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Transcripts For CNNW CNN Town Hall Paul Ryan 20170113

republican from wisconsin. i want to welcome you from around the world. we are being seen on cnn, cnn in espanol and international. welcome to those listening on the radio network and cnn channel 116 on sirius xm and as if that weren't enough, hello to service men and women watching right now on the american forces network. thank you for your service and thanks for joining us. it is eight days until donald trump takes the oath of office to be the next president of the united states. the republicans control congress and soon the white house. speaker ryan has not always seen eye to eye with the president-elect. he is emphasizing his better way agenda for the path ahead that covers key issues that impact the lives of all americans. jobs, the economy, national security, tax reform and of course repealing president obama's health care law. we invited folks from all over the country to pose questions to speaker ryan and reviewed them to make sure we cover a variety of important issues and a variety of perspectives. there was not one subject that was off limits. join me now in welcoming the speaker of the house, paul ryan. >> hey, everybody. how are you doing? >> have a seat. >> thanks for being here. the number one issue is the repeal of obamacare. the senate passed the first measure to begin the process. the house is going to do that tomorrow. we have lots of questions on obamacare and a lot of other issues. i want to start with a question about health care. during the campaign, donald trump was asked about health care on 60 minutes and said "this is an unrepublican thing for me to say, but everybody has to be covered." when he was asked who is going to pay for it, he said the government is going to pay for it. do you share that philosophy at all that the government should guarantee insurance? >> i think we all have to be a part of it. i think there is a role for health care, no doubt about it. let me say this. i believe we can and should have a system where everybody can have access to affordable health care including people with preexisting conditions. that's not what this law is doing. it is failing on that front and there is a much better system that can be put in its place. i don't want you want me to get into this because i'm sure there are questions. obamacare came in with fanfare and promise. if you like your plan you can keep it. that was proven the lie of the year. it was going to lower premiums $2500. they skyrocketed since then. remember you will have all these choices. five states and you only have one choice. 31% of all the counties in america, one choice. that's a monopoly. the problem is the premiums are so high and deductibles are higher. the law is collapsing. we have got to rescue people from the collapsing of this law and fix this problem. that's what i would love to engage in and i know you have questions. >> absolutely. >> you mentioned preexisting continues. i know you want to engage. jeff is from sedona, arizona. he was a lifelong republican and something happened. >> come back. >> i was a republican and i worked for the reagan and bush campaigns. just like you, i was opposed to the affordable care act. when it was passed, i told my wife we would close our business before i complied with this law. then at 49, i was given weeks to live with a curable type of cancer. we offered three times the cost of my treatments which was rejected. they required an insurance card. thanks to the affordable care act, i'm standing here today alive. being both a small business person and someone with preexisting conditions, i rely on the affordable care act to be able to purchase my own insurance. why would you repeal the affordable care act without a replacement? >> we wouldn't do that. we want to replace it with something better. first of all, i'm glad you are standing here. really. >> can i say one thing, i hate to interrupt. i want to thank president obama from the bottom of my heart because i would be dead if it weren't for him. par you mentioned you come from arizona? >> sedona. >> sure. our old city manager was a manager down in sedona now. >> my family is from janesville. >> really? >> what's your last name? >> jeans. kraft was my grandfather. >> we digress. arizona. this year the premium increases for people on obamacare is 116%. oklahoma 69%. tennessee 63%. minnesota 59%. the problem is these increases were double-digit last year and really high this year. this thing is collapsing. do we want to make sure that a person like yourself with preexisting conditions gets affordable care? of course. of course. there is a better way to fix that problem without giving everybody else all these increases. the did you ductible is so high it doesn't feel like insurance anymore. go to our website and take a look at our plan. let me give you a few ideas. we believe that state high risk pools are a smarter way of guaranteeing coverage for people with preexisting conditions. we had a good one in wisconsin. utah had a great one. we had a congresswoman from washington saying how good their state high risk pool is. what i mean is about 8% of all the people under 65 have that kind of preexisting condition. my mother-in-law had cancer, melanoma in her 20s and breast cancer in her 50s and ovarian in her 60s. people just have these things. we don't want people to go poor or bankrupt because this happens to them. we want to have a system where they can get affordable coverage without going bankrupt because they get sick. we can do that without destroying the health care system for everybody else. that's the point i'm trying to make. what we should have done is fix what was broken without breaking what was working and that's what obamacare did. by financing state i had risk pools to guarantee people get affordable coverage when they have a preexisting condition like yourself, you are dramatically lowering the price for everybody else. if we say as taxpayers and i agree with this, finance the coverage for those 8% of americans under 65 in the condition like yours, they don't have to be covered or paid for by their small business or insurer who is buying the rates for the rest of the people in their insured pool and lower the price for the other 92% of americans. let's fix that so that everybody else can get more competitive rates and don't have to pay for insurance to cover for those really expensive people. the problem with obamacare, it's called a death spiral and a gruesome term. it's a mathematical term when the insurance gets so expensive, healthy people don't buy it. it's a trade off. the penalty to not buy it is a lot cheaper so healthy people won't participate in the pool to cover the losses that sicker people who have to have it buy it. that's what's happening to obamacare now. you have unhealthy people buying it and healthy people not buying it. that's why all the insurers are calling out. think about last year united pulled out of obamacare. aetna pulled out of obamacare. states are down to one insurer. over 1,000 counties are down to one insurer and they are getting double-digit increases because they have a monopoly. clearly that's not working. the worst is yet to come. insurers are going to pull out of whole states. we have to step in front of this problem. as republicans we can just sit back and watch it all happen and say look what the democrats did. that would be irresponsible to do. we have to step in and rescue people from the collapse of this law. there are good objectives that they sought to achieve. we think young people should be able to stay on their parents's plan until they are 26. there needs to be a solution which we have for people with preexisting conditions. we want more choices. lower prices and more competition and no monopolies. that's what we want to replace it with. >> i'm sorry to interrupt. there are other questions about obamacare and you want to get to them, but to put a point on this, one of the things that jeff was asking is you have begun the process of repealing obamacare. is the process of replacing it going to coincide? >> yes. without getting all the legislative mumbo jumbo, we want to do this at the same time. in some cases the same bill. we want to advance repealing the law with its replacement at the same time along the lines of what i described. people are not buying insurance. if you get it, the deductible is so high, the out of pockets are so unaffordable. we have to fix that problem. >> thank you for a lot of people. >> maybe not in january. >> i want to introduce you to don jones. an officer with the u.s. navy from huntingtown, maryland. >> as much as i'm for affordable health care, i don't think obamacare is hitting the mark. for example, college age children who are healthy are required to obtain health care but they don't have the money to pay for it. what can congress do to help them get affordable health care or opt out of it for those who cannot afford it? >> what's happening more and more these days because obamacare is so expensive are the healthier people are not buying it and they are going without insurance. the part of the law that is counterproductive in this way is you can wait until you get sick and get the insurance without a penalty. that's why they had the government-run system that is collapsing. we believe the right way to go. our plan is the refundable tax credits to buy affordable coverage. a young person, maybe a person in college that didn't stay on their papers's plan that doesn't have a tax liability, you get that rarlz of how much money you make. total the subsitty in law is you get to exclude it from your income. what we are saying is the person in the highest income bracket get the biggest tax break for health care. that's not who you struggling to pay for it. we want to make sure that we have tax credits so everybody can buy it. go buy a plan of their choosing. we don't want to make people buy something that we don't want to buy. we don't want them to force them to buy all these benefits. they want the choices that they want and the options they want and more important low we want competition. we don't want one insurer in one state. we want a lot of insurers competing for our business as consumers. this is the real big problem with obamacare. they basically decided that they had the government run it and now it's a monopoly that is crashing. what we want to do is make sure that anybody, young person, old person, in between, gets a tax credit to buy a plan of their choosing among a lot of choices that are competing for their business. more competition means better quality and lower prices. we think health savings accounts are a critical piece of this. let people save tax-free or let employers or parents or whoever put money in a savings account to help them without of pocket costs or premiums. >> do you have a date to repeal and replace or just this year? >> i don't have a date, but we are working on it right now. we are working on this as fast as possible. we see this law collapsing faster this year and because we see more insurance companies pulling out