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GOP Health Care Bill Revision; White House on Medicaid; Trump Confirmers House Bill Comment; Trump Says Obama Colluded. Aired 1- 1:30p ET

Aired June 26, 2017 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

We begin with breaking news from the United States Supreme Court. President Trump gets a partial victory in the legal battle over his travel ban. The high court will hear arguments in October on the ban affecting six Muslim majority countries.

In the meantime, the court will allow parts of the ban to go into effect.

In a statement just a little while ago, the president said, and I'm quoting, "Today's unanimous Supreme Court decision is a clear victory for our national security. It allows the travel suspension for the six terror-prone countries and the refugees suspension to become largely effective. My number one responsibility as commander-in-chief is to keep the American people safe. Today's ruling allows me to use an important tool for protecting our nation's homeland."

Let's go to our Justice Reporter Laura Jarrett. Laura, explain which parts of the ban will be allowed to take effect over these next several months and which ones won't.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Wolf, the crux of today's decision comes down to an individual traveler's connection to the U.S. And the Supreme Court actually side stepped some of the more challenging constitutional issues that the lower court was grappling with.

But it comes up with this rule that says if you have a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the U.S., then you can come into the count. But if you don't, you can't.

And the court tried to give some examples of what that bona fide connection would look like. For instance, if you have a family member here, if you have a work permit to be in the United States or you've been admitted to school in the United States. All of those would count. But there are still many questions that remain, Wolf, about how this is going to be interpreted on the ground and who is going to decide some of those close calls.

BLITZER: Give us a breakdown, Laura, of how the individual nine justices ruled on this very, very sensitive issue.

JARRETT: Well, the president calls this a unanimous ruling but it's a little more nuanced than that. The justices were in agreement that for this limited portion of the population, so this group that has no connection to the U.S. at all, then the travel ban is OK. And it can go forward and be implemented.

But three justices, and some of the more conservative members of the court actually wanted to take it a step further and say it wanted to get rid of all the lower court rulings and prevent -- actually allow full implementation of the travel ban. And part of the reasoning appears to be that splitting the baby in the way that the majority is doing is going to be unworkable.

And Justice Clarence Thomas says on this point that today's compromise will burden executive officials with the task of deciding on peril of contempt whether individuals from the six affected nations who wish to enter the U.S. have a sufficient connection to a person or entity in this country, Wolf.

So, now, the ball is in the government's court to figure out how to do this in a way that avoids some of the chaos that we saw last time around --Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Laura Jarrett reporting for us. Laura, thanks very much.

Let's get some more insight on this important travel ban decision and what it means. Our Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin is joining us from New York. Here in Washington, our CNN Politics Reporter, and Editor at Large, Chris Cillizza, joining us. And CNN Legal Analyst, former federal prosecutor, Laura Coates, is with us as well.

Jeffrey, what do you make of the decision to let at least parts of this travel ban take effect? Does it, for example, give us any clues as to how the arguments might go, when the full court takes up the case in October?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: I think this is definitely much more of a win than a loss for the Trump administration. There are three justices. The three most conservative justices. Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch, who say, look, the ban is clearly fine. And they would let the whole ban go into effect today.

So, the only issue is whether they can get two more votes for that position. But all nine justices agree that the president has the power, at least for the short term, to keep the people who do not have close ties to the United States out of the country.

So, the court seems to have thread a needle, actually quite elegantly, where they have dealt with the people who have the biggest hardships, the saddest stories, the people who have close relatives, the people who've been admitted to school here, who have job offers here. They, clearly, can continue to come into the country from the -- from these six affected countries.

And the people who are essentially strangers cannot. That's where things stand, but certainly this is more of a win than a loss for the Trump administration.

BLITZER: And when the president, as Laura Jarrett pointed out, calls this a unanimous decision, he said today's unanimous Supreme Court decision, later says, I am particularly satisfied that the Supreme Court's decision was nine to zero, what is he referring to if it was really a six to three decision?

[13:05:07] TOOBIN: Well, all nine justices agreed that the people from the six countries, who do not have any immediate ties to the United States, can be prevented from coming here.

So, in that respect, the decision was unanimous. Where it's not unanimous is about the people who do have ties. Six justices think that they should be allowed to come into the country. And, of course, that's more than a majority so that's the ruling of the court.

But there was a significant part of the decision that was unanimous. So, I don't think the president was being misleading. I think he was just emphasizing the part of the opinion he wanted to emphasize.

BLITZER: Which, of course, he likes to do.

Laura Coates, a big win. Do you agree a major win, at least for now, for the president?

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Certainly. You have the track record of everyone, kind of, voting against him, the Ninth Circuit, the Fourth Circuit, on very different grounds back to (INAUDIBLE) constitutional.

