may not get maternity in their policies. >> which is a big deal, especially if you are a woman and you're thinking about it heading into 2018. i'm brook brooke baldwin. thank you for being with me. we will send it back to washington. the lead with jake tapper starts right now. ♪ >> this is "cnn breaking news." >> thanks, brooke. welcome to "the lead." we will begin with breaking news. politics lead, of course, after seven years of campaigning, promising and false starting, republicans did it. the house voted to repeal and replace the affordable care act, otherwise known as obamacare. they needed 216 votes. they got 217. >> if you can make that out, that rendition of, nah, nah, nah, hey, hey, good guy. originally by steam. house democrats singing goodbye

to republicans whom they believe will lose seats over the bill. the bill faces hurdles getting through senate, but let's look at the biggest changes under the plan. states will have the option to allow insurers to deny coverage to people with preexisting conditions as long as the states establish high risk pools or programs for the vulnerable people. states will have the option whether insurers have to provide essential health benefits such asthma ternt care or mental healthcare. the bill will repeal obamacare subsidies and replace with refundal tax credits based on age and income. it will drop the government mandate on companies to buy insurance. but require insurance companies to charge you more if you don't have continuous coverage. turns medicaid to the states with a fixed amount funded by federal government and eliminate obamacare taxes on wealthy americans, insurers and others. here is what president trump moments ago in a rose garden

ceremony promised this bill will accomplish for you. >> yes, premiums will be coming down. yes, deductibles will be coming down. but very importantly, it is a great plan and ultimately that's what it is all about. >> we will see if premiums and deductibles go down. so much remains unknown because, frankly, this bill was passed before the congressional budget office could analyze it and weigh in and share it with the public. we don't know how much this will cost or how many people will be affected and in what way. so, yes, a political victory for president trump and house republicans today. tbd on the policy and whether it will be a win for you. president trump is applauding house republicans after today's vote, of course. some were bussed over to the white house to be by his side. he spoke moments ago saying it is a good first step. let's go to jim acosta at the white house for us. jim, now it is time for the president to make deals with the senate to get something passed through the senate. >> reporter: that's right. >> what is the president's message as we all watch this bill move forward into that

process? >> reporter: i think the message from this president is to trust him. you know, he worked the phones mightily throughout this process, jake, and, you know, i think at this point, you know, this was a victory lap here in the rose garden but perhaps a half victory lap because, as you've been saying, this not only has to go through the senate, it has to perhaps after the changes are made there go back to the house and satisfy all of these republicans and even some democrats who will have to vote in favor of making these changes to obamacare. so we're well short of the finish lien for the white house and republicans in congress to repeal and replace obamacare. you heard the president here in the rose garden try to make the case this is going to lower premiums for americans, lower deductibles for americans. you heard republican lawmaker after rep lawmaker value to the american people in the rose garden of the white house people with preexisting conditions will be protected under trump care. a lot of critics out there who say no, that is not going to be the case. we will have a congressional budget office score coming out

in the next couple of weeks that will talk about that. but you heard the president here in the rose garden just within the last hour talk about his prospects in the senate, essentially almost guaranteeing that it is going to make its way through the senate and eventually get to his desk. here is what he had to say. >> it is dead. it is essentially dead. if we don't pay lots of ransom money over to the insurance companies it would die immediately. >> coming from a different world and only being a politician for a short period of time, how am i doing? am i doing okay? i'm president. hey, i'm president. can you believe it, right? i don't know. i thought you needed a little bit more time, they always told me, more time. but we didn't. >>. >> reporter: now, you heard during the president's remark talk about how obamacare is dead. that's something you will hear time and again, and it is really a prebuttal to the debate that will be taking place over the next weeks and really months as this tries to make its way through the senate, and that is because of this concern about

what is going tohappenwith people with preexisting conditions. we heard one official at the white house earlier today saying it is impossible to score how many people will lose their insurance because of the different protections for people with preexisting conditions in trump care. that is a preview of coming attractions, jake, when it comes to this debate. it is not over yet. >> jim acosta for us at the white house. joining us to talk is congressman steve scaliese. congressman, congratulations on the victory. what brought you over the top? >> good to be with you, jake. what it was was members coming together, focusing on how to lower premiums for families struggling under obamacare, and of course in the last few days some of our members that weren't there yet wanted to do more, and we do a lot protect people with preexisting conditions but wanted to do more to focus on lowering premiums lower than where they are today because a lot of people with preexisting conditions are paying very high premiums and have massive deductibles, in many cases over

