This is an opera. Good morning. Hope you enjoy the hot chocolate on the way in. Team said it the up for us. We love the Christmas Music as well. Thank you cspan for being here welcome to the cspan audience, welcome all of you. Os is here to make you smarter and faster and we follow the same format with our events, bringing smart brevity to bringing you into the world of business, text, business, and politics. Thank you to the bank of america to making this possible. Thank my axios colleagues who are here. We are honored to have this morning somebody who has been my governor and who has been my senator. I am a constituent, and we had this morning, the vicechairman of the Senate Intelligence committee, and senator mark warner from virginia. Senator . [applause] we are down to smart and brevity. I dont know if i fit those categories. [laughter] we are are down to four days of christmas. My normal is that i am leading groups during christmas, but that will be on the agenda this morning. We have tax cuts, the biggest since 1986. Would business have lived with less. The corporate rate as they cut down to 24 . Would it have been possible to get business big money . The single this is most disappointing piece of legislation i have been involved in for the eight years i have been in the senate. And i have been desperately interested in doing appropriate tax reform. I was the founder of the socalled bulls plan. It was in that 28 rate on the corporate rate. That wouldve been done and a fiscal and responsible way. I think businesses would have been ecstatic at a 25 rate. How much would that have saved . Sen. Warner about 100 billion. The differential between 21 and 25 is about a 400 billion savings. But let me take a minute and is, me what my critique which is different from the Traditional Democratic critiques. Beyond all of beyond that this was done in the dark and it was no bipartisan effort, and tax reform is done best with transparency. If you do not have it, you will screw it up. If we look back historically to the 1986 act, that had 88 votes and stood the test of time for 30 plus years. This piece of legislation will not. Host wait, do you think part of this will be undone . Sen. Warner there are so many mistakes that have been made in the legislation. But because tax policy is enormously complex. Within the First Six Months of the this coming year, there will be a fix it bill. Number one, we couldve done this and a fiscally responsible way. The estimates are that it will , and1 trillion to the debt we are already 23 trillion in the debt. Existing debt hole, but the additional interest off the deficit of the debt. The presumption that many of the personal tax cuts will be extended his point number one. Two, my colleagues said this would be more simple. Our tax code will be more complicated. Third is, clearly i got concerns that it is disproportionate benefits for the folks at the top. One areaourth, this is that will be a huge amount of focus Going Forward. Wellintentioned, got a lot of the International Tax component, the setup of it, frankly long, and we may see the reverse of what is expected take place with this will actually incensed more and more business to move more jobs offshore because of the minimum tax and the international average. You can still decide where you put your factory versus your intellectual property. Me was,so disturbing to and i had lots of conversations with businesses and republican colleagues about this. Repatriation and a lower tax rate. Have some level of exchange . Why dont we do a business guarantee that you will be a meaningful Training Program in place for everyone who makes less than 80,000 a year . For last point, but what about your supply chain . If you have lost a lot of other , why dont you agree to put some of those supply chain jobs and put them in communities hurt by trade . There was a real willingness from the Business Community to engage in that dialogue, but this was done in such a rush to provide a tax cut, not reform, a tax cut by this arbitrary date of christmas, which unfortunately, is a huge missed opportunity. Ahead ton you look november, do you think they will regret it politically . Sen. Warner absolutely. Absolutely. Show me a time in any western democracy where when you got an economy that is running at relatively full steam, and we are relatively low on unemployment, you do a massive tax cut with entirely borrowed money, you will not see the growth assumptions that have been built in . Economists have predicted this. It will fall short enables the actual job loss. Particularly, if the president theyis allies move to what will call welfare reform, which is code for taking on medicare, medicaid and Social Security saying we dont have enough money, now we have to cut the social safety that, that will come back safety net that will come back to bite them. Sen. Warner will this costs senates in the majority . List ofner there is a challenges, one of the focus on tax cuts. I do not see how from what i have heard there could be a real effort to do meaningful infrastructure again. One of the aspects that could come out of a taxi from effort go ahead. Sen. Warner there is that other little