"Face the Nation" on March 5, 2023

Interview

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Good morning, Brennan. Thank -- Margaret, thanks for having me.

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Yes.

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Yes, I'm going to be supporting that. We need to do it.

Back in 2015, in Mount Carbon in West Virginia, we had a derailment, 27 cars, tanker cars carrying Bakken oil. It went off the tracks and derailed and exploded and caused a tremendous problem there. And it was very, very dangerous. It could have been a little -- a lot worse, if it had been a little farther down the tracks, could have torn up a whole town.

But with that we were recommended that the electronic pneumatic brakes should be something -- should be considered that might prevent this, routine maintenance checks and auditing and things of this sort. I don't think any of that has been done.

And it's time for us to get serious about this. We're moving many, many products, many more products on the rails and on our roads than we ever did before. And we have a lot of people who don't want any pipelines. Pipelines would help alleviate a lot of this problem with the oil that we need in our country and we will be using for quite some time to do it safer.

But out of sight, out of mind. They are thinking, if you don't have a pipeline, you won't be using the product. Well, that's far from the truth. And this is the results of people just not making good decisions. And it's what's broken in -- in -- in West Virginia. And -- and...

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... broken across the country as far as in Washington, the politics.

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It's broken. It needs to be fixed.

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Well, Margaret, first of all, I encourage Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

I was hoping that he would, first of all, take things off the table that doesn't cause a conflict, but most -- most importantly, sit down with the president. And reached out to the White House. They did sit down, had a meeting. I'm encouraging much more of that.

But what we can do is, can't we get together and just talk about how do we have this much debt accumulated this -- in this short of a period of time? Within 10 years, Margaret, we have accumulated the greatest amount of debt in the history of our country in the shortest period of time. Can't we at least find out what we did and how we expanded?

I know that COVID did so much of it. But, you know, we're past the COVID...

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... problems. And what we need to do is to get back to normal.

But we've gone from $3.5 trillion in spending to over $6.2 trillion in spending every year in the last 10 years. That's just unacceptable. You've got to sit down. Anybody that thinks we don't have a problem in Washington, anybody that thinks that the politics is not broken in Washington is not living in reality, does not want to face the facts and the truth.

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Well, first of all, just do our job on time.

We've been told that, if we just had a budget done -- we don't even have a budget anymore. The president is -- is a month late in putting his budget out, which will come out next week. But I don't see the House or the Senate bringing a budget forward. And, basically, by a piece of legislation was passed back in 1985, we're supposed to have our budgets...

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... from the House and the Senate done by April the 1st.

The president basically submits his in February, and, by September the 30th -- I'm told there's billions and billions of dollars of savings just right there if we just do it on time.

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We're not even doing that.

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That's what I say it's, not working. That's...

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But it gets a downward trajection, basically, and capping...

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How about capping some of the...

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Yes, capping some of the discretionary spending.

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Hey, Mar...

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Well, rather -- tucking something in, we're not trying to hide anything, basically.

If we don't do permitting, and we don't have permitting reform in America, we're not going to meet the challenges and be energy-independent energy- secured. If you're not energy-secured, you're definitely not going to be a superpower of the world, and depending on other parts of the world to provide what you won't do for yourself.

That has to be done. I don't care what side of the arena you're on, if you want transmission, if you want pipelines, if you realize we're going to have a balanced energy proposal. That's what the Inflation Reduction Act was for, energy security. The administration, this administration has touted that as strictly an environmental bill.

It's good for the environment, but it's also very, very necessary for us to have the fossil energy...

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... using it better and cleaner than anywhere in the world to have the security we need. That's what we need to do. And that's what they've been avoiding.

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You have to have permitting. If not, all this is going to be voided.

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Oh, there's plenty of time for the election. This is the problem with America right now. We start an election every time there's a cycle coming up.

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I -- I -- no, the bottom line is, let's see who's involved. Let's wait until we see who all the players are. Let's just wait until it all comes out.

My main purpose right now is to work for my country and my -- and my state. That's my responsibility. I'm not going to make my announcement for anything until the end of the year. I'm not going to make a decision what my political position is going to be or where I'm going to do for my political future.

I won't do it until the end of the year. I got too much work to do now.

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There's too -- the bottom line, I got plenty of time to make up my mind. The election is not until November 2024. We don't even file until January of 2024.

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And to be running and basically -- not basically looking at the problems you have, we've got a runaway debt. We got inflation that's killing people.

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We've got an unsecured energy. We have a border that's out of control.

You're telling me we're in the same ball game or the same ballpark? I don't think so.

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I didn't say that. I didn't say anything about that.

I -- the bottom line is, I will make my political decision in December, whatever it may be.

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I'm not taking anything off the table, and I'm not put -- and I'm not putting anything on the table.

I said I will make a decision in January -- at this -- at the end of this year.

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Simply that.

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What my political future will be, what...

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What I will be involved with, how I will be involved.

I will be making -- any decisions I make politically will not be done until the end of the year. I'm focused on fixing what's wrong with Washington. And the politics are so toxic, the more you talk about this party, that party, what candidate and this candidate.

Look at what you have facing you right now. You've got inflation. You've got, basically, energy. You've got these unsecured borders. You've got geopolitical unrest. And we're talking about everything but that.

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I'm happy to come back, Margaret, any time.

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