and people with any or no choices and another round of increases, we feel we need to step in and provide better choices and options. >> first 100 days. >> it's definitely a plan to get moving. >> i want to introduce you to sherry rigs who didn't vote because she was recovering from a heart attack. one point i want to make is this fits in with what you were saying and what you are about to be asked. medicate was expanded in o damma care. a lot of people who are lower income who wonder whether they are on medicaid or not. >> where are you from? >> florida. you want to give tax credits instead of insuring people. what if a person makes -- >> it's tax write offs to buy insurance. >> what if a person makes so little they don't have to pay taxes. will they still have access to the federal health care? >> that's what we are going to say here. the tax credit, the way we say refundable, you get it whether you pay taxes or not. it's like a voucher to buy health insurance. for medicaid, some states do a great job and some not as well. the problem we are seeing in medicaid is more and more doctors don't take it because they lose money. it's so overregulated and bureaucratic that physicians won't take the patients and our concern is that people on medicate can't get a doctor and if you can't get a doctor, what good is your coverage? we think there are a lot of good recoveries. wisconsin has done good reforms to make sure people get good coverage and get access to care and get doctors that will take that care. we want more solutions to make sure that coverage works. you are right on the numbers. about 10 million people got it on medicaid. there are $11.5 million that got health care on obamacare. at this time it was supposed to have 23 million people. it's $11 million instead of $23 million. the problem is more and more people are getting a plan they can't use because their deductible is so high or we have a medicate problem. we want to make sure states can innovate it to work for their citizens and they can get care. >> thank you so much. part of your plan for repealing obamacare is to defund planned parenthood. i want to bring in a physical therapy graduate student here at gw and wants to ask you about it. >> where are you from? >> it's complicated. i moved here for grad schedule, but i'm from northern california. among a lot of other things we have heard in the news, planned parenthood provides cervical cancer screenings and annual examinations and critical health care services and i will continue and i have used these services for the next four years. i can tell you personally that planned parenthood provided help when i couldn't go to anybody else. so my question for you, speaker ryan, is if planned parenthood is defunded, where will millions of low income groups go? >> it's a good question. i want to make sure you get the care you need. we want all women to get the care they need like preventive screening and services like you are talking about. we believe this can better be done boy putting money into federal community health centers. i have a lot of experience with them myself. by putting these dollars into the health centers that provide the same kinds of services for every planned parenthood there are 20 federal community health centers. they are bigger in network and so many more of them and they provide the services without all the controversy surrounding the issue. >> can i ask you, you believe in providing more choice for people when it am cans to health insurance except for planned parenthood. >> there is a long standing principle we believe in. this is for pro choice and pro life people that we don't want taxpayer funding for an abortion. they don't want it for an organization that provides abortions and we want to make sure people get their coverage. these doctors can go to centers that provide the services and have a larger network than the planned parenthood clinics that are surrounded by controversy and we don't want to commit taxpayer dollars they believe is morely unconscionable. that's a long standing principle we want to maintain. >> taxpayer dollars don't fund abortions. >> they get a lot of money and money is used and they use other money. they don't have this controversy by funding health centers. >> a lot of people want to ask you about medicare. your plans for medicare. donald trump during the campaign said about you you want to knock medicare way down. >> and i'm going to let you respond. he said i'm not going to cut it and raise ages and i'm not going to do all the things that they, meaning you, want to do. you say medicare needs to be changed or it won't survive. what are you going to say to president-elect trump to change his mind? >> we had a couple conversations about it. we don't all agree on everything. i think people know that. here's the issue with medicare. more than half the money is money we borrow. medicare goes bankrupt in the next decade. medicare along with social security are the two most important they have. after my dad died, we were living on medicare and social security. i watched that program do amazing things for my family. know that we want to be successful. if we want that was coming. the kinds of reforms that we have been pushing for and talking about are reforms designed to save the program. they are before choices. here's the thing. if we can improve medicare for the next generation for the tapper and ryan generation on down, we don't have to change the benefits in or near retirement and we can continue to afford the cash flow for the promise that has been made to them. there is no way on the current path we are on medicare will be for our generation when we retire. we better be prepared to fix the problem while it is solvable without affecting the choices like my mom. that's something that we had to own up to in this country. it's the biggest part of the debt crisis in the future. this is something we had to deal with. if you want to choose from the list of competing health plans that are comprehensive that are guaranteed and that was like federal employees, you should choose that too. if you like your plan you can keep the plan. that choice has been proven. you will hear this thing. it has been proven to drive down costs. it makes those insurers compete for our business. >> we will take a quick break. russia's hacking and what will congress do about it with speaker paul ryan. we are live from the george washington university. stay with us. bl e over but if you hurry, you can still get the best deals on the best network. like verizon's best smartphones for only $10 per month. like the samsung galaxy s7. the pixel, phone by google. or the motoz droid. for only $10 per month. plus, hurry in and switch to verizon now and get up to $650 to cover your costs. there's still time to get amazing deals at verizon. tech: at safelite, we know how busy your life can be. mom: oh no... tech: this mom didn't have time to worry about a cracked windshield. so she scheduled at safelite.com and with safelite's exclusive "on my way text" she knew exactly when i'd be there, so she didn't miss a single shot. i replaced her windshield giving her more time for what matters most. tech: how'd ya do? 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(team sing) safelite repair, safelite replace. wis that they contourt tempur-peto your body.s... it keeps us comfortable and asleep at night. start the new year off right with the best sleep of your life. buy your tempur-pedic now for as low as $25 a month and a 90-night free trial. call or click today. yet up 90% fall short in getting key nutrients from food alone. let's do more. add one a day men's complete with key nutrients we may need. plus heart-health support with b vitamins. one a day men's in gummies and tablets. like bundling home and auto coverage, which reduces redney. tape, which saves money. when they save, you save. that's home and auto insurance for the modern world. esurance, an allstate company. click or call. we are back live from the george washington university home of the colonials with speaker of the house, paul ryan. members of congress earlier today were briefed by top intelligence officials about the hacking activities by russia into the election. there are a lot of concerns among the american people about the russians. i want to turn to ray dafner, an independent voter from virginia. >> mr. speaker, my grandfather came from russia to the united states and his family had a pres prosperous business and they were forced to leave. that threatened not just their livelihood, but their life. putin's russia continued to treat citizens in an undemocratic way and worse. they imprisoned and assassinated their critics and assaulted their neighbors like ukraine and support our enemies and undermine our allies. most recently they interfered in our election with the hacking and possibly have attempted to black mail our highest officials. my question is what will you and what will congress do to help insure the safety of our democracy and specifically what will congress do to penalize putin and his government for their actions? >> i agree with your basic assessment. i think russia is a global menace led by a man who is menaci menacing. vladimir putin does not share our interests. he frustrates our interests. he violates his neighbors. he does all those things you say on free speech. he is not democratic. i really think a lot of the things he is doing is to try to delegitimize the other democracies so his illegitimate democracy doesn't look as illegitimate by comparison. he is doing this around the world. he is doing it in europe and capitals around the world. i do see and i call the russia hot. they call us these days. i share that concern. i think we have to step up our game on russia. i think we have to step up our game with confronting russia when they act like this and frustrate our interests. clearly and i do believe that they tried to affect our elections. i had no bearing. donald trump won it fair and square and clearly and convincingly, but the fact that a foreign government tried to meddle in another government's elections is wrong. i do think sanctions are called for. frankly the current policy had sanctions that were late late. they should have done it earlier. we had a bad russia policy and the reset was too much of an appeasement policy and i think we are now reaping the bad benefits. that's for sure across the board. >> ray alluded to it and you were briefed on it. they alerted the president-elect that there are claims by russians and claims that they have colors that could be compromising and they are communications between his campaign and the russian government. >> here's the question. donald trump said this is a political witch hunt and they are politicizing the intelligence. you have been privy to the most classified briefings. do you agree? >> i do not. >> what has been elevated is private opposition research done by a political opponent on completely unsubstantiated rumors that has been elevated and that is wrong. i don't want to conver any more legitimacy by talking about it. people have conplated this to think that it is somehow