TRUMP AGENDA: Everything you need to know about today’s health-care vote
Benjy Sarlin lays out everything you need to know about today’s health care vote.
From POLITICO: “With one day to go until the biggest vote of his brief presidency, Trump is using all the trappings of his office to try to clinch the needed 215 votes. It’s unclear whether it will be enough to save the legislation. But late Wednesday, the White House floated a major change to the bill in a bid to win over roughly three dozen House conservatives. It was over the same issue King had raised in the White House meeting earlier in the day.” And also this: “The Republican push to replace Obamacare – backed forcefully by President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan —is in jeopardy, as a last-ditch bid by the White House to win conservative support late Wednesday appeared to repel moderates.”
From Dante Chinni in the Wall Street Journal, from Trump country: “This small town has two messages for President Donald Trump and his party as they consider reworking the nation’s health insurance system: Go full-speed at repealing the Affordable Care Act, but keep the costs of insurance down. … For many in Waynesboro, the House Republican bill is an abstraction, something they hear about on occasion on the radio or television. Details of the plan aren’t well known. Many people here say they have stopped listening to the news because of what they believe to be a relentless anti-Trump tone.”
Reuters notes that a failure on the bill could mean a tantrum on Wall Street.
Trump gave an interview to Time magazine in which he stood by his claims of massive vote fraud and his wiretapping allegations and said: “I can’t be doing so badly, because I’m president, and you’re not.”
Another scoop from the AP: “U.S. Treasury Department agents have recently obtained information about offshore financial transactions involving President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, as part of a federal anti-corruption probe into his work in Eastern Europe, The Associated Press has learned. Information about Manafort's transactions was turned over earlier this year to U.S. agents working in the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network by investigators in Cyprus at the U.S. agency's request, a person familiar with the case said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to publicly discuss a criminal investigation. The Cyprus attorney general, one of the country's top law enforcement officers, was made aware of the American request.”
Adam Schiff on Meet the Press Daily yesterday: “The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee claimed Wednesday evening that he has seen "more than circumstantial evidence" that associates of President Donald Trump colluded with Russia while the Kremlin attempted to interfere with the 2016 presidential election. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the Ranking Member on the committee, was asked by Chuck Todd on "Meet The Press Daily" whether or not he only has a circumstantial case. ‘Actually no, Chuck,’ he said. ‘I can tell you that the case is more than that and I can't go into the particulars, but there is more than circumstantial evidence now.’”
What does it mean that Trump may have been ‘incidentally’ surveilled? Ken Dilanian explains.
Alex Seitz-Wald notes that John McCain called the behavior of the House Intelligence Committee chairs “bizarre.”
The New York Times reports on the rhetorical battle over the White House’s Nowruz greeting.
Andrew Rafferty sums up the third day of Neil Gorsuch’s hearings.