CNN "Newsroom" - Transcript Interview with Bill Cassidy

Interview

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Joining me now, Republican Senator Bill Cassidy from Louisiana. He's also a member of the Finance Committee. We should note, he's a physician.

Senator, we appreciate you taking the time this morning.

SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): Thank you, Jim. SCIUTTO: So I want to show how the U.S. has performed in bringing the

outbreak under control compared to other industrialized nations. That's the U.S. in green. You're at a handicap. I don't think you can see this. But still rising quite sharply. Europe rising but at a much lower level. And South Korea, which had the first case on the same day as the U.S., flat-lining on this.

Who do you hold responsible for the failure of this country to get this under control and do you believe the president shares responsibility?

CASSIDY: So it's hard to say the president is responsible when young people go to a bar, don't wear a mask, don't ear -- don't socially distance. I think we have a great --

SCIUTTO: Well, the president -- it took the president months to say that wearing a mask made a difference and to wear a mask himself.

CASSIDY: Yes, I suppose.

On the other hand, again, I don't take my lead from the president. I take my lead from medical science. And so I think -- and -- and there's enough voices saying just that, wear your mask.

So I guess from my perspective, we can -- we, collectively, our country, can get a handle on this if we do that which we need to do --

SCIUTTO: OK.

CASSIDY: Which is to wear the mask, sneeze into your sleeve, wash your hands, et cetera. People always want to make it out --

SCIUTTO: But it's not just that because --

CASSIDY: The president's not the --

SCIUTTO: You know, as a doctor, that was has worked on a national level in other countries to control this is testing, contact tracing and then isolating those people who test positive. And all three of those things are things the president has resisted, not just invested in, but he's resisted the wisdom of that.

CASSIDY: I think it's a -- I think it's a stretch to say the president had resisted that. I will say that obviously there's been a --

SCIUTTO: He says testing -- he says we only have more cases because we test more.

CASSIDY: Yes. But on the other hand, the administration has continued to push out more testing.

[09:50:01]

Folks always want the president to follow a script. This guy doesn't follow a script. But if you look at the actions of the administration, which are to push out more and more testing, continually throwing, Congress has, thrown dollars at it in an effort to make it happen, that's actually where you look. And there has been more testing.

SCIUTTO: Not nationally.

CASSIDY: Now, that said, clearly, on a per capita basis, some of that we need to have more and some of the testing has been, if you will, mal located. We may have a lot of testing availability in a place where the infection is going down, less testing availability in which it's rising. There has been a maldistribution. But I also, you know, in fairness, the administration's tried to address that. We can go over the other issues, but, again, everybody wants to lay --

SCIUTTO: And we -- I'm just saying he -- he has claimed -- he claimed famously in all the time, I'm a war time president, I alone can fix it. Do you think he shares any responsibility for the response in this country?

CASSIDY: You know, I think there's going to be responsibility all the way from the very top to the guy who walks into the bar without wearing a mask.

Now, we can kind of continue to beat that dead horse, or we can figure out how to go forward.

SCIUTTO: OK.

CASSIDY: Clearly the administration has pushed out testing. I'm working on a bill, bipartisan, bicameral, in which we would implement a testing strategy by which giving states the availability to come together, to get better prices for the testing dollar, make that taxpayer dollar go further, and then have a strategy by which you would implement it. I think that's perfectly consistent with the administration, which has looked to states for guidance as to how to implement programs in those states.

SCIUTTO: OK.

CASSIDY: So I think if we look forward, that's the better way, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Let's talk about the economic impact of all this, right? I don't have to tell you, Louisiana, I'm sure you're hearing from constituents every day, talks as you know remains at a standstill. The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, she's reiterated her offer to up their price tag by a trillion dollars from Republicans. In other words, asking you --

CASSIDY: Right, a decrease (INAUDIBLE) --

SCIUTTO: And then to decrease and asking Republicans to come up a trillion. Why not meet in the middle on that?

CASSIDY: Yes, so, I think Ms. Pelosi's original strategy was to go way high so she seemed reasonable coming down. But the amount she's speaking about now, $2.5 trillion, is still way high. And so with -- we have started off at zero. Clearly we would be more likely to meet. But I think you have to kind of look at that opening gambit and understand that for what it was, a true opening gambit. But on the other hand --

SCIUTTO: Well, wouldn't starting at zero be an opening gambit by Republicans as well, seeing how many Americans are suffering?

CASSIDY: Exactly, so we did not. So we did not start at zero. We started off at a trillion. Still a lot of money. And, clearly, the administration is willing to go up.

SCIUTTO: OK.

