Thanks for joining us. We begin with breaking news and jobs, more of them. Talking about the february jobs report. Captures the first full month of growth. How many jobs have been created since donald trump became president. We have that answer. Bringing it to us, chief Business Correspondent christine romans. Its a big one. Not exactly as strong as the highest estimates but 235,000 net new jobs. Thats a good number here. When you look at the trend, a few months of good numbers here overall, 235,000. You can see last month was very good in january, revised up, december revised up. You look at the whole shebang, it matches almost exactly last february and the february before that. Theres something about february thats strong. Youll hear business enthusiasm about donald trump allowing them to keep hiring. Unemployment rate 4. 7 . Pretty much steady. I think this number could have gone lower if not for the people coming off the sidelines to get jobs. A renewed enthusiasm of strong jobs growth. People coming off the sidelines and starting to get jobs. Where are the jobs . Business and Information Services tend to be higher paid category, construction tend to be higher paid category, manufacturing jobs came back in the month. That is really interesting and politically interesting there. When i look at the u 6, the underemployment rate, that came down. Some call this a real Unemployment Rate 9. 2 . Thats been steadily falling. And picking up speed in this deceleration here. When i look at wages, up 2. 8 . Thats a good number, about as strong as it was back in december. This is a continuation of a strong labor market. So good, time to put on the brakes. Exactly. Pull back the punch bowl. Interesting the president gets these numbers he knew about these numbers yesterday. The council of economic advisers presents them to the president. Hes seen the numbers. He has been a doubter, a naysayer, one would dare say a conspiracy theorist. He said 95 Million People want a job. Well see if he fully owns them. Hes promised 25 million jobs in ten years. If he believes these numbers, he could get it. Christine romans, have a great weekend. Thanks so much. This morning important new developments on health care and perhaps the health of the presidency. Closed door meetings between fbi director james comey and top leaders of the house and senate. Swirling about the evidencefree claims of being wiretapped. This as cnn has new reporting about investigations between an odd link between the russian bank and the Trump Organization. The plan to repeal and replace obamacare, where will it make those concessions and does that put the plan on frankly even shakier ground. Were covering all this. Lets begin with joe johns at the white house. Good morning. Reporter good morning, poppy. What all this means is that the people on capitol hill are getting down to real business and the investigation of russian interference in the election including looking into those questionable contacts between growing list of individuals connected to the Trump Campaign and the kremlin, especially the russian ambassador. Jim comey, the fbi doekt toirec capitol hill meeting with the gang of eight, the bipartisan leadership of the house and senate along with the top two members of the intel committees on both sides of capitol hill. Not clear at all what they discuss, the senators emerging tightlipped. The house members complaining theyre not getting enough information from comey. Comey in a very tight spot because he needs to protect the sanctity of what sounds like a criminal investigation, very much concerned about the possibility of leaks out of capitol hill given the fact that the house has announced a public hearing on this very issue on march 20th. So a lot at stake there. Love to be a fly on the wall. Back to you. All right, joe. Good luck with that. Joe johns at the white house. Thanks so much. The odd link between a russian bank and the Trump Organization. Two reporters who broke that story, theres an investigation under way on this still. Whats going on . Its been going on for months now, john. We learned this fbi probe remains open. To this possible Computer Connection between the Trump Organization and a russian bank called alfa Bank According to several sources familiar with the investigation. This is the same server mentioned in that breitbart article that a white house official says sparked President Trumps series of tweets last saturday accusing investigators of tapping his phone. Cnn is told there was no fisa warrant on this server. Questions about the connection between the server and the russian bank were widely dismissed four months ago as an attempt by alfa bank to block spam. We have learned the fbis counterintelligence team, the same one looking into russias suspected interference in the 2016 election is still looking into this. One official i spoke with said the server relationship seems odd. Investigators are not ignoring it, but the fbi still has a lot more work to do to determine what was behind the unusual activity and whether theres even any significance to it. The fbi declined to comment and the white house did not respond to our request for comment. Jose, can you explain the communications between the Trump Organization and the ruks bank . This russian bank repeatedly looked up the unique internet address of a particular computer server in the United States used by the Trump Organization. We can break it down like this. In the computer world its the equivalent of looking up someones phone number over and over again. Sure, theres not necessarily proof of a phone call, but it usually indicates an intention to communicate. Thats how several computer scientists put