mr. mnuchin: it's a big agenda. >> the debt ceiling is going to be -- mr. hin: i gave you a freebie. >> you have extraordinary measures. mr. mnuchin: superpowers. >> i am sure you will find them everywhere. you also have the budget, obviously, that will run out at the end of april. are you confident we will get through those? mr. mnuchin: nick is in charge of the budget and he will be the right person to speak to on that. he is focused on the continuing resolution. i am focused on the debt ceiling. i do have these special powers that i get to move money around and do special things. the debtgh we've hit ceiling, we can continue to fund the government. we had a big day on april 18. tens of billions of dollars on tax day. impressive the number of transactions we do online. i am confident we will get the debt ceiling raised. i am hopeful it is before the summer. we have plenty of leeway. i think we will have bipartisan support on raising the debt ceiling. we have committed the money. the u.s. government credit is the most important credit. i believe it is a tri

mr. mnuchin: correct. we'll eliminate on the personal side all tax deductions over than mortgage interest and charitable deductions. we think that will be sweeping reform. reporter: when you talk about lowering the -- [inaudible] -- capital gains taxes, how does that mesh with what you said this morning about protecting the middle class from the very, very wealthy who might be able to take advantage of -- i don't expect the word loopholes but that would give them a lower tax rate? mr. mnuchin: what we've said is the business rate will be available for small and medium sized businesses, as well as corporations. however, we will make sure that there are rules in place so that wealthy people can't create pass-throughs and use that as a mechanism to avoid paying the tax rate that they should be on the personal side. i would just say, on the dividend rate we believe that restoring the capital gains rate is critical to investment in this country. reporter: a question about pass-throughs and all that. the initial

mr. mnuchin: you must be referring to static and not dynamic. $11 trillion. mr. mnuchin: you must be referring to static and not dynamic. >> the dynamic is $3.6 trillion. we are adding mountains of debt. mr. mnuchin: i discussed the debt with the president-elect. we are concerned that we have gone from $10 billion to $20 -- $20 trillion debt. let me make a comment on the tax plan. >> senator thune said that in our history the average growth rate is 3.2%. you said between 3% or 4%, but there is no way that will fill the gap projected in these tax plans. i can accept the fact that the president-elect might have changed your mind, i am trying to understand if you would find it acceptable to bury the american people under this kind of proposed debt. mr. mnuchin: we had a rather modest campaign staff relative to the other people out there. one of the things i look forward to, if confirmed, is having access to all the people at treasury who are able to model these things. we had some internal models but were forced to rely upon external models. certain of the assumption

mr. mnuchin: the details will come out.es, i think it is important we are talking about it and we will move forward. i will take a couple more. >> for those of us who are not completely clear about the 271 employees, are you suggesting by looking at the sanctions that there are u.s. companies where have holdings in the u.s., where they would be traveling or doing some sort of business that we are freezing or barring. mr. mnuchin: i cannot comment on the specifics of the sanctions beyond what we release. but i can assure you in the u.s. -- i can assure you with the u.s. puts out sanctions, both here and throughout the world, , and we would not be doing this if we did not think it was impactful. it is quite impactful. >> would you say the simple vacation of the tax code would be the first priority? which is the first thing we will hear about? mr. mnuchin: again, what i say. on the personal side, a middle income tax-cut and simplification. on the business side, we are about making them competitive. this is the last one, go ahe

mr. mnuchin's comments in a minute. on the yeed poiield point, yest 2.19 was the low we hid.anks led the charge yesterday. banks up shy of 2%. in light of yields moving lower that was a surprise. in part a reaction to the eps beats we saw on friday. it was against the move in yields, which was interesting. comes down to what mr. mnuchin was saying, but also something to keep an eye on ahead of bank of america and goldman sachs reporting today. asian equities for the most part soft today. you have japan a bit higher. hong kong coming back from a two-day holiday friday and monday lower. as was australia who also had friday and monday off. similar story for europe, which was closed for the easter weekend for two days as well. coming back from the weekend markedly red across the screen. not too significant the red across the screen in europe. not as much as hong kong which will be up in a moment. red across the screen in europe in part down more than 1 % for most of those indices. around 1% for most of those indices. in part relating to the french election. the latest polls, mr.

