Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Charlie paul ryan is here. He was reelected speaker of the house earlier winning the support of all but one House Republican and in his tenth term representing wisconsins tenth district. Hes been described as a steward of policy making long considered the partys intellectual core. Gop lawmakers embark on an era of unified republican government. The initial focus is on reversing Obama Administration policies starting with di dismantling and replacing obama care and overhauling the tax code and im pleased to have speaker ryan back at this table. Welcome. Thanks for having me back. Good to be with you. Charlie were at an historic moment. Give your assessment of barack obama who this afternoon held his final press conference. The Obama Presidency . And the man you knew. Actually i like the man i know. Hed be a great next door neighborhood. Charlie a good neighbor. He would shovel your walk while on spring break with your kids. Hes a very good family man and has led a good example as a good family man. I think thats important. I think he is a presidency of massive mispotential. I think he came in with a track record of being an ideologue and Left Progressive so that looked like what he could become but ran a campaign as a moderate. There was more a moment a lot of promise he might move to the middle and be a moderate president with his incredible gifts of no one can communicate like him. Hes very gifted at this. He had an opportunity to be more a unifying president if he were to become a centrist but was more of a divided president because he stayed left and his view of the government and institution is one not in keeping with our traditional limited rights republic and the policies he put in place dont and did not work and i think thats basically going to be the legacy. As a human being i like the man. As a dad and husband i like the man. I dont like him as a bears fan. We have healthy conversations about that but thats basically my assessment. Charlie is the primary thing obama care that identifies him as too far to the left . Thats a big part of it but i think he went through whole sectors of the economy trying to get the government to involve itself so much more deeply than it should have been. I think doddfrank is aperfect example. Hes a legitimate progressive which believes going from National Rights to governmentgranted rights and bureaucracies and harmonize society for good intentions it leads to a corrupt government and cronie government and disrespects individual rights and communities, Civil Society and i think thats his philosophy. The obama philosophy and that philosophy is apparent in health care, in doddfrank, and in so many regulations. Charlie according to a new poll cnn this morning hes popular since 2009 at 60 . I can see that because hes leaving. Hes a likable person. Hes an articulate person. Our economy isnt terrible. Its got a lot of missed potential. Charlie better than others. Were the healthiest looking horse in the glue factory. We have big problems in the country but theyre fixable and fix them on our own terms. Charlie you could have the same problems as speaker with the caucuses you have to deal with is that affair appraisal by john boehner. He did say that to me but our caucus has gotten so much more unified than ever before. Like you said i only lost one vote for speaker. Thats pretty darn rare. The reason is its two things as i see it. I spent all of 2016 to get our members to come to an agreement on an agenda wed agree on and present to the country to run and implement in 2016. 2016 was a unifying moment to take our principles and apply them to problems and come up with ideas and an agenda. We did that. That was unifying and now we have the opportunity with unified government to put it in place is extremely unifying you dont have divided government like we had under when john boehner was speaker. I want to talk about congressional agenda and your relationship with the president elect. Its getting better. Charlie shall i remind you what he said of you . He tweeted it. Im a big boy with thick skin. Its my tenth term. I dont worry about criticism. It doesnt affect me at this stage in my life. We constantly communicate and that constant communication has done a lot of to build trust and to get to know each other much much better. I met him for the first time well, i shook his hand once in new york four years ago for 30 seconds but i met him for the first im after he got the nomination in Reince Priebus office after the nomination. Charlie after the nomination . I didnt know the guy. He didnt know me and i didnt know him. After the campaign we didnt speak frequently and we had our difference and we have worked hard at making sure were talking all the time. We do that. I talked to him two nights ago. Charlie whats the conversation about him and you . Almost always about the agenda in place. Mitch mcconnel and i spent the last two months on piecing together a legislative plan and strategy to make good on the promises all of us made to the public who elected us and how well execute that. So almost all my conversations revolve around that. About the plans, where were going to go, sometimes its personnel because hes populating a cabinet. Its all about how to fix the problems and how to get the process going, how to deliver on our object ives and our goals. Charlie so the relationship is healthy . Very healthy. Charlie one thing hes said and hes used the bully pulpit to talk about jobs and bully corporations into not leaving and taking manufacturing overassess overseas its a good idea . I think the people want an american job fighting for american jobs. Charlie it resonate in the campaign. We ran on a National Stage and felt we should have won and he figured out how to connect with people. Charlie what did he figure out . I think he figured out how to really