And youre relentless on this tax cut thing. I think these markets are weaving in and out, up and down based on the prospect for this thing coming to spas. Stuart i think so. Neil its undeniable. You can time it tick for tick every single day. The better it looks, the better stocks look. I think thats undeniable. Touche to you, my friend. Stuart thank you for the support there, neil. Its all yours. Neil thank you very much, stuart. All right, well, this russia thing and who knew what and when, Jeff Sessions recusing himself and all of that, its just another one of these wrinkles that develop and get in the way of things stuart was talking about he wants to see republicans doing and a whole lot of other investors want to see republicans doing, that is providing what could be the biggest tax cut in a generation. Whether you think justifiable preoccupied or not, investors sort of take their marbles and go home or, certainly, their gains and go home. That has been the case certainly over the last couple of days. Whether it continues or this is much ado about nothing, anyones guess. But, obviously, these distractions are real and sidelining some of these other interests to the markets, note my tax cuts and regulation cuts, all that stuff. Connell mcshane here to cut to the chase. Reporter neil, youre right about that. Every time we see this subject get breached, we see the market gets worried. The white house is desperate to stay on message generally speaking. We saw the president o yesterday when he was in newport news, virginia, pushing the military spending message. Today its a School Choice event in orlando, florida. But the sessions story is making it very, very difficult to do that. Its still at the top of the news in many places, and the attorney general himself made this argument about it when he was interviewed last night on fox news by tucker carlson. I dont think what was said about that heating i had with the Russian Ambassador was legitimate. , i think it was hyped beyond reason, and i think it was unfair. Reporter the president also coming to his defense, he tweeted out a statement about the whole sessions ordeal, the meeting with the ambassador. Jeff sessions an honest man, he did not sigh anything wrong. He could say anything wrong. It was clearly not intentional. The real story, all of the illegal leaks of classified and other information. It is a total witch hunt. Funny enough, the same term the Russian Foreign minister asked when he was speaking about this whole ordeal today. So why is it so difficult to put this story, you know, in the Rearview Mirror . I mean, number one, to be fair, theres some questions that still need to be answered, there are investigations that are still underway, so in that way its an active story. But you also have democrats in washington just absolutely going for the jugular. Watch. The fact that the attorney general, the top cop in our country, lied under oath to the American People is grounds for him to resign. For the good of the country, attorney general sessions should resign. Reporter so we know theres no resignation coming, but we do as you pointed out, neil have the recusal. It came in last night from all investigations related to the alged russian campai meddling. And then adding to the drama, you have the acting Deputy Attorney general to take over this investigation until the actual deputy is in place and possibly confirmed next week. The president , again, will be in orlando even today, neil, trying to get the focus back on his agenda. That agenda that was just outlined in his speech on tuesday night, if we all remember that. Seems so long ago. Neil indeed. Connell, thank you very much. Connell mcshane. Then there is the issue of what to do about obamacare, repeal, replace, whatever. But theres sharp divisions among republicans, some conservatives like rand paul who tell me, look, were not going to replace one Big Government albatross of a program with a slightly less Big Government albatross of a program. Heres what he told me last night. The fear is republicans, theyre falling apart. But theres another way to look at this, neil. Put forward the bill we already voted on, youll get unanimous support, be done with it neil wait a minute, its a simple reeel. Yeah, simple repeal. And then put forward replacement at the same time as a separate bill. See, thats what ive been arguing for. Id let the democrats put forward a replacement too. Id give them a vote neil not everyone agrees on a replacement, so youre back to square one. Thats what would happen, youd figure that out through voting. The Big Government people want a new entitlement program, they want Medicaid Expansion and they want somehow, you know, to have federal money pay for all this. Lets vote on that as a separate bill neil this is falling apart, isnt it . [laughter] no, no, neil. No, no, no, no, no. Neil, its simple. You vote on complete repeal separate neil they dont want to do it. I know they dont want to do it, but if they want conservatives to vote for repeal, theyre going to have to give it to us separate from neil assuming they dont do that, senator, then the tax cut thing is delayed if not off, right . Well, what happens is theres a jockeying going back and forth, and they will have to see if they can convince conservatives to vote for their plan. But i can tell you it will not pass with a new entitlement program, the cadillac tax and they keep the individual mandate. These are the things weve been campaigning against for years now. Neil all right. They cant keep obamacare lite and expect conservatives to vote fort. Neil i stand by wt i said i my interview there, it is falling apt, and theres no other way to put a spin on it, especially when republicans meet behind closed doors and try to prevent the likes of senator rand paul and ted cruz and so many others from having a role in this and weighing in on this. All of this at the same time were seeing Vice President pence this is live right now Speaker Paul Ryan and