we have to look forward to 2018. this past year has been a tumultuous one but did the white house get things done in the end. mitch mcconnell says he has gotten better at doing what s necessary in order to be effective legislatively. so he ended the year with a lot of pluses. the tax overhaul, he was able to repeal the mandate in obamacare. that was a huge sticking point. how optimistic does that make you in believing that republicans believe that basically president trump is going to keep this momentum up come 2018? look. it gives me some hope that republicans have some confidence restored. they were really down after the failure to repeal and replace obamacare. this now has them upbeat. the key thing is what do they do next? success begets success. so if the next thing they can pick gives them some chance of getting something done, that will help them get something
getting rid of the windchill. these are the current actual temperatures. you are looking at a big swath of states where temperatures are sitting at least in the negative single digits but running into the teens and 20s, in some cases the middle 30s for your temperature. your actual temperature not including windchill when you step outside in some of these locations. it tries to warm up today. minneapolis topping off only at 5°. 11° in chicago. 13° into cleveland and then you are looking at a little warmer on the east coast but still very cold when you include the windchill. it stays cold every morning. that s one of the important things as you begin to run closer and closer to new year s day that s what we re waking up to. temperatures into the teens and single digits from now to the start of 2018. julie: thank you very much. rick: a hero cop springing
with north korea escalating amid the back and forth between that regime and the trump administration. president trump: the united states has great strength and patience. but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies we will have no choice but to totally destroy north korea. the president inserted himself into the debate over protests during the national anthem. personally attacking nfl players who chose not to stand while the national anthem was played. president trump: wouldn t you love to see one of these nfl owners when somebody disrespects our flag say get that son of a [bleep] off the field right now. republicans fell short on repealing and replacing obamacare and democrats made gains in off-year elections winning big in new jersey and virginia. that was shortly before the me too movement began rocking washington with congressman john conyers,al franken among
healthcare as there have been for the last decade or so. republicans want to repeal and replace obamacare. democrats say they simply want to improve the law. add that to a host of other issues like immigration, budgeting and the debt ceiling, it will be a busy 2018, one that is also a mid-term election year. julie and rick, back to you. julie: no pressure. rick. rick: for more on president trump s 2018 agenda let s bring in the editorial director for the washington examiner . good morning, hugo. as we heard from rich and the president it s about infrastructure in 2018. the president says he can work with democrats on that. is that overly optimistic? i don t think it s overly optimistic. the democrats are telling the truth saying they would like to get it done. as you remember they spent a trillion dollars on infrastructure and shovel-ready projects at the beginning of the obama administration and no objection to that.
their nuclear weapons and there are brand-new reports that they might be planning in 2018 another one of these satellite launches. that, too, is seen as just a cover for long-range ballistic missile testing. julie: i believe there are fresh concerns about north korea and they may be possibly building biological weapons? this has been a worry for the past several months, julie. now this week there are new worries. they did a test, doctors did some examinations of one of the defectors, north korean soldiers that came across from the north to the south and found in the body of that soldier alive anthrax antibodies. that could indicate that the soldier was vaccinated against anthrax because he might have been carrying, handling, coming in some kind of contact with anthrax supplies in north korea. there is a growing evidence of