Welcome to the show, everybody.

We talked yesterday about really the sort of inevitability that if Republicans want to pass

this tax bill, they are going to pass this tax bill.

And as happened in the Senate, my expectation

over on the House side where the bill finds itself back today is that there will be goodies

and amendments and modifications handed out to the critical Republicans until such time that they get the votes that they need.

From a strategic perspective, the best we can do is can we get some good stuff into the bill

and can we get some of the worst stuff out of the bill?

But I believe that the bill is ultimately going to pass.

There's this idea that's

pushed to a great degree by MAGA media that the reason that the Republicans are ultimately

going to do what Trump wants, that the reason that Trump leads the Republican Party is because

he's a strong, bold, intelligent, deal-making businessman, blah, la, right,

fill in the blanks with whatever words you want.

But it's some version of that.

But what we actually are seeing over and over and over again is something that's way

more pathetic, which is that Trump owns them and they are afraid of Donald

Trump. That's actually what the evidence shows. It's not that Trump is a clever political

chess master. It's not that Trump meets with the Republicans and explains to them, oh,

you're misunderstanding the economic

principles at play and let me explain to you supply and demand that.

I know you didn't think that that was the case.

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