December
30: President Barack Obama, Tom Brokaw, Jon Meacham, Doris Kearns
Goodwin, David Brooks, and Chuck Todd
December 30: President Obama, Brokaw, Meacham, Kearns
Goodwin, Brooks, Todd
updated 12/30/2012 1:13:37 PM ET
MR.
DAVID GREGORY: And, good Sunday morning. Time is nearly up before we go over the
so-called fiscal cliff. Senate leaders spent the weekend working on a
last-ditch deal and the House comes back today for a rare Sunday night session.
Yesterday afternoon, in an exclusive interview, President Obama sat down with
me in the blue room of the White House to discuss the way forward and his
priorities for his second term.
DAVID GREGORY: Mister President,
welcome back to MEET THE PRESS.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: It's great to
be here. Thank you.
GREGORY: So the obvious question: Are
we going over the fiscal cliff?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, I think we're
going to find out in the next 48 hours what Congress decides to do, but I think
it's important for the American people to understand exactly what this fiscal
cliff is, because it-- it's actually not that complicated. The tax cuts that
were introduced in 2001, 2003, 2010, those were extended and they're all about
to expire at the end of the year. So on midnight December 31st, if Congress
doesn't act then everybody's taxes go up. And for the average family that could
mean a loss of 2,000 dollars in income.
For the entire economy that means
consumers have a lot less money to make purchases, which means businesses are
going to have a lot less customers, which means that they're less likely to
hire and the whole economy could slow down at a time when the economy is
actually starting to pick up and we're seeing signs of recovery in housing and
in employment numbers improving.
And, so what Congress needs to do,
first and fore-- foremost, is to prevent taxes from going up for the vast
majority of Americans. And this was a major topic of discussion throughout the
campaign. What I said was is that we should keep taxes where they are for 98
percent of Americans, 97 percent of small businesses. But if we're serious about
deficit reduction we should make sure that the wealthier are paying a little
bit more and combine that with spending cuts to reduce our deficit and put our
economy on a long-term trajectory of growth.
You know, we have been talking to the
Republicans ever since the election was over. They have had trouble saying yes
to a number of repeated offers. Yesterday, I had another meeting with the
leadership and I suggested to them if they can't do a comprehensive package
of-- of smart deficit reductions, let's at minimum make sure that people's
taxes don't go up and that two million people don't lose their unemployment
insurance.
And, you know, I was modestly
optimistic yesterday, but we don't yet see an agreement. And now the pressure's
on Congress to produce. If they don't, what I've said is that in the Senate we
should go ahead and introduce legislation that would make sure middle class
taxes stay where they are and there should be an up or down vote. Everybody
should have a right to vote on that. You know, if-- if Republicans don't like
it, they can vote no. But I actually think that there's a majority support for
making sure that middle class families are held harmless.
GREGORY: …what's the impact in the
markets, which have been pretty confident up until now that a deal would get
done?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, you know,
it's-- it’s hard to speculate on the markets, but obviously I think business
and investors are going to feel more negative about the economy next year. If
you look at projections of 2013, people generally felt that the economy would
continue to grow, unemployment would continue to tick down, housing would
continue to improve.
But what's been holding us back is
the dysfunction here in Washington
GREGORY: What about automatic
spending cuts? Those take effect January 1st as well. Do they have to be part
of this deal? You've got half of those cuts in defense alone.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, the-- the
other part of the fiscal cliff is Congress agreed that they would cut an
additional 1.2 trillion dollars in spending. They put a committee together to
try to come up with those numbers. They didn't figure out how to do it. And so
what we now have is a situation where these automatic spending cuts go into
place.
Now if-- if we have raised some
revenue by the wealthy paying a little bit more, that would be sufficient to
turn off what's called the sequester--these automatic spending cuts, and that
also would have a better outcome for our economy in long-term.
But, you know, so far, at least,
Congress has not been able to get this stuff done. Not because Democrats in
Congress don't want to go ahead and cooperate, but because I think it's been
very hard for Speaker Boehner and Republican Leader McConnell to accept the
fact that taxes on the wealthiest Americans should go up a little bit-- as part
of an overall deficit reduction package.
GREGORY: Well, you talk about
dysfunction in Washington. You signed this legislation setting up the fiscal
cliff 17 months ago. How accountable are you for the fact that Washington can't
get anything done and that we are at this deadline again?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, I-- I have to tell
you, David, if-- if you look at my track record over the last two years, I cut
spending by over a trillion dollars in 2011. I campaigned on the promise of
being willing to reduce the deficit in a serious way, in a balanced approach of
spending cuts and tax increases on the wealthy while keeping middle class taxes
low.
I put forward a very specific
proposal to do that. I negotiated with Speaker Boehner in good faith and moved
more than halfway in order to achieve a grand bargain. I offered over a
trillion dollars in additional spending cuts so that we would have two dollars
of spending cuts for every one dollar of increased revenue. I think anybody
objectively who's looked at this would say that, you know, we have put forward
not only a sensible deal but one that has the support of the majority of the
American people, including close to half of Republicans.
GREGORY: But when they say...
PRESIDENT OBAMA: And it's...
GREGORY: ...leadership falls on you,
Mister President, you don't have a role here in...
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well...
GREGORY: ...breaking this impasse?