$10,000 that makes their insurance meaningless if they're not able to have to pay so much money out of pocket. so we put additional money in place to lower premiums even more for people with preexisting conditions, and that was one of the final pieces that got it over the top. >> right. you put in eight billion dollars over five years to help with those high risk pools so states with put individuals, if they allow insurance companies to not provide insurance, to discriminate against people with preexisting conditions, the high risk pools will cover them. but eight billion dollars, even conservative think tanks say that's not going to be enough to help pay for these individuals. as you know, that's one of the big expenses is paying for sick people, paying for people who have preexisting conditions. so why was eight billion dollars a selling point, if not even the heritage foundation or the american enterprise institute think that will be enough to help with the high risk pools? >> first of all the premise of your argument is inaccurate. there is no discrimination against people with preexisting conditions. in fact, in our bill we actually have a protection that says

nobody can be denied coverage with preexisting conditions and we have a provision that says if you have continuous coverage, meaning as long as you keep insurance even with a preexisting condition, then a state can't even request a waiver to deny you coverage. so everybody is protected already. the real concern was the cost. so the experts were telling us about five billion dollars in those states that sought a waiver from certain provisions of the law would be enough to make sure you could truly buy down premiums so people with preexisting conditions could see their rates go down from where they are today. our members wanted to make sure we did even more, and so ultimately we pumped it up. instead of five billion we bumped it up to eight billion dollars which, again, only applies in the states that would seek a waiver from some of the provisions of the bill. ultimately everybody, even in a waiver state, has full protection if they have a preexisting condition already. we are focused on lowering their premiums more, so in many cases they won't have the massive

$10,000 deductibles they have under obamacare. >> i'm afraid i don't understand. maybe you could help me out. i thought your bill would allow states to allow insurers to not be required to provide insurance for people with preexisting conditions as long as those states made sure that there was something to take care of those people. what am i getting wrong? >> no, there is a specific provision in our bill with the mcarthur amendment, one of the final changes, that makes it very clear that everybody, including people with preexisting conditions, have what's called guaranteed -- guaranteed issue, meaning no matter what your health status is you can buy insurance policies, and then with something called -- with something called continuous coverage you're always in what's a community rating pool, meaning you buy insurance at the same rate as everybody else. >> so what do the states need waivers for? >> states might want waivers for what are called the ten essential health benefits, some of the additional benefits put in place by obamacare. you used to have state by state regulation of insurance. obamacare came in with a whole

large number of other mandates. >> right. >> that jack up the cost of healthcare. if states want to go back to the previous laws that they used to have on their books before obamacare, they will be able to do that if they want. >> so i want you to take a listen who house speaker paul ryan criticizing democratic efforts to pass obamacare back in 2009 before he was speaker. >> i don't think we should pass bills that we haven't read, that we don't know what they cost. if you rush this thing through before anybody even knows what it is, that's not good democracy. that's not doing our work for our constituents. we shouldn't rush this thing through just to rush it through for some artificial deadline. let's get this thing done right. >> so as you know, this bill was passed without sufficient time for the congressional budget office to do an analysis of it. many member also of the senate, republicans are criticizing the process by which not enough people had enough time to read this legislation before voting on it. how is that any different from what speaker ryan was criticizing the obama team and

