MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript: Bipartisanship

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Joining me tonight, Congressman Steny Hoyer of Maryland on the Democratic Leadership Team in the House. Steny good to have you with us tonight.

REP. STENY HOYER, (D) MARYLAND: Good to be being with you Ed.

SCHULTZ: You bet. I want our audience to just a quick refresher course here. The Senate pass something, send it over the House, Boehner had a gang of eight working on this, encouraged them to keep working on it and then never brought it to the floor for passage. Now Boehner is ripping the President pretty good. I want to play this sound byte of John Boehner and get your reaction. Here it his.

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REP. JOHN BOEHNER, (R-OH) HOUSE SPEAKER: Instead of working together to fix our broken immigration system, the President says he`s acting on his own. That`s just not how our Democracy works. The President has said before that he`s not a king and his not an emperor but he`s sure is acting like one. And he`s doing at a time when the American people want nothing more than for us to work together.

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SCHULTZ: Congressman you have the floor. What`s your reaction to that tonight?

HOYER: Well first of all, the underlying principle that the American people think our Democracy is working in the House of Representative in the Congress, they don`t. They have seen gridlock and confrontation and little of any substance of action. As a result, the President said a year ago in his State of the Union almost a year ago. That look, I want to work with Congress, I want to cooperate with you to affect policy.

But very frankly, if we cannot do that, if there`s no forward movement I the President have a responsibility to the American people who elected me to try to fix that which is broken. Everybody including John Boehner recognizes the immigration system is broken.

18 months ago the Senate sends a bill in a bipartisan fashion. They worked together. They came up with legislation to fix the broken immigration system. It has sat unattended for the last 18 months. I know personally that John Boehner wants to see the immigration system fixed. He wants to see a comprehensive immigration reform.

I frankly think this will give him the impetuous to get his members who have been reluctant to follow his leadership in putting on the floor a comprehensive immigration bill that will give them impetuous to do so. So I think this is both the right thing to do by the President of the United States, it`s the moral think to do. I think it will help our economy, it will give believe to literally millions of people who are worried about it being wrenched from their families.

As I said it`s the moral think to do. But it`s also economically going to help our economy and it is a system of accountability. People are going to have come forward.

SCHULTZ: And Congressman what...

HOYER: Yeah?

SCHULTZ: What is your anticipation about the Republican reaction is going to be? They threaten to shutdown the government. They threaten to block confirmation anonymities (ph). The word impeachment has been thrown around overall of this. What do you their response is going to be, are their going to be harder to work with, abstinent what do you make of it?

HOYER: Look, the American people want us to work together. Again, Congressman Boehner the Speaker of the House has said he want to see comprehensive immigration reform. For 18 months we`ve had in the House a bill that was send to us with 68 members of the Senate, more than two- thirds of the Senate with a large number Republicans voting for, which sent a comprehensive bill to the House.

We haven`t work down on it, we haven`t put it on the floor, we haven`t amended it, we haven`t had hearing in committee on it. The fact to the matter is that the President feels a responsibility to act in a way that can fix...

SCHULTZ: Yeah.

HOYER: ... a broken system. Now, it`s limited he can`t do everything he would like and very frankly, when he`s acted, the Congress can pass law which will substitute for the executed order.

So it`s not as if his is going to be the last word. But he is putting on the table and ordering through executive order as Presidents have since Eisenhower, some half-century.

SCHULTZ: Yeah.

HOYER: This is not an unusual action and of course we have the Emancipation Proclamation which was an executive action of the President of the United States.

This is the right thing to do. I would my Republican colleagues would respond in an adult, calm, fashion and say, "OK, this is how the President thinks we got to fix it. We may have another idea. If we do, we`ll put it on the floor, we`ll send it to the President as a law", and I think the President if we work together will sign such a law that fixes it as Boehner wants to do. He said that.

And we shouldn`t have this overreaction and threats to one another about shutting down the American people`s government in some sort of tantrum.

SCHULTZ: OK. Congressman Steny Hoyer, good to see you my friend. I appreciate your time tonight. Thanks so much.

HOYER: Thank you.

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