♪ announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: president trump posted today a bipartisan roundtable of lawmakers to discuss tax reform, health care, and infrastructure. this evening, the president will meet with house and minority senate leaders, nancy pelosi from the house and chuck schumer from the senate, to hear further input from the democratic leadership on daca and health care. president trump tweeted that the -- this morning that the approval process for the biggest tax cut and tax reform package in the history of our country will soon begin. move fast, congress. last night, president trump welcomed republican and democratic senators to the white house as his administration

moved forward with plans to overhaul the nation's tax code. senator joe manchin was among those present and he joins me now from the capital. senator, welcome. i'm pleased to have you back after seeing you this morning. senator manchin: charlie, it's always good to be with you. i'm enjoying being with you tonight as well as this morning. charlie: take me inside the dinner last night, not only with the content and not only with who said what about what, but also your feeling about where the president's mindset is and what the atmospherics were. senator manchin: it was a very good dinner with a very lively discussion. it was very productive. this is the first time i've been invited to the white house to have a sitdown kind of semi private dinner to talk only about policy with the president. i was very honored. it was very rewarding to do that. there were six other colleagues of mine. we had four republicans, orrin hatch, the dean of our

delegation in that room last night. then you had john thune from south dakota. rod johnson and pat toomey. there was myself from west virginia, then heidi heitkamp from north dakota and joe donnelly from indiana. we had the president and the vice president, then we had gary cohn and steve mnuchin and some of their staff. it was all the right people to have the type of conversation we had. we had a lot of the details of what they are thinking. we had a lot of good interchange, exchange back and forth. we first started out talking as dinner was being presented about infrastructure. we talked about infrastructure and what needs to be done. we talked about public-private. my input on the public-private was that a lot of people are concerned when we talk about public-private that private companies -- they could be

private corporations or private countries -- those other countries outside of the united states that might own some of our infrastructure. that gave us a lot of cause for concern. but i said, if you look at public-private as i've known it, charlie, from being a governor of the state of west virginia, you can use that and use the public-private concept to accelerate these public projects. and that's where i think that they understood and where they seemed to say, we've knowledge knowledge that and we are very conscious about not leaving any of rural america, rural west virginia or rural america behind. we were talking about that and saying all the great ideas and great innovation and creation. things are happening around the world. we need to not only catch up, but to be a leader in this. that was a very lively discussion. we went right into tax. the first thing the president said, charlie, as we start talking about tax cuts, tax

reform, is that there is not going to be tax cuts for the wealthiest americans. he says, myself, people in my category do not need these tax cuts. that was refreshing. that's how this conversation started out. but then we have to be competitive. my taking of everything last night was the synergy was going all towards working men and women, working families that are the backbone of america, making sure they finally get a piece of this and the reductions and the tax cuts should be going toward them. everybody thinks about, when we do tax cuts, that we are going to be upside down and giving everything away. i said to the president, the most concern i have was adding more to the debt that we already have, of $20 trillion. i have 10 grandchildren. look at these beautiful children to say, hey, guess what we are leaving you.

go ahead, you will be just fine. i can't do that in all good conscience. i think the president understood my concern in my sincerity in that. i keep saying we have to be conscious of the debt that we are carrying on the debt that we might be loading on. we should be paying this down. charlie: you are worried about the amount of debt, the $20 trillion at we have, and the president and his party are sort of totally committed to eliminating inheritance tax or estate tax. that's a huge amount of money. senator manchin: i hope not, charlie. i took away from this meeting that we can sit and reasonable people can come to reasonable solutions. that's something that i did not feel that anyone was wedded to. i think that, as democrats -- i believe that there should be an inheritance. i believe there should be an exemption.

what we have right now is the individual, it's a $5 million exemption. two household members is a $10 million exemption. if it stays with that or they want to change that a little bit -- but in that realm, i think that's something that would be acceptable. to exempt everybody -- that's a big cost. when i talk about no new debt, we have to be looking at this and trying to find a pathway forward. i think they will be considerate towards that and that will be part of the discussion and negotiation that goes on. charlie: let me talk about three other issues. first, in terms of the corporate realm, there is the corporate tax. the administration has talked about 15%. republicans in congress talk about 22%, 24%, 25%, something like that.

