CNN "Erin Burnett Outfront" - Transcript: Interview with Pramila Jayapal

Interview

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REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): No. I mean, I think what the president has said to us and what others, the speaker and others have said is that, you know, there is some potential of doing a bipartisan bill on infrastructure, but then also doing the rest of the package as a reconciliation bill.

My big concern with that, Erin, is number one, this is urgent. We can't wait for Republicans to deliver, and forgive me if I'm skeptical that Mitch McConnell, who said 100 percent of the Republican focus in the Senate is to stop the president's agenda from moving forward.

BURNETT: Right.

JAYAPAL: I'm not sure that there's really going to be a deal.

But even if there were, for us, for many in our caucus, I think what we would want to know is that the reconciliation bill is moving at the same time as any other bill. It's going to be unlikely that we would vote for a smaller package if we don't know that the reconciliation bill is already agreed to and moving at the same time. And so, you know how hard it is to pass bills. We believe the best solution is really to still go with one bill and to get everything done.

The American people support this. Republicans in Congress should, as well. But it's very -- everything the president has outlined is extremely popular with the American people -- Democrats, independents, and Republicans.

BURNETT: So, on this front, though, the Republicans, of course, they talk about spending. They want some infrastructure, they say, although your point about McConnell is fair.

[19:45:03]

But they say you guys are all -- you just want to spend way too much money. They say that Democrat spending in the COVID relief bill has already been hurting hiring, just as one example of what they say. Ohio, Arizona, Georgia are just the latest of 16 states, they all have Republican governors, but they are now -- they want to get rid of the federal unemployment benefits early for the pandemic.

They say they can't get people to work. It's preventing people from going back. So, they're basically saying they don't want your money, even though it's being given to them, they're going to send it back.

What does that say to you?

JAYAPAL: Well, they're not exactly saying that. Many of them are going back to their districts and touting everything that we passed in the American Rescue Plan for money for small businesses, to, you know, a whole bunch of other things that were in there, the child tax credit even.

So, you know, I think that what they're saying about unemployment is just ridiculous. If you look at the numbers, it's just very, very clear that hiring in those lowest wage sectors actually went up. That was the place where you might have seen, you know, people were staying home because of the unemployment assistance. That's where you might have seen that going down.

That's not what we see. What we see is women in the -- not going back -- I mean, there's no employment for women. That number actually dropped in terms of women in the workforce.

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BURNETT: Right, 64,000 drop there.

JAYAPAL: That's right.

BURNETT: But to this point people not going back, right -- I mean, we're seeing it across the country. Yes, it's anecdotal, but it's in Democratic states. It's in Republican states. We've all seen the signs.

I mean, here's just a few people we've spoken to, business owners, in three Democratic states -- New York, California, and New Mexico.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're basically making too much on unemployment. It's easy to kick back and get a check every month and not have to do anything.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're doing better with unemployment than actually going out to work.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're supposed to go hire people to retain them, but at the same time, you're paying unemployment, it creates a conflict of interest, so to speak.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The amount of money that people were making on unemployment right now, quite honestly, is more than what we were paying before.

REPORTER: Do you feel like you're competing with unemployment?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No question.

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BURNETT: Those aren't politicians. Obviously, they're just regular people trying to hire. Is it possible that they're right?

JAYAPAL: I don't think so, Erin, because, again, if you look at the numbers, what you see is that people for the most part -- now, in some states, probably not those states, but there might be some states where Kansas, for example, where, you know, you have a minimum wage of $7.25, hasn't been raised in ten years. We can't blame people if they don't want to go back. But that is a tiny anecdotal piece that may be there.

The vast majority of what we see is that people aren't going back to work for a lot of other considerations. Women aren't going back to work because they don't have child care, and they can't afford to go back to work when their kids aren't fully back in school yet.

The economy is still building as a result of a year of really inattention and lack of ability from the government to support many of the things that needed to be done. The president's American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan will help us to get back there.

But it really is, if you dig into the unemployment numbers, you just do not see any of the signs that would be there if it was an issue of unemployment being a problem.

BURNETT: All right. Congresswoman Jayapal, thanks very much. I appreciate your time.

JAYAPAL: Thank you, Erin.

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