MSNBC "All in With Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Ro Khanna and Rep. Ryan Costello
Interview
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HAYES: All right, Amanda Terkel, thank you very much for being with me. For more the Midterms, I`m joined by two members of the House of Representatives, Democrat Ro Khanna who is up for re-election in California 17th District in two weeks and Republican Ryan Costello of Pennsylvania who`s getting the hell out of there retiring at the end of his term. So I want to -- well, let me start with you actually. If I say to you what is this election about in two weeks, what`s your answer?
REP. RO KHANNA (D), CALIFORNIA: It`s about a check on executive power. We need a check on Donald Trump. And it`s about the economy. We need people who are working Americans to do better. They haven`t been gotten anything under Donald Trump.
HAYES: How about -- what`s your answer that?
REP. RYAN COSTELLO (R), PENNSYLVANIA: Are we better off than we were two years ago? Is the country moving in the right direction from a job creation and an economic growth perspective? And are we willing to give Republicans a continued chance to govern out of the House notwithstanding the fact that there are frustrations with the way that the President communicates
HAYES: Right. So that`s a perfectly decent but there is -- I can`t find a 30-second ad being run on those issues. I mean, honestly, it is -- it seems to me an incredible condemnation of the Republican record that every ad is about -- it`s about the caravan, it`s about MS-13, it`s about the Democrats are going to let the mob get after you and there`s precious little you can find on anything having to do with the record of Republican.
COSTELLO: Look, I think that it`s for whatever reason, the strategic decisions being made are we need to get our base out when from my perspective is it would seem to me that the base in large measure should be happy with the types of policies that the president has been espousing and in the districts that we need to keep suburban Minneapolis, suburban California, we should be layering on top of that a more centrist message.
KHANNA: The reality is most Americans aren`t happy and that`s why the President is doing this. It`s out of weakness. And the President had a winning hand. If he really thought that Americans were doing better, he`d run on that, but he`s stuck in the 40 percent in his polls and so he`s -- this is desperation. He`s clinging to power. I think it`s going to backfire because most Republicans are reasonable like Ryan. I mean, they actually believe in evidence, the reason, you can actually debate with Ryan, we do bills, we disagree. That`s what most people believe in. This is --
COSTELLO: It goes to say that (INAUDIBLE) win the debate. But also the point --
HAYES: You two are both saying the same thing which I think is wrong. You guys are both saying that -- you guys are both saying that the strategic decision that`s been made is incorrect. The strategic decision which we all agree on which is clear is get the base riled up with really nasty stuff. I mean, really, honestly. The way -- you know, lying about there are terrorist infiltrating the caravan completely baseless stuff. They think that will work. You both don`t think it does but what if it does? What does it say?
COSTELLO: But the caveat here is that I believe the President in large measure is campaigning for the United States Senate not for House races. And if you look in North Dakota, in Indiana, in Missouri and a few others, Montana, they love them there or at least it`s above 50 percent.
HAYES: But what does that say? What does that say to you? They love the fact that he`s lying and saying that there are Middle Eastern terrorist --
COSTELLO: Well, the voters of those states get to do -- choose what they - - what they support and what they don`t but if -- look, in my district, having the President in to campaign for me this year if I were running would not be a good recipe.
HAYES: Would be bad. Yes, right.
KHANNA: And his tactics are not original. I mean, people lying to hold on to power is as old as politics itself.
HAYES: Yes, that`s true.
KHANNA: And you know, at some point you have to believe in the common sense and decency of Americans. Eventually, they`ll get it right. And what we can`t do is get distracted. Look, remember he`s at 45 percent. The majority of Americans don`t believe in his tactics.
HAYES: What I thought was such a tell was this ridiculous. First of all, the lies have been sort of like some have been really nasty, some have been hilarious, like the idea that there`s riots happening in California that just like no one`s seen. Like oh yes, there`s -- like the President of the United States just casually being like get to the riots in California. You know it obviously. But I thought the rolling out a fictitious middle-class tax cut was such a tell, right? Because what that says to me is you don`t trust the thing you passed. You guys passed it. You walked the plank for it. You voted for that bill.
