MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript
Interview
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SCHULTZ: Welcome back to THE ED SHOW. And thanks for watching tonight.
Congressional leaders are dealing with a lot of hot-button issues these days--the oil spill, immigration, energy, and, of course, two wars. Meanwhile, it"s gone, I think, largely unnoticed that the Democratic stimulus package has put millions of people back to work. That"s right, this year.
For more, let me bring in House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.
Congressman, great to have you with us tonight.
REP. STENY HOYER (D), MAJORITY LEADER: Always good to be with you, Ed. Thank you very much.
SCHULTZ: Are you turning the numbers? Is the CBO report as positive as it sounds, in your opinion?
HOYER: Well, I think it"s very positive, and I think the job growth - we"ve had four positive job growth months this year. And if we replicate over the next two-thirds of the year--we"ve gone a third of the year--if we replicate the same kind of job production, 573,000 jobs, we will be, frankly--created more jobs this year than were created net in the Bush administration in 96 months.
That"s good news. But we"re not growing fast enough. We need to continue to get this economy stabilized and growing at an even faster rate if we"re going to have a chance of getting people back to work and the numbers of jobs that were lost during the Bush administration. SCHULTZ: Is the midterm going to be about jobs, in your opinion?
HOYER: I think that the midterm is going to be about the economy. And I think we"re going to be able go to the American public and say, look, we inherited an economy that was in the ditch, deeply in the ditch. The month we took over, we lost 800,000 jobs, almost, and 65,000 jobs in one day shortly thereafter.
SCHULTZ: So what do you make of Boehner saying that there"s going to be big gains by the Republicans in November?
HOYER: Well, Mr. Boehner also thought he was going to win the race in Pennsylvania. He thought he was going to win the race in New York. He didn"t win either one of those races. We"ve had three victories in a row in the special elections.
Now, we didn"t have a victory in Hawaii, mainly because we split the vote, and it was winner take all. We took about 62, 63 percent of the vote, and the winner took about 38, 39 percent of the vote. So we think we"ll win that seat back.
So, the answer to your question is, wildly over-enthusiastic. Tom Davis, who"s the former chairman of the Republican Campaign Committee, said -- and I quote--"If we can"t win Pennsylvania 12," which was Mark Critz - "if we can"t win that district, we can"t take back the House."
SCHULTZ: OK. Are they going to help you--do you think the Republicans will help you on immigration reform?
HOYER: Frankly, I think, Ed, the Republican strategy is to see failure by Democrats and by the president. The problem with that, of course, is when we don"t solve problems, it"s not Democrats that lose, it"s our country that loses.
But I think their strategy is simply to defeat any kind of progress and, frankly, not to sit down at the table. It"s awful tough to get bipartisan working together in the House at this point in time, or in the Senate.
SCHULTZ: And quickly, a comment on all these "Drill, baby, drill" folks over there. What do you think? Do you think you"re going to get any help on offshore drilling or any kind of regulation or caps? I mean, they"re going to fight you on everything. You know that. HOYER: Well, let me tell you, I think they are going to fight us on everything. However, the American public clearly know that while we need get American energy, we need to be energy independent, and we need to keep energy prices where people can afford them, the facts of the matter is--
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SCHULTZ: Do you think this tragedy will propel us to that? Do you think this tragedy--
HOYER: Well, no, no. I think the president has made it very clear. We need to be very safe, we need to find out how this tragedy occurred before we go forward. And I think that"s the right policy. We also need to be--as Chairman Rahall was on a little earlier--we need to make sure the federal government oversight is much more vigorous that it was.
SCHULTZ: Yes, no doubt.
HOYER: I think there were failures in this government.
SCHULTZ: Leader Hoyer--
HOYER: It"s always a pleasure.
SCHULTZ: You bet. Thanks a lot.
Steny, great to have you with us. Thanks so much.
HOYER: Good to be with you, Ed.
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