alexander: mr. president, the republican senators who are cosponsoring the alexander-murray proposal in addition to me are senator rounds, senator graham, senator mccain, senator cassidy, senator collins, senator ernst, senator senator murkowski, senator burr, and senator corker. i thank them all for doing that and senator murray will talk about the equal number of democrat cosponsors that we have. we hope that senator mcconnell and senator schumer, the president of the united states, and the house of representatives will consider our proposal. this is a first step, improve it, pass it sooner rather than later. our purpose is to stabilize and then lower the costs of premiums in the individual insurance market for the year 2018 and 2019. in plain english, most americans get their insurance from the government or on the job. about 6% or 18 million americans go to the individual market to buy it. they are the ones we're worried about. they are the ones we're seeking to help. there are 350,000 in tennes

he called senator alexander, and he called senator alexander, from what senator alexander told me, several times to encourage him. and yesterday he called the murray-alexander deal a very good solution. now this morning he says he can't support it. can't support bailing out insurance companies who made a fortune with obamacare. wrong on the facts, as i mentioned. doesn't know what the bill is. we should have a president who actually knows the facts of bills he talks about. but second, he's totally inconsistent. for it one day, against it the next day. you can't govern -- mr. president, you cannot govern a country, you cannot keep america great if you don't know what's in the bills and don't have a consistent policy about them. but he keeps zigging and zagging. our only hope is maybe tomorrow he'll be for this again. finally, a word in general, we all know that there are extremes in america. the hard right has a lot of power here. if every time the hard right says jump, the president says how high, his presidency will be a failure. yet that's what's happened repeatedly here. repeatedly. the

alexander: mr. president, i have said repeatedly over the last several weeks, while it's important that the two of us as ranking member of the help committee come to an agreement, that's not nearly enough. because our real job was and is to see if we can find a consensus among a significant number of republicans and significant number of democratic senators that will cause this to be enacted, that will cause the senate to pass it and the house to pass it, and the president to sign it. in my opinion, we wouldn't have come to an agreement ourselves unless we thought that that was likely. i won't go into the specific provisions that are in this except to -- except to briefly summarize them. the first group of them make the section 1332 innovation waivers work by giving more flexibility. in new hampshire, for example, the state would like to use medicaid savings to help pay for the cost of its affordable care act waiver and this would allow that. in maine, for example, the state has applied for a waiver

lamar alexander, patti murray. and senator bill katz of louisiana expressed openness to the deal this morning. of course, the architect behind graham/cassidy. the last republican attempt at a major health care overhaul that ended up falling through. joining me now is senator cassidy. good evening, sir. >> hey, chuck. how are you? >> all right. i am good. let me start with this morning, that same event we quoted senator alexander at. you were also there. at the time you said you were inclined to support the compromise temporary deal but still reviewing the bill. i take it you've had more time to review the bill. where's are you now on this deal? >> frankly i haven't reviewed it. my staff hasn't spoken to me. many thing ice like abos i like bill. in the interim, the president came out against, paul ryan out against. some things are in there they find objectionable. i'll find that out tonight. just spoke to lamar alexander who is calling the president asking whatever his objection is, make that portion of the language

and this deal that senators murray and alexander worked out. maybe now, they say well, this is okay for working families. families that cannot afford insurance now. maybe i need to look at this a little more closely. not through the lens of partisan politics. if this is the case we win. >> caitlin owens i will come to you in 30 seconds. but what did jimmy kimmel make, any difference? >> a couple of things. and first, -- jimmy kimmel's son, and how can you not feel for this trip and he was born with a congenital heart disease. it is been sometime since i've been in the delivery -- >> your wife is a doctor, right? >> yes doctor laura. i retired breast cancer surgeon. but i can imagine what happens. the child was born, the nurse and dr. immediately realized the child was blue. they quickly made the diagnosis. and they knew the child would die. probably before the mother and the father held the baby was on his way. who cannot relate to the emotional response?and, i think that first episode in which i you know, referred to him said that we should ha