legitimate and it's a product of the intelligence committee and it's not. by including these things and merging these things it has given that misimpression. i think that's wrong. i don't think taking opposition research from a political opponent on rumors and combining it with intelligence was the right thing to do. >> so you take issue with the intelligence chiefs including the synopsis they tacked on? >> i won't comment what they did and don't get. i take issue with this being talked about because it's not worthy of media. i'm glad cnn didn't publish it, but some did. it's unsubstantiated. the russians are up to no good. we all know that. i don't think we should give any more credence to this. we have to make sure we do everything we can on cyber and all the other things that make sure you can't get this again. we have to help the allies and you agree to a degree at least with donald trump assessing that this is intelligence. i can't say who is politicizing it. i think that is wrong. when you are second in line, you get the same briefings. there are a lot of good men and women and they risk their lives to keep them safe. he will learn to appreciate the service and the value they have. i understand why he is frustrated. or days before the inauguration, this junk gets thrown out. >> what you were talking about donald trump winning, one of the reasons he won with the great state of pennsylvania a& go backers. that is the position on trade and it motivated a lot of voters. he is a tool and he runs that in pennsylvania. >> mr. speaker. i have concern about our trade deals. the unfair trade. we have lost in the past decade probably hundreds of jobs. our community lost thousands. these are good jobs with health care and retirement benefits. i actually started supporting and they started fixing the trade deals. without fixing these our country will not have the good paying jobs we need. my question to you is how will you as leader of the house help with this new administration fix these trade deals? >> it's a great question actually. we talked about this a lot. the president-elect and his team and myself about how we working to to do what you said. whenever i go to my kids a track meets, it's at monterey stadium. they look down and you see the end zone. this is now a four million square foot moth ball. we have experienced the same things you are talking about. we lost really good family supporting and there are a number of things we can and should do. this means getting countries to pay by our rules. they have a trade surplus. you have countries we don't have a massive deficit with. the secret to success is get agreements. of all the people who seceeded to the presidency, donald trump is that. i believe he has the tools and the skills to get good agreements to get other countries to play by our rules so we have a level playing field. point number two and i know you are walking towards me. our tax reform we think is critical. we hit our businesses so much more than foreign competitors hit theirs. the tax rate on businesses like tool and dye makers is 23%. if you are a corporation, pass through, top tax rate is 44.6%. or if you are a corporation, 35%. we are taxing our businesses at such higher tax rates than the others tax theirs. we have to get the tax rates down. all the other countries, all the other competitors have a tax system where they border adjust their taxes. when they make something to sell overseas, they take the tax off of it and it comes into america and it's tax-free. if we make something, we tax it and send it to those countries and they tax it. you have an example. >> if i may, when you talk about that, that to me just baffles me that we cannot fix that. we need to level the playing field between us and the largest trading partner, china without doing damage. obviously they need us and we do need them. >> i agree. >> without leveling the playing field, we can't compete. we cannot. >> something we are proud of in milwaukee, we make a hog in milwaukee and we send it to china. it is taxed in milwaukee and china taxes it going into the country. if they make a hog in china, it is taxed once and not twice like ours. if honda sends a motorcycle from tokyo into china, they take the tax off of it and it's taxed once. we are doing it to ourselves. that's confusing and the point i'm trying to say is let's level the playing field and do the same to us as we did to them. we take our tax off the exports and place it on imports, we are leveling the playing field and making china pay for our tax reform. i think that is one of the smartest things we can do to put american manufacturers and producers and products on a level playing field with the rest of the world to help us create more manufacturing jobs. >> thank you so much. i want to turn to another issue where mr. trump got a lot of support that is an issue where you are not necessarily on the same page. mr. trump's position on illegal immigration and reducing legal immigration as well. there are a lot of skeptics among his supporters of you and other republican establish types. >> they didn't used to call me republican establishment type until about a year ago. >> you are speaker of the house. you did it to yourself, man. marianne mendoza is a realitior from mesa, arizona and has a serious question about this. >> good evening, speaker ryan. my son brendan mendoza was a sergeant with mesa police department. he was killed on may 12th, 2014 by a-time legal limit drunk repeat illegal criminal who smashed head on in a violent collision to my son on his way home from work. we now have mayors creating sanctuary cities and using taxpayer money to protect these illegals. what do americans have? we have politicians protecting them and court systems that are allowing them to stay in our country and i would like to ask what child of yours would you choose to lose in order for illegals to stay here? that's the price i had to pay. i want to know how you are going to stand by our new president-elect ending sanctuary cities, securing our borders and building a wall and properly vetting refugees who are coming in to stop the assault on our country, our citizens and our economy. are you going to stand up for americans, speaker ryan? >> let me say i'm sorry for your loss. >> thank you. >> you made me think of a sheriff deputy in kenosha we lost the same way. multiple illegal immigrant drunk driving going down the interstate. it's awful. donald and i agree completely on that. there is no daylight between us on that. sanctuary cities are a violation of the rule of law and they are not to be tolerated. we agree with that 100%. you have to enforce the law. what the president-elect asked us to do is focus on two things with respect to the issue. we are getting congress working on that now. that is to secure the border and enforce our laws with respect to criminals who are illegal aliens. we 100% agree with that. we're a nation of laws that need to support the laws. we are now working on legislation to make sure that the resources are deployed to the border so they can get what they need to secure the border. i voted for this about years ago to secure the border and it never got done because of the past administration. we have a president who is serious about securing the border. what i amming you is we support and agree with that and not only that, we are working on how to execute that in the new congress. >> thank you. i want to say do you know how many lives have been lost by repeat criminals. if we don't have a wall and deport the criminals, they will keep coming back killing more of us. >> that is one of the two things he asked us to focus on. deporting violent criminals who are repeat evenoffenders. >> i want to bring in angelica villa lobos who lives in oklahoma city. she was brought in illegally from mexico at 11 years old. through no fault of her. please. >> thank you, speaker ryan. i'm undocumented and i have been like he mentioned, i live in the state of oklahoma and i'm here with one of my daughters, destiny. i have been in the united states for 21 years. i am protected from deportation because of the daca program. i applied with a background check and paid nearly $8,000 in fees. it is clear if daca gets repealed my daughter will lose her mother. i'm sorry. she will lose her mother and i want you to know that daca helped me. do you think that i should be deported and many families in my situation should? >> no. first of all i can see that you love your daughter and you are a nice person who has a great future ahead of you. i hope your future is here. i will even repeat the sentiment that our incoming president says. this is not the focus. what we have to do is find a way to make sure you can get right with the law and we have to do this in a good way so that the rug doesn't get pulled out from under you. that is what our president said he wants to do. i got married in oklahoma city. it's a great community. my wife is from that area. i'm sure you are a great contributor to that community and we don't want to see you get separated from your family. we have to figure out how to fix this. to do that people need to have confidence that our laws are being followed and we know who is coming and going and we have a secure border. what is really important for this issue to get fix and jake mentioned that i have a background, we have to make sure the laws are being enforced and we are controlling the border so violent criminals don't do these horrific things. we have a drug problem and a lot of problems. we have to secure the border. when people get confidence that the border is secured and the laws are being enforced, then i really believe the country, all people in the country will be in a much better position to fix the bigger problems. if you are worried about some deportation force knocking on your door, don't worry about that. >> for those of you who don't know, it's an executive action that president obama granted illegal status for individuals like angelica. if president-elect trump wants to undo daca, you would tell him don't do it? >> we have to come up with a solution for the daca kit. that's something we are working on. a humane solution. there is a constitutional solution which is president obama tried to write laws without going through congress. on the separation of powers, presidents don't write laws. congress writes laws. the legislative branch of government write the laws. this current president, president obama on many other occasions tried to go around congress to write laws which is not the power of the president. that is unconstitutional. you organize your life around this. you told us how important this is to you and your family. what we have to do is figure out how to have a humane solution to this sincere problem and respect the rule of law. >> the government has information about her now. will you introduce legislation to block it from being used to deport her? >> everybody thinks there is a deportation force. that's not happening. >> president-elect trump actually used the term. deportation force. that's why people think it. >> i know and i'm here to tell you it's not