Meet the Press - Transcript

Interview

Meet the Press - Transcript

MR. BROKAW: We're back, and joined by Senator Mel Martinez and Congressman James Clyburn; one a Republican, the other a Democrat, obviously.

Welcome to both of you.

REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC): Oh, thank you for having us.

MR. BROKAW: I thought I would begin by sharing with our audience and with you as well a Gallup and USA Today poll taken the day after the election, "Does this describe your reaction to Barack Obama being elected president?" Sixty-seven percent of the people said they were proud, 67 percent said they were optimistic, 59 percent said they were excited. Those are very high numbers. How do you hold on to that in the face of this deteriorating economy and all the uncertainty that's still ahead of us, Congressman?

REP. CLYBURN: Well, I think the first thing we have to do is respond to the American people with a economic recovery package that will restore jobs, that will, once again, stand up our infrastructure: roads, bridges, water, sewage. I think we have to respond by saying to the children we are going to have a state children's health insurance program. I think we need to respond with a stem cell program, stem cell research. I think that the campaign told us a whole lot about what's on the minds of the American people, and I think that you keep that excitement by responding immediately to that. And I think that's why the president-elect made it very clear in his first press conference that he wants an economic recovery package and he would like to have it right now. And I would hope that the leadership of the Congress and the White House can get together on such a package in the near future.

MR. BROKAW: We want to get to the specifics in just a moment. Senator Martinez, what about the Republican Party and keeping its place prominent after this pretty resounding defeat?

SEN. MEL MARTINEZ (R-FL): Well, the first thing we have to do is to celebrate the moment. And I think I agree with the sentiment of so many of those people in the polls, this is a historic moment. It's one that I thought Senator McCain properly recognized in his very gracious concession speech. And so we need to keep that kind of spirit of pulling together and finding common ground. However, I think the important thing for this new administration and for the leadership in Congress to do is to find the common ground agenda items. You know, when you look back to Florida, we have a lot of problems in the state of Florida. Unemployment parallels the national average, in some counties it's 10 percent, which is dramatically high. Find ways in which we can put people back to work and we can get our economy running again. Look for that checklist of things where there can be common ground, stay away from those items where, frankly, there'll be division and there'll be rancor and there'll be acrimony. So look for the common ground, and I think that'll be a prescription for us getting some things done.

MR. BROKAW: OK, we want to get to those specific things that may divide you more than unite you. But let's hear, first of all, from President-elect Obama, his first radio address in this new position yesterday, because he kind of laid out a general agenda of what he'd like to achieve.

(Audiotape)

PRES.-ELECT OBAMA: First, we need a rescue plan for the middle class that invests in immediate efforts to create jobs and provides relief to families that are watching their paychecks shrink and their life savings disappear. Then we'll address the spreading impact of the financial crisis on other sectors of our economy and ensure that the rescue plan that passed Congress is working to stabilize financial markets while protecting taxpayers, helping homeowners, and not unduly rewarding the management of financial firms that are receiving government assistance. Finally, we will move forward with a set of policies that will grow our middle class and strengthen our economy in the long term. We can't afford to wait on moving forward on the key priorities that I identified during the campaign, including clean energy, health care, education and tax relief for middle class families.

MR. BROKAW: He did not specifically mention a stimulus program. There's a good deal of talk about that on Capitol Hill when you come back into session.

SEN. MARTINEZ: I think it needs to depend on the specifics that might be included in that program, but I think some sort of stimulus is appropriate. I, I would love to see it focused on, on home ownership, on, on getting back to the basics of what got us into this financial crisis in the first place, which is displaced homeowners, continuing rising foreclosures, things of that nature. We need to focus it on creating job opportunities for American families that are today out of work and extending unemployment benefits and things of that nature that I think, frankly, are appropriate. But we need to see what's in the package before we can just sign on. And I hope, frankly, part of this bipartisan spirit will be to be consulted in how we get to the package, inclusive in how we get to the decisions so that we can move forward in a united way, in a bipartisan way.

REP. CLYBURN: Well, I think you have to prioritize, and prioritizing means that you take them in order of importance, and you don't have to defer where there's the interest primarily...

