At the American Enterprise politics where he was one of the leading thinkers. , he was a senior economist at the Federal Reserve board. Any of you who know kevin or have seen him speak know that he is a clear thinker, a straight talker, and says what he thinks. He is, i think, serving the administration and the country extraordinarily well. The format we are going to use today is questionandanswer. Im going to lead off with a question or two for kevin and ben hes kind enough to willing to accept questions from the audience. At 1 30 p. M. Stop so lets keep that in mind. Please join me in a round of applause for our panelist this morning. [applause] whether its charlie rose or david rubenstein, dont want to talk about that. Let me start, kevin, with a very broad question. The recent tax reform bill what in your view are the three most important changes that that bill accomplished . Mr. Hassett thanks so much and let me begin by thanking john for his leadership for all these years. I think it mightve been that i wrote a paper for the very first meeting, but if it wasnt the first, it was the second. Samuels we take credit for your career. Mr. Hassett four could be the other way around. Its because of that first paper. Anyway i think it has become a highlight of the washington Tax Community every year because you oxfordn even people from to come help us think about average tax rates. We have learned so much. I know that there are probably diverse opinions about the nuances of the International Tax this in the tax bill in room. I think there are a heck of a lot of good things in the tax bill that go to the research nonpartisanrs, Economic Research with the best tax economist in the world. Its really an honor to be here. A lot of my old friends since ive been here eating lunch asked me what its like to be in the white house. I never knew what it was like to live in dog years, but im doing that right now. Other than that, its an incredible honor to have a chance to serve this country. The three things that i think are most important i guess people could pick and choose, but i think it would not surprise anyone to say that i think the tax rate getting to 21 is something that really mike in the front convince me to what i would call number one. The reason that i think that is number one instead of the expensing is that when i was in grad school and alan and i first started writing papers, i was really convinced that expensing was the most important thing. As i watched the International Tax code evolves over time and watched the literature move along with it, ive become convinced that things like plant location response more to average tax rates and getting the average tax rate in the u. S. We thought should that should cause a lot of firms to want to relocate their activity here to the u. S. Anecdotally thats already beginning to happen. That the staffgs does as we help fact check stuff it comes to the white house. Being nerds we are pretty aggressive about what is a recent thing . There was a daily number in the president s speech, but the person who put it in the speech neglected to notice that the last year we had data was the leap year. You had to divide by 366. Is that it turns out if we would ask people in the room how many firms are there in the 5000, sound like one of those jokes. It turns out there are not 5000. Its 3900 something. If you say 5000 firms in the wilshire 5000 thats not correct. The reason i mentioned it is a the fact that there is well more than 300 firms have made significant announcements about what theyre doing, its very significant economically. We saw the beginnings of the effects of the slower rate and what its going to do for america firms and American Workers in todays jobs report where january wages spiked to a level that was the highest. Monthly changes are volatile, but the 12 month change thats moved through a little bit is the highest it has been since 2009. That is thing one. I think that thing two i know theres been a lot of political debate about how much redistribution there should be. I know alan and i had some disagreements about how he did is inequality work, but i think one thing we said we all agreed about is that we should have a society that equalizes opportunity. The big expansion of the child credit, that may be what bigger than the president hoped, is the that people who agree and equalizing opportunity is an idea that you should support and its an important part of the tax bill because it will get money to people who really need it. The third thing i will even go to something that seems kind i saidbut i think in the New York Times a few days ago that it might be the biggest part of the tax bill and we should talk about it a lot more is the creation of opportunity zones in the tax bill, which is something that Jared Bernstein and i wrote a paper about half a dozen years ago and have been advocating as academics ever since. The opportunity zones are going to increase the chance that there is a race to invest in communities in america. That is an important component of this tax bill because as we go out and say the tax bill is going to encourage Capital Formation and wage growth, then the natural question some of he would have would be how do we know its not just want to happen in San Francisco or some other place thats a really booming labor market right now . How do you know it will help distressed communities that everybody cares the most about and it needs to turn around right now . I think the opportunity zones are designed in a way that its going to create a positive mast equilibrium where everybody goes because everyone else is going to distressed communities with capital. Mr. Samuels very interesting. I will ask one more question and that im to turn it to questions from the audience. Impact of this bill on the deficit. If you round numbers, the joint Committee Staff scored this on a static basis as losing over 10 years 1. 