i'm steve kornacki. topping the agenda right now, donald trump under an assumed name? "the washington post" has obtained new audio from 25 years ago of a man handling public relations for trump who sounds an awful lot like trump. >> how are you? >> what's your name again? >> john miller. >> what's is your position? >> i'm in pr because he gets so much of it. >> the new phone calls n trump's denial on the "today" show. that's just moments ago. he said that. that's a must watch. we'll have it for you in just a minute. also on the agenda, trump and paul ryan inching toward unity or biding time until another eruption? >> no, i think it's a process. i was a little bit surprised but not that surprised, frankly. i think that will come. if it doesn't, i'll go my separate way. trump saying all the right words now, but how long will it last?

and finally, the bridgegate list. a deadline now just hours away for prosecutors to reveal the names of unindicted co-conspirators from the scandal that upended chris christie's administration. >> anybody who works for me who believed that something like this was going to be something that would be pleasing or acceptable to me didn't know me in the first place. >> and now a new twist this morning. a last-second bid by wone of those unindicted co-conspirators to keep those names hidden. plus, a special edition of the most important number of the day. a surprise guest is going to join us. who is it? stay tuned and you'll find out. coming up, we begin with the top story. phone call recording emerging of what "the washington post" is calling a young donald trump. peter alexander has that story

for us. >> reporter: the voice is instantly recognizable. >> he's starting to do tremendously well financially. >> reporter: the audio recording obtained by "the washington post" capturing a 1991 conversation between the "people" magazine reporter and a man claiming to be donald trump's publicist calling himself john miller. >> what's your name again? >> john miller. >> what's is your position? >> i'm sort of handling pr because he gets so much of it. >> reporter: the publicist is trump himself boasting celebrities like madonna want to date him. >> when she called n want to go out with him, the people that you write about really are -- they call. they just call. actresses, people that you write about just call to see if they can go out with him. brag about having three other girlfriends all while live with marla maples. he's live with marla and has three other girlfriends. >> and explaining why he dumped maples for marla bruney. in 1990 they verified that the

voice was trump. trump at the time admitting it was a joke gone awry. the post reports trump routinely called reporters and gossip columnists for decades pretending to be someone else while planting stories about himss. the former people magazine reporter said the call said something about the control trump wanted to keep of the news cycle flowing with this story. and i can't believe he thought he'd get away with it. the post reports trump did not respond to their request for comment to the article. >> that was "the washington post" that obtained those audio recordings. trump wouldn't talk to "the washington post" about that but he called in to the "today" show and was asked about it there. ing this is what he said. >> not sure if you have been made aware of this "washington post" report that's out this morning, but they have obtained a recording with a voice of someone that they say is, in fact, you. someone who is pretending to be a pr person. this is from 25 years ago. let me play a portion of the tape for you.

>> on this tape the person on it talks about his dating exploits. goes on about his divorce, things like that. the simple question this morning, are you aware of the tape? is it you? >> no, i don't know anything about it. you are telling me about it for the first time. it doesn't sound like my voice at all. i have many, many people trying to imitate my voice. you can imagine that. this sounds like one of the scams, one of the many scams. doesn't sound like me. >> the post says you acknowledged a couple of decades ago that was you but it was a joke. >> i don't think it was me. it doesn't sound like me. i don't know what they're talking about. >> the post says this is something you did routinely. you'd call reporters and plant stories and say either you were john miller or john barron but, in fact it was actually you on the phone. is that something you did with any regularity? >> no, and it was not me on the phone. and it doesn't sound like me on

the phone. i will tell you that, and it was not me on the phone. when was this? 25 years ago? >> in the early '90s. you're going so low as to talk about something that took place 25 years ago about whether or not i made a phone call? i guess you're saying under a presumed name? >> yes. >> okay, well, the answer is no n let's get on to more current subjects. i know it's wonderful for your listeners, but i think we have more important things to discuss. >> all right. trump denying it. the audio recording is out there, though. "the washington post" got them together this morning. now turning to that meeting between donald trump, paul ryan justice yesterday. it ended still without an endorsment from ryan. still calling the meeting encouraging and the first of more to come. >> i was very encouraged with what i heard from donald trump today. i do believe that we are now planting the seeds to get ourselves unified. >> you expect to endorse? >> i think this is going in a

