To do so. I havent whipped the bill, i dont know where each of the Freedom Caucus votes are. Mark meadows is the one keeping the head count. I can only speak for himself and i am not going to vote for this bill because i believe its bad for america. One of the worst bills ive ever seen. The meeting was probably one of the most inspiring meetings i have attended in my 15 years of congress. Reporter why is that . Because i stood amongst some to have greatest statesmen ive ever had the privilege to be around and to hear their heart and cause to human freedom. Lets go to dana bash at capitol hill. You have been following this all day long, tell us about speaker ryans meeting with president . Reporter we dont know exactly what happened in that meeting in particular, meaning what the president said to the House Speaker about his view of whether to go forward with this vote despite the nafact that th voe votes arent on paper but we heard from a white house spokesman, dont usually see them declaring what the votes are going to be in congress, that did happen today, having said that it is up to the House Republican leadership to decide whether and when they are going to go forward and hold this vote. As we speak down the hall behind me i think we have a live picture of the door, the House Speaker is in his Office Meeting with top House Republican leadership, huddling probably you know with a lot of brows to wipe trying to figure out are they actually going to do this . Are they going to go forward . Clearly the speaker is reporting back what the president said from the meeting they just returned from. So thats going on as we speak. Assuming that it does go forward its a big open question how this is going to go down. Its a big open question what the vote count will ultimately look like, if it passes, how thin the margin is or not or probably based on the sources im talking to here, if the vote goes forward and loses again most likely scenario, how big is the loss . And in the hallway i think i can sum up a conversation with a veteran republican lawmaker with so many of his republicans in the house certainly have not been here long enough to take a really consequential vote that matters to them but also matters to somebody in their own party in the white house and with what the lawmaker said to me wolf is lets see how they feel standing on the house floor and they have their name up and if they want to put their name in the no column next to nancy pelosi, so thats the way its being spun and described to me, and clearly thats the way its being described and then some to members of the Republican Caucus who are holdouts, but the bottom line anderson is that its not just the Freedom Caucus you showed coming out of a meeting with Vice President when, but more an more the more moderate members coming out saying nope, the changes that the Republican Leadership and the white house agreed to make for the conservatives mainly effectively allowing for the repeal of essential Health Benefits in obamacare right now many of them said im out, im gone, i cant do this so thats why they are kind of bleeding votes on both sides, and we will see if they actually make the decision to really do what the white house said they wanted, which is take the vote despite the fact that theres a very, very good chance it would go down in defeat . Dana, what is the political call calculous, is it they want to know where everybody stands for future reference and or retribution . Reporter i think both of those are definitely factors, no question but the biggest factor is the promise, is the fact that since the 2010 election when republicans took control of this house of representatives, they did so with the promise of repealing obamacare. 2010. In 2012, in 2014 and again in 2016 and with that promise, other things too, but that was sort of the leading edge of the spear, they took the house, they took the senate and they took the white house, so politically speaking they feel that this is what they crafted for better or worse, theres a lot of second guessing about what they crafted how fast they crafted it the way the process worked but take that aside it is what is on the table right now and politically speaking the feeling is that they have to take it because as one senior republican said to me earlier today if not this, what, right now and if not now, when . Anderson. Dana bash thank you very much. Lets go to sara murray our white house correspondent. Reporter wolf, we are seeing a white house very much ready to get on with it. We have seen other Senior Administration officials telling me they do want to see a vote on this today. They have made clear they feel like the president has done everything he can. Met with these members, made promises to the house Freedom Caucus to try to bring more conservative votes along, spoke with moderates to get them on board and the president feels his role is done, hes done as much wrangling as he can, theres though in this white house a deep sense of frustration that republicans have been campaigning on this so long, that its republicans not including not necessarily donald trump who have been thinking about this seven years and now looking at a plan to actually repeal and replace obamacare and cant get on board to do it. We heard about repeal and replacing the Health Care Law nearly every day on the campaign trail. This is something