really is an anomaly, i was talking to a senior republican on the hill who was upset he had gone on tv to talk about tariffs and they asked him about donald trump. he said, i specifically asked the producers, i told them i didn t want to talk about there, and they asked me anyway. of course they re going to do that. republicans are going to run for the hills on this. how long they can do this, it s clear there will be more and more headlines on this. at some point democrats will be pushing them to take this up. stick around. we ll come back in a moment. first back to abby phillip at the white house. the other story today is these tariffs. what will happen with them, will they be signed today, who are they for and what are they on? what s the status, abby? reporter: still a lot of confusion ourt of this white house about what exactly is happening today on tariffs. we know over the last 4 hours there s been a back and forth out of the white house about whether there will be an event
people s paychecks change for all sorts of reasons. people get raises on january 1st, health plan elections change on january 1st. all factors change what comes out of your paycheck. we saw with the 2009 stimulus, barack obama s tax plan had cuts for middle americans and he didn t get credit for that. strong economic performance will save republicans or president trump, is the economy is already good. voters are not giving trump credit for that in the polling and the special election for congress, they re not giving that credit to republicans. democrats are massively overperforming in these special elections and the polls have moved against republicans over the last few months. there was that high-profile election in georgia over the summer. at that point democrats were ahead by six points on those generic ballot polls. now it s moving towards 13 in an average of the polls. the remarkable thing is usually public opinion of the president and of the party in power moves with the economy.
made by president trump during the campaign. if i win, i am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation. reporter: a point democrats use to press sessions on, but he resisted. it s a promise that your boss, he hired you, to fulfill. are you going to fulfill? we will comply with the law with regard to special prosecutor appointments. reporter: and he vowed to protect the department of justice s integrity. we will not be infected by politics or bias. we will make only decisions we believe are right and just. and we re not going to use the department to unlawfully advance a political agenda. one promise that should please republicans today, sessions said he planned to root out the leaks coming out of the administration. he described the leaks as
opposing the bill, ryan on the hill saying the bill doesn t go far enough, but with others, too far. that s the problem for senate republicans. the further this bill moves to the right, the more difficult it s going to be for moderates to continue to support this legislation and mitch mcconnell only has two votes to spare. it is decision time for senate republicans. at stake the fate of health care reform. 52 republicans are now weighing the pros and cons of this bill. their decision will impact millions of americans while at the same time putting their political futures on the line. i certainly need enough time to understand the bill myself, get input from constituents. reporter: the politics are getting the attention, but so is the policy. the bill calls for major changes to the future of medicaid, a point democrats are seizing on.
along with that? it seems like at this point democrats have very little incentive to pitch in and try to make this work. it s a way to salvage obamacare were events had 11 states something else, i do want the president to succeed on the democrats. i want people to have health care, affordable health care. i i don t want insurance compans to fail. melissa: it you say don t go to the dems. doug is a misreading what he is a good democrat and congressional leaders particularly nancy pelosi aired bad democrats. you re right, there s no incentive for them to come to the table. their pitch again just as equally and as hard as they criticized mcconnell for doing at the beginning of obamacare. the president has to do what he s doing. he s talking gently to them through twitter, he s going to stadium events, he s going to have ten or 12 vulnerable seat