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alabama. we'll also talk to oklahoma republican senator james lankford, a member of the intelligence committee which is conducting one of the investigation into possible trump campaign collusion with the russians. we'll also have plenty of analysis on all the news of the week and look ahead to next. plus how the tax bill might impact you, it's all ahead on "face the nation." good morning, welcome to "face the nation" i'm john dickerson. republican tax plan is in the home stretch. the final package will be voted on tuesday in the house then moves to the senate. at this point it looks like republicans have enough votes to pass it. one s.5 trillion tax cut plan roughly doubles the standard deduction for both individuals and married couples. it cuts individual tax rates, the top income bracket drops from 9.6 to 37%. the corporate tax rate decreases, too, it goes from 35 to 21%.

obamacare ban mate with individuals no longer required to purchase health care. it could result in 1 million more people becoming uninsured. child tax credit is doubled to $2,000. income level for those qualifying goes up to $500,000 and 1400 of the credit will be refundable for those whose income is so low that they don't pay income tax. the mortgage interest deduction is capped at 750,000 and the deduction for state and local taxes is sha u.k. to $so,000. according to the congressional budget office and joint committee on taxation it will add $1.6 trillion to the debt. and we bee gibb today with treasury secretary steve mnuchin, welcome, mr. secretary. let me ask you a question about priorities in this. throughout the discussion about this tax bill it's been clear the corporate rate is going to drop significantly, all the way to 21% at the end, for middle class they do get a tax cut

dedicated his p presidency to the forgotten man who ran as populous is the waiting -- weighting here correct? >> absolutely. first of all let me just say this is a historic event. people said we wouldn't get this done. we're on the verge of getting this done. the single biggest change to the tax system ever that president trump is going to sign. his priority alone has been fixed a broken system. over 90% of people will be able to fill out their taxes on a postcard. the corporate tax rate going from the highest in the world at 35% to 21% makes us competitive. more important we fix a system where we now tax on u.s. income, which is all about creating u.s. jobs. we'll bring trillions of dollars back on shore. >> dickerson: on the top rate is is going down. president said wealthy won't be getting tax cut now that will it drops from 39.6 to 37 now that balance is out deduction in state and local but only for

state and local tax states. again to this question of priorities, mark sanford, republican from south carolina from a truth in advertising sand point it would have been simpler just acknowledge reality on this bill. which is, fundamentally corporate tax reduction and restructuring bill, period. what's your response? >> not the case at all. pass throughs have the lowest rates that they ever had since the 1930s that's a huge part of engine of growth of small and medium-sized businesses. that are going to create lots of jobs. this is about hard working families that are going to see starting in february, tax cuts. we're already working at the irs to update the tax forms and update the tax charts. they're going to see this in their paychecks in february. >> dickerson: the question, it's not that the middle class will bet no tax cuts they will. but the size of the tax cut relative to the emphasis and size of what corporations will get through. not every middle class family has a pass through, obviously.

tom cole republican from oklahoma told cnbc this, it just seems wrong, he was talking about the lack of tax cuts say help with payroll taxes or the fact that the carried interest loophole remains. he said just seems wrong, we'd be better off if there were more populous victories in there. president ran as populous, argument there's just not as much for the middle class, not that they get nothing but that the emphasis is skewed. >> i think that is just not correct. people are going to see this in their paychecks. this is about the middle class, this is about working families. this is about child tax credits that are going up significantly. as you mentioned refundable parts of the tax credits going up significantly. people are going to see their paychecks go up. people are going to see their wages go up, that's that this is all about. >> dickerson: how soon do you think argument you make is that with corporations, tax is lower, they will pass it on to workers in their wages.

