Fox News "The Ingraham Angle" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Brad Sherman

Interview

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INGRAHAM: Why is Kamala Harris shaking her head? Driving the human traffickers out of business? No, we don't want to do that. What? Joining me now to react. Congressman Brad Sherman, a Democrat from the great state of California. I'm glad he's here tonight. Congressman, I really appreciate you spending some time with us and sharing your perspective.

Now on the issue of human trafficking, I've heard so many Democrats over the years talk about the scourge of human trafficking. And we, all as Americans, it's not just not a partisan issue. So why didn't the women in white and Kamala Harris get on their feet and say, "Good on you, Mr. President. We might not agree with you on a lot, but that's good stuff."

REP. BRAD SHERMAN, D-CALIF.: He begins his speech by threatening us and saying that if we do what the Constitution requires and exercise oversight and investigate what's going on in his administration that he's going to hold the country hostage. He has hold out the country --

INGRAHAM: Okay, he didn't say that.

SHERMAN: Yes, he did. He made it very clear.

INGRAHAM: Obviously, I saw someone else say that on another network. So that must be the Democrat's talking point tonight and I want to play something because I think this may be will change the way you're approaching this.

These are the instant polls that were taken right after the speech. Two networks, not big fans of the President, CBS and CNN. Let's watch.

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INGRAHAM: Does that make you think twice about taking away that the whole speech was about threatening Congress? The President was reaching across the aisle to you guys and you guys were sitting on your hands.

SHERMAN: This poll is of those who watch the speech.

INGRAHAM: So no Democrats care about the State of the Union? They're not here watching.

SHERMAN: They care about the State of the Union, but we've soured on this President. We've soured on the racist declarations. We've soured on Charlottesville.

INGRAHAM: How is that going to create a single job, Congressman? Honestly, I get the talking points. He could have handled Charlottesville better, I get it. Those comments, I get that.

SHERMAN: I can't force people in my district to watch the speech. Those who wanted to watch, watched. We don't live in North Korea where you're required to watch the speech.

INGRAHAM: Well, thanks for that education. I really appreciate that.

SHERMAN: So Democrats chose not to watch the speech.

INGRAHAM: Congressman, on the issues -- opioids, AIDS, human trafficking, criminal justice reform, women empowerment summit tomorrow for economic empowerment here and abroad -- these are things that I remember -- I've been here for 30 years, your party has championed, but this guy says it, and you guys like, "He's attacking Congress. How dare he say these things? How dare he coopt our agenda?"

SHERMAN; We stood up and cheered dozens of times. I stood up --

INGRAHAM: Not on a lot of the issues you had liked.

SHERMAN: I stood up and cheered more often than last time I was at a Dodger game. We stood up and cheered dozens of times, not as often as the Republicans did. We cheered more than Obama was cheered by Republicans. We cheered plenty. But you can't stand up after every half a sentence and give him a standing ovation.

INGRAHAM: I am not saying that, I am talking about --

SHERMAN: So you can always -- you can always --

INGRAHAM: I am not saying that. I am talking about human trafficking and women's unemployment. Those are pretty --

SHERMAN: We stood on women's employment. We stood on border security.

INGRAHAM: Oh no, no. There's a reaction, right there. There's reaction on women's unemployment. There's the there's the ghost gals. Now, they start ...

SHERMAN: There's the cheer.

INGRAHAM: No, no, they did when one of them said, "Okay, but we're here. That's good." Then the President said it's historic.

SHERMAN: It is historic and they wouldn't ...

INGRAHAM: They cheered themselves.

SHERMAN: They wouldn't be there if it wasn't for Donald Trump. He does deserve credit for electing so many women in Congress. See all of those Democratic women, they might not be here if it wasn't for Donald Trump.

INGRAHAM: Congressman, honestly, I think of the party of JFK, I think of the party of low taxes and lower regulations, robust military, obviously pro-life and then I see this Democratic Party today, the party of infanticide, the party of late-term abortion. Eight percent of the country believes late term abortion is wrong.

And I find that -- what's happened to the Democratic Party? The little guy, the party of the little guy, what's happened?

SHERMAN: We're standing up. That's why we're winning in the polls. That's why we won by huge margins last November. That's why in spite of everything, we carried the popular vote and we carry it overwhelmingly in the upcoming Presidential --

INGRAHAM: What's the message for 2020 for the Democrats? How are you going to grow the economy at let's say, greater than 3.7% GDP? What's the path for doing that?

SHERMAN: You first look at the fact that the last two years of Obama created more jobs than the first two years of Trump.

INGRAHAM: What happened to the stock market the day after the election?

SHERMAN: Those who wanted high corporate profits invested in the stock market and the stock market went up.

INGRAHAM: What's the percentage of Americans that are invested in the market you think in their 401(k) pension funds?

