what house minority whip steny hoyer had to say earlier today on newsmakers. he is interviewed by mike to bonus of the washington post and an edge or 10 of bloomberg news. watch newsmakers sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern on seized and -- eastern on c-span. . announcer: treasury secretary steven mnuchin sat down with david rubenstein of the economic club of washington, d.c. to discuss tax policy, the debt ceiling, and other financial issues. this is 45 minutes. mr. rubenstein: mr. secretary, i want to thank you very much for coming. sec. mnuchin: pleasure to be here. mr. rubenstein: let me give a brief introduction, and then we will go into some questions. secretary mnuchin is the 77th secretary of the treasury.

he is a native of new york. graduated from yale in 1995 , where he was the publisher of the yale daily news and also a member of skull and bones, which he cannot acknowledge because it is a secret society. 1985 -- is that right? sec. mnuchin: if i were, i cannot acknowledge it. mr. rubenstein: he joined goldman sachs in 1985, became a partner in 1994, and rose up to be a member of the management committee. he was the chief information officer of goldman sachs. he was also head of the mortgage securities department at he left one point. in 2002 after 17 years and armed june capital, which did number of financial investments, one of which was in the bank, which he bought from the fdic. he also was involved in the entertainment business. entertainment, he financed and coproduced a number

of movies -- avatar, mad max, superman, batman, other movies like that. ultimately sold the bank and before that, he told me at a dinner once that he was going to become the campaign finance chairman for donald trump. i said, you will never do you heard from again because -- [laughter] mr. rubenstein: that probably won't lead to anything. sec. mnuchin: that is correct. mr. rubenstein: my predictions are usually wrong. it worked out reasonably well for you. [applause] sec. mnuchin: and for the president. mr. rubenstein: and became secretary of the treasury, appointed by the president and confirmed on february 13 up 2017. have you talked to your accounting about your own taxes? are they going up or down? [laughter] sec. mnuchin: well, i am definitely making a lot less money in this job. i can't categorically say. but my rate is going up.

given california and new york, my rate is going up. mr. rubenstein: are your friends still friends of yours because their tax rates are going up? or are they saying they are happy? they are happy with the tax bill or not? sec. mnuchin: absolutely. i think people understand the economic impact that this is having and will continue to have. i think even for people in new york in california, there is a slight increase. it is not a big increase on the high end. obviously, we saw yesterday walmart's announcement, which was very impressive. over a million people at walmart getting additional bonuses. we're now up to 130 companies and 2 million workers that have gotten raises and special bonuses. mr. rubenstein: the process of getting a tax bill through congress. were you convinced you could get it done in the first year? sec. mnuchin: i was. originally i was on the record saying we could get it done by august. there was a scheduled to get it

done by august. obviously, the health care delayed things. this was a well thought out plan. mr. rubenstein: it didn't go through what is called regular order, meaning committee hearings and so forth. do you think regular order is more or less a good thing to avoid in tax legislation, or are you happy with the way it went? sec. mnuchin: technically it did go through regular order. the issue is a went through reconciliation, which was 51 votes, but technically it did go through the committee process and regular order. mr. rubenstein: is there anything in the bill that you wish was not in there? is there anything you are not happy with? sec. mnuchin: overall, i couldn't be more pleased with it. if you look at the process -- and i think what worked very well is -- first of all, the house committees had worked on taxes and thinking about this for a long time. way before the president and i showed up, they had been

working, had gone through a blueprint. during the campaign and developing the president's economic program, we spent a lot of time with the president thinking about taxes. taxes were a major part of his platform and what he was going to do. i think we couldn't be more pleased. that's not to say that every single page and every single line item, but we could not be more pleased with the overall bill. sometimes after you pass these major bills, there is a so-called technical corrections bill. to get that past, you need 60 votes, presumably. are you going to try to get a technical corrections bill or you don't need one? sec. mnuchin: i think that is something we will see. i don't know if we will or we won't. it is something we've talked about. i would say -- as opposed to everyone else who has moved on to other legislative things, our number one issue is implementing the tax plan. it is a massive amount of work at treasury and the irs. yesterday we just announced the

