Trump allows refugee admissions, with "enhanced vetting" - CBS News

Trump allows refugee admissions, with "enhanced vetting"

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump on Tuesday allowed the resumption of refugee admissions into the U.S. under new, stricter screening rules but ordered nationals from 11 countries believed to pose higher risk to U.S. national security to face even tougher scrutiny.

Officials refused to identify the 11 countries, but said refugee applications from those nations will be judged case-by-case.

Mr. Trump issued his new order on refugee screening as the administration's four-month ban on refugee admissions expired. It directs federal agencies to resume refugee processing, which he clamped down on shortly after taking office.

U.S. to give $32 million in aid for Rohingya refugees

The new "enhanced vetting" procedures for all refugees include such measures as collecting additional biographical and other information to better determine whether refugees are being truthful about their status; improving information-sharing between agencies; stationing fraud detection officers at certain locations overseas; and training screeners to weed out fraud and deception.

Refugees already face an extensive backlog and waiting periods that can take years. Additional screening will likely lengthen the wait.

"The security of the American people is this administration's highest priority, and these improved vetting measures are essential for American security," said acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke. "These new, standardized screening measures provide an opportunity for the United States to welcome those in need into our country, while ensuring a safer, more secure homeland."

Jennifer Sime, senior vice president of U.S. programs for the International Rescue Committee aid group, said in advance of the announcement that she was concerned the new screening procedures would add months or even years to the most urgent refugee cases. She said most of those cases involve women and children in "heinous circumstances who need the permanent and proven solution of resettlement."

Rohingya crisis continues as hundreds of thousands seek refuge

"With a world facing brutal and protracted conflicts like in Syria, or new levels of displacement and unimaginable violence against the Rohingya - this moment is a test of the world's humanity, moral leadership and ability to learn from the horrors of the past," she said. Sime was referring to the mounting refugee crisis in Myanmar, where more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh to escape retaliation from security forces.

Eric Schwartz, president of Refugees International, called the White House's new restrictions "remarkable," and called on the administration to "at least have the decency to be transparent about what they are doing, and name the nationalities affected."

"Since 9/11, and the admission of nearly one million refugees, there has been no case of an admitted refugee in the United States being responsible for the death of an American due to an act of terror," Schwartz said in a statement released Tuesday.

"There is little indication that any serious review of the so-called SAO countries was even attempted during the many months during which a review was supposed to be taking place," he alleged, calling the new screening effort, "a tragic example of evidence-free policymaking."

Even with the refugee ban lifted, admissions are expected to be far lower than in recent years.

Rohingyas in danger, aid groups forced out

Rohingyas in danger, aid groups forced out

Mr. Trump last month capped refugee admissions at 45,000 for the year that started Oct. 1, a significant cut from the 110,000 limit put in place a year earlier by President Barack Obama. The actual number admitted this year could be lower than 45,000, since the cap sets a maximum limit, not a minimum.

In a separate action Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a case about the refugee ban. An order from the justices wipes away a lower court ruling that found problems with the refugee ban and with a temporary pause on visitors from six mostly Muslim countries. A new travel policy that applies to six countries with Muslim majorities already has been blocked by lower courts.

The limits on refugees were in addition to Mr. Trump's broader "travel ban" on people from several countries. Courts have repeatedly blocked that policy, but largely left the temporary refugee policy in place.

What you need to know about Trump's revived travel ban rollout

Mr. Trump has made limiting immigration a centerpiece of his administration's efforts to safeguard U.S. national security.

As CBSNews.com's Rebecca Shabad reports, refugees coming into the U.S. already faced rigorous screening prior to the implementation of the Trump administration's refugee ban. They had to apply for refugee status and resettlement with the U.N. High Commission on Refugees, which collects initial documentation and biographic information, which was then transferred to a State Department-funded Resettlement Support Center. Afterwards, the center conducted an in-depth interview with the applicant, entered the documentation into a State Department system, and then cross-references and verifies data, and sent the information needed for a background check to other U.S. agencies.

