we need to be careful how long we are anywhere without getting congressional authority and having an explanation and end game with clear tactical objectives we wish to accomplish, and a timeline to do that. congressman, you mentioned deterring assad. the stated intention last spring during the strikes was to deter another chemical attack and lo and behold, it appears as if we ve had another chemical attack. how, then, can you make the argument that another strike would deter a chemical attack? i think your questioning is totally on point craig. that s the problem. this is such a complex issue. we have our enemies fighting our enemies over there. we have our weapons and our funding often times used against us. that s why this is and yet when you see what s happening over there, i don t think we can just turn the cheek and walk away. so that s why it s a very, very difficult situation, and, again, the premise of your question is on point.
no one paid attention to the economics and to the prices and the costs that are increasing at 30%. that s the part we need assurances on. the speaker said we re going to bend the cost curve down 25%, and we haven t seen enough evidence on that major point. that was just a few minutes ago on the program, congressman. congressman brat there insisting that it s about cost. what say you do that? is that the problem with this bill? craig, first of all, if congressman brat talks about cost, the cost curve in fact has gone down significantly, it has not gone down every place and every instance, but the cost curve has in fact been bent in the right direction of reducing cost. of course, what the congressman wants to do will increase very, very substantially the cost for every american who has insurance, whether they have employer-based insurance or they re on the private market for their insurance.
unstable people buy guns with no problems whatsoever. he cares about all those things much more than what president trump tweets at the tv each morning. so that gives you a little bit of insight into the thinking of the former president who really hasn t been that visible certainly as we are told has not had any conversations with this president since he took office, the two have yet to meet, the last time we saw the two together was shortly before then president-elect trump met with him here in the oval. craig? peter alexander thank you. michael steele, stand off for just a moment if you can. one of the many points of contention inside the republican party, what are the process by which this drafted was too short, too secretive. paul ryan today said absolutely not. we had this bottom-up process that s been over a year long. this year the committees have been leading a process all year long, briefings, listening sessions, conferences, committee hearings, and we ve got a lot of fee
information systems are secure, and whether the cia or other agencies, we need to have a full scale hearing about where we are and where we need to be, and how we re going to get there. house minority whip steny hoyer joining us this afternoon, congressman, thank you. thank you, craig. spying on the spies, we ll pick up where we left off there, more on that huge document dump from wikileaks allegedly describing precisely how the cia goes about its hacking, why this could be a really big deal, not just for the agency, b for me and you as well. we are of course also still waiting on seanpicer to take the podium, the white house press briefing supposed to start a few minutes ago, it looks like they re running a few minutes late. we ll tack a break and come right back.
workers wing. let s hope that the workers win and we prevail, if not you ll see more of the tame. richard trum ka, i should note is wearing a red tie in honor of women s day and that tie made in america. thank you, sir. thanks, craig, appreciate being on. house minority whip steny hoyer democrat from maryland is with know now also wearing a red tie. i suppose i m not wearing red, because i am an idiot, but you didn t get the memo, craig, i think. that s maybe the problem. congressman, good to see you. i want to play a bit of sound dave brat from the neighboring state of virginia and freedom of the house caucus. too many elements of obamacare present and the most important thing is we re paying attention to coverage but obamacare paid attention to coverage eight years ago but we re in death spirals because