new withholding tables. so people will get tax breaks in february, i would say. the good news is there is nothing we have identified so far that we think is particularly problematic that we think we would need a technical correction. there are like 80 sections of the bill left to the secretary to put out regulations. we have a lot of work at the treasury and irs. sec. mnuchin: -- mr. rubenstein: very often when you pass tax legislation, the irs has more work. there does not seem to be evidence of hiring more irs agents. is there effort to do that or you don't need to do that? sec. mnuchin: this touches every single aspect of the irs from technology to processes to forms , and we are speaking with congress about getting additional funding for the implementation. we would expect we would hire a significant number of people to help with the of limitation. mr. rubenstein: but not to audit people? [laughter] i would say, in

all seriousness, one of my projects for the irs is to look at how we can use technology much more for audits. we want to make sure that we automate. as you know, there is something called the tax gap, the theoretical difference between what we do collect and what we should collect. we are going to look at using technology to narrow that. mr. rubenstein: one of the most important changes in the tax code as a result of the bill is the elimination of the deduction for state and local taxes. there is a limitation of $10,000. that was controversial, politically controversial, i suspect. do you think you could have avoided doing that if you had phased in the corporate tax cut? in other words, the corporate tax cut comes right away. if you phased it in over five years, would you have been able to keep that deduction? sec. mnuchin: david, as you know, within reconciliation, we had a certain amount of money we

had to work with. that is one of the trade-offs we could have made. the elimination of what people refer to as salt, state and local taxes, that was something that was part of the house blueprint from day one. that was something we kind of thought through. for $10,000, i realize for people in this room, that may not sound like a lot for state and local taxes, but that was a meaningful impact for a big chunk of the country. i think we have the right balance. we have said this from day 1 -- why should the high tax states be subsidized? let me just say, because then normally the follow-on question is, the high tax states are donor states and they give more money. my response to that is that's because there are more wealthy people that live in those states. mr. rubenstein: some people say it was an effort by the red states to tax the blue states. sec. mnuchin: i don't think that's the case at all. there is not one meeting i was ever in that anybody said this

was a political issue. it was an economic issue. mr. rubenstein: what do you think about governors who might be saying to your constituents, you can make your payment to your state and local taxes and make it a charitable to adoption? -- charitable deduction? sec. mnuchin: i think that is one of the funniest things i have possibly heard. [laughter] sec. mnuchin: i will say we will wait to see the language. i think most people understand the concept of a charitable deduction. that is voluntary, that goes to help people and things like that. it is very different than the high cost of real estate taxes in my favorite two locations, new york and california. mr. rubenstein: so there would be no auditing of governors who proposed that? you wouldn't audit their taxes? sec. mnuchin: we wouldn't audit their taxes, but i can assure you we will audit real estate taxes this year. mr. rubenstein: the people who worked on this tax bill, the gang of six, what were those meetings like? how did you avoid the press knowing when you were meeting?

what was the interchange like? sec. mnuchin: one of the things that worked really well is this was a team effort. there were a lot of people in the beginning who said, the white house and treasury should put out your own plan, you should write the bill. i think it was very clear to us from the beginning that we needed to make sure the treasury, the white house, the house, and the senate or on the same page. when we started the process, i think the house and senate were pretty far apart. we worked every week on narrowing those differences. and then just answer your second question about how did we avoid -- one of the good things about having the secret service follow me around is that they can take you through kitchens and garages and things like that conveniently. mr. rubenstein: so the tax bill, it is said by some that it will increase the u.s. debt by

roughly $1.1 trillion to $1.5 trillion over five years. do you agree with that? sec. mnuchin: i don't. mr. rubenstein: do you think it will be revenue neutral? sec. mnuchin: here are the numbers. let's start with joint tax, --ch scored a dad i think atred a dad -- scored it $1.5 trillion. that is what we had to reconcile to on a static basis with no change. joint tax thought there was about $500 billion of what we call dynamic scoring, revenue we would get back. there was also another $450 billion or $500 billion in what we call the difference between the policy and the baseline. they were measuring it to the baseline, tax extenders rolled over every year. again, our view is you should measure it to what the actual policy is. we think there will be over $1

