MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript

MR. MATTHEWS: Senator Charles Schumer of New York is a member of the Banking Committee and the Finance Committee, and he supports Barack Obama for president. We requested, by the way, someone from the McCain camp to respond to Senator Schumer tonight, but the campaign was unable to provide us with someone to do so.

Senator Schumer, I watched you on "Meet the Press" yesterday. But first of all, let's take a look at John McCain and what he said about the economy, because you're a student of politics as well as the economy. I wonder what you think of this comment. Here he is -- John McCain.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ, Republican presidential nominee): (From videotape.) Before I continue with too many of my remarks, you know that there's been tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall Street. And it is -- people are frightened by these events. Our economy -- I think still the fundamentals of our economy are strong, but these are very, very difficult time. And I promise you we will never put America in this position again. We will clean up Wall Street.

MR. MATTHEWS: You know, I've never seen anything like that, using the word "we," the plural of personal pronoun -- first person, actually -- but saying, "We won't do it again." His party did it.

SEN. SCHUMER: Exactly. You know, this just shows how out of touch John McCain is. You're right to say Herbert Hoover. Over the last eight years, the average middle-class family has not had it good. They've had it bad. The average median income went down from $48,000 to $46,000 in buying power to $43,000.

Families all across America sit around the dinner table Friday night and figure out how they're going to pay the bills. And John McCain thinks things are just fine. He's not talking to average folks. He doesn't understand how average folks live in this economy. And for today, to say that the fundamentals are strong when people far more knowledgeable than him or me are really truly worried about the economy just shows how out of touch he is.

MR. MATTHEWS: How do you get your candidate, Barack Obama, to talk more meat and potatoes?

SEN. SCHUMER: Well, I think he understands it. When you sit down and talk to Barack, he knows it. And I think you're going to see a lot more of that, because meat and potatoes it is.

Here's the fundamental question. On the meat-and-potato issues -- education, health care, energy, taxes -- that affect our economy, John McCain is just about a carbon copy of George Bush. And if people want the same thing again, they'll vote for him. And that's what we have to hammer away at time in and time out. And as you can see, Barack is doing that now. Joe Biden is doing that. The commercials are doing that. And I think a week from now you're going to find these polling numbers quite different than they are today.

MR. MATTHEWS: You know, even before today, Senator -- you know about this -- we had an unemployment rate spike to 6.1 percent. I looked back to the number that it was back in the Kennedy-Nixon debate when they had that great debate. The unemployment rate was only 5.9, and Kennedy made it sound like it was the end of the world.

Why does your candidate not ring the alarm bell? Why do we not hear a political code red out of him? Why do we get this casual, almost Adlai Stevenson approach to the campaign from him?

SEN. SCHUMER: Well, I think you're going to hear the campaign being a lot sharper. I think, in the last several days, it has been in every way, and it's going to continue to be. You know, Barack Obama, to his credit, he'd like to debate the great issues, but the Republicans, they can't win on domestic policy; they've never been able to do that.

Now they can't win on foreign policy because Iraq is such a mess, and they're just going to hit Barack Obama in the face every day. And he's going to respond. He has to respond. He has no choice but to respond. He knows he must. And that's what's going to happen, and you're going to see this thing turn around.

MR. MATTHEWS: Let's talk about reality. If you get in the White House, if the Democrats win the presidency this time -- and it's a 50- 50 bet right now -- you get in the White House January 20th, what's going to change? Is there going to be a different fiscal policy, a different monetary policy, a different Fed chairman, a different budget? Tell me how it's actually going to shift in policy --

SEN. SCHUMER: Well, let me give you --

MR. MATTHEWS: -- toward a better economy.

SEN. SCHUMER: Let me give you two quick examples that relate to today. First, what caused this housing crisis to begin with? The fact that mortgage brokers and mortgage lenders, who are not banks, had no regulations on them. And that was the Bush view -- don't regulate anybody. And they came in and they took huge advantage, created bad mortgages that then went through the system.

Second, when we Democrats started talking about doing something about the housing market -- because it's the housing market fundamentally, the housing market, the mortgage bonds, that are driving everything down -- they said no for a year and then came out with very weak stuff.

It's my personal view that some of the people in the administration, the less ideological ones, were pushing him to do more early on in the Treasury Department and elsewhere, but they kept saying no because they're ideologues. And that's how we fell so far behind in this housing crisis.

It could have been contained in housing. Instead it spread to the whole economy because of their basic hands-off attitude. And John McCain basically has the same one. He says he's not going to let this happen again, and then he talks about having less regulation. Well, that's not -- those don't add up.

MR. MATTHEWS: Are you going to make him pay for intervening with regulators on behalf of Charles Keating? I mean, that was one of the most infamous cases where you had five U.S. senators sitting down on behalf of a lobbyist, a guy who wanted lobbying on his behalf and he found U.S. senators to do it for him. Isn't part of the problem -- or is it; you tell me -- senators influencing regulators, or not? Is that -- the S&L industry was the first crisis like this.

SEN. SCHUMER: Yeah, in the last -- in the S&L crisis, I think that is what happened. I was very much one of the people who wrote the reform legislation to change it. But it's not true in this crisis. In this crisis, what we had was sort of a laissez faire attitude reminiscent of the 1920s. They have an appointee on the SEC who doesn't even believe in regulation, wants to go back to the 1920s, 1890s. And that let very bad people -- not the majority of those in these areas, but the bad people -- have free rein and take the economy down the drain.

