wednesday, several of president trump's judicial nominees testify at a confirmation hearing. we hear from u.s. solicitor general nominee noel francisco and two assistant attorney general nominees. our live coverage begins at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. you can also follow online on c-span.org and on the c-span radio app. c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's public television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. now a panel on president trump's first 100 days in office. panelists focussed on his domestic policy agenda, compared to his campaign promises. the university of southern

california's institute of politics hosted this event with former hillary clinton campaign advi adviser ron klain and ron christy, among others. this is about 90 minutes. my name is morris levy, assistant professor of political science here. and thanks for everyone coming. differen dennis and bob for all their hard work. political science research has shown that judges' sentencing tends to be harshest right before lunch. i assume that similar patterns hold for political discussions. so my pledge to you is that we'll make up some time in the air and aim for a safe landing by 12:30 and hopefully you won't have to throw anyone offer the flight along the way. oh, no. let me begin by introducing our very distinguished panel, which

in the spirit of this conference combines some luminaries from academia, with people who have really rich experience in the political world. so, to begin, going, again, from left to right, not necessarily in ideological order, matthew khan is a professor of economics, spatial studies and environmental science, ron christie, a former special assistant to george w. bush. jane dunn is political science professor. and and the lieutenant governor. maybe we can just go, starting from left to right.

i'm interested in getting everyone's take. general question, the trump campaign was unlike any other in modern american history. i think we can all agree on that. so i'd like to begin by asking our panelists, since this is a panel on trump at home. how have the first 100 days mirrored the unconventional nature of the campaign or have they at all? in what ways have, has what we've seen from trump broken with his predecessors sharply? and in what ways are they about par for the course. fairly ordinary for our contemporary politics? >> so very briefly, i'm an economist. economists are used to being relatively powerful in washington. and it's fascinated me and many economists that i know that academic economists do not seem to be playing a major role in policy deliberations. and so i, i, that's a surprise to me. it might be a statement about

our value added. and so i, something that i teach my students here is we can only know the effectiveness of a public policy if we have variation. so president trump, by changing public policies, we're learning a lot about the effectiveness of public policies. we're creating a control group. but to an economist, these very interesting days, because there an a literature in economics about uncertainty that investment can freeze-up when there is uncertainty about where political winds are going, and president trump who's been a very successful businessman and is thinking about how to make the economy grow, i hope that he anticipates some of these unintended consequences of his policies. you know, i think there are three things that have kind of really stood out from this period. donald trump came to the white house as the president least owing anything to a major political party in 50, 60 years.

the most independent of both parties. he had opportunity to governor in a bipartisan way, watched democrats trains up to trump tower during the transition. even liberals were saying we want to work with you on infrastructure and he's governed as a very traditional republican. he's aligned himself with mitch mcconnell and paul ryan, unlike president bush or president obama he didn't put a member of the opposite party in his cabinet. i think the second thing that's really surprised me is how much he's really abandoned his economic populist agenda in these first 100 days. he started off attacking health care, not infrastructure. he's re-stoke the up some of these cultural wars on immigration, of course, but really hasn't delivered. on october 22nd, he outlined ten things that were economically related he tried to get done in the first 100 days. nine of them he didn't send to congress in the first 100 days,

let alone get done. he really hasn't tried. personnel, there's never dna modern president who's done less to staff his government than donald trump. that will have consequences if there's some kind of crisis, some kind of thing. as crazy and tumultuous as the first 100 days have been, he's been spared a major crisis. he will find the lights are out and nobody's home in a lot of these agencies, that's going to be a problem. >> i want to thank my friend bob shrum for the invitation to come out. three quick points that really bear, when you hook at the first 100 days and similarities between the previous administrations and where we are now. the bush presidency in 2001, there were a lot of people who questioned bush's legitimacy, a lot of democrats who were very upset, hey, we won. there were a lot of democrats

who were really upset by what happened in florida. i was down on one side, he weighs down was down on the other. but the first couple the second, as the other ron mentioned, personnel. my chief of staff of staff used to say that personnel's policy and policy is personnel. one of the thing that has struck me by this white house, by having been into it and talking to colleagues, is that there is nobody there. you walk into the white house and you see all these offices and they're dark. there is new computer equipment, chairs there, and staffers waiting to be seated but they're not there. to put that into perspective, of the 16 executive branch agencies, we only have two deputy secretaries. you wonder who is really doing the work. so the lights are on and the work's not getting done is something i find really

intriguing at this point. the third point is, this is obviously the twitter presidency. bushes are noun for discipline and for staying on message. i've never seen a president of the united states and i don't think we have ever seen a president who takes to twitter to get their message out. that certainly is pleasing to trump supporters, gives a lot of people in communication jobs heartburn, and gives the media and all of us something to talk about. >> morris, you asked the question of whether this is par for the course and the extent to which we can use previous presidencies as a frame of reference as to how to judge this president in the first 100 days or judge more generally. i think i would build on ron's argument or observation about the uniqueness of this particular president, within the context in which we live. all of us think these are amazing times, because these are the only times we are living in.

if we have lived in the 1800s, we would have thought those elections were amazing as well. what we have now in the age we exist in as a student said to me, people say things because they want to get noticed. people do things to get attention, rather than wanting to be right, using facts, reasoning or saying something useful, they instead say things to be noticed and to get attention. i think in some respects, this particular change in the communications technology and the ways in which parties and the media have changed help to increase the extent to which a person and the personality of the president we have now can eertsz abuse this element of communication technology or use it to his advantage. the ways in which we are the same as always is that there has always been polarization,

partisan polarization. there's always been. it has always been the case that anybody who is a republican engages in motivated reasoning. that's a good thing he did. on the other hand if it's a democrat it's a bad thing that the democrats do. so motivated reasoning, as well as confirmation bias, have always existed. these are general, long-standing psychological processes. those are no different. the partisan polarization we see, the distinction and differences of approval or disapproval by party, should not be surprising to us. these are normal aspects of politics. having said that and turning back to the original point about the extent to which people today who want to be popular, who would like to get a's, say things to be noticed rather than because they might be true or not true. i think it is useful to think

about that within the context of a person who is not only the leader of this country but who is the mouthpiece for his political party, and the significance of all of these statements, whether well-founded or not, based in reality, done at 3:00 in the morning, driven by whatever sentiment they are driven by -- are nevertheless things that will continue to follow this president and this party will continue to teach young voters, like our students, new immigrant voters -- 20% of the u.s. population is immigrant or the child of an immigrant -- as introducing to u.s. politics that this is how a president behaves, this is how a republican president behaves. that's the lesson and one of the consequences of a communications strategy such as this. >> thank you for having me here. i was asked to say a few words. obviously, i come from san luis obispo county and you had to dig deep to find somebody who would talk about in good term for

