Alert the day care staff. He recently called the white house an adult day care center. I didnt make any of this up. Kasie hunt joins us live now. So the president is heading to capitol hill in the next hour for what is supposed to be a, quote, unity lunch with gop senators focusing on the tax cut plan. How awkward might this get . Reporter i have to tell you, ali, ive been roaming the halls of capitol hill for some years now. I havent seen anything like this before where you have the powerful head of a very Important Committee at a time when not only do we have americans deployed overseas but are potentially face iing at th least the possibility of war with north korea and you have the president and head of that Committee Trading Insults back and forth on twitter and of course for the tv cameras. Those words that Senator CorkerSenator Corker gave voice to a lot of peoples expectations that this will be more of a photo op than anything for the president of the United States. Because i think theres not a lot of faith in the republican conference that the president understands the details of the bills that they are working on. And corker has said, hey, this is a project that the house and senate have been working on for many years. Its not simply something the president can parachute in and try to do. But at the same time, this is going to be an incredibly difficult dynamic now with what has gone on. Paul ryan the House Speaker was questioned about this earlier today. Take a look. Bobs going to vote for tennessee. Hes going to vote for america. Hes going to vote for tax reform because he knows its in the best interest of americans. So put this twitter dispute aside. All this stuff you see on a daily basis twitter this and twitter that. Forget about it. Lets focus on helping people, improving peoples lives and
doing what we need to do to accomplish that. Thats what were focused on. Reporter thats basically how paul ryan has responded to every flap of this nature between the president and members of congress, et cetera. At this point for corker, its gone too far. Hes gone farther by quite a bit in the feud. Well see if any republicans change their tunes today. I would be surprised. And i know you cover this topic in so many depth. Corker is a vote they need for the tax reform plan. If he decides hes not going with it, its in jeopardy. Theres potentially real consequences here. Corker saying he will still attend that lunch. Kasie hunt, thank you. As that tax plan is worked out in congress, the president claims cutting Corporate Taxes would give americans a 4,000 pay raise. But for facts sake, is that true . Heres my buddy stephanie rhule. President trump is making a big promise to americans. Thousands of dollars extra in their paychecks every year by
drastically slashing Corporate Tax rates. That comes from a new study published by the president s Council Economic advisers. Cutting tax rates from 35 to 20 will boost wages substantially depending on where you are on the income ladder, he says the boost will add anywhere between 4,000 to 9,000 bucks a year. But does his math add up . Economists on the right, its an article of faith that lower taxes on businesses and the wealthy reap benefits that trickle down to the rest of us. They argue the extra money the Companies Get to keep increases demand for workers and drives up wages. But history shows us that cutting Corporate Taxes does not guarantee higher wages. Back in the 80s during another antitax drive under president reagan, the Corporate Tax rate was slashed from 46 to 34 . But instead of boosting wages, they actually fell for five straight years by as much as 3,000 in todays metrics. Contrast that with tax increased in 2013. Didnt get in the way of growth. Premise also flies in the face of earlier a laundry list of economists call the report everything from ridiculous to fatally flawed. Secretary Lawrence Somers goes one step further calling the 4,000 figure, quote, absurd on the face of it. That is in part because Research Suggests companies are more likely to pass it to shareholders, not workers. But in the end, trumps plan is trickle down economics plain and simple. Which an overwhelming majority of economists think just doesnt work. Stephanie will be back tomorrow. But joining me now is republican senator john hogan of north dakota. Hes a member of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs committee. Hes a member of the Appropriations Committee and hes the former governor of north dakota. Senator, good to see you. Thank you for being with us. Hi, ali. How are you . Good. I want to talk a bunch of issues with you. I want to start with this twitter thing this morning. You going to this lunch with the president . Yes, i will. Looking forward to talking about tax relief at that lunch. Got it. What do you make of this thing going on between the president and Senator Corker . I would really like to see them get together and talk through it and see if they cant work it out. Look. We need everybody working together on the serious issues whether its tax relief, health care reform, Strong National defense, border security, law enforcement, strong support for law enforcement. You know, all these issues. Thats what americans are concerned about. And we need to Work Together to address them. Right. But it is its sort of problematic that the president keeps going after an elected senator. Well, im not going to get into the argument between them. Again, i think what they need to do is see if they cant sit down and work through it. Lets talk about taxes,