5 trillion and then the dynamic score took it to about 1 trillion. If you at the interest on the aboutonal debt, you are 1. 3 trillion over the budget window. Should we be concerned about that . Numbers, of round course you should always be concerned about the deficit. In present value, the u. S. Fiscal situation doesnt look so good. I think that if we look at the tax bill in isolation and think about the Deficit Impact that it has, i think there has been a lot of confusion about it. First on the corporate side, as you know, the corporate side almost statically scored was relativeeutral, which to the size of gdp is rounding error. The corporate side is on was revenue neutral because a lot of the stuff like the beat and the things that you were talking about earlier today, there are things that gather revenue that offset the revenue lost from lowering rates. If you think about the fact that even with the joint tax model,hich i disagree a lot with that getting all the way down to 1 trillion dynamic score for a bill to get to reach to 21 is pretty impressive given the most of the growth effects are coming for the corporate side. The cost of the refundable child credit is about 700 billion. If you consider the full dynamic score of the tax bill, there other parts you can pick and choose, but if you withdrew the child credit altogether, then you would have had something that was very close to an 86 style act. When you are thinking about i know we are all concerned about the deficit and we all understand that we have long run balances that have to be fixed, but when youre thinking about the tax bill, i would say that if you remove the child credit that you have something very similar to an 86 act. You have to ask yourself do you think the child credit at the margin was worth the deficit increase that it gave you . I think most people in this room would think it was. Then the question is what do we do in the long run . That is something that is certainly getting a lot of attention from everybody in town and at the white house. In the short run, we had this raging problem where we had the least competitive tax code in the developed world and the least competitive tax code in someeveloped world led to very striking things in the data that got way too little attention. Decade,ook at the last Profit Growth was about 10 a year for u. S. Firms. Wage growth on average the last decade was. 4 . We did some structural break analysis and found that there never been a time in u. S. The two headed in directions so opposite. Theres complete disconnect to how well firms are doing and how well workers are doing. Is because those profits were booked in ireland to get the lower rate and so on. Its not just my belief. One of the things that the career staff at cae does is that they let you think about how the economy is doing. One of the things that they do is look at productivity growth an where productivity growth comes from. One of the charts they have been making forever is the contribution to productivity growth from capital steepening. And the contribution to productivity growth from capital deepening went negative for the first time in u. S. History in the second half of the obama administration. Imagine we had an economy that was growing and the contribution to parts of the growth was negative. You ask yourself, why did wages grow minus four point 4 year . Why did classical deepening go negative for the first time in u. S. History . The profits in the operations were over there because we had this tax code that said dont locate activity in the u. S. Located over there and we will give you a big tax break. I know that there are a lot of tax experts who understand this, but an example i like to use lets suppose there was some kind of manufacturing plant in the u. S. And we made Something Like lets say sa shampoo. Weve been making it for a while and its been very profitable. Then john because hes a clever International Tax guy says, why dont we make half the shampoo in ireland . Then what happened would be that the firm would say, lets close down our plant in the u. S. And put a plant in ireland and keep the headquarters here in the u. S. So john and i dont have to sell her house is. Our houses. The shampoo we are selling for 10 a bottle in the u. S. We make it in ireland and what we do is the u. S. Parent buys the shampoo from our own subsidiary in ireland for 15 a bottle. We sell it for 10 in the u. S. And now we lost five dollars. We post a five dollar loss for the parent and post really healthy profits in ireland because they are selling shampoo for 15 instead of 10. , what does a sudden the parent do . The parent carries the loss back and gets refunded the past taxes that we paid when we had an operation the u. S. System this cuffed as