MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript: Interview with Pramila Jayapal

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

MADDOW: Try us. Hey, some people say you`re bluffing about your strategy here. Try us.

Pramila Jayapal leads the progressive caucus in the House of Representatives. Democrats are hitting crunch time now. They are trying not to hit the debt ceiling, thanks, Republicans. Trying to avoid a government shutdown, thanks, Republicans. They`re trying also to pass the legislation that contains the bulk of President Biden`s agenda.

It is Jayapal`s progressive caucus that has the numbers here they are using them aggressively to try to get this done. What are the prospects?

Joining us now is Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal. She`s chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. She`s kind enough to join us tonight even though it is her birthday.

Happy birthday, Congresswoman. It`s nice to see you.

JAYAPAL: Thank you, Rachel. Can`t think of a better way to spend my birthday than with you.

MADDOW: I can think of tons of better ways to spend your birthday than being on cable TV with or without me. So it makes me all the more grateful that you are here, especially because I you are in the middle of some high- stakes negotiations and having high-stakes meetings and really in the middle of crunch time right now. Tell me if I -- if I characterize sort of the moment in the right way, tell me in your own words where you think this process is right now and how close the Democrats are to a decision.

JAYAPAL: Yeah, and Rachel I just you characterized it perfectly I just want to take us back just a minute to when President Biden got elected and actually even before that during the campaign what he campaigned on it was on child care, universal child care, paid leave, making sure we repair housing, making sure we address climate change expanding healthcare addressing immigration. These were all things that he campaigned on and when he became president, this was the agenda that he put forward and it was called the Build Back Better agenda.

We progressives three and a half months ago said let`s just pass the whole thing together, jobs infrastructure and all of these other pieces that I mentioned which are the largest part of the president`s agenda when it became clear that some moderate Democrats conservative Democrats whatever you want to call it wanted to have a bipartisan infrastructure bill, then we said we are not willing to leave out women from coming back to the workforce by getting child care, we are not willing to leave out health care and so we will agree to that bipartisan bill if and only if we also pass the reconciliation bill first.

That was our position. We whipped our members on it. Over half of the progressive caucus three months ago today said we will vote for both bills. We will vote for the bipartisan infrastructure bill which is much smaller and frankly Rachel it has a lot of things that our members don`t like. But if we can get the reconciliation bill that has the majority of the president`s agenda in it the majority of what we ran on then we will vote for both bills. That has been our position three months ago, it remains our position today.

Now when the Senate passed the bipartisan bill, Senator Sanders, Senator Warren, many other progressive senators only voted for that bipartisan bill because they were given a commitment by the senators in the Democratic Party and the president that we would move these two things together -- the reconciliation bill, the Build Back Better Act, as it`s called now and the bipartisan bill.

[21:20:15]

So they come over to the House and all of a sudden the tables get turned on us and we are now finding that people are saying oh no just pass the infrastructure bill and you know what, we`ll get to child care later, we`ll get to paid leave later. Well, Rachel, we are committed to delivering the entirety of the president`s agenda to the president`s desk and that is what we have had to do. The speaker says it beautifully she says the children have the leverage and we`re not going to give that up. This is the leverage for transformational investments that people will wake up and feel differently about themselves and will know that government delivered for them, and half of our caucus, over half of our caucus has said that they will not just vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, we have to vote on the reconciliation bill first and then we will even though some people don`t like it we`ll vote for the bipartisan bill because we understand we`re all part of the Democratic team, this is the Democrats agenda and we are willing to vote for both bills.

Anyone that is blocking the reconciliation bill at this point is voting against the president`s agenda, against the Democratic agenda. So, look, it is a -- it is a tough deal now. We`re trying to get the reconciliation bill done. We need the Senate to actually work with us to say, okay, we are pre- conferencing everything, which means we got to agree between the house and the Senate and the White House on a bill. It`s not like we`re going to pass something send it to the Senate, they`re going to send it back.

No, no, no, that takes too much time. We`re going to pass one bill that all of us agree on, and once we pass that bill we will vote also for the bipartisan bill and we will see both of them on the president`s desk for a signature.

MADDOW: How much distance is there between you and Speaker Pelosi on this? We`ve seen all these -- you know, that the -- it`s like the irresistible template headlines today from all the Beltway press, Democrats in disarray, you know, right? I mean, they all write themselves. You know, internal strife among Democrats.

When you had this meeting today with Speaker Pelosi, came out of it afterwards and spoke with reporters about the same things you just talked about here and the broader ways that you think about this. But are you and Speaker Pelosi pulling in the same direction or is there -- is there distance that needs to be bridged between you to get to the kinds of outcomes you`re describing?

JAYAPAL: You know, the speaker has been terrific in really pushing for the entirety of the president`s agenda, and she also understands that if we have over half of the progressive caucus that won`t vote for the bipartisan bill, she is a master vote counter. She is not going to bring a bill to the floor that she knows is going to fail. And so, she has been trying to communicate that to people in the Senate, in the House, and to say they are all ready to vote for the bipartisan bill, we just have to pass the reconciliation bill first.

And so, there hasn`t been distance. She`s been a great champion of making sure that we get women back to work, that we create jobs, that everyone can participate in, that we give free community college to people, paid leave, pre-K, child care, all of these things and of course that we fight climate change which is just so crucial in this moment.

The bipartisan bill doesn`t have any of that Rachel. So, if we were to just vote on the bipartisan bill, we would leave behind all of these other priorities. Sixty, 70 percent of the president`s priorities would be left on the table with no urge to do anything. And so, it`s been really -- she`s been a very strong champion of pushing for all of these things and again as I said, I wanted to make sure she understood that we simply don`t have the votes and she really does get that.

MADDOW: Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, chair of the congressional progressive caucus, which again is a large caucus, 95 Democratic members in the House, which means it has a lot of weight to throw around. We are seeing that process at work right now, as this -- as this process works its way through Congress.

Congresswoman, thank you very much for joining us. I hope that the rest of your night involves no more cable news and lots of birthday things.

JAYAPAL: Thank you so much, Rachel. Great to talk to you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source