MSNBC "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" - Transcript: Interview with Hakeem Jeffries

Interview

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O`DONNELL: President Biden has been on the phone with some of the moderate House Democrats who want to vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill that was passed by the Senate, before they cast their first procedural vote on the rest of the Biden infrastructure package that will be passed through budget reconciliation, which means it can then be passed in the Senate without any Republican votes.

Speaker Pelosi was reportedly hoping to push through a vote tonight on a budget resolution for the portion of the infrastructure bill that will be done, in the end, through budget reconciliation. But the resistance of a group of originally nine moderate Democrats, which has now grown to ten, is now turning what was supposed to be voting night in the House into what could be a long night of negotiations in the House.

And leading off our discussion tonight is Democratic Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of New York. He is the chair of the House Democratic Caucus.

[22:05:02]

Congressman Jeffries, thank you very much for joining us tonight.

You`re a member of the leadership team. What can you tell us about where Speaker Pelosi is at this hour and in her negotiations with that group of ten Democrats?

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): Well, good evening, Lawrence. It`s great to be with you.

We had a robust discussion, family discussion amongst the House Democratic Caucus earlier today, so that members had an opportunity to articulate their perspectives.

It`s my sense that the overwhelming majority of members certainly support a parallel track approach. We want to make sure we get the bipartisan infrastructure deal done. At the same time, we want to make sure that the budget reconciliation package, which is an instrumental part of President Biden`s Build Back Better agenda related to other portions of the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan also gets over the finish line.

So, there`s some discussions in terms of trying to figure out how we can arrive at a agreed-upon rule that we can vote on. It`s my expectation that we will vote at some point this evening. And we can get the process moving forward.

O`DONNELL: Well, there`s less than a couple of hours left in this evening before we end up into what is called early-tomorrow morning. This -- this seems to have been dramatically slowed down by that group of nine, which over the weekend picked up another supporter. Now, it`s a group of ten.

Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Democrat, has been the leader, at least spokesman for that group. Let`s listen to what he had to say about this, this morning.

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REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER (D-NJ): I believe both will move forward and get done. I think we`ll work this out. You know, I`m ready to sit at the table and so are my colleagues, ready to sit at the table and figure this out and we can, right? This just makes sense to get both bills moving. We can do that.

You know, but -- but there`s no reason to wait four or five months or more sitting on this infrastructure package and risking that or threatening and holding it hostage like some of my colleagues are doing. That just doesn`t make sense.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: So, that sounded like he was ready to compromise, in some way, this morning. Has he proposed a compromise?

JEFFRIES: Well, I know he is in discussions with Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer. And hopefully, those discussions will bear some fruit sometime soon.

I think you`re exactly right, Lawrence, that what Josh has said publicly is similar to what he said privately, which is that while he has a disagreement in terms of the strategic approach and the pathway forward, he doesn`t disagree with the substantive need to enact the budget resolution framework in order to arrive in an agreement, so we can do things that support more robustly childcare and homecare and healthcare and elder care, investing in America`s children and families, along with the physical infrastructure part of the bipartisan agreement.

And so, I think that`s the hopeful thing that as Democrats, we`re all on the same page in terms of substance. We just need to figure out what the highest common denominator is going to be, as it relates to process, so we can get both of these things done and we will.

O`DONNELL: It sounds like Speaker Pelosi`s attempt or initial strategy to not do the bipartisan bill in the House until the basically Democrats-only version through budget resolution -- budget reconciliation -- which is a two-stage process has been completed which will take a couple months. Probably, October at the earliest.

It sounds like she doesn`t trust these ten Democrats and possibly other Democrats to show up when she needs them in October to vote on the budget reconciliation package if she lets them vote on the bipartisan pack -- package now.

JEFFRIES: Well, I think what`s important is that this is going to be a bicameral negotiation. It`s going to be the House and the Senate. And right now, the senators on the Democratic side have agreed to the resolution but there is still a lot of discussion that needs to take place in terms of the ultimate substance of the $3.5 trillion agreement.

And so, from my standpoint -- not speaking for anyone else -- you had senators like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren vote for the resolution, along with senators like Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin. That`s the least that we can do in the House of Representatives to get the process started.

And then, over the next few weeks, we can have a substantive discussion and negotiation about what the Build Back Better budget framework should look like before it gets enacted into law.

[22:10:01]

O`DONNELL: Congressman Jeffries, before you go, Andrew Cuomo has less than two hours left in the job as governor. He has followed your advice and everyone else in the New York congressional delegation who asked him to resign based on the accusations brought forward by the state attorney general on sexual harassment.

What should Governor Cuomo do now with the $18 million in campaign funds that he has in his campaign funds? Should he turn that money over to the state Democratic Party?

JEFFRIES: We`ll have to make some decisions about how to use those resources hopefully to elect other Democrats, moving forward. Help us keep our majorities in both the state legislative bodies, as well as in the House and the Senate. He will have to work through the legalities of that.

Right now, the most important thing is that we should all be falling in behind Kathy Hochul, our soon-to-be governor, supporting her because her success will be the success of the people of New York state.

O`DONNELL: Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, thank you very much for starting off our discussion tonight. Really appreciate it.

JEFFRIES: Thank you.

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