"Face the Nation," June 4, 2023
Interview
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Hey. Great to be with you.
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Look, the negotiations certainly were in good faith, but they also included a lot of candor.
We had some tense moments throughout. But I would love to tell you that we could build upon this. We certainly have a crisis in the energy space. We continue to have a financial crisis. And, as you indicated, immigration is a huge issue where we should be able to work together.
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Because the White House laid down about seven red lines, including that they wouldn't negotiate, that they wouldn't allow anything to be done on work requirements, that they wouldn't allow any changes to environmental laws, that they wouldn't allow us to take any funds from IRS agents, and on and on.
And yet every single red line that they laid down, we crossed right over in negotiations, resulting in the largest savings in any legislation in the history of the Congress. This was a huge accomplishment, huge legislative wins. And lastly, Margaret, I think when you look at the president's statements, all he could do is talk about things that didn't happen versus anything that did that was positive for his agenda.
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Look, there were erosion of trust issues because folks went out and began attempting to define or interpret a deal while we were still in negotiations. There wasn't even an agreement struck.
And, of course, their interpretation or definition of the agreement, as you can imagine, was flawed. In regard to Speaker McCarthy, let's be crystal clear. This speaker has been one of the best strategists we've ever had, delivering transformative immigration, energy, parents bill of rights and other legislation that, looking back at previous congresses, not even one of these things has been done, much less we're about 10 huge wins this year.
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Well, Margaret, let's talk about what their goals are. Their goals are trying to change the trajectory of spending, transform Washington in a way that's more responsive, long-term thinking about the next generation and the fiscal crisis that we're approaching.
I don't think that should be a partisan issue. We should all be on board with those objectives. In this case, I think that leverage was trying to be exercised that really threatened the economy in a large way. We've already seen, under this administration, stock market has lost around $9 trillion in value, hurting retirement accounts and families all across the country.
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We can't continue to see those types of challenges.
And so I do think that, in the appropriations process, we are going to be working hard to continue the momentum that we've gained through this negotiation, saving trillions of dollars.
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I'm not ruling out anything. It depends on how reasonable each side is, obviously, in the negotiations. It's very difficult to predict.
But I want to be clear. Republicans are going to demand continuing to build upon the success that we were able to achieve in debt ceiling negotiations, in changing the way that Washington spends.
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Look, I have known Ken Buck for years and certainly respect him.
It is not a mainstream position. I will tell you right now, Speaker McCarthy's position is absolutely safe. He is going to continue delivering wins for the country, changing the direction of Washington and being more representative of the -- of the priorities of Americans across the country.
I have no doubt his position is safe, and we're going to keep marching forward continuing to build upon the historic wins that he's been able to achieve this year.
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You know, yeah, Margaret, it's a great question.
I think it's one that you need to pose to the White House, considering the fact that they refuse to negotiate for 100 days, despite indicating otherwise. They're the ones who brought us to the brink. If we had begun negotiations back in February, when the president and speaker first had their -- their meeting to discuss this...
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... then we'd never -- we wouldn't be in this situation today. We would have finished negotiation months ago.
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No, I don't think that's appropriate...
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I think that it's really important, just like if you had a child mark that hit their credit card limit and was unable to pay their credit card bill that month, you'd probably step in and help them out.
I know that I would. But I would also have a candid conversation about reform of spending. The Committee for Responsible Federal Budget has calculated that every child or grandchild born in America today is going to end up paying about $4.5 million because of the irresponsible spending in Washington, $4.5 million over their lifetime.
That is absolutely inexcusable. And we cannot continue on this trajectory.
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Yes. Yes, it's a great question.
So -- so let's keep in mind that we're actually increasing defense by about $20 billion to $886 billion. When you take every other function of government, it equals about $704 billion. There's no question in my mind that we can improve efficiency of the Department of Defense, the large- scale acquisition programs, whether it be weapons systems, aircraft and others.
We're all familiar with the toilet seats and hammer stories of the past, where the Department of Defense was paying outrageous prices. So we are going to continue...
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... ensuring that our war fighters have the upper hand, while we also ensure that the Department of Defense improves its efficiency.
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