and then also spend money on plants and equipment are, how soon? >> this year. you already see the stock market at record highs. you see people's 401(k) up substantially. >> dickerson: that's not wages. >> no. i'm just saying you already see companies in anticipation in the market. so you're going to see trillions of dollars come back, i think you're going to see this year, wages going up. >> dickerson: because kevin, the chairman of the council of economic advisors, said on this question of when businesses are going to pass this on to the middle class, he said if you go to the optimistic vied of the literature it could take three to five years. you go to the pessimistic side, it would about double that. so that's optimistic 3-5. this is being sold as big christmas present everybody is going to get but really this benefit that will pass on in wages and plants and equipment, kevin, the president chairman of the economic advisors says three to five years in the best case. >> well that's three to five years on this 4500. but going to begin to see it right away. you won't see it all come in, it will go in over three years as

kevin anticipates. >> dickerson: for something being sold to people as wages are going to go up, happy days are here again, happy days, even in the best case scenario obviously there's lot of debate about whether this will even turn out the way you've argued, even in best case three to five years for broad shared middle class prosperity as result of the theory this is based on. >> not the case at all. you're going to see happy days starting in february. where hard working families sees that they have more money. that's something that's absolutely critical. you're going to see cuts any whether from $2,000 to $4,000 for medium families with two kids. this is going to have a huge impact in the economy and it's going to have a huge impact on american jobs. you're going to tee that right away. >> dickerson: difference between what people see in their taxes going down versus the paychecks. let economy think question. the president -- another thing he campaigned on central to his campaign that was he was going to drain the swamp get rid of special interests. public citizen reports that

lobbyists have to disclose things they're working on. 624 lobbyists have work on tax-related issues that's more than half the lobbyists in washington worked on this. for a president who promised to drain the swamp, that seems like a lot of people working on taxes. >> well, i think if it was up to the president there would be a lot fewer of them. the reason why there's so many people working on it is, we've touched almost every single part of the tax code. so -- >> dickerson: been defeated in this case? >> absolutely. if you look at the massive changes to this, we fixed a broken tax system. that's what this is all about. >> dickerson: tom cole talks about carried interest loophole, the president said that let hedge fund managers get away with ford, it's been tweaked a little bit still in there. why was that worth keeping? >> that was up to the house and senate. the president likes the overall bill, there's obviously little parts of this bill that he would have tweaked differently himself. the fact that it's moved from one year to thr

definitely a step in the right direction. and the fact that it impacts a lot of small real estate developers, but as you said the president couldn't get every single little detail he wanted. that was one of them that got left out. >> dickerson: okay. that's it. we're out of time. i appreciate -- >> nice to see you. dickerson: thanks for being with us. we're joined now by vermont independent senator bernie sanders he's in burlington, welcome, senator. that looks looks it's going to get passed through the senate and house and signed by the president the tax cut bills there anything more than opponents like you could have done to stop this? >> well, i think we did everything that we could. but at the end of the day what you had is people like mr. mnuchin who is worth $300-400 million. the president of the united states who is wort several billion dollars as you mentioned from four or five thousand lobbyists doing everything they could to write a bill which significantly benefits the

country and the largest corporations. latest analysis that we have seen suggests that 72% of the benefits go to the top 5%. my guess is that 60% of the benefits will go to the top 1% and at the end of the decade because the benefits for the middle class are temporary, while the corporate benefits are permanent, at the end of the decade over half of the middle class will be paying more in taxes. what we are seeing here is a real massive attack on the middle class. what i worry very much, john, is that if you listen to what the speaker of the house, paul ryan is talking about, what he is saying is that as a result of this bill, the deficit will go up by 1.4 trillion dollars. and what ryan in my view will come back with are massive cuts to social security, medicare and medicaid in

deficit. massive tax breaks for the rich. cuts to social security, this is a grossly unfair tax bill. >> dickerson: i wouldn't get to the entitlements in just a moment on that question of the middle class, what the administration says and republicans say that, yes, tax cuts expire for middle class, but knowing politics as they do, that nobody is going to vote to have -- let them expire that they will be capped. that seems pretty probably in the way washington works. is it really fair to say that -- go ahead. >> they are. the way this bill is written is the tax breaks for corporations are now permanent, why weren't the tax breaks for middle class made permanent because it has to do with the priorities of the folks who wrote that legislation. and their job is to represent multi-national corporations not working families. that's where we are today. >> dickerson: let me ask you, lot of talk about politics here. is the democrats take control of