was there some sense of where it might end up last night? senator manchin: there wasn't a sense of where it ends up, but the president reaffirmed he wants 15%. i think that's too low. we had the discussion at the table last night. gary cohn and all of us, steve mnuchin, understood where we were coming from. i said we have the greatest economy in the world. for us to give up or discount ourselves to that point when the global corporate average is around 21%, 22%, 23% -- i think 25%, democrats and myself can support 25% corporate rate. i think right now, if you look at everything, all corporations, that we are probably in 21%. it would be an increase. when they score it, they will score a deduction 35 to 25 as if you lose money. that's not the case.

we talked about that. democrats understand territorially. we can't keep companies domiciled in the united states if we are double taxing them on what they earned here and what they earned abroad. that is why we have money parked offshore. charlie: stop there. people like apples -- apple and big companies have huge amounts of money parked overseas money , that they made overseas, selling their products overseas. what does the president want to do? what do democrats want to do? senator manchin: i can speak for myself and a few of us who were there talking. we want it repatriated, brought back. we understand that it has to be brought back, but there are people who have been here longer periods of time that remember when the money was brought that before from repatriation. it was brought back and given in dividends and bonuses and not put into the bricks and mortars, if you will. or the investment into their companies and expanding. if that money is coming back and

we are giving you a tremendous tax break to bring it back, there should be some residuals from that. everyone is still talking on where i think we can find a pathway forward on that one time money coming back. but if we do the tax code and make the changes and do it correctly, that should not happen again. territorial tax systems will prevent that from happening where they have to park their money, because we won't be charging them the same rate after they already paid their taxes wherever they made that money in other countries. charlie: what about carried interest, which is hedge funds and some of those companies pay? senator manchin: i think they all understand it has to go away. even the hedge fund even the , wall street people understand. that's been a tremendous ride for them, and it's time for that to be over. it's time for that loophole to be over. but not just that. there's going to be many loopholes. when he says "the rich," "the super wealthy" will not get tax cuts. let me use a hypothetical.

29 .6% is the highest rate in our tax code -- 39.6% is our highest rate in our tax code now. let's say we reduce it to 35%. that is a 4.5% credit to these people, a tax break. but we take away a lot of the incentives that you have, the write-offs, the credits that they are able to take advantage of. most of those are going to go by the wayside. at the end of the day, they are probably paying a little bit more. i've never had a person -- i haven't had a person in that stratosphere saying i don't want to do that. they are willing to pay. they just want to make sure that we can get a tax code that they can do business and be able to stay and live in america, be domiciled in america, and be able to compete globally. i think we can achieve all of that. charlie: generally when there's a tax cut, there's discussion of eliminating deductions or, as you say, tax credits.

what conversation is taking place about what deductions might be eliminated? the classic deduction in american life obviously is a mortgage deduction. senator manchin: i think that the prime mortgage is sacred. the greatest wealth a person will accumulate, most people in america, is going to be that house they own, the property they own. prime mortgage is always going to be safer and protected, i believe. i can't speak for other people. charitable donations help so many people. it reaches so many corners of every community and every state. but there is an awful lot that has been piled on. vice president pence came to west virginia about a month or so ago and gave a great speech. i happened to be in the audience. he says, we have to have tax reform.

he went on and on. he says the tax code is nine times bigger than the bible, but there's no good stories. he said that in jest, and it really is true. it has grown disproportionately. the last time we made any major changes, charlie, we didn't have cell phones. charlie: 1986. senator manchin: we've got to get back and be the leaders in the 21st century, be the superpower. we can't do it with an antiquated tax system. charlie: so, tell me about his atmospherics. tell me about the tone of his voice. tell me about his ability to simply sit and listen to try to understand what you guys were saying. senator manchin: he engaged. it wasn't he just sat there. and he didn't dominate. he let everyone speak. it was a great exchange and a very comfortable setting. i've been with him, talking one-on-one. i've always had the ability to have good conversations. we can agree to disagree.

