MSNBC "Race for the White House with Davide Gregory" - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC "Race for the White House with Davide Gregory" - Transcript

MR. GREGORY: Senator, let me start with you. I want to just tell our audience that we're waiting for Senator Obama, who's going to be taking questions at some point this hour; we think maybe in about 20 minutes on all of this; also some news about whether the debate will go forward. We don't know for sure. I've spoken to Obama sources, who indicate they still think it's going to go on.

But let's get to the business at hand, Senator Dodd. Deal or no deal -- which is it?

SEN. DODD: Well, we went down there to make a deal. And the Paulson plan -- yeah, it's dead. I mean, Dick Shelby's been against it from the very beginning. This morning about seven of us from the House and the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, sat down with each other to determine whether or not there was any common ground to respond to a situation that's been called very grave by major economic leaders in the country and to move forward to see if we could come up with a plan that would allow us to rescue this, to work out these financial difficulties. And we're going to continue doing that.

What happened at the White House, quite candidly, David, was instead of being a rescue plan for our economy, it was a rescue plan for John McCain. This was theater for the last two hours. Instead of doing it up here, we finished work about 1:00 today on this set of principles we kind of felt we could move forward on. And I'm going to get back to work on that, quite candidly. I'm sorry we lost two or three hours --

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

SEN. DODD: -- on what was just a show down at the White House. And the Republicans in the House, I think, need to get their act together. I listened to Republicans in that meeting as well as Democrats say to the president, "We understand the gravity. None of us like this. We're willing to step up and do something, but we want to make sure that taxpayers and accountability and home ownership are going to be a part of it, and executive pay."

MR. GREGORY: Right.

SEN. DODD: "Don't ask us to write a check for $700 billion and walk away." That isn't going to happen. And to that extent, clearly the Paulson plan is dead. But for the life of me, I don't quite understand what was going on down there except political theater.

MR. GREGORY: Well, is it political theater on both sides, Senator? Senator Obama was there as well.

SEN. DODD: We were invited down. Well, he got invited. He got asked to go. The president of the United States called him and said, "I'd like you here." He responded to the president of the United States. He didn't ask to be there. None of us did. We were asked to come down to sort of sit in a room, I guess, to listen to the House Republicans talk about some core idea they had that was different than what Hank Paulson has in mind.

For six days, David, I've worked on a plan that the -- the Paulson plan that was set up. We changed it dramatically. But all of a sudden to be told there's some new idea kicking around -- I didn't need to be in the White House for that, basically to have a photo opportunity for John McCain. That's not what we're here for.

MR. GREGORY: Senator, help me through this, because there's a lot to really digest here and a lot to understand. And I think it's also important to point out, while we're talking about $700 billion, there's other federal money that's already been committed potentially to Fannie Mae, to Freddie Mac, also to bail out AIG. So the taxpayer is on the hook in a pretty big way here, even beyond the $700 billion.

Walk me through what you think the elements of the agreement are and then what the sticking points are.

SEN. DODD: Well, again, there are a lot of people who are raising questions about what the secretary of the Treasury wants to do. I've got questions, too, but I don't think 535 members of Congress ought to design an economic plan.

What we ought to do is to insist that taxpayers come first. We ought to insist there's accountability, so we're not just writing a check to this secretary and his successor without any kind of safeguards in here, to make sure this money is going to be spent properly; that home ownership and foreclosure are still at the core of this problem; that no one up here that I know of -- and I'll tell you right now, this plan doesn't go anywhere if you're going to allow compensation or golden parachutes for some of the very people who created this problem. Those are some of the principles around which I think we had a pretty good agreement this morning.

MR. GREGORY: Right.

SEN. DODD: Now we have to go to our caucuses in four different caucuses. You have to talk to the Treasury Department about whether or not you can do this at all. And all of us in that room understood that. We're trying to move forward in the way that this moment calls for. And to go down to the White House for a photo opp to help out John McCain in his campaign because the president asked that, I regret. I think the president is serious about this, but frankly we didn't need that two- or three-hour distraction.

MR. GREGORY: All right, so where are you getting bogged down here? What is holding this agreement up? Because there seemed to be some agreement on some of those broad principles that you just outlined.

SEN. DODD: Well, again, I think we have to go back to our caucuses and talk about them. We need to now flesh it out in real language. I don't expect members to sign on to a principle without seeing the language. And we're trying to do that.

My staff has been working along with -- these are serious people in the room, David. You know, Bob Bennett of Utah is a serious senator, as is Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, as is Bob Corker, Republicans all, sitting in that room, along with Barney Frank, along with Chuck Schumer, Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Kent Conrad. These are serious people; the Finance Committee in the room --

MR. GREGORY: All right, but Senator, do you think you have the votes, as we sit here and we talk right now?

SEN. DODD: I don't know that yet. I've got to go back to our caucuses and talk about this. They want to know. They've got a lot of questions. And candidly, David, there'll be people who are going to vote against this. I understand that. I've not committed to voting for it yet until I see the final package.

But as the chairman of a committee, when the president and the secretary of the Treasury and the chairman of the Federal Reserve and other economists tell me we are in grave danger of our economy collapsing and that jobs and retirement and 401Ks and student loans and a lot of small businesses are in jeopardy, my job is to try and respond to that. That's what we're doing.

MR. GREGORY: Do you think -- finally here, Senator, do you think the government, the taxpayer, will see a return on this investment, a return on this loan down the road?

SEN. DODD: I think that could be the case. That certainly happened in other cases where it ended up costing us less than the original outlay. That certainly was the case in Chrysler. It was even the case in the S&L case. We didn't get all the money back. In fact, in the Depression we got all of the money back and made money. So there are different models that have worked better than others.

This is uncharted waters. We've never had an economic crisis like this. And so this is unique and requires some real hard thought out there, and more so than any other economic crisis I can think of. But certainly our hope is to design a plan that produces that, where taxpayers, which we've insisted upon and gotten agreement, actually have warrants here, actually are going to be a beneficiary, enjoying some of the profits that come back if this plan works.

MR. GREGORY: All right, Senator Chris Dodd, in the middle of the negotiations, taking a couple of minutes for us. We appreciate it, Senator. Thank you.

SEN. DODD: Thank you, David.

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