MSNBC Interview - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC Interview - Transcript

MSNBC INTERVIEW WITH SENATOR CHARLES SCHUMER (D-NY)

VIA TELEPHONE INTERVIEWER: ANDREA MITCHELL

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MS. MITCHELL: And joining us now on the phone is New York Senator Chuck Schumer, member of the Finance Committee and chairman of the Banking Committee -- sorry, member of the Finance Committee. Senator Schumer, I apologize.

Let me ask you about the credit-card issue, what you and the Banking chair, Chris Dodd, are doing in calling on the Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke, to immediately oppose an emergency freeze on credit-card interest rates. The White House is very carefully not endorsing this. What would be the benefit of an immediate freeze?

SEN. SCHUMER: Well, we haven't called for an immediate freeze on interest rates. What we've called for is that the rules that the Fed has said they will put into effect as of the summer of 2010 be put into effect immediately, which would prevent the banks from -- once you have an existing balance from raising it.

Now, it's just outrageous. You sign up. It says 7 percent. In the fine print, if you basically wake up in the morning, they could raise it to 22 (percent) or 23 percent. And that is just wrong. That's never really been done before. Banks, maybe because they are having hardship, economic hardship, are just taking advantage of consumers.

And so there's an outcry in the country. The House and Senate are proposing legislation. But this could all be done quickly by the Fed imposing the very rules they've set up -- so they could hardly be draconian -- but not waiting over a year to implement them.

MS. MITCHELL: Well, do you think that the Fed is waiting a year to impose what would be a freeze -- I'm reading from your own press release -- call on Federal Reserve to impose emergency freeze on credit-card rates. Would this be -- do you think that they are not asking for an immediate freeze because they're concerned about the banking industry's complaints about their own credit problems?

SEN. SCHUMER: Well, I don't know. I've asked Chairman Bernanke this, and they say they need time to adjust their computers and everything else. But for Lord's sake, they don't need -- it's been a year and a half since the Fed actually announced this rule. They don't need 18 months. They readjust their computers for other things much more quickly than that.

MS. MITCHELL: Okay. Chuck Schumer.

SEN. SCHUMER: And as for your -- as for your -- you --

MS. MITCHELL: Yeah. My initial question about the White House, exactly.

SEN. SCHUMER: Yeah. No, I think the White House, you know, is sympathetic. And obviously the president has called together the credit-card issuers. But this is the quickest and easiest way to do it, and we think they're considering it, and hope they will ask the Fed to do just what we've asked.

MS. MITCHELL: All right. Chuck Schumer, thanks for clarifying that.

SEN. SCHUMER: Thank you.

MS. MITCHELL: Appreciate your call.

SEN. SCHUMER: Thanks.

END.

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