"Face the Nation," June 4, 2023
Interview
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Yes. Well, it's good to be with you.
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Well, it's a shame that we do that, yes.
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I think it's harmful.
It shows you that the extreme left was pushing so hard not to even negotiate, not to even talk about it, you know, just hold your ground, hold your ground, hold your ground. That's not who we are in America. The process of democracy, you sit down and work.
I want to get...
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How can you be a hostage-taker if basically you're talking about shouldn't we recognize that we have an unmanageable debt?
Shouldn't we figure out how we got here so fast and so high at $31.5 trillion? Trajectory is out of sight if we don't do something. So I want to give both sides, negotiating teams, credit.
When you have Garret Graves and -- Congressman Graves and his team, on behalf of Kevin McCarthy, did a wonderful job, and when you have basically -- you have Shalanda Young, you have Steve Ricchetti, and Louisa Terrell working on behalf of the president, those were good people that worked together to make this happen.
It's a shame that we didn't acknowledge it much quicker...
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... three months ago, at least, and not come down to brinksmanship, when it kind of throws the uncertainty into the market to where here we are, the reserve currency of the world market.
The reserve currency of the world has to have stability where people believe that it's -- it's safe.
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You can't play these games.
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Well, first of all, Tim Kaine is my dear friend and a good person. He and I were governors together, so we understand both of our states very well.
And the Southwest Virginia area he's talking about is entirely -- my entire state is demographics along those lines. First of all, this has been under review for over eight years, eight years. Now, after eight years, basically, a lot of this land has already been purchased and people have been paid fair market values. And they've negotiated and paid.
Next of all, it's gone through eight NEPA reviews, eight. It's been in the court system nine times. And then, on top of that, Margaret, these processes or these projects cannot move forward...
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... unless the FERC commission determines there is a need. Now, three times, they have issued a need for this product as far as more gas in the market.
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Next of all, Jennifer Granholm and this administration came out with a statement saying this is the national interest.
The people in the Carolinas are paying 10 times more than we are in West Virginia for the gas we produce. That's ridiculous for them to have that...
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... a heck of a stranglehold on them, and also helping the rest of the secured national markets as far as energy.
You have to be independent. You have to be secured. This is a great project that's going to help, not only just West Virginia...
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... but the entire energy security system.
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Well, the bottom line is, is that I'm going to work whenever I think that, basically, we're moving in the right direction.
What you've just seen is basically the extremes trying to run this operation, the United States government, from the far left and far right.
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It was the middle that pulled everybody together. It was basically reacting to the people saying, enough is enough.
That's what bothers...
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Well, the bottom line is, I'm not involved in the political process right now, with all the things that we have to do.
Everyone thinks about politics first. I don't. It's not about the politics. It's not about my reelection or anyone else. We have an awful lot of work to do. And we still have permitting to get done.
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We have geopolitical unrest around the world. We have to support Ukraine. We have to make sure that we get our financial house in order and get inflation down.
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But if you throw politics in, I will guarantee you, you won't get any decisions on any of that.
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And I don't think we would have got this bill done.
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Absolutely.
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Well, we basically continue...
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You have got to continue to keep working.
We can get it done now. We're on the brink of getting it done right now. We could have got it done last year, but politics entered into and we couldn't. And now here we are. We got part of it done. We got basically some reforms done as far as permitting.
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And now what we can do is basically make sure that we're able to get the pipelines and the delivery system we need for clean fossil all over this country to be energy-independent, and also be able to invest in the technologies, the cleaner technologies with -- with less carbon.
But we're going to need more transmission.
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I'm for all-in -- above energy policy.
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I can support this from wherever I'm at.
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Yes, I know. I know exactly why.
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Well, here's the thing, Margaret.
You just said I'm -- I'm -- about my job. My job is to do what I can to help the people of West Virginia and support this great country of ours and defend the Constitution. That's truly the primary cause of my job. It's not for me to get reelected.
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Now, if I run, I'm going to win.
And I'm looking at everything I can to basically help my country to be stronger, to be more moderate, more centrist-governed than anything I have ever done. That's what my focus is, because I know that's where good decisions -- look what happened here.
We got clear to the brink.
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But this is the first time I have ever seen from the House, working with the Democrats, Hakeem Jeffries and his team...
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... working with Kevin McCarthy and his team to make something happen. I read about that when it used to be Tip O'Neill and President Reagan.
Now I have seen it.
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And I have seen also President Biden and his team come back to the middle...
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... getting away from where the left have pushed them.
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So, basically, it's the middle that brought them together.
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That's where we are.
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I will.
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Everything's open. Everything's on the table and nothing off the table.
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But, hey Margaret, one thing I wanted to mention to you.
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We need a risk -- we need a risk assessment team, a risk management team.
For the United States of America to get to this brinksmanship every time...
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... we should be taking on -- this on seriously every day. What's the risk we're taking if we don't do that, rather than wait until the last day?
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