positive direction and i think this is the first very encouraging meeting. but again in 45 minutes you don't litigate all of the processes and issues and principles that we are talking about. >> what did you think of his personality? >> his personality, i thought he was a very good personal ut. he's a very warm n genuine person. >> nbc's luke russert with us on capitol hill this morning. no endorsement but looks like progress was made there. a lot of people reading it as it's inevitable that ryan will line up with trump. can you see anything that would keep that from happening at this point? >> well, i think the unpredictability of donald trump is one reason why paul ryan is sort of holding out. i'm at the capitol hill club where a meeting of the trump caucus wrapped up. you talk about these meetings. it's ballooned up to about 30 and they're trying to figure out which one of their membership would be the best media

surrogate. you'll see an increase of the trump presence here on capitol hill. as for paul ryan, he has two issues to deal with. number one, he has his own personal disagreements with donald trump on a variety of issues and i also think their personalities are so different that he's trying to grow to learn how to trust donald trump. number two, though, he also represents a house gop conference which is very divided. the freedom caucus members have questions about donald trump's ideological conservative pure ut. more moderate members that feel his comments regarding latinos, the muslim ban can be problematic in their suburban district. so he has to reconcile those two factions within his house gop conference. then i'd also say on top of that, look at the divide that's now emerged between mitch mcconnell in on trump and ryan who seems to be holding off. th then you have the nrcc chairman. he's all in on chairman and the

nrsc chairman who is in charge trying to keep that senate majority over there. he's all in on trump. so i question how long ryan can go without a full-on embrace. as to why he's going to keep going othe reasons i just mentioned, one other one i'll keep mentioning, paul ryan wants to keep all his options open. and if you embrace donald trump too closely, what does that mean for your prospects, say, 2020, if you want to rebuild the republican party and focus on immigration, upward mobility, kinder, gentler things? makes it more difficult, steve. >> luke russert on capitol hill. that was the news yesterday. then with the meeting between paul ryan and donald trump, the current speaker paul ryan, the former speaker john boehner also making news with comments about donald trump. and we bring in now rory cooper, the managing director of purple strategies. a republican strategist and never trump activist. i want to stay on this john

boehner one because john boehner made some interesting comments about donald trump yesterday in las vegas. he is going to be supporting donald trump. he explained a little bit why. let's play that. >> let me give you a few of donald trump's policies. and you tell me if you agree or disagree. temporarily ban muslims from the country? >> no. >> build a wall across with mexico? >> no. >> tear up a bunch of trade agreements and put 35% tariffs? >> no. >> this america first foreign policy that he articulated in his speech in washington a couple of weeks ago. >> not quite my style. but having said this -- >> why are you for him? >> the point is while i was for some other people, they didn't win. and donald trump is going to be the nominee. and we as a party have to figure out, how do we get our act together? how do we get on the same page, and how do we win? >> all right. so that's the former speaker. he says we've got our

differences. we've got to come together. why don't you see it that way? >> that's a popular sentiment and completely understandable. that's what we as republican activists have been trained to do every four years throughout our careers. this time it's different because what we're trying to do is protect the republican brand. protect the party, the principles, the values they'll need to exist when donald trump loses against hillary clinton in a binary option. states like georgia are on the table in a clinton versus trump matchup. so we have to stop thinking about -- listen. for the last few years what we've had people complain about, republican leadership is all they want to do is win elections. we need to fight on our principles. some of those same people are saying, put the principles aside. let's just win this election. i think we need to go back to the idea that the republican party should be about something. we need to protect it for down ballot candidates and need to exist when donald trump goes back to whatever his next marketing campaign is.

>> some people would say the best way to protect those down ballot candidates is for the republican party to stick together to try to find some common ground and to run on that common ground. >> except for the next four or five months a lot of those candidates aren't going to be able to talk about the issues that matter in their state or district. they'll have to talk about whether or not they believe donald trump is the voice on some tape from 20 years ago, his latest insendiary comment. the easy thing to do is say i support the nominee. it's hard to stick up for your principles when everyone is telling you that you should just unify. but right now, i agree with speaker ryan from a week or two ago when he said our standard bearer should bear our standards. and the standards of the republican party and the principles are not just the positions that we take but also the moral leadership that we should expect from the leader of our party. and if we go down the path of giving that away to donald trump and getting behind what he stands for, then come next january, the party is going to be in much worse shape. >> when you look at paul ryan,

