Meet the Press - March 31, 2024 Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), Katie Rogers, Jeh Johnson, Ramesh Ponnuru and Savannah Guthrie
Interview
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Thank you, Kristen. And happy Easter to you and all the folks listening today. It's a very special day for all Christians, but thank you.
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Well, Speaker Johnson is an honest man. He truly walks his faith. He doesn't talk his faith, he walks his faith, he shows it. He's committed to making this the first, the top priority, when we return back to Washington, DC. Now, most of the Republicans that I work with, they want military aid. They're not as in support of all the humanitarian aid that was in the Senate bill. So myself and Brian Fitzpatrick from Pennsylvania, but also working with Democrats Jared Golden and Ed Case from Hawaii, we put a bill together that focuses on military aid, a $66 billion bill that provides military aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Also, it's border security in that.
We put this in as a discharge petition. With – and it gives the speaker and the House to amend our package. So what I think we're going to do is to get a bill that's focused on military aid. But I know the speaker also wants to have, like, the Repo Act, where we repossess some Russian assets to help them pay for this. Also, maybe, some lend lease segments to the bill. So some of this may become in the form of loans. But also, it's very important to the Republican side that we just don't give President Biden a blank check. And why is that? A lot of weapons that Ukraine needs, the president has not given them, like long-range ATACMS. These are for providing a stalemate in Ukraine. Why not give Ukraine the weapons that are higher-tech, more capable, as to help them prevail on the battlefield? So we want to force the president's hand on the kinds of weapons that we will provide.
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I think it'll be segments to this funding that will be a loan, won't be the whole – whole thing. But I would say the president has had the capability – the ability to provide ATACMS, all along, and has not done it. So if we do this bill, and I think we will, there's enough support in the House to get this done. And I – and I want to make sure that we have support in the Senate. I don't want to just do a ping pong, where we send it back over to the Senate. There's just got to be a bicameral, bipartisan solution. But we want to force the president's hand on providing better, capable weapons.
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Yeah. Well, it didn't have a lot of bicameral support, at least on the Republican side. Why is that? You have about almost $30 billion in humanitarian aid and there's not a lot of support for that amount of humanitarian aid going to Ukraine. We think the EU could do a lot more humanitarian than they are. They just did a $50 billion humanitarian aid and Germany has committed more. We think our role should be more military aid because that's what we're good at. And so I think – so I'm optimistic we're going to get this done in two weeks. I just want to ensure it's bicameral because I don't want to just send a bill over to the Senate and it doesn't go anywhere. So that's been my main concern. But I have a commitment from the speaker and the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee that we're going to put this on the floor and get a – get a vote.
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It's – it’s possible, I'm not going to deny it. We have one or two people that are not team players. They'd rather enjoy the limelight, the social media. And the fact is with the one-seat majority – and we'll end up with a three- or four-seat majority after some special elections – out of 435 people, it's a very narrow majority. And one or two people can make this a minority. And yet, I'm of the view you work with the team. I don't have to get 100%.
Eighty percent is the Ronald Reagan rule. But we have some people that if they don't get 100%, want to bring the House down and it makes us dysfunctional. And so it's a possibility. I do think there will be Democrats, though, who do not want to see this dysfunction. And I think they'll probably vote present or, maybe, not be there for a vote. But it is very likely that after this Ukraine bill, we may have a standoff with the speaker. I hope the speaker prevails. He's doing the right thing. It's in our national security interest that Ukraine remain independent.
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Well, right now, the lawyers and the committee that I talk to say there's not a specific crime. And he'd need that for high crime or a misdemeanor. Now, I think it merited an investigation to put the facts out, let the public look at it, make a determination. And I think it's good to be transparent, especially in an election year, so let's put the facts on the table. But when I talked to the lawyers on the committee staff, they say, at this point, there is not a specific crime that's been committed. And I think that's important.
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We don't want to –
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I don't know if it's time, right now. But I do think we're probably nearing the conclusion of this investigation. And I think it was important for the American people to see that, yes, there's $24 million in foreign money that the family raised and all the hidden LLCs that the money was moved around in. But that is, in itself, not a high crime or misdemeanor.
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I don't support the rhetoric. By the way, we see rhetoric on both sides. I'm the target of a lot of rhetoric on both sides. And I would want us to raise the bar of civility and how we treat the other side of the aisle, for sure. Now, I don't think he was inciting violence, but it is representative of the political dialogue we have today. And I see it first hand. I get the - I get the same treatment from the left and the right, right now. Our country's better than this. We're the strongest country in the world. And we are the best country to live in, but we're not going to remain that way if we treat our opponents in this way. So that's the first thing I want to raise. We've got to be a lot better at how we dialogue with the opposition. But, secondly, when it comes to this election, we don't need that. The issues are on our side. In our district, the number-one issue, the number-two issue, the number-three issue is the border. And we – and we should be focusing on these issues and quality of life. And we will win.
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I'll just say it this way. That's not how I talk. I'll lead by example on this. I think, in my debates with my opponents, I focus on the issues and that's how we win. And I think in Nebraska, in the Midwest, we don't like the nastiness, you know? We have a phrase here, "Nebraska nice," and it's real. So we can win on the issues, so that's what we should focus on.
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No. All Americans have to live by the law. And we're all accountable for our behavior. And so, especially after you leave the presidency, everybody, any individual, can be held accountable through the legal system. And so, bottom line, every American is equally held responsible under the law.
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So, you have two questions there. First, the federal government does have a role with this bridge. I don't think it should be the sole, you know, payer. But it would probably be a partnership with Maryland, maybe the local authorities. It is a federal highway. In the Constitution, we have responsibility for infrastructure, so there is a role there. So the federal government's got to do its part. On Easter, you know, we've got to remind ourselves that, well, first of all, you know, on Resurrection Sunday, it shows that God has power over death, that we have an eternal future with faith. And we can't forget that. It's the most important day of the year for our faith. Secondly, I think our faith calls for the golden rule. It calls for, like, you know, the fruits of the spirit in Galatians, that we should treat each other with respect, decency. And I think, as Christians, sometimes we forgot that in this political debate.
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We can’t allow ourselves to be – we've got to hold a higher bar here and remember the gold rule, as we work out the issues facing our country.
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Thank you.
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