NBC "Meet the Press" - Transcript

Interview

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MR. GREGORY: All this as Republicans ready a long-term budget plan that will slash spending, reduce the size of government and tackle entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Joining us now for the very latest on these negotiations, the assistant majority leader in the Senate, Democrat Dick Durbin.

Welcome back to MEET THE PRESS.

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): Thanks, David.

MR. GREGORY: I want to get to the budget and Libya in just a moment, but I want to start with this news out of Afghanistan, it's significant. You have these protests going on this week and they have been deadly, seven foreigners killed. Not just General Petraeus, but the president issued a statement saying that any act of destruction of the Quran is an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry. You have conducted hearings about anti-Muslim bias in this country. How concerned are you about what's happening and the response to what's happened in Florida?

SEN. DURBIN: I'm very concerned about it. I understand what the First Amendment says, the rights that are given to American citizens when it comes to speech and assembly and religion. But I want to tell you, this pastor, with his publicity stunt with the Quran, unfortunately endangers the lives of our troops and a lot of innocent people. It is time for him to accept the responsibility as an American to help our troops be safe.

MR. GREGORY: Why--what's different in this circumstance? He did this kind of underneath the radar. Before you had Secretary Gates and Clinton, the president himself speaking out in advance of him doing this, and yet here he just sort of did it and nobody noticed.

SEN. DURBIN: Well, they did notice. And unfortunately, people have died as a result of it. And that's the reality. You know, you can't stop a person from exercising their constitutional rights, but I hope it is roundly condemned by everyone in America. This sort of hateful conduct, endangering the lives of innocent people and our troops, is totally unacceptable.

MR. GREGORY: Do you think it's going to ratchet up, though? Because Pastor Jones has a scheduled rally against Muslims coming up later in the month.

SEN. DURBIN: David, I wish there was a way that you would never mention his name again on the air, but I know that you have to report the news. He's looking for publicity, and as long as he gets that publicity he will continue this irresponsible conduct.

MR. GREGORY: We will move on. But I do want to stay in Afghanistan and look at the map of the region, of course, and remind our viewers, lest we forget, what our troop presence is there, 100,000 troops. There is talk about a drawdown come this summer. The Washington Post reported this this week about what that might actually look like, and some dissension in the White House. The headline: "A Battle looms over the pace of the Afghanistan pullout. General Petraeus," who I just mentioned, "has not presented a recommendation on the withdrawal to his superiors at the Pentagon, but some senior officers and military planning documents have described a July pullout as small to insignificant, prompting deep concern within the White House." What are you comfortable with, what do you have to see as a beginning of that withdrawal in July to be satisfied?

SEN. DURBIN: I want to see a clear trend line that suggests that American troops are coming home. The longest war in our history has to come to an end. We have to transfer responsibility of this war to the Afghan people, either their police force or their military. And we have to acknowledge the obvious, we cannot stay in Afghanistan indefinitely. It is too costly in terms of Americans lives and treasure.

MR. GREGORY: So if this is just a--what might be described as a small or a token withdrawal, that's not enough.

SEN. DURBIN: Well, I think it has to be the beginning of a withdrawal that is significant. The president made that promise. I know he will keep it. He understand that our role in the world has to be defined and specific--we see that in Libya--and that we can't engage, as we have in the past, in these massive troop commitments that go on indefinitely.

MR. GREGORY: Would you put a number on what the withdrawal has to be by July?

SEN. DURBIN: It's hard for me to say that. I don't want to endanger the troops that are there. But I think what America's looking for, what the president's looking for is a clear indication that we're coming home.

MR. GREGORY: We'll get to Libya in just a moment, but I do want to talk about the big budget battle. We could have a government shutdown this week if the two sides don't come together. Is that where this is headed?

SEN. DURBIN: I hope not. You know, this is the warm-up, David. As important as it is to finish the appropriation for the next six months of this year, we have a much, much bigger battle ahead of us in the next few weeks. We don't want to see the government shutdown. Speaker Boehner's in a very delicate and tough political position. I understand that, even though I'm in the other party. I can see the problems that he's facing. But we have to put this behind us. We have agreed on a number as to the cut. Now we have to agree on the component parts of it and move forward. At the end of the day, the American people don't care who has bragging rights at the end of this. They want to make certain we are responsible and work together, both political parties, to meet a real national challenge.

