MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

I"m going to finish tonight with some thoughts on the tricky issue of immigration reform.

Let"s start, however, with the political fight over Wall Street reform. Democratic congressman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland is chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. It"s his job to get Democrats elected this fall.

This is a winner for you, isn"t it, Wall Street. They"re the bad guys.

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD), OVERSIGHT AND GOVT. REFORM COMMITTEE:

Well, it"s a winner because it"s a winner for the American people. We need to hold Wall Street accountable. Never again should the taxpayers be left on the hook for the bills for the big mistakes of the people on Wall Street. They made the bad decisions. We shouldn"t ask taxpayers to bail them out. Next time, we need to make sure that they take responsibility and they"re held accountable, and we need to prevent that from happening in the first place.

MATTHEWS: Are you going to get this bill rammed through, or are you going to get some Republicans to slow this thing down? It looks like people like Shelby, Richard Shelby, are saying, Oh, give us a couple weeks to work it out. Do they really want to cooperate with a strong bill with teeth in it, or do they want to water it down and then go aboard? What do they want?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, what was pretty clear was Mitch McConnell, Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, went up to Wall Street about two weeks ago, a week ago, huddled in the back rooms with the big Wall Street bankers, came back and opposed the bill. So it was pretty clear they wanted to put the brakes on this legislation. But Harry Reid...

MATTHEWS: You think there"s a causality between that meeting and what position Mitch McConnell took when he came back?

VAN HOLLEN: Oh, I think--I think he wanted to kill the bill to begin with and...

MATTHEWS: Why are the Republicans...

VAN HOLLEN: And he went up to Wall Street...

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you a fundamental question.

VAN HOLLEN: ... and said, We want your support.

MATTHEWS: You and some of the viewers may think this is obvious, but I"d like to hear it spelled out. Both parties take money from Wall Street. You got a lot of friends up--you probably have a lot friends on Wall Street. Most Democrats, most politicians do have friends on Wall Street. They"re very educated guys up there. Like them or not, they"re very smart people, and some of them are pretty social. They"ve got a lot of money and they"re very political, right? So you get a lot of money from Wall Street as chairman of the party. The other guys get money from it, too.

Why are the Democrats the ones going against Wall Street and the Republicans seeming to play defense when you"re both in the till?

VAN HOLLEN: Well...

MATTHEWS: Explain that to me.

VAN HOLLEN: ... the fact of the matter is both parties get contributions from different groups around the country, different people from...

MATTHEWS: But a lot of money from Wall Street.

VAN HOLLEN: ... around the--around the country...

MATTHEWS: You go where the money is. Willie Sutton said, Go where the money is.

VAN HOLLEN: But the fact of the matter is, Chris, this is obviously in the public interest, and nobody wants the taxpayers left on the hook. It is very difficult to explain why the Republicans have dug in so hard on this issue, other than to say they"re happy with business as usual on Wall Street. I mean, that is the only explanation. It"s not...

MATTHEWS: Could this be just stupidity on their part?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, I think...

MATTHEWS: Couldn"t this be a dumb move? How about this idea?

They"ve been so smart to just say no to this president. It"s helped them. Look where they are in the polls. They"re almost competitive. In fact, they"re very competitive with you guys now, by simply saying, No, no, no, Obama"s a socialist, a communist, a Nazi, whatever else they"re saying this week, and it"s worked for them.

VAN HOLLEN: Yes.

MATTHEWS: You think they got into a rut of doing that?

VAN HOLLEN: I think there"s no doubt about it. It was the same mantra day in, day out. We know it was a calculated strategy to oppose Obama at every turn. And they said, Hey...

MATTHEWS: OK...

VAN HOLLEN: ... this is going to work on Wall Street. And I should say...

MATTHEWS: That mantra...

VAN HOLLEN: ... the House Republicans to a person voted no on Wall Street accountability when we voted in December.

