Ms. Sanders good afternoon. Yesterday, momentum continued to build behind our plan to deliver massive tax relief and job creation to the American People. The house passed the tax cuts and jobs act, and the Senate Finance committee passed the companion tax reform bill. These were important moments as we move closer to a final vote. In recent months, we have heard from american entrepreneurs and families from every corner of the nation about how this will empower them to build a better life. In pennsylvania, suzy said our plan will be incredible for me and other six income retirees. Because tax relief is targeted at the middle class. In ohio, christina, a Small Business owner who raised twins as a single mother while launching her company said the increase in the Child Tax Credit would help working mothers. She said that simplify the complex tax code would ease the burden on entrepreneurs and allow them to devote more time to growing their business, rather than wrestling with their taxes. In state after state, story after story, we have heard our our plan will profoundly improve the lives of hardworking americans and the optimism is coming back because with this tax plan, combined with the president s effort to eliminate job killing regulations, americans feel like their goals are once again attainable. It is a reminder of one of the things that made our country unique. Our people have always been able to visualize a future for themselves and their children and make it a reality. That is why it is called the american dream, and this tax plan will make it more attainable for more of our people than ever before. Four this to happen, we need Economic Growth that makes it possible for businesses to create jobs and raise wages. To give perspective on how the tax plan will do that, i have invited kevin hassett, the chairman of the council of economic advisers, to join us and he will say a few words and then take questions specific to this topic and i will come back to take the rest of your questions after that. Which i am sure will all be on tax reform. [laughter] i will turn it over to kevin. Mr. Hassett a pleasure to be here and see familiar faces. Last week, i had the honor of chairing the economic poly policy Committee Meeting in paris and that is one of the oldest committees and brings together people like the chairman of the council of economic advisers. At the meeting, they were going through staff recommendations of the oecd for creating Economic Growth for countries around the world and the three main points of the staff recommendations were tax reform, infrastructure, and deregulation. If the government pursues those things, then they can produce more Economic Growth. There was widespread acclaim for the president s approach towards Corporate Taxation in particular because the oecd has been calling for us to reform our Corporate Tax code and the idea of Corporate Tax reform is it is close to the finish line is celebrated by that only the world who would recognize that as having a noncompetitive tax code, the highest Corporate Tax honor, a worldwide system that rewards companies for locating activity elsewhere is bad for us in the World Economy because a vibrant u. S. Economy is good for even our friends in the oecd. I am pleased to see the house ways and Means Committee and the house has passed the bill and look forward to the Senate Moving Forward after the break. I am not good at this. I do not know the protocol. I will start in the front white and work back. [laughter] i am just an economist. [laughter] reporter i know you are an economist, there is a political component to this with six senators on the hill, including ron johnson, saying they cannot support the bill in its current form. Or they have serious concerns about it. You can only afford to lose two. Are you confident you can get this passed in the senate or could the president run into another situation like obamacare that he wins the house and loses the senate . Mr. Hassett there is a joke about the economist, three types, those who can count and those who cant. It takes a while for that to sink in. The president has supported from the beginning regular order, because he doesnt think we have to wait until the thing becomes law to do it. The right thing to do is expose the bill to scrutiny and ron johnson has serious concerns and it is appropriate in the legislative process to bring them forward. I am hopeful that people can work it out and even democrats will want to vote for it. I not sure about the etiquette am for followups. I will limit people to one. Why would trickle down economics work when it has not before . Mr. Hassett people who criticize the idea that taxes affect the economy wood used to characterize approaches like what we are pursuing but i do not think the idea is celebrated by even the nonpartisan staff at the oecd that if you have lower marginal rates you get Economic Growth is voodoo economics or controversial. Countries around the world have cut their corporate rates and have broadbased reforms on the individual side and seen Economic Growth result. I dont think there is anybody who thinks we will get no growth or negative growth, maybe a few people but at every economic model i have seen you get