trillion of growth. i do think it will pay for itself. mr. rubenstein: you are projecting growth at 3% for the next 10 years or so. sec. mnuchin: it is actually --ut 2.9%, but we do believe for modeling purposes, we used 2.9%, but we do think we can get to 3% or higher. mr. rubenstein: but if you fail, 2.3%, theot 2.2% or deficit would be much higher. sec. mnuchin: by definition. but it is never going to be higher again. the worst-case scenario is the 1.5 -- is the $1.5 trillion less half $1 billion. mr. rubenstein: there were no democratic votes for the tax bill. did you try to get democratic votes? there was just no willingness to participate? sec. mnuchin: we did. we had a series of meetings. the president hosted several bipartisan meetings. we had several democrats fly

with us on air force one with the president to their home states when he gave speeches. from the beginning, the democrats sent a letter to the president and copied me and made very clear kind of what their conditions were. i think there was a big philosophical difference. we were focused on creating growth and creating things that were good for the american economy, and they kind of drew a line in the sand. mr. rubenstein: if the democrats were to regain control of the government at some point, let's say congress and even the white house at some point, do you worry the tax bill would be undone because there are no democratic votes? sec. mnuchin: not at all. first of all, i think it is an unlikely hypothetical, but even if it were, i think that that period -- i think it will be clear that you have the economic growth. if there is growth, it is not going to be unwound. sec. mnuchin: money is going to be -- there is a tax on money that is offshore, so you are

going to bring money back or put an excise tax on it. presumably companies will bring it back. there is no requirement that they invest it in job creating kinds of things. why was there no requirement that use it in a certain way? sec. mnuchin: that's a good question. that is something we talked about a lot. various people came up with ideas. should we put conditions, attach it to this? i think our view was if we create the right incentives, companies will bring it back because we charged them the tax either way, so obviously there is a big incentive to bring it back. as you know, david, certain industries, people should make capital investments. certain industries, people should return money to workers as we have seen with walmart. so i think philosophically our view was, let the companies allocate that capital. we believe 70% of it will ultimately flow back to the workers. mr. rubenstein: the president was involved. did you call him every day? sec. mnuchin: the president was

unbelievably involved. if i go back to the campaign, kind of on his two major economic speeches, one was detroit and one was new york. literally up until he went on stage, he was fine tuning the tax rates, what we were doing. we debated them. i would say there is no question that for the last year, he called either gary or i or both of us every single day, with either he had views or we were reporting back to him what we were doing. mr. rubenstein: when you get a call from the president, does that make you nervous, you don't know what he is going to say? or you are happy to get those calls? sec. mnuchin: no. it does not make me nervous. one of the good things for me in this job is i have known him for a long time. i traveled with him for a year on the campaign. i would not be here if i didn't feel like we could have a good two-way conversation. at the end of the day, i understand he is the president and it is his decision.

on the tax bill today -- mr. rubenstein: on the tax bill today as you see it, you are very happy with it and you don't see any need to make modification. you are going to live with this bill, there is no effort to modify it in anyway. sec. mnuchin: there may be a need for certain technical corrections. but i think again, there is nothing we have identified right now that is a problem, but we will see if we need to fine-tune anything. mr. rubenstein: the debt of the united states is $20 trillion. you are responsible for making certain that we pay the debt. and as an owner of treasury bills, i want to make sure you do pay that debt. are you worried about the debt limit? you are actually over the period of time now. you have a couple more months before you can't pay my treasury bills, is that right? sec. mnuchin: this is one of the things that multiple treasury secretaries advised me on before i got into the job.

