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Welcome back to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm lynda kinkade. you're watching "cnn newsroom." good to have you with us. our top story this hour, the senate is inching closer to a critical vote on a sweeping healthcare climate, and tax bill. democrats are hoping to pass a bill along a party line vote, but first they have to get through a marathon session known as a vote-a-rama, which is under way right now. it is a series of back-to-back votes that often lasts hours. still, senate democrats say they're confident the bill will reach president biden's desk soon. well...

>> given that, look at you kind of describe your relationship with the president? >> in connection with my role over the course of my tenure there, there were a number of instances of which folks at the white house would seek to bring me in to provide legal advice to the president, and sometimes discussing the legal options that could be pursued among to -- reach various policy objectives, sometimes to advise the president that a course of action that they had been discussing was not legally available. >> i want to ask you about two things. the president asked you in the department to do. the ...

Provide the legal advice to the president and to the executive branch. as a practical matter given the responsibilities of the attorney general, the assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel exercises that job on a day-to-day basis. so in addition the head of aoc functions as a general counsel to the attorney generaland often the chief legal adviser to the a.g. as the white house and the executive branch more broadly. >> so given that role, can you describe your relationship with the president? >> well, i -- in connection with my role over the course of my tenure there, there ...

Say what you will about democracy, but it loves to surprise.

State. >> yes. >> it's not like it's a place where she could get democratic crossover votes and somehow survive. mathematically, it would be -- i mean, in the last midterm election in wyoming, let's put this in context, 85% of the people who voted in the primary election voted in a republican primary. so, in order for her to win, she would have to come so close that just a few thousand crossover voters of the democratic party could save her. and that is probably unlikely that she is going to come that close. so she knew and she decided on a position of principle that she was going to stand for...