You've had a tough go with Congress.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: David, you know, at
a certain point if folks can't say yes to good offers, then I also have an
obligation to the American people to make sure that the entire burden of
deficit reduction doesn't fall on, you know, seniors who are relying on
Medicare. I also have an obligation to make sure that families who rely on
Medicaid to take care of a disabled child aren't carrying this burden entirely.
I also have an obligation to middle class families to make sure that they're
not paying higher taxes when millionaires and billionaires are not having to
pay higher taxes.
There is a basic fairness that is at
stake in this whole thing that the American people understand and they listened
to an entire year's debate about it. They made a clear decision about the-- the
approach they prefer, which is a balanced, responsible package.
They rejected the notion that the
economy grows best from the top down. They believe that the economy grows best
from the middle class out. And at a certain point, you know, it is very
important for Republicans in Congress to be willing to say, "We understand
we're not going to get 100 percent. We are willing to compromise in a serious
way in order to solve problems," as opposed to be worrying about the next
election.
GREGORY: You said that Republicans
have a hard time saying yes. Particularly to you.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yeah.
GREGORY: What is it about you, Mister
President, that you think is so hard to say yes to?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, that's
something you're probably going to have to ask them, because, you know, David,
you-- you follow this stuff pretty carefully. The offers that I’ve made to them
have been so fair that a lot of Democrats get mad at me. I mean I offered to
make some significant changes to our entitlement programs in order to reduce
the deficit.
I offered not only a trillion dollars
in-- over a trillion dollars in spending cuts over the next 10 years, but these
changes would result in even more savings in the next 10 years. And would solve
our deficit problem for a decade. They say that their biggest priority is
making sure that we deal with the deficit in a serious way, but the way they're
behaving is that their only priority is making sure that tax breaks for the
wealthiest Americans are protected. That seems to be their only overriding,
unifying theme.
And-- and at some point I think
what's going to be important is that they listen to the American people. Now,
you know, the-- I think that over the next 48 hours, my hope is that people
recognize that, regardless of partisan differences, our top priority has to be
to make sure that taxes on middle class families do not go up that would hurt
our economy badly.
We can get that done. Democrats and
Republicans both say they don't want taxes to go up on middle class families.
That's something we all agree on. If we can get that done that takes a big bite
out of the fiscal cliff. It avoids the worst outcomes. And we're then going to
have some tough negotiations in terms of how we continue to reduce the deficit,
grow the economy and create jobs.
GREGORY: If this fight comes back--
and I want to ask you specifically about entitlements: Medicare and Social
Security.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Right.
GREGORY: Are you prepared in the
first year of your second term to significantly reform those two programs? To
go beyond the cuts you’ve suggested to benefits in Medicare, which your own
debt commission suggested you’d have to do if you were really going to shore up
Medicare at least. Are you prepared to do that in your first year of the second
term?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: What I've said is I
am prepared to do everything I can to make sure that Medicare and Social
Security are there, not just for this generation but for future generations.
GREGORY: You've got to talk tough to
seniors...
PRESIDENT OBAMA: But...
GREGORY: ...don't you about this? And
say, something’s got to give?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: ...but I already
have, David, as you know, one of the proposals we made was something called
Chain CPI, which sounds real technical but basically makes an adjustment in
terms of how inflation is calculated on Social Security. Highly unpopular among
Democrats. Not something supported by AARP. But in pursuit of strengthening
Social Security for the long-term I'm willing to make those decisions. What I'm
not willing to do is to have the entire burden of deficit reduction rest on the
shoulders of seniors, making students pay higher student loan rates, ruining
our capacity to invest in things like basic research that help our economy
grow. Those are the things that I'm not willing to do. And so...
GREGORY: Would you commit to that
first year of your second term getting significant reform done? Telling
Congress, “We've got to do it in…“
PRESIDENT OBAMA: No, no, no...
GREGORY: ...”the first year?”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: ...but, David, I
want to be very clear. You are not only going to cut your way to prosperity.
One of the fallacies I think that has been promoted is this notion that deficit
reduction is only a matter of cutting programs that are really important to
seniors, students and so forth.
That has to be part of the mix, but
what I ran on and what the American people elected me to do was to put forward
a balanced approach. To make sure that there's shared sacrifice. That everybody
is doing a little bit more. And it is very difficult for me to say to a senior
citizen or a student or a mom with a disabled kid, "You are going to have
to do with less but we're not going to ask millionaires and billionaires to do
more." That’s not something that we’re...
GREGORY: Can I ask you about...
PRESIDENT OBAMA: That's not an
approach that the American people think is right. And, by the way, historically
that's not how we grow an economy. We grow an economy when folks in the middle,
folks who are striving to get in the middle class, when they do well.
GREGORY: But I'm asking you about
timeframe because, as you well know, as a second term president now, about to
begin to your second term, your political capital, even having just won
reelection, is limited. So what is your single priority of the second term?
What is the equivalent to healthcare?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, there are a
couple of things that we need to get done. I've said that fixing our broken
immigration system is a top priority. I will introduce legislation in the first
year to get that done. I think we have talked about it long enough. We know how
we can fix it. We can do it in a comprehensive way that the American people
support. That's something we should get done.
