the fuzzy and the techie from book expo videogame developer so we quinn discusses her book crash override. co-authors heather and sam on their book geek girl rising. university of arizona sociology professor is interviewed about her book, digitally enabled social change, activism in the internet age. seth stevens on his book everybody lies. the tv starting at 80 tonight on tv and two. in the meantime, a portion of today's "washington journal". >> cofounder and publisher of real clear politics joining usus from chicago this morning.atorsr they are in washington, republican senators areol hearing from folks back inin their state about the republican effort to place the affordable care act. what impact do you think this recess will have on

republicans effort to corral enough votes to get this past when they do come back? >> that's a good question. we have to wait and see. they wanted to get this done before the july 4 recess. now they will be back for august and i can tell you republican leaders in the senate are eager to get it done. they want to get it done before, i don't think there's any question there will be a vote before they recess for august. we've read some stories about some of the senators that were marching in the fourth of july parade, hearing fromom constituents about the issue. i'm not sure it's necessarily moved anyone yet. a lot of senators are still holding their fire and waiting to see what's going to happen when they get back in session. >> susan collins, one of the senators who was interviewed during one of those marches said healthcare was the issue people were asking her about. who are going to be the key senators that you will be watching when they do come back next week to see if there's been any shift.

>> collins is certainly one. she's on the moderate side and on the conservative side you've got rand paul, mike lee, ted cruz who have said, ron johnson is another, they said they're not willing to vote for the bill as it was currently constructed. they're looking at different alternatives trying to improve the bill. ted cruz offered an amendment which some people think might be able to garner some votes. those are the ones to watch. everyone else is fairly onboard. we haven't heard too muchs grumbling from other senators. mitch mcconnell needs them all. he can only afford to lose one or two.he he's not going to get any democrats to come support the bill. he is in a bit of a tight spot. >> mitch mcconnell known as a savvy dealmaker, what is this about going to meet for him and that reputation of a dealmaker. >> the pressure is definitely on. nobody knows the institution

of the senate or how to collect votes better than mitch mcconnell but this will be a real test, even for him. for republicans, there are two minds about this. some think, if they vote on this, if they don't do this they do not repeal it will be catastrophic for them in the 2018 elections and beyond, other republicans will say look, if we don't do this, obamacare will fall under its own weight. we can blame the democrats. i think the majority of viewpoints is that they own this thing regardless and much the same way the economy and they had better get around to doing something about it because one way or another, they are going to pay a price for it if they don't get it done. >> as we talk about healthcare and the republican effort, in the senate to get this bill passed, phone lines are open if you want to join the conversation. phone lines are open.

on c-span, we've been airing as many of these town halls as we can to show what it's been like for senators as they gogo back into their state. bill cassidy is from louisiana. here is the scene, and exchange from one of his eo cli town hall. >> i want to talk about you, you're saying that the people here speaking out are here to ask questions about healthcare because they will be mostly affected, but i will tell you what's rude, kickingei 22 million people off their healthcare in this country who cannot afford it. you've worked at the hospital for a long time.ne you know what people are like at their lowest so to step on their next by kicking them off their healthcare, that is cruel, sir. i think what you need to do isth go back to washington d.c. ande.

stand up to the people who are here saying we need our healthcare. >> i'm doing my best to make sure that we continue coverage , care for those with pre-existing conditions, illuminate mandates and lower premiums. that is my commitment and thatat is what i'm working toward.bo >> tom bevan, talk about bill cassidy's role and sort of his push with his own legislative effort. >> book, it's a perfect example of the top position the republicans find themselves in. every single member of the house and the senate have run over the past seven years on repealing obamacare, and then later on replacing it. and yet, with the score, with the legislation that came out,

they are struggling on the coverage issue that republicans want to say look, half of that is or 15 million people are people who are currently paying the penalty and they will not pay it as they move forward so they are not technically being thrownwn off of healthcare, but they are on the been fighting thiss uphill battle in terms of the coverage issue and that is something with medicaid that they been struggling. on one hand they were put in office by constituents basedng on, running on the idea that they would repeal this law, that it was a drag on the economy, it was bad put government in charge of healthcare yet at the same time they're not fighting against public opinion in terms of trying to getat something done, repealing or replacing it. it passes muster with the republic at large and bill cassidy is not alone. there are a lot of republicans who are facing a lot of pressure on this issue.

