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'Meet the Press' transcript for June 14, 2009
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 Netcast Vice President Joe Biden joins us for an in-depth, exclusive interview on all the issues topping the political agenda, including foreign policy, the economy and health care. Plus, the view from the other side of the aisle with our political roundtable: Republican strategist Mike Murphy and MSNBC's Fmr. Rep. Joe Scarborough (R-FL). |
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MR. GREGORY: Before you go, speaking of people we learned from, Tim Russert.
VICE PRES. BIDEN: Yeah.
MR. GREGORY: Painful anniversary this week.
VICE PRES. BIDEN: Yeah.
MR. GREGORY: He's been gone a year. Some thoughts this morning?
VICE PRES. BIDEN: Yeah. You know, he was a force. He was a force. I'm wearing my Tim Russert tie that...
MR. GREGORY: I noticed that.
VICE PRES. BIDEN: ...that Maureen sent me, his wife. I got a chance to do Wake Forest commencement that he was supposed to do. And the irony is the only sort of bittersweet thing, David--and by the way, I think you're doing a great job. Presumptuous of me to say that, probably ruin your reputation, but, but, you know, it was a year ago almost to the day I was supposed to be on the program with him. I got--I was supposed to be on that Sunday, and Friday got the call. And it just is still almost surreal. I mean, this guy, this guy was bigger than life. This guy, you know, this guy extended beyond what he did on this show. I mean, it was--and the thing I liked about him best, I liked--as I said to the kids down there at the commencement, when I first met him he was working for Moynahan and I was a young senator. I knew the staff better than I knew the senators. And by the way, I'm four years senior to Moynahan. You know, he had come along after my four years. And I remember him asking me about whether or not I thought--did I ever have any doubts about my ability to do this. He told me the story about Moynahan where he walked in saying, "All these guys with these Rhodes Scholarships and things, and Ivy League schools, I don't know whether or not I can--I should be here." And Moynahan looked at him and said, allegedly--and it sounds like Moynahan--he said, "Look, Tim, you can learn what they know. They can never learn what you know."
MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.
VICE PRES. BIDEN: That's the special thing about--that was special about Tim. My mother would say it's an Irish thing. She'd say he had a sixth sense. And he really did. I mean, it was a rare, a rare gift and it's missed.
MR. GREGORY: Mr. Vice President, well said. Thank you very much and good luck with your important work.
VICE PRES. BIDEN: Thank you.
MR. GREGORY: Coming next, how are the Obama administration policies playing out at home and abroad? Two reform-minded Republicans weigh in; Mike Murphy and Joe Scarborough, here only on MEET THE PRESS.
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MR. GREGORY: We're back and we're live in Wilmington, Delaware, with Republicans Mike Murphy and Joe Scarborough; who, as it turns out, spend most weekends in Wilmington, apparently.
MR. JOE SCARBOROUGH: Most weekends? I mean, every day I can.
MR. MIKE MURPHY: Garden spot.
MR. GREGORY: Thank you both for, for being here.
Joe Scarborough, what did the vice president say here that we're going to be talking about this week?
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Well, I, I think we're going to have to look at how he described their healthcare plan.
MR. GREGORY: Hm.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: He said it's going to be the most substantial program passed in Washington since Medicare. This is, this is an administration that thinks big. It's why President Obama got elected, but it's also what's causing the problems right now. The--you know, listen. George W. Bush was reckless. He doubled the debts from--our national debt from $5 trillion to $10 trillion. Under this budget, though, they're going to double it from $10 trillion to $20 trillion.
MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: There's going to have to be some restraint there. They've got a really tough job selling this program in the months ahead.
MR. GREGORY: Other news besides healthcare?
MR. MURPHY: Yeah. You know, interpreting Biden news is a little tricky because he's not a script guy.
MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.
MR. MURPHY: Both to his credit and sometimes to the heartburn of the White House. There are a bunch of guys backstage, they're probably wondering if they're--he was going to make really big news. I thought he did a good job. I heard some tumblers clicking on the padlock to maybe open the door to not a do-or-die fight on the public option for healthcare. If so, that's the big thing.
MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.
MR. MURPHY: There's a civil war going on around the Democrats, should the healthcare reform just be about helping people afford private insurance and competition that way, or should they create what I call a killer whale insurance company...
MR. GREGORY: Right.
MR. MURPHY: ...funded by the government?
MR. GREGORY: And there were no red lines there.
MR. MURPHY: Yeah, exactly.
MR. GREGORY: There were no red lines there.
MR. MURPHY: I heard that door open a little, which is a huge Republican victory...
MR. GREGORY: Right.
MR. MURPHY: ...and moderate Democrat victory.
MR. GREGORY: Let's just also address what is the still breaking news out of Iran, and the fact that there is belligerence coming out of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian regime.
MR. MURPHY: Yeah.
MR. GREGORY: And this administration has a real delicate balance here...