From there, five entities -- the National Counterterrorism Center, FBI, DHS, Defense Department and the State Department -- screened the applicant using data from the centers. The screening process included checks for security threats such as connections to bad actors and any past criminal or immigration violations.

Syrian refugees received even more scrutiny with an additional enhanced review. The results from the screening process were then returned to DHS and State and trained DHS officers reviewed them, conducted an in-person interview in the host country and collected biometric data. Applicants were also required to complete a class about American culture and undergo a medical screening once they were approved by DHS. Before the refugee arrives in the U.S., CBP and TSA conducted additional screening.

Trump's boyhood home used to highlight refugee crisis

Besides the travel ban, which initially targeted a handful of Muslim-majority nations, the president rescinded an Obama-era executive action protecting immigrants brought to the country as minors from deportation. He has also vowed to build a wall along the border with Mexico.

During the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump pledged to "stop the massive inflow of refugees" and warned that terrorists were smuggling themselves into naive countries by posing as refugees fleeing war-torn Syria.

"Thousands of refugees are being admitted with no way to screen them and are instantly made eligible for welfare and free health care, even as our own veterans, our great, great veterans, die while they're waiting online for medical care that they desperately need," Mr. Trump said last October.

Mr. Trump has said the best way to help refugees is to keep them closer to their home countries.

Where North Korean rockets meet US antimissile shields - Asian Times

Where North Korean rockets meet US antimissile shields

Should the US drop the gauntlet and revive Reagan-era ‘Star Wars’ missile defense technology or continue pursuit of nonproliferation strategies?

By DOUG TSURUOKA EDITOR AT LARGE OCTOBER 21, 2017 11:31 AM (UTC+8) 3,055 5

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un supervised a ballistic rocket launch drill of Hwasong artillery units of the Strategic Force of the KPA. Photo: KCNA via Reuters

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un supervised a ballistic rocket launch drill of Hwasong artillery units of the Strategic Force of the KPA. Photo: KCNA via Reuters

North Korea recently threatened to launch an “unimaginable” strike on the United States while Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Mike Pompeo warned that Pyongyang is just months away from perfecting its missile reentry and nuclear warhead miniaturization technology

But can current US missile defenses shoot down North Korean intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) aimed at the American mainland? What happens if Pyongyang uses decoy warheads or fires missiles in mass quantity at American targets?

And what ultimately makes more sense: building highly advanced antimissile systems or pursuing nonproliferation strategies to convince Pyongyang to curb its nuclear ambitions?

Greg Thielmann and Angelo Codevilla are respected US defense experts on opposed sides of the debate. Both worked at one time for the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Codevilla helped conceive the “Star Wars” programs of former President Ronald Reagan administration’s Strategic Defense Initiative.

Greg Thielmann_ Credit- Greg ThielmannUS former intelligence official and defense expert Greg Thielmann

Thielmann is a nonproliferation specialist on the board of the Washington-based Arms Control Association who served as a senior US State Department intelligence official toward the end of a 25-year career in the US Foreign Service.

Neither man believes Pyongyang’s rockets pose an immediate danger to the continental US, but both say a more serious threat looms.

Codevilla says a long-term solution lies in reactivating development of space-based radars and other anti-missile technologies mothballed at the end of the Cold War to facilitate various arms control pacts. He also asserts Washington must drop what he calls a de facto policy of not defending the US against Russian and Chinese missiles.

Angelo Codevilla_ Credit- Boston UniversityAntimissile defense expert Angelo Codevilla

Thielmann argues that deploying new antimissile systems while refusing to negotiate with North Korea will trigger an endless arms race that could lead to a catastrophic war. He also says it’s unrealistic to think the US can develop a workable strategic antimissile defense against Russia and China.

Codevilla and Thielmann recently offered contrasting views on US missile defense in separate exclusive interviews with Asia Times:

Are current US antimissile systems really capable of downing nuclear-tipped North Korean missiles fired at the US mainland?