problem out there around the russia investigation. Atre is a variety of factors this moment in time, dont bode well. Host we will turn to the russia investigation very shortly. But gary cohn said on january 3, they are turning to infrastructure and then what they call welfare reform. That theyhe chances take them one by one, one of the chances getting democratic votes on infrastructure package . Somebody who price myself on every piece of legislation had a republican partner. This tax bill has left me bitterly disappointed. I think we couldve added value to this process. And as we move to infrastructure , i dont know how we are going to have a meaningful infrastructure plan when the cutsdents own budget funding to the highway trust fund. My fear is they are going to come up with a plan that focuses on additional Tax Advantages more for equity without real money. All the taxes manages in the certaines not pay back rural bridge repair. Host sounds like if they played their cards right, it would be good it would be possible to get the democratic vote. Sen. Warner there wouldve been a greater chance if they did not approach the tax bill. Chance think there is a that a flurry of taxadvantaged financings there is plenty of equity out there for infrastructure. There could be some additional debt. I have something called the bridge act that says we ought to have a debt vehicle. We are the only International Country in the world that does not have a Debt Financing tool. But you need new money. I dont know where they are going to get it. The way that the tax bill is handled makes it less likely that they can get democratic votes on infrastructure. Is the same true of welfare reform . Sen. Warner i think it becomes ontually impossible to take welfare reform. Host it would need 60 votes for that . Sen. Warner yes 60 votes. We had a recognition with an aging population, there are ways that you can improve the longevity of medicare and Social Security in ways that helps protect the most vulnerable and make somebody like me pay a little more who was successful. But when we get that plan, we to aed with those reforms 120 increase in revenues, not what we are looking at now trillionorms to a 2 increase in revenues, not what we are looking at now. Host youre helping run one of the key hill investigations of the russia matter. The senate floor, you gave a redline speech we talked about your red lines, one of the president not to fire special counsel bob mueller, not to pardon witnesses. Why did you feel the need to give this speech at this moment . , i dont downike to the floor i dont go down to the floor and give a lot of speeches a lot of the times. I know how much Additional Information that we are tell in our the end investigation. We have not reached any conclusions, but the importance of what we are doing, and i said this would be the most important thing i ever will work on and i feel more strongly about that. We dont even have near the tools that Robert Mueller has in his investigation. He has are had two indictments into guilty pleas, and i believe more to come. So, over the last number of months, it started with some really french voices around the august recess saying, maybe mueller, we got to indict muellers integrity, and at that moment, i was really proud because at least in the senate, democrats and republicans all said no, we need to protect the special prosecutor. Presumeduldve ever that a president would fire a sitting fbi director. And then go out and basically trashed that fbi director and a white house meeting with the Russian Foreign minister. That took place. So there was chaos. Person withed the the most impeccable credentials, Robert Mueller. There seemed there was an effort to curtail that because democrats and republicans said we need to protect the special prosecutor and allow him to finish his job. But the funny thing that has happened is we have seen these two bargains come forward. Yep one News Networks you have one News Networks that has called this a coup. You have a president ial spokesperson who said the fix was always in on donald trump. You have, i have not seen the whole story, but the president s son has some new conspiracy theory. Then you have some comments that in my mind seeing beyond bizarre coming from certain members of the house. So, it appears that as mueller gets closer, the coordinated drumbeat was increasing. And i felt with what i know, and how i think thisll put us into the realm of the constitutional crisis should it happen with congress leaving for a few weeks, i won a to go down and withully lay a marker down the white house, but equally importantly, call on my colleagues that this is a i want god for bid that to take the president and his lawyers at his word that he has no intention of firing the special prosecutor, but i would add, not getting rid of pardons. I hope this will never be a moment that he will have to act upon. But i think the real character of how this congress and the senate will be judged will be how we react, and work to take that kind of action. Had music,or, if we we would have dark, rumbling music based on what you said. What do you think will happen while congress is away