happening. what's happening is -- where did she go? what's happening is that's what he asked us about. secure the border and the people who are violent criminals who keep coming back in, we have to focus on that. >> we have to pay a couple of bills. coming up ahead, draping the swamp. is congress in step with the incoming president. we will have more with house speaker paul ryan. stay with us. picking up for kyle. here you go. you wouldn't put up with part of a pizza. um. something wrong? so when it comes to pain relievers, why put up with just part of a day? you want the whole thing? yes, yes! live whole. not part. aleve. youthat's why you drink ensure. sidelined. with 9 grams of protein and 26 vitamins and minerals. for the strength and energy to get back to doing... ...what you love. ensure. always be you. rex tillerson put exxon's interests before america's.. i'm not here to represent the us government's interest. instead, tillerson sided with putin. with billions in russian oil deals... he opposed us sanctions on russia... ...for war crimes forced to pay hundreds of millions for toxic pollution... ...putting profits ahead of our kid's health. tell your senators to reject rex tillerson. and protect american interests not corporate interests. of reach for far too long:s have health insurance.that's been out how? they enrolled through covered california. it's the health insurance marketplace where you'll find a range of plans from leading health insurance companies that offer you the best combination of quality, rates, and benefits. and, through covered california, you may get financial help to pay for coverage. to get covered, you've got to get going. open enrollment ends january 31st. visit covereca.com today. we're back live from the george washington university. our guest this evening speaker of the house paul ryan. we have more questions from the audience. mr. speaker, i want to bring in gail wilson, she grew up in texas and, would in washington in international development. she is a republican. >> since you've been elected to congress, your peers have looked at you as an expert on the budget. as the trump administration and their agenda increasing funding for infrastructure, building a wall among our southern border, and increasing the capacity of our military. all while simultaneously cutting taxes. do you believe that the agenda is fiscally solvent. >> yes, the tax reform we plan to be revenue neutral movieing to pay for itself. for taxes it's close loopholes and special interest carve outs meaning more money so we can be more competitive. the one provision i was telling the tool and dye maker raises revenue to help us lower the tax rates. the other mentioned things do cost money. we have to pay for those things. that's what our spring budget is going to do. there's a big infrastructure problem in this country whether it's canals, roads or bridges or rail or airports. that's a real problem. and we're going to have to come up with ways to pay for that. so nothing's free. and so we have to in our budget come up with other spending offsets to pay for those things. that's why we want to prioritize spending to do that. >> it is hard in d.c. sometimes we make decisions you don't think about the youth. >> cnn is reporting tonight the trump. >> that's why we need to growth in jobs. >> cnn is reporting tonight trump transition officials want your tax reform proposal that the congress is working on to include a champion championed by ivanka trump that would include a child care tax credit and six weeks of maternity leave. have you voted against paid parental leave in the past. will you support the ivanka effort getting into the bill? >> that's definitely something on the table. the ways and means commit which writes the tax laws will be looking at that. it's too soon to say what is in or not in a tax bill. >> so speaker ryan, i want to bring in greg gross. the context here is one of the first things that happened last week when you convened with the house republican caucus. as they against your wishes wanted to gut, undermine, weaken the office of congressional ethics. that alarmed a lot of people including president-elect trump who said it shouldn't be a priority who want to drain the swamp. sir? >> thank you. one of the things that this election has demonstrated to democrats and republicans is that the a lot of americans don't trust their representatives in washington into do you think? >> and it explains a lot. donald trump pledged among other things during the campaign to in his words drain the swamp of corruption then just before the election he offered a series of ethics reform proposals, three directed at congress. one was a five-year ban on lobbying by members of congress and their staffs after they leave the government. >> in the administration, right. >> well, for congress he said. he also called for eliminating the loopholes in the definition of what is a lobbyist under the law under the federal lobbyist disclosure act. third thing was a congressional term limits. impose a constitutional amendment to impose term limits. that's been here for 20 years as a proposal. >> right. >> i worked in the u.s. senate as a chief of staff for several senators. i know how difficult these problems can be, especially the broader issue of trust. do you support these three specific proposals that's the five-year ban on former members of congress and their staffs lobbying after they leave government, that's for congress, not the executive branch. second thing is expanding definition of lobbyist under the law. the third is the amendment on term limits and then what else would you do beyond that to restore trust. >> let me get to the point he made. this is kind of an obscure agency that can make anonymous people can make allegations with no due process and you have no right to confront your accuser. so there are a lot of people in congress who are concerned that unsubstantiated allegations are being elected against them. they didn't know who they were and didn't have an opportunity to confront the accuser. there's a legitimate problem with that. i did not think this was the time to be dealing with that. we have more important issues and that's not one of them to your point, i agree with term limits. i think term limits is a smart thing to do. it should be uniform across -- we shouldn't have just term limits for wisconsin and illinois. the only way to do that is a constitutional amendment. i've long supported it for term limits. it freshens the system. we imposed term limits within congress on our critical positions like our chairmanmanships. we rotate people through so they can't be in the same job in congress because we term limit our people. i've always liked the terp limit proposal. on the lobbyist thing, some reforms are a little more complicated than they seem. do i think a person shouldn't leave right away and go into lobbying? yes, i agree. they should not do that. but what if you want to become an advocate for the cancer society? what if you want to after you retire help your local lopt system and be on their board to support them and go get legislation? there are a lot of other unseen circumstances that can play into this and you've got to be careful about that. when people leave congress, what's wrong with them advocating for causes that they believe in? so the question is, are they going to get rich and shill for a company? that is something that is an issue that needs to be dealt with. we do ban it. the question is should we lengthen the ban. that's the question. i don't think we should tell men and women we want a citizen legislature take a time out of your private life and come and serve and then go back into private life and you can't get engaged in civics. i don't think that's a good idea. >> he's got one more point. when we come back, how will donald trump's tweeting habits affect u.s. policy? stay with us. (vo) the holidays may be over but if you hurry, you can still get the best deals on the best network. like verizon's best smartphones for only $10 per month. like the samsung galaxy s7. the pixel, phone by google. or the motoz droid. for only $10 per month. plus, hurry in and switch to verizon now and get up to $650 to cover your costs. there's still time to get amazing deals at verizon. i discovered a woman my family tree, named marianne gaspard. i became curious where in africa she was from. so i took the ancestry dna test to find out more about my african roots. ancestry really helped me fill in a lot of details. when it comes to heartburn... trust the brand doctors trust. nexium 24hr is the #1 choice of doctors and pharmacists for their own frequent heartburn. for all day and all night protection... banish the burn... with nexium 24hr. rex tillerson put exxon's interests before america's.. i'm not here to represent the us government's interest. instead, tillerson sided with putin. with billions in russian oil deals... he opposed us sanctions on russia... ...for war crimes forced to pay hundreds of millions for toxic pollution... ...putting profits ahead of our kid's health. tell your senators to reject rex tillerson. and protect american interests not corporate interests. heavy, labored breathing heavy, labored breathing coughing breathing through oxygen mask breathing through oxygen mask breathing through oxygen mask breathing through oxygen mask covered california. it's more than just health care. it's life care. welcome back. cnn is live tonight at the george washington university with one week till the inauguration of donald trump. house speaker paul ryan is our guest. i see you got your packer pin on. >> you bet i do. >> but i do want to turn to one serious question. obviously, the nation is in the throes of an opioid epidemic. i want to introduce you to craig moss from upstate new york to join us tonight. he's attended more than 40 trump rallies during the campaign. >> hello. i lost my son, rob j.r. moss three years ago to a heroin

Transcripts For CNNW CNN Town Hall Paul Ryan 20170113

