Trump and Muller Teams Nearing Terms for Interview

end Mueller's investigation. Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the president's tweet was not a directive the president stating his opinion, um, it's not in order, but he's been I think crystal clear about how he feels about this investigation from the beginning. Joining us as Bloomberg in

the Bloomberg studios in Washington. It's Kevin Whitelaw, Bloomberg News Deputy Managing editor, Kevin how how is that playing Sarah sanders explanation and Rudy Giuliani's explanation of why President Trump's tweet was not an order. Well, I do think that we've seen, we've seen the president at various points, at various times, rail against his own attorney general, rail against the probe, rail against Robert Muller, and so on some level, you can just sort of see this as part of

the continuum. But but this one did strike a lot of people as a little different. It started to sound a little closer to an order, a little closer to a uh something beyond a recommendation, but maybe not quite an order. So um, you know, everyone's always looking for sort of where the where the temperature is and has something shifted in the air when it comes to what

Trump might actually do with regard to the probe. Up to now, his lawyers have been able to largely keep him on track and keep him cooperating, but you know, the frustration level has clearly been building um over time, and he's got a lot of people both inside the White House but also outside the White House sort of egging him on and and wanting him to pick a fight.

And this isn't like, you know, your neighbor expressing an opinion his president United States, and that's right, but you know, he also does know how to issue orders, and and the fact that you know, he tweeted it is a little different than an actual order. So, um, you know, whether we whether he's actually testing the waters or blowing out steam, or or preparing to do something, you know, I think we're we've all been trying to figure that out.

But we've sort of been on on watch for this for quite a long time, and at least it hasn't happened yet. I do know he's gotten very very strong warnings for the past year from a lot of center Republicans. They don't want him to act against Mueller. Um, they don't want him to act against Rosenstein, and they really don't want it to happen before the mid term. So all of those things are still true, and he's still

getting that message. But but you know, he's he's he's you know, clearly uh frustrated by by the pace of this. It is import though, to understand even amid all of this noise and all of these attacks and all of the vitriol and all of the accusations, his lawyers and Mueller's team have still been talking and negotiating, exchanging proposals over what it might look like for the for the president to sit down and do an interview with with Robert Mueller's so UM there was just as recently as

earlier this week. We know that Mueller's people came back with with with their latest proposal UH answering an earlier one from from Trump from about eleven days ago. So this is this. Even though they're not close, even though it's not clear they'll ever get to a deal, they're actually still talking despite all this noise. I can't imagine any lawyer encouraging Trump, with his many conflicting statements, to sit down for an interview. But there are persistent reports

that he wants to do it, and that's right. The belief is he wants to do it. He wants to show that he can do it. He certainly believes he can handle it. He thinks he's he thinks he's good in these situations. He has had an umber of lawyers UM including some who have since left his team, who

have been very strongly opposed to it. We know that John Dowd, who was his personal attorney um UH until the spring and been deeply involved in a lot of the early prep work and a lot of the early cooperation with Miller's team, was adamantly opposed to the notion of an interview. So, uh, you know, I think there's uh, he's he's got his lawyers are there are definitely on the cautious side. They're going to be trying to if they end up allowing it, make it absolutely as limited

in scope and limited in questions as possible. You know, I do think they understand there are some risks to simply refusing to sit for an interview at all, but they certainly can drag out the process, and and to the degree they drag it out into into the fall, it becomes difficult potentially to conduct that interview with the mid terms, uh, and and avoid accusations of it being

a political act. And Kevin Wild we've been speaking of the president's national security advisor, John Bolton has been speaking and these headlines just hitting the Bloomberg Riminal in the last few seconds. Bolton says Trump determined to prevent election influence and that the president has been confronting the Russians to stop meddling. This in the wake of the news from Facebook that it had shut down some questionable feeds

and and uh and pages. Yeah, this comes from a letter that Bolton sent to uh answer Senate Democrats about their complaints that that the administration wasn't doing anything to to take a wasn't taking the election security issues seriously enough. So this is uh uh, the latest defense of Bolton saying that actually, there's a bunch of steps we have taken.

We're taking it seriously. Um. It is one of these interesting things where a number of different people in the administration um, including the intelligence National Intelligence Director Dan Coates, have all issued very strong warnings about Russia and what it might do, but the President himself has has has you know, rarely been very rarely been as outspoken and critical in this issue, and it does seem that he's had a little trouble separating the notion of accusations and

and and conclusions about Russian meddling from from any sense that his own electoral victory might somehow be called into question by acknowledging this. Kevin, we just have a minute here, But what might set off another tweet storm is that a bipartisan group of senators are introducing legislation to impose new sanctions on Russia for interfering in US elections. In

about forty five seconds, tell us about that. Well, that's right, it's an interesting group of senators you have Lindsay Graham, UM, who you know, for the most time, for the most part, tries to be allied with Trump. UM has has paired up with John McCain, who's who's back home and ill and Corey Gardner of Colorado, UH and several Democrats to

put in this measure of sanctions. UM. Obviously we're talking about something that that is still you know, months away, if ever, from from being enacted the houses out for for the summer. UM. But it is a clear signal, at least in the part of Republicans in Congress, that they want this administration to take the issue of Russian Russian medaling much more. All right, thanks so much, Kevin.

