Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell Appears on The Daily Rundown

Wednesday, 26 January 2011 17:50

In an exclusive interview with MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown this morning, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell called President Obama’s comments on spending reduction in last night’s State of the Union Address “completely inadequate.”

McConnell told White House Correspondents Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie that he applauded the President for touching on entitlement programs, but that he hoped the President would follow through on his commitment to bipartisanship.

A full transcript of the interview is below (Courtesy - MSNBC The Daily Rundown);

CHUCK TODD, MSNBC ANCHOR: Joining us now, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

Thank you for joining us, Senator.

Let me start with a question about the atmospherics. That was your 23rd State of the Union as a senator. I believe you've been in there for 27, 28, 29 speeches to joint sessions of Congress. I'm not trying to age you there, Senator McConnell.

But how different was it compared to the other 22 States of the Union that you've been an audience member for?

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), MINORITY LEADER: Not all that different, Chuck. I don't think the seating arrangement had much of an impact. I do think it was a good speech by and large. The president tends to emphasize in State of the unions -- excuse me -- in State of the Union speeches areas where we might work together. We heard that, in fact, last year.

I think a more important question is not what president says, but what he does. And we're hopeful that we can work together to lower the corporate tax rate, to pass these three trade agreements that have been languishing during the period the Democrats were in control of Congress with Korea, and Colombia, and Panama, all of which will create jobs in America, for Americans. Those are the kind of things we ought to be doing.

I did find his suggestion about spending reduction completely inadequate. To freeze spending at this astronomically high level that we've achieved over the last two years really is totally inadequate, and I think we are bound for some disagreements on the issue of reducing our annual debt. Running in excess of a trillion dollar deficits each of the last two years has really got to stop.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, MSNBC ANCHOR: Well, on the topic of spending, you said when the president uses the word, "investment," he's really referring to spending.

My question to you is, in the context of an overall budget freeze, does the president not make a sensible argument about all right, you've got X amount of resources, so it makes more sense to direct more resources, so spend -- increase spending in other areas that you care about if that means a correlating offset in other areas.

As long as you end up with a budget freeze, why not make investments in a sensible way?

MCCONNELL: That makes sense if your top line is lower than he recommends. What he's talking about freezing at a historically record-high spending rate that we've had the last two years. This whole idea --

GUTHRIE: How much do you want to cut?

MCCONNELL: Well, we need to get back to the 2008 level. That's a significant whack out of our annual discretionary spending. And that's what we're going to try to achieve. I believe the House of Representatives will pass that. We'll be voting on that in the Senate. That is a significant reduction.

Now, let me applaud him for one other thing he said. And that is that it's time to take a look at our long-term unfunded liabilities, the entitlement programs, which are very popular. He knows that that will not be done except on a bipartisan basis. And I hope that he means it. Because if we want to leave behind the kind of country for our children and grandchildren that our parents left for us, we've got to tackle that problem and the perfect time to tackle it is when you have divided government. When you have -- neither party has all the power, which is the situation we're in right now.

TODD: Speaking of divided parts of the government, last night, there was an unofficial second Republican response from Michele Bachmann that some argue that it stepped on the official Republican response of Paul Ryan. And you seemed to echo some of the comments that Congressman Ryan made.

In hindsight, do you wish Congressman Bachmann had not done what she did?

MCCONNELL: Well, you know, there are 535 members of Congress who respond to the State of the Union. Every one of us were doing that. Many --

TODD: Well, she chose to take a high profile -- she did it in a pretty high profile way and it seemed -- they seemed to almost market it that way.

MCCONNELL: Well, I think she probably got a little more coverage than most members of Congress. But everybody was responding to it and we encourage everybody to respond to it. And that's, of course, what happened last night.

GUTHRIE: Obviously, the president talked about health care. We know House Republicans have passed a repeal of health care. Senator Reid in your chamber says he won't bring it to the floor and yet you've talked about somehow getting the health care reform repeal to the floor of the Senate.

Do you still intend to do that? And how can you being a member of the minority party?

MCCONNELL: Well, the bill came over from the House last night and I did what's called holding it at the desk. So, it's there at the desk, ready to be called up. And I would say to my good friends on the other side, if you're so proud of this accomplishment, why would you not want to vote on it? Only three --

GUTHRIE: Wouldn't they say they already voted on it?

