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'Meet the Press' transcript for Dec. 14, 2008
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 Netcast Dec. 14: The latest on the political turmoil in Illinois (D) with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D) and Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn (D). Plus, a roundtable on the fallout with the Chicago Sun-Times' Mary Mitchell and NBC's Chuck Todd. Then, an in-depth discussion on the troubled economy. |
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MS. MITCHELL: Reality check. Pay to play, everybody knows it, even--not just in politics. Office politics, pay to play.
MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.
MS. MITCHELL: You know, if you know the boss and the--and you, you, you need something from the boss, he's going to look around and find the person going to do him the most good. He's not going to hire--you know, put somebody in a place of power that isn't doing him any good. That's the world. That's how the world works. But there is a line. You got to know how to play the game. And Blagojevich, Governor Blagojevich was tacky in playing the game. That's what people are upset about. They're embarrassed that this man had the nerve to get caught on the wiretap using foul language, actually giving voice to, you know, the wink and the nod thing.
MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.
MS. MITCHELL: He didn't just wink and nod, he actually tried to shake people down, according to the wiretaps.
MR. GREGORY: But even--the president-elect said this is the far side of the business approach to politics, which was a nice, euphemistic way to put this.
But, Chuck, this is part of entrenched politics here in Washington.
MR. TODD: Yeah.
MR. GREGORY: So I mean--that Obama's going to confront.
MR. TODD: It is. I mean, and it is one of the things Obama himself bragged about, about having so many small donors that maybe he wouldn't be, he wouldn't be caught having to just service, you know...
MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.
MR. TODD: ...the big, the big donor.
But you bring up a great point about Chuck Schumer. And you're going to have this huge roundtable discussion about the economy. What Wall Street happened? What happened in the financial situation? You look at what--at some of the contributions that Wall Street made and, you know, there is a connection here. You wonder why legislation--why some things were overlooked or why Wall Street was allowed to do these credit default swaps or whatever.
MR. GREGORY: Right.
MR. TODD: It--there, there are lines here of, you know, huge donations made to people that are in charge of these regulations, the Senate Banking Committee...
MR. GREGORY: Right.
MR. TODD: ...and electing U.S. senators.
MR. GREGORY: And none of this is illegal, by the way.
MR. TODD: It's not illegal.
MR. GREGORY: Even to raise it as, as an example is nothing, nothing wrong with it.
It's part of the system, Mary.
MS. MITCHELL: It's part of the system. But here's, here's the problem here. And, and I'm embarrassed, I'm from Illinois. I've been at the Sun-Times for nearly 20 years. We took our eye off the ball. Anytime that the, that the governor of any state can basically auction off a Senate seat and the media doesn't get ahold of it and doesn't start, you know, reveal it--we're talking about the Obamas' dog and things like that instead of talking about keeping our eye on the prize and exposing this kind of dirty politics.
MR. GREGORY: I want to talk about transitions here and go to some polling in just a minute, but some breaking news this morning. The president has made a surprise visit--another surprise visit to Baghdad, and he appeared this morning with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. A much orderly procession than we've seen in previous visits. I'm sure the president will point to a sign of the stability in the country that this is, in effect, a state visit. That's happening as he transitions out of office. You wrote, you blogged this week on First Read, Chuck, about our new polling, NBC News/Wall Street Journal, and, frankly, a lot of support for Obama around the country both in his picks, how people, people, people feel about him personally. This is how you wrote it.
"Obama's enjoying a bigger honeymoon than his recent predecessors ever did. Just consider these numbers in the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll: 67 percent say they're pleased with Obama's early appointments; 75 percent believe that the level of his involvement in making policy has been exactly right; and his favorable/unfavorable rating, 67 percent to 16 percent. By comparison, a month after their initial presidential victories, Bush's rating was 48 percent to 35 percent; Clinton's was 60 percent to 19 percent. A lot of love out there.
MR. TODD: It is. One caveat, done before the entire Blagojevich thing...
MR. GREGORY: Right.
MR. TODD: ...exploded. But two, this is a combination of hope and despair that Obama is benefiting from. Yes, he's got his own supporters who are very hopeful and very optimistic, and we saw that in the movement of some right track/wrong track numbers. But, wow, the country gets the scope of the problem. There is a lot of pessimism out there for what we're facing and what we've faced. We had half our survey said this--2008 was the worst year that they could remember in their lifetimes. We had 90 percent say the economy got worse over the last year.
MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.
MR. TODD: You had pessimism about the way things are going ahead. So the despair, in an odd way, is helping Obama. People that didn't support him are rooting for him, not because they want Barack Obama to succeed, because they want themselves to succeed.
MR. GREGORY: And I've got...
MR. TODD: So it is this odd combination that Obama's benefiting from.
MR. GREGORY: A lot of latitude. We're going to leave it there. Chuck Todd, Mary Mitchell, really appreciate you both being here. Thanks very much.
MR. TODD: Thanks, David.
MS. MITCHELL: Thank you.
MR. GREGORY: And coming next, the U.S. economy in critical condition, our special discussion. Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, Walmart President and CEO Lee Scott, and Google CEO Eric Schmidt--all of them right here only on MEET THE PRESS.
(Announcements)
MR. GREGORY: The economy in turmoil. A special discussion after this brief station break.
(Announcements)
MR. GREGORY: And we're back on MEET THE PRESS. We've assembled quite a panel of experts here: former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney; Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm; and the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt; the former CEO of HP, Carly Fiorina; and down in Arkansas this morning, the CEO of Walmart, Lee Scott.
Welcome to all of you. I really appreciate you being here. This is such a challenging time for the country, and the economy is in such dire straits, it's a really important conversation to have.
Let me start, Governor Granholm, with the auto bailout. It failed in the Senate this week. There may be some hope for the White House for the Big Three. What went wrong?
GOV. JENNIFER GRANHOLM (D-MI): You know, I think that we didn't do a good enough job explaining to citizens across the country what a failure of these--the automobile industry would mean for America. Obviously, with the ramifications across the country with all of the jobs, three million jobs, I don't know that people felt it. I think the timing was bad because it, it came on the heels of the financial industry bailout. But I also do think that there was an issue there, according to the Los Angeles Times, who saw a, a, a missive that was sent out on Wednesday to the Senate Republicans that it was an opportunity to, to go after the unions, too. So I think there was a...
MR. GREGORY: Well, you...
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