COSTELLO: I voted. We were on last week. We had a good conversation about that.
HAYES: Right. So you voted that bill. What does it say to you that he comes and he invents a new middle-class tax cut which is not happening which is totally fictitious two weeks before Election Day because he clearly thinks the first one didn`t work?
COSTELLO: I don`t know what to make of a fictitious tax cut. I can`t help you on that one.
KHANNA: Well, I mean, he knows.
COSTELLO: Will you vote the fictitious tax cut?
KHANNA: Well, if he had -- if he had a tax initially to help working families, that`s what a lot of us wanted. We wanted the earned income credit to be expanded. That`s what Kamala Harris has proposed but the President knows he didn`t do that. And he did attached it for his donors, now that it`s election time he thinks he can pull the wall over folks eyes and it`s not going to work.
HAYES: There`s another -- there`s another theme that`s been emerging here. This is the pre-existing condition issue. I want to play -- Rick Scott is now the latest -- Republicans is very much on the defensive about pre- existing conditions largely because of a lawsuit that would end them if it was successful and also the vote on ObamaCare repeal. This is what Rick Scott had to say. Take a listen.
Yes, sorry this is Rick Scott as he say, he support forcing insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions. Just supposed to be there. This has been a theme Republicans trying to get right with the American people on this even when they`ve supported things that would change protection for a pre-existing condition.
COSTELLO: Correct. Well, correct in the sense that that`s the campaign issue. I think -- I voted against the health care bill on the floor. The pre-existing conditions coverage I think at this point in time, nobody can be against. I think that the question that`s being litigated is whether those who voted to allow a state to waive that in certain circumstances if there was a state stability fund set up in order to provide the alternative cover. We`re going to talk about health care policy, we`re going to get end up getting in the weeds.
HAYES: Right.
COSTELLO: That`s what will ultimately get litigated, very difficult to litigate health care policy and 30-second political commercials.
KHANNA: But Chris, this is what Democrats need to run on. Everyone --
HAYES: They are.
KHANNA: And we shouldn`t get distracted with the -- with the sidetrack that Trump is trying to do. He knows health care is a losing issue for him. He knows people`s deductibles have gone up, premiums have gone going up, they aren`t getting coverage and we`re winning on the health care debate.
HAYES: Let me -- let me bring up one more issue that no one is running on but might be one of the most important in the world just because I have you both here. There are millions of people in Yemen who are facing the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. We`re talking about millions of children who are at risk of starvation because of the U.S. and Saudi-led war in Yemen. Mohammed bin Salman who just apparently ordered the murder of the journalist has also been running this. You have a bill to stop U.S. support for Yemen. Tell me about it.
KHANNA: Well, Chris, I appreciate your bringing it up. You`re one the only mainstream journalists covering the issue. Let me just put it in perspective. There are 12 million Yemenis who faced the possibility of starvation. 800,000 people died in Rwanda, 100,000 died in Bosnia, the world`s worst famine in West Bengal over the last 100 years was 3 million. Here you have 12 million and the United States is supporting the Saudis in bombing those civilians and not allowing humanitarian aid. Regardless of the politics we should demand a cessation to the violence and let aid get in there.
HAYES: This doesn`t strike me as particularly partisan issue. Is that something that you could see yourself supporting other Republicans?
COSTELLO: Well, I could and I will just add to that. There are a number of hot spots around the globe that because of the way that campaigns are run now we don`t focus on and we don`t have the ability to lean in on them and inform our constituents on the types of things that we`re working on so I applaud your leadership.
KHANNA: And I like Ryan. Look, this is how politics used to be. Ryan and I disagree but he believes in evidence, facts, and it`s a shame that the President is distorting the campaign so you don`t have this --
HAYES: Well, the President said he`s willing to leave punishment of the Saudi situation up to Congress. It strikes me that the lame-duck session, I think there`s probably -- you know, lame-duck session, I think he can get 235, 240 votes to end the U.S.-backed war in Yemen. I hope so. Representatives Ro Khanna and Ryan Costello, thank you both for being with me. Let`s do it again. It was fun. All right, next, it`s debate night in Georgia. We`ll show you what happened when Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp go head-to-head in two minutes.
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