where the u. S. Tax code is subsidizing the location of the plant in another country. Kafkaesqueve features, and it got fixed by the code, i think we are already seeing the movement and wages. Been i there has think our current count is more than 3 million workers affected by announced wage increases of more than 1000 and so on. Why is it happening already if the story is capital deepening . I think Milton Friedman would right away,d adjust but if you have contracts that slow it down, i think the bonuses would be explained why optimism that u. S. Firms have that this activity that used to be over there is coming back and fear that their competition is going to steal their workers. They are getting out ahead of the wage increases they expect people will be offering. It is really early in the game. I want to see at least another many months of the data that we just saw that they could we just saw today. Wage increase in todays data that came out was 3. 6 after being in the ones and twos for a good long time. Mr. Samuels that is certainly good news. Mr. Hassett it could be a blip. We hope it isnt. I think economic theory suggests thats smoothing of the ups and downs. The fact that it looks that way so fast is so interesting and surprising. Mr. Samuels so questions . Jim . Maybe if you would identify yourself . Kevin, there are lots of expiring factors in the 2017 bill. A lot of things expire after 2025. How should we think about the administrations position that what is supposed to happen after that . Will bedea that they extended, and if so, how do they make up for the tax revenue from the . If they are not supposed to be extended, then why do we have them in the first place . Mr. Hassett there are a lot of expiring provisions. This goes back to the very first text paper that i wrote and coauthored with a guy at the table over there. Firmsdered about how should think about future tax policy because it is expected future tax policy that matters. Expected future tax policy is not observable. Our identification idea back in the day was that after the 86 act that it makes changes. We thought it was reasonable to say that future tax policy would surely expect that there were not be a reversal of it within the next three or four years. Someone over there concurs. [laughter] i think as we model it, lets just be economists. As we model Capital Spending right now in anticipation of the future tax policy, then i think there is stuff like the expensing that expires. For those of you keeping score at home, that expiration of expensing shows up in the delta gamma term in the user cost, which means its like having an investment tax credit. Now it should accelerate investment right away. I actually see four people in the audience shaking. Something is actually could accelerate activity now because you want to get stuff and before it expires. Some things can go the other way. If the rate went back totally to 35 and the expensing disappeared, then the long run target capital stocks would be unaffected. Therefore, how much do you really want to change capital today given that any and your target is where you started with . My view is that as an economic toeler, what is important do is wrap my brain around what investment firms are going to expect. I will do that before i talk about what government should do. One thing that is clear from work ive done on tax policy over the years is that theres a really big impact of elections on tax policy uncertainties. I was asked in an interview just yesterday when i look ahead to things that im worried about for the outlook, then what am i worried about . One thing im worried about is that there will be an election where people are elected who want to eliminate all these things. If you look at the history of present for politics, usually as you go into the fall, its 5050 in the betting markets. That righteans is now if you are thinking about what are the odds that the Corporate Tax stuff is all there five years from now, then we could take a poll. If we all had our little clickers, i guess we would get Something Like not 100 , right . I think this idea that if i say that ive got a permanent tax for 10 years but that somehow is going to be really important to the modeling i think theres a little bit to it. If you have a permanent thing, its harder to reverse and so on. In terms of the economic effect, the expirations are not at the margins super affecting things because of the uncertainty thats already there. The white house should obviously get back to that. They want stuff to be permanent and we understand the bird rule and we are really grateful that this historic tax bill has passed and we understand some of that involves the expiration of things. A lot of things happened when president obama came in. He extended almost every single thing that passed with the bush tax cuts of the top rate and i think a lot of it if it works the way we think will be extended on a bipartisan basis. I can say that with the expensing in particular that one of the reasons why expensing costs a lot at the end of the budget window is that youre taking depreciation from outside the budget window and moving it inside the budget window. Expensing ends up having a really huge cost at the end of 10 years even though its basically moving the same amount of money from over five years into one year. That