REP. CLYBURN: Yeah. Well, I think that there are some things that will be going on as we tackle the big issues. Other people--I don't think it'll be on one track. I think that all the tracks will be working. But you raise to the level of, of public view those big items like infrastructure, job creation. I really believe that we have done all we need to do for the financial communities with that $700 billion program. The emphasis at this point has got to be, be on the middle class. It's got to be on job creation. It's got to be on stabilizing people's families, restoring dignity. That kind of excitement will not last if people don't have dignity restored to their homes.

MR. BROKAW: There is a very urgent matter that is before Washington, and that's what's going to happen to the American automobile industry.

REP. CLYBURN: Sure.

REP. CLYBURN: Well, I don't know if I'd put a number on it, but I am in favor of Secretary Paulson taking a hard look at that package that he has. I, for one, believe that he's got the authority to move quickly to do something to bring this industry back into the mainstream of our economy. They are about to drift out to the edge, and I think we need to bring them back in. I believe he has the authority, I think he ought to move rather quickly to do that, and, and I would support that.

MR. BROKAW: Senator Martinez, you represent the party of free markets, or it used to be the party of free markets. Do you think it's important for Chrysler, General Motors and Ford to survive?

MR. BROKAW: Or should we let the markets make that decision?

MR. BROKAW: You'd vote for a loan to the American automobile industry?

MR. BROKAW: That's already been voted?

MR. BROKAW: It would--it would not be in addition to that.

SEN. MARTINEZ: Not in--I think as part of that package and within the authority of that package, I think it's possible for the secretary of the Treasury to direct a loan to that--to, to those entities. And you know, by the way, we just did 25 billion in loans to them just a couple of months ago. So that shouldn't be overlooked. We've helped them...

MR. BROKAW: But they're running out of money fast. I mean, it's possible that General Motors could run out of money by June of next year given the cash that they're burning through at this time.

SEN. MARTINEZ: But there's also a limit to what government can do to a failing industry. There's got to be some things that they do to restore the confidence of the people that might invest in their company.

MR. BROKAW: Congressman Clyburn, there's already a pretty spirited debate that is developing within your party, as you know. You have advised a pragmatic approach which you call "evolution, not revolution," that got a quick response from your good friend Charles Rangel, who's the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. "`He's a national leader, Clyburn,' House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel of New York snapped embodying the views of liberals who want to move fast on the most ambitious version of Obamanomics possible. `I'm thinking of his constituents, and he doesn't have the slightest clue about what he's talking about.' Rangel doesn't want to hear talk of containing the deficit. `For God's sakes,' he said, `don't ask me where the money will come from. I'm going to the same place that Paulson went.'"

REP. CLYBURN: Well, I think...

MR. BROKAW: You going to get something done with that attitude?

REP. CLYBURN: Well, I think if you go to same place where Paulson went, you'll find that the, the coffers are rather empty. I think that what we have to do is, Senator Obama, now President-elect, made it very clear during the campaign that he will govern from the center. It may at times be center right, sometimes center left, but always the center. I think that we have made significant mistakes in the past by lurching too far to the right or too far to the left. We cannot have as an antecedent for far right to go far left. We have to bring things back to the center. We saw what's happened with deregulation. We say, well, we "overregulated." So what--how do you respond? No regulation. That's not the antecedent for overregulation. We have to bring things back to center. We have to find consensus, and we have to govern from that point. And so Charlie and I have talked since that. I think the cameras caught him at a--an opportune time.

SEN. MARTINEZ: Right.

MR. BROKAW: Here's Senator Edward Kennedy today in The Washington Post pressing hard, very hard, for doing something about national health care. "The cost will be substantial, but the need for reform is too great to be deflected or delayed." Will the Republicans go along with the idea of doing something about national healthcare reform in the first year?

MR. BROKAW: Congressman Clyburn, can you do that simultaneously with fixing the economy in the first year?

MR. BROKAW: Would a massive overhaul of the American healthcare system, can that get done in the first two years of this administration, or even in the first term, given the state of the economy?