a lot of growth or, in a closed economy model, little growth. You get positive growth. That growth will benefit workers. Lets talk about that. A u. S. Firmhe way avoids u. S. Taxes to locate activity in a country like ireland. Instead of here. You build a plant in ireland and can sell it back in the u. S. And sell it in the u. S. Which increases the trade deficit and does not do any thing for american workers. It increases the demand for irish workers and drives up their wages. The president wants to cut the rate to 20 and built guardrails around the tax code so people cannot transfer price everything to ireland. If we do that, the people who benefit will be workers in the u. S. Who have increased demand for their jobs. I said no followups. Of senatorne johnsons concerns is the bill does not do enough for mediumsized and Small Businesses, what does the bill do for mediumsized and Small Businesses . Mr. Hassett sure. I want to remind everybody that the president has really three main nonnegotiable for the bill, a 20 Corporate Tax rate, a middleclass tax cut, and the bill simplifies the tax code. We believe after analyzing the progress on the hill, both approaches satisfy the three main objectives. The question is what do they do about this and that . We do not want to get ahead of the process. The president supports regular order because that is how deals get made and bills become law. It is urgent that we get a 20 rate for american workers. It is urgent for a middleclass tax cut for americas workers. The details about when the Small Business things kick in and out are things we are watching them work out on the hill. We encourage them to pursue regular order because they need to listen to everybody and get the votes to make this law. I will go to the lady. Reporter one of the major differences between the house and senate bill is the elimination of the nontaxable tuition waiver. While they are trying to reconcile the differences on that reform bill, will you potentially moving the burden to young americans. Mr. Hassett that is the kind of detail we are letting congress workout. They are fighting the coalitions they need to pass the bill in the house and senate. We support regular order and the transparency. Reporter thank you for being here. You said that an average family could accumulate a savings benefit of 4000. That is a lot of money. Can you walk us through that. Mr. Hassett sure, for those of you i see some nerdy looking people, so im sure that people so im sure there are people that want to do this. We have two reports that go through this in great detail. You can get to numbers like that four different ways. We will try to do that now in limited time. When we increase the Corporate Tax rate from 34 to 35 , we were in the middle of the oecd nation and countries found in may cut the Corporate Tax, their Economic Activity increased as the welfare of their workers improved. They did it again. They cut their corporate two times or three times and that gives economists an amount of data to analyze because there are countries that change the rates and do not and you can compare them. There is literature that looks at that including a paper by a , german economist is about to come out. We go to the papers and have charts to show, if this is true, what you get . What wage effect do you get . Most of the action is well north of 4000. I will go in the middle. Reporter one of the criticisms of the tax reform proposal is that the Corporate Tax rate is cut permanently, the individual tax rate phases out after 10 years, why is that a good idea . Mr. Hassett the president supports permanent tax cuts for the middle class and permanent tax cuts for corporations to that is the objective of the planners of the tax bill. There also Senate Budget rules and reconciliation rules to allow the bill to move forward with 51 votes. The hope for everybody is that when the time comes for this to expire, they get extended, as happened even for the top marginal rate when president obama came into office and they extended most of the bush tax cuts. If you increase the top marginal tax rate during a recession, it would be harmful for the economy so back then there was bipartisan support for the idea that you should not lift the top marginal rate. There should be bipartisan support. There were the Economic Growth effects bringing it down right now. Back to the middle. Reporter the two bills are different in that the house bill does away with the estate tax and the senate does not. That was a big point for the administration and the president has voiced his support for repealing the death tax. Do you think a final bill will include it . Mr. Hassett that is one of the things the senate and the house are working out. The president very strongly favors the elimination of the death tax. If that is in the final bill, he will be happy but he has listed his nonnegotiables as the ones i said at the beginning. Reporter can you talk about the moment earlier in the week at the wall street journal, the moderator asked ceos, if tax reform passes, who will increase their investment and only a couple of hands went up. Gary cohen asked why are there not more hands . Why arent there more hands . Is the administration missing