clearinghouse, to where if a website or civil society identifies certain codes, certain i.p. addresses, certain email address or phone numbers that are known with sex traffickers, you put that in a central repository so that online groups can scan against that and better identify these languages. >> watch "the communicators" tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. >> and news today from new jersey that the jury weighing ribery charges against senator menendez told the judge today members of the jury are deadlockeded on whether to convict him. the judge told them to take the rest of the day off and try again tomorrow. senator menendez is accused of taking gifts such as a hotel stay, private flights and hundreds of thousands of

dollars in campaign donations from a florida eye doctor. in return, the story says the new jersey democrat acted as the doctor's personal senator, advocating on his behalf about various government matters. >> this week on newsmaker, we want to welcome senator david perdue, former fortune 500 c.e.o. about tax plan and other items on the legislative agenda. also with us in studio, joe williams, c.q. roll call and tamar hallman with the atlanta journal constitution. welcome to both of you as well. go ahead with your first question. >> today it was reported that senator roy moore conducted sex acts with my no, sir. do you believe judge moore should step down from his candidacy? >> it's early, we don't know

all the facts, but these allegations are serious and if they are true he should step down. >> some of your colleagues are calling for senator strange to mount a write-in campaign. would you encourage the senator to pursue that? >> let's see what happens on the facts and how judge moore reacts to it. i haven't seen that yet. but yeah, that's one of the possibilities that's being talked about right now is that senator strange would step in and potentially do that as a write-in. we did see that in alaska this last time. it's not impossible. >> i should note for our viewers, we are all talking on this thursday afternoon. >> earlier this week we had a spate of state level races across the country and democrats captured the governors mansions in virginia, and new jersey. they made grounds on a bunch of legislative seats. a lot of people were viewing tuesday as kind of a gut-checken president trump and his agenda. what do you think this week's

results mean for 2018 and the future of the president's agenda? >> i've said this since i got elect and since the president got elected that this is not a mandate. weave prouation period of a couple of years see what we can do. let me remind viewers that this year so far, two million jobs have been created in america. that's a watershed event. over 860 rules and regulations have been reversed. illegal crossings at the southern border are down 60%. consumer confidence is at a 16-year high. c.e.o. confidence is at a 20-year high. this is because they're beginning to see that people in washington are listening. there are things happening, we didn't get the tax bill done, we have a tax bill up right now. i think there is a feeling that people back home want to get things done up here and see results. you may see some of that reflected in immediate races. i don't think it's a mandate or

a comment on the president or his agenda. what i hear around the country on the weekends is, they want the senate, the republican senate, especially, to support this president's agenda because that's why they elected him they've don't like the fact that it's taken us so long in the senate to get the confirmations done. this is a real problem and people are beginning to figure that out. that's what i'm hearing about the immediate races. >> you mentioned the collapse of the health care bill. how incumbent is getting tax reform done for the republican party in terms of being able to hang on after 2018? >> i think it's extremely important but not for the republican party. for america. around i see that independent of the health care bill. now as a political sense, i acknowledge that because of that debacle, and i call it that, because we had three committee chairman who went rogue and voted against the bill and that bill should have solved some of the problems we are seeing now in the collapse of obamacare and dramatically increasing rate, high deductibles. in 2014, eight million people

were fined $2 billion, half of them because they didn't -- because they didn't sign up for obamacare a and half of those make less than $25,000. our health bill would have reduced premiums and solved a lot of problems that obamacare caused. because we didn't do that, now, i think in terms of political dimension, that it's incumbent on us to get this done. much bigger than that, the thing that's weighing on all our minds is that we've got to get this economy going. job one, the president said is growing the economy. after eight years of the slowest growth in u.s. history, it's incumbent on us to make sure that we do everything we can to get this economy going. why? we want to put people back to work. we've got to deal with the deficit spending that's been under way here for quite some time. both parties are guilty about that but the ultimate reason is to solve the debt crisis. we're seeing now that -- that secretary mattis is right, that the the greatest threat to national security ois our debt and we've got to solve it. so the tax bill is so critical

