Any Minute: Senators Could Vote On Tax Reform Bill
TAPPER: We're back with a double shot of breaking news for you right now. Any minute now, the Senate you see the floor right there live on the right side of your screen. The Senate could vote on the plan for historic change to this nation's tax code. Tonight, Republicans in the Senate say that they do have the votes. They say this will mean more money in the pockets of people in the middle class. Democrats are calling it a corporate sellout. Joining me now to discuss this is Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware. Senator, thanks for joining us. We'll talk about taxes in a second, but I do want to get your reactions to today's news about Michael Flynn and his plea agreement of pleading guilty to the charge of lying to the</s>FBI. SEN. CHRIS COONS (D) JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Thanks, Jake for the chance to be on this evening. It's been a very long day as we have fought against this tax bill in the Senate. But this morning's development was really striking that General Mike Flynn, the Former National Security Adviser to President Trump has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and is fully cooperating with Robert Mueller's ongoing investigation. It was just a few days ago that many in Trump world were saying this investigation ought to be wrapping up soon. I'll remind you just a few weeks ago, Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager for President Trump was indicted on a dozen counts and campaign aide of Mr. Papadopoulos plead guilty as well. My hunch is that this is just the latest signal that Robert Mueller's ongoing investigation is picking up steam and getting closer to the White House. My concern today more than ever is that we need to work in a bipartisan way in the Senate to make sure that the Special Counsel is protected and is able to carry this investigation through to its conclusion no matter what conclusion he reaches.</s>TAPPER: What happened to the legislation that was being offered by, I believe, you and the Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina to have some measure of protection for the Special Counsel just in case President Trump tries to fire him or tries to fire the attorney general to put somebody else in there that would try to wield more control over the Special Counsel.</s>COONS: Jake, well, we had a hearing on the Judiciary Committee now over month ago on the bill that I have and the competing bill that's only slightly different than another Republican and Democrat. I have Senator Graham and Senator Booker. We've met to resolve the slight differences. We will be working on that in the coming days. And it's my hope that we will get a markup in the Judiciary Committee. We're going to be pressing for that with Chairman Grassley this coming week. I think it's more important than ever that we move forward on these bills.</s>TAPPER: Where do you see the investigation going from here and for Mueller? And where do you see the Senate investigation going?</s>COONS: Well, I think it's critical now that the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee continue their important work to make sure that we're doing our job of oversight of the Department of Justice and continuing to look into obstruction of justice. I also expect that investigation being led by Robert Mueller will continue to get closer to the core team on the Trump campaign. The documents that were released today, the plea agreement in which General Flynn pled guilty. He made a reference to a senior transition official having directed him to have contact with the Russians. I think there's more details to be work out, more investigation to be done, and I think it's important that Robert Mueller be able to make that progress without interference.</s>TAPPER: That senior transition official we have reported, CNN has reported another have (ph) as well, is according to our sources, Jared Kushner. In addition to all this, of course, "The New York Times" reporting today that President Trump has been for months lobbying various officials to either stop or wrap up their Russia probes or trying to announce that he and his team are clear. And you get this list of people who the President has pressed to varying degrees on this. You have Senator Richard Burr, the head of Senate Intelligence Committee, Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, Senator Roy Blunt who is on Intel. The director of National Intelligence, Dan Coates, the director of the NSA, Mike Rogers, the FBI Director, James Comey who obviously the president then fire. The CIA Director, Mike Pompeo, this is just a partial list. Do you think the president doesn't know any better or is there something more sinister going on?</s>COONS: Well, Jake, it certainly is part of a long pattern in which the president has engaged in really disturbing behavior, whether it was many months ago now calling the FBI director into his office to try and extract from him a pledge of personal loyalty, or it's by this recent actions reaching out to Republican senators like Richard Burr who I think by the way has able lead the Intelligence Committee's efforts in this regard, but to try and inappropriately pressure him to wrap up the investigation. I think you might have been able to say months and months ago that the president new to this role, someone who hasn't served in the government ever might not understand the contrast of the job, but by now, many months later, after lots of public criticism and pushback for his inappropriate behavior, it's clear that he knows that he should not be trying to interfere in this investigation. This is exactly why Robert Mueller's ongoing investigation can and should and must be looking at obstruction of justice, because this sort of ongoing behavior by the president to try and pressure folks to step back or to lighten up on this investigation is completely inappropriate.</s>TAPPER: Senator, let's turn to tax reform now. It appears Republicans are going to be able to pass this bill, unlike the effort that killed Obamacare. How come Democrats were able to stop the previous effort, the health care effort to repeal Obamacare and you weren't able to do so this time? We didn't see a ground swell of opposition to this that we saw during the health care fight.</s>COONS: Well, Jake, I think that's for two simple reasons. One is that Republican leadership learned some lessons from why they were unsuccessful in repealing the Affordable Care Act. And they have rushed this bill through. We still don't have a final version of this bill. There were markups being made, revisions being made by hand just in the last couple of hours. So the time from introduction to markup to final vote on the floor of the Senate here is very tight. So there wasn't a lot of opportunity to mobilize groups nationally. I'll also just suggest that taxes and tax policy are very complex. The language that we're using is all about JCT scores and CBO scores and pass-through and ex patriot or repatriation of profits. It is harder for folks, I think, to grasp. In the health care conversation, it was about what Americans currently have that might be taken away from them. This is mostly discussion about, well, you might get a tax break and it might be too big for some other guy but maybe it's good for you. In the end, the consequences of this enormous bill will almost certainly be adding a $1.5 trillion to America's debt and that will results an important things being taken away, particularly for middle- class Americans because they will end up being cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, if this plays out the way it's expected to.</s>TAPPER: All right.</s>COONS: There are temporary middle class tax cuts, but permanent and big corporate tax cuts. This isn't balance that I think we should have pursued.</s>TAPPER: Democratic Senator Chris Coons of the small wonder State of Delaware. Thank you so much. Appreciate your time.</s>COONS: Thank you, Jake.</s>TAPPER: A source close to the White House saying that the president expects to be exonerated very soon, but what about everyone around him? Who might be the next domino to fall? The CNN reporters who have those answers will join me after the break, stay with us.