the democrats for in 2009? >> first of all, every member that voted on this bill had more than enough time to read every aspect of it. in fact, the total bill, which most of it had been online for weeks, even the changes that we made today were about three pages worth of changes. the whole bill is less than 200 pages, so everybody had more than enough opportunity. in fact, some people were criticizing us that wanted us to bring it up weeks ago. some people wanted it brought up in the first 100 days which we would like to have done but the bill was not completed. more members want to make additional changes so we took extra time. in each step we took, each amendment we added in was online for days if not weeks. so everybody has had more than enough time to read the bill. obviously some people that want obamacare to stay law don't like this bill because they like obamacare. but obamacare is failing. iowa yesterday, almost the entire state of iowa is about to lose every insurance carrier, meaning if you have a preexisting condition in iowa and you're in obamacare, you literally will have zero choices to buy healthcare.

nowhere to go. that's not healthcare. that's not what people were promised. there is a better way. our bill actually fixes those problems and lowers premiums for families all across the board including with preexisting conditions. >> house majority whip steve scalise. thanks for your time. >> thanks. good to be with you. >> one of the republicans who voted for the bill will join me coming up next. stay with us. brought to you by -- when you have something you love,

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. welcome back. sticking with politics lead. house republicans passing a bill to repeal and replace obamacare after seven years of promising to do so. lots to talk about with my political round table. bill, let me start with you. president trump came out in the rose garden and said deductibles will go down, premiums will go down. do you think that will happen? >> hard to know because the bill kicks a lot to the states. a lot will depend on what states dedecide to waive what. this is a complicated policy area. hard to know. i think the republican president and congress had to repeal obamacare and replace it or begin replacing it. this isn't the way i would have done it either in substance or, more importantly perhaps, in

process. but all things considered from the republicans it is better to have won this victory than to have lost. >> it seems likely if you are young and healthy your premiums and deductibles are likely to go down. but if you are not, then there's only a debate about how big a problem you have really, how effective -- if you're really unhealthy, if you have a preexisting condition, how effective these risk pools will be, whether there's anywhere near enough money, which most of the experts suggest not. and even if you're not in that preexisting condition situation, a plan that was deemed to be so difficult for seniors and for older people and for rural people earlier that lead to the original version of this not passing is still essentially in place. >> and help me clear up for the viewers the disagreement that i

had with steve scalise about whether or not states have the option of seeking a waiver so that they don't have to require insurance companies to cover people with preexisting conditions. where is the -- i suspect i was getting a little congressional soft shoe there. explain the difference. >> well, the challenge here has to do with the money. one of the reasons you have this eight billion dollar sop to the states is, right, so you can't deny insurance to people with preexisting conditions but you also can charge them kind of whatever you want. so what congress had to do was make a way to make it so if you had a preexisting condition and your coverage lapsed you didn't face a $37,000 a month premium. >> it was capped under obamacare, you couldn't charge that. >> right. there are limits now that are gone but they had to find a way to bring in moderates who say you will make it a real problem because a lot of my state will find they're actually being charged a lot more. >> i have to tell you, i had a moderate republican who voted yes today admit to me privately

that eight billion was -- it was completely symbolic and it was just a fig leaf to get people on board who were on the fence because it was very hard for them to go home to their district and say, look, you know, potentially i'm leaving a lot of you with preexisting conditions high and dry. this moderate republican again who voted yes said, but even so, even knowing that to him politically it was better to kind of accept that as political cover because what was worse, he felt for him, was going home and thinking that, you know, in the next month perhaps some major insurance zblooirjtscarriers are race premiums more and he has to face them and say, sorry, i failed once again to repeal obamacare. >> and a good moment in the rose garden -- >> paul ryan said, we know our senate colleagues are eager to get down to business and everyone chuckled. the way forward matters because they can go back and say, as we've been saying off line, well, let's see what changes the