MR. MURPHY: Well...
MR. GREGORY: ...which is are you going to engage? And how do you do it now?
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Right. And how fascinating; we heard the vice president--I mean, they've been looking at the numbers. Did you hear the old, the old Irish pol looking at us, saying, "You know, 70 percent of the vote came from urban areas. That's not Ahmadinejad's strong suit." They know these numbers don't add up. I mean, that's a very--I think that's the strongest message this morning. Joe Biden suggested this morning the numbers just don't add up in Iran.
MR. GREGORY: Right, that Iran is not an actual democracy here.
MR. MURPHY: Well, and I hope that's not news to them.
MR. GREGORY: Yeah.
MR. MURPHY: I mean, behind the--he kept referring to the supreme leader, the Grand Ayatollah, who really pulls the strings there. And now the Iranian democracy, the legitimacy is out the window in the eyes of the world.
MR. GREGORY: Right.
MR. MURPHY: So these are bad guys of no good faith. How do you engage with them if obviously they don't mean much of what they say?
MR. GREGORY: Well, and one of the things that they would say, what the president's been saying is look, the--sort of the nicer we are, the more we promise engagement, the more isolated they become. They do--they have suffered some setbacks along the way. The more belligerent Ahmadinejad is is a sign of more isolation. And if they're more isolated maybe they're easy to deal with, because they don't have friends in, in China, or they don't have friends in Russia, necessarily.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Right. Well, they...
MR. MURPHY: True. But their faith is always...
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Yeah.
MR. MURPHY: ...a part of negotiations, and these guys are the anti-good faith. I think we--there has to be some condemnation now, because we are on the side of the Iranian people that are trying to move forward. We can't be on the side of this regime.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: And how fascinating as I sat there listening to him talk about this, looking at the election results. You know, the law of unintended consequences came in again. I suspect that Cairo speech really scared the grand ayatollahs in Iran. If they were going to fix an election...
MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: ...this was a time to fix it, because the last thing they wanted to do was Barack Obama to take credit for reformers winning in Iran, like they already have in Lebanon. And, and by the way, in the short-term that's bad news for us. I think in the long-term, though...
MR. GREGORY: Right.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: ...if ayatollahs are seen stealing an election as a result from what Barack Obama did in Cairo, I actually think that's a positive for the United States and Iran in the long run.
MR. GREGORY: Back home, the issue of jobs still the big deal, right? We were sold that this stimulus was going to help the unemployment rate go down and not up. That hasn't happened. Hundred and fifty thousand jobs created or saved, another 600,000 jobs are going to be created or saved. I mean, would the Democrats be accusing Republicans in this position of fuzzy math here, Joe?
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Well, it is fuzzy math. I don't think anybody should expect a stimulus plan to turn the economy around in five months, six months. I think the mistake the administration's making right now are coming up with these matrixes saying "we've created 150,000 jobs." You have? "Well, we haven't lost 150,000." There's--I think there's an impatience, and for good reason. Americans, if you read the Washington Post story today, talked about Americans are becoming impatient all of this spending, with all the deficits. You showed the numbers in the Gallup Poll. They understand they've got to bring voters something in 2010...
MR. GREGORY: Yeah.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: ...or they're in trouble.
MR. MURPHY: Yeah. I felt sorry for the vice president. He had to do about five minutes of ecometric modeling voodoo.
MR. GREGORY: Right.
MR. MURPHY: It sounded like a grad student at...
MR. GREGORY: That does not sound like the Joe Biden I've covered.
MR. MURPHY: Yeah. I can do it in 30 seconds. There is only...
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Well, he's a vice president now. He had to.
MR. MURPHY: There's only one number that counts, how many people are out of work. It's the highest in 25 years, 9.4 percent.
MR. GREGORY: Right.
MR. MURPHY: It is going up, not down. And the other scary number, in the last three weeks the average mortgage interest rate is up 10 percent with--you know, the number's gone from the mid-fours to the low fives.
MR. GREGORY: Right.
MR. MURPHY: So two simple kitchen table numbers going exactly the wrong way. I think in hindsight the political side of this for the Republicans is going to be...
MR. GREGORY: Right.
MR. MURPHY: ...there could have been a much more effective stimulus package by cutting payroll taxes, things that would have put money right into the regular economy fast, not pork or you're out paving roads that sometimes aren't even needed.
MR. GREGORY: All right, we're going...
MR. SCARBOROUGH: And that's the big problem. I mean, for the president, politically, the big problem is he had to turn this bill over to Nancy Pelosi. This was Nancy Pelosi's stimulus package, and that's going to cause problems in the long run. But again, it's too early to, to suggest that unemployment is going to be dropping. I think voters will give him another six months to a year.
MR. GREGORY: All right. Well, let's talk about where the Republican road map picks up in terms of reaction to the Obama administration. We're going to do that. We're going to take a quick pause here, however. We'll continue our roundtable discussion after this brief station break.
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