CNN "Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Pramila Jayapal

Interview

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Our next guest is at the center of all of this action. She's the chair of the Progressive Caucus, and she is set to meet with President Biden today.

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal spoke with Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday, telling her that progressives will vote against a bipartisan infrastructure deal, that $1.2 trillion deal, this Monday, unless than $3.5 trillion reconciliation plan comes with it or has already passed.

And Congresswoman Jayapal of Washington state joins me now.

Congresswoman, I know you're busy. Thank you very much for taking time to meet with us.

I know you're planning to meet with President Biden today. Is there anything that President Biden could say to you today to get you to first vote yes on that $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill?

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): Well, Alisyn, it's always great to see you. And I'm really looking forward to meeting with the president. He left me a lovely message last night.

And I think that the issue here is that we are ready to vote for the entirety of the president's agenda. We are ready to support and deliver to his desk the entirety of the agenda that he laid out to Congress in the Build Back Better speech that he gave to us. And so we want to do that.

But the deal has always been and was -- and you just saw perhaps that 11 senators just released a letter clarifying this again for people -- the deal was that those senators voted for the infrastructure bill under the commitment that the two bills would move together in the House, that we would pass reconciliation, and then we would vote for the infrastructure bill.

That is our -- that has been our position for three months, but every month, we check with our members. And every month, they say, yes, this is too important to leave behind child care, paid leave, taking on climate change, housing, infrastructure, health care.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

JAYAPAL: All of these things will get left behind if we don't pass the two together.

CAMEROTA: Just out of curiosity, what did President Biden say to you in the nice message last night?

JAYAPAL: Well, he had just seen me on television, and he said I did a great job. And he wished me happy birthday, because it was -- yesterday was my birthday.

And he also just said he was hoping he could meet with me today. And so it was a real honor, of course, to receive that call, because -- and he thanked me for supporting -- all the support for his agenda. So I think this is -- I'm just looking forward to this conversation with him, because, obviously, this is about making sure the president's agenda passes.

And we are so excited to vote for both bills, not because my members think that the infrastructure bill is a great bill. Frankly, many of them don't, and they don't want to vote for it, but they understand we're all on a big team. And we need to pass both of these things.

CAMEROTA: Yes, I just want to be clear.

Are you saying that you are perfectly comfortable with letting that $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan that brings with it tons of jobs and repairs our nation's roads and bridges, you're comfortable with letting that die if you don't get the other one attached to it?

[15:10:12]

JAYAPAL: Well, I think what I should -- what you should perhaps ask the other folks is whether they are comfortable letting child care, paid leave housing, health care die?

CAMEROTA: And I will.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: I will.

But are you comfortable with letting the $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal go?

(CROSSTALK)

JAYAPAL: But there's no reason to let it die.

My whole point has been, Monday the 27th is an arbitrary deadline. We are working on coming up with a pre-conference reconciliation bill, Build Back Better bill, that everybody can agree to. But we do need a little bit more time. And part of the reason we need a little bit more time is because some

senators who have said that they're -- they don't like the Build Back Better Act haven't told us anything about what they really want to cut out of that bill.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

JAYAPAL: So, we need more time to get this done. Monday is an arbitrary deadline. There is no reason to bring it up. It's just an attempt to pass one bill and leave behind the bill that has the majority of the president's agenda and, by the way, taxes the wealthiest in the country, including individuals and wealthiest corporations, in order to pay for all of this.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Yes.

JAYAPAL: So, let's get rid of the arbitrary deadline of Monday. And let's actually work on getting to a deal.

Progressives have been at the table, team players all the way through. We didn't stop the bipartisan bill coming out of the Senate. We didn't insist on our preference, which was one bill. We didn't even insist on our top-line number of $6 trillion. We came down to $3.5 trillion.

So we have been team players at getting this agenda done.

CAMEROTA: I mean, it sounds like you agree with even some of the moderate Democrats in the House, who basically are saying that they don't think that this $3.5 trillion deal is fully baked.

They just say that they don't -- they need to debate more the scope and the details of it. I mean, "The Washington Post" puts it this way, quickly.

