With us, vel veteran columnist and msnbc contributor mike barnicle, Political Writer for the New York Times, nick confessore, elise jordan and former treasury official and morning joe economic analyst steve ratner. Nick, i have to ask you, man, did you see it . Friday. Friday . No, no, i have tickets for this friday, 9 00 in the morning, by the way, imax ticket, reserved seating at that big theater in times square. Dont tell me a thing. Hes going to ruin it for you. Did you see the number it put up . Whats that . Did you see the number it put up . No. What did it do . Like 222 million on opening weekend. Star wars man. You know what is amazing about it . My boys and i are freaks about it, absolute freaks about it and have been for a long time. And everybody goes out with a different opinion. Really . Joey scarborough said its the best one he has ever seen. Others go out, saying theyre shocked. That its some just dont see it. Because its a waste of time. That its terrible and its i thought it was a great movie. Where is joey on the porgs . Joey is fine with the porgs. Its not like its jaja binx. Thats not a spoiler. But anyway, its great movie making and mark hamill, holy moly, inkrcredible. Second Biggest Box Office opening in history, 222 million. Yep. Amazing. Can we get to the news . Cool. When voters were asked who they want in charge of congress, a new poll shows democrats have their biggest lead since september of 2008 in the newly released nbc news wall street journal poll, 50 of registered voters said they prefer democratic control of congress while 39 want republicans in charge, an 11point edge. Democrats led by 12 points among independent voters, two points among men and 20 points among women. Along with a fourpoint advantage with seniors and a 48point lead with voters under 35. Republicans continue to hold a twopoint edge with white voters and 12point lead among white voters with no college degree. The poll also measured a gap in the interest level among the 2016 electorate with 11 months to go, 62 of clinton voters have a high level of interest while 50 of trump voters do. The poll showed an uptick in the president s Approval Rating to 41 , though he remains historically unpopular for this point in his term. You look at the republican and democratic split, elise, and its like alabama and its just like virginia. Young voters especially. Minority voters, women voters just flock away from the Republican Party. And you go back to this 2012 autopsy after mitt romney lost the election, the gop commission. It was all about how the gop needed to focus on the looming demographic issues with losing minority voters and losing young voters. Youre actually that didnt impact 2016 as much. But i think that now with these special elections, we really are seeing young voters mobilize in a way that they really havent in previous cycles. Here is steve, we have the shortterm problem, which is 2018, but we have the longterm systemic this is going to destroy the Republican Party for a generation problem. Republicans are losing to democrats with people under 35 years of age. Im going to say this really slowly for republicans. Because this is the death star aiming right at them. Actually, theyre firing the death star lasers at themselves. Minus 48. They are down 50 , basically, with people under 35. That stays with them forever. Those 35yearolders get older and move forward. This say branding problem. I was a republican at 18 and remained a republican until i was 54. People dont switch very much. What do they do . Other than just fold up the tent. I think there are things they can do. Whether they are going to do them or not remains to be seen. Are they going to deal with this bannonite, populist crazy wing of the party, get them out of the way and start to adopt policies that they say theyre trying to help as opposed to helping corporations and rich people, which is what this tax bill does. Did you hear what our friend tom cole said this weekend . No, i didnt see tom cole. Tom cole actually came out and said man this bill didnt do what we said it would do for working class americans. Thats the washington definition of a gaf. Thats a fact. The tax bill is historically unpopular as well. The American Public seems to have figured it out yet theyre plunging theyre going to pass the thing. Theyre in a terrible place. The party is obviously driven down the middle. Can they pull it together . Sure, they could potentially pull it together but theyve got to start to do some stuff. Mike . But they followed up. They had the disaster in alab a alabama. You think they would have i mean this. You would think they would have learned this lesson. Okay, we are really turning off Younger Voters, were really turning off women. Were really turning off people who arent just the most staterun tv and republicans going out saying fire bob mueller. Something that the overwhelming majority of americans will believe would launch a constitutional crisis. They never learn. Not only that but usually staterun tv and employing the word coup. Coup which is a truly dangerous word to employ. Who is running fox news, by the way . Donald trump. Seriously. I think he was serious. You see what some of those people are saying. And i have stayed away from criticizing fox news for years, for a lot of different reasons. You see the irresponsibility, especially this weekend. Fox news let me say this. They are fomenting a constitutional crisis by suggesting to people watching fox news in Middle America that somebody is attempting a coup, a coup against our government. Lets take an unsponsored break here brought to you by websters dictionary. Violent