Played a role in picking the president. With us we have Mark Halperin, former treasury official and morning joe economic officialist Steve Rattner, professor at university of michigan, normer democratic congressman harold ford, junior, and cofounder and ceo of axios, jim vann da hiem is with us as well. Harold, you have your notes. Professor is all it says at the top. In his testimony, director comey cited the tarmac meeting between then attorney general Loretta Lynch and president bill clinton as a turning point in the investigation into Hillary Clintons emails. Take a look. Number of things had gone on, some of which i cant talk about yet, that made me worry that the Department Leadership could not credibly complete the investigation and decline prosecution without grievous damage to the American Peoples confidence in the justice system. The cap per was, not picking on attorney general Loretta Lynch who i like very much, but her meeting with president clinton on the airplane was the capper for me. I said, you know what, the department cannot by itself credibly end this. That was a hard call to make, to call the attorney general and say im about to call a press conference. First of all, can i Say Something . Yes. Congratulations. Thank you. Numbers up lately. Show is going well. It is. Thank you. Last two months are the highest rated more people watching in the last two months than ever before. Its like were a family. Im reading there are other things to say congratulations about. Were talking to New York Times reporter Michael Schmitt who wrote a piece on comeys role, plus former fbi agent clint watts who recently testified on capitol hill about russias influence on the election. Mark halperin, youve been quite a skeptic all along of james comey and how hes handled this situation. What did you think of his very Strong Defense of the decisions he made over the course of the campaign . I can understand why he made some senators more than mildly nauseous. Congratulations to you, also, on the ratings. I think the ratings are great. They are. I dont know if i told you, the last two months, more people watched us in the last two months than ever before. Thank you so much for thinking about us. I understand why were talking about it. He got a lot of hard questions yesterday, but he basically is saying, it made him mildly nauseous and it was a tough call. But he didnt really explain why, in what he thought was a tough call, he came down on the side of doing what youre not supposed to do which is talking about an investigation. He said he couldnt reveal yet everything that had gone out. I understand his point about the Justice Department and i think Loretta Lynch clearly put things in a bad place, but by the book what he d is sll not really explaine why hese to go against what youre supposed to do as fbi director or the Justice Department in order to talk about the investigation at the time he did. I think everyone can talk about the technicalities, legalities as to whether he should or he shouldnt have. I was watching Dianne Feinstein yesterday, a lot of people pushing back against comey. I was stunned. I dont understand how Hillary Clintons emails are forwarded to uma abidines husband so he can print them out. Classified. I dont know. Maybe theres no law against it. Seriously, maybe theres no law against it. There actually is a law against it which, of course, willie, it had several apparently they felt she did not know she was doing anything wrong. Its incredible. Its everything that was wrong with the campaign. It was everything wrong with the campaign, and just a cluelessness and the idea that they played by different rules. Totally different rules. Trump feels like he plays by different rules in other ways, but in this case dealing with classified information, forwarding it to a guy under fbi direction. To remind everyone, thats what brought this to a head. The lettthis was all pegged to. He did say comey said i remind you senators, i didnt make this public. I wrote you a private letter that you leaked to the public. He made the case a lot of people have made. If i had not said anything and Hillary Clinton won the election and this came out later, we would have had the same thing on the other side. And he had also, harold, and i think his most compelling argument is, he had saidhere was nothing here, case closed, nothing. If there are any developments, he had to let them know, and there were developments. He let them know by letter. I think he could have written the letter differently, but at the same time three things. You said a few days ago on the air, the only person under investigation on election day was donald j. Trump. That was not mentioned. If he felt compelled to say secretary clinton, this matter was being reopened because of huma abedin and Anthony Weiner, he should have felt compelled to do the second. His passion was defending the agency. It sounded like he making the case of why he felt like he had to do this. He did have a choice. To marks point, he could have followed the rules. If it turned out secretary clinton had broken the law, there was a process. She would have had a vice president. If she had to step down, she would have had to step down. I still dont give him a pass like he wanted after this testimony yesterday. Were going to have an extended conversation in the next block about this in a moment. We want to get do the other huge story of the morning. They dont yet have a cbo score and many members arent read it yet. Today congress is set to vote on legislation that impacts onesixth of the nations economy. Health care hits the floor of the house hours from now. The renewed push follows key meetings at the white house where a number of republicans flipped from no to yes. Two days ago congressman billy long and fred upton announced they would vote against the latest