been the case for this entire campaign. with stephen bannon writing the rhetoric that was coming out of his mouth every day on the campaign trail, when he was talking about a globalist cabal of bankers and elites that hillary clinton was trying to rig the system and steal the presiden. as benjy was saying, i think a lot of republicans hoped that trump would get into office and forget about all of that and sign the ryan budget and do whatever republicans in congress wanted. and this is proof that these guys are coming with him to the white house. people like steve bannon are actually his belief system. and stephen bannon doesn t believe in the old left versus right paradox. the happy people now are saying, he s transactional. he only cut those deals with the crazies to get here. but it looks like he s not transactional. looks like these communal. the roundtable is staying with us, and up next, these guys will tell me more things i don t know. this is hardball, the place for politi
that mean to you? how should democrats perform conduct themselves as an opposition party when it comes to dealing with president trump? there are probably a number of areas where we can work with them. infrastructure is one. he may have a conflict with his own party on that. we have been trying for years to have a bipartisan substantial investment in infrastructure. we ll see if republicans go along with this, but i think that s one area. but there are going to be areas where we don t agree. for example, i ll just speak for myself here, but i think it s true of a lot of democrats. if president-elect trump embraces fully, for example, the ryan budget, he s not going to get my vote on that, which would devastate programs like medicaid, which is not just a program for poor children in our inner city, but it s also a major reason why people can get into nursing homes, for example. that s not going to work very well in pennsylvania. let me ask about the supreme
problems that down-ballot republicans are worried about but also, what is the republican party in 2016? what are you voting for? what are you getting when you vote for this party in 2016? it s funny because people talk about a three legged stool of conservatism. trump has kicked out all three legs of the stool. he does not run on social issues at all. it s not at all clear if you re a serious social conservative he s your guy. he s abandoned the conservative positions on trade, the economic aspects of immigration, doesn t talk about taxes very much, doesn t embrace the bush vision of foreign policy. so if you take away all of the policy stuff, all you have left is sort of this anger. and that s what donald trump has run on and it s left the down-ballot candidates a little bit awash as well. in 2012, the ryan budget was a manifesto and more than that, an operational document that was
positions on trade, the economic aspects of immigration, doesn t talk about taxes very much, doesn t embrace the bush vision of foreign policy. so if you take away all of the policy stuff, all you have left is sort of this anger. and that s what donald trump has run on and it s left the down-ballot ka down-ballot candidates a little bit awash as well. in 2012, the ryan budget was a manifesto and more than that, an operational document that was actually a plan for what the priorities were and they got attacked over it and i, for one, was not a big fan of it but it was a thing that, this is what the republican party is. i just don t even understand what that case is in 2016. well, i think that s the big question and the real question is going to be what is the relationship party going to be on november 9th. after the election is over, after trump if the polls are correct, does not become our president, then the republican party is going to have to decide
this how we want to spend it. here s my question to you. this sounds like a good idea as policy goes. but you ve got a minority in the senate. the author of the ryan budget which just a few years back the first iteration of it wanted to essentially privatize medicare is now the speaker of the house. have you had any interest from republicans on any of this? is this a doable, accomplishable thing with the current congress? so let me point out that republicans have criticized this particular loophole already, which is really interesting. senator grassley has gone after it. senator mccain partnered up with senator levin a couple of years ago to eliminate this loophole. and the republicans in the house, in 2014, said a big part of what they were doing in their whole tax reform passage package included stitching up this loophole. so look, here s the deal. we know how to do this. we know where the money is. nobody wants to defend this loophole. what we need is we just need the mo