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Senate Judicary Committee members partake in a hearing on Russian interference on May 8th.

By Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

After finally passing a health-care bill and handing it off to the Senate, Republican lawmakers have lapsed into a disconcerting silence. While political divisions remain between moderate and conservative senators, negotiations are reportedly accelerating behind closed doors as the G.O.P. inches closer to fulfilling a nearly decade-long dream: repealing Obamacare, lowering taxes, cutting government subsidies, and shrinking Medicaid. Of course, theres been little reporting on their progress, primarily because Senate Republicanshaving learned their lessons from the very public failures of their House colleaguesarent speaking to the media. There are no plans for public hearings on the legislation, which is overwhelmingly unpopular. And, according to two senior G.O.P. senate aides who spoke to Axios, there are no plans to release the draft text.

We arent stupid, one Senate aide told Caitlin Owens, who reports that the negotiations could be wrapped as early as this week. Unlike Democrats, who held 36 days of hearings on Obamacare, Republicans would reportedly send their legislation straight to the Congressional Budget Office to be scored. We are still in discussions about what will be in the final product so it is premature to release any draft absent further member conversations and consensus.

The same Senate Republicans who criticized Democrats for ramming through Obamacarewhich the full Senate debated for 25 straight days in 2009 before passing itare now hoping to vote on the American Health Care Act by the beginning of their summer recess on July 4. More than 20 million people are expected to lose or drop their insurance as a result of the legislation, which has not yet been shared with the public.

Senate Republicans may have learned a painful lesson from their House colleagues, who rapidly lost public support for their bill after the C.B.O. concluded that it would leave millions of people without insurance or access to essential health benefits. Democrats, however, are furious that the G.O.P. bill will not be exposed to public scrutiny until the last moment. We have no idea whats being proposed, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill said in a recent hearing. Theres a group of guys in a back room somewhere that are making these decisions. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted a photo of a blank piece of paper with the caption, BREAKING: Senate Republicans just released the schedule of hearings, committee markups and public testimony for their health care bill.

Even Republican senators who were not privy to the drafting process are concerned they are being kept in the dark. I want to know exactly whats in the Senate bill. I dont know yet, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson told Bloombergs Sahil Kapur. Its not a good process. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham acknowledged that this is not the best way to do health care, but said itt the way were having to do it.

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We Aren't Stupid: Why Republicans Are Keeping Their Health-Care Bill Secret - Vanity Fair

Donald Trump is president. That much is true. But apparently,nearly every politician in his partywould prefer that Trump's No. 2 take his position in the Oval Office.

The news site Axiosreported Monday morning that Republicans' overwhelming support of Vice President Mike Pence compared tothe president is a potential "landmine" for the former reality TV star turned leader of the free world.

Trump's presidency has been defined by tumult: Calls for his impeachment have ramped up in recent weeks, and hefaces multiple lawsuits over charges that he is violating a corruptionclause inthe Constitution. For GOP lawmakers, many of whomwere never particularly thrilled with their presidential candidate to begin with, impeachment could mean getting a Republican they truly like in the Oval Office.

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"Beyond his base voters, Trump has an even bigger potential problem looming with his base in Congress," Axios's Mike Allen wrote."While Republican lawmakers won't say it publicly, it's widely known if they could pick between President Pence and President Trump, the Vice President would win 90 [percent]of the vote among the GOP."

Axiosnotes that when former President Bill Clinton was impeached, he was able to make it through because a large number of Democrats were in his camp. If things go sideways for Trump, he might not experience that same level of support, asmany in the Republican Party would love to see Pence as president. When he was chosen as Trump's running mate, the former Indiana governor was showered with praise by the GOP establishment. The selection was seen as the billionaire reaching out to Republicans to try to bring the party togetherafter Trump bulldozed his way through the primary with insults.

"It's a good move by Donald Trump. We look forward to enthusiastically supporting the ticket," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said at the time.

