Almost exactly to a t the instructions that isis has put out in its social Media Channels before with instructions to their followers on how to carry out such an attack. Paul judge Michael Mukasey served as the 81st attorney general of the United States, and he also presided over the criminal prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing suspects. Judge, good to have you here again. Good to be here. Paul you heard john miller. This is the kind of nightmare scenario for people who are trying to prevent this. Somebody selfradicalizedded here, very hard to stop. Well, selfradicalized is one of those phrases that, frankly, id like to bury because he didnt invent the doctrine, he didnt create the videos, the support system and Everything Else that goes with it. He was alone, in a sense, but somebody who had passed through the radar before. Paul what i mean by that is there is not links that would have shown him to have popped up on the screen where the fbi or nypd could say, aha, hes somebody we need to watch. So he just pops up when he murders people. Right. Paul so how do you prevent that . One way you prevent it is its hard to prevent, obviously, somebody whos already here whos intent on doing that. Its not impossible, but its hard. The if you have to get into the support system that he may have had, likely did have, you have to monitor web sites that do this, monitor them aggressively. And in part, we have to figure out what, for example, what extreme vetting really means. What are we vetting for . What were vetting for is to find people who cant support either the legitimacy or the supremacy of secular law, which is what we have here in this country. Paul very hard to do, though, when youre interviewing somebody at the border. In this case, this guy seems to have been just a regular person in uzbekistan. And it isnt one of those countries that has been at the top of the list. I understand that. And he may not have betrayed this when he first came into the country, it was a long time ago. But we need to find people who will not create insular societies to have people live apart and get radicalized. And there are, by the way, techniques and technologies for checking that stuff out. One of them was developed with a grant from dhs, and they refused to implement it because it unduly invaded the privacy of people being questioned. Poole paul it seems to me that thats what you have to do though sure. Paul because the border vetting would not, in this case, have worked. Or in some of the other cases, the fellow in san bernardino, that wouldnt have worked. He was an american citizen. So youve got to try and get these people when they seem to be interested in this radical doctrine. Right. And it takes, it takes active pursuit, and it takes acknowledgment and knowledge of what it is youre pursuing. Paul okay. He was read his miranda rights and processed in criminal court right away. Mistake . Yes. When you have somebody like that in custody, his principal value is not as a defendant. Theyve got a ton of evidence against him. They dont need his statement. His principal value is as a possible source of intelligence. If nothing else, at least to find out what he looked at, with whom he looked at it if there was anybody else and so on. Thats what should have been the focus, not getting him into the criminal process. Paul did you have a protocol when, in the bush administration, for handling cases like this with interrogation . I think the protocol was pretty much to get intelligence first. They had, we had a system of, essentially, a clean team paul right. Going in and conducting questioning. But even that, i think, was somewhat put together ramshackle. Paul okay. Lets turn to the Robert Mueller probe. You saw the indictments this week of Paul Manafort and mr. Gates and the plea deal with papadopoulos. What do you make of them . Well, there are, they are a nice beginning, i suppose, if youre a prosecutor. But they are a beginning. And notably, the deal with pap adopt louse that has papadopoulos that has everybodys eyebrows going up and down did not charge him with anything like collusion. He was charged with making a false statement. Paul which is kind of the lowest level of prosecution theres no such thing as collusion as a crime. You will look in vain in the criminal code to find a crime of collusion. Conspiracy, yes. But not collusion. Paul why do you think they didnt charge conspiracy . I guess maybe they didnt have the evidence that he was conspiring with anybody . Correct. And what they advanced as the at the same statement of the crime or the statement of the criminal background shows that this guy was kind of a lowlevel climber who was trying to push his way to the top, talking about how wonderful it would be if donald trump went to russia and a talked to putin. And theres a little footnote in there that says that d. T. , meaning donald trump, doesnt do these trips, and we ought to tell whoever this guy is talking to, we ought to turn him off ask do it at a low level so that we dont send a signal. That looks like it was something that they thought was a heirbrained harebrained scheme. Paul in the manafort and gates cases, it seems to me if those two guys were going to cooperate, they would have cooperated already to get a lower, some kind of plea deal because muellers throwing the book at them. I mean, these are, you know, serious charges with a lot of prison time. Hes throwing a book at them but not necessarily the book. It doesnt charge, i mean, he talks about a fraudulent scheme, but he doesnt charge bank fraud which carries a 30year penalty. He labels it conspiracy against the United States. Theres no such crime. Theres either conspiracy to violate a statute like the bank robbery law or whatever, or theres conspiracy to defraud the United States. Theres no such thing as