Verdict with Ted Cruz - January 13, 2025


How to WIN：The Inside Story on the Battle to Enact Trump's Legislative Agenda


Episode Stats

Length

32 minutes

Words per Minute

179.81621

Word Count

5,792

Sentence Count

185

Misogynist Sentences

5

Hate Speech Sentences

4


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.660 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.300 There is a really big debate happening in Washington, D.C. right now,
00:00:09.500 and this is why I love doing this show,
00:00:11.260 because reconciliation is already underway.
00:00:14.640 The debate, how it's going to be done,
00:00:16.620 even before Donald Trump is inaugurated,
00:00:19.240 and you have a lot to say about what happened in D.C.
00:00:22.040 Well, there's a major strategic decision,
00:00:24.500 a major battle that is playing out right now in Washington, D.C.,
00:00:27.620 and it concerns how do we win the biggest legislative victories of the Trump presidency.
00:00:33.900 There are two paths to doing it, what's called one bill or two bill.
00:00:38.040 Now, that may sound arcane,
00:00:39.800 but I think it's the difference between failure and success.
00:00:43.460 This week, Donald Trump came and spent two, two and a half hours with all the Republican senators.
00:00:48.860 It's all we talked about that time together.
00:00:51.180 I'm going to break it down and explain it to you,
00:00:53.040 because it matters enormously.
00:00:55.300 If you want to see President Trump and this Republican Congress deliver on our promises,
00:01:02.020 how we do it, how we get to success matters a lot.
00:01:05.340 We're going to deal with all that,
00:01:06.420 but first I want to talk to you real quick about this new year
00:01:09.260 and help that is needed for the people in Israel.
00:01:12.540 On January the 27th, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day will be here,
00:01:17.160 and we're going to remember the great evil of the Holocaust
00:01:19.800 when millions of Jews were slaughtered during the Nazi's regime
00:01:23.120 and the reign that they had over people with just pure terror.
00:01:27.180 Today, the rise in global anti-Semitism and the constant attacks on Israel
00:01:32.180 show us that it's more important than ever to remember the atrocities of the Holocaust
00:01:36.640 to ensure it never, ever happens again.
00:01:39.440 And that's why I've partnered with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.
00:01:43.820 They provide food, shelter, and safety to Jews in Israel and around the world,
00:01:49.320 including those remaining Holocaust survivors.
00:01:52.440 Your donation today will help provide food, water, medicine,
00:01:56.180 and other basic necessities to the Jewish communities in need.
00:01:59.560 And through your gift, you will stand with the Jewish people
00:02:02.520 and against the growing anti-Semitism and hatred.
00:02:06.020 So if you want to stand with Israel and the Jewish people,
00:02:09.420 you can give a gift to show your support right now by visiting supportifcj.org.
00:02:16.680 That's one word, supportifcj.org,
00:02:20.980 or you can call them at 888-488-4325.
00:02:26.820 That's 888-488-4325 or supportifcj.org.
00:02:34.220 So, Senator, a lot of the news, and we talked about this week on Verdict,
00:02:38.840 has been around the wildfires and all the politics are going on in California.
00:02:43.440 But what you guys have been working on in Washington, D.C.
00:02:46.800 is a massive, not only just strategy of how we're going to move forward
00:02:51.660 with the Republicans having control of the House and the White House,
00:02:54.940 but also this could be a big failure if we get it wrong.
00:02:58.480 So break it down, explain to people,
00:03:00.260 there seems to be two pathways here people are fighting over.
00:03:02.860 And you had this conversation with Donald Trump for several hours.
00:03:06.440 Yeah, so look, we had an incredible election in November.
00:03:09.840 We have a mandate from the voters.
00:03:12.460 It's now our job to deliver on that mandate,
00:03:14.940 to deliver on the promises we made to the American people.
00:03:18.100 How do we get it done?
00:03:19.720 This week, Donald Trump came to Capitol Hill.
00:03:22.540 He came up to D.C. for Jimmy Carter's funeral.
00:03:25.240 He spent over two hours with all of the Republican senators up on the Capitol
00:03:29.540 talking and what we talked about virtually the entire time
00:03:33.520 was how to proceed to enact his legislative agenda.
