CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: Government Shutdown
Interview
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COOPER: Wow. A lot of balloons just popping and deflating all around.
John King, thank you.
Now one of the House Republicans who is holding firm, Congressman Raul Labrador of Idaho, appreciate you joining us, Congressman.
You and many house Republicans have been saying that the Democrats have refused to negotiate. But the Democrats did back and the Senate passed a clean continuing resolution with the levels of funding for government agencies that Republicans wanted, not the Democrats wanted. $988 billion. Harry Reid said that Boehner -- Speaker Boehner promised he wouldn't attach demands to the Senate funding bill. It was brought in at the Republican level. Wasn't that a concession? In fact, wasn't that a negotiation?
REP. RAUL LABRADOR (R), IDAHO: That's not a negotiation. If you think about it, the 988 number is not the actual Republican number. The 988 number is the 2013 sequester levels. We're talking now about the 2014, the year 2014.
COOPER: But -- so Harry Reid is lying?
LABRADOR: So we actually -- we actually made a concession when we started out at the 988 number, which now it looks like it was a mistake for Republicans to make that concession, because now Harry Reid continues to say that he made the concession when we were the ones who agreed to the 2013 levels of funding, not the 2014 levels of funding.
COOPER: So is Harry Reid just misinformed or are you saying he's lying when he says that Speaker Boehner told him that 988 was the figure?
LABRADOR: That's -- what they talked about. I don't know what they talked about. I wasn't there in the negotiations. That's between Harry Reid and the speaker of the House. What I can tell you is --
COOPER: So there were negotiations, you're saying?
LABRADOR: No, I don't know if there were. That's between them. I wasn't present at -- at those alleged negotiations. The reality is that the Republicans have been holding firm on what we want to do for funding the government.
You know, Anderson, it's kind of like you telling CNN that you want to go ahead and you want to extend your contract for a year. And CNN tells you that you have to sign the dotted line right now and you can negotiate on the terms of your contract later. That's what the president wants us to do. And that's what Harry Reid wants us to do, and I don't think that is acceptable.
COOPER: But it's not really that way because Congress hasn't passed my contract and the Supreme Court hasn't accepted my contract as valid. I mean, this president ran on --
LABRADOR: Yes, but --
COOPER: On the Affordable Care Act, he won twice. The Republican candidate lost both times, talking about being against the Affordable Care Act. The Supreme Court has backed it up. Why not allow this to come up to a vote?
LABRADOR: Well, number one, your premise is incorrect. If you think about one of the reasons that Mitt Romney was not that popular in some circles is because he actually was known as the godfather of Obamacare. He was not going to be the strongest candidate against Obamacare and I don't think he --
COOPER: OK. But --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: He was your candidate and he ran against it and he lost.
LABRADOR: Yes, but he -- but he didn't, he didn't make the basis of his campaign Obamacare. You guys in the media keep saying that but that's absolutely false. He didn't spend a lot of time talking about Obamacare.
COOPER: And John McCain, what about him?
LABRADOR: John McCain was also -- they didn't talk about Obamacare at the time. It wasn't even the law of the land at the time. So this argument --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: President Obama certainly talked about the Affordable Care Act, talked about universal health care coverage against John McCain.
LABRADOR: He did against John McCain, but John McCain lost for a lot of other reasons, and it wasn't because of Obamacare.
COOPER: But John McCain himself --
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COOPER: No, I'm not. But John McCain has said elections have consequences.
LABRADOR: They do --
COOPER: You guys, why not -- why not just bring this up for a clean vote?
LABRADOR: So according to you the only election that mattered was the election of Obama. It doesn't matter that the House of Representatives in 2010 and 2012 actually won both times with majorities because we were fighting against Obamacare.
COOPER: Right. This has been passed by Congress. This law has been passed by Congress.
LABRADOR: That is not --
COOPER: I understand you don't like. You didn't run on it. But you ran on repealing it.
LABRADOR: No. Not a single Republican voted for it. Not a single Republican voted for it.
COOPER: It passed Congress, didn't it?
LABRADOR: The election of 2010 -- remember how it passed. It was through some procedural tricks. If you remember the Senate passed a bill -- one of the reasons Obamacare has so many problems right now is because they passed a bill in the Senate. That Senate bill was incomplete.
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COOPER: And so basically your argument is you're nullifying two presidential elections and you're nullifying the vote of Congress because you don't like it. And I get that and you're -- you know, in your district this plays well.
LABRADOR: But you're argument is that the election of the House of Representatives doesn't matter. The American people --
COOPER: No, the vote -- my argument is that the vote of the House of Representatives and the vote of the Senate does matter and this is the law and the Supreme Court has backed up this law. So at a certain point, why not just bring this to a vote? Why not just bring this to a vote in the House right now?
LABRADOR: You know, we could bring it to a vote and it would lose, and you -- and the Democrats keep talking -- you know, this is a beautiful talking point the Democrats have because it's something that they have no evidence that there is anybody willing to vote for this.
COOPER: Well, why not see? Why not bring it up and see?
LABRADOR: But why should we? Why should we --
COOPER: Because that is how things work.
LABRADOR: That is not how things work.
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COOPER: You just got to vote --
LABRADOR: So when Nancy Pelosi was the speaker of the House, you asked her to actually vote for things that the Republican Party wanted. You never asked -- nobody in the media ever asked Nancy Pelosi to pass a prerogative of the Republican Party. Not once did that happen during the four years that she was speaker of the House, but all of a sudden, just because you don't like the fact that the Republicans are in control of the House of Representatives that you want to make sure that the Republicans --
COOPER: I don't have --
LABRADOR: -- actually pass a Democratic --
COOPER: I don't have a stake in this. I don't have a -- I'm not voting on --
LABRADOR: Well, you seem to.
COOPER: No.
LABRADOR: You seem to --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: No. This is the way it works in journalism. When you're not on FOX News, you get contentious interviews. When you're not on MSNBC and a liberal, you get contentious interviews.
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LABRADOR: Actually --
COOPER: My job -- my job is to ask you questions that are different than you think just as my next guest, who's a Democrat, I'm going to ask the same kind of question that push back on their position. That's what a journalist does. So I'm not taking the side of the Democrats here, and in a minute you'll see I'm not taking the side of the Republicans.
LABRADOR: No, but I'm just showing you Anderson, that we did have an election, in the election of the United States we chose a Republican House and a Democratic Senate.
COOPER: Right.
LABRADOR: So we're not going to sit here and just only do what the Democrats want to do. We're not only going to negotiate under Democratic control. We have a Republican House and we have a prerogative that our constituents sent us to Washington, D.C. --
COOPER: Right.
LABRADOR: -- win this. And to actually fight on this.
COOPER: But why not -- why not -- I guess what I just don't understand is if you're convinced it wouldn't pass, why not bring it up to a vote to take away that Democratic talking point?
LABRADOR: But why do it when you have a discharge petition right now the Democrats have been trying to put forth? Not a single Republican has signed that discharge petition. That's actual proof that there's not a single Republican that wants to do what the Democrats wanted.
COOPER: But wouldn't it make your -- but wouldn't it make your position stronger? Your argument about they're not willing to negotiate if you brought this up, let it not pass, and then --
LABRADOR: It's not necessary.
COOPER: And then that takes away their talking point.
LABRADOR: It's not necessary. When you have a discharge petition which, under the rules of the House, would force a vote on the house, not a single Republican has -- has signed that discharge petition. So their talking points are null and void.
Congressman Labrador, appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Really do.
LABRADOR: Thank you.
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