he wanted to do initially in part because its what republicans have promised to do so long but in no way does the president feel like this is the most exciting item on his agenda, not the one he cares about most deeply. He wants to move on to do tax reform. It was sort of explained to him they needed to do health care, but now seeing a white house saying okay if were not going to do health care lets move on to other priorities . This vote is scheduled for 3 30, a few minutes from now. Congressman, first of all, do you believe this bill will pass today . First of all, theres going to be a vote and i think we need to make sure we make that very clear. After the vote i think were going to find out where people stand. Obviously during the course of the day today, some of the more moderate members of the republican conference have said theyre going to vote against it, whether thats enough to pull out the votes we need to pass or not, i dont know, but im of the firm belief we should have the vote today and put everybody on record. And youre for the bill . Absolutely. Ive been for the bill three weeks. As they have made the changes ive remained in favor of the bill. Theres a large block that arent in the Freedom Caucus and around in the moderate group, we want to vote for this bill because we have campaigned on it over seven years now, we need the vote, i think the leadership will call the vote and well see what happens. Do you believe the changes made to the bill, many to appeal to the Freedom Caucus, do you think its made it a better bill . I was happy to vote for it. I think it did make it a better bill, but one test does it get more votes than it loses and the question right now is did that amendment lose more votes than it got so we have to see how that works on the floor but yes, i was happy with amendment and please tod pleased to vote for it. If it fails whats next. Well the president said lets move on, at least in a temporary sense, obamacare is failing, we have one carrier left on exchange in alabama. That carrier continues to lose money. If that carrier pulls out everybody in alabama has nothing, the premiums are way up, deductibles are way up and they are screaming for relief, so we cant walk away from it so whether its an incremental fix or a big fix, we have to work on this continually for the next year. What is your message to those Freedom Caucus members today who say we dont want to rush this we want to get this right. It doesnt have to be done today . There have been hours and hours and hours of conversations with them by the white house, by the leadership with on some of their parts at least, no movement. At some point you just have to say lets have a vote, because you cant talk and talk and talk and talk when theres really no movement so lets get everybody on record. I want to vote with president to repeal and replace obamacare and they can decide whether they want to vote against President Trump and against repeal and replace obamacare. The decision is simple. Lets get everybody on record as to where they stand . Bradley burn, appreciate your time. Thank you. Lets get back to your panel. Jim geraghty is joining us from the national review, where is this heading . Probably the direction of titanic toward that iceberg, heading toward the lifeboat, why is the white house insisting we have to have this vote even though ryan is reporting its going down, hes reporting its not looking good, if youre a moderate republican, anybody who knows this is not a popular bill, why stick your neck out for something thats not even going to pass . If the only thing that comes out of this is a president ial retribution list, what trump needs more grudges . He has enough of that stirring up more bad blood and im struck by saying this really is ryan care, like the president hasnt pushed this, now a couple of days senator mike lee said i talk today the senate parliamentarian, we can get this through with a little more, 60 votes, we can work without the various details, if it ends up getting held down the road you can say to your base we did the very best we could to not only repeal obamacare but give the most free market option down the road and that will diffuse some of this anger, that well, vote or its going to go bad, to quote john kerry who wants to be the last man to die for a mistake, who wants to vote for something unpopular and isnt going to go through . Press secretary for the romney campaign, and now Vice President of p 1 strategies what do you think . Doesnt sound good. The blame game started 12 hours ago. Thats not a sign of a winner. It being fourth without any sign its going to pass. The changes last night seem to have cost more votes than bring more on board and doesnt seem that the Freedom Caucus doesnt want to negotiate. I know the president has negotiated in business but this isnt business. Is it too late the white house called the vote which is unique, but the speaker runs the floor so he can do whatever he wants. Im hearing that the vote is still going on and to use jims titanic analogy, like the band contin continued to play. Thats kind of the mindset here and its clear donald trump wants these people on record to vote no to this and he thinks that will be used against them but those doing it no are doing it for the people back in their districts not about washington, and in fact they were trying to use leverage