Watch Replay: Sean Spicer Addresses Health Care Bill Issues Ahead Of House Vote

WASHINGTON, DC — White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer held a press conference Friday afternoon ahead of the much-anticipated health care vote in Congress that many close observers expect to fail.

Questions about the bill's progress were the main topic of public debate all day, but the unfolding drama of fractures with the House Intelligence Committee's investigations continue to loom for the administration. Rep. Adam Schiff and Rep. Devin Nunes, the top two committee officials, are clearly at odds over the progress of the investigations, and the White House is in the middle of it all.

Earlier in the week, Spicer repeatedly told reporters that on health care, there is no "Plan B." So it's a wide-open question where the administration and Republicans more broadly go from here.

In his opening comments, Spicer said, "of course" Republicans would vote on the GOP health care bill at around 3:30 p.m. Asked whether the administration had enough votes to pass the bill, Spicer said they would have to wait and see what happens with the vote.

He said Speaker Paul Ryan has done what he can, but Republican leaders cannot force lawmakers to vote in a particular way. Spicer also praised the president's efforts to get the bill passed.

"I think the president has given it his all," he said. "The president understands this is it."

He also added: "At the end of the day, this isn't a dictatorship."

Zeke Miller of Time asked if the process has humbled the president. Spicer said that he still feels good about the vote's prospects, but that no one can say that the president didn't do all he could on this issue.

Despite the relatively pessimistic tone of the briefing, Spicer repeatedly asked reporters not to prejudge the outcome of the vote. It became a running joke during the briefing that Spicer would not answer questions about "what has been learned" from this process, given that the vote had not been held.

The press secretary said the president did not have regrets about trying to pass a health care bill first instead of Republicans' other priority: tax reform. Spicer said that doing health care first was the smart choice because it can help open up funds to finance tax cuts.

Kyle Griffin, an MSNBC producer, reported during the briefing that his network's count of votes had 34 Republican votes against the bill, many more than are needed to knock it down. In other words, based on this reporting, the bill had very little chance of success.

Asked if there was a political cost to a collapse of the health care bill, Spicer said that there would have been a cost to allowing the debate to carry on.

One reporter questioned the wisdom of holding a vote if the administration knows that the bill won't pass.

"I'm not going to comment on our strategy," Spicer said.

Without outright saying it, Spicer's remarks suggested that the White House would likely move on and abandon efforts to reform health care if the vote fails Friday.

Watch a live stream of the press briefing below.

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