CNN Newsroom: Interview With Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL)

Interview

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Well, no, there wasn't actual disappointment expressed on the call. In fact, you know, we are going to be briefed in more detail over the next two days. We'll have very specific granular briefings and that's really what it boils down to is that we want to make sure and the White House wants to make sure that, you know, when the text is completely written and we have those granular details that we'll all be up to speed and in a position to be able to support this.

But, I mean, I'll be very clear with you that it was -- it was clear to me that from the description, I was briefed earlier in the day by the White House and then on the call this now, what the president negotiated was thankfully avoiding the Republicans crashing our economy into the side of a cliff, and that was first and foremost, what was absolutely essential because they were playing a dangerous game of hostage taking in this whole process with our economy.

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Well, I want to be very clear that the president put out his budget and it wasn't for another month after that that the Republicans default on America bill came out. And so, you know, until we had both budgets essentially, the Republican blueprint which wanted to slash veterans' funding, slash funding for children and seniors, versus the president's budget, once we had those two documents, we were able to move forward.

But this agreement, let me tell you, when I heard my colleagues who are airing their views on this deal say that there were no Democratic wins, that is simply not true. There was a bill, the veterans -- the Military Construction and Veterans Affair Appropriations bill that was supposed to be marked up this week, I'm the ranking member of that committee as you know, and that markup was canceled because the Republicans were about to slash veterans' funding for medical care.

They were about to end the promise we made to our veterans exposed to toxic substances and eliminate that toxic exposure fund that was a guarantee to cover their health care. And so they canceled it because they didn't have the votes or they were afraid to actually put their votes out there. Now this deal not only preserves that number that the president has in his budget this year, but makes sure that we have $20.4 billion in that guaranteed health fund for veterans for next year. That's critical and that's a big win for the Democrats.

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Well, I certainly would have preferred that we not add work requirements. But let me tell you where the wins were there as well. We are -- while there are going to be phased in 50 to 52 years old and 52 to 54 years old over the next two years only, we also got an expansion of who actually gets access to food stamp benefits. Homeless, veterans, and aged-out foster youth will all get access to those benefits now and theirs is not time limited. So that's a permanent expansion for food stamps for those groups. And a limited -- a limited work requirement period until 2030.

So, look, at the end of the day, I'll take expanding benefits for people who really need those food stamps to ensure that they can have the quality of life and put food on their table that they need. And if we have to deal with a few years of work requirements of people between 50 and 54, I think that's -- that's a more reasonable price to pay, even if I would have preferred that we not add work requirements on people who are struggling to begin with.

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Totally get it.

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Absolutely. Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, actually said that it was a good thing for Republicans to be playing with the debt ceiling, that it would bode well for them in an election. When I was chair, I would never have said something like that and certainly as a responsible member of Congress, who's a patriot, I would never say that we should risk not paying our nation's bills and crashing our economy and jeopardizing the full faith and credit of the United States.

So putting that off into 2025 was a critical part of this deal. That shows you the kind of negotiator that Joe Biden is and ensuring that we're not going to put our economy in jeopardy during the rest of his term. We'll put that off until after the election. By the way, there's also a really important provision with the administrative application of pay-go to student loans. While I would have -- you know, that's a little bit concerning.

One thing that was really good about that part of the negotiation is that it limits the ability -- it actually prevents the ability from people suing to stop that student loan program. And that's an important accomplishment because we need to make sure we have the kind of certainty we need for that student loan program and dealing with terminable lawsuits was a key negotiating point that I think was really important for the literally millions of students who are counting on that student loan assistance.

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So my Republican friends should spare me --

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I was just going to say, Jim, that --

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No problem. You know, I know the Republicans are trying to spin to their members that we had no wins. Not only did we have wins and I certainly count it as a win that we are not going to crash our economy and pay our nation's bills, but there were several important wins that we stopped the Republicans from doing, rolling back budget cuts to FY-22 levels, making sure we keep the guaranteed funding for our nation's veterans exposed to toxic substances, ensuring that we can stave off losses --

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Jim, no problem.

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Well, you know, I was pleased that right from the beginning of the discussions, they took whether or not we were going to raise the debt ceiling and crash our economy off the table. Both sides agreed we're not going to do that. And then, I mean, Jim, you know, as a longtime member of the appropriations committee, I can tell you this is the time of year that we are negotiating the appropriations top lines anyway.

Essentially we did that, you know, more at the beginning of the process through these negotiations and that's what we talked about on our conference call just now. We probably would not have wanted to get as much in the weeds in terms of the framework at this point in the game. But we had a lot at stake and it's really critical. We have Republicans who were willing to crash our economy into a side of a cliff, who were willing to not pay our bills.

By the way, on a deficit that they ran up themselves, they have a $1.3 trillion unpaid bill of tax cuts that they wouldn't touch mostly that went to millionaires and wealthy people. And that was off limits in those discussions which is outrageous. I mean, when you have tax cuts, you're pulling revenue out of the economy and that counts just as much as spending. And the Republicans under Donald Trump didn't pay for any of that.

So they took that off the table. We were operating in a situation where we had to protect veterans funding which they were willing to cut. We had to make sure that we were going to have the kind of funding needs that were not draconian from the cuts that they proposed. We ended up at FY-23 levels. The Republicans are trying to spin it as FY-22 but I know the details and I know the granularity of it. At the end of the day when we go through the appropriations process, we'll be at FY-23 levels. And by the way we're protecting and ensuring that we don't go through this again next year.

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Well, I personally have always thought we should take off the table whether or not we pay our bills, that our debts in our nation have occurred. There's no family in America that has the ability to not pay their bills. They can't just decide not to do that and neither can we. And that shouldn't be subject to the political whims or the hostage-taking ability of one side or the other.

In this case the Republicans are always the ones that are repeatedly willing to do that and hold a gun to the head of the nation's economy. I do think we should take that off the table, although I heard the president say that it wouldn't be responsible and I thought he meant it wouldn't be responsible to eliminate the debt ceiling. So I'm not really clear -- I was quite clear what he was saying but I know he wasn't wanting to go through the 14th Amendment with the potential for judicial challenges now and perhaps he would revisit that down the road. But at the end of the day we have to pay our bills. We shouldn't be going through this.

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You know, I think over the next two days it will become more clear. I would like to see -- look, it's Kevin McCarthy's responsibility to put up the majority of these votes. It's been made very clear to him that there had to be certain elements in the deal to be able to get enough Democratic votes to balance things out. But he's going to have to win over his extremists. This is a deal that looks pretty balanced to me. I have more questions about it.

What they've been telegraphing about what's in the deal is not accurate. It's very clear that it's 23 levels, we fund toxic exposure health care for veterans, we take care of our homeless, our veterans and our aged-out foster youth in SNAP benefits and we make sure that we can fund the budget needs and take the debt ceiling hostage taking off the table. That's a lot of reasonable stuff, you know, from our perspective.

What the Republicans are selling to their folks it doesn't sound like what the deal looks like to me. So we'll see how many votes they can put up and after we get the details, we'll see how many of ours are able to join them.

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