d.c. establishment. doug is right. this really does center around scaramucci and some of these rnc folks that are still inside the west wing and we ll see how it all plays out. the thing i want to emphasize to people watching is these leaks are either personal or political vendettas. when scaramucci is talking about we have to address it, he needs to read the riot act to all the white house staff and say there will be no more leaks, zero tolerance. bill: he has done that. within the week he has left his mark. that s true. people need to understand if it happens again you re fired. there is no tolerance to this. the thing he addressed last night that needs to be emphasized is the interagency leaks with the intelligence community. two things that can be done on that front. first of all attorney general sessions, this would make trump happy and he announced things late yesterday. doj and the f.b.i. need to make this their number one priority that they re going to track down obama hold
the house conservatives will be a key to getting anything passed over the hurdle as we saw the first time around. bill: you ve had the argument made by people by rob portman of ohio, they didn t want to eat in any medicaid cuts. if you do the provisions we described on screen here you would get broad support by leaving medicaid alone and you would in all likelihood get their votes of support. so this is playing out in realtime and keep an eye on portman and others and johnson certainly from wisconsin. he was a hold-out for a period of 15 minutes the other day and no one was quite sure which way it was going to go. there is chuck schumer as they continue on the floor of the senate. we ve almost reached that hour. shannon: the battle to repeal obamacare is entering the critical phase. republicans taking another crack at it today. what will they get done, if anything?
for taking that vote and will continue to do so as he faces his own tough race. quickly, and we want to take a break and move on to this other tweet from the president on transgender members in the military. but what if all these votes you outlined, none of which hit that magic number, then what? this is the reality that we re in, and this is what maeve was just describing so well inside the republican party, the ideological divide. there is no plan yet that has been presented on the table as a plan that can garner 50 votes out of the senate. so, that s why you hear this term, skinny repeal. so what may end up happening here is that mcconnell has to adjust to come up with the bare minimum of what he could possibly pass out of the senate that repeals it but that the real goal, then, is just to punt the ball a little bit here and kick the can down the road to just get something out of the senate, a vehicle, as maeve said, so that a negotiation can happen between the house and the sen
replacement plan. this is key, because this is going to be a vote that is likely to fail, because this is not something a lot of the moderates in the republican conference in the senate are eager to support to get out there and just vote for repeal only without a replacement plan. and this is going to be the moment where mitch mcconnell then can go back to the conservatives, if it does indeed fail and say, that repeal only doesn t work so now we got to move on to the next step, which is what you see there, the skinny repeal, the graham/cassidy amendment. these are other options at looking at how you can get to repealing and replacing with the number of votes that they need. now, this is what we ll be looking for upcoming and we re actually going to be talking to senator cassidy whose name is on that amendment next hour. but maeve, it was a win for republicans yesterday in the sense that they got to the 51 votes, vice president being the tie. breaker and this opening up to debate. t
jon: so they are voting on amendments putting senators on the record. some calling for straight repeal and having to go years for replacement. and there is a plan that allows insurance companies to sell stripped-down plans. debate over the future of american health care is the hot topic on the senate floor. democrats will be here fighting for as long as it takes. to take back these shameful health care bills. we hear you and we are on your side and we will never give up. one option is the skinny repeal which would do very