MSNBC "Morning Joe" - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC "Morning Joe" - Transcript

MSNBC "MORNING JOE" INTERVIEW WITH SENATOR JOHN THUNE (R-SD)
SUBJECT: PRESIDENT OBAMA'S UPCOMING SPEECH TO CONGRESS INTERVIEWERS: JOE SCARBOROUGH, MIKA BRZEZINSKI, MIKE BARNICLE

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MR. SCARBOROUGH: Let's go right now to Capitol Hill. We've got Republican Senator from South Dakota, Senator John Thune. He's used to freezing weather.

MS. BRZEZINSKI: Hi, Senator.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: Senator, thank you so much for being with us.

SEN. THUNE: Good morning, guys.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: What are you looking for tonight for President Obama to convince you that he's reaching out and trying to be bipartisan?

SEN. THUNE: Incidentally, Joe, I think you guys really have heaters out there. That's how you're staying warm. (Laughter.) But --

We are looking forward to what he has to say this evening and we hope that he will reach out to Republicans in a meaningful way. A lot of what we've seen so far are gestures, but we haven't seen a lot of follow-up.

And of course we're very interested in what he's going to do to balance the budget and to try and get our fiscal situation better in order. And I think Republicans want to be constructive. They want to work with him on that issue.

So we're anxious to see what he has to say and hope that it doesn't include a lot of things that most Republicans think would be really hard to do, particularly during a recession, like raising taxes. I think that would be a really bad step to take right now.

But I think Republicans are very much expecting to hear from the president this evening what his plans are with regard to the fiscal situation and the economy going forward.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: Right. Hey, John, if you looked at the polls that The New York Times and CBS put out last night, ABC News and The Washington Post, it shows that Americans believe that Barack Obama is going in the right direction, that he's trying to be bipartisan, but that it's Republicans who're playing politics with this crisis.

Are you surprised by those numbers, and what are the Republicans doing wrong?

SEN. THUNE: I think the American people, which is their -- is sort of their heritage and history, are giving the president a lot of slack and a lot of latitude in the early days of his administration.

But I will tell you, Joe, that if his practice continues of not working with Republicans, not reaching out, and essentially -- maybe his message isn't getting across to the leaders here in Capitol Hill, but the Democrats on Capitol Hill are essentially telling Republicans to go pound sand when it comes to a lot of these things that are being put together up here right now.

And the other thing, I think that -- I just think that the president's numbers are high right now, but if they don't -- if he doesn't do a better job of reaching out to Republicans, the poll numbers are going to start reflecting that.

MS. BRZEZINSKI: Mike Barnicle?

MR. BARNICLE: Hey, Senator, what do you say to people who come up to you and -- you know, the universal opposition in the House and a lot of Republican opposition in the Senate to President Obama's stimulus package -- people who come up to you in the streets of Rapid City or wherever and they say, let me ask you something, Senator. How is it that you can stand against the things proposed by President Obama when for eight years you told us we could fight a war in Iraq and you could also cut our taxes and things would be okay? Things ain't okay. What do you say?

SEN. THUNE: Well, one thing I will say, Mike, and I think the poll numbers -- the reason the poll numbers are favorable about the stimulus, a lot of is has to do with how you ask the question.

If you ask people in South Dakota do you want to borrow a trillion dollars from the Chinese and hand the bill to our children and grandchildren to pay back and only invest 3 billion (dollars) of that in small businesses, which is where most of the jobs in the country are created, you would get a very different response.

And frankly, I think when it comes to fighting wars, people in South Dakota, they draw a line when it comes to national security. They know those are things that we have to do. They don't see a lot of things in this stimulus bill that actually benefit the economy or create jobs at a time when we are borrowing enormous sums of money from our children and grandchildren.

So I think a lot of it has to do with how you phrase those questions, but most people around this country I think right now are reacting very warily to the amount of debt that we're starting to pile up and are going to continue to pile up.

The appropriation bill that's coming across the floor this week is going to be 8 percent over last year.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: All right.

MS. BRZEZINSKI: That's certainly the question -- (inaudible) --

Thank you, Senator.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: Thank you so much, John. I will see you tonight.

SEN. THUNE: All right. Sounds good, Joe. Stay warm out there, guys.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, right, whatever.

END.

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