version of the overhaul over concerns about how people with preexisting conditions could be covered. When they left yesterdays meeting with President Trump, they had an agreement in hand. When he called me yesterday, i told him i was a no, and i told him i was a no because of the provision on preexisting illnesses. Yesterday i read him back his statement where he said this bill would be just as strong on preexisting illnesses as obamacare. I want him to keep that pledge. When they made what i consider the change, the preexisting conditions, thats when i said im a no. The president said, billy, we really need you, we need you, man. I said you dont have me. We went through that for0 minutes. He called back yesterday. We need you, we need you. Im happy to annnce the people in the seventh district of missouri will be preexisting conditions covered adequately. Their solution, pour 8 billion over five years into states that decide to no longer cover people with longterm health issues. The money would go to people entered into the controversial highrisk pools, those states set up in stead. The upton amendment helped change the momentum on the bill, giving leadership enough confidence to call a vote as early as 10 00 this morning. Lets go to jim vandehei. Whats turned this . Whats turned this is, paul ryan and donald trump needed a win and needed to get some of these moderates on board. Theyre so worried about the preexisting condition, that specific piece of legislation. They feel now they have enough money to go home and justify it. Think about the stakes of this vote, though. Go back to barack obama when he had full democratic control and decided to do health care. It cost him control of congress because its complex and easy to demagogue. Now republicans, having watched that, are doing the same thing and doing it without reading the bill and without waiting to find out how much does it cost, how many people will actually be jim, weve obviously been around this a long time. Republicans, especially conservatives since you and i were first on the hill a quarter century ago have always talked about, youve got to read the bill, youve got to score the bill, youve got to have a cbo score or youre being reckless and irresponsible. Here they are going to read, organize onesixth of the economy without even getting a cbo score. You can get the quotes of just about every member of congress thats a republican, a conservative saying this is just not what you do. Yet, theyre making the same mistake that passed through administrations of may going head first into this area. The darndest thing is they dont have to. If they waited two weeks and passed it, it would be a big achievement. Waiting two or three weeks. But the reason they wont wait is theyre worried, members go home and have a break and believe theyll get hammered on this issue and then theyll oppose them. Harold, this is day trading i dont understand. These guys and women that are going to vote for this bill that may not want to vote for this bill dont understand, this vote hangs around them forever. If youre in one of those districts that Hillary Clinton won. If youre in a district where she was close, theres going to be most likely a big swing coming up in 18 if you look at historical trends. And they cant just do this to give anybody a quick headline thats going to evaporate in two days. This stays with them. I dont understand the political day trading on something this important. I think what you and jim are going back and forth on, he wants to say he repealed. Put it in the hands of the senate and see if we can go forward. It doesnt go away. They think its going to pass and they can move the taxes. This is the issue. Your point, not scored, hasnt been read, thats the thing weeks ago they said we cant vote on something we havent read. 8 billion, i like fred upton a lot, im not convinced 8 billion would solve the problem. Surely it cant be enough to cover it all. Steve will have charts on that in just a little bit. Willie, they havent read the bill the republicans for years have made fun of nancy pelosi for saying we need to pass the bill to know whats in the bill. That has been one of the mainline of at daks against the Affordable Care act from the very beginning. They are doing the same thing ce its even worse because theyre cobbling a bill together and they had six, seven years to do this. Theyre not ready yet. We heard it almost every day during the Affordable Care act debate. This is paul ryan back then, quote, i dont think we should pass bills we havent read and dont know what they gospel. I dont have the date right here. It was during the Affordable Care act debate. Unbelievable. Mike viquera is covering all this on capitol hill. Good morning. Majority leader Kevin Mccarthy says he believes they have the votes. That was last night. Where are they this morning . Its a razorthin margin. I think Kevin Mccarthy, the majority leader, is putting the best face on it. I think its still fairly close. They are expressing confidence because you dont go forward unless you do so. Theyre not going to wing it. Weve seen that historically, saw it in the tarp vote, in the Medicare Part d Prescription Drug vote way back in 2003. It ends up being a big huge mess. You talked about the fact theres no Congressional Budget Office score. This bill was only put online, the public was only able to see the exact language of the bill at about 8 00 last night before the House Rules Committee took it up and worked into the night. Not only that, the total debate on the floor will probably last between the rule and the bill itself, probably about two hours. Obviously they are ramming this thing through. Theres been high stakes, High Pressure negotiation going on, the oldfashioned way behind closed doors. Vice president pence was in the capital each of the last three