But what it really tells you is that one victory, as Neil Gorsuch, is not going to automatically side with his mentor Kennedy. You saw that happen today. That was maybe a thought people had whether or not this new justice would actually be somebody who would assert himself in a way or would go along to get along. And you had that not happening here.

But I think it is a little bit deceptive in the sense to say this was a unanimous victory. Think about the procedure of this case. They have not ruled on the overall constitutionality of it yet. That will come in October.

They have all agreed to hear this case. But to hear this case that requires the briefing and an understanding of what happens. What it was a victory on is parts of it can, in fact, come into play. Parts of it can be implemented.

But the Ninth Circuit already said that when they said, you can go ahead and, kind of, revisit your vetting procedures here and figure out how to give yourself, administration, the justification the Supreme Court and everyone else will need to show that the pendulum can shift, from your prerogative as president, to a real national security interest as to why this plan should go into effect and why it does not undermine the Constitution.

That victory is still ahead.

BLITZER: Chris Cillizza, the decision said -- and you point this out in this piece you just posted. It means that this revised executive order may not be enforced against foreign nationals who have a credible claim, a bona fide relationship with a person or entity of the United States. But all other foreign nationals are subjects to the provisions of the executive order, 2.0, the revised version.

CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Right. Look, Donald Trump has not had a number of clean victories in his 157 days as president. This is not a clean victory, but it is a victory for him.

He signs the first executive order January 27th. It immediately is blocked. He tries to sign another one, I think it was March 6th. It is immediately blocked.

So, theoretically now, this will be a way in which it can be implemented, granted for 90 days. I mean, this is not -- to Laura's point, this is not forever. This is a brief period of time.

But it gives him a way to say, I knew I had the power to do this and I do have the power to do it. Of course, you know, come October and the court decides differently -- although, you know, I always defer to Jeff Toobin on these things.

But if the court does decide differently, if they say, you know what? He still can't do this. Then, we'll look back and say this was a puric (ph) victory of sorts. Said, sure, he won a battle but he lost the war.

But, again, a reminder, Donald Trump has not won anything legally or politically on this since the day he signed it on January 27th. Today is a day in which he did win something, politically speaking.

Legally, I think it's a much more up in the air, dicey situation.

BLITZER: So, basically, Jeffrey Toobin, if there are individuals who have relatives here in the United States, let's say they live in Syria or they live in Sudan or Libya, some of these six Muslim majority countries, if they have relations, if they have relatives here or if they have a connection with an entity. An entity meaning, what, a university, a student --

TOOBIN: A business.

BLITZER: -- or an entity meaning a business, they will be able to -- they will come to the United States, OK, according to Supreme Court decision. TOOBIN: That's right. The rules that applied before the executive order would be in effect for them. And they would have to get visas and they would have to, you know, follow the usual procedures. But there would be no ban involving those people with those relationships.

Now, as Justice Thomas pointed out in his -- in his partial dissenting opinion, it's not self-evidently obvious what a bona fide relationship means. And there is likely to be disagreement about what -- how much of a relationship counts that will allow you to get into the country.

But, certainly for most people, for people who are admitted students, for example, it should be pretty clear that they have a right to be in the -- in the country.

[13:10:04] But, administratively, there will be challenges that will play out over the summer until the Supreme Court resolves this issue once and for all.

BLITZER: And they'll start to hear arguments in October and we'll see. It will take them a while to come up with a final decision.

Jeffrey Toobin, Chris Cillizza, Laura Coates, thanks very, very much. An important ruling by the Supreme Court, at least for the time being.

Still to come, Donald Trump goes on a Twitter tirade over his predecessor, accusing President Barack Obama of doing nothing to stop Russia's meddling in the U.S. presidential election. But how far is President Trump willing to go to punish Moscow's actions?

And we've just received and updated copy of the Senate health care bill. What has changed and will it sway any votes? We'll have a live report from Capitol Hill. That's coming up.

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BLITZER: Welcome back.

You're looking at live pictures of the White House briefing room. It's scheduled to start in about 15 minutes. Unfortunately, we'll not able to see it or hear it live. All cameras are banned.

We will bring you the audio portion once the briefing is complete. Those are the White House rules, at least for now.

[13:15:00] Let's get to the health care debate. And Republicans, they are tweaking the health care bill they rolled out last week in the U.S. Senate. Some new language was posted online just a few moments ago. Remember the first draft left a handful of senators saying they weren't ready to support the bill as it was written.

Let's go to our congressional correspondent, Phil Mattingly. He's up on Capitol Hill.