00:03:37.440 Now, as you know, in the Senate, we have a filibuster.
00:03:41.660 What is the filibuster?
00:03:42.640 The filibuster is the requirement that you need 60 votes to take up major legislation.
00:03:48.280 The effect of the filibuster is, because we have a 53-vote majority of Republicans,
00:03:53.740 you cannot take up major legislation in the Senate unless you get seven Democrats to support us.
00:03:59.640 So the bulk of the mandate from the voters, things like securing the border,
00:04:04.940 they're not going to get seven votes from Democrats.
00:04:08.060 So we can't get it done through ordinary legislation.
00:04:12.920 So how are we going to get it done?
00:04:14.380 We're going to get it done using something called reconciliation.
00:04:18.220 What is reconciliation?
00:04:19.000 Reconciliation is a process that comes from a specific statute, the Budget Act of 1974.
00:04:25.820 And the Budget Act sets up that when both chambers pass a budget,
00:04:30.200 they come together and you reconcile the budget.
00:04:32.680 By the way, none of that matters.
00:04:34.060 That's all gobbledygook.
00:04:35.080 Here's what matters.
00:04:36.480 Under budget reconciliation, you only need 50 votes to pass it, not 60.
00:04:40.880 So budget reconciliation is the vehicle that you can get around the filibuster
00:04:46.600 and pass our agenda.
00:04:48.700 So the reconciliation matters enormously.
00:04:51.900 Now, there are a whole series of rules for what's permissible on reconciliation and what isn't,
00:04:56.820 and they're laid out in the statute.
00:04:58.600 The basic idea is that on reconciliation, you can pass things that are budgetary,
00:05:05.980 but you cannot pass things that are policy.
00:05:09.780 Now, how should we proceed?
00:05:12.700 The House of Representatives and the Senate are having a big argument right now,
00:05:16.760 and the House and Senate are on different places.
00:05:19.140 What the House has argued for is that we should do one gigantic reconciliation bill.
00:05:27.280 We should do a bill that secures the border.
00:05:30.140 We should do a bill that rebuilds the military.
00:05:33.040 We should do a bill that unleashes American energy.
00:05:35.860 We should do a bill that extends the 2017 Trump tax cuts and makes them bigger and bolder.
00:05:42.960 And we should do all of that gigantic bill as part of one bill, one big, beautiful bill.
00:05:49.100 It is how Speaker Johnson has said that Donald Trump has put it.
00:05:53.040 And by the way, there's a lot of people that just heard what you said and go,
00:05:55.800 that sounds amazing.
00:05:56.820 So what's the problem?
00:05:58.560 The problem is it is a path that I think is almost certain to fail.
00:06:03.560 Explain why.
00:06:04.420 Yes.
00:06:05.560 Look, number one, doing a massive bill, complicating things,
00:06:09.660 doing a ton of things all at the same time makes it harder to accomplish.
00:06:14.240 We just had a couple of weeks ago a big fight in Washington over a CR, a continuing resolution.
00:06:19.580 The first version of it fell.
00:06:21.640 Why did the first version of it fall?
00:06:23.860 Because a bunch of people criticized it and said,
00:06:25.740 it's too damn big.
00:06:26.720 It's 1,400 pages.
00:06:28.080 This is too much.
00:06:28.940 And everyone went nuts and the whole thing collapsed.
00:06:31.080 Apparently, the lesson we've taken from that is that CR was too big.
00:06:37.600 And our solution is let's have something 10 times bigger.
00:06:40.460 Let's have something so massive because that's what it'll take to get the votes on board.
00:06:45.560 I believe if we end up trying to put everything in one bill, it'll drag on for seven, eight months,
00:06:53.620 and it'll collapse in August, and we risk losing all of the momentum we have right now
00:06:59.920 to accomplish and deliver results on Trump's legislative agenda.
00:07:05.600 So what's the alternative?
00:07:07.280 When we were with President Trump, this is the case I made to him, and I argued this forcefully.
00:07:11.700 The alternative is to do two reconciliation bills.
00:07:16.080 The first bill we would take up right now, and it would do three things.
00:07:20.620 Number one, it would secure the border.
00:07:22.680 Number two, it would rebuild the military.
00:07:25.100 And number three, it would unleash American energy.
00:07:28.580 Why do we start with those three?
00:07:30.600 Because those three are relatively easy.
