I wont sugar coat this, this is a disappointing day for us. Democrats are declaring victory. Today is a great day for our country. Its a victory. Tonight, senator Bernie Sanders on how it fell apart after seven years of promising repeal. Real change begins with immediately repealing and replacing the disaster known as obamacare. [ cheers and applause ] and where we go from here with Michael Moore. I think we have to let obamacare go its way for a while. And another escalation in the devin nunes debacle when all in starts right now. Nobody knew health care could be so complicated. Good evening from los angeles, im chris hayes. Obamacare is alive and trumpcare is dead. And the Republican Party with control of the white house and majorities in both the senate and House Of Representatives is reeling tonight after failing to
achieve what has been their single biggest goal for the past seven years and the numberone agenda item of Donald Trumps presidency. Minutes before it was due for a vote today, house republicans, led by speaker paul ryan, pulled the bill that would have repealed and replaced the Affordable Care act after it became obvious they lacked the votes within their own caucus. Despite a Pressure Campaign by the white house and an ultimatum directly from the president himself at least 34 gop members came out against the bill, according to nbc newss count. So after seven years and more than 60 Republican House votes to repeal obamacare, speaker ryan called it the law of the land and acknowledged that governing is harder than it looks. Moving from an Opposition Party to a governing party comes with growing pains and, well, were feeling those growing pains today. We came really close today. But we came up short. I wont sugar coat this, this is
a disappointing day for us. Doing big things is hard. All of us, all of us, myself included, we will need time to reflect on how we got to this moment, what we could have done to do it better. The president , meanwhile, blamed the bills failure on wait for it democrats who wouldnt join him in destroying obamacare. We had no democrat support. We had no votes from the democrats. They werent going to give us a single vote so its a very difficult thing to do. Ive been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing we can do politically speaking is let obamacare explode. I think the losers are nancy pelosi and Chuck Schumer because now they own obamacare. They own it 100 . But obamacare is not actually exploding. The cbo said so. And speaking this afternoon, House Minority leader nancy pelosi was not acting like someone who had just lost. The unity of our House Democratic members was a very Important Message to the country that we are very proud of the Affordable Care act and the American People expressed their support for it. That message became very clear to our colleagues on the republican side of the aisle. Today is a great day for our country. What happened on the floor is a victory for the American People. Not long after the bill was pilled democratic congressman joe kennedy of massachusetts told me he was very happy with the outcome. The process worked. Chris, this is what happens when you have Hundreds And Thousands and millions of americans who raise their voices and say dont do something stupid, dont vote on a bad bill. My office got thousands of calls over the course of the past couple days, doctors hated this bill, patients hated this bill and nurses hated this bill and seniors hated this bill and hospitals hated this bill. It was a bad piece of
legislati legislation. I salute my republican colleagues for saying were not going to vote on this because its a bad bill. So that clearly played a role but it seems like the House Freedom caucus was unmanageable. This was a situation where time after time after time john boehner before paul ryan tried to get the votes and couldnt deliver on their own majority. Chris, obviously youre 100 correct. One would hope that Republican Leadership would take the lesson and say just as Speaker Boehner was forced to, recognize that if you cant get that majority you come back and work with democrats to pass a bill that is reflective of the broad needs of the country, democrats, republicans, rich, poor, black, white and Everything Else and the challenge was they shut
democrats out of the process from the beginning and made a decision that they were going pass a hard partisan bill that touches almost every single american at some point in your life. You need your Health Care System. Not only is a 3 trillion a year industry but health care is about, as we discussed before, about how we treat each other in our time of need. Every Single Person out there at some point in their lives is dependent on the system so when you talk about making a drastic change to it without vetting it or discussing it, without people understanding what it will mean for them, you get people that are upset. They did. This is no way to run a rodeo and they learned that lesson. Youve been very sober in this conversation, congressman, so i want you to answer this honestly if possible. See, i broke you up. Are you and the caucus just f l feelifee Feeling Amped . Are you feeling adrenaline of victory . Undoubtedly at this point it feels pretty good. Victory is never final and defeat is never final. As you pointed out, there are a lot of people that need their Health Care System to work better. Even for those of us working pretty well you need it to work better and thiss our commitment going forward. Not saying who won this round but finding a way to make this system work. It touches off when everything is going well but when its not you need it to be there for you. Again, thats why the way they drafted this bill, Republican Leadership, it was a bad bill to begin with but try to find ways to strengthen the effective implementation of the law youll take the politics out of health care. Joe kennedy iii, pleasure. Chris, thanks, pleasure. Thank you. Im joined on the phone by congressman leonard lance, republican from new jersey who was a no vote on the Health Care Bill. Congressman, are you happy they pulled the bill . How are you feeling . That was a decision by