>> tom bevan is with us. phone lines are yours if you want to ask him a question about this replacement effort that we been talking about. george is up first in louisville kentucky. good morning. >> good morning. thank you for having this topic. i just want to throw concept out there and i hope it can take hold. it doesn't bother me that thes very well off can affords expensive trips in a mansion in the average poor person lives paycheck to paycheck can't, but i believe, and i hope this concept can catch on with the american public that the janitor or the person who fills up the supermarket shelf in the woman who works the drycleaner and the nonunion factory in the south and the person who works the diners, they and their kids deserve

access to healing from injury or illness every bit as much as the well-off do. there well-off is based upon keeping wages low for other people who work in the many jobs like i just mentioned. i think healthcare, cures and treatments from enzymes and extracts from berries and enzymes from plant animal, it's put out there by mother nature for everybody. the drug companies hold what people need for their health hostage and they don't compete for consumers, they compete for investor class.. you need to have ach market-based solution and i hope that concept can catch on, and thank you very much. >> tom bevan, how much have senate democrats, how much are they echoing george's message there? >> quite a lot. you are seeing democrats who

are moving toward, especially some of the folks were gearing up to potentially run for president in 2020 talking about single-payer health care. that's what some republicans r fear will happen if they do not repeal obamacare and replace it with something else that that failure, their argument is that obamacare is falling under its own way. you saw and a lot of states around the country where insurers have left the marketplaces. some counties and districts have either one ensure were no insurers and they've heardncredi from folks struggling to pay these incredibly highs deductibles which makes coverage difficult for them. bua you heard them say they have a card but that doesn't necessarily mean you have healthcare. that's one of the problems that republicans say they're trying to solve, but george's echoing where i think a lot of democrats are which it's a right, not a privilege and it

should be afforded to all citizens in this country and that is something that i think democrats are moving more and more in that direction.ec we've seen democrats in california try to pass a single-payer health care bill. they actually pulled it because it was too expensive and they can figure out how to pay for it, but that's certainly something your hearing more and more fromf democrats across the country. >> more and more in that direction, and is that to the detriment for support for fixing and keeping the affordable care act in place? >> i think they see the affordable care act as a way station along the way and for all of its flaws and potential failures, they will.those out and say look, we need to move in a different direction which is essentially what the medicaid expansion has been. they want to see medicaid for all, single-payer for all. that's where you've seen bernie sanders talk about this in elizabeth warren, that's for the leadership of the democratic party is. again, plenty of members of

the rank-and-file are there as well. >> good morning. eddie is a republican. >> hello, it's good to talk too. i understand there about 1300 recognized managed clinics. they keep saying the emergency room when you go to a car accident.d expand they need to expand the clinic. we've got 1300, we can expand that further. you don't hear much about losing our corporations because the premiums are so high, but all three of our major companies are leaving.nesn the cost of doing business with america is becoming brohibitive. >> tom, there bringing up the cost of premium, can you talk a little bit about that and how that congressional budget

office scoring and the next scoring of whatever compromise they come up with will be so important in that debate.ve bee >> premiums are definitely, they been rising, democrats argue they been rising at a lower rate, republicans would argue the opposite that president obama will, when passes plan he said he would decrease premiums but that hasn't happened so the bill is a failure in that regard and they want to bring premiums and deductions down and increase opportunities for folks to get health care coverage. that is certainly part of it. the scoring issue, there are two pieces. one is how much it will cost and the others how many people will get covered or not get covered. republicans are taking issue with the coverage because i think it's one of the most problematic pieces of it and they point to the fact that when they scored obamacare, 20 million folks were going to be covered over the course of a

five or seven years and less than 10 million were. they don't do a very good job of predicting and projectingil how many folks will be signing up, getting coverage are not getting coverage. those are the two elements, and again the score gets played on the press and republicans have been battling that. we will see what the new score is. the other issues that paula raised was the cost of doing business, regulations, that is t something, growth solves a lot of problems. it certainly solve some of the problems with regard to the healthcare system, but we haven't seen growth over time. it's been about 2%. there's a story in the new york times thing that's about where were going to be, women have employment numbers tomorrow and were going to see about the same level of growth so for the foreseeable future, if that holds true, a lot of these problems will be with us

