MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript
Statement
Interview With House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
Interviewer - Ed Schultz
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MR. SCHULTZ: I went over to the Capitol today to talk with Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House, and talk about a number of different things when it comes to how she's doing.
I wanted to ask the speaker what we can expect in a health care bill. There's been so much talk about, number one, how we're going to pay for it, what it's going to be, what it's going to contain, but most of all, what Americans want. And Nancy Pelosi is a dedicated professional. She has taken a lot of heat from the conservatives. And she wants universal health care. She thinks the war in Iraq was a giant mistake.
But the speaker's got a lot on her plate. When President Obama needs a bill, he calls Nancy Pelosi. She's got to get the Democrats on board, and she has a history of doing that. Democrats have been winning in a lot of places around the country, and these days the Democratic caucus is a big tent, and a lot of different ideas and needs.
She's got to deal with the party of no. A shift in power has been hard for the conservatives to take, and she's done it really well. She's usually the first person the president of the United States calls when he's got to get something done when it comes to signing a bill or rolling out a new policy at the White House. She does it all while being the righties' favorite political punching bag. So I have a lot of respect for the speaker.
I went to her office today at the Capitol looking for some candid answers about a public option in a health care bill, working with radicals in the Congress, and the endless stream of money we're spending on Iraq.
(Begin videotaped segment.)
MR. SCHULTZ: Reform, overhaul. These are words that are thrown out there when we hear about health care in this country. Define that.
SPEAKER PELOSI: Well, what we are talking about is affordable, quality, accessible health care for all Americans. It's about choice. If you like what you have and you want to keep it, you have the choice to do that. But what we want to do is make sure that every American has the opportunity to health care. And it's about something that is important for our economy.
We know it's important in the individual lives of the American people, but it's also about our economy. So we have to do it in a way that makes people feel more secure personally, makes America healthier, is good for our economy, our small businesses and the rest, and then also reduces our entitlement costs.
MR. SCHULTZ: So you are in favor of a public option.
SPEAKER PELOSI: Oh, yes.
MR. SCHULTZ: And what does that mean?
SPEAKER PELOSI: A public option is an option that would be available to people, and perhaps it will be renamed something else, but the opportunity for us to have, alongside of the private-sector companies, an option that is a public option.
The point about it is to make sure that every American has the opportunity to have quality, affordable health care. Again, many Americans are -- I won't say perfectly satisfied, but like the plan that they are in, and maybe they want to make it better. And that's what we're saying. If you want to go that route, you go that route. It doesn't cost you anything if many more people have access to a public option.
MR. SCHULTZ: And you can guarantee to the American people that's what's going to come out of the House.
SPEAKER PELOSI: Well, I'm saying the converse. A bill will not come out of the House without a public option.
(End videotaped segment.)
MR. SCHULTZ: Well, you heard the speaker right there. A bill will not come out of the House without a public option. She directly tells me that single payer is not going to happen. The Republicans are against any public option. We'll talk later in the show with one Republican about what he thinks the president means when it comes to a bipartisan plan.
What about taxing benefits? I asked the speaker whether she'd take raising taxes off the table.
(Begin videotaped segment.)
MR. SCHULTZ: You've mentioned being able to pay for it. Are you willing to raise taxes to pay for it?
SPEAKER PELOSI: Everything is on the table. Everything is --
MR. SCHULTZ: Are you going to support taxing health care benefits?
SPEAKER PELOSI: Everything is on the table. And our chairman of our Ways & Means Committee has not been receptive to that point of view. But again, we want to have quality, affordable, accessible health care for all Americans.
MR. SCHULTZ: Okay. Now, Mr. Rangel, I understand, is willing to talk about taxing employer benefits. Would you be in favor of that?
SPEAKER PELOSI: Of his talking about it? (Laughs.)
MR. SCHULTZ: Well, would you support taxing -- you personally support --
SPEAKER PELOSI: I said everything is on the table. We have to see what the package is, how it is scored by the CBO, how much of a shortfall there is, and what it takes to cover the shortfall. Everything is on the table.
MR. SCHULTZ: So you're not willing to say that, you know, taxes are going to go up because of health care reform.
SPEAKER PELOSI: No.
MR. SCHULTZ: I mean, you're not ready to make that --
SPEAKER PELOSI: No, but I'm saying everything is on the table.
(End videotaped segment.)
MR. SCHULTZ: "Everything is on the table.
" Folks, this is what I think the Democrats have gotten in trouble with in the past, to say everything is on the table no matter what the issue is. But just come out and tell the American people that your taxes are going to go up. The American people aren't stupid. I'm not stupid. I can do the math. You can't cover 50 million people who don't have health care unless there's more money coming into the system.
The president just made a big comment the other day, with some backup of the Senate, that, gosh, we've got to have pay-go; we've got to pay for everything as we go along. Well, what does that tell you? The fact is -- and let's be up front about this -- I don't care how much it costs. I want to see -- I actually would love to see the private sector get some competition when it comes to health care in this country, because that'll really mix them up. Just think about all these great stories we'd have.
Not only that, but the point is that if we are going to get 50 million people covered in this country, if we're going to bring costs down, it's obviously going to take some money out of the Treasury. The Democrats, I'm warning, are going to get in trouble because they're not being completely honest with the American people. I'm not saying she's dishonest. I'm just saying just come right out and say it, that your taxes are going to go up if we're going to do health care.