enough, hello to the servicemen and servicewoman men watching on the american forces network. thank you for your service, by the way, and thanks for joining us. it is eight days until donald trump takes the oath of office to become the next president of the united states. the republicans control congress, and soon, the white house but speaker ryan has not always seen eye to eye with the president elect. he's been emphasizing his better way agenda for the path ahead. it covers key issues that directly impact the lives of all americans, jobs, the economy, national security, tax reform and of course, repealing president obama's health care law. now we have invited folks from all over the country to pose their questions to speaker ryan and we have reviewed questions to make sure we cover a variety of important issues and perspectives but there was not one subject off limits. please join me now in welcoming the speaker of the house paul ryan. [ applause ] >> jake, everybody, how you doing? hey. >> thank you, sir. good to see you as always. >> thank you. >> have a seat. >> hi, everybody. [ applause ] >> thanks so much for being here. the number one issue right now on capitol hill is the repeal of obama care. the senate passed the first measure to begin the process. the house is going to do that tomorrow. we have lots of questions in obama care, a lot of other issues. i want to start with one philosophical question about health care. during the campaign, donald trump was asked about health care on "60 minutes." he said quote this is an unrepub for me to say. he said quote the government will pay for it. do you share that philosophy at all that the government should guarantee health care, health insurance for every american? >> i don't see it as the government having to pay for it. i think we all have to contribute. there is a role in government for it, no doubt about it. let me say this, i believe we can and should have a system in this country where everybody can have access to affordable health care, including people with preexisting conditions, no matter how much money they make. that's not what this law is doing. this law is failing on that front. and i think there is a much, much better system that can be put in its place. i don't know how long you want me to get into this because i'm sure there is questions, but obama care came in with fanfare and promise. if you like your plan, you can keep it. that was proven the lie of the year at the time. it was going to lower premiums $2500. they skyrocketed since then. remember you're going to have all these choices. five states, you only have one choice. 31% of all the counties in america, one choice. that's not a choice that's a monopoly. and the problem is the premiums are going so high and deducti e deductibles are going higher. the law is collapsing. we have to rescue people from the collapsing of this law and fix the problem. that's what i would love to engage in and i know you got questions -- >> i know -- >> there is a lot to do to fix this problem. >> you mentioned preexisting problems. let me introduce you and please get up because i know you want to engage. jeff jeans is from arizona. he was a life-long republican and then something happened, jeff? >> come back. [ laughter ] >> i was a republican and i worked for the regan and bush campaigns. just like you, i was opposed to the affordable care act. when it was passed, i told my wife we would close our business before i compile with this law. then at 49, i was given six weeks to live with a very curable type of cancer. we offered three times the cost of my treatments, which was rejected. they required an insurance card. thanks to the affordable care act, i'm standing here today alive. being both a small business person and someone with preexisting conditions, i rely on the affordable care act to be able to purchase my own insurance. why would you repeal the affordable care act without a replacement? >> oh, we wouldn't do that. we want to replace it with something better. first of all, i'm glad you're standing here. [ laughter ] [ applause ] >> really, seriously. >> can i -- >> really. >> can i say one thing? i hate to interrupt you. can i say one thing? >> yeah. >> i want to thank president obama from the bottom of my heart because i would be dead if it weren't for him. [ applause ] >> you mentioned you come from arizona? >> sedona. >> sure. >> my family is originally from janesville? >> really? >> yeah, what's your last name again? >> jeans, like blue jeans, craft was my grandfather buried there. >> we digressed here. arizona, this year the premium increases for people on obama care 116%. oklahoma 69%. tennessee 63%. minnesota 59%. the problem is these increases were double digit last year, they are really high this year. this thing is collapsing. so do we want to make sure that a person with, like yourself, with a preexisting condition gets affordable care? of course. of course. there is a better way to fix that problem without giving everybody else all these massive premium increases. the deductibles are so high it doesn't feel like you got insurance anymore. we, obviously, i would encourage you to go to our website and look at the plan but let me give you a few ideas. we believe state high risk pools are a smarter way of guaranteeing coverage for people with preexisting conditions. we had a really good one in wisconsin. utah had a great one. i was talking with a congresswoman from washington today who was telling me how good their state high risk pool is. what i mean when i say this, about 8% of all the people under 65 have that kind of preexisting condition. my mother-in-law, cancer, she had melanoma in her 20s, breast cancer in her 50s, ovarian cancer in her 60s. people just have these things. and we don't want people to go poor or bankrupt because this thing happens to them. so we obviously want to have a system where they can get affordable coverage without going bankrupt because they get sick. but we can do that without destroying the rest of the health care system for everybody else. that's the point i'm trying to make. what we should have done was fix what was broken in health care without breaking what was working in health care and that's what unfortunately obama care did. so by financing state high risk pools to guarantee people get affordable coverage when they have a preexisting condition like yourself, what you're doing is you're dramatically lowering the price of insurance for everybody else. so if we say, let's just as taxpayers and i agree with this, finance the coverage for those 8% of americans under 65 in the condition like yours, they don't have to be covered or paid for by their small business or insurer whose buying the rates for the rest of the people in their insured pool and dramatically lower the price for the other 92% of americans. let's directly fix that so that everybody else gets competitive rates and other people don't have to cover the expensive people. the problem with obama care, they call it a death spiral. it's an ugly gruesome term but it's a math mat kibattle term we health insurance gets so expensive, healthy people won't buy it. it's a trade off. the penalty to not buy is cheaper than buying insurance so healthy people won't buy it and therefore won't participate in the insurance pool to cover the lo losses, that's what is happening to obamacare now. you have unhealthy people more buying it, healthy people not buying it and rates are going up and all the insurers are pulling out. biggest health insurance company of the year united pulled out of obama care, aetna pulled out, hum huamana. five states are down to one. over 1,000 counties are down to one insurer and getting double digit premium increases because they have a monopoly. clearly, that's not working. we see the worst is yet to come. the insurers are going to pull out of whole states now. we got to step in front of the problem. i think the president elect said we can sit back and watch it happen and say look what the democrats did. that would be irresponsible for us to do that. we have to step in rescue people from the collapse of this law. there are good objectives that they sought to achieve in this law. we agree with them. we think young people, you should be able to stand their parents plan until you are 26. there needs to be a solution we have for people with preexisting conditions, but we want more choices. lower prices. more competition. no monopolies. that's what we want to replace it with and we're working on now. >> i'm sorry to interrupt. there are other questions about obama care and i want to let you get to them but just to put a point on this, one of the things that jeff was asking about is you begun the process of repealing obama care, is the process of replacing it going to coincide with it? >> yes. >> it's going to coincide? >> yes. >> without legislative mumbo, jumbo, we want to advance repealing this law with its replacement at the same time along the lines of what i just described because i said, people aren't buying insurance or if you get it, your deductible is so high you're out-of-pockets are not affordable. we got to fix that problem and the point i keep making in america we spent more money than anybody else on health care, surely we can have a some that works for all of us. >> thank you, jeff. i know you speak for a lot of people. >> in janesville, maybe not in january, it's cold. >> i want to introduce you to dawn jones. she's from maryland. >> thank you. as much as i'm for affordable child care -- or health care, i don't think obama care is hitting the mark. for example, college age children that are healthy are required to obtain or health care, excuse me, but they don't have the money to pay for it. so what can congress do to help them get affordable health care or opt out of it for those who cannot afford it? >> what's happening more and more these days because obamacare is so expensive are healthy people aren't buying it and are going without insurance. the part of the law that's counterproductive in this way is you can wait until you get sick and get the insurance without a penalty and that's why they had this convas a rule luted system thank collapsing. the refundable tax credits for people to buy affordable coverage. by giving a person a refundable tax credit, a young person, maybe a person in college who maybe didn't stay on their parents' plan or just getting started in work that doesn't have much of a tax liability. when i say refundable. you get the tax credit regardless whether you have an income tax liability or not. today the big tax subsidy in law is you get to -- it's excluded from your income. so what we're saying is the person in the highest tax bracket, the highest income earners get the biggest tax break for health care but that's not who are struggling to pay for health care. we want to make sure, we want to instead have tax credits so that everybody can have a shot at buying. take their tax credit and buy a health care plan of their choosing and that's the other thing. we don't want to make people buy something that they don't want to buy. we don't want to force them to buy all these different benefits. we want people to be able to get the coverage they want, choices they want, options they want and more importantly, we want competition. we don't want one insurer in one state. we want al lot of insurers competing for our business as consumers and this is the real big problem with ocbama care. they basically decided the government would run it and it's a monopoly that's crashing. we want to make sure anybody, young person, old person, in between gets a tax credit to go by a plan of their choosing among a lot of choices that are competing against each other for their business. more competition means better quality and lower prices and we think health savings accounts are a key piece. let people save tax free or employers or parents put money in a health savings account to help. >> do you have a date for when you will repeal or replace or just this year? >> i don't have a date, but that's something we're working on right now and it's going to take us a little time but we're working on this as fast as possible. again, because we see this law collapsing even faster this year, because we see more insurance companies