MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript

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All right, joining me now is Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California, a member of the progressive caucus. Congresswoman, great to have you on.

REP. MAXINE WATERS, (D) CALIFORNIA: Thank you, Ed. I‘m just enjoying listening to you so much. You‘re a man after my own heart. You tell it like it is.

SCHULTZ: Well, I do believe that it was the left of the left that went out and recruited, you know, new people to the process.

And how did they do that? They did it with health care. They went out and said how‘s your health care bill working for you? How do you like working with no insurance? You know Johnny down the street? He‘s financially crippled because his mom got sick.

This is what put Barack Obama in the White House.

WATERS: Absolutely. Absolutely.

SCHULTZ: Now, I want to ask you—it wasn‘t the blue dogs. You see the blue dogs, you know what they did? They came along for the ride is what they did.

WATERS: That‘s right.

SCHULTZ: They came along for the ride because they couldn‘t connect themselves to the Republicans in the Bush years anymore, so they took the best available option to get to the White House.

Now that‘s where it was. OK, Congresswoman, I don‘t mean to take your time. I‘m fired up on this. Where is the left of the left? Do they still have confidence in President Obama?

WATERS: Well, I am so pleased that the president and the White House is taking this time now to clearly define where they stand and what they‘re going to work for.

There was a little confusion there, and people were wondering, well, is this very important or is this a sliver? And I think what you got from the progressives is this—no, this is not a sliver. This is a big honk. The health care reform cannot be health care reform unless we have a public option.

And so the White House has become very clear on it. Not only is he talking with all of the organized groups and his group organized in America, he had all of the progressive ministers and the faith-based community on the line in a huge conference call.

And he said we need your help. Come on and step up to the plate. I‘m willing to fight. I‘m ready to go. Let‘s get this done.

SCHULTZ: Now, congresswoman, do you think that the Obama White House is just totally smarter than everybody else and this was nothing but a trial balloon to float this thing up to rile the base, to really bring the people out. Could this be just a great card play by the president himself?

WATERS: It could be. I‘ve had this discussion with a number of my very close advisors, and we have come to the conclusion that if it was a trial balloon, that the pushback and the response was so great that they couldn‘t make any mistake, that the left was going to be organized around this issue, and it was going to be big time.

It would be the first time in the six months that the White House has been there, that President Obama has been there, that they will find that they truly do have an activist base that they recruited, that they worked with, that is now ready to go into action.

SCHULTZ: OK. So after this dustup, where does this leave the blue dogs, and will they be obstructionists in the House, because it‘s now very clear that the American people, the majority, want reform, reform in the form of a public option, a government run option for people to buy into. What about the blue dogs?

WATERS: Well, I think they‘re going to have to reassess the position that they took originally. Originally, they were in there trying to change the public option, actually made some changes in the public option.

Originally the public option part of it was Medicare plus 5 percent to pay providers, and they changed it to negotiating, allowing the providers to negotiate.

Now, what‘s interesting is this. After they‘ve been behind closed doors, after they have been pushing the president up against the wall, after the president has extended himself in negotiating with them, some of them went back, and even that right wing base of theirs didn‘t know what was going on, and they turned on them.

SCHULTZ: Yes, that‘s right.

WATERS: So I saw some of that on television.

So they better get in step. If they want to be real players and participants in the Democratic Party, they have to stop playing these games.

SCHULTZ: No doubt. Congresswoman Waters, thank you for your time.

WATERS: You‘re welcome.

SCHULTZ: And you give me confidence because you like what I‘m saying, and I speak from the heart.

WATERS: I love it.

SCHULTZ: I speak for a lot of folks.

WATERS: You do.

SCHULTZ: Those $25 donors out there, I‘m not going to let them be left behind. I get e-mail from them every day.

WATERS: We love you, and keep on speaking truth to power.

SCHULTZ: I appreciate your time.

WATERS: You‘re welcome.

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