to work right there. i go back to a jeyear ago, we talked about this earlier joy, which was happening, the aca, the skinny repeal, last july, and people didn t think we were going to stop that. they thought for sure obamacare is going to be repealed, it wasn t going to hold. who were the three people that voted no? mccain was the dramatic one so we remember that one, but it was also collins and murkowski. no one thought that was going to happen, what happened is people spoke up. they flooded the lines, went to town halls. went to the capital, to the offices of the members and they did not stop. it was amazing to see the energy behind that. we have to double down and do the same. just like biden said, speak up, rise up, be heard. that s the only way this is going to convince collins and
an ill-conceived idea. lindsey graham is kind of siding with the president here. that was a little bit of criticism, i would say. look, mitch mcconnell has been in a very difficult place lately. he s been under fire from the president. he s also been under fire privately from some members of his own conference, who were frustrated with what happened, with the health care bill. i mean, frankly, at the end of this, the skinny repeal, the argument was, well, fine, we ll vote fitter as long as you promise that it will never be a law. that s a very strange place for all these folks to be, i think. look, i think that the sense right now in the mcdonnell camp is one of anger and a little bit not understanding why this is the president s focus, considering the specter of potential nuclear war with north korea. i think that they feel like the president needs them, if he actually is going to accomplish his legislative agenda, and they don t understand, you know, why why he would choose kin
return to principle. senator, i want to get to the book in a moment. first of all, do you think it s appropriate for the president to launch this twitter attack against senator richard blumenthal today? it went on and on. well, i don t think it s helpful. we in the senate, we have a 60-vote hurdle to pass almost anything or we need unanimous consent just to move ahead. and in order to be able to work with our colleagues across the aisle, it s tough if we get so personal with them. so, i don t think that it s helpful in terms of legislation moving ahead. but you couldn t even pass the, what s called the skinny repeal, anti-obamacare legislation with 50 votes. right. well, that s what i m saying. i think we ve reached about the limit of what we can do as one party. so, we re going to need to work with our colleagues across the aisle and it s difficult enough to do so. they ve really obstructed putting together the president s
then they look at his voting record, which has been largely with trump, and especially last week when he voted four times in support of the obamacare repeal, in particular the skinny repeal, which made a mockery of the whole process he rips in the book, and he voted for that while the book was shipping. on the right, jeff flake has always had a problem with the base, the tea party base. he has that problem to this day. this does not make it any better. in fact, it probably makes it worse by ripping the president. i talked to one of his potential challengers who was a little coy with me on exactly what she s up to or what the white house said to her, but brahm, are these challengers making headway against him? no. the challenger you spoke to, former state senator kelly ward, she s a doctor, she ran against john mccain just, like, less than a year ago, lost to him in 2016. gave him a good run. mccain got just over 50% of the vote in that primary. so she gave him a good run.
insurance. heather: what happens now? for patients across the country what is going to happen is in the fall the enrollment periods will start up again and people are going to find premiums are even higher. a lot of folks will find they can t afford to have insurance. some people will have to pay the penalty. millions of americans who could be going back to work if the employer mandate were lifted are not going to be going back to work. heather: the skinny repeal would have done that. and also cut funding to planned parenthood. exactly. there are good things we could have accomplished but obviously there was not enough in that