Transcription of Senator Grassley's Conference Call with Iowa Reporters

Interview

GRASSLEY: A year ago this month, Senator Baucus and I hosted a day-long summit on health care reform. That was at the Library of Congress. Since then, we've had committee hearings. I guess we've had them on reform and financing. And in the last six weeks, you know we held three roundtables, three separate day-long member discussion groups discussing options, various ways to approach health care reform.

We want to reform initiatives that's bipartisan. And when Senator Baucus and I had lunch with the president on May the 6th, he said -- the president said that he wanted a bipartisan health care reform bill. As pressure builds, I think the president is the one who can make a difference in achieving bipartisanship, and we need that sort of help as we move forward.

The president needs to do whatever he can to have congressional leaders commit to a bipartisan bill. Health care reform is a massive undertaking. A comprehensive bill would redirect 18 percent of the economy, and anything on that scale ought to have a broad-based support and reflect a real consensus.

Let's go to Kerry Cathcart.

QUESTION: Thank you, Senator.

On the Supreme Court nominee, I have a two-part question. The first one, would you talk to us a little bit about your philosophy that if the president puts forth somebody whom you determine to be qualified, do you think the president should have their nominee put on the bench whether or not you agree with them philosophically?

And secondly, potential problem for Republicans if they go after a Hispanic person when you're trying to rebuild the party. Will you alienate a whole part of the electorate? Is that something that should even be considered?

GRASSLEY: On the last point, I think as long as we discuss philosophy in law and the Constitution with her and there's nothing personal, we won't have any problems.

On the first point, I suppose my vote for Ginsberg and...

QUESTION: Breyer?

GRASSLEY: ... and the other -- Breyer, thank you -- is an indication that I accept what a president puts forth as ought to be one. But since then, you know, 15 years later, there's a lot of precedent set here in the United States Senate that probably dictates philosophy and ideology being a part of it.

And I can say, for instance, a warning that Senator Hatch gave to a lot of Republicans not to hold up judges in the Clinton administration because if we filibustered, the Democrats would do the same thing to us.

So he -- I think he won that argument during the Clinton administration, but we found out in 2002 and '01 that it didn't do us much good. Democrats filibustered most of the judges anyway. That's where -- and Estrada, because he was Hispanic, didn't get on the circuit court. Whereas now, they want us, because somebody is a Hispanic, they ought to be on the court.

And so we had this filibustering. And then you have often referred to -- I've referred to it. Now, I've seen it in full print -- the attitude of Senator Obama saying that, you know, there's some in the Senate who think a president nominates somebody, he ought to have the same right to have his courts on there and not question them as long as they're competent, et cetera.

He says I don't agree with that, that ideology and philosophy ought to be a part of it. So I think you have precedent set now that's not necessarily going in the right direction, but precedent is a great thing in the United States Senate. I hear more about precedent than I do about the specific rules of the Senate.

You have -- you have a different set of engagement by senators now. And so you might have a Chuck Grassley looking at ideology and philosophy. I can tell you this. I'm going to have a dispassionate view about her the same way that I had -- the same way I expect her to have a dispassionate view towards the law when she goes on the court -- blindfolded like Lady Justice over the -- over the Supreme Court door, holding scales of justice. That's what I expect Supreme Court justices to be.

And that's what I'll be looking for when I talk to her. So I think -- I think it's a new ballgame, Kerry. A lot different than I approached it with Ginsberg and Breyer. And I suppose some of this probably started before 2002, you know, you can think about Kennedy's speech against Bork. You can look what Senator Biden said a couple years before Bork come up. He was hypothesizing that somebody of Bork's qualifications came up why, obviously, he'd be approved to go on the Supreme Court.

But then, you know, the verb "Bork" is now in our vocabulary, and Bork was "Borked." And so, you know, the last 25 years isn't like the first 200 years, it looks like.

Tom Beaumont?

QUESTION: Senator, when do you expect -- is it feasible to ask when you expect a bill on health care to drop and what needs to be done to take care of those key sticking points before that can happen?

GRASSLEY: Well, I can tell you how we're getting to that point. I can't give you a date. I think maybe in Senator Baucus' mind, there's a date. I don't -- if I knew that, I'm not sure I'd want to repeat it. I don't know it.

GRASSLEY: I think that my staff is negotiating a calendar, how we proceed on this. So then my answer to your question is that we're going to sit down and see what we can put together and then we're going to shop it to Republicans for their reactions and where they think changes ought to be made.

He's going to shop it with his Democrats on his committee what changes may be they have to have. And we hope we end up with a bipartisan product. Now, we might not, but that's the process we're going to go through.

