[applause] >> good afternoon. thank you for coming. here with my co-author. thank you to all of you in the you joining in live streamed land for our first playbook interview is and widths beaker paul ryan. kicking off this new series with the time the conversation to provide insight and intelligence about the new washington, what to expect, and what you need to know as we kick off the trumpet administration. these events are a live extension of the playbook interview, where we host conversations with newsmakers. we are looking for to hosting many of these conversations throughout the year and excited for speaker ryan. i before we get started, would like to extend a special ,hank you to our partner, uber and now here to say a few words is nikki kristof, head of federal affairs at uber. thank you for joining us. [applause] thanks so much. i lead government relations for uber here in washington. there has been a parlor game and d.c. of comparing the 2009 inauguration to this year's inauguration. i will not leave you in suspense. there were more uber rides this time. [laughter] >> we did not exist until 2010. in the first five and a half years of our company's existence, we clocked about a billion rides. we clocked our second billion ride after the first month of 2016. today there are 700,000 , americans driving on the uber platform. those drivers earned the united states $9 billion last year, and 5000 of those drivers are from the great state of wisconsin, from which hails our 54th speaker of the house, paul ryan. but as he tells me, there is only one uber driver in janesville. so i have been given a task. thank you so much for having us. there is a lot to disagree about in washington right now, but one thing we can agree about is it is a humdinger of a time to be here. so we are thrilled to be able to help with this conversation, and thank you, anna and jake. [applause] anna: now, without further ado, we have the speaker of the house, paul ryan. thank you so much for joining us. [applause] jake: also chief fashion critic. anna: before we get started, we just want to remind everyone to tweek your questions using hashtag #playbookinterview. we will track them on stage. jake: i got back from philadelphia last night, where republicans were holding their annual legislative retreat. you are pretty much fresh off. speaker ryan: i just came back. >> you had the president, the vice president peyton manning. we thought we were going to be busy. >> what was the banner headline out of the retreat? speaker ryan: we had a plan and agenda, and we are going to be big, we are going to be bold, and we are going to get it done. speaker ryan: we asked the country for permission to solve big problems. we ran on a coherent agenda. now we have been given the trust by the country to get on with solving those problems, and that's what this is about. we had lively conversations about how to fix these problems. where we come out of this is unity. unity among senate republicans of the white house. and not just a commitment to work together, but demonstrating we are working together to make sure we get this right. anna: you guys have a good story to tell. you have polls shows in trump's message is resonating, you are working well together. but then there are things like steve bannon, the top aide to president trump, and he said, "the media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut." jake: we are not going to spend too much time on this. speaker ryan: where did he say that, by the way? anna: in the new york times. jake: to a media outlet, actually. anna: the media is the opposition party. they still do not understand why donald trump is the president. this is a guy who represents the american government. do you think it is appropriate? speaker ryan: oh, i am not going to get into that stuff. i am not going to get into the tit-for-tat wedge. i do believe as a conservative that, generally speaking, the media has over time had a bias against conservatism. but that's just what we are used to dealing with. i'm used to it. all i really care about our results and getting things done. i'm not going to comment on these things. i don't care about distractions. we want to get results and get things done. we have big problems in this country, but they are solvable problems. we think we've got very good solutions, and we have to perform. the country needs it. congress has not been working like it should have. we had a broken government. we now have an opportunity to fix it. i am not interested in getting pulled off into distractions, which will take us off our job of solving problems for the people who just sent us into congress and the white house. anna: but does it make your job harder when things like this, these distractions, come up? speaker ryan: not if i don't let it. jake: one interesting element of the trump presidency is he has you pegged pretty well, i think. in several instances, he's in crowds of people and says, where is paul ryan? he's out writing legislation. he has you pegged has you , typecast. what is something you have learned since trump took office that you did not know about him during the election? speaker ryan: i did not really know him before, so i am just more recently getting to know him. i think i met him once for 30 seconds in 2012, shook his hand very briefly after he got the nomination for maybe an hour or so in reince's office during the campaign, and that was it. we have gotten to know each other quite well the last few months. he is a sincere man. he is a very smart, capable guy. he has a different style, we all know that. anna: that is the understatement -- speaker ryan: he is definitely going to be unconditional. but what i have enjoyed the past few weeks is he takes this very seriously. i think he realizes the awesome responsibility. i think