MR. GREGORY: All right. Well, but people understand that. But go behind the curtain here. What has to give? For instance, Democrats are pretty upset with the so-called riders in the spending cut legislation that would deny funding, say, for health care or would block the EPA from putting in certain environmental regulations, deny funding to Planned Parenthood, for an example. Would you be willing to vote for a compromise that included those, those bans on, on certain kind of spending?

SEN. DURBIN: David, I think the House Republicans lose all credibility when they decide that this fight isn't over the deficit, it isn't over the amount of spending cuts, but rather it's to debate and relitigate political issues that have been in Washington for decades. For goodness sakes, let's get our job done. Let's fund the government. There's plenty of opportunity in the House and Senate to debate every other issue. That's what we're there for. But let's not tie up our government and close it down, to the embarrassment of both political parties, by insisting on these riders that are totally political.

MR. GREGORY: Well, I understand your position. But could you vote for a compromise that included those riders?

SEN. DURBIN: I can tell you, there are some that are totally unacceptable. The idea that we are going to close down the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to keep our air clean and our water pure, I mean, that sort of thing is irresponsible. To close down Planned Parenthood funding--it is not for abortion, it's for family planning--that's a step way beyond what the mandate of the last election called for.

MR. GREGORY: So no vote from Senator Durbin, no yes vote, if those are still in there.

SEN. DURBIN: Absolutely not.

MR. GREGORY: Let me talk about the politics of this. You sounded sympathetic toward Speaker Boehner and what he has to deal with. Senator Schumer, your colleague, was on a conference call with Democratic colleagues on Tuesday, and some reporters--didn't realize that, I guess, his microphone was open, the reporters could hear him. This is what he said about how to talk about the other side, how to talk about Republicans in this spending fight.

(Audiotape, Tuesday)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): I always use the word "extreme." That's what the caucus instructed me to do the other week. Extreme cuts and all these riders, and Boehner's in a box. But if he supports the tea party, there's going to inevitably be a shutdown.

(End audiotape)

MR. GREGORY: Look, you're in the leadership in the Senate here. I know from my own reporting that a big part of the White House strategy is to draw Republicans over the line and cast them as extreme. Are you going to win that battle?

SEN. DURBIN: Well, I think some of the spending cuts they're suggesting go way, way too far. Chuck Schumer, I think, is an indication of what happens in both political parties, in both caucuses, House and Senate. We talk about how to get a message through to the American people, as tough as it is in this day and age. And, and Chuck was instructing folks as to what he felt the best way was to deliver that message. But here's what it comes down to. We cannot go so far in our spending cuts at this moment as to jeopardize this recovery. We have good news, David. Last Friday more jobs are being created, the lowest unemployment rate in two years. But it's slow going and we don't want to kill off jobs. The House Republican budget would eliminate up to 700,000 jobs in America instead of 200,000 on the plus side, as we showed this month. We would be moving backwards, and we don't want to. We want to move out of this recession by creating jobs.

MR. GREGORY: Let's stick with the politics. E.J. Dionne, the columnist with The Washington Post who will be on our roundtable in just a few minutes, has made the argument that President Obama has been sort of missing when it comes to framing the debate over spending cuts. Why?

SEN. DURBIN: Well, you have to put it in this context. If the president asserted himself with the Obama plan, it would be summarily rejected. Congress would say, "Wait a minute. Separate branch of government. We'll call you when we need you." At this point, this is our responsibility. So a president walks a very delicate line here. He doesn't want to go too far in pushing his idea, but he wants to be there to encourage Congress to come to the right conclusion. President Obama's doing that. I can tell you this, he has been working behind the scenes with both political parties for a long, long time. He--yesterday he spoke to Speaker Boehner and, and Leader Reid, encouraging them, don't let the government shut down. So yes, the president's playing a role. It may not be as visible in public as some would like, but I think he's done the right thing.

MR. GREGORY: Let's talk more broadly about the economy. You mentioned the jobless number. We'll put the graph up on the screen here to give our viewers a sense of where unemployment has gone since 2009. The peak, of course, October of that year. Now back down to 8.8 percent. Certainly an improvement, with private sector jobs being created. But Christine Romer, who is an adviser, of course, to the president on the economy, gave a speech a couple of weeks ago where she was still critical. This is what she said. "Nearly 14 million Americans currently are looking for a job but can't find one. Unemployment remains an absolute crisis. ... I frankly don't understand why policymakers aren't more worried about the genuine suffering of so many families. We have tools we can use to bring the unemployment rate down, and I think it is shameful that we are not using them." That's a pretty significant piece of criticism from someone who is in the president's ear on the economy. Is he not doing enough?

