the message speaker ryan delivered today and if so what lessons do you draw from this process? well i think the speaker s currently having a conversation with him to talk about where that vote stands. he s working with the members, you know the president made a sell the tuesday group here and 17 members here, 16 walked out as a yes. i think we have had a group of members that we ve continued to have a conversation with, and tried to make frankly at this point not a question of negotiating more, it s understanding the greater good that s at hand. the president understands this is it. we had this opportunity to change the trajectory of health care to help improve, put a health care system in place, and to end the nightmare republicans campaigned on called obamacare. i noted yesterday it was the seventh year anniversary of obamacare. we have an opportunity to make sure that was the last one and the question is, do members realize this opportunity? there s no question in my mind at leas
the team here have left everything on the field. we have called every member that had a question or a concern, tried to the extent possible to take into considerations ideas that would strengthen the bill, and is now going to be up to the members of the house to decide whether or not they want to follow through on the promise of that. but we re going to continue to work with the speaker, and the leadership there, to see where the votes are. we re getting closer and closer, but you need to get to 216, and you know, they ve started four hours of debate. i expect a vote around the 3:30, 4:00 hour. let s see where we go. hunter? thank you, sean. we re hearing that paul ryan and mitch mcconnell wanted to do a clean repeal and then replace over time. in retrospect, would that have been a better approach, and in general, do you think paul ryan has handled this well? i don t know in that s entirely the case. this was a joint effort. this is something that the house
members needs are. we ll take it from there. reporter: you talked about all the work that the president and his team have done with early morning calls, late calls. the other day one of the members of congress who was here to meet with the president, congressman mchenry, called to say we re bringing him to the closer. you embraced that nickname from the podium. whatever happens today, do you still feel comfortable calling the president the closer when it comes to deal-making on all this? look i think i said it. i think he s done everything possible. no one either on capitol hill or any honest observer of what s happened that doesn t recognize the extraordinary feats. at some point, as i mentioned, this isn t a one-on-one negotiation. this is, you know, you have to get to 216. and i don t i think part of this question is to go to some of those nos and ask them, you know, what is the what is the reason and what would you do? the problem is, as i mentioned before, there s this ba
and third is the legislative things that will take 60 votes that complete the overall package, how do i have seen there s a lot of, the comprehensive nature of this makes it very complicated and i think that s a lot different. normally you have one bill that sails through and deals with the things and you can roll it in. in this process we have one-off discussions about whether the senate accept this if you put it in, if you put it in, will they not only accept it but will the byrd rule take place and kick out the whole thing? that complicates this probably like nothing else. reporter: understood. just to put a fine point on it, was it his initial ask to do health care first or did house speaker paul ryan say this is something during the transition we sat down and gamed out in coordination with the house in terms of what should go first and why, but again it s not a question of what should go first. it s a question of if you don t do it first, you know, do you lose some of the
on the table, who is to blame right now for this holdup, in your eyes? let s wait. i m not assigning blame. reporter: but you wanted a vote even last night or this morning so there is a stall. so from last we did want a vote last night and as i mentioned as we got into the evening hours the idea wasn t to bury this at 12:00 or 1:00 in the morning. reporter: initially you were asking for one yesterday and a statement from the press this morning. reporte . i m not backing away from that. as the process went on we realized that vote would occur in probably actually into today, in terms of like calendar ways, and that doing it at 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 in the morning was not something that would be in keeping with what we had promised. reporter: who is to blame for the stall? there s no reporter: the caucus? it s not a blame. it s a question of getting all the members together and dealing you ve seen the activity. you ve seen the members go back and forth. it s right no