MSNBC "All In with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Pramila Jayapal

Interview

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HAYES: Given everything that`s been going on in Congress, a little jarring to see members gather tonight for the traditional bipartisan Congressional baseball game. President Biden even swung by to watch a few innings and cheer for the Democrats.

All looks very jovial but bear in mind, the Republican team roster includes people like Marjorie Taylor-Greene who made threatening comments and harassed Democratic members. And she`s on the same team as Congressman Mo Brooks who told the crowd on January 6 that it was the day for patriots to start kicking ass shortly before insurrectionists broke into the Capitol and started chanting hang Mike Pence while concussing various police officers.

That`d be kind of weird for Democratic lawmakers to just have a friendly baseball game with those folks. In addition to that weirdness, the game is happening on the eve of the big House vote for President Biden`s agenda. The share -- the chair of the Progressive Caucus Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal saying in a statement, "Progressives will vote for both bills but a majority of our members will only vote for the infrastructure bill after the President`s visionary Build Back Better act passes."

And Congresswoman Jayapal joins me now. OK, you and the progressive caucus have been pretty clear on this from day one. And I just want to -- I`m not sure people are tracking the -- all this which is fine. I don`t think -- I don`t think it matters that much what matters the outcome.

Why though? Explain your position right now. There is a bill that passed the Senate. First of all, can we talk about the content of that bill and your caucus`s views just on the content of it before we get to process, before we get to the game theory prisoners dilemma that is set up.

JAYAPAL: Yes, absolutely. And great to see you, Chris. So, five months ago yesterday, the President made that journey from the White House to Capitol Hill. And he laid out his Build Back Better agenda. And we all got up and cheered. I was in the -- I was in the chamber that night. We all got up and cheered for it because it was the agenda that we ran on, that he put forward as president, and that we said we would deliver to his desk.

Then it got split into two bills. One bill is this infrastructure bill that is a much narrower, smaller piece that is kind of about what they`re calling hard infrastructure, roads and bridges primarily. And it`s got a few other things in there. But there are a lot of people who actually believe that some of the provisions in that bill are going to be negative for the carbon emissions net effect and they`re actually going to hurt us on climate change.

Now, some people say it`s got the good, the bad, and the missing, right? It`s too small it doesn`t do enough, and it`s got some bad stuff. But yes, there`s some good stuff in there and we all need roads and bridges and you know, we want to get some of that done. But they took all of the really important stuff and they put it in this much bigger Build Back Better Act.

Now, what does that have in it? That has (AUDIO GAP) paid leave. It has taking on climate change with real standards that would bring down emissions and get us to the goals that the president has laid out. It has housing to unhouse -- to house the houseless. It has healthcare, Medicare expansion, among other people (AUDIO GAP).

HAYES: Go ahead. Oh no. You -- oh, I just lost you.

JAYAPAL: Can you hear me there?

HAYES: Now, I got you. You`re back.

JAYAPAL: OK, so hopefully, you heard me talk about everything that`s being --

HAYES: Yes. You got -- you got to Medicare. I`m glad that we`re recreating the daily nightmare experience of everyone`s lives over the last year and a half here on our TV show, but I did -- yes, I did hear you get to Medicare.

JAYAPAL: OK, great. So, those -- now, here`s the two bills. One is a small bill and it`s bipartisan. It`s the easiest stuff to do. And then there`s another bill that has the majority of the Democratic agenda in there. They took five months to negotiate that build -- that infrastructure bill, that smaller bill. And now, we need to get this build-back better agenda done.

So, the only way that that bipartisan bill was going to pass the Senate is because 11 progressive Senators, including the one that you just had on, our friend Elizabeth Warren voted for the bipartisan bill under the promise and the commitment that if they passed that bill in the Senate, that the House would first finish the reconciliation bill. And then once that`s voted on, then we would pass the bipartisan bill.