donald trump and it's great to be here. i want you to know that as 20 years of public service myself, coming from the private sector, i have been watching what has been going on back in d.c. i've had the opportunity to meet president trump. it's not who i see on tv, sometimes, fact of the matter. when i have one-on-one conversations, he is very locked on the conversation, very smart, understands the issues. when he comes out of the office, obviously, it's a different person and i -- why do i say this? i was lieutenant governor with arnold schwarzenegger, and i see a lot of the same. he is a businessman first. you have to understand where he comes from. and when you see -- we've heard earlier there are a lot of positions that are vacant. putting my businessman hat on, i would venture to guess he sees that as savings for the federal

government when it comes for resources. luckily there hasn't been a crisis because that's when the rubber hits the road. if you look at the president today, in his first 100 days, here is a man who was never elected to office. ever. you look at the previous president, president barack obama, obviously didn't have executive branch experience but he was a state senator and he was a u.s. senator and he had experience. you look at president bush -- he was a governor. andy card was also an elected official at one point in time. he was a secretary of transportation, very knowledgeable. then you have president trump, who comes into the oval office he didn't have a transition team in place because i think they probably didn't think they were going to win. so they come in fresh. he hires a chief of staff who does not have government experience either. 45-year-old chairman of a party. and then you have some advisers

who have been around him for a long, long time, who have zero government experience. so i'm speaking as an outsider today because i'm not in office but if i go to the parts store in my community, they love it. but if i go to los angeles and speak to an institute, there are a lot of questions about, why is this happening? it gives you a flavor of the dynamics of what we have today. if you ask me, what has he accomplished in the first 100 days? well, he has nominated and appointed a 49-year-old judge, who is going to be there for 30 years or more. that is a huge accomplishment for him that he can tout for a long, long time. people want to know about immigration -- one of my biggest issues, my passion. i am sad with some of the things that have been said, but i think there's an opportunity here to work on immigration. i think there is a lot of places where people are saying, he is trying to correct himself.

if you go back and look at arnold schwarzenegger there are some similarities here. let me share with you. maybe you have caught on or maybe you have not. most politicians want to be liked. most movie stars want to be loved. if you look at when arnold was speaking, he would always talk in the third term. when schwarzenegger wants to do this. you never hear mitch mcconnell saying when mitch wants do this or nancy pelosi wants to do something, she doesn't say nancy wants to do that. you hear trump say, trump wants to do this. bottom line, they are brands. when a brand takes a hit, there is a correction in who they are. when arnold got his brand hit, there was a correction. i think president trump is going through a correction. and i think joel talked about earlier today, the base is worried is he going to go left? and that's the big question today that i think as where america is going to go.

do the upper east side new yorkers take over or does he continue to tout to the base as i think you were talking about, he has been the president just for republicans. kind of my feeling where i'm coming from, i want to be the voice up here of the outsider who is not in office, who is a farmer, who is a viticulturist who says maybe there is a change. also as the author of proposition 14 in california, because i believe the biggest problem facing america today is partisanship. i think there is a hidden tax on partisanship, because republicans go into a caucus room and worry about electing republicans a known -- and not worried about the economy and democrats go into a caucus and do the exact same thing. and we lose, as the people of this great state and country. we'll go into other questions as well. >> thanks very much. a couple of the themes that seemed to come out of this were staffing is fairly unorthodox.

to some extent in some offices there's nobody home, period. and communication strategy. i wonder if i can ask. i'm happy with any of the panelists jumping in on this, to what extent and how specifically have these two id owe cinchsi idiosyncrasies of the trump administration may be helped or hurt the president in moving some of his signature agenda items forward? anyone who would like to jump in. >> on staffing, if you -- you got to look at the president first. this is a man who is running a multibillion dollar company with 30 people. of those 30 people, probably one third of them were his family. and it's -- it's where he's coming from. and where his trust is and where he feels, not understanding that the federal government is a huge, huge operation, with

some -- i think i read the number of 550 people that are -- need senate confirmation that haven't even been nom natd. that's a big thing that he neats to correct and i think he will. now some people on my side of the aisle will say, it's a democrats that don't allow him to do it. no, he has got to nominate them. then you have the democrats saying, he is not nominating them, he does not have anybody qualified. well, that's just both sides of the aisle trying to come. i think we are going to see movement in the next month. i think he's been focusing on these 100 days. to be frank with you, outside this room or the city, i have never heard somebody come to me and say, the 100 days are the most important days of the presidency. i think it could set the tone, but when his four years are up, they are going to judge him on what he did over the four years. but the staffing thing, it is mind-boggling to some, but to some others, goes back to what you said.

there hasn't been a crisis so there hasn't been a situation where he needs to ramp up and move quickly. but it is a challenge. i see him coming back to people that he believes have some kind of business experience, that hopefully will help them. and then you look at -- you appoint a secretary and the secretary might have a discretion on who the deputy is. well, that doesn't work. when i was arnold's lieutenant-governor, we worked together. if you don't work together, a fortune 500 company doesn't work that way. so, those are the challenges that i see as we move forward and the staffing being a huge issue. i hope it is corrected soon, and i think it will be. i think -- look, when we left sacramento, arnold told me something i'll never forget. jerry brown was sworn in, beautiful ceremony. he said, i really liked this job.

but it took him five or six years for him to say that. president trump is going to say the same thing. he is going to love this job. they love these jobs, these folks that are like them, but it is going to take some time. right now, i don't think they are there. >> yes? >> so let me try to put this in perspective for you and ron knows this very well. there is nothing more unusual than showing up to the white house on day one, because there is no instruction manual. there's no -- this is how you are the deputy domestic policy adviser to the vice president of the united states. you show up in your office and there is literally nothing in your office except for a band around your computer that says this is the property of the gao and everything here will be recorded. that's it. as you try to sketch out, how can i serve the president, if you don't have the personnel in place, you are in a very, very

bad spot. i look at this administration and i look at the president and say, you've got to stop the infighting. there was a fascinating article on the front page of the "washington post" that i largely believe that there are different camps going on. you have got ivanka and jared, bannon in another corner, some holdovers from the bush administration. they are all signing off on the most minor of appointments. the president of the united states needs to have a position in place that allows the opportunity to get the senior people nominated, as the governor said, and sent to the senate as soon as possible. for most importantly, to have the political personnel in place in the agencies that can take direction from the white house and fulfill the president's agenda. i think he's being ill served by his staff for that infighting. ron and i work for a very headstrong vice president and presidents, but you recognize at

the end of the day it's not about you, it's about their agenda and what they're trying to achieve. the infighting and stories you hear about that are really undermining and under serving this president. as it relates to communications, this is another area where his staff needs to pick up the ball and recognize it is not about them, it is about the president. for us, we used to have message meetings three times a week. the first one, he talked about what we would do next week, the next one you talk about what you're going to do next month and the final one you talk about what you're going to the the next three months. if you have an integrated communication strategy with a policy message, then the american people can understand what you are trying to accomplish. but when you are doing communications via twitter and having the press secretary having to correct or amend or otherwise contradict what the president has just tweeted, you're in a really bad spot and the news is then driving your message as opposed to you driving the news. >> i want to pick up with

something that the professor said earlier. this does feel like the kardashian presidency. he is desperate for attention, tweets things that are patently untrue. and that's why most of the polls, even republicans say he's the most dishonest president we've had in modern times. he lies almost every day. that is not a good thing for president. even if some of those lies rally his supporters and appease his voters and are red meat for his base, ultimately, it erodes his credibility as president. there will come a day when he will want that credibility, and it won't be there because he squandered it on ridiculous things like saying barack obama spied on him in 2016. so i think that's one problem with this whole mode of communications he has. i do think the governor schwarzenegger model is an interesting model.