the democrats, what is the promise to america about what will be done to reverse the state of affairs that you're so unhappy with? >> look, at a time of passion sieve income and wealth, people on top, large corporations are doing well our job is to pay attention to the needs of working families. we talk about a child care tax credit in this bill. truth is that depending where you live in america, good quality child care can cost $12-20,000 a year. our job is to move to universal child care so that every working family in this country knows that their kids have good quality care. right now, john, this is really quite unbelievable. while the republicans are spending all of their time providing massive tax breaks to the rich that there has been no discussion, public discussion about the dreamers, the needs of the dreamers, 800,000 young people born and raised in

legal status very shortly. what about the chip program. nine million kids will lose their health insurance. >> dickerson: let me get to th that. are corporate taxes going up if democrats take control? >> i think we'll take a very hard look at this entire tax bill and make it a tax bill that works for the middle class and working families not for the top 1% and large multi-national corporations. >> dickerson: there's no question that in order to achieve all of the things you want, taxes are going to have to go up on corporations if they're down to 21 as rum of this, you can't find the money anywhere where else. >> absolutely, yes. in my view, absolutely. >> dickerson: let's go on to the budget and spending question. is the republicans, democrats have said medicare will have to be cut because of the costalled pay-go rules. they say democrats will waive those rules next year that the rules are always waived so it's a false attack to say that they're going to be automatic cuts nor medicare. your response? >> no, it is not a

john. simply listening to what the speaker of the house has said. and what he has said is, after they do the tax bill the next order of business so-called entitlement reform. and please, understand, that when republicans talk about entitlement reform, what they are talking about are massive cuts to medicare, medicaid and social security. in the budget that they already pass. they propose a trillion dollar cut to medicaid, which would be disastrous for people who have loved ones in nursing homes, for children and for working families who are on -- this is what they have already proposed. so they are going to come back in my view in order to offset this deficit with terrible cuts to social security, medicare and medicaid. >> dickerson: its that's slightly different than following through on restrictions created by pay-go which they say you'll waive. let me ask you about spending bill, keep the government open, what is your message to

tough -- how and what they should fight for in terms of funding the government? >> look, right now it is no secret that the middle class is hurting. republicans have been unable to reauthorize, for example, the community health center program providing health care to 27 million americans. the chip programs, the children's health insurance program they have ignored for three months the chip program for nine million children in this country has not been funded. we have a crisis in pensions in this country million and a half hard working people who are promised their pensions are going to see their pensions reduced by 50 or 60%. we have ha rural infrastructure crisis where people can't get -- we have 30,000 vacancies in the veterans administration that have not been filled. oub

the needs of working families and the middle class not just worry about the 1%. so, i believe that as we talk about the new spending bill, those are the issues. we must demand that republicans. >> dickerson: we're out of time, senator, thanks for being with us, we'll be back in one minute. this is a power plant. this is tim barckholtz. that's me! this is something he is researching at exxonmobil: using fuel cells to capture carbon emissions at power plants. this is the potential. reducing co2 emissions by up to 90%... while also producing more power. this could be big. energy lives here.

kihuen. >> dickerson: we turn now to oklahoma republican senator james lankforder joins us from oklahoma city. welcome. i want to talk with this tax cut bill. you have talked about the debt and deficit throughout your career, all of the independent analysis says that this tax cut bill will add a trillion or more to the debt. why then is this a bill you can support? >> actually all the independent analysis doesn't note that. joint committee on tax does note that, but the tax foundation doesn't. there's a lot of others. we have 130 different sets of economists that are out there part of the challenge is always looking at which one is right, fol of them are putting a

numbers. we have some as high as 5% growth, we have some as low as .8% growth. all show economic growth, guess is how much economic growth is in the bill itself. target of the any time you do tax reform try reduce taxes on individuals and on businesses so they have more money to spend, they can spend that money that encourages the economy to grow. s we know it will grow now the guess is how much. >> dickerson: that's right. the tax foundation is still around 500 billion to the debt, majority of independent analysis shows even larger. that bet you're making is isn't there a big downside risk that you've talked about throughout your career which is that the negative effects of increased dealt kill the growth that you're trying to create? >> absolutely. the biggest issue that would have if we have accelerating debt is the issue of continued investment from the federal government into more and more interest payments. we have to get the economy growing to get on top of this. we've said for years the debt