The second thing that we've got to do
is to stabilize the economy and make sure it's growing. Part of that is deficit
reduction. Part of it is also making sure that we're investing, for example, in
rebuilding our infrastructure, which is broken. And, you know, if we are
putting people back to work rebuilding our roads, our bridges, our schools, in
part paying for it by some of these broader long-term deficit reduction
measures that need to take place that will grow the economy at the same time as
we're also setting our path for long-term fiscal stability.
Number three. You know, we've got a huge
opportunity around energy. We are producing more energy and America can become
an energy exporter. How do we do that in a way that also deals with some of the
environmental challenges that we have at the same time? So that's going to be a
third thing.
But the most immediate thing I've got
to do starting on January 1st, if Congress doesn't act before the end of the
year, is make sure that taxes are not going up on middle class families. And
because it is going to be very hard for the economy to sustain its current
growth trends if suddenly we have a huge bite taken out of the average...
GREGORY: Those are...
PRESIDENT OBAMA: ...American's
paycheck.
GREGORY: Those are four huge things
and you didn't mention after Newtown, although I know you're thinking about it,
new gun regulations.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yes.
GREGORY: Mayor Bloomberg of New-- New
York told me a couple weeks ago on this program that ought to be your number
one agenda item. You know how hard this is. Do you have the stomach for the
political fight for new gun control laws?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, David, I
think anybody who was up in Newtown, who talked to the parents, who talked to
the families, understands that, you know, something fundamental in America has
to change. And all of us have to do some soul searching, including me as
president that we allow a situation in which 20 precious small children are
getting gunned down in a classroom. And I've been very clear that, you know, an
assault rifle ban, you know, banning these high capacity clips, background
checks, that there are a set of issues that I have historically supported and
one will continue to support.
GREGORY: But can you get it done? I
mean the politics...
PRESIDENT OBAMA: And...
GREGORY: ...is the question.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: ...so the question
is are we going to be able to have a national conversation and move something
through Congress. I'd like to get it done in the first year. I will put forward
a very specific proposal based on the recommendations that Joe Biden's task
force is putting together as we speak. And so this is not something that I will
be putting off. But...
GREGORY: The NRA says it's just not
going to work.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well...
GREGORY: It didn't work before. It's
not going to work now.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, my
response is something has to work. And it is not enough for us to say, “This is
too hard so we're not going to try.” So what I intend to do is I will call all
the stakeholders together. I will meet with Republicans. I will meet with
Democrats. I will talk to anybody. I think there are a vast majority of
responsible gun owners out there who recognize that we can't have a situation
in which somebody with, you know, severe psychological problems is able to get
the kind of high capacity weapons that-- that this individual in Newtown
obtained and-- and gunned down our kids. And, yes, it's going to be hard.
GREGORY: Do we have an armed guard...
PRESIDENT OBAMA: But...
GREGORY: ...at every school in the
country? That's what the NRA believes. They told me last week that could work.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, I am not
going to prejudge the recommendations that are given to me. I am skeptical that
the only answer is putting more guns in schools. And I think the vast majority
of the American people are skeptical that that somehow is going to solve our
problem. And, look, here's-- here's the bottom line. We're not going to get
this done unless the American people decide it's important.
And so this is not going to be simply
a matter of me spending political capital. One of the things that you learn,
having now been in this office for four years, is the old adage of Abraham
Lincoln's. That with public opinion there's nothing you can't do and without
public opinion there's very little you can get done in this town. So I'm going
to be putting forward a package and I'm going to be putting my full weight
behind it. And I'm going to be making an argument to the American people about
why this is important and why we have to do everything we can to make sure that
something like what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary does not happen again.
But ultimately the way this is going
to happen is because the American people say, “That's right. We are willing to
make different choices for the country and we support those in Congress who are
willing to take those actions.” And will there be resistance? Absolutely there
will be resistance.
And the question then becomes, you
know, whether we are actually shook up enough by what happened here that it
does not just become another one of these routine episodes where it gets a lot
of attention for a couple of weeks and then it drifts away. It certainly won't
feel like that to me. This is something that, you know, that was the worst day
of my presidency. And it's not something that I want to see repeated.
GREGORY: It hit close to home.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Absolutely.
GREGORY: Let me ask you about a
couple of foreign policy notes. After the attack in Benghazi, is there a need
for more accountability so that this doesn't happen again? And do you know who
was behind the attack at this point?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Two points. Number
one, I think that Tom Pickering and Mike Mullen who headed up the-- the review
board did a very thorough job in identifying what were some severe problems in
diplomatic security. And they provided us with a series of recommendations.
Many of them were already starting to be implemented. Secretary Clinton has
indicated that she is going to implement all of them.
What I’ve-- my message to the State
Department has been very simple. And that is we're going to solve this. We're
not going to be defensive about it. We're not going to pretend that this was
not a problem. This was a huge problem. And we're going to implement every
single recommendation that's been put forward.
Some individuals have been held
accountable inside of the State Department and what I've said is that we are
going to fix this to make sure that this does not happen again, because these
are folks that I send into the field. We understand that there are dangers involved
but, you know, when you read the report and it confirms what we had already
seen, you know, based on some of our internal reviews; there was just some
sloppiness, not intentional, in terms of how we secure embassies in areas where
you essentially don't have governments that have a lot of capacity to protect
those embassies. So we're doing a thorough-going review. Not only will we
implement all the recommendations that were made, but we'll try to do more than
that. You know, with respect to who carried it out, that's an ongoing
investigation. The FBI has sent individuals to Libya repeatedly. We have some
very good leads, but this is not something that, you know, I'm going to be at
liberty to talk about right now.
