CNN "The Lead with Jake Tapper" - Transcript: Interview with Pramila Jayapal

Interview

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TAPPER: All right. Ryan Nobles on Capitol Hill, thanks so much.

Democratic Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal of Washington state joins me now.

Congresswoman, thank you so much for joining us.

What do you make of this bipartisan proposal? If it came up for a vote, would you be a yay or nay?

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): I just don't think it's going to get there, Jake. It's too small. It's a little bit higher than the last one.

But, remember, the president's original proposal is $2.3 trillion, and I think any smaller proposal that doesn't raise taxes and that is so significantly less is a disservice to the American people.

Now, we progressives have said that if we are going to vote on a smaller bipartisan proposal in any situation, we would need to make sure that the reconciliation package with everything else is moving at the same time, that that agreement is done with 50 Democratic senators. But I just have to say that we have no reason to believe that this is going to lead to ten Republican senators coming on board without losing Democratic senators along the way.

TAPPER: Is there any wiggle room on your end that you could see could allow for a bipartisan deal? I mean, Biden has come down from the $2.2 trillion to I think $1.7 trillion. Is there no give on the progressive side?

JAYAPAL: Well, no. I think he's come down to 1.7 but look at the number now being proposed, $579 billion. I mean, it's like if you buy -- if you go bid on a house and you offer as your first negotiation and your second negotiation and then your third negotiation and you're still not even, to you know, 30 percent of the -- of the original asking price, it wouldn't be considered a real negotiation.

So I just don't understand why we keep negotiating with these numbers that are so small when Biden has made a significant concession on the top end.

TAPPER: You tweeted, quote, Mitch "100 percent of my focus just on stopping the new administration" McConnell thinks the era of bipartisanship is over. Shocking. Now let's move forward on this bill alone.

Now, as you note, there's a chance you could -- Democrats could get something through the Senate by a simple majority if it's done through reconciliation, but you need Joe Manchin from West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona and other Democrats.

Do you have any reason to think that they would be on board for what you want?

JAYAPAL: Well, I think that they would be on board, I hope, for what the American people want, Republicans, Democrats and independents. I understand that they and the president needed to really try to get Republicans on board.

But what I'm saying is it was five and a half weeks ago that Mitch McConnell said 100 percent (AUDIO GAP) Biden's agenda, and it was three and a half weeks ago that we got the first Republican negotiation that was something like $250 billion, right, in new spending.

So we've barely moved in these negotiations and at some point, we have to recognize that the Republican Party that we're trying to negotiate with right now is the same Republican Party that did not provide a single vote for the American Rescue Plan even though they went back to their districts and touted what a great thing it was. They didn't tell their constituents they voted no.

This is the Republican Party that didn't provide us for ten votes, Republican votes for a January 6th Commission. So what makes you think that Mitch McConnell five and a half weeks later is going to change his mind and allow ten members of the Republican Party to go along with this? I just don't buy it.

TAPPER: Before you go, I want to ask you because your fellow progressive, Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is being scrutinized (AUDIO GAP) U.S. and Israel and together with the Hamas and Taliban. She later clarified the statement saying she was not trying to equate Democratic countries with terrorist organizations. In response, Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, another

progressive, tweeted: Freedom of speech doesn't exist for Muslim women in Congress.

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The benefit of the doubt doesn't exist for Muslim women in Congress. House Democratic leadership should be ashamed of its relentless, exclusive tone policing congresswomen of color, unquote.

Do you agree with Congresswoman Tlaib?

JAYAPAL: Well, I feel that anybody who listened to Representative Omar's initial statement understood that she wasn't equating those things. She was talking about those countries in the context of the ICC. She clarified her statement.

And I think there is no question that her view is incredibly important to the Democratic Caucus, the Congress, and certainly the Progressive Caucus where she serves as the whip and on the Foreign Affairs Committee. She's raising important issues, and I think there's a continual attack on her as a Black Muslim woman from the right wing.

I don't want to see Democrats, know, fall into that and allow these kinds of things to be used.

So my statement yesterday said, I hope all of our colleagues should pick up the phone and talk to each other when there are misunderstandings. We can work this out as a Democratic Caucus without doing public statements that allow the Republicans and the right wing media to exploit things that they suddenly smell as perhaps divisive.

So that's my plea. Let's just pick up the phone and talk to each other. We're all on the same team here and we desperately need Representative Omar's voice, just as we do with every member of our caucus.

TAPPER: Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, it's always good you have to on the show. Thank you so much for joining us.

JAYAPAL: Great to see you, Jake.

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