conspiracy against the United States. He made it sound like treason. Paul he did. Thats the heavy hand and the empty holster. Tulle. Paul so you think there may be less here than meets the eye . There may be more, i dont know. But certainly, whatevers there wasnt uncorked in this indictment. Paul all right. Thank you, judge, appreciate it. When we come back, in the wake of tuesdays rampage, President Trump vows to shut down the visa program used by the terror suspect, saipov, to enter the United States. But will an immigration crackdown prevent future attacks . Our panel weighs in on that and the latest in the mueller probe, next. Diversity, lottery sounds nice. Its not nice. Its not good. Its not good. It hasnt been good. Weve been against it. Hes told that joke a million times. And you always laugh like youre hearing it for the first time. At lincoln financial, we get there are some responsibilities of love you gotta do on your own. And some you shouldnt have to shoulder alone. Like ensuring hes well taken care of. Even as you build your own plans for retirement. See how lincoln can help protect your savings from the impact of longterm care expenses at lincolnfinancial. Com. Following the terrorist attack in new york, im calling on congress to immediately terminate the diversity visa lottery program. Its a disaster for our country. This Program Grants visas not on a basis of merit, but simply because applicants are randomly selected in an annual lottery. And the people put in that lottery are not that countrys finest. Paul that was President Trump thursday calling on congress to end the diversity visa lottery. The state Department Program admitted new york city terror suspect psi fallow saipov into the country in 2010, but would an immigration crackdown have stopped tuesdays rampage, and will it prevent future terror attacks . Lets ask columnist and deputy editor, dan henninger, mary kissel and Columnist Bill mcgurn. So, bill, you heard judge mukasey. Right. Paul how would, how worried should trump be about these indictments . About the mueller indictments . Paul yeah. So far im not so sure he has to be worried. Theres no mention of trump or collusion in these indictments. Look, the big question is, is this the tip of the iceberg . Or is it the iceberg . And we dont know. [laughter] i think this is one of the disadvantages of leaving these things to a special prosecutor rather than congress which kind of airs them in public, and you get the information. Paul yeah. Mary, do you think that the Robert Mueller is going to investigate the other side of this . Which is the, how the fbi which he ran for a dozen years handled the Christopher Steele memo which is that memo, that dossier full of what seems to be discredited information about donald trump that was put together by fusion gps, recruited Christopher Steele, the former british spy, to put it together. And then the fbi, according to reporting, used it as part of its own investigation. Well, he certainly should investigate it, paul. Weve also learned, of course, that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National committee funded that dossier, used it to smear paul through fusion gps. Used it to smear the president , and the fbi also used it to some extent. We dont know if the fbi, for instance, used that dossier to obtain a court order to surveil the trump campaigns. There are a lot of questions here, paul, and i would hope in his position that, yes, he would investigate it. Paul and if he doesnt do it, do you hope that the intelligence committees do on capitol hill . Yeah. And i think they do intend to. I mean, the question about mr. Mueller is he is a former fbi director, and he was also paul 12 years. For 12 years. And hes Close Friends with james comey. Now, nobody questions mr. Muellers integrity. And if anybody could overcome a conflict like that, perhaps it is him. But under normal circumstances, the appearance of a conflict like that would cause a person presumably to step back. Its just normally not the sort of thing you do. Paul right, exactly. I dont think you can say just on its face credibly say, look, i can investigate this body that i ran for 12 years. Its very hard to do. Right. The fbi is now an issue in this investigation. Its not just did they use this. At one point they were trying to put Christopher Steele on the payroll. And the question is, why . How does, how do you go from being an Opposition Research person for one campaign to a paid fbi agent, fbi informant or something with information . So the fbi question is sort of coming to the surface higher than many of the other questions in terms of actual evidence. Paul all right, mary, lets turn to the terror attack. What do you think of trumps initial response immediately right out of the box, boom, kill the Diversity Visa Program . [laughter] is that an appropriate response . Well, its a political response because he referenced Chuck Schumer who was one of the cosponsors of the bill. Of course, it was a bipartisan bill, it was signed by the elder president bush. So not accurate there. Paul to say that its a democratic program. Exactly. But i think it would be more constructive to try to unify the country after an attack like this. I mean, this is really a shocking event. An isis attack in the heart of manhattan in the shadow of the freedom tower. I mean, killing eight people, wounding dozens more. And also i think, paul, theres a question about when this guy was radicalized. Its unclear given the information we have so far if he was radicalized before he came into the country or if he selfradicalized after he came into the country. If the latter, then the visa program has nothing to do with this. Paul right. It seems that, certainly, we didnt when we vetted him, we didnt ask him enough about what his terror beliefs were. But it seems that