the tax code and the invasiveness of the internal revenue service. so this is a top priority of ours and something we will address tomorrow. thank you very much. you have been watching that has been house speaker paul ryan addressing reporters at his weekly news conference. talking a lot about taxes, talking not too much about health care. and talking a little bit about that take the knee protest that has been happening all across the nfl as donald trump said we re going to fire everyone who kneels during the national anthem. paul ryan is very focused on tax reform, but it is coming just hours ahead of mitch mcconnell deciding whether or not to bring this latest version of the health care reform repeal bill to the floor, clearly paul ryan is frustrated and said so. right. i think that he has the right to
kasie, he came out to talk about taxes unexpectedly, unsurprisingly, certainly expecting him to do so. but the very first question to him was about the nfl and about these protests that we re seeing. yep. reporter: and the reporter correctly noted that paul ryan is a co-owner of the green bay packers. owned by the fans. and he said that he understood that people were allowed to express themselves, but he did kind of saddle mark and said he didn t think the protests should take place during the national anthem or in protest of the flag itself. however, he didn t go as far to answer the president s call there would be negative questions and answers. he didn t say, i want to be dischiropractored by what the president is doing today.
be, in a way, because he has done what he can do from the house side. i think that what you a bigger picture thing here is to look at the fact that, in some ways, the obamacare repeal and replace was sort of a political goal than a policy goal while, you know, there s kind of this deep policy belief that tax reform can really make a difference in the economy. that it is the entire economy, not just the 1/6 of the economy that is health care. and that ultimately the thing that they have not tackled yet, the thing that is still out there, is the thing that they need to get done the most. that is their biggest focus and objective. but it s also the thing that they have not failed on yet. so there s still an opportunity for that to happen. and it seems like they are sort of this dynamic of hoping to get this thing done. kasie hunt was in the news conference and she asked one of the questions to paul ryan.
together as a caucus and show they are not just an opposition party, that they can govern. if they don t, they will go to midterms of the collapsed base, and midterms are on who shows up. what is freedom, because ryan did put the blame on the freedom caucus. they had some votes but not enough. let me start with that, first of all, they are the ones in the safe republican districts that could have voted without political damage. but the members in the marginal districts, if you will, that were walking the plank. they are the ones likely to lose if this goes south and were the ones supplying the votes. well, i think the problem is, it s almost as if none of them paid attention to the election. you know, donald trump trampled on the republican party and the republican coalition. he was the one who won the election. it wasn t that house republicans carried him across the finish line. he won the election. this wasn t mike pence s republican victory. correct. even though, they di
things were going last night. preview your what the heck does all this mean column that we ll read on sunday morning at this point? i m still working that through in my own mind. i think this is a huge defeat, both for the president and in many ways more for speaker ryan. i think the question going forward is what is that relationship going to be like when the president said he learned things from this? what did he really learn? i don t know. i m not convinced that he s going to go in a bipartisan direction, but i think it is very possible he will say, look, i m going to go on my agenda, not somebody else s ageneral dachlt i thi day. the problem for him is he s not had developed policies on these things. he was not able to sell this bill to the republicans on the basis of policy issues. it was simply a kind of, in the end, it was we have to pass it because we have to pass it. but even before that, it was, we ve got a problem here and you guys need to solve it. and i want to get it