for the long-term financial health of this country if we don't get growth going, we're vulnerable. right now, twice as many international companies outside the united states acquire u.s. companies, compared to u.s. companies buying foreign companies. that's a reversal of some few decades ago and something we've got to reverse. >> senator, with respect to what you're saying about the health care, you said three committee chairmen went rogue, why reference their chairmanship, what does that have to do with their vote? >> that's a great question. every senator has a sacred vow to their constituents that they're going to represent that vote, represent them in a representative democracy to the best of their ability. that's what we do here in a representative democracy. beyond that, though, inside a caucus you have leadership that leadership is made up of a few people who are in acknowledged positions but also the chairmen of all the committees. that's really where the power of the senate is. the ranking member and the

chairmen those committees determine what bills get debated, what bills get to the floor and what we're going to do as a group, leadership in the republican party in the senate decided early this year that we would do this this way. they chose reconciliation, chose not to go into committee. everybody pretty much agreed with that. later in the day as we got on these bill well, saw a couple of -- a few chairmen go sideways. >> did they lose their chairmanship? >> that's a debate for another day. i have not gone that far. i know this thun -- i know the republican party doesn't have as much control over chairmen as the democratic caucus does. the rules are different. that's up to the individual caucuses. that's something i'm not ready to say but i think we should have more resource. >> obviously they are chairmen who voted against the bill. at the end of the day the majority leader is the person who is supposed to corral the party and supposed to bring consensus. do you put as much fault with

senate majority leader mitch mcconnell as the three chairmen who voted against the bill. >> we have a leadership issue and also a membership issue. some people put their self-interest in front of the national interest on this health care deal, frankly. this is after a will the lot of reflection. i was very disappointed we didn't pass that bill. i worked very hard behind the seens the committee, the working group, i was not a member of the working group but they invited anybody to come. many of us did. i was in every meet, i listened to the discourse, saw what we were doing in the bill, i got behind it. it would have solved several things. accessibility, affordability, the pre-existing conditions, and would have put medicaid on a sustainable path. the path we're on right now with medicaid is not sustainable. i think the way you evaluate leader shep overtime is results. and that's all i can say. if you continue to not get results, then you have to evaluate it. it's like in the real world, in the real world you have

something i call the performance period. you -- pir mitt. -- pyramid. you never get to the top in military, sport, medicine, business, without being able to perform. in politics sometimes where seniority is the ruling criteria, then it's not necessarily tied to results the way it is in the real world. >> what would you need to say, for senate majority leader mitch mcconnell to see him perform? hutch of that is tied to the tax bill or how much has, you know, have we already seen where you can kind of make a conclusion? >> let me give you some examples. back in june or july, about, i wrote a letter to mitch, to the leader, and we had, i think, some 11 other senators sign this letter, it acknowledged that we had a lot to do. at that point we were still dealing with the debt ceiling debate, we had the end of the year funding which was coming up september 30. we had the reconciliation and budget to get done. and by the way, had to fund the

government. we felt we needed to stay in d.c. the five weeks of the august break instead of going home and work. to his credit, the leader said, that makes sense to me, we'll do that. we committed to the first two weeks and said we'll review that and hold the next three weeks. four day into the first week a deal was struck between the democratic leader and the republican leader where 66 confirmations were given to us on that day. i was presiding that afternoon. for a couple of hours. in that couple of hours we did all the formal paperwork to get 66 people confirmed in one day. the irony is up to that point we had something like 44 people confirm through the seven months of laborious work because this is the slowest confirmation process in our history, since george washington was here. and this reason is, this is the first time a minority party has not waived the 30-hour debate rule. when you're on a nomination for 30 hours, think about that. that's four days. and so you can't do anything else.

