Fox News Interview - Transcript

Interview

Fox News Interview - Transcript

FOX NEWS CHANNEL INTERVIEW WITH REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD)
SUBJECT: BUDGET INTERVIEWER: JANE SKINNER

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MS. SKINNER: Watching Capitol Hill and what you might call judgment day for the president's massive $3.6 trillion budget. Take a look at the House floor. We expect a vote to come there later on today, that's a live picture.

In the meantime, there's some concern among Democrats over some of these liberal groups launching attack ads that specifically target Democrats, Democrats who happen to have reservations about the president's budget. Take a listen to this one; it's from MoveOn.org aimed at Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, a moderate.

TELEVISION ADVERTISEMENT: President Obama's new budget will make Wall Street pay its fair share and use the savings to invest in energy, education and health care to help get our economy moving again. Wall Street firms oppose it, but given their recent track record, that's a good sign. Call Senator Bayh at (202) 224-3121 and tell him to vote for the Obama budget.

We've tried it Wall Street's way long enough. It's time Washington listens to us.

MS. SKINNER: With us now, Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen, he's Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, also Assistant to the Speaker of the House.

Congressman, thanks for your time.

This is your quote --

REP. VAN HOLLEN: Good to be with you.

MS. SKINNER: "What I've been warning people very clearly is beware of forming a circular firing squad." Are these groups listening to the call to back off?

REP. VAN HOLLEN: What I was referring to there was not the ad with respect to the Obama budget proposal, but some signs that groups are actually targeting Democratic members in reelections where there's a very decent chance that if the Democrat lost that seat in a primary, the seat would then go to a Republican member.

So I said, let's be careful, as I said, not to form a circular firing squad, for example, we can learn from the lessons that the Republicans and the mistakes we believe they made in my state of Maryland, for example, a very moderate Republican member, Wayne Gilchrest was defeated in his primary by a right-wing Republican candidate and that provided a great opportunity and opening for our moderate Democratic candidate to win that seat, that's on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Frank Kratovil is now a Democratic member of Congress.

So it's important that as Democrats and groups out there look at our members of Congress, they not try and do something that turns out to be counterproductive by going after a Democrat that they may think is not just right on every issue, they may at the end of the day get a Republican winning that state who is wrong on all the issues from their perspective. So that's what we were talking about.

MS. SKINNER: And Harry Reid seems to agree with you. He says these types of ads are unwise and not helpful; these groups should leave them alone. But I go back to my initial question, are they listening?

REP. VAN HOLLEN: Well, I think they are. There's a distinction and I want to make this clear. There's a distinction in my mind anyway between ads that promote the president's budget, which I think are fine versus ads that actually go after Democratic members who are in very tough political districts, and I think that's an important distinction to draw.

It's fine to have a healthy debate. It's fine to have a discussion. But what we do not want to do is what the Republicans have done to themselves in many elections in the recent past, which is in the interest of a real ideological purity test they end up getting rid of a moderate Republican and at the end of the day they end up, from their perspective, a Democrat, which is great for us, but obviously, a strategy that I think they will reconsider going forward.

MS. SKINNER: I was just going to say --

REP. VAN HOLLEN: That's the concern.

MS. SKINNER: It has been reported that there's some coordination between these groups and the Obama White House. Take a listen to what Karl Rove had to say and if you can react on the other side if you will.

MR. KARL ROVE (Former White House Adviser) (From video.): If you're a member of Congress and you're sitting up on Capitol Hill and you're a Democrat who is skeptical about this, that's a little worrisome that your president is picking your party, his own party out for this kind of suasion.

MS. SKINNER: Does he have a point? What if you're a Democratic member and you're being targeted, ultimately, by your own president?

REP. VAN HOLLEN: Look, I think it's absolutely right for the president and his team to advocate forcefully on behalf of his budget. I'm a strong supporter of his budget. We're encouraging all our members to support that budget and if there are allied groups out there that want to talk about the importance of passing the Obama budget, which is very important to the country, I think they're absolutely right.

There's a distinction between that and other ads that you haven't shown that are being run that seem to be targeting members to lose, not just to persuade them to vote a certain way on an issue, but to try and essentially replace them with another Democrat, which again, is all part of the process unless the end result is to make way for a Republican winning the seat, somebody who will vote against the position of some of these groups on all the issues, not just on some of the issues.

MS. SKINNER: Running out of time here, Congressman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. Good to see you. Thanks.

REP. VAN HOLLEN: Thank you, Jane.

END.

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