SHERMAN: The vast majority --

INGRAHAM: In your state, Cal--

SHERMAN: The vast majority of stock is owned by the top 5%. Now, it is true that a lot of Americans own a very tiny amount of stock indirectly, but the fact is that when you increase the deficit by $2.3 trillion, that's an additional debt for the average --

INGRAHAM: So you're now a deficit hawk.

SHERMAN: I'm against the tax bill.

INGRAHAM: I am, too, by the way and I want -- I'd like to go back to the budget caps, but you guys were against those. You didn't want to do the budget caps. Obama was dragged kicking and screaming for the sequester caps. I was all for those, but a lot of big spending.

SHERMAN: The level of spending is consistent with the levels it was under the Reagan administration.

INGRAHAM: What did Obama do for spending? The only reason you got it under control is because they had to do the sequester caps because, you know, we were blowing through it.

SHERMAN: We couldn't afford these tax cuts. They went overwhelmingly to the top end of the giant corporations and they imposed an additional $35,000.00 in debt on the average family of five.

INGRAHAM: Okay, so the blue collar workers and I think a legitimate criticism of both parties had been wages that had been stagnating for 18 years, really median income stagnated.

So, "The Washington Post" has a piece last September and say finally the recovery hits Middle America. Blue collar wages rising. These are ABC News. This is "Washington Post" even the "New York Times" has to admit that.

Is that also Obama? That's not Donald Trump's deregulatory move -- none of that?

SHERMAN: Since Trump became President, real wages for those without college education has gone down, not up. Because we had inflation.

INGRAHAM: Right.

SHERMAN: You said, "Oh, wages are --"

INGRAHAM: The Fed just said inflation is basically non-existent. That's why they're not raising rates.

SHERMAN: We've averaged 2% inflation. And we've averaged 2% wage growth.

INGRAHAM: So you basically say the economy is not historically strong.

SHERMAN: No.

INGRAHAM: It's the envy of the world.

SHERMAN: The economy is providing jobs which is a continuation of the Obama administration.

INGRAHAM: Three hundred thousand? Three hundred thousand jobs created in the month of January.

SHERMAN: Fewer job in the first two years of Trump than the last two years of Obama. Those are the statistics you may not like.

INGRAHAM: Blue collar - blue collar wages, manufacturing jobs, over 400,000 jobs created. If Obama had the answers, why wasn't he able to do that? He kind of laughed at the idea of all this manufacturing renaissance.

SHERMAN: We had faster job creation ...

INGRAHAM: Manufacturing jobs. Congressman, you know that's not true.

SHERMAN: And higher wage growth for those -- look at the last two years of Obama. Look at the first two years of Trump.

INGRAHAM: Okay, so you actually think --

SHERMAN: No, the only way you get the lower wage growth is if you ignore inflation, which was lower in Obama than it is under Trump.

INGRAHAM: So you think the Obama --

SHERMAN: So you have to use --

INGRAHAM: Just give me -- I want to get this straight, Brad Sherman tonight, I'm so glad you're on because you're a very nice person, but you're saying the economy was stronger under Obama than it is right now?

SHERMAN: The last two years of Obama stronger than right -- well, it's a continuing trend. Obviously, if you jobs under Obama, then you create more jobs under Trump.

INGRAHAM: Wait a second. Why was Foxconn not coming to like Wisconsin? Putting like 10,000 jobs in there. Why do that? If Obama had the secret sauce on the economy, why weren't all these foreign companies coming into town?

SHERMAN: We created more jobs in the last two years of Obama than the first two years of Trump.

INGRAHAM: You're not answering the question, why didn't Foxconn, one of the biggest job creators in the world decide to come into the United States to build a plant?

SHERMAN: You're asking me one company and I'm telling you --

INGRAHAM: One of the most important ones. They make the iPhone pretty important. We want that stuff built here, don't we?

SHERMAN: We want the job growth we saw in the last two years with the Obama administration, not the lower job growth for the first two years of the Trump administration.

INGRAHAM: Okay, so the manufacturing renaissance that even Trump's political enemies have to concede you're not conceding tonight.

SHERMAN: We have a -- he's building on the Obama success.

INGRAHAM: So if the economy starts to go down, it won't be Obama's policies that will be Trump, correct? So a Trump can't win either way.

SHERMAN: Well, if he can outperform --

INGRAHAM: All right, this is why you guys are going to lose in 2020. You can't say there's no five fingers in front of --

SHERMAN: We didn't lose in 2018, did we?

INGRAHAM: No, you didn't because Donald Trump wasn't on the ticket. Watch what happens in 2020, but we'll see. It is great to have you on.

SHERMAN: Once a year you have me on, only once.

INGRAHAM: You can come on anytime you want.

SHERMAN: Are you kidding? We've called you 220-30 times.

INGRAHAM: Doors always open and come with your friends.

SHERMAN: No, it's not.

INGRAHAM: All right, Congressman, thank you so much. And up next, the liberal media spin on the State of the Union.

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