Seen as someone who hasnt really thought through his response, hasnt really worked closely with the lawyers, has left many people vulnerable, has left this white house vulnerable. And if you think about the context of how this all unfolded its telling. Rose we continue with ian bremmer president of the Political Risk consults ansi eur asia group. Never in my life as a political scientist have have i seen two countries, major countries with a constellation of National Interests that are as dissonant while the two leaders seem to be doing Everything Possible to make nice nice an be close to etch a other, that is what people dont understand. Rose we con cleul julia ioffe of the atlantic about done alt trump, jr. s meeting with the russian lawyer last area. She was a good russian lawyer. But the thing is what makes a good russian lawyer isnt what makes a Good American lawyer. Its not about how how you present your legal arguments or what you find in discovery. Its about who you know, its about who, you know, who you bring the briefcase full of money to, who are you connected to, who your cliebts are connected to and how and thats how the judge determines how he or she will rule. Rose politics, International Relations and the investigation about russias attempt to influence the election when we continue. 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. Rose we begin this evening with politics and a republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care act, encountered another hurdle over the weekend when john mccain senator from arizona announced he was recovering from a medical procedure he had on friday. Mccains absence is expected to delay a senate vote by at least a week. Two gop lawmakers senator rand paul and susan colins have already said they will not support the bill. Many while as President Trump approaches the six month mark in office later this week, new polls show his Approval Ratings are at historic lows. Joining me is robert costa a National Political reporter at the wash continue post and moderator of Washington Week on pbs. Im always pleased to have him here. So it is good to talk to you, bob, after being away for a week and a half. Tell me what has happened since i was away. Anything changed here in america . Youve missed everything but nothing, charlie. With regard to this republican effort to pass a repeal and replace of the Affordable Care act it remains stalledment and for the predictable reasons that weve been covering here in washington for quite some time. This is a Republican Party that made a pledge to its base voters that it would go through with this promise. At the same time privately, charlie, many of these senators i talked to, they dont really want to pass this specific piece of legislation. The moderates think it rolls back too much of the Medicaid Expansion. The conservatives tell me it doesnt do enough to gut obamacare. No one is really happy with it. There have not been public hearings. And any real sense, theres not really been a public debate am you just have the Republican Party plotting forward, trying to do this, a president who doesnt really want to get involved with the sale of the bill. So its a dismall atmosphere within the gop here in d. C. Rose who is insisting on a vote . Leader mcconnell, mitch mcconnell, the kentucky republican, he believes that in order to have any chance in 2018, his friends tell me, that the party must fulfill this pledge. And he is putting pressure on a lot of republicans when he bringing them into his office on the second floor of the capitol. And he tells them, you do not want to be the republican who stops obamacare from being repealed. Dont put me in the position of saying you are the senator who stopped this entire enterprise. But most senators think that this, in spite of their conservative beliefs, in many respects, that this is settled law, that this has been in place for almost a decade now and many of their voters and republican governors, some of the states have come to expect the benefits. And because pem have that expectation, taking it away isnt a politically easy thing to do. Rose a lot of that has to do with medicaid . Were talking about a heal care debate. And ive watched your programs on this. And it is so different than it was in 2009 and 2010 when are you talking about the Healthcare System and you were having a vigorous debate about what that would look like. This has boiled down to a medicaid debate. And this law would this legislation would get rid of a lot of the laws, taxes but really would just roll back promised medicaid money that is under the expansion and the Affordable Care act. And its about what politics really comes down to in a lot of things, money, its about money. The states believe the money is guaranteed to them with this Medicaid Expansion and they want to keep that money. Rose even republican governors like john kasich from ohio came to washington to lobby for his own senator. That the Medicaid Expansion was very popular in ohio. And a lot of republicans are facing this dynamic. You look at senator heller, a moderate from nevada, hes under pressure from governor sandoval, a republican. You mentioned governor kasich of ohio, hes putting pressure on senator portman who is usually a rank and file conservative on these sorts of things to not vote for this bill. Its because a lot of these governors whether you are republican or democrat, you do not want to have to make cuts in your budget to Cover Health Care in your state. If the federal government has already promised under the Affordable Care act to take a lot of that responsibility. It really comes down to