FOX News "FOX News Sunday with Chris Wallace" - Transcript

Interview

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WALLACE: Joining us now from his home state of Kentucky is the Senate's top Republican, Mitch McConnell.

Senator, let's start with the very serious situation in Japan. You and frankly politicians from both parties have recently been supporting the idea of nuclear power plants. You called it a critical component of a comprehensive energy plan. Based on what you're hearing, are you having second thoughts about that?

SENATE MINORITY LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL, R-KY.: Well, I think what we ought to do right now is concentrate on trying to help our Japanese friends after this disaster. This discussion reminds me somewhat of the conversations that were going on after the BP oil spill last year.

I don't think right after a major environmental catastrophe is a very good time to be making American domestic policy. I think we ought to just concentrate on helping the Japanese in any way that we can.

WALLACE: I certainly understand that. And nobody is asking you. But -- I mean, just as a human reaction, isn't this going to make it harder for nuclear power plants to be located -- aren't just American citizens going to look at it and say, "Not in my backyard"?

MCCONNELL: Well, we certainly had that experience after the Three Mile Island issue in 1979. That's a fairly common reaction to catastrophes.

WALLACE: And your thoughts about that?

MCCONNELL: My thought about it is, we ought not to make American and domestic policy based upon an event that happened in Japan. And we ought to concentrate on helping the Japanese get past this catastrophe.

WALLACE: All right. Let's take a look at the budget -- as if you didn't have enough problems. House Republicans -- House Republicans have proposed another short-term continuing resolution, this time for three weeks with $6 billion in cuts to keep the government running. First of all, will that pass? And what do you think of the idea of some Republicans to attach riders that would cut off all funding for Planned Parenthood or all funding for implementing Obama healthcare reform?

MCCONNELL: First, with regard to the short-term C.R., I don't think we ought to let the government shutdown. There are -- I think it's going to include about $6 billion in cuts. So, we're on a path, a slow path but a path nevertheless, to get to the $61 billion in reductions of this year's spending that House Republicans were able to send over to us. So, I think it should pass and will pass.

The second issue is related to policy. These are always controversial. There are people that want policy riders on appropriation bills, people that want them off. This will all be worked out in some kind of negotiating process as we go forward, trying to get an ultimate solution to the funding of this year's budget.

We've got lots bigger financial problems than just this year's budget. But we're working on this year at the moment.

WALLACE: But I take it from what you are saying -- you would oppose any riders being attached to this three-week extension?

MCCONNELL: Well, the House is going to produce a three-week extension. I expect to support it. I expect it to pass. They'll make a decision since the initiates in the House as to whether to include any riders or not.

This is not the ultimate solution for this year. That's going to be negotiated in the next couple of weeks.

WALLACE: Ten of your fellow Senate Republicans are now saying that they are going to oppose any bill that comes before the Senate that doesn't include significant spending cuts. This comes at a time when the top Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, has said that your party, both in the House and the Senate, is ignoring voters' top concern.

Let's watch.

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SENATE MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID, D-NEV.: The one thing that the Republicans have not talked about is the one thing that the American people care about more than anything else. That is, jobs. In fact, it's the direct opposite. We're destroying jobs.

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WALLACE: Senator, will the GOP, at least in the Senate, block all government business that does not include spending cuts? And secondly, what about Harry Reid's contention that besides the question, which is arguable about spending cuts, that the Republicans are ignoring putting people back to work?

MCCONNELL: Well, if government spending would create jobs, we'd be in the middle of a boom, because we have added $3 trillion to the national debt in the last two years with the government stimulus efforts.

So cutting spending and job creation are not mutually exclusive. In fact, we believe reducing government spending is helpful to get the private sector going again. With regard to the procedure of going to bills, I think it's a good idea to go to bills in the Senate, we can offer amendments on any subject.

We've had a couple of bills up this year that were not directly related to spending. But my members have been offering spending reduction amendments. So we intend to continue to focus on reducing government spending no, matter what bill happens to be before the Senate.

WALLACE: But does that mean, then, that Republicans would filibuster an unrelated bill if it didn't include spending cuts?

MCCONNELL: No, it means we get on an unrelated bill and we'd offer amendments related to spending and debt because we do think that's what we ought to be talking about. But under the Senate rule, you can offer amendments that are unrelated to the underlying bill and we intend to do that.

WALLACE: But I'm saying you wouldn't then filibuster the bill?

MCCONNELL: No, I mean if it's a bill that has some merit there is no particular reason to keep it from going forward. But we'd try to add on to it measures that we think address the problems of spending and debt.

WALLACE: Understood. The government will reach its debt limit sometime either in April or May. And this week, you challenged President Obama to lead a bipartisan effort to deal with the debt problem.

You said this in an interview with the "Wall Street Journal" -- "unless we do something important about the debt, I don't believe there will be a single republican senator voting to raise the debt ceiling."

Senator, what does that mean? That there has to be a deal on entitlements and taxes or you are going to vote against extending the debt limit?