REP. CLYBURN: But the...

SEN. MARTINEZ: Well, it, it just can't be. I mean, this is precisely what we should not be doing. SCHIP was one of the most divisive issues of the last Congress, where there was no consensus, there was no common ground. To bring that back up now would be to restart the fights of the past, and we need to move past that. We cannot deal with health care in the current crisis mode that we're in. Senator Obama was correct in the priorities that he outlined. We need to deal with the current economic crises.

REP. CLYBURN: Well, I beg to differ. We didn't have--that's not a divisive program. We passed SCHIP in the Congress. The president vetoed it. So just because the president vetoed it doesn't mean that there's not massive support for it. We passed this thing with a big vote. I really believe that we have got to do this. And I don't believe there needs to be a massive overhaul of the healthcare problem in order to do it. We ought to do that incrementally, starting off with the children, going to people with fixed on--fixed incomes, and then take a look at these community-based healthcare programs that are universally accepted. And that would not call for a massive overhaul. I don't think you really need a massive overhaul.

MR. BROKAW: Senator Martinez, as you know, politics is about keeping score. I know this is tough for you to hear, probably, but you were 0-for-3 last Tuesday. You're a Republican; you are from Florida, that went to the Democrats; and you're Hispanic, or Latino in some parts of this country, and the Hispanics went overwhelmingly for the Democrats this time. Jill Lawrence wrote in USA TODAY: "`If the Republicans don't make their peace with Hispanic voters, they're not going to win presidential elections anymore. The math just isn't there.'" That's according to Simon Rosenberg, head of the NDN, a Democratic group that studies Hispanic voters." How do you get back to the Hispanics?

The fact of the matter is that Hispanics are going to be a more and more vibrant part of the electorate, and the Republican Party had better figure out how to talk to them. We had a very dramatic shift between what President Bush was able to do with Hispanic voters, where he won 44 percent of them, and what happened to Senator McCain. Senator McCain did not deserve what he got. He was one of those that valiantly fought, fought for immigration reform, but there were voices within our party, frankly, which if they continue with that kind of rhetoric, anti-Hispanic rhetoric, that so much of it was heard, we're going to be relegated to minority status.

SEN. MARTINEZ: No question about it. And we have to. We have to modernize. There's a great meeting of Republican governors taking place in my state next week, and that is a laboratory of ideas. That's where we got a lot of the resurgence of our party on conservatism. The fact is that there's a lot of bright stars of our party. Mitch Daniels had an excellent day. On a day when the Republican ticket lost Indiana, he won re-election overwhelmingly. That's because the kind of governor he's been and the kinds of things that he has done. These are governors who have not been governing as partisans but who have been governing as getting things done for the people. And the ideas that are germinating in our states, I think, are very exciting and, I think, will give rise to the future of our party.

REP. CLYBURN: I was a bit numb when the announcement first came. I was in a group of 1500 people, standing on the stage with my family and friends. And when I turned around and looked at the monitor, I looked right into the faces of my three daughters and two grandchildren, and tears were streaming down their faces. And it struck me that this was really intergenerational. And those of us my age who went through the sit-ins and all of that, we really have felt that we have been lucky to live to see this. But those were tears of hope. They were tears of vindication. Those of us who stayed with the system, worked within it, the John Lewises of the world, I, I said to myself, "We have been vindicated."

REP. CLYBURN: Look, the chief of staff manages the White House on behalf of the president. I think we would make a big mistake if we confused governing with managing. Those are two distinctly different things. Rahm Emanuel is a good manager. He's--he knows policy. He knows the president-elect very, very well. He will--he was an excellent choice. He will do well in that job. MR. BROKAW: I can tell by the expression on Martinez's face.

MR. BROKAW: All right. Thank you very much, Senator Mel Martinez of Florida.

REP. CLYBURN: We got agreement.

MR. BROKAW: You leave--we found something to agree on here.

SEN. MARTINEZ: Absolutely.

REP. CLYBURN: Very good.

SEN. MARTINEZ: Absolutely.

MR. BROKAW: Moving to the center right here on MEET THE PRESS.

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