Republican operative tried to go to get Hillary Clintons emails and what former National Security adviser may have had to do with it. First this. Whats old is new, once again. Its like everything around here. The Senate Health care bill is at an impasse and President Trump is floating a strategy that could complicate the already complicated situation. If hen senators are unable to pass what they are working on now, they should immediately repeal, then replace at a later date. Ryan nobles is live on capitol hill right now with much more on this. Ryan, its just as simple as that, or maybe not at all. Reporter kate, it can be said this is the furthest thing from simple. This could complicate the process for Senate Republicans trying to bring the factions of the party together. One senior gop aide told phil mattingly, this is like rolling a grenade into the negotiation. This is making things more difficult and important to keep in mind, this is a different position than the president himself made in the past. Look what he told the New York Times in january. He said, quote, i feel repeal and replace have to be together for a very simply, i think the democrats should want to fix obamacare. They cannot live with it and they have to go together. Its also important to keep in mind, this is not the option that most americans are interested in, either. A cnn orc poll said in march, of all the options when it comes to fixing health care and reforming health care in general, the idea of repealing the bill, regardless of what you have in place is only favored by 17 of americans. Thats the lowest of the potential options. This is an issue. Its not just the president behind this plan. He has a few republicans supportive, including nebraska senator, ben sasse, who sent a letter to the president encouraging him to make this move. Rand paul of kentucky has been talking to white house officials about the idea of passing replacement, then coming up with a new plan sometime later. The problem is they are in the minority. Not only in the minority in the senate, but the minority within their own party. Isnt the problem the same thing, ryan . Its math. Reporter exactly. Even conservatives like ted cruz are very much in favor of trying to come up with a repeal and replace deal now. They are actively working to try to bring the factions together. I think the argument can be made that this does not meet that goal. In fact, theres a good chance it pushes these two sides of the argument further apart. Sounded so simple, 140 characters. Great to see you, ryan. Thank you so much. Well be following this as they head off and head home to face their constituents for the july 4th recess. Developing now, President Trumps tweets about a female tv host leading to a stunning new accusation this morning. Theres more. I feel like i have to say. Did the white house use the National Inquirer to threaten journalists. President trump says no. The host of msnbcs morning joe, they say yes. We got a call that, hey, the National Inquirer is going to run a negative story against you guys and it was, you know, donald and friends with the president s friends with the guy that runs the National Inquirer. They said, if you call the president up and apologize for your coverage, then he will pick up the phone and basically fight this story. I had, i will say, three people at the very top of the administration calling me. The response was, are you kidding me . Not at all. Cnns Senior Correspondent brian and host of reliable resources is here with me. What are you picking up here . This was not an element of the story yesterday until their piece came out this morning in the washington post. What is behind this inquirer back and forth . A stunning charge. What we know to be true, trump and the publisher of the National Inquirer are longtime friends, they are tight, they are long time allies. That came out during the election. Theres a great piece that details that. Lets be clear, joe and mika are a legend of blackmail. They are saying the president is using a media outlet. Say sorry, sir, well stop criticizing you, sir. Its a power dynamic. Here is what the president said. He tweeted, apparently he was watching, i was watching morning joe for the first time. Joe called me to stop the article. I said no. Then he added, bad show. The president is saying not true. Scarborough responding he has receipts, text messages, emails or receipts to prove there was this conversation back and forth. I spoke with howard, who oversees the inquirer. Here is a statement saying, this isnt about us. They did publish a story at the beginning of this month about scarborough and brzezinski. We have no knowledge of discussions between the white house and joe and mika about the story and no involvement in those discussions. Dont look at us, we are not involved. Yeah, dont look at us. Trump said joe called me up. Hopefully scarborough will have more information. It is a concerning thing. It peaks the interest of journalists. The president would use a supermarket tabloid to punish enemies. If you look at that cover, there are a lot of stories favorable to the president. This week, the president taking charge, firing aides, trying to get the white house back in order. There was a negative story about megan kelly. Its interesting to see what the ties are between trump and the National Inquirer. It was a big deal, the backlash with the attack he put on twitter. Then theres this. It is more and equally important to discuss. There is new reaction to just the initial attack that came from the president. Yeah. Kellyanne conway was on abc this morning and asked by george stephanopoulos. Watch this. I endorse the president s right to fight back when he is being merslessly attacked and the air waves