get on top of this debt and deficit is growing economy and limiting your spending. we've limited spending over last several years, it's been very small in growth for spending built the economy is also been flat the last decade. we've not had a decade like the last decade since is the 1940s. so, we have got to get the economy growing again, we're not growing again. we never do get on top of the debt and deficit without that. so you're right. this is something that's designed to be able to energize the economy, it should work, a lot of people that we looked at and examined independently say it will work. the focus for us says let's get this economy growing. >> dickerson: if that doesn't work you'll have compounded problems, when you talk about spending based on what you've seen from the way this tax bill put together, intellectual rig or, the timing and pacing, do you have confidence that spending reductions can be done in methodical and sensible way that will actually create good policy or that will create a rush that might create more problems? >> no, i don't think it's going toat

this tax bill itself has been over a year in the works. in fact if you go back to the original draft of it about three years ago, the house released that proposal on tax reform in january of this year, white house early in the summer, this is not been a rush process, this has been 12 months in the making and multiple hearings over the past year and leading back to earlier work that was done several congress,s ago. i know that the theme of this has been it's been rushed, because lot of people haven't started paying attention until the very end. but the process has been long and methodical. the flip side is spending side, we have budget bill to take care of that, i've had great frustration with budget process. the budget process was designed in 1974, it's only worked four times, i've been one of several to be able to say over and over we've got to fix the way we do budget process. we'll never get ahold of our spending until we do. >> dickerson: well that's the big question remains from a process, let me, though, we've got to switch to talk about intelligencemu

you've looked at this question of rush russian interference in the election, are the russians still interfering and how are we going to protect the next election? >> there's no doubt the russians not only engaged in our past election but still trying to find ways to be able to do that. we've noted several ways publicly in the last couple of months that they're still engaging in social media trying to stir up the united states controversies. i compare it to, if you got two kids in playground that are in a fight there's always somebody on the edge screaming "fight, fight, fight. trying to bring a bigger crowd it to. that's what the russians are trying to d. they're not starting it just trying to add fuel to the flame. the key thing that needs fob done is bill that is actually bipartisan bill to be able to finalize, hopefully this week to be able to drop election security helping states protect their own election security. the fbi was much too slow and homeland security were much too slow in notifying our states last time that the russians were trying to probe election systems. have to do that faster and help

states have a good reliable, auditable election system that they can actually do themselves and that federal government and that all states can thrust those election results. >> dickerson: let me ask you about tax that were release fred investigator on the mueller team. what is your opinion about those text one referred to insurance policy, there's a lot of debate about that text and what exactly was meant by it. how serious do you think this is in the context of the larger investigation that you know something about? >> i think it's serious. any time you have investigator within investigation has obvious political bias whichever direction, it's clear this individual within the mueller team that was also on the clinton e-mail investigation team on the fbi, in their leadership had a strong bias against now president trump when he was candidate trump and was very clear about that. when that was discovered by the mueller team they fired him, promptly so, took him off of that team. but that is a big consideration.

be blind and be fair to all sides not have a clear political bias and express it so strongly. >> dickerson: but given that mueller took him off the investigation do you think this taints the larger project he's doing since you know the scope of that larger project? >> it's very serious to have someone inside, what they have to determine was he directing the investigation one way or the other while he was on the investigation, is that something they can repair and look and see if there's any bias. obviously i don't think it taints the entire process but certainly taints that season of it, something should look at with any political investigation that he was on. we want our fbi agents to be neutral to be nonpolitical, not very actively engaged politically. >> dickerson: all right, senator lankford, thank for being with us. >> thank you. dickerson: we'll be back in a moment. even a swing set standoff.

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>> dickerson: we'll be right back with a lot more "face the nation" and take a look at the record that about to be broken with tax cuts in the senate.