That was the position that the progressive caucus took almost three and a half months ago because many of our members frankly, if they just had to vote on the bipartisan bill, don`t think it`s a very good bill. It was negotiated by a very small group of senators. We were never consulted on it. We don`t think it does enough. And there are a lot of people that don`t want to vote for it.

But because we`re all adults in the room and we all play on the team called the Democratic Party, we said every single one of our progressive members would vote for that bipartisan infrastructure bill as long as they stuck to the promise and the commitment of passing the reconciliation bill first -- the Build Back Better Act first.

And then suddenly out of nowhere, Chris, in comes a few people, four percent of all of the Democrats in the House and the Senate and they said we`re not going to stick to the original agreement, we`re just going to pass the infrastructure bill, and then we`ll see what happens.

Well, progressive said, not so fast. We are going to make sure we deliver the entirety of the President`s agenda because guess what, 96 percent of Democrats in the House and the Senate agree that that`s the right thing to do. The president agrees. 70 percent of the American people agree and we need to deliver that transformative --

HAYES: All right, so, I`m with you on all that. I get that, OK. I think -- and I don`t think you`re wrong on anything you said they`re factually in terms of the reason the politics. Like, it is the case there is tremendous Democratic consensus for this. There are the votes in the House. There`s 48 votes in the Senate. President Biden wants to sign it, right?

So -- but the problem is there`s 48 you and you need 50, right? That`s the issue.

JAYAPAL: Right.

HAYES: And I think -- and I`ve heard what you`ve been saying. So, the question is how to get to 50, right? And I just want to ask this question which is, do you think that saying we`re not going to vote for this bipartisan infrastructure bill is tangibly improving the prospects of getting to 50? Do you see what I`m saying? Because I`m just not clear that it is.

And again, I think people understand where I`m coming from. Like, I`m rooting for you guys basically. I mean, I support that legislation. I think it`s good. I`d vote for it in Congress. The question is what is it doing actually at a time when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said like trust is needed that everyone needs to get together is the -- we`re not going to vote for this thing tomorrow until you pass it. Like, what work is that doing and is it counterproductive?

JAYAPAL: Well, let`s just be clear on who did what first. It`s kind of important here because the commitment was that the reconciliation bill would pass first, and then all of a sudden that was changed. And so, here`s what I`m past trust because there were things that were promised that didn`t happen. And frankly, Chris, that`s happened a lot. It happened in the ACA fight. It`s happened throughout. Progressives often get rolled.

But in this particular case, this is the president`s agenda. It`s not some crazy left-wing agenda wish list. It is actually the President`s agenda. And so, if we were to pass the bipartisan bill, what I would say to people across the country is you saw perhaps Joe Manchin`s statement today on how far he is from the Build Back Better agenda. We are at the end of September. Nothing happens on Capitol Hill of any importance that isn`t must pass once you get to say November. Certainly, nothing happens next year because it`s an election year.

And so, the reality of the situation is if we pass the bipartisan bill, all of a sudden we essentially delay the reconciliation bill. And as Rachel Maddow said the other night, delay is death on Capitol Hill. And so, that is the decision that we had to take, and we took it with seriousness of purpose, that we promised voters across the country to deliver on these important things.

And we are not going to leave behind women, communities suffering from climate change. We are not going to leave behind immigrants. We`re not going to leave behind all of these groups that actually were the ones who came out and delivered for us. Because the problem in American democracy today is that people have lost faith in us, in government, that we actually will fight for working people and not just what`s easy but actually fight to give transformative change and opportunity to people across this country.

And so, that`s what we`re going to do and we`ll believe that it actually will force people back to negotiating table and make sure that we deliver both pieces.

[20:25:16]

HAYES: All right, so there -- this vote is slated tomorrow. There`s no way it`s going to -- Pelosi is not going to bring the floor if it`s going to go down. A very eventful what, 16 hours ahead of us. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, come back again and keep us updated on this. I appreciate it.

JAYAPAL: Thank you, Chris.

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