that's what steve mnuchin treasury secretary was saying. also the accusations out there about mr.ohn, that he's a democrat, remember all that, and leading a so-called democratic takeover of the white house? is that actually happening or is that some kind of dream by the left? we have the intel for you next. why pause a spontaneous moment? cialis for daily use treats ed and the urinary symptoms of bph. tell your doctor about your medicines, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, or adempas® for pulmonary hypertension, as this may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess. to avoid long-term injury, get medical help right away for an erection lasting more than four hours. if you have a sudden decrease or loss of hearing or vision, or an allergic reaction, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis. >> we've a weave a lot of news breaking right now. a market that is soaring right now are better at the 200 points. steve mnuchin was speaking to the short

mr. mnuchin was asked about this. he said, quote, we've been talking to chairman brady, and speaker ryan. there are aspects we like, things we're concerned about but he said we don't think it works in it is current form. the question that mr. mnuchin will attempt to answer this afternoon after laying out the president's plan, is how do you pay for it, especially if you're not going to pursue the border adjustment tax. neil? neil: adam, do you know, we're getting hints of this, that mnuchin was the guy who wanted to hold back on generous tax breaks for the rich. he had gone out there in number of interviews, including with us, net-net the rich might not see a bigger tax cut. we believe it will be cleaner, simpler, fairer, nicer for them but it is largely a middle class tax cut, that he was pushing something north of 35%, 37% rate, because he didn't want it to look like a boon to the rich? >> answer to your question is simply question. mr. mnuchin not only this morning but in the past his talk about the president's desi

mr. mnuchin, a concern, and it would be a very quick conversation with donald trump to get it fixed. apparently that conversation has not happened or, if it did, the message didn't get through. when the public get to the first glimpse of the trump budget the irs didn't get the investments senator mnuchin talked about when he was here the committee. for next year, instead it got another $239 million cut. but that would mean is that customer service would get worse, more taxpayers would fall victimmers to hacker ands scams and the good times will roll again while honest taxpayers get fleeced. this is not an academic debate. right now the online data retrieval tool that students and family use to fill out they're financial aid forms is down because of cyber security problems. hackers were using stolen personal information like names, birth dates and social security number to steal taxpayer dollars. you'd think an administration that talks about running government like a business would want to go out and invest in cyber security when it finds a hack. but that is not what is happening her

mr. mnuchin, is this your first attempt with this to start pulling back on obamacare?o, what do you say to your fellow republicans who say that this tax reform package is more about corporations rather than cutting the deficits? >> this tax reform package is about growing the economy, creating jobs. it's about the economy. you know, as i started, you know, president trump comes in every day and talks to the two of us about economic growth, economic prosperity and jobs and what are we doing to stimulate economic growth. that's how we're looking at this plan. the 3.8% tax on capital gains, dividends and interest, the president looks at that very seriously as being a tax on capital being spent to stimulate economic growth. people putting investment capital to work and people being taxed on their personal businesses. so we're trying to get rid of that to have capital go back into the economy to create more jobs. >> is it more business than obamacare? >> it's business. it's to stimulate business investment. >> so on the -- first of all, does it pay for itself? is this plan

mr. mnuchin and mr. cohn today. one republican aide on capitol hill called this plan like cuts only, it's all of the goodies and none of the pain. how do they pay for it? >> well, on the personal income tax side, they said they will eliminate a lot of deductions and exemptions. they are taking away, for example, the deduction for state and local government income taxes. so i think on the personal side they are in good shape. on the corporate side, a 15% tax rate, even if you eliminate everything in sight, it's hard to get down that low, especially without the border tax adjustments which seem to be out. they've got an economist over there. for the first time, they have an economist. kevin hassert. i'd like him to show me how they are going to justify a 15% growth. i'm sure dean will have something to say about that. >> i'm having trouble figuring it out. >> i'd like to see kevin hassert do that, too. we saw this with reagan with his tax cuts and george w. bush in 2001, his tax cuts. they both said we'll have growth