seeming to move toward the possibility of an endorsement yesterday. had the comments from john boehner. had others, too. the house freedom caucus on yesterday saying trump wasn't my first choice. i'm with him now. greg walden. you have a lot of republicans it seems coming around now. do you see an inevitability of republican leaders all being on board eventually? >> i see that a lot more republican leaders and republican members will come on board. that's inevitable because that's the nature of them also protecting their own seats and also believing in, for some, they're doing the right thing for the right reasons. but there are also going to be a lot who can't say one month ago that this person is absolutely morally unfit and unqualified to be president of the united states and a couple of weeks later say we'll unify. those people also have to be respected. and the idea that they're going to stand behind their principles and maybe not support republican candidate this time around has to be understood.

i think both sides need to tolerate each other for the next four or five months. >> rory cooper, one of the never trump folks. thanks for joining us. one of donald trump's earliest endorsers on capitol hill, california congressman duncan hunter not happy with donald trump's visit to washington yesterday. hunter telling politico that trump snubbed his supporters in congress by only meet with members of the republican leadership. and one of hunter's colleagues, congressman tom marino of pennsylvania joins me. he's also a donald trump supporter. there weren't many of you congressman who were behind trump on capitol hill before he locked up the republican nomination. one of your fellow early trump backers duncan hunter says he was in town yesterday. he owed us a little more respect than he showed us. what do you say to that? >> i have conversations with donald pretty regularly. i wasn't offended. he had other things to deal with yesterday, particularly with the speaker and over on the senate

side. and i don't need stroked, and i think he did the right thing. >> where do you think this is going in terms of the question not just of paul ryan but unity in general. we just had rory cooper from the never trump forces on. he's saying, look, republicans should still be holding out. how much work does donald trump still have to do to unite republican leadership? >> i think there's always more work to unite. yesterday, you know, was a great start. the example of it was the meeting this morning. there were over two dozen people at that meeting this morning. the meeting was so big it was standing room only. more people tried to get through that door. each time we have a meeting on thursday or friday, whenever it's going to be, it's going to get larger and larger because more people are coming along. listen, the bottom line here is, let's get back to the main issue. the american people have spoken. they have chosen donald trump

because he is saying what they are feeling and what they want. and that's republicans and democrats and independents alike. >> how much time do you want to give paul ryan here? he says it's a process. he seems to be saying here. a process of coming around. how much time you want to give him for that? >> i think paul will come out in the next couple of weeks. i don't think it will be that much longer. also bear this in mind. paul has 247 prima donnas to deal with. so to bring those individuals together will take a few more weeks. you'll sigh mostly everybody come on board, and the main objective here is to do what the american people want. they want jobs. they want lower taxes. they want terrorism dealt with. they want the borders protecte and they want the budget -- a balanced budget so there's some security for the children's

future. >> and finally, one of those trump holdouts still out there, one of the most prominent is mitt romney from four years ago. a lot of differences between the two of them. mitt romney is out there saying donald trump has not released his taxes. he's claiming there's an audit. he says an audit should be no excuse for releasing them. what do you think about that question of donald trump and his taxes? should he just release them, put them forward, put this to rest? >> i have had to fill out fac reports for the past six years now and they are much more detailed than a tax return. and let me put it this way. i follow ronald reagan's 11th commandment. i'm not going to talk about mitt romney, but every time governor romney makes a statement like that, donald trump picks up another million votes. >> tom marino, congressman from pennsylvania, early donald trump supporter. thanks for the time. >> you're welcome. in other news this morning, potential conflict of interest allegations now swirling around the clinton global initiative. that's the foundation set up by

the clinton family after bill clinton's presidency. "the wall street journal" reporting the initiative directed a $2 million deal with a company partly owned by friends and associates of the clintons. bill clint on responded to the allegations himself last night. >> regarding "the wall street journal" report, did the cgi break the law? >> i haven't had a chance to read it carefully. but i think my foundation, whatever, is answering it. >> so you deny that cgi broke the law? >> oh, god, yes. >> now among the people who benefited from this particular cgi deal being reported on here is julie mcmann. she's a resident of chappaqua, the same town in new york the clintons also live in. she describes bill clinton as a, quote, family friend. also new today, the obama

administration issuing new guidance on the use of rest rooms for transgendered students in public schools. taking the transgendered students should be allowed to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity. the government isn't impose anything new legal requirements but warns schools if they don't comply it could be considered d discrimination and could lose funding for them. the bridgegate list. at this very moment, prosecutors are getting ready to reveal the names of unindicted co-conspirators from that scandal. but one of those unindicted co-conspirators is now desperately trying to keep that from happening. who is he or she? who are the other unindicted co-conspirators and will we get those names today? there is a lot happening in this story. stay with us because i promise we're going to take you through all of it. and i promised a special edition of the most important number of the day. that's with our surprise guest

