Transcript-Hardball With Chris Matthews

'Hardball with Chris Matthews' for Nov. 8, 5 p.m.

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. We‘ve got David Shuster in Virginia. After 12 years in the minority, House Democrats are back in charge right now. Maryland‘s Steny Hoyer was elected to his 13th full term last night. He‘s currently the minority whip and expected to run for majority leader. But will he have the fight to do it? We‘ll have to ask him right now.

Steny Hoyer, thank you, sir.

REP. STENY HOYER (D-MD), MINORITY WHIP: Hi there, Chris. How are you?

MATTHEWS: What do you know? What do you think? Duking it out with Jack Murtha. He‘s a bit to your left, you‘re a bit to his right. Who‘s the true center of the Democratic Party?

HOYER: Well, I don‘t know the answer to that question, but I think I‘m going to win the race. I think I‘ll be the majority leader. I think my colleagues will be supporting me for the work that we‘ve done in the past with Nancy Pelosi, who will be our next speaker, creating the kind of unity and consensus within our party that has led us to be the most unified we‘ve been in a half a century, as you know, Chris. So I‘m very confident.

MATTHEWS: Who‘s going to call the agenda, you or the speaker?

HOYER: Well, I think the speaker will call the agenda, but as she did as minority leader, she will call the agenda in conjunction with all of the other members. She meets regularly with large groups of members, committee chairs, committee members, people who have specific interests, and she‘s going to call the agenda.

And of course we have an agenda, Chris, as you know, the Six for ‘06.

MATTHEWS: Sure.

HOYER: The Republicans made some fun of it, but in fact the American people voted for change. They voted for action on issues of great concern to them. And I can go through it.

As you know, the real security, the implementation of the 9/11 Commission, which we think is critically important, meeting our promises to our veterans, making sure that we‘re not shipping jobs overseas because of tax benefits, and making sure that the minimum wage is raised so that you‘re not working 40 hours and living in poverty, and college expenses, we‘re going to be dealing with that during the first 100 hours of the next session of Congress.

We‘re going to make sure that interest rates are halved and Pell Grants are increased. And then we‘re going to really focus, which will take a significantly longer time, but we‘re going to immediately focus on energy independence, which we think is critical. It‘s critical from a national security standpoint, critical from an economic standpoint, and critical, as well, from an environmental standpoint.

And then the next thing we‘re going to address is 46 million Americans uninsured. We need to address that issue and ensure that health care is affordable and accessible to our people. We want to address the prescription drug. We think that prohibiting the federal government from negotiating prices was a mistake, and we can bring prices down for seniors, and we‘re going to do that. And stem cell research we think is critically important. So we‘re going to pursue that.

And lastly, as you know, we didn‘t agree with the president on his Social Security proposal. We want to make sure that it‘s financially secure, but we also want to make sure it‘s going to be guaranteed.

So those are the items we‘re going to work on initially.

MATTHEWS: Well, it‘s a pretty comprehensive agenda. I‘ve been studying it. It really does deal with people at every stage of their life, children, having children, trying to get them through college that you can afford. And as you get older in life you need health care more dramatically. You need it all your life. Medicare, the Social Security position you‘ve taken.

How do you balance that...

HOYER: Those were all our thoughts, Chris.

MATTHEWS: I know. They‘re great thoughts. I think they meet every constituency I can think of in the country. But the question is: How do you balance that with the use of the subpoena power in trying to find out what happened to the energy policy of this administration? How‘d we get in this war in Iraq—the kind of intelligence questions that have always been raised.

How do you balance the need to give bread and butter solutions to problems and also make sure you‘re using your oversight weapon to get the truth of what‘s going on in the executive?

HOYER: Chris, I think we can do both. I think our committees have the ability to do that.

Obviously, some will be overseers and some will be implementers of policy.

But as you know, I‘ve referred to this Congress and previous Congresses under this president as complacent and complicit. No oversight. No checks and balances. No accountability.

And we think that the American public voted not only for change but also for accountability. They‘ve seen things going on and they don‘t know why they‘re going on. They think they‘re wrong. And they think there needs to be accountability and oversight.

And certainly, one of our responsibilities is to exercise that oversight. And we‘re going to that.

MATTHEWS: OK. I can‘t wait to see the vote as you win the majority leadership of the House of Representatives or if you lose it. I mean, I think Murtha could be a difficult challenger, but you seem to have the numbers now.

Good luck so far. Thank you very much.

HOYER: Thanks a lot, Chris. Good to be with you.

MATTHEWS: Thank you.

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