senator. What do you make of this plan . You just heard stephanie explain this strange part of it that the council of economic advisers said cutting Corporate Taxes is somehow going to result in individual families getting between 4,000 and 9,000 more. Thats got to be something your constituents are going to want to know about. Its hard for us to do the math to back that up. But the reality is were using very conservative assumptions. The idea is to target the middle class with the tax cut so they not only keep more of their earnings after tax but also so you stimulate economic growth. And what youre seeing already is with the regulatory relief weve provide d the growth in gp is 3. 1 . For one quarter. But its consistently been coming up over the last versus the past decade. And now when you combine that with tax relief, youre going to see Stronger Economic growth. I need to correct you there, senator. I think the longterm for 30 has been 2. 1 . Were at 2. 2 . Thats stuff that the president says thats not true. Since world war ii, the average rate of growth for our economy has been 3. 3 . Right. But we generally divide that up. We ended it in 1970 because we were busy rebuilding the world. We think of 1970 to now, its 2. 1 , sir. But thats the point. We want to get that growth rate up. We think that combining regulatory relief and tax relief will help increase that growth rate. Thats how you get wages and income higher. Between the war and 1970, we were building the u. S. Highway system, creating infrastructure. We build no infrastructure in the United States at all now. We were sort of shoring up the rest of the world. Whats the driver . Taxes never drives growth. Its got to be something that drives economic growth. But ali we want to add an infrastructure piece to the mix. So were talking about regulatory relief which we want to do more. Were talking about tax relief. And an infrastructure package. Were putting all three together. Theyre all designed to increase the rate of growth in our gdp and move wages and income higher. Thats what were working to do. Thats our agenda for america. All right. Lets talk about the situation in niger. Weve heard from some of your fellow senators. They both said, look, they dont want the Armed Services committee micromanaging the military. But theres some concern we didnt have an overarching view of the mission and Whats Going On. What did you know about this . Did you know we have these thousand troops in niger . And what are your concerns Going Forward . I knew we had special operatives there. I did not know we had a thousand troops. Thats why were asking questions. We want more information on what is going on. And we need to do that. Whats your take on Whats Going On in puerto rico right now . I know you voted for the 36. 5 billion in Emergency Relief for the hurricanes and the wildfires in the procedural vote last night. There were 60 no votes coming
from republicans. Whats the concern there . Why are republicans vote nothing on this . You know, im not sure. I think for the ones that voted no, they wanted offsets. But i dont speak for all of them, but i think that may have been the issue for some of them. We need to do more in puerto rico. No question about it. Now, were getting the aid there. Because its an island, its a problem getting it distributed. Obviously weve had real issues getting the power back in place. Youve got rural areas hard to get to. A lot more work needs to be done. Thank you for being with me spending time talking about these important issues. You bet. Senator john hoeven. Stand by, everybody. Were looking at the deadly attack in niger and why troops are there. Were digging into nigers resources up for grabs included oil, gold, and uranium. Heres what well watch coming up. 11 30 eastern, trump participants in an awards Minority Enterprise Development week. Well bring you more from that as soon as we have it. Callista gingrich will be swearing in as ambassador to the holy see. And senator hoeven and i think most of the republican senators will be at a lunch for republican policy. Stay with us. Youre watching velshi rhule on msnbc. These friends were on a trip when their windshield got chipped. So they scheduled at safelite. Com. They didnt have to change their plans or worry about a thing. Ill see you all in a little bit. And i fixed it right away with a strong repair they can trust. Plus, with most insurance a Safelite Repair is no cost to you. Customer really . tech being there whenever you need us thats another safelite advantage. Singers Safelite Repair, safelite replace. From godaddy in fact, 68 of people who have built their. Website using gocentral, did it in under an hour, and you can too. Build a better website in under an hour. With gocentral from godaddy. Were likely set up by terrorists. Three officials briefed on the matter said the theory is to look at the timeline. Lets look at it now. Militants were tipped off in advance about a meeting between the americans and leaders in a village sympathetic to isis. Villagers tried to delay the troops as they left. Once they departed, the militants attacked. The soldiers returned fire, then retreated, only to be ambushed again. About an hour into the fight, the americans called for help. A drone arrived within minutes and french jets arrived about an hour later. But it Wasnt Another 48 hours until sergeant la David Johnsons body was recovered more than a mile from the other victims. Joseph dunford talked about the need for answers and a big question that remains. We