health and Human Services secretary tom price in wisconsin. They are pitching their own plan, but heres what sticks in the craw of the likes of rand paul, that these guys are all in agreement on this replacement approach that some conservatives and, again, i mentioned three of them right now in the senate, thats all you need. Any more than two all of a sudden this thing is problem mat you can. They agree with problematic. They agree on an approach that theyre going to cook up in the house, then its an up or down vote in the senate. Three republican senators who are against it right now, this thing is dead. The approach that theyre taking is dead. Theres not that much wiggle room here. At issue here is how big a Government Role do we want in the Nations Health care system. Some of the leadership is talking about these tax cents that would tax created that would provide credits that would provide the means. You get the rub. This is nowhere near done. And the reason why this kind of thing weighs on the markets is because not only does it delay getting any progress going on repealing and replacing obamacare, but it moves everything back when it comes to the tax consistents. So can you say antsy . To gerri willis and charlie gasparino. You know, lindsay, im looking at this, and im saying, all right, everything has to fall into place just right. And its not an easy task, and im not blaming republicans here. But they gave the impression that it would be, you know, wham bam done, and its not going to be wham bam doing right . And thats what were worried about, the markets reaction to this further delay. On tuesday i think the market s very clear that theyre willg to give the obama excuse me, the Trump Administration some leeway. They were very happy with the articulate presentation of the overall, still very progrowth agenda that remains the focus of the Trump Administration. But at some point, were going to lose a lot of confidence, a lot of momentum that weve seen in the market if we dont see specifics. Now, he did talk about some specifics in terms of obamacare, extending hsas, talking about being able to buy insurance across state borders, but there was no outline, no timetable, and there was no financing specifics which is really going to continue to give the market the optimism it needs that were going to see a deal and, furthermore, that were going to move beyond obamacare and start focusing on taxes. And thats really what the market neil and thats the delay, thats the worry. You know, gerri, one of the things too, say what you will, most people like the headlines, you know, the coverage for people who dont have it. Right. Neil cover average for those with preexisting conditions who used to be unable to get it. Where they differ is how you pay for all that. And what conservatives are feeling to the leadership they feel is ignoring them is, look, youre just replacing one monostros city with a slightly smaller one, and were not going to sign onto that. And that is a real palpable revolt. Right. Let me tell you specifics on that. Ive just spent time reporting these numbers because its been absolutely unclear what this tax credit was going to be and how much we were going to spend for it. What i understand if you score that better way plan, the original better way plan, the cost of that tax credit is 43 44 billion a year. So youre covering lots of people, youre giving them an option not for people who are on employersponsored health care, but others. Lots of people will turn to this, theyll be able to use this tax credit meehl thatll but to pay for that then, youre going to start taxing those youre going to cut out the expansion of medicaid. Thats what pays for it. And apparently, i talked to the folks at the center for health and economy, they scored this. What they are saying is that, look, if you take out that Medicaid Expansion be, it pays for th, and netnet the dget impact iactually, you know, pretty much even. Neil so there you go. I think the bottom line if it was that easy, they would have done it though. Well, no neil apparently its not easy. Medicaid is highly, highly controversial. Neil there are a lot of those that dont like it. But having said that, the bottom line here is that these markets, they are priced for perfection, everything getting done to lindsays earlier point, and i think that now maybe realitys catching up here, you know . Its been a heady advance, and im wondering whether the folks yaw talk to, charlie, are saying, gee, maybe this doesnt happen, certainly in the august timetable. Well, you know, hope remains eternal. A lot of wall street like they like president obama President Trump because hes not president obama. You get some credit for that. You give a decent speech, you talk some free market politics, and markets go up. Stock traders trade off headlines. I will say this, though, and heres the underlying fear spoke spoken on wall street, and you hear a lot of political guys say this too, that the Trump Administration made this huge and not very smart tactical error in what their first 100day agenda was going to be. They went after the most difficult, the most contentious issue in american politics right now which Everybody Knows is not going to be a 100danish shoe. Thats obamacare. Instead of going after the low hanging fruit which probably will have an Immediate Impact on the economy but they did that for let me just i dont care about the tactical reason. If they would have cut taxes, got rid of regulation where theres broad agreement, then deal with obamacare, you could have dealt with obamacare in the midst of a rising stock market neil were not there now. Well, now youre stuck. Neil you might be right. So when you talk to traders and other people, investors in general in the aggregate, do they start seeing this thing stripping away . I mean, it was jamie dimon who earlier in the week ahead of my, you know, interview with the treasury secretary said, look, we admire what youre trying to do and the august deadline aint happening. We dont think its a 2017 development at all, more like 2018, you know, knock on whatever. He might be right. Then whats the fallout . Again, theres still a certain amount of confidence in the marketplace right now, and when were talking to investors, market participants, theyre still talking about, well, things can get better. And weve been waiting for this can get better for quite some time neil and we should stress, the markets are still up even with the selloff absolutely, and they remain forward looking. Whats different in the underlying economy now prior to trumps election . Really nothing. Growth unrevised at the end of the year leaving us at an anemic 1. 