the president praised senator alexander's work. there were discussions about improving the health system. you will hear from senator cassidy, who is going to talk about what he thinks the big idea is. it was important to stabilize for the near term, and then have a more deliberate discussion. what we hear from our constituents is also what we hear from republican colleagues. he should have more choices. -- people should have more choices. year, therenext will be 1500 counties in the united states where the will -- there will be one or no insurance companies offering policies under the individual market. this is rural america, which tends to have a higher percentage of people in the individual market. patients thatr tend to be older and sicker. people want more affordable choices. have introduced the bill, and the idea is, take advantage of medicare's higher network reimbursement schedule and low administrative cost. secretary toe hhs write a policy that would cover all the essential benefits on obamacare and offer that policy under

you have working on the scenes with senator alexander. what do you see them do behind the scenes to maybe, in spite of some parts of his party, to pull this off? senator kaine: i could go on and on about that. let me say something that you did really well in then something that patty did really well. what lamar did was isolate and narrow the problem. health care is a lot of challenges. there are a lot of ways to improve it. but lamar has been very focused on the individual market. you're trying to buy health insurance not through an employer, it continues to be tough. so he focused on this particular problem, and focusing i think was the thing that -- i would say what patty does, she has two republican houses and a republican white house. to be able to negotiate and get a deal that protects for -- core democratic principles for the essential health benefits, protect their people with pre-existing conditions. but to know that i have got to work with to republican, a republican chair but it has to go through did to republican houses. she ha

whatt is the number one thing you have learned from chairman alexander today?. >> everybody wants to know will this become law? what happens after that? is this the white flag? sova to have a future where it is conceivable something that creates partisan warfare. >> what is led democrats would want to know from senator alexander?. >> they still want to repeal and replace where do we go from here?. >> thank you for telling us why it matters. [applause] to be the co-founder of axios welcome to the event also c-span and #axios 36 o now we're honored to welcome to the stage the number of the senate health committee. >> you then my mayor and senator event governor. so those bios online how do you possibly know one of 30 ever to exist. >> clearly that is wrong there has to be more than 30 people so i went back to the historian and said i was interested as to this way is this accurate? they said there is only 30. then i remembered being the mayor will kill you. that is the reason y why there has been so few. [laughter] >> to introduce the of a compromise plan by senato

alexander: mr. president says it repeatedly over the past that the chairman and ranking member come to an agreement, but that is not really enough, because our real to find ad is consensus among a significant number of republicans and a significant number of democratic senators that will cause this to be inactive, that will cause the senate to pass it and the house to pass it and the president to sign it. in my opinion, we would not have come to an agreement ourselves unless we thought that that was likely. i won't go into the specific provisions that are in this except to briefly summarize them. make the group of them section 1332 innovation waivers work by giving more workforce in ability. example,mpshire, for helping to pay for the cost of the affordable care act waiver, and this will allow them. in maine, for example, the state is applying for a waiver. the waiver has been approved, but the use of the funding has not been approved. alaska, for example, oklahoma, iowa all have waivers in line tha

senator alexander and i did a dinner about five days after that failed vote. we got 14 democrats and republicans together to talk about the essential concept, which is how do you guarantee the cautioning payments to avoid this uncertainty that the president has created, and how to get states the flexibility that the aca intended for states to have through the waiver process but then most states have felt has been too cocky and hasn't about them to have the innovation and flexibility that was originally intended? and then that was a discussion that could not just in the committee but beyond. patty and lamar has a fantastic track record of being ghosted. they rewrote no child left behind when people thought that was impossible, and it has been slow and steady and we were almost there two weeks ago and the president poured cold water on it because he didn't want to see whether graham-cassidy could get a vote. but he was a delay tactic, not stopping for discussion and it's good to see that the reached the final accord yesterday. >> you've worked behind the scenes

so it's not clear why all of a sudden donald trump endorses the alexander/murray legislation. that is point one. though he's been a little bit all over the map, so i guess it's consistent in its inconsistency. on the house side, i feel like with every major piece of legislation, phil notes this better and has talked about this better than i have, every time we come back to the same thing. 40-ish members of the house freedom caucus. the most conservative elements of the house republican conference. are they willing to go along with this? this is government subsidize to health insurance companies so that they will indeed be incentivized to pay for lower income americans to have health insurance. on sort of the philosophical end, that's not something that a lot of quite conservative republicans of the american freedom caucus endorse. with trump's endorsement, assuming this stays, maybe that matters. maybe paul ryan decides not to do the majority and just bring it up because they are concerned about the impacts of not doing so from a policy and political perspective, but i would s