senate makes. >> well, i think that's right. i think the degree to which obamacare did look like it was collapsing, at least in some states -- i mean iowa, virginia, the major insurers pulling out -- i think gave the moderates some comfort to say, hey, look, we're going to fix this, we may have to come back and fix it next year, it is complicate willed. the states have a lot of leeway. if your state thinks people 58 years old with preexisting insurance should not be denied insurance, which they can't be, but should have a cap on what they can pay, i assume the state can legislate that. the states did it in old days. that's why states had different insurers. i would say it is a policy matter. this is a big move towards federalism. if you talk privately to some of the conservative health policy walks, they will say it is extremely complicated, swapping out obamacare for this set of regulations. it may not be as good or bad as people think. the biggest policy change is block granting medicaid to the states. that was a big deal. everyone signed up and every state decides how to treat poor

people in terms of providing healthcare. >> everyone stick around. we will come back to the panel, but one of the few house republicans who voted no on the healthcare bill is here next. what bothered him about the bill. should it bother you too? stay with us. yeah that's a pretty good reason. and the most reliable. uh-huh. and, with unlimited, you get full hd video. oh wow, yeah, that's, uh, two, maybe even three reasons right there. it's exactly three. okay. sure, whatever you say. (vo) if you really, really want the best, switch to verizon unlimited and get the galaxy s8 for just $15 a month. i saw you take those phones, you know. no, you didn't. w...i was always searching for ways to manage my symptoms. i thought i had it covered. then i realized managing was all i was doing. when i finally told my doctor, he said humira was for people like me who have tried other medications,... but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohn's disease.

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welcome back to "the lead." we have breaking news. house republicans have this hour after years of promising passed a bill to replace and repeal obamacare. more on this extraordinarily close vote. ann, what this bill would mean for your health insurance. sun lan, this is something house republicans have been pledging to do for almost a decade now. >> reporter: that's right, jake. for seven years we've heard this

promise that they will repeal and replace obamacare. so certainly this is something that house republicans can head home to next week for the week-long recess and hold up as progress being made. while certainly this is a significant win for them right now, it is a short-term one. just one step in a long process to actually get this done. after seven years of campaigning and promising republicans today taking the first step to deliver on their pledge to repeal and replace obamacare. >> today was a big day, but it is just one step in this process. >> reporter: house speaker ryan declaring victory. >> there wasn't a single -- >> reporter: after a flurry of frenetic negotiating and last minute changes to win over enough members to save the bill. republicans moving forward without an answer on how many people would be covered by the bill and at what price. >> they're rushing to judgment because they think the facts are going to be against them and the

facts are going to undermine their ability to pass this bill. we don't have a cbo score. >> reporter: the original bill as analyzed by the non-partisan congressional budget office estimated it would leave 24 million fewer people insured in the next decade than under obamacare. but the new version with the 11th hour modifications to the bill has not been scored by the cbo. even some republicans who support the proposal say it is being rushed. >> it has been a trunk ated process. i think it is not what a lot of us would have like to have seen from the standpoint of a more robust debate, but we are where we are. >> reporter: the bill passed by the house today would provide refundable tax credits based mainly on age, revamp medicaid funding reducing federal support by capping funding, and would repeal obamacare subsidies for lower income americans, eliminate individual and employer mandates and eliminate obamacare taxes on the wealthy and insurers and weaken

guaranteed protections for people with preexisting conditions. the bill pass without a single vote from the democrats. >> republicans again are fraudulently claiming the amendment covers americans with preexisting conditions. it does not. >> reporter: who are already putting republicans on notice, readying to use this vote as ammunition to win back the house in 2018. >> they have this vote tattooed on them. this is a scar they will carry. >> reporter: the bill now moves to the senate where it faces another daunting path ahead with republicans holding a slim majority. >> it will be a real big challenge on the senate side as well. >> reporter: senate republicans openly questioning the process pursued by their house colleagues. senator lindsey graham tweeting the bill has not been scored, amendments not allowed and three hours of final debate should be viewed with caution. while other republicans say the house version will undergo significant changes in the

