MSNBC "Interview With Senator Charles Grassley" - Transcript

Interview

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MS. MITCHELL: Senator, thanks very much.

SEN. GRASSLEY: Good to be with you.

MS. MITCHELL: First of all, on Twitter, you tweeted that you took offense at President Obama's trip this weekend. You said, "President Obama, you've got nerve while u (sic) sightsee in Paris to tell us that it's time to deliver on health care. When you are a hammer, you think everything is a nail. I am no nail."

(Chuckles.) First of all, I want to ask you about -- first of all, using Twitter to take on the president about his one night off in Paris.

SEN. GRASSLEY: I don't object at all to him having a vacation. The only thing I objected to was implicit in his comment was somehow Congress was dragging its heels on health care reform. Ever since November, when we first met in a bipartisan way on the Hill, Senator Kennedy, Senator Enzi, Senator Baucus and me, we been on a path to get a bill to the Senate floor in July. We're on schedule, and we're working weekends to be on schedule. And I resented the president -- make it look like we were holding it up when we were working on it weekends to meet our deadline.

MS. MITCHELL: So the fact that he took a Saturday night to take his wife out for dinner in Paris you think was fair game, given the fact that he had taken you on in his Saturday TV address, in his YouTube address.

SEN. GRASSLEY: I think that it was only wrong from the standpoint that, while he was enjoying himself, all of us on the Hill were working either by telephone from our state and our staffs were working at that very time to meet the deadlines. And he knew that as well. So I think it was a cheap shot on his part.

MS. MITCHELL: Okay. (Laughs.) Not a cheap shot on your part, Senator.

Well, first of all, let's talk about what's happening in the Senate right now because you are working with Max Baucus, your counterpart, the chair of the Finance Committee. And there are stories in all of the papers today about the absence of the two key players, the lions of the Senate, Senator Byrd and Senator Kennedy.

Now, we know that Senator Dodd went up to Hyannis and worked with Senator Kennedy to bring back the outlines of the bill today. But is this an opportunity for you on the Finance Committee to write a bill more to your liking, pass a bill more then -- more to your liking because of the absence -- because of illness of these two Senate leaders, Democratic leaders?

SEN. GRASSLEY: Well, I think that Senator Byrd is more in the area of the appropriations and not so close to the issue of health care reform. Senator Kennedy has one of his real marks as being a master of health care policy. So his absence does make some difference.

But you got to remember this is not a personal thing with Senator Baucus or Senator Kennedy. This is something that the Senate's going to decide on the Senate floor. There's input from the Senate Finance Committee and from the Health Committee. And they're going to come together as one bill just like we did three years ago when each of us shared jurisdiction on pension reform, we got a very good product. We'll get a very good product out of this one as well.

MS. MITCHELL: You say you'll get a very good product. If there -- of course, there are institutional rivalries between Finance and between Senator Kennedy's committee. Right now, the Republicans on Finance -- all the Republicans except for Olympia Snowe -- have come out against the public option. What is your objection to the public option?

SEN. GRASSLEY: My objection to the public option is based upon the Lewin thinks tank -- think tank study that says 190 -- (1)19 million people will opt out of private health insurance. When you only have 50 million left, premiums are going to go way up. And then the president's promise during the campaign that if you want to keep your existing health insurance, you ought to be able to keep it, will not be reality. And I think that we -- when 80 percent of the people in this country are satisfied with the insurance we have, we want to make sure we don't upset that apple cart.

MS. MITCHELL: Let me ask you about your role on the Judiciary Committee. We just heard that Senator Leahy -- Senator Schumer announced that Senator Leahy has scheduled the hearings for July 13th. Do you think that that is too soon for the Republicans who are going to have to be examining Judge Sotomayor's judicial record, her writings?

SEN. GRASSLEY: Yeah. Well, listen, it's no more difficult for Republicans to examine all of her records than it is Democrats. And I think it's too soon for both Republicans and Democrats. And one of the reasons that Senator Leahy gave was that she's been criticized. Well, she hasn't been criticized by a Republican president. She's been criticized by outside groups. We have no control over those outside groups, and neither do Democrats have control over it.

MS. MITCHELL: Will you and other Republicans on the committee try to slow this schedule down and prevent them from starting on July 13th with the clear intent to get the hearings over and to perhaps have a confirmation vote before the August recess?

SEN. GRASSLEY: Yeah. From four standpoints, I think it's legitimate.

Number one, we don't have the American Bar Association rating of her.

Number two, most of these decisions on holding these hearings are bipartisan. This was not a bipartisan decision.

Secondly (sic), they compared it to Roberts' hearing. She's been on the bench a lot longer than Roberts. She's got 3,000 cases we have to go through.

And, fourthly, her own questionnaire is not adequately filled out at this point.

So I don't see how you can expect us to be ready when all the information you have to have to make a hearing worthwhile has not been gone through.

MS. MITCHELL: And can your objections prevent the hearings from being held by the Democrats as scheduled?

SEN. GRASSLEY: I don't want to say that they can because I don't know in my mind, to answer your question, exactly the process and the power of the -- of the chairman to move ahead on this issue. But, as a matter of practice, generally, these hearings have been held -- the date has been a bipartisan determination.

MS. MITCHELL: All right. Thank you very much, Senator Grassley.

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