the alexander murray bill gives a push so we could conceive of doing that. you will see ideas that will spread the zone and threaten parties which will see ideas that will enable us to do alexander murray chapter 2, the next bipartisan thing to do because congress does the american public some important thing where we say we could work together and work together on something that has been controversial but it is important in your daily life and that is why we need to get the deal past, send the message and sometimes get success built on it. >> are you good? did you want to jump in. >> her face says nice try on the answer. >> single-payer ui -- disappointing your base. >> that is a political question. i'm trying to do something for people. i disappoint people every day and make people happy every day. that is the occupational hazard of the occupation i got into. my thought is i always felt good policy is good politics. advocate your best idea but be open to listening to the good ideas of others. i am sure if we get medicare x past it will not be exactly the w

so it was alexander, cassidy and tim kaine. they think it will end up passing in one way or the other. but i think that alexander, he wouldn't predict whether cassidy/graham eventually passes. that shows while this is the next step that they were all wanting to try collectively, we really don't know where things go from there. >> well, that's a good point. so it is interesting because susan collins is making that point this morning, even as you talk about how senators alexander and cassidy and king are optimistic. here's what senator cassidy said and we'll get your take on the other side. >> will you get a vote on this? >> well, that is the big question indeed. yesterday i would have told you absolutely. it seemed to me that everything was going very well, that the president, despite in some ways precipitating the crisis, had come on board with this bipartisan approach. but now the white house is sending conflicting messages. now that some opposition seems to be arising, i'm not sure what is going to happen. >> so to sum that u

the alexander alexander proposal would -- alexander-murray proposal would reinstate the subsidies for low-income families for two years, stabilize individual insurance markets and give states flexibility to customize health plans. president trump announced that he would stop paying the cost-sharing subsidies, because he said they were nothing more than a bailout to insurance companies. looks like there was some progress in the budget, tax reform and health care, but many obstacles remain. >> there are a lot of obstacles remain, mainly because congress has this long laundry list of things to get done. if you think about health care, essentially senator lamar alexander said we just want to avoid chaos. i thought that was striking, because essentially republicans are making the case that we can't do anything about health care. we have to do something about it. because essentially we'll be blamed for it when people's premiums skyrocket. they have this bipartisan deal that would allow people to do all sorts of things and would help premiums go down or at least stay lower than they would be

scott: alexander's dossier continues to grow. audrey: these are all accounts. scott: she says that preventing attacks means spotlighting not just the men grabbing the headlines, but the women behind them. of course, it's debatable if some of these postings are actually criminal. "muslimah," who we told you about, goes on trial in federal court in december. her attorney claims her postings are just protected free speech. prosecutors argued that even if they are just retweets, they are still inciting violence. story. thanks, scott. coming up on "full measure" -- if the reports you're hearing in the media don't sound right, maybe it's because we're asking the wrong questions. we ask a few of our own about that, up next. >> today at 10:30 on "government matters." building soldiers for life, as the army is planning to recrui sharyl: one recent poll this summer stated that more americans trust the white house than the media. another poll said more trust the media than the president. and a good number of people trust neither. if you're having a problem getting the bas

that's what alexander and murray have done. they have had explicit provisions in the bill to ensure that the cost-sharing program does what it's intended to do: lower premiums, deductibles, and out-of-pocket costs for americans who can least afford them. i was reading an article this morning where they interviewed a retired manufacturing worker in pennsylvania who was upset by the president's decision. it seems like he's trying to hurt the middle class, the man said. he, president trump, says he's going to make it better for everyone. how does a premium increase make it better? that's the question the president should ask himself. ending cost sharing hurts people, mr. president, not insurance companies. restoring cost sharing will help people, not insurance companies. senators alexander and murray have made sure of it. i've worked -- i've talked to them about their language. it's good language. well-intended that maybe we can make it better. if the president has a suggestion, we welcome it. but as it is, it's pretty strong. wel

