Robert mueller or pardoning any witnesses. Lets get to joe johns at the white house. Reporter the hard task begins of rolling out the tax overhaul, but one of the things that could pour cold water on the enthusiasm over the tax bill is shutting down the government because the governments leaders cant get a spending bill together. They say they are going to do it. Right now it looks likely they can, but time is running out. I look at these people and its like we are warriors together. Reporter President Trump celebrating the tax bill alongside Congressional Republicans after months of attacking gop leadership over previous legislative failures. Paul ryan and mitch, we got together and we would work very hard, didnt we . It seems like it was a lot of fun. Its always a lot of fun when you win. Reporter the lovefest continuing with ryan and mcconnell gushing over the president. Something this profound could not have been done without president ial leadership. Thank you. Reporter and theres confusion for taxpayers on how to prepare for the huge overhaul. Republicans saying workers will feel the benefits of the tax cut in a matter of weeks. On january 1, americans are going to wake up with a new tax code. In february, they will see withholdings go down so see bigger paychecks. The tax bill making a impact on the obamacare individual mandate. Republicans tried to repeal obamacare, but they failed. So with this bill, not only do we have massive tax cuts and tax reform, we have essentially repealed obamacare and we will come up with something that will be much better. Reporter President Trump selling the tax overhaul as a Christmas Present on middle class, and comcast and at t promising 1,000 bonuses to their employees and wells fargo hiking its minimum wage, but pfizer and cocacola saying they will turn over most gains to their shareholders. Is that what you intended . Giving more money so they buy back more stock increasing the wealth of the ceos . Reporter republicans have two days to pass a spending bill to avoid shutting down the government. A closed door meeting of House RepublicansLate Wednesday night ending with more questions than answers. There are still more administrative steps to be taken on capitol hill before the president can sign the tax bill. We hear he is anxious to do so and might just sign it from maralago if necessary. Nothing on the president s public schedule today and the question is if he will hold a yearend news conference. Let us know when you find that out. Thank you very much. Joining us to discuss all of this, david and a. B. Stoddard. The president admitted something yesterday that the public suspected. In all the polls, the public felt this favored corporations over the middle class and this was designed as a Corporate Tax cut, and that was really a crowning achievement and the purpose of it and the president seemed to reinforce that yesterday. Let me play for you what he said. Our plan also lowers the tax on American Business from 35 all the way down to 21 . Thats probably the biggest factor in the plan, we become competitive all over the world. Our Companies Wont be leaving our country any longer because our tax burden is so high because we are down to the lower end of the spectrum opposed to being the highest. Thats probably the biggest factor and the crowning achievement they would say and its a bit off script and message from the way lawmakers were trying to sell it in the past couple of weeks. Look, i do think that the reason the republicans are focusing on this is because there has been for years a bipartisan consensus that our Corporate Tax rates and structure put the u. S. At a competitive disadvantage. There was always a debate of what the rate should be lowered to and other changes that should be made, and republicans believe strongly this is going to make the u. S. Competitive and thats going to be good for job growth and wage growth and now they have to hope that comes to fruition, and the reason is they were willing to bend more and make sacrifices on the individual side where you have tax cuts not permanent, and then depending on where you live and what your income is, the gains might be uneven. As well as the democrats have done, alisyn, in pushing as this as a tax cut for the wealthy, and that is a challenge for republicans, but the real challenge for the gop is to win back support for the bill in a lot of the upscale suburbs where the House Majority will be contested next year. These are districts and states where voters tend to want to vote republican and tend to support tax cuts and like tax cut bills but they feel because of changes to state and local Tax Deductions and changes to the mortgage deduction, a lot of the voters think this bill will hurt them in the wallet. Thats why you saw a dozen House Republicans from these sorts of districts vote against this. That, to me, is the real district. These are upscaled districts but thats where republicans could see real blowback next year and that could cost them in the house. A. B. , as mr. Trump was running for office he was talking about how he would close the loophole for hedge fund managers, the passthrough deal, and he was committed to that idea as late as monday but new york republicans who have to think about their donors