of you want to go on record supporting obamacare that continues to Fund Planned Parenthood and playing to the life issue. Isnt he trying to use the ultimatum that there has to be a vote as a tact tiic to try to bg more votes along, that art of the deal, seems to have not worked at all. Thats why i think putting this to a vote has perils for republicans, if youre a moderate from new jersey and vote against that thats a gift to democrats in your district bus because thats a reasonable chance thats going to bring out a primary out to run against, someone to the right who would have voted for it saying you didnt vote, et cetera, et cetera and chop that person up and so when the democrats run against them they have a gad chance good chance of getting a seat. I think that wasnt part of the original calculation. The original calculation was we need the Freedom Caucus so they do everything on the essential Health Benefits get the Freedom Caucus in there and they are losing these moderate. Look, at this point we obviously cant predict, it either looks like it passes narrowly or loses by a huge margin because once it looks like its going down everybody is going to vote no, they will do what is easiest for them and this narrow margin here, the president as you were saying the president just wanted to force a vote because he figured that it might just make people say i dont want to vote with nancy pelosi as dana bash was saying earlier. And i dont know whether thats part of their calculation or not. I dont think nancy pelosi even enters into anybodys consideration during this vote. For a president whose brand is all about being a winner and not a loser and being a negotiator, deal closer right. Its a big problem. I know they think theyre going to be able to throw all the blame up to pennsylvania avenue, but if indeed this goes down, this is President Trumps first major legislative attempt on a promise that he made in his launch speech of his campaign and every day throughout the Campaign Never mind the seven years of the party overall. This is going to be a body blow to this administration. Im not saying theyre going to crumble, but it is a severe loss for them. Everybody stand by. We are counting down to what the white house says will be a 3 30 p. M. Vote on the American Health care bill, we will see if that takes place, and always talk to a member of the Freedom Caucus who just held an 11th hour meeting, whats in, whats out. You are watching cnns special live coverage. Just minutes from now the Republicans Health care bill is supposed to head to a vote, you may be asking what is actually in the bill. Mj is on the hill for us, if you can lay it out whats in and out in this bill. Reporter anderson this bill is in a lot of trouble. They have not said whether this vote is going to be cancelled, and until we get the official word we are proceeding as if the vote is going to happen. This bill would repeal the obamacare subsidies and would be replaced by refundable tax credits based on age and income, the house set aside 85 billion after concerns raised by lawmakers talking about people in 50s and 60s hurt by this law that has been set aside now the senate would have to write the language into the bill if the bill makes it through house, the bill would repeal the individual and employer mandates. With know this very well because this has been a very sensitive political issue, that everyone essentially has Health Insurance and that employers provide Health Insurance to their employees and big changes to medicaid money given to states based on the end relievers, also block granting medicaid so obviously a big and complicated bill and also note a last minute change made to the bill at the center of political discussions and that is repeal of socalled essential Health Benefits things like maternity care, hospitalization, prescription drugs and this is going to be potentially so important anderson on what we see happen later today because a lot of the lawmakers are saying this decision by the white house to include this provision ended up not bringing on board the conservative that is the white house hoped to bring on board and also ended up isolating a lot of moderate members so if theres a vote a lot of lawmakers are talk about this bill failing by a big margin because at the end of the day it isolated too many members of the Republican Party. Thank you. Dr. Sanjay gupta joins us now. We are talking about the socalled essential Health Benefits, one of the parts involves maternity coverage . Yeah, you have that whole list of things that mj just laid out the minimal coverage that people get with their health care, you have choices when you buy your health care but no matter what its worth looking at again, inhospital procedures, for example wouldnt be covered under some plans thats a big problem obviously for somebody who gets sick or in an accident, but the most controversial is that mens would be having plans that cover maternity an pregnancy coverage and the question that obviously comes up is that well look, men cant get pregnant, very true, but men typically are part of the baby making process an thats one of the things that the proponents pointed out, look youre still investing in having a safe pregnancy, a healthy baby, newborn, part of the coverage youre buying but also that look if you dont have everyone buying and getting this minimal