they came out with a score for the bipartisan alexander murray bill. they confirmed that the murray alexander bill is a great model for the american people. it says precisely what it intends to do, stabilize the market, prevent premiums from skyrocketing. by cbo's estimate it will save nearly $4 million credit will benefit taxpayers and low income americans, not insurance companies. even the wall street journal editorial board said today, the bipartisan compromise proposed by senators alexander and mary now officially fall into the category of so obvious it should pass immediately. that is not chuck schumer talking. that's not even mitch mcconnell talking for those on the hard right who might wdo dot mitch mcconnell's fidelity. it is the beacon of the hard right. the wall street journal editorial page, and they say again, alexander murray falls into the category, so obvious it should pass immediately. my fellow republicans, what are you waiting for? everyone on your side wants the bill. jump on it, support it. let's get this done and let's help stabili

if alexander-murray happens? >> if i'm mitch mcconnell i want to punt this. you know, talk to democrat leaders back in 2010 about how dangerous health care is, politically. what you do have now is, you have a majority of americans, guess what? all of a sudden obamacare is more popular than it has ever been. right? the base of the republican party still wants to get rid of it. this idea of replace and repeal, repeal and replace is something a pollster like me came up with because the idea was completely unpopular. >> do replace to -- but they don't have a replacement. >> right. and philosophically for me they're note for universal coverage. >> what do you make of -- i give mike credit. step one in the repeal and replace process. meanwhile, democrats, this is how you preserve obamacare. in through the out door here. >> but that's kind of how you know maybe they've got something here. right? each side able to sell it however they sell it. it comes back to the coalition for republicans and senate is different from the coalition of people that want replace and the

let me go back to alexander in london and i brought up you know british meddling interference in the us election here that's against the law and i think everybody knows that ok a foreign country now everybody likes to paint russia in the darkest pictures ok i've lived here for twenty years i mean it's nonsense but anyway that's that's how these narratives work here i mean but i thought britain was our us friend here and you know the allegations made in this dossier which some people still give credence to there was no verification of it i mean christopher steele it looks like he was on the money train i mean they keep wanting more and more he actually came here to moscow oh i bet they sold him a lot of stuff because they got paid for it too i mean everybody was making money here and then at the face of it you look at it i mean i remember when james komi oh lordy remember him i mean he gave me the impression that he actually believed the dossier that is what i think is really astounding go ahead alexander. well it is astounding what is actually not just astounding but also very intere

between senator alexander and patty murray that will allow us to continue the payments but get reform. that is stopping payments to insurance companies. aetna has had 470% increase in stocks price since the aca, sick that 480%, humana 420%. the president is not going to continue to throw good money after bad give $7 billion to insurance companies unless something changes about obamacare that would justify it. he did talk to senator alexander yesterday, he's encouraging him to get a bipartisan deal that would have flexibility to title one mandates for continued payment. it's got to be a good deal. >> dickerson: the president has put a lot on congress' plate. dreamers, budget passed to set up tax reform are you going to get tax reform done? >> if we don't you're dead. i'll ask myself -- what's going on? it's a symptom of greater problem if we don't cut tax and don't eventually repeal and replace obamacare then we're going to lose across the board the house in 2018. all of my colleagues running in

alexander: i see the senator from new hampshire on the floor. the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mr. alexander: i ask to vitiate the quorum call, please. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: i see the senator from new hampshire on the floor. i ask through the chair if she is about to speak or if i could go after. what i would like to do is give a brief report on the congressional budget office report of the alexander-murray proposal that the senator from new hampshire is the cosponsor of. i'd like to do that either before or after she speaks. either one will be fine. mrs. shaheen: mr. president, my understanding is that senator cornyn was about to come to the floor, but i would be happy to have you give the c.b.o. report on this legislation, which i very enthusiastically support. mr. alexander: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: respecting senator cornyn's prerogative, when he comes, i will stop. senator murray, i believe, has come to the floor and reported tha