Since Trump took office, calls for his impeachment have grown in number and in vigor, with even some Republicans bringing it up. On Monday, RepresentativeBrad Sherman (D-Calif.) proposed anarticle of impeachment, saying Trump had obstructed justice. But even if Trump were impeachedwhich, in and of itself, is unlikely because Congress is controlled by Republicansthere would be a long way to go before the president was removed from office. Even if the House passeda resolution authorizing aninquiry into impeachment, two-thirds of the Senate would have to convict the president of an impeachable offense.Neither of the twoU.S. presidents who wereimpeached,Andrew Johnson and Clinton, was actually removed from office. Richard Nixon left office before he could be impeached.

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Would Pence Be a Better President? Republicans Think So As Trump Impeachment Calls Grow - Newsweek

Donald Trump (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Republicans are also getting tired of the president playing coy about whether he has recorded tapes of his private conversations with former FBI Director James Comey. If he has them, then they want him to give them to Congress. If he doesnt provide the recorded tapestapes that no one is sure he even hashe could face a subpoena demanding that he hand them overtapes that, again, no one can confirm even exist.

I dont understand why the president just doesnt clear this matter up once and for all, Senate Intelligence Committee member Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told the Associated Press.

Collins noted that she would support a subpoena if needed, but added that the president should voluntarily turn them over.

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), also a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, agreed that the panel needed to hear any tapes if they exist.

Weve obviously pressed the White House, he told AP.

Trump still has not confirmed whether or not tapes exist and, when pressed about it Friday, said, Ill tell you about that maybe sometime in the very near future.

Hopefully the president will admit that he lied about the existence of tapes because he is a liar and that is what he does. But I doubt that will happen. In fact, I suspect that someone on Trumps staff is combing though all his mentions of Comey tapes to see how they can spin it.

Read more at Yahoo! News.

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Republicans to Trump: Cut the Act and Release the Comey Tapes if You Have Them - The Root

Donald Trump's campaign changed the political playbook in elections across the country. But if Republicans in greater Atlanta retain an imperiled House seat next Tuesday, it will be thanks in so small part to their having called a familiar play.

GOP candidate Karen Handel and a conservative super-PAC advertising against her Democratic opponent, Jon Ossoff, have invoked House minority leader Nancy Pelosi to define Ossoff as out-of-touch with the district's voters. Handel said during a recent debate that Ossoff's values were "some 3,000 miles away in San Francisco." She called him a "liberal, Pelosi-like" Democrat in a recent interview. And the Congressional Leadership Fund, the super-PAC, has released multiple commercials linking the two. One that it pushed before the first round of voting on April 18 advised voters to "say no to Pelosi's yes man."

The demographics of the district, the Georgia 6th, indicate that such an approach should have legs. It has been reliably Republican for decades, and it remains favorable to the GOP despite recent redistricting that removed some of its reddest real estate. But it's also the sort of suburbia that wasn't gaga about the president in November; Trump won the district by fewer than two percentage points, the worst showing there by a GOP nominee in memory. So as Democrats try to use Trump's name to sink Handel"make Trump furious" was Ossoff's theme when he launched his bidRepublicans have come up with their reply.

According to the CLF, they're backed by sound data. As the Washington Examiner reported in April, "Tying Ossoff to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., proved especially effective. In an April poll the group conducted, respondents by a 62 percent to 26 percent margin said they preferred a candidate who would work with Ryan if elected to Congress, over one who would work with Pelosi." The CLF's aggressive last-minute intervention into the April runoff is credited with helping keep Ossoff below a 50-percent threshold that would have secured him the seat outright.

There's potentially a bigger-picture idea for Republicans in bringing up the former speaker: It's unifying. Handel has had the challenge of establishing her independence while not crossing Trump voters. "My job," she told me, "is to be an extension of the 6th district. It's not to be an extension of the White House, with due respect to the president." She otherwise has spoken favorably of Trump, though her casual support isn't a hallmark of her candidacy. While the GOP nationwide still mostly supports the president, the party cannot use him as a rallying cry and expect it to win purple districts, where soft Republicans and undecideds could turn elections.

