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'Meet the Press' transcript for March 15, 2009
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 Netcast The president's plan for the economy: Will it work? We'll hear from both sides — the Chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisers Dr. Christina Romer and the House Republican Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) join us for exclusive interviews. Plus, an economic and political roundtable with The Week's David Frum, BBC's Katty Kay, CNBC's Steve Liesman, and PBS's Tavis Smiley. |
Exclusively on msnbc.com |
Could we have screamed louder? Almost certainly. Were--did we explain enough what was going on? Probably not. But we were out there, we were doing it. The fact that they didn't notice is not my problem.
MR. FRUM: It was...
MS. KAY: I think part of the reason this is being--caught such fire in the American public this week is that we saw this in 2003 with the run-up to the war in Iraq.
MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.
MS. KAY: Where there was a failure of political journalists to ask the tough questions of the administration, as we went into Iraq, about weapons of mass destruction. President Bush was not hauled over the coals in the way that, for example, Tony Blair was back in Britain. But in this case it's even more complicated, because we rely on financial journalists. Most of us, and the American public in general, this is very complicated stuff. We don't have the jargon, we don't have the technical expertise, so we have to have the financial journalists acting as the people that...(unintelligible)...power.
MR. GREGORY: But here--but there's a fundamental question, Tavis, which is what is it that should have been said or exposed prior to everything going south? Because it gets to the larger question of precisely what caused this.
MR. SMILEY: Pardon my English, you ain't got enough time for that answer, David, because there's a whole lot that should have been exposed. Let's be honest about it. The bottom line is, one word, greed. Wall Street got greedy. And when they got greedy, it, it caused this entire economy to crash. And since they were greedy and have crashed the economy, we get a little talk about Wall Street, a little talk about Main Street. As I said last time on this program, still, David, not enough talk about the side Street.
Here's the problem. The American public, I think, could handle this crisis much better if, along with all of the bailouts, there was a poverty agenda in this country. With all due respect to President Obama and Mr. McCain, three presidential debates between McCain and Obama, the word poverty never came up. There is no poverty agenda in this country. There is no talk about the weak working class. That's the problem here. There's got to be some accountability here. The Obama administration, I think, is out front being aggressive on some of these issues. But still, as your conversation earlier pointed out, not enough details, not enough people looking out for the weak working class.
MR. GREGORY: All right.
But, David Frum, I want to stay on this question of accountability with regard to the financial press generally and what could have been done. Because what's left out of this conversation is average Americans who were taking the money, who thought, you know, on a salary of $40,000, $50,000...
MR. FRUM: Yeah. Right.
MR. GREGORY: ...they could afford a $400,000 mortgage. So it was all around. What should have been done or said, and at what point?
MR. FRUM: The administration that was in power at the time, Bush administration, which I served, had a problem through those years, which was there was not a lot of good economic news that affected the ordinary person. Incomes were flat, you could see the debt levels rising. There was one, there was one story, however, that you could tell that was a positive story, and that was the increase in the assets held by the average family because of the housing bubble. And nobody wanted to get in the way of that. Not, not the administration, not Congress. Because if, if they did, what other good news would there be?
And it's true that the financial press has tabloidized itself. And the multiplication of cable channels has meant that we, we talk about the news in a less serious way in all kinds of ways.
MR. GREGORY: And we have The Washington Post now folding its business section into the front page, so we have less financial journalism.
MR. FRUM: Right.
MR. SMILEY: But, but why, but why...
MR. FRUM: But we, we--but we had primarily a political failure...
MR. SMILEY: But why, David...
MR. FRUM: ...which was...
MR. SMILEY: Why couldn't somebody have said, why couldn't somebody have said very simply, to David's question, tax cuts for the rich and lucky are not the answer? That's what needed to be said, that's what was not said and that's why we're in this mess now.
MS. KAY: (Unintelligible)
MR. FRUM: That, that, that's, that's a political point.
MR. GREGORY: Right.
MS. KAY: Isn't it, isn't it a question of what, you know, what journalists are here for, is to just...
MR. GREGORY: Right. That's, that is more of a political point. It doesn't go--doesn't speak to some of the main issues in, in the financial system.