days, monday, tuesday, wednesday, leading with a parade of undecided lawmakers trying to get the vote, trying to twist arms. We saw fred upton, a brilliant play by fred upton, he holds out for his constituents concerned about the preexisting conditions, the waiver, the escalating premiums that will result from that. He extracts 8 billion by going down to the white house and march b out in the driveway and more or less waving this agreement around saying hes the one who has procured that. When you look at the details of this, plus the fact its going to go to the senate and change considerably, a lot of these changes stripped away, Republican Leadership is asking a lot of moderates who have constituents who are concerned about the provisions of the bill and lost coverage to walk the political plank for a bill they know is going to change, thats not going to look anything like this when and if it comes out of congress. Mike viquera, thanks so much. To your point, nancy pelosi said what you called last night, she called it a moral mon stros stay. Moderate republicans know this will be tattooed on your head forever. Forever. Mark halperin, i dont want to be overdramatic, i know there are members of congress, members of the house that may not remember what happened in 1993 when bill clinton passed what we republicans called the largest increase in the history of the country. It passed by one vote. You remember the scene when they marched a certain congresswoman from pennsylvania down the middle, and republicans were all chanting byebye . This vote seems to have echoes of that. You have the republicans that are going to be facing a tough reelection in 2018 and a bill thats extraordinarily i think extraordinarily unpopular. They didnt read it, couldnt read it until 8 00 last night, 8 00 last night, to reorganize onesixth of the economy. They dont even have a cbo score on it for a country 20 trillion in debt. They have no idea how much its going to cost. They have no idea how many of their constituents are going to be kicked off of the health care rolls, 24, 25 million. How many in their districts. Yet theyre going to jump off the cliff just so they can get a headline that will burn away into the mist within 24 hours. Trump will tweet something else. On one side unscored, unread, untested policy that will be considered risky by many constituents and Many Health Care analysts and a very shaky future, to say the least, in the senate. On the other side, the reason youll see a vote today, one, if House Republicans in the white house cant make good on a promise to repeal the Affordable Care act after sevenplus years, they cant do anything. Why do they do it today . This is not the end of the world. Theyre not pirates of the caribbean at the end of the world and on the ship with johnny depp and its about to go over the end of the world. They have next week and the next week. They can wait for the scoring to come back. They can do something really radical. They can read the bill that theyre voting for. Nobody there has read the bill. Because if they wait for the scoring, its less likely to pass. Why . Because there will be a political uproar. Exactly. So youre saying the leadership is forcing the members you just answered my question. The leadership is forcing members who are already vulnerable to take a vote before finding out how vulnerable their seats are going to be. Theyre going to be sitting around wondering why nancy pelosi is sworn in as speaker of the house on january 4th, 2019. Theres one of two options if they go forward with this, whether it becomes law or not, as you said. One is they sell the country on the fact that this is better for them than the Affordable Care act, if they can do it, which is going to be a challenge. Or two, they lose hair majority but they feel good because they got rid of the Affordable Care act. Those are their choices. I think a lot of members are willing to lose to fulfill this promise, but they have not produced a bill they can understand or sell today. Theyve got to pass it today or theyll never pass it. Theyve got to pass it today or else find out how bad the bill is if they actually read it. Then their constituents wont let them pass the bill. That is political day trading and its stupid and sho shortsighted. Its never going to pass the senate. Your statement they want to go back to the district and say they repealedbamacare is not something theyll be able to say because the senators are going to look at this and say, are you kidding me . Whats wrong with your people . Unless the Senate Changes the bill in a way that house members feel compelled to vote for with a different coalition, maybe lose some Freedom Caucus people and get more mod rats, they have to try to fulfill this promise. I understand the risk theyre taking, but they have to try or i think theyll never pass a major piece of legislation. Steve, youre looking at the potential impact on people with preexisting conditions. You have charts on that. I have charts. But let me say this, the last bill was scored, right now 24 Million People lost insurance. This bill was moved to the right to get the Freedom Caucus on board, so we know it is less patient friendly than the last bill. You think the 24, 25 million will go up . It will allow people to not get all the benefits. This is a worse bill for the average american than the bill that was scored by the cbo. So we know how ugly it is and yet they are voting for it. Okay. Charts. Lets talk about preexisting conditions. Under the obamacare you could not charge people a different amount of money if you have a preexisting conditions. This bill would allow states to opt out of that requirement. This chart shows and i dont have my magic pencil today. No magic pencil . I know. What can you do . This chart shows what could happen to premiums for people with preexisting