The president s campaign and its potential ties to russia for months. And whether there was any coordination between the campaign and russias efforts. Ill talk to the leading democrat on the senate intel committee, mike warner of virginia. And this piece of advice for President Trump. Dont fight everybody. Pick your battles. I sit down with jerry brown of california. Joining me for insight and analysis are, tom brokaw of nbc news, joy reid, host of a. M. Joy, hugh hewitt and Ileana Johnson of politico. Welcome to sunday. Its meet the press. From nbc news in washington, the longestrunning show in Television History celebrating its 70th year, this is meet the press with chuck todd. Good sunday morning by any standard, that was the most consequential week in Donald Trumps young presidency in the span of just five days, mr. Trumps credentiality with voters and his clout for congress were dealt big blows. Mr. Comey is investigating possible links between the Trump Campaign and the russian government. By friday, House Republicans had to pull the bill to repeal and replace obamacare, an embarrassing acknowledge that they didnt have the votes despite full control of the senate and the white house. In a short time in office, the president s travel ban has been blocked twice, the Russian Investigation is widening and his Political Capital is shrinking. In behind the scenes negotiating and arm twisting on health care, the president was lackluster in the art of the deal that didnt close. For seven years its been the promise that united republicans repeated over and over again on the campaign trail by donald trump. The first thing were going to do is repeal and replace obamacare. Immediately repealing and replacing obamacare. Immediately, repealing and replacing the disaster known as obamacare. But on friday, House Republicans, facing a revolt by more than 30 conservatives and modz rats pulled their bill to repeal and replace obamacare from the floor, leaving president obamas chief domestic achievement intact. Well be living with obamacare for the foreseeable future. All week republicans promise that President Trumps personal Political Capital would bring the bill across the finish line. The reason i feel so good about this is because the president has become a great closer. Hes the closer. He is the closer. A tremendous closer. Now the defeat of mr. Trumps first legislative effort raises questions about the negotiating skills that he promised would break through gridlock in washington. If you cant make a good deal with a politician then theres something wrong with you. Youre certainly not very good. And it damages the reputation of House Speaker paul ryan. The selfdescribed policy wonk that republicans drafted to push through conservative legislation, and it raises questions about the partys overall ability to govern. We were a tenyear Opposition Party where being against things was easy to do. Quite frankly, we have a group of people that are no on everything. It is an early victory for grassroots activism on the left. After angry town halls put pressure moderate lawmakers to vote no. Now obamacares survival or collapse lies with mr. Trump, a president who vowed to dismantle it. On friday he told the New York Times, quote, he was pleased to have it all behind him. Its enough already. Though the president tried to pin some blame on democrats. The losers are nancy pelosi and Chuck Schumer because now they own obamacare. Mr. Trump also implied he might eventually have to work with democrats to fix the law. It is unlikely to happen any time soon, eager to talk about anything else, the president spent his weekly address talking not about health care, not about tax reform, not about infrastructure, but about exploring space. This week in the company of astronauts i was honored to sign the nasa transition authorization act right into law. The blame game is in full swing. The president tweeted this just a few minutes ago. Democrats are smiling in d. C. , and the Freedom Caucus with the help of club for growth and heritage have saved planned parenthood and ocare while some republicans are blaming the white house and others are pointing at speaker ryan and still others like the president is pinning the fault on the Freedom Caucus. Joining me now is a former member of the freedom caulk us and someone tasked with helping to the president to close the deal. Mr. Mulvaney. The president himself will pin this on the club for growth, and the conservative caucus, and a caucus you were a member of just six months ago. Theres plenty of blame to go around as we try to figure out what happened. What happened is washington won. I think the one thing we learned this week is washington was moreec broen than President Trump thought that it was. What you have is the status quo wins and unfortunately, the folks back home lost. You can plablame it on the free caucus if you want to and charlie dent, and it was the powers that be in washington that won. The Republican Party has not changed washington after taking over the house, and taking over the senate in 14 and over the white house now. We havent been able to change washington if the first 65 days and if theres anything thats disappointing and an educational process to the Trump Administration is this place was a lot more rotten than he thought it was. And i was here. I helped found it. Why couldnt you get them to yes . Your former colleagues and you were a vocal member of this caucus. Yeah. Why couldnt you get them to yes . I have no yet. I really dont. Lets step back and realize that probably half of the folks in the group were yes and half were no, but what i told the president what would happen is wed go up to the last couple of days and the last couple of hours and they would make it better and for some reason that hasnt happened and i didnt realize this difficulty ran as