MTP Transcript for Oct. 1

REP. BROWN: Sure.

MR. RUSSERT: First, as to contributions from pharmaceutical and oil companies, then onto tax cuts, and then onto the whole issue of trade.

SEN. DeWINE: Well, Sherrod would, would, would have people believe that who gives you money influences you. I get contributions from 20,000 to 30,000 Ohioans. The oil companies, let me tell you, Tim, were not happy and still are not happy about my vote in regard to drilling in, in the Arctic. Drug companies were not happy when Chris Dodd and I and Hillary Clinton and others passed legislation to make them make drugs safer for kids. So I take them on.  I do what I think is right. I vote for Ohioans.

But let me talk, if I could, for a moment about this whole job issue, because Congressman Brown has made a big issue about that. It is one more example where the congressman talks a good game, but doesn’t do anything. I’ll give you an example on trade. Steel. I worked together with Senator Rockefeller and others to go to the White House when these steel companies—they were importing steel, dumping steel in the United States from China and other countries. We got the White House, we got the president to, to put the quotas on, to put the tariffs on. It made a big difference.

Another example. Senator Byrd and I worked together on what ultimately became the Byrd Amendment. I introduced it originally. And basically what it says is that when a foreign country dumps into the United States, instead of putting that money into the U.S. Treasury when we fine them, we give that money to the, to the U.S. companies. That’s brought back $315 million just for Ohio companies.

But the bigger issue is, Sherrod thinks you can build a wall around the state of Ohio. One-fourth of our agriculture products are exported. One-fourth of our jobs, Tim, from manufacturing come from exporting to other countries.  Thirteen thousand Ohio businesses export every single day. That’s where our jobs come from. That’s where our future comes from. And once again he—you know, he doesn’t understand. He talks a good game about what he’s doing.  When it comes time to protect Ohio industries, he’s not there. He doesn’t do anything. I’m the one who has done it time and time again.

MR. RUSSERT: Thirty seconds.

REP. BROWN: First of all, Mike knows those efforts were bipartisan to get the president to do that. I was involved, he was involved, all of us were.  The problem is the president pulled the rug out from under it, because under, under those, those, those, those tariffs to protect the steel industry, they didn’t last very long. Neither of those laws that he says—that he talks about are still in effect.

But I want to see more trade. I just don’t want one-way free trade where our biggest export is jobs to Mexico and jobs to China. I want fair trade, I fought for and got into Ohio my first year in, in the first session in Congress, the United States Export Assistance Center located in Ohio to serve the region. That’s literally helped thousands, literally thousands of small business figure out how to export more. I want fair trade with more experts—more exports, not this free trade that causes the devastation of the Miami Valley, where Mike is from, that causes the kind of job loss in Jackson and Gallapolis and Chillicothe and Lima that we’re seeing. We simply have abandoned the middle class when we passed these trade agreements, passed tax laws that give incentives to large corporations to outsource instead of helping our small businesses, helping our communities and helping our workers.

MR. RUSSERT: Twenty seconds.

SEN. DeWINE: When it came time to help the middle class with tax cuts, a tax cut that has taken five million Americans off the tax rolls, Tim, that’s helped 4.3 million Ohioans, that has given the average Ohioan that makes $50,000 a year that has two kids, has saved $2,000 per year, Sherrod Brown voted no time and time again. He has not been with the middle class on taxes, either.

REP. BROWN: Mike, Mike, Mike, you know better than that, too.

SEN. DeWINE: Well, it’s true.

REP. BROWN: Can I talk for a moment about taxes?

SEN. DeWINE: Again, what’s the fact? You know, I keep citing...

REP. BROWN: Because since his whole ad campaign is, is fabricated on making up stuff about taxes.

SEN. DeWINE: I keep citing, I keep citing—no. You know the funny thing is?  My ad cam is based on votes that you cast. You just want to run from your record, that’s your problem.