something . Mr. Hassett that is a great question. I went on after that and when they asked the question, it was hard for me because i could not see how many hands there were because of the bright lights but i thought half the hands went up. If you go back and look, it could be that people have time to think about it. As an economist, looking at the academic literature, often People Survey cfos and say, if we change the tax code, would you do anything and they tend to answer no in surveys, but if you look at hard evidence, if they did not respond, they would not be pursuing their fiduciary duty to maximize profits for their shareholders. It is not rational but it to do that and firms that act rationally, they put them out of business. The hard evidence is that people do respond. One of my very first papers i wrote out of graduate school was a brookings paper where we looked at the 1986 tax act that changes it made to the business tax code and how it affected investment and there were large effect. Reporter Gene Sperling says that the tax plan costs 1. 5 trillion. It is a deficit hole. E says it wasnt justified mr. Hassett i respect him a great deal and consider him a friend but i disagree. Here is the way i think about it and what i would say to him. If you look at the joint Tax Committee score in the 10th year they say the tax bill cost 170 billion. If you look at the cbo projection to gdp, in the 10th year the gdp is 28 trillion. The amount of deficit relative to gdp any 10th year is only. 6 . It does not take a lot of Economic Growth to cover that whole by the 10th year. The idea that right now we have the highest Corporate Tax on earth, generating almost no revenue because people avoid the tax by moving factories to ireland. If we fix that and make the u. S. An attractive place again, it will blow a hole in the deficit, it is not economically rational. The joint Tax Committee score says what it says, and i respect the factionalism of the staff, but the oecd has a study that says the u. S. And Corporate Tax face is on the wrong side of the left worker and we have such a laugh occur laffer curve. That is incorrect. Reporter on the phaseout of the individual side, you are an economist, but the answers you gave were political, the reconciliation rules, and hopefully politicians down the line solve it. You are in economist, can you not make an economic argument about why this is good economically for people . Mr. Hassett it is good for things to expire. Reporter as to why this is good for the country as it stands to expire within eight years . Mr. Hassett if you lower marginal tax rates from the base lower rates and give the middle class a tax cut, if you cut the Corporate Tax rate if you do any , of those things, there are positive for Economic Growth and less positive for growth if they expire. Expensing is a strange thing in the sense that, if you have expensing for a year and look at u. S. History, often in recessions they will put in expensing for a year to try to stimulate the economy. When expensing expires, it could have a short run stimulus because people try to buy capital before it goes away. Permanent tax cuts are more impactful than things that expire, which is why, if you look at the obama administration, during the beginning of the great recession, they even extended the bush tax cuts at the top because they understood this. Right here and then i will come to you. Reporter i want to followup on that. You made a judgment about the Corporate Taxcut making them permanent and individual taxcut expire. Even though you want all things to be permanent. What is the rationale for having corporations have that certainty of knowing they do not have to worry about what will happen in washington while families will worry about what politicians do in seven years . Mr. Hassett sure. Those are the kinds of things being worked out by congress to create a bill that the senate and house rules make it able to become law. The nonnegotiables for us are met in both bills and we consider that good news. The choices the senate has to make to acquire a coalition to make it law are choices the senate has to make. We do not want to get in front of that process. Reporter valuing whether Corporate Taxcut mr. Hassett tax cuts that are permanent will have larger positive effects. Reporter you melded politics and economics successfully and i would ask you a political and economic question you talked about growth covering what the Congressional Budget Office and joint Tax Committee say could be a deficit hole. That will be a measurable overtime, the dynamic scoring or static scoring, answers that question. Is this administration willing to commit to a review five years in to see if the growth models hold along your lines and deficit implications are not as large, and reassess the tax cuts in order not to blow a hole in the deficit . Mr. Hassett i have not discussed with the president what were willing to commit to in terms of what we do five years from now. Let me talk about what we can be clear about today. As the president came into office, the president s opponents were saying 2 growth was inevitable and we were stuck in a secular stagnation and that the president s policies could not deliver 3 growth and it was a cockamamie idea to assert it. We have had two quarters in a row with 3 growth. Fourthquarter data suggest at the alanna fed, gdp at 3. 