MS. KAY: But the main issues are, are...
MR. GREGORY: Quickly here, and then I want to get into something else.
MS. KAY: ...that journalists are there to ask tough questions, whether is it...
MR. SMILEY: Exactly.
MS. KAY: ...the president who's in office or whether it's the businesses that they're talking to everyday who are their sources. And I think that's what happened. We--what are we here for? What are we paid for as journalists? We're paid to ask the tough question and then to ask the follow-up question if we don't feel we got the answer.
MR. GREGORY: Steve, final question of the--was what was wrong in the financial system, was it knowable, was it discoverable?
MR. LIESMAN: Yes, it was. It was way too much excess. Here's, here's the, here's the easy thing you could have known: Any time capital chases investments, you know you're in for a hard fall. It should be investment ideas that are looking for money. That's the normal way of the world. This was all backwards, it was the other way around, and that was how you could have known we were headed for a hard fall.
MR. GREGORY: I want to talk some Republican politics here in our remaining moments. Michael Steele, head of the RNC, he got in more hot water this week. Gave an interview with GQ and talked about abortion, and his is how the conversation went. He was asked, "Are you saying you think women have the right to choose an abortion?" Steele says, "Yeah. I mean, again, I think that's an individual choice." "You do?" Steele, "Yeah. Absolutely."
David Frum, does that represent the Republican Party?
MR. FRUM: It should represent a view within the Republican Party. It should be permissible to say such a thing. Look, we need--I, I speak as a Republican. We need Michael Steele. He is exciting, he is warm, he has a marvelous TV presence. It--that's, that's the face that our party should be presenting to the country, and we need to support him. And the very fact that he is opening up the debate, talking with the constituencies that need to, need to be reached, these are valuable and fresh things. And I, I am just sick about the kind of level of, of attack he has taken, because we need him.
MR. SMILEY: I'm glad--I'm, I'm glad, David, that Michael Steele is there. I could never imagine 10 years ago that we'd have two parties, both headed by black men. But it's important to understand two things, very quickly. Number one, it's about the policy, not the personality. You can't put a colored face out and think that black people and brown people and women are coming just because you got a colored face out front. Number one, it's about the policy. And number two, all this infighting I think still underscores this party doesn't know who they are, where they're going or how they're going to get there.
MR. FRUM: Well, but both of those are positive things. He's not a black face, he's just a different face. We need different kinds of people. And it isn't that you think you put a black face on the party and you'll get black voters. You put a different face on the party and you'll get different voters.
MR. SMILEY: But the policy, but the policies have to change, too. That's my point.
MS. KAY: But...
MR. FRUM: And--but the first step to making the policies change is saying it's possible, there's room. And his kind of knocking down the walls is saying we can have a wider discussion in the Republican Party than we've allowed ourselves.
MS. KAY: Isn't...
MR. GREGORY: Katty:
MS. KAY: Isn't it even a bigger problem, the question of leadership within the Republican Party, is that I haven't heard a sensible Republican idea on this economic crisis, apart from reducing taxes, over the last four months.
MR. FRUM: The payroll tax holiday is a great idea.
MS. KAY: You--they have to come up with...
MR. GREGORY: Right.
MS. KAY: They have to start coming up with ideas that the American public is interested in. You've got some younger Republicans saying, "We need to get back to talking about health care, we need to get back to talking about education, the kinds of things that the American public are talking about, and not just talking about cutting taxes."
MR. LIESMAN: That's the parody of the Republican Party that goes around in economic circles. "Well, you have cancer, cut taxes." You know, that's the, the, the solution of the Republican Party to everything.
MR. GREGORY: But the payroll tax idea, Republican idea was also shared by some Democrats, as well.
MS. KAY: Right.
MR. LIESMAN: It's a big danger, though, David, which is that if you watch the savings rate go up, the fear is that people will get this money from the government and they will save it instead of spend it, which is the argument for government spending at this moment.
MR. GREGORY: All right, lot, lots more to talk about. Unfortunately, we're out of time. Thank you very much. We'll be right back.
(Announcements)
MR. GREGORY: That's all for today. We'll be back next week. If it's Sunday, it's MEET THE PRESS.
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