MTP Transcript for April 1, 2007

REP. RANGEL: Because he was a young, attractive minority candidate that had so much wind under his wings that I told him if he didn’t run, he’d spend the rest of his life regretting it. I don’t think that he will be there for the final rounds, but he’s a young candidate, and he’s got a bright future in the Senate, and he gets another chance at it in eight years.

MR. RUSSERT: You’re supporting Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama. Why?

REP. RANGEL: Well, first of all, she’s an exciting, qualified candidate with eight years experience in the White House, she’s my junior senator from New York, and she’s our favorite daughter. And, and quite frankly, I don’t think anyone comes near to her qualifications to be a great president.

MR. RUSSERT: You don’t think Senator Obama is as qualified as Hillary Clinton?

REP. RANGEL: You don’t mean qualified, of course not. But he’s exciting, and he’s catching on in terms of popularity. But in terms of qualification and background, I don’t think anyone says that he has it now. But it doesn’t mean that bright people can’t acquire the talents that’re necessary. But at this point in time, I think it’s fair to say he’s eloquent, he’s bright, and not as qualified as Hillary Clinton.

MR. RUSSERT: In your book, you talk about Hillary Clinton and how you encouraged her to run for the Senate. But after you went through that process, you realized perhaps she was a bit more receptive than you had originally thought. Let’s read what you wrote in your book. “What I knew was that Hillary Clinton for Senate from New York wasn’t about my madness, it was about her method. Whenever I think of it, I always remember that I went steady with my wife for seven years before we tied the knot, and to this day she has” convinced me “it was all my idea. So it was with Hillary; I knew when I drove up that she was ready to be asked to the prom. I knew my job would” would “be to go out and get people to say which side they were on and bring the information back, the way a dutiful prom date fetches glasses of punch.”

REP. RANGEL: I would be extremely naive to believe that a chat with the first lady in Chicago would cause her to say “Wow, Congressman Rangel, you think I can be a United States senator?” No, she—it—there’s no question that being the senior congressional delegation leader in New York, that having me on board would make it a realistic venture. And it turned out to be that way, and she’s done remarkably well.

MR. RUSSERT: And when she decided to run for the Senate, did you have any doubt that she would then run for the presidency?

REP. RANGEL: Of course I did. It never—I never connected the dots that she would be running for the president.

MR. RUSSERT: Really?

REP. RANGEL: No, no, not at the time. Listen, I’m good, but it’s one step at a time, Tim. I mean, I never looked at her and said, “This is going to be our Democratic president one day,” no.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you think she connected the dots?

REP. RANGEL: I think it would be hard living with Bill Clinton and not connect the dots.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me go to your book, “And I Haven’t Had a Bad Day Since,” and go back to November 30^th, 1950. Tell us where you were and what happened, and the promise, the pledge you made to the Almighty.

REP. RANGEL: We got to Korea. We were the first United States forces there to repel the North Koreans after they had, in June of 1950, forced the North Koreans all the way down to the end of the peninsula. We went up and, with MacArthur landing, we pushed the North Korean to the border of North Korea and China. And then one of the coolest things happened, and that is our intelligence, for what it was, did not tell us that our complete 8^th Army was surrounded by the People’s Volunteer Army. They actually crossed the river and surrounded us. My outfit had close to 90 percent casualties. For three days they blew the bugles. It was sub-degree, under freezing weather. I saw officers actually leaving by helicopter. We were scared as hell. We didn’t know what was going to go on.

MR. RUSSERT: You were in the 2^nd Infantry, a black division.

REP. RANGEL: No, it was a white division. I was in a black outfit—you know, they talk about integration...

MR. RUSSERT: A black outfit was in the division.

REP. RANGEL: Exactly.

MR. RUSSERT: With white officers.