i think one thing that governor schwarzenegger did was he reached out to democrats and tried to governor in a bipartisan way. the understood he could not just do it with republicans and needed bipartisanship. that is what i expected from donald trump, in the model of governor arnold schwarzenegger and bloomberg of new york. i think there are a lot of models for that. and that's not the path he's chosen. now final point i want to make about 100 days. and the 100 day thing matters because is it a benchmark of sort and in fairness, donald trump did tell people in the campaign, i will do things in 100 days. he picked the standard. it was his campaign message. but it would be a mistake to conclude that because these things haven't happened in 100 days, he can't fix them. anyone who has underestimated donald trump has suffered a bad price for that. i think it is still in his power to change direction and to fix

some of these things and to correct the course of his presidency is on. will he do it? you know, i don't know that anyone knows. i don't even know if he even knows. but he still has 1360 days to functi fix what was wrong in the first 100. >> following up on that for abel and then jane, is trump hurting himself in pushing his agenda by having maybe damaged his credibility in a variety of ways. there is the staffing issue, staff infighting, the sometimes bizarre late night or early morning twitter screeds. is this hurting trump as he goes forward or is there maybe a method in the madness? >> it is who he is. it is who he was before the campaign, it's who he was during the campaign. people say she tweeted at 7:30

in the morning because it was saturday and he didn't have his caretakers around him. he's been tweeting at 7:30 in the morning for six, seven years. how can i put this? he is learning on the job. he might not want to say that, but he is learning on the job. and then soon, he'll start -- believe it or not -- soon he'll start doing repetitions, here's the budget again, here's the deadline for this. and he'll start to get the hang of his job. before you know it, don't underestimate him. don't underestimate what he is doing. i mean, it just came out right now, 30 minutes ago that the freedom caucus is now supporting obamacare repeal. well i'm not going to believe that until i see it. i served with freedom caucus members in sacramento and they'll say one thing and when

the vote comes up it's a different ball game. they have to check with lobbyists, just like the left and so forth. i don't see it as hurting him. this is how donald trump, this is how president trump operates and is going to continue to operate. he is going to fix some things here and there, but at the end of the day, he is the nucleus, the one making the decisions. let me just share something. i'm in business, i've been in business before politics. i remember, we are going to do this tomorrow? and guess what, we are going to do it tomorrow. in government, the one thing i think president trump is going to learn real soon is that government was designed by our founding fathers to move really, really slow. it took me eight years to figure it out. you take little bites of the apple every year, and maybe after five or six years you get the whole apple and have some satisfaction on federal government issues and state government issues. i think he will learn that and we'll figure it out real soon, because he is very smart.

the question is, how soon and when can we get some relief from some of this twitter stuff? that people think he's going to stop -- he's not going to stop. >> nope. >> he's 70. [ laughter ] >> he's on twitter. he's on instagram. he's on facebook. and he communicates. and in his mind -- let me just -- i don't know this for a fact -- in his mind, he knows how many readers the "los angeles times" has. and in his mind, when he tweets something he is getting out more of his message than the "los angeles times" has. that's how i believe he feels. so he's going to keep going. i'm sure if he sees a tweet from somebody else and things, that make sense, retweet. >> i would like to bring jane in here. >> please. >> i guess, part of what i'm driving at with these questions is the difference between being loved, which most people seem to think president trump wants,

maybe even being feared and pressing forward an agenda. is there a method to the madness and which of those aims does it serve and are those aims intentional? >> i have never met donald trump, have not observed him, so i care not to draw any inferences about what his personality is and instead i will provide a different kind of answer to that. i am a political scientist, so i'm not that involved in day-to-day politics, as you know if you have taken my courses. what i am involved with and interested in -- not that we are not interested in day-to-day politics -- but we are looking for are larger and broader patterns. we're looking at systemic evidence that helps us to understand the significance of those actions. so as a person who studies political behave and attitudes, the one we are trying to understand is what are the cumulative effects of these

strategies. as a person who studies clinical behavior, we are trying to understand what the team live affect is of this strategy. if he wants to be loved, if he has some other complex because he was raised in a box, who knows, let's leave that to the biographers. the point of what we can do as scholars and students and informed observers of politics is to try to understand what the longer-term implications are of this form of communications strategy, the intensity and tenor of it. and when morris asks the question of, will he lose credibility. of course the answer has to be given within the context of who are you talking about? to fervent supporters of trump, i would argue it may help him. two informed political observers, the likelihood it will help him is relatively low. this emanates from the question and perspective of, what is the content of those communications? over time, if the president continues to provide commentary such as the former president wiretapped him or other elements

that are equally as dericive, divisive, accusatory or defensive and to the extent that the media coverage about that only follows those, i think there can be a long-term deleterious effect, not only on the image and credibility of the president and his supporters but certainly among people who are long-term consistent voters. those are the voters that are the most important in off-presidential year elections. i understand we will discuss this later in the last panel of the day. but furthermore also to the extent we're talking about a re-election run for this president in 2020 which will start in only about 18 months. one has to think about who it is we are talking about and if and to the extent that the president decides to tweet other things that are potentially less derisive, divisive, accusatory, defensive, it would probably be

useful for people to cover that as well. i'm sure he tweets nice things, i'm sure he tweets con garage tour messages. someone is analyzing that, i'm sure, at this moment. nervous the answ-- nevertheless answer to the question and the inferences we can draw based on the systematic data have to be about the long-term consequences, what you feel today might be different by the time 18 months have gone by and you are about ready to vote for the next president or senators who represent the political party of the president. >> thank you. i would like to switch gears a little bit to talk about particular agenda items for trump domestically. i will start with matthew khan. going off your comment earlier about the distinct absence of economists surrounding the president. i would like to turn to the topic on everybody's mind, tax reform. and so, the question i'd like to

ask beyond sort of what are the prospects for reform and why has trump apparently proposed something that seems to have very little chance of making its way through congress unaltered -- i also would like to ask what role would experts ordinarily play in the design of this legislation and where do you see the impact of those missing voices in the design and strategy of this particular piece of legislation? i should offer as a caveat that trump was going to have a meeting on this today, so if there are recent developments, i am unaware. >> so in "the new york times" today, arthur laffer makes a comeback. i don't know if everyone has read it or is focusing on the clippers loss. arthur laffer -- i am forgetting the name for this group of economists -- he proposed that by cutting taxes, we could raise revenue. and so, we're about to get