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many other countries the government automatically registers voters and holds elections on days that are weekend days or national holidays. do you think it's time for the u.s. to follow their lead? >> absolutely. we are the only advanced democracy that makes it deliberately difficult for people to vote. everything we can do to make sure that we're increasing participation is something that we should promote and encourage. >> president obama making some news yesterday saying election day, it ought to be a national holiday. give everyone the day off from work so everyone can get out and vote.

he was talking by the way to the student newspaper at rutgers university there. so election day as a holiday. and that's going to bring us to our most important number of the day. but before i go to the board, a twist because this is not your ordinary run of the mill most important number of the day today because today we're going to be joined by a surprise mystery guest howiwho will now reveal him or herself. please step forward. >> i made it. i made it. off the trail. >> it's jacob silver. >> i'm watching the "today" show. steve kornacki is in a suit and tie. i get dressed up to be with steve and he's back in a sweater. >> i pulled a fast one on you. thank you for inviting me to talk about the most important number of the day. 31. >> first of all, it's two years younger than i am. >> way to brag. >> second of all, it's where we rank out of 34 countries.

34 peer economies in voter turnout which, if that -- oh, i love that. feels so good. >> it didn't malfunction on you. usually there's smoke coming out from me. if 31st out of 34 were a grade in school. you would get an f-minus. american voter participation. the world's most famous democracy has voter turnout that's horrendous. go to iraq, afghanistan and set up democracies and our democracy is in peril. in the united states on average 53.6% of people show up to vote in america. that's horrible. >> these are 53% of people who are old enough to vote or or are registered to vote? >> 53% of people in the voting age population which means old enough to vote. that was a weak reck tangtangle. when you look at those

registered to vote, that's almost 90%. of the 84% and 53%, something is preventing people. >> people are registering. they can do it. they're just choosing not to when election day rolls around. >> that's why what president obama said is so important. hold on. i want to go to the next screen. this is why that number -- this is why that number is so important. if you look at all these yellow states. no early voting or no excuse absentee. there are around 15 states where tuesday voting is the only option. if you are a single mother, a student. you can only vote on tuesday when the polls are open. and that prevents a lot of people from getting out. can i flip back to the screen? >> absolutely. >> that's why we see the distinction between 84.3% being registered that are of age and only half of those people being able to show up. so what president obama has said, and this is, frankly,

something i fought for. bernie sanders has called for his. hillary clinton has called for this. it's the first time publicly we've heard the president call for this. it's a big piece of news from rutgers. >> one other possible reason turnout is so low. the candidates are so bad. >> it's possible. it's possible. but if you look at states that have good voting systems like the orange states, warrashingto oregon, they have high voter turnout. and turnout is also routinely higher than in states with tuesday only voting. >> that was our most important number of the day with our special guest, most important number of the day deliverer, jacob soboroff. fill in any time. jacob soboroff will be back on the trail in no time. coming up here, bridgegate. it's back because two new lists of names. they are supposed to be revealed any minute now. although there is a last-minute

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that person as a criminal. and there is also more to this. we are also learning of a second list reportedly of individuals who had knowledge of the alleged conspiracy but didn't join in it. wnbc reporter brian thompson covers all things new jersey. you've been following this from the very beginning. we got three things happening here. there's the co-conspirators first, the people who had knowledge and then there's this john doe making a last-minute motion here to keep all of this from coming out. this last-minute motion, do you think there's a chance here these names are not revealed today as a result? >> there's always a chance of anything. in this case, the judge seems bound and determined. susan wigginton, to go ahead and release the names of the co-conspirators based on what she wrote which was that these were public figures. she said both staffers within government, possibly elected officials who would have been unindicted co-conspirators named by the u.s. attorney in all of