00:07:32.540 Among Republicans, we have widespread consensus on all three of those.
00:07:39.380 On those issues in the Senate, we've got 53 Republicans.
00:07:43.160 We can get 53 Republicans to come together through.
00:07:46.300 So you think those three are unanimous?
00:07:48.900 Yes.
00:07:49.760 I think all three of those.
00:07:51.660 So that's why it's a no-brainer in the sense of, like, we get this done,
00:07:54.440 and we can get it done quickly for that reason.
00:07:56.200 It's a quick, early win, number one.
00:07:58.280 And that's important.
00:07:59.220 Momentum's everything.
00:08:00.320 Quick, early wins matter.
00:08:01.300 But more importantly, let's take the border.
00:08:04.600 The number one mandate out of the election is secure the border.
00:08:08.940 100%.
00:08:09.380 Now, Trump is going to show up on January 20th,
00:08:12.320 and he's going to issue a whole series of executive orders.
00:08:14.640 I think we may see up to 100 executive orders issued on day one.
00:08:19.320 It is going to be shock and awe that is going to come,
00:08:22.560 and I expect a lot of that to focus on the border.
00:08:24.800 And we will see the border crossing numbers plummet.
00:08:28.160 All of that is good.
00:08:29.120 The biggest driver of that will be Trump ending catch and release
00:08:32.540 and actually deporting people who are here illegally.
00:08:35.480 However, you still need resources.
00:08:37.540 You need Congress to come in and appropriate, likely $100 billion,
00:08:42.420 to build the wall, to hire more Border Patrol agents,
00:08:47.200 to hire more ICE agents,
00:08:48.860 to build more detention facilities and more detention beds,
00:08:52.280 to purchase more assets like fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft and infrared and drones,
00:08:59.440 all of the materiel you need to secure the border to back up the policy changes.
00:09:04.680 We can get all the Republicans on one page to do that and get that done quickly.
00:09:10.240 That's number one.
00:09:10.680 That's a day one thing.
00:09:11.600 It's not day one, but it's February or March.
00:09:14.500 It's very fast, yeah.
00:09:14.840 It's a month or two or three.
00:09:16.720 It's early.
00:09:18.740 Border security, we can come together and do that quickly.
00:09:21.740 Secondly, the military.
00:09:22.720 We have got to invest and rebuild our military.
00:09:26.440 With the threat of China abroad, every enemy has gotten stronger.
00:09:30.320 We need a serious investment in our military to enhance our ability to defend ourselves,
00:09:35.120 in particular to rebuild our Navy.
00:09:37.260 China is kicking our ass.
00:09:40.040 They are investing in their Navy, and under Joe Biden and the Democrats,
00:09:43.660 they have allowed our investment into our Navy to wither dramatically.
00:09:46.900 Now, why is it important to do the military bill in an early reconciliation?
00:09:54.240 Well, this is where strategy and the realities of legislation matter.
00:09:58.860 By the way, this is a moment in the podcast where I would say to everybody listening,
00:10:02.100 pay very close attention so you can advocate for this,
00:10:04.580 because this might be the most brilliant thing said all day.
00:10:07.320 In the middle of March, the continuing resolution is going to expire.
00:10:11.520 That is what funds the government.
00:10:12.980 When that happens, Chuck Schumer and the Democrats are going to use the expiration of the funding
00:10:20.320 to hold Donald Trump hostage.
00:10:23.360 Chuck Schumer wants to force a government shutdown.
00:10:27.040 Yeah.
00:10:27.420 The biggest reason a government shutdown is really, really painful for Republicans
00:10:32.480 is it shuts down much of the military, and Republicans care about defending this nation.
00:10:38.760 Democrats, many of them simply don't.
00:10:41.480 They're happy to shut the military down.
00:10:44.240 They do it because it drives Republicans crazy.
00:10:48.200 If we pass military funding as part of the reconciliation before March,
00:10:54.320 we take it off the table.
00:10:56.120 It's done.
00:10:57.100 It's funded.
00:10:58.100 It's not depending on the CR for funding.
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00:11:30.820 So even if there is a government shutdown, and this is where it gets complicated by one
00:11:36.800 people to understand, you do it early, before there could be the threat of the government
00:11:40.360 shutdown.
00:11:41.200 If once you've funded the military, regardless of a, quote, shutdown, the military still has
