Sessions testified before the Senate Intelligence committee. He called suggestions that he colluded an appalling and detestable lie. He engaged in a Heated Exchange with senator ron wyden. Senator sessions, you are not answering the question. What is the question . Mr. Comey said they were matters with respect to the recruit so recusal that were problematic and he couldnt talk about them. What are they . Why dont you tell me . They are none, senator wyden. There are none, i can tell you that first absolute certainty. This is a secret innuendo being leaked out there about me, and i and i triediate it, to give my best and truthful answers to any committee i have appeared before. People are suggesting through innuendo that i have been not honest about matters, and i have honest. Be david senator wyden joins me from washington. Russia, which is a little different. Russia sent worries some signals about the war in syria, that it was now treating american planes as aerial targets after the u. S. Shot down a syrian plane over the weekend. How worried should we be about escalation between the u. S. And russia . Have had a david, i hard rule that i would only talk about russia after we have talked about health care first. I gather that you are willing to to having a good time on health care if i get into russia first. With that, let me tackle your question. I think this is a troubling set of events that has been unfolding, and i continue to be concerned about the prospect of an escalating american role in syria. The reality is that on the Intelligence Committee, we have not had a briefing yet with respect to this weekends activities, but i think the weekend developments are cause for real concern. Read the statements from the military and the Trump Administrations today to mean that the u. S. Doesnt take russias statements literally, and they think for all the tough talk from moscow today, that this may be a relatively modest bump in the road. Do you share what seems to be that optimism . Feel aden its good to little bit of skepticism in the Trump Administration when the russians speak. Remember, this is the president after thexample, Senate Passes a tough sanctions package against russia, we are going to have difficulty keeping the Trump Administration from watering it down in the house. If they are showing skepticism, thats better than what weve got. David now lets turn to the investigation. So much of the discussion is about the potential coverup, the whole discussion around the firing of james comey. I want to take us back to First Principles here. Can you tell us what your central concerns are about the relationship between the Trump Campaign and the Trump Administration and russia . What are the basic questions that you were hoping this investigation is going to answer . Sen. Wyden first of all, i that we need to understand this speaks to the legitimacy of the Trump Administration and the executive branch. For example, late last year, the intelligence leadership said that the russians had hacked our institutions, our democratic system. The Trump Administration has consistently claimed that down. Umber one number two, he shifted american policies that his predecessors, both democrat and republican, like the russians and crimea, we have seen this president will that way. We have seen his son say that in 2008 when it was hard to get money, a substantial part of their portfolio involved russian investments. This is the first president in four decades who has been unwilling to release his tax returns. I have had to introduce legislation requiring this. This speaks to the legitimacy of this administration, and every daypractically or so there are new issues we have. The bizarre situation over the last couple days when the president said he was being investigated by the government, and then his lawyer said he wasnt. , im beingords investigated, heard around the world. David one of the questions is whether there is collusion between the campaign and russia. I should say there is as yet no evidence there was collusion, correct me if you disagree. But theres also a second set of questions you are interested in, which is are there financial ties separate from the campaign between the president and his family members and associates, and people close to russian president vladimir putin. Am i right that is a concern of yours . Sen. Wyden yes. I have led the effort in the Intelligence Committee on the follow the money issues, that intersect with my responsibilities as ranking democrat on the finance committee. We are looking at possible shell corporations or Money Laundering transfers. We have a lot of work to do. We are in talks with the treasury about getting access to key documents. We have a lot of digging ahead. David what have you seen that makes you want to ask those questions . Why are you worried about those potential ties . Sen. Wyden we have a stack full of reports from your colleagues thate present press have certainly offered a fair amount of documentation suggesting a whole host of Financial Connections between the russians and those in the Trump Campaign. So what i believe you do is you go where the facts lead. That is where i staked out this ground. Man,e way, a veteran fbi when i asked, he said, senator, you are right to follow the money. You should also follow the trail of dead bodies. David what do you mean . Sen. Wyden im telling you, thats what he said. I will not get into anything else, but if you ask a veteran fbi man if you think youre on the right trail, and he makes that remark, that wakes you up. David and i assume hes talking about the number of russian citizens who had shown up dead. Sen. Wyden lets put it this way. Your press colleagues had a lot to say in connection with the dossier. David lets turn to the attorney