NBC: "Meet the Press" - Transcript: 114th Congress

Interview

CHUCK TODD:
So will Washington work in 2015? I'm joined by Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming and Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. Welcome to both of you. Welcome back to Meet the Press.

SENATOR AMY KLOBUCHAR:
Thank you.

CHUCK TODD:
Senator Barrasso, let me start with the Steve Scalise story. Should he be serving in leadership as a representative in the Republican Party?

SENATOR JOHN BARRASSO:
If you talk to this group and it seems that there is some confusion if he did or not, I think it's a grave mistake on his part. But I--

CHUCK TODD:
Grave's a strong word.

SENATOR JOHN BARRASSO:
Well, I think it's a grave mistake to speak to that group. But I think Cedric Richmond makes the point. He's a congressman, the next district right over from Mr. Scalise. He's a Democrat, African American, he said, "Steve Scalise doesn't have a racist bone in his body," and I'm going to stick with that.

CHUCK TODD:
And you're comfortable with his-- I mean, this adds to the stereotype of the Republican Party that Democrats want to paint.

SENATOR JOHN BARRASSO:
Well, the Democrats do want to paint this. But I've just gotten back from Wyoming, this has not come up as a discussion in Wyoming. People there want to talk about the new incoming Republican leadership in the Senate, the majority there, jobs, the economy, what we're going to do about debt and spending and the health care law.

CHUCK TODD:
Senator Klobuchar, do you think it's a disqualifier in leadership?

SENATOR AMY KLOBUCHAR:
I think that it's something that the Republican leadership is going to have to decide and live with the consequences. It was clearly an inappropriate place to be. This was an inappropriate place to be. This was a Ku Klux Klan leader, David Duke. But what I'm more interested in, when always this kind of thing happens, people disown it, they say, "This was wrong," but what do we do about it?

What are the actions? I'll give you a few. The Republicans can move along on Loretta Lynch fast. She's a U.S. attorney. The nominee for attorney general. She's been vetted before. Get it done in a month. The Justice Department runs the civil rights enforcement in this country. Get the voting rights bill done.

There were ten Republicans in the House on it last year, Sensenbrenner leading it. Get that done. That's action, not just words. And get immigration reform done. To me, that is what you do when you've got a major problem like this. You say that you disown it, you say you want to move on civil rights, then do it.

CHUCK TODD:
Senator Barrasso, is that a proper response?

SENATOR JOHN BARRASSO:
I think we need to get the new senators sworn into office, move in. Specifically with regard to Loretta Lynch, I've met with her, we had a very cordial meeting. The issue there is the president's illegal action on executive amnesty.

CHUCK TODD:
Is she qualified to be attorney general?

SENATOR JOHN BARRASSO:
Well, that's going to come up in the questioning, what she views with the president's actions on amnesty. Is it legal, is it not legal, is she going to be the people's attorney, is she going to be a presidential protector? And that's going to be a big part of this. These hearings are going to be very consequential.

CHUCK TODD:
And you're going to be very much focused on immigration?

SENATOR JOHN BARRASSO:
Well, that's certainly going to be part of it because of the president's actions, which I believe have been illegal.

(OVERTALK)

CHUCK TODD:
What's the first bill that's going to be on the president's desk from this Republican Congress?

SENATOR JOHN BARRASSO:
The president's going to see the Keystone XL pipeline on his desk, and it is going to be a bellwether decision by the president, whether to go with jobs and the economy, his own State Department said it's 42,000 new jobs. This is a good infrastructure project, it's supported widely across the United States. He's going to have to decide between jobs and the extreme supporters of not having the pipeline.

CHUCK TODD:
Senator Klobuchar, where are you on this?

SENATOR AMY KLOBUCHAR:
Well, I believe that this project has merit. But I still don't think that Congress should be in the business of deciding where a pipeline is located. I think the president needs to make a decision. A lot of us are frustrated that it has taken this long. But I think the bigger issue--

CHUCK TODD:
How are you going the vote on this?

SENATOR AMY KLOBUCHAR:
I have always voted to allow the process to continue. And that's where--

CHUCK TODD:
Allowed the process to continue means in favor?

(OVERTALK)

SENATOR AMY KLOBUCHAR:
To allow the president to make a decision.

CHUCK TODD:
Gotcha.

SENATOR AMY KLOBUCHAR:
But I'm getting very frustrated with this.

CHUCK TODD:
All right.

SENATOR AMY KLOBUCHAR:
I don't think you're going to see a lot of votes switching on the Democratic side from just a month ago. The bigger issue here though, as we know, this is symbolic. And it has become symbolic on both sides. Bigger issue, we're now the number-one producer of oil in the world. We've surpassed Saudi Arabia.

Gas prices are down to something like two bucks a gallon in a lot of places. We're starting to move on climate change. And I think what I want to look for is the things where there's common ground. And there are things. Mitch McConnell said this week, they don't want to make a point, they want to make a difference.