mr. mnuchin are more involved in that than steering the ship on government funding.ostly appropriators in congress have been negotiating pretty well from what i'm hearing from sources. narrowing. are the wrench that was thrown into say wasmocratic aides by president trump and his officials demanding wall funding. the president put out a tweet this morning that seemed to reassure his base that he was going to fight for the wall. -- if democrats defeat him on the wall right now it's difficult to imagine them caving on a fight in september. a few more days left. an important thing that the white house needs to get done. backing off on the border wall settles that the white house does not have the appetite for shutdown. and kevinhil kapur cirilli. thank you. david durham will speak with wilbur ross live at 12:00 p.m. new york time. 5:00 p.m. london time. >> both the u.s. and north korea flexing their military muscles today. the uss michigan has arrived at a port in south korea. are noorea says there plans to drill through this naval forces. north korea celebrated the 85t

mr. mnuchin says it will expand even faster. that will help the wider global economy. >> sustained u.s.conomic growth is good for global growth . if we can grow the u.s. economy, that is not just good for the u.s. worker. that is good for international growth as well and creates opportunities. so that is what we are focused on. i think if we do a good job, it will carry over in the spillover. ramy: europe, the ecb may be willing to move towards a qe exit faster than we thought. no changes are talked about, but the respondents to bloomberg surveys say mario draghi will provide guidance in june, six months earlier than projected. earlier he said it was not on agenda, but the strengthening euro zone economy is changing his strategy. saudi arabia has caught back the austerity program for state employees and sparked criticism from people accustomed to generous state handouts. they restored the perks for higher-than-expected revenue reducing the budget deficit. they had the biggest again. dayal news 24 hours a powered by more than 2600 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. i am

mr. mnuchin and mr. cohn. adam, your thoughts what we were presented from the two gentlemen in the white house briefing room? >> not an understatement when they title that the biggest individual tax cut in american history. they're proposing what is historic when you talk about opposition from the democrats, they might have opposition from the republicans. senate finance committee orrin hatch in discussions already about the business tax at 15%, including small business owners the pass-through at 15% ask the question, is this a good idea? he has not endorsed that idea just yet. and also the question i asked the secretary of the treasury about the short-term capital gains tax. lowering that to 20%. does that fit into the secretary's goal to protect the middle class as well as give them a tax cut. and here's what we said. >> the business rate is going to be available for small and medium size businesses as well as corporations. however, we will make sure that there are rules in place so that wealthy people can'

mr. mnuchin himself and gary cohn take that podium. we'll bring it to you live. stocks marching higher as a result of all of this. the white house tax plan and news the freedom kcaucus is supporting an amended health bill fueling markets right now. we'll have more on the markets straight ahead. i can't wait for her to have that college experience that i had. the classes, the friends, the independence. and since we planned for it, that student debt is the one experience, i'm glad she'll miss when you have the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant. ameriprise hey you've gotta see this. cno.n. alright, see you down there. mmm, fine. okay, what do we got? okay, watch this. do the thing we talked about. what do we say? it's going to be great. watch. remember what we were just saying? go irish! see that? yes! i'm gonna just go back to doing what i was doing. find your awesome with the xfinity x1 voice remote. >>> welcome back it to "power lunch." we will get the details of president trump's tax plan live when it does happen. let's check on the markets and chec

mr. mnuchin is confident, did you work with them at goldman sachs? robert: he is confident.say i can't do tax reform without bodies. is that what's going to happen? robert: yes. there are some very able people at the treasury. there are other people at the state and others. the people who work at top levels particular with the congress tend to be critical appointees. you have to have those senior post. tom: i want to make clear, guy johnson, that we are talking one guy who links treasury to stay in the moderate age. he brought economics from the foggy bottom. no one else did that but horm ats. guy: let's take it a little bit wider. does the u.s. economy do better when governments in washington is in the deep freeze for its ability to not policy i limited? i we focused on the granularity or what is going on on capitol hill? robert: it's a fair point. there are two parts to your question. the economy will continue to people are not confirmed or appointed to their jobs. is thatlem, however, the kinds of reforms that have been talked about will be very slow in coming if at all.

