That Jared Kushner met at one point with the russian ambassador. This was during december, the transition. Thats the extent of what we knew about his meetings with russian officials. Now the white house is confirming there were additional meetings. There was a meeting with a deputy to Jared Kushner and the russian ambassador. There was an additional meeting between Jared Kushner and the head of a stateowned Russian Development bank. Now, the white house is downplaying this. They said in a Statement Today throughout the campaign and the transition Jared Kushner served as the official primary point of contact with Foreign Government is, and officials. Given this role hes volunteered to speak with chairman burrs committee, the Senate Intelligence committee. The New York Times was the first to report this. Its worth pointing out theres no problem that kushner had these meetings. The real question is is this in the context of these investigations in the house and in the senate between ties between Donald Trumps president ial campaign and russian officials. Yet again its another story catching the white house flatfooted. We asked them repeatedly whether there were other contacts with russian officials, whether they tried to go through officials in this administration and determine if anyone else had additional contact. They down played this but you cant overstate how much this white house does not want to be talking about russia, particularly coming after last week which is a very rough week for them. Sara murray with the breaking news. Thank you very much. We have this big news. Consider it the art of no deal. President trump assigning blame, pointing fingers, shifting focus from the obamacare replacement debacle and his first legislative embarrassment. Four days after trying and failing to win over the ultra conservative Freedom Caucus, the president lashing out at them. Just minutes ago we heard from texas congressman ted poe who quit the hard line group over the weekend for abandoning the gop signature promise to repeal and replace. Listen to him. I got the opinion that theres some members of the Freedom Caucus, they would vote no against the Ten Commandments if it came up for a vote. I think its time the Freedom CaucusWork Together with other members of the Republican Party, have input which we did with the speaker, the president of the United States, and then at the end of the day compromise to get something done. Now we have obamacare. So you what can the president bring this Party Together . Does it wanted to be brought together . The big question is what now . Cnn is on capitol hill with that question. There certainly are a lot of pieces to pick up with within the Republican Party after the failure last week. Quite simply a lot of the oxygen being succedanelk sucked up now game. People are pointing fingers at each other. Over the weekend President Trump calling out specifically the house Freedom Caucus. One of the factions within the Republican Party that stood within the way of the healthcare bill going through. He tweeted that democrats are smiling in d. C. , that the Freedom Caucus with the help of club for growth and heritage saved planned parenthood and obamacare. Theres a lot of attention being paid to the relationship between President Trump and speaker of the house, paul ryan. There was an eyebrow raising moment over the weekend when President Trump tweeted out on saturday to watch a specific fox news show at the top of that show the anchor immediately launched into a call for speaker ryan to step down. White house aides say this was coincidental, that he did not know the anchor would do that. Heres that moment and the white house push back. Paul ryan needs to step down as speaker of the house. The reason . He failed to deliver the votes on his healthcare bill. I think it was more coincidental, chris. Come on. I did not talk to the president about the tweet. Im just telling you the truth. There was no preplanning here. Why would he say watch her and thats the first thing out of her mind. He loves judge janine. He wanted to do her a favor. Does he want paul ryan to step down . No, he doesnt. President trump and paul ryan spoke twice over the weekend. One of those conversations, during that an aide said he made clear that his tweet had nothing to do with the speaker. Both sides trying to emphasize everything is okay. Theyre in a good place in terms of their relationship, but such a important one Going Forward as they move to other big ticket items on their agenda. Sunlen serfaty, busy morning up there. Lots to discuss. Lets bring in david swardick, matt lewis, and rebecca burke. Welcome one and all. Lets start with this news that the Senate Intelligence committee wants to question Jared Kushner. I need not state the role Jared Kushner plays in the white house, he may be the closest adviser to the president , and hes his soninlaw. We dont know the spefb spefb s we dont know the spefbpefb s specifics of what they want to discuss, but the fact that the Senate Intelligence committee wants to talk to him is problematic. It is problematics because b once again they have to explain why they were engaged in these series of meetings with the russian ambassador, other highlevel folks in the russian administration, whether or not anything is found later on to have been done that was illegal or wrong or inappropriate by Jared Kushner. I dont think the administration has been able to provide a good answer as to why there was so much focus on russia in the early stages of their transition, leading into the early stages of the administration. Until theyre able to sort of change the narrative on that, with Everything Else swirling around the investigation in the house and senate and the fbi investigation, they are going to be sort of on the backs of their heels trying to respond to these kinds of reports. You know, matt lewis, an interesting nugget at the end of this New York Times reporting, says that even some Senior Administration officials within the white house, when they learned about the additional meetings that kushner and his deputies had with this bigtime russian banker, they were caught off guard. That says a lot, does it not . Yeah, i think it does. I think possibly just speaks to the lack of coordination, the lack of experience, maybe some incompetence in the white house. I dont think it necessarily speaks to anything nefarious. This was part of his job. Jared kushners job was to be the liaison during the transition. You say much to do about nothing, but he did not come forward with this. The New York Times is presenting this to the world even after the hoopla around these other meetings. Couldnt kushner and the whougs co white house come forward and say there were these additional meetings as well . Yeah, maybe that speaks to the fact that theyre trying to hide something or theyre not terribly organized or put together and probably thought if we volunteer we had another meeting, we looked at our record, theres a meeting with more russians that will look bad. Heres my personal take. If there is some there there, if there was coordination going on thats nefarious, i would suspect it came from people that the paul man that for t manaforts of the world. Thats my gut, but let jared go, testify, lets have a full hearing on this. I think it would be in the best interest of everybody, including the Trump Administration to have a full airing of this. Just to be clear, the white house says Jared Kushners only meeting with the ambassador took place during the transition. That does not mention the russian banker. The senate wants to ask about whether that meeting discussed Jared Kushners business