that just slows down the whole process. another reason we want -- to give the leader credit , he stepped up and did that. we just did it again a couple of weeks ago. we sent a letter that said, we think we need to be here nights and weekends until the end of the year. we were going to do that last week, we were going -- we made a notice of it. last week we got four circuit courts of appeal judges confirmed. >> your own name has come up in some socially conservative circles about running for leadership. would you be interested in running for leadership position and possible the senate majority leader? >> i haven't heard -- right now we have a leader. we have leadership. we have a tax bill being debated right now. that's my only priority. get results for the president. i want to do whatever i can to make this president successful. i think every person in america, whether they're democrat or republican, should hope he's successful. that's the future of our country here.

when president obama, another party, was in office irk i hoped he would be -- was in office, i hope head would be successful. this is a situation where we have a leadership right now my role is as the only fortune 500 c.e.o. in congress, i try add value on the topics i have experience in in the real world. like this tax debate. i've lived with that and so we're able to bring some value to that conversation, i think. and that's my role right now in the senate. >> and the president, according to some reports today i've read, appreciate yours background, your business background, and in fact when you won in 2014, your senate seat, he reached out to you, i understand, and you struck up a friendship. how often do you talk to the president? and have you ever disagreed with him and told him so? and what issue was it? >> yeah. attack this president is nobody's choir boy but neither was winston churchill

or for that matter dwight eisenhower, harry truman. i personally think we've got an individual in the white house right now that can break eggs in washington and help us break through this gridlock which is what the american people want. the situation with the president is, he looks to people who agree with him and also to people who ehe disagrees with. ou ask about an issue, the adjustment tax is one i came out early when i heard it was being discussed in the house, i was in the white house for one of the fiffers leadership meetings over there, i'm not in leadership but i was invited because they were going to talk about tax and i know the peth president and i talked about that so he had me in the conversation. i don't presume on the president. when he calls i answer the call and try to give the advice i can. he doesn't want yes people around him. when you sit in the white house in the oval office in a meet , he listens about 80% of the time. but when the meeting is over , he concludes with a summary of

what everybody has agreed to do. that's what we do in business in the real world. i think this is a guy moving at a business pace, not a bureaucratic pace, and he's very impatience. he doesn't want to fully understand the rules of the senate and house he doesn't need to. his role is leader of the free world is to push us as hard as he can to get results. >> how often do you talk to him? >> on tax we talked a good bit, immigration as well. he's been -- >> once a week? >> i wouldn't quantify it. we've had 40 weeks so far this year? but i do know that he and i have a standing bet to get out on the gl of course soon. i will tell you that. >> what's the bet about? >> he promised to give me strecks. we'll see. >> on the -- you mentioned the tax bill a few times. the house bill has been out as of right now, the senate plan is not available. shown a plan has mixed bag for middle income

families, some could see increases, some could see decreases. that's been what the republican says is the main goal of the effort. you also are trying to deal with the corporate rate and cut the corporate tax. would you consider delaying this corporate tax implementation in order to provide more relief to middle class americans? >> absolutely not. >> can you explain why? >> the best thing i can do for american worker is help american companies, small and large, become come pet ty on the international competitive stage. we have lost our competitive position over the last 30 years. it's been a slow walk but we're here. we have the highest corporate tax rate, we're the last country in the world to have a repatriation tax. these are hindrance to the american worker. if we do the tax bill we're talking about in the senate, the average increase is $4,000 to $9,000 a year. that's nothing to do with the tax code for individuals, that's the growth, anties 35eu9ed greth, being projected if we do some of the things we're talking about in terms of

getting competitive. there are three parts of the tax bill. the first is pe re-pay tration. we have almost $3 trillion stuck overseas in u.s. profits that money gets reinvested over there. we're the last country in the world to do that. we have a -- the second facet is the corporate tax rate. 35%. the highest corporate tax rate of the 39 oecd countries except e, i think eritrea has a higher rate. in 1986 when the last tax bill was done, that's a long time ago, 36 years, we were the third lowest corporate tax rate in the world at that point. now we're the highest. that puts u.s. businesses, large and small, at a tremendous disadvantage with other countries. here's how. if you look at the beer industry in st. louis, it's primarily owned by the belgians and brazilians. why? they were able to come in and use the tax differentials between their effective tax rate and our affective -- our