REP. BROWN: You know, you know, interestingly, Mike’s first ad in this campaign, he ran an ad of the World Trade Center on fire. The problem is, he doctored the ad. He took the most sacred symbol of a U.S. tragedy, and...

SEN. DeWINE: Have you ever denied the facts? Have you ever denied the facts in the ad, that you voted 10 different times against intelligence, and voted against the Patriot...

REP. BROWN: You—he, he said—he says on his ads, we all say—sit there very efficiently and say “I approve, I’m Sherrod Brown, I’m Mike DeWine, I approve this ad.”

SEN. DeWINE: Well, deny the facts, Sherrod.

REP. BROWN: He approved an ad that showed—that, that doctored the picture of the World Trade Center. He also called--15 years ago, he said John Glenn was soft on Communism.

SEN. DeWINE: Tim, Tim, I, I said there was a mistake made in the picture, but there was no mistake in the facts.

REP. BROWN: This is how he runs ads. They aren’t—“It was a mistake. It was a mistake.”

SEN. DeWINE: You’re still not denying the facts. Are the facts incorrect?

REP. BROWN: But no—just, just like Mike DeWine, it doesn’t hold the drug companies accountable, doesn’t hold the Defense Department accountable...

SEN. DeWINE: He won’t, he won’t answer the question, Tim. Ten votes against intelligence, 10 votes against...

REP. BROWN: He didn’t even fire—he didn’t fire the ad agency.

MR. RUSSERT: Was there anything other than the smokestack—smoke...

REP. BROWN: What was wrong with the ad?

MR. RUSSERT: Was there any factual other mistakes in terms of...(unintelligible).

REP. BROWN: Well, other, other than the smoke—the doctoring a photo?

MR. RUSSERT: Well, you made that point. You made that point.

REP. BROWN: That’s a, that’s a pretty important point. It just shows that Mike DeWine...

SEN. DeWINE: There he goes.

REP. BROWN: I could, I could document throughout how he’s, he’s on—let me talk about taxes, from what he says on his ads on taxes.

SEN. DeWINE: He won’t answer the question, will he, Tim? He won’t answer the question. The facts are correct.

REP. BROWN: No, I, I will answer the—no, I will be—I would be glad to answer the questions.

MR. RUSSERT: I think people watching these debates and this one have a sense that Washington has broken down in terms of our ability to find common ground.  And I went through and, and found voting records which are quite interesting.  Congressman Brown, here’s your votes in support of President Bush. In 2005, you were with the president 7 percent of the time. In other words, 93 percent of the time you voted against the president. 2004 was 26, 11, 22 and 12 during the five years of the Bush presidency.

Senator DeWine, here’s your voting record in terms of President Bush. The ‘05, year before running for re-election was 76 percent. Prior to that it was 94, 97, 98, 95. It’s as if you—if you’re a Republican, you have to be for Bush. If you’re a Democrat, you have to be against Bush.

REP. BROWN: Well, can I, can I answer that...(unintelligible)?

MR. RUSSERT: Please.

REP. BROWN: My, my first—the eight years I served with—when President Clinton was president, on several major issues I took on the president and my party. I took them on in the North American Free Trade Agreement, because my interest was representing Ohio, not my party, and not the president of the United States. I took on the president on three—at least three other major issues: the balanced budget amendment, I supported it, President Clinton opposed it. On the line-item veto, I supported it, President Clinton opposed it. On the trade bill with China, PNTR with China, I opposed it. The president was pushing and lobbying hard. On major issues, I’ll stand up to the president and my own party. Mike DeWine really hasn’t. He’s not just voted with President Bush almost all the time, including every single Bush appointee, every single Bush appointee, not one has Mike voted against. And I will show more independence when I’m in the Senate, because my allegiance will be to Ohio and to, to the communities in Ohio, not to the president, not to...

MR. RUSSERT: Is this election a referendum on George Bush?

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