mr. mnuchin also said repatriation of earnings would encourage companies to invest in the country and create dive into my bloomberg terminal and you will see that that may not exactly be the case. since 2012, the s&p 500 index has underperformed the s&p 500 by back index. the implication here is that earnings might go more to shareholders in buybacks and not to domestic investment and jobs. few if any expect this to pass as is. this is a wish list by donald trump and there will be lots of negotiation with congress over the next several months at least. that's not all the news out of the trump administration and the last few hours. the white house released a statement saying the president will not terminate nafta at this time. canadianwith the president and the mexican prime minister. anna: he said he will hold off on scrapping nafta. bell.g us is stephen great to have you on the program. talking about this trade news we've had overnight, some of the statement from the white house sounds like a different person to the campaign trail. saying it's an honor to do with both leaders and i believe

mr. mnuchin is saying. it is a wish list.hey will talk with the leadership in congress in order to see if they can come to some middle ground. yvonne: and more details hopefully to come. policy in the of u.s. saw markets assess all those measures. let's bring in su keenan with more. su: what we have got is a two-day rally. there are questions about the tax reform bill and protectionism. whether we will see more of that and it raises concerns. we look at the close, a bit of red. the big closers echo the earnings story. of the big copper companies saying there is a supply issue, that pushed the stock higher. twitter up a 2.5%, surging on the surprise announcement they have gained a lot of users, which is a big challenge area for them. and united steel, a stunning decline. down by more than a quarter what is happening here is another steel company says it will be a tough outlook for a number of different reasons. these were the stocks in the spotlight post-trump election. let's go into the bloomberg and take a look at this. look

mr. mnuchin, in him, has twice praised the employees of the department today. that's a refreshing and welcome heard from what we have up until now in a lot of these hearings. in latedent trump november chose longtime business ross for wilbur commerce secretary. he was confirmed in late february by a vote of 72-27. secretary ross' connections to donald trump date back to the 1990's, when he became an investor in the president's operation.ty casino with a net worth of ross spentn, wilbur much of his career restructuring failing companies in steel, coal, telecommunications, and finance. here's a portion of his confirmation hearing starting with questions from wisconsin republican ron johnson. all, you know, thank you for being willing to leave life in the private sector and serve our nation here. truly appreciate that. to me our number one priority has to be to grow our economy, potential ofe full this marvel we call the american economy. what do you believe is the growth potential of the american economy? do you have a figure in your head? well, i think we can 3%

mr. mnuchin, maybe the border adjustment tax. confusion overall. numbers in the first quarter improve. we have this first quarter gd dip. always better in the second. >> okay, thanks, bob. out with a decline of eight points. g group ringing the bell with crzo oil and gas at the nasdaq. stay tuned for the second hour of "closing bell" with kelly evans and company. see you tomorrow, kelly. >>> thank you, bill. welcome to "closing bell", everybody, i'm kelly evans. ish finishing the month, the dow with the decline of about ten points, struggled to go positive in the last hour, but couldn't quite do it, leaving it at 20,652. we closed once above 21,000, and in think case, the s&p down three points. that's more than a tenth percent drop to 2358. the nasdaq down to 5894, and the russell 2,000 hardest hit dropping more than 1%, near 1.2%, in fact, to 1 p 369. the dow well off the lows of the session in midday, and we got 145 points at the low, nevertheless, down 11 of the last 13 sessions. we'll have much more on the marmar markets in a moment. gamestop s