GREGORY: In the politics, in the back
and forth in this, do you feel like you let your friend Susan Rice hang out
there to dry a little bit?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: No. First of all, I
think I was very clear throughout that Susan has been an outstanding U.N.
ambassador for the United States. She appeared on a number of television shows
reporting what she and we understood to be the best information at the time.
This was a politically motivated attack on her. I mean of all the people in my
national security team she probably had the least to do with anything that
happened in Benghazi. Why she was targeted individually for the kind of attacks
that she was subjected to is-- is-- was puzzling to me. And I was very clear in
the days after those attacks that they weren't acceptable. So, you know, the
good thing is-- is that I think she will continue to serve at the U.N. and do
an outstanding job. And I think that most Americans recognize that these were
largely politically motivated attacked-- attacks as opposed to being justified.
GREGORY: You have another series of
cabinet choices to make. Former Senator Chuck Hagel has come under criticism
for some comments he's made including about a former ambassador nominee during
the Clinton years that being gay was an inhibiting factor to being gay to do an
effective job. Is there anything about Chuck Hagel's record or statements
that’s disqualifying to you should you nominate him to run the Defense
Department?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, first of all,
I haven't made a decision about who to nominate. And my number one criteria
will be who's going to do the best job in helping to secure America.
GREGORY: Anything disqualify…
PRESIDENT OBAMA: And...
GREGORY: ...him?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Not that I see. I've
served with Chuck Hagel. I know him. He is a patriot. He is somebody who has
done extraordinary work both in the United States Senate. Somebody who served
this country with valor in Vietnam
GREGORY: Mister President, as you
look forward to a second term, you think about your legacy, you think about
your goals, how frustrated are you at how hard it appears to be to get some of
these things done? Very difficult relationship with Congress. People come up to
me all the time and say, "Don't they realize, all of them, the president,
Republicans and Democrats, how frustrated we all are?"
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, I think we're
all frustrated. You know, the only thing I would-- I would caution against,
David, is I think this notion of, "Well, both sides are just kind of
unwilling to cooperate." And that's just not true. I mean if you look at
the facts, what you have is a situation here where the Democratic Party, warts
and all, and certainly me, warts and all, have consistently done our best to
try to put country first. And to try to work with everybody involved to make
sure that we've got an economy that grows, make sure that it works for
everybody, make sure that we're keeping the country safe. And, you know, the--
the-- does the Democratic Party still have some knee jerk ideological positions
and are there some folks in the Democratic Party who sometimes aren't
reasonable? Of course. That-- that's true of every political party.
But generally if you look at how I've
tried to govern over the last four years and how I'll continue to try to
govern, I'm not driven by some ideological agenda. I’m a pretty practical guy
and I just want to make sure that things work. And-- and one of the nice things
about never having another election again, I will never campaign again, is, you
know, I think you can rest assure that all I care about is making sure that I
leave behind an America that is stronger, more prosperous, you know, more
stable, more secure than it was when I-- I came into office and-- and that's
going to continue to drive me. And I-- I think that the issue that we're
dealing with right now in the fiscal cliff is a prime example of it. What I'm
arguing for are maintaining tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans. I don't think
anybody would consider that some liberal left wing agenda. That’s some-- that--
that used to be considered a pretty mainstream Republican agenda.
And it's something that we can
accomplish today if we simply allow for a vote in the Senate and in the House
to get it done. The fact that it's not happening is an indication of, you know,
how far certain factions inside the Republican Party have gone where they--
they can't even accept what used to be considered centrist, mainstream
positions on these issues.
Now I re-- I remain optimistic, I'm
just a congenital optimist, that eventually people kind of see the light. You
know, Winston Churchill used to say that we Americans, you know, we-- we try
every other option before we finally do the right thing. After everything else
is exhausted we eventually do the right thing and I-- I think that that's true
for Congress as well. And-- and I think it's also important for Americans to
remember that politics has always been messy. People have been asking me a lot
about the-- the film Lincoln
GREGORY: Is this your Lincoln
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, no. Look, A, I
never compare myself to Lincoln
And in this situation I'm confident
that one or two things are going to happen when it comes to the fiscal cliff.
Number one, we're going to see an agreement in the next 48 hours, in which case
middle class taxes will not go up. If that doesn't happen, then Democrats in
the Senate will put a bill on the floor of the Senate and Republicans will have
to decide if they're going to block it, which will mean that middle class taxes
do go up. I don't think they would want to do that politically but they may end
up doing it.
And if all else fails, if Republicans
do in fact decide to block it, so that taxes on middle class families do in
fact go up on January 1st, then we'll come back with a new Congress on January
4th and the first bill that will be introduced on the floor will be to cut
taxes on middle class families. And, you know, I-- I don't think the average
person's going to say, "Gosh, you know, that's a-- that’s a really
partisan agenda on the part of either the president or Democrats in
Congress." I think people will say, "That makes sense, because that's
what the economy needs right now."
So if-- one way or another, we'll get
through this. Do I wish that things were more orderly in Washington
(End videotape)
GREGORY: My interview with President
Obama. Coming up, reaction to the interview and what it tells us about what his
second term will look like. Joining me, NBC’s Tom Brokaw, presidential
historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, executive editor at Random House Jon Meacham,
David Brooks of the New York Times and our political director and chief White
House correspondent Chuck Todd. All coming up, next.
