Fox News "Your World" - Transcript
Interview
Fox News "Your World" - Transcript
FOX NEWS CHANNEL "YOUR WORLD" INTERVIEW WITH SENATOR JOHN
THUNE (R-SD)
INTERVIEWER: NEIL CAVUTO
SUBJECT: WITHDRAWAL OF DASCHLE NOMINATION
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MR. CAVUTO: So did Daschle dashing out actually help stimulus? To the man who actually dashed Jim out of the Senate four years ago, Republican Senator John Thune of South Dakota.
Senator, good to have you.
SEN. THUNE: Hi, Neil. How are you?
MR. CAVUTO: Without belaboring the Daschle thing, sir, is this taking senator's eye off the stimulus ball? Should it? Will it?
SEN. THUNE: I don't think so. I think most people have concluded now that this is behind us. Senator Daschle withdrew today. Everybody respects his decision. It was an unfortunate situation which I think Senator Daschle concluded was getting in the way or distracting from the new administration and its priorities, one of which is the stimulus debate.
I think the focus now is on the stimulus debate. That's a debate that we're willing to have. We think that what the Democrats passed in the House and what's been put on the floor of the Senate spends way too much money and doesn't create jobs. And we're looking forward to offering amendments and having those amendments considered.
MR. CAVUTO: So in a way, his getting out of the scene here might actually focus back on this whole thing, right?
SEN. THUNE: Well, I think so. I think that that issue now, as I said, is behind us. And the issue in front of us is, what are we going to do to try and get the economy on the pathway to recovery? And how can we, as a Congress, take some steps that will create jobs? And I think most people here, at least the Republicans in the Senate, want to see measures taken that are effective and actually work. And so far, what we're seeing from the Democrats is a lot of spending, in fact $1 trillion of spending when you add interest in. And most of that is spreading around, spraying around to government programs here in Washington and do very little to really stimulate the economy in a way that's temporary, targeted and timely.
MR. CAVUTO: As things stand now then, you obviously wouldn't support this stimulus package. Any of your Republican colleagues would? What do you think?
SEN. THUNE: I think there are probably a couple of votes, perhaps a handful of votes of Republicans who might vote for the bill in its current form. I don't think there are anymore than that. I do believe there are Republicans who would vote for something. By "something" I mean something significant or smaller.
MR. CAVUTO: What about your Democratic colleagues? There's talk that a growing number of them aren't satisfied with this and might bolt from the president.
SEN. THUNE: Well, I think that's true. And you just heard Senator Bayh say that there are a lot of Democrats, particularly moderate Democrats, who, I think, are uncomfortable, not only with the level of spending but the type of spending in this bill. And if I'm them, I don't want to be associated with this. I'd be looking very quickly for some sort of alternative. The Republicans are going to offer some of those alternatives up. And there may be a way where we could actually pass something out of the Senate that does the job, that is effective in creating jobs. And we, in our proposals, address the housing issue which we think is at the center of this debate, or at least should be.
MR. CAVUTO: Tim Geithner dodged this whole tax bullet. As you know, he got in there just before this became this overheated issue. Does he have a target on him now?
SEN. THUNE: Well, he's going to be -- he's in a tough spot for a lot of reasons. And of course, as you know, he got 34 votes against him in the Senate. I think the bigger problem for him is he's going to be coming in on the heels of this $1 trillion stimulus request and asking for several hundred billion dollars to help stabilize, provide further stabilization to the credit markets. That's going to be an awfully hard sell up here on the heels of this current debate. And I think that it's going to be difficult. It's going to be a difficult lift for him.
Obviously, there are a lot of people up here who want to do the right thing, but we want to make sure that the policies we put in effect or put into place actually work and are effective. And we have a lot of questions about how the original stabilization money, financial rescue money has been spent and the intentions with regard to the next installation of that.
MR. CAVUTO: All right. Senator Thune, thank you very much.
SEN. THUNE: Thanks, Neil
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