order to achieve what he wanted to achieve. so there was actually a strategic reason to want health care first. without that, it takes tax reform a heavier lift than it would have been. caitlin, dealing with all this as a breaking story today, have you had time to count up the tally what this means? i should say the toll what this has done to the celebration today? i think it is a major blow. there s no way else to describe it. trump campaigned as the master negotiator that could go in there and get things done. he said that he left everything on the field on the table. but you know, he didn t really sell the merits of this law. he campaigned or sold it, pitched it in political terms. saying vote for this or else. you campaigned on repealing and replacing obamacare. it is it. didn t really convey 0 people why they should support what was in the law, the substance of the bill. and it was very unpopular. health care as we were talking about before is a very personal issue for people.
support. problem is, when it comes to personal taxes, there s no agreement on whether they should be lower or higher. and how that affects the deficit. it may not be comprehensive tax reform. but there may be small incremental wins you can have. this is hard. it doesn t happen that often. caitlin, we will talk to actual americans in the days and weeks and months to come. the president right now stands at 37%. we don t know if that move, if that s going to migrate north or south as a result of this. do you think his base has no base as to their willingness to forgive and get on with things and do you think this will be the next agenda, tax reform, infrastructure, the southern border wall, and well, the biggest question is when do his supporters start to leave him. they ve been very loyal
with us here tonight, caitlin huey-burns of real clear politics and our own ali velshi about whom i have to say you came here from tonight s showing of hamilton. so officially you have seen is the heights of democracy and welcome to the depths of democracy. we ve seen it all. give us a preview because while it is not a catch fire topic, tax reform. yeah. is about to enter our vocabulary and about to be sold to the kind folks watching tonight. it s really hard. it s great that steve mnuchin says it will be an easier lift. yes says that, there s some parts of reform that have bipartisan support. it tends to be that to do with corporatetachs. you ll hear it said america has the highest corporate taxes in the developed world. it s not true because of all the loopholes we re not that high. they want to get it lower to 15 to 20%. it s the only area where they might get some democratic
meantime, donald trump continues to maintain his frontrunner status in iowa with a q poll showing trump in first place with 27%, ben carson at 21%, ted cruz at 9%. jeb bush at 6%. and carly fiorina, marco rubio and john kasich each with 5%. joining me now with analysis is caitlin huey burns of real clear politics and from charlottesville, university of virginia politics professor larry sabato. so, professor, the headline for you from these polls is what? hillary dropping like stone. trump maintaining altitude. and, look, both are very significant because, remember, hillary s biggest problem may not be on the plate yet, which could be joe biden s entry. there are a lot of people betting he won t enter but no knows. every day is different and who knows how wakes up on the day he makes that decision.
through iowa and new hampshire is very different this cycle because there are so many candidates. but it is a really important test of campaign infrastructure organization and all of those important items. how does jeb bush get out of the cellar? he has literally lost so much support. donald trump keeps calling him low energy. he is living up to donald trump s name-calling. how does he get out of that? he will have to use his money. he has got more money than anybody. assuming trump doesn t really dip deep into his fortune. and he is also going to have to rely on bush world, which is this enormous network of republicans in every state, they have been around since the elder bush s career. but even then, it s going to be tough, eric. he has fallen far. many, many people say they will not vote for him, under any conditions. and only scott walker seems to have collapsed more than jeb bush has. all right. we re going to have to leave it right there. caitlin and larry, thank you very m