Mark Halperin on Tax Reform: Trump Would Prefer to Have Pelosi and Schumer at a Signing Ceremony

‘The biggest split to me right now, I don’t think that is what Paul Ryan and Mitchell McConnell would want’

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
SCARBOROUGH: "What can he be the public face of the effort but they have to figure out which direction they are going to go. He has to either go with a Republican bill that only Republicans are going to support and which will lock him into the 35%. I'm just -- that's just a political reality. Don't shoot me. I'm only the piano player as Elton John would say. Or the president's team is going to have to come up with a bipartisan bill. A bipartisan bill that he can take out from Missouri and put pressure on Claire Mccaskill. A bipartisan bill where he can go out to West Virginia and put pressure on Joe Manchin. Where he can go to Indiana and put pressure on Donnelly. They have to have the product beforesa/áñ the president can go out and send the product and it can't be the same product that Mitchell Mcconnell and Paul Ryan are trying to sell if they want tax reform that, as Steve said, will be around 20 years from now."
HALPERIN: "Two was to do a quote/unquote bipartisan bill. One is a compromise with major changes in what the Republican orthodox. I think do a bill targeted largely at the middle class but not in the cards if you do that to get the support of the freedom caucus and a lot of conservatives. They are going with gorbachev bush did as a quote/unquote, bipartisanship tax bill and pick off more Democrats in the Senate to get to 60. I could see them getting to 55 today. 60 is still hard but you give special tax deals to a enough senators to get enough Democrats you is say this is a bipartisan bill. Even that is difficult because once you start negotiating with those democratic senators you have to make public accommodations to them that will alienate a lot of Republicans. The biggest split to me right now, I don't think that is what Paul Ryan and Mitchell Mcconnell would want. I think that is what the president does. I think after last weekend in particular the president would prefer to have Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer at a signing ceremony. That central split will play out in a way that makes choosing a bath interive but I don't think they are going to choose because neither path looks anything like certain to get a bill on his desk."

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