he understands how big a deal it is. and what i love about it is that he is just convinced that he can be transformative, and he wants to deliver. the guy never stops working. he has just endless energy. jake: you guys talk on the phone all the time. speaker ryan: it's endless energy, and it's always about getting things done. it's always about this plan, that plan, this policy proposal. his mind is always fixed on fixing problems, delivering on his promises, and i do really believe that he appreciates the awesome responsibility, and i can tell he is so focused on getting big results. i find that endearing and i find it encouraging. jake: you talk about the awesome responsibility. some people brought up the fact that maybe he does not understand the awesome responsibility. after the election, he is calling the national park service and complaining about the crowd images. that is a bazaar, gives a sign that maybe he does not understand -- speaker ryan: like i said, this is going to be an unconditional unconventional presidency. he obviously has opinions on things, but is enthusiasm for getting things done -- what i have always disliked are people who are timid, who believe in something, but don't follow through on their beliefs and are timid. he is not that. he is not afraid of taking on big challenges and getting things done. the fact that we laid out basically a 200 day plan -- mitch, kevin, the president, mike pence, and i basically laid out this plan. we put out together a 200-day agenda of the things we are trying to accomplish in 2017. it is ambitious because we have big problems to solve. the fact that we are so coordinated in getting this going is very exciting. anna: talk about mike pence and his role, something we talk a lot about. a former house member, you know him well. speaker ryan: yeah. anna: how integral do you think he is going to be? is you more in touch with you guys than trump? will he play that broker in terms of when the deals get done ? yeah.r ryan: i have spent more time with than i have in the last eight years. i find them extremely engaging. mike is going to be a very strong vice president. joe was strong, too, and so was dick cheney, but mike will be in that echelon of strong vice presidents. he is someone everybody knows, likes, and trusts. he is also somebody who sort of understands the system, he understands how the senate works, he understands the house extremely well. he was a governor. for instance, we are talking about how to do medicaid reform. with obamacare, he brings a lot of expertise to that, so i see mike pence is going to be a hugely impactful vice president. jake: you gave him in office, too. i will ask you later who you took it away from him. let's talk about this 200-day agenda. you brought a presentation to the president of the white house, and you showed him what you wanted to do, and he presented it to the house and senate in philadelphia. tell us what the next 200 days are going to look like. speaker ryan: as you know, we have dates that matter, deadlines. we obviously have april 28, the expiration of the current cr. that dictates something has to be done, right? we have to finish appropriations there. so i put in this plan with the dates of things we have to do, when we need to do them. you put the budgets, we are putting reconciliations in one fiscal year. that has never been done before. that will consume a lot of this time. and we have to respect the fact that the senate has a lot more to do with all the confirmations. we are anticipating the supreme court pick, i think, thursday. jake: do you know who it is? speaker ryan: i don't. anna: have you given any recommendations? speaker ryan: we like the list he has we like the list quite a bit actually, has. we actually like the list quite a bit, and from what i understand, that is what the is going to select from. we have put a list of supreme court's, judges on lower courts. we have budgets that will tell you what the 200 days are going to look like and what your priorities are. jake: there is tax reform. speaker ryan: we see that coming out of the second budget. anna: you have a lot of things you are trying to do. talk real with us in terms of, what would you be ok with slipping into 2018? speaker ryan: 2018 you say? the items in the two budgets cannot slip into 2018, because that's the way the system works. that means obamacare, we have to repair this broken system and replace it with a better law. that has to get done. we see the same thing with tax reforms. because there is also a deadline involved with this with the budget, so that has to get done. in the budget, we want to repair the defense of sequester. we call that the bca caps. that has got to get done. those things all have deadlines. they cannot slip. other things that do not have such time sensitivity can slip, but we hope to get it all done. we have mapped out a january through august strategy with the knowledge that we have the fall to fall back on in case something takes too much time or there are a lot of judges, i don't know, so i would really say that the fiscal economic issues are the pressing ones. in the early part of this year, we expected something from the white house on the border. so that will be attended to very quickly early on, so i really think you are going to see border security, beginning to rebuild our military, health care, and tax reform with the budget itself as the thing that cannot slip, because of the way the deadlines work. jake: let's dig into the details. obamacare. you talked to many more members than we do, but from our conversations with the members on capitol hill, you guys have been beating the drum on obamacare for a long time, and repealing it a bunch, and now you've got the keys to the car. i think people are beginning to feel like, oh my