i have been through one extension. certain people were critical of me in the extension. at the end of the day, this is all about -- we absolutely have to raise the debt ceiling every time we get close to the debt ceiling. i think one of the things the president and i are thinking about is, how should this process be changed? we have a debt ceiling, we have a budget, and we have appropriations. in any business, you plan what you are going to spend and then you plan how you finance it. it is somewhat of a ridiculous process the way we do this. mr. rubenstein: do you think we should have a debt limit at all? sec. mnuchin: i won't go so far as saying we shouldn't have a debt limit, but i do believe when money is authorized to be spent, there should be some mechanism that the debt limit is also raised to pay for it. however we refine that process.

now --er thing -- we are i am using these treasury superpowers because we have hit the debt limit. again, the problem with that is all that does is the more time you extend it, this town doesn't really work until you hit a deadline that you need to do it. mr. rubenstein: speaking of another deadline, the government will run out of money relatively soon. i think january 19? sec. mnuchin: that is, again, authorization to spend. we will not run out of money. the debt limit is running out -- i will have the cash, we just won't have the authorization to spend it. mr. rubenstein: the operation of the government, the funding of the government, do you think that will get resolved in time? sec. mnuchin: i don't think there will be a shutdown. i think it will either be resolved or there will be another cr to extend this. mr. rubenstein: so let's go through a couple other things before we get back to the tax

bill for a moment. you grew up in new york, went to yale, went to goldman sachs, why did you want to be an investment banker? is that what you studied to be? sec. mnuchin: i did study economics. when i was at yale, i was actually publisher of the yale daily news. i was very interested in publishing. thought i i actually may want to go into publishing. i actually applied for a job at condé nast for the summer. i think probably one of the best things they ever did was reject me. they said, thank you very much but we are not hiring summer interns. i actually ended up working at salomon brothers were three -- salomon brothers for three summers. i had grown up around wall street and really liked the mortgage trading business. that is kind of where i started. mr. rubenstein: so you left goldman sachs and started your own financial services company.

one of the companies you bought was indymac. that was controversial at times. why was it controversial? when you were confirmed, people ask you a lot about it. sec. mnuchin: so, i was sitting in my office in new york during the summer of 2008, watching tv, all the news. this was kind of the middle of the crisis and indymac -- literally there were people lined up around the block time to get their money out. this was a real bank run. we had not had a bank run in a very long time. indymac was one of the only deals -- the fdic actually had to take it over and operate the bank. most of the ways the fdic took over banks is they would take it over friday night, sell it on friday night, open up for business on monday. indymac was a highly problematic bank.

it had specialized in no-doc loans. their mortgage portfolio had 30% delete lindsay's -- delinq uincies. even during the financial crisis, it was hard to originate loans that were that bad. the only reason i was able to buy it and put together an investment group was no real bank wanted to buy it. it had every problematic loan. it had construction loans, home builder loans, a big portfolio of reverse mortgages. we came in, cleaned up, but the reason why it was controversial was because it had so many that we had tos work through those under government cost-sharing agreements. mr. rubenstein: you ultimately sold it to cit, it did well. let me ask you about your movie career first before i get to donald trump. what does a producer actually do?

-- youu are a producer are picking the actors or actresses? what does a producer actually do when you are producing these movies? thet of all, i was probably least likely person to get in the film business. when i first looked at these had my own and investment business and someone came to us and said, we should look at this film investment, i like, that is the craziest idea. if we invest in films, everyone will take their money back from us. we developed a theory which turned out very well, that if you invest in any one film, it is very risky. if you can put together a portfolio of 50 or 100 films that are high-quality, it is a long-term bet on content. when i made these investments, partially because i had a technology background, i had a view that content was going to be worth a lot more money. at the time, there was no netflix.

at the time, there were not ipads, but i did understand technology and bandwidth and understood that as bandwidth became faster and faster to the consumer, there would be more and more demand. i did not actually pick any of those films. did two deals -- one with fox where we did 160 films with fox, then 75 with warner bros.. mr. rubenstein: so you did not go on set and say, we should act it this way? sec. mnuchin: absolutely not. i was the money. mr. rubenstein: i saw you at a conference in los angeles. you were kind enough to host me for a dinner. -- one time, you said you were going to become the finance chair for donald trump's presidential campaign. i said, i have lived in washington a long time, he is not going to be president. are you sure you know what you are doing? your response was that you did.