connect with people on an individual basis. Everybody talks about twitter and all this stuff he has learned how to communicate directly with the American People and go around the media and to give voice to people who feel like they have not been heard, who feel theyve been voiceless. So i think in his unique communication skills which are novel and different than traditional people running for office he has tapped a vein and given voice to people who felt like they havent been represented. And that basically gave us a winning coalition. I actually look at the election, wisconsins a perfect example. Reagan in 1984 was the last time he won everything but minnesota. Were typically a blue state. How is it donald trump wins wisconsin . He got disaffected bluecollar voters, Union Households to vote for donald trump. We together merged forces at the end and had our frictions before, we merged forces and got the unified Republican Party to unify and the collegeeducated suburban voter charlie including women. We got them to stick with the Republican Party and trump donal democrats and the Obama Coalition didnt turn out for barack obama. I think the combination of things is how i would quickly describe the victory but donalds role in this is tapping a frustration, giving voice to it and related with people. What do you make of it when they say it was one part that and one part james combey comey and one part russians. I dont dispute that because all it did was reinforce the existing story. The russians and jim comey didnt put this stuff on computers. They were selfinflicted wounds and the narrative was already out there but i think what she did not do was connect with people and the way her predecessor did. Donald trump did. He connected with people. Heres the other point. Your earlier question i dont think i think barack obama is a popular man and president. I dont think his policies are popular. I dont think the results of his policies are popular. Well get into Affordable Care act i assume but when people say i dont like the direction the countrys going. Look at the polls. Most americans dont believe the country is heading in the wrong direction why would they vote for someone swearing hell change. People wanted change and need and deserve change. Its our job to deliver on change. Its that simple. Charlie he also says she didnt campaign in those states. Its mindnumbing. We had to see you, feel you, touch you. You had no come and be there to ignore wisconsin and same for michigan. Political malpractice but im glad because its to our benefit. Charlie at the same time today he has the lowest polls of anybody who has entered the president almost in history down in the 40 . I think theyre trying to d delegitimize of the election and some people dont like donald trump and Public Opinion in any given day whats that matter to a person who is trying to make sure we deliver on the reforms we committed to that we sincerely believe will improve peoples lives. Back to obama if you look at the fights hes picking i think its in his heart to do that. We talk about poverty a lot. Charlie every time theres a windmill he took to that. I think hell learn to triage the windmills too. Charlie we talked about jobs, immigration, the wall, tax reform, trade. Is that your agenda . I can add a few more. Regulations are a big deal. Its one of the biggest dark clouds over our economy. I could spend an hour on the Labor Department and another hour on the epa. The energy things. Its one thing where i think the Obama Administration went far past and where i give the president the worst marks of all. Regulations. He hyper regulated the economy, it stifled the economy and raising the cost of business and product. Without going too far down that road, regulation. I assume you want too get in the Affordable Care act. And he want to add infrastructure to the priorities. We have done that and have to carve out the fiscal space for that and as you mentioned securing the borders a big part of that plan. Charlie hes going to build a wall . So we already have the law on the books to have a physical barrier. The way we look at this is whatever the conditions on the ground are warrant or dictate and ive been to parts of the border where they suggest at this spot we should have a wall and over at these mountains it should be a fence. Well work to secure the border. It will have a physical barrier and i assume in some places it will have a wall because thats what conditions will dictate. Charlie so mexico will pay for it . I think the current front is well front the cash. Charlie the plan is youre going to find the money and hes going to find a way for mexico to pay you back. Thats right. Charlie is that feasible . Its if you define paying it back in a broader way. I can go into tax reform. Theres ways where wed get more money coming in from mexico than the current status quo in excess of whatever it would cost to finance a wall. Then go to trade. Where we agree is lets get good trade deals. Charlie did you think the transpacific deal was a bad deal . I think he cut a bad deal in certain areas. I didnt support the tpp he negotiated. I worked with his team during the negotiations and i think they went into a direction more to the left the liking of democrats that we dont like and i think they did three or four things we couldnt live with. As it is currently constructed its not a good deal. I believe in trade. I like bilateral and multilateral agreements. Charlie the president of china was in davos making a speech. He said trade war will destroy everybodys economy. We dont want a trade war. Charlie but isnt what the president is threatening a trade war . I dont think so. First of all the man is a negotiator and business man and think he has a longball view of this and just from my conversations with him i dont think its just episode and anecdotal and were getting taken advantage of