he said, joe, could i have gotten you on the health care bill? he said, maybe if i would have worked harder. i said, mr. president, with all due respect, i truly in my heart believe we can fix what we've got. we can repair it. i says, you can be the leader. you can be the mr. fix-it president. he came to this job in a nontraditional way, charlie. so, we had those. we can have at exchange, and it's a good exchange. it's healthy. charlie: are they going to fix obamacare rather than repeal and replace? senator manchin: i pray that we do that and i know that we can. there are some good examples. indiana has done something i think is very attractive in holding people responsible and accountable for their newfound wealth in health care. there are a lot of examples that are working and holding down costs and making the market more competitive. we just can't sit back and let it collapse. i'm hoping that happens, but you ask me his overall demeanor.

it was very energetic, engaging, lively. it's not what you see on television, where people either like it or don't like it. i said this, i felt something in the room, that there was an ease about the president, that he felt more comfortable trying to move policy and legislation in a bipartisan way than he would if he had to move it strictly in a partisan way. i see that evolving. he's more comfortable, more engaging. he gets more excited about it. charlie: and there are more options, obviously. senator manchin: many more options, charlie. our founding fathers never designed this to operate the same as our house. the house basically can say we've got 51% of the votes, 218 out of 435, and whether you are a democrat in control or republican, we don't care what the other side wants.

we don't care what the input, we could care less. george washington said the senate is like the saucer that cools the hot tea when it spills from the house. the senate cools it off so it can be drank. that's who we are. charlie: i think you are saying this, but i'm asking to confirm. the president also met today with tim scott. clearly he wanted to talk about charlottesville. he clearly may be having some new thoughts or second thoughts, i don't know. but he clearly seems to want to talk about that, an issue in which senator scott, a republican from south carolina, an african-american, has been critical of him. he is meeting tonight with pelosi and schumer, the democratic leaders in the senate and the house. do you feel like there has been an inflection point? senator manchin: i think -- charlie: go ahead. senator manchin: i think he understands, it is

communication. i don't mean this in a despairing -- i'm not casting anything to the previous administration or saying anything about them, but i never had this type of engagement. i've had more engagement with this white house and this president in the 6, 7 months, eight months that they've been there than i did in the six years that i was with the previous administration. i appreciate having my words heard, my thoughts. i've been involved in public service. i've been the governor of my state, so i've gone through all of these challenges and i have a perspective. i can share my mistakes that i've made. hopefully we don't repeat them. and also see the opportunities that we have. i think he's doing exactly what needs to be done, engaging. jim scott is a beautiful human being. he is one great human being, a great man. he gets it. he came from that arena. he understands what's going on

in that culture. for the president reaching out, wanting to learn more, i think that is tremendous. reaching out to nancy and chuck, ok, and saying, listen, guys, i want to work with you. it's going to be give-and-take. what can we do? i think it will open the opportunity to have more success than you could imagine. charlie: did he talk about any mistakes he made? did he talk about the fact that perhaps he would have been better if he started with infrastructure? senator manchin: he didn't go back and rehash that. i said from day one when he was going through the transition after he had gotten elected but not sworn in, be careful of going down the health care road. that's a tough one. and i can tell you infrastructure -- get your financial house in order first. if people trust you with their money, charlie, they will trust you with anything you want to do in the policy arena. if they know you are prudent in

watching their money and not just adding more debt, throwing caution to the wind, they will trust you. if they know you are fair and everyone is paying into this in a fair way and we expand the base and this country grows the way it should grow economically, then we are all doing good. i think that he is getting that. i would hope -- i said to him, mr. president, there is not a pothole out in west virginia or anywhere in the country that has just a democrat or republican's name on it. it has basically all of our name on it. it's our job to fix it. infrastructure touches everybody. that's a win. but you can rehash that. he is 100% committed to it. i'm going to do everything i can to work with him in a constructive way. charlie: any conversation about the dreamers and daca? senator manchin: not really. you know my thoughts on that. every time i get a chance --