how did you happen to know donald trump? sec. mnuchin: i knew him -- i have known him for about 15 years. i would describe it was more socially than business. we did a little bit of business together. we looked at a lot of investments together. we got to know each other quite well. i actually had been speaking to him, even going back to while he was thinking of running. he came out to los angeles, i remember having dinner with him right before he announced. after he decided to run, i would come visit him every couple of months. be like, how can i help? he is like, i'm financing the whole thing myself, thank you very much. right after he won new york, i was actually in new york and he called me the next day and said, do you want to come on board? i would like you to be my finance chairman. we agreed to meet in indianapolis the next day to talk about it, because i was back in california. i will tell you, i went to this event.

i don't know if anybody in this room ever went to a trump rally, but i showed up. this doesn'tn: look like a big trump rally group. [laughter] sec. mnuchin: there were 30,000 people who had been waiting probably three or four hours. the only way i can describe this is it was like showing up with mick jagger to a rolling stones concert. the minute i saw that, i knew he was going to absolutely win and be president. the more i traveled with him, the more convinced i was that he had hit on something. mr. rubenstein: had you been a democrat or republican? sec. mnuchin: absolutely a republican. i gave money to a bunch of democrats, as you can appreciate, people like you would call me up and asked me for favors. not you, i might add, but people like you. [laughter] sec. mnuchin: i did write some checks, but i have always been a republican. mr. rubenstein: most of your

friends in hollywood probably were liberal democrats. when they heard you were doing this, did they say, what are you doing? sec. mnuchin: yes. [laughter] mr. rubenstein: have they come to try to get favors from you since then or do they leave you alone? sec. mnuchin: they have not tried to get favors, but i would say even a lot of people who were skeptical have come around, seeing the economic plan and seeing what this has done to the economy and the markets. he was elected president. did you think you is going to win? sec. mnuchin: i told you, i was 100% convinced. even in the and when we were seeing the florida poll numbers, i was telling people that the numbers were not right, he was going to win florida and he would win. calledenstein: so he u.n. and said, and you want to be secretary of the treasury? did you have any doubt about that? sec. mnuchin: he did not call me right after he won. i was part of the transition.

even though i knew him well, he put me through an interview process, like other people. being the good former investment banker, i showed up with my yellow pad and had a whole presentation and walked him through what i would do if i had the job. that is still the game plan i'm operating on today. mr. rubenstein: when he offered you the job, did you realize the irs audits every year the tax returns of the secretary of the treasury and you would have to be on it every year? that was ok with you? sec. mnuchin: i did not. matter of fact, i will tell you -- i knew i would have to sell everything, that did not bother me. i did not realize how difficult the process was of going through a confirmation. i think i delivered literally 8000 pages. the most ridiculous part is, i would say i am selling this, this, this. i am literally selling everything and still they want to look at every investment. mr. rubenstein: how much did it

cost? sec. mnuchin: a lot. i won't say it here or on my tv, but it was very expensive. mr. rubenstein: what is the best part of being secretary of treasury? other than interviews like this? definitely not interviews like this. [laughter] sec. mnuchin: i'm always happy to be here. mr. rubenstein: second to this? the mnuchin: it is by far most interesting thing i have ever done. i think the thing that is great about this job is it touches on so many different aspects of the government. isig focus of what i do domestic and international finance, but a big component of what we do is manage all the sanction programs, so whether it is iran, north korea, venezuela, russia, i'm a member of the national security council and this is a big part of the strategy that we employ for foreign policy. the job touches on a big part of this.

