CNN "Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Jimmy Gomez

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Our next guest is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He met with President Biden in the Oval Office for the first time this week.

Congressman -- Congressman, thank you so much, Jimmy Gomez joining us from Capitol Hill.

And you can't get all of this, of course, without paying for it. The president has vowed the pay-fors will be there. But where's this money going to come from if Senator Sinema is against raising taxes on big corporations and the wealthiest Americans?

REP. JIMMY GOMEZ (D-CA): Great question.

One of the things -- I'm on the -- also on the Ways and Means Committee. This is the committee that raises the revenue in order to pay for all of it. We passed an increase in the corporate rate and the individual tax rate.

There's agreement across the board, with 49 Senators, as well as the vast -- as well as 99 percent of the Democratic House caucus.

And we have one Senator, Kyrsten Sinema, who is defending the Republican Donald Trump tax cuts, the ones they passed in 2017, that really benefited the top 1 percent and the largest corporations.

You know what? We're going to push through. We think we still have momentum to get this thing done.

And then, in order to pay for it, we can do a lot of different things. We can restructure taxes. And we can also pass it as it is. It raises $2.3 trillion.

Let's say they want to make a deal, let's pass the $2.3 trillion, do a deal for $2 trillion and then use the $300 billion to reduce the deficit.

They call themselves conservatives. They call themselves budget hawks. Well, that's a deal that I think should on the table and let's see if they take it.

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Let me ask you a follow-up on Sinema because you said 49 Senators in the Democrats on board are not enough to get this legislation past the finish line.

So getting Senator Sinema on board seems particularly challenging. A lot of her negotiating has been done in secret. She's not going to caucus meetings.

She doesn't want to raise corporate taxes, as we discussed, after she strongly opposed those Trump tax cuts in the first place.

Your colleague, Richie Torres, described the situation as, quote, "Living under the tyranny of Kyrsten Sinema.

Do you agree? How would you describe it? GOMEZ: Krysten Sinema, I think, is someone that really doesn't have a policy center.

She went from being a Green Party, Code Pink activist to a conservative Democrat, from the time before she was elected to the time she became a Senator.

So she's all over the place. I don't really know what she wants.

But, you know what? We're going to make sure that we cut a deal with Manchin, who is willing to raise the taxes.

He might be difficult. He might be not where I would be on a lot of provisions in the bill. But you know what? At least he's talking. And at least he's willing to get to the table and get something done.

So we're going to get the 49 Senators on board and then we're going to push her.

There's always a cost in politics. And there's always an opposite and equal reaction to whatever you do.

And her equal -- her equal -- opposite and equal reaction, to Kyrsten Sinema, might not come this year but it might come in 2024.

CABRERA: What is your message to her right now?

GOMEZ: Come to the table. Too much is at stake.

President Biden met with the progressive caucus, met with moderates.

And you know what? He's working every single day to deliver a package that invests in housing, that invests in the child tax credit, invests in Medicare, that invests to build a working class that is able to compete in the 21st century.

This is what's at stake.

Also, the Democratic majority in the House, the Democratic majority in the Senate is at stake.

And if she wants to bring it all down, that's going to fall on her feet.

CABRERA: In terms of the compromises made, free community college is out. Our reporting is that paid family leave will likely be reduced from 12 weeks to four. The child tax credit only extended one year. And Joe Manchin wants a work requirement for that.

Are you and other progressives OK with this?

GOMEZ: I'm a progressive. I'm a product of the community college system that allowed me to go to UCLA and get my master's from Harvard University. So I'm a big fan.

But one of the things is also about policy and, how do we get there and how do we get people relief?

One thing we're looking at is doubling the Pell Grant, increasing the Pell Grant, so it covers the cost of attending community college.

It's not the way we prefer to do it, but it's a way to get to the same result. Removing the barrier of costs of anybody who wants to go to community college.

When it comes to paid family leave, I restructured it when I was in the California state legislature. We'll get it done and it will be a big, big benefit.

My parents, when I got sick when I was 7 years old, lost income because they had to take care of me and a lost shifts from work and it almost bankrupted my family.

No family should have to go through that situation. So we're going to push on paid family leave.

But if it's a matter of four weeks to 12 weeks, we're going to get something done that still benefits working families.

CABRERA: You said it that your dad was a janitor (ph), you mother a housekeeper as you were growing up so I know this is something very close to your heart.

Congressman Jimmy Gomez, I appreciate you taking the time. Thanks so much --

GOMEZ: Thank you so much.

CABRERA: -- for being with us.

GOMEZ: Thank you so much.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source