i've spoken to him before about this. we did a massive immigration reform bill, bipartisan, democrats and republicans, in 2013 in the senate and passed it. that is a good piece of legislation. it considers all of the things we are talking about now. i don't believe we should be piecemealing it again. let's go back and look at that. it has border security. it was great. you can't continue to repeat the problem and just think you are going to fix the facia when the whole roof is falling in. we've got to fix this entire problem and just taking daca -- i would like to see -- take the 2013 bill. we couldn't get it out of the house. i would hope they would take it up. charlie: finally, foreign policy. clearly, the president is dealing every day with north korea. senator manchin: he is very concerned about north korea. charlie: what did he say? senator manchin: we talked about north korea. i've been on armed services now.

i'm on intel. everyone there has been briefed. we all know how critical the dangers are there. i think we are all committed. we do not believe kim jong-un should be able to have a ballistic missile that can deliver a warhead and do horrific damage to the united states of america. we've got to make sure that does not happen. charlie: that is where it becomes tough. how do you make sure it doesn't happen? senator manchin: you do all the diplomacy you possibly can. every ounce of diplomacy. superpower means more than just having the military grade -- greatest military in the world. it means having the greatest ability to have super diplomacy, so china has to engage, russia has to engage, everybody in that region has to engage. we have to be for real. we can't have him being able to secure scientists and physicists to develop his programs for him. there can't be any other countries feeding that. that's got to stop.

all these things, we have got to curtail. then you hope that -- the last resort is to take whatever measures that you need to take to prevent that from happening. charlie: final question. do you believe tax reform is possible, legislation is possible before the end of this year? senator manchin: i surely do, charlie. i believe the sooner the better. it's been too long in coming. if it comes out of the box and people are saying, oh, it's just for the rich -- i can only tell you what i heard in the conversation. that's definitely not where it's going. until i see it, i can't verify that. but i know one thing, they want us to engage. they have reached out. i want to engage. i want my democrat colleagues and republican colleagues to engage. i told the president, mr. president, if we can put a bill together that can get 30 democrats and 30 republicans,

wouldn't that be wonderful? right now, we operate in this vacuum, if you will, that you have to have all of the republicans, and that's fine if of 60.eed a cloture vote or we need 48 democrats and let's find 12 republicans. that doesn't work. we've proven that's not going to work that way. you have legislation that can bring bipartisanship. that's who we are. it should be about our country, not about the party identifications that we have and trying to protect this and i'm against you because you have a d for an r by your name. that's not who we are. the president is understanding. i told him, in west virginia, mr. president, you got elected by the greatest majority that any presidential election we've ever had in our state. i can assure you, as many, if not more democrats voted for you as republicans. it can't just be all one side. that's why you have to bring us all together.

charlie: senator, thank you so much. pleasure to have you on this program. senator manchin: always good to be with you, charlie. charlie: we will be right back. stay with us. ♪ charlie: there's a question of

the establishment. when you looked at the trump campaign, you got the impression that there would be nobody from goldman sachs or wall street. what happened to that promise that we are going to be different? steve: steve mnuchin was with us from day one.

he was our financial advisor on the campaign. he had been a democrat. he came into trump's campaign early on and i think he really understood donald trump, understood the economic program. if you look at the tax program initially put forward, i thought it was quite populist. president trump made a decision as he was going through, pulling together his white house staff and his cabinet, that there was going to be a certain element, that he had to have the establishment as part of that. i think that's actually healthy, because we are not there to tear down institutions. charlie: but that's exactly what you said you wanted to do. steve: i said we wanted to pierce the permanent political class and have the american people and the american workers represented. it's not go in and pull the temple down around you from the first day. you can't do that. over time, you have to pierce that and you have to change that. it's relentless work day in and day out. it's like these people who ran around the campaign looking for

