NBC "Meet the Press" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Roy Blunt
Interview
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CHUCK TODD:
Okay. I'll have to check that math. Fair enough. All right, joining me now from the other side of the aisle, is Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, a member of the Republican leadership, who sits on the Intelligence Committee. Welcome back to Meet the Press, sir.
SEN. ROY BLUNT:
Hey, Chuck. Good to be with you.
CHUCK TODD:
All right, let me start with something that Senator Schumer said he was going to ask the United States Senate to do, basically -- to ask for a, a sense of the Senate and the House on this lawsuit that says, it needs to be -- Congress needs to intervene with this lawsuit and stop it. Would you support that?
SEN. ROY BLUNT:
Well, I think what he was saying was, what the Congress should do is tell the circuit court what to do. I can't recall a similar time when anything like that happened. And Senator Schumer followed that by saying, "You know, on health care, it's really hard to get anything done," when you asked him what kind of legislative things we want to do on health care. That's clearly not going to happen. That's not what we ought to be doing this week. And Senator Schumer knows it.
CHUCK TODD:
But didn't this federal judge act like a legislator? And he decided, on his own, what the law is going to be? Isn't this a form of judicial activism? He said, "Well, I've decided that Congress said this is a zero tax. I've decided it's no longer a tax." That's the definition of a judge writing legislation, is it not?
SEN. ROY BLUNT:
That doesn't mean, that doesn't mean that legislators can act like judges, just because, just because judges sometimes act like legislators.
CHUCK TODD:
So you acknowledge, in this case --
SEN. ROY BLUNT:No --
CHUCK TODD:
-- the judge has probably overstepped his bounds here?
SEN. ROY BLUNT:
You know, I think the, the thing to remember about the judge's ruling is it has no immediate impact. There -- nothing changes yesterday. Nothing changes tomorrow. This'll have to go through a circuit court process. Who knows if the circuit court would uphold it or not. That will either be quickly dismissed, which is one option, or a long period of time, in my view, before the circuit court deals with it. This will be another area where -- this -- healthcare will be used as a political issue way beyond the ramifications of one district judge making a ruling that has no immediate impact.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, let me tell you what the president said. The president said, this was, "Great news for America." That was his point. Do you agree with him?
SEN. ROY BLUNT:
I think it's basically just, for America, it means we're going to continue to debate this. Health care clearly matters to people. Some of, you know, what we had with Obamacare, as you've already called it today, was a, a poorly thought-out plan, really poorly, poorly implemented to start with, that's had lots of negative impact on lots of families, who have insurance they don't need with deductibles they can't afford. We need to be --
CHUCK TODD:
Let me pause you there. If all of that is true, why have you guys failed to be able to come up with an alternative? You've had eight years, as a party, to come up with some alternative --
SEN. ROY BLUNT:Well --
CHUCK TODD:
-- that can pass.
SEN. ROY BLUNT:
We've had lots of alternatives. We had lots of alternatives when Obamacare passed. You know, the adding, letting children, people up until age 26 stay on their parents' insurance was a bill I filed. As far as I know, it's the only, only Republican proposal that was filed during that process as an independent bill. It was four pages. And it probably insured more people than any other single part of the Affordable Care Act did. There were lots of ideas out there. It's just the other side didn't want to listen to those ideas.
CHUCK TODD:
But in fairness, your party can't unite on any idea, though. I mean isn't that, if you had one --
SEN. ROY BLUNT:Well --
CHUCK TODD:
-- wouldn't you have a -- more leverage at the table?
SEN. ROY BLUNT:
I, I wouldn't say we couldn't unite on any idea. But this is a very difficult issue and a closely divided Senate. You know, 49 senators, including me, voted to do something last year that a, that a couple of Republican senators couldn't agree with. Trying to get -- this is why the committee process matters. You know, the one thing I think we would be able to unite on is Medicare for all would wind up meaning Medicare for none. If Democrats want to take that view to the American people, and seniors, particularly, people who are now covered by Medicare, understand the ramifications of that. There is no way that will happen. And there's no way voters will let it happen
CHUCK TODD:
Was this lawsuit necessary?
SEN. ROY BLUNT:
You know, I'm, I'm not in the job of questioning what state attorney generals decide they want to do.
CHUCK TODD:
You have now -- you have a future colleague in the Senate, Josh Hawley --
SEN. ROY BLUNT:
I do.
CHUCK TODD:
-- who filed this lawsuit. It was probably the biggest political negative he faced, the healthcare issue. He had to do a lot of answering of charges on that. In hindsight, politically, was this a mistake?
