We have a new statement from senator franken. Lets start with msnbcs garrett haake. At the capitol. Hans nichols is at the white house. Garrett, lets start there on the hill. Whats the mood . Are lawmakers excited . This is a dance that theyve been to before with the health care vote. It sounds as if they are certainly more optimistic about the chances for passes this time around. Well, craig, this has turned into a pretty weird day on capitol hill. Weve gotten used to some weird days. Theres on one chamber, everything has been completely rocked on the senate side by these allegations against senator al franken. On the house side, the president was here, essentially pulling a pep rally in the basement of this building, trying to fire up republican lawmakers to get this tax bill across the finish line. Yeah, look, it does look like this thing will pass the house. The fight continues in the senate. But republicans here are feeling relieved. Theyre feeling good. They were taking selfies. They were laughing, having a good time in this meeting. Well, you know, a few hundred yards away on the senate side, a completely different story. Craig. Hans nicoles is standing by for us as well over at the white house. Garrett, stand by. I want to come back to you. Hans, talk to me a little bit more about the president s visit to the capital. Lets also pick up on what andrea left off there, this news that broke earlier about the obama era ban on elephant trophies being reversed. Well, ill just follow up on what garrett was talking about, namely that taxes are going well and the president was talking about that. That was a quote. They feel like they have momentum. Basically, theres an obama era ban on importing certain trophies from zimbabwe as well as zambia. What the National Fish and Wildlife Service has done is posted a finding. This finding essentially lifts that ban. That means in 2016 it goes back. 2016, 2017, 2018. You can import parts of elephant trophies, zimbabwe, as well as zambia, i believe. The rationale is theyre saying this is proconservation. They believe that in this case hunting can lead to better stewardship of the environment and thats their argument in this. But well see whether or not this has been published in the federal register. Its scheduled to be published i believe on friday. Well see whether or not this withstands full certainty, craig. Hans nichols at the white house, hans, thank you. Lets bring in lonnie chang, he is the director of domestic policy studies at stanford. He was a policy adviser to the 2012 romneybarrow is an msnbc contributor. Again, a live look here at the house floor where lawmakers in the Lower Chamber are voting or expected to start voting any moment now. Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi there no doubt probably not extolling the virtues of this bill. Josh barrow. Again, house likely to pass it. What happens in the senate . Well, think the senate is the tougher chamber for this. First of all republicans have a narrower majority there and the bill that theyre work on in the senate looks quite different from the house bill in a number of ways. It would repeal the individual mandate in obamacare. Thats a popular idea with a lot of republicans. The mandate is unpopular broadly with the public. But that would cause significant disruption in insurance markets. Maine senator collins has said shes very reluctant to do anything to health care as part of the tax bill. Some senators saying they want the bill that comes closer to not impacting the deficit. And then you have some provisions about socalled passthrough businesses. People talk about this as a Small Business deduction but it can even apply to Large Businesses like Donald Trumps businesses, a special tax break for them thats less generous in the senate bill. Republican senator ron johnson from whiisconsin has been very critical. Saying he might vote no. The thing is, they can only lose two votes. So if theres a question of getting to 50 in the senate and then if the senate bill looks different from the house bill, theres the question of being able to reconcile them. In the house theres some members from upstate new york who have been very important because property taxes are very high there. Theyve carved out a deduction for property taxes in the house bill thats not in the senate bill so thats one possible area its only up to what, 10 grand . Middle income people, that will cover most or all of their property tax bill. That was specifically designed there are people with high incomes who pay a lot of state income tax in new york who will lose a lot of deductions under the bill. That carveout was designed to protect a lot of middle income families. Its one of many provisions that they will need to reconcile. Were going to take a look at what this bill will mean for students specifically in a moment here, lonnie. Let me all right, lets go to Pete Williams here, our justice correspondent im told standing by with some breaking news on the Robert Menendez trial. Pete, what do you have . Well, craig, the judge has now declared a mistrial in the bribery charge of the bribery trial of Robert Menendez and a florida eye doctor who menendez was accused of bribery, accepting thousands of dollars of gifts and favors. The trial has been going on for more than two months. But the jury has reported several times in the last couple of days that it was unable to reach a verdict. The defense had argued to the judge that he should declare a mistrial. The prosecutor said perhaps the jury could still return a guilty verdict on some of the other counts against senator menendez but after polling each member of the jury individually in chambers with just the lawyers present, the judge in the case has concluded there must be a mistrial. He just said in court, my evaluation of this case is i find addressing the jury, i find youre unable to reach a verdict and i have no alternative but to declare a mistrial. So the question now is what happens next. The government will have to decide whether it will try to retry this case. And there are several factors that could be involved in