00:11:46.480 everything they need to operate on normal terms.
00:11:48.520 It means we would have fully funded the military.
00:11:50.340 It means we would have fully funded border security.
00:11:52.620 So both of those continue.
00:11:53.880 And now Chuck Schumer is saying, damn it, I'm going to shut the government down and we're
00:11:59.040 not going to pay RS agents and the EPA will shut down.
00:12:02.420 You're like, OK, not a bad deal.
00:12:04.180 And suddenly Republicans are like, OK, Chuck, let us know when you're done with this little
00:12:07.380 shutdown thing.
00:12:08.440 It shifts the entire leverage and it's how Trump wins.
00:12:14.200 That is hugely important.
00:12:17.360 A third component is energy.
00:12:19.380 And again, you've got absolute consensus among Republicans that we want to unleash American
00:12:25.740 energy.
00:12:26.800 America is the world's energy superpower.
00:12:29.320 We're the number one producer of oil and gas.
00:12:31.640 The Biden administration has been waging war on Texas energy, on oil and gas for four years.
00:12:37.880 That's going to end January 20th.
00:12:39.420 But we can pass major legislation to really unleash energy, which, A, drives down prices and tackles
00:12:48.240 inflation, the second huge mandate that came out of the election.
00:12:53.220 Secure the border, drive down inflation.
00:12:55.240 We can do both of those early, early on.
00:12:57.860 And unleashing energy also drives job creation, which is another huge mandate.
00:13:02.600 So all of this we can get done and done quickly.
00:13:06.920 The second bill, I believe, should be another reconciliation.
00:13:11.600 We can take up more than one.
00:13:13.620 And that should be tax reform.
00:13:15.740 That should be taking the 2017 Trump tax cuts that are expiring this year and extending
00:13:22.480 them, making them permanent.
00:13:24.040 And I hope making them bigger and bolder.
00:13:27.020 Now, why should that be broken into a separate piece rather than combined with the first one?
00:13:33.340 Because tax reform is really damn complicated.
00:13:37.180 There are lots of tradeoffs that happen.
00:13:39.000 There are tradeoffs that are tradeoffs between all of the different interest effects affected.
00:13:42.860 So you have tradeoffs between C corporations and S corporations, big companies and little
00:13:48.120 companies.
00:13:48.860 You have tradeoffs between employers and employees.
00:13:51.920 You have tradeoffs between individuals and families.
00:13:55.160 You have tradeoffs between parents and kids.
00:13:57.460 You have tradeoffs between how you handle seniors.
00:14:00.000 You have tradeoffs between how you handle capital gains and dividends.
00:14:03.600 And we'll resolve all of that.
00:14:05.920 but that takes a lot of time when we did this in 2017 i spent literally hundreds of hours
00:14:15.080 negotiating all of these trade-offs you can't get that done in a month or two or even three
00:14:23.800 so what is that is that an eight month nine month timeline yeah it'll be the way we ought to do it
00:14:29.560 i think we ought to pass the first reconciliation and get it done by say march one we can do border
00:14:35.760 security rebuild the military and energy by february or march and then it's done and then it's
00:14:42.140 off the table and that's a big win and then do tax reform i look if if we leaned in we could do tax
00:14:49.640 reform by the end of july right before the august recess i think we either do it uh then or in
00:14:55.540 september those are the two times on either side of the august recess but the trade-offs you got to
00:15:01.440 understand when tax reform is happening every single lobbyist in washington is engaged because the tax
00:15:08.380 code affects everything yeah and that process of trade-offs just takes time and when you say it
00:15:16.300 takes time can you paint a picture of of what it looks like on capitol hill because there's certain
00:15:21.040 let's say you're a hardcore lefty you're going to have certain lobbyists are coming to you saying we
00:15:25.380 need x y and z then that office takes it up on their day to say we're going to get this in there
00:15:31.300 is that how that works and there's conservatives saying we need this over here and then there's
00:15:35.200 trade-offs is it is that how this works yes yes but remember this is during reconciliation so this is
00:15:40.540 almost certainly a republicans only play okay so it's only republicans in all likelihood all of the
