NBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript -

Interview

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MATTHEWS: President Obama said he wants America to be a magnet for a good
middle class and good middle class jobs in manufacturing, infrastructure
and energy, and made his most vocal push today for an increase in the
minimum wage, from seven bucks an hour to 25 cents right now, $7.25 to
$10.10. That`s quite a leap.

But for those who work hard and play by the rules, is the American dream
still achievable or have the rules changed to benefit the privilege few at
the expense of many?

U.S. Congressman Jim Clyburn is a South Carolina Democrat, and Stephanie
Rawlings-Blake is, of course, mayor of Baltimore.
Thank you both for joining us.

Congressman Clyburn, you know all about what`s going on in the House of
Representatives. It`s run by Republicans. The Republicans are run by
their hard right.

How do you get through a real big bill onto highway construction, the kinds
of infrastructure jobs that would benefit so many millions of people
potentially, when you have a Republican Congress that says no? Everything
that President Obama proposes, probably the minimum wage, as well.

REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D), SOUTH CAROLINA: Well, it`s going to be very tough.
But the fact of the matter is much of this can begin in the Senate. And I
really believe if we can get the Senate to act on some of this, much of it,
it will force the House to really react.

They are not going to originate any of this stuff. And I`m very pleased
that the president has now laid down a foundation that hopefully we will
begin to build upon, a foundation that tells us that this is not just about
a moral question. This is about income inequality that exists in this
country.

You know, of all of the counties in this country, 488 of them are what we
call persistently poverty-laden counties.

MATTHEWS: Right.

CLYBURN: And this is not about skin color, as the president said, or
ethnicity. If you go into Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas,
those are not Hispanic or African-Americans or Native Americans. Those are
white Americans and they have the same problem with this inequality that
African Americans have in South Carolina or North Carolina or Mississippi
and Alabama.

MATTHEWS: Madam Mayor, whenever I give a motivational speech like a
commencement address, I usually try to point out something that I think is
particularly wrong I think to minorities and women, but -- I`m a white
male, but I do think there is a validity to this argument -- never say no
to yourself. Always make the other person say no to you.

The one thing about the president that bugs me, one of the things, is that
he doesn`t come out with a major infrastructure proposal that really grabs
the people, grabs or blows our lights out and says, wow, this is a great
idea. We`re going to unite this country by a fast speed rail. We`re going
to rebuild our highways so this country is truly united geographically.
It`s going to cost a lot of money, but it`s not going to be throwing it
away. It`s going to be a capital investment where we have low interest
rates and lots of unemployed people. We`re going to think big, and we`re
going to make the Republicans say no big.

Instead, he`s got this sort of infrastructure highway bill that floats
around and never gets any attention.

Why -- isn`t there an argument that can be made, I know you`re a Democrat,
why this president just doesn`t just jam the Republicans with a really big
proposal that grabs the imagination of people across the country and he
doesn`t do it?

MAYOR STEPHANIE RAWLINGS-BLAKE (D), BALTIMORE: Well, I listened to his
state of the union address last year, and what you`re talking about was in
that speech. The fact that we`re not playing for second, that it`s
important for us to invest in infrastructure.

I think what you`re seeing is the fact that the president is putting
forward what he thinks he can get through. When you have a Republican
Congress that believes that investing in jobs and investing infrastructure
and making sure that we are competitive on the world stage is pork, you
know, do you want them to do, you know, to make them say, no big for show?

MATTHEWS: Yes.

RAWLINGS-BLAKE: We don`t have a show horse. We don`t have a show horse as
a president. We have work horse and I believe he`s putting forward things
that he thinks that he can build coalition around. And I for one --

MATTHEWS: We disagree.

RAWLINGS-BLAKE: Yes. Well, I --

MATTHEWS: I disagree, because I think the American people ought to know
the difference between the two parties. They ought to know in big block
letters. They ought to know this president believes in infrastructure, he
believes in big capital budget, borrowing the money to do something big for
the future, because that`s what we did in the past, and not to let the
Republicans to benefit by his being intimidated by the fact they`re going
to say no, so why even ask?

Your thoughts, Congressman, because you`re an expert not just on political
leadership but on the House of Representatives. How would it hurt to
challenge the Republicans with a big proposal like he -- he is putting the
words together in his speech today. But does it have to be a legislative
proposals that give concrete action to it?

CLYBURN: I agree with you. I think that -- that`s what I`m saying at the
top of the show, that this lays a foundation, and he mentioned in his
speech today that this was not his State of the Union. I hope he was
saying he would be fleshing all of this out in his State of the Union
Address, and I really believe there is a case to be made that the state of
our union is of such that we`ve got to rebuild our infrastructures, we`ve
got to put people back to work, we`ve got to get our young people educated,
we`ve got to make sure that folks who are unemployed have some hope, and
some safety net upon which they can begin to find some community while
they`re looking for work.

And that`s why tomorrow here on the Hill, our committee is going to be
looking at unemployment insurance and what we should do. Because 1.3
million Americans are going to lose their unemployment insurance
compensation as of the 28th, I believe, of December. And we need to get
their needs helped, so while they`re looking for work they can feed their
children. I think the president is going to flesh all of this out in his
State of the Union.

MATTHEWS: OK. Thank you, sir. We`re going to stop right now.

We`ll get back to this conversation later with Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-
Blake of Baltimore and U.S. Congressman and leader of the House, Jim
Clyburn. Thank you.

We`ll be right back. And don`t forget, President Obama is our guest
tomorrow in the HARDBALL college tour from American University here in
Washington.

And we`ll be right back after this.

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