Thielmann: Although North Korea has now flight-tested a long-range ballistic missile capable of reaching the US mainland, it is doubtful that it currently has a reliable nuclear warhead for that missile. The absence thus far of any North Korean efforts to receive downrange reentry telemetry for these tests is a revealing indicator that it cannot yet be confident it has a survivable nuclear warhead design for ICBMs. It is plausible, however, that it will have an operational, nuclear-tipped ICBM by the end of the decade.

Codevilla: Current US antimissile systems were designed, scrupulously, to do no less — and no more — than to defend against a few fairly crude missiles from North Korea. No more is needed to defend against what North Korea has today. Trouble is, North Korea is rapidly building missiles that overwhelm these defenses quantitatively and, to some extent, qualitatively as well.

How successful would present antimissile systems be — factoring in that Pyongyang might use decoy warheads or employ other countermeasures to thwart defenses?

Thielmann: The tactical and regional missile defenses currently deployed by the US, South Korea, and Japan — Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3), Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), and Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) — would be expected to attrit a significant portion of incoming short and medium-range North Korean missiles.

But in spite of the US$40 billion expended on the US strategic Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, the type of GMD interceptors based in Alaska and California have only been successful in half of their highly-scripted tests to date. They would be even less successful against a real-world North Korean launch of multiple missiles with simple decoys, which are well within North Korea’s capability to develop and deploy.

Codevilla: Decoy warheads pose zero problem to any and all US antimissile systems. The US “wrote the book” on these things. Whatever faults these systems have, inability to deal with decoys is not one of them.

North Korea’s other countermeasure — namely lofted trajectories to increase the warhead’s arrival speed – however is serious. But speed of arrival is a serious problem precisely and only because the US government has refused to build the information network that allows for early launch of interceptors.

Missile defense is essentially a time-distance problem. So long as US surface-based interceptors must rely for fire control on essentially co-located sources of information, the speed of incoming targets will degrade performance and load the components with heavy burdens.

If current antimissile systems are inadequate, can the US develop more advanced systems that can reliably intercept missiles fired by North Korea at the US or its allies?

Thielmann: The US is continually improving its ballistic missile defenses and it can develop more advanced systems. However, as with the US and Soviet Union during the Cold War, the cost exchange ratio is very much in favor of offense over defense — that is, it is much less expensive to build and deploy offensive missiles than to deploy ballistic missiles that can effectively intercept them.

Moreover, while relatively effective missile defenses — scoring, for example, an 80% success rate — could contribute significantly to defense against conventionally armed missiles, it could prove a catastrophic failure in attempting to defend a city against nuclear-tipped missiles.

Codevilla: Because the basic calculus of missile defense is the same time-distance problem, the solution has to be based on early detection, tracking and commitment of interceptors.

Are separate challenges involved in developing improved antimissile systems for the US mainland versus allies like South Korea and Japan that are much closer to North Korea? What are they?

Thielmann: Yes. Shorter-range missiles that can threaten US allies in Northeast Asia are more numerous and afford less warning time. So even relatively effective systems deployed by the US and its allies can be overwhelmed in continuing barrage attacks. But less numerous longer-range systems pose other challenges.

ICBM warheads reenter the atmosphere at much greater speeds than shorter-range systems. Moreover, since they are targeted while still in space where it is very difficult to distinguish warheads from decoys, they require much more sophistication in having a chance to defeat countermeasures.

Codevilla: South Korea’s and Japan’s location argues even more strongly for a solution based on early detection, tracking and commitment of interceptors — and leaves no doubt that that solution lies only in orbit-based, infrared systems. In the 1980s, the US was developing such a Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS)-low network of satellites. It was canceled when arms controllers pointed out, correctly, that such a network would have enabled relatively easy interception of Russian and Chinese missiles as well as of North Korean and Iranian ones.

