And in the house. Was the president sfakter in your decision to leave . What senator jeff flake and congressman charlie dent are saying about the future of the republican parent and of the country. Adds trumps first year in office comes to a close from this day forward, its going to be only america first. We have come to expect the unexpected. Hey, im president. Can you believe it . From this unprecedented president. We want to start winning again. Our powerhouse roundtable take on the year in politics. Whats fact . Whats fiction . What matters . This week. Good morning. And Merry Christmas. This week, the president s biggest legislative win yet. But behind all the back slaping and selfcongratulations, its an anxious time for republicans and to the white house. Several yearend polls show the president s Approval Rating at or near his alltime low. And historically low for a firstyear president. This, as the Political Landscape is set to change. With over two dozen republicans already saying they wont seek reelection to Congress Next year. But republicans are holding on to the tax bill as their ticket to success. And at least for this week, they had a lot to celebrate. A bang of the speakers gavel. A stroke of the president s pen. That, a big tax cut, a big political victory. Its going to be a tremendous thing for the American People. Its going to be fantastic for the economy. Reporter the president says the middle class will benefit the most. The biggest tax breaks go to corporations and the wealthy. Polls show the vast majority of americans dont like the plan. Republicans are betting that more jobs and more takehome pay will turn an unpopular bill into a political winner. We cant sell this to the American People, we ought to go into another line of work. Reporter not a single democrat voted for the trump tax cuts in the house or the senate. They think theyve found a defining issue for the 2018 midterm elections. Dont throw me a crumb and tell me that im benefiting when youre robbing the future by increasing the debt, rewarding the rich, as you ransack the middle class. Reporter the other big battleground . Over obamacare. The president claims he killed it this week by getting rid of the requirement that all americans buy Health Insurance or pay a penalty. I hate to say this, but, we essentially repealed obamacare. Reporter in reality, almost all of obamacare remains in place. And 4ehealthcare. Gov shows almo as many signups as last year. Its fun when you win. Reporter after a year of political infighting. For now, at least, all is forgiven. And the powerhouse roundtable joins me to break down the gops big week. Rich lowry. Cokie roberts. Washington post Political Writer gene scott. And margaret tower. Rich, if this tax bill is all republicans say it is, all the president says it is why is it so unpopular . If you look at the latest cnn poll, the majority of the country opposes it. Only a third at this point favors it. One, its associated with President Trump. Anything associated with President Trump is not going to be popular at the moment. T one of the biggest elements are Corporate Tax cuts. Theyre worthy. And i think will be proegrowth. Theyre not an easy sell. One, they would have just the voters would have quit on them if they didnt get anything done this year. Two, it will allow them to take credit for an economy appearing to be kicking into a hire gear. A third point i would add, most people, bad things are not going to happen to them there this bill. Theyll gate tax cut despite the democratic rhetoric. It really might come back around for the republicans. It might not be in time. Think the combination of the fact that the standard deduction is doubled. And the child care tax credit is so big that some families will not pay taxes at all. And so, i think a couple of those things will be popular. But, the democrats running against the republicans as the party of big business works. It has worked since her better hoover. Theyre expecting it to happen again. The democrats saying the sky is going to fall because of this bill. 91 of middle class earners get a tax cut on average of 1100. Once people see that money coming back in pay checks. Maybe not so many term things happening in the short term, wont this backfire on the democrats . There will be voter who is look t a democrats and say, things were just not as bad as you said they were. I think a big concern for democrats, were living in a time where there is so many conversations about inequality. Most people will get a cut. Some get more of a cut than others. A lot of voters are uncomfortable with that idea. The tax cuts for individuals are temporary. Thats right. The tax cuts the for corporations are berm innocent. Yeah, thats right. Ten years, will get republicans through the midterms and the next president ial elections. They have other concerns. Was stheng the blue state versus red state factor. It tracks with the president s base. But there are republicans in coastal states, who are a, going to be turned off by this, and b, it may affect reelection prospects in the midterms. The beneficial effects in the near term are not really going to be realized for more than a year. Those e lebs are coming up in november. And there are deficit implications, as well. Most of the media coverage, including, frankly, my own, has portrayed this as the president s sole big legislative achievement so far. The president fair enough. The president seems to have a different message. Take a look. Our country is doing very well. E have tremendously cut regulations. Legislative approvals, for which im given no credit the main stream media, we have, i believe, its 88. Which, is number one in the history of our country. Second now, is harry truman. Help me out, rich. Somewhat