6 neil and if theyre delayed really no pathway other than maintaining the current status quo which has left us with lackluster growth for the past several years. And the market is way overvalued at current [inaudible] no, no, you talk about wait a second [inaudible conversations] theres a lot of stuff going on in the economy beyond the markets. Wait a second im right. You cant argue with those numbers. Market prices in earnings, what is the p. E. Ratio of the 22. 15. And what is it trading at now . 29. Neil whoa, whoa, this is an important distinction [inaudible conversations] neil youre saying that the market is trading at 29 times earnings. I thoughting it was 22. Neil identify not herald 29, i think you made that up. The average is 15. Its way overvalued neil but theres a difference between forward and i know, but if you neil we had some knucklehead here with a different suit right. Neil who said, yeah, its a little rich but not outlandishly rich. Thats what they said in 2007. Neil thats where i wanted to pick up. I do hear what youre saying. Im joking with you, but what do you make of that, that if this market were priced for this thing getting done, letgo back to the health care thing and thats delayed a little bit. How does the market deal with that . What are you hearing from folks if its delayed . And, by the way, you know, handling this health care thing right and not rushing a bad solution that could be worse than what youre dealing with might be a good idea anyway, but what do you think of that . Well, i think the problem is, is that it delays tax reform. I think thats the major thing the broad market is concerned with, is do we get tax reform and how quickly. I have to tell you, to the idea that the markets are overvalued, how long did it take us to go through this last thousand points . 24 trading days d. [inaudible conversations] you saying the markets are not overvalued . No, no, no, charlie, if youd listen and stop talking and let me make my point, let me make my point which is actually supporting what youre saying, is the last time that happened was during the dot. Com boom and then subsequent crash. So we have seen incredible gains neil let me ask you something, do you think right now that the markets, if you get the tax cuts, say what you will whether overvalued or not, theyre certainly rich. That it will be justified . The tax cuts will spur growth, earnings so all of a sudden the math, to charlies point and to gerris point looks better. What do you think of that . If we see tax reforms in the actual form as proposed on the campaign trail. But getting that version of tax reform is very unlikely. So it may not be neil what do you mean by that . Were talking about consolidating seven to three tax brackets, thats very unlikely neil so you dont think the rates will be as low as theyre being telegraphed . Absolutely not. I think thats very, very ambitious. Corporate tax rate will be. I think maybe 20, 25 is a realistic aim. Neil you get to 25 , thats going to because theyre fully expecting at least 20. I think thats going to be very difficult to sell, especially from the fact that, remember, were still talking about out of control Government Spending which is number two neil you guys are out of control. [laughter] i want to thank you all very much. Well have to watch that closely. We could get some of this telegraphed on what these guys are coming to agreement on, the health care thing. But remember, thats obama folks who are now telling the trump folks, see . Youre in charge of this, and now youre botching it. Well have more after this. Your Insurance Company wont replace the full value of your totaled new car. The guy says you picked the wrong insurance plan. No, i picked the wrong Insurance Company. With Liberty Mutual new car replacement™, you wont have to worry about replacing your car because youll get the full value back including depreciation. And if you have more than one Liberty Mutual policy, you qualify for a multipolicy discount, saving you money on your car and home coverage. Call for a free quote today. Liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. Neil all right, if you think weve been seeing a disproportionate number of stories on the Trump Administration that appear to be slightly negative, you are right. A study just conducted about 88 of them have been deemed negative in the first 30 or so days of the Trump Administration. So its fine, and we always say youre fine to cover the negative news be, we do as well, but well also point out some of the good stuff going on like the increased market worth and all these ceos planning to hire more in america and boost their u. S. Operations. We feel that, you know, 24 hours on the air, you have time to get into all this stuff. But apparently not everyone is of that mindset. The Media Centers rich noise has a little more context. It sounds to me, rich, that theres a disproportionate attention to the negative stuff, but overwhelmingly so, right . Oh, extremely overwhelmingly. I mean, the first 30 days of a presidency is normally when a president gets their best coverage, and this was phenomenally negative. The establishment media, abc, cbs, nbc, are covering trump as if hes some sort of Natural Disaster as opposed to a new president. The coverage is tremendous. Its twice as