Will be talking about that new agreement with two of our biggest allies to save nafta. Well go live to the white house rose garden in a few moments. Also the combat over kavanaugh. Questions over what the fbi is going to be asking in the investigation of allegations made about the Supreme Court nominee, and about the people who will not be a part of that. Well look at that in a moment. But we start with just moments from now President Trump will step in front of reporters in the white house rose garden to tout an 1 1th Hour Trade Deal reached last night. The u. S. Mexico, Canada Agreement replaces nafta, at least in name. And at this mornings tweets if its any indication, you can expect a victory lap. The president writing the agreement is, quote, a great deal for all three countries and will bring all three great nations together in competition with the rest of the world. The markets so far seem to like the deal. All of the indices are up right
now. Jeff bennett standing by in the rose garden. Im also joined by john harwood and also josh barrow. An nbc political contributor as well. And phillip is with us as well, and former indiana congressman david mcintosh, the president of the federalist society. We have assembled quite the esteemed panel. John, let me start with you. This new agreement aims to do a number of things. Modernize food and agriculture trade. Addressing the digital trade anticorruption regulatory practices. Also gives the u. S. Greater access to canadas dairy market. What e else is in this deal . Is it a winter for t win for president . Its a win for the economy in
a sense that we avoid the threat of collapse of an old nafta. Thats one positive thing. There are some steps forward for particular u. S. Sectors like dairy. It is a good thing from u. S. U. S. Perspective that canada opened the dairy market a bit. But most of the improvements on the deal were on the president s deal the day he walked into office. They were negotiate by obama in canada and mexico as part of the Transpacific Partnership will President Trump threw in the trash can. This is mostly relabeling. Unclear whether it is going to result in more jobs and higher paying jobs in the u. S. For auto workers which is the goal of that. So mostly the president who is a Master Marketer is putting his
name on a deal that was already in place, and its better than not having a deal. Mr. Bennett, the president announcing this mornings event on twitter a few moments ago as we watched folks assemble for this News Conference. The president is calling it that. Do we know if President Trump is going to take questions or talk about anything beyond the trade deal . A staffer laid out a microphone which would suggest reporters will have a chance to ask questions. Another detail from the rose garden is the people on the stage who will end up flanking the president include staffers from the u. S. Trade Representatives Office and members of the National Economic counsel. These are all the folks involved in hashing out this deal ahead of this tdeadline. There are modest revisions. This is not a rewrite of the 24yearold nafta treatment. This is a political win. He gets to sell it as a promise made, promise kept. Its also a branding win. He suggested he might call it the usmc in honor of the u. S. Marine corps. Usmca won out. The things included in this deal, its more of a longterm win. This isnt expected to be ratified by congress until 2019. Shortterm, including tonight when the president heads to tennessee, expect him to tout this as a concrete policy proposal. Concrete policy achievement that he got to see on his watch. You just mentioned ratification there on the hill. Garrett haake standing by. Whats been the response on the hill so far . Congressman considering this a new deal or just a rebranded version of nafta . The response has been relatively muted. Weve heard from a couple of democratic lawmakers including nancy pelosi saying they need to review this and see whether or not they think it will ultimately be good for american workers. Thats the framework theyre looking the. Republican leadership inclined to be favorable. Republicans particularly in the senate have been back on their heels about how President Trump has dealt with trade thus far. This is much more the kind of thing that theyre comfortable with. The kind of deal. They want to see a republican president hammering it out. I dont think this is the kind of thing that can be done before the midterms. The house is already gone until november. I suspect well see a Lame Duck Session which could be interesting if democrats take control in january if theyll put more pressure on the president on this deal. But i would say cautious optimism so far from the hill as both parties are reviewing whats actually specifically in this new agreement. Again, as we wait for this News Conference to start there, not exactly sure why the camera just zeroed in. I dont see the president there unless somebody in the control room tells me otherwise, we are waiting for thats not the president there. Were waiting on the president to make his way to the rose garden for this announcement. Mr. Mcintosh, we just saw Commerce Secretary wilbur ross under the deal. The president s 25 is 25 tariff on canadian steel remains in place. On fox business this morning, the Commerce Secretary said there is no timetable, no time line for dropping these tariffs. Does that give the white house leverage . So one, i think the president has done a Great Service in stabilizing nafta, making sure it will continue to be in place and putting this new agreement there. But i think next steps have to be peeling back the tariffs. Theyre hurting american countries. Companies that are trying to use steel and aluminum to produce, and i think theyll get to that. Theres a battle within the administration between the free and fair traders and between the protectionists like navarro who want the lift high tariff boundaries around the United States. This is a sign the president is