leadership, chris. I think moving forward we have to do a better job. I do think the exchanges are a difficulty and i hope we can Work Together in a bipartisan capacity on this issue because i do think major reforms are necessary. Congressman, i want to i am curious in your reaction. This is a wild 24 hours. I have never i think going back to the first tarp vote is the last time i saw Something Like this unfold on the house floor. When you were told the bill was pulled, a bill you were going to vote no on, what did you feel . Did you feel relief . Were you happy . How did you feel . I was not happy. I think that this is a time where we have to be reflective and i think that that was the tenor of speaker ryans comments. And im willing to reach across the aisle to work with democratic colleagues and also colleagues in the senate in a
bicameral way because i think we have to reform the system and im concerned about the exchanges and about the fact in rural america, as you know, chris, in many places theres only one insurer in the market. Right. So congressman, you had an interesting trajectory on this bill. You represent a district that went for Hillary Clinton, you were originally a yes on this bill, youve come on my show to talk about it and defend it and then you were a no on the bill. Can you walk me through what changed your mind . Certainly. In the Commerce Committee i voted to make sure there was no denial of coverage based on preexisting conditions, that people could stay on their parents policies, no lifetime cap and making sure the Expde Medicaid was inlace at least until 2020. I was not on Ways And Means that dealt with the tax portions and i dont think the refundable tax credit, chris, were generous enough and i dont think we found the funding for that. And then the cbo score came out
and i read it and i think that that was very challenging and a sobering analysis by cbo. Youve also said the pressure in your district. You got a lot of calls, you held town halls, to your great credit, unlike some of your colleagues. People showing up, constituents telling you how this would affect them, did that have an affect . I certainly tried to listen to all of my constituents. As you know, i did the two town halls, one with 1400 residents, another with 900 and weve had lots of Telephone Calls and emails on this topic and most of them were against this bill and certainly i tried to listen to constituents. You are accurate that Hillary Clinton carried the district by about 3500 votes. I was pleased with My Reelection Margin last year but chris in my judgment this year, 2017 should
be a year of governance and let 2018 take care of itself. Speaking of 2018, you are now in a very select class of legislators which are members of congress who voted for the ahca. Theres not that many. Just the republican members of the Commerce Committee and Ways And Means. You now have you own this bill as far as your opponent is concerned, im sure. Do you feel like you were hung out to dry by your leadership and the white house that made you vote for this in Committee Without a cbo score . Youve now got a bill that was so unpopular it couldnt get to a vote, and you voted for it. Well, i voted for amendments in the Commerce Committee, as i have described. I do not vote for the amendments in the ways and Means Committee and the bill itself was crafted by the budget committee. The amendments in the Commerce Committee did as i had suggested, no denial of coverage, et cetera. But i do think that we shouldWork Together moving forward to try to improve the system and i think the system needs improvement. All right, congressman leonard lance, thank you, enjoy your week end in your district. Thank you, you as well, chris, always a pleasure to be with you. Im joined by congresswoman karen bass, democrat from california. Have you ever youre smiling. Have you ever seen anything like this . Well, we did a few times before, right . Over the debt ceiling, over the budget. There were several times. But i think this was just a real mess and i was actually surprised, frankly, that paul ryan miscalculated so much because he knew the challenges of the Freedom Caucus but i am so glad and i just want to take a second and give a shoutout to all the people in indivisible that went to town hall meetings, the resistance fighters, because this was an important lesson to understand that your activism, your Participation Counts and i hope they celebrate, rest for the weekend and be prepared to