00:15:46.500 democrats will vote now maybe they'll surprise us but the last time we passed the trump tax cuts
00:15:52.400 so you look at something like tax cuts historically tax cuts have been bipartisan yeah not anymore not
00:15:58.360 anymore the trump tax cuts in 2017 in the house of representatives zero democrats voted for them in
00:16:04.320 the senate zero democrats voted for them by the way that's a big shift from you go back to the 80s
00:16:10.300 when ronald reagan was president the 1981 tax cut the lead author of the 1981 tax cut was phil graham who
00:16:18.440 was then a conservative democrat in the house from texas later became a republican when he was a
00:16:23.840 democrat then you look at 1986 reagan's major tax simplification one of the leading authors of that
00:16:30.540 was bill bradley a liberal democrat senator from new jersey it used to be that when you're cutting
00:16:36.820 people's taxes you could get both parties together today's democrat party is so radical that at least in
00:16:42.260 2017 they weren't willing to do it so that's part of what makes this so complicated the house of
00:16:48.220 representatives has a two-vote majority and you can lose votes on all sorts of things now here is the
00:16:56.780 argument of the house for why they say they want one big beautiful bill they say well we got to get
00:17:04.720 the votes and we need all of the elements in there to get the votes we need to get to 218
00:17:10.280 and i gotta say i think that argument makes no sense whatsoever so they're claiming
00:17:15.040 we gotta have border security in there because they're people who wouldn't vote for the tax cut
00:17:21.900 unless border security was part of it and they're also claiming we gotta have the tax cut in there
00:17:28.980 because they're people who wouldn't vote for border security but they'll vote for that unless the tax
00:17:33.940 cuts there now i'm going to call bs on all of that and i'll tell you we sat down and i made this
00:17:40.600 point to president trump so i spoke very forcefully making this case out i said mr president i want
00:17:45.000 because the house had leaned in they said this is the only way we can get it past one big beautiful
00:17:49.120 bill and so trump came in and said hey that's what the house has told me let me ask you this
00:17:53.000 just to paint the picture of the room when you guys meet with him are you seated yep and then when
00:17:57.940 you talk to him when you're making your points do you stand how does it what does it look like is it
00:18:01.900 very chill room is it a is a casual room or very formal so we're we're in a room called the mansfield
00:18:08.140 room which is a room named for mike mansfield former uh senate majority leader democrat senator
00:18:13.920 for montana has a big picture of mike mansfield holding a pipe the big painting on the wall um
00:18:19.740 it is a large room in the capitol and when when we met with him there's a table that's basically a
00:18:27.920 giant table set in a rectangle so we're all facing each other okay so you know 53 of us plus the
00:18:34.740 president around a table looking at each other um and it's a very nice room and it's where we have
00:18:40.620 lunch every day it's it's it is it's actually one of the perks of being in the majority so the majority
00:18:47.380 has lunch in the mansfield room the minority has lunch in the lbj room which is smaller so when we
00:18:52.580 became a majority we got into the bigger room which is nice because the lbj room if you it's
00:18:57.520 pretty tight quarters and so there's a lot more space in the mansfield room so look i i made a case
00:19:02.700 to him because he came in and he'd been told by the house hey this is the only way we can get it done
00:19:06.840 and i said mr president i want you to understand something i said we had a meeting earlier today of
00:19:11.960 all of the senate committee chairs all of us every single one of us agrees that doing this with two
00:19:22.580 bills is the only way to get it done and one bill has a massive massive risk of failure and extending
00:19:30.300 it to eight months and i pointed out to him i said look there are 53 of us in this room i want you to
00:19:36.240 look around the room every single one of us agrees all of us i agree john thune agrees lindsey
00:19:43.420 graham agrees said look you've got susan collins and ran paul they agree on nothing they agree on this
00:19:49.200 i want you to understand why and one point that i made to him is i said look you need to understand