senate. >> people are going to want to improve it. i don't see anyway that it goes back in the form that it comes. >> reporter: so certainly a big battle ahead in the senate, and even if they are able to pass something in the senate there's absolutely no assurance that the house would be okay with the dramatically altered bill when it goes to conference committee. so certainly a long and likely very rocky road ahead. jake. >> all right, sunlen on capitol hill for us. final vote 217-213, with 20 republicans and all democrats opposing the bill. one of the republican nos was congressman leonard lanls from the garden state of new jersey. thank you for voining us. tell us why you voted no? >> i don't think this bill will lower premiums on the american people and i would prefer to see a bill that has purchase of policies across state lines and tort reform, and i think and hope that the republicans should work with the democrats and the democrats should work with the republicans. this needs a bipartisan solution, jake, and i hope the

democrats will come to the table. >> there were a lot of republicans that were concerned about whether or not this bill would be bad for people with preexisting conditions. do you think it will? >> i certainly favor and have campaigned on making sure that nobody is denied coverage based upon a preexisting conditions. i'm not sure this bill goes sfar enou far enough in that direction. >> steve scalise was on the show earlier basically saying that the law prevents discrimination against people with preexisting conditions. of course, it has been pointed out that what it does though is it doesn't require that insurance companies have a reasonable cost of insurance for those individuals. is that your concern? >> insurance has to be accessible and it has to be affordable, and we in new jersey have long had a provision in our state law regarding no denial of coverage based upon preexisting conditions and community ratings. i would have preferred that that stay in the underlying legislation. >> 14 republicans who represent

districts that hillary clinton won last november voted for this bill. are you worried that this vote will cost them jobs come november 2018? >> i certainly think by that time there will be a host of issues, and i will campaign vigorously for republican colleagues. i think it is important we retain control of the house, but i know i voted today as my constituents would wish. >> what changes do you want to make the senate -- do you want the senate to make to this in addition to allowing more purchases across state lines? >> i certainly want to make sure that nobody is denied coverage based upon a preexisting conditions and, frankly, jake, i would like to see tort reform. it is not a silver bullet, but i think it should be part of a larger package. that, of course, would require cooperation from our democratic colleagues. i think our democratic colleagues should come to the table, jake, because after all the legislation was initially passed when democrats controlled the congress. >> congressman, i have to say i was surprised republicans

brought it forward for a vote before the congressional budget office had a chance to analyze and predict what it would mean in terms of individual insurance. were you surprised? >> i would have preferred a cbo score first. i think that's always preferable. that doesn't mean you cannot begin the legislative process before that score occurs, but by the time legislation reaches the floor of one of the houses i would much prefer a cbo score. >> do you think a cbo score, if the cbo had been allowed to analyze the bill and say 20 million or whatever the number is, fewer individuals will have insurance or whatever the positive changes would have been, would that have changed your vote or at least given you a moment for pause? >> i would obviously have analyze willed any score by the cbo, and i certainly analyzed the original score based upon a prior iteration of the bill. think it is important that we have a cbo score on all major issues of this kind. >> congressman leonard lance from the great state of new jersey, thank you for your time,

sir. i appreciate it. >> thank you, jake. >> aetna announced they're the latest insurer to pull out of obamacare markets in virginia. we will talk to one of the senators from that state how that might impact the future of the house bill in the senate. stay with us. tai chi. 6:30? sam's baseball practice. you are busy. wouldn't it be great if you had investments that worked as hard as you do? yeah. introducing essential portfolios the automated investing solution. hey, ready foyeah. big meeting? uh, hello!? a meeting? it's a big one. too bad. we are double booked: diarrhea and abdominal pain. why don't you start without me? oh. yeah. if you're living with frequent,