And I had -- for instance, we haven't had those meetings yet, but we're going to start to meet on a fairly regular basis to do that. But in anticipation of getting reaction from our specific members on the committee, two things are going on. One happened at nine this morning. All 10 of my members came to my meeting in my office where we went over some of these things.

And I don't know whether Baucus is meeting with his 11, 12, or I guess he's got 13 members on his side.

But tomorrow morning, we're going to have another closed meeting, not for discussion with staff but just among members, of getting ideas or -- now, you aren't getting ideas at this point. I think all the ideas are on the table. You're getting reaction to ideas and members saying what they can buy or not buy.

QUESTION: Right.

GRASSLEY: And that's kind of where we are.

QUESTION: Does that mean that the issues like public option, mandate, and those financing issues have not -- there's no consensus on the committee on them yet?

GRASSLEY: No. But I can tell you what I say at meetings. I can't tell you what Senator Baucus or other senators say at meetings. But I told him very recently that I thought that there was one thing that Republicans -- no, two things that Republicans were pretty united on.

Now, I don't want to speak for 40 Republicans, but I wouldn't be afraid to say I'd be speaking for at least 35 Republicans that public option is a problem. And that may be a problem for all 40 members more so than the next things I'm going to say. And that's more of a generic as opposed to the specificity of public option. And it's that we don't want to do anything that leads to rationing. And there's several passes of it that could fall into that category.

QUESTION: One last one and then I'll move on.

You said that it's the president's job to get involved in this and press for a bipartisan bill. Do you think he is -- has he done that yet? Or are you still waiting?

GRASSLEY: No, I think -- I think maybe today -- I don't know whether this letter is going to come to all Republicans and Democrats or just to Democrats. But we're supposed to be getting some sort of a letter from the president today kind of stating principles. I don't think they're going to be any different than the principles we've had before.

I just hope that there's no line drawn in the sand, for instance, on a public option. And I think the president is engaged, as evidenced by the fact that he called Democrats of the two committees down to the Senate yesterday -- or down to the White House yesterday for an afternoon meeting.

QUESTION: Thank you.

GRASSLEY: Mike Myers?

QUESTION: Senator, some years ago, you complained about Tom Daschle having a tight leash on Max Baucus on some issues. Well, now, it's Harry Reid as the majority leader. It appears that the president, beyond this letter principles, is letting them draft a bill. Is that correct or is Harry Reid and other interests got a -- are they the unseen people in this room? Have you got a free rein here or not?

GRASSLEY: Well, all I can give you is an impression. You know, I don't know whether -- I don't get any inkling of -- at least Baucus hasn't reported to me any sort of interchange with Reid or meetings he's had with Reid. Or if he does, they haven't been significant along the lines of your questioning. And so at this point, I think that it's pretty much up to the committees, and Reid's not being involved.

Although, I think it would be -- it would be naive not to think he's got staff that's watching it pretty closely. But don't forget, McConnell also has a staff following it very closely.

QUESTION: Well, so does Ted Kennedy. Is he the elephant in this room?

GRASSLEY: Well, I think -- I think you're going to see Chris Dodd playing a more major role, and it's going to be a more public role than we -- we thought and doing a lot of things for Kennedy. Now...

QUESTION: Well, he's up for reelection. Is this a visibility role or is Ted Kennedy and his staff back there calling shots?
GRASSLEY: From discussions I've had, and been kind of behind the scenes discussions, I think those are unanswered questions.

QUESTION: If I may briefly follow up on my colleague and change the subject. Judge Sotomayor -- she hasn't come by yet. You're seeing a member of...

GRASSLEY: Two o'clock on Monday.

QUESTION: Two o'clock on Monday.

Thank you, sir.

GRASSLEY: Ken Thomas?

QUESTION: Hi, Senator.

Just a question on General Motors. G.M. executives said yesterday that they expect to release less financial information to the public after they emerge from bankruptcy because they'll be a private company for a period of about 6 to 18 months.

They said they plan to release information to shareholders and will give updates on their progress. But given, you know, the fact that the government is going to take a 60 percent stake in the company, do you think they should be required to file the same documents with the SEC that they've been doing so as a public company?

GRASSLEY: The answer is yes, and I would think that the United States government, being a major stockholder, would see that that happened. I mean, aren't we in a controlling position with this? I'm not suggesting we ought to be. I don't think that we should have that much government involvement in the running of a company.

And I say that even acknowledging, you know, that I spoke out about these bonuses and that we ought to be doing something about it. But I wasn't getting in the middle of running a company. I was getting in the middle of recapturing some of it through the tax policies.