for a long time including the healthcare piece. to michigan, line for independence. the morning. >> good morning. i was wondering about the cadillac tax. is that still in or when does it kick in. are they point to get rid of it or what?they a >> i believe they are going to strike that.t. i'm not 100% sure but i believe that's not point to be part. what republicans are going to do is repeal all of the regulations from obamacare and try to replace them with something else. there's even talk, some republicans approach the idea, just to do the repeal part and come up with a replacement leader. mitch mcconnell said that's not going to happen. they will do repeal and replace, but the first part is they will repeal as much of obamacare as they can, root t and branch and then try to put something in its place. >> meanwhile the republican national committee released

and add, putting some fire on democrats for not having a plan to fix the affordable care act. we wanna get your reaction. >> my view is that the affordable care act has problems, deductibles are too hi, copayments are too hi, we have to address that.can to m >> we've got to fix what's broken. >> i'm willing to look at replacing, repairing, doing anything we can to make it better. >> for years we have said we need to make improvements to the affordable care act. >> there are problems with aca. >> steve got this crazy system where 25 million more people have healthcare and then people are working 60 hours a week who end up with the premiums doubled in the coverage cut in half. it's the craziest thing in the world. >> what are democrats going to do to fix the existing plan. >> would be smart for democrats to offer their ownir alternative? >> that is a very good point.

>> there seems to have been this resistance for democrats to get more involved. do you share a part of the burden for a failure to improve obamacare. >> why are you working to fix this rather than just saying no? >> tom that ending asking where is their plan. your thoughts on that? >> look, it's always good to use language and clips of them talking about an issue, butt that add is sort ofem unpersuasive for the following reason. when democrats were in powerer and had a chance to make changes to the affordable care act as some of these problems were beginning to show themselves over the past seven

years, republicans wanted nothing to do with that. they wanted to repeal the law. they didn't want to help democrats fix it. now that the shoe was on the other foot you've got republicans in congress andts they want to repeal the law.w. democrats don't want to do anything to help do that. republicans are interested in fixing the problems with obamacare. they want to repeal it. again, that's what all of them in the senate run on. that's what their constituents are demanding from them and so that's what they're trying to do. they're not going to get any help from democrats. this is part of the problem with the dysfunction in washington. part of the problem is that was passed on partyline vote and now you have republicans trying to pass the appeal on partyline vote. they will get no bipartisan support. maybe at some point in the future, if republicans pass this or they don't pass it and the system crumbles there will be pressure for republicans and democrats to come togetherut

and get something done on this issue, but right now that is not the dynamic playing out in washington and will not be for the foreseeable future. >> to new york. line for democrats. >> good morning. thank you so much. tom, just a couple things about your comments. you just said the constituents of the republicans demanded this, i'm not sure it's the constituents as much as the lobbies and tax because on the other hand, the republicans are not listening to the town meetings that they're going too. many of their constituents are angry about this. i think people do not understand what it meant and now that they're hearing the republican plan they do understand some my opinion, the republicans are going to be damned if you do and damned if you don't. if they don't do what they promised with repeal and replace the be damned and once they pass, if they pass with a have now, they're going to

have a lot of backlash from people when they found out how much it's going to cause problems for them. >> listen, i don't disagree with the premise, and again, this is a mirror image of what the democrats face. if you go back to 2009 during summer break when they had all town halls and people were jumping up and down about this, they passed it anyway. along a partyline vote, they had to do backroom deals, thetot husker kickback to get thean number of votes and they paid a price for it at the pool. republicans are in the same situation. republicans will argue that these are democrats and not their voters making a fuss about it, there's probably some truth about that, but to your point if you look at public opinion polls, republicans on the short sidet of that and they are in some ways damned if they do and damned if they don't. but, in their minds, they are going to go ahead and try to

