PLUS: Mnuchin: Tax reform plan will “pay down the deficit by $1 trillion”
SUNDAY EXCLUSIVE: Corker on North Korea: “If we don’t ramp up the diplomatic side, it’s possible that we end up cornered”
Corker on tax reform: “I am not going to be for it” if it adds to the deficit
OCT. 1, 2017 – This morning in a live interview on “Meet the Press,” Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin defended the government’s response to the crisis in Puerto Rico as well as President Trump’s tweets about the island and the mayor of San Juan, telling moderator Chuck Todd: “When the president gets attacked, he attacks back, and I think the mayor’s comments were unfair given what the federal government has done.”
Mnuchin also told Todd that the administration’s tax reform proposal’s “objective is not to give an income tax cut to the wealthy.” “With our plan, we actually pay down the deficit by $1 trillion,” he added.
“The American public deserved to know how their money is being spent,” commented Mnuchin on Health and Human Services Sec. Tom Price’s resignation after the use of government-funded private jet travel. When asked if he regrets his own government aircraft requests, Mnuchin said, “I don’t.” Watch the full interview.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, exclusively spoke with Todd about North Korea: “Tillerson understands that every intelligence agency we have says there’s no amount of economic pressure you can put on North Korea to get them to stop this program because they view this as their survival.”
“If we don’t ramp up the diplomatic side, it’s possible that we end up cornered,” he added.
On the administration’s tax reform proposal, Corker shared: “If it looks like to me, Chuck, we’re adding one penny to the deficit, I am not going to be for it.” The senator also stood by his criticism of the president following the Charlottesville rally violence, telling Todd that he and the president “spent five minutes on this topic” when they met last week. Watch the full interview.
Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of “We Were Eight Years in Power,” discussed his book, telling Todd that he
“would argue that white supremacy is an indispensable factor” to the Trump presidency. Watch the full interview.
The New York Times’ David Brooks, AEI’s Danielle Pletka, MSNBC’s Joy Reid and author Charlie Sykes analyzed the week in politics on the roundtable, including the president’s tweets on Puerto Rico. Watch the conversation.
Read the full transcript of this morning’s “Meet the Press” on MeetThePress.com.
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NBC NEWS’ MEET THE PRESS WITH CHUCK TODD
Meet the Press with Chuck Todd is where newsmakers come to make news — setting the political agenda and spotlighting the impact Washington decision-making has on people across the country. Meet the Press reaches more than three million people every Sunday through its broadcasts and millions more through NBCNews.com, OTT platforms and social media. Meet the Press brings its authority and influencer interviews to MSNBC with “MTP Daily” weekdays at 5 p.m. ET and to the “1947: The Meet the Press Podcast”. Chuck Todd is the political director of NBC News and the moderator of Meet the Press; John Reiss is the executive producer.
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