2 as of yesterday and saying we are growing at 3 . If we take that momentum into next year and at a tax cut, we are confident that we will have sustained growth at that level or above. I have to hand it back to sarah. Thank you for your questions. Ms. Sanders thank you, kevin. Major, i have not spoken to the president about that but appreciate that you know the president will still be here in five years. I like that vote of confidence you would know that we will be here to take that review and will be sure to raise that with them. Reporter i have a nonroy moore question. Can you say definitively the lebanese Prime Minister, can you say he has not been held hostage by the saudis . Does the president plan to speak to the Prime Minister at all . Ms. Sanders i am not aware of anticipated conversations and will have to get back to you. I do not have further comment. I would refer you to the state department on specifics. Reporter it is fair to investigate al franken and the allegations made against him. Is it also fair to investigate this president and the allegations of Sexual Misconduct made against him by more than a dozen women . Ms. Sanders look, i think this was covered extensively during the campaign. We dressed that then. I think the American People spoke very loudly and clearly elected as president. Reporter how is it different . Ms. Sanders in one case, specifically, senator franken has admitted wrongdoing. The president hasnt. That is a clear distinction. Reporter something you discussed yesterday, one of the ways alabama voters may be able to figure out if these allegations against roy moore are true was in a court of law. There is no criminal means by which that could happen and are you suggesting that one more net roy moore sue the accusers to get it done in court . Ms. Sanders i would refer him to make that decision, not something i would advise him on. I said that was one option. One way to determine that process. That would be a decision he would have to make. Not one i am going to make. Reporter during the campaign, then candidate donald trump said he would sue the women after the election to have accused him of that have accused him of sexual conduct. Sexual misconduct. He has not done that. Why not . I have not asked him that question. I would have to ask him and let you know. That is an option roy moore has on the table. Reporter some critics have said it was critical of the president to tweet about al franken and not roy moore. Ms. Sanders he has waited on roy moore. He did it while he was on a trip to asia and i did repeatedly yesterday. I took 15 questions on the topic yesterday. To suggest this white house and specifically the president has now weighed in is not accurate and wrong. He said that if the allegations are true, he should step aside and supported the rncs decision to withdraw resources from the state of alabama. It is simply not an accurate statement to make about the president. Reporter does the president believe the women making the allegations against roy moore and what he be and would he be willing to ask the alabama governor to delay the election or intervene in this electoral process in alabama . Ms. Sanders the president finds the allegations troubling. As i stated yesterday, he feels it is up to the governor and the people in the state of alabama to make a determination on whether or not they delay the election or whether or not they support and vote for roy moore. Reporter in light of the National Discussion about the importance of taking these accusations seriously, i wanted to check, is it still the white house policy that all the white women who have accused President Trump are lying . Ms. Sanders the president has spoken about this multiple times during the campaign and has denied all of those allegations. Reporter the potential at t and time warner merger, the president said on the campaign trail that it was a deal we would not approve in my administration because there is too much concentration of power in the hands of too few. Does the president still feel that way . Ms. Sanders he was asked about this a few days ago while we were on air force one and i refer you to those comments. Reporter there is an uncomfortable conversation about sexual allegations in this white house, franken or roy moore. Ms. Sanders this is an uncomfortable for the country. It is something discussed widely. We think it should be taken very seriously. It is one of the reasons i stand up to answer your questions every day and will continue to do so and address them. It is something that should be looked at and should be looked at widespread, not just in the political sphere but in the business atmosphere, and across the board in this country. Something we take seriously. Hillary clinton, about the president s past, she said, i hear i worry about his past because it tells you how he behaved and how he will in the future. Ms. Sanders i think Hillary Clinton probably should have dealt with her own issues before addressing the president. 