going for an international agreement. Hes making it a better agreement, and one of the things that hes also doing is on Intellectual Property, unifying canada and mexico so he can go back to china and say you have to change. You have to adopt these new standards. Josh barrow, always enjoy having your perspective. Youre able to give us sort of the 30,000 foot view of all of this. What do you make of this new deal . Is it essentially just nafta 2. 0 . I think the remarkable thing is it buys the president into nafta. During the campaign he went around saying nafta was the worst agreement the u. S. Had ever entered. Now hes putting his stamp on a deal that is not terribly different from the old nafta deal. He can go out there and paint this as a win. I think some of the changes are genuine improvements to the deal. I think some of them are not necessarily positive for america including weakening some of the international dispute provision. More or less nafta is going to
come out not that different from how it went in. The president will be locked into the idea that now nafta is good. Its his stamp on it. A similar thing has happened with the South Korea Trade Deal which the president just touted relatively minor renegotiation of it and said it was a bad deal, and now its a good deal. I think the main long term effect is the president is in a way committing himself to a less protectionist agenda. And i think also some of the worst ideas that the Trump Administration had about how to change nafta were blocked by the canadians or mexicans. They wanted a sunset cause that caused nafta to blow up after five years. The Trump Administration wanted that in order to give themselves a stronger hand to force more changes on canada and mexico. Canada and mexico for good reasons refused to give them that. I think this is a win for free trade in the long run. The president will say hes making trade better. Hes raul just capitulating to the consensus in washington. Im happy about that. Between now and thursday President Trump is going to be speaking in rallies in tennessee, mississippi, minnesota as well. We are in full midterm mode now. You are Media Director for hillary clinton. You know the drill. How is this going to play with the midterms now just five weeks away . How is this going to play for voters in some of these key races . Well, i mean, just listen to the states you listed between tennessee and mississippi. I think right off the bat thats not a bad thing. The numbers are obviously against the democrats in the senate, but overall the midterms are feeling pretty good. I think there are two historical differences between 2018 and previous first term midterms. If you look at 2010 or 1994, people came out and voted republicans came out and voted against what president clinton and president obama had done in their first term in the first two years. Whether it was clinton and the budget deal or obama and obama care. Here you have a different dynamic. Here while no one is ever happen when their candidate loses, you could have held the mid terms on january 21st, 2017, and you would have had a tremendous backlash against republicans. President obama had fewer people at his Inauguration Protest against him the next day. Every day since nothing has gone well. In terms of the economy, theres also a distinction between the past. When president clinton ran for president and he pressed the economy, we were in a recession. When president obama ran we were on the verge of collapse. They saved our economy. President obama excuse me President Trump, too many president s names in a row. President trump is basically running around saying i raised this by. 2 and i lowered that by. 3 and im this economic god
when in reality he just kept the race car gassed and the tires fresh. Live look here. Rose garden. You can see Secretary Mnuchin there. We just saw Commerce Secretary wilbur ross. Also were told larry kudlow is somewhere in the house as well and so is the department of homeland security, secretary kiersten nielsen. Weve been given the five minute warning here. Jeff bennett is still there standing by for us. Jeff, you mentioned that theres a microphone in place for the assembled reporters . One would assume the president is going to be taking questions. One would probably also assume he will get at least one or two questions about his Supreme Court nominee, brett kavkavanau. And i want to jump in. The point made about President Trump being locked into nafta is a good one. There are some 36 states that count canada as its number one
exporter. All among members of congress who have to ratify this deal have been saying theyre not going to accept a u. S. mexico only deal. They say no canada, no deal. Now theres this usmca that will most likely get ratified sometime next year. The big question is Brett Kavanaugh, the reopened investigation into the Sexual Assault claims. The White House Counsels Office is limiting the scope of the investigation fbi can do. We heard over the weekend Sarah Huckabee sanders make the point that the white house is not micromanaging this process. Even if you take them at their word, maybe theyre not micromanaging, but theres no denying the white house is in charge of this process. Thats how this process works. The white house is the client here. The fbi is doing the investigative work on behalf of the white house. The white house sets the terms telling the fbi who they can and who they cant interview. On that long list of people to be interviewed by the fbi you
