NBC "Meet the Press - TRANSCRIPT Meet the Press - January 8, 2023
Interview
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CHUCK TODD:
Well, speaking of subpoenas, joining me now is the incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee, Republican Congressman James Comer of Kentucky, who was a Kevin McCarthy backer on all 15 ballots, if you're keeping score at home. Congressman Comer, welcome back to Meet the Press.
REP. JAMES COMER:
Thanks for having me.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me start with the deal that was cut before we get to what your focus is going to be. Are you convinced that we can go the entire Congress without having a motion to vacate?
REP. JAMES COMER:
Well, I'm not convinced we can go the entire Congress without having it. But I believe that, if that's used, I believe that right now the overwhelming majority -- and when I say overwhelming majority, 218 plus Republicans realize that Kevin McCarthy needs a chance to govern, and we're going to give him a chance. So I'm not going to say there won't be one person who tries to abuse that motion, but I'm confident that McCarthy's going to be able to be given the green light to govern and to lead this conference, and do the things that we told the American people we were going to do during the midterm elections.
CHUCK TODD:
You know, the last time you were on, you said a similar thing. You worded it that way about Kevin McCarthy: "Hey, I think you got to give him a chance." Many people interpreted that comment as not a robust endorsement of his speakership. It doesn't always sound like a robust endorsement. Is it?
REP. JAMES COMER:
It is a robust endorsement. Look, I know that people are disappointed. A lot of Republicans, I represent an overwhelmingly-Republican district that Trump won by nearly 50 points the first election, when he got elected the first time. They constantly seem disappointed that Republicans aren't able to do the things that Republicans say they're going to do, like, for example, vote for a term limits bill. That is overwhelmingly popular among conservative voters in America. Republicans always campaign for Congress in two things. They say, "We're going to pass a term limits bill, and we're going to pass a balanced budget amendment." But yet, those two votes are neither voted on. So I understand the frustration that a lot of new members, a lot of new conservatives have. And you know, they drew a line in the sand on some of these bills that we always campaign on but we never seem to vote on. And I'm confident Kevin has heard from our conference that we want to vote on these things. And I'm confident that we'll do it. Look, it's going to be a tough job. That's why nobody else tried to run for speaker. It is a tough job to get to 218. But I believe Kevin's the right guy, and I was proud to not only support him, I nominated him on the House floor for speaker.
CHUCK TODD:
What, you know, I'm curious, those two things you mention, those are show votes. They're not going to pass, they have no chance of passing. Some of them might be un-- might need to be constitutional amendments, and you know how arduous that process is. What's the point of passing a bill that's -- that basically, you get to put a press release out on but it doesn't get enacted?
REP. JAMES COMER:
A lot of times, as you know, Chuck, you have to take bills through numerous sessions of Congress before they finally become law. More and more candidates will run for the U.S. Senate and claim that they support term limits, and they support a balanced budget amendment. I think you have two coming into the Senate now from the House, Ted Budd and Markwayne Mullin, that would support that. They replace members of the Senate that probably wouldn't have voted for that. So we've got to start taking steps to make fundamental change in America. And I've always said, from my first campaign for Congress to today, that if we want to fundamentally change Congress, the two things that we can do today is pass a term limits bill and pass a balanced budget amendment. Because if there's not a balanced budget amendment, I don't have a lot of confidence that Congress is ever going to balance the budget.
CHUCK TODD:
I want to ask about the debt ceiling very quickly. Given the fact that in this new rules package you're going to have separate votes on each appropriations package, isn't that the proper place to have a spending debate, not playing with the full faith and credit of the United States government?