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jaime! swing a wide paint, hollow scoop on three. [ screams ] guess i have more jump than i thought. progressive's name your price tool. you don't have to be able to dunk to use it, but it helps. whew, gravity? welcome back to "the lead." i'm jake tapper. we're sticking with politics as obamacare repeal and replacement bill moves to the u.s. senate. health insurer aetna announced plans to drop out of virginia due to what they say are major financial losses. joining me to discuss this is democratic senator mark warner. senator, thanks for joining us, appreciate it. >> thank you, jake. >> aetna just the latest insurer

to announce pulling out of virginia. other states are facing the same thing. according to one study, more than 20 counties in virginia could be left with only one option on the individual market in 2018. is obamacare failing in virginia? >> well, jake, what's happened has been -- and i was disappointed that aetna has pulled out, but i also understand with the lack of certainty. you've got this administration who is obviously very committed to using every tool it can to try to wreck obamacare. so not predicting whether they're going to honor the components of the law that require and affect the risk payments to be made, the fact i heard from one insurer that they have large increases, not aetna but another one in virginia, huge increases because they're not sure that this administration is going to honor the law's commitment to the individual mandate that requires individuals to purchase health insurance. with that uncertainty, you see the insurers like et mau leaving the market or you see enormous

rate increases. this is not the way we ought to be proceeding. we ought to be figuring out -- and i have a lot of ideas about how you could fix obamacare and make it better. but instead what we've seen is this action in the house where i know we're all kind of -- politicians and hypocrisy kind of go together, but these are the same folks in the house that used to scream, read the bill, get the cbo score, give us time. here we have something that was rushed through from last night, and i believe rushed through because they were afraid what the cbo score would show in terms of real copss. >> senator, with all due respect, obamacare insurance companies were pulling out of obamacare exchanges long before donald trump put his hand on the bible. this has been a problem going on for a long time. >> baes tlaus beecause there's to make repairs in obamacare since the first year, as there was a need when medicaid an medicare came in. you don't always get it rice the first time and you have doum back and adjust. we have not seen a willingness,

particularly from republican colleagues at least in the house, to do anything other than this repeal drum beat. now we've seen what their repeal and replacement looks like, and i think the american people are going to say, as they already said on the earlier bill, not just no but oh, new york city to this bill. 24 million people losing health insurance, tax break for the rich. ending up with folks with preexisting conditions, i have a daughter with juvenile diabetes. she will be fine, but a lot of folks with preexisting conditions won't be able to get affordable health insurance. what has not received much attention, and i'm a numbers guy and was a former governor, you know, the whole basis of this bill was almost an $820 billion in effect transfer from federal responsibility on medicaid back to the states. >> right. >> this is a big financial scam that i've actually been surprised more governors haven't been more outrage willed becad will be caught with the bill basically. >> senator, let me ask you what

is going to happen in the senate. you work closely with a lot of republican colleagues. there are 10 democratic senators up for election next year that represent state president trump won. is it possible some version of what passed the house will pass the senate? >> i think there is a possibility to say how can we fix obamacare, and if we need to call it something else to make that politically palatable so be it. but i don't think this bill that was rushed through the house, that the american public i believe already said about a three or four to one basis based on polling didn't like that bill. this bill got further to the right to try to appease the freedom caucus, this bill has no chance in senate. i hope folks in both parties can sit down and try to fix it because we are playing with people's, not just healthcare but in many ways with their lives. if you are preexisting conditions and you can't get access to health insurance, this is not something -- this is more important than a political

football. >> speaking of rushing, senator, we want to have you back to talk about the work you are doing on the senate intelligence committee. >> sure. >> appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> two senior white house officials say the mood when the vote passed was like election night in the. is the administration racing their trump brand champagne glass too soon? stay with us. ♪ ♪ i'm dr. kelsey mcneely and some day you might be calling me an energy farmer. ♪ energy lives here.

. we're back with more in the politics lead. let's pick back up with our political round table. bill crystal, let me start with you. we heard democratic senator mark warner touch on something we've been talking about during the break, which is democrats have not made much of a stink about 800, $900 billion in medicaid funding will be pushed to the states from the federal government. in other words a medicaid cut, while repealing the obamacare taxes will be a tax cut of a trillion dollars or so. a lot of which is going to go to rich people. >> yeah, obviously obamacare taxes were levied mostly on the wealthy. that's how president obama sold them. the republicans were mechanical in thinking about this. we have to repeal obamacare, that means we have to repeal every tax increase that paid for