overthrow or altering of an existing government by a small group. Thats what theyre fomenting. Thats what theyre pushing about a factfinding, truthseeking mission led by a guy who absolutely, bob mueller, lives his life right down the middle. Let be clear. That was set up by Donald Trumps own administration, his own Justice Department, his own attorney general, his own Deputy Attorney general. This is called the rule of law. This wasnt the deep state. This was donald trump state. Were going to get to this in a little bit. What they are doing could lead to violence and what they are doing is about as deeply irresponsible than anything ive ever seen. Again, for the purposes of this discussion, since the republicans even further down in the approval polls. And thats, i think, a key point to the question that you posed a few minutes ago. And it is anect krchlanecdotali picked this up. Its a fix that young people, suburban women have about this administration. The cosmetics of it are people like bannon on tv. People like are you saying people like steve bannon . No, people who are like . Very few and hear people like steve bannon on tv and something that they do, that they say, people like bannon say and do and behave on tv which is where most people get their information about president ial politics it jars young people. Some of whom are conservative, by the way. Its not their country. 50 , almost 50 of people, voters under 35, disapprove and are disconnected from the Republican Party. Thats going to have a devastating impact on the Republican Party for decades to come. If those number hold true, yes, it will. Whats happening right now with the tax cut, this is a party that is doing the last thing it knows how to do, which is cut Corporate Taxes. All the donors, all the businesses that have been holding their tp tongue tongues Trump Presidency so far this is what they get in exchange. When you have full kroefl both ends of pennsylvania avenue they say we have to do this now. In fact, the worst thing is to get to the polls, the more incentive to be aggressive because they sure cant do this in two years. This tax bill, lets talk about the first Major Policy Initiative of this administration and how it negatively impacts young voters. Its kicking the can down the road, increasing the deficit, not doing anything to curb entitlement spending. We, as a generation, see this ruling class that really could care less in their short termerism about what kind of country theyre leaving, what kind of Fiscal Health theyre leaving the country. This is a tax bill that will turn young voters into socialists. But to your point, nick, yes, they had a short window to get stuff done. I agree with that. You could fix the Corporate Tax code and still be fair to individuals and still help working americans and still do a lot of stuff. This is the swamp taking over. This is every special interest, everything donald trump said he wasnt going to do, happening in front of our very eyes. This is where the republicans really get crushed, though. Front page of the financial times. Windfall from tax overhaul. Fantastic. Young people out there working, suburban families struggling to make ends meet, they know and theyre going to find out that the tax cut that they get is pretty much meaningless in terms of their everyday lives. But they also know the reality, that the Big Companies they work for, the conglomerates they work for, the Company Profits are going to soar. And it wont be passed down. We said that happened in the 1980s. Never happen. That doesnt happen now. Theyre going to buy back more shares. Everybody said it. You know, gary cohen asked all the ceos. Nobody raises their hand. They know theyre going to get the tax break, buy back stock and the millennials, Younger Voters that elise is talking about, millennials, you just had 1. 5 trillion stolen from you. Past congresses have stolen 20 trillion from you. Over the next ten years, theyre going to steal another 10 trillion from you. And theyre going to die and then youre going to be left holding the bill. And, yes, as nick said, its going to turn a lot of people, mika, into socialists and our economy is going to collapse because republicans are and democrats, in the past, neither have been responsible about the debt. They just keep and republicans who claim to care about the debt are voting to steal 1. 5 trillion from millennials, the very people who 48 are saying, no, we dont like the Republican Party. Those are record numbers. The House Rules Committee is set to meet today to lay out the rules for debate around the gop tax bill when it heads to the house floor for a vote. Speaker paul ryan has signaled that could happen as early as tomorrow. The move comes after house and Senate Republicans unveiled their joint tax bill friday afternoon. The plan dramatically cuts Corporate Tax rates and overhauling the individual tax code. The bill will keep the current seven brackets for income taxes, but it lowers the rates and changes the income thresholds, for example, the top rate would be 37 versus 39. 