00:19:54.520 i love the house of representatives i love mike johnson he's a great man he's a good friend he has
00:20:00.240 nearly impossible job so i feel for how difficult that job is the house of representatives more than
00:20:07.320 60 percent of the house was not here when we passed 2017 tax wow that's that is significant number so
00:20:17.760 so they do not understand what goes into it they do not understand the thousands of hours of back and
00:20:24.860 forth look they're they're passionate they they believe in what they're saying but they don't have
00:20:29.200 the experience of having gone through this by the way they also many of them don't understand the
00:20:34.520 rules of reconciliation of what the senate could do remember i talked about we can do budgetary
00:20:38.980 things and not policy things yeah there's always a battle between the house and senate because the
00:20:43.480 house gets mad at the senate you damn senators you won't do what we want it's like well there's a
00:20:48.400 statute that governs what we can do and it does limit what the senate could do on reconciliation
00:20:52.200 that'll be a back and forth it always is every reconciliation there's a battle between the house and senate
00:20:57.240 because the house wants to do things that the senate is not allowed to do under the terms of
00:21:03.100 the statute what i told president trump is i said listen if we put this all in one bill we have a
00:21:09.880 massive risk of failure if we do it in two bills we can start with a huge victory securing the border
00:21:15.780 rebuilding the military unleashing american energy and then we will get tax cuts passed it's just going
00:21:22.780 to take longer and and you know on the argument that well gosh this is the house leadership's
00:21:30.000 argument we need each piece as a sweetener to get the votes what i've said in response is okay
00:21:34.860 show me this magical unicorn of a house member because i know most of these guys yeah so show me
00:21:42.520 don't talk about well i got members i can't get their vote without it all right tell me who
00:21:46.300 you talking about crazy right-wing knuckle-draggers okay i'm a crazy right-wing knuckle-draggers those
00:21:51.900 are my peeps i'll go talk to them i'll go talk to them but when i'm talking to them they're not saying
00:21:56.820 that are you talking about really moderate republicans all right fine that's a different
00:22:01.360 that's a different uh different problem to solve but we talk about that one of the issues
00:22:07.760 that complicates this is what's called the salt tax explain that okay so the salt tax
00:22:14.960 is state and local tax deduction so one of the things that happened when we passed the 2017
00:22:22.160 tax cut is we eliminated initially we eliminated deducting state and local taxes so it used to be
00:22:30.060 before 2017 if you're in california and you pay a crap ton of taxes to the state of california
00:22:36.420 you could deduct all those taxes on your federal taxes now what that ended up doing was having the
00:22:42.860 federal government subsidize big blue states that tax the hell out of their their constituents right
00:22:48.540 and big blue states that have massive taxes you just got it deducted for your federal taxes and so we
00:22:54.140 were like gavin newsom keep raising taxes the feds will subsidize you on that so in 2017 we eliminated
00:23:01.440 that now we eliminated it but we actually allowed some deduction we put a cap of ten thousand dollars
00:23:06.120 so you can deduct up to ten thousand dollars of state and local taxes so you and i are both
00:23:11.340 homeowners in texas the biggest state tax we pay is property tax yeah so you and i deduct our property
00:23:17.120 tax on our federal income tax but it's capped at ten thousand dollars so if you're paying more than
00:23:22.080 ten thousand dollars it's on you it's on you now what's the political problem the political problem
00:23:28.600 is there are a number of house republicans who come from blue states in particular new york and
00:23:34.760 california and the blue state republicans the new york and california republicans have a problem
00:23:40.020 because eliminating the salt deduction really impacted people in high-tax states because
00:23:46.600 unfortunately their big government democrats keep taxing the hell out of them we talked about this
00:23:51.340 in california this past week those new york and california republicans feel an obligation