filled with raw sewage about him and fitness to the office. I never said i endorse it. I endorse his ability to fight back. Theres no good that comes out of people attacking the president s physical and mental state on number one brought in. Discussed that last night at length. I think we have a very, very strong, solid plan. Number two, is going to be a force trade. The trade deal is up and we want to make a deal that is fair for the United States and fair for south korea. Gary cohen is here and ross is here. I think its a very important thing. Wilbur, perhaps you would like to say a few things about trade right now. We can probably leave the media. Trade is important. Things about trade and what we are looking to do. Yes, sir. Trade imbalance with south korea doubled since the treaty was put into effect. The largest single component as trade. Thats an absolute majority. Nontariff trade barriers to the u. S. , only 25,000 cars per big three manufacturer are allowed in based on u. S. Standards. Anything above that needs to be on korean standards. That kind of rule making affects quite a few industries and restricts the access that u. S. Companies have to the korean market. We have a separate problem with oil field tubular goods and other steel products. There is no domestic market for tubular goods in korea. Everything they make is exported. We have recent trade cases demonstrating a lot of that is in chinese field coming as oil and coming to the u. S. s autofield. The amount of specific problem and the way to address it is product by product and what we can do to change the export side and what we can do to reduce the bad influence. Thank you very much. You can stay for this, also. Perhaps gary cohen could say a few words about trade. Yes, thank you mr. President. As you know, much of our biggest problem on trade has to do with our economic relationship with china and we have maintained a very large trade deficit with china. It continues to grow. As wilbur said, china has many predatory practices involved in the way they deal with intellectual property, trade barriers for us. We are forced to transfer technology into china, forced to have joint ventures in china. We have tariffs and nontariff barriers, unable to own companies in china as well and we are dealing with all their policies. At some point, we would be interested to hear how you are dealing with it and how you can help us deal with chinese policies. I thank you very much. The idea is that the United States has trade deficits with many, many countries and we cannot allow that to continue. Well start with south korea right now. We cannot allow that to continue. This is really a statement that i make about all trade, for many, many years, the United States suffered through massive trade deficits. Thats why we have 20 trillion in debt. Well be changing that. The good news is we make good products. I appreciate very much giving south korea very, very big orders to the United States for, as you know, for military. They are buying many f35 fighter jets from lockheed and other military equipment like never before. Thats good. I understand you are dealing with alaska, a great state, on natural gas and other parts of the United States. We have a lot of natural gas. We love that you are going to do that. Things like that will bring down the trade deficit substantially. We appreciate it. Mr. President would you like to Say Something before the media leaves . [ speaking Foreign Language ] all right. You are watching right there, bilateral meeting between President Trump and president moon of south korea. An expanded one. At first, we didnt think we were going to get images of it. This is great we are able to see it. Speaking of the key issues and an important note, we are going to hear from the president and south korean president. They will make joint statements in the rose garden in a few minutes. Well bring that to you live when it happens. Lets get back to the other stories we are watching today. Breaking news in the russian investigation. The wall street journal is saying a long time republican operative focused on research tried to get Hillary Clintons emails from hackers. He implied he had a connection to fired adviser, Michael Flynn. This happened before the election when flynn was a top adviser to then, candidate trump. Simone is here with all the details. What do we have on this . What are you picking up . What we have is whats in the wall street journal and the person, this republican operative since died since the interview. We did some of our own tracking with law enforcement. Right now, no one seems to really be confirming this they are trying to figure out what the story is about. This operative, the guys looking for Research Claims he hired computer experts and a team of attorneys to try to communicate with Russian Hackers through various hacking websites to see if they can obtain the emails from Hillary Clintons server. You know, this sort of assumes that hackers, Russian Hackers somehow access her emails. Keep in mind, kate, the fbi, when doing this big investigation, they went through her server and looking for indications to see if there was any way someone hacked in or got into it. They did not find any. It doesnt mean it didnt occur. There are methods, because it was clean, somehow that got erased. They certainly did not see indications her emails were hacked or the russians somehow possessed these emails. Also, the story talks about russian communications. We have done our own reporting on some of that. Intelligence Officials Say the russians tend to exaggerate the information they have. They know the u. S. Is listening. This could be part of it, too. You know, who knows whether this is going to expand the investigation on the house