mr. mnuchin and gary cohn, congressional leaders, they're all going to be there tonight. says, get it done. enough with the talk, get it done. right? >> yeah. and he also, there's one little detail that i think is very important, you should keep watching this thing. one of your guests said you can't get reconciliation, can't go through reconciliation without increasing deficit. that is not quite accurate. what happens the tax cut ends 10 years. one way to keep that from happening, to make sure this cut in the corporate tax rate includes small businesses, those that pay their taxes but not through the corporate schedules because it's very hard, let's say the disaster happens and 10 years from now, you know, president bernie sanders says i'm going to roll back this deal. those tax cuts, we'll not renew them. it is very hard to do that if you're talking about the, you know, small business and start-up sector. so they have got include those with this tax cut. it could be, it could be not only explosive to the corporate sector, donald trump could be the start-up king. this cou

mr. mnuchin, set out a test for tax reform in which he said, there will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class. well, this plan totally defies that promise. it betrays that promise. it provides a huge tax for -- tax cut for the wealthy, while middle class families receive very little benefit. at the same time social programs are being sliced and diced all over the federal government. we also know that the tax plan will provide a huge benefit to donald trump himself. now, we know this only because one of his tax returns leaked out suspiciously, and some think from the white house. the 2005 plan, which appeared on tv. nothing before that. nothing after. but even taking this one year, which presumably is most in the president's favor, president trump would save over $28 million in taxes under the one-page plan that got passed around congress today. most of that money comes through the reduction of the pass-through business income tax rate, reducing it from the 30% range to 15%. but then it also proposes abolishing, and i know it because it says right here, bullet number three, under bullet

mr. mnuchin made comments that helped this out.nd we've had a whole bunch of companies reporting today that had positive comments overall. that's the most important thing i think early on. then we had a very strong europe close. that was number two. bond yields went up going into the european close as opposed to the last few days. that really helped. we also had some talk about a house compromise on health care. i think sthathat was a little bn the mix. and a half an hour ago, steve mnuchin, treasury secretary, seemed pretty close to bringing forward major tax reform. and that was a little icing on the take. we were up 175 and we just moved forward right from there. sectors today, banks were up, right at the open. we had a great bank reporting season. for the most part, goldman a bit of an exception. industrials were strong. csx helped all the railroads. materials were strong, steel stocks were strong. steel dynamics helping on the earnings sector. dow leaders, for once this week, the dow represents what's going on in the market. w

here is the announcement from treasury secretary steve mnuchin and national economic director gary cohen. mr. spicer: obviously today we're here to talk about the president's effort to provide tax relief to both our corporations that will help grow jobs and to middle americans two people here to explain it, the director of our national economic council, gary cohen, is going

mr. mnuchin whether president trump would end up paying more or less in terms of taxes under this plan.eved in taxing the wealthy more. he insists that he can't answer the question about what the president will pay whether it's more or less because he doesn't have access to the president's tax situation which would put him in the same boat as the rest of america. >> still twisting and turning at the white house. thanks so much. let's get back to sara eisen. the tax plan said it counts on 3% growth to make up the lost revenue. i'll say it again our economic analyst steve rat nnor said it' probably like 4.5% growth you need which is an astronomical number. >> one we have not seen in years. no question about it. wall street is excited about lower corporate taxes. but interesting to see that after the unveiling of some of the key bullets in the president's plan from his team, very muted reaction here on wall street and that's being chocked up to the fact that 15%, that was what the white house was proposing as the corporate tax rate almost having what it is now, that's seen as a little aggr

mr. secretary, thank you so much. appreciate it. please thank the secretary. [applause] ecretary mnuchin: thank you. >> thank you, mr. secretary. bob will stay back for our next panel. continue our discussion on tax reform i now like to call on stage former congressman dave camp, who is a senior policy advisor at pricewaterhousecoopers and the former chairman of the house ways and means committee. jared bernstein, senior fellow of the center on budget and policy priorities. mia mcguinness, and grover norquist, president and founder of the americans for tax reform. over to you, bob. bob: thanks. so we'll start with you, what