lamar alexander felt he could come out and say that out loud. lamar alexander doesn't give a lot of interviews. doesn't talk to the press very much. he was encouraged by the way to not have fox news go into a county that trump won where people say my whole life took a bad turn in november of 2017 after those csr payments were cut. he knew this was going to do. i was told last week he was in a meeting at the white house, spent the entire meeting trying to drive the conversation to a health care deal. he wants this behind him. but he had pressure from his crowd last night. he had pressure from mark meadows of the freedom caucus, spoke positively about this deal and he backed off. they don't have the votes for repeal. the republican party of 2017 who are seated in congress are not going to repeal this law. i thought his opening gambit was good yesterday which was let's do this and then we'll get to our own thing later on. but he's slowing up the process. the house problem solvers caucus came up with the first plan. it has more things and it republi

first, i would like to salute with lamar alexander and heading mare for working hard -- patty to readn working hard we think it is a good solution and it got broad support when patty and i talked about it at the caucus at lunch today. first, it stabilizes the system. this providesood stability to the system and we want to make sure it happens. we went to work in the long term to reduce premiums and increase coverage and our republican colleagues seems to be an opposite place in the long-term but i think there is growing consensus that in the short term, we need stability in the market. we achieve stability if this agreement becomes law. put in some very significant and i sabotage provisions. the president has been sabotaging this bill and this agreement would undo much of that sabotage. withll, we are very freeze -- very pleased with the agreement. there are a few more details that need to be worked out but we think it is a very good step forward. i, speaking for myself hope that better mcconnell will it on the floor under senator murray's leadership to read i hope the house will take

are you willing to go along with lamar alexander and patty murray? >> my understanding, and i could have this wrong, but my understanding of the lamar alexander/patty murray bill was to simply appropriate these unappropriated payments. appropriate or legalize -- >> improve the current system. >> to fix the problem. >> would you go along with lamar alexander on that? >> i think i've said a couple of times if it's just a clean bill. the only thing congress can do is force the administration to bail out these insurance companies, the answer is no. if they're interested in talking about health care more widely, to fix it in the democrats word, to repeal it in our words, absolutely, yes, the president is willing to work with anyone who wants to work with him. >> democrats should call me to fix. apparently had a pretty good dinner not too long ago with chuck and nancy as he likes to call them. are you confident that something with the democrats can be worked out in the interim? >> i was the the dinner, the chuck and nancy chinese food dinner. i'm absolutel

right now remarks from senator patty murray and lamar alexander who you just saw on the floor of the senate yesterday talking about their compromise health plan. >> trade one later this week, senator murray and i with other senators will introduce bipartisan legislation with additional flexibility to create more choices of help health insurance policies and to extend cautionary production subsidies during 2018in and 2019. the subsidies pay for co-pays and aboutor the bulls for millis of low income americans who buy health insurance on the affordable care act exchanges. our goal is to stabilize a number where the cost of premiums and to enable americans to have access to health insurance. i legislation will be based on the four hearing and other meetings that the senate health education and labor pension committee held last month. chairman of the committee and senator murray is the rankingom democratic member. thesee hearings were bipartisan. they were lengthy and they were remarkable in this sense. then came nearly 60 senators from bothat political parties in the discussion to not on

alexander and murray have shown the ability to work together. this goes to the larger issue, wolf, which is you see the president and the cutting off of the payment is really indicative of what's become his go-to legislative strategy, which i call the hostage-taking strategy. he takes an existing program, whether it's deferred action for undocumented immigrants or the payments or the iran deal or nafta and says he's going to terminate it, threaten to terminate it or he does terminate it. says the only way he'll bring it back is if the other sides gives concessions. what you saw from lamar alexander today is the weak spot in the strategy. taking hostages that would harm his allies as much as his adversaries. not a lot of republicans are aech wanting to go into 2018 defending this. if the conservatives want a hard line, you're going to see some division among republicans from others who believe that in the end just like they don't want to go into the election defending deporting large numbers of undocumented teenagers, they don't want to defend wh

