MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript

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SCHULTZ: Welcome back to THE ED SHOW. Thanks for watching tonight. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said today Failure is not an option on health care. She said Democrats will get something done. Well, tonight, President Obama will reportedly strike a healing tone, calling for Democrats to unite to get health care done. I think Democrats need to see toughness from their president as well, and I think his base needs to see that has the conviction to fight for what he wants.

Joining me now is House Majority Leader, Congressman Steny Hoyer. Congressman, great to have you on tonight. I appreciate your time. If you can update us, was there any movement at all today, before the speech tonight?

REP. STENY HOYER (D), HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: Actually, there was no movement. We"re waiting to hear what the president has to say. I think there"s a lot of fight, though, I will tell you, in the Democratic ranks, fight to get something done for the American people.

And, very frankly, we not only hope we will unite Democrats, but we will hope we get some Republicans to recognize that the spiraling cost of health care for families and individuals and small businesses is something that we"ve got to get a handle on. We got to make sure that every American has access to affordable health care. So we"re going to be working towards that end.

But today, Ed, was a day where the Senate, as you know, is working on

the debt limit and a fiscal responsibility package. And we are waiting for

to hear what the president has to say and we"ll be working the balance of the week.

SCHULTZ: Congressman Hoyer, I want to play a piece of tape from earlier today the Dylan Ratigan"s show. I had made the comment that the Republicans have been obstructionists through this whole process. Mike Pence took exception to that. Here it is.

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REP MIKE PENCE ®, INDIANA: I got to tell you, that was one thing, Ed--you know, THE ED SHOW is popular. It"s not my cup of tea, but he is good radio and good TV. But look, Ed just said the president ought to consider shutting Republicans out. Ed, news flash, House Democrats and this administration have shut Republicans in the House and the Senate for the last year.

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SCHULTZ: I didn"t say shut them out. I said move on. Have the Democrats in the House--you"re the majority leader. Have you shut out Republicans through this health care debate? They are trying to play it like the wounded soldier here, like poor me and everything else. What about that?

HOYER: Well, I think, very frankly, they were invited to the table and they refused to come to the table. That"s been the course of the last year.

SCHULTZ: Did you shut them out?

HOYER: No, we didn"t shut them out. They have chosen not to play. They have chosen not to participate. Very frankly, I sat down with a number of their leaders and said, OK, what do you want? As you recall, one of their members gave a speech in which he said there was 80 agreement. I invited that member into my office and said, OK, where is the 80 percent? We"re prepared to work on that and we"ll talk about the other 20 percent.

Very frankly, at that point in time, we didn"t get very specific, unfortunately. And since that time, we haven"t really had substantive proposals and didn"t have a substantive proposal when the bill presented on the floor from the Republicans. So I think it"s unfortunate we haven"t worked together. But it hasn"t been because we weren"t unwilling to do so.

SCHULTZ: How aggressive do you want the president to be tonight? Does he have to reignite the base? Does he have to really connect with Democrats tonight? How aggressive should he be?

HOYER: Ed, very frankly, I think what he needs to do is connect with the American people, not just the base of our party but independents and Republicans, who understand that we have to address these problems. What the Congress is is a represented body. And what they are hearing from the country is they are not sure of exactly where they want to go.

I think that there clearly is a lot of discomfort in the country about where we are in the country, the deep recession, the great recession, as it"s called, that we"ve falling into. And they want to be sure that we"re going in the right direction.

I think the president needs to give him that confidence. I think they can give him that confidence. And, yes, he does need to energize our base to understand that we are fighting for this objective, but the way we"re going to win this objective is to convince our fellow citizens that it"s the right place to go.

SCHULTZ: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, thanks for your time tonight.

HOYER: You bet, Ed. Thank you.

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