from the early evidence it was here when, that he became radicalized. Thats the nightmare scenario. It is, for sure. But, you know, we had the attempted bombing in chelsea, new york, downtown new york a couple of year, that person is now on trial. Paul right. And he had assembled a lot of bombmaking materials in new jersey, ball bearings, fertilizer and so fort. Now, you know so forth. Software Data Analytics is getting to the point where theyre able to assemble a lot of these data to have Predictive Value about people like this. I mean, look, amazon, google, theyre all doing it in our own lives. Data analytics is everywhere, but its now being used to predict, say, diseases, mass migrations. And the defense Science Board has proposed doing this for terror, the cia is already using it, and i think theyre just going to get better at it over time, but there will be privacy questions raised about whether, you know, we should expose ourselves in this way. We do it every day. Paul and just briefly, bill, the interrogation side of this, he seems to have been processed right away, moved right through the criminal justice system. They didnt pull him aside 30 days, they read him his miranda rights. It seems to me the judge call it a mistake. This is my constant refrain. When an attack occurs, we say no one connected the dots, and after it subsides, we do everything to prevent it. Big data can do a big part, but a lot is human intelligence and interrogation citizen mr. Knew as mr. Mukasey said. There are whole groups of people in the United States that dont want us to find this information whether its a Police Report on radicalization or the interrogations under the bush administration. Paul all right. Thank you very much. When we come back, calling them the most transformational cuts in a generation, House Republicans unveil their longawaited tax plan. So does it live up to the hype . Find out next. This plan is for the middle class families in this country who deserve a break. It is for the families who are out there living paycheck to paycheck who just keep getting paycheck who just keep getting squeezed. By listening to an thiaudiobook on audible. Ame and this guy is just trying to get through the day. This guy feels like he can take on anything. This guy isnt sure he can take it anymore. Unwavering selfconfidence. Stuck in a 4door sedan of sadness. Upgrade your commute. Ride with audible. Dial star star audible on your smartphone to start listening today. With this bill, theres relief for real american families. Theres relief for American Workers, and theres tax relief for hard working job creators of all sizes. And with this bill, we will grow our economy by delivering more jobs, fairer taxes and bigger paychecks to americans of all walks of life. Paul that was house ways and means chair kevin brady thursday unveiling the longawaited details of the republican plan to overhaul the tax code. The plan, released after weeks of internal negotiations, cuts the Corporate Tax rate at the top from 35 to 20 and reduces individual income tax brackets from seven to four, maintaining a top rate of 39. 6 for couples earning more than a Million Dollars. Here with a look at what else is in the plan and who stands to benefit most, scott hodge, president of the tax foundation. Welcome, scott, good to see you. Thanks, paul. Paul looking at this bill overall, what do you think of the proposal, the reform . It reflects all of the compromises and all of the tradeoffs that you have to make in coming up with comprehensive tax reform given the politics, the budgetary constraints they were under and, in many cases, the economics. Is and so on the one hand on the individual side of the ledger, they made some huge tradeoffs, giving a lot of tax relief to the middle class, sacrificing lowering top class rates so they get no Economic Growth from the individual side of the ledger. They do get a lot of Economic Growth from the business or corporate side of the tax code by loring that top rate for lowering that top rate for corporations. We estimate that that alone will actually lift the size of the economy by about 3 over the next decade. So thats great news. And perhaps on that point, no country on earth has ever dropped the corporate rate so far so fast as is proposed under this plan. Thats really good news. Paul all right. The other thing on the business side, two elements, and i want you to talk about those. One, expensing 100 immediate for five years for businesses. Yeah. Paul thats big progrowth, i think, if i read your literature correct. But the other thing is Small Businesses, the socalled passthroughs, most of them Small Businesses but some somewhat larger, that rates going down from 39. 6 to 25. Those are big progrowth as well . They are. They would have been more had the the expensing provision been made permanent. Thisll be somewhat like the cash for clunkers approach to tax policy where theyre going to get a rush of growth up front, but thatll taper off over time, and they wont get the growth over the long term that they might expect. So thats more of a budget gimmick in some respects. On the business side, thatll be interesting to see because they are exempting an awful lot of businesses from that 25 rate because theyre afraid of people gaming that system. Transferring what is, essentially, a wage income into business income to game the system. Theyve got a host of rules on that, theyre going to make that extremely complicated. Itll be interesting to see how much growth you actually get from it. Paul well, if youre a Hardware Store owner or a franchisee of a mcdonalds or Something Like that, youre going to qualify for this. Absolutely. Paul the people they want to make sure dont game the system are the big tax lawyers or the consultants who can turn wage income and, oh, hey, i qualify for this lower ra