Hundt, sara kliff of vox and Peter Suderman. Mitch mcconnell has been clear he wants to have this vote, wants to have it soon and it is a challenging moment for them. I think policy wise it has been difficult to get the entire Republican Caucus on one page when you have folks like lisa mur could yousky from alaska concerned about the medicaid cutted and someone like ted cruz from texas who wants some significant medicaid cuts. So there are a lot of challenges to getting everybody on board with the same policy. And i think there is certainly a concern about how that policy will be received. We conclude with the new film citizen jane, a documentary about the urbanist and activist jane jay could bees. Charlie talked with the mill ams director and producer. We ended up doing our best to destroy our own cities by building freeways, by building tower in the park, housing, what was called urban renewal at the time. And it was seen as a positive thing but this is really one of jane jacobs early contributions, early in the 1950st when these things are being built, she said this was a whistleblower saying are you destroying your cities in order thinking you are saving it. Politics, health care and citizen jane when we continue. Within funding for charlie rose is provided by the following. Bank of america. Life better connected. And by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Good evening. Charlie is traveling. Im David Leonhardt of the new york times. We begin this evening with a look at politics. Controversy continues to grow surrounding president trumps alleged involvement with russias interference during the 2016 election. Yesterday jay sekulow one of the president s lawyers said trump was not under investigation by the special counsel. Sekulows statements, however, contradict the president s own tweets confirming that he was a target. Last tuesday attorney general Jeff Sessions testified before the Senate Intelligence committee. He called the suggestion that he colluded with russians during the campaign an appalling and detestable lie, and engaged in a heating exchanged with democratic senator ron wyden. General sessions, respectfully, youre not answering the questions. Well, what is the question. The question is, mr. Comey said that there were matters with respect to the recusal that were problematic and he couldnt talk about them. What are they . I that why dont you tell me. There are non, senator wyden, there are none. Can i tell you that for absolute certainty. This is shall a secret inwino innuendo being leaked out there about me and i dont appreciate it and i have tried to give pie best and truthful answers to any committee ive appeared before. And its really people are suggesting through innuendo that i have been not honest about matters. And i have tried to be honest. Senator wyden joins me now from washington. Welcome, senator, thank you for joining us. Thank you, david. Lets start with todays news on russia which is a little bit different. Russia sent some woreisome signals about the war in syria that is was treating american planes as aerial targets after the United States shot down a syrian plane this weekend. How worried should we be about escalation between the United States and russia. David, ive had a hard rule that i would only talk about russia after we talked about health care first. And i gather that you are willing to commit to our having some good time on health care if i get into russia first. So with that, let me tackle your question. I think that 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 havent had a briefing yet with respect to this weekends activities. But let me say i think weekend developments are cause for concern. I read the statements from the military and the Trump Administration today to mean that the United States doesnt take russia statements completely literally and i think for all of the tough talk from moscow today that in fact this may just be a relatively modest bump in the road. Do you share what seems to be that optimism . Well, its good to see a little bit of skepticism in the Trump Administration when the russians speak. Remember, this is a president who for example after the Senate Passes a tough sanctioned package against russia, were going to have some deficit trying to keep the Trump Administration from watering it down in the house. So if theyre showing skepticism with respect to russia, that is tter tn at weve dpot. So now lets turned to the investigation. So much of the discussion now is about the potential coverup. The whole discussion surrounding the firing of james comey is about a potential coverup. I wanted to ask you 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. Well, first of all, i think we need to understand that this speaks to the legitimate 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. And the Trump Administration has consistently played that down, number one. 23478 two, he shifted american policies that weve seen his predecessor, both democrats and republicans, when the russians would engage in matters like the ukraine and crimea, we would have tough sanctions. This president has moved away from that. We have seen his sons say that in 2008, for example, when its hard to get money, a substantial part of their portfolio involved russian investments, and this is the first president in four decades whos been unwilling to release his tax return. So i had to introduce legislation requiring this. So this really speaks to the legitimacy of this administration and obviously practically every day or so there are new issues. We had the bizarre situation over the last couple of days when the president said that he was being investigated by the government, and then his lawyer said he wasnt. I mean those four words, im being investigated, are now being heard around the world. Clearly one of the concerns here is about whether there was collusion between the campaign and russia. And i should say theres, as yet, no evidence that there was collusion, correct me if you disagree. But it seems to me there is also a second set of questions that you have gotten interested in which is are there financial ties separate from the campaign between the president of the United States and his family members and associates, and people close to russian president vladimir putin. Am i right that that is a concern of yours. Yes, i have lead the efforts in the Intelligence Committee on what are called the follow the money issues. It also intersects with my responsibilities of ranking democrat on the finance committee and here what youre looking at is possible shell corporations or Money Laundering or property transfers. And weve got a a lot of work to do, were in talks with the Treasury Department about getting access to key documents. Weve got a lot of digging ahead. And what have you seen that even makes you want to ask those questions. Why are you worried about those potential ties. We have a stackful of reports from your colleagues in the press that certainly have 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, thats why i staked out this ground. And by the way, clint watts, a veteran fbi man recently said when i asked, he said senator, youre right to follow the money. You also ought to follow the trail of the dead bodies. What do you mean . Im telling you, that is what clint watts said. Im not going to get into anything beyonds it. But when you ask a veteran fbi man if you he thinks you are on the right trail with respect to following the money and expands it that way, that certainly wakes up the hearing room. It does wake it up. And i assume he is most likely referring to the number of russian citizens who have shown up dead in some what mysterious circumstances. Well, lets