So -- but we are in that business now, at least, with General Motors. And I guess we are with AIG. We're an 80 percent stockholder, right? When public funds are involved, the public's business ought to be public.

QUESTION: Is that something you think there may be a need to legislate? Some sort of requirement for them to disclose the same documents that they would normally as a public company?

GRASSLEY: I would think that you would not need legislation, that you need the United States government as a stockholder just to say we're going to do that.

GRASSLEY: Jim Boyd?

QUESTION: Yes, Senator. If I can just really switch gears, go international. What do you think the president needs to say tomorrow in his speech to the Muslim world?

GRASSLEY: Well, number one, I think he ought to make it very clear to them that we are standing behind Israel because Israel is the only friend that we have in the Mideast that we can count on. And we've got to have somebody there that we can count on. And we can't pussyfoot around with that.

And the extent to which there's any question left in people's minds about our support for Israel, Israel is in more trouble. And if Israel's in more trouble, we are. For two reasons we have an interest, and they're all related to American interests, not to the Israeli interests.

They're a democracy there. The United States is about promoting democracy. And number two, when so much of our economic success is dependent upon imports of oil from the volatile Middle East, we need a base of operation there that we can depend on.

Now, we've got a base of operation with some Arab countries, yes. But I still get back to the dependability of Israel versus dependability of some other countries.

The second thing is that he needs to make very clear, uncompromising, our rooting out Hezbollah, Al Qaida, and other radical elements. And thirdly, he ought to say the extent to which he might understand the Muslim religion more than I do because he's had some of that in his background, at least he's bragged about it, so I assume he has some understanding of it, that the extent to which this radical Al Qaida, Hezbollah branch of Islam is not the real religion.

He ought to encourage the leaders of these countries and their religious leaders to root out this sort of jihadist attitude that comes -- that's supposedly religious based and yet, contrary to their own religion. Now, I don't have a full understanding of Islam, so I don't want to talk as an authority. But I'm saying I have read enough about what leaders of Islam have said about their religion and that this is not typical of their religion. And I hope he makes that very clear that that's what we expect.

That was Jim Boyd.

Ed Tibbets?

Christinia?

QUESTION: Hi, Senator.

GRASSLEY: Christinia, I mean.

QUESTION: Thank you.

I was just curious. I know you guys are dealing with a lot with the economy and this health care reform, but I'm wondering if there's going to be anything this year, you think, on getting the levies built any higher since people are still kind of recovering from that and we're coming up on the year anniversary?

GRASSLEY: Well, there is -- I don't know how far along it is, but you've got to remember that there is going on with the Corps of Engineers and with the interest on both sides of the Mississippi all the way from, I believe, from St. Louis or Alton up to -- up above Dubuque and maybe even higher than that, studies going on and plans going on to do that.

But you're talking about a multi-year project. So you're talking about an ongoing appropriations. And so I assume that there's going to be some money in the appropriations bill to continue progress down this line. But I don't have any more information than that. And I speak with some uncertainty about, it but just common sense tells me that things dealing with the Corps and flood control and navigation are something that's constantly present in every appropriation bill.

QUESTION: Thank you.

GRASSLEY: Anybody else? I think I've gone through the list. Anybody with a follow-up?

QUESTION: Senator, Joe Morton here with the World Herald.

I was just curious, you invited some EPA officials to Iowa to visit a farm yesterday. I was wondering if you'd heard back from them and if you had a particular farm in mind. Do you know where...

GRASSLEY: Well, you know, I'd like to have them come to my farm, but I want to make sure I've got something to show them. And I think, in the fall, particularly on the fugitive dust thing, would be the best time to have them come for harvesting.

But there's other things that we think we need to show them. And so maybe, for their convenience as well as the convenience of showing them more than just a family farm, we'd do something in Central Iowa and get them involved in some of the major agribusinesses, particularly, those involved in research so that they can kind of show them advances that we're making genetically to show them that, you know, we don't have to have this battle between food and fuel and things of that nature.

So let me further answer your question, something I should have said at the beginning. And that's that I made my statement last week. They called immediately to my staff, well, is he serious. So the letters we sent out yesterday were to show how serious I was.

Anybody else want to jump in?

QUESTION: Senator, Tom Beaumont.

When did you get the call from the White House about the Sotomayor meeting? And when was that arranged?

GRASSLEY: It was arranged today. Let's see. I've got e-mail here in front of me. 10:52, the White House just called. They apologized for not getting to us sooner. They thought that Chris Kaine (ph), whoever that is, from leg affairs, had already contacted us.

