Fully expected him to return in the new year. This is about 25 minutes. Sen. Mcconnell i picked a heck of a week to have laryngitis. I probably talked more yesterday than i have any day this year. I apologize for sounding like donald duck. Ive my traveling close on, im ready to go to louisville, kentucky. I hope you all are headed in that direction as well. Youre welcome to come. [laughter] sen. Mcconnell this has been a year of extraordinary accomplishment by any objective standard. The Supreme Court justice, 50 years old, extraordinarily wellqualified if his health holds out he will be there for a long time. The u. S. Circuit court system was set up in 1891, working with the administration we have confirmed 12 circuit judges that is the most in the first year of any Administration Since 1891. We just completed comprehensive tax reform and there is nothing more challenging than that which is why we have not done it in 31 years. This particular effort was even more challenging because 31 years ago there was a bipartisan agreement that it was a good thing to do. I remember i just got here, i was a backbencher not having much influence on the process. Dick gephardt was for it, bill bradley was for it, at the end it past by a significant majority. Going into this year, there would have been the opportunity for it to be done on that kind of basis as well. Whatever hope i had for that faded when i got a letter from all but three of the Senate Democrats before the august recess, describing what they thought comprehensive tax reform was about. It had little relationship to what we felt the country needed in order to get growing again. You of heard the arguments, so youre probably tired of hearing them. The problem was america was underperforming. Not a single year of 3 growth during the obama years. We attributed that to excessive regulation and a failure to address the tax code. This administration, working through the congressional review act, repealed 15 of the obama era regulations and by the appointments they made, confirmed by the senate, again to put new kinds of people at the fcc, at the fda, and all of these agencies, that can slow an economy by excessive regulation. We believe a combination of regulatory relief and comprehensive tax reform, particularly the business side of tax reform, making american businesses more competitive, making it less likely jobs will be offshore is the way to get the economy going again. You heard all the predictions about how corporations would react to this. Early indications are with at least 11 announcements so far, that employees are going to benefit from this wide array of different ways, led by at ts announcement they were going to give 200,000 of their employees a thousand dollar bonus for christmas. That is not all we did this year. The National Defense authorization act, which authorizes the kind of spending the Defense Department needs to continue to carry out its mission. We addressed the Opioid Crisis again on the heels of what we did in the Previous Congress with the 21st century cures act and the opioid bill. We passed several veterans bills, two budgets, disaster relief, fda reauthorization. None of those make big headlines because many of them are not controversial. It is part of doing the job we were sent here to do. I feel good about this year. I think we have made a difference for the country in beginning to move it right of center, which was the opportunity presented to us by the american people. With that, i will be happy to take your questions. You and the president have both talked about 2018 being a year of more bipartisanship. What areas do you see as right for bipartisanship and have you had conversation with your democratic counterparts and do they share your view . Sen. Mcconnell this year was pretty partisan. Most of the things ive mentioned were done on a partisan basis. Theres not much you can do on a partisan basis in the senate. It is 5248 or 5149, which will be the number for us next year. I do not think most of our democratic colleagues want to do nothing. There are areas where we can get bipartisan agreement. Let me give you examples. The chairman has come up with a revisitation of doddfrank to give some relief to smaller Financial Institutions who are the Collateral Damage of doddfrank. They had nothing to do with 2008. It has a lot of democratic cosponsors. Does anyone know, 10 or 12 . 10. Sen. Mcconnell 10. You can do the math. That is an item i am certain we will call up. We have an agreement to address the daca issue and there is a working group composed of people of widely diverse views on immigration. I have said to them, if they can come up with an agreement, that the administration is comfortable with, that includes people on our side with different points of view. We will devote floor time to that in january. We are going to be looking for areas of bipartisan agreement because that is the way the senate is. There are only a few narrow exceptions to that principle in the senate. Nominations and reconciliation, that is about it. Otherwise, you need to have some kind of bipartisan cooperation. You talked about the president being new at this. Youve gotten a lot more done in the back half of the year. What do you think he has learned about working with the senate, what have you learned about working with this president and the white house that has changed over the course of the year . Sen. Mcconnell we established a good working relationship. You could sense this tax exercise brought everybody together, because we knew we were not going to have any support on the other side. We Work Together seamlessly and i think we go into the new year with a high level of confidence and our ability to Work