care women if they get pregnant would pay more its called gender rating because you could get pregnant and everyone seemed to agree that wouldnt be a good idea which is why maternity coverage is part of every Health Care Plan whether youre a man or woman. Dr. Sanjay gupta thank you very much. Will be following very closely with you as well. Going to be speak to go a member of the Freedom Caucus who said he was going to vote no for this Health Care Bill, will he change his mind. You are watching cnns special coverage. Im going to fight every single attempt to turn a deaf ear, a blind eye and Cold Shoulder to the sick, to seniors and working families, mr. Speaker im going fight every day, every hour, every minute, every second and oppose this bill with every breath and every bone in my body. We must not give up, i will not give in, not today, not tomorrow and never, ever on this bill theres only one option and that option is to vote no. We can do better, mr. Speaker. We must do better. Vote no on this bill. Democratic congressman john lewis. The house vote on the American Health care act is now expected to start any moment. Were going to turn now to someone who is going to vote against the republican plan to replace obamacare. Congressman brooks is with us, a member of the conservative whig party. Thanks so much for joining us. My pleasure, wolf. I know youre going to vote no, but apparently theres a meeting youre going to go into, are you going into another meeting with the speaker . As soon as this we will probably be informed then whether there will be a vote or whether its been postponed. What do you prefer . Well the House Speaker is in a very difficult position, on the other hand the president asking for a vote, on the other hand if it puts votership at risk 2018 because congressman who vote yes on this very bad piece of legislation are at greater risk of losing their nominations to democrats and you increase the likelihood that nancy pelosi might be the next speaker of the house, so paul ryan makes big bucks to be speaker of the house and has a big choice to make. But what would you tell him . I would tell him this. Im not going to suggest how he should or should not conduct himself, if you want a vote im more than happy to have a vote, i think its bad. Over the short team its going to increase premium costs according to the Congressional Budget Office and long term its unsustainable huge Welfare Program one quite frankly we cant afford. I assume you met with the president and he made his case at least publicly saying the last best chance to repeal and replace obamacare, if it doesnt happen now its not going to happen. What was your response to him . Well, i dont believe in surrender on an issue of this magnitude. I believe we need to repeal obamacare, give it a definitive date of which the repeal takes place after the legislation passes and in that window come together and come up with conconstructive solutions and if you want to remove the repeal part of this current legislation then with you put democrats in a position no longer voting to repeal if they cooperate and join us in trying to better address the health care fa challenges we face, so i hope they will give him better counsel and the fight goes on. Anderson. Hi anderson. Do you want to see this done more incremental rather than attempting some large bill like this again . I think it was very unwise to link the repeal aspect which we probably have the votes in the house and senate to do, which two years albeit vetoed by president barack obama, but to replace all that, without any vote, that means you have to get a 90 or so consensus and very difficult to do with any piece of legislation so i believe it needs to be segregated. The democrats know its going to be repealed at some date and lets get the parties to come together and come up with a bipartisan solution. We know you are on short time, thanks for joining us. Dana bash is standing by with more what are you hearing . Reporter you just heard the congressman, but let me put in context what he said the House Republicans are now going to head into a meeting of all republicans, not a regular, but a special meeting among all House Republicans. Why is that significant . Because theyre doing that instead of if you look at the time its 3 35 p. M. Eastern instead of going to the house floor and taking the vote as pushed by the white house. Not only that, they went into recess on the house floor, now thats basically because all republicans are going to be in this meeting but i can tell you from experience when they go to recess in the house at a time when they are expecting and planning to hold the vote, that doesnt fortend well for the vote even holding the vote in the first place so we are waiting to find out whether or not the speaker is going to tell they are going to pull the bill. All signs are leaning that way. We dont know for sure if thats going to happen or if hes going to delay it but i can tell you this is not a good sign, anderson. Cnn has learned according to a source that the president of the United States has asked the speaker to pull the bill. Is that reporter there you go. There you go. Thats not surprising given the fact given what i just described and the scramble here and the fact they went to recess and announced they were going to have a meeting of all House Republicans. Very interesting they