for the holidays . Sen. Warner i hope that we have a Great Holiday season, and nothing goes on. Mike but do you have intelligence otherwise . What you trying to suggest . Sen. Warner i am not suggesting anything other than the fact or of thetone and ten comments coming out of the president s colleagues and otherwise, should send a chill through all of us. Anyrule of law trumps individual person in our country. We have division of powers. There is not that executive action without the straight. Is when they come back from recess, they will say, you know, nothing happened. That would be the best outcome. Mike in your speech, you talked about the growing, a seemingly coordinated effort to undermine the mueller investigation. Coordinated by whom . Sen. Warner that is a fair question. I dont know who it is coordinated by, but i will say this yesterday morning, the association of fbi agents, and if you are able to make a broad sweep in terms of fbi agents i know, the vast majority of them are republican. But the Fbi Agents Association cannot with a harsh, directed at the white house and the president saying, he does not serve Law Enforcement well at large he does not serve Law Enforcement at large well when his comments undermine mueller and the whole integrity of the fbi. I would say, i would be astounded at this, but for the fact that early on in his 10 year, the same president refused to accept the unanimous conclusions of our whole Intelligence Community in terms of russian active measures an intervention in our elections. When a president or allies go out and undermine Law Enforcement, or undermine the Intelligence Community, the thege that that has done damage that has been done longerterm to our institutions validity. Lord knows, we know what he says about you folks in the press. Ordoesnt matter, democrats republicans, they integrity of the Intelligence Community, has been off limits and a been questioned. And i think we are getting into uncharted territory. Mike senator, if you look at your tv interviews over the years, you have been pretty candid about what you happen dont have in your investigation. Your view of how much is there seems to have waned over the years. Where are you at the moment . Sen. Warner we continue to have interviews, and we continue to receive more documents and information. What i saidt earlier. What i said a year ago, that this investigation was the most important work i have done in my public life, i feel that more strongly today than i did a year ago. I feel it is absolutely critical that the full truth come out. Now, i also want to take a moment and step back and say, i am really proud of our committee. I got a great working relationship with richard berg, our committees main representative. We had some bumps but have proceeded ahead. Get meeting scheduled in january. Inwe got meeting scheduled january. Number one, there was complete conclusion with exception of the president that russians massively interfered in our elections in a coordinated way that was unprecedented. And that conclusion has frankly helped now as we have seen the french, who are much more attuned to this than we were. The brits have gone back and reexamined brexit. From a national and international perspective, that acknowledgment is great from a National Security perspective. Secondly, the russians attempted states electoral systems. They were slow at acknowledging that in telling the state election officials. They had an answer that they said they couldnt tell the secretaries of state because they were not clear. And othersn and i said that is ludicrous and you have to tell folks. Now there is a much better working relationship between dhf and the boards. There is a Bipartisan Group out of harvard working on security. Changed out some of our Voting Machines that were potentially vulnerable. Is st important piece and will be made the most progress and that is exposing the underbelly of social media. I am a technology guy. I have been in technology longer than politics, and facebook and twitter are great iconic, american companies. But these companies basically blew off others concerns a year ago. Mike we will come back to that in a second, but on the investigation, based on your comments about your documents and witnesses, it sounds like lax phase . A obviously, mr. Muellers investigation has much more extensive powers and hours does to run its course. Mike does your investigation of weeks or months to go . Sen. Warner our investigation will take as long as it takes for us to talk to all the appropriate people. Youou mission mentioned that Jared Kushner has talk to the staff . Will you call him we you ask him to come back to talk to the committee . Sen. Warner that is the chairmans call and that was the right one, which the first round of interviews would be done by our staff investigative team, which is a very good team. But that was done, the presumption that some of the key witnesses would be to come back. I would lean more they come back publicly. Members, democratic republican, it would be hard for them to reach any final conclusions without being able to see some of the principles, not the semester kushner would fall into that