his research. and so from that measure, from that standard, it's hard to believe that she would all of a sudden have second thoughts and say, oh, poor john doe. yeah, i'm worried about your reputation. yeah, i'll squash -- quash the whole list. >> if she goes forward, unindicted co-conspirator meaning prosecutors looked at these people and said they believe they have some involvement they're just not sure they could prove it beyond a reasonable doubt? >> that's exactly what it is. one defense attorney telling me it is a prosecutor's theory that these people were -- had some level of involvement but as you say, the reasonable doubt. there was not enough proof to list them as people who should be indicted and who could be convicted. >> so there are lots of names. lots of names if you're in new jersey or just anybody around the country following this scandal. there are a lot of names bandied about right now. where is the area we're looking likely for these names to come from? >> i think you're looking at

several people in the governor's office n a couple of people at least in the port authority higher echelons. remember, this case is kind of bifurcated. there was the original planning for this event and very little if any, evidence that it went beyond three people who were first indicted or charged since you have the guilty plea from david wildstein. so there's almost no evidence that there were other people involved in that. there is plenty of evidence, however, that's there were other people involved after the lanes were shut down, after these headaches, after ambulances were stopped, after first responders couldn't get anywhere. after a woman had heart palpitations, children couldn't get to school. plenty of other evidence that's others were drawn into this conspiracy if you will. >> cover-up. >> cover-up, and that's the charge that the u.s. attorney has been pursuing that it's big conspiracy, included a cover-up,

but he never had cover-up charges listed. so once you get into those october and december months when they were still trying to hide this in the governor's office, that's when others were brought in. a state senator. attorney with the port authority who helped prepare the fake testimony to the legislatesure. all of that sort of stuff. >> when you talk about the cover-up, everybody remembers chris christie out there saying there is nothing to see here. is there any possibility, chris christie is involved in this at all or is that probably too far beyond this? >> putting a lot of speculation on me right there. i have seen no evidence yet that he was aware of what happened before it happened. other than the fact that he probably did let his office know his inner office know that he wanted an endorsement. this is about getting the

endorsement of the demtocratic endorsement of ft. lee for his nomination. throughout the campaign, throughout the government office that they wanted this. but for christie to be named an unindicted co-conspirator -- >> that would be a shock if that happened? >> the, list of people that had any knowledge at all? we're not sure that's going to come out today. >> a lot of speculation. within the next couple of hours is when the deadline is set for. brian thompson, wnbc, appreciate that. we'll be right back. ayed gik to miami. my diabetic nerve pain but i couldn't bear any longer. so i talked to my doctor and he prescribed lyrica. lyrica may cause serious allergic reactions or suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor right away if you have these, new or worsening depression, or unusual changes in mood or behavior. or swelling, trouble breathing, rash, hives, blisters, muscle pain with fever, tired feeling or blurry vision. common side effects are dizzins, sleepiness, weight gain and swelling of hands, legs, and feet. n't drink alcohol while taking lyrica. don't drive or use machinery

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i heard a lot of good things from our presumptive nominee, and we exchanged differences of opinion on a number of things that everybody knows we have. there are policy disputes that we will have. there's no two ways about it. plenty of republicans disagree with one another on policy disputes. but on core principles, those are the kinds of things we discussed and again, i'm encouraged. >> paul ryan following that big meeting with donald trump yesterday. ryan sidestepping more specific questions about their ideological differences. that doesn't mean those differences are going to go away, though. joining me now is david from, senior editor for the atlantic, former speech writer for george w. bush. if you are reading this the same

way most people in washington seem to be. paul ryan taking a clear step toward endorsing donald trump ultimately. >> this was the meeting before the meeting. this is not the endorsement, but it is getting ready to do it. and it's also redefining what the argument was about as merely one of policy and after all, policy differences, these are big parties, they can be unified. and so i think the path is clear. as paul ryan moves closer toward donald trump and becomes difficult for the remaining republicans who don't want to follow not to follow. what can ted cruz do if paul ryan ultimately endorses. >> the policy differences there, we can put some of these on the screen. they are stark. start on entitlements, social security, medicare. ryan wants to cut them. he says to keep them solven. trump says leave them alone. look at immigration. ryan has been out there for comprehensive immigration reform. obviously trump the complete

opposite of that. the minimum wage, there's a difference there. ryan opposes it. trump now seems to be saying he'd be okay with it but leave it to the states. muslim immigration obviously muslim um grants coming into the united states, trump says to ban them. obviously backing off that a little now at least rhetorically. and on trade, ryan is a devout free trader when it comes to the tpp and other things like that. trump opposing free trade agreements. look at those differences. how can there be a meeting here? >> donald trump is not what we call a policy based candidate. he changes his mind all the time. i don't find it inconceivable that donald trump may jettison most of the policies that got him through the primaries and signing on to a lot of ryan policies. here's our problem as a party. ryan's agend aitagenda, it's mo but it's massively unpopular. it's clearly not what voters want.

