NBC "Meet the Press" - Transcript

Interview

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MR. GREGORY: Well, and Leader, Leader Clyburn, pick up on that. You heard Leader Cantor say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa," on the investment side and America's innovation, "we're not for government intervening in the economy anymore." Are we headed for a real impasse here in terms of what the president's expected to say?

REP. JAMES E. CLYBURN (D-SC): Oh, I don't think so. I think the president's made it very clear that he is going to focus on job creation. And the government can create the climate within which jobs are created. No, we can't create jobs, and we shouldn't. We want them created in the private sector. And I think that's what we've seen. It's kind of interesting that we've seen this 1.1 million new jobs, 1.3 million in the private sector. It's 1.1 because there was a loss of 200,000 in the public sector. And that's the kind of trend that we want. We're on that arc, and I think we're going to be continuing.

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MR. GREGORY: Well, but, Leader Clyburn, so what about this debt limit business? You know, you, you heard Leader Cantor say unless we get serious spending cuts, you're not going to get a vote to increase the debt limit. But he won't be specific on where the cuts will be, but everything is on the table. Do you think a government shutdown is possible? Do you think that--I mean, the president's talking about innovation and competitiveness; are Republicans prepared to shut down the government?

REP. CLYBURN: I don't think they are. Maybe it's possible, but not probable. I would say to Leader Cantor that he should get on the same page with Speaker Boehner. We've got to be grown-ups about this. You know, I would argue that what we see now is what the president really see--what he really is, rather than what we saw two years ago. The president came into office having to react to a crisis. And he was, in fact, in a crisis mode. We were at a place where we had never been before; not unlike the 1930s, but unlike the 1930s. So the president had to respond, react. He is now creating, he is moving an agenda, the kind of thing he talked about in the campaign.

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MR. GREGORY: See, my, my, my question is, reading this Peter Baker piece this morning--which again, it talks about the approach now where, you know, Jeff Immelt is onboard, more reaching out to business, you know, compromising with Republicans. It struck me, John Podesta, that the president could've been there two years ago. You may still have had to continue TARP, you may have had to do--bail out GM, you may have certainly had to do stimulus, could've done that a different way. But you didn't necessarily have to do health care. And you could've kept that focus, like every day, "What are we doing to create jobs?" Do you disagree with that?

REP. CLYBURN: Well, I do.

MR. PODESTA: Well, I think you--I...

MR. GREGORY: You do. OK, well, you know, go--well, all right, go ahead. You go first. Go ahead.

REP. CLYBURN: Well, look, what we were facing with families going into bankruptcy because of health care--the biggest cause of individual bankruptcy was over health insurance. So what the president did here--and I think if we look at it, of the 1.1 million new jobs, 20 percent of those jobs are in the healthcare industry.

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MR. BROWNSTEIN: Well, you--are you...(unintelligible)...the 500,000 jobs he was losing a month when he came into office?

REP. CLYBURN: But I think we lost about--and we lost eight million during Bush's eight years. But--and so it wasn't health care that caused that loss. What I'm saying is that health care puts security into individual families. And CBO says it's a $230 billion reduction in the deficit.

MR. GREGORY: Right.

REP. CLYBURN: So I don't know that health, health care can be held out as a bad thing for recovery.

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MR. GREGORY: A couple of observations about that. One, you were fairly dismissive of her. Second, I hear, when I talk to people about Sarah Palin, one of the things particularly women tend to react to is how, frankly, men talk down to her. And I wonder how a lot of women would react to you saying things--well, she's attractive and articulate, but intellectually she just doesn't have much heft.

REP. CLYBURN: Well, I have a wife and three daughters, and we talk about these kinds of things. And we do consider her to be a very attractive candidate, and she's very articulate when it comes to the issues that she puts forth. But the fact of the matter is she doesn't seem to get the impact of what she says and what she does. And the fact of the matter is we had Gabby's own words a couple weeks before this happened...

MR. GREGORY: You're talking about Congresswoman Giffords comment...(unintelligible).

REP. CLYBURN: Yes, Congresswoman Giffords, saying that she took offense at these cross hairs...

MR. GREGORY: Cross hairs on the, the map of targeted seats.

REP. CLYBURN: ...on the--absolutely. And she spoke about it very eloquently.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

REP. CLYBURN: And she was disturbed by it. We now have her husband telling us that they had conversations about this. And she was really, seriously concerned about exactly what happened. And so I just think that anybody in public life ought to really come to grips with what their words mean and what their actions do.

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MR. GREGORY: I said our final moments; really, our final seconds.

Leader Clyburn, what can we expect in terms of the tone and discourse starting with the State of the Union, do you think?

REP. CLYBURN: Let...

MR. GREGORY: Are you going to be sitting with someone, by the way, a Republican?

REP. CLYBURN: I think so. You know, during the elections, when we all elected the speaker, there were some Republicans sitting on the Democratic side and vice versa. It has already started, and I think it's a good thing. I do believe, though, this is symbolic.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

REP. CLYBURN: What we need to do, be substantive about it. And the way you do that is let's propose some bipartisan efforts with health care, with job creation, just as we did in voting rights and civil rights. These things were done an a bipartisan way, and that's substance.

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