>> dickerson: welcome back to "face the nation" for closer look at the republican tax bill and what it will mean for we turn to richard ruben he covers for "wall street journal." i've been reading everything that you've been writing. let's start just with the winners and losers at end of the day here. who are they? >> in the big picture the winners are corporations. you talked about before, corporate rate go from 35% to 21% that's real big win for kind of companies that have been paying close to that level. domestic retailers: pass-through businesses also win under this those are partnerships, s corporations, for a lot they will get 20% discount on their tax rate. they pay individual rates now, still will, but have big new deduction. then as secretary mnuchin talked

with children will have tax cuts see those in paychecks in february and tax return they file in april of 2019. those tax cuts are temporary they expire at the end of 2025 so that is something that i'm sure congress will fight over for the next eight years or so. >> dickerson: secretary also mentioned that 90% or able to fill their taxes out own card, one of the big goals, simplification. >> what he's talking about the income of people who would be able to move from itemizing to the standard deduction. right now about 70% of people take standard deduction this will push that up closer to 90% because standard deduction will be larger and fewer itemized deductions that cap on state and local income taxes, will limit that. this doesn't mean everyone filing on a postcard. simpler for those marginal itemizer like people who itemize now and won't under the new system, it will be simpler but some of those people in that group might

paying more, it will be easier to keep track of your deductions your ultimate tax bill might end up being higher. that is a trade off -- i don't know if that is a trade off you want to make. >> dickerson: and work that you have to do before you get it on the card. >> yeah, look, when you talk about a simpler system, this sim police fee really about what is a child that is eligible for tax credit, calculate earned tax credit for low income families that is still complicated. you can have simple form but behind that is a whole bunch of definitions and work sleets. >> dickerson: on corporate side and pass-through side there were lot of claims about things that were going to be removed from the code, is there sim police fee tee on those two parts of the story? >> the business side of the tax code complicated because the world is complicated, you have to figure out what -- how you should treat capital expenses. there some some simplicity there in the sense that we've got complicated depreciation schedules, at least for the first five years, companies can write off investments right away.

getting rid of the corporate alternative minimum tax that is simplification. but international divisions are new and novel and will take lot of tool time for companies to figure out. same with pass-through who is eligible for that break and who is not. there's going to be lot of work for tax accountants and lawyers in the days ahead. >> dickerson: what did you make of covering that process? give us your narrative story of how this went from original promise, is that were made about it until the final stage we're in here now? >> say think what we saw is a lot of those original promises, ones we saw during the campaign in 2016 and early part of 2017, a lot of them happened but lot of them -- some of them get jettisoned as they got toward reality of needing to pass. the failure on health care earlier in the year i don't underestimate how much that changed the republican mindset in congress. it went from we need to pass our ideal tax plan to need question to pass something. desire to get to the lawmakers was high.

estate tax, repealing alternative minimum tax for individuals. putting it in three tax brackets instead of seven, none of those things happened. they were making it revenue neutral not adding to the deficit which they talked about earlier in the year. they just pushed those things accede, we've got to get something done and this became the art of the possible not the art of the ideal. >> dickerson: at the end of the stage, marco rubio seemed to grab his moment, asked for child tax credit to be refundable for those people who don't pay income taxes. first of all, how much of a policy difference did his stance make, what's the difference between what it would have been and what it is now and then just what did you make of that last little piece of drama? >> so, what they did on policy, proposal in the senate was to allow the child tax credit for 17-year-old, right now capped for 16-year-old. so they kept the current law version of that. then expanded how much would be refundable for not the very lowest income families but lower, middle income families.

billions of fundraising all 17-year-olds directing them to a lot of lower middle income households. you can judge merits however want. the they were struggling with how to do this, didn't seem like they wanted to take o down the entire bill, they had the leverage to do that, but at the last moment they were able to get more. republican leaders did not want this in the bill initially they didn't put it in the house bill or the senate bill. and so that was a change that they were able to get at the end as part of getting everybody on board. >> dickerson: and another person was senator corker, of tennessee, who voted against the bill because of the affect on the deficit and debt. why did he change at the end? >> you know, he basically -- his statement said, i looked at it again i talked to people, i heard from constituents and realized that it's worth the risk. which is sums up what we were talking about. th

