Pence, GOP Meeting on Health Care Yields No Results
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: I mean, Mike Pence, he's on the Hill hour after hour after hour, they say they're making progress and very encouraging comments from Mark Meadows, chairman of the Freedom Caucus. We'll skip Easter break if we can get this thing done. What are you hearing?</s>ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, one of the things I'm hearing from some of the conservative outside groups who help support folks like Mark Meadows is that they're very, very concerned that the details, that the text of the legislation is not going to fully repeal or allow for the repeal of some of the most onerous regulations in the law. That's the -- these are some of the things that they -- that allow health insurance or force health insurance companies to sort of charge people the same price whether they have pre-existing conditions or not regardless of their age and so on and so forth, and they're worried that the text of the bill isn't going to do that fully. So they're still concerned. There still is no text and until there is, I think we are going to see some of this holding back on the part of the conservatives because there is not as much trust with leadership and also with moderates and with the White House that whatever text that comes out of these negotiations will accomplish what they want. So I'm hearing a lot of distrust in this process. People are open to it. They appreciate Mike Pence's efforts here, but nobody is ready to come out and say this is the deal that we want, that we can agree to.</s>JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: No, we just spoke to Rodney Davis, a moderate, who sort of refused to commit until he sees on paper what exactly is agreed on.</s>HARLOW: Yes.</s>BERMAN: Because what's on paper matters. John Phillips, one of the things -- you were a Trump supporter during the Trump campaign. Nice to see you again, by the way, John. During the campaign there was one thing that was crystal clear from Donald Trump, candidate Trump, was that he wanted to protect the provisions which allowed for the protection of people with pre-existing conditions. Well, now one of the things that's being discussed is doing away with the community rating which would mean that sick people could pay way, way more. That people with pre-existing conditions could pay way, way more. Can the president sell this after saying that he wouldn't touch pre- existing conditions before?</s>JOHN PHILIPS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think there is a way to do it where you create something separate for the welfare cases and then you create a free market option for everyone else. This whole go- round the first time it didn't work. Reminded me of the Lyndon Johnson quote when he said, you can give a man a little bit of bourbon without getting him drunk, but if you hold his mouth open and you pour him a quart he's going to get sick on it. And the fact of the matter is, is you can only force people to vote for something they don't like so much. You have to go back to the drawing board. You have to come up with something that's simpler, that's more free market oriented, get the votes in the House, send this thing in the Senate and put the weight of the world on red state Democrats who are up for re-election. They did it the wrong way the first time around. They put pressure on the Freedom Caucus. That's not how you win these votes. You win these votes by putting pressure on the Democrats and I hope the second time around that's the strategy they employ.</s>HARLOW: Bakari, are you at all nervous that this is going to happen? That Republicans are going to get their act together and get this done maybe even before or right over the Easter break and then the president isn't going to work with Democrats like he was saying after the first failure the first time around?</s>BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, I don't have any concern. One of the things that Donald Trump has managed to do that Barack Obama did not do is make Obamacare popular. You mentioned the Gallup poll which headed at 55 percent. We're going around the country now and talking to voters in airports and everywhere else. What we understand is that people now understand what essential benefits are. People know that they can keep --</s>HARLOW: Yes, but, Bakari, that same poll shows that only 26 percent of Americans want it to stay the way it is.</s>SELLERS: There's no question about that. But we're --</s>HARLOW: Fifty-five percent like it but they want some changes.</s>SELLERS: But with all due respect, Poppy, those are two -- those are two vastly different things. Repealing and replacing Obamacare and reforming the Affordable Care Act are two distinct things. You will have me and every other Democrat come to the table talk about how we reform the Affordable Care Act, how we add to the stabilization pools, so you have more than one provider in these counties. You will have people come to the table to talk about reforming the Affordable Care Act. Repealing the Affordable Care Act, repealing Obamacare is something totally different and that's a non-starter. Mick Mulvaney and Mike Pence have failed on this since day one and I don't see that changing at any particular point, whether or not it's the Freedom Caucus or whether or not it's first Tuesday caucus or moderate Republicans or staunch conservatives. What people understand is that individuals in this country not only feel as if they deserve health care, but they appreciate the healthcare they get, and I can tell you that taking away the coverage that people with pre-existing conditions have is not only politically not prudent but it's also -- it's just humanely unsound. And so I think that they're going to run into a lot of problems on this, Poppy.</s>BERMAN: So, John Philips, let me shift gears to Syria right now because the White House put out a statement, an official statement after more than 70 people were killed including children and the way it chose to address the crisis, the catastrophe was to blame the Obama administration for its policies in Syria over the last six years. Now look, there's plenty of blame to go around here and I think the Obama administration, you know, a magnifying glass does need to go over what they did and did not do in Syria. But the fact is, A, does blame help solve those people who die, help solve the crisis right now? And B, there were policies that citizen Donald Trump supported at the time. He didn't want to see military action. He didn't want to see the red line enforced. He wrote at the time, "To our very foolish leader, do not attack Syria. If you do, many very bad things will happen. And from that fight the U.S. gets nothing." So Donald Trump trying to have it both ways. Is this the right way to handle it?</s>PHILIPS: Well, unfortunately, this is not the first time that Assad has used chemical weapons on his own people and I suspect that if the world community doesn't come around and do something about it, it won't be the last time he does something like this, but this is not a United States problem. This is something that the international community has to get together on and, yes, that does involve Russia. That does involve putting pressure on other countries to put pressure on Assad, countries that have a better relationship with him than we do, but I don't think there is any appetite at all in the United States to go to war over this. People have had enough of it. I mean, one of the reasons that Donald Trump won the Republican nomination was he ran against the Iraq war. Especially, if you go back to that debate in South Carolina where he took the Bushes head-on on that subject. I just don't think the public has the appetite or the willingness or the desire to get involved in another boots on the ground war on the other side of the world.</s>HARLOW: All right. Guys, we're out of time. Abby Phillip, we will get to you first next time because you didn't get a second word in. Sorry about that.</s>BERMAN: All right. Still to come, son-in-law in the spotlight. New questions raised over Jared Kushner's experience as he takes on an increased role in the Trump administration. One former employee is speaking out. We're going to talk to her.