it to us. They obtained leaked internet records that were never supposed to be made public, they were puzzled as to why the russian bank was trying to do this. Last sum never during the president ial campaign the russian bank looked up the address to this server used by the Trump Organization some 2,800 times. Thats a whole lot, more lookups than the trump server received from any other source. The only other entity to do this many internet lookups for that server was spectrum health, medical facility change led by dick devos, husband of betsy devos, later appointed as education secretary. Those two entities made up 99 of the lookups. Computer scientists we spoke to found that very strange. All the corporations involved so far say they have never communicated by email with the Trump Organization and have different explanations for the server activity. They havent provided proof and dont agree on what the story is. The russian bank thinks it was receiving trump Hotel Marketing material lt but havent provided a single email to back up that theory. American Marketing Company that would have been sending those emails says it wasnt doing so at the time in the summer during the time period in question. Alfa bank stressed none of its top executives have had any affiliation at all with the Trump Organization or President Trump. Their statement said Neither Alfa Bank or principals including Mikhail Fridman and peter ive venn have had any commu contact with mr. Trump or his organizations. The devos thing in all this is so confusing oochs. Thats all weve seen so far, a coincidence. Everyone weve talked to says its not that this is nefarious. A russian bank and the devos family, thats just weird. Great reporting jose and pamela. Thank you very much. A lot were covering this morning including the fight over obamacare and the future of it. Were just minutes away from a News Conference with gop leaders. They are pitching the current version of the repeal and replace bill to the country and members of the party who dont like it. There could be an even bigger showdown ahead. Lets go straight to Suzanne Malveaux on capitol hill with more. What is the sense there . Are they getting more of their own Party Members on board . Reporter there really is a sense theyre very divided. Well hear from House Majority leader Kevin Mccarthy in about 20 minutes along with other gop leaders. Hes trying to push for the repeal an replace of obamacare. It has cleared two hurdles, through two house committees, gets it closer to the house floor. There is a Sticking Point here. That is the amount of federal dollars that go to the states for medicaid. They are divided over that specific issue, conservatives would like the rollback of those dollars on medicaid to happen sooner, by 2017 where moderates want it to happen later, by 2020. This is what is tearing apart moderates and conservative republicans. What weve seen from President Trump is that public think he says yes, hes on board with the plan that has been put forward by paul ryan. Privately hes saying to conservatives hes already met with is that hes willing to negotiate on this particular point. At the same time paul ryan is pushing to build this momentum, to get this done as quickly as possible while there are others pushing back both in the house and the senate to put on the brakes. Were with the American People and well do what we told them we were going to do. We got this bill 72 hours ago. The American People saw this 72 hours ago. To say we cant amend it, change it and make it right, thats not how the legislative process works. Reporter Senior Administration officials tell me that the president feels he has some momentum, that he is going to get more involved with this. He sees it as a test of his leadership, of his skills as a negotiate iter, a dealmaker. Poppy, later today well see the president talk about leading the discussion of health care with key members of the house. Suzanne malveaux for us. The question is, is there a deal to be made. Will conservatives reach a deal . Will the president be willing to give in. Bombs exploding, bullets flying, thousands of people fleeing, exclusive footage from inside mosul. Also this morning, a priest shortage forcing the pope to rethink requirements for the role. Now hes ep to married men becoming priests. A live report ahead from rome. T6 volt, arc lithium battery technology, it delivers the cuttingtorque of gas. The ego mowers durable construction makes mowing in difficult conditions easy. The selfpropelled model makes it effortless. And it folds flat in seconds for easy storage. The ego power mower. Exclusively at the home depot and ego authorized dealers. vo whatscorn . Dog foods first ingredient . Wheat . In purina one true instinct grain free, real chicken is always 1. No corn, wheat or soy. Support your active dogs whole body health with purina one. Things getting pretty interesting on capitol hill. This is the showdown to repeal and replace obamacare. Its really a showdown within the republican party. Looking at live pictures right now, House Republican leaders will hold a News Conference any second. Theyre going to try to win more support for this bill if they can. Its future very much in question. Of course, well monitor that for you, bring you some of it live. Also this morning its the morning after fbi james director held closed door meetings with lawmakers on the hill yesterday, amid constant calls for evidence behind the president s wiretapping claims. Also new questions about what investigators are calling an odd link between a russian big bank and the Trump Organization. Errol louis is hear, david swerdlick, cnn political commentator and assistant editor