howie: joining us is steve hayes, the ""usa today"" banner headline. could reap millions in tax plans. why is this a huge deal. didn't other presidents benefit from thanks cuts? steve: yes. but in fairness to the media, we don't have his tax returns so we don't have an understanding how he may or may not benefit. howie: it's understandable i think that the media would show how this would explode the deficit. the "new york times" saying. steve: it's a perfectly legitimate question to talk about the deficit. but my question for the media is where were they the last 8 years. barack obama introduced a new entitlement and we have seen the debt go from $11 trillion to $20 trillion under barack obama and there was virtually not a people from the mainstream media and debt and deficit. to be fair to trump this has come up through the republican congress for years. and all of a sudden the media is obsessed with deficits? if you ever wanted an example of how the media is biased on these issues, this is a good one. howie: so the obamacare replacement bill collapsed

steve hayes, editor-in-chief for "the weekly standard." a.b. , associate editor at real clear politics. mollie hemingway, senior editor at "the federalist" ." steve, some people so they knew it was going happen but paul ryan voted to make sure it went across the finish line. >> he did. closer than maybe they would've anticipated when they started. the real question is what happens between now and novembe. if that's the date the house votes. this is when all the details are going to be pounded out. not only in negotiations on capitol hill but also negotiations with the white house and with president trump. will he tweet about something that republicans have been the package that he decides later he doesn't like? that could potentially derail the process. >> bret: a.b., the president is talking about republican unity. you can check me on this. i will say there's a sense a w is needed so bad they are ready to plow forward. >> you are right, bret. i've spoken to so many republicans in the senate and house this week and i have not found one whose dow

back in the studio we have bevan, publisher, and steve hayes, editor in chief for the weekly standardetween the secretary of state, they said they had lunch today and everybody was on -- >> >> this is extraordinary. the secretary of state has not denied that he called the president a more impaired his spokesperson did but he had several opportunities to do so himself and he didn't do that. he still on the job, the president tweeted at him that he shouldn't have talked to north korea. was rex tillerson being a subordinate? lighting the president communicate that to him of the normal channels? you don't have to tell your secretary of state what you want them to do via twitter. this is really extraordinary. why is this guy storm a job if he, as the president says, he might have done that, called him a moron. if the iq thing was supposed to be a joke. i think the underlying questions are pretty amazing. >> bret: they say it's a joke, he say he has full confidence. are we just expected to believe that one day he's going to wake up and secretary tellers and not going to be here? >> i don't

steve hayes, editor-in-chief of "the weekly standard," mollie hemingway, senior editor at "the federalistmoa lisi, executive director of the georgetown institute of politic politics. >> for people who have long reported on paul manafort's financial dealings that includes everyone from "the weekly standard" to "the new york times," today's news is mostly surprising forages being on count of money laundering and the associated violations of paperwork to go with it. it does point to a larger bipartisan corruption problem but today's news doesn't have anything to do with the russia-trump collusion which is the thing bob mueller is supposed to be looking into. if he is supposed -- interested in people registering their work on behalf of foreign governments in the election meddling, he's going to be curious to look more into fusion gps, the firm hired by the clintons, clinton campaign and the dnc to run the russia-trump dossier operation. there will be a lot to look into there. >> bret: we should point out developing today was that tony podesta, democratic lobbyist, left his firm, that is named

let's bring in steve hayes, editor in chief of the weekly standard, a fox news contributor. he was writing about the conclusion, how things might work out before he talked to some key people. >> i think there are a lot of questions that need to be answered. the fbi released the statements and called them drafts of the statement that he gave on july july 5th 2016. what we didn't see unfortunately were the statements themselves. we didn't see much of what was in the draft because it was so heavily redacted. an email from may 2nd 2016 which asks for some response. a response on may 16th which discusses the statements. but we never actually see the statement itself. i don't understand why the american public hasn't seen the rest of these documents. >> harris: you heard people -- when you hear somebody in a high position like the president say something or put a feeling there about something it has the chilling effect. if the fbi director thought he could write a conclusion about something before he had key voices, might he have maybe spread that thinking along to his troops and

the other thing i want to say is mike, warren and steve hayes of the weekly standard have a fantasticnt issue about how 90 days ago when he had to do it last, he told them at 10:00 in the morning i'm pulling out. then by 7:00 at night, he had been convinced not to pull out and stayed in. >> that sets up michael crowley. i want to ask you, as someone who has to cover what the white house or the administration might do in the iran deal, how difficult is it to get -- my understanding is people get a different story from every corner, every pocket of this administration. >> yeah. although i think it's starting to zero in on the conclusion that they have come to this solution which is that trump gets sort of the politics that he wants which is his own announcement is i think this is a bum deal and i'm not going to recertify it. then they don't press the they don't press the congress to reimpose the sanctions, which would actually constitute blowing up the deal. it is a little built of washington kabuki show where the outcome is preordained. when we talk about what the deal covers and doesn

