MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. MAXINE WATERS (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, I"m hearing the same thing.

As you know, the House leadership had a session today where we went through

the bill, the president"s bill, section by section. Members raised

questions about all aspects of the bill. There is some unreadiness in

several ways.

But, you know, everybody is trying very hard to come together around a

bill that, you know, we can live with. As you know, the public option is

still up in the air. There are people who would at least like to have an

opportunity to vote on it by way of some amendment process. I just can"t

tell you what"s going to happen at this point, except to say we are all

trying.

SCHULTZ: OK. I know you"re trying hard.

WATERS: Yes.

SCHULTZ: What is your best instinct, your gut feeling on the House

passing the Senate bill, taking what we now have labeled as the leap of

faith, that the Senate will take it and go back and do what they"ve got to

do to straighten this out? Do you think that Nancy Pelosi will round out

the votes? And do you think that House members, 39 of them who voted no

the first time, there might be enough to take that leap of faith and go

with this president and go with this bill and get it taken care of? What

do you think?

WATERS: As of today, I don"t think that could happen. Unfortunately,

I don"t think that, based on what I saw and heard today, that there are

enough who are willing to take a leap of faith. That"s not to say that

that won"t change in coming days. Unfortunately, it"s taken us a long time

to get to this point. We can"t rush it.

I know that--I think the president said they would like to have it

on the desk by the 18th. I don"t think that"s going to happen. I think

they should allow the time to be taken to work out these kinks, and to work

with members, so we can eventually get to the point where we will have a

Senate bill that--with some amendments--that can be passed. So, no, I

don"t think that the leap of faith could be realized today.

SCHULTZ: OK. But, again, this is all about the Democrats. It"s all

about the Democrats. Republicans aren"t going to be there. It"s all about

the Democrats doing the deal.

WATERS: Absolutely. You"re absolutely right. We can"t count on any

Republicans, not one. This is all about Democrats, and whether or not we

can come together and form a consensus of some kind, even though we have

differences, and make it work.

SCHULTZ: Finally, congresswoman, just back from Haiti; I know that

you"re concerned about debt relief.

WATERS: Yes.

SCHULTZ: What is your position on that? What do we do for Haiti?

WATERS: Well, I"m very happy. We passed the debt relief bill off the

floor. I had worked out all of the differences between the Senate. So it

was one bill. We sent it right up to the president. So the president will

be signing the debt relief bill in the next few days. And that"s going to

help Haiti a lot. The money that they don"t have to pay out in debt they

can have to try and help do this redevelopment with.

I"m really concerned about Haiti. I"m concerned not only about the

rainy season and the hurricanes. These temporary camps are nothing but a

formula for disaster. I"m worried about the spread of disease.

It"s a bad situation still in Haiti. We"ve got a lot of work to do.

We need shelter very badly. The tarps, the plastic that they are passing

out to go over these lean-tos won"t do the job. Haiti is in deep, deep

trouble.

SCHULTZ: Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Thank you for being on tonight.

WATERS: You"re so welcome. Thank you.

SCHULTZ: Appreciate your time.

WATERS: You"re welcome.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source