of the Washington Post and jay newton small, contributor at time magazine. Errol, because youre here in new york with us, you get the first question. Here is the thing. Last time comey went to the hill, representative adam schiff says he stonewalled us, didnt give us enough information. Unless he did that again, dont democrats have a lot of answers this morning . I dont think they have a lot of answers. Weve seen before, and this goes all the way back to the transition time, when comey would meet with members of capitol hill and they would come out not just frustrated but fume that the investigators are further down the road than they realized, they told them very little, cant give a timeline on completion or whats likely to happen, giving them none of the tools they need to make hard decisions. These hearings are soon. They want the information by the 17th of march. The hearings are the 20th. Thats what happens when you put an investigation of this kind on a political timetable rather than a true investigatory criminal timetable. Pretty surprising if the gang of eight doesnt at least have an answer to the question from the fbi director, was then candidate trump bugged . Were there wiretaps on his phone . If they dont have an answer to that, that would be surprising. Jay, to youing, this report about an odd link tweecbetween russian bank and the Trump Organization. We dont know what it is. We know investigators think its weird which is like so much of this story, so much smoke and more smoke and more spomoke. You have to wonder, if theres so much smoke, is there fire . So many coincidences, well, there was this link and that link. You have paul manafort, the former Trump Campaign manager, denying links to russia. Then they lose their National Security adviser, Michael Flynn because he had links to russia. The whole reason trump went on his twitter rampage is because ag Jeff Sessions had links to russia. The question is if the campaign did have telephonic links to russia or email links to russia, that would be the reason why you would get a fisa court to wiretap those links. That would be something comey and the investigators would know definitively the answer to whether or not this alfa bank link and cnns reporting on it is actually credible and real and this led to actual communications or not. Thats what im sure lawmakers want to know. To you, david, when you look at where they go from here, what is your assessment on how the white house answers this . One of the things we talked about earlier, the president hasnt been out in front making the case, doing the hard sell at least to the Television Cameras on obamacare. I wonder if part of that is because we knows the first question hes going to be hammered with every single time is where is the evidence, where is the evidence, where is the evidence for the wiretapping clai claims. Yes, with the wiretapping claims he passed on that a week ago to get that answer himself. As the commanderinchief has the power to reach into the intelligence agencies and investigative agencies that he controls and asks what was going on with the tire taps, up to and including declassifying information if he thought that information should be given out to the public. Now having kicked it to congress, he has put the pressure on congress and the fbi counterintelligence unit to get some answers out there both because we in the media have demanded answers and also because the pressure is on them for their own credibility going back to the story pamela reported about the two servers talking to each other. That in and of itself is not necessarily evidence of anything. Its one more drip in the series of drip, drip, drips thats making it a situation where everyone keeps asking big picture, what is going on between the Trump Team Going back to the transition and russia or potentially vladimir putin. Another thing, what is going on with health care right now, what ts the status of the push to repeal and replace obamacare care. Errol louis, jim acosta heard that the more this thing is shaky, the more people can back away. Weve had knifed days of shaky with conservatives saying they cant support it as is. A back and forth there. Now there may be signs the white house is willing to budge. Does that help things if the white house is willing to budge or does it hurt things . I dont think it resolves the underlying tension. You have a number of gop members, more conservative ones in conservative districts in the house of representatives who want to rip it uproot and branch. They said everything in the world wrong with the country can be tied back to obamacare. They want to exterminate the subsidies and everything else. You have republicans who are running states, governors, senators, who have to take care of people. Thats why you have at least four gop senators saying the bill is dead on arrival if you undue the Medicaid Expansion. You cant throw millions of people who have Mental Illness and addiction problems and say youre not covered. You have to figure it out for yourself. Theyre not in a position to do that. As long as thats the case, theres little the white house can do to resolve that. The white house is willing to do that from all our reporting and sit down with key members. The reporting is that the white house is willing to end that Medicaid Expansion a lot sooner, not 20 20, but move it to the beginning of next year, 2018. That will help them with members in congress. Its going to hurt them with moderates in the senate. Theyre stuck between a rock and a hard place on that. Absolutely. Youve seen the white house go in recent days from being very threatening, the stick, saying we or going to campaign against you in