Transcripts For CSPAN2 White House Says Complex GOP Health C

Absolutely, you go ahead. Whenever you are ready. Thank you to cnn viewers around the world. Its good to see you guys. Thank you and good morning everyone. Appreciate, john roberts factchecking from the sea. Good morning, good afternoon. [laughter] its not my fault, its on the paper. After receiving his daily intelligence briefing this morning the president led a National Economic Council Listening session with ceos of small and Community Banks. Since 2008 the number of small banks has declined 30 . The dramatic increase in regulation following the financial crisis has been a Major Driving force in the decline of these banks. Doddfrank alone has resulted in 22,000 pages of new regulations. While large banks can hire armies of complaints officers whose sole purpose is to ensure they meet the evergrowing number of regulations it increases the cost of doing business for Community Banks leaving some not to engage in some forms of lending were simply due to the time and costs involved. Our Community Banks are key Funding Sources for Small Business owners entrepreneurs farmers and ranchers across the country many of them cant qualify for traditional loans. They provide approximately half of all loans to Small Businesses by reforming the predator system so that sufficient effective and appropriately tailored for treating these critical institutions in our communities the same as banks that have exponentially more in assets enabling them to engage more with Small Businesses and entrepreneurs that stimulate the economy. The banks participating in this listening sessions with the independent Community Bankers of america. A full participant list is available for those who are just a at the yesterday noted the continued signs of good news in our economy in terms of hiring and a Morning Report showed consumer comfort has risen to the highest level in decades. Im sure last night he saw the report that illegal southwest border crossings are down by an extraordinary 40 a significant deviation even when you consider the seasonal trends. These measures were liked the economy and the border are out of responding to the presence agenda even while we are in the beginning stages of putting policies in place. The country in the world are clearly ready and waiting for the change that the president campaigned on and started delivering. Right now the president is holding an Affairs Lunch with director mulvaney key members of congress on his plans for the federal budget and repeal and replace that we talked about. This is just the latest opportunity to continue the dialogue between the president and the members on capitol hill and turning his ambitious agenda into action. The strong relationship train the president congressional leaders with the key of the budget process moves along. As director mulvaney has been saying a budget blueprint will be released in midmarch and oppressors working collaboratively with the cabinet and congress to create a project that keeps the president s promises to secure the country and make the most efficient use of taxpayer money. And attendance at the meeting on capitol hill were senator crapo the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee Chairman cochran the Senate Chairman of the Senate Appropriations committee senator mike enzi the chairman of the Senate Budget committee senator bob corker member of the Senate Budget committee congresswoman black the chairman of the house Budget Committee congressman thornberry the chairman of the House Armed Services committee congressman jim jordan of ohio congressman meadows of North Carolina the chairman of the House Freedom caucus and congressman rokita of indiana. Later this afternoon the president will meet with secretary, former secretary of commerce Peter Peterson and in the president present has a meeting with secretary upon the security kelly and direct her of the ca might pompeo. Finally the president will make remarks to the Senate Youth Program at 4 00. The president is honored to be speaking to this distinguished group of young men and women who are interested in pursuing careers in public service. I also want to mention right about now the Vice President is giving keynote remarks at the latino coalitions policy summit for his remarks focused on the negative impact of obama karen Small Businesses many of whom have been unable to hire more workers or were forced to scale down their operations to the high taxes and burdensome requirements that were imposed by the law. The president is dedicated to improving health care for every american including Small Business owners who have been especially have suffered through complying with regulations and rules. Thats why hes working with congress to enact the American Health care act which he was glad to wake up this morning as he sea was approved by the house Ways Means Committee. The president was pleased to see his ambassador to israel David Friedman voted out of committee. We hope to see seema verma who would be confirmed as the administrator this week as the administrator of Health Centers for medicare and Medicaid Services and the department of health and Human Services. Unfortunately reds continue to unnecessarily delayed or affirmation. At this critical time when we are talking about health care its ironic he would refuse to consider someone with amazing expertise in this area. He has worked for 20 years in Health Care Policy and she has redesigned the Medicaid Programs in several states including indiana iowa ohio and kentucky pushes work with governors offices state Health Department state department of insurance as well as private companies and foundations. She is unquestionably in uniquely qualified for her position and is at the top of the presence agenda. Its time to get her place. This delay by Senate Democrats at this critical time is unacceptable. On the scheduling of for the weekend the Vice President announced yesterday hell be in louisville kentucky on saturday with governor babbin. The Vice President s office for further details on that trip as we get closer. Finally i want to take a moment to acknowledge that today is the tenyear anniversary of the disappearance of former fbi agent Robert Levinson from kish island iran. The Trump Administration remains unwavering in our commitment to locate mr. Levinson and bring them home. The levinson family has suffered far too long and we will not rest until this case is resolved. And with that i will take your questions. Halley jackson. I have a couple of topics for you. Julian assange says the cia has lost control of its entire Cyber Weapons arsenal. Does the president agreed . As we have commented before there is great concern that the present has about the release of National Security and classified information that threatens and undermines our nations security. Obviously he believes the systems at the cia are outdated and need to be updated. We are not commenting on the Current Situation as u. S. Government policy but i think the situation technologywise at the cia the president has acknowledged need to be updated. The cia put out a statement regarding the Current Situation and i would refer you to that. Is he going to talk about that with mike tom pao . He gets a Daily Briefing and im not privy to the contents of the discussion but i obviously issues of National Security including that are probably something that gets discussed. Some republicans believe the Julian Assange should be imprisoned. Does the president agree . I think the u. S. Government has had a position on Julian Assange and i will leave it up to the department of justice for further comment on their disposition of him. Second topic was on health care. The president tweeted