decided he was going to change the rules. well, the democrats decided first we ll change the rules so we don t need a filibuster proof 60 to vote on federal judges. then republicans switched it to 50. did the same thing for the supreme court first time ever. then mitch mcconnell decided we won t even have a hearing. we won t even let him come to capitol hill and talk to us so ben wittes and miguel estrada, a man treated horrifically by senate democrats because he s a hispanic, that simple, a conservative hispanic, was treated horrific alally, they we a column for the washington post say iing let s stop pretending there are rules. there are no rules on how we appoint justices. and that scenario, why wouldn t a part yy in power later on say
president obama was able to do much was the first couple of years for a period of time, he had a vetoproof excuse me, a filibuster proof majority and that was how obamacare got past. people who are completing about the filibuster ought to remember that for the remainder basically of his term, his agenda was legislatively frozen because he could not get the 60 votes necessary to pass anything major, so he couldn t. republicans allowed it and some republican supporters like the filibuster just fine, they don t like it so much now. she was on the other foot. that s the case in washington with a lot of it. tucker: i found this annoying, but maybe were making too much out of it. jim acosta over at cnn showed up at the annual white house easter egg roll and started yelling.
perhaps add more to the debt, or are they going to have to find cuts elsewhere? jay, what s the incentive for democrats to work with the president heading into 2018? they feel like they re on a high note. big polling suggests they re in a good place. you ve got the seat they just picked up in alabama. can they be a party that just campaigns in the 2018 midterms on saying no to the president, or do they have to stand for something? you have to remember that mitch mcconnell going into barack obama s first midterm elections basically said look, it s our job to block the president to make sure he s not re-elected, and that means blocking all of his initiatives. so by right, democrats are saying why shouldn t we do the same thing, block everything, deny the president a victory? the last thing of tax reform that went through is the last thing they can get through with a majority vote in the senate, which is 50 votes. everything from here on in requires 60 votes to be filibuster-proof, an
tax reform, tax reform, tax reform. mm-hm. paul ryan and the republican party are bending over backwards to achieve tax reform. they came one step closer on thursday when house narrowly passed the senate s 2018 budget which means the senate only needs a filibuster proof simple majority to pass their tax cuts for the rich. details are hard to come but, but regardless of what the legislative details come to be, most americans know what already stands to gain. 60% say it will help the wealthy. it does seem that paul ryan s sort of whole life has been organized around the idea of repealing the 20th century and passing ining very, very deep ts
that whatever it is that was wrong, found to be wrong, is corrected in the long term. that has very serious implications. on obamacare repeal, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell invoked a rule that will allow the house s obamacare repeal bill to bypass the usual committee process and make it filibuster-proof to democratic opposition. so as you heard me talk to the congressman about the health care bill that the republicans propose that would cut medicaid, that would not include pre-existing conditions, now we ve seen mcconnell put it through a way that it will skip the process and be filibuster-proof. this is serious stuff that happened this week. yes, we had reason to be watching the comey testimony, and we must watch every step of