NBC "Today" - Transcript

Interview

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MS. VIEIRA: Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell is the Republican leader in the Senate and will meet with President Obama later on this morning.

Senator, good morning to you.

SEN. MCCONNELL: Yesterday we learned that another 55,000 workers in this country will be laid off, and some economists are saying the worst is yet to come. President Obama has said that Washington needs to act with a sense of urgency and common purpose when it comes to this stimulus package. How important is it that this package be passed quickly?

SEN. MCCONNELL: Well, I think it is important. And I invited the president to come up to the Republican conference sometime back. He's going to be there today. Frankly, what's developing here is his biggest problem is with his own party, the Democratic Party, which seems to be drifting away from what he said he wanted, which was for the package to include at least 40 percent tax relief and to be earmark-free.

So he could ironically end up with better supporters in trying to achieve the kind of stimulus package which would be timely, targeted and temporary from us than he's getting from the Democratic majority, at least so far, here in the Congress.

MS. VIEIRA: So are you saying the spirit of bipartisanship that he fostered is already falling apart?

SEN. MCCONNELL: No, I don't think so. But we're anxious to help him. We think the country needs a stimulus. Listening to what he said he wanted, we think we may be closer to that, oddly enough, than the Democratic majority, which seems to be pulling in the direction of fewer tax -- less tax relief and things like fixing up the Mall. You know, most people don't think that's the way we ought to spend stimulus money.

MS. VIEIRA: You know, Chuck Todd just reported that President Obama is expected to accept a plan that would give millions of taxpayers relief from paying the alternative minimum tax. Would that be something that the GOP would be in favor of? Would that help get more Republicans on his side?

SEN. MCCONNELL: Well, we fix the AMT every year anyway. That's a tax that'll never be collected. Obviously saying you're not going to levy a tax that you never were going to levy anyway won't do much good. We're in favor of doing it, but it has little or nothing to do with crafting a stimulus package that would actually put money back in the hands of middle-income taxpayers and businesses who otherwise would be paying the tax. I mean, we will never levy this AMT tax anyway. We fix it every year.

MS. VIEIRA: Let me switch gears for a second, Senator. In the past two elections, the Republicans have lost ground in the House and the Senate, and also obviously in the White House. They are picking a new party leader later on this week, the GOP. I know that you are going to be addressing the RNC. What are you going to say to them? How does this party turn itself around?

SEN. MCCONNELL: Well, you know, I was a strong supporter of the president, but presidential unpopularity is bad for the president's party. We suffered losses in '06 and '08. We wish the president, President Bush, well. But frankly, we will not have to be carrying that sort of political burden that we carried the last two elections.

You know, we've been here before. In '93 and '94, the Democrats had a new president, President Clinton, large majorities in the House and Senate. We came back. We'll come back again. And part of what I'm going to be talking about at the RNC later this week is some suggestions about how to begin the comeback.

MS. VIEIRA: All right, Senator Mitch McConnell, thank you so much for your time this morning, sir.

SEN. MCCONNELL: Thank you.

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