god. speaker ryan: it's a sobering moment, absolutely, because we have a responsibility to get it right. what we keep telling our members is that we have to move quickly, but not at the expense of getting it right. we have to move quickly because we are in the midst of a collapse. if you take a look at the system, and what i think people need to do is put this in perspective. doing the numbers off the top of my head, about 4% of the country are on the exchanges. so those are collapsing, and that means if those exchanges people, a 11.5 million people, and they have nowhere to go, so that has to be dealt with quickly and the market stabilize. obamacare did a lot of damage to the rest of the individual market. the individual market is in real trouble. so we have to step in and basically -- we see this as a rescue operation, to bring relief immediately in 2017 before a collapse occurs, before we have more pullouts and more double-digit premium increases. we anticipate, if we did not do anything, the five states with only one plan and the third of the counties that only have one plan, many of them would see no plans if we just do nothing this year, so we really believe we should move with haste, but we also want to get it right. that's why we are talking about refundable tax credits and health savings accounts, making sure those fit together and work right as a far superior replacement of this collapsing system. jake: can you guarantee this gets done in 2017? speaker ryan: it has to get done in 2017. so i don't confuse people, the legislating has to get done in 2017. putting the policy in place will take time. jake: how long -- speaker ryan: i don't know. that's really an hhs question. they have not confirmed the brilliant young woman from indiana who is a medicaid specialist. i think the reforms can happen quickly. i think we can subsidize the non-subsidy market quickly. but how long does it take to swap out the collapsing system for a better one? it is really a market question. it's not one we know the answer to, but if we delayed even more, than there will be a big collapse, so that is why we want to move quickly and have the legislating done so the policy can be executed as quickly as possible. anna: i get the deadlines and how you want to move forward, but there is a lot of nervousness among house republicans. we've been talking to them behind the scene. yesterday, majority leader kevin mccarthy yesterday said he wants to repair obamacare. put it in context for us. behind the scenes -- speaker ryan: we want to repair the health care system. anna: he said repair obamacare. speaker ryan: yeah, maybe, he said the word repair, which raised a lot of eyebrows. we had a messaging session where -- jake: it must have been after that. people are being led to believe, just because of rhetoric that we are going to , have a vote on tuesday and on wednesday people won't have health insurance. that's not the way it will happen. we will pass legislation to replace obamacare with a better system, which will repair our health care system, and we believe that we have to act very quickly because we have a collapse under way. yes, it is nerve-racking, because right now what is happening is nerve-racking. obamacare has become a spectacular failure, and it will not work. if we did not win the election, win the presidency hillary , clinton and chuck schumer would be desperately trying to fix the mess in front of them. they would probably go toward single-payer, which we don't agree with. we are trying to fix it with something much better. the good news on this is that if we get this right, which i believe we will, when there is more competition, that brings down prices. that brings down prices. that fixes a lot of problems. that fixes paycheck problems, workplace problems. that fixes the 40 hour work week. that fixes the fiscal problems. at the root cause of health inflation, you are reducing the debt in the out years. so getting this right fixes a lot of problems in our families, communities, and fiscal balance sheets, so that is why there is so much at stake. jake: tom mcclintock yesterday, i don't know if you saw this, but in the last six hours, several news outlets got a leaked recording of your -- speaker ryan: somebody told me something about that. jake: we now know what happened. he said, though, this is an interesting quote -- he said we had better be sure that we are prepared to live with the market we create with repeal. it is going to be called trumpcare. republicans were own that lock stock and barrel, and they will be judged in the election. if you remember, democrats took and they got in the minority. how you talk about this for months and months, and all of a sudden you are at an election with a big political issue on your hands? speaker ryan: we have the responsibility to work for the people who put us in office. the people of wisconsin did not ask me to come to d.c. to point fingers and watch things blow up and say the democrats did it. we have a moral obligation to fix this problem period. that's the oath we take. to defend the constitution, to fight for the people we represent. this is a fiasco that needs to be fixed. we had a plan, we ran on all of 2016. that is what we are working on as we implement the solutions. that's why i keep saying concurrently, donald says it at the same time, everybody has a different language, we plan on moving these things together so and down just repeal the road we get to replace, it is repeal and replace at the same time. anna: there has been some divide among republicans, including trump, on how they talk about health care law and whether it should ensure insure everyone. you want to provide universal access. donald trump says you will you cover everyone? speaker ryan: donald trump says he will cover everyone. anna: you