Is negotiating with North Korea to curb its nuclear weapons and missile programs through a nonproliferation approach still viable and preferable to focusing on antimissile screens?

Thielmann: Deploying missile defenses while refusing to negotiate offers the prospect of an endless race to deploy ever more arms, with the prospect of ever more catastrophic destruction in the event of war. Negotiating a freeze on nuclear and missile tests as an interim step toward ultimate denuclearization is a better option.

North Korea already has a credible deterrent, because of US “worst case” analysis, but it must test further before having reliable nuclear operational forces. Focusing on missile defenses alone will only lead to a larger and more capable offensive threat – not only from North Korea, but also from China and Russia, which fear that their own deterrents will otherwise be jeopardized by US missile defense improvements.

Codevilla: Negotiating with North Korea has been an errand in which Western fools have shown just how foolish they are.

Most current US antimissile systems are land or sea based. Is it possible to develop more effective systems — such as space-based lasers or other alternative defenses to intercept North Korean missiles?

Thielmann: There is a reason that even the Star Wars enthusiasts of the Reagan and [George H.W.] Bush senior administrations did not deploy missile systems in space. Positioning such systems is much more expensive and requires more time than the steps necessary for opponents to effectively counter them.

Codevilla: A December 4, 1994 New York Times science section devoted a page, complete with drawings, to a story titled “Space-based laser nearly ready to fly.” In fact, such a missile-killing prototype was ready for trials. It was canceled because it would have been very useful against missiles fired from anywhere in the globe. A scaled-down, land-based version shot down Katyusha rockets over Israel. The elements of such a system don’t have to be invented. They exist.

Can more advanced alternative defenses be developed in time to deal with the current threat from North Korea?

Thielmann: Given the track record of the GMD system, it is unlikely the US would be able to successfully intercept all of even a small salvo of North Korean ICBMs fired at the US mainland by 2020. Given the inherent advantages of offenses over defenses, it is unlikely that US missile defense advances could keep pace with likely improvements in North Korean missile numbers and countermeasures.

Codevilla: The heart of the problem lies in US policy which — rhetoric notwithstanding, and which it’s consistently applied over a half century — is to put no obstacles in the path of Soviet/Russian and Chinese missiles fired at the United States. This is what the US ruling class understood as the “spirit” of the 1972 ABM treaty, the key provisions of which (as interpreted by Americans) have become unexamined axioms for the policy community, the military and industry.

The first axiom was that no orbital systems may “substitute for” radars, and that radars as well as interceptors must be together as sites. A “site” implies that the interceptors and radar/fire control systems are in proximity to each other. The Americans have further interpreted that to mean that although the radar and fire control systems at any given site can use information from anywhere, none of that “remote” info may be used to actually program and launch the interceptor for that site.

An exception was made for the interceptors at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, which are controlled by systems in Alaska. But even this “fudging” has only resulted in a current “National Missile Defense” system consisting of a single radar/fire control system plus a maximum of 44 interceptors, based mostly in Alaska that purports, or rather pretends, to defend US territory.

This arrangement so increases the distance that the interceptors must travel and so shortens the time in which the interceptors must do it that the interceptors have to be huge. Current “employment doctrine” calls for devoting two interceptors to each incoming warhead because those who set the system’s requirements chose to require that the interceptors collide with the incoming warhead directly — without the aid of any (explosive) warhead.

The consequent burden on the guidance system is very great. In short, this system is un-expandable. Hence, so successful was this system in its primary objective of posing no problem whatever to Russian and Chinese missiles, that it has posed very little problems to ones from North Korea.

The second axiom was that the US was to have no antimissile weapons based on “other physical principles”— that is, no orbit-based lasers. These are the ultimate antimissile weapon which, until recently, only the US was capable of building.

If developing such alternative defenses is possible and worthwhile, what must the US do to develop them?

Thielmann: The only way alternative defenses would be possible and worthwhile would be for all space-faring nations to collaborate in efforts to counter ballistic missile threats from the four nuclear-capable states not party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Such cooperation between the US, Russia and China is not currently in the cards.

