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With less than one month to go before the start of formal talks to update the North American Free Trade Agreement, Donald Trump is keeping as his top envoy south of the border a Mexico expert promoted under Hillary Clinton and chosen by Barack Obama.

While Trump continues to demand Mexico pay billions of dollars for a wall to stop undocumented immigrants and calls Nafta the worst trade deal in history, the tone of his ambassador, Roberta Jacobson, couldnt be more different.

I have said it before and I will say it again: the United States could not be more fortunate to have Mexico as a neighbor," Jacobson said in a speech at a Fourth of July reception at her residence. Nafta has brought "benefits to all three nations.

Jacobson has spent more than 30 years at the State Department focused on Mexico and Latin America, with a career spanning two Democratic and four Republican presidencies. In that time, shes won the respect of Mexicos leaders and become a trusted interlocutor with Washington. With Nafta talks scheduled to start on Aug. 16, the difference in the rhetoric between Jacobson and her ultimate boss show how unpredictable those negotiations have become.

Jacobson was nominated by Obama in June 2015, but her confirmation took almost a year, held up by Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican, over her role in improving the U.S. relationship with Cuba as assistant secretary of state. Trump has undone parts of that rapprochement.

Jacobson worked for Clinton when Trumps 2016 election opponent was Secretary of State under Obama and moved up the agency ladder during that time. The two got along well; when Clinton was photographed dancing salsa at a bar in Cartagena in a rare unscripted moment during the 2012 Summit of the Americas, it was at a party for Jacobsons birthday.

The ambassador isnt the only Trump surrogate to break rhetorical ranks with the president over Mexico. While Trump in April threatened to withdraw from Nafta, trade adviser Peter Navarro talks about making North America a manufacturing "powerhouse," and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross discusses a "sensible" Nafta update. Yet, no one is responsible day in and day out for representing American interests -- whether commercial, security, or cultural -- quite like Jacobson.

In an e-mailed response to questions, Jacobson said "Mexico has for 200 years been and will remain among our most important international relationships. Certainly we face challenges in law enforcement, trade, and migration, but we can meet those challenges working together."

While Jacobson is the top American official on the ground in Mexico, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and people inside the White House will probably play a bigger roll in calling the shots in the trade talks, said Michael Shifter, president of Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank.

"She knows Nafta well and clearly will be an advocate for not having a complete overhaul but trying to upgrade and modernize Nafta," Shifter said. "Whether thats a position that will prevail in the administration is unclear at this point, but shell be at the table making that case."

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Jacobsons own future remains uncertain. She may have gained an ally in the White House with John Kelly, who previously worked with Jacobson as secretary of homeland security and led the U.S. Southern Command, becoming chief of staff. Still, many of the top positions at the State Department are still vacant, and with the focus on getting those jobs filled, Trump has replaced few of the career foreign service professionals who served as ambassadors under Obama. So its possible Jacobson will be replaced once more of her superiors are installed.

For now, Jacobson is "the ideal ambassador to be in Mexico, Francisco Palmieri, the acting assistant secretary for the region, said in May.

Given her years of experience, Trump would be hard-pressed to find anyone more prepared for the job, said Jorge Chabat, a political scientist at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching, a Mexico City-based university. Anyone less qualified might be held up again in Senate limbo just as the U.S. is preparing to begin Nafta talks.

"Shes an ambassador who has been very well received in Mexico," Chabat said. "She knows the culture, she knows the language. Shes shown herself to be a good channel for trying to smooth over conflicts that come up between Mexico and the U.S."

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Trump Keeps Obama Mexico Ambassador in Place in First Months - Bloomberg

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said Tuesday that Republicans will be pursuing the "repeal and delay" strategy on Obamacare once they vote Tuesday to debate a House-passed healthcare bill.

"This morning, @SenateMajLdr informed me that the plan for today is to take up the 2015 clean repeal bill as I've urged," he said on Twitter. "If that is the plan, I will vote to proceed to have this vote. I also now believe we will be able to defeat the new spending and bailouts."

GOP leadership is expected to call for a vote on a procedural motion that would start as much as 20 hours of debate on the House-passed healthcare bill, the American Health Care Act. If that motion gets the 50 votes it needs, assuming a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence, the House bill would be stripped out and a new bill would be swapped in.

On Monday, several senators said they were uncertain which bill would be considered. Paul's tweet suggests that bill would be the "repeal and delay" strategy that Republicans sent to former President Barack Obama's desk in 2015, which he vetoed.

The bill, formally called the Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act, would repeal Obamacare's taxes, mandates and spending but leave in place regulations on insurers and give lawmakers two years to come up with a new plan. Conservatives such as Paul favor that route.

Paul said if the bill did not pass, Republicans likely would look to repeal whatever they could, including the taxes and mandates in the law.

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Rand Paul says GOP will vote on Obamacare 'repeal and delay' - Washington Examiner

Millennials, millennials, millennials it seems as if we cant ever stop talking about these kids.

As a millennial, I always find it amusing to watch the old guard try so desperately to get a grasp of our motivations and often times our lunacy.

I imagine elders trying to understand the youth of the day is a concept as old as society itself.

I find that most contentions with millennials are precarious in nature, but there is one that I find genuine: the rise of socialism and other Marxist ideas among my peers is downright terrifying.

Many have tried to articulate why this particular ism is so popular with todays youth. Some say its because of a lack of historical and economic knowledge; some say its because of the bleak and uncertain economic future that has been bestowed upon the generation. These points are valid, but I feel they miss the mark almost completely.

Forget about your rationality for a moment and you may be able to see what I see.

I see a generation living in a truly rational era. We are long past God is dead, we are now living on his all but entirely rotten corpse. So very little is intact of the cornerstone of Western society, that it makes sense to me that millennials are the most susceptible (generation) to the dangers of isms because their options are to either grasp desperately to dead ideologies or slip into a dark nihilistic abyss.

How else do you expect us to learn up from down?

The rational mind is a deceptive one. You can make a logical argument for anything there are people actually fighting for pedophile acceptance!

So, therefore, the first man to come along screaming of revolution can take full advantage of the youthful craving to change the world and most importantly give them their first sense of purpose ever.

A purpose is what were looking for, nothing more.

This criticism can be said for anyone who whole-heartedly believes in any ideology; its just that libertarianism, or say, liberalism or conservatism has never killed 200 million people, so Im less concerned with those particular beliefs.

In a post-God is dead society, we will continue to see the rise in utopian ideals and the massacres that come along with those ideals until we find a way to revive God himself with our rational minds.

I understand the criticisms of Christianity; Ive been quite the critic myself. But, Im beginning to understand the father like representative that God is to Western society.

David Foster Wallace once said, The postmodern founders patricidal work was great, but patricide produces orphans.

When you have an overbearing father, the best way to combat his militance is to become strong and independent, to become your own separate entity.

Just because you find your father tyrannical doesnt mean you should murder him in cold blood, youve got to find a way to bring him down to size.

We live in a time where we could be cultivating the greatest minds in history.

Information is abundant and affordable the majority of historys greatest books are available for free, or at most, for 99 cents.

But instead, the youth and the majority of elders are captivated by ideologies and hold no interest in becoming individual thinkers; because that would be difficult, it would require the type of discipline only a father could provide.

* Christian Farrar is a comedian, podcast host, and often times and accidental provocateur. He has been an activist for libertarianism for the last three years.

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Godlessness Leads to Socialism - Being Libertarian

2016 Election Results, by County Carrie Dunn / NBC News

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., whose state has just two options for insurance in the individual market, said that its not about politics but making sure people dont suffer.

We have to do something to reduce premiums, we have to stabilize the market or real people are going to get hurt, Rounds said. I dont think the American people want us to simply walk away and let this think explode which is what its doing.

But Trump vacillates between urging Republicans to keep working and making statements that make the insurance system stable and predictable.