Together with the administration and to have similar priorities. Much was made in the closing days about addressing military spending, maybe lifting those defense sequester caps. We know that spending has been a problem since 2011. If there was a path to do it, that wouldve been lifted at that time. Why do you think theres a chance to do that in the new year, and if not, what happens . Sen. Mcconnell earlier this year, we did break out of the 5050 symmetrical approach to this that our colleagues on the other side have been insisting on, that whatever dollar you increase defense beyond the sequester you have to increase domestic by a dollar. We broke out of that in the summer, and i hope we can continue. Defense has been hit harder by the budget control act then than domestic programs. I think there is an urgency there. It is not that we do not intend to help on the domestic side, but i hope our friends will recognize that defense has a greater need and was further behind as a result of the sequester. In the summer, you had a tense period with the president. He criticized you. You had a widely reported, tense phone call in august. How has your relationship evolved since that point what was that point like . When youve spoken to the president , has he ever brought up his concerns about the russia investigation . Sen. Mcconnell regarding the president s twitter habits, ive not been a fan until this week. [laughter] mcconnell i am warming up to the tweets. Regarding russia, i do not have any observations. Other than the information released last night, what is the senate doing to address Sexual Harassment . Sen. Mcconnell amy and Richard Shelby are coming up with proposals to make improvements and we look forward to getting the recommendations and we are addressing it on a bipartisan recommendation. House Speaker Paul Ryan is holding listening sessions with members, he is making this a priority. Is there anything similar you are doing . Sen. Mcconnell we already passed earlier a requirement for mandatory training. I did that yesterday. We are moving forward aggressively to see what our shortcomings are and to address them. At least one member of your conference wants to take another shot at repeal and replace. Senator graham. What are your thoughts on launching another reconciliation vehicle to address that. Sen. Mcconnell i wish that well i wish them well. The grahamcassidy proposal they wish to continue to work on my view on that is as soon as we have the votes to achieve it, i would like to do that. The only observation i made yesterday that you may be referring to is 5149 is a tight majority. I would love to be able to make more substantial changes to obamacare than we have. It is important to note that the individual mandate tax is gone when the president signs the bill, as i understand he may do today. The requirement that people may buy insurance that they do not want and do not need. That was one of the pillars of obamacare and we have gotten rid of that. I would love to see other changes. We are going to be moving to bills that have enough votes to pass. I encourage senator graham and senator cassidy to keep working on it they are enthusiastic. Speaker ryans been talking about welfare reform, entitlement reform, what is your outlook for that on the Senate Agenda . Sen. Mcconnell the president , the speaker, and i are going to be meeting the first week of january to see about what we think the top priority items are for next year. Here is my only observation about entitlement reform. I have been here a while. The only time we have been able to do that has been on a bipartisan basis. It was a long time ago. It was Ronald Reagan and tip oneill raising the age for social security, and that was before i got here. It has been a while. The sensitivity of entitlements and such that you have to have a bipartisan agreement to achieve a result is a desperately needed thing. Ive been talking about it for years. We had a missed opportunity during the obama years when we had a divided government, like we did with reagan, to address the longterm unsustainability of our most popular programs who do not meet the demographics of the country in the future. It requires a bipartisan, sincere agreement to tackle it. Those pieces would have to be in place for it to be successful. Specifically welfare reform . Sen. Mcconnell the speaker and the president and i will talk about this area in a couple weeks and we will have more to say about what the agenda is then. Going into 2018, what kind of message would you send to folks like steve bannon, who might try to nominate candidates in these elections who might be more extreme than you are hoping, hoping to hold onto a narrow majority . Sen. Mcconnell youre familiar that in 2010 and 2012, and at least four places, we, as a result of being passive in primaries, had nominees who cannot appeal to a general election audience. That is four seats. In 2014, we change the model, the business plan. We continued with a different approach in 2016. What was the difference . We did not nominate people who cannot win. We took the senate in 2014 and we held it in 2016. When most thought we would not. The approach in 2018 will be the same. I and people who are allied with me want to nominate people who can actually win. People are tired of hearing me say this. People that win elections make policy and the others go into Something Else go home and into another line of work. We are going to be supporting people who can actually win. How many contests will be between wellfunded people who are losers and can win is hard to predict because recruiting season is not over. We have great candidates out there and you are familiar with them. Josh holly. We hope to land a few more in the coming weeks. I think were going to be very competitive. Do you blame steve bannon for doug jones being elected in alabama . Sen. Mcconnell let me say this. The political genius on display, throwing away a seat in the reddest state in america, is hard to ignore. Do we have your thoughts on senator mccain . Sen. Mcconnell the finest person i have served with in my time here. The person for whom i have the greatest admiration. We are watching him fight his way through this Health Care Struggle with great admiration, and we fully expect to have him back after the first of the year. The tax bill adds 1. 