will cover everyone. speaker ryan: universal access is how we see it. we don't believe in the mandate. first of all, i don't believe the mandate is constitutional, but we don't believe in mandating this. we believe in giving everybody the resources for buying affordable health care coverage. , including people with pre-existing conditions. if you choose not to do that, we are not going to have the government make you do something. we see it differently, and we want to make sure that everybody has the choice and the resources to make the choice to buy affordable coverage. that is why we are making sure we get all this right. jake: let's move onto another thing you guys say you are going to do, tax reform, which you said in your speech on wednesday that tax reform means a broader base, lower rates, and upset lobbyists. ,peaker ryan: so that leaked too. anna: basically an open meeting. speaker ryan: that is right. jake: this is going to impact people across the country. people want to know, is their mortgage deduction going away? any tax reform plan worth its weight in salt is going to have lower rates, a broader base, and an upset lobby. you know why? i was a chairman of the ways and means committee. i watched this system. they put in specific provisions that benefit a narrow group of interests. what that means is you have to raise taxes on everybody else more to make up for that. and so we have a tax code that basically says to all those people in america, send your money to washington, and then if you engage in behavior that we specifically approved, we will let you keep some of it. that is killing our economy, strangling growth, putting us in the back of the pack internationally, so we have got to fix this. the people who lose a narrow part of specialized interest are going to fight hard to keep that narrow interests, but it is at the expense of the general welfare of this country that we have these things. so we have got to -- that's why i keep telling her members, you've got to put the chin strap on, the shoulder pads, and we've got to do this for the people we represent. anna: you said you want to pair tax reform with infrastructure. is that still the plan? speaker ryan: that is what we were working on before. our thinking is to put the physical space, meaning, how do we pay for infrastructure in that spring budget? and then i anticipate a separate infrastructure bill that would not be in the tax reform bill. that's something we did before when we worked on the highway bill with chuck schumer and then went a different route. jake: let's talk about that. yesterday -- what we are seeing in washington these days must be difficult for you, because yesterday started with donald trump saying at your retreat, seeming to back border adjustment, which means the government taxes imports instead of exports, essentially how it breaks up. and then within several hours, his press secretary reversed that and said, well, that's just one way. we are not sure what we are going to do. speaker ryan: his speech actually said that, i can't remember the exact words he used. we are working off our blueprint which we wrote last year and we are perfecting now in the house. this is among the options we are looking at. we are having lots of conversations on tax reform. but just to clear up what is a border tax or what is border adjustability, remember one thing. we have the worst tax code in the industrialized world with respect to businesses and job growth. this tax code basically incentivizes businesses to go overseas, to make things overseas or to become foreign companies, because of how bad our tax code is. 160 countries right now because they have consumption-based taxes, border adjusted taxes. if they make something in their country and they are going to export it, let's say this coffee cup, i am making this in wisconsin. i'm going to export this. i want tax it. if they import something, a coffee mug, they tax it. all of other competitors basically do this. 160 countries do this. we don't. we do the opposite. so if we make something in america and send it overseas, we tax it here, and and it goes into their country and they tax it again. let's say we make a coffee mug, we tax it here, and it goes to another country, let's say japan, and it is taxed twice. they make a mug, send it to america. we don't tax it as it comes into our country and it competes against our cups domestically. un-taxed twice, taxed twice. we are backwards. it is not trade policy. it is tax policy. because we have a big trade deficit -- i know you want me to shut up jake:. . jake: no, i'm waiting. speaker ryan: the trade deficit gives us a trillion dollars, give or take, to lower our taxes. countries we had a trade deficit with, mexico, china, they will help finance of tax reform package and we get our tax system on par with the rest of the world so we are not shooting ourselves in the foot. it is basically a tax on america that we are removing. -- i let's be honest here could not keep track. it's like the ball under the cup thing. yesterday, donald trump tried to position this as like him going after mexico. that's not true? speaker ryan: no it's an elegant , solution to, if you want money coming in from mexico to pay for anything, like a wall -- jake: we will get to that. speaker ryan: because we have a trade deficit with a border tax, you will get revenues coming in from mexico. you will get revenues coming in from every country we have a trade deficit, because imports exceed exports. that means revenues come into this country from that, and that actually goes to our tax plan. that is basically what he is making a point of. jake: doesn't this just mean everyone raises prices? speaker ryan: i can go into an exchange rate argument. jake: let's not, actually. speaker ryan: but i think currency is