MCCONNELL: What it means is this, we have a $14 trillion debt, $14 trillion. That's the size of our economy, which begins to make us look a lot like Greece. Over and above that, we have over $50 trillion in commitments we have made that we cannot keep on entitlement programs. Very popular programs like social security, Medicare, Medicaid.

We aren't doing anything to bend the curve. Raising the debt ceiling is the perfect opportunity to do something important about the subject being raised by raising the debt ceiling, which is our debt. And so what I've said is that I don't intend to support raising the debt ceiling and I don't believe any Senate Republicans do, unless we do something important related to spending and debt.

I think the administration understands that that we're just not going to bring up the debt ceiling and everybody say all right. It's going to have to carry something with it that the markets, foreign countries, the American people believe is a credible effort to begin to get a handle on spending and debt.

WALLACE: But I'm just trying to clear up. When you say "do something important," does that mean that you would have begun negotiations or does that mean that you'd have a final deal?

MCCONNELL: What it means is I'm not going to negotiate the deal here on your show. But we all have a sense of how you could get at the problem. The administration understands that we understand it, and we need to come together and figure out what we can do and add it to the debt ceiling.

WALLACE: But I do want to ask you about this aspect of the debt ceiling. Speaker Boehner said the other day that to fail to raise the debt would be irresponsible.

This is how he put it. "If we were to fail to increase the debt limit, we would send our economy into a tailspin." I guess the question is he seems to be saying no matter what, we've got to increase the debt ceiling.

MCCONNELL: Well, as you know, I was talking about the Senate. There are 53 Democrats and 47 Republicans. My prediction is not a single one of the 47 Republicans will vote to raise the debt ceiling unless it includes with it some credible effort to do something about our debt.

Now, the House is another matter. I'm just predicting that the Senate Republican votes. I don't believe Senate Republicans are going to vote to raise the debt ceiling. The Democrats can raise it themselves if they choose to and try to do nothing whatsoever about the problem.

I think to get any of the 47 Republicans, you've got to do something credible that the markets believe is credible, that the American people believe is credible, the foreign countries believe is credible in addition to simply just raising the debt ceiling.

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WALLACE: New subject. Your party is beginning to hammer President Obama for rising gas prices and calling for an all of the above strategy. Now on Friday, the president noted that domestic oil production this past year is higher than it was over the last seven years. Let's take a look.

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PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Any notion that my administration has shut down oil production might make for a good political sound bite, but it doesn't match up with reality.

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WALLACE: question: is President Obama to blame for rising gas prices?

MCCONNELL: Well, he certainly participated, because in spite of what you just heard him say, oil production is up slightly principally because of actions taken by the previous administration. But this administration in the last two years has been shutting down wells.

Senator Vitter from Louisiana had a whole list of rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and were they have been moved around the world. Bureaucrats making it very difficult to get permits. There has been a conscious effort to make it difficult to drill in this country.

Both on shore and offshore by the bureaucrats who have been appointed by this administration and president. Noting that there has been a slight uptick in production doesn't get to the heart of the problem.

Sixty percent of our oil is coming from overseas. That's unacceptable. We have vast reserves in this country particularly in Alaska. My goodness, when are we going to use our own reserves and quit depending so much on areas of the world that don't like us?

WALLACE: Senator, we have less than two minutes left and I want to get into one last area with you and that is, Libya. It's beginning to look as if the Qaddafi regime with the superior fire power is beginning to turn the tide on the rebels.

Yesterday, we had the Arab league calling on the international community to impose a no-fly zone. Should the U.S. intervene militarily and should we be willing to do whatever it takes to oust Qaddafi?

MCCONNELL: Well, it certainly is note-worthy that the Arab league passed a recommendation for no-fly zone. That would have included Syria, by the way. So, if this regime is that unacceptable to the Arab league, it tells you that it's a pretty unacceptable regime.

Having said that, the question is how can you be helpful? How can the United States be helpful? The secretary of state and secretary of defense are looking at all the options. One thing I've suggested that might be considered, it wouldn't involve the use of U.S. personnel or U.S. airplanes would be arming the insurgents.

I know the secretary of state is apparently going to meet with the insurgents this week. Hopefully they'll be making some recommendations. This is not an easy conclusion to reach, but it is noteworthy that the Arab league thinks we ought to have a no-fly zone.

WALLACE: And we have less than 30 seconds left. As the leader of Republicans in the Senate, it doesn't sound like you're willing to commit at this point that you favor a no-fly zone.

MCCONNELL: I think we ought to continue to monitor the situation. I don't think I'm going to reach a conclusion in the middle of this conflict. That's why we have an administration.

That's why we have a secretary of state and secretary of defense. I know they are on top of this and monitoring it. We're looking forward to seeing what their recommendations are.

WALLACE: Senator McConell, we'll have to leave it there. We want to thank you so much for coming in today. It's always a pleasure to talk with you, sir.

MCCONNELL: Thank you, Chris.

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