That's Kevin Whitelaw, Bloomberg News Deputy managing editor. Yesterday, the Trump administration announced that it would boost short term health plans as the White House continues to expand alternatives to Obamacare. Speaking with Bloomberg yesterday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex asar discussed the plans, which have a history of consumer complaints.

These plans are likely going to be most attractive to those kinds of people that I mentioned, who are in transition, who don't have access to affordable care who've been priced out of the Obamacare markets. That's really where the where the population is going to come through going into these plans. Joining us in our Bloomberg eleven thirties studios in New York is Zach Tracer, Bloomberg News healthcare reporter, so Zach, these plans were originally intended for people who needed insurance

between jobs. Tell us about them, that's right. So these are these are plans that um sort of emerges away. You know, if you have a month or two without health insurance, maybe, um, you can buy some coverage that will protect you in case, you know, you get hit by a bus or something, or you know, get sick. Um. And what the Trump administration is doing here is really

crafting a bigger role for these plans. Um you'd be allowed to have this coverage for up to a year, and you could potentially renew it so that it would last for up to three years. UM. So all of a sudden, you've gone from these short term plans with you know, essentially a three month duration to up to three years. Quite a quite a big change. So these plans are cheaper, but as you write in your story on the terminal they have a long history of patient complaints.

What are they? That's right? So these plans have a couple big issues. One is that they won't cover pre existing conditions. And now that sounds okay. So you're going and you're buying this plan and you say, okay, I know that you know I have these conditions that it

won't cover. Here's the problem with these plans UM. If you, you know, all of a sudden it turns out you have cancer or something, what the insurer is going to do is they're going to look back at your medical history and say, did you have this cancer before you bought the insurance, even if you didn't know about it, And in some cases that will be enough to UM to make it so that your cancer care isn't covered. And that's a sort of a big loophole here. And

in some states you can't even buy these plans. Why have those states decided that these plans are not good enough? That's right. So in UM, in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, you can't really buy this kind of insurance at all. UM. Other states have their own limits, and a lot of states are actually looking now at sort of what their approach to regulating this insurance should be.

There's you know, for instance, and effort to ban these plans in California, and the argument is essentially, you know, number one, we don't think this coverage is very good for people, and number two, it's sort of pulls you know, generally healthier people out of the insurance pools um and

you know that sort of undermines how insurance works. You know, when you have a good functioning insurance market, you need lots of healthy people in there, you know, to essentially cover the cost for the few sick people that you have. And you know, as those healthy people leave, the cost for every else just goes up. And that's a problem in state's like you know, California are looking at this

market now saying what should we do about it? But you're not writing that the administration is trying to oversell these because Secretary as Are actually said in his interview with US yesterday, they may not be right for everybody. That's right, And I think the administration sort of goes back and forth and how they want to talk about these plans. So Secretary is Are, i think has been pretty clear in saying, you know, these plans aren't right

for everybody. UM. You know, they're they're an alternative for you know, some folks who have been priced out of the affordable carreacts markets. You know, people that make a little bit catastrophic. Yeah, exactly that that these plans are sort of catastrophic. UM in some cases. UM, Obamacare has turned out to be pretty resilient. What are some of the other things that have been done to sort of

try to weaken Obamacare. So this is just the latest in a string of regulatory actions and UM, congressional actions that we've seen over the last year or so that you know, essentially have the effect of we can the Affordable Care Act. So we saw the requirement that everybody by insurance, the individual mandate UM that was repealed in

the tax cut law. UM. We've seen the administration also allows something called association health plans, which are UM sort of small business health plans UM, similar to to the stuff that we're talking about right here. UM. And we've seen them cut a lot of money from sort of marketing and outreach. So, you know, one of the important things that we talked about with insurance is that everybody

buys it. In the administration has really pulled back on some of these efforts to you know, convince people to do so advertising marketing and also you know, help signing up. So, when the healthcare exchanges open up for enrollment this fall, will these short term plans be an option? Will these business business association plans be an option in there? Yes, So both both of these kinds of plans will be available around sort of September, October November. Around that timeframe.

They won't be on you know, healthcare dot gov, which is where you go to buy affordable character insurance. They won't be available sort of next to these affordable carrot plans. They'll be available you know, separately, you know, from brokers and associations and things like that, but they will be available,

you know, starting right around the same time. So Senate Democrats say they're going to try to force a vote that would reverse the Trump policy to expand access to these plans that don't comply with the Obamacare's coverage requirements. So what do you think do you think that will get very far? That's right? So Senate Democrats today announced the plan to um put up a resolution essentially disapproving

of this administrative action UM. And so what that would do is is basically put lawmakers on the record as to whether or not they support UM. This move by the administration and what Democrats are hoping to do is make healthcare a big issue in this election. It's been a really a winning message UM for Democrats going into the you know, November midterms, and they would love to just kind of keep um, you know, emphasizing that they are protecting you, um, you know, from all this stuff

that the Republicans are trying to do. It's a great article, and you spoke to a lot of people who have had problems with these plans, and a Georgetown professor said it's a buyer beware situation. Thanks so much for being here, Zach. That's Zach Tracer. He's Bloomberg News healthcare reporter. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg