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House Prepares to Vote on GOP Tax Overhaul Bill. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired December 19, 2017 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[13:30:00] DAVID DRUCKER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: One of the challenges that the Republicans face is to convince the right voters in the right places and the 2018 battle grounds that this is good for them. Specifically, suburban voters in upscale communities that like tax cuts and worry that the provisions are going to hit them in the wallet. That's the work Republicans have cut out for them. When I talk to them privately, they understand what they are facing. Publicly. they are buoyant because it's a big win for the president and for them considering where they started with a failed effort to repeal and replace Obamacare.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Our new poll, you know this well, Mark, has the president's job approval number is around 35 percent right now. That's a historic low in modern times at this stage, first year of a new president. It's surprising only because the economy seems to be doing so well. Look at the stock market and the unemployment and the growth. Things are moving well in the economy, but his numbers have sunk.

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Gangbusters in the economy. You can look at his approval rating at 35 percent and lay the blame squarely at the doorstep of the White House. He decided to be a divider and not a uniter. He is more focused on his supporters and trying to make them happy. Look at the tax cut. This is a Republican bill. This was crafted by Republicans on Capitol Hill and if you go deep into the numbers. 77 percent of them support this bill. He is not concerned about what the Democrats or independents are thinking. He is more concerned about thinking I want to please those who got me to the White House.

To your point, how can he go into the new year with a 35 percent approval rating. Pew's rating was 32 percent. He needs to change a little bit. I don't think he is going to do that. He is so combative, and he has a good chance of losing one or both chambers.

BLITZER: A.B., why are the numbers so low when the economy is moving along very nicely?

A.B. STODDARD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR & COLUMNIST, REALCLEARPOLITICS: People are pleased with the economy, but they are upset with President Trump about other things. Mark is right. He plays to a 35 percent portion of the country. He spends a lot of energy on culture wars and trying to get NFL players fire and tries to distract away from the subjects that everyone has bipartisan support in the '80s and '90s on infrastructure. He rarely talks about policy and how Republicans are going to save the day and Democrats are obstructionists. He had a chance to be more popular than on election day. He could have moved to the middle, but he didn't do it and continues to enjoy this game of everything being a base play.

DRUCKER: Plus, the low expectations everyone had for him and his policies are more popular than he is conceptually. That's a total reverse from Obama. People liked Obama, but not so much his policies. He never moved away from a campaign. Whether it be a Twitter or periodic campaign rallies. He goes after the Democrats like we are in the middle of a campaign. He is planning to engage in more of that if Republicans will have him. It will be difficult for the president to ever be in a different political situation than now. Republicans will need heavy turnout and enthusiasm. We will have seen all that was with the Democrats.

BLITZER: Are you surprised, David, with the conservative leader, Mark Meadows, the Freedom Caucus member, how uncomfortable they are in voting for a bill that is going to significantly raise the national debt?

Hold that thought for a moment. Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat minority leader, is speaking. I want to listen in briefly.

REP. NANCY PELOSI, (D-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: -- on 86 million middle class families and they have tried to present the delusion that it's a middle-class tax cut. Is there justice in the bill that has a breathtaking 83 percent of its benefits to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans? Eight-three percent of its benefits to the top 1 percent. Is there justice in a bill that explodes the national debt to give the wealthy and well connected a break and sticks the debt with our children? Is that justice? I didn't think you thought so. I wish our Republican colleagues would join us. This GOP tax scam is simply theft. Monumental brazen theft from the American middle class and from every person who aspires to reach it. The GOP tax scam is not a vote for jobs. It is to install a nation. It does violence to our founders and disrespects our men and women in uniform who are a big part of our middle class. It betrays the future and betrays the aspirations of our children. It demands, it morally demands a no vote from every member of this House of the people.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

(APPLAUSE)

[13:35:28] UNIDENTIFIED CONGRESSMAN: Gentleman from Texas.

BLITZER: That's Nancy Pelosi giving the Democratic view. And you heard her say this is monumental theft what the Republicans are about to do. Monumental theft.

Let's get back to what I raised with you, David. The uncomfortable nature of these conservative Republicans, deficit hawks and voting now for legislation that will dramatically increase the nation's debt.

DRUCKER: My general rule of thumb, Wolf, is the party that cares about the debt and deficit doesn't have the power to spend any money. When you have the power, you have to make choices. What is notable here, we heard nothing for eight years, but the Republicans speak against President Obama and all the debt he was racking up. Republicans were faced with a choice and they give the compromise and they govern and show faith in the philosophy that we needed tax reform and it will generate economic growth that will take care of that deficit. Or they can fold and have nothing to show with the complete control of government and not show they believe their own rhetoric and they made a choice.