(Announcements)
GREGORY: Coming up, reaction from our
roundtable this morning. You’ve just heard the president lay out his big agenda
items for the second term--immigration, the economy, energy and middle class
tax cuts, not to mention gun control. But can he realistically get any of them
done given Washington
(Announcements)
(Videotape)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I'm confident that
one or two things are going to happen when it comes to the fiscal cliff. Number
one, we're going to see an agreement in the next 48 hours, in which case middle
class taxes will not go up. If that doesn't happen, then Democrats in the
Senate will put a bill on the floor of the Senate and Republicans will have to
decide if they're going to block it, which will mean that middle class taxes do
go up. I don't think they would want to do that politically but they may end up
doing it.
(End videotape)
GREGORY: That, of course, from our
interview just moments ago with the president. I sat down with him yesterday at
the White House, putting the onus squarely on Congressional leaders to either
do a comprehensive package now or a short-term solution to prevent middle class
taxes from going up. Joining me now, NBC News political director and our chief
White House correspondent Chuck Todd; NBC News special correspondent Tom
Brokaw; author of the bestselling-- New York Times’ bestselling book Thomas
Jefferson: The Art of Power, Jon Meacham; columnist for the New York Times,
David Brooks; and presidential historian, author of the Lincoln biography Team
of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin. Welcome to all of you. David Brooks, let me
start with you. My big take away, the president is setting a tone here with
Republicans, putting them on notice that yes, taxes are going to go up, and
that he’s going to drive a pretty hard bargain on a lot of different issues
rather than try to bring them into the fold. He doesn’t feel like compromise is
going to work at this point.
MR. DAVID BROOKS (Columnist, New York
Times): Yeah. Well, first, let’s say what’s happening in Washington
GREGORY: Mm-Hm.
MR. BROOKS: They don’t feel that
right now.
GREGORY: Chuck, just your reading of
the…
MR. CHUCK TODD (Political Director,
NBC News): Yeah.
GREGORY: … immediate news that’s
going to be made over the course of today and tomorrow. Again, what I think is
significant, the president saying we either get this deal now, or we’ll go over
the cliff. We’ll come back right after the…
MR. TODD: Right.
GREGORY: …first of the year and we’ll
try to get the tax cuts through again. But the Republicans are going to be
forced to be in a position, they’re going to have to say no because we’ll put
it on the floor.
MR. TODD: Yeah. There didn’t seem to
be a sense of urgency of, oh, my God, we can't go over the cliff, right? The
president was laying it out, you know, what, we might go over. This is how
we’re going to deal with it once we go over. We’re not going to end up, you
know, in the long-term raising taxes on everybody. But he seemed to be not
making today do or die, not making the next 48 hours the big thing here, which
will-- it will be interesting to see if that’s how Senate-- the Republican
leader, Mitch McConnell, who is the key here, right? Does he sign off on a
deal? If he signs off on a deal, something will happen. Does he read that and
say, boy, we need to take this tax issue off the table. He’s been a big
believer of this. Take the tax issue out that give the president his tax hikes
on the rich now, fight him on everything else when taxes aren’t part of the
conversation. Fight him on everything else in-- in six weeks when the debt
ceiling is hit or perhaps it ends up eight weeks, 12 weeks, whenever that fight
happens, and do that. I do think that McConnell-- that’s where he wants to be.
Can he get there in the next 24 hours, that’s what we don’t know.
GREGORY: Tom Brokaw.
MR. TOM BROKAW (NBC News): Well, it--
it-- it-- it seems to me that the middle class is going to have a date for the
prom. I mean, everybody is talking about protecting the middle class here. So I
think this deal will probably get done around the middle class tax cut. It’s at
what level. Is it 400,000 dollars or 250,000 dollars or some other number,
which is going to be critically important? A lot of people don’t realize in the
large urban and suburban areas of America
GREGORY: Doris, Republicans I have
talked to in the last couple of days on Capitol Hill had said, look, you know,
the-- the president meeting with all the congressional leaders, it’s a first
time that’s happened since November 16th. This is not somebody who has been
actively engaged in negotiating. He’s basically saying yet again; I won, we’re
going to get this through. But the president says, no, it’s-- it’s Republicans
who just won’t say yes to reasonable proposals.
MS. DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN
(Presidential Historian; Author, Team of Rivals): Well, that may be the
conclusion that he’s drawn. I mean, we don’t really know what’s going on.
Invitations put out, not necessarily accepted. What interested me about the
tone of his talk with you was that, I think, he's learned from that first term
where he was arguing with-- to explaining things. He talked simply in this
thing. He talked conversationally. He repeated over and over again his own
points, fairness, balance. He talked about middle class out rather than from
the bottom up. That seems to be a new phrase. And I think he’s learned what
Theodore Roosevelt had learned that when you’re speaking to the American people
and you want to make an argument, it has to be simple. Maybe as Theodore
Roosevelt said, “My Harvard buddies might think it’s commonplace,” but I
thought he spoke in a different tone today, more conversational, and that’s
something you learn from your first term, where he thought he had spoken too
much over people’s heads or too explanatory.