doesnt matter in the first year and a 10 year window, but it matters a lot in the 19 year. In the ninth year. If you go five years from now, the 10 year cost of adding a year to expensing at zero, are they going to do that . I would guess that if we were modeling it as firms, we would expect expensing to be permanent but i induction. It would be better if it was permanent by law, but permanent by induction is better than we were a couple months ago. Mr. Samuels yes . Im ralph. Mr. Samuels wait for the mike. Someone turn on ralphs mic. Say your question i will repeat it. I was asking about the repeal of the deficit tax and i knew that was a major issue. Some groups are decrying the tax bill. Where do you see that . Mr. Samuels the question was how important is the repeal of the death tax and the calculus . Mr. Hassett it was not one of the three things that i listed. I think that internet economic models in our economic models we tend to want to do away with it. Its something that might grass has written a lot about and he has remarked on how and polls its almost impossible to construct a poll where you can find someone who would pay the death tax and yet attempts to be one of the least popular taxes. I think the death tax on the other hand really does fall very much on very high income people. Folks who are concerned about distribution issues like the death tax a lot because of the relatively efficient device to redistribute in a manner they find attractive. ,ecause of all those factors anyone forecasting would say the death tax is going to be on the agenda after every election. There will be people who want to repeal it. Maybe there are peers who took an optimal tax class and then theres going to be folks on the acquiring the rich more and more in society and wanted to undo that with the death tax. The death tax being on the table is the easiest thing to forecast. If it were fully eliminated, they wouldve done it in this bill. There will be a lot of political change that might make it so that would happen. I think there was a compromise the you saw that reflects political reality that theres a lot of differing opinion on that topic. What my hope is again going back the goodestion is that news for the people of this room is we just give you a lot of variation to study. Theres a lot of papers that can be written. Many of them may be funded by the i tpf. The hope is that over time, i know that the idea that the link between Corporate Taxes and wages was significant and controversial during the debate. I believe strongly in the corporate literature that we cited that found the effects that the president even mentioned in the state of the union. The hope is over the next two years as the academic literature that a consensus emerges that makes the bipartisan consensus makes a whole bunch of this bill permanent. My guess is that theres not enough Academic Work that i can envision that would make that a political reality on the death tax. Mr. Samuels theres a fellow over here. Go ahead. Good afternoon. Mr. Samuels the microphone doesnt seem to be working. About payingn is if and when the next economic downturn comes. That the some theories economy is doing well, so when the economy tanks, you can pull back and be less fiscally tight. My question is are there countries that have this Corporate Tax rate pretty high individual tax income rates . My question is how are we going to offset our lowered Corporate Tax rate in the same way that those countries do . If and when theres another downturn or a bubble, are we going to be in a position where we can do something about it given that now that the economy is improving our debt is still growing . Mr. Hassett thanks for the question. The firstat again step and the president prioritized list from the very first time i ever talked to him was to make the u. S. Competitive again so that plants would locate here and capital would be there for productivity growth. He did not may be exactly say it that way the first time, but i share that vision. If you have the selfinflicted wound, you need to fix it. If you consider that the static cost of the Corporate Tax hike, which was the real selfinflicted wound, was so low and even a joint taxes growth estimates were bigger than the cost of the corporate side, then really its the individual side andf that costs a lot potentially the growth would add to the deficit. In europe, what has happened over time and here is where i respectfully disagree is that they have increasingly relied on value added taxes to replace taxes both corporate and individual. Their tax rates tend to be below ours. Think attack, i scholar would not predict that the u. S. Wer would rely on the same strategies. Whattion arises would you do if you decide to fix the long run balance . My guess is that any and this is not the administrations. Position. This is kevin the economist talking. People will be looking at the entitlement programs and progressively adjust them and make policy changes to restore them to balance in ways that require a bipartisan consensus. The last time this happened was the Greenspan Commission a long time ago. If growth disappoints and the deficit disappoints, then i would expect that a Commission Like that would be called to start envision changes like that that would fix the long run deficit. Theres not an income tax thing that