some videotape of hillary clinton. this is not going to take place in a day. this has taken 40 to 50 years to build up. you're not going to magically wave a wand -- charlie: donald trump was saying to the american public, we are going to change things and we are going to change things on day one. not 20 years, day steve: he has one. changed things from day one. he's gone after the swamp. he's gone after the permanent political class. charlie: give me one thing he's done about draining the swamp, one thing. steve: the deconstruction of the administrative state. charlie: changing regulations. steve: that's part of changing the swamp. big corporations don't mind the regulations because the way it keeps small competitors out. his deconstruction of the administrative state is to make things more entrepreneurial. not more corporatist. he has a tiger team in the white house counsel's office. his selection of gorsuch is one of the leaders of thought of the deconstruction of the

administrative state. his thoughts on the chevron decision -- i think that's the single reason he is on the supreme court. president trump has been doing this in a prudent manner. on the campaign, what was the -- did the mainstream media settle the time about president trump and national security? he is a madman, he is crazy. there were all those ads, he is irresponsible, he should not be allowed around the nuclear trigger. in going after the establishment, just like in national security, he has done it in a prudent method. charlie: it's not just those guys. it's the former national director of intelligence, james clapper, said that he might not be trusted. as an advisor to the president, he said, i worry about this guy and the nuclear button. steve: and look at what president trump has done as commander-in-chief. let's take afghanistan as an example. donald trump started the decision-making process day one. a final decision wasn't made until august. you know why? principled meeting after principled meeting.

continuing to ask questions, continuing to say, are those assumptions right, meeting with enlisted men and generals. charlie: he made a decision he did not expect to make. steve: the prudence in making that decision, just like he made the decision on firing the missile into syria, another decision i didn't agree with -- but the way he weighs and balances has put to rest -- all the critics have said this guy was not going to be prudent, wasn't going to weigh and measure, wasn't going to ask questions, not be a commander in chief that could take the best advice from the generals -- let's talk about another thing. the very first thing that donald trump wanted done with general mike flynn and myself, to deoperationalize the -- they were actually picking bombing targets. send it back to combatant commanders. send it back to the pentagon and the cia. that takes a leader. that takes somebody who understands what he is supposed to do as commander in chief.

make the big, overall decisions. work with general mattis to do that. by the way, mattis, pompeo, agreed 100%. does he get credit for that? no. he has done more to sort out the national security on his watch than bush and obama combined. he has been the most prudent commander in chief. 75% of his time is spent on issues of national security. let's talk about the experts. there every day on tv, ripping on donald trump, these are the guys, here we stand -- what does donald trump inherit? the bay of pigs in venezuela, the cuban missile crisis in north korea, vietnam and afghanistan. kennedy at least had three years. these were dumped on donald trump, day one. what does he do?

he sorts out this mess. you know why? the national security apparatus in this country, republicans and democrats combined, got us in this situation since the fall of the soviet union in 1992 when they took a holiday. we have a competitor, almost an enemy, in china. all they have done is express out all over the world in this fetish they have for what is called a rules-based postwar international order. which is an air locking record of trade relationships, commercial relationships. charlie: you wanted to go to economic war with china? many would argue, the people are -- peopleng to hurt you're going to hurt are those who are fighting for. steve: donald trump for 30 years has a single that china has the single biggest problem we have on the world stage. the elites in this country have us in a situation.

china is that economic war with us. the elites that got them into rules-basedthe international order were back on the show arguing that a wealthier growing china will be a freer, democratically elected, free-market capitalism china. they were dead wrong. every expert says that today. the only thing we are debating between rational accommodations that say, as china and grows it will be rational and drive its growth to a better place and stay a good second power, or hawks like myself the city one of the hegemonic. they are treating us like barbarians from 4000 years. we have to face a very unpleasant fact. and donald trump knows this at the core of his build -- being. we're like jamestown to their great britain. charlie: jamestown, virginia?