. >> sandra: steve hayes is editor and chief of the weekly standard and fox news contributor.ou this morning. this debate over sanctuary city laws has heated up all over the country. where does it stand today? >> that's a good question. there are several different ways of looking at this. one is in the court system. one on capitol hill and one is within the white house where there are disputes. so all over the place. in the court system you have somewhere between 140 and 300 sanctuary cities and you've had the department of justice say to them in effect we'll withhold law enforcement funding if you don't work with us on deporting illegal criminal aliens. on the white house side of things you've got some of the white house where donald trump during the campaign. a hard liner on immigration and he made it a central part of his case on immigration. and you've got others in the white house who don't have that same view. it is hard to tell where the president is. you have those same differences on capitol hill among republicans. >> sandra: as you mentioned it was a major political

steve hayes is a fox news contributor. if you couldn't get the tone from the white house with kevin corke it's a busy day and week for this president and white house. to go back to this piece, saying these are serious charges but it isn't what mueller was supposed to be investigating. does evans erg to do? >> no, these are the first indictments in what i expect will be a long process. investigation has been underway for six months. if we would have predicted a week or month ago what bob mueller's first move might have been these indictments of paul manafort and rick gates would have been among them for the crimes in the indictment and reported about in the press to this point. this is the first move from bob mueller. we have a lot more to learn. >> sandra: to go back to his criticism of the probe itself. the best way to think about robert mueller is a compliment to nunes. he earned hard evidence and domestic spying on trump campaign officials. where is that in this probe? >> we may see some of it. reports that bob mueller

. >> bill: steve hayes, tax reform versus a standard tax cut. that seems to be where this debate might be heading, steve. >> you've seen a shift in the language you are hearing from republicans. not just in the past couple months but going back to the republican presidential primary. you had a debate about dramatic tax reform in the republican presidential primary and we've seen now that republicans are pushing a much more modest plan. very good elements in the plan but the emphasis is on the tax cut rather than broader reforms. >> bill: newt gingrich made the argument that tax cuts/reform, however it comes out in the end, is more important than healthcare reform. what do you think about that? >> i don't necessarily agree with that. if you had broad tax reform that really did simplify the code it could have huge economic effects. but politically for republicans who have promised to repeal and replace obamacare for seven years the failure to do that, i think, is going to have dramatic and long-lasting political effects. >> bill: a lot of people th

i want to talk about that with juan williams and steve hayes. >> i'm heartbroken.yes is too after last night. >> bill: this man drips of credibility. what do you think his presence yesterday did for this white house? >> i think it was a very good moment. it was a very good day. precisely because this man drips of credibility. john kelly is regarded by everybody who worked with him and reporters in the room seeing and meeting him for the first time as somebody who is a man of integrity, a patriot. somebody is smart and been through a lot. he speaks with a sort of natural authority of a general. i think it was very effective yesterday with the press corps making his case. needling them in a more gentle way than president trump had done, and look, the press corps loves a good surprise. when you sit through the briefings day after day after day and it is boring, you want a good surprise. bringing john kelly, they liked that. >> bill: he is so matter of fact and his humor is so dry. juan, you sat in that room for years. what did you think of yesterday? >> i had never se

steve hayes, chair, president for americans for fair taxation.oing along with that, we don't have time to rescale the tax code but we need tax cuts. are you for that? >> stuart, would be disingenuous to say, you don't want the american people to -- this is phony reform, lobbiest early christmas present. members of congress will get all sort of benefits, everybody will try to protect their niche and their group. i realize a lot of people think this is the way it should be. this is broken system that will not get fixed by tax cuts. what i believe we need to go to the fair tax which gets rid of this system, goes to 33% national -- stuart: we'll not go to fair tax or any other kind of the reform. it will not happen this year. you don't want to cut the rate of tax on corporations and or individuals? because i think that stimulates the economy. you don't want that? >> of course we want to cut the rate. we want to make it fair for everybody. this is just a sham, basically. it's a cut-rate. it is going to be not revenue neutral. you will increase the def

stephen hayes, mollie hemingway, michael crowley. stevesome people look at that and said that was a tour de force. >> more john kelly, please. he is a smart, thoughtful, patriotic guy. i thought he was able to take some shots at the media without doing it in quite the acerbic way we are used to from the president. it's a good position for the white house to be in. i think he helps the president recover from these tweets the president sent which were more aggressive, more antagonistic, suggesting pulling licenses and censoring because he doesn't like the content. general kelly says it with a smile into that more effectively. >> he said the tweets are not a problem. it doesn't make his job tougher. i think that was one of the elements reporters in the room thought maybe. it's interesting to hear them say. here's a question by john roberts about frustration, whether kelly is frustrated. >> i don't mean any criticism to mr. trump's predecessors but there's not a lot of things that were, in my view, kicked down the road that have come home to r