put this on the president himself. I do have to tell you that this is you know sometimes when you hear things information that sources give you come into more clarity, so thats basically what just happened is i was told earlier you know just because the white house is saying have this vote, which sean spicer did, he announced that the vote is going to happen, which is again, very unusual for the white house to make a legislative announcement from the white house podium, he did that, and at the same time i was warned by a source in the Republican Leadership just be careful because thats not necessarily what the president wants. Well, now we know what the president has asked for at least this is their plan on how to publicly explain it to put the onus on the president and delay this and not have it in the republican lap, this clearly was discussed, intentional to play it like this, to spin it as a president ial decision and not surprising given what we have been talking about all day long the fact that it was very clear the votes were not there and could have gone not just down but down big time if they decided to take this vote. And we are getting word that Speaker Paul Ryan will hold a press conference, youre a republican, hearing what . Same thing. The vote is going to be pulled. There was concern this morning that it was not looking good, not a positive feeling throughout the white house and more an more when Vice President pence went up to the white house there was concern not only were they having a difficult time pulling some of these house Freedom Caucus members over given the concession made earlier this week as they were making concessions for them as we heard a lot of moderates were falling off the block so thats the difficulty now to satisfy one wing of the Republican Party youre losing others. David chalian, if the president of the United States is now telling the speaker dont hold this vote youre going to lose, pull the vote, it sounds like a done deal. It sure does. And we are going to hear from speaker ryan at 4 00 p. M. And curious whether President Trump has something to come out and Say Something about this. Just stepping back i know we are following every Little Development of whats happening throughout the day but it is astounding to me that President Trump and speaker ryan are now going to have to speak and address the country about why become is going to stay in place why that is going to remain the law of the land despite a decade of promises to get rid of it or, or, why they postponed it a short term. We were sitting here yesterday about this time when a senior white house official made it very clear that the president was laying down the law there was an ultimatum you were going to have a vote, thats the way donald trump does it. And now, it seems to me that the House Republicans seem to be almost more afraid about losing than the president. You know . Theyre worse off than yesterday. They lost more votes than last night. But i think maybe paul ryan and we have to understand and report out the dynamics of all this but is it the House Republicans were going to the president and saying look, we cannot lose this or is it the other way around . Tim garrity, what would your headline be on this. You know theres a drawing board back there and you can go back to this, and as bad as this is i think holding the bill and having it lose by a bunch and having 30 House Republicans vote no it would be frustrating to go out and say one part of the republicans want this, and the others that and democrats didnt want it, but passing something that the republicans really didnt like and then watch it go to senate and it gets a little bit worse, all a sudden each step of the process it got worse an then you have to pass it because thats all you have. Time has never been their friend on this and i think the democrats are going to continue to make the case that republicans are still trying to take health care away, as anybody learns more about the specifics of what is in this bill, what has been in the bill, which if they break it apart in incremental pieces you assume they could pass. You could assume there was this rush they could recess, go back to their drik districts, and theres town hall meetings, and the recess, seems to be the case. And people who are supporters of becoobamacare will make the and we know even if they trying to back to the incremental passage is good and selling it is easier, but even selling small pieces of this is not going to be agreed on, the essential requirements weve been talking about here that werent in place until 2009 people are going to be screaming b about the loss of maternity care, they tried to reduce medicaid and people are going to be screaming about this. What about god forbid they cancel their easter recess and god forbid the House Republicans and democrats Work Together which is stunning because they dont like each other, but they are in a pickle an they have got to do something and time is not on their side, youre right, why not cancel the recess, have all these guys sit around a table together and figure out what will work in each chamber without and communicate. You may not ever be able to please the Freedom Caucus people the demands last night you can have all the time to negotiate but if youre going to fight during a reconciliation bill, how can you ever come to a they were