yes.: we have a trade deficit that will be greater unless we ship them soybeans, corn, beef, timber, coal, and boeing jets and apple product. now boeing was a joint venture -- has a joint venture to build the jets in china and apple has a cut for technology. china treats us like a tributary state. it is the reason donald trump led with intellectual property. charlie: you want a trade war with china? steve: i want china to stop appropriating our technology. china has forced technology transfer through stealing our technology, it is cutting out the beating heart of american innovation. the guys in silicon valley. charlie: there is a new chief of staff in the white house.

what happened to you? -- were youhed out pushed out? steve: i have known general kelly for many years. he is a great man. when the president asked me my opinion about the chief of staff situation, i told them you have three choices. above all his general kelly. he iscan lose the dhs, exactly the man you need. reince priebus never had the mandate general kelly had. -- there were 12 direct reports to the president. president trump initially structure this like the trump organization. the chief number had the mandate. reince will tell you he did not have the gravitas to enforce. kelly has the gravitas, the respect. he will set up a process. charlie: did he say you got to

go? steve: absolutely not. after meeting with the mercers in june and july, said my one year anniversary is coming up. i said come i will put in my letter of resignation and be out on the 14th. charlie: by that time you were isolated inside the white house. steve: that is absolutely not true. i had the same influence on the president i had on day one. thatedia makes this up, ben and was svengali to the president. 301 nafta -- that was all approved under general kelly. charlie: you know this white house leaks like no one has seen. no administration in history has been so divided among itself about the direction it should go. what is the divide? the way president trump

as organizations, he will take the burden. he learns by the socratic method. he talks to a wide range of people. there will always be diverging views, and i think that is healthy. it is an environment for ideas that is positive. the one thing i disagree with, there has been a divide from the beginning. there is one group of people on -- they said all you have to do is do what you said you were going to do in these major areas, punch out one thing after another. you will keep your coalition together and we will add to it over time. another group said we will compromise and try to reach out to democrats and work on things we can do together. and water down the message. that is a better way to do it. charlie: do you deny the you , jared kushner,

and others their globalists? that is your term of contempt for them. yes? steve: it is not a term of contempt at all. charlie: you believe that those people, in a sense, are working against the president. the people the president wants at his side you believe, because they are globalists and believe in globalization -- steve: they believe the president's program could be better put forth by having it more in tune with the globalist financial arrangements we have today. they believe that to the core of their big -- being. some work they have done is positive. particularly in the middle east. what jared kushner did before the saudi trip with the uae, saudi arabia and 55 nations has

never been done in american history. was speech trump made because of what jared kushner did on day one. charlie: what about mcmaster? steve: we cannot be more diversion on our views. charlie: one thing you go back to, a constant drumbeat of criticism of the president's national security adviser. is that serving the president? steve: absolutely. the president needs to see diversion views, just like on the afghan situation. mcmasters has done a great job of curating. but i was very vocal from day one. that the american first, jacksonian foreign policy, there so so many obama-detailees, many from the national security

apparatus i believed he was not getting a full-throated defense. charlie: you are saying h.r. mcmaster, jared kushner, and trump the trump -- ivanka have your full support and you hope they are there in the white house speaking up for what they believe in? steve: absolutely. i think they are terrific people. in their ideas, as long as it is counterbalanced by the stephen millers and more economic nationalist, i think we will be fine. i have told the president this, if he goes to his default position and follows what he ran on and what he believes at the core of his being, not only is he going to have a massively successful first term, he will win a second term by a much bigger majority then -- than he

won the first. colorado is firmly within our grasp. all you have to do is keep with the program. he is never going to have something that just has one point of view. it is not the way he operates. he will call people up and get their opinion. ♪