you can do to fix the imbalances that alan and bill talk about. These programs have promised so much relative to the revenue they are raising that much more fundamental changes would be required to fix the long run deficit. Mr. Samuels mindy . Someone had a really interesting long mic that seems effective. [laughter] i wanted to follow up on your example. Can you hear me . Mr. Samuels we need to get a boom mic. [laughter] so your example of ireland and the u. S. Now being more competitive in manufacturing ofbe because of the lowering the difference between the corporate rate in the u. S. And islan ireland. While i agree overall its a very good thing to minimize that difference, the reality is that most manufacturing doesnt take place in ireland. It takes place in other much lower wage countries. The difference between the labor costs for low skilled workers between the other countries with lots of low Skilled Labor available is much greater than the difference in changing the Corporate Tax rate. I dont understand how your example on ireland fits into that global market. Mr. Hassett thats a great question. Again people might locate a plant and some other countries for lots of reasons. Smeltingn aluminum boom going on right now in iceland because there figured out that the geothermal allows them to have cheap energy to make aluminum with it. The point is that there are lots of reasons why stuff can be located in this place or that. The difference between the average u. S. Wage and the wage of the Foreign Worker has certainly been an important contributor as well over time although a diminishing one as other countries ramp up and get their per capita income closer to the u. S. When youre talking about what is the impact of a change like this on a location decision, then you have to think about the tax rate certainly is important, but we have to control other factors, too. Mikeu look at the work of in the room, thats the kind of stuff that they do. They throw stuff at the margins with the tax effect. He shows paper where the elasticity of the location of taxable income is pretty high and there are other people who criticize them and say its lower. His work is generally reliable. [laughter] but the point is that they are adjusting to things at the margin. Think the irish wage has grown a lot and that they have received a lot of positive wage demand from location decisions there. Locating activity in the tax haven is the easiest way to get the income there, not the only way. Mr. Samuels i was gone to help you out on this a little bit with using our shampoo business. It is an either or. It doesnt have to be lowcost labor or low taxes. They can complement each other. In our shampoo business, what we would have in ireland is the patents around our shampoo. We would maybe be manufacturing the shampoo in taiwan with a contractual relationship between it and ireland and shipping it to the United States, but the profits would all be in ireland. That is where we would attribute the value of our great shampoo to that. That is where the rate arbitrage comes in. The question is if the patents are in ireland, i can manufacture anywhere in the world except for the United States. I cant manufacture in the United States the way our tax laws work. Under the old law. Ett mr. Samuels there is less reason now for me to manufacture in ireland than there was before. This still may be a reason. We may be halfway to shore, but we have moved in the right direction. We have met before. [laughter] we are quite positive that this bill is positive for ireland. No one should go out and short ireland. Your irishamerican heritage, there are many reasons why u. S. Firms invest in ireland. One of them that we frequently site is level of educational payment and democrat demographic strength of the country. We are the youngest nation and the eu and thirdhighest educational rate. And the only englishspeaking country in the year. Eu. [laughter] theres clearly some tacit advantage to locating and investing for u. S. Companies and ou and ireland if they are going to access the eu single market. Its a little disingenuous to characterize so much of the investment raised solely or principally untaxed profits. The question is whether just taxes that brought people to ireland . No, there were some of things including an educated workforce and so on. Their was a World Bank Study a while ago that i would have to resign the reference that looked at and im not saying that we want to call ireland a tax haven but look at what happens to Economic Growth at tax havens over the intermediate term. What happens very often is that people as johnson just it will locate and the actual property in a low tax averment. In order to do that, you have to locate the experts and the people who developed the software and so on. The World Bank Report found that there tends to be a big increase in total factor productivity growth in countries that start out as sort of attractive tax locales because although smart people that get sent to ireland to do apple and google i know there are a lot of irish mark people recruited, but they also relocated people there. They tended to stay there and start their own businesses and so on. Clearly that second round of activity is something that you are seeing an island right now with the very high growth rate. The final thought that i was serious is if you run through the technicalities of the International Tax rules, then it does seem like this is going to be a net positive for countries like ireland still. Theres going to be more activity moved from other eu countries put ireland given the tax rules. May be john could walk you through that. One final point to make. The World Bank Study also shows that irelands tax rate, our Corporate Tax rate is 12. 