interests, which he had not separated himself from yet. He was looking for funding to buy or sell some of his Real Estate Holdings in new york city. Jared kushner very close to the president. The only Current White House official being called in for questioning from either committee. Its significant. Theres no question about it. Whatever we learn from this testimony or whatever the Intelligence Committee learns from this testimony, it may not be made public for us to know or hear about, but its going to be a big deal in this case. Jared kushner is the closest individual to the president to be questioned in this investigation so far. He had multiple meetings that he did not dis close. The question about his business interests, the possibility that he could have been discussing his own company and their future investments and developments with these russian officials, thats a really big deal. It will raise further questions, if not about ties between russia and the trump team, it will raise questions about conflicts of interests in sbrenl with this administration because Jared Kushner is not the only individual within this administration who has business ties. Last week, mnuchin was at an event, he plugged a film his company produced and said everyone should go see this. This will raise a lot of potential questions for the administration. Not the kind of turf they want to be on now. One of the big differences between meeting with this major russian banker and meeting with, say, a u. S. Bank ceo is that members of the president s team and inner circle dont sit on those bank boards. The New York Times is reporting that the people on the board one other point is this is a bank that was sanctioned. That was under the sanctions from president obama for the russian role in crimea. Exactly. You have putins guys on the board including medvedev, david. Yeah. I think this is the stepback issue here. Well know in time what the investigations in the house and senate turn up. You cant get too far ahead of yourself and say because Jared Kushner is going to be questioned, that some smoking gun is going to be appear out of this meeting. But it does raise that question. The posture of the United States leading out of the Obama Administration and into the Trump Administration was that we had a sanctioned regime that we placed on them with our allies, the eu, australia, canada, going back to 2014 when canada invaded crimea. When the Trump Administration came in, there were overtures and rhetoric about mending fences with russia, even though the big issue, crimea, had not been resolved. Why is there so much smoke if not fire about sanctions and about mending fences with russians . I dont think the administration answered that satisfactorily. The report also says the fbi has not reached out to talk to kushner. And the white house is saying this with just what was asked during the transition. But the senate does want to question Jared Kushner. We have a lot to still to come. The next hurdle for the had the is healthcare. What comes next after the big loss to them and could they be dealing with a Government Shutdown in 34 days . What does the stock market think about this . We will open in a few minutes. You get the sense that investors are a little jittery now that healthcare reform went down. 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Its raised 1 dare devil, 2 dynamic diy duos, and an entrepreneur named sharon. Its witnessed 31 crashes, 4 food fights, and the flood of 09. Its your paradise perfected with behr premium plus low odor paint. The best you can buy starting under 25. Unbelievable quality. Unbeatable prices. Only at the home depot. This president is not going to be a partisan president. I think its time for our folks to come together. I think its also time to get a few moderate democrats on board as well. Get the democrats on board. Is that possible . Back with us is our panel. Okay. Hes blamed the democrats. The Freedom Caucus. Some behindthescenes blame of paul ryan. He is even rewriting history. Listen to the president on healthcare. I never said repeal and replace obamacare. I said repeal it and replace it within 64 days. On my first day i will ask congress to repeal and replace obama care. Immediately repealing and replacing the disaster known as obamacare. Immediately repealing and replacing obama care. We will be able to immediately repeal and replace obamacare. I didnt say 64 days, i said immediately. The words speak for themselves, but how specifically do you think this changes the road ahead for this administration and the white house . Well, look, i think the good news is, we talk about the blame game, the fundamental problem is it was a bad bill. It was a bad bill that the only people who supported were people who were loyalists, apologists for donald trump or paul ryan. It had no natural constituency. So the fact that this bill was defected, i think that actually could be good for donald trump and republicans. Because, number one, it could have dragged on. There could have been a senate fight it would have gotten uglier and then been defeated. Had it been passed, would have had premiums rise, 24 Million People kicked off insurance eventually. Republicans might have suffered the same electoral fate that democrats suffered after passing obamacare and losing those house and senate seats. So on one hand i think its not necessarily that bad that it died. The problem is that this is a harbinger of things to come this is a story about larger problems, which is to say if they cant pass healthcare, how are they going to pass tax reform or infrastructure or anything . I dont think theres a reason that democrats now would work with them. They have no incentive. In fact, i think their incentives are perverse. They should be obstructionisobs. They will do to republicans what republicans did to them. This could be ugly. We are looking at a possible Government Shutdown coming up. Man who would have thunk it it would end up this way. You raise a bunch of issues. We want to get to the democrats and the Government Shutdown possibility. Rebecca, the president said he would repeal and replace obamacare, that didnt happen this travel ban thing he proposed, thats not happening. Hes not building the wall right now with mexico. When he does, mexico wont pay for it. Does he have a delivery problem here politically especially with republicans . Here we see the difference between campaigning and actually governing. It is very easy to promise something on the campaign trail, just look at all of the house and Senate Republicans who ran on repealing and replacing obamacare. And now you actually meet the realities of governing. It becomes much more difficult. Things take time in washington. You have to form coalitions with, as we see now, people who dont necessarily want to move forward or compromise. You can look at the house Freedom Caucus on the one hand or democrats on the other. They all have their incentives or disincentives to compromise. So theres that reality of how difficult governing he can be. He ran as an outsider, but when you come to washington with no experience whatsoever, working with congress, pushing legislation through, working on minor pieces of legislation, much less major ones, you see this happen. You see yourself run up against these blockades, really, and its very hard to get these things done with no sort of experience whatsoever. His major blockade, the house Freedom Caucus lost a man who was a loyalist up to the end of last week, thats congressman ted poe. Heres what he said this morning on cnn. I got the opinion that some members of the Freedom Caucus would vote no against the Ten Commandments