headed far lopsided defeat and for all the reasons we talked about. But i wouldnt quite do it that way, i think they ought to appoint a senate and House Committee and compromise over the next month and in the meantime do tax reform and change the subject because i think if they keep on focussing on health care theres a good chance i like your idea. Good. Go back to when this bill was first rolled out congressman tom cotton was the fist to say hold on a minute. Pull the bill, to your point, lets everyone sit down and put together a bill that both sides will agree on that they can get input from their districts and move forward from there and theres still a great deal of desire to get something from republicans to get passed and repeal and replace obamacare because thats what they all campaigned on. You know what the president is going to say, many times politically the best thing for republicans is not to have a vote. Let obamacare continue for another year. It will be awful, it will be a disaster, it will selfinstruct and then the world will see how bad it is. Politically say just let that happen, he said for the American People we need to get repeal and replace underway to help the American People but politically his argument would be the obamacare law is awful and is good that its going to selfinstruct. Its good and most people are only focused on politics and saying a lot of Different Things which tells you a lot, but thats a pretty outdated view of politics, that would have been four years ago, six years ago, but obamacare now is supported by 53 of the public, statistically in states across the country, this is the health care they are enjoying an living so youre talking about taking this away from them, so i think what we are seeing is actually the politics have changed, people are using outdated numbers and outdated view and as time goes on it will become harder and harder if they have a conference, committee to push this through. Anderson, im going to be curious to see, were going to hear from paul ryan, but im curious with whether the president will make an appearance or does he have paul ryan take the hit and not communicate about this for a couple of days and maralago comes up for the week. He cant not speak. You think hes going to make an appearance . He has to make an appearance in the next 24 hours. Or a tweet. Hes got to show how hes taking it and where hes going. Jack kingston former supporter d whats your reaction jack . I think paul ryan just saved the majority or temporarily we remember under tom foley when the Democratic Party members had to walk the plank on the btu tax and the expression became the btu, the house guys game the scapegoats and cost them the majority. I think paul ryan knew if okay if i get my guys to walk the plank on this theres no way its going to pass the senate anyhow and i have burned up a lot of capital and goodwill and the house isnt going to forgive me so this paul ryan does have another time to fight another day, this isnt the end of it because remember obamacare is doomed under the current path. Its unsustainable, we can change it or modify it but it is not going to be the same as it is now in two years so i think the opportunity to go back and through regular order and possibly getting democrats and senate on board and maybe even preconference in it informally i think theres a great possibility. Explain what you mean on regular order . Go through committees, have hearings, have interest groups, witnesses, hearings and amendments and say were not going to rush this through in the meantime were going to work on infrastructure, maybe immigration reform, energy and might even redo the tax reform package in its entirety, but ways and means subcommittees of energy and congress will be working on a new Health Care Bill or approach and do some things that tom price talked about. Tom price can do a lot through executive orders, tort reform, things like that can be done through the regular order process. Very quickly, jack, who is the bigger loser in the media fight the speaker or the president . I think its the house, i just dont think its the speaker. You clearly had the division of the tuesday group moderates and conservative Freedom Caucus, while i think while paul ryan will be the center of it i think its the house in general and what theyre doing is going into the locker room at halftime and dont have points on the board an yet the game is not over with and if they come back and have success on tax reform and other legislative issues this game is not over but i think paul ryan today made a very brave and difficult decision to live to fight another day. Joining us also timothy obrien, the art of being the donald, tim you and i talked about president , his past the way, what his brand is, what damage does this do to that, to him being a closer to being a great deal maker somebody who can get somebody in a room and hash things out . Well, i would remind you that the art of the deal was written by a ghost writer and he has never been good at negotiating or navigating complex deals in his career, all the complex deals he tried to put in motion in the earlier part of his career became fail yours and on top of that reality negotiating across the board with those who have a financial outcome in mind is very different in which you have stakeholders whose interest is bringing back something to