Two men to put evidence forward to wild an ab instruction to build an obstruction case against the president. the problem with that is a very highly political and legally dubious thing to suggest that you can go after the chief executive of the country on an obstruction charge. paul: well, and what the obstruction charge is about is because he fired the fbi director, jake comey. that would be it. and james comey. and presumably because he wanted to stop an investigation into the russia probe, i mean, intoç russia/trump collusion. but there s no collusion, it s kind of hard to prove an obstruction case against a non-crime. mary. yeah. the problem here is that the fbi seems like and mueller seem like they are just casting the net as wide as they can to find something. we know that this is what happens with special counsels paul: right, they all do a lot of people think it was of a mistake in the first place to even name a special counsel for this. the likelihood that muel
Trump, the year, and a republican congress too. how do you size it up? let s look at the high points. oh, the high points? well, we would start with the tax reform act of 2017. that was a very high point. the highest point at the beginning was the confirmation of neil gorsuch to the supreme court. and i suppose we should also mention that there were all of the regulatory rollbacks of obama s regulations using the congressional review act. but once passed, through the end there weren t a lot of high points because they spent most of middle of the year trying toç reform obamacare. that was a failure. but, you know, they ve gone off on a true high. the economy is strong, tax reform act should probably propel that economy, so they ve got the winds at their back going into the 2018. paul: we do want to talk about the economy in more detail later, mary, but i think the deregulatory agenda is really both what congress did with the congressional review act.
On streamlining, if he does anything with infrastructure, making it easier to build things in the u.s. again so you don t have a decade of environment aral impact statements and various environmental impact statements. well, you know, it s an interesting political question. if the economy strengthens, jobs continue to be created, that would0b the moment to do infrastructure, when the economy s healthier. but if chuck schumer tells his union supporters we re not going to do business with this guy, wait until we take control of the government, then we ll do infrastructure, i think a lot of unions are going to say i don t know if we re going to buy that deal. trump helped the coal industry, and this is the moment to get those jobs while you have a bird in the hand. so i think there could be pressure on the democrats to do a deal. paul: i think, mary, there s a chance on immigration. you ve got the daca bill that democrats want, and maybe combine that with some border enforcement to g
One day says, you know what? i didn t find anything, it s pretty low. paul: all right. what about, dan, the other side of in that mary alluded to, the fbi role in theç 2016 campaign? we ve had a lot of evidence come out about the anti-trump sympathies of some of the fbi people and the prosecutors working on the mueller probe. it doesn t mean, in my view necessarily, that the mueller probe is tainted, it just means that it makes it harder for him to be able to sell to the american public that he is looking at this in a fair-minded way. that is the key point, i think, paul. it will be harder for him to sell this to the american public or at least half of the american public if they can divide it between democrats and republicans. so i think the difficulty here is that what the democrats believe is that there was obstruction. senator dianne feinstein said on television identifying the idea that trump asked to go easy on mike flynn.
House, and that s what mr. bannon is proposing to do. james? paul, this is a hit to federal communication chairman ajit pai, the washington regulatory guys, we don t think of them as the most courageous people in the country, he showed amazing courage, standing up against harassment, racial slurs and threats of violence against him and restored the freedom that allowed the internet to grow. it was taken away 2015 by silicon valley companies rallying for net neutrality. it was a bogus issue. mary? paul, advances in spaceflight this year. spacex, falcon nine made twice the number of flights this year, and they made progress to reuse ability. blue origin, sierra nevadas, dream chaser, there were a
We re back with dan henninger, kim strassel, mary anastasia o grady and james freeman. so, mary, does look to me like the economy certainly here in the last nine months hasç moved up to a new level of growth of about 3% from 2% the obama kind of doldrums. you agree, and how do you explain it? yeah, it s looking pretty good. we mentioned before the deregulatory environment. the trump administration says that they have deregulated 67 former regulation paul: and do you think that s a big factor? i do, i do. i think that, you know, regulation is, it s empirical that regulation puts a boot on the neck of the u.s. economy, and if you can lighten that you need regulation, but it should be a light regulatory touch. and the obama administration just went all out on regulation. you also have cheap money, and, you know, the fed says they reç going back, you know, they re going to raise interest rates in 2018, but we re just getting back to something normal.
On streamlining, if he does anything with infrastructure, making it easier to build things in the u.s. again so you don t have a decade of environment aral impact statements and various environmental impact statements. well, you know, it s an interesting political question. if the economy strengthens, jobs continue to be created, that would0b the moment to do infrastructure, when the economy s healthier. but if chuck schumer tells his union supporters we re not going to do business with this guy, wait until we take control of the government, then we ll do infrastructure, i think a lot of unions are going to say i don t know if we re going to buy that deal. trump helped the coal industry, and this is the moment to get those jobs while you have a bird in the hand. so i think there could be pressure on the democrats to do a deal. paul: i think, mary, there s a chance on immigration. you ve got the daca bill that democrats want, and maybe combine that with some border enforcement to g
To wild an ab instruction to build an obstruction case against the president. the problem with that is a very highly political and legally dubious thing to suggest that you can go after the chief executive of the country on an obstruction charge. paul: well, and what the obstruction charge is about is because he fired the fbi director, jake comey. that would be it. and james comey. and presumably because he wanted to stop an investigation into the russia probe, i mean, intoç russia/trump collusion. but there s no collusion, it s kind of hard to prove an obstruction case against a non-crime. mary. yeah. the problem here is that the fbi seems like and mueller seem like they are just casting the net as wide as they can to find something. we know that this is what happens with special counsels paul: right, they all do a lot of people think it was of a mistake in the first place to even name a special counsel for this. the likelihood that mueller just
Do. paul: james. paul, this is a hit to federal communications chairman ajit pai. usually these washington regulatory guys, we don t necessarily think of them as the most courageous people in the country, but he showed amazing courage this year, really standing up against harassment, racial slurs, even threats of violence against him, and he went ahead and restored the freedom that allowed the internet to grow. it was taken away in 2015 by silicon valley companies lobbying for something called netç neutrality. it was a bogus issue, he did a great job. paul: mary. paul, a hit for advances in space flight made in the private sector this year. spacex, their falcon 9 made twice the number of flights this year, and it s a record for a calendar year for the company. they also made progress in reusability. other companies, jeff bezos blue origin, sierra nevada s dream chaser. there were a couple of joint
Kim strassel, mary anastasia o grady and james freeman. so, mary, does look to me like the economy certainly here in the last nine months hasç moved up to a new level of growth of about 3% from 2% the obama kind of doldrums. you agree, and how do you explain it? yeah, it s looking pretty good. we mentioned before the deregulatory environment. the trump administration says that they have deregulated 67 former regulation paul: and do you think that s a big factor? i do, i do. i think that, you know, regulation is, it s empirical that regulation puts a boot on the neck of the u.s. economy, and if you can lighten that you need regulation, but it should be a light regulatory touch. and the obama administration just went all out on regulation. you also have cheap money, and, you know, the fed says they reç going back, you know, they re going to raise interest rates in 2018, but we re just getting back to something normal. and a normal kind of interest