even republican who said he was opposed to it now voting for it because they are just really eager have some sort of accomplishment, something they can point to going into 2018 and mid-term elections, even though this bill sun popular with the public. >> dickerson: final question on the lobbyist of secretary of treasure resaid defeat for the lobbyists, how did you see their role in this and whether -- there are over 6,000 they got varied interests. since it was such a central and important part of the campaign getting special interests out of the process how do you owe sewell wait that here? >> there's some special interests who lost, home builders and realtors really fought to against -- around charities fought against that bigger standard deduction because it makes incentive to itemize smaller. they're not happy with the end product. those lobbyists aren't happy. corporate lobbyists who have been pushing for a much lower corporate tax rate for many years for

foreign income that make it easier nor u.s. companies to earn profits above and bring them home. they are happy this is what they have been pushing for for a long time they had the magic line up of republicans controlling congress and white house to get it done. >> dickerson: richard rubin thanks for being with us, we'll be right back with our political panel. and an ice plant. but we brought power to the people- redefining what that meant from one era to the next. over 90 years later, we continue to build as america's 3rd largest investor in infrastructure. we don't just help power the american dream... we're part of it. jack and jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. all because of a burst water pipe in their house that ruined the hardwood floors in their kitchen. luckily the geico insurance agency had helped them with homeowners insurance

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in chief of "the atlantic." we're also joined by "slate" magazine chief political correspondent jamelle bouie and ben dove niche. before we get to policy, ben, i want to ask you question about senator mccain who is your father in law. how is he doing? >> well, john, i'm happy to say that he's doing well. the truth is that as anyone knows whose family has battled cancer or any, oftentimes there are side effects that you have. senator has been through round of chemo he was hospitalized this week at walter reed. our thanks to the doctors at nih and walter reed who have been treating him, he's doing well, in good spirits, he's looking forward to heading back home to arizona for the holidays, our thanks to everyone who has been sending thoughts and prayers to the sector this week. we greatly appreciate it. he remains one of the toughest men on the face of the earth as you know. >> dickerson: that we know.

him and family. thank you. all right, so now to this week let's start with the tax bill, jeffrey is going to pass, get funded by the president unless something really crazy happens. >> which is not impossible in this america. >> dickerson: right. >> you're right, probably pass. dickerson: so, give us your sense of that, what that means? >> i think broadest political sense, i think that this takes donald trump's pretty bad year and might move it into the not bad category in the following sense. he started his term, first year with a supreme court victory, might end with a tax cut victory, a tax plan victory. it's a legislative victory might not be possible with a broad swath of americans, but it counts as a victory. isis, by the way is on its back foot in iraq and syria. if we didn't have all of the noise and craziness, russia

tweeting, all of the race-baiting everything else that is going on you would look at this year and say, you know what, not the worst year for a first-year president. it's very interesting to think about it in those terms. >> especially on the economy. which is the economy is doing very swell, people are feeling better about it. the secretary and treasury came on talked about people's 401(k) improving, all that have is true, yet none that have is translating the way it normally translates to a president. which is the economy is doing well, usually the party in power, their approval ratings do well. so, figuring out where that all stands as jeffrey pointed out is really about the fact that a voters going to focus on the economy that they feel is doing better, they personally are doing better or focusing on the things about the president, his temperament, his behavior that they don't like. right now they are focusing politically much more on what they don't like about president than what they do like about the economy. >> dickerson: it is t

president talking about the health. stock market. jamelle, the polling for this tax bill is not good. senator mcconnell's argument going to get wet once people start feeling that tax cut, do you buy that argument? >> time not sure that i do. reminds me quite a bit of the democratic party's argument, once voters understood the benefits they got they would like the bill. and as it turned out it took a good three or four or five years for the public was ever positive about that law, and they largely became positive about that law because of the prospect of losing that law and losing the medicaid expansion. although republican tax bill does deliver some benefit, it doesn't deliver anything as concrete as something like medicaid expansion did that might create the problem with voters. if you look at polling so far, even suburban

policy are skeptical. i'm not sure, i appreciate senator mcconnell's optimism but i'm not sure it will play out. >> dickerson: ben, your thoughts generally and also playing off of what jamelle was saying, senator sanders said that basically his message is, corporate taxes are going up if democrats get in control. how much do you think that plays in this context? >> i think republicans are going to be very confident running on this measure as sort of their key signature legislative success in 20128. i think that you will see pick up in terms of people's attitude towards it once they you will actually see paychecks go up. one of the things about this in terms of how unpopular it is that when you simply get past initial numbers it's the people think that they're not going to benefit from it. that they're not going to see benefit that their taxes are going up not down. when people see think pair checks with more money they will have more positive attitude. but the simple fact is that republicans want to be talking about this, democrats are going foe be talking about getting