BLITZER: It was a disruption in the gallery in the House of Representatives. They were about to evict folks who are protesting. That slowed things down.

Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, he will be the final speaker before the actual rollcall begins. We will watch that closely.

Not a surprise, Mark, that there has been disruptions.

David, finish your thought before I interrupted you.

DRUCKER: Republicans had to make a choice. Were they going to take tough votes and govern and pass something imperfect that is the only legislation that passes on anything or will they make the perfect the enemy of the good? It's a cliche, but if you need to pass something being you need to make a choice. The House Freedom Caucus which disrupted the Republican House majority's ability to do anything when President Obama was in power after the health care failure understood he was going to be either a session of failure with nothing to show for it or have to ban and compromise with their own principals and do something and hope it worked out.

BLITZER: I understand that you have a compromise to get things done.

For years, Mark, the conservative Republicans are saying you have to pay for these cuts and there is not going to be an increase in the nation's debt. We are not going to force our children and grandchildren to pay for what we are doing right now.

PRESTON: Short-term memory. They are in power and feel like they can get something done. In many ways the logic behind allowing this bill to go through in ballooning the deficit is very similar to the idea of let's just support Donald Trump even though we don't necessarily agree with him or like him, but we will get behind him. The reason being is they see him in the vehicle to get something done. They are now at the water's edge on this tax cut. They are going to get it through. Politically, heading into next year, the tax cut doesn't necessarily generate enthusiasm. It is going to generate enthusiasm with liberals, who will try to lose it going into November.

BLITZER: The mid-term elections are coming up soon.

What do you make of the notion that you hear from the Democrats. Once this passes, it is going to pass and the president will sign it into law. The next step will be what the president adamantly opposed doing during the campaign, cutting entitlement spending, Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. STODDARD: Wolf, I find it hilarious. In a mid-term election when the

party is divided, and they face head winds and wave numbers, they are going to after passing a deficit fund and tax cut make it up to the Freedom Caucus bypassing the entitlement reform. These mean Republicans cut your entitlement programs that you paid into and I'm never going to do that. They have enough trouble getting through the week without fighting with President Trump or each other. The idea that they will get grannies pushed off and when they wonder how they will find the support to turn enough voters out I think is the craziest thing I have heard this entire year.

[13:39:50] BLITZER: Especially going into an election.

[You heard Mark Meadows, the congressman, head of the Freedom Caucus, just tell us that what they would like to do, the president is adamantly opposed, and they cut the rate of growth on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Not necessarily cut the bottom line. Is that something --

(CROSSTALK)

DRUCKER: I'm going to laugh because the House Freedom Caucus used to call that a fake cut that didn't do anything about the problem. I will say this. At end of Speaker Ryan's press conference, he went on to talk about the opportunity he sees in the first part of next year. Politically it will be way too difficult, and President Trump won't want to go there. They might want to make an attempt to do this around welfare reform and Republicans don't haven't gotten behind before.

(CROSSTALK)

PRESTON: We use words like entitlement reform, but for everybody out there in TV land, they are saying we will cut back on your Social Security and that's what they are talking about. They are talking about taking something away. That's why we haven't seen it.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: If you listen to the conservatives, that's where the money is. So much of the federal budget --

DRUCKER: Absolutely where the money is. They will never address the debt and deficit problem if they don't do it. These seniors would be impacted or believe they would. They tend to vote Republicans. Why they are going to take a chance and scare them off I have no idea. I don't think for that reason that anything major will happen.

BLITZER: A.B., how did they do it in the Senate. Two or three or four or five Senators who had serious concerns, but all of a sudden, once the House passes it, there will be a debate. It will pass. Mike Pence is there and if there is a tie, and I suspect there won't be, he is the president of the Senate and he can break the tie. The president may get this bill even though there were a handful of Republican who seriously thought of killing it.

STODDARD: The tax reform is different. It's a signature policy prerogative going back decades and they waited to get a Republican president to do this. On health care the debate shifted. The Trump voter who helped him get into office and Medicate expansion and they have shown this as popular. They couldn't repeal it. The moment this is signed, they will start fighting about cost cutting and DACA and they will fight against. Not one of the Senators wanted to be the one to invoke the vote. It was too much of a Republican goal.

BLITZER: They did it on repealing and replacing Obamacare, but they are refusing to do it on this.