general. You are a senator. The body user is famous for its collegiality. Yet, you and attorney general colleagues for years, but you engaged in Heated Exchange in the testimony. You seem to most concerns although he had officially recused himself from overseeing the russia investigation, that really he has effectively gone back on that. Is that a fair description . Sen. Wyden i have certainly been concerned he walks back his recusal, but what i was especially concerned about is james comey, at our open hearing, said in response to my question that he couldnt get into aspects of the recusal by Jeff Sessions because it was problematic, and he couldnt talk about it in a public way. I made it very clear after the hearing that i was going to ask about that when the attorney general actually came. He obviously got very angry with me, but he still didnt answer the question. David what was tricky for outsiders following that exchanges that the attorney general seem to suggest that something happened in closed session that you were trying to bring into the open. What exactly is he referring to . Can you talk about what he was referring to their . There . I canten know, and get into matters that are brought up in closed session. I will tell your viewers that i think the American People have a right to have a public answer to what james comey said was problematic. One of the things that concerned me when we saw the tweets from the president , clearly directed at rod thisstein, is that investigation is such a threat to him and his presidency that he could wipe it out by firing moller or rosenstein or any number of things. Are you concerned about that, and is there anything that could stop him . Nobody has done the damage to the Trump Presidency more than donald trump. We fact is, i never thought would have a president say, im being investigated, and then tweet it around the world. This is breaking new ground. My sense is that the president is calling the shots here, and very often i think that the president , instead of being somebody who thinks he has been vindicated in hiring layers, but i gather his lawyers are telling him to knock it off. David i want to ask one more thing about foreign affairs. We got sad news today that otto warmbier, the virginia student who was in north korea, had died. Can you talk about your reaction to that and what the u. S. Can do in response to what certainly seems to be a Foreign Government killing an american citizen . Sen. Wyden it is horrible, horrible news to see this young man died his way. Young man die this way. We are going to get to the bottom of what happened, but we have to send a very clear message to the north koreans. Went Something Like this is done, we do not look the other way. David i promise you we would talk about health care, and you begin by saying you had a personal rule, meaning you will not talk about rush unless you about rush unless you can talk about health care first. It seems you have frustration aboutpeople not talking health care. Sen. Wyden first of all, it is the sheer volume of extraordinary news that is being made every day that makes it a challenge. Just today, already we have dealt with several accounts. There seem to be new terrorist matters. We have to get to the bottom of those. And you have the Senate Republicans doing something that is absolutely unprecedented. I dont know of a single situation where you are talking about a major piece of legislation thats being written in the dark. Theres no bill. Theres no effort to try to describe the cost either to taxpayers or two americans. To americans. The signs point to huge new expenses. For example, there is an aged tax for those americans premedicare. A pay five times as much as younger people. That means for people in rural oregon and rural america, they get hammered, but there arent any details. David i realize you oppose this bill. Buthavent even seen it, you almost certainly will oppose it. Why do you think your republican colleagues are pushing so hard . Conservative policy experts dont like the plan, liberal experts dont like it, the doctors lobby, the nurses lobby, the aarp, nobody likes it. Can you try to get into the minds of the republican colleagues and explain what is it they are trying to accomplish here . Sen. Wyden interestingly enough, a number of them have been asked what they are trying to accomplish, and they cant answer. I think particularly the group to watch are the conservatives and the moderates. The conservatives, as incredible as it sounds, want to produce something that is worth worse than what the president called meeting. The moderate but the president called mean. The moderates, i have worked a lot with them over the years, and im hoping they have not changed. David for those moderates, do you think it is that they made a promise to repeal obamacare, and they kind of got locked into it . The wyden certainly, republicans for years and years now have made this principle refrain went respect to domestic politics. They were going to throw the Affordable Care act in the trashcan, and they had something would bebetter and more affordable for americans, and they just never spend the time dealing with these issues. You and i talked about the healthy americans act i produced with colleagues in 2007 and 2008, seven democrats and seven republicans. We got some of what we worked for into the Affordable Care act, particularly the airtight loophole free protection for people from discrimination with a preexisting condition. But when you are writing a Health Care Bill, it takes a lot of work. David interesting, you were working on that with senator bob that it senator bennett from utah. I was approached close to a universal approach. Sen. Wyden both parties had a valid point. Democrats are right