vote for this bill and try to pass it. then if they have to pay a price at the pool, if things don't work out, if their plans don't show improvement or increased access and lower cost and all the things they are promising, then they may pay the same price the democrats paid by passing it back in 2009.feel if i think a lot of republicans feel if they don't do this, because again it's something that every single one of them have run on. you can talk about the special interest and whatnot, but again most of these folks have run on the fact of repealing obamacare. t it's one of the things that put them into office may feel it's a promise they need to deliver on. >> a programming note for our viewers, the house is expected to come in for a pro forma session at 9:00 a.m. we will go there when they do come in. it is expected to be a very short session. until then we will talk with tom bevan. he is the cofounder and publisher of real clear politics. we been talking a lot about healthcare but i want to get your thoughts on president

trump and his ongoing conflict with the media, once again his press conference talked about the fake news media. as someone who founded a mediano website, what you make of that? >> this has been the ongoing vicious cycle has been going on with trump ever since heve launched his campaign. he got tons of coverage from the very companies that he's now in a struggle with and he feels are treating them unfairly.s he is fighting back. he was asked about cnn and this latest stuff or they went out and identified the person who reportedly made this wrestling video that he retweeted and some people think they threatened him, and trump said fake news, he

mentioned nbc news as well as another organization that he feels is not treated fairly. he wants fair and honest press in america, and look, this is something he always gets a lotof of mileage out of. regardless of what you think of donald trump, this has beenn a staple of his campaign and of his presidency thus far and i don't see it changing anytime soon. it's an ongoing battle, and as i said, i don't think it's, it's taken a toll on him and on the media, and their reputation which has already been diminished over the past few years.or the n >> what's the long-term impact for trust in the media for the next election? >> i think the outlook is bleak. i think there are plenty of folks in the media who misread this election, didn't see it coming and predicted a hillary

clinton victory with overwhelming odds and didn't really understand what was happening and didn't see what was happening. there was a real disconnecten between some of the folks in the media and what was going on in the country, a lot of us thought maybe the media wouldul reflect on that after the election and try to have a more balanced approach to things, this presidency and the people who support him, i haven't necessarily seen that,in if anything i think it's been a little bit of the opposite and trump hasn't necessarily helped that by engaging in this war with the media, and moving forward, it does seemed like there has been this combative stance that the media has taken toward trump and it will continue. i don't figure will benefit anyone in the long run. the news consumers are trying to understand and figure out what's going on and understand the issues. a lot of that is getting sidetracked by these sideshows going on day in and day out

with his tweets in the media's response and round around we continue to go. >> couple minutes left. kathy is in mansfields, and ind massachusetts, and independent. go ahead. >> caller: thanks for taking my call. as far as the media goes, i've been aware of trump for the past 50 years just because of where i live. it's always in the newsstand. he's always lied and made it bigger than it was, twisted so since he has been on the campaign and now president, i read and watch c-span, bloomberg, i take a little bit of all the major tv networks, but i tried to get, from a lot of other places because i don't think he's ever told the complete truth. i'm sorry, i don't trust him. as far as the health care bill goes, collins and cassidy

proposed a bill way in the beginning and collins said if the affordable care act works in a particular state keep it. then cassidy, where it doesn't work, do a new proposal. that way people won't be left out in the republicans and trump have to take some of the responsibility for the aca imploding on itself. >> thanks for the call. let's give tom a chance to respond. the house is getting ready to come in here., >> look, for the first part, about the media, the color makes a point. trump has been a showman his entire life. it's something that up until a couple years ago nobody thought he would've had a chance to let alone run for president but win and take over the republican party in the process and beat 16 other well-qualified candidates who people thought this was the biggest, broadest deepest republican bench in a

generation and he plowed through them with no organization, spending very little money, and so he's managed to take his formula, whatever you think of it from his time as a reality star and a businessman and parlay that into leader of the free world and he will continue to use that formula. there's no indication he will change. >> i have to end it there. the house is coming in for a brief pro forma session. thank you so much. real clear politics.com. we always appreciate your time. >> c-span "washington journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up friday morning, we will talk to political reporters from six states with republican senators whose votes are key to passing the health care bill. that is what the senators are hearing from the constituents. be sure to watch c-span "washington journal" live at 70 string friday morning. join the discussion