NBC "Meet the Press" - Transcript: Government Shutdown and ACA

Interview

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SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
Congresswoman Fudge, aren't you the lucky one to be the sitting member at the table? Listen, no matter who gets the blame here ultimately, whether people blame the Republicans or the Democrats, in the end, is it just bad for the institution? Is it a pox on all of your houses?

REPRESENTATIVE MARCIA FUDGE:
Yes, in fact, it is. There are no winners here. There are only losers here. When you talk about shutting down the government and all of the machinations that go around about who's at fault, who's not, and-- and why we should have a clean C.R., let me just say to you, it is our responsibility to fund the government of the United States. And we should not allow anyone to extract a ransom for us to do our jobs.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
Let me turn to Mike Murphy, Republican strategist. Two-thirds of the country don't like the tactic of shutting down the government. Even if they don't like ObamaCare, they don't like this tactic.

MIKE MURPHY:
Right. That's the problem. I think we ought to go back to the problems with the computer sites. Because what we have is a perfect storm here. You take the cynics who run the Democratic party, and you take the stupid wing of the House G.O.P. they fell for a trap. So now we're going to debate all this, when we're 13 months away from an election the Republicans can win on ObamaCare.

But instead, somehow a monkey wrench got thrown in the system and now everybody hates Congress and Republicans are taking the bigger political hit. I saw a poll the other day where the approval rating for the U.S. Congress was at 5% and the margin of error was six. You could not statistically prove that anybody who exists in the country approved of Congress, and this is why.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
Rich, do you think it was a miscalculation for Republicans to make this stand in this way over the shutdown?

RICH LOWRY:
Well, everyone knew for a long time you were going to have a confrontation in the fall over the continuing resolution and/or the debt limit. And it's true the hand of the House G.O.P. leadership was forced by an element of its rank and file. This is not how they would've set up this fight. They would've gone to the debt limit right away. But now they're in this fight. It's inevitably going to segue into the debt limit. And the caucus is united and they want to hold firm until Harry Reid and President Obama actually are willing to negotiate, which is how these kind of disputes are always settled.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
Is the House conference united, Steve? What does your reporting tell you?

STEVE INSKEEP:
Not at all. When I talk with Republicans, there's an incredible diversity of opinion. And I think when you try to decide who's to blame for this shutdown, you can say, "Well, the Republicans wanted it." I think that's unfair. I think it is fair to say that some Republicans in the House misjudged their opponents. They assumed that the Democrats would cave. They were wrong.

And when I talk to Republicans, the Republican who to me seems to have the best notion of what is on the Democrats' mind, believe it or not, is Grover Norquist, the conservative activist, Americans for Tax Reform. Gave a fascinating interview to The Washington Post, in which he said, "The way to deal with this is get past in some short-term way, perhaps, however you have to, vote the debt ceiling and this budget problem, and the shutdown, and push the Democrats instead on the sequestration, these really deep budget cuts." And there you're identifying something that the Democrats actually are bothered by, that they might be willing to give the Republicans something in order to get out of.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
But Congressman, let me turn to you. As this goes on and on, the president's stance is, "I won't negotiate." And even if there's a host of reasons why that is a responsible position, as a bumper sticker, it's not the greatest, is it? "We're about to have an economic calamity, but I'm not negotiating."

REPRESENTATIVE MARCIA FUDGE:
Let me just say this to you. The full faith and credit of the United States is not negotiable. It is our job to fund the government. And I would say to those people who believe that it is appropriate to say that, "Oh, we're not going to pass a continuing resolution, a clean bill, because we want the president to negotiate."
The president has already offered to negotiate on ObamaCare. He has said, "If you bring me ideas, I'm willing to accept them." This is not the point at which we then take hostages and say, "Oh, you know, if you don't change ObamaCare, we're not going forward." We passed Continuing Resolutions eight times under George Bush.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
Let me get one of these Republicans in on this.

MIKE MURPHY:
Well, it is the job of the president of the United States to rise above petty politics. The shutdown is politics. The debt ceiling is a catastrophe.

REPRESENTATIVE MARCIA FUDGE:
Oh, different.

MIKE MURPHY:
So the last time we had this, we solved it with painful, negotiations. That is the way to get out of this debt ceiling bomb.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
Do you think the president should negotiate?

MIKE MURPHY:
I think it's his job to knock heads. The Republicans won't get much, but they can get something. They're going to give up a lot. And the Democrats cannot go into a cliff like this with the, "We don't talk, we don't negotiate" Harry Reid point of view. It is a disaster.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
But how does it end?

