaper and realistically skimpier plans because not everyone, people who are laeltsy, people who are younger, need to pay for these executive plans when they dont feel like they need it. Some of the concerns that arise from this executive order is that when you essentially take out the younger people, healthier people, what that essentially ends up doing is the prices end up going for people who are sicker and older. So expect to get a lot of backlash from health care executives, experts who say this is not good for the overall obamacare marketplace and that it could be hugely destabilizing for the marketplace. Zeke emanuel who helped craft obamacare called his terrible, said this was all show, not reality, but one of the realities were looking at here, rand paul, having moment at the mic and donald trump saying when you have rand paul at your side it has to be a positive thing. How things have changed a couple weeks. Look at Donald Trumps twitter feed about rand paul and health care. Exactly. Because rand paul, one of the main reasons he was opposed to everything in the most recent past, the attempt by Lindsey Graham and other republicans to change the system and send it back to the states, he said thats not a real repeal of obamacare. However, the reason you saw him front and center, is because what the president just signed is a basic tenant of conservative republican credo, what they have been trying to get done for so long. Kate, i remember during the primary debates that we did for the republican president ial nomination, one of the questions what are you going to do with regard to health care . How are you going to replace obamacare . The one thing and the only thing he said at the time was to try to help people buy insurance across state lines. He knew that was a very important kind of buzzy policy statement for the conservative base he was appealing to to get the republican nomination. Its a zenith for them. Mj is right. It is very controversial in terms of what they say they are trying to achieve which is more affordable insurance. Whether or not thats going to work and if you allow companies to band together across state lines whether it will dismantle the market and whether or not people who buy the insurance policies will really get the insurance that will be useful to them. That has been a big problem with obamacare. They buy these insurance plans because they are forced to do it and deductibles are so high, its not worth having. Its not clear whether this will fall victim to the same thing. With the president now with this executive action, this is the biggest change or only major change to health care the president has done since taking office. Does he own it . Can he no longer say the problems of obamacare is not on him. He will own it, but he will never accept owning it. It will be different than what President Trump thinks. What i find interesting is not necessarily the policy of how this is going to play out, but we hope it plays out well. Whats interesting, is he doing it as a political twin just to try to a try it appeal to his base and he wants to fulfill a promise . That is the driving reason behind it, thats bad policy. Another thing is he seemed to tie it to the upcoming discussions over tax relief and tax cuts and a reform of the tax code. I dont know how thats going to be tied together. It will be interesting to see if somehow his actions on health care will be tied to some kind of tax plan the republicans are trying to get done by the end of the year. I want to change gears. The president is talking about health care and signing this action and the executive order, he had a lot to say in the last 24 hours. A lot of t the president is railing against the media and coverage of what he does. With that, he rails against the media and thats not new. What is new right now is he is saying that broadcast licenses should be challenged and revoked. He said it out loud and on twitter. What it comes down to is the president calls unflattering stories fake or untrue. The president himself had a lot to say and there were a lot of elements that were not true as well. Listen to this. Its frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write. People should look into it. So they barred more than 10 trillion and yet we picked up 5. 2 trillion in the stock market and possibly the whole thing in terms of the first nine months, in terms of value. Can you say in one sense we are increasing values and maybe in a sense we are reducing debt. We are showing we are the highest taxed nation in the world. Right. So before we talk politics, lets talk the truth. Those are not true. Stock market gains do not equal wiping out National Debt. Listen to this. Thats not how the National Debt works and how the stock market works. The rally does not reduce the National Debt. The president is right, it National Debt did soar in the Obama Administration, but the stock market rally and i can show you the rally since he was elected president. The stock market rally doesnt reduce the National Debt. Thats the Money Congress already spent. That money is spent. To cut the National Debt, you have to cut spending or raise taxes. Does President Trump want to raise taxes . No, he wants to cut taxes. Hes got a good news story on the stock market. Why is he doing this . He is trying to have a better and all consuming good news story. Throwing out numbers that people dont understand that sound impressive. It doesnt equate to the bottom line. The stock market doesnt equate to taxes paid into the federal government. The stock market is not a direct connection unless you have a policy that takes advantage of whats going on to funnel the money back in and then you can start to address the deficit. A lot of the you can have the general rising tide theory, but this leaves out all the math in the middle. Again, its one of the more egregious examples that spins what he does. He always talked about look at the job numbers and the stock market. That means im doing a really good job. Now hes connecting this to that too and taking it a step further. In the attacks on the press also and the indication that maybe the balance wlicense was revoke almost got innoculated to the fake news comment. Its a joke. Even though it starts with a serious thing. There will be a lot of coverage of what the president is doing. Because there is another side to the stories with the health care announcement today, thats not going to be as positive as he is spinning it. Fake or not. We will call it out when we need to. Pay lot going on right now. You heard President Trump when he was making that announcement and an american and three small children held hostage. After five years in captivity. 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