it was negotiated by alexandered and murray. of course some of the details could change, but this is what we know for now. it could include money for the obamacare subsidies for low income americans for the next two years. those go to insurance companies the very same ones that mr. trump scrapped. this was about getting congress to appropriate the money not the executive branch. this would allow states to wave certain courage requirements and allow nguyen to buy catastrophic plans not just folks under the age of 30. and this deal would allow for interstate exacts for purchasing coverage. joining me now is the maine republican senator susan collin a member of the senate health committee whose looders of course crafted this deal. senator collins, good to see you. >> thank you. >> let me get your initial reaction to this deal. i know you have got details to look at but from what you have heard, read, seen, are you inclined to find a way to support this deal? >> absolutely. i'm very pleased that lamar alexander and patty murray cont

i'm encouraged that the alexander-murray bill has earned strong bipartisan support and has senator alexander said, it has 24 original cosponsors. that number is equally divided between republicans and democrats. and this is a balanced agreement that's been negotiated by both parties over many months, and i think it's our best bet for stabilizing marketplaces in the short run so we can continue to work on long-term issues around health care. i'm especially pleased that this agreement provides for the continuation of cost-sharing reduction payments for two years. these payments are necessary to keep premiums, deductibles, and copayments affordable for working people. without these payments the cost of coverage will skyrocket. insurers will leave the marketplaces. and millions of people will lose their health care coverage. i've been working on this issue of cost saving reduction payments since earlier this year when i introduced a bill that would permanently appropriate funds for the c.s.r.'s. as the c.b.o. said, the language in the alexander-murray bill ensures that these c.s.r.'s are not a b

the president called both senators murray and alexander and said come to a solution. and then they come to a solution. the right wing attacks it and backs off. that's not leadership. that's the whole problem. the president is not leading on issue after issue after issue. he should stop tweeting and start leading. roll up his sleeves and solve problems. don't attack so-called enemies. that will reduce the coarsening of the debate that you correctly point out. >> let me ask you specific on health care the issue of creating association health care plans something he did an executive order on and something they would like to see become a part of the deal that loosens regulations that allow for the creation of this. the democrats are not in the majority in congress. don't you almost have an obligation that you probably have to give a little bit more since the republicans are the ones in charge? >> we gave on copper plans. the republicans always wanted copper plans. these are minimal plans. we didn't like it. i remember during health care debate president obama didn't like

senator, let me start with the deal or tentative deal announced by alexander and murray. i've seen general enthusiasm from democrats. john mccain tweeted in support. do you support it? >> i do support it. most importantly, it undouse -- undoes a lot of the sabotage the president has freed to wreak on our health care system. from everything i've seen it looks good. >> do you have any faith or confidence that mcconnell will move this through, the president would sign it, that you could possibly ameliorate the sabotage as you called it from the white house? >> i certainly hope so. you know, senator mcconnell i'm sure played a part in senator alexander walking away from the negotiation table when we got into the last health care fight. for him to be back in negotiating with patty murray is a sign that perhaps we're going to be able to have a shot at. really the people across illinois and this country desperately need this deal so they can make sure they can continue to afford their health insurance. >> what do you say if the president says, look, this is exactly how it worked

how much more time does alexander noori have to save his job. you know it's sixteen hours so they're going to get together with a man they're going to hustle they're going to think about it tomorrow morning he's probably going to leave the last session and then i think he's out of there you know the players are not satisfied the fans even started booing at him today i think this is the end of the road for alexander nori which is kind of disappointing because he turned around the team well at the end of last season and their hopes were high that the season was going to turn out better but it's not looking good i think i think that defeat today is it turning point the crowd for a time restraining calling for nuri to be sacked they've now gone without a win for ten days the club record from it's going to give something's got to change yeah i mean jonathan cologne is another team in almost the same situation except for they're a little bit worse off they've only two points on the table you know how surprising is that both braman and cologne have hel