GREGORY: Jon Meacham, there’s
something I also wanted to pick up on. The president’s obvious irritation,
Chuck was just mentioning it before we started, at the notion that it’s a pox
on both Houses.
MR. JON MEACHAM (Author, Thomas
Jefferson: The Art of Power): Right.
GREGORY: And one of the president’s
top advisers is rather defensive on Twitter saying that it-- you know, it
should bug every American because it’s lazy journalism and punditry and has a
real effect on our political system. Well, here’s the reality that even his
advisers have to understand. The American people, Republicans and Democrats, do
look at results or the lack thereof. So, it’s not lazy punditry when people are
out there very frustrated with both ends of this.
MR. MEACHAM: Right. And I see the
system as broken because as you say, it doesn’t produce a result, a desirable
result.
GREGORY: Right. Being right is not
enough, even if you’re the president.
MR. MEACHAM: Exactly. Exactly.
GREGORY: Even if you believe you’re
right, it doesn’t necessarily get a result.
MR. MEACHAM: You know, presidential
politics is about wholesale and retail as we say, you know, in-- in the trade.
And so today, this morning, he was doing a wholesale sell. He was using the
bully pulpit. He was talking to you. He was making an intellectual case and
trying to say, I won. This is what you voted for. This is what we adjudicated
in the election. But on the retail side, as-- as Tom says, all evidence
suggests he has not been the warmest and fuzziest of cajolers. And you have to
do both. And you can’t just be right on the idea. You do have to sell this. And
even the greatest presidents, let’s be clear, Ronald Reagan-- the modern era--
Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, they sold their initial deals in the first
year. (Unintelligible) for Reagan and the tax rates for Clinton
MS. GOODWIN: But I don’t think you
can have the congressmen over too often. I think they should be there sleeping
with you if you want them to be, but on the other hand…
MR. MEACHAM: Well, that could have
some people in trouble.
MS. GOODWIN: I didn’t quite mean
that.
GREGORY: You know, the Civil War era,
people, Doris, you know.
MS. GOODWIN: But I think he finally
has made a decision, perhaps, that the inside game didn’t work. He said that
which…
MR. MEACHAM: But he has never tried
these…
MS. GOODWIN: …means immobilize the
outside game.
MR. TODD: But he has-- inability to
try the inside game, but let’s make sure we are about to come up on the most--
the least productive Congress in history, we have in mathematical terms, 218
bills this Congress has passed. It’s the lowest number since this has been
tracked. The lowest number before that was 333. Let’s go through the highlights
of this Congress. No farm bill. By the way, milk prices have been going up. We
both talked about the milk cliff. That-- that debacle we saw on the Senate on
the U.N. Disability Treaty right in front of Bob Dole. And that was just a-- a
bizarre moment, if you will. This fiscal cliff, three budget standoffs. I mean,
this-- this Congress has been uniquely atrocious.
GREGORY: Tom.
MR. BROKAW: You know, the fact is the
system is red, 75 percent of the congressmen come from gerrymandered districts
in which they are bulletproof. They only play to one constituency. There are no
swing states. They don’t go home and have to prove their case because they have
got a choir back home. And that’s a huge part of a problem here. There’s
another reality in this town today. We need a lighter moment here. A lot of
folks as I was coming into the office today said they have to get this done by
kickoff time tonight.
MR. TODD: It’s a good thing. That was
a good thing…
GREGORY: That’s right.
MR. TODD: …NBC moved its kickoff to
prime-time. It’s very important that…
(Cross talk)
GREGORY: …clinch today. That’s not
important. David, I think we’re going to make a point but I-- I also think it’s
important to-- to go back to the president’s argument, that, you know, you have
to be able to say yes to something that’s reasonable. Charles Krauthammer and
other conservatives have argued that he’s effectively exposed big internal
divisions in the Republican Party that they have yet to work out, which
prevents them from getting to a reasonable place of compromise to then move on
to fight other battles.
MR. BROOKS: Right. Well, Boehner was
close to a deal, but he couldn’t sell-- not the rank and file wild men of the
caucus, he couldn’t sell it to the senior leadership on the deal because they
thought they were giving away what they needed to do tax reform later on. But
you have got to sort of anticipate that. You have got to know beyond Boehner
what the party wants. But in some sense, the Republicans are being shambolic
and they’re making fools out of themselves. But in another sense, they are
reacting favorably or rationally to the incentive structure they are with in.
The big lie in this whole thing is that we have got the sensible country with
the dysfunctional Washington
GREGORY: Right.
MR. BROOKS: So, I think the problem
is centrally in the country, and the politicians look like idiots because they
are responding to horrible incentives.
GREGORY: And it interesting…
MS. GOODWIN: And it’s shambolic.
That’s a great word.
GREGORY: Yeah. What does shambolic
mean exactly?
MR. BROOKS: It some British…
GREGORY: Okay. But you-- Tom-- Tom
when you-- I’m not afraid of it-- well, you know, I thought I’d let it go the
first time. On second thought I had to say I don’t really know what you meant.
Tom, you know, you interviewed-- you interviewed then candidate Obama in 2008.
You said-- you asked him then, would you get Medicare and Social Security
reform done in your first two years? He said, well Tom, I don’t know if I can
do that but-- certainly in the first term. I asked him to make a commitment for
the first year of his second term. He’s not prepared to do that. This is the
driver, David you-- you recently linked to a Weekly Standard piece about you’re
going to run out of discretionary money to do the things the president wants to
do if he doesn’t take on entitlements.