continue fighting on monday. I want to read you a remarkable quote by republican congressman tom rooney of florida. Ive been in this job eight years and im wracking my brain to think of one thing our party has done thats been something positive, thats been something other than stopping Something Else from happening. We need to start having victories as a party, if we cant, its hard to justify why we should be back here. Harsh . Fair . Well, i think its accurate. Im in my seventh year and when i first came here, chris, the motto was repeal and replace and i was waiting for a replacement for seven years. Obviously they couldnt get to it but they were so obsessed with that rhetoric and i think they werent planning on governing. I think they believed like we all did that they would be dealing with president clinton instead of President Trump and i think they were caught off guard and left with o. K. Now were in charge, we have no excuse but were getting ready to see this
again over tax reform because if trump thought this was difficult wait until he comes to tax reform. And i think we need to be on our guard because another way for them to come at health care is by cutting some of the taxes that pay for the Health Care Coverage so i think it was a huge victory. Im very excited about it, on the other hand, i dont think we can let our guard down. Theres other battles ahead. Im having a hard time figuring out which of the two scenarios is correct. I cant tell if the Republican Leadership were essentially fooling their voters all this time when they were voting time after time to repeal obamacare, 60 times and they cant do it once when they have control, or whether they fooled themselves. If they essentially believed all of their own rhetoric. Well, but see, i do think they used it politically because if they believed their own rhetoric then please tell me why ive been here for seven years and have never seen a replacement . You know i voted over 65 times
against the repeal. You would have thought i would have voted 65 times for or against a replacement. When they had the opportunity to do a replacement they couldnt get it together so i think it was political. I think it was political rhetoric to gin up their base and it was really sad because it misled an awful lot of people. So some of the problems with obamacare is the fact that many states have not extended medicaid and so we do need to come back and maybe now, maybe now they will look at making improvements because no democrat ever said that this was perfect, that there wasnt room to improve. Maybe theyll come back to the table but it was fascinating to listen to trump tie to blame this on democrats. Im not sure if he forgot the math or he was once again lying. They did not need one democratic vote to pass this bill if they had gotten it together and they didnt. Right. 44seat majority, largest
republican majority since 1928. Congresswoman karen bass, thank you for being here tonight. Thanks for having me on. Still to come, according to President Trump, democrats as the congresswoman just said are the real losers in the failed Republican Health care debacle. Senator Bernie Sanders is here to respond. Plus Michael Moore on todays victory for grassroots organizing and where the resistance goes from here. He joins me after this twominute break. D what . Yeah, Liberty Mutual 24hour Roadside Assistance helped him to fix his flat so he could get home safely. My dad says our insurance doesnt have that. Dont worry i know what a lug wrench is, dad. Is this a lug wrench . Maybe . You can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. Liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. Anyone ever have occasional y constipation,diarrhea, gas or bloating . She does. She does. Help defend against those digestive issues. Take Phillips Colon Health probiotic caps daily with three types of good bacteria. 400 likes . Wow try Phillips Colon Health. Immediately repealingnd replacing the disaster known as obamacare. [ cheers and applause ] today rhetoric met reality for President Trump and the Republican Party as a whole, a culmination of seven years worth of calls for repealing the Affordable Care act. Joining me now, Academy Award winning documentary filmmaker and activist Michael Moore. Michael, your reaction to what happened today. Well, immediately the good news is that the millions of people who are beneficiaries of obamacare are not going to be thrown out on the curb tonight or tomorrow night or any time soon so thats great news. Everybody should feel good about that. But this is not the time for the democrats to gloat or throw some kind of party. Theyre really good at throwing early parties like yay, we won. Wait a minute, we didnt . This is the time we have to now double down because when please understand that trump is
telling you the truth when he says that obamacare is going to explode or implode depending on which side of his brain hes listening to. It will do one of those things because they are going to actively make sure that that happens. They and the profitmaking Insurance Companies are going to make sure it explodes. So that means the resistance this is a worrisome scenario, right . The death by sabotage because you now have tom price who is probably one of the most committed foes of obamacare who exists whos Running Hhs Which has a lot of latitude and youve got this situation where and you can tell, its almost i have to say, its very bizarre and almost chilling to hear t