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SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week's news, including the political disagreement over the House Republican bill to replace the Affordable Care Act, President Trump's unsubstantiated claim that his predecessor had ordered a wiretap of Trump Tower and how it ties into potential investigations of Trump ties to Russia.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Now to the analysis of Shields and Gerson. That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson. David Brooks is away.
And welcome to both of you.
So, a lot going on this week, Mark and Michael.
Let's start, Mark, though, with we got a really good sense or a better sense this week of what it is that Republicans in the House and the White House want to do in terms of replacing the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare.
What do we make of this? Is this something that has the elements of a piece of legislation that can survive?
MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: I don't think so, Judy.
And I guess the one point I would disagree with you is, agreement between the White House and the Republicans in Congress. To listen to Speaker Paul Ryan, this is the last stage out of Dodge. This is the best and only chance the Republicans are going to have to repeal, fulfill that pledge that they have made now for seven years to repeal Obamacare and come up with their own plan, whereas the White House, in the words of the President, is, I'm for it, but we can deal, we can negotiate.
So I'm not sure that they're on the same page or have basically the same commitment to this legislation. That's why I just — I think it's in precarious position right now.
(CROSSTALK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: Even though it's moved through these two committees? And we just spoke to the chairman of the Budget Committee. And she says she expects it to go flying through.
MARK SHIELDS: She does. But the question was, how many hundred thousand Tennesseans will lose health care?
The estimates, Judy, quite frankly, range from 10 million to 15 million now. All the promises of transparency the Republicans made about going to have open hearings, open votes, they will not vote, that Budget Committee headed by Congresswoman Black, until — they will not release the Congressional Budget Office scoring to tell you how many people are going to lose it and what it's going to cost until that happens.
It's all being sort of railroaded through the Republican House. But I don't see it surviving.
JUDY WOODRUFF: How do you see it on the substance, Michael?
MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post: Well, on the substance, there is a set of conservative reform ideas that have been developing, but this isn't it.
This is a jerry-rigged system to try to achieve some of the goals of Obamacare by slightly modifying this, by changing that. And the result is incoherent. It has alienated the left because of the number of people that will be off the system. It's alienated the right because there are some people that wanted a true repeal. This isn't that type of approach.
So, I think it's — right now, you know, it has the virtue or the drawback of pleasing no one, actually, in this system on left to right.
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