owe you more information. More importantly we owe the families of the fallen more information. Thats what the investigation is designed to identify. Did the Mission Change . That is one of the questions thats being asked. Its a fair question. But i cant tell you definitively the answer to that question. All right. Lets answer a different question. What is the u. S. s interest in niger in particular . Remember that there are about 1,000 u. S. Troops in niger. Most are working on a Drone Facility to provide surveillance for the continent with a small number of Special Forces units directly advising nigerian troops. With isis, al qaeda, and others establishing affiliates in africa, twhere are valuable resources the u. S. Would like to keep out of the hands of terror groups. Niger was producing 13,000 barrels of oil per day. This isnt all that much. It makes it the 86th largest producer in the world. But its important because, a, if you need money, 13,000 barrels of oil is still something. But heres the more important part. The China National petroleum corporation, cnpc, just awarded
two Operating Permits in niger. One in 2010 and then in 2013. They say they believe their network of oil wells could tap into a billion barrels under the surface increasing the output to between 60,000 and 80,000 barrels a day which would push the country toward the top 50 Oil Producers in the world. And its not just oil theyre looking at in niger. Its gold deposits discovered in the northeast portion of the country in recent years. That has sent miners scrambling. Gold is necessary for Consumer Electronics like cell phones as well. But by far the most valuable resource in niger is uranium. While the country only produces about 7. 5 of the worlds output, thats 7. 5 good enough to make it the fourth larger Uranium Producer on the planet. Theres a lot in west africa with one mine with the third
highest of all individual mines. In 2010 more than 114,000 tons of ore was mined in niger. This is enough to power seven Nuclear Reactors for a decade. This is a resource that china as it prepares to double its number of Nuclear Reactors would love to tap into. Joining me now is retired naval operator Malcolm Nance who has been following this closely. Right from the beginning while everybody else is scratching their heads wondering why were in niger, you knew there are two things going on in west africa. There are resources and isis and al qaeda affiliates. Youre right. I dont think thinking story is one about resources but resources might explain why there is such a great interest in the area for the Terrorist Groups themselves and wanting to collapse and some of these governments. And wanting to destabilize these very, very small regions that
have very poor people and who are muslims themselves. On the other hand, you do have big players in the International Mining and Oil Production renals. Niger has been known for uranium forever. In the 70s and 80s they were one of the biggest producers of uranium. On the other hand, now we have China National oil Company Coming in and being able to develop parts of that part of the sahara for oil. That makes it even more valuable to groups like isis and al qaeda because the central governments are not really central, they are very weak and could easily be overthrown and give them a resource like you saw in syria to be able to export money and terror. Malcolm, this is a complicated thing. For people who ro now asking a lot of questions about what was the mission and why were we there, some americans will say are we going to be all over the World Policing natural resources
so bad guys dont steal it. Back in the day there was colonialism. You went into areas because you wanted to use the resources yourself. Now its about keeping it out of the hands of other people. Thats a big mission for the u. S. Military. That mission has been in effect since world war ii. The entirety of the United States involvement has been to help major countries extract oil. We just dont see it as much anymore. Authority to go to the small regions where isis and al qaeda and fundamentalist groups could recruit and get more man power, operate in secret. Therefore all of these Special Forces missions in mali, chad, nigeria, cameroon, niger. These places are very important. Because as we say, when you squash down on isis main force, its like stepping on a ball of mercury. They break up and spread out. About the uranium, about the yellow cake in particular. Are we looking out . Is this a matter of keeping it out of the affiliates or a question of the chinese getting it and using it for their Nuclear Programs . Well, the china own it already. They have the license on the major field which by the way is about 200 kilometers, you know, about 160 miles northwest of our base in the u. S. Air force drone base. We put that there to get a centralized location to where we could surveil around algeria, mali, niger, chad, and libya so Terrorist Groups wouldnt be able to operate there with impunity. But china has its own National Interest there. They dont need armed forces. They are there to do purely economic exploitation of niger and niger gets a lot of money out of it. Its a role china is playing across africa. Malcolm, i talk to you a lot and theres never a time i talk to you and im not smarter at the end of it. Thank you, my friend. Malcolm nance. Stand by. Bill oreilly is raging against the Sexual Harassment allegations that hes facing. Well have those details next. We have physical proof that this is bull [ bleep ]. But [ bleep