STODDARD: Tax reform is the goal. They never meant to cut taxes for the middle class. They've wanted tax cuts for the wealthy for a long time. This is a goal.

(CROSSTALK)

DRUCKER: -- told a bunch of us today, Republicans were put on this earth to support tax cut bills. That's why this was a little easier.

BLITZER: We are waiting to hear from Paul Ryan, the speaker, and the rollcall will begin.

We will continue our extensive coverage after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:46:49] BLITZER: The speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, now addressing the House floor in advance of the rollcall on the tax plan.

REP. PAUL RYAN, (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: all of the members and the staff of the Ways and Means Committee for all their hard work in putting this bill together. I want to thank them for this.

(APPLAUSE)

RYAN: I want to personally thank one of my predecessors, Dave Camp, who did a lot to help get us where we are.

(APPLAUSE)

I want to, most of all, commend and express my profound admiration to the architect of this measure, Chairman Kevin Brady.

(CHEERING)

(APPLAUSE)

RYAN: His endless patience and his persistence and his great demeanor have seen this through and gotten us to where we are today.

My colleagues, this is a day I have been looking forward to for a long time. We are about to achieve really big things. Things that the cynics have scoffed at for years, decades even. Ideas that have been worked on so long to help hardworking Americans who have been left behind for too long. Today, today, we are giving the people of this country their money back.

(APPLAUSE)

RYAN: This is their money after all.

Mr. Chairman, the speaker of the House is not out of order.

(SHOUTING)

(GAVEL)

UNIDENTIFIED CONGRESSMAN: The chair knows this contravention of law and against the rules of the House, the sergeant at arms will identify the person or persons responsible and have them escorted from the House chamber before proceedings will resume.

(NO AUDIO)

BLITZER: You notice since there is a disruption in the gallery, they cut the audio but, apparently, they just restored it.

UNIDENTIFIED CONGRESSMAN: -- guests of the House and any manifestation of approval or disapproval of the proceedings in the House are in violation of the rules of the House.

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin, the speaker of the House.

RYAN: I have to remind my colleagues and the speaker that my minute can last for as long as I want it to last.

(LAUGHTER)

I'm just saying.

As I was saying, Mr. Speaker, today, we are giving the people their money back. The bottom line is the typical family making the median income in America will get a $2,059 tax cut next year alone.

(APPLAUSE)

RYAN: What this is, is real relief for families who are living out their paycheck to paycheck, struggling to make ends meet. You know they hear about the economy getting better. They turn on the TV and they see the stock market going up, but now we need to make sure these people in our communities and our country who are struggling see their own personnel economy getting better. That's what this is all about.

[11:49:18] We have to understand times are tough for a lot of people in our country. Today, this is about how much better things can be. This is about more jobs, fairer taxes. It is about bigger paychecks. It's about faster growth and upward mobility. It's about a strong economy that makes all of us stronger and healthier. Those are the effects. Those are the benefits of tax reform. Here is the heart of it. And here is why this is so vital that we do

this. Here is what it speaks to in what I truly believe is a generational defining moment for this nation. Our tax code is so broken, that it undermines the very thing that makes our nation exceptional in the first place. It punishes hard work and discouraging our entrepreneurial spirit, limits our own people. When Americans see good jobs go away, when Americans wake up and see companies going away, they wonder if we have lost something bigger.

The mission that drives us here today is to restore this beautiful American idea. What is that idea? That the condition of your birth does not determine the outcome of your life. You can work hard, play by the rules, get ahead and make a better life for yourself and even better one for your kids. It's that sense of possibility.

We want people to be free to strive, to make the most of their lives. We want a country with the resilience to endure and tackle all of its challenges.

Mr. Speaker, economic growth and job creation will not solve all of our problems, but it will help make all of our problems much easier to solve. This is the direction that we are choosing here today. Because we know exactly where the status quo leads us. For years, the powers that be have blocked and stone walled reform under the umbrella of an arrogant, condescending and ideology. An ideology that makes us accept less in our lives. View in the world that sees life in the economy as zero gain. Your gain comes at a loss, therefore, we can't do it.

Look at where this got us. The worst recovery since World War II. Flat wages, and an economy limping along. Stagnation is a breeding ground for a class based society where elites predetermine the outcome of our lives. They will tell you this. Just hand over more freedom to the bureaucrats and they will figure it out. They know more. We'll be OK. Hand over more of your hard-earned dollars to the IRS and it will be OK. There is your scam right there.

