for our second exclusive interview of the morning, and joining us now from capitol hill, the speaker of the house, republican congressman, paul ryan, and great to have you on the show, mr. speaker. what is your reaction to the resignation of michael flynn and do you think there should be more from here? >> say it again? do i think there should be more from him? >> do you think there should be more from here? >> sorry, you cut out. if that person has lost the trust of the president, the president should ask for his resignation, and i think that was the right thing to do. with respect to michael flynn talking to other governments in the transition, that's what he is supposed to be doing, and it's the job description for incoming national security advisers to talk to other nations and talk to ambassadors

and start beginning relationships, and that's very much appropriatesh. but the story here is he was not candid or honest with his superiors and that's ground for dismissal, as far as i am concerned. >> i look forward to talking policy with you in just a few minutes, but the trump administration seems to always get in the way. the intel community is concerned not just because the one phone call of michael flynn but something over the course of the campaign, and some onerous connection between russia and the united states. mitch mcconnell told me their intel committee was going to be acting that active investigation and it was going to be aggressive. who in the house will be in charge of investigating? >> we already have been doing this. it's not as if the intelligence committee has been already investigating this.

they have been and will continue to do that. it's important that it's the intelligence committee because they are the ones that have access to classified information, and they have access to our intelligence community. remember, joe, the intelligence community from the obama administration did a community-wide search of all the evidence, and they packaged it up in a document and briefed us in congress and sent it to us a little over a month ago, and we will keep looking at this. there's no secret here, russia tried to meddle with the elections, and this is why i am in favor of the sanctions, and their interests don't go with our interests. nobody has made the claim that evidence exists that donald trump or his people were in on it, were involved in that.

i sent a letter with other leaders of congress to the states before the election saying heads up, make sure that your voting machines are intact and make sure you are guarding against these hacks because we have credible intelligence this is happening, and this is not a surprise to everybody, and the question is can we trust russia, and i say no. and remember he told vladimir putin, i could see into his soul, and then hillary clinton and barack obama did the reset, and new administrations for reasonable and practical reasons try to improve the relationship with russia because it would be nice if their interests aligns with ours, and i don't think it's going to happen or work because the way russia conducts itself, and this ongoing story is a perfect piece of evidence as to why we should not trust russia. >> there's word john mccain may be considering kud tpaoeuing the sanctions against russia, and is

that something you can take up in the house so the president can't -- >> i was frustrated the obama administration took so long to put sanctions in place, and if the sanctions were watered down, i would be in favor of making sure they cannot be watered down, because maybe in syria our interests can intersect for a period of time but that's all about anything possibly good i can see with russia going forward. >> it's willie geist. let me ask you a question i put to bob corker, and that's the posture of donald trump toward vladimir putin and russia, and outside the allegations being made and the leaks coming out of the intelligence community, comments he's made saying he's a strong leader, unlike what we have in america, and talking about president obama, and saying, yes, we kill people too,

so what? do those views bother you? >> yeah, comments of moral equivalency do bother me, and i don't want to practice relativism in life, and i don't descri subscribe to the moral equivalency idea is a notion i don't like. willie, this president believes it would be better for american national security if russia started growing in the same direction if instead of against us, and it would be great if it happened, and i do believe that donald trump is a guy that has good relationships and knows how to get deals done and maybe could do what hillary clinton failed to do, what george bush failed to do, so it's rational that administrations come and they look at the globe and they say russia is frustrating us here, and here and here and it would be nice if we could get them onboard with us and i don't think it's going to happen

because of that past conduct, but it's not unreasonable to think we could change them because that's what the last two administrations thought as well. >> you have been saying it's naive to think we are going to change russia, and -- >> that's what i think. >> is it naive for trump to think the same thing? >> yeah, i think obama was wrong to do the reset and give away the defense. i don't buy that we can change these people. i just don't. but it's reasonable and rational -- a lot of national security people disagree what i think, and they think give putin the respect and he will help us and stop at the line of nato, and i am going to nato in the fall to buttress nato, and i come at this from a hawk's point of view, but it's an entirely