charlie: there is an

, andtigation in congress one by robert mueller investigating russian influence in the election. what do you believe? it is a total and complete farce. russian collusion is a farce. charlie: did the russians try to influence the election? steve: maybe something they did have you seen the intelligence reports? charlie: have you? steve: i have. charlie: are you saying they do not suggest the russians try to influence? steve: i would never divulge classified information on this show. it is far from conclusive the russians had any impact on this election. charlie: that is not the question. did they try to influence the american election? that is what the investigation is about. steve: we will have to wait until the investigation is

finished. all of you out there hanging your hat on it, some big revelation, you will be sorely disappointed. senate and house intelligence committee, wait until they finish their report. they will get it to the public in time. today,n to think that mitch mcconnell and paul ryan ought to tell those committees, you wrap up your work and i want to see it in 90 days. does the president find it so hard to criticize russia? steve: this is what stuns me. i was a junior naval officer. when i was on a ship, we were set up to destroy soviet submarines. the soviet union collapsed in 1992. i am back in 2012 and the cold

war has not ended. i do not think the president goes out of his way. his point is, why pick another fight? we have enough problems around the world. he criticizes the russians all the time. he knows they are not good guys. he knows they are a kleptocracy. this is not a naive guide, he is -- guy, he is a man of the world. he does not put the russians on a pedestal. it is another fantasy of the opposition party. that is my point, i do not take the media seriously. it is a propaganda arm for the permanent political class. they make a mountain out of a mole hill. i think it was president obama's program, $1 trillion to upgrade the nuclear arsenal. is that where you want to spend your money? $1 trillion in cleveland,

baltimore, inner cities, where we need to spend it, the heartland? would you not rather spend it there, or on another cold war? that is where we are headed, and that is not acceptable. donald trump knows that. in a world of anarchy, do we need another enemy? do we need to insult people? charlie: james comey was fired, correct? steve: as i remember, yesterday. charlie: for you in favor of him being fired? it has been reported in the media i was adamantly opposed. charlie: in this case, they are right? steve: i am a big believer in the city that it is a city of institutions, not individuals. you have to look at it as institutions. thefbi is the institution, speaker of the house is an institution, the justice department is an institution. they have institutional logic of how to proceed. you cannot get caught up in individuals.

charlie: as soon as you say that , you have announced you want to go to war against mitch mcconnell, the leader of the senate. you want to go with -- go to war with him. he is the majority leader, you want to go to war with paul ryan, and he represents an institution? steve: yes. not want to you did go to war against a james comey because you thought he represented another institution, the fbi? is there a contradiction in that? steve: no. with mcconnell and ryan those institutions can be changed if the leadership changes. i do not believe the institutional logic at the fbi, in regards to an investigation, could possibly be changed by changing out the head of it. true, that is also if james comey had not been fired, we would not have the mueller investigation. true? isve: i do not think there

any doubt that if james comey had not been fired, we would not have this special counsel. charlie: we would not have the mueller investigation? steve: would not have the mueller investigation and the breadth mueller is going for. charlie: do you believe mr. mueller should be fired? steve: no. charlie: is there discussion about firing him? steve: i would not tell you about discussions in the white house. charlie: someone said to me you described to the firing of james comey, you are a student of history, as the biggest mistake in political history. steve: that would be too bombastic for even me, but maybe modern political history. charlie: the firing of james comey was the biggest mistake in modern political history. steve: if you're saying that is associated with me, leave it at that. charlie: because? steve: there is nothing to the

russian investigation. it is a waste of time. charlie: then what are you let the mueller investigation continue their investigation? steve: i did not say anything about the mueller investigation. mueller investigation is under the deputy attorney general and he has his own mandate. he has other people he is hiring. i never said anything about the mueller investigation, i am talking about investigations on capitol hill and powered by the establishment. they should have a very short life and get on with it. the house -- charlie: how can it be controlled by republicans? steve: who runs the house? shifts --epublican schiff. steve: they could not even name his name, they said they think