MATTHEWS: Will they in a week or two, when you get back to them for the final vote?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, I think the--in the Senate, I think they will get some Republicans on board. What happens when it goes back to the House is anybody"s guess. Again, I think a lot of us were very surprised to see every Republican House member say no to Wall Street accountability.

MATTHEWS: Why is that? You got to--you know the business. Why would they say no to something--everybody wants to be Teddy Roosevelt. Everybody wants to be the trust-busting reformer that goes to Wall Street and kicks butt and cleans up the place. It"s always been good politics. Why wouldn"t a Republican want to do that?

VAN HOLLEN: Chris, look, I mean, I--if--to listen to them, you"re going to have to--you"re going to have to do that. And I know we"re going to hear from somebody, but the fact of the matter is, what it demonstrates very clearly is how cozy they"ve gotten with the big banks and the special interests. And I don"t see any other explanation...

MATTHEWS: OK...

VAN HOLLEN: ... because the president"s...

MATTHEWS: OK...

VAN HOLLEN: ... been very clear, we just need some rules of the road...

MATTHEWS: OK, let"s talk teeth. Everybody likes the sound of it. How about the teeth? Would this bill that you"ve written, that"s going to probably come out of the House and the Senate--will it prevent what happened in 2008?

VAN HOLLEN: Yes.

MATTHEWS: Almost brought down the American economy.

VAN HOLLEN: Yes.

MATTHEWS: Will it prevent the need for giant bail-outs again?

VAN HOLLEN: Yes. Yes, it will, because...

MATTHEWS: How?

VAN HOLLEN: ... just like we have the FDIC right now, that can go into banks when they fail, restructure, essentially clean out the stockholders and restructure it, we"re going to create a mechanism that allows us to do that with the biggest banks. That wasn"t there in the past. In addition, there are going to be lots of early warning mechanisms in place. This is the whole question of derivatives...

MATTHEWS: Yes.

VAN HOLLEN: ... these great exotic financial instruments...

MATTHEWS: Would you vote to ban derivatives?

VAN HOLLEN: I wouldn"t--you don"t want to ban derivatives. There"s a useful place for derivatives, but it needs to be transparent so that people...

MATTHEWS: Right.

VAN HOLLEN: ... you don"t have an AIG situation. Nobody knew that AIG had these huge--was exposed with these credit default swaps. That needs to be brought into the light so people know when these banks are building up this huge risk and leaving the taxpayer at the end of the day on the hook.

MATTHEWS: Got to be fair right now. Thank you, Chris Van Hollen. We may not get back to you, but we got to go even--even time here.

Let"s bring in Republican congressman Scott Garrett of New Jersey. He"s a member of the Financial Services Committee. Congressman, your thoughts now. It looks to me like your party, the party really that was championed (ph) by one of my heroes, and I think yours, too, Teddy Roosevelt--went up there and busted the trusts, cleaned it up. Those pols in New York didn"t believe what hit them when he was president.

Why aren"t the Republicans being more Teddy Roosevelt and less William Howard Taft? What happened to you guys?

REP. SCOTT GARRETT (R-NJ), FINANCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE: The Republicans are being the ones that are bailing out. Maybe it"s no surprise that--you know, that the--Goldman Sachs, who basically has endorsed this plan, who has been bailed out by this administration, will be swamping the street this coming week in Washington with their CEO and other execs, saying that they support this legislation.

And why is that? Because President Obama--this legislation that Chris Dodd has, and their administration, is continuing the bail-outs, continuing to say to the big banks on Wall Street, the very same ones that basically have provided the campaign cash to them in the past--Banks, don"t worry, the American taxpayers will be there for you in the future if you need it. And that"s what this legislation perpetuates. Republicans are saying no to that. Republicans say, We have to go back and do a system where we do not bail out these systems anymore and we have a system where jobs...

MATTHEWS: Wait a minute.

GARRETT: ... are created by...

MATTHEWS: Who started the bail-outs?

GARRETT: Well, in this legislation...

