Lisa merkowski. This is what he wrote. Senator Lisa Merkowski of the great state of alaska really let the republicans and our country down yesterday. Too bad. Senator merkowskis name now part of the president s growing naughty list that now includes his own attorney general Jeff Sessions. The president seems to be trying to push him out. This morning sources tell cnn that several white house officials are telling the president 0 back off. Lets begin with the health care debate. Mj, where are we . Reporter good morning, guys. The next couple of days are going to be extremely chaotic. At this point, its really hard to be able to lay out hour by hour what we expect to see happen. Lets begin with what we saw happen last night. Senators voted on the motion to proceed they took up an amendment that was a comhence i. Appeal and replace bill that Mitch Mcconnell had been working on. It excluded 100 billion to go towards medicaid states. As as well as an amendment by ted cruz. Now that was not successful. I want to emphasize here that was an amendment that required 60 votes for passes because the cbo had not scored it. The however even though it was not expected to pass, the end vote was 43 to 57. So really does not bode well for any attempts to move forward on anything that resembles a comhepzico comhen comprehensive plan. They will bring up the 2015 bill. Remember this was a bill passed through congress two years ago that president barack obama vetoed. Remember, this is something that will appeal the individual and employer mandates and repeal a lot of the taxes in obamacare. Now we do not expect this amendment to be successful either, because too Many Senate Republicans have already come out to say that they do not want to vote for something that is repeal only without a replacement in place. Now, when i said chaotic earlier, this is because we are going to see a flood of amendments come to the senate floor. Democrats have promised they expect to release dozens and dozens of amendments esen shto republicans to take votes in h the next couple of days. The end goal is to get something out of the senate to move to the house to hash out the differences. See if they can get something out. Thank you very much. President trump has treated his own attorney general like a pinata with public taunts excoriating attacks. Now he may be content to sort of let Jeff Sessions twist in the wind. President trump is refusing to say if he will fire him. Were even learning that some top officials in the white house are urning the president to rain rein in those attacks. Certainly criticism from the president of the United States directed at his attorney general. President trumps chief complaint, weve heard it before is that the attorney general recused himself in the russia investigation when the president thinks he did not have to do that and should not have. But there are some other complaints the president has articulated including one that the attorney general has not done enough to deal with leakers in the administration. The just a little while ago on cnn, the Communications Director, the new Communications Director, Anthony Scaramucci indicating that sessions is putting together a comprehensive, if you will, int interagency plan to deal with leakers, which might help sessions at least try to get back in the good graces of the president. Still, the question is whether President Trump want the the ag out. Heres what the Communications Director said about that. Do you think that hes going to get rid of Jeff Sessions . Because he seems to be injuring him in public . I dont know the answer to that. I would recommend to every cabinet secretary and every teammate have a tough skin. Have they spoken . I dont know the answer. Sessions, of course was the first sitting United States senator to endorse donald trump when he was running for president. And the president has more or less been minimizing over the last 24 hours or so, that move by sessions. Heres what he said to the wall street journal. He was a senator from alabama, looks at 40,000 people and he probably said so what do i have to lose and he endorsed me. So its not like a great loyal thing about the endorsement. So does sessions stay or go . It would be very difficult for the president to get rid of him because it would be very difficult to find a replacement. There is Something Else to are can. Consider. Of sessions built up a huge following. Now those conservative followers seem to be coming to his rescue. Thats right. Republicans in the senator rallying to his support right now. Not to mention conservative media. Thank you very much. Lets discuss all this. Joining us mark preston, Jack Kingston and former congressman from the state of georgia. Jennifer, former White House Communications secretary. And laura coats. Former federal prosecutor. I want to start with you and the law, laura. The you think that what the president s doing is trying to force Jeff Sessions to quit because firing him might expose him to future obstruction charges. My question to you, though, is pushing a guy out by publicly h humiliating him, will the law look differently. No because the pass i. Aggressive approach will say look, the president the United States, if Jeff Sessions resigns he didnt have an actual hand in the firing, therefore you would have a more tangential relationship with the idea of obstruction of justice. Thats not going 0 to be a situation where you have the president being as complicit. He wants to force it out in a way it doesnt make him look like obstruction. When he fire the james comey. You have the usurpation of loretta lynch. You did have universal criticism of james comey that gave the president an escape route. Now you have the president of the United States on record with the New York Times talking about his dismay with the attorney general over his handling of russia. That, my friend looks more like obstruction. Remember, the end game here is to have somebody in place to be able to get rid of robert mueller, the one person whos charged with independence over the russian criminal probe. All right, guys. Let me get you to weigh in on a tweet from the president. I think we might have it. Put it on the screen. After consulting with my generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the u. S. Military. Our military must be focused on desizive and overwhelming looks like theres going to be more to ucome. What is your response congressman . Well i think that the lead of the statement is that hes listened to his military advisors, which is one of the criticisms from the left and the right often that the president gets is that he doesnt listen to the key people, whether theyre in the Intel Community or local Law Enforcement or whatever. The so this is the case where hes actually saying ive sat down, ive heard their concerns, and i want to say that one other thing as a republican taking a step back. As a Republican Convention last july, he was the first nominee in the history of our party to talk about lbgq from the platform of the state arena. The amend i think that he is a progressive guy. Ted crus accused him of having i dont think its a slam against transgender so much as. Well, on the one hand congressman you are correct the president when candidate did say katelyn general n katelyn let me just read you the rest of this statement from the president. He was talking about the military. Doesnt want them to be overburdened. He cannot be burdened by the tremendous medical cost it