00:23:57.660 to do something to help the problem of not being able to deduct more than 10 more than 10 now and so
00:24:08.880 the argument is well if we add border security to it they'll have to vote for it because they can't
00:24:14.920 vote against border security so this is where the argument makes no sense i'm like all right first of
00:24:19.700 all we tee up the first bill securing the border rebuilding our military unleashing american energy
00:24:25.380 i don't know a republican is voting against that the mandate out of this election was secure the
00:24:30.580 border show me the idiot republican is going to say no i'm for open borders that that is a recipe
00:24:36.220 for disaster you're retiring when you're doing that because you ain't running again and if you do you're
00:24:41.140 going to get primaried you'll get killed none of them will vote against border security they're just
00:24:45.480 not going to they know the american people they know what they want on the salt issue look will there
00:24:51.960 have to be an accommodation for new york and california republicans sure there will there will
00:24:58.980 have to be an accommodation i i understand that that's part of why this takes a while you got to
00:25:03.780 negotiate there are geographic and regional issues that you have to negotiate and there's a trade-off
00:25:09.100 now will the accommodation be restoring in full the state and local tax deduction i don't believe it
00:25:16.920 will be because that's terrible tax policy that means the red states are all subsidizing the blue
00:25:22.980 states and their bad tax policy here's what i think the resolution will be this is actually an idea i got
00:25:28.980 from grover norquist grover norquist runs americans for tax reform he's a long-time friend of mine one of
00:25:35.100 the leading thinkers when it comes to tax policy and grover's idea so right now there is a marriage
00:25:43.160 penalty in how you deduct state and local taxes you as an individual if you file your tax return you
00:25:51.680 could deduct up to ten thousand dollars of state and local taxes if you are married as you are you
00:25:59.380 and your wife can deduct a total of ten thousand dollars on state and local taxes what grover suggested
00:26:06.300 as a fix is eliminate the marriage penalty which means you and your wife would be able to deduct not
00:26:11.020 ten thousand twenty twenty thousand so there's so it doesn't hurt you you're not being penalized
00:26:16.360 for being married right now that's good tax policy as well getting rid of the marriage penalty one of
00:26:21.480 the negative things federal law does is discourages marriage and marriage is a very good thing for our
00:26:26.940 society i think we'll end up if i were to predict the bill that gets enacted i think we'll end up
00:26:32.680 eliminating the marriage penalty on the salt deduction which lets the california and new york
00:26:37.860 republicans go back and say hey big win big win we doubled the deduction now what it doesn't do
00:26:43.860 is give a multi-million dollar tax break to michael bloomberg what it doesn't do is give a massive
00:26:49.080 benefit to billionaires in new york and california who have massive taxes and and i i think that's where
00:26:55.380 we'll end up but again that takes time and so i don't know how we resolve this i think we'll end up
00:27:02.880 seeing the two proceed on parallel tracks i think we're going to see the set the house for a while
00:27:07.580 go forward and say we're doing one big beautiful bill yeah and i think the senate's going to say
00:27:12.680 yeah that's fine we're moving forward we're not wasting time we're moving forward with our bill
00:27:18.100 on the border on the military and on energy because we can get it done we want a victory and this is how
00:27:24.680 you win and and look i don't know how it resolves but i can tell you i think it is an enormously
00:27:31.420 consequential question and frankly this is exactly the reason i think people listen to verdict
00:27:37.800 for sure because there is not another show there's not a new no one's talking about this or covering
00:27:43.580 it or explaining not a podcast people don't understand this and i will tell you this is the
00:27:48.220 single biggest topic that the senate and house and president trump are discussing right now and
00:27:54.920 nobody is covering it in the news but the reason it's the single biggest topic is i believe it is
