the hard right freedom caucus. early start continues now. good morning. this is early start. i m jlaura jarrett. i m christine romans. time for the top ten stories to keep an eye on today. masks should be brought back for vaccinated americans? you know, jake, this is under active consideration. pressure mounts on millions of americans who are still unvaccinated against coronavirus. 57% of eligible americans have taken the vaccine but half the country, half is unprotected since kids under 12 are ineligible. the delta variant is surging in states with low vaccination rates including missouri. in st. louis masks required in public spaces starting today. the british government is considering a vaccine passport
that would pass both bodies. but the only way to get this done is get past the first step. while you re right, there didn t seem to be a way to compromise, the policy and political implications of the failure, did influence, is there a way to compromise and everybody gives something else just to get the bill to the senate. i agree with you, the overriding dynamics are the same and a lot of house members don t want to vote for a bill that s going to go to the senate and fail. let s be clear, mika, there is no way for them to reach majority in the house. maybe they can find out the hard way again. there s no way they can reach a majority in the house by just talking to the republican caucus. you want to reach the majority, you have to say good-bye to the freedom caucus and pick up 30 to 40 democrats. i m not saying that s good. i m not saying that s bad.
like to be saddled to the downside. two, they really weren t that far apart for a deal that could win a majority in the house, not necessarily in the senate, but they were not that far away from trying to get to the next step. finally, you know, if they don t get health care out of the way, it complicates everything, as speaker ryan says. it makes tax reform harder, makes it harder for them to move on with the agenda. it s not so clean to say we re done when one-sixth of their economy is going down the tubes. you say thar were close to it. the more they gave to the freedom caucus, the more they would lose from mainstream republicans. there was no way that was going to work. you take away the essential health benefits that were taken off the table by the freedom caucus, that lost all the moderates, most of the people in the middle. they wanted to go further right. there is no way mitch mcconnell s senate would ever pass that in a billion years. i agree there s nothing today
himself from the russia investigation? two, do you know the source of his information. no and no. health care reform was left for dead after friday s crushing defeat. the president, it was said, was ready to move on to tax reform, even infrastructure possibly at the same time. on capitol hill, meetings continue about what went wrong and how to resuscitate the attempt at remodelling obamacare. jeremy peters of the new york times writes, the new talk which quietly began this week involve stephen bannon and members of the two republican factions that helped sink the bill last week. the hard-right freedom caucus and the more centrist tuesday group. house republicans to air out what happened. and what might be next. even amid hard feelings about the freedom caucus s role in all of this. today we broke down many of those dividing lines within our conference. there s too much at stake to get bogged down in all of that. after this morning, the
oppose it. the chairman of the hard right freedom caucus, mark meadow, says there are enough nos and undecide, that it will not pass with enough gop votes. many came out with stopgap funding without a long-term fix for daca. d.r.e.a.m.ers were brought here illegally as children. some democrats, especially those facing tough races in the fall, worry about taking the blame for a shutdown over fighting for d.r.e.a.m.ers if there s no real agreement in sight. on that front, white house chief of staff john kelly meets with officials. we have more on the search for a funding deal. reporter: we re at the point now of waiting. waiting to see what s going to happen in the house wachti inho. waiting to see what s going to happen in the senate. there are two questions can house republicans on their own get the requisite number of votes to pass a short-term continuing resolution. basically a government funding bill, likely into mid-february. if they can, then the drama