CNN "State of the Union" - TRANSCRIPT Interview With Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA); Interview With Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ); Interview With Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA); Interview With Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL); Interview With U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Aired 9-10a ET

Interview

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TAPPER: Congressman Fitzpatrick, a major hurdle in this debate is that Republicans in the House cannot even seem to agree among yourselves on what you want.

What specific spending cuts would you like to see as part of any debt ceiling deal?

REP. BRIAN FITZPATRICK (R-PA): Thanks for having us, Jake.

What I would like to do -- and this is my proposal. We will see where we ultimately land with our bipartisan group that Josh referenced. I would like to go right at the 1917 debt ceiling law itself that established the debt ceiling.

Rather than have a numerical dollar amount, which doesn't make any sense -- we just end up raising it every other year -- is convert it to something like a debt-to-GDP ratio, a number that could be agreed to, have a cure period thereafter. And if that cure does not occur, certain guardrails go up on discretionary spending.

We have two problems right now, Jake. We have a risk of default. We cannot allow our country to default under any circumstances. We also have a debt-to-GDP ratio that exceeds 100 percent. That's occurred two times in our nation's history, World War II and now.

And that threatens the valuation of our currency and risks our competitiveness with China, and we see how big of a threat that is. So, that's the solution that I would like to advance. As Josh mentioned, we have a group that's working day and night on this right now.

It reminds me a lot, Josh -- I'm sorry -- Jake, of the infrastructure negotiations. We worked in the background. We let the White House work with our Senate counterparts. It ended up not working out. Our solution ended up what the -- what was signed into law.

So we're doing that same work in the background now.

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TAPPER: And, Congressman Fitzpatrick, the point that Congressman Gottheimer just made is a cogent one, because the margin is so tight in the House.

Speaker McCarthy can only afford to lose four Republicans on any one vote. We have seen the Freedom Caucus and the MAGA caucus and others forcing McCarthy's hands on any number of issues, taking advantage of that.

There are more than a dozen Republicans in the Problem Solvers Caucus. Is your group willing to take a lesson from the Freedom Caucus, flex your muscles, play hardball, band together, withhold your votes, in order to get what you want?

FITZPATRICK: Yes, we're going to do whatever is in the best interest of our country, Jake.

If you look at what happened with infrastructure, it was the Squad that had defected on that vote. Myself and 12 of my colleagues, Republican colleagues, ended up putting that bill over the finish line. Those weren't just extra padding votes. They were outcome- determinative votes.

Of course, we're prepared to do it. It's this precise structure of government, Jake, that our Problem Solvers Caucus lives for. This is the reason we exist for tight margins and divided chambers to make sure that, instead of gridlock, we actually come to the center and build consensus solutions, two-party solutions. That's what we believe in.

TAPPER: So, you're willing to break with Republican leadership, if need be, and work with Democrats to raise the debt ceiling, for example, if it's the only option to prevent the default?

FITZPATRICK: Well, we can't have a clean debt ceiling increase, Jake.

We're going to let the speaker and the president -- and, by the way, they had a great meeting, from all measures. Both were very complimentary, not just right after the meeting, but, the next day, I was at an event with both of them.

So, we're going to let them do their work. We don't want to undermine anybody. But what Josh and our group do together is, we don't negotiate in public. We work everything out. We have a failsafe option in the backdrop that will be ready to go to make sure that we get this job done.

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