i would say the other thing that is great is that we have the best location. we got the best building in the best location. the president, every time he flies in in marine one, he is like, you're building is a lot bigger than my building. it is six minutes from my office to his office and six minutes back. mr. rubenstein: but his button is bigger than anybody else's, right? [laughter] sec. mnuchin: that is true. mr. rubenstein: is there a secret tunnel under the treasury building that goes to the white house? sec. mnuchin: there was a tunnel at one point. i won't tell you whether the tunnel exists or not. i will tell you i don't use the tunnel. i literally walk out of the steps, they open a gate for me. i walk into the east wing, through the rose garden, and into the west wing. mr. rubenstein: you made a trip that got a lot of attention to fort knox. is our gold really there? sec. mnuchin: it is. mr. rubenstein: why do we need

all that gold? who cares about gold anymore? sec. mnuchin: that's a good question. at one as you know, point we were on the gold standard. that is how we got all the gold. most of the gold was bought during that period of time. it has been a good asset. we have got gold there and we also have gold at the new york fed. mr. rubenstein: and it is well protected? sec. mnuchin: i have had the opportunity to see both of them. mr. rubenstein: guards around the clock? sec. mnuchin: it is classified so i won't tell you,. but it is very well protected. mr. rubenstein: what about bitcoin? are you comfortable with that currency? what do you think the u.s. government should do about it? encourage it, discourage it? sec. mnuchin: do you own any? mr. rubenstein: no, i don't understand it, i don't know what it is really. [laughter] mr. rubenstein: i know i missed the boat on that. is that something you are worried about that could replace

the dollar as a currency? ,ec. mnuchin: first let me say we are very focused on cyber crypto currency, cyber currency, we are very focused on this. at the last f sock meeting that i chaired, we set up a working group. we are working with all the leggy leaders -- with all the regulators. i have two issues we are focused on. one is we want to make sure that bad people cannot use these currencies to do bad things. in the united states -- people may not realize this -- under our laws, if you have a wallet to own bitcoins, that company has the same obligation as a bank to know the customer. in the united states, we have rules for money laundering, for all different types of things.

we can track those activities. the rest of the world does not have that. one of the things we will be working very closely with the g20 on is making sure that this does not become the swiss numbered bank accounts. the other concern i have is there is a lot of speculation in this. i want to make sure that consumers who are trading this understand the risks. i am concerned that consumers could get hurt. mr. rubenstein: do you worry that russia -- if this was a legitimate government report or maybe fake news -- but russia is may be thinking of coming up with its own crypto currency as a way to get around sanctions. is that something you are worried about? sec. mnuchin: not at all, i don't think that is a concern. there are countries -- this is something i have spoken to the fed about. crypto currencies like a bitcoin , which effectively it is instead of euros or dollars, you

have a different currency. there are central banks that are thinking of, instead of issuing physical cash, issuing a digital currency. the fed has contemplated and looked at it. i don't think they have any intention of doing this in the near term. you could issue digital dollars. we don't think there is any need for that at this point. mr. rubenstein: i will go with physical currency. there is a picture of you getting i guess one dollar bills from the treasury and every secretary signs it. do you have to improve your handwriting? did you practice? sec. mnuchin: i did. , iill tell you, my signature am sure like yours, was protected from signing lots of documents in like an nanosecond, but is completely illegible. now my signature is really neat. now i am criticized it is to need on the bill. but if you sign -- sec. mnuchin: but if you sign a check with your real signature,

people can compare it -- sec. mnuchin: i thought of that problem, and now i have institutionalized my niece signature. -- my neat signature. i send new documents to the banks & my check that way as well. mr. rubenstein: your predecessors said on the $20 bill, we would change some parts of it, but he left office before that could happen. have you any plans to change what he proposed? what are you thinking about the $20 bill? sec. mnuchin: as you mentioned, the previous administration looked at changing the currency. let me first start with why we change the currency. the reason why we change the currency is all about counterfeiting. there have been changes to the currency over time. bill, look at the $100 there are certain features you can now see. there are certain features in the bills that you can't see that only machines can see and