will not find julie swetnick. Why . They say she doesnt meet the threshold of being credible. Theres a concern among democratic and republican members of the senate, certainly those on the Judiciary Committee that by limiting the scope of the investigation, it could determine with the fbi finds. And theres also a notion that this does not meet the expectations that folks like jeff flake and others thought they were getting when they called for thissi weeklong pau. I asked President Trump if he would give free raeign. He said yes, whatever they need to do to come about finish their investigation. The thing is he has to give his white House Counsel the authorization to then give the fbi the free reign to do that work. David, lets talk about the impact of the Brett KavanaughConfirmation Process as we wait for the News Conference to
start. I apologize in advance if i have to cut you off. Theres this new nbc poll out. It found that 41 of men and 29 of women think that Brett Kavanaugh should be confirmed. How concerned should conservatives be . How concerned should republicans be about the numbers . I think what that shows is men on the whole are saying look, you cant say that all men are guilty until proven innocent. And i think thats become for part of the population, the key take away from this whole process. Its unfair. Its putting him on trial. No collaborative evidence shows he did anything. I think what youre seeing is a division there that will actually in the election probably energize both parties. Now, the democrats were already energized as someone pointed out from the day after the election. But republicans were kind of lacking. Our polling showed that at the club for growth. This will likely energize both and well see what happens. It will come down candidate by candidate, issue by issue election. Where i think the republicans at that point stand a chance of winning and keeping both houses. No one else is predicting that, d youre the first person ive heard say that on the air. We just saw jared kushner. It would seem as if every adviser and cabinet member is there waiting for the president to come out and talk about the trade deal. Josh, let me pick up where i left off with david with regards to Brett Kavanaugh. You guy that . Do you think that Brett Kavanaugh becomes Justice Kavanaugh . I think he will be confirmed. I think were likely to see not that much come out in this fbi
report and the republican senators who sought the report seem to be looking for that political cover to say look, we took time. We had the fbi look into it. They didnt find much. Apart from any restrictions the white house imposes, this was 36 years ago and the evidence may be limited. In terms of effects on the election, i thought there was a good point. The undecided numbers in these polls about Brett Kavanaugh are high. Partisans with strong opinions. A lot of peopled in middle dont know what to make of the situation. Its the dr. Ford testified. She seemed credible. She has some people she discussed the incident with some years ago but some years after it happened. A lot of people look at this and dont know for sure whether Brett Kavanaugh did this or not so they cant make a strong opinion. That is one of several things in terms of the politics of it that make it unclear which party is likely to get partisan advantage here either if hes confirmed or
rejected. I think the politicians on both sides need to think about not just appealing to their bases but how to reach the voters in the middle who arent sure if Brett Kavanaugh should be on the court or not. One of the things that continues to strike me about the conversation that were having about Brett Kavanaugh in this country and over the weekend, i mean, it was all that anyone wanted to talk about when i saw them. It would seem as if folks pretty much had their mind made up before the hearing started. And it would also seem again, this is based on conversations ive been having with people. After the hearing their minds very pretty much the same. Do we think that minds are going to be changed at the end of this fbi investigation . Well, i think youre 100 right. Hes become a proxy war for much larger fight weve been seeing for 20 months. And people are dug in. I do think peoples minds can change because were only talking about a hand full of
minds. Were talking about jeff flake, Susan Collins, maybe bob corker, and i very much think or i want to believe that those minds can be changed. First off if jeff flakes mind couldnt be changed, he wouldnt have asked for this. He would have voted on friday. But he didnt. And i believe you have a problem here. You have two problems here. One, the hearing was a debacle. You not only have what he did in the past in question. I think you have u. S. Senators not to mention any sane person, looking at him and saying he was unhinged. He went haywire and he certainly lied even if its just out of embarrassment, about his past. If the white house continues to meddle and obstruct this conversation, i dont know how jeff flake and Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski in their right mind can say im happy now. Murkowski needs to vote now for
her own to last in politics. This comes down to Susan Coll