SEN. DURBIN: Well, I think the blame could be passed around not just to the president, but certainly to Congress. For the longest time we debated whether to extend unemployment benefits. Listen, I meet with these people who are out of work, desperately looking for jobs, sending resumes out five and 10 a day in hopes of finding one, and it's very, very difficult and it's slow going. So we not only have to provide the safety net of relief for those who are out of work, but we also cannot cut off funding for basic education and training programs. That was one of my grievances against the House Republican budget. We cannot cut off education and training and basic research when it comes to job creation.

MR. GREGORY: What about Medicare and Medicaid? As you know, Congressman Ryan is going to talk about cuts for, for Medicaid, also a voucher program for Medicare.

SEN. DURBIN: Well, I can tell you that this group of six senators, three Democrats and three Republicans, which I've been part of, we're trying to come up with a bipartisan approach in the Senate to address the same issue that Paul Ryan addresses in his budget. I think we'll come at it differently. What we need to see is everything on the table and real balance. The idea of sparing the Pentagon from any savings, not imposing any new sacrifice on the wealthiest Americans, I think goes way too far. We have got to make certain that it's a balanced approach and one that can be sustained over the next 10 years.

MR. GREGORY: Let me spend a couple of minutes on Libya, a major area of focus for this administration. The president sat down with Brian Williams on "Nightly News" this week and he talked about where Gadhafi is at this point.

(Videotape, Tuesday)

PRES. OBAMA: What we've also done is put Gadhafi back on his heels. And so our expectation is, is that as we continue apply steady pressure not only militarily, but also through these other means, that Gadhafi will ultimately step down.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: Let me go through that a little bit. That was Tuesday. As the week wore on, you and I both know what happened: setbacks for the rebels. Did the president speak too soon about mission accomplished, in effect?

SEN. DURBIN: No. But don't ignore the fact, David, that this week there were major defections from the Gadhafi regime when his foreign minister left, and an indication that even though it's been a seesaw in the battle, that the opposition forces have a strong position in the eastern part of Libya. The most important thing to recall is that we have gathered here in an international coalition started by the Arab League, working with the United Nations, to make sure that Gadhafi's days are numbered. He clearly is under pressure and will continue to be. The United States' military role will change and diminish over the next week or two as we really walk away from some of the air cover and some of the missile activity that we've been involved in, but we'll still be there in a supportive capacity dealing with intelligence and logistics and refueling. And I think Gadhafi has to understand, the days when he could lord over Libya and do the outrageous things like killing American troops and bringing down Pan Am 103 are over. His days are numbered.

MR. GREGORY: But what about--but that may be more hope than reality. We simply don't know yet. The Washington Post had an editorial on Tuesday, I want to put a portion it of--up there, speaking about Libya and the endgame. "The president is not wrong," they write, "to try to limit the costs and risks of intervention in Libya when U.S. forces are still deployed in two other Muslim countries and a fiscal crisis presses at home. But a policy that curtails American involvement at the expense of failing to resolve Libya's crisis may only lead to greater costs and dangers." The plan B. What is the U.S. commitment if things don't go as planned, if things get worse, if there is a stalemate?

SEN. DURBIN: Understand, the president has committed the United States, at the invitation of the Arab League, with their participation and with the approval and guidance of the United Nations. What he is saying, what we are doing is consistent with that international mandate. Now, perhaps the U.N. will step beyond that at some future time. But at the present moment you would have to say that Gadhafi has to feel threatened from every quarter. We have seized over $30 billion of his assets in the United States. We are closing down his oil exports. His cabinet ministers are resigning. He has lost control of the eastern part of his country. Put yourself in Tripoli in his position now and ask, what is your long-term prospects of leading Libya? They're very limited.

MR. GREGORY: Senator Durbin, before you go, I do want to end on a political note. There's some question about the future of the Democratic Party. If you were asked, would you be the leader of the Democratic National Committee?

SEN. DURBIN: Listen, that isn't on my bucket list of things to do. As a senator from Illinois and as a member of the leadership and a person who wants to have a life, too, the idea of traipsing all over the United States is not really on my agenda.

MR. GREGORY: But if you were asked, would you do it?

SEN. DURBIN: Well, I haven't been asked, and I'm not soliciting it. I've got a good job in the Senate and a great job representing Illinois.

MR. GREGORY: And there's still a chance you could be shortstop for the Cubs, right?

SEN. DURBIN: Well, they don't need me at this moment.

MR. GREGORY: All right, Senator Durbin, thank you very much.

SEN. DURBIN: Thanks a lot, David.

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