another test of the laffer curve. and at the basis -- what economists know is that many of our social problems could go away if the economy could grow by 4% a year. as the baby boomers age, entitlement issues, we could finance these, invest more in the poor and inner cities, if the economy were growing by 4% year. i think a fundamental issue that i don't know the answer to and i apologize for my ignorance. i need to get a second ph.d. if there is a tax reform that president bush is pushing for, will we get a macro stimulus? will we get the economic growth and is promised? this is a new age of humility for economists. or at least the economists on this side of the table. i know i don't know the answer of what we would get from a tax cut. i think a very interesting question is, when you know that you don't know -- when the experts know that they don't

know what we will get from a policy, how do you proceed? if the goal is greater economic growth, i hope we can achieve that goal, but the tax reform, too many macroeconomists, remains an open question what we will actually gain. >> a follow-up for the two rons and abel. how do you proceed when you don't know what you don't know, and on an issue like this, and, you know, where -- where does this leave trump politically to be in this position of not necessarily knowing the full consequences of these sorts of proposals and is there any chance to get the sort of bipartisan cooperation on tax reform down line that people have come to associate with, let's say, the reagan era. >> you start with what you promised voters in the campaign. i am less interested in the

core base trump voters. they are for him and will always be for him. he won because there are voters who dislike that stuff but were willing to vote for him because they thought he would deliver change. what i can tell you is, virtually none of those working-class voters in pennsylvania, michigan and wisconsin who said the most important thing i need the next president to do is to lower the tax rate for big corporations to the lowest number in the history of our country. i doubt anyone showed up on a cold day in pennsylvania in november to put this man in the oval office to make the centerpiece of his economic plan a corporate tax-cut. so, you know, he promised the voters a middle class tax cut and promised he would fight to get it passed in the first 100 days. he has not even put one forward. government does move slowly, but on day 30 of the obama presidency, he signed into law a $300 billion middle-class tax cut. it can be done. and i think something like that

probably would have bipartisan support. but if his agenda really is corporate tax breaks and big cut in the corporate right i think he will find a lot of fighting on capitol hill. the last thing i will say on this -- i think democrats would be wise -- i wrote a column to this effect in the "washington post" so you know i'm certain about it because i put in the "washington post." i think democrats would be wise to call his bluff on the link between the corporate tax cut and job creation. if that is what he is going to put forward, then the role should be, if you are a corporation and you don't make new jobs, you lose your tax cut. if you make more jobs overseas than you make a home, you should lose your tax cut. there are a lot of ways to hold trump to his own standards about job creation as the tax reform debate plays out, and i hope democrats do. >> i take a different tack. i find it fascinating, everyone

focusing on donald trump, the first 100 days, what is the president doing? i look at this in a different perspective and i say, this is the ryan speakership and the mcconnell-led senate. we have a republican congress, we have a republican in the white house. what in the heck are they doing in congress? right? paul ryan -- full disclosure, dear friend of mine -- put together a plan called a better way last year. this is what the republicans ran on. you can find it on speaker.gov. you can find this. they talk about health care reform. none of that is what in president trump is trying to do. they talk about tax reform. none of that is in what president trump is talking about. there is a rift that is starting to develop beneath is scenes that is not being reported, the rift between congressional republicans and the white house. it is getting more pronounced. i had dinner with a good friend of mine, a member of congress

from new york who told me, the trump people do not talk to us. they say, you have got to pass the bill within the first 100 days, and they're not as interested in the specifics. and the trump people come to us and say we got to get a tax bill done. we'll put out a tax bill next week. wait a second, we have not gone to ways and means. we haven't marked anything up in senate finance. there's an interesting dynamic that is at play today. the tax plan is almost like his shot across the bow of congress -- you have not acted, now i'm going to use my bully pulpit. to get you to act. so be on the lookout for how republicans -- it's those old cartoons, spy versus pie, now it's republican versus republican. see how they are able to interact with each other and govern or not govern. >> would you like to jump in on this? i'm curious about this kind of republican versus republican strategy, shot across the bow. is this a wise strategy? as trump tries to push his

agenda and is something we are likely to see more of going forward? >> the presidential election is not for another three years. the republican congressmen are in about 18 months. so, i've been a politician. i know what i'm worried about a what i'm getting ready to vote for something. i'm worried about, are my voters going to vote for me because i want to keep my job. because it is the best job i have ever had. so, yeah, i think we're going to continue to see that because they're very concerned. i mean, i think this race in georgia woke up a lot of republicans. and they said, if this guy who is not even living in the district can come close to winning, that means our message might not be great across america so we're going the change our tune. if you listen to donald trump in his campaign -- do we remember his campaign? -- the first thing out of the box was, we are going to repeal obamacare. yay. that was his message. and then he came back and he said, we're going to give a tax

cut. he didn't say how big but he said a tax cut, yay. then he said, we're going to repeal obamacare, supreme court justice, i'm going to be elected because i'm going to give you a conservative supreme court justice and then he says we're going to build a wall and mexico's going to pay for it. he says, we are going to have a trillion-dollar infrastructure proposal. that was his message, why he got elected. so now he's coming back and saying, yeah, i mean, i don't know if the 15% tax cut's going to work. it's not going to work -- if it doesn't work it's because the congress says no to him. because he wants 15% because that is how he operates. he believes that 15% to corporations will allow them to start the generators and create all the jobs, and all of a sudden, we will have all this income which we can fund all the programs like we were talking about earlier today. and that's what he believes.

so the question is, is he going to work with congress and is there going to be some bipartisanship? i don't see it for the near future, until there is a big failure. if you go back to arnold, he came in with the same message. if you remember his message, he was campaigning with a broom and the state saying i'm going to sweep all these politicians out of sacramento. he called them girlie men. then he came out and said we're going to eliminate the vehicle license fee and he did. until you said, i'm going to take on the whole world. he did his initiatives and took on fire and he took on police and he took on the nurses and he took on every labor organization and he lost. and that's when the transformation came in to play in california. >> if i could follow on to that point a little bit. i guess, from my extensive reading of "the art of the deal"

one of the signature pieces of advice is come in with a big proposal that goes beyond what you expect to get and always be ready to walk away from the table. a couple of times, we have seen trump do what was once unthinkable, to pull the plug on something. to back off. we saw that on the repeal and replace of obamacare. and we recently saw it in the negotiations to avoid a government shutdown, where it seems, anyway, that trump has backed off the wall as an immediate -- as something he is insisting on immediately. is this kind of tragedy typical of going big and then if necessary, going home on an issue. and what does it do to a president's bargaining position vis-a-vis congress? anyone can jump in. >> i'll start. we expected and art of the deal presidency. so far, we have seen very little art and no deals, so that is a

big problem for him. i think he has to get -- to be a successful president, you have to get things done. it is not much more complicated than that. to get things done in washington with problems with republicans, some difficult democrats, you have to make deals. so far, he has been unable -- unwilling or unable -- but in the end, unable. that is something he is going to have to change, or else he is going to rack up a no-accomplishment presidency. supreme court justice is a big accomplishment, particularly for his conservative voters. he has foreign policy and executive orders at his disposable -- at his disposal. but to deliver promises he made, he has to start to get deals done. he can't keep on blustering and walking away.