their stich constituents will be proud of, i think this is verytweets on the. This is from robert costa who i guess is now doing an interview with the president and hes tweeting about it. He says, what a conversation, ill type it up quick. He quotes the president saying, i dont blame paul. President trump just called me, he said still on the phone. We pulled it, he tells me. Thats what were seeing so far. So, you know, it took us seven years to get here. The gop has had seven years of criticism of obamacare and during that entire time they could have developed a sophisticated alternative. They clearly didnt. You had a president who campaigned on an early and immediate repeal of obamacare and an adequate replacement. They havent gotten there. I dont think anybody comes out of this looking good. Its a bad legislative moment. Its a bad moment just to be an american and be tim, listen, sorry, lets listen in here. What are the next steps . We dont know. Its a good idea for everybody to go home, get some rest, calm down a bit, dont react emotionally, and remember we have a lot of other things to do here in addition to this and this problem is not going away. Did President Trump ask him to pull the bill . I understand President Trump agrees with the decision. Did the president ask the speaker did the speaker recommend i dont know the answer to that. The president agreed with the decision. Thats enough. And, congressman, is it clear there is not going to be any action on health carol this year now . Is this are you moving on to Something Else . We are moving on, but that doesnt mean were not going to do anything this year. Thats two different points. Thank you, congressman. Bradley byrne, congressman confirming what we have been reporting. The vote has now been pulled. There will be no vote today. Youre going to see a lot of representatives, members of the house, democrats and republicans, scurrying out of washington as quickly as they possibly can for the weekend. Yeah, or longer. [ laughter ] well be on air, though. Lots more were not going anywhere. Were not going anywhere. It seems like most people are talking about doing this incrementally moving forward. Right. And i think as you just heard, i think theyre not quite sure where they go. The interesting thing to me from our Jeremy Diamond who just reported this from the white house was that the bill, it was ryans decision to pull the bill, and that he went to the president and said, i think we ought to do this. And probably explained to the president what the ramifications would be both for him and for members of congress that perhaps control of the house was at stake. That, you know, they ought to pull it for now. But what happens next, i agree with david that i think they cant give this up. And maybe they approach it more incrementally, which would be a more logical way to do it. And maybe they get together with republicans and democrats and form a special committee on this. But they cant give it up because it was the one issue everybody agreed on. Does now a game of finger pointing begin, blaming . It started yesterday. Tomorrow mornings tweets should be fascinating. Look your alarm. Getting involved in finger pointing, for 48 hours fine, everybody can yell at each other. Then at some point youre left with the same problems. As said earlier, time is not on the republicans side. The individual insurance market, more and more places you have one insurer and more and more insurers are saying, we cant make money on this, too many people are old and sick, were tulg. In that sense time isnt really on the side of obamacare. Yes, on the one hand you get people used to it. Listen, i dont like this, my premiums are too high, my copays are too high. That gives you pressure. The question of this whole required benefits of health care, republicans need to level with people. These are part of whats making things expensive. This is part of whats making premiums up. I you say to Insurance Companies you have to cover all this, you decide its important. We can take it way, premiums will go down. Flip side is they like this stuff, maternity care, pediatric care, that kind of stuff. This is the choice before consumers. The problem of Health Care Politics is there is always somebody who is going to come along and promise a better deem. They dont give specifics, details down the road. Thats what trump did. What democrats did with obamacare. I will give you the best possible deal, youll love the coverage, you wont pay very much, but were going to make the math work. Somebody, god for bid is diagnosed with cann skcer, theyt chemotherapy to be included. Sara is at the white house. We are now hearing from the president through robert costa. The president according to costa telephoned him phoned him to give him his reaction. Reporter thats right. What the president said was, we pulled the bill. He told robert costa, i dont blame paul ryan. But behind the scenes were already seeing some of the finger pointing. Senior Administration Officials are telling me, my colleague Jeremy Diamond that it was paul ryans decision, the House Speakers decision to pull the bill, that he made clear earlier in this meeting with trump that the votes werent there and that was his recommendation. Meanwhile, though, were hearing from house leadership airds that ultimately the final decision was the president s to pull the