00:28:00.820 the difference between succeeding on trump's legislative agenda and winning massive victories
00:28:06.600 or losing and having a crushing failure and in my view failure is not an option we cannot fail
00:28:12.920 which means we got to do it right so let's talk strategy to wrap this up because i think this is an
00:28:17.380 important point you you i go back to one of the best i think pr moves i've ever seen was in 1994
00:28:23.760 contract with america first hundred days we've got a contract with the american voters newt gingerts
00:28:28.900 comes in we get the house for the first time in 40 years we're delivering quickly i believe a lot of
00:28:34.440 voters feel like that is the mentality right now and if we wait eight months i think there's a lot of
00:28:40.220 people going to be very angry that just took so long to get it done and this is about momentum
00:28:44.880 because and you've been in washington for a while how important is momentum out of the chute here
00:28:49.440 to get the win early to then have momentum on other issues because i also think that helps people get
00:28:55.440 along i think that helps conservatives go hey we just had a big win we just got along we just worked
00:28:59.740 out this last deal let's do it again look a quick win momentum helps when winning produces winning
00:29:05.860 there is an argument from the house well we we can't do two reconciliations it's too hard for us
00:29:11.660 we only get one bite at the apple i don't find that remotely plausible again show me the hypothetical
00:29:17.460 republican that all right we passed the bill securing the border and then the republican says all right i
00:29:23.360 don't want to do tax reform i'm out and by the way if we do nothing on tax reform on december 31st there
00:29:29.940 is a four and a half trillion dollar tax increase that happens automatically there is not a republican in
00:29:35.200 the house or senate that is willing to vote for a four and a half trillion dollar tax increase so we
00:29:40.060 have to get this done so in my view yes momentum if you score victories you win victories that helps
00:29:48.720 you win more victories that helps you win more victories to say hey wait we can get this done this
00:29:53.040 is good let's get another victory let's get another victory let's get another victory um but there's an
00:30:00.160 even broader risk if the one big beautiful bill would happen and it would happen in say
00:30:05.900 eight months okay fine that would be okay i'm very concerned we get to eight months and the whole thing
00:30:13.100 collapses because when you make something so complicated you put so many pieces in there
00:30:18.240 you just increase the risk of people bailing for one reason or another it becomes much harder to resolve
00:30:25.160 the trade-offs when you complicate it i think one of the keys to getting things done is simplifying and
00:30:31.160 focusing on where you can come together and i think breaking it up and doing a big victory on
00:30:36.520 the border of the military and energy and a big victory then next on taxes i think that's the path
00:30:42.140 to success final question for you on this and that deals with the listeners they're going to say what do
00:30:46.340 i need to do is this one of those moments where you encourage your member of congress to get a quick
00:30:51.700 win and you say hey i sent you there i want to secure border i want to encourage you to do this now
00:30:57.600 you know look i don't know that this is the kind of issue that you i mean if you want to call your
00:31:02.260 congressman you can i don't know that this is the kind of issue that that is needed this is more just
00:31:08.100 look deliver wins this is for you to understand what's going on because these are the discussions and
00:31:14.540 fights that are happening behind the scenes and what the stakes are and what we try to do in verdict
00:31:19.760 is explain things that that the media won't explain to you yeah they're not touching this one at all
00:31:25.760 don't forget we do this show monday wednesday and friday this is why it's going to be a very fun
00:31:30.560 year here on verdict so make sure you grab this podcast hit that subscribe auto download button
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00:31:39.720 miss one of these video episodes as well uh and the center and i will see you back here on wednesday
00:31:44.300 morning this is an iheart podcast guaranteed human
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