MSNBC "Morning Joe" - Transcript
Interview
MSNBC "Morning Joe" - Transcript
MSNBC "MORNING JOE" INTERVIEW WITH SENATOR JOHN CORNYN (R-TX)
SUBJECTS: 2010 ELECTIONS, PRESIDENT OBAMA
INTERVIEWERS: JOE SCARBOROUGH, MIKA BRZEZINSKI, ANDREW SORKIN
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MR. SCARBOROUGH: Let's bring in right now, Republican Senator John Cornyn, he's from Texas. He's a member of both the Senate Budget and Finance Committees and also the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
So you're the guy in charge of electing Republican Senators. You're sitting at 41 right now, that's one away, obviously, from giving Democrats just an absolute monopoly in Washington. You've got an uphill battle, don't you? More Republicans are going to be up again in 2010 than Democrats.
SEN. CORNYN: Nineteen Republicans, 17 Democrats. But I think it's going to be a better year. Obviously, last year in 2008 had a president who was not popular, who was used in 48 percent of the ads against our candidates. We had a tough recruiting year. We were only on the offense in one state and that was Louisiana. Already we can see we're going to have opportunities in blue states and purple states, places like Connecticut and maybe even Illinois, maybe Delaware, maybe New York, that we wouldn't have anticipated.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: What about Nevada?
SEN. CORNYN: Well, we're working on that. I think, certainly, Senator Reid's numbers are not good and it's an opportunity if we get the right --
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Any candidate interested yet in running?
SEN. CORNYN: We do, and probably not going to talk about it here because if he decides not to run, I don't want it to be a big disappointment.
MS. BRZEZINSKI: Connecticut is an opening you see?
SEN. CORNYN: Yeah. There are going to be at least three Republicans running in that Republican primary for the privilege of contesting --
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Who are the three that are talking about running against Dodd?
SEN. CORNYN: Tom Foley, the former ambassador, Rob Simmons, former Congressman and we have a state senator, I'm sorry; I can't pronounce his last name.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Is Chris Shays thinking about jumping back in?
SEN. CORNYN: Not that I know of, but it's still early.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: And that's what's so amazing about politics is that Pat Buchanan was saying months ago when everybody said that the Democratic ascendancy would go on for decades and he said this is just like 1965. Lyndon Johnson couldn't be touched and suddenly the next year, boom, Republicans congressionally came in and pounded him and now we're starting to see a shift back.
Who would have ever believed three months ago that Chris Dodd in Connecticut, the bluest of the bluest states would now -- Democrats are whispering, he's in big trouble.
SEN. CORNYN: Well, mid-term elections for the party in power are typically not that good. We've got a tough hill to climb; 2012, there are only eight Republicans up. So my job like you said, Joe, is to recruit good candidates and then we need to run the tough elections.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Stop the bleeding. We never had, have we, three elections in a row because the Democrats in 2006 and 2008, made historic advances in those years. It's never happened three years in a row, has it?
SEN. CORNYN: Well, Senator Schumer, of course, who is head of the Democratic Senatorial Committee in 2006 and 2008, I think, did a masterful job recruiting candidates that fit their states and people like Jim Webb in Virginia, Senator Gillibrand here in New York who sleeps with a couple of guns under her bed at night.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Not anymore.
SEN. CORNYN: Not anymore? Oh, okay.
MS. BRZEZINSKI: She moved them.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: She doesn't like guns. What other socially conservative issue?
MS. BRZEZINSKI: She evolved on that issue.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: She's evolved, in fact, on many issues.
MS. BRZEZINSKI: Yes, Senator.
SEN. CORNYN: Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, pro-life Democrat in Pennsylvania -- so getting the right candidate that fit the state is really important.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Are you concerned, speaking of Pennsylvania, about two Republicans going after each other in the primary? I mean, that's going to be a bloody primary. We had Arlen Specter on just a few minutes ago.
SEN. CORNYN: Well, Senator Specter is still popular, 61 percent approval rating, but that's in the general election and, obviously, the primary is going to be a challenge and I hope he and Mr. Toomey don't cut each other up too badly because we need to hold onto Pennsylvania.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: That's tough for you, I'm sure. Andrew wrote a story this morning in The New York Times to talk about the FDIC is able to basically --
MR. SORKIN: The issue is that it becomes TARP II without a vote and I'm sort of curious what your view is given that, effectively, we have given out an enormous amount of money and our representatives this time around haven't voted. There's been a sort of clever device to let this program go forward and I'm sort of curious where you stand on this.
SEN. CORNYN: Well, you remember when Hank Paulson came over on a Thursday night and told the bicameral, bipartisan leadership that we're going to have a meltdown in the economy, he faxed over a three- page bill that he wanted Congress to pass without much debate or much discussion. We said, wait a minute, there needs to be some oversight. So we passed a bill that we thought would provide for that, but frankly, it hadn't worked very well.
There's been almost no oversight, no transparency.
MR. SORKIN: But when you look at the latest programs that Tim Geithner has put forward, none of those have required a vote at all, and actually, it's much more money that's going out the door.
SEN. CORNYN: That's right. Well, it's power that Congress has previously given to the Treasury Secretary and, frankly, I think, we need to reel that in.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Wait, wait, wait, wait. I thought Democrats have been complaining for the past eight years how Article I had been torn to shreds by Dick Cheney and George Bush. So you're telling me, Andrew, I'm shocked, Democrats are spending trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of our dollars, in fact, they've guaranteed $12.8 trillion and they're going to do it without a single vote of our elected representatives?