MATTHEWS: No, no, no. You started the--you used the word "bail-out," like it"s your common word for every third word now, bail-out, bail-out, bail-out. Fine. It"s very useful politically. But who started the bail-outs? Wasn"t it President Bush and the Republican administration that began--and now you say the trouble with the Democrats is they"re perpetuating Bushism? In other words, the worst thing you can say about a Democrat today is he or she is doing what your party did to start this ball rolling.

GARRETT: Right. Exactly.

MATTHEWS: Of bail-outs.

GARRETT: I voted--and that"s why, as you know--we"ve talked about this in the past, Chris--I was opposed to those bail-outs in the past. And I believe what we need to do now--what the American public says is to say if we haven"t passed the legislation, we should do something that reforms the system. Make sure that we never find ourselves in this situation as we have right now.

And how do you do that? You craft legislation in a bipartisan manner, much of the way that, you know, Barney Frank did. I give him credit where credit is due in the--our House. We had over 100 committee hearings last year on this, breaking it down, piece by piece, bipartisan matter. Might not like the final product, but we spent the time and the energy to get it done as best we could. In the Senate, as you know, they"re just pushing this thing along with some of the bad failed policies of the past.

MATTHEWS: OK...

GARRETT: And I will agree with you there. Those policies of the Bush administration were bad and failed policies and we should not perpetuate them into the future.

MATTHEWS: OK, let me ask a big question to you both, Chris Van Hollen, and you, Congressman, both of you congressmen. If you have these big companies like Goldman Sachs, these leviathans, really--they"re like the old railroad system, they"re too big to fail. Can you either honestly say you"d let one of them go down? No matter what this $50 billion trust fund that"s gleaned from the industry and all. But in the end, if the cost of bailing out one of these characters is $200 billion, wouldn"t you have to do it?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, first--first...

MATTHEWS: No, wouldn"t you have to do it if you had to?

VAN HOLLEN: Well...

MATTHEWS: If they fail?

VAN HOLLEN: The whole idea is to prevent that from happening.

MATTHEWS: But if it happens.

VAN HOLLEN: Well, we know what happens in the end. We know that you cannot allow a meltdown on Wall Street to bring the whole economy down.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask...

VAN HOLLEN: That"s why you...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Let me ask that philosophical question to Mr. Garrett. Congressman, would you let one of these big guys like Lehman go down and not bail them out, like President Bush did, your president?

GARRETT: Absolutely. And that"s why the Republicans have...

MATTHEWS: You"d let them go down?

GARRETT: ... a proposal--before they did--before they--before President Obama even came out with a plan, we said we should have an expedited bankruptcy so you don"t have any of these provisions. Forget about that $50 billion bail-out. What--Chris, what about section 204 in the bill that secures the creditors going forward?

MATTHEWS: OK...

GARRETT: What about section 210 in the bill...

MATTHEWS: OK, here"s the problem with...

GARRETT: ... that says back-door...

MATTHEWS: OK...

GARRETT: ... back-door program? What about section 151 and 155...

MATTHEWS: I"m learning this, like everybody is.

GARRETT: What about...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: The trouble with bankruptcy is you let the same bums who brought the bank down to stay there. Bankruptcy doesn"t mean the guys have to leave.

GARRETT: Sure, they do!

(CROSSTALK)

GARRETT: If they go bankrupt, they"re not there anymore. But under Chris"s...

MATTHEWS: Oh, they aren"t?

VAN HOLLEN: No, let me just say one thing. Goldman Sachs and these guys have spent millions of dollars hiring lobbyists to oppose this legislation. They are not...

GARRETT: And where does that money go...

VAN HOLLEN: They have not supported this...

GARRETT: And where does most of the money go to? Most of that money went to your party, Chris. Twice as much money has gone to your party.

VAN HOLLEN: Scott, we"re talking about money they paid to lobbyists. It didn"t go to anybody by the lobbyists they were paying to try and kill this legislation. That"s what...

GARRETT: I"m talking about the money that"s going into your pocket...

VAN HOLLEN: ... the money went to. And the fact of the matter is...