a bit ago that he believes health care is coming along great. We have also been watching paul rand deliver a pretty lengthy Powerpoint Presentation asking republicans to get on board. Isnt that a sign that health care is not actually coming along great . I think anyone who is in washington recognizes that any major piece of legislation takes a lot of explanation. The president has been committed to talking to members of congress. Yet another meeting last night. Something as complicated that deals with one fifth of our economy and deals with major takeover of our Health Care System isnt a simple thing. Its a complicated piece of legislation that has three prongs to it and this is the first one. A reconciliation piece that starts to chip away at finally repealing obamacare. When they passed obamacare they rushed it so quick they gave the then secretary of health and Human Services Great Authority to enact certain aspects. That would be our face to having secretary price go through the pieces of obamacare that he is than the authority that when they passed it to unwind a lot of things that have to be done through other pieces of legislation that allows people to sell insurance across state lines. There are a lot of facets to getting this pushed through in one of the things we been able to do quite effectively is talk to members especially in the house. The Vice President has been active on both sides of both chambers to communicate how this is a comprehensive strategy and three prongs to repeal and replace it with something more effective. For example roll back Medicaid Expansion freezing until 2018 . Palley i think this is going through the process, is working its way through ways means and theres a markup in the house energy and Commerce Committee and thats where we continue to see action in the house and when it goes to the senate the president will continue to engage actively with the house and the senate to get this done. Thank you, sean. New york city first lady Shirley Mcrae said in the statement that donald trump should keep his hands up womens bodies Womens Health care and planned parenthood which is done just fine without President Trumps advice. I want to do with the response from the white house was on the lack. With respect to planned parenthood the president is very clear that he is prolife. We have worked with them to talk about making sure that theres a difference between taxpayer funding of abortion and Womens Health services. We have in the president has committed to make sure that the funds for Womens Health Community Centers is going to be reflected by a substantial increase in its budget. Hes trying to figure out a way to make sure the focus of taxpayer money is spread towards Community Centers that provide Vital Health Care and we are not using taxpayer funds for abortion. John roberts. I want to follow on halley, an unrelated topic. On health care senator john cotton sent serious of tweets in which he basically said this is dead on arrival and go back to the drawing board adding that its absurd for the committees to be voting on something that hasnt even been scored yet. What does the president think of what senator khan said the day . We will engage. Hes talked to senator cotton and will continue to talk to any senator that has questions or concerns. It went through the Ways Means Committee last night. I think they started Something Like 10 15 yesterday morning. He is meeting with members right now and he had dinner with senator cruz and continued to work with both chambers. I think you are going to see a very aggressive robust push. We continue to have the team out talking to local media and local radio and local leaders. We believe the more we talk about the comprehensive threepronged approach that we have two doing a lot of the things that conservatives have talked about to bring back Cost Containment to get people to be more patientcentered and allow more choices is going to bring people on board. But the thing thats interesting about the current approach is that no matter where you are especially on the conservative side you cannot possibly believe that the current Health Care System is an effective program. It is a monstrosity. It is government gone wrong. I think we will continue to engage with him and other members of the house and senate that have ideas but it will continue to work its way through the process. Its currently going through the house energy and Commerce Committee and the house passes it im sure senator cotton and other senators will have an opportunity to have their say. Thats part of the process and we welcome his ideas. The president has continued tremendous outreach and their staff continues to do that. Vice president pence has maintained a very aggressive schedule. Was the president aware that Lieutenant General Michael Flynn was acting as a Foreign Agent when he appointed him to the National Security adviser . I dont leave that was known. I would refer you to general flynn and the department of justice in terms of the filings. Have the president known that would he have appointed him . I dont know, john. I dont know what he discussed prior to his background as resume and his client as. I dont know any of that. I know that from what ive read that he is filed appropriate dorms with the department of justice and i think you should ask him and subsequently them if you have questions about the specific filing. Following up on senator cotton. He told me a short while ago you believe that this bill might make things worse than current obamacare. What do you say to senator cotton . I respectfully disagree and i hope we have an opportunity to continue to not only talk to him about what we are trying to do and how we are trying to do it. As i mentioned last couple of days we are not jamming this down peoples throats. We think its a great vehicle to restore patientcentered Health Care Bill to drive down costs and senator cotton recognizes the current version of health care thats out there right now is not sustainable. We welcome his input into this process. We think the work we have done prior to putting this together with the house is something that reflects a lot of the best ideas and will continue to welcome his input. Hold on. The president has said before he wants to hear members ideas. He believes that this bill encompasses the best of the ideas and the best way forward but again we are going to let the process work its will. If members have ideas we want to hear them and want them to be part of it. This is not getting jammed through and we welcome that. Thats why the president continues to meet with folks. He wants to hear members of congress outside groups Physicians Health care providers and patients but he wants people to have an input in this to make sure we have the best possible bill that serves their needs and that we dealt with that what we do now with obama can say i wish we had done this right. We have got a system that frankly isnt working and no matter where you are on the political spectrum you got to admit that either you or a loved one or friend or colleague is in getting the care they deserve for isnt paying what they thought they would be paying. We have to do this right so we dont look back the way we do now regrets the way that it was done. Charlie. Senate and house conservatives said that they want sort of her return to a 2015 Obamacare Repeal effort. If that ever landed on the president s desk would he sign a . I think the effort that is going through right now is the vehicle that is what people are on board with. I think one thing we have to remember the process is done for particular reason. The reconciliation process which i know for most people sounds like a very arcane inside baseball congression