that's not a formula for success. >> let me echo and amplify that point. in the presidency, you have such immense power at your disposal to actually cut the deal and using the power of the presidency to cut those negotiations off at a certain point and say, let's just get done. let me give you an example for president bush. his signature compliment was no child left behind. a bipartisan effort to reform the education system in america. what was the first thing he did? he called up then senator kennedy and say what is it going to take for me to get a deal with you to co-response my legislation and get it through the senate and send it through the house? he sat down with george miller, congressman from california, and said, what is it going to take for you to support my bill and get it through the house? the president was very wise of using the power of the white house. what was one of the earlier things he did?

he invited the entire kennedy family to the white house for a screening of the movie "13 days" before it came out to get some love from the kennedys. he renamed the department of justice after bobby kennedy. there are certain ways of president can empower people through favors. everyone loves riding on air force one. but the art of the negotiation is finding a way to break bread. i think president trump would be well advised to sit down with nancy pelosi, to sit down with chuck schumer and say, what are some principle we can all agree on and move from there. it worked for us, it worked for the clinton administration. and i think it could work for the trump administration. >> one brave thing -- senator kennedy's successor -- one brief thing -- senator kennedy's successor is elizabeth warren. when the president invited democrats to the white house. he began by saying i guess the face of your party is pocahontas

now. a racial epithet fired at senator kennedy's successor. that is not how he is going to get things done. >> i wanted to make one last point with respect to expectations, given the structure of government today. the structure of government with respect to party. who is in power. previous presidents have worked under circumstances of divided government and divided supreme court. under republican administrations with a supreme court primarily conservative. in this case, one way to think about the expectations for accomplishment, whether it's 100 days or the full 365 times four would be to consider the circumstances under which this president is operating. he has both houses of congress by good majorities. he has the supreme court. he also has nearly 3/5 of the state houses across the united states. under the circumstances of a structure of government that is relatively unified under the

republican party, one could argue -- one could argue -- that the expectations for legislative accomplishment done through congress, rather than through executive order should be much higher. >> is president trump getting in his own way and coming up short relative to the expectations? >> you know, i think, he's -- like i said earlier, i think he's learning the job. i think he's learning where he's going. and i think if you look at, we're talking about how george w. bush did this in the first 100 days, he is a former governor. he understood this in texas. i think as time goes on, he will start to get victories. i think eventually he'll get to the point where he'll understand either the hard way by losing the house, working with democrats, or by the different way -- a different way by saying, you know what, i got to work with some democrats, we got to get this job done. we are going to bet some

victories. might not be as big as i want them, but america needs to move forward. he is going to get there. he is not there today. obviously, those comments at the white house, those are not productive. i'm sure somebody is telling him, that's not productive. it is just going to take some time. one of the things he is going through -- look, when i got to sacramento, it was 1998. i don't want you to take this the wrong way, but we had some folks there we called the cavemen. they had been in office for a long time, and they fought like hell on the floor. but when the floor was over with, we were best friends, democrats and republicans. you look at washington today. everything is a fight. everything is a gotcha. everything is about party, not country. and he's dealing with that. i think once he figures that out, i think maybe he will say, wait a minute, we have got to change course and get the job done.

either he is going to do it, or the american people are going to force him to by giving the house to the other party. >> let me follow up on that and asked the panelists if they think they can identify one area in which president trump has developed, grown into the role on the job or if they think he has in any way. let's start going from left to right again. oh, excuse me. we have lost a panelist. i forgot to mention that >> he didn't like my comments. professor kahn was going to have to leave midway through. i apologize for that. ron klain, has he grown at all? >> i mean, it's hard to see it so far. i do think that in the area of national security, where he has the strongest team, obviously putting in someone who is on russia's payroll as your na

national security adviser was not a great move. but he has corrected that and now has a well-respected team. he has certainly been getting up to speed there more quickly. that would be one area where we could say he is listening to advisers, looks like he is taking that seriously. but i am a little bit torn about this question that we're debating about whether or not he is going to change or he's not going to change. and you can't learn if you don't change and so far, he's not really changing. >> i agree with ron. i think the area that he has shown a capacity to really grow in his role has been in the national security and the diplomatic front. i think it was very important for him to establish a good rapport with the president of china, given how the north koreans have destabilized the region and given their potential influence in that region of not only pluf rating weapons of mass

destruction but actually deploying them, that i'm encouraged that the chinese have been more supportive and open to the united states as a partner, same thing with israel. on the domestic front, i think it is easy to criticize her predecessor about the use of executive power and orders, and then once you get in that job yourself, you find, i'm going to issue 32 myself in the first 100 days. i think the president needs to find a way to cobble together some legislative victories to prove it is not just by executive fiat but that he can work with the congress to enact legislation. he's got a long way to go but i'm encouraged. i want him to be successful. i want him to succeed. you heard some republicans early on under president obama say, i hope the president fails. if the president fails, the country fails. and so, while mr. trump certainly has an idiosyncratic style -- i think is the polite way to put it -- i want him to find his way and

want him to find his wings to find a way to bring the american people together to get some accomplishments for all of us. >> identify something he's learned. let's start with a comparison between the first version of the executive order restricting travel from muslim-dominant countries to the second version. you could argue that the use and recognition of federal procedures, the use of the justice department, the use of a few lawyers was useful under those circumstances. i would identify a relatively narrow one. as you know, there is an injunction against the second executive order as well, but you could argue there has been some progress, if not the president himself, then those around him understanding federal procedures and what a constitutional question might be. having said that i just want to provide to response in a bit to

what some of the lieutenant governor has said. that we shouldn't have high expectations, he is new, he was a businessman. to the contrary, my position on this is not whether he succeeds or not, whether he gets an a or a d or a f, but instead, as americans, we should have i -- high expectations of our president. we shouldn't say, well, gee, he's a businessman and he's got a wacky temperament. this is the most powerful political person in the united states and potentially the world as well. the person has a responsibility for 300 million americans as well as others. in that regard, that responsibility should require high expectations, not low, expectations because the office has potential for tremendous good as well as bad. i do think, and i hope, that the learning curve is steep, not only for this president but for his staff. furthermore, that we should not give up and say, he is just learning.