4 so the difference between headline and effective rate is extremely small and ireland as we apply the rate so broadly. Mr. Samuels i thought it was 6. 5 . Other factors recited earlier, its important to be compliant. Whats next . Apparently the president has mentioned tax reform again. What would be on your list of things to address next . That thett i think president has a very ambitious view ahead for us. Since i started in the white house last summer, ive been involved in principle meetings on a million things. Makenk that hes about to a big announcement that i think is going to include a a lot of really interesting ideas about our nations infrastructure. I know your question is about what is next for taxes. Tax bill passed, i moved on to infrastructure and welfare reform and the other things we have been talking about. I really have to get a creative writing price to come up with how i would change the tax code. There are definitely things in the final tax bill that were not the things that we thought we wanted at the beginning. I thought the president showed really kind of intuitive strong leadership when he said here are the nonnegotiable spirit the. The nonnegotiable stuck. It was relatively small. I think the tax bill continues legislative success and i dont anticipate tax legislation this year given how so please join me in thanking kevin. Didrgot the itpf supercharge his career early on. We are all lucky to have somebody with kevins grit, intelligence and fresh perspective serving the country. Youhing we can do to help and help us, we are happy to do. You think kevin for taking the time out of his schedule. [applause] [crowd noise] that is exactly 10 days. [crowd noise] thanks for the invitation. [crowd noise] thank you for coming. You did a really great job. [crowd noise] you can find this event later in our Video Library at cspan. Org. The nearlyon today, yearlong investigation on the House Intelligence Committee into russian interference in the 2016 election has come to a critical juncture with the release of the nunes. It was drafted by the majority staff of the House Intelligence Committee for the republicans on the committee, in particular for the chair. It has been released today. The committee voted on a partisan basis to release the report last week. They did not vote to release the democrats minority report. Today President Trump allowed it to be unveiled before the press and the public. We at cspan are opening up our phones to hear from you on your thoughts on the memo. 8921. Licans call 202748 democrats, 2027488920. Sent us a tweet if you want to comment. So far, no on camera reaction from numbers of the Intelligence Committee or other members on capitol hill. As we get those we will bring those to you. We have linked the report at cspan. Org. Thes a fourpage report on from the Intelligence Committees majority staff. They write about the socalled dossier. They say the dossier compiled by Christopher Steele and the Hillary Clinton campaign formed an essential part of the carterpage carter page fisa application. He was paid over 160,000 by the dnc and Clinton Campaign via the law firm perkins cole and fusion gps to obtain derogatory ties inion on trumps russia. Clinton campaign or any Party Campaign in funding steeles efforts, although the origins of the dossier were then known to senior doj and fbi officials. The short report is available at cspan. Org. We will touch back in with that momentarily. We want to hear from the president. He was asked about the release of the report today at the white house. Here is what he said. President trump i think it is terrible. I think it is a disgrace. What is going on in this country, i think it is a disgrace. The memo was sent to congress. Congress will do with they are going to do. I think it is a disgrace what is happening in our country. When you look at that and you see that and so many other things, what is going on, a lot of people should be ashamed of themselves. And much worse than that. I sent it over to congress. They will do what they are going to do. Whatever they do is fine. It was declassified. Lets see what happens. A lot of people should be ashamed. Thank you very much. Host House Intelligence Committee report is out. You can read it online. Ith the first two jerry to jerry in connecticut. Caller i can remember a time of democrats used to run around saying sunlight is the best disinfectant. When he transparency and to know what the government is up to. This memo, what it does not do is trash the fbi or department of justice or the institution of law enforcement. What it does do is shows the lies of omission were used as part of obtaining a warrant. We should know who engaged in those lies of omission. It strengthens the institution to know who the bad cops are. Host bill in glen rose, texas. R im 85 years old. Hitlerminds me of adolf in 1936 when they took control of all the radio stations. Than we