bill. So, there is a little bit of sort of this blame game thats already going on. I think a couple things are clear, though, wolf. One, the president did not make the sell here. He touted himself as the ultimate deal maker. He couldnt get this deal done. He couldnt get the votes to make it happen. And, two, this wasnt what the president wanted to be focusing on. He wanted to move on. He wanted to go to tax reform. I think that calls into question whether we are going to see another crack at health care any time soon, or whether the white house will, in fact, just barrel forward with some of these other items. Any indication that the president will actually make a statement, go before cameras . We are waiting to see that. We know that one of his events has been moved into the oval office. That may be an opportunity perhaps to get some reaction from him. I can tell you that his top aides are hudling right now. We saw White House PressSecretary Sean Spicer head toward the oval office. Obviously a number of reporters are waiting to get some kind of official update as to what happens next. So, were still waiting to see if we will hear from the president on this directly. Is there a sense over there of defeat . Reporter i think its interesting when you look back at sean spicers briefing today when he was saying everyone sounds so defeatist. You know, so fatalistic. He seems defeated. In that briefing he seemed very down when he was trying to say that the president did everything he could to get this passed. I think there was a deep sense of frustration in this white house. They felt like this would be a clear victory for them. This is something republicans have been campaigning on for years. And i think frankly they were shocked to see the level of opposition given what a priority republicans have made this for seven years, wolf. I think they had certainly underestimated the complexity of this issue and now theyre at a point where they have to regroup and figure out what to do next. Were standing by to hear from the speaker of the house. Hes going to go to the lectern there and make a statement presumably answer reporters questions as well. We dont know about the president , whether hes going to be doing something similarly. Sara murray, youre there at the white house. As of yesterday, even earlier today, at least officially publicly, the press secretary was voicing optimism. This was going to pass. When did they get a sense, though, in the real world that it was in such deep trouble . Reporter well, i think even though they were expressing this optimism publicly, that this was going to pass, i think even last night they certainly knew the bill was in trouble. They may have said they were moving this vote for scheduling purposes, but Administration Officials i was speaking with were honest about the fact that the votes werent there. There was a problem. They were having issues wrangling these votes. So, i think even last night they knew it was in trouble. I think they hoped maybe this ultimate ultimatum would make them pick the president s side versus the democratic side. The ultimatum didnt pan out for them, wolf. The president is staying here in washington over the weekend. No maralago this weekend, is that right . Reporter having problems hearing. We just lost sara. I think were going to continue our special live coverage right now. Jake tapper continues with the lead. Jake . Welcome to the lead. Im jake tapper. We have this breaking news today. This was of course supposed to be the hour, the moment for which the Republican Party has waited for more than 7 years. The moment that helped sweep republicans to power in capitol hill in dominant fashion. We have been until a few minutes ago expecting the house of representatives to vote on the republican plan to repeal and replace obamacare, but republicans have pulled the bill at President Trumps request. Despite then candidate President Trump washington, ill make good deals, despite the political world, nobody knows the system better than me which is why i alone can fix it, despite the president calling him the closer and predicting the bill would pass last night. Despite the ultimatum to congress to pass now or live with obamacare forever and despite Congressional Republicans having e7 years and a day since obamacare became law to prepare for this day, republicans could not get their act together to deliver on this promise to the American People and replace obamacare with another bill. It is an embarrassment for the white house and the house how much will this failure impact the president s agenda. Now lets go to cnn chief Political Correspondent dana bash on capitol hill. Dana, is there a sense of how iguodala know minu ignominious this is . Yes, you can feel the air is thicker and frankly down the hall from where we are right now waiting for the House Speakers press conference, the republican members have had a meeting and i just came from where the floor was, our colleagues, Deirdre Walsh and manu raju and others are over by the meeting and they are reporting very grim faces, very deep sense of disappointment, and understanding of what this means. And as you said, if we can take a step back and talk about what this means, this was the fundamental major promise election after election after ee alexis that won the house of representatives for republicans in 2010, that won the senate