First, the Trump Administration losing yet another cabinet member. Interior secretary, ryan zinke, has resigned and will leave the administration at the end of the year. He has growing scrutiny because of a number of investigations. Right now we move on to our other breaking story, the future of health care for millions of americans is up in the air. A federal judge in texas striking down obamacare, a controversial ruling that is setting the scene for a major legal battle ahead. This could leave the fate of obamas health care landmark law in the hands of the courts. The mandate that requires all americans to get Health Insurance or pay a penalty, and congress eliminated that penal tea as part of the 2016 tax cut bill and now the judge is saying that part of the mandate is unconstitutional. Many states are calling the ruling an assault, while President Trump who campaigned against obamacare is taking a victory lap on twitter touting that new ruling. We are joined by our Supreme Court reporter. Break it down for us. Obamacare, signing up for that ends at midnight and millions have signed up for 2019, and this will not immediately affect them . It wont. But this is a really broad ruling. The judge said not only is the individual mandate unconstitutional, and he said the whole law must go. It sends into doubt the future of a lot of peoples thinking about health care. He said it can remain in effect pending appeal. Let me walk you through the history of it, and we understand how we got through today. Remember back in 2012, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the mandate. Flash forward here to 2017, Congress Acts to get rid of the penalty. The judge last night says, look, you got rid of the tax penalty and thats the legal under pinning of the Supreme Court opinion. Not only is the individual mandate unconstitutional, but Everything Else must fall and thats a huge win for critics of obamacare. As you and i were discussing before the show this goes well beyond what the Trump Administration wanted. It will go through an appeals process but could make its way to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court shifted dramatically since the last ruling. How does it all play out . Remember, the Trump Administration declined to defend this law, so california and a group of other states, they stepped in and last night they said we are going to the fifth circuit, and thats a very conservative federal Appeals Court in texas. The fifth circuit will look at it, and if it upholds exactly what oconnor did then this thing will shoot to the Supreme Court because its so broad. The fifth circuit could scale back a little bit so maybe it wouldnt go to the court, but the court likes to hear things when they are big and National Laws like this, and we have the new conservative majority but we might have a concern about what is called severability. They will have to look at it if it gets to them. A lot of moving parts. But the important part to remember is nothing changes immediately but its in jeopardy. Yes. A lot of drama ahead. The Affordable Care act, that is that a major staple of the law, the preexisting conditions on both sides among democrats and republicans. Joining me now is one of the architects of obamacare, jonathan gruber. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. What is your reaction to the ruling out of texas . I think its disappointing. Its a per version of representative democracy. Republicans control the congress and had a chance to strike down obamacare and they said no, we are going to leave obamacare and strike down the tax penalty. They have said its severable. Republicans have spoken and said its severable. And the judge says, no, i will declare it unseverable. Even legal experts are saying its ridiculous, even if they were opposed to the Affordable Care act. And they say because the mandate was unconstitutional, the whole law is as well. That mandate was known as central and inseverable, as you were just discussing, from the remainder of obamacare. Do you agree . When the law passed we thought the mandate was a very important part of the law. We have proven its important but not as important as we thought, because we have experience of the law without it, and they removed the mandate. We are seeing it raises premiums, and the law remains quite strong, although not as strong as it might have been. We have seen the law is severable and the law still works without it, and congress and its wisdom declared its severable, and it said, look, we will keep the law but remove the mandate penalty. Theres no basis for a judge in texas to just say despite what the body that represents the people have said, i am going to decide this is not severable. Theres no reason to do it. Are you confident in the appeals process this will not go any further . No, i am not confident. Previous cases on the Affordable Care act has all been clearly by an objective standard easy wins, and yet they passed by the skin of their teeth. Constitutional experts in 2012 by an 80 to 90 margin said the mandate was unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court found it was not. The Supreme Court does care about the opinion of the American People. The American People have spoken. They believe that protecting people with preexisting conditions against Insurance Market discrimination is a key contribution of the law, and indeed it is. I think hopefully the Supreme Court will see that thats something that matters to people, and that because of some obscure severability clause or lack of severability they will not go against the will of the congress. You say you are nervous and at the same time you say the Supreme Court listens to the will of the American People, but now we have a Supreme Court that has two new conservative justices with gorsuch and kavanaugh on it. If it makes its way on the Supreme Court, do you have any sense of how you think they might rule or the whole court would rule . I honestly dont. I hope they look and realize even without the individual mandate, we are talking about a law that provided insurance to 17 million people, and for the 133 million americans with preexisting conditions, its saying dont worry, if you lose Health Insurance you can buy it on the exchange. If the law goes away we return to a day where people who are sick cant get Health Insurance, which defeats the whole purpose of the product. