MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript

Interview

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SCHULTZ: For more let‘s bring in Congressman Chris Van Hollen. He‘s the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Chris, good to have you us with tonight.

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D), DCCC CHAIRMAN: Good to be back.

SCHULTZ: There is an undercurrent across America, where liberals are little upset at the pace of this health care thing moving, and the Stupak amendment that‘s causing problems for the Democrats right now. In fact, Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos is encouraging people to shy away from giving to the DCCC, based on how some of your folks have voted. What do you make of that? Will that have an impact? Are you concerned about it?

VAN HOLLEN: Ed, we got the bill out of the House. It was a historic vote. It was, as you know, a very close vote.

SCHULTZ: But what about the money, now?

VAN HOLLEN: That would be a big mistake. If we become like the Republicans and become the small-tent party, we‘re not going to have the majority that we needed to pass that legislation. Even with the majority we have, it came down to 220 votes. You start purging Democrats like the Republicans have purged their members, as they did in New York 23, in some other races last cycle, that‘s a very fast trip to becoming the minority party. When that happens, you‘re not going to be able to pass the Obama agenda. You‘re not going--

SCHULTZ: Congressman, you sound tonight like you‘re not concerned about the liberal base defecting.

VAN HOLLEN: I am concerned about turnout next year. If you see that kind of low turnout next year that you saw in Virginia and New Jersey, in these elections we just had, that will clearly be a problem. That‘s why we have to get moving, Ed, on passing health care reform. We got it out of the House.

SCHULTZ: The Stupak Amendment is going to be a problem. If it comes back to the House in tact, as it left, you have a problem. If it doesn‘t, you have to problem. I mean, is this abortion issue going to be basically the issue that deep sixes health care reform? How are Democrats going to deal with this? This big tent has enough conservatives to kill it on one end and enough liberals in the caucus on the other side to kill it, depending on how it comes back. How are you going to get around it?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, we‘re going to work to revise the Stupak amendment. Some of us are going to work very hard to revise it, either in the Senate or in the conference committee. You‘re absolutely right. If everybody takes the position they‘re going to draw absolute lines in the sand, then health care reform will be the victim. We‘re not going to allow health care reform to be the victim of this.

So we‘re going to work to modify, to change the Stupak amendment. But everyone faced a very difficult choice in the House. Speaker Pelosi faced a very difficult choice. Do you throw health care reform overboard and say, forget it, or do you allow an up or down vote on the House floor on a provision that many of us disagreed strongly with, In order to move the process along, and the bill along?

I want to point out, Ed, something that I think is very important. We have expanded our majority. In no case have we replaced a pro-choice Republican with an anti-choice Democrat. So to suggest--

SCHULTZ: Congressman, it still comes down to the votes now. If it doesn‘t come back to the House side and that Stupak amendment is gone, you may not have the votes to pass health care reform.

VAN HOLLEN: We‘re all going to have to agree that we have to get health care reform done. Let me go back to your earlier point. If we take the position in the Democratic party that we‘re going to somehow purge everybody who disagrees with us on one issue or another, we‘re never going to have the votes to get health care reform. We wouldn‘t be in a majority. We picked up 54 seats in the last three years.

SCHULTZ: Are you concerned about these poll numbers? Look, you lost a gubernatorial seat in--across the river in New Jersey and also in Virginia. You have poll numbers slipping around the country like in Ohio. That‘s big territory for you. What‘s happening out there? You know, you have to be somewhat concerned that the grip of the Democrats is not what it was a year ago.

VAN HOLLEN: Well, first, the two elections that took place recently that were a referendum on what we‘re doing in Congress and where the federal issues, like health care and the economic recovery bill--where those issues were directly in play, were New York 23, where we picked up a seat that the Democrats had not had since the Civil War and the Congressional seat in California.

SCHULTZ: So you see no connection to the polls in Ohio to anything that happened on the East Coast?

VAN HOLLEN: No. We won those. I totally agree with you that, number one, we have to get health care reform done. That was a commitment we made in 2008. We need to show that we can deliver. Then we need to continue to focus back on the economy. That was the first thing we did in Congress. It was the centerpiece of the Obama agenda.

You‘re absolutely right. We need to focus on more efforts--a job creation. And the other thing we need to do is pass this legislation and make sure that never again will Wall Street be able to hold the rest of the economy hostage. The Republicans--

SCHULTZ: Good luck on that.

VAN HOLLEN: Well, the Republicans are resisting efforts to reform the and that is a big issue. They are, once again, on the side of the special interests, big Wall Street money. We‘re on the other side. We‘re on the side of reform. That will be a big issue.

SCHULTZ: It will be. Congressman Chris Van Hollen, good to have you with us tonight. Thanks so much.

VAN HOLLEN: Good to be with you.

SCHULTZ: You bet.

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