secretary mnuchin and mr. cohn, this is important, you want to go bold. you want to go very courageous. people if beginning said, we think that president trump may enact largest tax cut since reagan. this is bigger than that. the tax -- we spend billions of hours and dollars a year trying to comply with that tax code. lou: i have not heard a single person said that president did not go big enough. at the same time, i heard from just about everyone, great concern about the leadership of the house of representatives, none what so ever about mitch mcconnell. but, focusing again, will paul ryan be paul ryan one more time and everybody saying, it better not happen. it just better not happen. >> we hope we have the speaker support and all committee chairman, we would love democratic support, john kennedy cut taxes, what happened to that part of the democratic party? we had boll weevil democrats, fiscally conservative democrats, where are they. this party has pulled very far to the left. wowe would love democratic and you are on the. otherwise they go home, thei

about this whole tax cut plan that we saw 24 hours ago unveiled in the briefing from secretary mnuchin and mrt has a lot of, you know, critics of the president running foul and they dropped all these proposals but a total dirth of specifics. where is that today? >> reporter: well, the white house feels like they have a little bit of mom mentum. it's an outline of the things that the president would like to see. it's very broad strokes and they feel it differs from the house republican plan and so -- but it wasn't outright rejected by house republicans so they feel good about that. but there's a long way to go because you need to, a, fill in the details and that's where all of these debates were going to happen and it's going to get difficult and then if they want to get democrats on board, particularly in the senate, that's going to be a whole other debate. and it's not clear how with the timing of any of that is, i don't think anyone expects it to move really quickly because these issues just don't do that here. but the president was very -- he was most clear he's been in terms of some of hi

the talks and what we are about to hear from secretary mnuchin and mr.n are designed to jumpstart and kickstart the conversation. we are going to be hearing a lot about things in the coming days and weeks ahead about revenue neutrality, just how the administration plans to pay for this tax plan, especially if they are not going to do the border tax. they're arguing that economic growth and about 3% would be able for the administration to pay for an offset some of the costs of the tax burdens they're are calling for. there's a line of thinking, especially when you talk to more conservative members in the house, that that might not be good enough, that they would want to see just exactly how they are going to pay for it, and that's when you start talking about cutting government and costs to certain programs, which democrats don't like at all. david: i will put a question to you i put two dave camp a moment ago. getting to kevin's point, there's a believe among administration officials that we will get to 3% growth and that will pay for all of this. do law

mr. secretary, thank you so much. appreciate it. please thank the secretary. [applause] ecretary mnuchin: thank you. >> thank you, mr. secretary. bob will stay back for our next panel. continue our discussion on tax reform i now like to call on stage former congressman dave camp, who is a senior policy advisor at pricewaterhousecoopers and the former chairman of the house ways and means committee. jared bernstein, senior fellow of the center on budget and policy priorities. mia mcguinness, and grover norquist, president and founder of the americans for tax reform. over to you, bob. bob: thanks. o we'll start with you, what was your reaction to the secretary's comments? were you heartened? i know we recently wrote a story about the possibility of transportation mixing with tax reform. the secretary saying no. gopher: big step forward. if you put -- grover: big step forward. if you put infrastructure spending inside tax reform, that's less resources for further rate reduction. it reduce what is can you do in terms of the reform on taxes. separating that is helpful. bob: maya, as far as the debt, and the offsets, it has been repor

mr. cohn and mnuchin were talking about value-added taxes. v.a.t. taxes. it confuses people and finally, i've never spokele to mr. cohn, it's not personal, i read on a bloomberg tv interview he's now saying individual tax cuts should come before corporate tax cuts. nobody in washington even believes that, first of all. that is not true. second of all not good policy and he's confusing it. why are we confusing the issue? >> larry, this morning i reported a number of people in the corporate community that i speak to are starting to talk about a lack of certainty when it comes to these policy pronouncements, because everybody seems to be moving in different directions. >> all over the place. all over the place. >> we heard the president there on the 3rd, on the 9th and the 16th of february talking about something coming very soon. it's now the middle of april, just about. what are your expectations here in terms of what they're capable of? you seem to be outlining a process that is not working cohesiv cohesively. >> the president put it very well, it was in t

