Rep. Pramila jayapal (D-WA): "The President agrees with the $3.5 trillion number" for reconciliation
joining me now, Pramila Jayapal. she's chair of the progressive caucus. i feel like we're going straight to the source as we talk with you because you're so involved with all of this. quickly, the halloween deadline, before we figure out how to get there, is that realistic? are we able to get something done by halloween. i say we, i mean you. >> it's always great to see you. we are trying to get this done as quickly as we possibly can. now, you know, i think deadlines are often arbitrary. if you remember, the bipartisan bill took five months to negotiate. all said, though, we're trying to get this done as quickly as possible. it does rely on those two senators, the 2% out of the 1%, because 98% of us agree that $3.5 trillion was the number. all the programs that are in there, the president agrees, 70% of the american people agree. but we have two senators, democratic senators, who are still not onboard. a lot of this depends on the two of them getting together, because they each want slightly different things, and coming back with a proposal of what it is they want to cut. do they want to cut child care, paid leave, cut climate change? what is it, because the price tag comes out of that number. so, you know, the deadline is there. we're working towards it, but of course, deadlines can always shift, and the important thing is we get this done for the american people. >> a.p. reports you told president biden his suggestion for compromise was too low. you put your number closer to $3 trillion. how did the president receive that? what did he say back to you? >> you know, alex, the president agrees with the $3.5 trillion number. remember, this is the biden agenda. as he keeps reminding the runt ra, this is a zero dollar bill at the end of the day. if you look at $3.5 trillion, it's over ten years. per year, it's 1.5% of gdp, so the president is with us on this. 98% of us are together. there's just two senators that are saying that they think it's too much. i think it's really important for us to remember that the price tag comes out of what we want to do. and your poll earlier that you showed shows that when the american people understand that we're talking about universal child care, where no family pays more than 7% of their income on child care or 12 weeks of paid family leave, or fighting climate change with real policies that cut carbon emissions or health care, providing dental, vision, and hearing benefits for seniors or lifting up our immigrants. those are the priorities of the progressive caucus and they're the priorities of the president. that's the president's build back better agenda. >> what other priorities of manchin and sinema? have you spoken with either of them? are you clear on what they want? >> i have spoken with senator sinema. i'm not going to get into the details. i know senator manchin and senator sinema have been speaking with the president. i thing this is the part that is frustrating for a lot of people. all of us. because the two of them don't have the same priorities. you know, one of them is very much fine with the tax pieces, for example, of this making wealthiest corporations and individuals pay their fair share, which by the way, alex, when you add that to the question about how people feel about this bill, the approval goes even higher up because people want the wealthiest to pay their fair share. particularly after what we have seen with billionaires raking in the money after covid. one, however, does not really support that. one supports prescription drug pricing negotiations so americans don't have to pay more. the other one really doesn't support that. they're not necessarily both being public about it, and i think that is the challenge. the two of them don't agree with each other yet. and 98% of us do. and agree with the president, agree with ourselves, agree with the american people. that's the challenge we're facing right now. >> yeah, you're talking some big hurdles there. let me ask about something i do know, which is regarding you, other progressives, you have talked about the idea of keeping all the programs, but for a shorter amount of time. we know that senator joe manchin is behind an idea to shrink the bill by limiting access to every program. he wants to do it for only those americans who need it most. so how do you feel about means testing? can you convince manchin to instead just shorten the length of the programs without it? >> well, that is the progressive caucus' position, that we want all of these five priorities that i mentioned in the bill, and if we have to reduce the price tag slightly, it would be through funding for a shorter amount of time. with the benefits accruing as quickly as possible, right? because we want people to feel the transformational effect of these policies. on means testing, i would just say that the way that most means testing has been structured in this country has been an abject failures. it erects administrative barriers that prevent the most needy people from getting the very benefits. if you have so many qualifications that you can't even figure out if you qualify. second, it actually adds enormous administrative costs because somebody has to figure out if somebody qualifies or not. that takes a lot of money. third and perhaps most importantly, the idea that we have simple ways for people to determine a universal benefit, and that you don't have a fiscal cliff where somebody making $1 over, right, is suddenly thrown off of a program versus $1 under, is very important. that's why a 7% universal cap on child care is a way of means testing, because if you have a really high income and you have to pay 7% of it out before you get any government assistance, that's a way of pushing out the wealthiest people while at the same time making sure two school teachers earning $68,000 a year in a high cost area like seattle are not going to be disqualified from that program. >> you certainly thought that out. let's move to the debt ceiling. the house is set to vote tuesday on a short-term extension to raise the limit. so that buys more time, certainly, but it does not put a solution there on the table. take a listen to what senator ben cardin told me yesterday about it. >> we're going to make sure we don't default on our debt, and