money and budgets and states dont want to budge if the federal government is already there. Rose i saw a poll over the weekend, im sure you saw it, that said 50 of americans now like obamacare. Because most americans, if you look at a lot of thieves polls, they associate their own Health Care Coverage with obamacare, in particular if theyre a on medicaid. So medicaid in effect has become in the eyes of many people obamacare. And that association makes passing this legislation very hard because its not just a political creature thats created by the Obama White House like it seemed ten years ago, its something that is real to people. And with the expectations in the white house, that if this bill doesnt pass, and the Insurance Markets continue to struggle, maybe democrats will come to the table at some point to work with republicans. And that if this bill does not pass you are really just looking at piece meal fixes of the Insurance Markets rather than wholesale reform. Where is the president . The president is at the white house this week, returned from a weekend at bedminister but hes not fully engaged in selling and marketing this bill to lawmakers or to the country. It is a different kind of approach than we saw from President Trump when he tried to get the bill over the edge in the u. S. House earlier this year. You had trump step back, let mcconnell take control of the process. Mcconnell is the one without can really be the deal maker here, not the deal maker president because he knows with portman what he needs with opoid funding in ohio or he knows in alaska, what he needs with the moderate there, what she needs in terms of medicaid guarantees. This is an inside game. The white house has acknowledged that. Mark shorts the legislative director is working closely with mcconnell. But you have the president really hesitant to be out there having rallies. Hes not doing that this time around. Hes not making the sale, in part because as he told me back in january, he wants insurance for everybody. Hes not really comfortable with embracing the ideaological side of the Republican Party. Even if he made the pledge to repeal obamacare he doesnt really like to do things to take away benefits frorom people. Rose the argument was that he wanted to go with Health Care First because he needed it for tax reform. Now there are people stepping forward saying he should have gone either with infrastructure or tax reform first. Does that, does that resonate with the president at all . The president publicly resists the idea that he maybe should have started with infrastructure. By privately, charlie, you can be sure, when the history of the Trump Administration are written there is going to be a lot of wonder about why did President Trump and his allies in december and january of 2016 2017, why did they go along with House Speaker paul ryan and leader mcconnell with this idea that you had to cut obamacare taxes first to lay the ground work for tax reform in the future. Because when i talk to people inside the white house, i wont name names here, this is background reporting, they say looking back they wondered why they did that. They adopted a strategy which sounded smart at the outset but there was no hard and fast rule that you have to cut health care tacks to do tax reform in a bigger sense. There is no rule about that. You could just do straight forward tax cuts in the white houses perspective now. To me, charlie, the take away, this whole First Six Months has been experience for this white house, learning experience, that they went along wth capitol hill, they have been burned in many respects in that endeavor, and theyre just trying to learn from this process. What can they control, what do they have to go along with, what do they not have to go along with. Can they imagine going to the country in 2018 with nothing, with no significant legislation passed, albeit they do have the confirmation of the Supreme Court justice . Theyre going to have some kind of argument to make. It would be about regulatory reform, theyve rolled back a lot of president obamas regulations. They have gotten a Supreme Court justice in there. But youre right, there is no signature legislation. There is a hope that something is going to pass on health care, even if its not this legislation, something down the line will pass that can be considered a repeal of the Affordable Care act and some kind of tax cuts will pass eventually, maybe later in 2017, early 2018 and maybe they can start on infrastructure. But of course the cloud over all of this is russia. Democrats do not feel compelled to work with republicans right now because they see in the latest Washington Post poll and abc poll a president who is in the mid 30st in his approval rating. A president who hasnt gotten traction on capitol hill so they dont feel the need to come to the table. But President Trump, hes not an ideaological republican in the traditional sense governing as a paul ryan wood or mcconnell would from the white house. So its hard to say exactly how 2018 will play out. But certainly they will need some points on the board to get that Republican Base out. Rose speaking of six months, i will read for you now some observations, this comes from they went out and talked to political reporters and friends of yours and asked what had been most surprising about the First Six Months. And this is what some of them said. I would love your comment, Chris Wallace said whats been most surprising to me is how little trump has changed as president. Its the same strength and same weakness he has always had. Washington hasnt been bent to his will and he hasnt