MR. BROKAW: They’ve got to address
it. And the president I think, could help himself a lot if he were tougher on
the AARP for example, and said look, it’s not about the people at the bottom
for whom Medicare really is the lifeline. It’s about all of the people,
including those of us around the table who get the same benefits, members of
our family who are very working class. My brother, you know, has a really great
working class career working for the telephone company. But there’s a big
disparity between what I’m worth and he’s worth but we get the same benefits at
the end of the day. There’s something wrong with that. And, you know, the fact
of the matter is that we’re all living longer as well. Social Security can go
up if you give it some lead time to retire at 67 and probably 20 years from now
to retire maybe at 70 because people are staying in the workplace longer. He
ought to be able to raise those issues in a way that he can begin to sell them
to the idea of-- sell to the American people the idea that we’ve got
fundamental reforms that we have to do, as David says, downstream because we
are going to be bankrupt not just our children but your grandchildren.
MR. TODD: But this so goes on the
Republicans a little bit. If they want this, right, and McConnell I think does,
I’m not sure all-- to go into your Senate structure here. They demagogue
Medicare to their own success, a lot of them got into Congress demagoguing
Medicare. But if they want this, and this all good-- you know, they are going
to, A, need a Democratic president to sign the legislation. It can never-- the
Republican Party can’t have it where it’s all one party that does this with
Social Security and Medicare. And they have got to be well in to say all right,
if they want to do this, they’re going to have give on something that they
don’t like, maybe even higher tax-- and, you know, that’s where the moment was
there. They almost-- they almost got this president to move on Social Security.
They almost got him to move on-- on Medicare reform and they didn’t take the
deal.
GREGORY: Let me bring up…
MR. BROOKS: The reality is…
GREGORY: Go ahead.
MR. BROOKS: …that at the end of the
day, they are going to walk away from this without any spending
(Unintelligible). We’re going to get a deal which will do nothing on deficit.
GREGORY: And nothing even with the
sequester issues.
MR. TODD: And it’s their own fault.
MR. BROOKS: I totally agree with
that.
GREGORY: Jon, Let-- let me bring up
the gun issue. The president said he’ll put up his-- his full weight
behind--his first year--gun control legislation. But I-- the-- the question
still stands, does he have the stomach for how difficult this is going to be
politically? I’m not sure.
MR. MEACHAM: I’m not either. I--I--
you know, there’s a great line in Tom Sawyer where Tom Sawyer says that the--
an evangelist came through town who was so good that even Huck Finn stayed
saved till Tuesday. I worry that our attention span on these things is so-- so
limited, you had to bring up the question of guns as the president was laying
out his second term agenda. It is one of these cultural political issues where
you have a ferociously well-organized opposition, and a more diffuse common
sense broader population. And I think that that’s-- that’s where the tension
is. That also by the way is not-- the well organized interest plus the common
sense diffusion is not just limited to guns. It’s…
GREGORY: But, Tom, talk a little bit
more about guns. As-- as you remember, the Assault Weapons Ban in ‘94; passes
the House by four votes. And that was a Democratic House.
MR. BROKAW: And-- and-- and by the
way, it had a lot of loopholes in it. I brought a copy of a magazine I'm sure
the rest of you don’t get at your home, but I do. It’s called Shotgun News.
And…
MR. TODD: Smarty, over here.
MR. BROKAW: Almost the entire-- this
is for people who own guns and are gun collectors and some are gun nuts. Not
all of them, obviously. But the fact is, it’s all about what we call assault
weapons. And there are lots of variations on them. This entire publication is
dedicated to the idea that there are lots of new-- what they call platforms for
AR 15s. And there are ways that you can change the barrel, as you can change
the stock, you can change the trigger mechanism.
GREGORY: This is the gun used in
Newtown?
MR. BROKAW: Yeah. And the fact of the
matter is that everybody talks about it as if it’s one weapon. It’s not. It’s a
lot of variations on those same weapons. So they always find a way to do around
it. And there is no more in my judgment unified constituency in America than
the passionate gun owners. They are out there. And they believe-- so many of
them believe the government is going to knock down their door and take their
guns away. And what I say if we get to that, we get a lot of bigger problem
than guns. We’re in anarchy.
GREGORY: Let me-- let me-- let me
get…
MR. TODD: There is an 89-page, what
do we up here, a 92-page newsletter against assault weapons.
GREGORY: All right, let me-- let me--
we’ll-- we’ll come back to this. I want to get a break in here. I was in
Kentucky over Christmas and saw a bumper sticker that said a lot, I am the NRA
and I vote. And they will on this issue. We’ll get a quick break in here. Talk
about the president’s priorities for a second term and what’s really possible,
more with our roundtable after this.
(Announcements)
GREGORY: We’re back with more from
our roundtable. We’ll get to some of the headlines that the president made on
the wires here before we’re through. But Doris Kearns Goodwin, how does the
president set priorities in a second term? He’s got a pretty long list there
and a pretty difficult environment in which to operate.