Codevilla: All it takes for the US to develop them is the decision to defend itself against missiles from anywhere.

Are we looking at a situation where no matter what the US does, it’s likely that some North Korean missiles will get through and strike the US mainland in a war?

Thielmann: Yes. For this reason, under current political circumstances, keeping the US nuclear deterrent credible rather than pursuing the chimera of making strategic missile defenses effective is the best assurance that such an attack will not occur.

Codevilla: No. First, North Korea has zero intention of starting a war that would be the end of its elites’ golden lives. The danger from North Korea’s nukes and missiles comes from the fact that Pyongyang is showing the US to be an impotent, defenseless paper tiger.

US woos India into 100-year alliance against China - Asian Times

US woos India into 100-year alliance against China

Top American envoy Rex Tillerson outlined a long-term role for India in US regional strategies but Delhi suspects "America First" will still take precedence

By M.K. BHADRAKUMAR OCTOBER 21, 2017

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and American president Donald Trump at the Partnership with Africa working session, the third session of the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, 8 July 2017. Photo: DPA Pool/Michael Kappeler

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and American president Donald Trump at the Partnership with Africa working session, the third session of the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, 8 July 2017. Photo: DPA Pool/Michael Kappeler

Even as the countdown begins for US President Donald Trump’s highly anticipated state visit to China, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is heading to India next week in a delicate geopolitical balancing act.

A landmark speech Tillerson gave at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington on Wednesday, titled ‘Defining Our Relationship with India for the Next Century’, served as preamble to his visit. His remarks gave powerful optics projecting India as a ‘pivotal state’ in the US’ future regional strategies.

The US evidently hopes to pile pressure on Pakistan, which Tillerson will also visit, to cooperate in forging a negotiated settlement with the insurgent Taliban in Afghanistan and remote Pakistan territories. Tillerson’s speech also became a repartee to the triumphalist narrative of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s report at the 19th Communist Party Congress, which began in Beijing just a few hours earlier on October 18.

The Trump administration has also encouraged India to step up in Afghanistan. Tillerson outlined an intensification of cooperation with India in counterterrorism and maritime security, and held out a profound US pledge that “the world’s two greatest democracies should have the world’s two greatest militaries.”

Tillerson also signaled that the US will be leaning on India to offset China’s influence and proposed a new regional security architecture with the US, Japan, India and Australia as its main pillars. The US claims that it intends to use defense ties with India to challenge China’s rising military profile and regional influence, while also boosting its arms exports.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson delivers remarks on Relationship with India for the Next Century at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, U.S., October 18, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson delivers remarks entitled ‘Relationship with India for the Next Century’ at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, October 18, 2017. Photo: Reuters/Yuri Gripas

But Delhi has also witnessed a new type of relationship between the US and China. This is a game India, too, can clearly play, as Delhi balances its own defense ties. When Tillerson arrives in Delhi, Indian armed forces will be in the middle of a 10-day landmark military exercise with Russia, unprecedented for its involvement of all three services – army, navy and air force.

The US, meanwhile, is struggling to clinch the sale of its Predator Guardian UAVs and F-18 and F-16 fighter jets to India, while Delhi takes time to weigh its options. Again, Tillerson spoke effusively about the sale of hi-tech weapons, but never once mentioned co-production, as India does for certain weapons with Russia, leave alone any nod to ‘Make in India.’

Suffice to say, behind the high-flown American rhetoric about a bolstered strategic alliance with India, ‘America First’ very much remains the key template in Trump’s foreign policy approach.

Tillerson also singled out ‘energy cooperation’ in his speech. The US shale industry is targeting India’s rapidly growing market and American companies are keen to enter the lucrative downstream retail sector as well as secure contracts to construct pipeline grids connecting India’s far-flung regions.