side of the intelligence side. We dont know that the fbi or other officials are looking at this. We have no indication they are, and the mike flynn situation. Again, his name comes up. This operative, claimed the emails he had contact, he could contact Michael Flynn or had access to Michael Flynn. Thats another angle. Flynn was on their side. Again, hes since passed away since the wall street journal interviewed him, which complicates the whole thing. We cant follow up with him and others, the lawyers he hired or the other folks he may have hired to help with this research or opposition research. We have not found independent indications anything like this went on, the hacking of her server. Great to see you, shimon. Thank you. Lets discuss this and other things. Lets go to capitol hill, jim himes joins me now. Thanks for coming in. Good morning, kate. What shimon was talking about, the wall street reporting, whats detailed, is that part of the investigation right now . Kate, i dont want to get into what is subject of the investigation, specifically. Certainly the wall street journal story was news to me. Okay. You know, as your reporter pointed out, theres a lot of possibilities and allegations and connections there. You know, obviously the reference to Michael Flynn is interesting to me. Michael flynn is an individual whose name keeps coming up in a variety of contexts and a variety of questionable ways. Personally, ill be interested in knowing if theres any there there. We are dealing with a story that is challenging because the individual passed away. You can count on the house investigation, the senate and fbi to follow up on whatever leads appear. Michael flynns name combs up, as you point out. What came up is Michael Flynns son, Michael Flynn jr. Came up in this report as well. We know Michael Flynn, the National Security adviser has been looked at in part of the various investigations throughout. Is Michael Flynn jr. , his son, a target of the investigation in the house . Well, Michael Flynn jr. , as you are probably aware is the chief of staff of Michael Flynns former company, the intelligence advisory company. His son was the chief of staff. His son would accompany him on most of his Business Travel, was with him a lot when Michael Flynn had a formal role in the trump campaign. So, its fair to say in as much as the investigation is interested in knowing about Michael Flynn, we have an interest in knowing what his son knows as well. I had democratic congressman, your colleague, mike quigley on earlier this week. He told me he would love to see another trump associate, roger stone, testify in public when he comes before the committee. Stone said the committee wants him to testify in a closed hearing. Why hold testimony like this behind closed doors . Like, why . Yeah, its a good question. I certainly have and i think the ranking member, adam schiff has a bias to doing everything open and publicly as much as we can. Roger stone is a little is s should say its puzzling. Its not clear he had access to classified information so its not clear why we dont do it in the open. Roger stone wanted to do it in the open. Right. This is an important issue. At the end of the day, we are going to produce a report. The more of the investigation that can be done in a transpairtive way, im puzzled why the testimony would be behind closed doors. Who makes that call . At the end of the day, like Everything Else in the investigation, it would be negotiated between the democrats and republicans on the committee. I was not in the room when that particular negotiation wz happening. I within the give you insight why that is. Regardless, roger stone has been such a visible part of this whole question with his tweets about, you know, john podesta serving time in the barrel, apparently predicting the leak of John Podestas email. There are important questions he needs to answer. Susan rice, president obamas former National Security adviser agreed to testify before your committee next month. What do you want to ask her . You know, susan rice is primarily of interest to people. Im telling what they have said publicly, interest of people focussed on the issue of unmasking. Did susan rice is she of interest to you . Its not clear to me what she may or may not know. I will say this about unmasking. It is a word that sounds ominous. Its something that happens every single day on the part of Senior Administration officials when they need to look at a masked u. S. Persons name to understand the intelligence they are looking at. Of course, its something we take seriously here. You are, in fact, exposing a u. S. Persons name to a senior official. As a result, that is surrounded by lawyers, audited by inspector generals. There are those making allegations if susan rice may have unmasked something. Maybe she did. The question is was it unproper . I have no reason to believe it is. She has aggressively denied she did any improper unmasking. My guess is thats what the conversation is going to revolve around. Chairman nunez, who kind of stepped aside from the investigation, will he be participating in the interview with susan rice . I would be surprised if thats the case. Again, i have been listening to chairman nunez talk about the nature of this recusal over the last week or so. What i will tell you is mike, the republican who stepped in subsequent to devin nuness recusal has been doing a terrific job and working hard under circumstance that is are challenging for everybody. You do not think devin nunes should take part . As much as that may be related to russia and it may be, no. I dont think he should. No. Theres a whole other question around the activity of unmasking and how is that monitored. By the way, as an oversight committee, thats w