of this president and unpopular policies. going to be so many different democrats and frankly base forces who are pushing democrats towards turning this into annie miami beachment election where they will get this president out of office. i think it's going to be difficult because democratic leadership would much prefer to be talking about, look what he just gave to corporations and things along those lines. nancy pelosi's lines about this being apocalyptic end of the world, tax scenario are something that would actually cater to what they would like to be talking about instead the base of the democratic party is going to drive this into a much more significant and extremes direction. >> it seems that the republicans have hard lift here. it is impossible to not to say that the greatest beneficiary in this plan, corporations. if you believe corporations are people then people are benefitting. if you don't the democrats have a very potent weapon. it will take -- if it takes -- it will take time to get people around to this but i don't know

this, that is the top line observation. >> to amy's point from earlier, all of this interacting in an environment where voters are quite angry at the president's behavior, even if there are material benefits in the tax bill there's no -- there's no guarantee that will interact with voter attitudes in way to produce political benefit for the republican party. >> dickerson: what about democrats seizing this moment, ability, they haven't been able to stop it through congress, but as a political matter to ben's point, this used to be bread and butter of the democratic party, how to talk to working people. they got some ammunition they can use here, what is your assessment on their ability to ultimately use it to make a case to people who already they have talked to about income and equality overall these years. >> that's something that democrats have going that they're not in the white house. they are the party of the opposition, it's so much easier to be the party of the opposition than to be the party actually making policy. and what we found

these mid-term or early mid-term elections and special elections is that what the party has struggled with for the last eight years in the era of obama was getting their base, that obama electorate excited and energized. voters of color and younger voters, they couldn't do it when obama was in the white house, you know what is turning out obama coalition, drum system a great motivator. and toe the point about whether they can talk about these issues, i think they make a vers over and over again the point you made about, thousands of lobbyists worked on this bill, tax cuts for corporate america, whether people are feeling it or not, i think becomes less important than the overall argument that this president and republicans said they were going to help the working people, this is really the same old, same old helping corporations. again, the issue was, do i feel that my paycheck, biggest group

the president living insure urban america they're 401(k), r doing great. if it was just about the economy they would be on board. >> biggest question heading into 2018 i think is whether there's a learning curve in the white house. if he comes out of this realizing, wait, i got an actual traditional republican victory learns to get out of his own way in 2018, then he's doing pretty well heading into the mid terms. but this is donald trump we're talking about there's no guarantee that there's a learning curve. that he'll return to form, even with proof that behaving in traditional way actually has benefit. >> you saw that in alabama in the sense that you have to amy's point, a candidate in doug jones who is more than 90% of what hillary clinton achieved in alabama and candidate. got less than 50% of what donald trump achieved. the truth is that trump since he got into the white house effectively been offering

voters circuses without the bread. giving them the same level of entertainment that they experienced during the 2016 election without actually delivering on a lot of his populous promises when it came to shifting the way that the republican party would prioritize things. you see that totally with this tax bill. that is a very traditional republican approach, it's not a break away from the kind of approach that you might have seen under a president jeb bush. that is something that satisfies mitch mcconnell and republican donors but not the same voters who said that donald trump was the kind of shift they wanted to see in the g.o.p. >> what's interesting that in alabama the voters who turned out for roy moore are the voters who are this working class, populous space. they turn out for roy moore. the the ones that didn't are suburban voters they support completely collapsed. there is interesting question here of, to a degree to which the material circumstances of these white suburban voters in

for us next year seems to not matter as much for their political choices, they're angry at donald trump for reasons don't have anything to do with how they're doing in the pocketbook. >> right. so, amy, could we have a basically a policy-free 2018 which would be disaster because for democrats they want to drive down the suburban numbers, remind everybody of the most outrageous thing the president did, the base of the democratic party gets energized as you already argued. don't they want to keep the focus entirely on donald trump? >> they can make it on donald trump but really they don't have to talk to their base and remind them why they don't like donald trump. the base is pretty clear how they feel about him. but it's making the case that the policies that the administration, that republicans in congress have passed have been out of step with you -- however they want to address it whether it's the focus on corporate tax cuts, whether it's

