Fox News Channel "America's Election HQ" - Transcript

Interview

Fox News Channel "America's Election HQ" - Transcript

MR. HEMMER: Fair and balanced now from the other side, New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer.

Welcome to our program, Senator. Good evening to you.

SEN. SCHUMER: Nice to be here.

MR. HEMMER: Good to hear your voice. Nice that we got this link here. The Obama team has been telling us all day that anyone who questions Barack Obama's comments from 2001 has got it all wrong. Do we?

SEN. SCHUMER: Well, they do have it all wrong. First, you have to look at the guy's record. He has been a thoughtful, moderate person. You look at who advises him on economic issues. They are basically the Clinton advisers, people like Summers and Rubin, Paul Volcker. These are hardly left-wing redistributive radicals. And this is a last act of desperation by the McCain campaign.

MR. HEMMER: You call it desperation, but it's pretty clear from Senator Obama's comments in 2001 that he's not telling the courts to go and redistribute money. What he's saying is that you do that from the grassroots level which means that you organize and you get certain people in power, elected to Congress.

SEN. SCHUMER: Has he mentioned it one? Yeah, I know. Has he mentioned --

MR. HEMMER: And that that's the route you take.

SEN. SCHUMER: Has he mentioned it? This has been a 19-month campaign. He has been asked every question on these types of issues. Has he mentioned it once? No.

MR. HEMMER: It might now have been a big deal if Joe the Plumber didn't pop up two weeks ago.

SEN. SCHUMER: So to go back to 2001 is absolutely an act of desperation when the man has an economic record that is great, when he has, during the only crisis in which both he and McCain were tested, the big fiscal crisis, an economic one, he was presidential, he was steady, he was moderate. McCain was erratic and all over the lot, one day sounding like Milton Friedman and then three days later sounding like --

MR. HEMMER: Well, come back to my point. Come back to my point about the common man who has become Joe the Plumber. Without those comments two weeks ago, in all honesty, we might not even be talking about this today, Senator.

SEN. SCHUMER: Yeah, but, you know, what he said two weeks ago, again, is talking about making sure the middle class has a great shot. And you know, it is not socialism or, quote, "redistributive" politics to say that if we have tax cuts, instead of focusing them on the wealthy, which is what George Bush and basically the Republican Party did, we ought to focus those tax cuts on the middle class. That is just fine, and that's what he was saying two weeks ago.

MR. HEMMER: Without the current financial crisis, the meltdown we've experienced over the past six weeks, it could be a very fair argument. But today we're in a different environment today totally in this country. So to take the John McCain approach and ask yourself, why raise taxes on anyone when the country's either on the brink of a recession or firmly in it now?

SEN. SCHUMER: Well, he has not said that he would raise taxes immediately. This was a plan that he pursued, that he put forward months and months ago. And it's talking about the four-year term. I mean, my guess is that no one is going to want to raise taxes when we have a recession. If later the time comes where you have to figure out, with extra revenues or whatever, where the tax cuts should go, it's perfectly fair, and most Americans would agree, to aim them at the middle class. He has not said he is going to raise taxes in the next three months on wealthy people or anybody else. And it's a bogus, bogus argument to reach back to a quote from 2001 and Professor Sunstein, who was at the University of Chicago, said.

MR. HEMMER: But you know why people are looking at that.

SEN. SCHUMER: That was just a -- of course.

MR. HEMMER: They want to know more about the guy.

SEN. SCHUMER: No, they're looking at the comment --

MR. HEMMER: He's so new to the scene.

SEN. SCHUMER: I don't buy that, Bill. They're looking at the comment to play gotcha politics because they can't find anything he has said that would fulfill their sort of hope that he's a left-wing radical which he isn't.

MR. HEMMER: Let's continue the debate on another day. Senator, thank you for hustling to get to our position today.

SEN. SCHUMER: Nice to talk to you. Thank you, Bill.

END.

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