obamacare. instead of saying, well, okay, if there's going to be a trillion in tax cuts, let's do an across the board tax cut for working families, cult the payroll tax by 1% or something. that would be popular with middle class working americans. they repealed obamacare tax else which that tax cut goes almost entirely to the wealthy. they made a mistake by focusing in the last month on preexisting conditions, which as we were discussing in the show is pretty complicated. they got good at confusing enough it was unclear how much damage was done on that front. you are taking this money from healthcare and giving it in tax cuts to the top 2%. i think that's an easier argument for democrats to have made. >> do you agree? >> it is slightly less politically -- it has the appeal of being bashing tax cuts for the wealthy, which always plays well. the down side is that you are then concentrating on a lot of money from medicaid which goes to poor people, which isn't

necessarily -- i mean i think that these medicaid cuts are very severe and going to be big problems for states. i think senator warner is right in saying we should be hearing from governors about this because, you know, obamacare expanded medicaid greatly. at least allowed states to choose it. but when you are trying to rile up, as democrats, a big proportion of the people arguing that this hurts poor people isn't necessarily congruent with the message you are trying to get out. >> i get what you're saying, you know, to say, oh, look, another tax cut for the rich is very politically potent, but the idea of people who are suffering and sometimes suffering the most in their personal lives, it is such a human message to say, you're going to be, i know, basically screwed even more because of these guys. that's why nancy pelosi was so forward leaning in her political speech, 100% political stevpeecn

the house floor saying, your constituents don't know your name but they will when i'm done with you. they were singing goodbye because they feel they have political momentum and so dire in these districts. they might be flat wrong, and certainly might be flat wrong at the end of the day when it goes through the senate and you have a different spectrum of republicans who have to deal with it to get ut out of senate. >> part is a calculation about who the swing voters will be in 2018. they have to figure out what you see in terms of engagement from middle class suburban parents is not the tax cut for the rich. it is you are taking away healthcare for babies, pregnant moms. that's a potent argument for who they think will be swing voters. >> a lot of politics, not surprisingly. i know there were democrats in the house that wanted to introduce a bill a few weeks ago with obamacare fixes. obviously there's some problems, insurers are pulling out of state exchanges. here are our fixes, and they

were discouraged from doing so. i suppose it is easier if you're in the minority to not have an alternative that people can pick apart. you're just the ones standing there with your hands up blameless. >> remember, the republicans refused -- they had a sort of quasi alternative in 2010 but they didn't introduce, which they could have, a full-blown tax credit replacement, alternative to the exchanges. it paid off for the republicans in 2010. the true bad stories about obamacare. we will see what happens this time. i think it is a political tough vote. i talked with one republican member who said, we may have voted to elect nancy pelosi speaker. you could have the same thing that happened in 2010. we will see what the senate does. i know you guys reported this on cnn as well, is that mitch mcconnell i think a dozen senators in his office tuesday to begin working on a senate bill and they said, well, do we begin from the house bill? no, let's write a senate bell. >> tell us about that. >> our ted barrett is reporting

there was a group of about 15 republican senators across the republican spectrum. >> from mike lee to susan collins? >> exactly, the most conservative to most moderate, starting over and getting together and trying to figure out where they need to go to get the republican votes to get this off the senate floor. that's the way it should be done, by the way. you should start from there. >> come back to the house and then -- paul ryan will have a tough time making the house swallow the senate bill. >> it has to go to the senate. >> well, true. >> the senate republicans with even less -- a smaller margin are going to face exactly the same problem that paul ryan and the house republicans did, which is that that caucus ranges the gamut from mike lee and ted cruz to susan collins. you can only lose a few of those, even with a vice president pence to cast a tie breaking vote. that's a hard caucus of cats to herd there. >> at the end of the day, even by the 2018 election it is unclear if we will know the core