61 of voters [indiscernible] why the disconnect . On immigration ms. Sanders let me answer the first question. We argue the tax plan benefits all americans. That is the point of it. Specifically and our priority is targeting middleclass americans to make sure that is addressed and those people are prioritizing any piece of legislation, house or senate, but we want all americans to benefit by growing economy and a tax system that works for our country, versus one that penalizes people. John . Reporter you have six republican senators on the fence. Can you win enough to pass this . If the president gets snookered again by the senate, what is his reaction . Ms. Sanders we are confident we will get the package passed and would love to see some democrats come on board and support this historic piece of legislation that we feel will be one of the great legacies of the presidency. Reporter he didnt get any democrats in the house. Ms. Sanders we will hold out hope democrats in the senate want to put partisan politics aside and the people of the country first. We have not ruled it out and will push forward and confident we will get it done. Reporter is it safe to say the president will not be pleased if he gets snookered by the senate, safe to say . Ms. Sanders the American People will not be pleased because they will lose the most. Reporter the administration put out a disaster funding today, much less than what a number of governors and officials in the various impacted territories and states requested, can you explain why the number is so low compared to what the local Officials Say they need . Ms. Sanders i do not think 44 billion is a low amount. If you ask any average citizen across the country, they would not feel it is low. At this point, texas has not put any state dollars in this process and they should step up and federal government play a role and work with the federal government in the process. We did a thorough assessment and that was completed and this was the number we put forward to congress today. Reporter more requests for puerto rico. Ms. Sanders at this point, the request that went in today, 44 billion, primarily addresses texas and florida. Those storms took place ahead of puerto rico and the assessment for puerto rico is not completed. Once it is done, we anticipate there will be additional requests. Reporter steve bannon is sending a strong message to the establishment to back off of roy moore. Is the president s allegiance to steve bannon affecting this . Ms. Sanders the president does not happen allegiance to steve bannon by the people of this country. Reporter has he spoken to steve bannon . Ms. Sanders i am not aware of that. The president is less concerned about the senate seat and the and more focused on the policy and legislation we are pushing through right now like tax reform. John . Reporter in regards to the supplemental request the administration put forward, 44 billion, puerto rico requested 94 billion. Half of the island is still without electricity. Ms. Sanders we will wait until the assessment is complete and make a determination at that point. Reporter did the president notified notify Governor Abbott ms. Sanders i will try to keep moving. Reporter yesterday, the joint investigative mechanism was vetoed by russia, the United National security council. Thatetailing tweeted out russia cannot be trusted to solve the political situation in syria, does the president have a response to the veto and what is the u. S. View Going Forward . How chemical weapons will be dealt with and investigated in syria and now that russia cannot be a partner in trying to solve or do a next day political situation . Ms. Sanders the actions the president has taken specific to chemical weapons, he has shown his position on that. With the strike in syria earlier this year. In terms of the russian veto, not one we support and hope that, moving forward, they want to get on board and work with us on this. At the same time, not something we supported their decision on. Elephant trophies and hunting of lions and elephants in africa, can you shed light on it . Ms. Sanders this is due to a review was started in 2014 under the Previous Administration done by career officials at the fish and wildlife service. This review established that zambia and zimbabwe had met new standards and strict International Conservation standards that allowed americans to resume hunting in the countries. A ban on importing elephant ivory remains in place but this is based on a study that started back to the Previous Administration and done by career officials. Reporter the Senate Tax Bill has a tax break for corporations, how does that help the middle class . Ms. Sanders as kevin stated, we laid out the priorities we want to see reflected in the legislation. We will fight for the priorities and let the legislative process work through. In terms of the specific pieces, i would refer you to members of the house and senate. Our focus is on making sure the priorities are answered and we will make that the last one. Kushner, theed Senate Committee are asking for emails in the rush investigation. What is the white house reaction . They were going to put out a statement. They did and i would refer you back to that on anything specific to that. Thank you and have a happy friday and a good weekend and we