a legislative its a new term. Well have to have a tutorial to learn what a legislative is. This tax bill tilted over to a solid year of accomplishments. The tax bill is a big deal. The individual mandate is repealed in it. As a standalone matter, that would have been considered a big deal. Drilling in anwar. A lot beyond taxes. Deregulation. Junls. Victory against isis. This is a pretty good year that looked for awhile like it could go wrong. Some of what hes talking about happened very early in the term, where the Republican Congress was able to overturn a lot of regulations. And, thats what hes proud of that. Whether the American People like that or not is another question. Because system of those regulations were things that protect our health and safety. And our water. Think that that on balance, is probably not a positive. On this point of the legislative approval for bills that have passed. Facts actually kind of matter here. He said 88. Actually, there have been 96 bills he signed into law. So hes shortselling himself. Every president going back to eisenhower. Hes actually dead last. Even on that metric. Eugene . I think that is something the president is not worried about when hes talking to his base. People that are already on the trump train will stay on board and use this false stat in arguments with other people in holiday season. But the challenge the president hads to remember is that the majority of American Voters are not in his base. Theyll prove that what you say you actually did, you did not do. You didnt chandle chip the way we would have liked. You didnt handle daca the way we would have liked. This was entirely republican. Just like health care. Which was entirely democrat. This is entirely republican on this point. If you look next year at what is coming up. You have one fewer one less republican seat in the senate. Hes going to need to have bipartisan accomplishments. Good luck on that. It just got that much harder. He wont be able to do anything more on solely the republicans. Mitch mcconnell has said, welfare reform, entitlement reform, lets start with something else. I think its almost impossible to argue that any one bill is more consequential that the tax bill. It will have implications for foreign policy. There could be trade wars. Could be a global cuts rates competition. Class implications. Partisan implications. I think you could argue that a combination of the regulatory or deregulatory actions. The judicial confirmations. And things he has done through executive are more important than the bills. Getting legislation next session, the biggest problem will be in his own party. He wants to do infrastructure. He wants 1 trillion. Good luck with that. Where is the money coming from . The same thing with immigration. Republicans have been ready to do an immigration bill since george w. Bush. They havent been able to do it. They cant agree inside their own party. This is going to be fought out in the midterms. Rich, look at the gentlemen nashs ballot polls. Three recent ones. We have cnn showing democrats with an 18point advantage. 15, 11. Rich, those numbers spell dezaster for the republicans next november. Yeah, its and hard to see how they get better. Maybe there is some black swan event next year. Maybe the kicks into a higher gear. The problem is, i think wave that is building is built on people finding donald trump personally repellent. How do you picks that is this especially when the president has no desire to rein in his own conduct or tweeting . Donald trump says quite openly,ky say whatever i want to say, and people will believe it. So there are some people who will believe whatever he says. A lot of other people say, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Those arent the facts. That is a big problem for him. You have people that wont believe anything he says. And people that wont believe anything we say. We say. True. But we saw a poll from quinnipi quinnipiac. People believe the media over trump when they have to choose, but not by much. We have a trust issue. The government has a trust issue. We all have more control in changing this. Its what unites all of us is our trust issues. You have steve bannon. The president s former chief strategist saying, according to vanity fair there is a 30 chance that hell finish his term. In order, great chance that he wont. I dont think thats true. Steve bannon has been a fire brand and lightning rod since coming into the trump campaign. Was that only like a year and half ago . Hes a provocateur. President trump is going to face a problem gnat president obama faced in the second term of midterms. Where do they use pence instead of trump . Does trump step back in places where it would hurt the incumbent to have him there . Do republicans run with trump or away from him in 2018 . It will be a tough choice. You saw ed gillespie running away from trump. Roy moore had his own problems, running toward donald trump. Getting swamped by a blue wae. In alabama. Its been off the year. It wasnt a blue wave. It wasnt the crimson tide. Up next, a candid conversation with republicans, a member of the senate and a member of the house. Senator jeff flake and congressman charlie dent give their stark warning on the state of the Republican Party when we come back. Turns out things arent always what you think they are. Take guinea pigs. Theyre not pigs at all, nor are they from guinea. Or take this haircut. I may look all business, but look out. But theres a party going on back here. Kinda misleading, isnt it . Well, at carmax, you dont have to worry about being misled. The price online is the same price in the store, which is the same for everyone. Even guinea pigs. Its only fair mr. Biscuits. Only fair. Carmax music sting traders theyre always looking for advantages. The smart ones look to fidelity to find them. 