REP. JAMES COMER:
Well, look, Congress has been broken. That's what John McCain said during the health care vote when he walked up and he gave a thumbs down. He said, you know, "We've got to get back to regular order." Regular order is to pass 12 different appropriations bills. And I think that we've got to have the debate, whenever and wherever on the House floor, to the federal debt. I mean, who's going to pay for all this? And you mention in your monologue that Democrats get along better than Republicans. I don't dispute that. But here's the reason: Democrats unite around spending money. Whenever you have an unlimited amount of money and you can promise every Democrat any amount of money, any earmark, any new social program, they're always going to get on board in the end. You look at the Republicans, we want to actually balance the budget, which means we're going to have to make spending cuts in every area of state government except Social Security and Medicare. And that's a lot tougher job, so it's going to be tougher for Republicans to get to 218. But I believe we will.
CHUCK TODD:
So I guess I go back to the debt limit. You think that's an -- you think that's an appropriate place to use it, even though it has no chance of passing under that -- using that configuration?
REP. JAMES COMER:
I think the American people need to see that there are people in Congress that are serious about the federal debt. This is something that's being passed to our children and grandchildren. It puts America further behind China in the long-term. Our debt is one of the biggest challenges we face to the national security. So I think that what we're doing here is important. We're going to have to have spending cuts at some point. And just to say we're going to have spending cuts, I've been in Congress six years and I have yet to see any appropriations committee in either chamber make substantive spending cuts. We've got to get serious about it, and I think this is the proper path moving forward.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me ask you this. You're going to do a lot of oversight, you're going to have a lot of subpoenas. Many people look at what you're doing and they see that it looks more partisan than professional. Tell me how you're going to try to de-partisanize an investigation? Or do you expect it to be partisan?
REP. JAMES COMER:
Well, with all due respect, Chuck, I disagree with that. I think the only people that see this as a partisan investigation are the media and the hardcore Democrats. Look, at the same moment that the Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee released Donald Trump's taxes, they then moments later turned around and said, "Comer's investigation of the Biden family influence peddling is a revenge hearing." I mean, are you kidding me? Look, a Harvard poll just came out and said 65% of the Americans believe that the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop should be investigated. But let me be clear, we're not investigating Hunter Biden, we're investigating Joe Biden. And I think any American who's kept up with the political process over the past two administrations would agree, we need to know what is allowable and what isn't allowable with respect to foreign adversarial intervention among family members of presidents of the United States. That's something that the Democrats complained about with Kushner, and certainly the Republicans, myself included, have complained about --
CHUCK TODD:
Do you see why the --
REP. JAMES COMER:
-- with Hunter Biden and Jim Biden, the president's son and brother.
CHUCK TODD:
So if you didn't like --
REP. JAMES COMER:
We have go to --
CHUCK TODD:
Let me ask you this --
REP. JAMES COMER:-- do something about this.
CHUCK TODD:
If you didn't like the way the Democrats did it, it sounds like you're going to do it in the same way that they did it. How is it any better?
REP. JAMES COMER:
No, very -- I totally disagree with that. Adam Schiff always over-promised and under-delivered. He said just last week that releasing Trump's tax returns was going to be a bombshell. I mean, there's no bombshell there. There's nothing there.Anyone -- I've served on a bank board for over a decade. There's never been a developer that's paid a lot of federal income tax because of depreciation, and tax credits, and things like that. If the Democrats want to make people like Donald Trump pay taxes they need to change the tax code -- not the tax rate, the tax code. But with respect to what we're doing, everything that we have requested we have evidence to back up. There are emails and text messages that show Hunter Biden complaining about having to spend so much money keeping his dad up. I mean, that's a concern because Hunter Biden's only source of income were from our adversaries in China and Russia for influence peddling. So this is something that we should look into. This isn't political. We want to know, was the president truthful when he said he didn't have any knowledge or involvement of his family's shady business dealings? Once we've determined that, we'll move on.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, it does sound personal, at that. And we'll see how the year goes on. Congressman Comer, Republican from Kentucky. Really appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective with us. Thank you. When we come back, he's making history as the first African American lawmaker to lead a party in Congress. Democratic Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the new House Democratic Leader, of New York is next.
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