category. Mike so you expect Jared Kushner to be called back to talk to the senator . We. Warner i dont a how can reach conclusions without the principles involved in some of these activities that individual senators have a chance to question them. Mike do you think it will be public . Sen. Warner i would rather work through that with our representatives. Sen. Warner is donald trump, jr. In a category . Mike absolutely mike is donald trump, jr. In that category . Sen. Warner absolutely. Mike you have learned a lot. Have you learned more from the social platforms since a public hearing . I will take this into are three stages. From our initial concerns raised november, december of 2016 to about may, we basically got the brush off with facebook and twitter. , weting in may, i think will start with facebook where a lot of the focus has been. I think they recognized that there was an issue. I dont think they put appropriate assets behind fully investigative i dont think they exposed all the russian activity, but expose affectivity from one troll farm in st. Petersburg. There is more activities in one activity than russia. That activity picked up in the proactively meet a lot of steps. Youtubeitter, google, in advance of the hearing. We held the hearing, and there have been a few announcements after that. And there will be more everyone in terms of transparency. Mike what else would you ask for . Sen. Warner i am very interested in making sure individuals who were who received propaganda, not so much the ads, the of the tiniest components, but it is the fake pages. Pageomeone is reading a that might be on football, might be on some social vegetarianism, and all of a sudden, youre reading about why Vladimir Putin is the greatest guy in the world. Mike you said you thought that this happened in Alabama Senate election, tell me about that. Sen. Warner we heard that some of the democrats were setting up sites that mightve been at first, encouraging people to be supporters of alabama football, which is an easy thing to do in alabama. And after you picked up enough followers around alabama for all, you can then filter in as well comments about the upcoming election. I think what you will see, and if you take russian active measures on the internet, if you take just what we know, one of the things i hope as well is that outside researchers could get a better look at some of the do with independent analysis, but a small amount of paid advertising, give me 30 or 40 great hackers with the ability to create fake pages, boxthen let me rent enough to push enough traffic so those pages get additional interest, and generally buzz on their own. And then you got a model for the can take any story, no matter out their home and get it onto virtually all of your newsfeeds. To the point and i mentioned this backstage, i have been told and individuals in the valley who were basically going to copy the russian playbook, which also can be used by china and other adversaries. Playbook andian will start creating americanbased firms for corporate warfare using these exact tools. We are seeing the beginnings, and one of the concerns that i have a National Security, i think conflict in a 21stcentury will be less about takes and rockets, and more about Cyber Attacks by corporateu mean warfare . I for a longr time have felt a lot of the clickinnings in our through advertising model is ts. Eady manipulated by bo it sounds like even now is facebook being bullied . Senator warner i would like to have high confidence that they have done the investigation of all the russian and some of the russian sites were started or activated outside of russia, but were controlled. Has that occurred question they haver warner moved dramatically, and i think you will see more movement shortly. This was an area where we celebrated and this transmit transformed our world, but if you think about you believe that information is the new oil, these are the only enterprises, and we look at our phones on average about 150 times a day. The only kind of enterprise when oury time we interact with phone and i am personally responsible we added more power to that enterprise because we give them more information, and as we get into the world of a. I. , the changes you have seen the last three years will pale. Sounds like one of the additional measures you will be calling for, and you said there are several of them, you want independent research to have access i would like for them to have access to at least the overall we have hundreds page views, of accounts. Facebook came later and said only x number of accounts they thought were russianbased, and then they came up with tens of thousands of instagram posts. We got the Senate Intelligence committee to sort through all of that. Academic analysis of how we make sure on a Going Forward basis and believes americans ought to have the right to know if they are reading a story or political commentary, that they ought to be able to know whether that is generated i a real human being and whether that human being is actually an american or not. It does not mean you have to go beyond that. Those ought to be basic components. It shows there is going to be a lot more