effective tax rate here to pay for u.s. companies. today, i mentioned this earlier, of all the transactions in the world in terms of mergers and acquisitions, 2/3 of them are foreign countries buying u.s. companies, we've got to change that those two things will benefit the american worker better than anything else i can do the individual tax cut is something the president says is important. i think it is. it won't drive the economy like the first two things will. here's why it's important. we need to bring parity here. and we're going to achieve a lot of that. but remember about half of america, about 52% of the households don't pay any federal income tax today. some 10% pay about 70% of what we collect today. he other part of that is remember that we collected more

in taxes last year, $3.5 trillion, than we ever vfment the year before that was a rord and the year before that was a record. but our government has grown from $2.4 trillion in 2000 to $4 trillion. that's one republican administration and one democrat administration. this isn't a partisan comment. the federal government exploded. >> you mentioned the corporate tax rate, most corporations don't pay the full 35%. you are a former c.e.o. if you were the c.e.o. of this corporate tax rate cut going into effect how specifically would you manage the business in order to make sure your workers would see the income increases that republicans are promising would happen based on this trickle down stheer theory? >> the increases come from a growing economy that creates more demand for those jobs. that's not something the c.e.o. says i'm getting money back, i'm going to plow it in. it's a strategy move that says demand for products are going up. demand for workers is going up. so the natural thing of remaining competitive to attract good quality labor

means that you have to increase compensation. we see that time and again. that's just common economics in a capitalistic society. so that's why i say the biggest impact on the american worker will be to get our companies, small and large, to be competitive with the rest of the world. >> is is that directly where you see corporate tax savings going, to higher incomes? traditionally some of those have gone to shareholders. there's been criticisms on republicans for pursuing that. are you confident that, can you say definitively that this would increase incomes for americans? >> absolutely. i've lived that world. here's how -- i'm trying to explain how it happens. it's not that i get $1 back an i'm going to give half of that to labor. what it is is that if you get this maun become it's capital. it gets invested in plant, equipment, training, software, all the things that make you more competitive. and what happens is, is that demand for products and

services goes up. that creates more demand for more workers. therefore the supply and demand of workers changes and then the price you have to pay to be competitive to attract good workers goes up. that's how that equation works so it's not -- and by the what way, i have no problem with a company take, we're not putting restrictions on, if you have you get money back here's what you have to do with it. that's not the ole role of the federal government. the business accruemen of the political environment here in washington is not what the accruemen is in the business community. ypt them telling the business community how to invest that money. the reason is is that when you get that money back if some of it goes to dividends, to shareholders that money gets reinvested as well. there's a compound effect of bringing $2.5 trillion. that's a one-time deal. then some $500 billion to $600 billion every year after that. there's a compound impact to that here's why. first of all there's a leverage impact. that's equity.

bring equity back, it gets reinvested. that's equity and debt, gets invested. you get a multiple, sometime there's or four times that. the second multiplier is the ancillary industries that support whatever your investment is, say i build a research, r&d cent for the boston, let's say. that's construction costs, but once you start operating, it's the mold cost, more labor, training costs. the multiplier effect is where you get the geometic increase here. >> you often talk about what you see as a debt crisis in this country. but you also supported a budget that you know, based on the tax plan, it kind of paves the way for up to $1.5 trillion adding to the deficit under the tax bill. how do you square that and have you views changed now that you have an ally in the white house? >> my views haven't changed and neither have his. he's as dedicated to the debt crisis as i am. the $1.5 trillion is not added

to the debt. it's an invest optometrist get at the debt. the debt has several solutions to it. $20 trillion of debt, people can't rerelate to that but we have other $100 trillion of future liabilities also we've got to talk about. just in the next 30 years. medicare, medicaid, pension benefits for federal employees and the interest on the debt. that is exploding away from us. as a matter of fact, social security, medicare have to be save. their trust funds go to zero in less than 14 years. that's unconscionable but this is the reality. when you get to the $1. trillion over here, that's the static scoring of what this bill would do. $500 million of that is this policy versus law issue we're talking about. the other is, if you believe that you're going to grow and that will pay for this, .4% in addition to the g.d.p., from 1.9% to 2.3% more than pays for this level of investment.