we're not going to be using budget reconciliation because that process is likely to lead to failure. we're not going to do that. we'll figure out a way to get this done. we're going to make sure that we don't default on our debt. >> do you know how it gets done? because they say they're not going to use budget reconciliation to raise the ceiling. republicans made clear they're not going to help raise it. so how? >> the first fing, so all americans understand. when we raise the debt ceiling, it's to pay for debts that we already incurred. you know the trump administration incurred $8 trillion in debt over the last four years. and now, the idea that republicans are saying they don't want to vote to raise the debt ceiling, which by the way, has been bipartisan throughout our history. democrats and republicans, regardless of who is in charge have voted to raise the debt ceiling because it's about america and whether people trust us that we're going to pay our bills. now, they're not allowing that to happen. and of course, at the core of all this, alex, is something we have talked about before. the filibuster. the idea you have to get 60 votes just to move forward a vote on a bill. so a minority, it's a tyranny of a minority in the senate where 40 senators representing a tiny portion of the entire population of the country because of those particular states can block even democrats taking a vote on something as important as the debt ceiling. so i think we need to reform the filibuster. i think that's why mitch mcconnell got nervous at the end, because if we can't even pass the debt ceiling and keep the united states good to its obligations, then that might lead to a reform of the filibuster. which i believe is exactly what democrats should do. and i think mitch mcconnell got nervous about that and said all right, let's bring ten republicans along so we can at least have a vote, which only democrats took to raise the debt ceiling, and push the can down the road until december. not an ideal situation, but important to do in this moment. >> so i'm listening to our conversation, and there are viewers out there doing the same. when it comes to reconciliation, infrastructure, debt limit, what's your message to voters, our viewers here who might be losing confidence anything is actually doing to get done? >> well, that, i think, my message is we will get this done. but we have to hold fast and not let a tyranny of the minority, whether it's republicans in the senate not agreeing to reform the filibuster or whether it's a minority of senators, two, in fact, 2% of all democrats in the house and the senate not agreeing with the president, not agreeing with the american people. let's get those two to the table. we can deliver both infrastructure. we can deliver the reconciliation bill, the build back better act. and if we reform the filibuster, there's much more we can do. i really think we're at a point where voters delivered us the house, senate, and white house. if they don't see democrats delivering for them, then i don't blame them for losing faith, but hang in there right now. we're going to get this done. keep the pressure on, and let's deliver both these bills. it will be transformative for the country, alex. >> it's a sunday. let's say keep the faith. how's that? one more question. your thoughts on the subpoenas that have been set up by the january 6th committee. depositions are scheduled this week for steve bannon, kash patel, and dan scavino. what do you want to hear from them, and do you think we're going to hear from any of them by this time next weekend? >> it is absolutely essential that we hear from them, that we get accountability, that we know what happened. this is a bipartisan select committee that is investigating january 6th. and i think it's outrageous there are still members of the republican party that are saying that the election, you know, could have been stolen, not admitting that joe biden is the president, and not agreeing that anything even happened on january 6th. so the idea of criminal prosecution if these individuals don't come and testify, i think is absolutely right on. it's what we need to do, and it's the only way that america is going to find out what happened and get accountability for it and protect our democracy. >> can i ask you, at the top of the show you heard julie tsirkin reporting, and she played a series of sound bites from trump supporters and what they believe happened and gone on. i described my action as one jaw-dropping listen after the next. how about you? when you hear that kind of talk from trump supporters and know that those four that we heard from are by far from alone in these kinds of beliefs. how do we combat this? >> it is so difficult to listen to that because, of course, i was there on january 6th, alex. i was in the gallery. i was trapped in the gallery as insurrectionists were pounding on the door, trying to find us to kill us, trying to find mike pence to kill him. and nancy pelosi. it's stunning to me that people think that this didn't happen, that it was a setup, that it was a deep fake conspiracy, you know, theory thing. i don't even know how to describe the disconnect between the facts and sort of how people are thinking about it. and i blame donald trump, of course, but i also blame the republicans right now in congress who know much better, who were running for their lives, protected by capitol police on january 6th, yet now, refuse to actually say that it happened or to say to donald trump, you cannot be the leader of our party anymore. this is a moment of crisis for our country and our democracy. it is also a moment of real reckoning for the republican party. who are they going to be? just donald trump's party or the party of the big lie or actually standing up, perhaps for different policy ideals, but ultimately standing up for democracy. i think that's frankly a terrifying thought to me. >> i'm going to put an exclamation point to that. there are even those republicans who stood up immediately in the aftermath of january 6th and they have shrunk since and gone into the shadow of donald trump. always good to see you. have a good sunday. >> president biden's approval rating hits a new low in one prominent poll. up next, the issues hurting his popularity most and what he can do to navigate out of trouble. robert gibbs joins us next.
