[Blitzer:] We're following the breaking news this afternoon, very dramatic failure of the Republican effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. The bill was pulled from a vote on the House floor just a little while ago, because Republicans didn't have enough votes to pass it. Joining us now Republican congressman Morgan Griffith of Virginia. He's a member of the House Freedom Caucus. He was going to vote for the bill. Congressman, thanks for joining us.
[Rep. Morgan Griffith , Virginia:] Glad to be with you.
[Blitzer:] So, the Republicans, they control both Houses of Congress. They control the executive branch, the White House, the presidency. What does this defeat and it's a significant defeat say about the ability of Republicans right now to govern on such a critically important issue?
[Griffith:] Well, surely, we can govern today as a stumble, obviously, but the bottom line is that the legislative process is supposed to be a rough-and-tumble process. We're not just going to put a bill on the table and say, here it is, you can pass it now and read it later, we'll find out what's in the bill after we've passed it. We're not doing that. And as a result of that, there were a lot of questions coming from members of the Republican conference on both the left and the right of that conference. Everybody is conservative, but within the spectrum. And the bottom line is that the votes were not there. That does not mean that we cannot govern. It means that we're using the process the founders set up the way it was was supposed to be set up. All members have a vote and we have to bring it together over consensus. We're going to take a break over the weekend. And hopefully we can come back and try and do something on Obamacare. The whole system is collapsing and we've got to do something I believe for the American people because we cannot let this thing get worse and it's already going to get worse no matter what we do. We were trying to find a fix for it. It's not easy because while we had a number of plans, we didn't have agreement amongst all of us as to what the right plan was. And so, we're going to work on that and see what we can do to move forward.
[Blitzer:] Who do you blame, Congressman, for the defeat? Would you blame the speaker, the Republican leadership in the House? Would you blame the president who maybe could have done more?
[Griffith:] I don't know that you can assess blame as such. This is the way the process was set up. You're going to have polls and times things don't work as smoothly as you want. They're not supposed to be smooth. We're not in a dictatorship. We're in a republic based on democratic principles, which means there's all kinds of competing ideas. And we know Obamacare is a failure. What we have to do is figure out how to go forward with American health insurance and make sure that we can do something that's good for the American families out there, because they're suffering with high deductibles, high copays and high costs that make it hard for them to afford that insurance. They may have a piece of paper that says they're insured. But that doesn't mean they have the ability to go use that insurance in any meaningful way unless they have a catastrophic injury.
[Blitzer:] You're a member of the House Freedom Caucus. It's a group type of rigid conservative ideology, except you weren't going with the House Freedom Caucus by and large, you were supporting this legislation. Here's the question. Is that rigid ideology hurting your party's ability to enact its agenda to get compromise, if you will, something that can pass?
[Griffith:] No, I don't think it is. I mean, we didn't come here to be robots and do whatever the leadership said on any particular measure. I agreed with leadership on this one; I may not agree with him on something else. And we had members from the center and the right who were opposed to the bill, for different reasons. So it's one of these things where we'll have to take a deep breath. We'll come back to it. But I don't believe it's the House Freedom Caucus being very conservative that's causing the problem. It's a matter of we have to bring everybody in the room and try to figure out how we move forward to replace Obamacare. Everybody was for repealing it. The question was what do we put in its place. And it is complicated and it is difficult as we learned today and we'll move forward.
[Blitzer:] Hillary Clinton just tweeted this, and I'll put it up on the screen. "Today was a victory for all Americans," a short tweet from the former Democratic presidential nominee. Your quick reaction?
[Griffith:] Well, that's just not true. The truth of the matter is my constituents are suffering under Obamacare. They have a hard time paying their copays, they have a hard time paying their deductibles. They're spending more money on their insurance than they were promise the under Obamacare. It would go down $2,500. The president made that promise in my district at an event a number of years ago. It wasn't accurate so we're trying to figure out what we can do to bring down costs of health insurance and make sure the American people get an insurance policy that actually means something as opposed to, well, you have a piece of paper but you really are going to spend a lot of out of pocket money before you ever get to use that insurance.
[Blitzer:] Congressman Morgan Griffith of Virginia, thanks very much for joining us.
[Griffith:] Thank you. Have a geed evening.
[Blitzer:] We're going to get reaction from Democrats. Senator Chris cools is standing by. Much more on the breaking news. The Republican last minute decision to pull the health care bill, not even allow it to come up for a vote on the House floor.