CASSIDY: But it wasn't the opening gambit of a picking an extreme so you look reasonable but it's still extreme.

On the other hand, we --

SCIUTTO: How high should you go? From, like, for instance, on the enhanced unemployment benefit of $600, how high do you think -- how much money do you think folks need in their pockets to pay the bills right at this point?

CASSIDY: My personal preference is that we make that a percent of the income they had before they lost their job. And so, therefore, they would still have an incentive to find a job, but it would support them throughout their -- throughout their course. So it wouldn't be a set amount. It would rather be a percent.

That said, I will say, the president offered to continue the $600 for a period of time, and Republican senators offered the same for a period of time to carve out the unemployment benefit. Let's not use the pain of the unemployed as leverage to get a broader agenda.

Unfortunately, Miss Pelosi appears to want to use that pain. She refused carving out the unemployment benefit. That's some place I wish we could meet in the middle.

SCIUTTO: I want to talk about the election because it's close. And particularly mail-in voting. Louisiana, like many states, has mail-in voting. This morning the president said in so many words that he will not fund the Post Office because it needs money. Now, he said, they need $25 billion in order to have -- to manage the increased demand for mail-in voting in the midst of a pandemic, but he's blocking that funding.

Should the president be blocking funding to the Post Office with an election so close? And, by the way, more demand for mail-in voting, understandably, because people don't want to go into the polling booths in that pandemic.

CASSIDY: So, first -- first, I kind of reject the premise of your -- of your initial assertion. A lot of what the Post Office is in arrears about is related to unfunded accrued liability in their pension plans. Yes, there's been decreased income related to Covid, but the entirety of that $25 billion is not related to the Covid crisis.

Now, to -- SCIUTTO: I was quoting the president here. If they don't get those, that means you can't have universal mail-in voting.

CASSIDY: I'm just speaking facts. I'm -- I'm just speaking facts.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CASSIDY: And so -- so if we are going to support the Post Office as some states do go to mail-in voting, and that's fine if a state decides to do that, that's a -- in our federalist system that's OK, then we, I guess, I do agree that we should support the Post Office in that.

SCIUTTO: OK.

CASSIDY: But don't conflate that number with the entire $25 billion.

SCIUTTO: OK. Let me ask you this.

[09:55:00]

As you know, the president has been attacking mail-in voting as fundamentally unsafe, though he's recently modified that to say that it's a good thing in states run by Republicans, such as Florida. Does that argument make any sense to you? Is it safe in your state, which is run by a Democrat?

CASSIDY: Well, I didn't read the quote, but I -- I didn't read the quote. I can say that we do prefer a federalist system. We can look to New York, though, and see the problems that just resulted in a Carolyn Maloney race in which there are bucket loads of pieces of mail, ballots, which were not postmarked.

SCIUTTO: But then -- the facts are they went through and then confirmed that those ballots were valid. They rejected some and accepted others.

CASSIDY: Yes, but it took a court -- it took a court doing it. And it took the --

SCIUTTO: I mean I know that's a talking point. The president is saying mail-in voting is fundamentally fraudulent.

CASSIDY: So --

SCIUTTO: What is the basis for that and do you agree with that?

CASSIDY: So it took the court having to decide that and actually making an exception for not having post marked ballots.

My point being that there are problems that can be associated with it. I prefer the states do it on their own.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CASSIDY: My state, as you said, if you're an invalid, if you're -- if you're going to be out of town, you can mail in. So it can certainly be done right.

I would also say there needs to be precautions. For example, in California, they allow ballot harvesting. Someone can go through a homeless community and literally do -- they do this -- and ask them to fill in a ballot and then they submit it.

SCIUTTO: That's not -- there's not evidence of widespread fraud there. You know that as well as me, that there is not evidence --

CASSIDY: That is actually fraudulent, which they would not allow you to do in North Carolina.

SCIUTTO: There's not evidence of widespread fraud. This happened for -- for decades, mail-=in voting.

CASSIDY: Now, Jim, let me finish. And they would not allow someone to be seated in North Carolina who is actually -- they did ballot harvesting.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CASSIDY: So for whatever reason Pelosi objected to North Carolina doing it, but she applauds it in California. If you're going to have mail-in balloting, you have to be concerned about the fraud.

SCIUTTO: The president, though, as you know, he's attacking it across the board, right, in a way that is -- it's just -- it's just a different argument.

But, Senator Bill Cassidy, I do appreciate you taking the time this morning. You're always welcome on the broadcast.

CASSIDY: Thank you, Jim.

SCIUTTO: And we'll be right back.

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END OF TRANSCRIPT

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