. >> first of all, for no disrespect mr. kainei think the republican party for 8 years ignored the economic boom we seen under the obama administration. so let's deal with that first and foremost. second of all, i don't know if you can call these accusers, he is coming up as if they are wrong or bad people. look, we have evidence, ere were tapes out there with mr. trump said things that we know were not appropriate. >> laura: yeah, which he apologized for. >> that doesn't make it right. that doesn't mean that women are rying and fabricating their stories. >> laura: paid, offered $300,000. >> laura, not one time did any of who accused mr. trump during the campaign say they were paid. >> laura: but my question though is a serious one for the democratic party. the focus is for the democrats. is this all you guys have? what else do you have? you have identity politics. have you mueller and you have the accusers. what else do you have? >> we have a message that worked in places like virginia and new jersey just a few weeks ago. we won

. >> first of all, for no disrespect mr. kainet i think the republican party for 8 years ignored the economic boom we seen under the obama administration. so let's deal with that first and foremost. second of all, i don't know if you can call these accusers, he is coming up as if they are wrong or bad people. look, we have evidence, there were tapes out there with mr. trump said things that we know were not appropriate. >> laura: yeah, which he apologized for. >> that doesn't make it right. that doesn't mean that women are rying and fabricating their stories. >> laura: paid, offered $300,000. >> laura, not one time did any of who accused mr. trump during the campaign say they were paid. >> laura: but my question though is a serious one for the democratic party. the focus is for the democrats. is this all you guys have? what else do you have? you have identity politics. have you mueller and you have the accusers. what else do you have? >> we have a message that worked in places like virginia and new jersey just a few weeks ago. we

mr. kaine: mr. president, i also rise to advocate the passage of a clean dream act now. i had a youngster say to me -- and i'm going to tell the stories of a few of the youngsters -- but at an event in november who is a dreamer in northern virginia, you may say i'm a dreamer but i'm not the only one. it's a beautiful line as we know from the song "imagine" by john lennon. 800,000 dreamers in this country, more than 800,000. more than 13,000 of the dreamers live in virginia, and they're from all corners of the world. i've met with dreamers in virginia who were originally born in sweden, nigeria, latin america. many countries in asia. they are a rainbow but also a source of strength for our country and we need to act on their behalf. i also stand here in the christmas spirit and so many of us will hear the retelling of the christmas story and in the aftermath of the birth of the poor child in the manger, the story goes he was taken by his parents to another country, essentially as a refugee. there were threats of violence against the first born children of the land. so he

rachel: mr. kaine, it's rachel campo cam duffy here.t's not talked about a lot is the obamacare repeal mandate repeal. and as a businessman you know that will have a big impact. talk to us a little bit about that. here is what you don't hear in the mainstream media. last year nearly 8 million people chose 9 to buy health insurance and chose to pay the penalty. think about those 8 million people. most of them are people that are the poorest and they said i can't afford to buy it. i'll try to pay the penalty. the republican plan has removed that penalty so people will have a choice as to what they want to do with health insurance. i agree with you, rachel, that is a huge win for the american people. >> herman cain, i think we should have had you on at 9:00 a.m. you are good any hour. [laughter] thanks, buddy. >> thanks a load, ed. merry christmas. rachel: merry christmas, mr. kaine. >> merry christmas to all of you and your families. ed: we just heard what herman cain thinks about the tax plan. what does donald trump's former campaign man

mr. kaine: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. kaine: i thank my colleague, the senator from oklahoma, and i rise to talk about the tax debate that the senate is currently having. i want to highlight some of the reasons why i think this bill is bad and focused on the missed opportunity that we are about to embark on when we could have found a much better project. let me tell you a story from when i was mayor. i was mayor of richmond -- and i know my colleague from oklahoma was a mayor as well -- and when i was mayor, i had a city council colleague who introduced a seemingly benign bill, a bill to limit the number of dogs and cats anybody could have at their residence. pursuant to city rules, we had to post this resolution in the newspaper for a couple of weeks so that citizens could read it. and we had a public hearing where any citizen who wanted to speak for or against the resolution had the opportunity to and then the city councilmembers debated and then we had a vote. it turned out to be a little more controversial than the cou