We will not let that happen, because we don't have this sort of attitude, whatever any business person wants to do, whatever any leader in any of these areas want to do, is okay. There should be some protection for people and the economy. That's what history has taught us. And these ideologues want to go back to the old way.

MR. MATTHEWS: Okay, I just study politics; I don't practice it. I look at these unemployment rates. It was 4.2 percent when President Bush took office. It's now 6.1. The federal surplus -- we had a surplus, everybody, remember? It was a $281 billion surplus when he came in. It's now $357 (billion) in deficit a year. We had a national debt of about $5 (trillion). Now it's about $10 (trillion). It's doubled.

We had -- the price of gas was a buck and a half. Now it's about $4.

Every one of these numbers says your crowd should be coming in about two to one.

SEN. SCHUMER: Right.

MR. MATTHEWS: Why are the polls even?

SEN. SCHUMER: I think the polls are even. You know, there's some bounce. There's excitement about Sarah Palin being the first woman nominee for the Republican Party. But ultimately their campaign is founded on a fundamental mistruth. They say they're the change candidacy, and yet 95 percent of the time, whether it's foreign policy or domestic, the economy, they agree with George Bush. That is going to catch up with them. It is the job of our campaign to keep pointing that out over and over. And it's going to sink in as people, many people -- many voters are focusing for the first time now at the conventions.

I'd say one more thing, Chris. There was a question that a great Republican asked in 1980 at the debates. He asked it of Jimmy Carter. He asked it of the American people, debating Jimmy Carter. "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"

We are going to ask that question of the American people now. "Are you better off than you were eight years ago?" Well, if you're not -- and most people would say they're not -- you have to vote for change. You have to vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

MR. MATTHEWS: Let's take a look at the other side. Here's Governor Palin of Alaska, you just mentioned. Here she is talking today about the Wall Street meltdown, which cost the Dow 500 points today.

ALASKA GOVERNOR SARAH PALIN (Republican vice presidential nominee): (From videotape.) So John McCain and I, we're going to put an end to the mismanagement and abuses in Washington and on Wall Street that have resulted in this financial crisis. We're going to reform the way Wall Street does business and stop multi-million-dollar payouts and golden parachutes to CEOs who break the public trust. (Applause.)

MR. MATTHEWS: These people all supported President Bush. They have a phone they could pick up right now and tell them what to do. They can call up members of Congress in their party and tell them what to do. They're acting like they're you, Senator, like they're a Democrat running against a Republican administration. This is a switcharoo like I've never seen, if it works.

SEN. SCHUMER: Right. But, you know, it's not going to work. Sarah Palin -- sooner or later, someone's going to force her to answer questions. And then when they ask her, "What are you going to do?" let's see what she says. John McCain -- when many of us, mostly Democrats -- a few Republicans, but mostly Democrats -- were pushing George Bush to do more on housing early, John McCain said no. He didn't want to get involved.

So the record is clear, and we just have to bring that record out. I don't think they can get away with this. Sarah Palin and John McCain cannot get away with sounding like Democrats and then having a policy that's exactly like Republicans. And they know it.

I think, you know, the pundits are going to look back a month and a half from now and they're going to say the fundamental mistake of the McCain-Palin campaign was making change the issue, because they can't win when change is the issue.

MR. MATTHEWS: I think you're right.

SEN. SCHUMER: And we are going to win. That's what's going to happen.

MR. MATTHEWS: We pundits are wrong all the time. I thought it was going to be Rudy against Hillary this year. I didn't get it right. I thought Hillary would beat everybody and Rudy would beat the Republicans. So I don't know.

Let me ask you this. When is -- and this must be frustrating to people in your party. I keep waiting to see the big campaign. I keep waiting to see Bill Clinton, one of the great politicians in history, up there campaigning in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania and Michigan, almost like a buddy film, with Senator Obama, your other colleague. I can see them campaign together, having a good time, hitting the road together. I can see Hillary Clinton doing the same thing in places like Scranton, where she did so well, and Youngstown, Ohio.

Is there a job action going on? Why aren't they -- why do they keep talking about when they're going to campaign? She went down to Florida, which is a reach to begin with. Why isn't she in the states that they can win? I don't get it.

SEN. SCHUMER: Well, I think she was in Ohio yesterday. She was in one of the battleground states yesterday.

MR. MATTHEWS: Yeah.

SEN. SCHUMER: And she is going to be out there. He is going to be out there. You know, everyone before the convention said, "Well, when are they going to do the job?" And, boy, did they. His speech, her speech were great.

MR. MATTHEWS: They were great.

SEN. SCHUMER: They unified Democrats. You watch. You will not be saying that three, four weeks from now. They will be out there in their great way and helping rally the cause. I'll tell you why -- and I talk to both of them quite a bit -- because they care so much about the country. They know that McCain-Palin is sort of -- their rhetoric at the moment is sort of fundamentally at odds with their beliefs, with their policies.

MR. MATTHEWS: Okay.

SEN. SCHUMER: And they're going to help expose that.

MR. MATTHEWS: Just don't let the cavalry attack after the massacre. I just hope they get there in time.

SEN. SCHUMER: They'll be there.

MR. MATTHEWS: And, by the way, I agree with you. I thought Senator Clinton's speech at the convention was exuberantly, unbelievably wonderful. What a great speech that was -- amazing speech.

SEN. SCHUMER: There you go.

MR. MATTHEWS: Anyway, thank you, Senator Charles Schumer of New York --

SEN. SCHUMER: Good to talk to you, Chris.

MR. MATTHEWS: -- the senior senator from New York.

Source