i want to know about this, you had a long discussion with senator susan collins about the senate bill this week. collins says she won t vote to move the bill until she sees significant changes. what more does she tell you? basically we were just talking about the impact of medicaid in her state and my state. i mean, they re two different states and she s rural hospitals, i have the new york city hospitals, also the hospitals on long island which i believe are the largest employer, not just in my district, but in all of long island. and basically we were just talking about how again, i don t want to be giving too much away, but basically the impact of the medicaid cuts. listen, i admit there is waste in medicaid, there is in some cases too much spending. we should do it with a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. that s the concern i have. listen, i think mitch mcconnell and paul ryan, they mean the very best. they re trying to make this work within the reconciliation process. listen, i w
the rnc. and by the way, just so you know, presidents obama and bush, george w., allowed reporte erer into their first fund-raising events. let s get right to cnn political director, david chalian, cnn s jim acosta, cnn white house correspondent. kaitlyn collin, senior white house reporter. cnn political analyst, abby phillip. with us, abby barnes for the hill and co-author of shattered: inside hillary clinton s doomed campaign. jim, we re going to start with you. the administration facing a major hurdle on health care. the white house refused to hold a live on-camera press briefing hours after the president took to twitter to attack the media. calling out cnn, the washington post, t the new york times among other news organizations as fake news. is a war on free press? is that the strategy of this white house? reporter: it s definitely far of the strategy over here at the white house, don, and here s why. the president does not have any major legislative achievements to speak o
the president said, you know, i m not going to fire sean spicer because he gets great ratings, everybody tunes in. do you remember that? so this is exactly it s not like the president hates a spectacle. a spectacle served him well throughout his career, right? the whole basis of his reality tv success was building up a spectacle on a weekly basis. my sense is, don, this talk of a big surprise in health care is yet another big apprentice a tease. reporter: a tease to get us all to tune in and what if at the very end of this there is no surprise, it s another jim comey tapes nothing burger? yeah. i want people to see the hypocrisy here. listen, reporters, we in media are used to taking the tough questions. getting criticized. but this is just more about pointing out the hypocrisy in all this. listen, we re not complaining here. we re just pointing it out to you, everyone. kaitlyn, you re reporting on the president s first re-election fund-raiser blocks from the white house
about that building you re standing in front of. the media was disinvited from covering it. what happened? reporter: yeah, the president delivered remarks here tonight at his first re-election campaign and there was no media in the room to listen to what he had to say. we started the day out where the media was not going to be allowed in this event, and deputy press secretary sarah justified this by saying it s a political event and keeping that separate from the president s other events. after prodding from the press, they decided to let the media in and two hours later cited a logistical reason and said they could no longer let a few pen and pad reporters and one camera into the room where 300 people were already going do be with the president. now, i m not sure what that logistical issue would be, but there wouldn t be one if they already planned to let the press into this event tonight. it is not usual for them to not have the press in when the president is delivering remarks. an
administration, it s being held in a federal building. so yeah, and that s where kaitlyn collins is standing right now, jim. hey, listen, i want to get david real quick. david, let s talk more about this whole thing with the press. yesterday s press briefing was on camera. a good portion of it was to attack the press. and unfairly do it. is this about the president needing an enemy? reporter: yeah, in part, don, it is. i mean, it is an attempt to discredit the news media which at times when reporting what is happening could be critical of the trump administration, of the president, himself, and the facts may not stack up exactly how he likes them. so, if he engages in the campaign to discredit the news media, then his supporters will trust much more in his twitter feed than they will in the facts of the matter being reported by the news. the other piece of this is, of course, to stoke his supporters. i mean, this is this is something that he has dipped in