SEN. ROY BLUNT:
Well, he won his election pretty handily. So whether that was anything that had impact on voters, I don't know. I, I do know that, you know, the court case --
CHUCK TODD:
You don't seem enthusiastic about the lawsuit. You do seem, you know, take it or leave it.
SEN. ROY BLUNT:
Well you have to, when you, when you challenge something like the Affordable Care Act, an attorney general in Texas doesn't have the, the obligation to come up with what the alternatives are. Now, Josh Hawley and I now have a different obligation than all those attorneys general had. And you know, we're continue, we continue to look for more options, more choices, more access to insurance that really meets people's needs, things like the associated health plans, that allow people in small businesses to band together. That's going to have a real impact on people that can get out of the individual market, which is always more expensive and more difficult to navigate than insurance at work. A lot more people are going to have insurance at work, because of the associated health plans that the administration has put out there. And they're already beginning to work.
CHUCK TODD:
Are you at a point, though, that the expectation now is the Affordable Care Act is the new baseline, and whatever you do, you can't eliminate any benefit that that already has?
SEN. ROY BLUNT:
I think you can create more options. I do think, for the individual marketplace, for any foreseeable future, the, the Affordable Care Act is going to be there. It's going to have the boundaries of the Affordable Care Act. But that's not really served individuals or families as well as other things might. We have a real opportunity here with bi -- to look at this. Democrat Congress, Republican Senate, Republican president, trying to find solutions to some of these problems that have now been around for at least six years.
CHUCK TODD:
If it, if it temporarily halted this lawsuit, would you support putting a one-cent tax, if you will, on the mandate, in order to pass this judge's muster?
SEN. ROY BLUNT:
Chuck, I think the tax was always a stretch. Remember, the Obama administration said, "It's not a tax. It's not a tax. It's not a tax," until the only way, it appeared, that the court was going to uphold this, was by them saying, "Okay, maybe it is a tax." And the court upheld it on that basis. Coming up with a one-cent gimmick would not have much appeal to me.
CHUCK TODD:
All right, I want to ask you a couple other questions. You were the head of the inaugural committee, as far as Congress is concerned. It has, it has, not to say your part of the, of the actual campaign aspect of raising money for inaugural. But there's now this investigation into the inaugural committee. And the amount of money that was raised, let me put what the head of Bush's inaugural committee, in 2005, said about Trump's inaugural committee. "They had a third of the staff and a quarter of the events. And they raise at least twice as much as we did. So there's the obvious question, where did it go? I don't know." Look, what you saw, in your role as head of the inauguration, were you just -- sort of said, "Boy, how come they don't have that many events, with all the money they raised?"
SEN. ROY BLUNT:
Well, you know, my role in the inauguration was pretty time consuming. I was the chair of the committee. It was a great opportunity. That part of the inauguration, what happens at the Capitol, is, is under the control of the Congress. The funding is --
CHUCK TODD:
That's taxpayer.
SEN. ROY BLUNT:
-- congressional funding. It's taxpayer money. Probably, our government is never more vulnerable, at any time, than when you've got everybody outside in the middle of the winter, on tons of plywood and lumber. And there's a lot to think about. I would say, the two or three times that I interacted with that committee, normally, with Tom Barrack, to just be sure they understood that what happened at the Capitol was up to us, not up to them. But he was always very good to deal with. I have no idea what they did. I will tell you, during that particular period, my, my time was very consumed by being sure, if we ever had to get everybody off that platform for some emergency, we could get them off there quickly.
CHUCK TODD:
You voted for all four articles of impeachment against Bill Clinton. Two of them that passed were, basically, lying to, lying to a grand jury and obstruction of justice. Do you regret those votes?
SEN. ROY BLUNT:
Not as much as I'm sure he regrets lying to the grand jury.
CHUCK TODD:Was that the --
SEN. ROY BLUNT:
It was a big mistake.
CHUCK TODD:
Do you regret the impeachment process?
SEN. ROY BLUNT:
You know, I, I read Ken's, I looked at Ken Starr's book. I think all of us, looking back at that, would not want to rush to anything that has all of the ramifications that impeachment has. If I was giving advice to a friend, my friends in the House, most of the chairmen I would've served with when I was in the House, my advice would be: legislate, don't investigate, if you want to be rewarded with the continued opportunity to be in control of the House of Representatives.
CHUCK TODD:
Roy Blunt, Republican from Missouri, thanks for coming on the show and sharing your views.
SEN. ROY BLUNT:
Thank you.
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