REP. RANGEL: Exactly. And some of the white officers had left us, had abandoned us, really. And so the Chinese would have the loudspeakers and say, “What are you negroes doing there? You can’t even go to the pools in sunny Florida. This is a civil war, you shouldn’t be here.” And we were all scared. Well, finally they hit, and I was thrown off of a ammunition tractor into the air. All I saw was a ball of orange fire. And I ended up in a ditch. And I could hear the bugles blowing, I could see my comrades being led away with their hands over their head. At one point I wanted to play dead, but I thought that the loudness of my heart could be heard by those that was around me, that I was so scared. But anyway, I had been an altar boy, and I knew prayers in Latin as well as in English. And I knew I was going to die, but I just gave it one shot, and I said, “Jesus, if you ever get me out of this, if you could just consider sparing me, you’re not going to have any problems with Charlie Rangel ever, ever, ever, ever, ever.” And I think so many people have had bad experiences that, once they get out of it, they forget it. Something clicked, Tim, that I’ve never forgotten it, and I haven’t had a bad day since. No matter what has happened, something automatically says, or I imagine that Jesus says, “Is that you, Rangel, complaining?” I say, “No, it must be Tim or someone around me, but I’m OK.” And I’ve always been OK.

Some people have said, “How can you say that? You lost your brother, you lost your mother, and that wasn’t a bad day?” I said, “It’s really strange because first I curse the darkness, and then I say how many people have enjoyed having a beautiful mother for 94 years?” And my mother, her mother died in childbirth, so she never had a mother. And with my brother, he was my father, my best friend, my campaign man, it’s—he was everything to me. And we used to joke about, first, people who didn’t have brothers, but worse than that, people who had brothers and never—but never stayed in touch with them. We talked every day except when he was in the military in World War II and I was in Korea. Other than that, every day we talked.

MR. RUSSERT: High school dropout, Charlie Rangel joins the Army, went to Korea, returned home Sergeant Rangel, injured, decorated, and yet faced indignity back home. How does a black American in the ‘50s who goes and fights a war and comes home and doesn’t have the full civil rights that our country stands for, how do you deal with that?

REP. RANGEL: With great difficulty, because the Army pumps you up—those sergeant stripes, those medals, the self-esteem you have for yourself. And when you get out here, they didn’t—they didn’t miss you, they didn’t know where you were, they didn’t know where Korea was. And I had so much ego that I was giving general education development tests, high school tests to people, I forgot completely that I had not graduated from high school. But when I got out, I learned fast.

MR. RUSSERT: You were on Sixth and 36^th Street with a push cart.

REP. RANGEL: That’s where I’d started before I went in the Army.

MR. RUSSERT: And that fell over on a rainy day, and you said, “This is not right.”

REP. RANGEL: The cops cussed me out. Staff Sergeant Rangel, was being cussed out. I just marched to the V.A. and said, “You got to do better than this.”

MR. RUSSERT: “I deserve better than this.”

REP. RANGEL: That’s right.

MR. RUSSERT: And you finished school, and you went to St. John’s University and then on to St. John’s Law School.

REP. RANGEL: No, at NYU.

MR. RUSSERT: NYU. And then to New York State Assembly and the Congress.

And now you’re chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

REP. RANGEL: And I haven’t had a bad day since.

MR. RUSSERT: And when you have that gavel in your hand, you deal with tax policy and budget policy and vote on the war, is there something back in your mind that takes you back to those days in Harlem that said, “You know what? I have a bigger responsibility here to the people in my neighborhood and my community?”

REP. RANGEL: No, but the people in the community feel such a sense of pride, and they wondered how I would be accepted since all my life down there’s been civil rights and education and, and health care. But I am convinced now that what had been bad before is even worse now, and it’s a threat to our national security. So there’s no issue that comes before me that I don’t see the strength of our country being the most important thing. If it’s taxes, we got to have an equitable tax system where everyone believes that it’s fair. If it’s trade, the traders and the multinationals have to recognize that jobs in the United States are just as important to profits for their shareholders. If it’s Social Security, we go to sleep at night knowing it’s not going to be wiped out. And if it’s Medicare, what could be more important than saying, “Our old folks are entitled to decent health care.” So it’s community, but, to me, these issues have now become national issues, including affordable housing. But the war, the war, the war, the war, the war is sapping the strength and confidence away from government, and this is, to me, is my reason for being.

MR. RUSSERT: Charles Rangel, we thank you very much for joining us again.

The book, “I Haven’t Had a Bad Day Since.” Thank you.

REP. RANGEL: Thank you, Tim.

MR. RUSSERT: And we’ll be right back.

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