pulling out, people with little or no choices and another round of double digit premium increases, we really feel we need to step in and provide better choices and options. we'll move on this as quickly as we can. >> first 100 days? >> something definitely a plan within the first 100 days to get moving. >> i want to introduce you to sherry rigs from fort pierce, florida. who didn't vote on election day because she was recovering from a heart attack. and we're glad you're here, too. >> thank you. >> one point that i just want to make is that obviously, and this fits in with what you were saying about refundable tax credits but also what you're about to be asked which is the white house says there are 8 million americans with health insurance because of the medicaid expansion. medicate was expanded in states that acre cemented that money. are there a lot of people lower income who wonder what is going to happen whether they are on medicaid or not, please? >> where are you from again? >> fort pierce, florida. >> florida. >> you want to give tax credits instead of insuring people. what if a person is -- >> can i get you right there. it's tax credits to buy insurance. >> okay. >> what if a person makes so little that they don't have to pay taxes? will they still have access to the federal -- >> yeah, that's what i'm trying to say here in this last question. so a tax credit, the way we described it when we say refundable, you get it no matter you pay taxes or not. it's a voucher to buy health insurance and for medicaid some states do a good job for medicaid and some don't do as well. the problem that we're seeing in medicaid is more and more doctors just won't take medicaid. because they lose money on medicaid. it's so over regulated and so bureaucratic that physicians just won't take medicaid patients so our concern is, that people on medicaid can't get a doctor and if you can't get a doctor, what good is your coverage? we think there are a lot of good medicaid reforms at the state level. indiana is one state, wisconsin we had done good reforms to make sure people of low income get good coverage but also get access to care, actually get doctors that will take that care. we want to see more of those state based solutions so that we can make sure that coverage actually works. you're right on the numbers. about 10 million people got it on medicaid. there are about another i think 11.5 million that got health care on obama care. obama care at this time was supposed to have 23 million people. so it's 11 million instead of 23 million. it's far missed the mark but the problem is more and more people just are getting a plan that they can't use because their deductible is so high or we have a medicaid problem. we want to reform medicaid to make sure states will invite it so that it works for their citizens and they can actually get care. >> thank you so much. i want to -- part of your plan for repealing obama care is to defund planned parenthood. i want to bring in shannan vow who is a physical therapy graduate student here at v.w. >> where you from, shannan? >> it's complicated. i moved here for graduate school but i'm from northern california. >> okay. >> so among a lot of other things that we have heard in the news, planned parenthood provides s provides cervical cancer screenings and other critical health care services. and i will continue and i have used these services for the next four years. and i can tell you personally that planned parenthood provided help when i couldn't go to anybody else. so my question for you, speaker ryan, is if planned parenthood is defunded, then where will millions of women, low income groups -- >> it's a good question. first of all, i want to make sure you get the care you need and all women get the care they need like preventive screenings and services like you're talking about. we believe this can better be done by putting it in federal community health centers. i have a lot of experience with them myself. they are in virtually every community. by putting these dollars in the federal community health centers, which provide the same kinds of services for every planned parenthood, there are vastly bigger in network, there are so many more of them, and they provide these kinds of services without the controversy surrounding this issue. >> can i just ask you, you believe in providing more choice for people when it comes to health insurance. except for planned parenthood -- >> well, there is a long standing principle we believe in and this is for pro-choice, pro life that we don't want to commit taxpayer funding for abortion and planned parenthood is the largest abortion provider. so we don't want to effectively commit taxpayer money to an organization providing abortibos but make sure people get coverage. make sure these dollars go to federal community health centers which provide services and have a last larger network than planned parenthood networks that are surrounded by controversy and we don't want to commit people's taxpayers dollars to fund something morally unc lly >> taxpayers don't fund abortions right now, right? >> because of the amendment. they get a lot of money and, you know, money is fundable and effectively floats these organizations that use other money, money is fungible. you don't have this controversy by funding health centers. >> a lot of people on social media want me to ask you about medicare and your plans for medicare. donald trump during the campaign said about you, you want to knock medicare way down. [ laughter ] >> mr. trump said -- >> i wouldn't call it that particular description of my plan. >> i'll let you respond. >> sure. >> he said i'm not going to cut it and i'm not going to raise ages and i'm not going to do all the things that they, meaning you, want to do. you say medicare needs to be changed or won't survive. what will you see to president elect trump to change his mind? >> we had a couple conversations about it. look, we don't all agree on everything. i think people kind of know that. here is the issue with medicare. more than half of the money going to medicare right now is money we burro. medicare goes bankrupt in the next decade. medicare along with social security, the two most important programs the federal government has in my opinion, i mean, when -- after my dad died, my grandma moved in with my mom and myself living on medicare and social security. i watch that program do amazing things for my own family. know that we want to make sure this program is successful. but if we want this program to succeed, we have so save it from the bankruptcy coming. the kinds of reforms we've been pushing and talking about are designed to save the program and give people more choices and they don't affect anyone in or near retirement. here is the thing, if we can improve medicare for the next generation for the tapper ryan generation on down, we don't have to change the benefits for anybody near retirement and continue to afford the cash flow that promise made to them but there is no way on the current path we're on, medicare will be for our generation when we retire. we better get prepared to fix this problem while it's so containable and solvable without affecting the benefits or choices of the plans of people on medicare like my mom and that's something we have to own up to in this country. it's the biggest part of the debt crisis in the future. it's something we have to deal with. the point is i think these reforms are better. i like the idea of saying to a future senior, if you like the traditional medicare plan, you can keep that but if you want to choose from a list that's comprehensive that are guaranteed benefits like federal employees have, you should be able to choose that, too. >> if you like your plan, you can keep your plan. >> that's what premium support is. nice. yeah. all right, got ya. >> that active choice in competition is proven to -- you know, you're going to hear this theme, it's proven to drive down cost because it makes those insurers compete against each other for our business. >> we'll take a very quick break. up next, russia's hacking of the u.s. election. what will congress do about it? that and much more ahead with speaker paul ryan. we're live from the george washington university. stay with us. 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>> i agree with your basic asses t ment of russia. russia is a global menace led my a man menacinmenacing. he trufrustrates our interest. he violates his neighbors. he does all those things you say on free speech. he's not democratic. i really think a lot of the things that he is doing is to try and delegitimize other demack sis so his doesn't look as illegitimate. there is a lot that he's doing and not just here. he's doing this around the world. he's doing this in europe. he's doing this in capitals around the world. i do see i call the russia hawk. they call these these days, i guess. i do share that concern. i think we have to step up our game in russia and with respect to confronting russia when they act like this, when they frustrate our interests. i think clearly and i do -- i do believe that they tried to affect our elections by medaling in our elections. if you medal in the elections, you will affect it. there is no place for that. i think it had no bearing on the election. donald trump won it fair and square clearly and convincingly but the fact that a foreign government tried to medal in another government's elections is wrong. and so i do think sanctions are called for. i think frankly the current president put sanctions that i think were a little late. should have done it earlier. so i do think we had a bad russia policy in the last administration. i think the reset was too much of an appeasement policy reapin benefits. >> so ray just eluded to it but obviously, as you know because you were briefed on it, intelligence officials alerted the president elect that there are claims by russians, claims that they have materials that could be compromising and there are communications between his campaign and the russian government, claims. let me just ask -- here is the question. donald trump says this say political witch hunt and the intelligence agencies are poll litizing intelligence. you're the speaker of the house privy to some of the most classified briefings. do you agree -- >> they -- what has been elevated is private opposition research done by a political opponent on completely unsubstantiated raw moores and th -- rumors and that is elevated and i think that is wrong. i don't want to confirm legitimacy about this by talking about it and i think people conflicted this to think it's somehow legitimate and a product of the intelligence committee. it's not. i do think by including these things and merging them, it has given that misimpression. >> so you think -- >> i think that's wrong. i don't think taking opposition research from a political opponent on total hearsay unsubstantiated rumors and combining it with intelligence information was the right thing to do. >> so you take issue with the intelligence chiefs including this two-page -- >> i'm not going to comment on what documents we