so what we may end up as a party with is the unpopular ryan agenda joined to the unpopular trump personality temperament and character. kind of the worst of all possible worlds. >> has it changed the republican party, though, going forward? the trump reign on these issues, is this a republican party that beyond trump is going to be changing its tune when it comes to social security, medicare, immigration or if trump goes away, does it revert to what we've been seeing from paul ryan before this? >> i hope it changes. we needed a candidate who is a serious and upright a person as paul ryan is to take many of the issues that donald trump discovered and publicized and create a more middle class party. instead we've got ryan's agenda which is not going to be acceptable to americans ever and trump's character, which i think is not going to be acceptable to americans. we needed it the other way around. >> david frum with the atlantic.

thanks for the time. coming up, there's been a lot of confusion over donald trump's tax plan this week. some of it coming from the candidate himself. so the campaign reached out to some big hitters to try to bring some clarity. one of the people it enlisted, larry kudlow. he joins me next. you ow when i first started out, it was all pencil and paper. the surface pro is very intuitive. with the pressure of my hand i can draw lightly, just like i would with a real pencil. i've been a forensic artist for over 30 years. i do the composite sketches which are the bad guy sketches. you need good resolution, powerful processor because the computer has to start thinking as fast as my brain does. i do this because i want my artwork to help people. i have an orc-o-gram we for an "owen."e. that's me. ♪ you should hire stacy drew. ♪ ♪ she wants to change the world with you. ♪ ♪ she can program jet engines to talk and such. ♪

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i think this is a common sense, well thought out tax proposal that's going to trigger the economy, going to make everybody go back and really want to work. it's going to create tremendous numbers of jobs. >> that was donald trump back in september putting out his tax plan. it's one that would slash tax rates across the board. when he released it, it was seen as broadly consistent with conservative economic philosophy. now that he's clinched the republican nomination, trump has sent some confusing signals on taxes starting when he said this on "meet the press" last sunday.

>> the thing i'm going to do is make sure the middle class gets good tax breaks. for the wealthy, i think it's going to go up, and it really should go up. he tried to up. >> he tried to clarify that statement saying that taxes would actually go down from where they are now but the rates might be higher than he had originally proposed in that plan from september. the plan has some bigger issues too. analysis from two different organizations found that trump's plan would add around $10 trillion to the deficit even after taking economic growth into account. the result, large budget deficit. so earlier this week politico reported that trump's team reached out for some help tapping economists larry kudlow and steven moore. here's trump last night on fox. >> as you know, larry kudlow is in love with my plan and larry kudlow is a fantastic guy. and larry kudlow really he likes my plan the best. but my plan is the biggest cut of anybody. i have the biggest tax cut of anyone. remember, when i put in the

proposal and proposed rates and everything else, it's going to be negotiated. you're not going to put in and everyone will say that's wonderful, i'm going to leave it right there. >> joining me now, larry kudlow, senior contributor to cnbc. i think i saw you nodding your head there, though. there has been the question when he's said he was okay with rates going up on the wealthy, was he talking about from where they are right now or from the plan he put out last september? >> from the plan he put out last september. now, not everyone in the trump camp has looked favorably at what steve moore and i are doing, but i believe mr. trump is. all we're doing, we're the committee to unleash prosperity, steve moore, myself, steve forbes and arthur laffert. we're working with trump staff to try to tweak certain parts of this thing. for example, as mr. trump said, the original top income tax rate

for the individual was 25 down from 40. >> it was 25, 20 and 10% tax. >> by the way, it was an excellent, excellent plan. when we talk about tweaking, it might go to 28. might, might, might. he has not signed off on it. >> this is your recommendation to him. >> i'm not here to tell you -- we haven't even made formal recommendations but we are discussing it with senior staff. that's what mr. trump is talking about. if you make over whatever, half a million years or something, you wouldn't get 25, you'll get 28 from 40. >> so when he says -- >> that's a cut. >> when he's on "meet the press" he's talking in shorthand there. >> yes. >> because a lot of people read that and said this is a major shift. he sees the polls seeing people favor tax hikes on the wealthy. >> a lot of people are just ankle biting him to death on this stuff. look, i've been through many of these campaigns. i worked for reagan many years