detect whether they are counterfeit or not. i have met with the secret service and the fed. we are working -- our focus is working on the next sort of security features in the bill. this is years away. mr. rubenstein: on the question of whether you would still have harriet tubman or not? sec. mnuchin: we have not made any decisions as to whether we will change the bill in terms of that. the money has been a certain way for a long period of time, and we will look at whether we change it or not. mr. rubenstein: it was reported in the press that you had recommended that jay powell become the chairman of the fed. was that your recommendation? sec. mnuchin: i am not going to comment specifically. i was very involved in a recommendation to the president. i'm not going to comment on who i recommended or did not, but i'm very supportive of j. i think janet yellen has done a

great job, and i look forward to networking with jay. mr. rubenstein: how frequently do you meet with the chairman of the fed? sec. mnuchin: every week. we alternate between offices. mr. rubenstein: mr. rubenstein: have you ever said, maybe interest rates should stay low to be helpful to the economy? you can't give him a broad -- prod? sec. mnuchin: i respect the independence of the interest rate decisions. we talk about what the impact of the economy is. we talk about regulatory issues. we talk about international issues. it is interesting because when i started these meetings, i was like, i wonder what we would have to talk about every week? i would tell you, there has not been a week where janet yellen and i have not literally spent an hour talking about important things. a lot of times they are very different issues. mr. rubenstein: it was reported in the press that you are recommending somebody other than her. and you were still meeting with her. was it awkward in those meetings?

sec. mnuchin: no. mr. rubenstein: ok. [laughter] mr. rubenstein: what are you projecting for the economy this year in terms of growth, inflation, unemployment rate? sec. mnuchin: higher growth, moderate inflation, lower unemployment. mr. rubenstein: what is your biggest worry about the economy today? we have had eight years of uninterrupted growth, more or less, the longest period since world war ii. as some point, something will probably slow down. are you worried about it happening this year or next year? sec. mnuchin: that is a good question. what i would say is people in my job, people in your job, are not very good at predicting necessarily what the next problem is. a lot of reasons why the next problem turns out to be such a big problem, because it is something people have not anticipated. -- there is something i am concerned about

from the financial system. i would say cyber is something that i'm very focused on. i do think that it is one of these areas that we have to continue to invest a lot of money, privately. make sure that the government is working with the private industry. that would be the one area. -- the one area that if there were a an issue, would be concerning. mr. rubenstein: a number of cabinet secretaries, including you and the president, are going to davos next week. that is a place where the global elite gather, but the president constituency is not the global elite, so why is he going there? sec. mnuchin: i got asked this question yesterday when i gave a brief news conference at the white house. first of all, i did not realize that it was the global elite. i realize that globalists like you do attend. [laughter] sec. mnuchin: but actually, i

have looked at the list. there is an awful lot of world levers -- world leaders, an awful lot of finance chairs, awful lot of business people. to me, this is no more the global elite than the g20 or the events that i attended with you in saudi arabia, where the milken conference. this is an important economic agenda. mr. rubenstein: when you meet finance ministers around the world, do you ever wonder how they became a finance minister? do you say, these people are really impressive? how do you get along with these finance ministers? sec. mnuchin: generally very well. i would say the person i have been most impressed with is wolfgang. he is now retiring from the finance chair. i think he is the longest-serving. i have had several private dinners with him. to me, spending time with people like him, it really is an education. his perspectives, going back to

the fall of the berlin wall and the changes to the economy there. some people are very interesting. some people are not. [laughter] mr. rubenstein: which ones are not? [laughter] you one ofn: i gave the really interesting ones. mr. rubenstein: you have met with a number of your predecessors, what is the most important advice or predecessors give you about the job of being secretary of the treasury? sec. mnuchin: i think there has been a lot of good advice area i think probably the most important part and the most important advice has been around kind of the various different aspects of the job. different people have had different advice on policies. one of the things the treasury is known for is the career staff -- we have a very long, very