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. You bet. Joining me now is a congressional reporter and assistant editor at the washington post, and cnn political commentator. David, lets start with you. Protecting those with preexisting conditions was a vocal point of the midterm campaigns and did help democrats take back the house. What do you think are the political consequences of the ruling . Good morning, alex. I think the political consequences are that republicans have now basically done the equivalent of playing jenga, pulled the bottom block out of something hoping it will collapse. As your previous guest said it will probably go up to the Supreme Court to resolve this, and if the Affordable Care act does fall apart, you have a divided congress that will not agree on how to procee with health care and that will leave millions of americans who defeneded on the Affordable Care act in a lurch. Republicans have been unable to plan their plans, which are a version of, you know, marketbased health care where states can choose what kind of plans they have. The two sides are far apart. I dont think democrats in the immediate future are going to be able to deliver on this because they dont have the senate. I think republicans are going to have to answer in the coming months why they want to take this apart if they dont have a plan in place that can replace it, a thats clearly better. Kelsey, picking up on that, the soontobe house speaker, pelosi, slammed this. Is there anything else she can did . Shes capable for bringing up bills for the house to vote on, and she can bring back the penalty for the individual mandate zeroed out by republicans last year. I think its important that this is a big political issue for pelosi. She firmly believes and has strong evidence that republicans lost many, many congressional races in states like new jersey, in florida, and in california based on messaging the Affordable Care act because voters liked this law, and they really do like the protections that are in the law. Right. David, a point i have been trying to get at with some of our guests, if we play it out and it gets to the Supreme Court and you have the Supreme Court that is conservative with neil gorsuch and kavanaugh, and you have a solid 56 conservative majority. How will that affect things . Its a little bit of a wait and see. This texas federal judge has a reasonable if not ultimately winning point that if the Supreme Court in 2012 premised its upholding of the Affordable Care act on the idea that this was part of congresss taxing power but now the law does not include the pen penalty or tax, then that premise is gone. And you were talking about the severability issue on your program earlier, and i cant get into the minds of the justices, including Justice Roberts who is the chief justice, but who in 2012 clearly saw what would happen if the Supreme Court intervened to essentially undo the will of congress. I have to go with wait and see right now, alex. Wait and see it is. We have more to discuss. David and kelsey stay with us. We will take a quick break. Still ahead, turmoil inside the white house just after President Trump names Nick Mulvaney as his acting chief of staff. Ryan zinke steps down among several ethical investigations. We will be live from the white house, next. 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Sarah, zinke was in trouble because of all the investigations but his departure didnt seem imminent, did it . Why did all this happen today . Well, alex, ryan zinkes fate with the administration was unclear for months now after headlines he generated, and the timing of his departure comes amid a massive staff shakeup across the west wing and cabinet. Ryan zinke was facing a number of probes from the department of interiors, Inspector General over allegations that he used his post to enrich himself and perhaps had a relationship with the chairman of haliburton, and abuse poe t abuse potentially of the conduct after referring work to the justice department. Zinkes departure does create some headaches for the white house. Switching over to mulvaney for a second, he has been named acting chief of staff, emphasis on the acting, and somehow he is going to do that difficult and timeconsuming job while holding on to his job as the head of the omb . Thats what the administration says, although the daytoday work will be taken over by a deputy, and he took over as head of the cfb earlier that was a little controversial at the time. The president is accepting mulvaney in the position, and the president ultimately was not able to come to an agreement weeks ago with his first choice, nick ayers, because ayers wanted to hold it on a temporary basis as well, and the president is suddenly okay with acting an acting chief of staff. Thank you for breaking that all down. Back with me to discuss this is david and kelsey. The fact that the first choice for chief of staff, nick ayers, the reason those talks broke down is because he wanted the acting title and trump didnt. Why do you think he accepted it with mulvaney . Is it just to squash any perception that nobody wants the job . It may just be that. There are other candidates who said no or have been turned down since ayers said he didnt want the job, and it may also to be to put a little ease with people in congress because mulvaney has an odd relationship with folks up there, particularly with democrats. He was there for six years. He was. And there are democrats out there saying trump is picking mulvaney because he wants to have a bigger shutdown fight and mulvaney has been a credit of Government Spending and he was one of the republicans that always fought to keep spending limited, so its entirely possible he is trying to calm the waters. Hes a true partisan and supporter of the president so its unlikely he will be that middle ground diplomat thats not the expectation people have for the type of chief of staff we would see from mulvaney. And david, to you, the president s new acting chief of staff has not had kind words for the president in the past, specifically before the 2016 election, and overnight theres new video we found of mulvaney before election day and in it mulvaney explains why he is reluctantly supporting trump. Lets take a quick listen to that and talk on the other side. Yes, i am supporting donald trump, so as enthusiastic as i can be given the fact hes a terrible human being. I wonder if the president has seen that piece of video. Assuming he does at some point, do you think mulvaney will become the permanent chief of staff . No idea. I have not seen that video yet, alex, but i have two reactions to it. One is even though its a little more blunt than most would put it, in some ways i think thats an articulation of a bargain that a lot of Republican Voters made with trump in 2016, they didnt think he was great on issues of personal character but preferred him to secretary clinton, they liked his agenda and wanted a republican in the white house with a Republican Congress so they made that deal and went with them and now here they are, and now here congressman mulvaney or rather director mulvaney is now. Hes a loyal trump soldier now, and served as omb director, and hes got the right resume but i agree with what kelsey said to you a minute ago, the fact that you have to take him on an interim basis shows how much people dont want this job. Kelsey, when you hear to davids point that people dont want this job and the president saying many people want the job, which is true . Are people lining up to be the chief of staff in the white house at this time . Not as far as we have seen. There are people that enjoyed having their names out there or were not discouraging the conversation about their candidacy, but we have not seen a lot of people coming forward. It would be a difficult job. We have seen that through a number of people who have gone through it already. Very difficult because we have the democrats taking over the house, and also the p