deep as it was. You would have been a yes on this . Without reservation and told the men and women in the Freedom Caucus that many, many times. Again, many of them would have supported the bill if it had come to the floor. It was a bizarre combination of who was against this bill and some folks on the Freedom Caucus. Doesnt that tell you if the bill was flawed . If you cant win over conservatives and moderates who can you win . Folks are paying attention to the wrong things. Theyre still paying attention to the special interests and being reelected. What happened here is we got stuck with obamacare and the people have been telling people how bad this program is and how harming it is to folks back home are the ones who prevented it from being replaced. Thats whats so frustrating. The president is glad its behind him. White House Press Secretary sean spicer said the president left everything on the field. I want to put up a bill a chart here. This is how long it takes to get big legislative items done. Obamacare from start to finish was 187 legislative days and Medicare Part d, 166. Welfare reform was 56. And from start to finish on health care was 17 days. 17 days and you guys are waving the white flag . It was 17 days in this administration. Weve been working against it the what was the hurry . Why didnt you have a bill that could pass in the seven years or why didnt you acknowledge that you needed more time . Here is the hurry. There is a lot to be done. We needed to get rid of obamacare. We needed to fix the system so we could help folks back home and then move on to tax reform so we could help get the people back to work. The president wants to do a lot of things and is not willing to do wharand the one thing i told, look, this president is not like any other president that youve ever seen before. He will not do things the same way. He didnt sell it. He didnt give a major speech on it and he would do rallies and say health care, i cant wait to do tax reform. It was like a nuisance to him. Chuck, no. Youre just wrong on that one. The man worked and you said it yourself. We left everything on the field. How do you describe that as leaving everything on the field. President obama didnt give up in the face of tough town halls. He spent another six months and he had a special election and they kept going, and i guess the question, and you saw i think its phil klein in the Washington Examiner that said this is the biggest broken promise that anyones made in american political history. We had 120 members of congress through the white house in the last couple of days. I myself, at one time on wednesday afternoon, we had 80 members of congress on the property at one time. Mike pence was meeting with the group, and the president was meeting with another group, no stone left unturned. Youre giving up after 17 legislative days and youre live giving up after 66 days. He wants to move on. Clearly, youre not going to touch health care for what . The next 12 months. Winter breaks . The winter break . No, when it breaks. Thats what folks are starting to talk about and frustrating as we tried to help folks back home is the end result is that people back home will be hurt. The democrats will be blamed for it because its not trumpcare in this country, it is not ryancare. And you have no responsible that the law of the land, that paul ryan said would be the law of the land for the foreseeable future, does your administration have the duty to make it work . We had the duty to try to fix it. Do you have the duty to make it work . We have the duty to help people back home. You cannot fix a broken system. This is a system built on the idea that the government could force you to do something you didnt want and that that would make you happy. You are never going to fix that. The system must be removed and it must be repealed and replaced and youre not going to fix a system that doesnt trust people to do whats in their best interest. I keep coming back, why is it that a Republican House and senate could put a repeal bill on president obamas desk so easily and you couldnt put a repeal bill on President Trumps desk . Were asking the same questions. We really are. I know the man in the white house is capable of governing. Without a doubt, no question. If anybody had any doubts about President Trumps ability to be the president they should have been really . Cant close a deal . He said he was a big negotiator. This is what everybody said he couldnt do and he couldnt work with different groups in the Republican Party. No, this was the president being the president. What you saw this week were more rotten thing than we did. The president did a saturday morning tweet and he said this, to go watch judge janeane on fox news on fox news at 00 p. M. So we did. Heres what she said. Paul ryan needs to step down as speaker of the house. This is not no one expected a businessman to understand the complicated ins and outs. What message was the president trying to send, telling his supporters to watch her and her lead editorial was to say House Speaker paul ryan needs to step down. Is that what the president wanted people to hear . I have spent more time in the last week with the president of the United States than i thought i would, than four years. Ive never seen him blame paul ryan. Why did he want people to watch her show . The people to blame were the people who would not vote yes and they would vote no and when sen to lee is here. The folks who voted no are the folks to blame. He is want blaming paul ryan at all . There is no subtle campaign to undermine paul ryan . Ive been in the oval office with the president and with the speaker more in the last couple of days than i ever thought. Ive never seen the president for a second try to blame paul ryan for this. All right. Are you going to repeal and replace obamacare before the end