NBC "Meet the Press" - Transcript: Infrastructure Spending
Interview
CHUCK TODD:
All right, Tom Costello, thanks very much. I'm joined now by Democratic senator, Cory Booker of New Jersey. Senator Booker, welcome back to Meet the Press.
SENATOR BOOKER:
Good to be here, thank you.
CHUCK TODD:
Hey, I want to start quickly with the ISIS raid, and then of course turn to infrastructure, which is something I know you were focused on all week with this Amtrak derailment. What you have heard about the raid, do you feel A) it's a success from what you understand of it now, and that B) the overall campaign against ISIS is, so far, more successful than failure?
SENATOR BOOKER:
Well, certainly this raid, it looks like it was a success. A lot of the information we pulled out of there could be very, very valuable, the computers and other data that was recovered that's now being analyzed. This is going to be a long effort. ISIS is a terrible threat in that region as well as to American security. And we're going to be involved in a many-months, if not longer, effort.
So we've seen some gains from the recruitment of foreign fighters going down, in their territory. But then we see things like this week, where we end up losing some ground. So I'm encouraged by some of the progress we're making, but we have a lot more work to do when it comes to eliminating this threat.
CHUCK TODD:
All right, let me move to the Amtrak derailment. You know, this week, some House Republicans have been criticizing some Democrats, not you by name, but other Democrats, for attempting to politicize this derailment. Do you think that's a fair critique?
SENATOR BOOKER:
Well, look, I think it's a distraction from the reality. United States of America is falling behind dramatically its global peers in terms of the quality of its infrastructure. We have trillions of dollars of an infrastructure debt right now. And the accident that we saw happen, which the NTSB says could have been prevented, should we have had positive train control, we should not be scrimping on investments in public safety.
But what's even more important to understand this, as China invests about 9% of their G.D.P. in infrastructure, Japan 6%, Europe 5%, America's only doing 1.5%. By withholding this investment, in what America used to dominate the globe in, the number one infrastructure globally, now out of the top ten, depending on who you look at, number 12 or 18th, we are losing economic competitiveness.
We are losing out on jobs. We are missing out on growth. So let's leave that partisan argument aside for a second and just say the fiscally conservative thing to do right now is to invest in your, whether it was a company in your physical plant, whether a homeowner in your roof, but as a nation, we have fallen way out of pace with where we were in previous years in terms of overall investment.
CHUCK TODD:
But do you really think it's a fair implication that the lack of infrastructure spending is to blame for this accident?
SENATOR BOOKER:
I think the lack of infrastructure spending is costing us lives in America. It's costing every commuter. In my region especially, you see commuters paying over $1,000 a year in terms of damage to their cars, lost productivity. It's costing us in economic growth, it's costing us in jobs. And so the safety of our roads and bridges, we already know unequivocally, months I've been working on this issue.
We know unequivocally our safety as a nation, our air traffic, our aviation infrastructure, our rail infrastructure, our roads and bridges, is inadequate. We should be investing more. That's unequivocal, unassailable. And for us not to do that in a bipartisan fashion is unacceptable to me. And it's what we should be working on.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me focus on Amtrak here for a minute. I want to put up a couple of graphics here that sort of show maybe why it's politically so hard to get support for Amtrak on Capitol Hill. Ridership by congressional district in 2014, look at this, in Democratic congressional districts versus Republican congressional districts in use in terms of ridership on Amtrak.
And then if you look at the 25 busiest Amtrak stations in 2013, almost all of them concentrated on the two coasts, which frankly, are very Democratic, very blue. And you're struggling winning over Republican support. Amtrak really isn't thought of as a feasible part of public transportation in the middle of the country, where there's much more Republican representation. Is that a big challenge for Amtrak?
SENATOR BOOKER:
Well, you know, in a very practical, political way, very likely. But I'll tell you this. I'm a pro-growth guy. And we know, for example, in the Northeast Corridor, one-sixth of the American population, one-fifth of the economic growth. That economic growth and that fueling of our G.D.P., doesn't just go to Republicans or doesn't just go to Democrats. It benefits this country as a whole.
And so in my negotiations over the past few months, with people like Roger Wicker and others, on the Senate side, we're seeing some movement in the idea that we must invest in this precious asset that creates so many jobs, so much economic dynamism. And so it's a political fight, yes. But in fact, those folks who are fiscally conservative, where in the world, in fact, any Wall Street investor, for every dollar you invest in things like the Northeast Corridor passenger rail, you get about $2 back in economic growth and activity.
Any investor will take that. And if we are stewards of American dollars, and caretakers of this great infrastructure we've inherited from our grandparents, we don't want to pass it on to our children with an infrastructure debt. We want to make those investments and reap those dividends.
CHUCK TODD:
Hey, before I let you go, when you were running for the Senate in 2013, you said this. You know how to be a disruptive force in Washington. You said, "In Washington, on day one, if the leadership's already told me, 'I'll be able to have an impact that a freshman senator usually won't have.'"
A year later, Dana Milbank of The Washington Post asked this question. "What is Booker afraid of? This paradox has puzzled many since he arrived in the capital last year after a special election. How could he use his star power to do most anything, yet he is acting like a conventional pol." Are you being too conventional?
SENATOR BOOKER:
Well, look. I'm not paying attention to one columnist or critic. The reality is, in the short time I've been in the Senate, I've been able to join together, in fact, the majority of my legislation has been in the bipartisan manner, working on issues that may not be popular, may not capture the attention of some columnists.
But let's look at one of the biggest issues of injustice facing our nation, which is this over-incarceration problem we have. Five percent of the globe's population, 25% almost of the globe's prison population, and now working with everybody from Rand Paul to Ted Cruz to Mike Lee, we've started forming a bipartisan movement in this country to correct a grievous injustice.
I'm going to continue working on both sides of the aisle on pragmatic issues that frankly fiscal conservatives can join with me from infrastructure investment to criminal justice reform to try to push our country forward because we're being devastated, in my opinion, by too much partisan talk and a failure to come together and solve problems.
CHUCK TODD:
Easier though to be disruptive as a mayor than as a senator? Are you finding that out?
SENATOR BOOKER:
You know, I disagree. I think that in both areas, there's different types of work that are necessary. In Washington, while I'm not going to be necessarily doing the same kind of work, it's a different job, but in Washington, there is a huge space for which we can work together. Find commonalities and move things forward. That's the kind of disruption we need. And I'm happy to see people on both sides of the aisle more and more coming to that conclusion.
CHUCK TODD:
All right. An optimistic note there at the end, Senator Cory Booker, Democrat from New Jersey, thanks for coming on Meet the Press.
SENATOR BOOKER:
Thank you for having me.
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