he better learn quick, because this is a position for which all of us -- whether we voted for him or not -- he is the president of all americans, not just a republicans. [ applause ] >> before agii give you a chanco respond i would like to just pile on and point out that trump himself as a candidate talked about he wouldn't need this kind of learning curve. he alone could fix these things. he knew how the system worked. >> i am speaking for myself, as a person who came off a farm and became a state senator. it took me some time to learn. i came in with the same message, running sacramento like a business. well, it's a great line. i said it at the time. once i got to sacramento -- government does not run like a business. it took me some time to have a learning curve. what i'm saying here is when i

say give him some time, i'm not saying give him four years. he is getting his ground. he said his biggest mistake has been my messaging, not explaining. he said i'm giving myself a "c." just that right there tells me he's coming around. let's not forget, the american people have a choice not long ago, to choose the most prepared person to take that job, who had all the experience to run that efficiently with all the experience an they said no to her and said yes to this man. so what i'm saying is that it's not that i'm going to give him all this time. he's been successful with some of the things he's been been doing. he's going to repeal obamacare. it might not be how he said it. there is going to be a tax-cut. and if there is not, then guess what? then i don't think he will be there for four years. so he's going to make some changes. he's going to make them soon. all i can say is that -- during

the campaign, i was mind-boggled as well when trump came on the scene. i had heard a song by bob dylan. it said, "times, they are achanging." i went back and read the lyrics. and times, they are changing. he is a product of times that are changing. he is going to learn quickly, and we are going to see good things, i believe. they have got to be bipartisan, and if they are not, they are not going to work. >> thanks. since we are in california, the heart of the resistance, i want to ask a question about how trump's agenda has run into opposition in the states and in localities. and specifically, on issues such as immigration and the environment and even marijuana. we see a lot of tension between the administration's objectives and what governors and mayors

seem willing to countenance. how is that going to play out? when push comes to shove, who has the upper hand on these issues? i will start with abel. >> well, first of all, i think president trump has a tremendous opportunity to work on immigration. it -- i said earlier that it's my position. my father came to america in "63. he crossed the border with a penny in his pocket, looking for a better life. his son became lieutenant governor of california. the system worked. so i know that some of the messaging of the wall and that hasn't helped. but i think he's in a tremendous opportunity if he can work with the republicans in the majority of the senate and in the house, we can get an immigration system in place that works. obviously, we are not going to get amnesty, like president reagan gave us. we talked about executive orders. look, executive orders -- he

likes them because they're victories. but that is not the way to govern. so he needs to bring democrats together to get some kind of an immigration system that works. i actually believe that we should have a temporary executive order to allow farmworkers who are not criminals the opportunity to stay here on a work permit, to harvest these crops that we all love in our country. and maybe for some hospitality and so forth. but i think he can. we can do it. it's just a matter of time. >> jane, who has the upper hand on immigration when it comes to some of these issues around sanctuary cities and the like? >> well, i mean, it all depends. we were learning about this in one of my classes. the concept of plenary power, provides -- which is articulated by the united states supreme court and interestingly, chinese

exclusion cases of the 19th century specifies that the federal government has sole power over immigration and nationalization as a function of the national sovereignty. questions of policies about how we live when we are here, those are traditionally the realm of the state. do you provide in-state tuition for college? do you provide the ability to get drivers license -- i think all of these abode policies are in many ways a function of how it is that states decide within the context of their own political cultures and economies for agricultural workers and others, they should persist and i think with president to a president whose philosophy is to take regulation out, it would ironic, indeed if a republican

president persisted in changing the context of abode. in my view i think it -- think most people who studied the federal government know it is the purview of the federal government in this case. the interesting observation is that those executive orders on immigration have been failures with respect to the courts and to the extent that the trump administration intends to litigate this further will remain to be seen whether the supreme court will with respect to plenary powers, the circumstances of violations with individual rights are a function of executive orders. but within the context of immigration policy it is usually the federal government has the power on entry and on naturalization. so i would expect that to be the case and the question for anyone who studies in the afternoon and who observes congress is to extent to which trump can put

forward an immigration policy that is both comprehensive and palatable to both parties. it has been 20 years since the last immigration reform and that is the 1996 law. others have perhaps more skill precisely because it is a difficult issue. >> thank you. any other remarks before we go to q&a? any others? all right. then i guess -- oh, yeah. sure, we'll start taking questions from the audience. >> there we go. >> yeah. i think we're going to have a -- we have a microphone coming around, i think. there it is. hold off for one second. >> i read it as extensively as any human being can. i read the new yorker.

which is a leftist. i read the "wall street journal" which is right. i read the "los angeles times" which is completely unbiassed and wonderful. i read the christian science monitor which is the most unbiased reporting in the world, and yet, i wait to see who among the politicians or the journalists is going to ask the most important question of all. as far as trump's personality is concerned. why causes this intelligent man to make such stupid constant remarks? is it up to a psychiatrist to write a biography telling us what's going on here? >> i am afraid you are the closest thing we have to a psychologist on this panel. >> uh oh. >> well, i don't know.

i know there are groups of psychiatrists who have suggested that presidents be evaluated for their stability. but let's not forget there have been plenty of other presidents that people during the time in which they were serving felt they were unstable. lindsen johnson, richard nixon, woodrow wilson was right up there in the crazy department. so there are plenty potentially. and prior to that as well. so this wouldn't be -- if you were to go in that direction to wonder whether or not there was a disconnect between level of intelligence and capacity to reason and decision making, that isn't necessarily a function of the present occupant that there may have been prior to this particular president a series of pretty level-headed human beings running the government. having said that, we need to do is look to watergate. we just need to look back to john dean gave some interesting

commentary on the nature of -- or not the nature the kinds of conversations that were had in the white house that were unfortunately taped for nixon at that time. but the notion you might get a disconnect between personality and rational reasoning, i don't know that it's uncommon. you probably know a lot of people who are capable of flying off the handle or saying things they might regret later, they just don't occupy the office of the president. i would say it is not an uncommon trait. as the lieutenant governor says, the american public did embrace the american voters embraced that element of his personality, at least some of them did. >> david lauder maybe could ask this question and pose this question to psychologists or potentially to other political observers as to whether or not he is -- the extent to which the personality he's displayed will be useful or not useful to him

and the country for governing. >> a quick follow up to ron klain and ron christie on this. to what extent do we get a reasonable indication of the president's personality from what we see, let's say, in the media and to what extent is there a very different picture behind the scenes? not necessarily donald trump, but in your experience. >> well, i do think there are presidents who are different in private than they are in public. i'll say not a president, one great example of this is al gore. people who know him, ambassador emerson is here. know that he is a funny, warm, likable person in person even though he had a public reputation for being stiff and robotic in public. but with trump, i honestly don't care if he's crazy, crazy like a fox, you know, what it is. i care about the performance. right now, he is not performing