they steal our intellectual Property Rights and compete in violation of International Trade rules today. Not to mention dumping goods into our country and through other countries we call trans shipment. What donald is saying we have to enforce these agreements and make sure we level the Playing Field. Charlie if not he said hell put a 45 tariff on anything that comes in from china. Hes a good negotiator. We are getting taken advantage of in certain areas. Not all but certain areas. Last thing we want is a fortress of america and trade war even n currency war but it doesnt mean well say to other countries we well play on an unlevel Playing Field with you. The purpose should be to level the Playing Field. If we have a level Playing Field the American Worker and business can compete with anybody but we dont want a stacked deck. Charlie you believe its possible for the resurgence in american manufacturing. Im convinced. Charlie American Workers have not priced themselves out of the marketplace. Because theres other factors than bidding down wages. We dont have to play the wage arbitrage game. Theres other things we can do and thats the core of our agenda, returning manufacturing to america, make america an Energy Powerhouse because of the awful regulations the Outgoing Administration placed on our economy and give certainty and we can become an energy giant. We can have in north america the kind of Energy Production exportation that can rival charlie meaning canada and the United States and mexico . Absolutely that can rival opec. I believe if we get our tax policies right and regulatory policies right and trade policies right we can see a resurgence. Charlie well get to obama care and other domestic issues. What kind of tax reform are you in favor of and is it at one with what donald trump wants . We discussed it the other night in great length and if you want to look at it go to our website. 22 corporate rate is what the house says. He want it as 15 . Wed be happy to do that but we have to make the math work. If you look at what our charlie if you reduce it you have to get the revenue we propose revenue neutral tax reform it wont increase the deficit. You get more income subject to taxation to get taxed at a lower rate to make us more competitive. So back up for a second. Whats going on in the world and why are we suffering from this tax system we have today . The industrialized countries their average tax rate on businesses is 23 . Our tax rate on american corporations is 35 thats only 20 of american businesses. The tax rate on what we call passthroughs individuals who file their income taxes as an individual charlie you pay as an individual income. That tax rate is 44. 6 . Were killing ourselves. Charlie are they the people who got killed by obama care . Yes and the regulations. Remember, thats where most our jobs come from. Most our jobs come from small, medium and new business. The other point i was going to make is we have this goofy system in how we tax ourselves internationally. It tells american businesses youre better off become a foreign company. Youre better off making things overseas and selling back to america and if you make money overseas you cant bring the money back because of the tax system. Charlie because its 35 . 35 . We have this goofy system that is so out of sync with the rest of the world and so uncompetitive. Theres 2 billion to 3 billion parked overseas american money thats made and earned and not coming back to our economy because of the tax laws. Fixing that alone will bring so much more back to the american economy. The other point is when we tax our businesses at higher rates than our foreign competitors tax theirs they win, we lose and it puts american businesses in this Global Economy at a huge disadvantage. So we want to fix that. We want to get the rates down and encourage businesses to invest in this country to build factories and buy equipment in this country and put us on a level Playing Field with the rest of the world so if you make it in america, you keep it in america and we want a system that doesnt punish that and thats the primary purpose of tax reform. Why are we trying to do that . Grow the economy, more wages, more jobs, higher wages. Thats what we want to accomplish. Charlie he said every time i hear border adjustment you know where im going, i dont love it. Usually it means well get adjusted into a bad deal. Its a very simple system in the way its described. Let me describe it clearly. The rest of the world has consumption taxes so when they make something in their country and they sell it overseas but when something comes from overseas to their country they tax it. We do the opposite. Take Harley Davidson in milwaukee. We make a harley motorcycle in milwaukee, we tax it. We tax it if its going to be ridden in wisconsin and tax it if its going to be sold into japan. Its taxed as it leaves and enters into japan. Take honda. They make a gold wing a cycle that competes with the harley. Honda makes this motorcycle and if its going to america they take the tax off of it because its being exported. And then as it comes into america its not taxed so their thing is untaxed twice. Our motorcycle is taxed twice. Charlie therefore you cant be price competitive. Yes and an unlevel Playing Field. Its getting us in sync with the rest of the world saying take our tax off our exports and put them on imports like everybody else does and put them on a level Playing Field like the rest. Its changing the way we do our taxes based on the destination of consumption so that the added benefit is American Companies it gives them an enormous incentive too stay in america and keep making harleys in america and exporting them overseas and make it more profitable to keep it in his country and export it and makes it more profitable to stay in business because your foreign competition coming in is now on a level