Now, what do you want to do? Do you want to do health care or do you want to keep it the way it is right now, and taxes are high anyway? So I'm struggling with the way the Democrats are framing this right now -- a little bit more up-front talk with the American people.
Now, the speaker of the House has had her battles with the conservatives over the years. In recent months she's really been their favorite target. Now, keep in mind, the political landscape has shifted under her leadership. She deserves credit.
(Begin videotaped segment.)
MR. SCHULTZ: Let's talk about the Republican Party for just a moment. When you came into a leadership position, you were House minority leader. They had the White House, the House and the Senate. And now, six, seven years later, a major newspaper in the United States today shows that most Republicans don't even know who speaks for the Republican Party, and none of these are decision-makers.
How satisfying is this to you?
SPEAKER PELOSI: I -- look, I'm just glad we have Barack Obama as the spokesperson for -- a president of the United States --
MR. SCHULTZ: But these are the people that have repeatedly attacked you.
SPEAKER PELOSI: Well, you know what? They have to deal with themselves. (Laughs.)
MR. SCHULTZ: All of these at one time or another have repeatedly attacked you.
SPEAKER PELOSI: Attacked, yeah.
MR. SCHULTZ: And do you feel --
SPEAKER PELOSI: I don't spend much time thinking about that. What I do think is that we need a strong, viable Republican Party in our country. And that's why I say to my friends who are Republicans, take back your party.
MR. SCHULTZ: Do you have them where you want them?
SPEAKER PELOSI: Well, I like being in a very strong majority in the Congress of the United States. There's no question about that. But hopefully -- you know, we're not here to say we have the White House, the Senate and the House, and that's the way we like it. No, we want the competition of ideas. We welcome the debate.
Sometimes people think, "Why can't they work together the way I have a conversation with my Republican neighbors?" Well, that's because there's a big -- not as much difference, I think, among Democrats and Republicans in the country as there is between Democrats and Republicans in the Congress.
We're dealing with a radical right-wing element that has taken control of the Republican Party. And we'd welcome back the strength, the ideas, the leadership of the Republican Party as we knew it, the Grand Old Party, out in the forefront on issues relating to civil rights and protecting the environment and issues like that, instead of the obstructionist "Just say no" of the Republicans in the Congress.
We always strive for bipartisanship. That's our responsibility to find common ground. The American people expect and deserve that. But if we can't, we cannot be held up by the lack of it. We just have to move because the country has been going in the wrong direction under Republican leadership for a long time. And now we're trying to turn that around, take the country in a new direction, listen to their ideas, hopefully incorporate them. But if they just want to say no, we can't stop.
(Programming break.)
MR. SCHULTZ: Let's turn now to more of my interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The speaker talked about what it's like to be the victim of Republican attacks and why she thinks the GOP went after Sonia Sotomayor.
(Begin videotaped segment.)
MR. SCHULTZ: How do you feel about the way -- switching gears to the Supreme Court nominee -- the attacks that have been levied upon Judge Sonia Sotomayor?
SPEAKER PELOSI: I think that what you see here is that President Obama's success and the quality of his appointments, including Judge Sotomayor, and even what we do in the Congress, probably -- especially because of the success we are having in the Congress -- is driving the Republicans to distraction. And that's what they are engaged in across the board: How do they distract the public from jobs, health care, education and energy policy that takes us into clean energy jobs and into the future, how we reduce the deficit as we turn the economy around?
MR. SCHULTZ: Well, they've questioned her intelligence. They've labeled her a racist, and then somewhat backed off that. Is this new territory?
SPEAKER PELOSI: No, I think that they've been doing this for a while. I think anybody who gets in the arena realizes that they become a target. But I don't think there's a real market for attacking a Supreme Court justice. That's really not political. I mean, the rest of us who are in the arena, we know that if you throw a punch, you've got to be ready to take a punch. But in terms of a justice of the Supreme Court, I don't know that it's -- I don't know what the purpose of it --
MR. SCHULTZ: She'll do well?
SPEAKER PELOSI: I have every confidence that she will be confirmed.
(Programming break.)
MR. SCHULTZ: I had an exchange with the House speaker today on torture, and this is what she had to say.
(Begin videotaped segment.)
MR. SCHULTZ: Do you think that you, as speaker of the House, are square with the American people on what you knew about torture?
SPEAKER PELOSI: As I said, again, I'm speaker of the House. The speaker is always a target. I am -- we're having great success legislatively here. As I said, our success is driving the Republicans to distraction. This is one of their distractions, and they know it.
MR. SCHULTZ: Okay. So there's no question that you didn't know everything.
SPEAKER PELOSI: I have said what I'm going to say on that subject. And I've said it very clearly.
MR. SCHULTZ: And do you think that there will be a lingering effect in the intelligence community at all in future issues?
SPEAKER PELOSI: Well, what will have to happen is that we will have -- Congress will have to be more fully and in a more timely way briefed by the intelligence committee --
MR. SCHULTZ: Does the --
SPEAKER PELOSI: -- so that we can honor our responsibilities to protect and defend the Constitution.
MR. SCHULTZ: Does the president -- are you in line with him? Do you support him on every move he's made when it comes to releasing of information?
SPEAKER PELOSI: I don't know all of the moves that he's made. But I support the president of the United States. I do not support any effort on the part of those who have suggested that Congress should take exception to the Freedom of Information Act in order to keep the documents undercover.
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