Still, India will be watchful of entrapment in the US maneuvering vis-à-vis China and Pakistan. One lesson that Delhi learned from the recent border face-off with China is that there is no substitute to bilateral diplomatic and political tracks to navigate complex issues and make relationships stable and predictable.

On the other hand, US-China interdependency is a geopolitical reality, as evident from Trump’s prioritization of China (alongside key ally Japan) in the itinerary of his first Asian tour, slated to begin on November 3.

Pakistanis protest US drone strikes. Photo: Flickr Commons Pakistanis protest US drone strikes their country in a file photo. Photo: Flickr Commons

It is the nuances in the US’ approach to Pakistan, however, that Delhi will watch most closely.

Lately, the US-Pakistan relationship has become kinetic, thanks to the Pakistani military’s rescue of a Canadian-American couple held hostage for five years in the lawless Pakistan-Afghan border region, and, importantly, Islamabad’s initiative to organize a meeting of the moribund Quadrilateral Consultative Group (comprising US, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan) on October 16 in Muscat.

Pakistani army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa attended the Muscat meet. The Voice of America, for one, already senses change in Pakistani thinking. “The events have fostered some optimism about the US relationship with Pakistan… Pakistan still needs the United States on its side, as Pakistan fears India and wants continued financial aid and military material,” the US Congress-funded broadcaster reported.

A State Department official said in Washington on Wednesday, “America’s relationship with India does not come at the expense of Pakistan or vice versa. There are things that the US can do to help alleviate some of the tensions on Pakistan’s borders around Afghanistan and in India.”

The official continued: “When the president gave his remarks about Pakistan, he talked about a lot of the positive aspects of the bilateral relationship… we are having much more serious conversations about (Pakistan) being a partner for achieving our priorities in the region… We have many common interests and common enemies in the region.”

A soldier stands guard outside the Kitton outpost along the border fence on the border with Afghanistan in North Waziristan, Pakistan October 18, 2017. REUTERS/Caren Firouz A Pakistani soldier outside the Kitton outpost along the border with Afghanistan in North Waziristan, Pakistan October 18, 2017. Photo: Reuters/Caren Firouz

Tillerson added further nuance at the CSIS gathering, saying that the Afghanistan issue can be solved only by addressing “regional challenges” and that Pakistan and India are “important elements” in that effort. Therefore, he added, “we intend to work closely with India and with Pakistan to, we hope, ease tensions along their border as well.”

Of course, any suggestion of outside intervention in India-Pakistan border tensions will put Delhi on guard. The “border” that US officials refer to is the turbulent ‘Line of Control’ separating the regions of Kashmir under Indian and Pakistani control.

Unsurprisingly, the Foreign Ministry reaction in Delhi to Tillerson’s speech was polite but noticeably reticent, calling it “significant” for bringing out the “various strengths” of the US-Indian relationship and highlighting the two sides’ “shared commitment to a rule-based international order” and appreciating Tillerson’s “positive evaluation” of the relationship and “his optimism about its future directions.”

Ryan says Republican tax plan must speed through choppy waters - Reuters

Ryan says Republican tax plan must speed through choppy waters: Reuters interview

David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Wednesday that a sweeping Republican tax-cut plan is entering its toughest phase yet as lobbyists swarm Congress to try to protect valuable tax breaks.

Urging lawmakers to move quickly on the plan, Ryan said in an interview with Reuters that speedy action would prevent the legislation getting bogged down and deliver sooner the economic growth that Republicans expect from it.

“K Street,” as Washington’s lobbying industry is known after the downtown street where much of it is based, will soon descend on Capitol Hill to defend tax benefits for companies and other special interests, said Ryan, the top Republican in Congress.

”When the details come, that is when you’re going to see K Street coming to Congress. And that’s why this hasn’t been done for 31 years,” said Ryan, looking back to the country’s last major tax code overhaul under President Ronald Reagan in 1986.

While the broad parameters of the Republican plan, backed by President Donald Trump, have been made public, detailed legislation is not expected to be revealed until next week.