Phil, the Congressional Budget Office score on the Republican health care bill, what, it could come as early as later this afternoon, but tell us about the changes that have just been released. PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So it's a small but

important tweak. This is related to continuous coverage. And, Wolf, what this would do is anybody who's in the marketplace, insurance marketplace, and loses their coverage and does not buy new coverage within 63 days would be forced to wait a full six months before getting coverage.

Now, the rationale for this is not like the individual mandate on some level, which is, you want young, healthier people to be incentivized to get into the marketplace. That makes the marketplace operate better. Presumably it spreads out the risk pool in general and hopefully drives costs down a little bit. So what they're trying to do here is essentially incentivize people who would want insurance for long periods of time to get back into the marketplace as quickly as possible so as to avoid that six-month penalty here.

Now, this isn't the individual mandate. It's a watered down version of a mandate, but it's necessary for the health of the marketplace. I think the big question now is, does this sway any votes? That's not what this change was for. This is a change actually that Senate staff has been working on for a couple of weeks, trying to make sure that it's compliant with the reconciliation with the budget rules that are in the Senate. And, again, it would actually win - put through the lens of the CBO score likely help their coverage numbers. Obviously if you look back, Wolf, at the House version, 23 million over the course of ten years, fewer would have insurance based on that House measure. The idea is if you include this provision, it will incentivizes more people to be - to have coverage. That will likely be a - factored into the CBO score tonight I'm told because this is a provision that Senate staffers and the CBO have been trading back and forth over the course of the last couple of weeks. We'll have to wait and see if that actually occurs.

But what you're seeing right now, kind of big picture wise is, this was a discussion draft. Changes are expected. Changes on several fronts, whether it be the health of the marketplace, like this change was made today, or what specific senators are looking for. There are openings for those changes. The changes are expected. The big question now is, unlike this newest change, whether these new changes will accomplish the kind of necessity or the necessary balancing act to get enough conservatives and enough moderates in line to actually reach that magic number of 50 votes to be able to pass this bill.

Again, Wolf, Senate leaders still want this vote by the end of this week. They are short of votes right now. They are working behind the scenes to try and draft proposals that will kind of thread that needle. Those haven't been released yet. The ideas for those, though, have been kind of kicking back and forth for the last couple of weeks. We'll have to see when those are released whether or not that's enough to get those wary senators, those senators already opposed to that initial discussion draft in line, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Phil, thank you. Phil Mattingly up on Capitol Hill.

The new bill's effect on Medicaid coverage certainly has been one of the biggest sticking points so far. But from the White House, we have heard two very different messages on the issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, WHITE HOUSE COUNSELOR: These are not cuts to Medicaid, George. This slows the rate for the future and it allows governors more flexibility with Medicaid dollars because they're closest to the people in need.

If you are currently in Medicaid, if you became a Medicaid recipient through the Obamacare expansion, you are grandfathered in. We're talking about in the future.

Medicaid is intended for the poor, the needy and the sick. If you're able-bodied and you would like to go and find employment and have employers sponsored benefits, then you should be able to do that. And maybe you belong, as Secretary Price has made clear, maybe you belong in other places.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, let's assess what we just heard and more. Our political director David Chalian is with us, along with our chief political analyst, Gloria Borger, our senior political analyst Mark Preston is here, and our senior congressional reporter, Manu Raju is here as well.

So what exactly, David Chalian, is the White House saying about Medicaid?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes. It's interesting. You hear Kellyanne Conway talk in both those cases. If I am Donald Trump sitting back and watching that, I would say, where's the heart I was talking about that I want to see in the bill, because she didn't seem to be on that message there today.

It is - it just belies reality to say that there aren't Medicaid cuts in this bill. I mean it's just not true. I understand Washington speak about slowing the growth and cuts in the future, but there are $800 billion worth of Medicaid cuts in these bills, so that is quite clear. What - and what Tom Price was saying yesterday, that, you know, we shouldn't have individuals lose coverage that they want for themselves and their family. Well, you know, I think that's part of over selling the way that the Obama administration did when they said if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.

So I think the administration is in a bit of overselling the details and the results and the impact of this bill in hopes of helping to push it through right now, rather than actually spelling out for the American people precisely what the new world order would look like.

[13:20:09] GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: And if there are no Medicaid cutbacks, why are Republicans, moderate Republicans, opposing it, or at this point opposing it? Why is somebody like Susan Collins saying the Medicaid cuts don't sit well with her? Why is Rob Portman? I mean why would Republicans be pointing out that there are Medicaid cutbacks? This is a Republican measure. I mean it just - it just doesn't make any sense. And I think what you're - what you may be seeing going on here is an effort to confuse people to a - to a great degree, because if the waters are muddy, that can work on - to their benefit.

