MSNBC "All In with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Jim Clyburn
Interview
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Congressman Jim Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina is the majority whip and the third-ranking Democrat in the House. And he joins me now. Congressman, let me first start with just some news we just got which indicates that there are meetings happening right now between White House officials, the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer about hammering this all out. What is your understanding of what these talks are and where we`re at?
REP. JIM CLYBURN (D-SC): Well, thank you very much for having me, Chris. I have not talked with the Speaker today. I will be talking with her tomorrow morning. And I suspect I`ll find out then what they`ve talked about tonight. But I do know uh that she is very focused on passing both these bills. He`s been that way from day one.
Now, she got some pushback when he made comments when the first bill, the so-called bipartisan bill passed the Senate and was sent to the House, she said at the time that she was not going to move that bill until such time as we dealt with the Build Back Better. She said that way back then. She`s never wavered from that. And is don`t know why people were thinking that she did. She did not waiver at all.
And that`s where we are today, waiting for us to get an agreement on Build Back Better and then move both these bills in concert. And that`s what i think we will do.
HAYES: There is of course the climate aspect in this -- in this legislation which is, you know, particularly a focus and concern for a lot of folks particularly because the last time around there was democratic unified government 10 years ago, that climate legislation Waxman-Markey ultimately was killed by the Senate. There were not sufficient votes.
A climate reporter today just made this point that I thought was really important, that focusing on the $3.5 trillion misses the economic context of climate change, that the current trajectory has us looking to spend four percent of GDP or about 840 billion a year just on climate issues, just on the -- on the additional cost caused by climate change. Do you feel like the party has explained to people how much of an -- sort of insurance policy this is?
CLYBURN: I don`t think we`ve broken through on that. I do know that we are quite aware -- this product is quite aware for the fact that the arctic is melting, storms are raging, rivers are rising, and we`ve got to do something to protect the future of this planet, and that`s why we`re making this investment.
And so, I think that we might be able to do a much better job of getting people to understand what we`re doing because we`re going to have more storms. What we`ve seen happening in the gulf now, we`ve never seen that happen before. Before one storm gets to his destination, two others are forming.
And so, all of that is a result of the change that`s taking place in our climate. I live here in South Carolina. I`ll be in Charleston this weekend. And people are concerned that the rivers are rising and we want to do something in order to stop that so that we can get climate conditions under control.
[20:25:29]
HAYES: You have served in Congress for decades. You`ve been in leadership for quite a while. You`ve been through a bunch of legislative fights, brutal ones amidst COVID, amidst the aftermath of the great financial crisis. Where does the difficulty of this current one rank one to ten, ten being the hardest, one being like an easy thing unanimous bill that everyone votes for. Where do you put it?
CLYBURN: Ten-plus.
HAYES: Oh really? So, this is -- this is -- this one is very hard. Even compared -- even compared to -- the one that I think of is the ACA after Scott Brown got elected when the House had to go past that Senate bill which was a really hard one. Harder than that?
CLYBURN: Yes, simply because we knew then how hard it was, we knew what we were battling against, we knew exactly what we needed to do in order to get people to do a good place and we got that. This time, so much misinformation is going out and people are really reacting to stuff that makes no sense.
COVID-19 is real. And why people will not vaccinate is a problem for me. I can`t understand that. We`re not going to get our economy to where it needs to be until we get this pandemic under control. And aside from all of that, there are people who deny science. Climate is all about science. And so, when you`ve got these kind of denials, it makes it tough. And so, this has been the toughest battle that I`ve been in yet.
HAYES: All right, 10-plus. Congressman Jim Clyburn, thanks for your time.
CLYBURN: Thank you.
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