MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript

Interview

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REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D), CALIFORNIA: I think they"re in tremendous disarray. You just saw Michele Bachmann saying no way would she ever vote for a change in the debt limit. And I think that"s where most of the Tea Party, the new Republicans stand--in which case Boehner will not be able to get this done.

And that brings us to, well, what do we do now? If we can"t get a bill through the House that has any chance of actually solving this problem. And I must say the president has put forth a very balanced plan. Some of that $4 trillion is actually what we"ve been demanding, which is, let"s raise some taxes, get our money back from the oil companies, and make those Wall Street barons pas pay their fair share. So, that"s part of the $4.7 billion.
But I don"t think the Republicans are going to go for anything. That takes us to the penultimate fail-safe plan, and it"s actually been in the Constitution, that we read verbatim the very first day of this legislative year.

SCHULTZ: And that is the 14th amendment.
Now, you have been an advocate of that. You"re saying that the president should go down this road. Again, today, the White House said that"s not going to be in play.

But are there enough members in Congress that might be able to convince the White House and the president that this is the road to take at this 11th hour that we keep hearing about?

GARAMENDI: Well, I think I just said so. Those are the Republicans that are refusing to do anything that"s rational to solve this --

SCHULTZ: But what"s it going to take to change the president"s mind?
He says he"s not going to use his constitutional powers here?

GARAMENDI: Well, I think a careful reading by him and a careful counting of the numbers in the House of Representatives will cause him to change his mind. He has the power.

I think if you take a look at the 14th amendment, he has the power there to actually pay the bills. It says America"s got to honor its debts, period. And he can do that.

It will cause a ruckus, but after all, he"s the leader, and he has the power, in my view, and he ought to take that as the fail-safe point, and it"s coming down very, very quickly. The Republicans are clearly--they made a major misstep here. They thought they could use this debt ceiling crisis as a way of leveraging into the American public policy, just a disaster for health care, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and wiping out a lot of other programs. It"s not working.

SCHULTZ: And what Mr. Boehner said last night is he"s being less than honest with the American people, from what you saw?

GARAMENDI: Oh, clearly. Clearly. The president"s never had a blank check. The president doesn"t have the checkbook. The House of Representatives has the checkbook., and the Senate. That"s who controls the checkbook.
The president gets to sign it, yes or no.

SCHULTZ: Yes.

GARAMENDI: But he doesn"t control it, and that"s up to us to do that. And, in fact, we have made--together with the president--very, very substantial offers to reduce and to attack the deficit.
SCHULTZ: So they"re lying?

GARAMENDI: And it was done.

SCHULTZ: They"re lying. Congressman Garamendi, thanks for joining us tonight. Appreciate your time.

GARAMENDI: Thank you.

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