6 under current law. And the individual tax cuts expire after 2025. Meanwhile, the standard deduction is almost doubled to between 12,000 for individuals and 24,000 for couples. The new tax bill cuts the Corporate Tax rate from 35 to 21 while taxing foreign earnings at lower rates and the bill offers an expanded Child Tax Credit for some lowincome families thanks to a push by republican senators marco rubio and mike lee. That more generous Child Tax Credit was key in securing senator rubios support for the final bill. As Party Leaders work to make sure they have the votes needed from gop holdouts, senator bob corker, who voted against the initial senate bill over deficit concerns now says he will vote in favor of the final version. Well get to the news surrounding corker in a moment, because there is some there. And senator Susan Collins is also expected to back it. Why would Susan Collins back this bill . Anybody have any answers on that . Given her vote on Health Care Reform . Right. What they promised her well see if they can or do deliver it or not, are votes on two other Health Care Bills coming along that would restore some of the subsidies, in her mind, offset the loss of the individual mandate in this tax bill. Votes yet to come . Votes yet to come. We know how that always works out. They never come. They never give you what they promise you. She has to know that. She has been there long enough, Susan Collins knows that its more likely than not, with history as a guide, they wont have the votes. If they do have the votes they wont pass the vote. Shes voting for the final passage of this bill because shes a nice, trusting person getting played by republican leadership. Okay. Steve . Steve, what can you tell us about the new additions to the republican tax plan . The fact is its not tax reform. It doesnt make things better for the average american and it will increase the did he haefic joe said. Lets look at some numbers that will show us how this works. This is the change in aftertax income for people based on this tax bill. For people who earn over 100,000 a year, their aftertax income will go up anywhere from 3 to as much as 5. 2 . If you happen to be in the sweet spot between 500,000. This didnt have to happen. You could have made this in fact, in the house bill, it was pretty much a flat line across here in terms of the increase in aftertax income and later in the senate in the congress, they added more goodies for wealthy people. Now lets talk for a second about marco rubio who went to the mattress and said im not going to vote for this unless you fix the Child Tax Credit. Its being doubled but also being allowed to apply to people with higher incomes. The only way to get the full Child Tax Credit is have an income of 400,000. If you have two children you get 4,000. If you have 100,000, you get 2,000. Single parent with a minimum wage of 14,500, you can only get 75. Here is what marco rubio got, this Little Orange piece, 600 for people who make 30,000 a year, they still only get a total of 800 of Child Tax Credit. Even the Child Tax Credit is biased toward the wealthy. Lastly, to joes point, and certainly an important point, lets look at the deficit. The deficits were going up anyway, even before this tax bill was passed. And what this tax bill does, it adds on to that deficit enough to push us back over 1 trillion in deficits in 2021. We havent been at a trillion dollars in deficits since 2012 when barack obama was trying to save the country and was roundly criticized by republicans for doing so. And when you get out toward the end, the individual tax cuts expire. Those tax cuts will be extended and the deficit will simply get larger as you get to those out years. And if youre a young voter, really quickly, just explain put in real terms, what does it mean if youre a millennial and the republicans have just added 1. 5 trillion to the ta National Debt and Social Security, medicare, medicaid, were coming up with 30, 40, 50 trillion of unpaid liabilities. Talk about how crushing that will be to somebody who is 25 years old today, when theyre my age, 54. Whats going to happen even before theyre 54, taxes are going to have to start to go up. Sky rocket. Sky rocket. Services will have to be cut. Your children, my children, millennials, theyre going to pay for our retirement, medicare, Social Security. There is nothing in the trust funds. Weve put nothing aside. You have these huge 10, 20rks 30 more than the debt. Tens of trillions of unfunded liabilities to pay for the medicare and Social Security for all the people sitting around this table. In the 1950s when my parents start ed working, 15 people wer working for every one person on Social Security. My children will have two people working for every one person on Social Security, medicare and medicaid. We could have dealt with that had we done it the right way. It should have been funded like an insurance program. You pay into it during your lifetime and get money out of it after. Were going to have to fix this. Were going to have to fix this fwl its not going to be like republicans want to fix this. Yeah, lets do entitle reform. Were just going to kick a lot of people off medicaid. No. Were going to have to look at medicare, Social Security and save it for our children and save this economy for our children. Every time the republicans talk about taking care of this, all they do is lets go after medicaid. But they also, in fairness, they want to cut medicare and Social Security as well. Their idea of saving it is to cut benefits. Paul ryan has made very clear that next years agenda, which they can also do a lot of this not Social Security but medicare with 50 votes. Donald trump has said he wont do it, but he has said a lot of things he has done later. Well see what happens. Im tired of hearing how we always need more defense spending. Doesnt matter necessarily what it is. Lets keep piling on the defense spending when clearly the National Debt is the greatest looming National Security challenge we face right now. It is. And we dont spend a whole lot of time on this program, or any programs, actually, talking about one of the elements that steve just alluded to, actually pointed out. Marco rub