congress who are republican but never trumpers. they don t want this president to succeed. if they drain the swamp some of them will be drained with it. shannon: they need each other to get big things like healthcare done. when we talk about the healthcare votes there are 52 republican senators. 49 of them were willing to vote to move the process forward. it was just those three. mccain, mer kowski and collins voted along with the democrats to obstruct progress. not like there is a widespread opposition to the president s asgend among republicans on the hill. lest voters and viewers forget the house of representatives passed a healthcare bill and they were working hard on this. let s say for the sake of argument that they are going to turn the page to tax reform. this is another really thorny, difficult, broad legislative effort with many moving parts and complexities. in theory you would think the republican party, if nothing
else, could get on the same page to reform a broken tax code. you would also think after seven years of saying they were going to repeal a healthcare law they would have a plan they could unify. i get the frustration with the gop right now. they deserve it. shannon: senator rand paul keeps having conversations about how they could move forward on healthcare. he says after a conversation with the president he should consider or that he may be considering using executive action. i went back and checked. under the obama administration 43 changes were made to the affordable care act by the administrative branch. they delayed the employer mandate for a year through a treasury blog post. there are things that he could do in this add min ministration. the president tweeted about two of them on saturday. he talked about ending bail-outs to congress and to insurance companies. these were decisions made at the executive level by the
message through social media that have often undermined his aides. do you see those things changing? if a four star marine general can t get it done, it can t happen. i think it s a smart move to put general kelly in place. he is a good person, a strong person, and i really believe that the president recognizes that he needs to bring some order and discipline to the white house and john kelly is just the guy to make that happen. shannon: how about the president s legislative agenda now? that s a heavy lift with the failure thus far of healthcare. tax reform, infrastructure, debt ceiling, coming. folks think there hasn t been the biggest stability and organization on the legislative front. do you anticipate general kelly s arrival will change that? i think the biggest need for change there is that republicans in congress need to start acting like republicans. they need to work with this president. you have a bunch of people in congress who are republican but
about. it will make the code more fair. let s have rates that actually are the rates instead of having a bunch of deductions that rig things and normally it favors folks at the top. that s the kind of deductions the secretary is talking about and actually the one i mentioned is in the blueprint that they are talking about right now. bill: off we go into the fall. do you believe it will get done? i do this year. bill: thanks for being here, tim phillips. almost 10:30. shannon: from tax reform to healthcare, republicans latest attempts to repeal obamacare falling flat on the senate floor last week. more democrats signaling they may be willing to work with the gop on some changes. an expert panel to discuss that. bill: a big message to president trump. declare a national emergency on the opioid crisis. drug abuse has become a crippling problem throughout the united states. we want to help those who have become so badly addicted.
the white house is saying don t move on from healthcare, get it done. to that you say what? we need to get it done more than 200,000 arizonians will make up this morning without healthcare. they will have paid the fines and still can t afford to have a policy. equal or larger number will have a policy but can t afford to use it because the deductibles are too high. we need reform. we re at the end of the rope in terms of trying to do it alone, though. i just can t see how we re going to get just as republicans. bill: the people in your home state you wonder how could john mccain cast the vote he did knowing the facts you re laying out. john mccain has preached from day one we need to have regular order and do it in the right way through committee. his vote was consistent with his approach and i respect that. bill: ted cruz says republicans will get an earful and he would argue deserve