Securing passage by Congress of the tax plan would give Trump his first major legislative win since he took office in January. Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress and are under pressure to deliver on their election campaign promises. Final action on taxes is at least weeks away.

The Republican plan would cut taxes for businesses and people by up to $6 trillion over the next decade, according to independent analysts.

It calls for reducing the corporate income tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent and setting a lower rate for smaller businesses, as well as cutting taxes for individuals and allowing larger deductions for families.

Democrats have called it a gift to the rich and to corporate America that would cause the federal deficit to balloon and add to the $20 trillion U.S. national debt.

CHOPPY WATERS

Ryan referred to white-water rafting to describe how the tax overhaul effort is entering its toughest phase.

“We’ve been going through Class 3 rapids, which is a pleasant ride. It’s nice. Everybody pretty much stays in the boat and it’s pretty good. But we’re about to go through Class 5 rapids, which is the biggest rapid you can go through,” he said.

He called on Republicans to hold tight as details are hammered out. “We’ve got to make sure that everybody stays in the boat and we get the boat down the river,” Ryan said.

He dismissed concerns that tax cuts could expand the federal deficit. “We don’t anticipate a big deficit effect from this tax reform because we will broaden the base and lower the rates, plug loopholes and get faster economic growth.”

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) participates in an onstage interview about tax policy with Thomson Reuters Editor in Chief Stephen Adler in Washington, U.S. October 25, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Republicans intend to pay for their proposed cuts in part by broadening the tax base. That would require discarding trillions of dollars of tax deductions, loopholes and other breaks, each one protected by powerful interests.

If lobbyists succeed in protecting such tax breaks, lawmakers would be looking at less revenue to offset the tax cuts, raising the risk of higher deficits and debt that could undermine long-term economic growth.

DEMOCRATIC SUPPORT?

Ryan has previously said he wants the House to pass the tax bill by the Nov. 23 U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. He predicted on Wednesday that some Democratic lawmakers would back the tax plan.

“At the end of the day, I do believe some Democrats will end up voting for this thing,” Ryan said. “It’s hard for me to see why - no matter what party you’re from - you’d want to vote against this.”

At least some Democratic support could end up being needed in the Senate, where Republicans hold only a 52-48 majority. Party dissent in the Senate led to Republicans’ failure this summer to push through an overhaul of the healthcare system that Trump and the party leadership had pushed for.

Ryan, from Wisconsin, blamed Democrats for the lack of bipartisanship in Washington. Republicans are drafting the tax legislation on their own.

“I so wish we had Bill Bradley Democrats around these days. We do not have Bill Bradley Democrats. Believe me, I really, really wish we did,” Ryan said, referring to Democratic former Senator Bill Bradley, who played a key bipartisan role in the Reagan tax reform.

Among Republicans, skirmishes around the tax breaks have already begun.

Some Republican lawmakers are resisting a proposal to eliminate a popular deduction for state and local tax payments, which would hit middle-class voters in high-tax states like New York, New Jersey and California.

U.S. Republican Ryan says wants 'Dreamer' action, timing uncertain: Reuters interview.

“You do have to broaden the base in order to lower the rates. And that is what reform is,” Ryan said. “With respect to state and local, I think there’s a way of addressing the concerns that our members have for middle income taxpayers … so that they are net winners in tax reform as well.”

Ryan also said Republican lawmakers will not take up a bipartisan plan to stabilize Obamacare insurance markets or try again this year to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

The House speaker said he wants Congress to pass legislation to protect illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children but offered no timetable.

Asked about strong denunciations of Trump this week by two Republican senators, Ryan said people should “settle their differences personally” rather than in public.

He also urged the Department of Justice to immediately give Congress documents related to the funding of a dossier on Trump during the presidential campaign.

Reporting by David Morgan, Amanda Becker and Doina Chiacu; Writing by Susan Heavey and Alistair Bell; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Will Dunham and Frances Kerry