ago. all these plans, you post them up early, then you look at them and sort of tweak them. you want more growth and lower deficits, okay. so that's part of this issue. there's some small changes we've recommended. i don't speak for the trump campaign, i'm just saying this is what steve moore and i recommended. we're working with the corporate tax foundation. >> he's calling for a big cut in the corporate tax. >> 15% would turn this economy around. >> from 35 down to 15. >> 35 plus to 15 and small and large businesses. not just the big boys, the so-called c-corps but the s-corp, pass-throughs. that's a phenomenally good idea. no change in that whatsoever. a little tweaking about expensing deductions for the irs. basically we'd like to put a little more growth into it and a

lower deficit. now, it's all suggestions. there's nothing formal. we're having discussions with staff. he's got some great staff people. we're talking to the tax foundation with the scorecard people, and that is the part that paul ryan will agree with. this is vintage reagan, kemp, kudlow, moore, forbes, whatever. the big difference, i just want to make a comment, i can't help myself, you know that. the big split is going to be on entitlements. >> this is between ryan and trump now? >> that's right. >> so ryan in the path to prosperity looks at reining in costs, social security and medicare, and trump has been add man -- adamant, do not touch them. >> do not touch them now. you're talking to a paul ryan lover, known him for 20 years. i was on jack kemp's power america board when paul was an intern. >> who's going to win that showdown. >> it's not going to happen. what you're going to get here, politically it's going to be a

detente. entente cordial, between france and germany? it's a political deal, not a policy deal. ryan came with charts and figures yesterday. paul may be right, but mr. trump as far as i know right now does not want to tackle entitlements and does not want to cut back. immigration is going to be a problem, trade is going to be a problem. look, mr. trump is not going to push away the economic populism based on middle class anxieties and solution. he is not going to get rid of that and he shouldn't. that's how he won. he's setting voting records left and right and the polls show that he is running not a landslide, he is running evening with hillary clinton. >> we have about 30 seconds, but you were telling me off the air too, those polls that show trump very competitive with hillary clinton are going to have an effect on republicans rallying around him.

>> right now they're having an effect because the republican high command in the house except for paul ryan has endorsed him. right now they are showing there will be no landslide for hillary, period, ending of sentence. and trump's numbers are so good, it puts him in a very power position politically. politically. >> that tells republican leaders they have some incentive to get on board and they have something to pay with the base if they don't? >> if some senate races, they don't want to run with trump, fine. you get into that, that always happens. but he is in the whip -- he has the whip hand now on the polls. he has the whip hand on the momentum. he's getting the votes. the entente cordial with ryan is good. i don't think you should expect donald trump to change his basic policy opinions. why should he? i may not agree with everything. most of them are pretty sound and a wake-up call to the

republican establishment and trump may well carry all this to victory. >> and he did win the primary. larry kudlow, thanks for the time as always. appreciate it. that's going to wrap up our hour on msnbc. i'm steve kornacki. peter alexander is up next. [ "dreams" by beck ] hmmmmm... hmmmmm... the turbocharged dream machine. the volkswagen golf gti. part of the award-winning golf family. but i've managed.e crohn's disease is tough, except that managing my symptoms was all i was doing. and when i finally told my doctor, he said humira is for adults like me who have tried other medications but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohn's disease. d that in clinical studies, the majority of patients on humira

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here, there, everywhere. united states postal service priority: you i was very encouraged with what i heard from donald trump. >> for the most part we agree on a lot of different items. >> it's no secret that donald trump and i have had our differences. >> we'll get there, i'm pretty sure. >> we are now planting the seeds to get ourselves unified. >> good friday morning to you. friday the 13th it turns out here in washington, d.c. i'm peter alexander. you heard it there from both paul ryan and donald trump. both men say they are totally committed to working together this fall, but after thursday's high-stakes meeting, the house speaker is still withholding a full-throated endorsement. also this morning it's democrat versus democrat versus democrat. hillary clinton and bernie sanders hitting president obama over a report of new raids to deport