so that's the way i look at it. i think that's the proper way to do it. the debt to me is the number one crisis in america. the fact that we can't fund health care research, that we can't fund our military at the level we need to, these are manifestations of decades of intransigence in terms of dealing with long-term liabilities. >> we have time for about three more questions. senator, if i could, i'm going to ask you about the politic os of this tax bill and getting the vets. the speaker of the house today said, trust me, we'll get over the the finish line when it comes to the house republican version of tax reform. the senate will have their own version, republicans in the senate. can you say you'll get it over the finish line? where are the votes? >> i feel like we're going to get this passed. >> how many votes are there? >> i think we could get 51 votes, maybe 52. if we get 50 votes we'll bring along, i think, six or seven democrats as well who will want to be counted with us on this.

they believe in the capitalistic system. they believe if you free up capital and get it rethfs invested that will create jobs and increase wages that type of economics they believe in. i think if we -- i think if we get this to a 50 vote point and they see it's going to pass we'll pick up other votes. we had a presentation by four members of the finance committee, not by the staff but by members themselves. we're doing this bill in regular order as well. it's going to be in committee, there'll be plenty of amendments in committee next week, they'll mark that bill up and hopefully the following week or the first day of thanksgiving break we'll vote on the full bill and there will be amendments that week as well. so this is a regularrder -- order bill. i'm not even -- i'm more than hopeful, i'm optimistic we'll get the votes to get this done this time. >> you mentioned funding medical research, funding the military. the appropriations process, the committee itself has not even passed all the spending bills out to be taken up on the house

floor. you have not, besides the defense bill there's not been much activity on appropriations. why this year has the showing on spending bills been so poor? is it because of the chairman of the committee? because of broader leadership? >> that's a great callout, joe. this is why i'm saying, the budget process is broken. in 43 years, since the 1974 budget act was passed, it's only worked four times to fund the government. we used 198 continuing resolutions to fund the government past some due date like the end of the fiscal year. we have to pass 12 bills to fund the government today. you're speaking about appropriations. the average appropriation bill that we've actually passed in the senate over the last 43 years is 2 1/2. this is a broken system. this is a travesty. it's a fraud that's been perpetrated on the american people in my mind this year is unusual in that we used two reconciliations. the 2017 budget and the 2018 budget that you mentioned were reasons to get to a

reconciliation and instruction. that's all they were for. in normal years, when you do a budget and an authorization and appropriation, the budget is not a law. it's just a resolution. so the majority crams down the throat of the minority their version, a political version of what they think spending should be in the next 10 years. then authorizing, we have $315 billion of annual expenses that are not thoorsed. state department went for 15 years almost without being authorized. then you get to appropriations and the minority said you didn't let us play in the budget, we don't believe in these numbers anyway, we're not going to play here and therefore they push through -- an both sides do this, they push through an end of the year cry circumstances end of the fiscal year, you have to do a continuing resolution, which devastates the military. this is the primary cause, i believe, of the debt crisis long-term and the reason why the government grows from $2.4 to $4 trillion. >> some of these are bipartisan

bill, why are they not moving forward? >> i'm on the budget committee last year, and armed services lavepls year on armed services they passed 27-0, and it was a unanimous appropriations bill that they passed out of the armed services committee. we tried six times to get that bill on the floor and it was blocked. six times. that's obstruction. by anybody's definition. both sides have done it when they're in the majority and minority. it's just being done more now. the call here i believe is eventually to get to a politically neutral platform to allow us to get a budget done and we have democrats and republicans working behind the scenes right now to get that done. i've been for two years, we formed a group on the republican side, started working on what it took to get there. now we have several democrats, several republicans who all agree. some of these are ex-governors by the way who had balanced budget laws they had to deal with and understand how important this is. i'm very optimistic that once we get past tax, get into next year this president is very