RICH LOWRY:
The House Republican Conference passed the Full Faith and Credit Act to help ensure that even if we go over the debt limit that the debts would be paid. And Democrats uniformly oppose that because they have a cynical politics at work here, where they want to make everything as frightening and as painful as possible. They complain about the N.I.H. not having funding. Well, Republicans want to fund the N.I.H. But the Democrats oppose it. It's a simple--

(OVERTALK)

REPRESENTATIVE MARCIA FUDGE:
Wait, no, no, no, wait. One second here.

RICH LOWRY:
--the Democrats here, it's the cynicism and intransigence show over time.

REPRESENTATIVE MARCIA FUDGE:
Let's be clear, they pilloried the Senate for not having a budget. We passed a budget, the Senate passed a budget six months ago. They ignored it. We would not be where we are today had they gone to conference and we had a budget.

RICH LOWRY:
But why would you oppose a bill to fund N.I.H. Why?

REPRESENTATIVE MARCIA FUDGE:
No, no, no, you want to match up things. I'm talking about facts.

RICH LOWRY:
No, no, no. The House has passed a bill to fund the N.I.H. Why won't you support it?

REPRESENTATIVE MARCIA FUDGE:
It's passed. I don't support it because every single function is important it.

RICH LOWRY:
Well, then you don't support it. Well, why wouldn't you support measures to make this less painful until it's actually negotiated?

REPRESENTATIVE MARCIA FUDGE:
And we need to open all of the government. Less painful for whom?

RICH LOWRY:
Until there's an end actually negotiated?

REPRESENTATIVE MARCIA FUDGE:
Less painful for whom?

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
I'm going to jump in here, unless people think I went out for a cocktail or something. Let's talk about ObamaCare. Obviously, the rollout did not go as smoothly as hoped. And Saturday Night Live was there to have a little fun with it. Take a look.

CECILY STRONG, ON "WEEKEND UPDATE":
Loser, the ObamaCare website, which had technical issues all week because of too much web traffic. You can't campaign on the fact that millions don't have healthcare and then be surprised that millions don't have health care. How could you not be ready? That's like 1-800 Flowers getting caught off-guard by Valentine's Day.]

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
How about it, Steve Inskeep? You interviewed the president this week about this very subject.

STEVE INSKEEP:
And he acknowledged there were going to be glitches, which of course is what a president needs to do in this situation, is spin. Said, "Expect problems."

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
Sounds like something more than glitches, though.

STEVE INSKEEP:
Well, yeah. And this is huge because we now have the reality of ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act that's here. We have Republicans who have said again and again, "Be afraid, be terrified by this." We've Democrats who actually haven't supported it that much, but have said, "It's going to be okay, it's going to be fine."
And now we have the possibility of millions of Americans dealing with the reality of it for better or for worse. And I think that has a potential to transform this debate over time. I think it's still possible for reality to have some bearing on politics.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
But Mike was this a tactical error on the part of Republicans? That might've been the lead story in every single paper, but for the shutdown.

MIKE MURPHY:
On the policy, I'm so sympathetic to my side on this. I think they're right about a lot of it. But that's why we have midterm elections, so you can throw Democrats out of office over ObamaCare. There's no rule in politics. When your opponent is in trouble, when they're drowning politically, you throw them a fire hose.

We threw them a lifeboat and a machine gun, because now we're going to debate this. (THROAT CLEAR) Excuse me, I'm all choked up. Instead of 13 months away, getting control of the Senate, which means we can have the policy fight within the system. So on the tactical basis, it is an incredible stupid move.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
Do you agree with that, Rich?

RICH LOWRY:
No, I think Mike is a little too panicked over here. He barely got his words out, I think--

(OVERTALK)

RICH LOWRY:
Look, it's a short-term thing, whether the ObamaCare glitches get enough coverage the first week. The key question is whether they really over time enough people sign up to make the exchanges work. And I'm very dubious about that. This law has legitimacy problems. It was never popular when it was proposed, it's even less popular now, it was unprecedented in that it was a major social change just passed along partisan lines. And I think it's going to exacerbate some of the worst aspects of our healthcare system and create new problems on top of it.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
Let me let Congresswoman Fudge have the first and the last word. What do you think about this rollout of ObamaCare? Are you disappointed?

REPRESENTATIVE MARCIA FUDGE:
Certainly. But let me just differentiate between enrollment and the plan itself. There have been some difficulties with enrollment in the plan. And everybody admits that. And yes, we should have been better prepared. But it does not negate the fact that the plan itself is going to work. We're going to reduce the cost of insurance, we're going to do away with the things that have been creating problems with our deified like Medicare Part D. We're going to do things that are going to make this country better and reduce the cost of healthcare.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
Well, roundtable, standby. We're not done with you yet. Coming up, a new face on the international stage, my exclusive interview with new U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, what she thinks of Iran's new leader and her regrets over a comment about Hillary Clinton that got her kicked off the 2008 Obama campaign.

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