. >> apparently, lamar alexander said he made a deal with senator patty murray. has the white house been involved in those negotiations and will you support that deal? >> we have been involved and this is a short-term deal because we think ultimately bloc grants to the states will be the answer. that's a very good solution. we think it is not only going to save money but give people much better health care with a very much smaller premium spike. you look at what is going on with that and also much lower deductibles so they can use it. lamar has been working very, very hard with the democratic, his colleagues on the other side and patty murray is one of them in particular. and they are coming up and fairly close to a short term solution. the solution will be for about a year or two years and it will get us over this intermediate hump because we have as you probably know we either have the votes or are close tahaving the votes and we will get the votes for the potential of having great health care in our country. so they are indeed working but it is a short term so

his name is andrew alexander. >> there was no proof that this guy above him had done anything. but while we were filming i glanced up and i saw andrew alexander staring at me through his window. and i kind of asked him with my mouth, did you do this? and he just had the most cold, evil smile come across his face. >> though it couldn't be proven that alexander caused the flooding, we later confirmed that he had a reputation at holman. >> word had spread around and gotten back to me that andrew was actually probably one of their more violent and notorious inmates. >> when we finally met alexander in person, we discovered he once had a notorious reputation outside of prison as well. his crimes had occurred more than two decades earlier when he and his cousins were known as the i-10 bandits. >> we might strike in texas. then the next time they see us, we were in florida the next day. we never got off the highway. >> alexander estimates he and his cousin logged almost 50 robberies in six states. and the target was always the same. >> we were just robbing hotels. we weren't robbing n

alexander: thank you for coming. welcome/ . alexander,u chairman ranking member murray, distinguished members of the committee on health, it is an honor and privilege to share thoughts with you. last february several of my student asked me to moderate a talk for charles murray. he was drowned out by students who never let him speak here and we were forced to retreat to another location to live stream our location. we were intimidated and physically assaulted while .rying to leave campus why does this happen in the in thestates of america green mountains of vermont? 3 reasons. any liberal arts college campus is something of a bubble. middlebury college is in vermont, making it a bubble within a bubble. charles murray was a lightning not otherwiseght have been. and minority of middlebury faculty cheered on the protest and did not encourage students to read or listen to charles murray first before drawing conclusions about his work or character. some faculty announced publicly they had not read anything charles murray had written,

and senator alexander added to that no matter what they believe. and unfortunately today, senator alexander also noted there are many universities that are deeply committed to every other kind of diversity but not the kind of intellectual diversity that you saw being pursued at the kennedy school. senator alexander was kind enough to ask me to give some first amendment background because as said, everybody is in favor of free speech, but they have very different concepts as to what freedom of speech actually entails and most people usually say i believe in freedom of speech, but the one exception i want to make is, and very often we have heard even voyeurs, probably not graduate of nyu law school, but others and other police believe the political leaders have said hate speech is not free speech. that is a statement that was made for example by howard dean. i don't mean to single him out. many others have come u, but deg berkeley's decision not to allow anna coulter to speak, he made that pronouncement. so i just finished writing a book called hate

clearly alexander murray is not selling in the house. can senator johnson come up with a better deal? we're talking about a temporary deal. whether there is one or not, how much flexibility can you get for two or three years of csr payments. nobody on the republican side is talking about propping up obamacare. i would rather politically die than prop up obamacare because it can't be saved. >> thanks, senator. >> thank you. >> there was a lot of headlines there. well, senator graham was basically making the case to keep paying, keep giving federal money to insurance companies to participate in these obamacare exchanges to keep them alive for two years because he says it doesn't matter what they do. you can repeal obamacare today and nobody will know. the plans won't change in a meaningful way for another two years. that's what they're trying to do. there does seem to be a general consensus, bipartisan consensus that that is something that should be done so premiums don't really spike. but over the last two hours or so, we've been hearing

he can change his mind again as he gets more explanations from lamar alexander. phil makes an important point, even if it were to pass the senate, it looks like the speaker of the house, paul ryan is not anxious for it to come up for a vote in the house. >> the large reason for the whiplash phil just described. when it comes to the president's public statements, there is definite whiplash. looking behind the scenes, the reporting i've been doing and phil did yesterday, not long after the president made his statement saying he supports this, what the bipartisan negotiators on capitol hill call a short-term fix for people who really need help from the federal government for their health insurance, to you know, saying today that he opposes it, we were getting calls from people behind the scenes saying no, no, no, no, no. you know, what really is going on here is that the white house is concerned about enriching the insurance companies. the white house is concerned that there won't be enough conservative support for this deal because of that. when you get into the de