get and don't. >> you take issue with what they did. >> i take issue of this being talked about because it's not worthy of media. i'm glad cnn didn't publish it but some people did. i think it's completely unsubstantiated. the russians are up to no good. we all know that. i don't think we should give any more credence to this and we've got to make sure going forward we do everything we can on cyber, on all of the other things to make sure that they can't do this again and we got to help allies, too. we got to make sure we help the europeans with their elections block this interference from coming. that's what i think we should focus on. >> you agree to a degree at least with donald trump assessing that this is the poll litization of intelligence? >> i think it has been poll l politiciz politicized. once donald trump gets to know the committee as i know well. when you're second in line, you get the same briefings. he's going to learn there is a lot of good men and women in the intelligence committee that risk their lives to keep us safe and i think he'll learn the value they have. i completely understand why he is frustrated eight, nine days before his inauguration, this junk gets thrown out there. >> so you were talking about donald trump winning, one of the reasons he won especially in places like the great state of pennsylvania and michigan and wisconsin -- >> wisconsin. >> the great state of wisconsin, i suppose. >> go packers. all right. >> is that -- was this position on trade? it really motivated a lot of voters. it's a position you don't share. i want to introduce you to bill jones. he's a tool and diamond maker and runs a medium sized manufacturing company. >> mr. speaker, i have concern about our trade deals, our unfair trade. we have lost in the past decade probably hundreds of jobs. our community has lost thousands of jobs. these are good jobs in the community with health care and retirement benefits. i actually started supporting mr. trump more when he started talking about fixing the trade deals. our support grew because without trade deals and fixing them, our country will not have good paying jobs we need. now my question to you, mr. speaker is how will you as leader of the house, help with this new administration fix these trade deals. >> it's a great question, actually, and we've talked about this a lot. the president elect and his economic team and myself how do we work together to do just what you said because look, when i go to my kids' track meets, it's at monterrey stadium in janesville, wisconsin and you look down the end zone and you see a shut gm plant. the core of my hometown was general motors and now it's a 4 million square foot mothball. we experienced the same things where we've lost really good family supporting manufacturing jobs. there are a number of things we can and should and will do. number one, we do need good trade deals but here is the point. getting good trade deals means go out and get other countries to play by our rules. you add up the countries we have trade agreements with, we have a trade surplus with them. you add up the countries we don't have trade agreements with, we have a massive trade deficit with. the secret to success is go out and get agreements. that's why i think of all the people who succeeded the presidency, negotiators, donald trump is that. i believe he has the tools and skills to get good agreements to get other countries to play by our rules so we have a level playing field. point number two, i know you're walking toward me and i don't mean to jawbone too much. our tax reform we think is really critical. we hit our businesses so much more than our foreign competitors hit theirs. the industrial world average tax rate on businesses like tool and diamond makers 23%. if you're a subtract tore corporation, pass through, top tax rate 44.6%. or if you're a corporation, 35%. we are taxing our businesses at such higher tax rates than the other countries tax theirs. so number one, we got to get the tax rates down but number two, all the other countries, almost all competitors do, they have a tax system where they border adjust taxes. when they make something to sale ov -- sell overseas, they take the tax off. if we make something, we tax it and send it to those countries and as it goes into their country, they tax it. so let's -- you got an example? >> if i may? >> sure. >> when you talk about that, that just to me just baffles me that we cannot fix that. >> that's what our tax reform bill does. >> we need to level the playing field between us and the largest trading partner china without doing damage but obviously they need us and we do need them. >> i agree with that. >> leveling this playing field. we cannot compete -- >> that's right. >> we cannot. >> let's take harley davidson, something we're proud of in milwaukee and wisconsin. we make a hog in milwaukee, we send it to china. it's taxed in milwaukee and america and then china taxes it as it goes into the country. if, you know, they make a hog in chi china, it's taxed once and not twice like ours. if toyota or honda sends a motorcycle from tokyo into china, it's taxed once. we're doing it to ourselves. i know that's confusing. the point i'm trying to say is let's level the playing field and do the same thing they do to us to them and by toing that, by saying we take our tax off the exports and face it on the imports, we're leveling the playing field and at the end of the day we're making china pay for our tax reform. i think that's one of the smartest things to do to level the playing field and put american manufacturers and producers of a level playing field with the rest of the world to help us create more manufacturing jobs. >> thank you so much, bill. i want to turn to another issue where mr. trump got a lot of support that is an issue where you're not necessarily on the same page, shall we say? that is mr. trump's position on illegal i'm gagmmigration and rg legal immigration, as well. there are a lot of speck ticks among his supporters. marry ann mendonsa. >> they didn't call me that until a year ago. >> you're the speaker of the house. >> i've been there a year. >> you did it to yourself, man. [ laughter ] >> marry ann mendonsa is a real tar from arizona and has a very serious question about this. >> good evening, speaker ryan. my son brandon mendonsa was a sergeant with the mason arizona police department. he was killed on may 12th, 2014 by a three-time legal limit drunk high on meth, repeat illegal criminal who smashed head on in a violent head-on collision on my son -- to my son on his way home from work. we now have mayors who are creating sanctuary cities and using taxpayer money to protect these illegals. what do americans have who are permanently affected by illegal crime? we have politicians protecting them and court systems allowing them to stay in the country and i would really like to ask those mayors, which child of yours would you choose to lose for illegals to stay here because that's the price i've had to pay and i want to know how you're going to stand by our new president trump elect ending sanctuary cities, securing our borders, building a wall, properly vetting refugees who are coming in to stop the assault on our country, our citizens and our economy. are you going to stand up for america, speaker ryan? >> first, let me say i'm so sorry for your loss. >> thank you. >> you made me think of a sheriff deputy we lost the same way. a multiple illegal immigrant trunk driving collision going down the interstate. it's just awful. donald and i agree completely on that. there is no daylight between us on that. so what i mean that, sanctuary cities are a violation of the rule of law and they are not to be taolerated. we agree with that 100%. if you want federal assistance, you got to enforce the law. what the president elect has asked us to do is focus on two things in congress, with respect to the issue immediately and that's what we're doing. we're getting congress working on that now and that is to secure the border, and to enforce our laws with respect to criminal violent criminals who are illegal aliens. we 100% agree with that because we are a nation of laws that need to support our laws, for instance, we're working on legislation to make sure the resources are deployed to the border so that they can get what they need to secure the border. we pass this law. i voted for this 2006 i think, ten years ago to secure the border and it never got done because of this past administration. we now have a president serious about securing the border and one of the top six things i want to get done in congress. we said absolutely. what i'm telling you is we support that, agree with that and not only that we're working to execute that in this new congress. >> thank you. >> i want to say one other thing, do you know how many lives have been lost by repeat deported criminals coming over the unsecure border? if we don't have a wall and deport these criminals, they will keep coming back killing more of us. >> that's why two things he's asked us to focus on is deporting violent criminals who are repeat offenders and securing the border. we agree and that's what we're working on. >> thank you mary ann and our thoughts and prayers are with your family. >> i want to bring in angelica. she was brought to the united states illegally from mexico when she was 11 years old, so clearly through no fault of her own, please. >> thank you speaker ryan, my name is angelica, i'm undocumented. i've been, like, he mentioned, i live in the state of oklahoma. i'm here with one of my daughters, destiny. i've been in the united states for 21 years. i am protected from deportation because of the program. to be protected, i applied, went through a background check and paid nearly $1,000 in fees. it's clear that if edoc gets repealed, my daughter will lose her mother and -- i'm sorry. she will lose her mother and i want you to know that doca has helped me. do you think that i should be deported in many families in my situation -- >> no. >> -- should -- >> no. first of all, i can see you love your daughter and you are a nice person who has a great future ahead of you, and i hope you'r future is here. i'll repeat the sentiment the president says. that's the problem he wants to focus on. this is not the focus. what we have to do is find a way to make sure that you can get right with the law and we've got to do this in a good way so that the rug doesn't get pulled out from under you and your family gets separated. that's the way we feel and exactly what our new incoming president wants to do. i got married in oklahoma city. it's a great community. my wife is from that area and i'm sure you're a great con -- contributor. we need to fix it but people need to have confidence that our laws are being followed and we know who is coming and going and have a secure border. i think what's really important for this issue to get fixed and jake mentioned that i have a background in this. we got to make sure laws are being forced thanks we are controlling our borders so violent criminals don't come in and do these things. we've got a drug problem and a