CNN "State of the Union with Candy Crowley" - Transcript

Interview

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Now joining me, the majority whip in the House of Representatives, Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina.

You've heard what Mr. Shuler has to say. What do you think of it, Congressman Clyburn?

CLYBURN: Joe, thank you so much for having me this morning. I agree with my good friend Heath Shuler that we have to have a big tent, and that's exactly what we have in our party. And I would hope our party would be going forward with this big tent. I don't want us shrinking the tent in as far as our various caucuses are concerned.

We're dealing with less numbers among the blue dog coalition, a growing numbers in the Congressional Black Caucus about the same and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. But we're dealing with issues now where our new Dems are very concerned about what kind of trade policy we're going to have going forward, and there are others who would not like to see any trade policies. And so all of these issues must be discussed under this big tent, and I do believe that there's much too much noise is being made about the leadership team.

We all know what happened this past year. We had an economy...

JOHNS: Congressman?

CLYBURN: Yes.

JOHNS: Yeah, I just wanted to jump in here and say, for clarification sake, there's pretty much no chance in your view that Nancy Pelosi is going to get out of the leadership race?

CLYBURN: Oh, I don't think so. She's made the declaration. I've read two or three letters within the last week or so. I think that we all know that she will be a candidate.

JOHNS: OK.

CLYBURN: And as Heath Shuler just said, if he were to get into the race, he would not have the votes to be successful.

JOHNS: Now you've put out a letter of your own, just over the past 24 hours or so.

CLYBURN: Yes.

JOHNS: Talking about the deal, if you will, that's been arranged so that you remain in the House leadership. Tell us about that deal, and how you reached the conclusion that you did.

CLYBURN: Well, because our members were very strong in the discussions with me that they did not want to vote on this issue. Some members told me they would not come to the meeting if this issue were not resolved. Some told me if a vote came up and they were in the room, they would leave the room.

And so what we did was look at this issue and see how we could best keep our caucus together, and not having them choosing between me and Steny Hoyer for whip or me and John Lawson for chair of the caucus.

JOHNS: And so you may be third in charge, right? That's what the deal is?

CLYBURN: Yes.

JOHNS: You end up third in charge. And are you satisfied with that?

CLYBURN: Yes. That's what I am now.

JOHNS: OK. Right.

CLYBURN: That's where I am right now.

JOHNS: So there's no change but you're not the whip any longer.

CLYBURN: No, I am not. Because in the minority, whip is number two. It's number three when you're in the majority. So since we're in the minority then we have pulled another seat up at the table. And I will be offering for assistant leader.

JOHNS: Right, before all of this you had said every time there's a deal, the short end of the stick ends up with the Congressional Black Caucus. What did you mean by that, while all this friction was going on?

CLYBURN: I don't think I ever said that. I think that was said, and maybe somebody attributed that to me, but I never said that.

I think all my caucus members will tell you that I did not speak in those terms. I may have said that the last time we had a serious situation like this, I stepped off of the appropriations committee so that my party would be saved from an embarrassing situation and I did do that. So I was talking about myself and what I have done in the past in order to maintain the integrity of the decisions made by the leadership in my caucus. And I'm doing the same thing in this instance.

JOHNS: Okay. One of the big questions I think that's out there, particularly among the moderates, the Blue Dogs if you will, can Democrats regain the majority with Nancy Pelosi in charge, you and Steny Hoyer, basically the same leadership that was there before this midterm election that was so devastating to Democrats?

CLYBURN: Well, I will remind them how did we get the majority? We spent 12 years in the wilderness, four years ago we came into the majority. Who was leading the team then? Nancy Pelosi. Steny Hoyer was in second place, I was in third place.

This is the team that brought us out of the wilderness and since it's Sunday morning, let me use a biblical stuff, "into the land of milk and honey."

Now all of the sudden, we saw a collapse of the economy. We saw people losing their homes. We saw a global threat, and everybody knows that that is what turned this country sour. That is the headwind that we were all sailing against, and it had nothing to do with the leadership, in my opinion. It had everything to do with the economic conditions of the country that turned things sour for everybody.

JOHNS: It's also been said...

CLYBURN: ...and people always -- I'm sorry?

JOHNS: It's also been said collective decisions among the congressional Democrats as well as the White House sort of led to the perfect storm if you will that ended up the midterm elections. How much responsibility do you think the president of the United States needs to take? And who's talking to him to try to sort of turn this thing around for Democrats, as he goes forward toward the reelect?

CLYBURN: Well, I would hope they will all be talking to each other. I was out there this past year, and I can tell you, there are some things I learned that I really believe we need to take a hard look at. And that's one of the reasons Nancy Pelosi made this situation so that I would be there at the table and in these discussions going forward, because I do have some things to say to my caucus about what we need to do going forward.

JOHNS: All right, thank you so much, Mr. Clyburn. And we will be watching the leadership races next week.

Coming up next... CLYBURN: Thank you so much for having me.

JOHNS: ...we'll preview the big political battles coming up in Washington with a former Obama White House insider and a retired Republican congressman.

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