answer, which is, is cost going to go down as republicans promised? probably the answer will be no, and the question is then will constituents and voters punish republicans. >> short term though, president trump, olivia, seems to have some spring in his step. he does have a victory, it is a smallish victory in the sense that there's still a lot of obstacles before this becomes law and we still don't know what this will mean in terms much voters and his voters. >> right. i actually want to grab something that bill said at the very top of the show, which was basically one anything the republicans did today was avoid what would have been a catastrophic defeat. let's flip what actually happened into what might have happened. take the bill to the floor, either have to pull it or it goes down. now you have an angry base to whom you've made promise after promise to repeal and replace obamacare. you have something that republicans are very concerned about, which is looking like they can't govern, and you have a president whose ability to sway his own party is already under fire, who would have lost another time. so a big part of the victory

party today is we kind of dodged a bullet. it is good we started this process, but, man, just imagine had it gone the other way. >> it would have been a catastrophe. >> a little bit of a self-inflict self-inflicted bullet. even if it gets through the senate, which i think will be very hard to do, then if something gets through the senate, how does that something then pass the house given that 217 vote today? >> oh, you're thinking about tomorrow. >> i don't stop thinking about tomorrow. >> you always are. dana and bill, olivia and ruth, thank you so much. healthcare is of course not the only victory the president is celebrating. he signed an executive order protecting in his view religious freedom. what does the executive order do? we'll talk about it next. people confuse nice and kind but they're different... nice tells you what you want to hear.

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more on our politics lead now. president trump signed what he called a religious liberty executive order just a short while ago. in an impassioned speech he

claimed the new order would give religion orlgss, quote, their voices back. by allowing them to be more politically active without risking tax exempt status. renee, during the campaign he talked about dismantling the johnson amendment which prohibits church groups and synagogues to participate in politics. can you undo a law and amendment with an executive action? >> although he said he wanted to kill the law, he can't. it has to be an active congress. with this executive order he passed today he is hoping to at least weaken the johnson amendment with today's executive order. after a careful review of the text of the order by our legal expert, we get the sense that this executive order today won't really change much at all. >> this financial threat against the faith community is over. no one should be sensoring

sermons or targeting pastors. >> under the federal tax code the johnson amendment says the irs can investigate churches and they can potentially lose tax exempt status if they engage in politics. trump's executive order intends to weaken that law, but only congress can repeal it. during his campaign trump told catholic television channel ewtn he was upset that the law was preventing him from getting religious endorsements. >> i said, when are you going to endorse me? and they said, we can't do that. i said, why can't you do that? they said, we're not allowed to do that, if we did that we would lose our tax exempt status. i said, why is that? they told me about the johnson amendment, 1954. i said, we're going to get rid of the johnson amendment. >> trump's executive order is intended to give the irs more discretion to ease up on any enforcement against religious groups who get political. minutes after the new executive order was signed, the aclu said it would file a lawsuit.

but once the text of the order was released, the language was noticeably scaled back and some on the left say the order actually won't change much at all. >> the churches of america, the clergy of america, they have free speech now. they can say and do whatever necessary want. >> reporter: some conservative religious groups said the executive order didn't go far enough. others applauded the president. >> in executive order and the statements by the president today says that the hostility that we've seen toward religious freedom at the hands of our own government in the last eight years is coming to an end. >> well, an earlier version of the executive order said it would provide regulatory relief for organizations with religious objections to provisions in obamacare, any provision that mandated that employers had to provide certain health services like contraceptives. it is worth pointing out when we reviewed the actual text that language isn't there.

a lot of the language we thought was going to be in here actually in the end was not, jake. >> interesting, renee march. thank you so much. appreciate it. be sure to follow me on facebook and twitter @jaketapper. you can tweet me at cnn. we read your tweets. turning you over to mr. wolf blitzer in "the situation room." thanks for watching. >> happening now, breaking news. trump's big win. president trump scores his first legislative victory. helping to muscle an obamacare replacement bill through the house by a razor thin margin. why could republicans only muster one vote more than they needed? senate impossible? tonight the debate moves to the senate. the president says he is confident but one republican senator says the current bill has zero chance of passing there. spiking the ball. president trump holds a quickly arranged rose garden ceremony to declare victory, saying american's healthcare bills will be coming down. but it is