as president and that is the bottom line. and whether or not that's because of something inside him or because he wants to be loved or because he because he is narcissistic, all of the thousand pop psychology things being thrown around, you know, in the end there's a bottom line here, performance, and he's not meeting that bottom line standard. >> you know, i was always fascinated looking when we came in on day one of, you know, george w. bush as the amiab amiable dunce, dig cheney as darth vader who was calling the shots behind the scenes and everything. and you get in the oval office and you recognize how powerful the president is in his command of the facts and his command of the staff and of his cabinet. you know, one of the funniest stories i love to share is that an early cabinet meeting and everyone thought, oh, well, colin powell, he didn't run against bush and powell has an upper leg on him. i remember being in the cabinet

room and president bush being early for him was about being ten minutes early. if a meeting was supposed to start at 8:00, you better get there at 7:45 because if he hits the door and you're not there he might lock it. in this particular instance that's what happened. we had a cabinet meeting, everybody was there. the president walks in and said, where is secretary of state. i said, mr. president, he's not here. he said lock the door. that was it. about five minutes later you heard this -- and bush let him knock for about another 30 seconds or so and he said, open the door. he looked at him and said, colin, don't ever be late again. so the impressions that you have of a president, of how the public perceives them through the media and what they're like when you work with them, it is something else. as it relates to dig cheney, i would have to say i can't think of a funnier boss that i've had with a more wicked sense of humor than him. >> thank you for illuminating why bush and powell didn't necessarily always get along later in the administration.

other questions? yes, in the back. >> thank you very much for having this conference, especially 100 days, first 100 days, very important. thank you very much. you have the wisdom and vision. anyway, if i may have less than one minute, when the ronald reagan campaign, he was opposed by everybody, even ridiculed by his own party leader, but he endured there and won the presidency. i said, wow, he's very presidential so i voted for him. but after he became president, first 100 days, it was a little disappointing, you know. so i want anthony here, special adviser to donald trump, be a man of president of the people, by the people, for the people as

abraham lincoln said. no candidate said of the people, by the people, for the people. i was very disappoint evidence. anyway, first 100 days is time to study, make the people listen to whatever, and after 100 days he should have said, i have studied enough. now it is time for action from now on. he should have said that. so if he doesn't become president of the people, for the people, by the people, i have to say second term, i have to say to him adios. thank you. >> thank you. abel, i guess one question that comes from that is to what extent is, you know, trump kind of following in the footsteps of someone like reagan or someone like governor schwarzenegger? you know, to what extent are these hiccups in this sort of learning curve to be expected? you said they l, but in what

ways maybe also is the experience we've had so far different? in that vein, has trump maybe moved too quickly on things when he should be taking stock and working behind the scenes? >> i think he has and it is because of who he is and the business background. i think the travel ban was written up quickly and it was put out f and, you know, it starts at the top. i would say it came from him. i want it out by this day, it has to get out. i've done that myself when there was an initiative i was working on, ab109. i said, hurry up, we have to get it done by this day, it was a mistake. i made a mistake. we had some folks out that really weren't part of ab109. it is just a learning curve. i want to go back to say, well, we elected somebody that shouldn't have to learn on the job and blah, blah, blah. at the end of the day, give him some more time. we've got 3 1/2 more years of him, okay, whether we like it or not. i think we will start to judge him after about a year or two to

say, ork, he is getting in his groove, we're going to get action. but i went through arnold. i don't remember reagan, i was too young, but i went through arnold, and arnold at the end, you know, whether you liked him or not, he understood the process, understood the legislative plo ses and we got a lot accomplished and it was bipartisan at the end. look, he became a big climate hero. he didn't start that way. >> i'm sorry. >> go ahead. >> look, i think there are some things that are involved in learning the job. i agree with the professor's view it is so scary to have a president learning on the job, but some of the -- the core agenda of hate and division that he ran on through the campaign, that he is governing on as president, that has nothing to do with him getting more expertise and more learning. he launched his campaign, he said that mexico was sending

rapists and murderers to this country, that was day one. every day thereafter he has put a big "not welcome here" sign in front of this country and made that the center piece of a lot of his domestic agenda. if you believe like i believe that immigration is something that makes this country great, that's what makes this country a world leader, that's what makes our economy vibrant and vital, it is what makes great stories like lieutenant governor's personal story, it is what creates our cultural strength and our leadership around the world, then he has been wrong-headed from day one and he is showing no signs of backing off that. indeed, we are already seeing not any backing off of that, but, indeed, a doubling down and a doubling down on it. so that is not a question of staffing or learning, but a

question of perspective. some things can be learned and improved. i hope he does. some things are just wrong and he continues to pursue the wrong things. [ cheering and applause ]. >> i will give abel a chance to respond quickly to that if you would like. is this basically the agenda and the legacy of the first 100 days? is it a "not welcome" sign and sowing hate and division? >> i didn't see the poll that was put out this morning, unfortunately i didn't see it. but i think i heard somebody when i sat down saying one of the positives of that poll is that people believe he's keeping his promise. i mean that's what poll says, he is keeping his promise. so he is doing what he said he was going to do. now, some people are never going to like what he promised and never pliek what he's going to do. i'm going to go back to this learning curve. i don't want to say we put somebody in that has no clue about government. i mean you got to remember at the end of the day he worked

with government on certain issues. he just didn't govern. the governing part is where it gets tricky, and i will repeat it again. government was designed to move really slow. and when you move fast, you make mistakes. so i see -- i see good stuff coming up on the horizon and it will be good stuff with democrats. i think chuck schumer is going to work with him. they don't want to sit there for the next two years doing zero. so on the words of division and hate, i mean i -- you know, i'm not happy with some of the things that he said. i mean he's actually said -- i mean he said it himself. i wish i could explain myself a little bit better sometimes. i say things that sometimes don't come across well. he said that. i'm going to give miles a "c." so i have some hope. i love my country and, look, we've gone through presidents and we're going to go through many more presidents. i still have hope that there is some great things coming abroad and i can say this, the people of our country, maybe not in los

angeles and california and maybe not in new york, but a lot of people in our country voted for change and voted for him. they said, we want a new direction. so let's give him a little shot at this new direction. guess what? if he doesn't do a good job, there's an election in three years, 3 1/2 years. maybe things will change. i don't know. >> thank you. >> he's already gone. >> you asked a question on the last panel. >> hi, thanks to y'all for being here. it is something that's been coming up a little bit, was the notion that there are good people advising trump, at least in the foreign policy sphere. i can't help but notice that while it seems that some of the advisers at the top-level are pretty topnotch, there's nonetheless still the fact that there are hundreds of appointed

positions that have been unfilled, there's a lot of work that seems to not being done. my question particularly to mr. maldonado but everybody, i'm curious to hear your thoughts. as the 100 days closes up and as the other spots get filled, can we start to expect a little more continuity in the administration's messaging and policy administration, and can we expect for there to be kind of a return to normalcy of sorts as more experienced professionals get into government in the appointed positions in the administration? >> thank you. let me just ask the panelists to keep their answers brief so we can work in one more question. >> yes. the answer is yes. i think every day is going to be a better day for president trump, and he's going to get better every day. when he fills his administration, i think every day will be better policy days, and in the next year we'll see a complete difference than what we have today. >> i guess we'll have to hold you to that, abel.