professional career staff. politicsagencies, the gets much more impacted through the career staff. treasury is really known for -- again, because so many of the functions are operational, just great career staff. mr. rubenstein: the legislative goals of the president this year , infrastructure, is that one of his highest goals? sec. mnuchin: it is. mr. rubenstein: do you see that being bipartisan or solely republican? sec. mnuchin: that definitely has to be bipartisan. there has been a lot of work done on it already. mr. rubenstein: health care legislation, the president made an effort to change obamacare that did not quite work, but some of the mandate has been taken out through the tax bill. are you done now i'm trying to make any legislative changes on the health care bill? sec. mnuchin: that is something that the president is considering and talking to congress about. i would say what we were able to accomplish in the tax bill was getting rid of the individual mandate.

i think fundamentally the idea that you should charge people penalties because they are forced to buy insurance, that is something we did not agree with and we think makes sense to come out. the other thing we are now looking at -- and again, we are working with the department of labor and others on regulations that will allow different businesses to get together and different associations to get together and pool across state lines their insurance buying. that will create a great opportunity for companies to lower their cost, lots of companies that independently would be very expensive, as opposed to going into the exchanges, will be able to bring down their rates. mr. rubenstein: do you have a full complement of assistant secretaries and people you need or are you still working to get them confirmed? sec. mnuchin: we still have silver of people waiting to get confirmed and some people going through the process. mr. rubenstein: is it harder to

get them through the white house process or senate process? sec. mnuchin: not even close. getting them through the white house process has been very easy for us. we have very good communication with the white house. getting it through the senate is very challenging. i think the statistic is that at this rate, we will not fill the government. mr. rubenstein: you see the president regularly. is he happy with the job? does he wish he had not run for president? is he happy being president? sec. mnuchin: he loves being president. mr. rubenstein: before he was elected, he came to the economic club of washington, we had an interview. do you think he should come back? sec. mnuchin: i do. mr. rubenstein: will you recommend that to him? sec. mnuchin: absolutely. mr. rubenstein: you have been treasury secretary for almost a year. do you enjoy the job? do you have plans to stay for one year, two years, three years? the whole first term, second term? sec. mnuchin: i will be here as long as the president is president. either four years or seven

years, eight years. mr. rubenstein: you are happy with the job. sec. mnuchin: absolutely. mr. rubenstein: some of your predecessors have gone on to be secretary of state. do aspire to do that? sec. mnuchin: i do not. i am thrilled with my job. don't want another job. happy to do this. mr. rubenstein: where are the egos biggest? hollywood, washington, or wall street? sec. mnuchin: that is really a tough competition. [laughter] mr. rubenstein: where are the people the nicest? [laughter] sec. mnuchin: washington. people are definitely the nicest here. that's my story and i'm sticking with it. [laughter] mr. rubenstein: mr. secretary, i want to thank you very much for coming. i appreciate you taking the time. sec. mnuchin: thank you. [applause]

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] announcer: sunday on c-span's "q&a," an author and wall street journal contributor with his book "the accidental president." >> roosevelt's funeral was saturday and sunday. truman was terrified to give the speech. he talks about the night before, he laid in bed and pray to god that he would not miss it up. he climbs the stairs, four stairs to the pulpit. he looks out and sees his wife and she is crying. she is crying because roosevelt is dead, the nation is in shock,

and she never wanted to be the first lady. she never wanted her husband to be president. she is frightened and frightened for him. meanwhile, he has to get up and inspire confidence in his administration and the whole world. the whole world has to understand that america will continue, that the war will continue. announcer: "q&a" sunday night at 8:00 eastern on returns tocongress sessions on tuesday. expire, budget set to they must pass something to avoid a government shutdown. during the week, they plan on discussing u.s. contributions to the world bank and abortions.

about fisawill meet reauthorization after it was approved by the house. watch live on c-span and c-span2. announcer: next on c-span, a look at issues facing african-american in the u.s. then, a look at what st. louis is doing to address race relations after the fatal shooting of michael brown, which sparked protests and violence. thethen, a discussion of north korea nuclear threat. carson wasretary ben the keynote speaker at a panel about