MS. GOODWIN: Well, the most important
thing a president has to do knowing he has limited capital is to decide where
do I put my-- my ambitions, where do I hold back? FDR once said, "I'm like
a cat. I know when to pounce and when to pull back." So I think the fact
that he did not mention gun control makes him understand that unless he can
argue public sentiment to overcome the enormous special interests, that’s going
to be a much harder one. Immigration right at the top and that’s the one where
he can mobilize that base. It’s the base that elected him. It’s going to make
it harder for Republicans. If he were to get immigration through; he starts on
a successful platform, and then maybe moves to these other ones on entitlement.
GREGORY: There is an incentive for
Republicans to cooperate on immigration.
MR. BROOKS: Yeah, the sad thing from
the fiscal cliff is we’re going to be stuck in trench warfare for another--
maybe for another couple of years.
MS. GOODWIN: That’s why you got to go
for immigration.
MR. BROOKS: I think-- but I would--
make sure you do it so you can get the George W. Bush Republicans on your side.
Do with a Bush type comprehensive package. Then you break the trench warfare.
You get some from column A and column B, and then maybe you’ll begin to do the
things that you want to do. The second big issue, that does the same thing up
for a coalition is tax reform.
GREGORY: But-- but the question Tom
raises when we’re talking about guns, there’s a larger approach. Does he have
more of an opportunity on gun control if there’s a big mental health aspect to
it, if there’s more to it, Tom?
MR. BROKAW: Well, that’s what I
think. I think it has to be holistic. The fact of the matter is I’m not an
assault weapon fan of any kind, but I know people who go out to the target
ranges and feel strongly that they have a Second Amendment Right to fire them
off as many times as they want to with .30 caliber, I mean, with 30-round
magazines in them. So sportsmen, people who have weapons for hunting deer or
big game or birds as I do and other people, have to become part of this debate
as well, and say, look, there have got to be limits of some kind. I mean, I
have even talked to people who are gun owners saying, why couldn’t you have a
club where they actually own the assault weapons, and if you want to shoot it
for target practice, you have to go to the licensed club, get the gun, shoot it
and then check it back in.
MS. GOODWIN: That’s all the more reason
why he has to use the bully pulpit to educate the country on the holistic
approach you’re talking about. He’s got to get out of the White House more. I
think he should take a train and go around the country for his vacation this
summer, talk to people about all of these issues so that you can mobilize
public sentiment. As Lincoln said, without it nothing can happen and that’s
still the-- that’s the goal of the second term.
MR. MEACHAM: I-- I think the gun
question, though, is-- is almost less a matter of presidential leadership and
more a matter of cultural leadership from people like Tom and like me, I
suspect we’re the only two gun owners here. David, I know is…
MR. BROOKS: The pen, the pen is
mightier.
MR. MEACHAM: … the pen, yeah the
pen-- the pen-- the pen is mightier. But it-- it-- if you’re a moderate, if
you’re a quail hunter, if you’re a dove hunter, you-- you have to get into this
and say, look, assault weapons are not what this is about. As President Clinton
said, you’d never known anyone that needed an assault weapon to kill a deer.
And this is a case where if people-- if this is not an organic movement from
the country, it’s not going to work. It can’t come from top down.
GREGORY: But let’s-- Chuck, you want
to just-- I want to inject the larger political point. We have mid term
elections coming up in two years. He’s talking about immigration, there’s the
trench warfare on the budget and entitlements which could take a long time, and
gun control if he wants to do that this year as well.
MR. TODD: Well, and that’s something
you got to pick, Doris is right, you got to pick and choose. You got to be
careful if you pick-- on-- on one hand it could be tempting to go guns, because
you-- it needs the most political capital. It’s going to be the hardest slog.
It’s the most work. But if you do it and fail, you know, you’re not going to
get anything else done. Ask George Bush when he did social security first…
GREGORY: Right, of course.
MR. TODD: …and he did immigrate.
Immigration is going to be relatively easy. Now, it’s going to feel-- there
will be some painful moments, but you have a Republican Party of which there is
incentive to get it done. You got a big victory early and may be that is what
it does (Unintelligible) but I tell you, the fact that we’re going to be stuck
in these budget-- these budget impasses in-- in-- and it’s going to keep the
economy dragging down, I mean, I think that’s the biggest, I mean, we’ve
already gone over the-- the political cliff here, if you will. With-- with
what? Because the deal that happens-- if it happens is temporary. We’re going
to have this debt ceiling thing in three-- in six weeks which is just a-- a
abominable.
GREGORY: Let me just underscore some
of the headlines being made here. The president saying that the U.S. has good
leads now on who carried out the Benghazi attacks. He also touts Chuck Hagel as
Defense Secretary saying there’s nothing disqualifying but says he hasn’t made
a defense choice yet. The president also says failure to reach a fiscal deal would
hurt the markets. And as we’ve been talking about, the president wants gun
violence measures passed in 2013, something he said in the course of our
interview. We’ll take another break here. Be back in just a moment.
(Announcements)
GREGORY: Thank you all for the
discussion today and for all your contributions to the program this year. I
really appreciate it. Before we go, I wanted to point out that if you missed
the interview with the president, there are several opportunities to watch a
rebroadcast on MSNBC. That’s later today at 2:00 PM, 4:00 PM and 9:00 PM
Eastern and again tomorrow morning at 6:00 AM. And for highlights from the
interview, make sure to follow me on Twitter @davidgregory is my handle. That’s
all for today. We’ll be back next week. Until then, have a Happy New Year. If
it’s Sunday, it’s MEET THE PRESS.
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