put it this way. Your press colleagues have had a lot to say about these matters in connection with the dossier. Lets turn to the attorney general for a minute. Are you a United States senator. The body in which you serve is famous for its college yality. And yet you and now attorney general sessions were colleagues for years but you engaged in a pretty Heated Exchange during his testimony. You seemed most concerned that 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 in. I have certainly been concerned that he has walked back his recusal am 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. So i made it very clear after the hearing, i was going to ask about that when the attorney general tallly came, what was problematic about it he obviously got very angry with me. But he still disn answer the question. What was tricky for i think outsiders following that exchange is the attorney general seemed to be suggesting that something had happened in closed session that you were trying to bring out into the open. I think a lot of us were left wondering what exactly is he referring to. Can you talk about what he was referring to there . No, and i cant get into matters that are brought up in closed session. But i will tell your viewers, i think that 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 these tweets from the president that were clearly directed at rod resenstein, the Deputy Attorney general is that we could see the president deciding this russia investigation is such a threat to him and his presidency that he could wipe it out, by firing rosenstein, by firing mueller, by doing any number of things. One, are you concerned about that . And is there anything that could stop him from doing that . Nobody has done the damage to the Trump Presidency than donald j. Trump. I mean the fact is i never thought that we would have a president say i am being investigated and thenl tweet it around the world. So this is breaking, you know, new ground and 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 hes been vindicated ought to hire some new lawyers. But i gather his lawyers are telling him to knock off the tweeting too. I promise you we will get to health care and we are but i will ask one more thing about foreign affairs. We got the sad news today that Otto Warmbier the university of virginia student who was in north korea had died. Can you talk to us at all about your reaction to that, and what the United States can do in response to what certainly seems to be a Foreign Government killing an american citizen. It is horrible, horrible news to see this young man die this way. And were going to have to get to the bottom of exactly what happened. But we have to send a very clear message to the north koreans that when Something Like this is done, we do not look the other way. So i promised you we were going to talk about health care. And you actually began the interview by saying you have a personal rule which is you will not talk about russia unless you can talk about health care first. That seems to reflect some frustration on your part about how little attention the Health Care Debate is receiving right now. Can you talk to me about why you are so frustrated that people arent talking more about this Health Care Debate. First of all, i mean, it is the sheer volume of extraordinary news that is being made every day, that say big challenge. I mean just today already weve dealt with several accounts that seem to be new terrorist matters. Weve got to get to the bottom of those. And this of course is the summer, 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 cts either to taxpayers or to americans. All the signs point to huge new expenses for americans, for example, theres a big age tax for those that are for those americans that are premedicare between 55 and 64, they pay five times as much as younger people, that means for folks in rural oregon and rural america, they just get hammered. But there arent any details. Why do you think, i realize you oppose this bill. You havent even seen the bill but you almost certainly will oppose it. Why do you think your republican colleagues are push sog hard for it you look at t conservative policy experts dont like this plan, liberal experts dont like it the doctors lobby, the nurses lobby, the hospital lobby, the aarp, nobody like this bill. Can you try to get into the minds of your republican colleagues and explain what is it that they are trying to accomplish here . Well, interestingly enough, a number of them have been asked what they are trying to accomplish. And they really cant answer that question. 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 something that is worse than what the president called mean, the moderates say that they want to be sensitive to those on medicaid, we cant get the details. Ive worked a lot with those moderates on health care over the years. And i am just hoping that they havent changed. And for those moderates, do you think its that they made a promise to repeal obama care and have kind of gotten locked into that . Well, certainly the republicans for years and years now have made this their principal refrain with respect to domestic politics. They were going to throw the Affordable Care act in the trash can and they had something that was better and would be more affordable for americans and they just never spent the time dealing with these issues. You and i talked about the healthy americans act that i produced with my colleagues in 2007, 20089, seven democrats, 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 when they had a preexisting condition. But when are you writing a heal care bill it takes a lot of work. That is the bill you worked on with senator bob bennett, republican from utah among others, that was a conservative approach to universal care, wasnt it . What it said is that both parties had a valid point. Democrats are right, i still feel this, that we have to have universal coverage. Without universal coverage theres too much Cost Shifting and not enough prevention. Republicans felt there ought to be a role for the private sector. I said look we have a good model. The kind of coverage members of id well, your ideas are goingd to prevail some day. But the point is, we cant go back now. We cant go back to the days when health care was for the healthy and wealthy. Thats what you get if you allow diskraim discrimination from those with a preexisting condition. Are we in the media making a mistake . Are we not paying enough attention to this bill given its odds of passing and giving the enormous affect it could have on American Society . I do think its gotten short slift. The schrift, the reality is you are talking about something that allows over one sixth of the american economy. Ever since i was director of the great panthers i always felt that health care was the most important issue. If you and your loved ones dont have your health, then Everything Else pretty much goes by the board. And yes, i do think that this issue, there are details, obviously, that some times have people say well, its complicate, weve got to mf on to headlines. Look, russia and terrorism are extraordinarily important. I dont dispute that for a second. But we cant let this Health Care Debate and particularly the prospect of Senate Republicans are going to do so much damage to so many people, get lost in the daily blur of news. And what about your democratic colleagues, do you think the Democratic Caucus is doing enough to call attention to this, senators famously have all kinds of ways to slow down the business of the senate in order to call attention to something. So far we havent seen democrats take extraordinary measures to try to call attention to wh