senators alexander in murray did strike a deal. where ithas one place is likely to get through, the senate. however, speaker ryan has splashed cold water on this in the house. it will be difficult her them to get this through without them try to fix this law in some way. i think his constituents will put a lot of pressure on him not to bring this up. the president has not been particularly coherent on this. he has taken both sides. he said yesterday that he commends alexander and very for working together to find a way to fix this. he also said that he cannot support anything that means a bailout for insurance companies. he did describe this as a bailout for insurance companies. the tweeted this morning was a lot more negative on this, so the white house is not necessarily looking like it is on board at this point. david: thank you so much. shery: let's now get a check on the markets. julie hyman has that. julie: we are looking at the highs of the day. in pullingsucceeding above 2300 today. the s&p 500 and nasdaq are further into t

. >> chairman alexander and i were able to find common ground to stabilize the markets. >> democrats head to the white house this morning to talk tax reform, but with less than 30 days left in the legislative year, will anything else actually get done? >>> plus, money, power, politics. [ bell ringing ] the dow crossing another milestone, 23,000 for the first time in history. while wall street is soaring, is main street stuck on the ground? >>> we'll begin this morning with the president balancing the political and personal aspects of his job, commending democrats and republicans, a little bipartisanship working on a health care deal, while at the same time trying to tamp down criticism of the ways he's handled the deaths of four u.s. soldiers by reaching out to their families. well, i have a great team here this morning to break into all of it, starting with nbc's kristen welker and the phone call the president placed that is getting a whole lot of attention this morning. tell us about it. >> reporter: steph, good morning. well, the white house has confirmed that president trump has

i'll talk with one of the bill's authors, senator lamar alexander. first, peter doocy has the latest from capitol hill. >> the list of lawmakers sponsoring the fix just grew from 2 to 24. 12 are democrats, 12 are republicans, including the infamous no vote on the last healthcare package, senator john mccain. >> with regard to healthcare talks, you had called for a rrn to regular order. >> that's what they're doing. >> are you satisfied with the way that the party is handling it. >> yes, i am. >> president trump doesn't want to bail out insurance companies and cutting off the special success subsidy called cost sharing reduction payments that give the companies incentive to offer certain plans. but now 18 states and the district of columbia are suing to keep the cashflowing including senator kirsten jill i brand's home state of new york. >> the president says he wants to roll back subsidies, mills of americans won't have access to affordable care. >> others want the president to look at how this alexander murray plan would help low income americans pa

i haveknow alexander and been working since repeal and replace died. i had checked out, if i had been hiking the backain yesterday and came today, tell me what happened yesterday and why it matters. the first bipartisan major health care bill related market since ual obamacare passed. the two parties have been eight about this for years now. now we have a bipartisan deal, that as struck yesterday, was a big deal. it is just a bill at this point, you know a committee, chairman ranking member hasn't passed anywhere, we don't know if it will. is really significant and it is really significant ecause it has a huge impact on millions of people's lives. > and this often gets lost in the conversation and if i am omebody who was taking advantage of the affordable health care plan, how has my the last year? >> if you are on the exchange right now, you have a lot of what is going to come next. you don't know what is going to mrepremiums going forward, you don't know if your get cancelled. if you are on the exchange, you don't know if you will be able health care

gop senator lamar alexander and patty murray reaching this brand new deal to fund care for poor families. that's what trump began cutting off last week, a direct rebuttal to trump saying this today. >> obamacare is a disaster. it's virtually dead. as far as i'm concerned it really is dead and i predicted that a long time ago. it's a concept that doesn't work. >> then, four minutes after that statement was made, a bipartisan deal announced leading a reporter to ask about it and suddenly donald trump switched gears, welcoming the solution to a funding shortage that he partially caused. >> apparently lamar alexander has said he's made a deal with senator patty murray to stabilize obamacare. has the white house been involved in those negotiations and will you support that deal? >> yes, we have been involved and this is a short-term deal for a year or two years and it will get us over this hump. it is a short-term solution so that we don't have this very dangerous little period including dangerous period for insurance companies by the way. they are working together, and i know very much what