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That was the white house celebration wednesday. The president and Congressional Republicans taking a tax cut victory lap. Missing from the group photo, and the ceremony itself, senator jeff flake. He voted for the bill. But he has big issues with donald trump. Well hear from flake and another retiring republican after the break. Ronoh really . Gs going on at schwab. Thank you clients . Well jd power did just rank them highest in Investor Satisfaction with full Service Brokerage firms. Again. And online equity trades are only 4. 95. I mean you cant have low cost and be full service. Its impossible. Its like having your cake and eating it too. Ask your broker if they offer awardwinning full service and low costs. How am i going to explain this . If you dont like their answer, ask again at schwab. Schwab, a modern approach to wealth management. Whats going on . Oh hey thats it . Yeah. Everybody two seconds dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance. Through the Tuition Assistance program, every day mcdonalds helps more people go to college. Its part of our commitment to being americas best first job. That cough doesnt sound so good. Take mucinex dm. Ill text you in 4 hours when your cough returns. One pill lasts 12 hours, so. Looks like im good all night why take 4hour cough medicine . Just one mucinex lasts 12 hours. Lets end this. Were all on the same page. Theres great spirit in the Republican Party like i have never seen before. Like a lot of people have said they have never seen before. They have never seen anything like this. The unity. So i think a lot of var good things are going happen. Its going the happen very fast. Thats arizona senator jeff flake sitting right next to the president three weeks ago. The president presenting a unified front. When in reality, they have been feuding since the campaign. Flake works announced this fall, that hell retire from the senate next year has been a constant critic of the president. Most recently over his support for judge roy moores failed not campaign. Flake wrote a check for the democrat, doug jones, tag it country over party. I sat down with flake to talk about his future and the future of his party. We began with the fallout from alabama. The president was all if at the end for roy moore. The Republican National committee supported him financially. Is this a permanent stain on the party . I hope its not permanent. It will be lasting. That will be used by the democrats. If we were the democrats, we would do it, too. So it will certainly be used by the other side and its not wasnt our best foot forward, by any means. Steve bannon was supporting moore from the start. And by all accounts, helped convince the president , though i dont know if he needed much convincing, to support moore. What is bannons role in the party now . I hope test been marginalized. The last thing we need is to push that ultra nationalist ethnonationalist, protectionist element of the party. Its not good for us. What is the risk if the Party Continues in that direction . The bannon direction. The trump direction. Could you lose the senate . Most definitely. You look at the audiences cheering for republicans sometime. You look out there and say, those are the spasms of a dying party. When you look that the lack of diverse si sometimes. And it depends on where you are, obviously. But by and large, were appealing to older white men. And there are just a limited number of them. And anger and resentment are not a governing philosophy. So you have to actually govern and do something. Sooner or later, the voters will figure out, i think they are and have, that, you know, you have to have something else. Reporter senator flake, a life long republican, did not vote for President Trump in 2016. So what about the president himself . First of all, do you what do you think the odds are that he doesnt seven out all four years . I dont know. The talk of impeachment. And what not. I dont get caught up in that. Theres a lot of it on the left. So well see. Well see what goes forward. I dont i look at the last campaign and and think, was that Campaign Even capable of colluding with anybody . It was so chaotic and what not. But the problem is its always, as they say, the coverup. And the sensitivity that the white house has to the special counsel and the investigation is troubling. I still cannot figure out the rationale for the timing of the comey firing. And if the president tries to continue to undermine the legitimacy of the investigation. If republicans continue to try to help with that, i think that puts us in peril. We shouldnt participate many the undermining of our institutions that way. You look at the firing of comey and what comey said the president said regarding the flynn investigation. The cost of key fig glurs the congress to back off of the investigation, is there already, laymans terms here, already an obstruction of justice to be made . No, i would wait for the special counsel, if the hes going to make that case, to make that case. Im not prepared to make it. What if the president fires the special counsel . It will be a big problem. I dont think that will go over well at all. I dont think hell go there. He should gotten there. And if he does . Well cross that when he comes to it. I dont thing it would be received well here. Not by me. And if he pardons michael flynn. That is equally troubling. If its part of the investigation, as way to circumvent the invest somehow, that would be very troubling. Reporter senator flake has called on republicans to serve as a check on President Trump. Its up so us to stand up and say, this is not acceptable. Reporter