But Pelosi? There's someone on whom the GOP will always be able to agree. Now let's see how effective she is as a motivating factor, more than six years since she last held the speaker's gavel.

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Republicans Needed Backup in the Georgia 6th. They Found It in Nancy Pelosi. - The Weekly Standard

The head of the Republican party clashed with party politicians Sunday over investigations probing whether U.S. President Donald Trumps campaign colluded with Russia, along with the testimony given last week by fired FBI Director James Comey.

I'm calling for an end to the investigations about President Trump's campaign colluding with the Russians, said Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), during an interview with Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace.

There's been no evidence of collusion, McDaniel said, adding she didnt think the investigation should continue.

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Her comments followed testimony by former FBI Director James Comey last Thursday regarding why he was fired on May 9 by Trump.

In March Comey testified that the bureau was probing Trumps campaign team and associates as part of a larger investigation looking into how Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election. American intelligence agencies issued a report in January concluding the foreign power worked to help candidate Trump and hurt his rival Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Read more: Trump could 'go down' because he can't stop 'inapropriately' talking, GOP Senator says

Despite what McDaniel says, finding out whether the Trump team colluded with Russia is central to the Senate Intelligence Committees own investigation into the issue, Oklahoma Republican Senator James Lankford, who sits on the committee, said on Sunday.

Obviously, if there was any American, including the president, who tried to interfere in the election or to try to do an obstruction of justice, that would be very important to know, Lankford said in an interview on CBS' " Face the Nation.

Lankford said the bipartisan group is trying to get all the facts out about Russian interference, and whether any Americans tried to assist them, as well as a series of leaks of classified information.

Lankfords Senate Intelligence Committee colleague, Maine Republican Susan Collins, agreed.

Whether or not there was collusion, collaboration, cooperation between the Russians and members of President Trump's campaign team, she told CNN's " State of the Union," would remain the focus on their investigation.

Comey testified last Thursday that during an unusual one-on-one meeting with Trump in the Oval Office in February the president asked him to let go an investigation into fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn was sacked for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts with Russian officials the day before he met with Comey at the Oval Office.

Flynn is the subject of one strand of the FBIs investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.

The Republicans have also disagreed about whether or not this one-on-one meeting was improper.

Lankford called the meeting inappropriate.

It is awkward, he said, to have the president of the United States sitting down with the leader of the FBI to ask direct questions, and for the issue to come up about the Michael Flynn investigation.

Investigations into whether President Donald Trump's campaign team colluded with Russia are dividing Republicans. Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Collins agreed that the meeting which Trump initiated was inappropriate, but that Comey should have pushed back and said we cannot be having discussions like this because the independence of the FBI is really important.

Comeys testimony has brought many legal scholars to the conclusion that Trump could be charged with obstruction of justice for efforts to quash the investigation.

Collins said she believed Comey when he testified that he felt pressured by the president to drop the Flynn investigation. But she said this doesn't eliminate the possibility that there was a misinterpretation of Trumps words.

McDaniel went a step further to say that we don't know what happened in these conversations and that Comeys testimony was simply his version of events.

Ahead of Comeys testimony McDaniel created an opposition team operation made up of 60 staffers inside the RNC to defend the president, sending out thousands of tweets on social media with the hashtag #bigleaguetruth.

I feel like the truth is not getting out there, McDaniel said. And so, we're going to push harder, because we want to make sure that the American people are hearing a different narrative and the right set of the right version of what's happening.

McDaniel said the investigations into Russias interference in the election should run their course, but any investigation of collusion needs to end.

The American people want it to stop, she said. This is a fishing expedition to try and run out the clock for the Democrats hoping to make gains in 2018.

Trumps Attorney General Jeff Sessions is set to testify to the Senate behind closed doors in response to Comeys testimony on Tuesday, June 13.

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Russia Investigation and Comey Testimony Cause Republicans to Turn on Each Other - Newsweek