And Republicans are starting to blame Trump for some of the health systems problems.

Im troubled by the uncertainty that has been created by the administration, said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, on NBCs Meet the Press on Sunday. The uncertainly of whether that subsidy is going to continue from month to month is clearly contributing to the destabilization of the insurance market.

Republicans are open to do something they wouldnt normally do to ensure that the system doesnt collapse: prop up Obamacare with federal funding.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who represents a state with just one or two insurers in most counties, has said throughout this process that his first priority is to help people who are facing few insurance choices. He plans to hold hearings soon on how to ensure that insurers stay involved in the current system.

Republicans will need to temporarily support some things we would not normally support over the longer term and I would hope Democrats would do that as well, said Alexander, chair of the Senate health committee.

A group of about 40 centrists Republican and Democrat members of the House of Representatives released a framework for fixing the problems with Obamacare Monday. At the top of their list is to fund the so-called cost sharing reduction payments and to create a stability fund to prop up the Obamacare exchange market.

That plan doesnt seem to have any real momentum yet and any idea that involves throwing money at the problem is likely going to be a last resort in the Republican Congress.

AshLee Strong, a spokesperson for Speaker Paul Ryan, responded saying, while the speaker appreciates members coming together to promote ideas, he remains focused on repealing and replacing Obamacare.

While Trump is urging Obamacares implosion, he is also continuing to push Republicans to hand him a victory. He met with Sens. Lindsey Graham R-S.C., Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Dean Heller, R-Nev., on Friday at the White House to discuss their plan to give federal funds to the states for states to implement components of their own health care plan. Sen. Cassidy had another meeting at the White House on Monday to continue discussions.

But theres not a lot of time. The deadline for insurers to set their plans and pricing for 2018 is at the end of September. And the administration is supposed to decide if it will pay the subsidies for low-income Americans by the end of August: two deadlines with major repercussions for the insurance markets.

But coming to an agreement is going to be difficult will likely need Democrats.

"There's just too much animosity and we're too divided on healthcare," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told Reuters.

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Health Care Collapse Not a Viable Option for Congressional Republicans - NBCNews.com

Schumer said he was all for the concept of a bill advanced by Rep. Thomas Reed that would mandate roughly $7 billion in federal cost-sharing subsidies. | Getty

ALBANY, N.Y. Sen. Chuck Schumer said Monday he has heard from 10 of his Republican colleagues in response to his call for a bipartisan approach to health care legislation.

No one thought Obamacare was perfect it needs a lot of improvements, Schumer (D-N.Y.) said after an unrelated news conference at Albany Medical Center. Were willing to work in a bipartisan way to do it. What we objected to was just pulling the rug out from it and taking away the good things that it did: Medicaid coverage for people with parents in nursing homes, for opioid treatment, for kids with disabilities, pre-existing conditions.

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The so-called skinny repeal bill, which would have removed some of Obamacares least popular provisions, failed early Friday in a 51-49 vote. According to The New York Times, Schumer told Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, that he was committed to a legislative effort in regular order to improve the health care system. McCain cast an unexpected and decisive "no" vote.

Schumer said he was all for the concept of a bill advanced by Rep. Thomas Reed (R-N.Y.) that would mandate roughly $7 billion in federal cost-sharing subsidies that reduce out-of-pocket costs for poor consumers. Schumer, the Senate's minority leader, said he wasnt sure whether legislation would emerge in a big bill or take several steps.

Well, well have to wait and see. The first step is to try and stabilize the system that means the cost-sharing which would reduce premiums and increase coverage. Both Democrats and Republicans Sens. [Tim] Kaine and [Tom] Carper and [Susan] Collins have talked about re-insurance plans, so the most severe cases go into a separate insurance fund, and that reduces costs, Schumer said. Those are immediate things, but in the longer term, Republicans have some ideas, we have some ideas, and well sit down and try to hash them out as Congress should do.

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Schumer: Republicans have been in touch about health care - Politico