MCCONNELL: Well, could I finish my answer?

GUTHRIE: Yes.

MCCONNELL: Only three House Democrats voted against -- voted to repeal it. So obviously, the Democrats in the House proud of it. It's a vote we ought to have. It's very high on the agenda of the American people. We'll have the vote one way or the other. But my point is, I don't understand why the majority wouldn't want to vote on it. They're proud of it. They're bragging about it. The president talked about it again last night. They think it was an important accomplishment for the country. Let's vote on it.

TODD: I want to ask you about something that wasn't mentioned in the State of the Union and that is Egypt. I know you just came from overseas with Afghanistan. But focusing on what's going on there, this morning, obviously, it's unstable. The "Washington Post" this morning recommending to the president and Secretary of State Clinton that maybe there shouldn't be knee-jerk support for Mubarak on this sense.

Where do you come down?

MCCONNELL: Well, Chuck, I think all I can say this morning is that Egypt has been an extremely important ally of ours since Anwar Sadat. And we're all watching these developments in Cairo very carefully. Beyond that, I think will not comment this morning. But they are an extremely important ally of ours.

GUTHRIE: Let's get back to one other item mentioned. I think you just mentioned a couple of minutes ago -- corporate tax reform. The president talked about working with Republicans to lower corporate tax rates. But in the context of closing up other loop hoping that administration aides made clear that it wouldn't at the end of the day, result in a tax reduction. It would just be a closing of loopholes and a simplifying of the tax code.

Would you support corporate reform that didn't end up in an ultimate reduction of the corporate tax burden?

MCCONNELL: Well, let me say this, Savannah. I think getting the corporate tax rate down to a competitive level is extremely important. We want to create additional American jobs in America, for Americans. How you structure it is something we'll take a look at.

Most tax reform, when your rate has a goal of being revenue neutral. But we'll look at how the administration would propose to quote, "pay for" lowering the tax rate. Most members of the my side of the aisle, myself included, are typically skeptical about the Democrat-suggested quote, "pay for's" when they're willing to go along with the tax increase -- a tax decrease. But we'll take a look at it.

The important thing is to get America's corporations in a more competitive place. And the goal of lowering the corporate tax rate is extremely important.

TODD: Senator McConnell, the president's going to come out with more details on some of his agenda items in three weeks, and the budget, which may include, for instance, some shrinking of cabinet agencies, (INAUDIBLE). He seemed to hinted at that last night.

Are you going to come up with an alternative budget? Or is it House Republicans that will do it? What is your plan? Are you going to have a counter full-fledged budget to sort of counter the president's budget?

MCCONNELL: Yes, I can't answer that as far as the Senate's concerned. As you know we're not in the majority in the Senate, and the majority will have to decide whether it wants to pass a budget. I think it should, frankly. Congress, last year, when it was in the hands of the Democrats, both House and Senate failed in passing a budget at all. Another factor, I think, in the bad election that our friends on the other side of the aisle had last November.

I think we ought to try and pass a budget. I hope the majority in the Senate will try to do that.

GUTHRIE: All right. Senator McConnell, before we let you go, you know, last time you were with us, we noticed something about the way you answered our questions.

Let's play a little montage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCONNELL: This is about raising taxes in the middle of a recession.

GUTHRIE: OK.

MCCONNELL: We should not be raising taxes on anyone in the middle of a recession. We ought not to be raising taxes on any American in the middle of this economic slowdown. It's a bad idea to be raising taxes on anybody in the middle of a recession.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTHRIE: Senator McConnell, you're known as somebody in Washington who stays on message better than anyone else.

What's that all about?

MCCONNELL: Well, I think you have to decide what you're going say and I think in order to drive any message home, repetition's a good idea. Thanks for the compliment.

(LAUGHTER)

TODD: Hey, Senator McConnell, before I let you go, speaking of being on message, are you endorsing John Thune for president if he decides to run? You almost sounded like that yesterday.

MCCONNELL: Well, I wouldn't want to give him that handicap. But I think John is an extraordinarily impressive individual. I hope he'll run. I think he'd make a great president of the United States.

GUTHRIE: All right. Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican leader in the Senate. It's great to have you here again. Thank you so much.