on wall street put the kibosh on that. Little things like that, things like the individual mandate for obamacare, which is more popular if you believe the polls than the tax bill itself, and how do you think it will play out politically . There really is a division in the ranks at between the administration, the outside influences like steve bannon, and the former chief strategist to the president who wanted a 44 rate for anybody earning over 5 million was looking for a different tax reform. Bannon was . Yes, bannon was. Gary cohen admitted they were pushing to close the interest loophole and tried it 25 times but Congressional Republicans kept slapping it down and thats why it stayed in place. So blaming that on congress. Look, people have been pretty honest about this. Chris collins, the congressman from new york, a big early supporter of President Trump said flat out that the donors basically said they will never write another check unless we pull this together, and Lindsay Graham the senator from South Carolina said something about that, too. They were basically going to be abandoned by the people that support them financially, and with whom they need donations to basically defend their majority in the midterms next year. If they didnt accomplish this, the donors were furious they couldnt repeal and replace obamacare and promisd tax reform and republicans have been pretty honest about the fact that they were going to be abandoned by the people that give them Financial Support if they could not get this over the line. Guys, there was this contest, it seemed, yesterday, of who could heap the most praise on President Trump in light of the victory. I think the winner might be mike pence. I am deeply humbled to be Vice President , because of your leadership and because of the strong support of the leadership in the united states, you are delivering that middle class miracle. I want to thank you, mr. President , i want to thank you for speaking on behalf of and fighting every day for the forgotten men and women of america. Because of your determination, because of your leadership, the forgotten men and women of america are forgotten no more and we are making great again. Look at the president s body language, and even he is like take it down a notch, right . Or maybe he was saying thats not good enough, i want more. Yeah. All politicians like apblglation and they need to hear it, but the president by the way, you know, republicans used to complain about president obama who used to they used to count up the number of times he said i, or my team, and now we see it in reverse and more so and i think that republicans understand this and they are trying to give him this affirmation to try and encourage him to play ball with them and to feel good about working in a more traditional environment, which he bucked in the last ten months in not just his detriment but to the republicans detriment. In the past couple months, we have not seen him beat up republicans too much, maybe a little bit, but not like over the summer. If President Trump beats up on them less, at least with their own Party Heading into the midterm elections they are in a better position and i think thats where they want to be and i think they will lay it on as thick as they have to to keep him happy. I want to know the thought bubble over Rex Tillersons head. I am sure twitter will have tackled that one. I think it shows mike pence knows if he ever will get the big chair, hes latching himself to the trump brand. No alternative for him. A. B. , do you have a final thought in the next five seconds . Nobody better to do this than mike pence. Thank you very much. Law mockemakers are lookinge bill called daca. Could there be a deal in the works . A senator involved in the talks joins us. You might take something for your heart. Or joints. But do you take something for your brain. 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Give your family the security it needs, at a price you can afford. Since 1985, selectquote has saved over a million families millions of dollars on Life Insurance. Republican party and President Trump scoring a major legislative victory passing the tax overhaul measure, but now the gop is facing a looming Government Shutdown. What is going to happen . Lets talk about this and more with senator james langeford of oklahoma. Good morning to you. Congratulations on the victory of the tax overhaul. I know you expressed some displeasure or dissatisfaction that it would increase the deficit, and some say it would be 2 trillion added to the debt, so why did you decide to overlook that . Well, its not overlooking it. Different economists are forecasting, and all of them said it would be Economic Growth and its a matter of how much. And some were saying. 1 and others saying 5 growth. My main focus is we have to have the economy growing again. If we dont have the economy growing again we will never you got comfortable with the forecasts either 1 trillion, or . 