bent to the ways of washington. Spot on. This is the same donald trump that i first encountered in 2011, this the same Reince Priebus and steve bannon on the same note but this is a president who has come to washington, has not returned to new york city, in any real way. Has moved here but has not fallen in love with the town. Still is an isolated figure in washington. And he has not changed his ways with twitter. He still surrounds himself with the same kind of people, with stan and hope hicks his loyalists with steve bannon and Steven Miller, his populist nationalist at his side. This is not someone who has come to washington as an outsider president and tried to incorporate washington. He has, in some ways, on his staff and cabinet done so. But tempermentally, everyone i know who talks to trump daily say this is the same trump who trusts his gut, the same trump who follows television by the minute, to understand where the public mood is. That is how he digests information. That has not changed. Rose michael wolf, called and said his surprising thing is that in the face of the onslawt he seems, he the president seems to be enjoying himself. I think the president is deeply frustrated on several fronts. He is consumed with how russia has dominated his administration. I have heard from his friends and associateds that he often he fumes privately about how russia has a grip over the public narrative, in particular in washington about how he is perceived. But he ds seem to enji hiself. He does watch television a lot. He goes to golf tournaments, he went to bedminister this past weekend. He still talks to his friends all of the time on the telephone late at night from the residence at the white house. This is still a donald trump who relishes being at the center of the public conversation, on top of every front page in the country, on every newscast. He gets happiness out of attention. And i mean that just as a reporter. This is someone who covets attention. And when he is at the center of it, as bad as it is, as long as he is there, its okay to an extent. Rose chuck todd of nbcs meet the press said im surprised he didnt make more of an effort to develop a personal relationship with Chuck Schumer and nancy pelosi. Todds per septemberive analyst there, you would think he has donated to pelosi and schumer in the past. He has had a personal rapport with them. But people close to trump tell me he has been in some ways chab writtenned at how political then again what did he expect, that schumer has been since inauguration dean when schumer gave a pretty political speech on the grounds of the capitol. He has pelosi really working in lock step to keep her conference together against the trump agenda. But in a way, its not so much about the lack of outreach on trumps part, its that his agenda, he has gone along with ryan, gone with mcconnell, and because of that, because as you said he didnt start with infrastructure for something that is more bipartisan, he is seen as Approval Ratings plummet while he has gone along with the republican agenda. And it hasnt given him much room to win the good will of democrats or to build relationships with democrats. Rose john carl noted that he has held only one Real Press Conference and has never set foot in the white house brief briefing room. That has perhaps been the most surprising thing. That the presssavvy president , the press obsessed president who is so engaged on social media and twitter and does seem to enjoy the back and forth with reporters has become so angry about the russia coverage that he has not really had the kind of daily interactions from the lecturn, on the telephone, doing the callin interviews that you would have expected. Hes really retreated from that, that whole style, and stayed with fox news for interview after interview, stayed within twitter which he can control, as his anger has grown over russia coverage. I think if the russia story ever abates you could see trump step out more with the press. But until that happens, its such a he blizzard of information and questions that are out there i think he doesnt want to engage with that day to day. Rose ian bremmer who is coming in later this evening for a conversation with me said that trump, the president s best relationship with another head of state is in fact with putin. Its lard to say. The relationships im told with heads of state are complicated. Trump wants to be treated as a grand leader on the world stage. Macron in france has recognized that. Trump loved being part of the parades for bastille day. He enjoyed being in saudi arabia in his trip throughout the middle east and how he was treated there. He built a relationship that is strong with abe in japan. He is a little more edgy with china because hes trying to confront them on trade and the trade deficit. But it is hard to say who is the best friend for trump on the world stage. Putin, of course, sees an opportunity in trump unlike hes ever probably seen in his lifetime running russia to really build a different kind of relationship with the United States thats not as hostile. But trump does not have a deep relationship with putin. Hes an opportunistic transactional dealmaking president whos not really clear about where all his loyalties lie at all times. Rose then there is chris ruddy, c. E. O. Of newsmax, who said some day historians will join me in looking back in awe at how donald trump wielded the power of the bully pulpit like no other president. Is there some truth to that . Praption with the use of twitter, though i would contest that, theres been a use of the bully pulpit but its been limited. You have a