reasonable and rational school of thought to think we can get them to be more cooperative, but i don't think it's going to happen. that's all. >> i understand completely. we will get to policy in just a moment but to paout a period at the end of the flynn sentence, does it concern you at all that flynn felt the need to lie to the vice president about it? >> yeah, and that's why i think it was right for the president to ask for his resignation. you want your national security adviser talking to other countries. that's their job. especially if it's an incoming national security -- is he supposed to pick up the phone after the inauguration and make that the first contact with other countries? come on. >> and tax policy right after this, or obamacare after this,

but what about him -- what troubles me is mike pence being kept in the dark and being lied to and the president and the white house keeping the vice president of the united states a. good friends of yours and mine in the dark for so long. are you concerned about that? >> i can't speak to the chronology of the timeline. i think spicer went through that yesterday and i didn't watch that because i was pretty busy, but what happened here is the president backed up the vice president, and the president said if he was misleading to mike pence, he's got to go. that's what counts here, i think. >> let's get to policy and start with the affordable care act and obamacare and yesterday mitch mcconnell told me he believed pre-existing conditions and being able to stay on your parents' health insurance policy until you are 24, 25 or 26 should rest primarily with the states, and you guys are still working that out.

where do you staptkaodo you sta? are those two things that will be guaranteed by the federal government? >> on the plan we ran on and all the senate republican replacement plans that have been offered, we have long said children should stay on their parents' plan until 26 years of age, and so i see sort of a cooperation between the federal government and the state government. we don't want to have the federal government over regulate all of health insurance. that's why we have one plan left in five states and one plan left in 33% of the counties in america, and so more plans and more competition, that's a good thing. choice and competition brings down cost and the lack of it raises cost. on the pre-existing condition, we had a good risk pool in wisconsin and it worked well. i want to go back and reconstitute the risk pools, and it's another way of saying

taxpayers will subsidize the cost of the care for people with pre-existing conditions and we are working on financing to supplement those high-risk pools. >> will there be a guarantee of that? >> the government will say states you set up your ways to finance people with pre-existing conditions, and then the earlier point, the law we passed last year that obama vetoed, that maintained the pre-existing policy. we intend to the the same thing. >> do you plan to get a bill together that will pass the senate also for substantial tax reforms, which has been your dream for quite sometime? >> my dream for a long time. we had not done tax reform since the year i got my driver's license, so it has been a long time and it's high time we have

done it. we have a timeline for doing this and we have not changed that and we are on schedule, and we have to do obamacare first because the law is collapsing so fast, and the insurance companies need to know what the lay of the land is going to look like in 2018, and if we waited to end obama in the summer, you would have people with zero plans left. we feel because the law is collapsing, there's an urgent nature and that's why obamacare is first. then in the second budget, which you need budget to do tax reform n. our spring budget, that's where we do tax reform. the way our budget process works, we pass the budget and we go to the policy and that takes you into summer, and spring and summer is tax reform, and winter and spring is obamacare, just to give a thumbnail sketch of the plan. >> when you go to a town hall meeting about the people that enjoy the benefits of the affordable care act and they are

covered by it, and what do you say to those people that are nervous it's going to be revealed? >> 4% of the population is who are on subsidies, and they are getting huge premium increases and their choices down to one in many cases, and they are not saying they love it, and what i am hearing is people with pre-existing conditions, and i have a guy waiting for a heart transplant and he is my age, and i met with a little girl who was about 12 years old and a leukemia survivor, and they are concerned about getting affordable health insurance and we totally agree with that, and those people are on obamacare because they have no choice and they have to have health insurance because they have serious problems, and that's the pre-existing condition person

that we are talking about, and then we have people who will have deductibles so high it is not like they have insurance in the first place. assuming the status quo can stay with obamacare is wrong, and it's collapsing while we speak, and humana announced yesterday is pulling out, we have human tphau and aetna is pulling out. the status quo is not staying put, it's collapsing. that's one of the reasons why we are doing obamacare first because we have to rescue people from this collapse. we feel an obligation to do that. >> you have a lot on your plate. speaker paul ryan, thank you very much. joe, he says he has been dreaming about tax reform since he got his lanicense, and that' about three years, right? >> every since i was working for jack kemp