MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript

MS. MADDOW: Joining us now, Florida Democratic Congresswoman and Obama supporter Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Congressman Wasserman Schultz, thank you for joining us. I appreciate it.

REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Great to be with you, Rachel. Thank you.

MS. MADDOW: Is this what your constituents who may be on the fence about this election have been waiting to hear? McCain wants to slash a trillion dollars out of Medicare?

REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Well, you are so right when you say that the third rail of Florida politics, certainly, and politics nationally among senior citizens, is Medicare and Social Security. And John McCain and Sarah Palin are shockingly wrong on both of those issues. I mean, it's bad enough that he clearly and consistently has supported privatizing Social Security, especially given that this morning the stock market was down 797 points at one point, and he thinks we should just be investing, that the best thing to do is to invest people's Social Security funds in the stock market. That's a really good idea, especially right now. But then, on top of that, he goes so far as to say that in order to cover about 5 million more people out of the 47 million that don't have health insurance, his plan is to cut Medicare $1.3 trillion.

Now, there's 3.2 million Floridians that are covered by Medicare. We have the second-highest number of Medicare recipients in the country, and a higher percentage even than California of our population. And I can tell you, I've represented a district in South Florida for 16 years between the legislature and Congress, and there is no way that my senior citizen constituents are going to be supporting John McCain. They are really concerned about two things -- making sure that they don't have their safety net yanked out from under them, and making sure that they have their health care that they have fought for and earned in the golden years of their retirement.

MS. MADDOW: Can you recall a presidential candidate or a serious statewide candidate ever campaigning in Florida on a promise to cut Medicare? I mean, even if you are an ideologically committed conservative who hates government programs, particularly ones that work, it seems like you'd know enough to stay away from this issue.

REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: It's mind-boggling that they would even go there. I mean, and the ways in which you would have to do it, John McCain would have to raise the age of eligibility for Medicare. That's one way he could do it. I mean, that's absolutely a third rail. I mean, we have people who are moving to Florida, who are in their golden years of retirement, who have paid into Medicare for years and years, and who have earned that safety net to make sure that when they are struggling to maintain their health -- and when we need a focus on prevention in Medicare and keeping people healthy, the last thing that we need to do in order to get people who are younger health care is to balance that on the backs of our senior citizens in this country. That's just a backwards way of expanding access to health care. And then, to make matters worse, as close as his proposal comes to expanding access to care is 5 million people. Barack Obama's plan covers at least 34 (million) to 40 million of the 47 million people.

MS. MADDOW: Reportedly the McCain campaign is pulling out of Michigan in part to be able to make a bigger investment in your home state of Florida. So far, as we've been discussing, that includes promising to cut Medicare. It seems like an incredibly not genius move. But what else are you seeing in state in terms of a renewed focus? (We know that ?) Governor Palin has been in Clearwater, for example.

REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Well, what we're seeing is they're really acts of desperation in the last several days. I mean, they have really tried to move from the dire shape that the economy is in to the politics of distraction. I mean, Sarah Palin has started spewing these awful lies -- and that's exactly what they are; you have to call them what they are -- because if they stick to the issues, Rachel, if they focus on the economy, if they focus on health care, if they focus on the war in Iraq or alternative energy, then the American people can clearly see that Barack Obama and Joe Biden would move this country in a new direction, which people desperately want to see happen. And John McCain would just offer more of the same.

And, you know, Sarah Palin was real cute in the way she was speaking about how excited she was to be in Florida. But I'll tell you, just knowing Florida as well as I do, they're only sending her to the most conservative Republican communities. The Villages that she referred to is a huge retirement community that votes overwhelmingly Republican. Lee County, Florida, which includes the city of Fort Myers, very, very Republican county; almost every elected official in that community is a Republican. They consistently vote for the Republican presidential candidate.

So they are playing it very safe. They're certainly not sending her anywhere where she might actually try to -- she's got no appeal to the average swing voter, so they've just got to keep her in the safe places. And quite honestly, we have 150,000 newly registered Democrats in Florida. There are now 500,000 more registered Democrats in Florida than there are Republicans. We are so excited about the opportunity to win our state. Rachel, Barack Obama, in one of the polls, in one of the credible polls, was up nine points in Florida, anywhere from five to nine points. And the momentum is going our way, and we're really excited about it.

MS. MADDOW: Well, people have taken comfort in years past in the number of Democratic voter registrations, new applications being higher than they were for Republicans, and it has not always turned out that way. It's all going to come down on Election Day to get (those ?) votes.

REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Turnout, turnout, turnout.

MS. MADDOW: That's exactly right. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, thanks for joining us.

REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Thanks for having me.

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