MSNBC "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" - Transcript

Interview

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OLBERMANN: Let"s turn now--as promised--Congressman Chris Van Hollen, the Democrat of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Congressman, thank you for your time tonight.

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD), DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL CAMPAIGN

COMMITTEE: Good to be with you, Keith.

OLBERMANN: Let me start with this breaking news, this proposed three-year spending freeze on domestic--some domestic programs in a ballpark as they say of $477 billion worth of spending. What do you know about that and what is the intent?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, I just learned about it as well. We have been working closely with the White House to look for ways to reduce the deficit over a period of time. We"ve talked to the president about passing what we call statutory pay-go, which means when the Congress enacts new programs, we have to make sure that there are funds to pay for it, or that we make cuts elsewhere. And this is part of the program the president has been looking at to make those kind of reductions.

So, we"ll have to look at his proposal, but the idea of making sure that we put the deficit on a downward path--a predictable downward path, is something we"re all working to accomplish.

OLBERMANN: Is there any reason for anyone looking at this from the jaundiced political view of--well, America of 2010 -- to say that does not have some connection to recent political setbacks for the president?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, only that this has been something the White House had been exploring before Massachusetts. But I think there"s no doubt, Keith, that when you look at the unrest in many parts of the American electorate--especially the independent voters--clearly, one of the things they"ve been most worried about is fiscal deficits, as have all of us.

The point we"ve all been making is that the most important thing you need to do to get the economy on a sustainable footing is to get people back to work. If you don"t have economic growth, you"re going to have larger deficits.

So, priority number one has to be jobs and only when you create economic growth will you, all the time, be able to bring down that deficit. But this is an important proposal the president has put on the table and we"re looking forward to working with him to reduce that deficit.

OLBERMANN: To our original topic, then, Congressman, and obviously, all of the breaking news is academic if we don"t have control of our government anymore. Can you confirm anything about those particular possible pushbacks to the Supreme Court decision that they, in fact, are on the table and are there any other ideas that maybe we don"t know about?

VAN HOLLEN: Yes. Those ideas are on the table, and as you said--I mean, this issue, the Supreme Court"s decision, goes to virtually every debate we have. Whether it"s on energy policy where you have special interests on the big oil side, whether it"s on health care policy, you have the big insurance companies, the ideas spelled in that article were essentially requiring shareholders to approve the expenditures, requiring the CEOs to take responsibility, "Hi, I"m chairman of X corporation and I approve this ad"; making sure we don"t allow domestic--foreign corporations through U.S. subsidiaries to be spending foreign money to try and influence U.S. elections. Those are among the ideas.

Another one is--AIG, for example. They just took billions of dollars of taxpayer money. Should they be allowed to turn around and advertise against a member of Congress who wants to hold Wall Street accountable or who opposes big bonuses for AIG?

So, we"re looking at a number of alternatives but this decision, as you know, is a very radical and far-reaching decision. So, we"re looking at every possibility to try and blunt it, and we"re working to try and introduce a bill no later than about 10 days from now.

OLBERMANN: Yes, obviously, the far-reaching point is correct. Are you fearful, though, about the short term? How does the president and those of you in Congress who are working with him on this expecting some members of Congress to pass a law that--just short-term, in their own personal interests--prevents them from getting more monetary help essentially in their own election campaigns?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, that"s the question. I hope Senator McCain will refine his voice on this issue, because he had been a champion of fair elections, clean elections. So, it"s disappointing to hear him saying he - this may be a dead issue. Especially, the day of the opinion, of course, he said he was disappointed. If he"s disappointed, we hope he"ll join us in doing something about it very quickly.

OLBERMANN: Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen, the chair of the House campaign committee--thanks for your help on this story tonight and our breaking news as well.

VAN HOLLEN: Good to be with you. Thanks.

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