changes that have been made on issues like the environment, labor standards, et cetera. you can go down the list, it's been -- conservatives should be happy. they got a great agenda through conservative judges getting through, regulatory reform, rolling back a lot of obama-era -- >> nothing talking about this because of the circuses but they are moving their 'general d. >> one thing i do also want to say that the focus so much for the president, we saw story today that president will do more of these alleys. in 2016 -- in 2018. the l whiching for him is not getting those people natural lesion to vote for him. the challenge is to get the people who never showed up in the the rallies but ultimately voted for him to continue to vote for him. those people who were reluctant trump voters, didn't like him in 2016 but disliked hillary clinton more, they thought he was the change candidate she was status quo. those are the folks that are sour. d

the number of rallies he does and keeping that business energized isn't the challenge. the challenge to jeffrey's point is going back to those people who were reluctant trump supporters. but who want to see progress made without all the other drama. >> dickerson: people said were souring in alabama. ben, republican i talked to in assessing alabama said, we don't think we'll have anybody who is been credibly accused of sexual assault on a childish any other republican race. so, in other words, let's not over read alabama. that makes sense to me. >> it does make sense to me, too, john. but i think honestly republicans in the senate were breathing sigh of relief after alabama they did not want to be dealing with roy moore, particularly the certain that lot of different staffers shared who were expressing was, once he gets in here, will we ever be aible g to get rid of him. they didn't feel like they couli think is

just, we're not going to nominate someone like that in another race. because there's series of decisions that were made by a number of different republican politicians along the way that led to roy moore. mitch mccome has been of the belief for long time now that there are two kinds of politicians, there are politicians he likes and there are politicians who will lose. this ignores the third kind which is politicians he doesn't like who could win. fact is that if mcconnell had not parachuted in millions of dollars to new -- conservative in the primary that he very well could have been the nominee in this situation and might be a senator today. now he has his own health issues, of course, but i think this is one of those things where mcconnell needs to look hard at sort of challenges that are going -- be at the fore in these primaries where he may need to make a choice about do i have a winnable candidate who is conservative or do i have someone who county. >> dickerson: we'll have tonight it there. we'll be right backish a moment.

but mitch mcconnell is trying to overrule the voters by jamming through the republican tax plan before alabama's new senator can vote. it's not right, and mitch knows it. last time this happened, when a republican won a special election, mcconnell stopped all votes until that senator was seated. mitch mcconnell: the winner, whoever it is, should be sworn in promptly. let's honor the wishes of the people. narrator: call senator mcconnell. tell him he should honor the wishes of the people now, too.

politics takes awhile to catch up but change is taking place there, too. roy moore lost in alabama and there have been other ripples, change will continue, so far there are 374 women potentially running for the house in next year's election. 305 are democrats. 69 republican. so far there are 42 women exploring a senate run, 28 democrats and 14 republicans. according to the rutgers university center for american women and politics. that's four times as many women challenging house incumbents this time compared to the same period in 2015. and ten times the number of women challenging incumbent senators compared to 2012 and 2014. we're just under 11 months from election day. the door is closing on the era

washington. and based on these numbers it appears another door is opening. we'll be right back. ♪ video-game dance music [burke] abstract accident. seen it. covered it. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ but when we brought our daughter home, that was it. now i have nicoderm cq. the nicoderm cq patch with unique extended release technology helps prevent your urge to smoke all day.

every great why needs a great how. ospitals -- especially rural hospitals... ...colleges... ...senior centers... ...local communities. all of them and more would be hurt by the house version of the new tax bill. the house bill would badly hurt the ability of non-profits to finance bonds for urgently needed facilities. the senate tax legislation rejected this damaging provision. and a long list of governors, mayors, and non-profits all agree: congress must fix the tax bill, and preserve access to tax-exempt bonds.

>> dickerson: that's it for this week. join us again next week for "face the nation" i'm john dickerson. captioning sponsored by cbs captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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