NBC News " Hardball" - Transcript: Stabenow on Trade and Employment

Interview

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MATTHEWS: Joining me now from Capitol Hill is Michigan Senator Debbie
Stabenow, who has her own concerns about the deal.

Senator, I know you`re concerned about the currency manipulation here and
the president seemed to address that saying he`s going to moderating it and
they`re going to make sure that nobody is going to be manipulating currency
like the Chinese have done. Your thoughts on that?

SEN. DEBBIE STABENOW (D), MICHIGAN: Well, Chris, first of all, the
language in fast track just isn`t strong enough and I should start by
saying we know we`re in a global economy. I want to make sure we`re
exporting products, not jobs.

And when you talk about currency manipulation, right now we`ve seen when
Japan was manipulating their currency that the Japanese auto companies
actually were making more profit by that artificial discount in their price
than they were on anything else. They sell to us, we can`t sell to them.
They`ve manipulated their currency. So we`re going to have to do fast
track authority on trade then we better have you have to enforcement to
make sure we can`t have countries manipulating their currency.

MATTHEWS: Are you one of the senators that the president was talking who
are just very pro-labor and anti-trade, because I notice your record is
pretty much you voted against the Columbia trade deal, you voted against
the central American deal, and you voted against the one in 2002. You do
have a track record of opposition.

So, is this just part of that, what you`re doing now?

STABENOW: Well, Chris, I have voted for trade agreements when they made
sense for people in Michigan, for businesses and workers.

MATTHEWS: Which ones?

STABENOW: -- and people in the country.

Korea -- and I`ll give a shout-out to the president. President Bush
negotiated a Korea trade agreement that was bad for manufacturing, the auto
companies. President Obama came in and fixed it. The UAW and the
automobile companies supported it, and I supported it as well.

So, there have been others. But frankly, we`re at a point in time where we
don`t need another race to the bottom on wages --

MATTHEWS: OK.

STABENOW: -- and environmental standards and so on. We need a race to the
top. You want to fast track something, fast track the middle class.

MATTHEWS: This has gotten rather ferocious. Senator Elizabeth Warren who
a lot of people respect, not just people on the left respect her a lot for
integrity, saying that this is basically going to help the rich get richer
and leave everybody else behind.

And then the president comes out today on our program tonight and says,
basically, look, don`t you trust me. I`ve been looking out for middle
class ever since I got to be president. Getting the jobless number down,
getting the economy back. Why would I be out hurting people who are
working people?

Who -- it seems like both believe what they`re doing. So, tell me what you
think of the president`s position. It`s at odds with you right now.

STABENOW: Well, Chris, I support this president. He has done more to get
us out of a hole and get us on the right kind of track in the economy than
any president I think maybe ever. I appreciate that he has enforced more
trade agreements than anyone else.

What I disagree in terms of the toughness of this fast track process.
Frankly, I`m never going to forget sitting in Greenville, Michigan, a
little town in west Michigan, when a company that makes refrigerators was
talking about moving -- moved to Mexico after NAFTA. We`re trying to get
them to stay and they finally said, senator, with all due respect, you
can`t compete with $1.57 an hour in wages.

Well, you know want, I don`t want to race down to that?

MATTHEWS: Yes.

STABENOW: We want to race up and that`s what this is really about. It`s
not about trade. It`s about is it going to be a trade that increases the
middle class or loses the middle class?

MATTHEWS: Well said. Thank you, Senator Debbie Stabenow --

STABENOW: Thank you.

MATTHEWS: -- of Michigan. Please come back.

Let`s bring in the roundtable right now: former U.S. Congressman Harold
Ford, "Salon`s" Joan Walsh, and Heather McGee of Demos.

Congressman, let me ask you about this. This is a battle among people that
generally agree on most things. Democratic -- mostly progressives. I
mean, most of the progressives are against the president. What do you
think of this fight?

HAROLD FORD (D), FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN: I hope the president prevails.
I think many of the concerns raised by my former colleagues, and Debbie and
I served in the Congress together, as well other progress are legitimate
concerns.

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