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The Republicans now control the federal government,
they control some 25 to 30 state governments.
The Democrats have far fewer.
And so they've been sitting on an agenda and
actually I think most of them didn't think Trump would win the Presidency.
And when he did, so for them,
it's a opportunity to pass what's been on their agenda.
Which is deregulate stuff, tax cuts, change the Affordable Care Act.
So they want that to happen.
But all these things that happen with Trump; National Security,
Flynn The Russians that's all a distraction for them and
they're under sort of duel pressure.
They want to get their agenda through and
they have to have the president with them to get that through.
But they're under pressure on the other hand to well what are we going to do about
the Russia connection ect.
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At what point do the Republicans in Congress make a break?
And on what do they make the break?
And I think that's not likely to happen in the short run
because they need the President to get the tax cuts that they want through.
Especially corporate tax cuts they want that, capital gains.
They want that reduced.
So I think they're waiting to get that through and then we'll see.
The courts are still a relevant actor, but the most relevant actor is the Congress.
And the Democrats in Congress are already pretty clear where they are, so
the question is, overtime, what is the likelihood that the republican party.
Republican party in the congress, is willing to steps up, and
not willing to be steps up, and says no more of this.
This, and not this.
They want the tax code changed.
They want the regulation to go down.
They now own the Affordable Care Act, which I think is going to be harder for
them dissolve than they might have thought it was,
because I don't think they can afford to have very many people go uncovered.
Because then the press and the Democrats'll beat them, and
it's not a good issue going into the midterm and the 2020 election.
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If I were the Democrats I would say,
the identity politics is okay, but you've carried it too far.
In the process of the identity politics, you forgot about
all those people in the Midwest who have lost jobs and so on and so forth.
You can't forget those people, and I think that's even more important,
because when you talk about jobs leaving,
this artificial intelligence is going to, seems to me,
over the next 10,15 years it's going to create a problem.
Why?
Well you think of the gig economy, Uber,
Lyft, Mercedes Benz, Ford, GM.
They're all trying to get cars and trucks that drive themselves.
Well, guess who drives those?
And if you're a truck driver in America, you can make a pretty good income.
You can make $70, $80, $90, $100,000 a year doing that.
Well, those jobs are gone, that's even more of a problem for
those areas that you didn't win the last time.
So you gotta start thinking about them.
I don't think you have to abandon the other, but
you have to figure out a way to put the two of them together and
then they'll be all right.
But that's not going to be particularly easy, and I don't worry even so
much about jobs actually.
What I worry more about is wages or jobs are created.
What are they going to pay?
My father was able to raise a family six children with
a factory job in the Midwest.
And he was able to do that.
And we weren't rich but you know we had a home.
We didn't own it.
But we had a roof over of our heads, we were fed all the time,
and we had clothes and we went to school.
We had all those things.
And so I worry about wages because
a lot of these wages people can no longer afford that.
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I think their main problem is a demographic problem,
so on the social issues that they take these positions on.
If you look at the age range, people over 65, they're with the Republicans.
Then 55 to 65, they're sort of mixed on it, but after that,
from 45 to 55, they're against it.
By the time you get down to people that are 25 or more they're just
totally against it, they don't care about issues like gay marriage,
they don't care about those sorts of things, they're irrelevant to them.
And in some ways, calling Peter Burka would stop about the Republicans
have got to forget about trying to repeal the sexual revolution.
And they sometimes still tell me, that's not going to happen.
I assure you, that is not going to happen.
Just talk to young peer.
I don't understand where they're getting look at their own kids.
You can see that's not working.
So they need to figure out how they're going to deal with that long run
demographic problem and also probably how are they going to handle hispanic voters.
[MUSIC] The question you hear out here all
the time is wow, can he last four years?
And the answer is sure he can.
But for me, the more important question is can he be effective?
And in my view hasn't shown that he can be.
Because being effected means I want the following policy changes.
I want A changed, I want B changed, and I want C changed.
You have to bring people together, some of them you have to get through Congress,
some of them you have to get the bureaucrats to agree to it,
some of them you have to get the courts to agree to it.
And always you have to coordinate and get it through the system.
And in most cases its Congress and
the bureaucracy have to be with you in the change.
So the question is, are he and the Republican party and the Congress capable?
Are they able to do that?
So I'm looking to see how those things balance out.
And that means I have to sort of judge the president's behavior and
you have to judge the Congress's behavior.
So that's what I'm watching.
The interaction Between the congress and the president.
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