5 trillion to the debt. The point of it is for me, trying to evaluate how are we going to deal with debt and deficit and you will never deal with it with a 2 growth, like now, and this gives us the opportunity for Economic Growth and with that comes increased taxes because they make more money so pay more money. Its a gamble. You are hoping for that. The bread and butter of conservatives, as you are, it seemed, was, at one time fiscal responsibility. And i think it still is. You still have to have Economic Growth and fiscal responsibility and you have to have the opportunity to grow out of this, and i would tell you, every time you do any tax policy its a guess, and if you tax too much it slows the economy down and if you tax too little you cant pay the bills of the economy and government and so you have to hit that balance and its always your best guess as you walk through it, what is the best guess. Theres a piece of legislation about russian meddling in our elections. Let me read to you, and i know you crafted it, but let me read for the viewers. During 2016 election russia hacked president ial campaign accounts and launched Cyber Attacks as least 21 state election systems and attacked a u. S. Systems software company, and this dangerous precedent should be a wakeup call as we head into the 2018 election cycle. Why do you feel so strongly about this . I feel strongly about it because its obvious. If we allowed russians to do it and we didnt catch it, and if we do it again in a future time thats our problem of what we are not taking advantage of what we know to be true. Where states are not keeping up their equipment we need to provide grants for them to take care of the equipment. 12 different states right now cannot audit their elections after the fact. I think thats a problem. Every state should be able to audit their system. We need to maintain the state control of that, they manage all elections but where they need help in the process we need to streamline that process of how they keep things up to speed. You say what happened in the 2016 election should be a wake up call. Does the president need a wake up call . The Homeland Security department is very active in this, they have been very engaged i mean President Trump. He called the russia story a hoax. Do you think the russia story is a hoax . No, i do not. I think the president s greatest frustration is sometimes theres an impression that comes out that russia is the reason he won the evidence. Theres no evidence any vote was tampered with or anything changed in the system, but theres clear evidence the russians were trying to probe our system and engaging on social media and trying to examine different voter systems across 21 different states. I think you are right, the president does have a hard time distinguishing between russian meddling and accusations of russian collusion. It ends up he says things like this to the wall street journal. Is the whole russia story a hoax . Were actually walking through multiple investigations to be able to lock down all the issues with the russia investigation but the meddling. He lumps them to go. There are two different issues. Did the russians affect the outcome, and the president has been outspoken about he did not collude with them, and theres no question they tried to meddle in the elections, and they like to demonstrate their power through their means. You have shared your unequivocal position with the president . I have, actually, and he has heard me say it multiple times in media settings like this and in private settings like this. He believes you or is skeptical . He understands russia meddled or no . You will have to ask him about that. We will be in settings when i hear him say things, but i dont press him on that while im on the Senate Intelligence team. Do you believe he thinks russia meddled . I think he does have a sense that the rain showereussians weo do something, and what that level is you would have to ask him. Hes very passionate about they didnt collude. I want to ask you about the continuing resolutions to fund the budget and whether or not we are going to have a Government Shutdown sometime in the next 24 hours, and one of the sticking points in daca and thats the program that protects the children who were brought here as minors through no choice of their own. I know you are in the middle of negotiating about this and what do you think will happen with this program . We wont have a daca extension during this time period. I think there has been wide agreement on this as we have tried to work through the issues on it, and it will not happen in december but will most definitely happen in january or february. The daca issue, the president put out a march deadline and it has to be dealt with legislatively, and were not there yet. We have to work through the senate and the house is trying to work through a process to figure out how to deal with it. When you deal with daca, we put out a bill called the succeed act because three different times the d. R. E. A. M. Act has come up, and even when it was a Democratic House and senate and white house, the d. R. E. A. M. Act did not pass. We need to resolve daca for those kids and we believe we have a good solution, tom tillerson and i do, and you have to deal with Border Security because if you deal with daca now, you will have another group of dhaaca coming through. You have to deal with the child and the parent. How do you handle those two separately . You need compassion for the kids and also holding up justice under the law. A oneword answer, do you