What have we learned from the first day of marking up the House Republicans’ big tax reform bill? There’s a long way to go, with lots of tweaks and alterations to be made to the bill House Ways and Means chairman Kevin Brady released last week. There are plenty of factions in the House GOP conference, from fiscal hawks on the conservative side to Northeasterners from high-tax states, to balance. To top it off, a small Republican margin in the Senate means there’s little room to maneuver.
But the White House has some quiet confidence about the last chance to get a big legislative accomplishment in the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency. Publicly, the administration’s push has been light and to friendly outlets—Vice President Mike Pence spoke about the plan on Sunday with Fox’s Maria Bartiromo, and Ivanka Trump and Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin touted it Monday with Tucker Carlson—while House leaders such as Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy have been a more public face. The White House’s main role has been giving encouragement and reassurance to members of Congress. “Let the legislative process play out” is a mantra in the West Wing these days.
One person I spoke with in the White House says there’s a sense of unity among Republicans on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue on the top-line goals of tax reform—lowering taxes on the middle class, simplifying the code, lowering corporate rates—as well as an understanding that this is a unique opportunity for making the biggest changes to federal tax law in more than three decades. The White House hopes it can exploit those shared goals better than it did on repealing Obamacare. That’s part of the aim behind the multiple public appearances Trump has made since August to try to sell tax reform in the country, in states with vulnerable Democratic senators.
The intended message of all of this is Trump will put in the work and have Republicans’ backs, because he’s invested in getting a tax reform bill passed.
Must-Read of the Day—Elliott Abrams, writing for the New York Times, breaks down the jarring moves going on in Saudi Arabia’s highest levels of government. The crown prince, the 32-year-old, relatively moderate Mohammed bin Salman, has arrested nearly a dozen ministers (who are also members of different branches of the House of Saud). Here’s Abrams setting the scene for what this all means:
Read the whole thing here.
The president, early Tuesday morning from Tokyo, has tweeted support for the crown prince:
I have great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, they know exactly what they are doing….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2017
President Trump met with the first foreign leader of his 12-day Asia trip on Monday, in a bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
After the two leaders spent Sunday golfing and discussing North Korea, Trump and Abe spoke glowingly of America’s relationship with Japan. Abe praised Trump for his leadership on the North Korean threat.
“Japan consistently supports the position of President Trump when he says that all options are on the table,” Abe said. “I once again strongly reaffirmed that Japan and the U.S. are 100 percent together.”
At the same time, President Trump positioned himself ahead of Abe during the press conference, occasionally cutting in to answer questions intended for the Japanese leader and teasing him about a gift Abe had presented him at their first meeting before Trump’s inauguration.
“He actually brought me the most beautiful golf club I’ve ever seen. It was a driver that’s totally gold,” Trump said. “And I looked at it, I said, ‘If I ever use this driver—me—to use this driver at a golf club, I will be laughed off every course I ever go onto.’ But it is the most beautiful weapon I’ve ever seen, so I thank you for that.”
Trump arrived on Tuesday in South Korea for the second of his five-country tour of Asia.
Hollywood Watch—Another Ronan Farrow exposé for the New Yorker on Harvey Weinstein. The Hollywood producer who’s been accused countless times of sexual assault and predation, hired an “army of spies” to go after accusers. Read Farrow’s piece here.
2017 Watch—It’s the end of the line at last as voters go to the polls Tuesday in Virginia’s closer-than-expected race of governor. President Donald Trump reiterated his support for Republican nominee Ed Gillespie Monday afternoon.
The state of Virginia economy, under Democrat rule, has been terrible. If you vote Ed Gillespie tomorrow, it will come roaring back!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2017
Trump has previously praised Gillespie for being strong on crime and opposing both sanctuary cities and the removal of Virginia’s Confederate monuments. But he never traveled to the state to campaign with Gillespie, despite a White House offer.
Trump’s absence is a reminder of Gillespie’s balancing act, running as an establishment Republican while trying to incorporate some of the populist fervor that drove the party’s win nationally (though not in Virginia, whose 13 electoral votes Hillary Clinton won last year). Recall that the last time Trump campaigned for a Republican, Alabama’s Luther Strange in that state’s special election Senate runoff for, he went off-topic almost immediately, and his combative comments about NFL players kneeling during the National Anthem kicked off a weeks-long controversy.
The latest Real Clear Politics poll average gives Democrat Ralph Northam a little more than a 3-point lead over Gillespie.
Be sure to read Joseph Epstein in this week’s issue on his assessment of Leon Wieseltier, the former literary editor for the New Republic who’s had a fall from grace after multiple allegations of inappropriate interactions with female coworkers over the years. Epstein is blistering in his appraisal of Wieseltier’s much-hyped (by Wieseltier himself) intellectual prowess.
Song of the Day—“We Can Work It Out” by the Beatles