Congress -- "Representative Stephanie Murphy, the leader of the moderate-leaning Blue Dog coalition, recently criticized duplicative spending, as well as potential unintended consequences that could come from the tax increases that fund it. Representative Scott Peters has sought to narrow Democrats' efforts reining in prescription drug costs. Some others have questioned whether it's fully financed."

So you're saying that there do need -- there does need to be more meat on the bone?

JAYAPAL: No. No, no, no.

That's -- what I'm saying is, the Senate has not told us -- has not been able to yet finalize this, so we have everybody on board. And we have already compromised to the $3.5 trillion. We have come up with all of the different priorities. The committees in the House already did the work.

We already passed through committees a significant number of things. There might be a few things left that still need to be worked out. Prescription drug pricing is very important. And I'm very disappointed that we haven't yet passed that through committee, when it was already passed by Democrats last Congress, and we need to rein in the price of prescription drugs.

So, yes, there are a couple things still on the table. But the reality is that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema need to actually realize that they drafted the infrastructure bill without any input from any of us. Now we have drafted a reconciliation bill, and they need to come along.

We're all part of the Democratic team. And this is the president's agenda that we're delivering on.

CAMEROTA: But it does sound like, even in -- I mean, in the Democratic Caucus, you don't have the votes for the $3.5 trillion.

JAYAPAL: Oh, I really believe that we have done the work. And there are a few things left. I mean, there's still things I'm trying to get in and make sure that -- enter in. That always happens at the very end.

But it's -- we're very close on that.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: Just to be clear, like the Josh Gottheimers of the world, you think that you have everybody that you need in the House that will vote for that?

JAYAPAL: What they have said is they want a bill that will pass the Senate.

Obviously, we need all 50 members of the Senate to commit to that bill. I understand that everybody. Understands that. There are a couple of senators that have not committed to the bill yet. And so they need to get to work.

If they want the bipartisan infrastructure bill to pass, then they need to get to work and work with the leadership of the House, the Senate and the White House. And let's finalize this thing.

And remember that there are plenty of my members who don't like or want the infrastructure bill, the good, the bad, and the missing, as one of our leaders has said. And the reality is, there are some things in there that people really think are detrimental, not just not there, but detrimental.

But I have managed to get everybody to say that they will vote for that if the reconciliation bill contains enough of our priorities to deliver on the things we promised to the American people.

[15:15:00]

CAMEROTA: Can you just peel back the curtain a little bit and give us some color on how often are you all meeting about this? How often are you all talking and negotiating?

JAYAPAL: Well, within the Progressive caucus, we meet every week as an entire caucus. But we also are -- I'm talking constantly to our members. And we did a

very significant whip count just this week of our members to see where people were.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

JAYAPAL: And people are very clear on where they are.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: But I mean with everybody.

JAYAPAL: Oh, as a Democratic Caucus?

Well, the conversations don't really happen in that giant group, as you probably know. They happen in smaller groups. And so I talk to my conservative Democratic colleagues on the floor. In fact, I was just talking to one just before I came here. I'm talking to senators constantly.

So we're all talking to each other. It typically doesn't happen in a giant room.

CAMEROTA: Just today, the Chamber, the U.S. Chamber of Congress, has come out with a statement saying that they don't like the $3.5 trillion deal.

They say now the Biden administration wants to hit them again with massive tax increases. Oh, actually, I think that I have that sound. Let me play this for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NARRATOR: Now the Biden administration wants to hit them again with massive tax increases. These tax hikes would be a body blow to our economy, endangering our recovery and taking more hard-earned money from small businesses and working families.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: They think the tax increases will hurt small businesses. What do you say to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce?

JAYAPAL: What a shocker. The Chamber of Commerce, that represents the largest corporations in the country, some in the world, who have made the most money over the pandemic, created enormous numbers of billionaires, while leaving everybody else out, doesn't want to increase taxes on the largest corporations, so that they pay their fair share.

I'm not surprised. Are you?

CAMEROTA: Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, we appreciate you coming on and we will certainly be watching what happens with your meeting today and beyond. Thanks for your time.

JAYAPAL: Thank you so much, Alisyn.

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