mr. secretary, ambassador haley. -- st want to >> steve mnuchin speaking, sean spicer now back at the podium me to talk about the sanctions that were just announced, someone who is cover the treasury department before. and sahil kapur joins us. syndicate bifurcated press briefing there, half on the sanctions, have fun taxes. let me start with you. me ask about the sweeping sanctions hear the treasury secretary announced. he said seem up -- these are some of the biggest we have had in some time. what precipitated this, what brought it out today? we wonder why these didn't proceed the strikes we saw few weeks back. >> these sanctions according to an official i heard from this morning target 271 senior syrian government officials. these are people who have expertise and ability to develop the very kinds of chemical weapons used in the april 4 attack. sanctions are hitting these very people. the moment they step outside of syria or that they try to engage with global financial system. they will face u.s. sanctions. have a u.s. secretary who preceded mnuchin who is keen on the sanctions. we can't

mr. trump and i would use the language coming from the treasury secretary, steve mnuchin, who is a friend, we worked together on the campaign tax plan, he gave a marvelous interview in the financial times heouple of days ago where talked about the economic growth benefits of tax reform. furthermore, he said, many of the models show that when you have progrowth tax reform, lower the rates, broaden the base, get rid of the loopholes, etc., you spur growth and you throw off enormous volumes of revenues. in norma's. think i made this point earlier. the difference between 1.8% real gdp over 10 years, which is where the congressional budget and 3%, which is where we think the tax cuts will take us back, that difference can be as much or more than $4 trillion. i think that this is a growth measure, this is a middle income measure, and it's also a pay for measure. nothing solves problems better than economic growth. let's go to randy, republican line. do you think the trump -- i'm a trump voter, do you think that he put the cart before the horse on the border wall and all the things that he's doi

treasury secretary steve mnuchin declined to offer any specifics of the plan which the president said he'll detail as early as wednesdays. >>> mrtrumps had called the plan -- he says it includes "the biggest tax cuts ever." secretary mnuchin announced new economic sanctions today against syria. >> the united states is sending a strong message with this action that we will not tolerate the use of chemical weapons by any actor and we intend to hold the assad regime accountable for its unacceptable behaviorally. >> the sanctions target nearly 300 government officials and scientists that the u.s. says are responsible for creating the chemical weapons and the means to deliver them. >> asking what's been going on while i've been gone former president barack obama made his first public appearance since leaving the white house back in january. he told the crowd what his top priority is now. >> the single most important thing i can do is to help in any way i can prepare the next generation of leadership to take up the baton. >> president obama led a student panel discussion at the university of chicago. he told the young leaders that sp

mnuchin, and mark wineburger. [applause] >> well, put a lot of pressure on you there, mr. secretary. >> very kind introduction. >> well, thank you. let me add my thanks for being here. start on the permanent side, mr. secretary. obviously you had an incredibly distinguished private career. i'm not sure that prepared you necessarily for going into government, and my first question is, what is the biggest surprise, the biggest change you feel going into being the treasury of the united states of america. >> the skill sets carry over into government. i thought it would be much different but a the exacts are very similar in the sense that no different in business. you have customers. here we have the american taxpayers and american workers. you have different constituents, whether it be shareholders, boards, regulators, here we have working with congress and other constituents, and there's a real teamwork aspect to this. so, i would say in the overall skill sets i think they came over in many similarities. as it relates to the job itself, there's a lot to do in this job. there

steve mnuchin said the president planned to slash corporation tax from 35% to 15%. small businesses would also be affected, part of a campaign pledge mrorder to review decisions by previous presidents to designate large areas as national monuments. it could open up more federal land to development, including drilling and mining. mr trump said the people's ability to access and utilise land had to be protected. the kremlin has accused nato of a military build—up in the arctic close to russia's borders. russia has been increasing its military presence in the arctic. steve rosenberg is the first british journalist to get access to its arctic brigade close to the border with finland. on its northern frontier, russia is flexing its muscle. this is the arctic brigade in training in case there's confrontation their neighbours. for in the arctic now, there is a battle for supremacy that russia is determined to win. this base close to finland is normally off—limits to western media but we've been invited to meet russia's arctic army. it is the ultimate cold war. temperatures here can fall to —40 centigrade. today, the brigade is on exercises,