And this is from -- well, I guess this is -- this is e-mail within my staff. So it was 10:50 a.m. this morning.

QUESTION: Were you at all bothered by the fact that you weren't on the nominee's first-day schedule?

GRASSLEY: Oh, absolutely not. You know, I don't think I'm going to have a problem meeting with her at two o'clock on Monday. But we're having all these health care meetings. I probably wouldn't have been able to meet with her this week anyway.

QUESTION: Thank you.

QUESTION: What's the temperature, the political temperature on the Hill regarding this nomination, Senator?

GRASSLEY: Well...

QUESTION: Is it too early to tell?

GRASSLEY: Yes, it's too early to tell. And maybe I would have found out something if I had gone to our caucus yesterday, but I had Sioux City World War II veterans in with Bob Dole down at the World War II monument. So I went down there.

QUESTION: Can the political structure for Americans up by the bootstraps walk into a difficult committee hearing like this, maybe like this? Is that going to be a high price to pay for having another Bork-like hearing? Do you see that coming?

GRASSLEY: No, I don't. Or anything like Clarence Thomas either.

QUESTION: Why?

GRASSLEY: Well, I think 59 Democrats in the United States Senate kind of answers your question partly. Does it -- does it do anything to curb what Republicans can do?

GRASSLEY: No, it doesn't. And we have -- we have a responsibility, but Democrats are going to assume the same responsibility to try to find out what kind of a judge she's going to be, maybe from different interests -- points of interest.

But you're still going to do the same thing even though, this time, there's, you know, we had a majority on some of these.

QUESTION: Yes. You say the Democrats have a majority?

GRASSLEY: Yes, 59.

QUESTION: Do you believe all 59 Democrats will vote for her?

GRASSLEY: Oh, no. I don't -- I don't know. I don't have any way of answering your question.

QUESTION: Have you voted on her on a federal bench before?

GRASSLEY: Yes, I was one of 27 that voted against her when she went to the circuit could you tell.

QUESTION: Why were you opposed at that time?

GRASSLEY: Well, you know what? I usually have something I can refer to, to answer your question very specifically, but we've looked in the record of the committee and the record -- congressional record, and there's no statement by me. So I don't know why.

QUESTION: OK. Thank you.

QUESTION: You'll remind us if you know?

GRASSLEY: Well, you've got a chance to check the same record. And we've just checked it, and we found nothing.

QUESTION: But I'm checking with the man of record, you. I mean, if you -- are you reviewing your this matter in all respect?

GRASSLEY: We've done that. We've gone back through the congressional record, 10 years ago, and there's nothing in the congressional record that says why I voted against her.

QUESTION: Senator, about...

GRASSLEY: No there's nothing more to check.

QUESTION: About the health care reform -- this is Mary Rae Bragg.

GRASSLEY: Sure.

QUESTION: Is there a place where people can go to see what kind of proposals there are that are in place now or are being shopped around to help us kind of understand?

GRASSLEY: Go the Web site. Well, at least the Finance Committee Web site. You can go and get the three option papers we put out. Now, that kind of is like telling you all of the above, you know.

And you probably won't get anything more precise until there's a partisan bill or a bipartisan bill before the Finance Committee. And you could do the same thing with the -- let me ask my staff -- would the same thing be on the health committee Web site?

Yes. But we put our three option papers. One is for coverage. One is for delivery. And one is for financing.

QUESTION: OK. Thank you. That might help a little bit.

GRASSLEY: Goodbye.

QUESTION: Senator?

GRASSLEY: Yes?

QUESTION: Not to belabor this horse in all respect, you meet with the judge, Judge Sotomayor, on Monday. Would it not help you, sir, in talking to her, she might pose the question as a reporter would, sir, you had some concerns about me, you voted against my nomination that -- do you think it would be wise to research this and try -- a negative vote not, you know...

GRASSLEY: Yes. Well, I think there's two answers to your questions. Number one, there's nothing to research because we've researched it because I wanted to know why myself. I probably wanted to know why more than you want to know why.

And the second one is regardless of how I voted before, I owe her -- like I just told Kerry Cathcart in my opening question, I said I owe her the same dispassionate view of her and I owe it to the president, and I owe it to the American people to forget about past what I did.

Even if I knew why I voted against her, I still need to see her as a new person and make up my mind after the hearing because if I -- there's no point in going to the hearing if I've already got my mind made up.

QUESTION: Thank you.

GRASSLEY: OK. Thank you all very much.

QUESTION: Thank you.

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