MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript: ACA and Government Shutdown
Interview
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SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: Well, Senator Cruz stood on the floor for 21 hours. And what he accomplished was that he alienated many of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle. And he showed the American people what he was up to. He`s holding the American people hostage because so sure he is right. And everybody else is wrong.
I was appalled by a couple of things. The analogy to World War II and Hitler was way out of line.
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MATTHEWS: We`re back.
That was powerful Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York reacting this afternoon to Senator Ted Cruz`s marathon overnight speech on the Senate
floor. Now that the Cruz show is over for now, or at least in intermission, will the government avoid a shutdown and what`s being done to get a compromise between House Republicans and Senate Democrats to avert this disaster?
Senator Schumer joins us now.
Senator, thank you so much for joining us tonight.
SCHUMER: Good to be here, Chris.
MATTHEWS: What is the outlook? I mean, you`ve said what you said about Cruz. What is the future for Cruz after his marathon?
SCHUMER: Well, his marathon flopped to speak for 21 hours and then have a 100-0 vote. Amazing. What he said, we all saw it. I particularly like he used green eggs and ham, and didn`t know the result, which is the purpose of the book, the whole moral of the book, which is try something before you reject it, you may like it.
I said to Ted Cruz, you may find you like Obamacare once it happens. But I think that our hand is strengthened. Republicans are divided. They are angry at one another.
And the folly of Ted Cruz` strategy is becoming apparent. I think it makes it more likely that they will just send us a clean C.R. after we finish stripping out the writers that they put in.
MATTHEWS: Do you think there`s a chance that John Boehner, the speaker of the House, is able to corral a House, even allowing Democrats to vote his way, where he can actually get 217, the required votes for a clean C.R.?
SCHUMER: Well, John Boehner knows the right thing to do. You can see the pain on his face and his body language, because he knows that Ted Cruz is leading his party over a cliff, but too many people are willingly following Ted Cruz.
But, hopefully, after what happened today, there will be enough in the Republican caucus to say, John, put the clean bill on the floor and we`ll vote with you. If there are 118 of those Republicans, I think he`ll do it and think there is a good chance there will be.
MATTHEWS: What`s the Republican Party look like across the aisle? You have been there a number of years in both Houses, is the Republican Party that party of Cruz and Paul, or is it still a party of John McCain and people like that?
SCHUMER: Well, Cruz and Paul --
MATTHEWS: Whose party is it?
SCHUMER: Cruz and Paul have a huge influence. Not themselves, personally so much. But, you know, the sort of right wing machine that threatens every Republican with a primary who doesn`t go along. And your typical office-holder says, why should I bother with the primary, I may as well go alone?
What`s happened in the last six months I think increased by what happened today is there are many mainstream Republicans who say enough already. He is not helping our party win elections. He is not helping our party gain converts. He is not helping our country.
And so, I think you find the irony that Cruz and DeMint and the Heritage Action Foundation, their actions may well have boomeranged and strengthened the mainstream wing of the Republican Party. They`re still conservative this mainstream wing, but they`re not fanatical, certain that they`re right.
MATTHEWS: We spent five years through your help and others trying to rebuild what this country -- the mess we got -- the catastrophe that beset us with the financial crisis five years ago. Do the people on the right know that danger they`re playing with if we default on our debt?
SCHUMER: I don`t know think they do because they`re just so they`re right. They don`t listen to anybody else.
But let me tell you, if we default on our debt, there is a good chance that the effect may be even greater than the default of Lehman and AIG back in 2010. You know, you have all these computer programs that are locked in.
And when the U.S. government`s debt goes down a whole bunch, people sell, prices go down, values go down -- and as we learned in 2008, it is hard to recover.
Now, I`m hopeful, and this is only hopeful, that the business community will be so frightened with this prospect that they will be calling up Republicans. And they will stand up and say we cannot do this. We cannot do this to our country. It will hurt us substantively and politically.
But you know in this crazy Republican world we have out there, you`re never sure, because again, a group of ideologues that have maybe a 5 percent of America has such a sway on the Republican Party apparatus that they scare every Republican.
MATTHEWS: It`s great to have you on. Senior senator from New York, Chuck Schumer, thanks for coming on, Senator.
SCHUMER: Nice to talk to you, Chris. Bye-bye.
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