we'll see in a year whether there's been a complete difference. i think one of the most interesting elements to this question of change in the relationship between change and the desire for change and the idea of then repopulating the federal government with experts, with people who are competent, with people who have knowledge, and that seems to be -- that seems to go without saying that we would want experts, whether they're on security, particular locations of the world, or whether they're scientists. but at the same time there seems to be a swell of discontent among voters, particularly trump voters against those very experts. i think that that creates a significant tension not only in the question of whether we're replicating the way federal government ran before or whether he is going to change it, that remains i think an interesting question one year later. >> well, to answer your question, of course i think in a year from now it will be much better and much smoother, and you can look no further than the first executive order as it

relates to immigration. right? i mean they did not have the people at the justice department, they did not have the right people within the white house, they did not have the vetting system that should have been in place of an order of this magnitude, particularly given the topic and some of the things. it should have been vetted much more carefully. i share the lieutenant governor's optimism in a year's time when you get bright people in positions and they know what they're doing and they're staffed up, that they will guide this country in a much more smooth manner than what we've seen thus far. >> well, it is hard to imagine it getting worse, so i suppose in that sense it has to get better. but i mean it does matter on who he picks. i will say, you know, like he has picked some good people. he has picked some horrible people, too. you know, i think it is just -- and mostly he hasn't picked people at all. so it is kind of hard to know what it is going to look like once he starts picking more people. >> thanks. >> one more question?

yeah, in the back. >> trump 2016. yeah, hi, hello. so obviously i prefer trump by the -- trump 2016. my question goes, as in this case, most people are happy with him so far, at least the people who voted on him. i feel so. people feel that he's keeping his promises. i see the other side saying he hasn't accomplished everything he said he would in the first 100 days. what if he accomplishes those things in the first 200 days or in the first year? will the speakers change the narrative if he actually is able to accomplish what he promised, even though you might not agree, but he promised in the first 300 days or one year? thank you. >> thanks. >> yeah, obviously my assessment would be very different if he accomplished the things he said he would do. some of those things i would

oppose still, but i would have to give him credit for doing them. i think the most striking thing is he hasn't even tried. he said he would pass ten bills in first 100 days. he didn't even send nine of them to congress. if you don't send them to congress, you can't get them passed. that's like a big problem. the last thing i would say about this though is some things he promised, you know, he promised not just to repeal and replace obamacare. he promised that everyone in the country would have insurance, it would be less expensive and better coverage. if he delivers that i will come back here a year from now and give him a big bouquet of flowers. i promise you know matter what happens with the freedom caucus he is not going to keep his promise, that everyone will have insurance, it will be less expensive and better coverage, because nothing he is talking about will do that. >> thank you. >> you know, i remember a president who said if you like your health care plan you can keep your health care plan, if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor, and we're going to cut costs by $2500.

i don't remember the same sort of media attention of president obama not keeping his word and keeping his promise there. >> media attention on that, my friend. >> oh, no. to answer your question, it was fascinating look at the front page of "usa today" that they interviewed two dozen trump supporters and 100% think the president has done exactly what he said he was going to do. where ron and i think would agree on this is that you're not just playing to the loyalists, you're not just playing to the base. you're now the president of the united states and have you to govern for all of americans. people are very, particularly in my beloved california, very concerned he is only governing towards trump supporters. there needs to be a recognition by his white house staff that the campaign is over. it is time to govern. the campaign is over. and, yes, you have promise also that you've made and, yes, you've got to obviously have an accountability with the american people but let's govern. again, i want him to succeed, but he has got to move beyond promises to his base and to promises to the american people.

>> jump in quickly. >> well, you know, if you go back and look at presidents barack obama will be known for the affordable care act. he will be known for the bank bailout, which was done with bipartisan support. he will know about the first 150 days, his bill. bush will be known for no child left behind, and you can go on. this president is going to be known for either a big reform in taxes. he's going to do something in the next year or two that we're going to identify with. is he going to commit to everything that he said? i mean no president gets everything he says during the campaign. so he will get around the edges a little bit here and there, but he will be a different man in a year. i think, you know, like that poll said, he's keeping his promises and there's still -- i walk in -- yesterday i drove -- i'm in santa maria. there's a gentleman parked next to me with two trump flags in an

area that did not vote for trump, and i said, how's he doing? i mean it is part -- and then you try -- and i was a cnn watcher. i am still kind of a cnn guy. there's not one second that guys that they don't beat this guy up on everything, even when he does okay they're beating him up. so i think people are going to give him a shot. you obviously are going to give him a shot, and i think he will be a different president in about a year and he will accomplish a lot of the things he wants to do. and it is either going to be bipartisan because he wants to or it is going to be bipartisan because the american people are going to force him and give him a democrat house. so i think that's going to be what is going to happen in the next 18 months. >> we have confirmed the political science finding that tensions rise right before lunch. thank you very much to our panel and to all of you for your great questions. [ applause ] >> enjoy the meeting.

♪ c-span's washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up wednesday morning, eleanor clift, washington correspondent for ""the daily beast" discusses progressive resistance against the trump presidency. then the heritage foundation stephen moore on gop health care and tax reform policy. and "washington post" pentagon correspondent missy ryan discusses the potential increase of u.s. troops in afghanistan. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal live at 7:00 eastern wednesday morning. join the discussion. >> wednesday the senate veterans affair committee holds a hear about the veterans choice health care program. veterans affair second testifies along with representatives of veterans service organizations.

that's live at 2:30 p.m. here on c-span3. last week in a strict party vote the house passed a health care bill to replace the affordable care act. senate republicans are expected to create their own version of the bill. wednesday senate democrats hold a meeting to look at the possible effects changes to the affordable care act could have on patients and the health care industry. the senate democratic policy and communications committee meets live at 2:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. you can also follow live coverage online at c-span.org and listen with the c-span radio app. >> sunday on q & a, the comparisons between presidents donald trump and andrew jackson. our guest mark cheatum on his book hch andrew jackson, southerner." >> i don't think he represents the positive values that jackson

represented. he certainly represents some of the negative values that chak son represented, but i think i would tell president trump that if he wants to be like andrew jackson he has to put nation in front of his own person hood, he has to put nation in front of his own family, has to put nation in front of his own interests because that's what jackson did for most of his presidency. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's c & a. >> now we're hearing on the economic impacts of water resource projects. u.s. army corps of engineers chief of engineers lieutenant general todd sumonite and local officials testified before senate environment and public works subcommittee. other topics include infrastructure funding, maintenance supports and inland waterways and the impact of the panama canal expansion on u.s. ports. this is an hour and 45 minutes.