of this year . My guess is we will move on. You are not touching health care. When it fails, and it may be may, and it may be the end of this year, folks will come back and say . This is no longer a hundredday priority. The president has things he wants to accomplish and hes not going to wait for congress to sit around and do the right thing. When it breaks and chuck, its going to break, they will come back to us and ask us to take it up again. I will leave it there. As tax reform gets under way ill see you there again soon. Mick mulvaney, thanks for coming on. Appreciate it. It was tanked by a revolt in the house, but it was facing steep opposition in the senate, senator of utah and charlie, and one thing they both agreed on, they werent going to vote for this bill as it was written and they both join me now together. Gentlemen, welcome. Senator leigh, let me start with you, the president is blaming the Freedom Caucus, club for growth and heritage for, quote, protecting planned parenthood and obamacare. Is that a fair read of what happened this week, sir . That is not at all how i see it. This bill didnt pass because it didnt deal with the most fundamental flaw in obamacare. The part of obamacare that has made health care unacceptable and unaffordable. Until we get a bill that actually brings down the cost of health care for hardworking americans were not going to get something that passes. Congressman dent, do you pin the blame . Some people pin the blame on the moderates, it wasnt just the Freedom Caucus and the moderates helped tank this, too. What say you . Well, i tend to agree with the president on that point. Lets be very honest about this. A lot of the concessions the white house was making at the end of this process were to try to please and placate the hard right on essential benefits and other issues all to placate people who were not going to vote for the bill anyway. By doing that, they ended up alienating more people on the senate right or moderates. That is really what happened. The bottom line, chuck, that in order to Reform Health care in this country well have to do it in a durable, Sustainable Way and bipartisan manner. We as republicans should not make the same mistakes that the democrats did in 2010 by muscling that law through. I voted against it. They muscled it through. We need to do this in a durable, bipartisan and Sustainable Way. Before i go back to senator lee. I want you to respond to was out this morning and its an anecdote about the president and you. According to an attendee, the president angrily informed you, congressman dent, that you were destroying the Republican Party and was going to take down tax reform and im going to blame you. Is that is that what the president said to you and how did you respond . I listened to respectfully to what the president had to say, this discussion has been far too much about artificial timeliness and arbitrary deadlines all to affect tax reform. This conversation should be more about the people whose lives will be impacted by decisions on health care. We did not have much of a substantive discussion. Im holding up a plan from republican governors from expansion states like mine, kasich, snyder, sandoval, hutchison. They wanted to be part of this process and they were not brought in. Those kinds of issues were very important to me and to the people i represent and frankly, to a lot of the senate rigr concerned about the medicaid iannges and yeah, senator lee, you heard Mick Mulvaney said theyre moving on. You heard the president say hes ad health care is behind him. First of all, what say you . Is health care behind you . We need to do that. We need to do that very to get e and getas ae whole lot o ryan himself said when this bill was going down the so close and hes right. They were not faeyraw could hav deal. Eruldave added to the bill to pte for it so that ou process and the process has to beand devoting 17 legislative ds to a bill fr it because it hasd within 1 no sense especially when this is campaigning on for seven years and the American People hurting. Hardworking middle class americans across this country are lthare because of this bill. Weve got toto rpeal it. Now that we have the two of ideological polls of the Republican Party. I want tyou ree with the follow quote from a colleague of yours its bill cassidy, republican o. He said thisspre recognition that the federalcongress has cr for every american to have e. Essentially, senator lee, he is saying the whether government should be involved with this or not and now its time acknowledges th that people have a right to health care and the governments got to figure out how to do it for them. Do you concur with that . In so far as hes talking about a federal right, rights are things that the government cant do to you. Rights are not something that the government must do for you. Hes suggesting theed increased federal presence is somehow going to bring do thats simply not true, and in fact, s refuted abundantly by the las happened since obamacare was passed. When this bill was pd we brought the federal government into it with the promise that it would make health care more dent, i wou assidy. I spoke with senatorolli c a and senator cassidy very c we have a health now, flawed as it is, i voteed make it market orieedendlandat settled. Oub better than it is today because its simply not t senator lee, i have a at hasnt been bridged inside the republicanthts done we sti this debate to go on on. Gentlemen, i appreciate you coming on together. Itsd both. When we come back, how deep u from the collapse of this health care bill, plus the theresident care bill, plus the theresident and what we do every night is like something out of a strange dream. Cept that the next morning it all makes sense. Fedex powover 40 yearsth netwot areassive, fa maybe a bit magical. For lower ba