adjusted. we have always seen this. we have seen this over and over again, and by the way, our importers who sell into other countries, let's just take walmart for example, they are not losing because they are another border adjustable countries. we are basically putting the u.s. on par with the rest of the country, and after we do this, by the way, it means there is absolutely no reason to leave this country to manufacture. there is no reason to invert. there is no reason to be taken over by a foreign country -- company. there is no reason to outsource their manufacturing, and it gets us a much better tax code where , our tax code be better than the rest of the world. i'm just going to wrap this up. in 1986, we started tax reform, and it triggered a great economic growth engine in this country in this world. ,the rest of the world reformed their tax codes. now we have the worst tax code, and we think this leapfrogs the rest of the world and puts us in with af the pack superior tax system which will give us faster economic growth, or manufacturing, more jobs. anna: one of the things i wanted to ask you about, you bring up walmart and other companies who are talking to donald trump, how youth picking winners and losers. certainly that has not been the policy of going after individual companies and where their manufacturing and jobs are doing. is that -- how do you respond to that? speaker ryan: i don't. anna: are you concerned? have you been hearing from companies? i, every day, hear from people concerned about the fact that your stock price of lockheed martin is down 5%. speaker ryan: i have not heard from companies. i have focused on results. the way i see this and the way most republicans see it is our job is to maximize conditions for economic growth, make america the best possible place to work, save, and grow a company. if we have more jobs, more economic growth and economic activity, that is a lot more successful and effective than doing one offs and individuals. but look, the president feels strongly about making a difference wherever he can whenever he can. he has got a lot of energy and he is doing it. our job as legislators is to make jake: let's talk about this wall for a second. you and republicans going back to 2009, 2010 have insisted on offsetting all sorts of spending. we don't know if mexico is going to pay. we don't know what that is going to look like. how are you comfortable spending $14 billion in unpaid for spending without some sort of mechanism to ensure it gets offset? speaker ryan: we see this as a national security priority, crisis proportions with respect to opioids, drugs, this poor border. this is a national security issue. we see this supplemental coming from the administration defense and border. with respect to that, mulvaney has to get in office and start working on office. i am hoping sooner than later. i am hoping within the first quarter we can get this done. it is getting them up and running so this is supplemental. this is something we want to get on right away. we do believe this is urgent. we do believe this is one of the most urgent promises the president made running process office. it is a promise he will keep, and we will help him keep it. anna: how are you sure mexico will pay? speaker ryan: that is what yesterday was all about. there are a medley of options on getting revenue from another country to offset things like this. jake: should mexico pay? speaker ryan: that is not the point. jake it kind of is. : why should mexico pay for it? [laughter] [speaking simultaneously] jake: but should mexico pay for it? why should mexico pay for a wall that we build? speaker ryan: look, i am not -- no offense, but i don't want to get in the wedges. i will try and get things done, and i do believe we should have this. i voted for this in 2006 i think . we all did. it never got done. this is why we are upset. we say things that don't get them done. this congress is about getting things done, restoring the trust with the country. i will not get into a quibbling about whether they should or should not pay for it. we set we would do it, now we have to deliver. anna: one of the things there has not been much about is criminal justice reform. republicans and democrats try to make that happened last year. do you think that is something you could get done in 2017? speaker ryan: yes, it is my goal. i spoke with the chairman, a number of democrats, he had 11 bills he got out of the committee. they put a load out. those bills are pretty much ready to go. they will have to remark up and send them through the floor again. jeff sessions was helpful on this. i think we have got to get darker and the justice department for this. i think booker and the lead guys in the senate, this is something i think is a long time in coming, something we should do, one of the things i want to get done in 2017. jake: does the renewed torture talk alarm you? speaker ryan: the president says things like this. the president says things like this, and i think you and i and everyone has got to get used to that. jake: but these are like -- speaker ryan: he we said we will not change the law on torture. it is illegal and will remain being illegal. jake: another issue that popped up today, john mccain said, if the president lifts sanctions on russia, he will make sure the congress codifies those things into law. speaker ryan: i think sanctions are overdue. obama was late putting them in place. i think they should stay. jake: i am trying to be equitable. go ahead. anna: i want to ask you -- jake: you can talk about border tax. [speaking simultaneously] [laughter] anna: not speaking about russia, but i do want to ask you about foreign policy stuff. your colleague, a democrat from hawaii, she went to syria and met with assad. is that right? speaker ryan: i would not advise it. it was not a sanctioned trip. i did not know about it until after it happened. anna: normally you are informed. speaker ryan: yes, and if it is a coda, we have to sign off on it. if it is an approved trip, you have to get approval you and for foundation trips, so that was not an official trip or a sanctioned trip. bashar al-assad is a butcher. the man is committing genocide against his own people. he should go. period. anna: should there be retribution against -- speaker ryan: i don't know about that. i am going to reserve judgment on those things. jake: is she a friend of yours? speaker ryan: yes. but just because she is a friend -- jake: i know. i think we can take one question out of the audience. we will open questions to the audience. there are 500 people, but we will have two questions. yes, sir. anna: she will come get a microphone for you. just identify yourself. >> my name is kami bert. i am from pakistan. my question is about our president signing so many executive orders. i am sure you remember when newt gingrich became speaker, he didn't want to see anything that was not relevant with his agenda, but people believed newt gingrich, because he is a brilliant man. people don't believe that our current president -- he is a kind of joke. what would you say that would make people to believe that trump means business? jake: thank you. speaker ryan: yes, newt gingrich is a brainy man. [laughter] speaker ryan: he will let you know. he is on doing a lot of damage that has been done by the last administration. we believe president obama exceeded his powers in many directions and put in place bad policies. what is happening here is, he is undoing. last year, he said i have got a phone and a pen. that works both ways. now it is the other way. this president is on doing harmful, damaging regulations and executive orders done by the last administration. the purpose of doing these things is to restore law and order. it is to make sure we can enforce our borders. we know that we have people trying to infiltrate the refugee population among isis. that is a real problem. we have to deal with that. we have got a real regulatory roadblock on business and job creation. so he is cleaning up a lot about that. this is about jobs and national security. the phone and the pen is being used to put it back in the proper place. anna: i want to ask you a follow-up on that. in terms of talking to business groups, they say it's not good to have people go either way on these things. obama went too far, others not. do you think this is a moment for serious regulatory reform? speaker ryan: that is part of the 200 day plan, fixing the administrative procedures act with the chevron deference. one of our smarter legal guys is a congressman from texas, u.s. attorney, has a bill we are moving to change chevron, which is actually giving agencies so much power. we are trying to reclaim that power back into article one. let's get rid of all of the excessive rulemaking, abuse of the executive orders. that is what president trump is doing now. we want to follow that up with resuscitation of the article one powers, so your elected representatives as the constitution calls for are the ones writing the law, not unelected bureaucrats. that is the next wave of reforms after we are done with this batch. legislatively, it means congressional reviews. we start wednesday. we have got a number in the queues. that is also a calendar issue. there are only so many days you can do these. we will do our side of that, which is congress, while the president rescinds what he can. and we go back to a regulatory reform platform to restore article one platforms. jake: you have a lot of stuff to do and not a lot of time. you were at the health all the dinner. the president may or may not be, we don't know. what are those events -- you like these events? speaker ryan: only when i do. my family is here. we are going because of the retreat. it is actually a funny dinner. it is just a big comedy thing. but i don't go to any of these other dinners. jake: your love for janesville is well-documented. anna: speaker ryan, we are out of time. we appreciate you taking the time in joining us for what has been a very busy week. thank you to uber for making this possible, and all of you in the audience and livestream, please follow politico live and on social media for updates on future playbook events. have a great evening. speaker ryan: thank you. [applause] [crowd chatter] >> on "newsmakers" this week, we hear about the legislative agenda with bill cassidy of louisiana. he talks about the plan he and senator susan collins have introduced as a replacement to the health care law. watch the interview sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> let me tell you something. i have done everything i can do to protect my country. i amnot afraid of you and not afraid of president bush, and i'm not afraid of anybody. he did this sort of mostly meeting with his arms. said, but i did not give that order. , wait, saddam. just calm down. >> sunday night, joe nixon talks about his book "debriefing the president" >> saddam was a realist in the use of power, and the weight political power is exercised in the political power game. i think he saw that when you're playing at his level of producing -- presidency, the top level of the country, you win big and you lose big. on 8:00 -- at 8:00 eastern. >> joining us now is eleanor cliff. she is here to talk about the president's first day in office and his policies so far. thank you for joining us. guest: glad to be with you, kimberly. host: let's start with a topic we discussed during the last segment, the twitter war between president trump and president pena nieto. what sort of tone do think that is in terms of one of the president's first diplomatic