focused on the long-term debt he knows we've got to get the economy going and then move on to the budget process and social security and medicare eventually. >> senator purdue, we are all out of time. thank you very much for being with us. >> thank you very much. >> we're back with our reporters, tamar hallerman with "the atlanta journal constitution" and joe williams from "c.q. roll call." let's talk about the prospects for tax reform. the committee wrapping up their vote, their markup of the legislation. what happens next and when will the senate act? >> it needs to go to the house floor. the margin for error is tight. i believe they have less than two dozen votes that the republicans have to work with. and i know that some republicans from higher tax states like new york, new jersey, and california, are very much worried about the treatment, or the -- that the

elimination of the state and local tax deduction and so it'll be interesting to see if leaders have to make any changes to the bill to win them over. then from there, markups start in the senate and the margin for error is even tighter. >> what are you hearing about the differences between these two bills? between house and senate republicans? where are the dividing lines? >> it's interesting because senate republicans will say that their bill is very similar to the house bill. while that is largely true based on what we've heard, there are a lot of similarities, there are some major, major differences that are teeing up potentially a battle with the house as well as the white house. the senate bill from what we know right now would repeal the state and local tax deduction. the house would keep a portion of that on the property tax side. if i'm a house member from a high tech state and see the senate pushing forward a bill where it's a full repeal, that

would worry me. so what comes out of kind of the next week as the senate moves forward while the house is still trying to wrap up work will be something that will be very important to watch and see how that dynamic plays out. > what's senator david perdue, former fortune 500 c.e.o., when's his role in all this in the tax push for the republicans? >> as a close ally of the president, it feels like the president is relying on him to figure out the landscape particularly in the senate, how many votes they're at today, what/issues are bogging down negotiations. not only that, the president is looking to senator perdue on imdepration issues. there's a bill to overhaul the legal immigration system that i know they're looking to slip in, get in early in the new year. so there's kind of a lot of different balls in the air with senator purdue and the president. >> with what do you make of the relationship with the president?

>> i would say out of anybody in the senate, purdue is his closest ally. he has carved out a space with the president, it seems they're close and talking all the time, trying to get stuff done. >> the senator said the votes are at 51, 52. if they get 50, he predicts they'll see up to six dems vote yes along with republicans. in your reporting what are you hearing? >> that's a common refloodplain you hear from senate republicans. i wouldn't completely rule it out. you have quite a few democrats from states that trump won that are up for re-election. senator donnelly from indiana, senator mccaskill from missouri, senator tester from montana, just to name a few who very well could end up supporting this. they've kept their options open. what's interesting about the senate bill, particularly, is there's quite a few provisions set to likely be included that have obtained democrat support in the past. it really will come down to

what the full bill looks like but this will be a lot more difficult for some members of the democratic party to completely rule out as opposed to health care which they could almost immediately say we're not going to support this because at the end of the day, republicans are looking to gut the affordable care act. >> are republicans confident they have all 52 of their own membership onboard? >> it depends on who you talk to. i think they will project an air of unity because they don't want to see the same divisions pop up like in health care. but again, tax is ex-troomly complicated, it's a state-by-state issue on a will the of provisions. i think when we see the whole package come out, you could see defections from a few individuals for a variety of different reasons. it'll be up to leadership to be able to corral that, to be able to find a path forward and what was interesting about senator purdue is his comment obs senate majority leader mitch mcconnell. there are quite a few quiet whispers out there of the

future is at stake with this tax bill and if it does not get done, you could expect to see high end calls for him to step down. >> joe williams, senate leadership reporter, and tamar, thank you both for being part of "newsmakers." appreciate it. >> the house back any moment now. when they come back in we'll bling you live to the floor of the house. a couple of votes and a swearing in for representative-elect john curtis from utah's third district being sworn in after he won a november 7 special election to fill the seat that was held by jason chaffetz who resigned back in the summer. the house will now have 434 members, 240 republicans, 194 democrats. and one vacancy, pennsylvania's 18th district. by representative murphy.