MSNBC "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" - Transcript: Interview with Mark Pocan

Interview

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O`DONNELL: Thank you.

Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Mark Pocan of Wisconsin. He`s a member of the House Appropriations Committee, and he served as the Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Thank you very much for joining us tonight. The one of the suspense points that we`re watching for Monday is, will there be a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill that was passed by the Senate, Speaker Pelosi basically promised a vote on that to members who wanted to vote on that on a date certain. But the rest of the House was hoping to be doing the reconciliation piece at the same time, which doesn`t seem ready. What is your understanding of what will happen Monday?

REP. MARK POCAN, (D-WI) PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS FORMER CHAIR: Yeah, first of all, thanks for having me, Lawrence. You know, my understanding is that the vast majority, literally over 200 Democrats in the House, want to get Joe Biden`s complete agenda done. And that complete agenda is the Build Back Better Act as well as the infrastructure bill. And as the Speaker Pelosi has said all along, we`re going to do these two bills together, because together they make up the President`s very powerful agenda for the American families. And, you know, I think the date was really a goal. But as you can tell, if we have committees meeting on Saturday to get things done, and we`re still advancing things that day is less important than what`s in the bills. And I think the things that Speaker Yarmuth just talked about, you know, the fact that 40 million American families are going to get a tax cut, those with children through the extension of the child tax credit, the fact that we`re lowering costs for American families through prescription drugs, and child care and family leave, and so many other issues, the fact that we`re creating 2 million jobs, and many of which will tackle climate change. And the fact that this is paid for, unlike the tax break for the wealthy that Donald Trump did, completely paid for, let`s get those values completely, right, because it`s so important for the American people. And whether it`s Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday or the following Wednesday, we`re going to get the two bills done, because Democrats believe in this agenda. But that`s what`s important is what`s actually in the two bills.

O`DONNELL: So, we had another Republican announced today his support, House Member, for the bipartisan bill that has been passed by the Senate. Kevin McCarthy is trying to get all Republicans in the House to vote against it, because he believes that passing that enables the Democrats to complete the process that you`re struggling with now, which is that reconciliation bill. But is there any possibility that Speaker Pelosi would go forward relying on Republican votes to pass the that bipartisan infrastructure bill?

POCAN: You know, again, I think we just sat down with the President yesterday, his agenda is the two bills. And we`ve said all along, we`re going to do these two bills, and we`re going to do them together because they`re twin bills. And that`s how we have to get them done. So, you know, I hope Republicans will do something unusual for them to actually work with us on something and that would be great if they voted with us on the infrastructure bill, and on the bill back better agenda. But we`ve got to get those two bills completely right. We have the bills marked up through the House, well over 200 people support that. The vast majority of the Senate, Democrats support that, really, it`s just a couple people in the Senate, a handful or two people in the House that just need to come fully on board, maybe show us what exactly they want. But we`re really going to get this done. I feel very confident about that. And I am talking to the President yesterday. This is his agenda. He is very engaged on this. And this is going to be so important for the people who live back in places like my district in Wisconsin as Democrats, it may not always be pretty to watch the process, but our values are really represented in this plan, and I am very confident within the next several weeks, these bills will both get done.

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O`DONNELL: Congressman, Mark Pocan, thank you very much for joining us tonight, I`d really appreciate it.

POCAN: Absolutely. Thank you.

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