BLITZER: And the president has now confirmed that he did tell a group of Republican senators privately that he considers the House bill that passed "mean," even though the House speaker said, well, that was not exactly true. Paul Ryan and then the White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer saying that was just a rumor. The president has confirmed, even though he had a big celebration in the Rose Garden celebrating that House bill.

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. So, again, another example of mixed messages, right, where you had this Rose Garden ceremony, which was unprecedented because this was a bill that barely passed the House of Representatives, hadn't even gone through the Senate, hadn't gone through Congress and, oh, by the way, had not been signed into law. That's when you usually have a Rose Garden ceremony. And to sit up there in the Rose Garden and to make such a big deal of it and then a couple weeks later come out and say what he said about the bill, if you are somebody who is on the fence, you've got to be saying to yourself, can I trust the president's word? Can I trust the president to stand with me if I'm with his vote or if I'm not with his vote? And I think we're seeing that play out right now.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Yes, no question about it. When you have these discussions with senators, some senators will say, well look what he just said about the House bill. What happens if popularity in this bill sinks even further than it is right now? The ultimate question, Wolf, is going to be for Mitch McConnell, does he move forward on this vote on Thursday, knowing that the votes right now aren't there. Will they get any closer on Thursday by making these changes, cutting these deals behind the scenes, because not only would he have to put his senators through a vote on the bill, but there would be scores of amendments, politically difficult amendments, that members will have to cast votes on and, of course, Democrats are going to make it as politically difficult for them as possible. Does Mitch McConnell actually want to go through that entire process knowing that this bill is going to fail? That's going to be a key decision he's going to have to make Tuesday or Wednesday.

BORGER: Well, either he goes through it now or he goes through it at some point in the future.

PRESTON: Absolutely. Yes.

BORGER: And there's a school of thought that's sort of like, well, it's not going to get any better after you go home and visit your constituents over the July 4th break.

PRESTON: Right.

BORGER: You might as well get it over with now.

BLITZER: At 9:14, David, he tweeted this. This is the president. "Republican senators are working very hard to get there with no help from the Democrats. Not easy. Perhaps just let Ocare," Obamacare, "crash and burn."

How did you interpret that?

CHALIAN: Well, you know, he made the very same argument during the House debate, that he - he - he said that time and again, that there was - he was disappointed that no Democrat would come onboard. He thought maybe it would be better to just let it go up into flames and people would feel the pain. The problem with that is, that's politically untenable, right? I mean these members who are sitting there and casting votes on this can't just go home to their constituents, Wolf, and say, I'm just going to sit on my hands and let you experience the pain of this until we -

PRESTON: Morally untenable, too, David, right? I mean the idea that it's politically untenable, absolutely and morally untenable just to allow something so big that has such an effect on our economy just crash and burn?

RAJU: And even the president himself has acknowledged that that's not tenable because he's pushing - he's trying to get this legislation through. He wants to see this pass.

CHALIAN: I know he thinks he can blame the Democrats if indeed this goes down, but he should be able to pass - this is - he has enough Republican votes -

BLITZER: Yes.

CHALIAN: In the Senate to pass this on a party line vote if need. I don't think party line votes are necessarily the greatest thing for the country, but I think he has to look at his own party before he starts blaming the Democrats.

BLITZER: Obamacare, remember, seven years ago passed without any Republican support.

BORGER: Right.

BLITZER: That was along party lines. At 8:30 this morning -

BORGER: And that was a mistake, too, you can make the case.

BLITZER: At 8:30 a.m. this morning he tweeted, "the Democrats have become nothing but obstructionists and they have no policies or ideas. All they do is delay and complain. They own Obamacare."

Everyone stand by.

There's a lot more important developments happening right now.

President Trump demands an apology on the Russia investigation and it levels - and levels a new accusation again former President Obama. We'll have the latest on that and more when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [13:29:02] BLITZER: Once again, live pictures coming in from the White House Briefing Room. That briefing scheduled to begin any moment now. Unfortunately, you won't be able to see it or hear it here live. All cameras are banned. We will be able to bring you the audio portion only once the briefing is complete. Those are the rules put forward by the White House.

President Trump, meanwhile, is not letting up on his criticism of former President Obama and how he handled Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The president now slamming his president in a new series of scathing tweets earlier today and even demanding an apology over the Russia investigation.

Let's go to our senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta. He's following the story for us.

So, Jim, tell our viewers exactly what President Trump is now saying.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf, President Trump once again trying to deflect attention from the Russia investigation and deflect any responsibility in the Russia investigation. Now he's blaming former President Obama, somebody he blames a lot of things on, but let's show you the latest tweets. Here's one of the tweets that he posted earlier this morning.

[13:30:05] "The real story is that President Obama did nothing about being informed in August about Russian meddling with four months looking at Russia under a magnifying glass