Today - Transcript

NBC News Transcripts

SHOW: Today 7:00 AM EST NBC

November 5, 2004 Friday

HEADLINE: Representative Nancy Pelosi and Senator Mitch McConnell discuss what it will take to bring the country together in a bipartisan way

ANCHORS: MATT LAUER

BODY:

MATT LAUER, co-host:

After winning reelection President Bush is pledging to reach out and unite a sharply divided country. That promise will be put to test, of course, on Capitol Hill. Representative Nancy Pelosi is the minority leader in the house. And Senator Mitch McConnell is the Senate's majority whip.

Good morning to both of you.

Senator Mitch McCONNELL (Republican, Kentucky): Good morning.

Representative NANCY PELOSI (Democrat, California): Good morning, Matt.

LAUER: Congresswoman Pelosi, let me start with you. In the press conference, the president said the following, quote: "I have earned capital in this election. I'm going to spend it for what I told the people I would spend it on, which is, you've heard the agenda: Social Security and tax reform; moving this economy forward; education; fighting and winning the war on terror." Now-now, clearly, people like you and the senator are going to appear on programs like this in the days following the election and say, 'Yes, we are too divided. We've got to work together.' But it never seems to work that way. Will it this time?

Rep. PELOSI: Well, I certainly hope so. The American people expect and deserve us to get the job done here and to find-find solutions to the challenges they face. The president won the election, but the issues continue to be there. The result of the election did not erase the fact that he had the worst record of job creation in seven decades, that many more people-millions more do not have access to health care. That we have a growing deficit and that the war in Iraq is going poorly.

LAUER: But Congresswoman Pelosi, here's-here's the rhetoric already.

Rep. PELOSI: That's right. That's right.

LAUER: This is what we are hearing from you. This doesn't sound like the type of language that's going to lead to unity on Capitol Hill.

Rep. PELOSI: Well, the president said when he ran the first time that he was a unifier and not a divider. He is now saying he's going to reach out. I hope that he will try to be president for all of the people, not just the people who voted for him. But I say again, we have to create jobs. We have to expand access to health care. We have to make college education more affordable. We have to stop the growth of the deficit. And we have to correct the situation in Iraq. We hope that we can work with the president to do that. That doesn't mean going all the way over to his side. That means listening to each other, having more discourse, not more discord in what we do.

LAUER: Senator McConnell...

Rep. PELOSI: But we stand ready to work with the president and hope that he will be open to that.

LAUER: Senator McConnell, in the months following 9-11, there was some unity among Republicans and Democrats, the war in Afghanistan, even the vote to authorize force in Iraq. But on domestic issues, there has been little or no agreement. Do you see any hope for that changing over the next four years?

Sen. McCONNELL: Well, actually, Matt, we did have bipartisan agreement on the Medicare reform prescription drugs and also a No Child Left Behind. So there were some examples of bipartisanship. I think the partisanship, however, was exacerbated by the closeness in the Senate. It was first 50/50, then 51/49 Democrat, then 51/49 Republican.

LAUER: Do you think the change in the Senate is going to help that?

Sen. McCONNELL: Yeah, I do. I do. I think-I think the fact that there is a broader margin. And I also know for a fact that a number of our Democratic colleagues kind of chafed under the excessive partisanship into which the Senate fell this past year, and I think they want to operate on a bipartisan basis. And, of course, in the Senate, most legislation requires 60, not just 51...

LAUER: Right.

Sen. McCONNELL: ...to move forward. So you really can't do a whole lot on a purely partisan basis in the Senate.

LAUER: Congresswoman Pelosi, on tax reform, the president would like to make these tax cuts permanent. That's not been something that the Democrats have favored. Instead of telling me where the president has to come towards you, what are you willing to do and what are Democrats willing to do to move toward the president's point of view on this?

Rep. PELOSI: Well, the fact is that we have a-we have a huge and growing deficit in the Bush administration. So it's a question of the president making the tax code more complicated in the first four years of his term, and now saying let's simplify it. We should simplify the tax code. We should have tax-more tax cuts for middle income Americans. And when-and if the president wants to meet on that ground, we are happy to do it. But we will not contribute to the growing deficit. Next-when we go into the lame duck session, we will have to-the Congress will be called upon to raise the debt limit again because of the reckless economic policies of the Bush administration. Just because the election is over, doesn't mean that the challenges aren't still there. Just because the president thinks he has a mandate doesn't mean that Democrats don't have a responsibility to point out what the challenges still-still-the challenges we still have. So we have a responsibility to find our common ground with the president. But where we don't find it, we must stand our ground.

LAUER: Senator-Senator McConnell, in terms of making the tax cuts permanent, you know the Democrats feel those cuts have helped people at the high end of the heap. Are Republicans willing before any-any permanent tax cuts are put into action to say 'OK, we'll widen them? We hear your concerns. We will make them applicable more across the board?'

Sen. McCONNELL: Well, look, we just extended on an almost unanimous basis in the Senate five-four middle-class tax cuts just a month ago. So the Democrats are not unalterably opposed to moving tax cuts into the future. The way to control the deficit, obviously, is to grow the economy and restrain spending. And the president has a plan to cut the deficit in half over the next five years, and I think we can do that if we just have the fiscal discipline to restrain ourselves from spending too much.

LAUER: Real quickly, Senator, and I'll start with you, just 10 seconds. Are we going to be sitting here talking in three and a half years saying 'Wow, where did it go wrong?'

Sen. McCONNELL: No, I don't think so. I think we're going to have substantial accomplishments, particularly in the first two years of the president's second term.

LAUER: And Congresswoman Pelosi?

Rep. PELOSI: Well, I certainly hope we will have accomplishments. That's what we owe the American people. But that will mean real bipartisanship as we reach-we extend a hand of friendship to the president. It doesn't means just pull us over to his-all of his way of thinking. It means we have to cooperate and serve all of the people of our country. They deserve that. We have that responsibility to them.

LAUER: Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and Senator Mitch McConnell, folks, thanks to both of you.

Sen. McCONNELL: Thank you.