MSNBC "The Beat with Ari Melber" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Jan Schakowsky

Interview

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We have two experts at the intersection of dealmaking in Congress and progressive policy, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat from Chicago who`s on the House Budget Committee and a longtime Pelosi ally. She knows how this stuff works. And Blake Zeff, who worked for Barack Obama and Senator Chuck Schumer, who, of course, now is making these deals.

Welcome to both of you.

Congresswoman, I cite the artists there and the notion of millionaires and billionaires because a lot of people in Congress are fine. And, as a practical matter, their lives and their families, they will be fine either way. You could obviously say the same about a lot of people in the press, a lot of people in business.

The president and progressives like yourself seem to be arguing that it`s not OK to miss this chance when you look at the hardship out there. Walk us through both your argument and what you can tell us about these negotiations, with Manchin talking about something with a 2 in front of it.

REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY (D-IL): Sure.

Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me.

This is the political high ground, as well as really doing right by the American people. This is wildly popular. The kinds of things that the Build Back Better bill are going to do are going to improve the lives of ordinary Americans. They`re going to wake up in the morning and feel great about what this president has done -- has done for them, making sure that children and women get what they what they deserve.

And we`re going to do both bills. The president of the United States said no doubt that we are going to do both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and we`re going to pass this Build Back Better bill that is going to transform life in America for ordinary people, making sure that they can afford the child care, that they can afford the health care that they need, that we`re going to do the real deal on climate and really invest in that.

[18:05:06]

We`re going to lower the cost of prescription drugs. That is like number one on the minds of people. So, all of that is in this bill, and he is determined to do it. And I will tell you, to vote no on it, I think, is a politically bad vote for Republicans.

We know that 96 percent of the Democrats are really in favor of this legislation. So, yes, there`s a negotiation that is still going on. We may see some changes. But I think essentially, this will be a transformative piece of legislation.

MELBER: Blake, these days, whether you follow news or politics, everyone`s imagining what happens when Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin sign a document, what kind of private convos they have, all that stuff.

You, like the congresswoman, have actually been in the arena, been in those kind of planning sessions, meetings and conversations. Just walk us through what you see going on and what you might see that some of us who are farther away might not know about this process and what Schumer is up to.

BLAKE ZEFF, FORMER SCHUMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Yes, I think the reality is, when you look at this 50/50 majority in the Senate, it is hanging on by a thread. And not only is it a 50/50, equally numerical, it`s Joe Manchin, who -- say what do you want about Joe Manchin.

Just look at the fact. This guy represents the state of West Virginia. This is a state that went for Donald Trump by about 40 points last year, OK? So, Manchin, even if he wanted to be the most progressive person in the world, isn`t going to be. Look at the state that he represents.

So it`s a very tricky, delicate dance. Of course, we`re talking about Manchin. There`s also Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona. It`s kind of a separate story.

But as long as you have this kind of Senate composition, the political gravity is going to -- it is what it is, and, eventually, the rubber is going to hit the road. And that`s where we are now, progressives saying that they wanted $3.5 trillion. Actually, they wanted even more than that. Joe Biden wanted $3.5 trillion,

The Manchin-Sinema wing is saying, no, we want less than that. And now we`re at that point now where it`s time to come and really talk about these numbers. As you said, it`s been reported that it`s around the $2 trillion range is where it looks like it`s going to be. But the question now, Ari, is, how do you get to that number?

There are two main ways you could potentially do it. One is what`s called sunsetting, meaning you take almost all the policies that everyone`s talking about in this bill, and instead of funding them in perpetuity, you say, all right, we will just do it for five years, or 10 years or something like that. And that gets that price low.

The other way to do it is to say, no, we don`t want to sunset stuff, we will just pick the things that we think are really, really important that we like the most, and we want to fund those for a long time and really entrench them in American life. And that difference between the sunset group and the group that says, no, we don`t want to do that, because they have seen, for example, with the assault weapons ban -- you might remember when President Clinton was in office, they did an assault weapons ban.

And that had a sunset to it. And, lo and behold, of course, George W. Bush was the president and the Republicans controlled Congress when that expired, and so, therefore, you didn`t have an assault weapons ban anymore.

So that`s really the key thing is whether to sunset or not. And that`s going to decide how we get to that lower number.