that. One thing will be if the prosecution has any sense of how close it was to a guilty verdict, it might, if it thought there were just a few holdouts, try the case again, if it thought that the jury was dead set against it and there was only, say, one person in favor or two persons in favor of a conviction and the government might decide against it. But a mistrial in the case, in the trial of Robert Menendez and now well find out whether the government intends to try again, craig. Pete, i know youve been following this case closely than most. Does this come as a surprise . It doesnt come as a surprise because of the fact that the jurys been telegraphing that its been unable to reach a verdict for the last couple of days. And the question about what to do has been hanging over the judge really since monday when the jury first reported that it was having trouble. And this case is so unusual, craig, because the jury began deliberations and then last week one of the jurors was excused because she had a longstanding vacation plan, and the judge said if the verdict if the deliberations take that lock or the trial takes that long well just put in an alternate jury and thats what they did. The new juror was brought in monday. So the jury in essence had to bring that juror up to speed, in esance sort of starting over. Not completely from scratch but getting up to speed. Obviously that quickly ran into trouble. The jury has just consistently said we just cant reach a verdict. So in that sense its not a surprise, no. In cases like this, pete, typically prosecutors, will they retry the case . Typically, i would say yes, but if the prosecutors i mean, one thick they have to consider, who knows, theyll do whatever they think is right here. Theres nothing to prevent them from trying the case again. I would say in most of these cases, prosecutors do refile the charges and start all over again, although they have the option of bringing different charges because basically the slate is wiped clean now. Its as though these earlier charges never existed. Theyre gone. As a legal matter. So the court the prosecutors could bring other charges instead of bribery. And one of the problems here, craig, is that since the Supreme Court ruled a couple years ago in the case of the former Virginia Governor robert mcdonnell, the Supreme Court has set a higher bar, made it harder for prosecutors in these federal cases to prove bribery. Might they come back with different charges, thats an option. As i say if they get any insight into how the jury was thinking and if they find that the jury was almost unanimous against conviction, then they might think twice about refiling the charges. Our justice correspondent Pete Williams there in washington, d. C. Breaking the news this afternoon. There has now officially been a mistrial declared in the case of new jersey senator Robert Menendez. Pete, thank you for that. Lets bring in danny cevellos, an msnbc legal analyst. I gather that you heard some of what pete was reporting there. Going back to the charge itself, the top charge here if im not mistaken, danny, was bribery. How hard is it for a prosecutor to prove bribery of a publicly elected official . Its easy because the federal bribery laws are so broadly drafted. But things have changed since mcdonele. How theyve changed is this, the classic case of bribery involves a senator given a bag of cash to do some official act but it never really workings os out th easily. This case is a perfect example. Senator menendez did some things to benefit a friend. A doctor in florida. The doctor in florida did some things that benefited the senator. That is basically the sum of the evidence against him. And the Government Asks the jury to find some quid pro quo there, some corrupt intent and thats not always easy for a jury to conceptualize. Because its hard to understand whether just doing favors for each other is a criminal act. Because independently, the things the senator did on their own were legal. The things that dr. Melgin did on his own was legal. But when done together, the government says, uhoh, thats criminal. Did melgin play ball . I cant recall if he turned states evidence . No, theyre both tried together. Okay. Steve kornacki has joined us here msnbc political analyst. Typically when we talk about in jersey politics we bring in steve cokornacki because he kno jersey politics. Big surprise here . I think going into this trial, everybody said if you put a politician in front of a jury and say this politicians accused of bribery, jurys going to find him guilty, so i think theres surprise how it turned out. Raises an immediate political question. Bob menendez is up for reelection in 2018. He thought hed get a full acquittal here. Theres two questions. Number one, does the government decide to retry him . If theres a second trial, the second trial coincides with his election campaign. Hes out there running for reelection in 2018. S hes in the courtroom at the same time fighting these charges. If theres a trial and he decides to run anyway, the democrats stand behind him. They got a primary this spring. They got a general in the fall. But the democrats say yeah, were on board with this, we think you got a raw deal from the government. Look, from a legal standpoint, he can sit there and say ive introduced weve introduced plenty of reasonable doubt here to back up our claims this wasnt bribery. Hes still got to defend why he went to bat for a guy who pleaded guilty to defrauding medicare. Thats at the heart of this. His defense is, hey, look, it wasnt bribery, he didnt give me a bag of cash and i didnt turn around and do it because of that. But this was not for a benign situation. This is a guy, dr. Meglynn, pleaded guilty to defrauding medicare. He has to explain that. Even if hes legally off the hook. How popular is menendez in new jersey . His Approval Rating is 31 . Corey book, the other senator in the state, is about 59 . So has taken a toll. If youre menendez, youre looking at a couple of things. Youre looking at the general political bent of new jersey. This is a blue state. This is an antitrump state. 