5 trillion to the deficit. A budget tax bill is expected next year without offsets. Are you concerned about the impact on the deficit . Sen. Mcconnell i believe that the budget that bob corker and pat toomey negotiated, which allowed that deficit will be closed if we can grow the economy fourtenths of one percent over the next 10 years. That will close that gap. I do not believe it is going to be a deficit. I believe it will be at least revenue neutral. If the economy responds in the way we believe it is about to, and there are signs that is happening already, i do not think we will have any trouble closing that gap. What is on the tax forecast for next year, what kind of policy are you going to be looking to pass . Extenders, disaster funding . Sen. Mcconnell there are a number of yearend things that were not addressed yesterday that we will have to turn to in january, and we will work most of those out on a bipartisan basis. That is what we need to pass. On immigration, do you personally support a pathway to citizenship for dreamers, particularly if it is paired with Border Security or other measures . Sen. Mcconnell youre asking me . I think you are familiar with the fact that im supportive of Legal Immigration. The secretary of transportation came here at age eight, not speaking a word of english. Among many other aspiring immigrants, has realized the american dream. There are improvements we can make in the Legal Immigration system and what i hope comes out of this we have been gridlocked on this issue for years what i hope comes out of the opportunity the president has given us by saying you have six months to readdress the daca issue, which most of us feel needs to be redressed, to improve the Legal Immigration system. One thing i do think needs to be fixed is chain migration. I am prepared to look to this working group with grassley and durbin and flake and different people of different points of view to come up with something that improves where we are, solves the daca problem, and once they can do that, and the president is open to this as well, we do not want to just spin our wheels and have nothing solves the daca problem, and to show for it, then i have said this to my colleagues, we will spend time on that in january. Would you like to see the Senate Intelligence committees wrap up the Russian Investigation well before the midterm elections, so it does not become a part of the campaign . Sen. Mcconnell i would like to see them wrap up when they finish. I trust senator burr and senator warner to do our part. There are other people doing other things, but our part is the investigation and whatever recommendations they can make to come out of it or findings they conclude. It is not up to me to say when it is over. It is up to them to say when it is over. I hope that at the end we have a bipartisan report. If it is partisan, i do not think anyone will give it any credibility. I hope those guys will Stay Together and tell us what happened and what we need to do to prevent it from happening again. Do you have any plans to visit maralago over the holidays . Sen. Mcconnell no. [laughter] mcconnell the closest i am going is to a bowl game in jacksonville on january 30. That is as close as i will get. I will take one more. What is the likelihood that daca can be wrapped up by the time the government runs out of money again, and you can avoid this bloody fight . Sen. Mcconnell there is not that much of an emergency. The president has given us until march. I dont think democrats will wait that long. Schumer is trying to use that as leverage. Sen. Mcconnell schumer will try to push it forward and i understand that, but there is no emergency until march. We will keep talking about it and hopefully get to an outcome. Merry christmas everyone, it was great to see you all today, and i will not miss you for at least 10 days. [laughter] do you have a good Christmas Bourbon to recommend from kentucky . Sen. Mcconnell it is all good. It makes the holidays so much better. [laughter] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] joined us this evening for American History television in primetime. Ouris part of the cspan t cities with a focus on religion, at 8 p. M. Eastern over on cspan3. Eve, the debate on the merits of capitalism versus socialism. A New York Times columnist moderates the event, held at Cooper Union Great hall in new york city, at 6 3 zero p. M. Eastern on sunday. Also on sunday is the dedication ceremony for the museum of the bible in washington dc. Mayorrs include the d. C. And israeli ambassador to the united states. Starting at 9 50 p. M. Eastern on cspan. This week, the 29th anniversary of the 10 am flight 103 bombing was marked by a ceremony at Arlington National ceremony, with remarks by attorney general Jeff Sessions and family members of the victims. 103 from london to new york city was destroyed by a terrorist bomb over scotland, killing 270. This is just short of 90 minutes. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] welcome and thank you all for coming to the 29th Anniversary Service membrane pan am flight 103