Look at this, infrastructure funding, I think there's common ground on that. Getting our money back from overseas, over a trillion dollars sitting over there, and linking that into infrastructure funding. Making sure that we're moving on making sure that our high school kids are getting degrees with the jobs that we have. If they get one and two-year degrees, that we do something on the fact that it's harder and harder to afford college. I think those are things that there can be common ground on and we can go to the president and work with him on it.

CHUCK TODD:
Well, I'm going to go to health care, I'm going to close with health care. Because Senator Barrasso, you've said, I think, two different messages on where you are on the health care law. In October of 2014, you said you would imagine that there would be a vote to repeal, but let's be realistic, Barack Obama is still going to be in the White House for another two years, and he's not going to sign that.

And then this week, you said, "We're going to use every tool that is out there, including reconciliation." Meaning that you might have a repeal in a reconciliation vote that would be mandatory with the budget. Where are you going? Is the priority of the Republican party to repeal health care? Or are you going to quote, unquote, fix it and go after it piece by piece?

SENATOR JOHN BARRASSO:
The priority is to repeal this health care law. It's bad for patients, bad for the providers, the nurses and doctors who take care of them, and terrible for taxpayers. We are going to put on the president's desk, at a minimum, stripping away the most damaging parts of the health care law. We're going to resume the 40-hour work week, which is hurting people right now in losing some of their pay. We're going to get rid of the employer mandate.

(OVERTALK)

CHUCK TODD:
So you're not really going to do a repeal. There isn't going to be a symbolic repeal vote. Or there is one?

(OVERTALK)

SENATOR JOHN BARRASSO:
There will be a vote on repeal.

CHUCK TODD:
But that's probably not going to get to the president's desk.

SENATOR JOHN BARRASSO:
The president in the White House will veto that.

CHUCK TODD:
Okay.

SENATOR JOHN BARRASSO:
We will get on his desk for signature, bipartisan support, eliminating the tax on medical devices, the employer mandate, the 40-hour work week. We have bipartisan support for that. There have been votes on those bills in the House. Many Democrats have supported those efforts. This health care law continues, the costs are crippling the middle class. The vice president in his message yesterday said, "Things are great." They are not.

(OVERTALK)

CHUCK TODD:
Well, there seems to be some dispute about what's working or not. But let's go to the medical device tax. Because Senator Klobuchar, you're somebody, you're going to support what a lot of Republicans -- a repeal of this. It's pretty important in your state. Where are you going to find-- that's how this law is being paid for, on small taxes and fees on various things, including the medical device industry. If you pick that apart, how do you know that 20 other interest groups aren't going to try to do the same thing? Don't you start pulling at a thread that actually undoes the health care law?

SENATOR AMY KLOBUCHAR:
This issue, as you know, while it's not part of the agreement originally, a major tax was smacked on the medical device industry. It was then just arbitrarily reduced in half. And so Senator Hatch and I are leading this effort, there are a lot of Democrats supporting it, including people like Al Franken and Elizabeth Warren. And the hope is that we will find a way to pay for this and get this tax off the books.

(OVERTALK)

CHUCK TODD:
But you haven't figured out how to pay for it yet.

SENATOR AMY KLOBUCHAR:
We are working on that as we speak. Again--

CHUCK TODD:
Anything you can leave our viewers with?

SENATOR AMY KLOBUCHAR:
Well, again, we are looking at a way to reduce this tax. And I don't want to speak for Senator Hatch. And we're going to keep working on finding a way to do it. But the important thing is that this is a tax on manufacturing. I think the other future number here to leave, we've had 57 straight months of economic job growth in the private sector. We had the biggest reduction to the unemployment rate this year than we've seen since 1984. Our economy is gaining steam. And it is now important in this session for Congress to gain steam and to get to work on compromise.

CHUCK TODD:
I know you both are going to say you hope 2015 is about compromise, not conflict. But what's that likelihood, quickly. Senator Barrasso?

SENATOR JOHN BARRASSO:
Well, I'm optimistic. I think we have a great opportunity as well as an obligation to the American people to listen to what the voters said. They want us to work together. And what we're ready to deliver is effective, efficient, and accountable government.

CHUCK TODD:
Senator Klobuchar?

SENATOR AMY KLOBUCHAR:
We can finally govern from a position of opportunity and not crisis, when you see the economy. And that's what we're going to do.

CHUCK TODD:
Senator Klobuchar, Senator Barrasso, we'll see. You guys sound good here. We'll be watching and so will a lot of voters. We'll get some reaction from the panel, John Stanton, Helene Cooper, Andrea Mitchell, Matt Bai. John Stanton, I want to go to the issue of Scalise here. You're a veteran Capitol Hill reporter. These stories look like they die down, and then everybody comes back, and then suddenly Scalise has to survive one more week here, doesn't he?

Source