MR. SORKIN: Well, that's the issue and I guess the question though is if you go back and look at how they're doing some of this, I think there's actually real questions that need to be asked. He said the powers had been giving.
I actually think when you go back and look it's not clear the powers have been given the way --
SEN. CORNYN: Well, there's so little transparency, we can't really tell whether they've exceeded their power or not as your article suggests for the FDIC. I think it's a pretty scary position to be in, and frankly, I don't see much appetite for reeling --
MR. SORKIN: Well, that's the issue. Nobody wants to reel anybody in at this particular moment because they think that they're going to kill the golden goose and that's the economy.
SEN. CORNYN: They don't want to be responsible if things go in the tank.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: So Senator when you have the FDIC able to guarantee trillions of dollars without a single vote, you've got the White House unsure of who has oversight over AIG; Robert Gibbs didn't know the answer to that question and you know how close Robert is to the president. If Robert didn't know, then the president didn't know and so they scrambled around and they figured it out and they said the Treasury has control of it.
You've got the White House saying they know about bonuses, they don't know. Nobody seems to know anything. This is like Hollywood.
SEN. CORNYN: Well, there's a lack of focus and I think a lack of a plan. We've seen the president doing a lot of things and admittedly his approval ratings are still high. He had a fabulous experience --
MS. BRZEZINSKI: A new poll.
SEN. CORNYN: In Europe, but campaigning, Joe, as you know, is different from governing. Governing is actually hard work. It takes focus and it takes rolling up your sleeves and doing the grit work of governing. I don't see a lot of appetite for that in this administration so far.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: You know what else is hard work? Socialism.
MS. BRZEZINSKI: Oh, now. Look at these approval ratings.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Socialism is hard work, especially and I'm not being negative toward the president. This is truth though. Think about this. We've got a president who has never received a paycheck, forget about running your own small business and knowing what it's like to make payroll every two weeks, dealing with OSHA every two weeks, dealing with regulators on all three levels, maybe sometimes four levels of government. Forget about that.
I don't need a president that's actually done what I've done.
(Cross talk.)
MR. SORKIN: The last time we had a president with an MBA, we had different issues, so let's just think about that.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Let me finish.
MR. SORKIN: Go ahead.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: This guy, think about it, he's running Detroit, he's running Wall Street. He's going to run other sectors of our economy. Andrew, he's never received a check from a profit-making business in his entire life, not one check. Think about it. He's never worked --
MR. SORKIN: From his book publisher. What are you talking about?
MS. BRZEZINSKI: The Audacity of Hope.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Is that all you've got? Think about the radicalism of that. America is turning over its economy, large sectors of its economy to a guy that has never worked in the private sector, Senator.
SEN. CORNYN: Well, that's who the American people elected. He's entitled to a shot. Even Republicans, I think, hope he succeeds because we want our country to succeed.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: I hope he succeeds, too.
SEN. CORNYN: But we're not going to vote yes when the policies are bad like this budget, which was passed without any Republican support in the Senate, which taxes too much and borrows too much and spends too much.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Mika, am I being unfair?
MS. BRZEZINSKI: I think you are.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Really?
MS. BRZEZINSKI: I think you're throwing everything out there, even some things that might potentially have been a good move. The Detroit situation --
MR. SCARBOROUGH: No, no, no. I'm talking him about never working in the private sector.
MS. BRZEZINSKI: Let me finish. I agree with that. I understand that --
MR. SCARBOROUGH: That's all I care about, a concept, that's a reality. We're not talking about God as a concept by which we measure our pain. We're talking reality.
MS. BRZEZINSKI: There were many.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Nothing existential about this. He has never received a paycheck in the free market system and yet he is now running 30 percent, 40 percent, 50 percent of the free market system and when he socializes health care, that's another one-sixth of the economic system he will control.
MS. BRZEZINSKI: And you really think the removal of Rick Wagoner was a bad call? And you don't think that shouldn't have been done earlier by potentially another company?
MR. SCARBOROUGH: You know what; I actually think a board should make that decision.
MS. BRZEZINSKI: You really don't think those guys shouldn't have stepped down? Well, it seems like those companies were having a hard time bringing themselves into the future and Washington was called upon to help them and then people were whining about bailing out without strings attached. You attach strings and now you complain.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: The question is: If you had a business and you knew you were going out of the country for four or five years and you knew that your kids' future relied on that business who in the president's top economic circle seriously would you have running that business.
MR. SORKIN: Let me ask you a different question. What CEO would you want in the job now running this country?
MS. BRZEZINSKI: Jack Welch.
MR. SORKIN: Look at what most of Corporate America has done in the past five years.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: I wouldn't want a CEO who has only been a CEO running the country. I would want somebody actually with experience. If you're going to run the U.S. Government, I want somebody with experience. If you're going to operate on my brain, I hope that you've operated on a brain before mine. If you're going to run the most complex financial sectors in the world, I hope that you have at least received a paycheck for working at a burger stand, alas this is not what Americans --
(Cross talk.)
MR. SORKIN: You have to root him. You have to.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: I'm rooting for him. He's a great guy. He's a great father, a great husband and he's got a million watt smile.
MS. BRZEZINSKI: Okay. We're going to continue this on the radio today, and by the way --
MR. SCARBOROUGH: WMAL, Washington, DC.
MS. BRZEZINSKI: So we'll catch up with you in Washington. We're on the radio in Washington now.
SEN. CORNYN: Sounds good.
MS. BRZEZINSKI: Senator, thank you very much.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Senator, thank you so much.
SEN. CORNYN: Thanks.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Great seeing you.
END.
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