GARRETT: ... Chris, as head of the Democrat congressional committee.

Twice as much money is going to Democrats than the Republicans.

VAN HOLLEN: Actually, that"s absolutely untrue. Check the latest records, Scott. That"s absolutely...

MATTHEWS: Who gets the most money from Wall Street?

VAN HOLLEN: ... untrue. I think...

GARRETT: I"ve got the records--I"ve got the records--I"ve got the records right here, Chris, and...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: OK, read the numbers off.

VAN HOLLEN: That is...

GARRETT: Democrats received $2.9 -- $2.9 million from big banks, twice the amount of money than we received during the 2008 campaign.

MATTHEWS: And where"s your document from? What are you reading from?

GARRETT: Off the FEC reports.

MATTHEWS: What"s on the--what"s on the top of the paper?

VAN HOLLEN: He"s reading from--he"s reading from a couple cycles ago. Right now, the banks have--the reason McConnell went up there and the reason John Boehner met with them up there is to say, Hey, you know what? You should be supporting us because we"re trying to kill this thing. That is exactly why they huddled. That"s why they went behind closed doors. That was the message they sent. And the fact of the matter is this legislation is designed to make sure that the Goldman Sachs of the world and the Lehman Brothers of the world...

MATTHEWS: OK. How about a law...

VAN HOLLEN: ... never again...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: How about a law that nobody can take anymore money from Wall Street? Would that be a good deal? Nobody can take anymore money from Wall Street. Congressman, would you back up that deal? Congress can"t take money from industries it regulates.

GARRETT: Well, we have that law...

MATTHEWS: How about that for a (INAUDIBLE)

GARRETT: We have that law in the state of New Jersey.

MATTHEWS: But it doesn"t affect congressional people, though.

GARRETT: And we--I know, but...

MATTHEWS: Doesn"t affect you any! I mean, you take money from big financial institutions. I checked your list today. Right?

GARRETT: Yes, both sides take it from...

MATTHEWS: You"re not Mr. Clean here, either, are you?

GARRETT: Sure because...

MATTHEWS: Are you clean about taking money from Wall Street, sir?

I"m not knocking it, but are you clean?

GARRETT: I"m taking a position that I"m antithetical to the position that Wall Street wants. Wall Street wants to have the taxpayer bank book right there in the future. We"re saying no more to that. Chris, I don"t know why you want to put the taxpayer on the hook like this. I really don"t.

MATTHEWS: OK, I want to go back...

VAN HOLLEN: Oh, come on!

(CROSSTALK)

VAN HOLLEN: Come on.

MATTHEWS: Will either one of you say, I"ll never take money from Wall Street again?

VAN HOLLEN: Excuse me?

MATTHEWS: OK, I accept the silence. You won"t take money--you will take money from Wall Street, won"t you?

VAN HOLLEN: Look, I have--I...

(LAUGHTER)

VAN HOLLEN: No, no, no. Seriously, Chris. You can check my records.

I may have--maybe I"ve gotten some money from Wall Street in the past.

But the fact of the matter is, it"s minuscule.

MATTHEWS: I mean as chairman of the committee.

VAN HOLLEN: Come on. As the DCCC?

MATTHEWS: Yes.

VAN HOLLEN: No. The fact of the matter is, the DCCC...

MATTHEWS: OK, thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Both sides do.

VAN HOLLEN: Yes, but here"s the--here"s the question. Stick to the merits of what the proposal does.

MATTHEWS: I think the merits--I think it"s a good...

VAN HOLLEN: OK? That"s what...

MATTHEWS: It"s a good effort.

VAN HOLLEN: ... we need to look at.

MATTHEWS: I prefer Teddy Roosevelt to William Howard Taft. But I think it"s still a problem. Anyway, thank you, Congressman Van Hollen, and thank you, Congressman Garrett.

GARRETT: Thank you.

MATTHEWS: You all took money from the industry, except he took less, he says, but I"m not sure.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source