CNN Newsroom: Interview With Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) About Debt Ceiling Debate
Interview
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I'm sure there'll be a legal process that would play out. But I always go with Lawrence Tribe. He's my expert. I think he's considered one of the finest attorneys and legal minds in this country on constitutional issues and others. And he believes it's a valid clause that needs to be foremost in the president's mind, and that we won't have to make a deal and the whole debt ceiling is irrelevant.
The Constitution said you have to honor the debt. So I think it's an ace in the hole for the president. I think he'd like to negotiate and he'd like to be able to show he could work together with the Republicans. It's going to be difficult. McCarthy has got to work with George Santos and who knows who he is or what he thinks. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, they're about as closely tied to reality as Santos is.
So he's got a whole bunch of those people to deal with. And it could result in the end of his speakership. So it's going to be difficult for President Biden to negotiate with somebody who has those types of legislative terrorists on their team and the 14th Amendment is an ace in the hole.
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That's not realistic with this speaker or with this House of Representatives. If that would happen, they would certainly recall him and they'd elect a new speaker and McCarthy does not want to be the shortest serving speaker in history.
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Well, I think if the Republicans don't come to the table with a reasonable proposal, President Biden would have to. And I don't think McCarthy is going to get to that. I mean, the permitting is something they could work on and the COVID money is certainly something they could work on. I doubt he's going to have any taxes -- I mean, the Republican mantra is no taxes and no fewer guns in America. So he's not going to come up with any more taxes revenue and that is a shame.
But he may want to have work permits or requirements on people to get public benefits and that's going to be difficult for a lot of the folks on the Democratic side to swallow. There might be some other issues that will be difficult as well. But President Biden is going to have to be satisfied and he's going to have to get together the votes to make it passed, and it's going to be difficult. I don't think McCarthy has the votes either.
I think we're in a difficult situation because of the Tea Party. And it's not just those three that are not tethered to reality. There are more on that side that aren't tethered to reality. There are 60 or 70 of them voted not to approve either Pennsylvania or Arizona's presidential electors, and yet over 60 judges appointed by Trump, Clinton, Bush, Obama, et cetera, all said that there was no problems with the election and that those were the proper electors.
And yet they voted to override our Constitution, and really sometimes when I'm in the House, I think of the fact that I'm in a crime scene. And that some of the people I serve with were insurrectionists and they were willing to take the government down, trying to keep Trump in office. Trump says default because it will hurt Biden. That's what Trump is thinking. He didn't default and the Republicans didn't default when he was president, but now they want to do it to Biden and the Democrats.
This is all politics. They don't care about the country. They don't care about our fiscal future and our fiscal condition.
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Well, the 14th Amendment is in play, you don't default. The president just continues to pay the debts of the United States because that's his job as the administrator, as the president, and as the Constitution gives him that authority. Now they could go to the courts, we'll see what the Supreme Court says.
The Supreme Court should say it's a political question that they're not getting into it. But they got into Bush v. Gore and they may get into this as well.
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I suspect something like that. But I'm sure they talked to attorneys. Merrick Garland has -- could give him good counsel, and he's got attorneys that give him counsel, and Lawrence Tribe could be called in. I mean, he's kind of, you know, he's the pro from Dover.
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Thank you, Jim.
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