MELBER: Yes, it`s a great point. And it goes to what kind of picking that people want to have to do if there`s going to be a lower number, and whether this is going to be the so-called safety net or blueprint, the way that the New Deal or Fair Deal or other things then became really politically difficult for conservatives to later attack, because they proved popular.

Both our guests stay.

I do want to also bring in this debt fight, which could end up being a big deal or not. We don`t know. But the self-proclaimed Grim Reaper, Mitch McConnell, reportedly talking about pushing chaos on Democrats here. And it`s a clash that continued today.

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SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): I implore them one more time not to play Russian roulette with the American economy.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): We could prevent a catastrophic default with a simple majority vote tomorrow, if Republicans would just get out of the damn way.

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MELBER: Schumer pushing to schedule this vote tomorrow on the debt ceiling, your old boss, Blake. Your thoughts?

ZEFF: Well, that was some feisty language there.

I mean, look, there`s actually an interesting risk here for Mitch McConnell. Mitch`s whole game, right, is just to obstruct to try to stop anything from happening. He doesn`t mind being hated. He doesn`t mind being shaped shamed. He just will do what it takes. He knows how to wield power. And this is what he does.

The question is, he could potentially go too far. And here`s how. With this debt ceiling vote -- and this is the -- I shouldn`t say vote. With this debt ceiling issue, this is a looming deadline by which the U.S. basically has to agree to settle past debts and pay them.

And McConnell is doing everything he can to get in the. Way and there is a potentially cataclysmic economic situation that could happen if you don`t pass that. And what might happen, if he goes too far here, McConnell, is, he may be tempting and taunting some Democrats who weren`t previously willing to forego the filibuster, he might tempt them to actually make an exception in this case.

Angus King from Maine signaled that he might be willing to all of a sudden get rid of the filibuster in order to move this debt ceiling vote. Once you do that, and once you open the door to doing that, and it`s a thing that occurs in politics, then it might get easier to use it in other things. And Democrats may just discover that they finally have the will to use this weapon, and then pass lots of other things along party lines.

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MELBER: It would be interesting if they got there. And this idea of exceptions, we have heard of Stacey Abrams talk about it with voting rights, you bring it up with economics, could be a really interesting avenue in the Senate.

Congresswoman, I did want to get your view of where progressives have gotten thus far. It`s quite rare, as we have commented here and elsewhere, I think people know, to see the progressive bloc sort of hold out the way they did on Speaker Pelosi. And it`s hard to tell sometimes from a distance, OK, procedurally, what did you get out of it?

Could you walk us through in sort of plain English what does it mean that the progressives have sort of held the line there? What do you think you are getting or achieving in a fight that still, of course, has to hold the 50 in the Senate?

SCHAKOWSKY: Well, first of all, while we are proud, as the Progressive Caucus, for making sure that both votes are going to come together, infrastructure and the Build Back Better, the president continues to say over and over again: Remember, this is my agenda. I wrote these damn -- I wrote this damn bill.

And so this is really the president of the United States that is offering this plan. And we have been working hand in hand with him, with the Senate in these negotiations.

But I want to make one point. You were talking about the choices of how we get to a lower number. First of all, I want to say that when we talk about how much this thing costs, the answer is really zero, because this is a paid-for piece of legislation, with taxes on the wealthiest people, many of whom have not been paying any taxes, and lowering the cost of prescription drugs, which helps consumers, but also the government that spends so much money on that.

But, beyond that, we can actually make sure that we not leave anyone out. I think that is the preferable way to go, rather than to just do a few things well and not have -- it`s not really a sunset, because when you, for example, give senior citizens and people on Medicare eyeglasses and hearing aides and dental care, what politician is going to take that away if we change the date of how long it takes to provide those services?

So I think that we don`t risk that much. Some things, we can`t change the date, we can`t extend, for example, on climate change. It`s important that we do that for the next 10 years. But there are other things that we can do to lower the cost and still do transformative legislation.

MELBER: Yes. Yes.

And that goes to, again, what people have argued that, well, is this the time to deal with these things, if they can be budgeted, and they pay for themselves, or will some of these things cost more left unaddressed? Of course, that`s the whole clash. That`s why the president`s out talking directly to the people.

I want to thank the congresswoman and Blake for kicking us off tonight and tell everyone what we have coming up.

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