Here was senator mccain on this little matter today. The preside has one of two choices, either restrakt or to provide the informatn that the American People deserve because if his predecessor violated the law, president obama violated the law, weve got a serious issue here to say the least. Do you have any reason to think that this charge is true . I have no reason to believe that the charge is true but i also believe that the president of the United States could clear this up in a minute. In contrast Speaker Paul Ryan tried kissing off the wiretapping accusation. Lets watch him in action. You said youre working hand in glove in selling the News Health Care plan. The president sends out four tweets about his predecessor wiretapping him. Did that help or hurt . That wasnt partcampaign. How much did that hurt or help you . This is going to be an unconventional presidency theres unconventional and then theres off into new territory. There was a deadline for the Justice Department to turn ofrp any evidence it has of wiretapping by president obama. Late today the Justice Department told the leaders it need more time to review the request. The president s spokesman, sean spicer, tried deflecting the matter, say it was a department of justice issue, even though it was the president that made the stupid charge. And spicer dodged the president s inflammatory tweet saying the president didnt mean to use the term wiretap literally. Lets watch him squirm out of this one. He said in quotes wiretapping. The president was clear in his tweets that it was wiretapping, that that spans a whole host of surveillance type options. You said when he meant wiretapping. No, he had it in quotes. So youre interpreting it. He cited other reports in his conversation with you . He did. Congressman, President Trump has let it hang out there for a week now that his predecessor wiretapped him. How can they get away with it . I think the real grown up here is john mccain who says put up or shut up. Your thoughts, congressman. Sadly you see them backing away from this and i think they figure they can get away with it, the same way they apparently have gotten away with the fantasy there were 3 million fraudulent votes cast, the same way they got away with the notion this was the most well attended inaugural in history. This president does not get called to account for putting out false statements and this one even though it involves, you know, something of historic magnitude, an accusation from one president to his predecessor, you know, this one sadly will slip into the memory hole as well. It just doesnt seem to stick to donald trump when he flat out lies. Someone should tell the speaker of the house that laughing isnt funny. I dont think its even constitutional for him to get involved in wiretapping but how would it be done . I dont have the wildest clue. The president didnt ask for a prosecutor, he asked for somebody to investigate. No, he made he didnt call for an investigation, sean spicer later covered up. He accused the president and said he was sick for doing it. Chris, heres the bigger problem. They are in Campaign Mode too much when they try to win the day instead of the week or the month. I sat in a bunch of focus groups last week in rust belt states, they still like him, they love his agenda when you ask whats one thing you wish he would change, they save quit shooting from the hip. They want him to be a little more stable and focused. I think this becomes a problem for them when they have to get into n the weeds answering something the president said. Sean spicer said wiretapping could be a whole bunch of possible techniques. But trump said terrible, just found out that Obama Wiretapped my phones during the very sacred election process. This is nixon, watergate, bad or sick guy. Hes referring to the former president. Lets watch what sean spicer said a week ago. Reporter does the president believe that former president barack obama committed a felony . His tweets speak for themselves. He wants to ensure the house and intelligence committees look into the matter. Heidi, this is serious business. Im not going to let these guys worm away from it. Mean we cant put this away for a couple weeks but this will be a bone that i chew on. I do not understand how the president of the United States can accuse the former president of the United States of a felony. Your thoughts . Sean is right. The tweet speaks for itself. It says wiretap. He accused the former president he made not only an inflammatory statement, a defamatory statement and accused the former president of a felony. Its part of an escalation of pals things that the president is saying both in person and on twitter in terms of like t 3 Million People who voted illegally, heres the pattern, he called for an congressional investigation to try to bury that. Even if we dont know theres any kind of legal consequences or recourses in terms of catching him in a lie, its important to do that because of this pattern of escalation, one, to discourage him from continuing to do it and, secondly, because theres millions of people out there, chris, who believe these things. We may laugh at it but they believe it. I dont laugh it. Im not like the speaker of the house who is a giggling mimes here. And let me go to jim himes here. Its been said to the Justice Department give us any reason, any evidence to believe there was wiretapping by the former president. Now they say we cant get the information. This a yo yo operation. This is to keep this crappy story alive, isnt it . Why else would they be doing this . They know they didnt wiretap. Why dont they talk . Well, they may. Weve got an open hearing coming up on the 20th by fbi director comey. He may take the opportunity to say what hes wanted to say, which is to debunk this story. The investigation is already so large. Its going to take time. I think it was their best bet on how to make this thing go away by saying okay, guys, now its your problem. Its a serious enough charge, can you count on us on the 20th to ask the people who are there. Whats so complicated about finding out there was a wiretap ordered on the president . Well, its not. The president could have the fbi or comey in the office in seconds and get the answer. Kellyanne conway was asked about the president s wiretapping claim by a local reporter up in jersey. Lets watch her. Do you know whether trump tower was wiretapped . There are many ways to surveil each other now unfortunately do you believe that was there was an article this week that talked about how can you surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets, any number of different ways and microwaves that turn into cameras, et cetera. So much we know that is just a fact of modern life. Sure. Well, you heard no answer there of course. Today kellyanne said she wasnt talking about specificallyeffort to surveil trump power but speaking broadly about surveillance techniques. Lets watch. Why would you make a suggestion like that without any evidence . I wasnt making a suggestion about trump tower. Those are two separate things. Thats what you were asked about. And i answered him about surveilling generally. But you have no evidence that that surveilling was used at trump tower. Im not inspector gadget. I dont believe people are using microwaves to spy on trump tower. Im not