We know, given the opportunity, there are no limits to what our people, our fellow citizens, our brothers and sisters can do. Yet, for years now, this tax code has been skewed to the well connected, full of special loop holes. Meanwhile, the hardworking family in America has to jump through all the hoops that the IRS can muster. We clean out the loopholes so people can keep more of what they earned in the first place because it's their money in the first place.

(APPLAUSE)

RYAN: No special favors, just basic fairness.

Reform means simplification, too. Nearly nine out of 10 Americans will still be able to do their taxes on the form the size of a postcard. That is amazing.

(APPLAUSE)

RYAN: And given the opportunity, there are no limits to what our workers and our entrepreneurs can do. Yet, while the world has changed, while the world has become more competitive, closer, smaller, our tax code has not. Instead of leading, we have been falling behind to the point where we now are the worst in the industrialized world how we tax our businesses. We tax our businesses a whole lot more than our foreign competitors tax theirs. They win, we lose. That's not fair. It is basically open season for our competitors to come in and take our jobs overseas under the current tax code.

[11:55:12] Reform means we go from back of the pack to the front of the pack. So instead of the slow growth that we have been going through for years, we want to get back to real sustained economic growth. We want to build an economy where there is more demand for higher paying jobs. That's the whole purpose of all this. Make sure people can grow up and reach their potential. Make sure the jobs are there to give people the opportunity to reach their potential. This is why we are doing this. This is without question the single most thing we can do to, once again make America the best place to do business.

You know, there is more just than that in this bill. With this bill, we are finally doing by repealing the individual mandate at the heart of Obamacare, we are giving back the freedom to buy the health care that's right for you and your family.

And finally, we are doing something to put America in the lead. We are doing something historic to develop our own energy resources. Some people have been working here since I've been in the second grade on this project.

(LAUGHTER)

After decades and decades in this chamber, we are opening up a small, non-wilderness area of the Alaska Wildlife Refuge for responsible development. It is the most-ambitious step in years to secure our own energy future.

This is one of the times to take a step back. Let's take a minute, collect ourselves, and step away from the noise. We talk a lot in these jobs about turning points. There is no doubt that we are at one of those turning points right now. And this one will determine the kind of country we'll have this century. But too often, we have seen before how doubt creeps in, how the tyranny of short term thinking takes over and history fails to turn. There is, after all, a reason this has not been done in 31 years. This really is a generational- defining moment. And let's let this generational defining moment be defined by optimism, not fear. Not the doom and gloom we have become so familiar with.

This is our chance. This is our moment. Let's turn at this turning point. Let's reclaim the principles that have guided us, so this beautiful story of the American ideology is passed onto the next nation, a nation more united, more confident, more prosperous.

And, Mr. Speaker, more free.

Pass this bill! I yield.

(CHEERING)

(APPLAUSE)

BLITZER: Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan urging his colleagues to pass the tax cut legislation. The rollcall will now begin

Let's get a quick thought.

A.B., what do you think?

STODDARD: Paul Ryan has worked on this his entire career, so it's personally a huge day for him, particular, they are reporting that he is considering stepping down at the end of this cycle as speaker. And it was a really, a moment of leadership for him, not only this policy goal, but that speech was very aspirational and positive. A different tone.

DRUCKER: Since the Republicans won back the House in 2010, they have not had a moment of accomplishment like this. So it's a very big deal for them. The challenge now is to sell this politically to the voters. And they do have a bit of an uphill climb.

BLITZER: That's going to be a tough sell, at least in part.

PRESTON: Yes. No doubt, going into 2018. Listen, soaring rhetoric from Paul Ryan saying that is going to be a generational defining moment. I would argue that happened back when President Trump was sworn into office. He talked about optimistic and we shouldn't live in fear. I would argue the country is living in fear right now. Not necessarily because of Paul Ryan but because of the leadership in the White House. And Republicans have a lot to do, as do Democrats, in the new year to try to restore trust.

BLITZER: I can only imagine how President Trump will respond once the House and Senate pass, he has the legislation, 570 pages, on his desk and he signs it.

STODDARD: It will be triumphant. They've been very frustrated all year to repeal and replace Obamacare. They needed to win. It's a big one. And the president is a salesman. He's going to call it a middle-class and go on and on. This is a big accomplishment and a big rescue for them.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: And it is a big accomplish. They were desperate to get a major legislative win. They are about to get it right now.

And our special coverage continues with Brooke Baldwin right here on CNN.

[14:00:10] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Wolf, I'll take it. Thank you so much. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Let's continuing carrying the torch here. And --