had the gestapo that took care of people that made a noise about anything he did. Host what specifically about this report reminds you of that . Caller this is completely partisan. Nobody is working together. That is what hitler did. My sisterinlaw said only about 10 or 15 10 or 50 of germans were nazis. Host raymond, welcome. Make sure you knew to your television and go ahead with your comments. Caller im calling from ohio. I was wondering, mr. President host make sure you mute your television. Caller my name is raymond and him calling from ohio. To president , when you going mr. President , i was wondering host make sure you mute your set when you call and. With reaction to the release of the republican report saying, what republicans and trump have done is beyond dangerous. Never have we elected leaders to another countrys bidding, especially one that continues to meddle and undermine our democracy. Channel your outrage at the polls. Minersville, pennsylvania. R getting ready to go into a second shift work. I have been following these political nonsense for a long time. Here is what i have to say. You can go back to bush 43, weapons of mass destruction, total lies, no accountability. Then you get into obama, it was questionably not even a citizen of the country. That was brought up by trump. You have the hillary emails, ability. The irs, lois lerner deleted emails targeting conservative groups. Ability. Dnc hacked by the russians, ability. Attorney general become the tarmac with big bubba. Ability. Dnc rigged election against bernie, leaking memos before the Democratic National debate. No accountability. Back to 2008, banking crisis. Not a single banker goes to jail. No accountability. Guns across the border, killing our own domestic border agents, no accountability. Finally we have a document that has come to light that wants to shed some light to the American People on these people that are hijacking our system and you would think everybody would get on board to the point where we can find out for ourselves what is going on and hold these people accountable at the polls. Is it really any wonder why the democrats or the republicans are going back and forth. They will not be any accountability. All we have is the vote with your dollar. By question is, as an american citizen, as the American People should ask, are we really surprised . Thank you. Host i encourage you to read the report. E have linked it at cspan. Org getting your reaction to the release of the republican memo from the Intelligence Committee on alleged abuses by the fbi and the department of justice and the russia investigation. This is david in tennessee on the independent line. Aller i would like to know what it is about this report that is so damaging to the fbi it could not be released. Everything here looks perfectly fine. That theubling to note fbi can lie and get a warrant of omission, which is what they have done. The very last line talks about the text messages. It includes an insurance policy against the president s election . I want to know what that is supposed to be. What is that insurance policy . Host thank you for checking it out. The headline from the Washington Post this afternoon. Gop memo criticizing the fbi surveillance is released. Hanover, massachusetts. Republican line. Caller i am a republican from. Massachusetts can you believe republican from massachusetts. I was a democrat until nine years ago. I finally figured out what was going on about all these democrats. My question is when are these people going to be held accountable for everything they have done, like the previous caller said . He made up with how many counts of illegal everything. I want to know when they are going to be held accountable. Damien on the independent line. Caller thank you for taking my call. I want to say to the last colors callers about the non accountability that is gone on, it is the democrats and republicans. Why would you want to damage the mueller investigation, which is probably one of the most professional, well put together investigations we have right now to get to the truth of russian interference in the election, which everyone agrees on. That is not a debate anymore. What trump did in the campaign did is under investigation, and that is with the new investigation is for. Wouldnt you want to find the truth out now . Just because past transgressions have occurred, why would you want to discredit that . They are trying to discredit the investigation so trump can continue firing people along the way and it will politically be ok. Thank you. former fbi director mueller, the independent counsel on this investigation. Intelligence committee looking at this and the senate Intelligence Committee. The republican majority in the House Intelligence Committee releasing the report today. The house is in this afternoon. It is a brief pro forma session. We dont expect any speeches or legislative work, but if there are speeches or comments, we will be there. We have live coverage coming up this afternoon at 4 30. One of the republican congressman with a number of floor speeches called for the release of the memo is matt gaetz from florida. Here is his tweet. For surveillance to be used for partisan political gamesmanship is an assault on democracy. Americansbi spied on associated with Trump Campaign is unverified claims and a dossier