MSNBC "Hardball With Chris Matthews"- Transcript
Interview
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
One week now into 2010 and the battle for U.S. Congress gets tougher every day. Do Republicans really have a shot at taking over the House of Representatives? And what can Democrats do to stop him? In a moment, we"re going to talk to a Republican congressman who"s out there scouring the country for new candidates to help them take over.
But first, Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen, he"s chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. It"s called the DCCC. He"s also my congressman.
How is it look in playing defense and keeping Pelosi speaker?
REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D), MARYLAND: Well, we"ve said, Chris, from day one that this is going to be a tough and challenging cycle. The first midterm of a new president always is. But this gloom and doom talk of 1994 all over again is just Republican spin.
In fact, Michael Steele, the head of the RNC, just the other day in a moment of great clarity said, "We"re not taking back the House. Republicans aren"t taking back the House." And to add insult to injury, he went on to question whether they could even lead in the unlikely event that would ever happen.
Look, tough cycle--yes. 1994 all over again--no way.
MATTHEWS: All right. What you"re going to do if we get hit again? We actually get hit like on 9/11 or something like it, one of these plane attacks actually works? Somebody like Dick Cheney is going to go into interplanetary television on something like that.
Will that be a political issue come November if we are hit again?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, it shouldn"t be the kind of a political issue.
Dick Cheney has demonstrated that he will make anything a political issue.
I think the American people"s reaction to all of this is, look, you guys should be able to get together in the interest of national security. When you have a problem like we had with the attempted Christmas bombing, they want people to come together to say, where did we go wrong, let"s fix the problem together.
I think it"s a great mistake for Dick Cheney to be trying to politicize some of these issues.
As you know, the Obama administration has been incredibly firm from day one against al Qaeda. They have put more resources into Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were already in Yemen after al Qaeda. They have been in Somalia. These guys have had their eye on the ball.
MATTHEWS: What are the facts that are going to decide this year"s politics? You need to get a health care bill through, is that fair? If you don"t, it"s a disaster.
VAN HOLLEN: Yes. We need--we need to show.
MATTHEWS: Is it a disaster if you don"t get a bill?
VAN HOLLEN: I think it"s a significant problem because, I think, it"s a question of whether or not we can govern. We need health care reform and if we failed to get it, not only would the American people have to live with the status quo, which I think is a problem.
MATTHEWS: Right. But, politically.
VAN HOLLEN: Yes. But it would embolden.
MATTHEWS: But politically, would it be a disaster? Yes or no, would it be disaster?
VAN HOLLEN: It would be a huge problem.
MATTHEWS: Huge problem.
Number two, if the unemployment rate hangs up there, we haven"t talked about it because of this crisis over the attack, attempt to bring down the plane with all the people on it. But the unemployment rate remains up there. If it stays up at 10 percent, can the Democrats hold the House?
VAN HOLLEN: The economy is going to be.
MATTHEWS: Can you hold the House?
(CROSSTALK)
VAN HOLDEN: Yes. Yes, we can hold the House but we"re not going to -
I believe the unemployment rate is coming--is going to come down. It already has begun to turn the corner, in terms of the number of people who lose their jobs.
And people, remember--look, American people are fair. They know when this president was sworn in one year ago, the economy was falling through the tank, and so, the question people are going to have is: why would you give the keys to the car back to the guys who drove it into the economic ditch and then walked away from the accident? Not a single Republican in House voted for the economic recovery bill. That"s helped stabilize the economy. We won"t be happy.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: How good could we do with the economy this year? Can we get the unemployment rate down below eight? Can we do that this year?
VAN HOLLEN: I don"t. I"m not an economist, Chris. I don"t--I
think most economists would say that would very be difficult. No, I don"t
I"m not making predictions on the economy.
MATTHEWS: Because I"m looking at the horror--the political horror is nothing compared to the human horror. But the political horror is that if you have an unemployment rate of 10 percent, we get hit between this year between now and next November, which is much worse than losing an election, of course. And you have a health care bill that dies on abortion rights the last minute, the Democrats, it seems to me, could lose 50 or 75 seats?
VAN HOLLEN: First of all, we"re going to get a health care reform bill, a good one, signed. We have don"t want to live with the status quo, the insurance companies run health care today.
MATTHEWS: Right.
VAN HOLLEN: We don"t want to do that.
Economy--again, Republicans helped drive the economy into the ditch.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
VAN HOLLEN: They were not with us. They were AWOL when it came to the economic recovery bill. Not a single Republican.
MATTHEWS: OK. Why does Nancy Pelosi get a bad press? She"s smart. She"s sharp. She wins every one of the big fight. She"s the best speaker since Tip, I think. Why does she get bad press?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, look, the Republicans have tried to demonize her. They try and everyone tries to come up wit some enemy. The fact of the matter is the strategy of running against Nancy Pelosi has failed. They have tried many times to run ads against our candidate, with Nancy Pelosi and President Obama before he was president. It didn"t work.
MATTHEWS: You know what Tip O"Neill"s job approval was when he left?
Sixty-seven percent.
VAN HOLLEN: Well, that"s a failed strategy for them.
MATTHEWS: OK. Thank you very much, Congressman Chris Van Hollen, fighting to keep the Democrats in power.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source