in the position of having evidence. Thats what investigations are for. It looks to me theyre trying to bury this story in words. And words have nothing to do with the question that was asked, was the current president wiretapped by the former president . If you dont know the answer, just say i dont know. Well, look, i actually have to give some credit to kellyanne conway. Shes very loyal to this president. She works for this president. She doesnt have a good answer. She hasnt been included on that why the president said what he did why is she making the rounds, then . She didnt necessarily go on the round on those particular topics. Theyre up there in the National Agenda right now. But they ask what they want to ask her. Imagine coming on this show if youre the president s counselor, and your boss within the last week has accused his predecessor of having tapped his phones and not be ready about an answer. Let be honest. What were seeing clean fair enough. Youre saying what im saying. I am saying what youre saying. To be honest with you, shes deserves credit for its called the run around. Thats not what im saying. Phrase it i dont way. In this particular case, sheech has said the president has information that she is not authorized to have and therefore she cant talk into the situation. All she did was to talk about what surveillance means and that its much broader than what meet think it means. You can google surveillance and get answers like get her on the show. Okay, john, youre doing your john. Thank you john brabender, john himes. President trump needs to realize if he breaks obamacare, he owns it. The president has committed that no one will lose access to coverage, howie. Then candidate trump said everybodys got to be covered, not, well, thats just an interesting number. Well, chris, were offering coverage to everyone. It means more people covered than are covered right now and at an average cost that is less. I believe we can firmly do that with the plan we laid out. Now theyll be able to pick the plan they want, pick the doctor they want. Theyll be able to do a lot of things the other plan was supposed to give and never gave. That was President Trump and members of his administration defending of coverage under the president s proposed American Health care act. The Congressional Budget Office determined if passed, it would reduce the federal deficit but that 14 million would be uninsured by next year and 20 million by 2026. And colin powell said the pottery barn rule, you break it, you own it. So the press is making it look so wonderl, so at if we end it, everyones going to say, ah, remember how great obamacare used to be, it was so great. Its a little bit like president obama. When he left, people liked him. When he was here, people didnt like him so much. By repealing, it by getting rid of it, by ending it, everyone is going to say, oh, it used to be so great. Democratic leaders nancy pelosi and Chuck Schumer were quick to react to the c. B. O. Report. Leers what they had to say late today. I hope that they would pull the bill. Its really the only decent thing to do. Numbers are important. They see the numbers. They should know how that transfers into peoples lives. The republican handpicked, head of c. B. O. Has confirmed what we democrats have been saying all along, trumpcare would be a nightmare for the American People. Remember when President Trump was a candidate . He said everyone will be covered and costs will go down. We now know that he had no intention of keeping either prom us. Im joined by republican congressman barton of texas. Congressman, whats your reaction when the heard the c. B. O. Announced that 14 million fewer people will be covered right away if its passed . I respect the c. B. O but theyre not infallible. In fact, theyre seldom ever right. 19 million americans under the Affordable Care act chose not to take coverage, even though it was mandated. They either paid the tax penalty or ty asked for a hardship exemption. 10 million americans did go into the private exchanges. So it seems a little bit illogical that all of a sudden 14 since there were only 10 million that chose the individual exchanges, i dont see how you get to their number. You said you respect the Congressional Budget Office and Chuck Schumer pointed out that the leader of the c. B. O. Was picked by republicans in your caucus and now you say you respect them but you dont trust their numbers. Explain. Well, it doesnt matter to me who the director is. The c. B. O. Is almost always wrong. Now, sometimes theyre wrong high, sometimes theyre wrong low, but in my 32 years in congress, i cant recall them ever being right. Ruth, let me ask you about this. Politically i think of willy loman, this guy, trump, not a liberal, was making promises about getting the same coverage at a cheaper price. Well, maybe not at a cheaper price but the same coverage. Attention must be paid to c. B. O. Scores. Its very nice for the congressman to wish away these c. B. O. Numbers but its complete logic when you take away the individual mandate to require the purchase of health insurance, when you spend more than a trillion dollars less in terms of subsidies and medicaid costs, it makes absolute sense you are going to have fewer people with insurance coverage. And whether thats 14 millioor 16 million, whether its high or its low, its still a really icant number and i think theres a lot of angst among republicans on the hill right now looking at those numbers and gulping a little bit. When we return, let me finish with trump watch. This is hardball where the action is. When we have a cough or cold, we fight it with everything. Weve got pills, tea, syrups, steam the list goes on and on. But whatever you do, you can add Vicks Vaporub to the mix. Lasts up to 8 hours clinically proven cough. Relief so you can sleep. Trump watch, monday, march 13, 2017. I have this theory about donald trump, about who he wants to be. Up know how you hear a lot about the resistance, i think donald trump wants to be the resistance. He doesnt want to be the person responsible for getting your health care coverage, the person who you call or blame when its not working for you. Donald trump wants to be the person who gives speeches and or tweets attacking the current program. He wants to be the resistance. This explains his armslength distance to the republican bill. Hell be happy if it gets stopped in the house or senate because then he could blame the democrats. No matter what bill gets passed, donald trump will get caught shorthanded. Theres even less a chance of the Congressional Democrats that are going to help him destroy obamacare. That leaves him, donald trump, with the prospect of signing a Health Care Bill that cuts millions of americans from their health insurance. Does anyone expect those family to vote for him, donald trump, bring him back into office the next time . No. The best bet for donald trump is to end up in a position to be able to blame someone else. Watch the next several weeks and see what im talking about. And thats hardball for now. Thanks for being with us. Join us tomorrow night at 7 00 eastern. See you then. In West Virginia were going to put the miners back to work. Some of the promises that hes made come through, we can see at least a little bit of a turnaround. Racked by unemployment, povertan