would entail. Thank you. One point. First of all the president just made an ficofficial policy statement. This is a big policy decision z. The chose to do it like this. The this was from president obama, whom you worked for, this was a decision he made to open up the military to transgender troops. Your reaction now to the president s statement. Well, first of all, its not a decision that any president just makes in the oval office by themselves. President obama made that consideration after careful consideration and consultation for months with high level members of the military who wanted the time to consider whether it could be implemented. Im just going to take Donald Trumps tweet or blame a same that he conusulted with militar leaders with a grain of salt because there has been months and years of consultation and consideration. I think there is a purely political decision and something hes doing to satisfy his right wing. Its really disappointing because there has been a lot of thought put into that policy. The country has chamgnged and t military had put a lot of planning into making that policy decision to begin with. Lets go to the pentagon. Barbara, he says this is what his generals and military experts have advised him to do. The this would be an overhaul of the Obama Administration poll policy. Ill tell you. Where we are across the hall from the Pentagon Press office, this tweet has taken them really very suddenly. We were just asking for some guidance on all of this. And right now, theres nobody in the press office that knew the president was going to make this statement on twitter. That may tell us something about the level of consultation. But lets take a step back for a minute. At the United States military, the people who serve in the u. S. Military, always have been a reflection of american society. So number one, if anybody thinks that there are not already transgender persons serving on active duty in the u. S. Military, i would say think again. People from across america lets put it a way, serve in the u. S. Military. There will have to be a decision about what the president thinks is going to happen to people already serving on active duty in an honorable fashion who are transgender. Now, the next thing is under the Obama Administration and the previous defense secretary, there was this decision to begin to look at this, and indeed begin to look at the medical costs if they wanted to get the medical treatment that they would be going through, the medical procedures and how to do all of this. The next step, took it to the heads of all the services, chiefs of staff of the army, marine corps, chief of naval operations, head of the air force to get their input on what should be done. There was, by the chiefs, some discussion that they wanted to put it off. The that they werent really ready to advise wholesale on moving ahead with any of the proposals on how these people who identify themselves as transgender, who are transgender, might be able to get medical procedures while they were serving in h the u. S. Military. So we knew, from defense secretary mattis that some of this delay was in the works while they were continuing to look at it. But what the president has done is put full stop on it and now what we dont know is the way ahead. Can somebody who is transgender not serve the country . Is that really what were looking at . Well, his policy, which he just laid out, he said in any capacity. So hes not just talking about front lines, not talking about any capacity. So let me just say something. If you take the commander in chief at his word, may not serve in any capacity. Does of course this is very early moments of the president s tweet. May not serve in any capacity. Does the United States military now go on a search for those who are serving who ever transgender and force them out of the military . I think right now as we stand here, that is the big unanswered question. And we have to learn more going forward. Barbara starr, were going to let you go. Thank you very much. We want to shift back for just a moment to what we were talking about before and this is the fate of Jeff Sessions. One of the things that has developed is the support from the attorney general from within the republican party. Senators saying no, we stand by Jeff Sessions. Conservative media saying we stand by Jeff Sessions right now. The and now some people in the white house apparently telling the president he should back off. What do you make of it. Well, 24 hours ago sitting in the same position. Talked about how there still is a little bit of loyalty left in washington, d. C. And actually seeing that play out now. Whether that is centrist or republican senators who tend to go more to the senate. But rob from ohio forcefully coming out, acknowledging he doesnt always agree with him on the issues but finds him to be an honorable man. At the same time seeing things from conservatives. Look at the totality of what donald trump is doing now. Not only is he personally hurting Jeff Sessions but hes hurting himself. Hurting the presidency because hes weakening some of the mous powerful people hes surrounded himself with that he needs to be effective. Whether thats to implement his policies or whether that is Jeff Sessions trying to go to capitol hill in order to get republicans to come on board, maybe try to whip some votes on some of the other controversial policies they may address in the future. President trump may think hes taking a dig at Jeff Sessions but its hurting him by doing so. Congressman before we go, do you think there is one legitimate reason for President Trump to fire Jeff Sessions, if he does . I think that they should have had a better understanding about what his role would be. As i understand it, before he recused himself, he did not talk to the president. I do think thats a slap to the president. But i want to say this. What Anthony Scaramucci just said on the previous clip is you need to have thick skin to be in this cabinet and yesterday he said the two of them need to you can ta i believe that thats right attorney general sessions really does have a way back to viability and vibrancy by looking at the leaks, maybe doing something on opioids, continuing to be a strong enforcer of the border. And i think you can have a fall and a rise in this town. Weve seen it with newt gingrich. I was in the house when any newt resigned as speaker is now one of the most influential voices in america. The so you can fall in washington or be pushed but you can come back. The. So the method in the tweets are a whole new ball game. Congressman thank you. The mark preston, we appreciate it. A Major Senate Hearing on russias election meddling about to get underway. The head line is who is not going to be there. Two of those folks on your screen. But who is there also fascinating. Also, the new sanctions against russia drawing new critics but not from the white house or just the russians. Who complaining now . Plus time off or thinking about taking off. Secretary of state Rex Tillerson back to work amid reports he is frustrated and may be possibly thinking about resigning early. Your Insurance Company wont replace the full value of your totaled new car. The guy says you picked the wrong insurance plan. No, i picked the wrong Insurance Company. 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The in addition to that, who wh horowitz has been urged to look into other issues including the firing of comey and the recusal of