lot of problems. when people get confidence in this country that our border is week tour secured and laws are enforced, i believe the country, all people in the country will be in a much better position to fix these thorn problems. if you're worried about some deportation forced coming knocking on your door this year, don't worry about that. >> let me ask you a question, daca is deferred action for childhood arrival. an action president obama took granting ig lelilegal status. if president trump wants to undo daca, you would tell him not to. >> it's what is a good humane solution. there is a contusistitutional i here, which is president obama tried to unilaterally write laws without going through congress. under the separation of powers, presidents don't write laws. congress writes laws. the elected legislative branch writes the laws. this current president, president obama on this and many occasions tried to go around congress to unilaterally write laws which is not the power of the president. that is unconstitutional and so the point is, you just organize your life around this. you told us how important this is to you and your family. what we have to do is figure out how to have a humane solution to this very legitimate sincere problem and respect the rule of law. that is what we're -- >> the government has information about her now. what happens to that information? will you introduce legislation to block it from being used to deport her? >> everybody think there is is a deportation force being assembli assembling. >> president trump used the words deportation force. that's why people think it. >> i'm here to tell you in congress it's not happening. what is happening is -- where did she go? >> mary ann? >> that's what he's asking us to focus on, secure the border and people who are violent criminals, repeat offenders, we have to focus on that. we have to pay a couple bills. take a seat. draining the swamp is congress with the incoming president. we'll have more with house speaker paul ryan live from the george washington university. stay with us. don't pay hundreds more for taxes and fees. introducing t-mobile one. now with taxes and fees included. four lines, 40 bucks each, all unlimited, all in. switch your family today and get 600 bucks. learn more at a t-mobile store. start your party prep with venus embrac...touch of aloe a... because the best bit of the party is the pre-party party and venus snap for those last minute invites the perfect party prep you foundi'm a robot! cars.com rawr yeti and found a place to service it, too. ♪ jingle bells now when you're ready, you can sell your old car and find your new one all on cars.com you know us for shopping, and now we're there for every turn. cars.com people would ask me that we traveled,ntries what is your nationality and i would always answer hispanic. so when i got my ancestry dna results it was a shocker. i'm from all nations. it puts a hunger in your heart to want to know more. i'm phil mickelson, pro golfer. my psoriatic arthritis caused joint pain. just like my moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. and i was worried about joint damage. my doctor said joint pain from ra... can be a sign of existing joint damage... that could only get worse. he prescribed enbrel to help relieve pain and help stop further damage. enbrel may lower your ability to fight infections. serious, sometimes fatal, events including infections, tuberculosis, lymphoma, other cancers, nervous system and blood disorders, and allergic reactions have occurred. tell your doctor if you've been someplace where fungal infections are common or if you're prone to infections, have cuts or sores, have had hepatitis b, have been treated for... heart failure, or if you have persistent... fever, bruising, bleeding, or paleness. don't start enbrel if you have an infection like the flu. joint pain and damage... can go side by side. ask how enbrel can help relieve joint pain and help stop joint damage. enbrel, the number one rheumatologist-prescribed biologic. rex tillerson put exxon's interests before america's.. i'm not here to represent the us government's interest. instead, tillerson sided with putin. with billions in russian oil deals... he opposed us sanctions on russia... ...for war crimes forced to pay hundreds of millions for toxic pollution... ...putting profits ahead of our kid's health. tell your senators to reject rex tillerson. and protect american interests not corporate interests. we are back live, our guest this evening, speaker of the house, mr. paul ryan, i want to bring in gail wilson, she grew up in texas. she works in international development. she is a republican. >> since you have been elected to congress. you pickled up as an expert on the budget. as a trump administration and their agenda, increasing the funding with infrastructure. billing the wall among our southern border and increasing the capacity of our military, all lost because of paying taxes. do you believe the agenda is fiscally solvent? >> the tax reform we call revenue neutral. for tack, carveouts, which broadens the tax base, meaning more money so we're more competitive t. gentleman who is a tool and die maker. that one dwig i was telling him, raises a trillion dollars in revenue to help us lower our tax rate. for instance, the tax reform is revenue trut u neutral. we have to pay for those things. that's what our spring budget is going to do. for instance, there is a big infrastructure in this country. whether it's canals, roads, bridges, or rail or airports. that's a real problem. and we're financial to have to come up with ways to pay for that. so nothing's free. so we have to in our bug come up with other spending offsets to pay for those kinds of thingsful that's why we want you to prioritize spending to do that. >> it's hot here in d.c.. i mean, it is hard, sometimes we make decisions, so you don't think about the youth. >> cnn is reporting tonight, you need growth in jobs? >> yes. >> cnn is reporting tonight that trump officials want your tax reform proposal that congress is working on to include a measure, command by ivanka trump, that would include a child care tax credit and six weeks maternity leave. will you support the ivanka getting recalled? >> that's on the tape. the ways an means will be looking at that. i don't want to get ahead of myself. it's too soon to say what is or isn't in the tax bill speaker ryan, the context is one of the first things that happened last week, is they against your wishes wanted to gut, undermine, weaken the office of congressional ethics. >> that alarmed a lot of people, including politic trump, who said it shouldn't be a pirety who want to drain the swatch, sir. >> thank you. one of the things that this election has demonstrated to democrats and republicans is that a lot of americans don't trust the representatives in washington. >> yes. >> it explains a lot. and donald trump pledged among other things during the campaign to in his words drain the swamp of washington corruption. and then he more just before the election offered a series of ethics reform proposals, three directed at congress. one was a five-year ban on lobbying by members of congress and tear staffs after they leave the government in an administrationful right? well, for congress, he said. he also called for expanding, eliminating loopholes in what is the lobby it of a law, the lobbyist disclosure architect, as you know t. third thing was a congressional term limits, it imposed a constitutional amendment to post-term amendments. that's been here for 20 years as a proposal. i worked in the chief of staff for self years for many senators. so i know how difficult these can be, especially the broader issue, trust. do you support these three specific proposals trgs five-year ban on former members of staff lobbying for the government as for congress, second thing is expanding the definition of a lobbyist under the federal law the third is the constitutional amendment on terminal limits and then what else would you do beyond that to restore trust? >> let me first get to the point he made, which is this is on ab secure agency that can make allegations with a person with no do you process and you have no right to confront your accuser. so there are a lot of people in congress who are concerned that unsubstantiated allegations are being leveled against them. they didn't know who they were. they didn't have an opportunity to confront that user. so there is a legitimate problem with that. i as you said di not think this was the time. we have more important issues people care about. that not one of them. to your point,ly go backwards, forwards. i always supported term limits. it should be, we shouldn't have term limits for wisconsin and illinois t. only way to do that is the constitutional amendment. i think it freshens the system. we imposed term limits within congress on our critical position, like our chairmanships. so we rotate people so they can't be in the same job, we term limit our people. i've always liked the term littles proposal. on the lobbyist things, some things are a little more complicated than they seem. do i think a person shouldn't leave right away and go into lobbying? yes, i agree with that, they should not do that. but what if you want to become an advocate for the cancer society. what if you want to after you retired help your local hospital system and be on their board to support them and go get legislation. there are a lot of other unseen circumstances that can play into this. you bought the to be careful about that. when people leave, what is it for them advocating for causes they believe in t. question is are they going to get rich and show for a company? that is an issue that needs to be dealt with. we do ban it. the question is do we lengthen the ban? i don't think we should tell men and women, which want a sid legislature. take a time out of your private life and come and serve and ten go back into private life and you can't get engaged in sifx. i don't think that's dangerous. >> we has one more point. let's take another quick break. when we come back, how will donald trump's tweeting habits affect u.s. policy? stay with us. earned overnight. it's earned in every wash... ... and re-earned every day. tide. america's number one detergent. the search for relief often leads here.s, today there's drug-free aleve direct therapy. a high intensity tens device that uses technology once only in doctors' offices. for deep penetrating relief at the source. aleve direct therapy. [ applause ] welcome back live tonight at the gorge washington university with one week until the inauguration of donald trump. i see you have your packers pen on. >> you bet i do. >> i do want to turn to one serious question. obviously the nation is in the throws of an opioid epidemic. we have a gentleman that says he's attended more than 40 trauch u trump rallies during the campaign. correct. >> hello, i lost my son three years ago to a heroin i don't have dose and it's a heroin comes into the towns and just ruins the communities and families and my question to you,

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