2018 is typically supposed to be an antitrump, antirepublican year. Is it a situation where the voters of new jersey if theyre given a choice between menendez, the guy who theyve got questions about, the guy who they have a low opinion about, and a member of Donald Trumps republican party, they may vote for member nnendez anyway. Do they give voters the choice . Did he from a legal standpoint if he is retried, is the second trial easier for the prosecution . Is it easier for the defense . Its hard to say. Its good for the defense because the defense has now seen everything in the prosecutors arsenal. They will not be surprised at a second trial. But then again given how easy it is to get a conviction under federal bribery law, another shot at conviction just might yield a different result this time around. But ultimately for any juror, the concept of bribery can be really difficult, in this case, a perfect example, it can be a really difficult thing to wrap your mind around. What happens to menendez now . He waits to see, is there going to be a second trial. Im sure he will go out and claim vindication. Hes been saying hes innocent all along. Hes had look, the opening day of this trial, cory booker, fellow senator from new jersey, possible president ial candidate in 2020, he chose to come to court and sit with menendez, sit right behind him. Democrats have stoond behind menendez. Theyve had a very selfish interest in doing that because the fear was if menendez gets found guilty before january, then there could be a move to expel him from the senate. If that happen, christie, the republican governor of new jersey, would pick who replaces him. Democrats have been publicly standing behind bob menendez in this, saying they think hes going to be exonerated. This isnt quite exoneration. This is a hung jury. If this is where the government lets it go, this is a muddled situation. Some jurors thought guilty. Some didnt. We know he went to bat on behalf of melgin and says okay, im running for reelection. Do democrats say good enough, were with you, heres some money, our endorsement, were going to campaign for you . Do they say, lets open this process up a little bit. Congressman norcross from south jersey, why dont you give this a shot . Bob tore tele, former senator, hes been running around the state for a year and a half waiting for a bob menendez connection so he could come back and run for the senate. Does he challenge him in the primary now . Imagine that. Only in new jersey. Only in jersey. Bob menendez will be back in the Upper Chamber in time to debate this tax bill thats likely going to be headed to senate or some form of this tax bill perhaps in conference. Again, thats whats happening at the bottom of your screen here. That of course california democrat nancy pelosi. Shes been on the floor of the house for about ten minutes now. Railing against this tax bill that, again, likely to pass the house that is a vote that is expected to happen here at some point in the next 30 minutes were told. Josh barrow here with us to talk about that bill. So lets go back to this tax bill. Just a moment. For students, specifically, what are some of the criticisms about this house bill in particular . Well, there are three big changes that are important for students that are negative. The one that would have the broughtest impact is the student Loan Interest would no longer be deductible from taxes. You could still be able to deduct mortgage interest but that Tax Deduction could be taken away. A concern for people repaying student loans. Some tuition waivers would be newly taxable if youre a graduate student in a ph. D. Program. Typically you dont pay the tuition. This bill would change that and treat that as income which would drastically change the tax situations of a lot of graduate students. Now colleges would have some ability to restructure around that change the way that they calculate tuition for graduate students and probably dampen that effect somewhat but that would be a negative change for them. Theres currently sort of complicated set of tax credits that are available for middle income people paying for College Tuition that would collapse those from three down into one. And in some cases that would result in a less generous tax credit. In general it would be taking away tax preferences available for education. It takes away a lot of tax preferences. What republicans say about this is were building a simpler tax code. That means lower rates and getting rid of tax preferences. Most are for things that people like one reason or another. Obviously Higher Education is one of those things. House speaker ryan talking about the aforementioned house bill. Lets listen in. And right now, because of this anemic economic recovery, i mean, dont forget, we had the worst recession in our lifetimes in 2008 and ever since this economy has been flat. This economy has been way under its potential. This economy has been growing at a limp 1 to 2 . You know what that means for Hardworking Taxpayers . For americans . Nobody gets a wage increase. Living standards are stagnant. Economic anxiety is high. 78 of our workers in this country today are living paycheck to paycheck. Most americans say that they dont even have 500 in their bank account for an unexpected emergency or an expense. This is the economic anxiety thats for real in this country today. Instead of thinking about getting ahead, families are struggling to get by. Think about all the moms and the dads and the Hardworking Taxpayers going to bed tonight not sleeping worried about what comes next week. This is not how it should be. This is not how it is in this country traditionally. We need to restore growth. We need to restore opportunity. We need to restore this beautiful thing we a next natalie call the american idea. Passing this bill is the single biggest thing we can do to grow the economy to restore opportunity and help these middle income families who are struggling. People always ask, well, whats in it for me, how do i benefit from this. Well, im a chart guy. Why is this important. What this shows you under this plan,