mr. chairman. >> senator kaine? >> thank you, mr. chair. and it's good to have you with us, dr. mccance-katz. i want to ask about the issue that i hear about all the time in virginia from my law enforcement community. and that's the intersection between mental health and people who are in jails and prisons who shouldn't be. i have a lot of tough sheriffs, tough law enforcement sheriffs and police chiefs who lament the fact that their jails are filled with people who have diagnosed but untreated or sometimes never diagnosed mental health conditions. and they feel these people shouldn't even be in jail. but if they're not treated, they're going to do something to harm themselves or others, they'll end up in jail. they feel like they're being asked to be the mental health provider for society that doesn't fundamental health services. and they feel both sort of a compassionate anger about that, but also a resource challenge that makes it harder for them to do their job. and soy really want to ask about this. i also talked to police chiefs sometimes after high profile incidents of a police shootin

mr. chairman, ranking member kaine, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you and we look forward to hearing your questions. >> thank you very much that was a really good comprehensive overview. obviously we've got the right panel here to delve into this. with that, mr. ranking member, tim, did you want to make a statement? i'm going to reserve my questions so i'll jump to you. >> i apologize for being a few minutes late, but it spared you hearing an opening statement from me. so there is some good news. let me jump right into questions. one of the things that i'm always puzzled by, and i think you can each offer some insight into this, there are relatively stable countries in north africa that we work closely with -- tunisia, morocco, algeria. and yet a large number of the foreign fighters that go to fight with isis come from these nations. why that the case? why have they been such producers of foreign fighters to go fight with isis? >> well, no question, senator. let me say it's good to see you again. i think the answer to that question is very context specific. i think different

mr. president, it is not too late to change course. 17 moderate democrats, led by our colleagues, senator manchin and senator kaine, said they were hungry for a bipartisan approach to bring both sides together. i've introduced two comprehensive bipartisan bills with senior conservative republicans, close allies of mitch mcconnell, so we have made it very clear that we want a bipartisan bill. but the idea that all of these changes are now being discussed and our fellow americans can read about it in the press, take a look and see if you see one idea, even one that is going to make life better for the vast majority of working americans, the folks who work so hard day in and day out, are walking on an economic tightrope, trying to save money, trying to educate their kids. we don't hear about one single idea, not one that would make life better for the middle class. so we'll have more to say about this tomorrow, mr. president, as i gather there may be some kind of ceremonial conference committee scheduled, but i wanted americans to know as they try to sort through all of these reports that they're getting from lobbyis

mr. kaine: i ask that amendment 1846 be pulled up. the presiding officer: it is already called up. mr. kaine: it is impossible to fix all the problems with this bill in a one-minute amendment, but my amendment fixes two problems. it makes the middle-class tax cuts permanent, and it takes nearly a trillion dollars away from the massive deficit caused by this big giveaway. how does the amendment do these two things? first, it leaves the a.m.t. where it is under current law instead of scaling it back. second, while making middle-income tax cuts permanent, it provides no individual tax relief to those americans currently in the top bracket. and third, it cuts the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25% rather than 20%. if you care about deficit reduction, support this amendment. if you care about permanent middle-class tax cuts, support this amendment. if you believe that a reasonable corporate tax cut could help grow the economy, support the amendment. and finally, if you believe that tax reform should

mr. kaine: ris-- mr. kaine: president trump acouple of months ago said he was going to terminate the daca executive order of president obama in six months. that would be in early march -- unless congress found a resolution. i'm gratified that we're having discussions, many of us, about what that resolution might be. i want to acknowledge 35 house republicans yesterday signed onto a letter that was lettered by a virginia representative, scott taylor, from the hampton roads area, saying we need to fix this and we need to fix this by the end of the year. i want these discussions to continue. in virginia there are about 13,500 dreamers. i want to tell a few of their stories and why virginia is a better state because of them and why i think the nation is a better country because of the hundreds of thousands of dreamers who are contributing to the diverse richness of this country. let me just talk about a few of the virginia dreamers i met in the last few amongsts. amongsts -- the last few months. first the stor