CBS "Face the Nation" - Transcript:
Interview
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BRENNAN: They've been called the Bayou Brothers. Democrat Cedric Richmond and Republican Steve Scalise have been friends since the served in the Louisiana State House. Now they're both eyeing higher leadership roles in the U.S. Congress.
A year ago, Scalise was critically wounded in an attack on Republican members of Congress practicing for a charity baseball game. Richmond was the first person to get to Scalise's side after he arrived at the hospital. Their friendship proving that even those divided in politics can still be good friends.
We spoke with them earlier.
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BRENNAN: So many people look at that shooting, the political motivation behind it, as reflective of the divisions in this country. But you're sitting here talking about being close friends despite this divided. Which is more reflective of where we are right now as a country?
REP. STEVE SCALISE (R), LOUISIANA: We're a divided nation right now. But if you look back at the history of our country, I mean our founders set up a system of government where with the rights of free speech, the ability -- you can go out disagree with people and you can actually express those disagreements. In many countries you can't.
The difference is you -- number one, you should never make those disagreements personal. But there's no excuse -- it's completely unacceptable -- to resort to violence to try to resolve some kind of disagreement when you have somebody with -- that you have with them politically.
REP. CEDRIC RICHMOND (D), LOUISIANA: But, look, the divisions in this country right now, I believe, is at a -- one of the highest peaks during my generation. And hopefully we can start to bridge that divide by leading by example.
And it will have to come from Congress. That's clear. But we just need to make sure that we judge people by a whole bunch of factors, but it shouldn't be political party, it shouldn't be race, it shouldn't be gender, it shouldn't be sexual orientation. It should just be whether the person's a nice person or not. And to the extent that you agree that the person's a nice person, then you try to find common ground.
And, look, Steve and I, our battles, even our plane rides home, when we talk about issues, it's clear we don't necessarily agree on most of them how to get there, and --
BRENNAN: That's everything. That's health care. That's immigration.
SCALISE: Tax cuts.
BRENNAN: That's tax cuts.
RICHMOND: The -- the list goes on and --
BRENNAN: Do you argue?
SCALISE: We --
RICHMOND: We do.
SCALISE: I win all the arguments, but, I mean, he still keeps voting the wrong way.
RICHMOND: No. The good news is, we look at the Affordable Care Act and we look at how it's improving lives around the country and I get to --
SCALISE: And double in the cost of health care every year.
RICHMOND: I get to say -- no, that's only because you all have gutted all the good things in it that keeps costs down.
But -- so we have this a lot where we talk about issues. And, you know, we tease each other a lot. We like to say that Democrats are tax and spend Democrats, although they just spent $2 trillion on a tax cut that they didn't pay for.
SCALISE: Spending money by giving people their money back. You know, interesting when he only cares about deficit when it involves letting people have their own money back.
RICHMOND: Well, you know, you have to pay for $2 trillion. That's a lot of money. But --
SCALISE: You just like growing the economy.
RICHMOND: So he likes to win the arguments. I win the baseball games.
SCALISE: We'll give him the trophy.
RICHMOND: We'll see.
SCALISE: You know, there's a trophy for showing up. We'll give that to Cedric. We'll win the policy.
BRENNAN: Oh.
RICHMOND: And, you know, for now. But, look, I don't -- November 6th, right around the corner.
BRENNAN: What's the over-under on that? Do you place bets on things like that? I know you talk about it.
SCALISE: I bet that probably Cedric wins re-election in his district somehow and I'll win re-election in mine. We're going to hold the House though.
BRENNAN: You're not betting on him as speaker? You said he would be a good speaker if he wanted to step into this race.
RICHMOND: Yes, I want him to be the head Republican. I do. I just want him to be in the minority. And when we'll be in the majority, so --
SCALISE: Cedric would make a great minority leader.
When we hold the majority, I look forward to -- to having Cedric work with us. He'll be -- he'll be minority leader maybe. But he -- he and I will be able to work on -- work on a number of things.
BRENNAN: What about on immigration? Do you have any points of agreement?
SCALISE: I mean, shouldn't we secure the border? I'm sure, in our bill, we're going to make sure we build the wall. And we also solve the DACA problem, but we fixed some of the problems that stop us from securing the border. And a lot of the internal security measures. Secretary Nielson of Homeland Security has identified so many different loopholes that make it hard to actually secure America's border. Let's fix those.
BRENNAN: So do you think for the country it's important to have a vote on immigration ahead of November for both parties?
RICHMOND: Well, I think so, because I think the American people should know where we are. I mean the head of their party occupies the White House said very early on, if you give me border security, if you give me a wall, then I'm willing to create a pathway to citizenship for DACA. If you all get it passed, I'll sign it.
But then -- and this is where it always get contentious, he throws in the diversity visa program, which is largest program in which African-Americans come to this country. They're better educated than even American children when they get here. So, you know, those are the hard things.
His role in Congress gets complicated a little bit because you introduce the president. If we didn't have a White House involved, I think there are a bunch of issues we could have -- we could come together on.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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