it is a guy from texas. adam schiff is running it. he is the one leaking the material every day. just like mark warner is unacceptable. if anything shows you the republican establishment does not have the back, and their donors, the pulsing ors of the world, do not have the back of the president, look at those committees. thes unacceptable in republican-controlled house and senate, they have open mandates to do what they will. i am not for shutting down these committees. i am forgiving a specific target, saying you have to have a joint report by both the republicans and democrats by a date. that should be thanksgiving. otherwise, it is a fishing expedition. it is unsatisfactory and unprecedented. this is how much they'll donald

trump in contempt. charlie: they? steve: republican leadership. hold him in contempt. where have a -- have they had his back? charlie: now that you are out of the white house you are going to work with it? steve: absolutely. you had you said influence in the white house, but at breitbart you have power. what is your power? steve: to galvanize the grassroots movement. i was very involved in the tea party in the grassroots movement, the conservative movement in this town, the heartland of this country. it is the single most important part of the coalition became together that elected donald trump. there what senator mccain called the hobbits. it is a forgotten man. it is a people that hold our churches together, our civic society. that grassroots conservative which the republican

establishment hold in contempt and has always held in contempt. they finally found a champion in donald trump. my purpose in breitbart and other organization is to galvanize the conservative movement. to tell them, you wanted -- it is not over. you have to fight every day. go is a will republican republican in 2020? steve: absolutely. he will win bigger. minnesota is going to fall, colorado. -- if hes what he accomplishes what he says to do, it is within human agency to do it, he will get 400 electoral votes in 2020. charlie: the democrats are trying to nullify the election? mcconnell and paul ryan.

the leadership is trying to nullify. charlie: to what end? to get their former colleague as president? steve: they are trying to nullify this to get their own program instituted first, and see what happens later. they do not want donald trump's populist, nationalist agenda to be implement it. it is very obvious. it is as obvious as night follows day. he said in one, of the first meetings in trump i do with the president, not want to hear more of this brainless talk. flat out. a guy on capitol hill cannot buy a koke unless he is going to be recorded. i cannot hire smart people because they have reporting requirements and the pay, etc. and the scrutiny. was,rain the swamp thing mitch mcconnell day one did not want to go there.

the president has brought up this thing, the filibuster, the 60 vote role is blocking his potential legislation. have to go through backflips with very technical stuff. with other bills you have to pass to get around the 60 vote requirement. mitch mcconnell is letting him know, not interested. charlie: what are you going to do? steve: galvanize the grassroots. you did this before and supported a primary challenge and saw what happened in kentucky. he lost by 20 points. steve: he did lose by 20 points, his first time in politics. he was also governor in kentucky, arising populist star in the political firmament. drain the swamp slogan, it will not plate -- take place over one election cycle. this will take 20 or 30 years to sort out. we want guys that can get the

clock cleaned against mitch mcconnell. mcconnell's approval rating today in kentucky is 18%. we're going to support the mooreoots movement, judge down in alabama. charlie: he is not trump's candidate. he is supporting his opponent. presidentyal to the and his program, you go to alabama and you are on different sides. steve: the president will be the first of tell you, he has not endorsement do any since the first round took place. he is stepping aside on this. that lutherds strange signed the agreement that mcconnell had to support the filibuster, he understands judge moore is more on his side.

people not supporting the president's agenda, that are coming up for election in 2018, they are to understand they will get primary. the grasp -- grassroots movement is already looking. you see announcements in nevada and arizona, there will be announcements -- charlie: presidential support? rip apart the republican party? all, to runt grassroots come populist and economic nationalists is not -- it is rejuvenating the republican party. the republican party could not win national elections. john mccain, a war hero, was incapable of winning national elections. coalition, particularly in the upper midwest of working-class people,

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washington, and you are watching "bloomberg technology." we start with a check of your "first word news." after dining with the president at the white house senate , democratic leader chuck schumer and house minority leader nancy pelosi say they reached a deal with trump to protect children brought into the u.s. by undocumented immigrants from deportation. >> one of our most productive discussions was on the daca program. we agreed on a framework. andassed daca protections additional security measures, excluding the wall. alisa: the white house says there is no deal on daca. adjust asked for