that we have to have universal coverage. Without universal coverage, there is too much Cost Shifting and not enough prevention. Republicans tell there ought to be a role for the private sector. We have a pretty good model. Its the kind of coverage members of congress have. President obama used always laugh a little bit and said, your ideals are going to prevail someday. But the point is, we cant go back now. We can go back to the days when health care was for the healthy and wealthy. Sen. Wyden let me ask you to play media critic for a minute. Are we in the media making a mistake . I we not paying enough attention to this bill, giving given the odds of passing, and the enormous effect it could have on American Society . Sen. Wyden the reality is you are talking about something that affects over 300 million americans, 1 6 of the american economy. Ever since i was director of the great panthers, i felt health care was the most important issue. If you and your loved ones dont have health, Everything Else goes by the board. That sometimesls have people say, its complicated, we have to move on to the headlines. Russia and terrorism are extraordinarily important. I dont dispute that for a second. But we cant let this health care debate, particularly the prospect that Senate Republicans will do so much damage, get lost in the daily blur of news. David what about your democratic colleagues . Do you think the Democratic Caucus is doing enough to call this . Ion to senators famously have all kinds of ways to slow down the business of the senate to call attention to something. So far, we havent seen democrats take extraordinary measures to call attention to what republicans are doing here. Sen. Wyden democrats in the u. S. Senate understand this is go time. We are all in. Floor. Going to be on the we will be accepting invitations like this one to talk to journalists who want to talk about health care. It will be all health care all the time for the next two weeks. David senator wyden, thank you for having being with us. We will be right back. David we continue this evening with a further look at health care. Politico reported today that Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell plans to put the revamped bill on the floor for a vote next week, before the july 4 holiday. Republicans have drawn criticism for their closeddoor negotiations on revisions to the American Health care act, which was passed by the house in may. Joining me from washington are sarah kliff of vox and Peter Suderman from reason magazine. Sara collins of the Commonwealth Fund is here as well. Sarah kliff, can you walk us through the politics and policy of where we are in the senate . Both are challenging percent republicans, but they are pretty committed to moving forward. What we know right now is that they definitely want to have a vote. The majority leader mcconnell has been very clear he wants to have the vote and have it soon. It is a challenging moment for them. It has beency wise, difficult to get the entire Republican Caucus on one page when you have people like Lisa Murkowski from alaska who is concerned about medicaid cuts, and someone like senator ted cruz from texas who wants a significant cut. There are challenges to getting everyone on board with the same policy, and there is certainly a concern about how the policy will be received. One of the reasons it seems like the republicans are keeping this secret it is they saw what the house went through, and saw the bill that would cost millions of people to lose coverage would not be popular. The politics and policy of it, it is challenging percent republicans. That being said, House Republicans are in a difficult spot when they were working on their bill, but they were able to pass it. Now we will see if the senate is able to accomplish that. David when the house passed the bill, the conventional wisdom is the senate would not pass anything like it. That has shifted. Most people think there are better than even odds that the senate actually does pass this. Is that your sense . Nobody wants to be left as the one standing in the way of health care appeal. This is a goal repealed. This is a goal republicans have been committed to for several years. Theres a lot of concern about the bill and coverage numbers, but at the end of the day, one of the things i was really instructive for me watching the fight in the house, is that when someone is in the hot seat, the one group or one legislator standing in the way, they ultimately cut some sort of deal get on something to board. The incentives are strong. I dont want to say it is locked up. It seems unclear if it will pass, but i think there are a lot of senators who do not want to have the finger pointed at them as the one person who stood in the way of this crucial republican goal. Peter, you have spent a lot of time thinking about what a conservative Health Policy would look like. You recently wrote that republicans believe a combination of speed and secrecy is the only way the bill will pass. They have so little confidence in their bill that they dont want anyone to see it. Can you explain to us why it is that virtually the entire Republican Caucus may vote for this bill, given all of the reaction to it . I think that big problems for republicans is that when it comes to Health Policy, they really dont know what they want. Terms. Bout in these democrats, its clear what they want from health care policy. They want coverage. They want coverage to be affordable and financed generally by taxes on high on wealthy people. But you cant really say what the Republican Party wants from the health care system, except that they dont like obamacare. That is the one thing they have rallied around for the last seven or eight years. What they want is to be able to say