drama in d. C. In the new year. Senator warner i am a tech guy, and these are Great Success stories, but i think in any new upside,on, we see the but we have not seen the downside. I know we are almost out of time, but another item i doubt if this audience could but there are a dozen tech firms in china all with valuations north of 10 billion and growing exponentially. They are about to come sweeping through the american marketplace. I think we have to be concerned whether the rules that these firms operate under in china, where Chinese Government has a lot more access to the data and information, whether that kind of back door could end up infiltrating our american system. Already with aat russianbased software from. This is a new way of conflict in the 21st century. I would say with some hope there is no democratic or republican solution. This ought to be a place where we ought to work collaboratively. First, your gift in business was seen around the corner, cell phones, turned out to be a pretty good investment. I managed to eat out a living eke out a living. The tech story for 2018 . Senator warner i think it will be the fact that the united does not aica critique of the administration, but to go back to bush 43, the fact that america has no articulated cyber doctrine on how we will push back on other nationstates like russia mess with our elections, steal intellectual property, and you think it is a jump ball . Senator warner i think it is a jump wall, and i think democrats can jump higher. [laughter] we will end with one fun thing. Your guilty pleasure is the apple store. What do you senator warner i heard i just to the new x, so i am going actually take possession of it i hopend see if it it has a few less even my last version had a few more previousn apples version did, but those russians are penetrated everywhere. Thank you, senator warner. [applause] now we will hear a quick message from the tank of america that includes an info graphic. We will be back in two seconds. Join us this evening for American History tv in prime cities look at cspans tour season with a focus on religion. American history tv in primetime at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on our companion network, cspan3. Sunday, editors from magazines debate the merits of capitalism versus socialism. They arehelle moderated by michelle goldberg. Heres a preview. Were living through the first time in history in the last 40 years in the u. S. Out of the bottom 50 of this country has not seen its wages or income study after study is showing this. Why does that matter . Nick says we think on the jacobin side that we do not have party. It does have bargaining. The bargain is between employer and employee is what has resulted in the stagnating income. Why . What we have now is a complete despotism of the employers. This is not an aberration. This is capitalism. This is what you get when you take away the sports for working people. Let me address the question directly. Does capitalism maximize peoples chances to developing their capacity . The top, ifare on youre wealthy, but the rest of them, no. What does it take for you to develop your capacity . Two takes three things. Autonomy. You should have the freedom to decide what you want to be. Time to develop them paired and in the end, money. Timehe bulk of the working , the working americans, they are presiding in a tyranny, which is called the workplace. Catherine, you said Civil Liberties are enhanced wherever there is private property . You cannot be serious. The one place in america where you do not have full rights of speech is in the workplace. That is the essence of private property. You want to organize a union . Youre fired. You want to go to the pets when we tell you . You are hard. Secondly, time. 83 of americans feel they are stressed. Why . Underpaid, overworked. Overworked means youre killing yourself at work, and what happens when your way at home . Your simply recovered to go back to work. What autonomy . Thank you. A short portion of the debate of the merits of capitalism versus socialism, sunday, 6 30 p. M. Eastern to see the entire event. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Yesterday the United Nations General Assembly voted 1289 to condemn the u. S. Decision to recognize jerusalem as israels capital and to move the American Embassy there. The vote, which included 35 abstentions, came a week after the Un Security Council tried to pass a similar resolution, but was blocked by the united states. Ambassador nikki haley warned u. N. Member states that the u. S. Was taking note of how votes were cast and said it is the biggest contributor of funds to the United Nations, the u. S. Could find that are ways to spend its money. Ambassador haleys overtures were rebuked by other ambassadors of the u. N. , who said that the u. S. Was no longer a credible mediator in the piece process. This is just short of an hour. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] audio] i declare resumed the special session on illegal israeli actions on the occupation of jerusalem and palestinian territory. You will recall in paragraph six
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