MSNBC "Andrea Mitchell Reports" - Transcript

Interview

Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen, Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, today appeared on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports to discuss the ongoing debt ceiling negotiations. You can watch the video here. The transcript is below.

ANDREA MITCHELL, MSNBC: Congressman Chris Van Hollen is the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, joins me now. Well, Congressman, we are hearing from both sides blaming the other, lots of finger pointing, talk of a possible Camp David summit, but no confirmation of that at all coming from either the White House or the Hill. Your take on what happened as far as you know, not being at the table last night.

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Well, I don't know all of the blow-by-blow, Andrea. I do know that the Republicans walked away from the Biden talks so it was interesting when they said they want to go back to the Biden talks, really after the rug was pulled out from under Speaker Boehner when he was trying to work a larger deal with the White House. I heard Senator McConnell's statements at the beginning of the program about how we can't let President Obama undermine the full faith and credit of the United States. He should be listening. It's the House Republicans that rejected his proposal. Look, the only good news here is now you have these independent leaders, business leaders, economists on all sides of the political spectrum, saying that if we default on our debt, if we pass that date, it would be a disaster for jobs and the economy. So Republicans can no longer say: look, "This is just Secretary Geithner bluffing or playing with the numbers.' You now have independent analysts, people on all sides of the political spectrum saying, "Stop holding the economy hostage.' Hopefully that will begin to get a degree of seriousness focused on this problem with some of our Republican colleagues in the House.

MITCHELL: At this stage, though, aren't you running out of time? Do you have to do something like a Camp David summit, where everybody gets locked in a space and has nothing to do other than have s'mores around the campfire?

VAN HOLLEN: I certainly think you need to keep everybody in the room as long as possible. Whether you do it as Camp David or somewhere else, that's up to the parties to decide. Remember, as you just recounted, Andrea, they have now had five sessions at the White House. We had more than ten sessions as part of the Biden groups. After ten sessions, it was the Republicans who walked out of the room and again, let's remember why. Despite the fact that the Democrats were prepared to make some cuts with the understanding that the Republicans would compromise on things like closing tax loopholes for corporate special interests, at the end of the day, this is the message that's been loud and clear, the priority of our Republican colleagues is not to come up with a balanced plan to reduce the deficit. The priority has been to protect the special interest tax breaks, corporate jets, and oil and gas companies. That's just a sad statement on where we are today. Yes, I think the President's going to keep at it until we get it done, because default is just, it's an unacceptable solution. Not a solution. It's an unacceptable result.

MITCHELL: Clearly. Ben Bernanke's warning today is only the latest example of that. Thank you very much. Good to see you.

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