pay for the by clinton and the dnc. This is repugnant on every possible level. In california on the democrats line. Caller i think mueller is doing a wonderful job. A very trump has made laughable it is laughable happy operates and thanks so much of himself. It is always him, him, him. I will be glad to his four years is over. It is pitiful what he is doing and what he has done. People seem to think it is all right. It is terrible. We need to get a good president , whether they be republican, democrat or independent. It matters not. Just so they are a good president and stay off the internet. God bless you. David on the republican line. Caller this is david calling from super bowl country. Thatalling in to state none of this is a surprise. I think most of us in my neck of the woods that i know knew this over a year ago, that this was going on and there was a coverup. There was no intention to go after hillary. The stuff that was leaking out over time in the media with fusion gps and everything it was obvious what was going on. Just thank god we have people in washington that are not afraid to go after an shed light on this. It is a threat towards democracy. It is not the russians that were meddling, it is our own weaponization of our trusted fbi, our trusted irs, our trusted department of justice with people who think the ends justify the means. This is what destroys democracy and freedom, and this should be a bipartisan issue. Everyone should be upset about this. We need objectives, offices and apartments that protect us. And by trying to go after the president to protect certain politicians, it is just scary. This is the worst thing and the best news this is coming to light. Hopefully everybody takes a step back and says, lets put politics aside. We have to fix this and shed light on it. There has to be repercussions if laws were broken. Otherwise this is a constitutional crisis and a threat to our democracy. This should not be political. Leadership and certain officials of the department of justice argued against this release, and a call for the white house not to approve the release. The report coming up from the majority staff in the House Intelligence Committee. Greg in stafford, virginia. Caller the American People ought to be concerned in regards to this dossier that was built for mr. Carter. My question is, is he still being investigated here . Him forically got treason, being a spy for russia. If that was the case why has he not been charged . Host let me update a little bit. A fourpage report came out specifically on carter page. The application was extensively cited extensively on a 23 september 20 3, 2016 article that focuses on his 2016 trip to moscow. The article does not cooperate the steal dossier because it is derived from information leaked by steele himself to yahoo news. He did not provide information to yahoo news. Steele has admitted in British Court filings he met with yahoo news and several other outlets in september 2016 at the direction of fusion gps. Perkins cole was aware of steeles initial Media Contacts because they hosted at least one meeting in washington in 2016 with steele. Steele was suspended and terminated as an fbi source for what the fbi defines as the most serious of violations, and unauthorized disclosure of the media of his relationship with the fbi. Lets hear from hector, buffalo, new york. Caller my name is hector. Im calling for the support of the release of the memo. I think it is very important the American People get the true story of what has been going on for the last two years in the way the federal government has chosen to attack duly elected president of the United States. Is for anyone to see. This false document has been used to undermine and disturb and disrupt the operation of this country and the implementation of our president s agenda. Simply for political reasons. Thank you very much. Host janet in pittsburgh. Caller im just calling in to federal 100 of the bureau of investigations side. They definitely are reputable. I do believe that. I think this president has to understand that he has to speak to the American People. There is no reason why he cannot speak to the American People. I think he needs to go under o ath in front of a committee and speak to the American People. I would like to hear it he has to say. Please dont put the fbi down. My uncle is part of the fbi. He is very proud of the fbi. Those are my comments today. I think the country needs to hear from this president. Host thank you. The president did tweet that his focus is on the jobs numbers today. Receivingn americans lattices or other benefits from their employers as a result of tax cuts. 2018 is off to a great start. Unemployment and 200,000 jobs added. The u. S. House is coming in this afternoon at 4 30 eastern. We dont expect any legislative work, but we will cover it live the matter what. 4 30 eastern here on cspan. Any other news conferences, we will keep you posted on that. All reaction tomorrow morning on washington journal on cspan beginning at 7 00 a. M. Eastern. From last night he will take you to an interview, a conversation with Supreme CourtJustice Ruth Bader ginsburg. [crowd noise] rabbi holtzblatt good evening. Welcome. My name is rabbi lauren holtzblatt. What is your name . [laughter] we are absolutely thrilled to have you here tonight. [applause]