Transcripts For CSPAN Newsmakers Rep. Cheri Bustos DCCC Chair 20240713

Politics for the National Journal and she covers washington and politics for the washington the articles of impeachment will be delivered on tuesday. Did you look at the 435 house seats up for grab, from the democratic perspective will impeachment be a factor in democrats keeping the majority in congress . Bethe biggest factor will that we right now have 42 freshman in the Democratic Caucus who were in some of the toughest districts anywhere in the country who have proven themselves to understand what is important back home. Before we started airing this we talked about something i do at home called supermarket saturday. You can multiply that by all of these freshmen who go home and do things, whether they call it supermarket saturday, they are using their two ears and one mouth proportionately. The people want health care, not impeachment. They stay hyper local focused. Isn i advise anybody who running for congress or anybody who will be running for their first reelection i always say run your office like you are a mayor and run your Campaign Like you are running for mayor. Everything has to stay hyper local. Impeachment is not hyper local and it is not a thing people sit around and talk about day in and day out when they dont have Health Insurance and cannot afford to go fill their prescription at walgreens after they leave the doctors office. They are having to work two or more jobs without benefits just to make ends meet. It is not the number one issue that people talk about back home. Our freshman members of Congress Know that very well. They are staying focused on what matters. Take why did you decide to on this added responsibility as the chair of the dccc . Greatustos to have a time. I come from a Congressional District natalie has been to my district. Early in your career you worked in the Congressional District i am from at a tv station. I represent the northwest corner of the state of illinois. In illinois we have 18 members of congress, 13 are democrats and five are republicans. 12 of the 13 are from chicagoland. I am the 13th. I am what is called a downstate illinois in. Thes by the nature and makeup of downstate illinois is more rural and much more republican leaning. I served in a district that it hastrump won, moved 18 points from president obama to President Trump in 2016. Last year i won by 24 points. The biggest margin of any democrat in the country in a trump district. I share that background because this was the first year in the history of the Democratic Caucus where we had a competitive race to figure out who is going to chair the democratic campaign. I would argue that my colleagues wanted somebody in this position who understands how to win in the tough districts. We have one of the biggest freshman classes in about a generation, but certainly the 42 people that i mentioned who are democrats in the u. S. House of representatives are from tough districts. I happen to be one of the 31 from the trump district. Colleagues thought i was as far as why i wanted this, i wanted to hang on to this majority that i consider a fragile majority. Job is why i wanted this and i hope beyond hope that we can be successful in november of 2020. Host let me turn to natalie. Natalie on the impeachment, some of those 30 lawmakers in the districts that trump won they campaigned on working with the president and are the fastest to criticize the president. How should they be talking about impeachment in their districts in a way that resonates with people who may still vote for trump in the fall . I would argue again, if you come from a trump district it is not like we leave washington dc and fly home to our districts to talk about impeachment. We talk about it when it is asked of us. We want to talk about our legislative successes. You get back to what i talked about and what matters to people. I know a lot of your viewers know this, we have passed more than 400 pieces of legislation the vast majority of them bipartisan. If i can draw attention to one we passed one of the most momentous pieces of healthcare legislation in many years. Something that allows medicare for the first time in the history of medicare be able to negotiate the price of Prescription Drugs. When you drill down on that peaceful legislation it caps the outofpocket expenses for seniors at 2000. It allows for the United States to not be totally out of sync with like countries in the prices they pay for Prescription Drugs. It puts us on more of a level playing field. Billion dollars in savings by negotiating these prices of drugs. We funnel much of that back into medicare. Thenhe first time we would provide hearing, dental, and vision care for those on medicare. The prices that we negotiate trickle down to anybody who was insured. Just one of the pieces of legislation, the 400 plus pieces of legislation that are gathering dust on Mitch Mcconnells proverbial desk. I dont know what he does with these bills. I can tell that he is not acting on them. The call to action for americans is to ask Mitch Mcconnell to act on meaningful legislation. Whether it is cleaning up corruption in washington or making sure that people can afford Prescription Drug costs. It is out of control and we are doing something about that. This is a long way of saying how we talked about impeachment. You talk about what matters to people. Impeachment is not usually the first thing on peoples minds when you go to a district like i represent. I was going to ask how you talk about these 400 bills when they are unlikely to pass the senate. Do you feel i constituents understand that they are getting legislation done, even if it is not bipartisan it is not likely to become law . Rep. Bustos as far as understanding it, people are busy with their lives. Obsessed with washington, d. C. Like members of congress who go to washington for every session or members of the media that cover us nonstop. They are busy at their two jobs and figuring out how to afford insulin for their diabetic twoyearold. They are trying to navigate life. The answer to that is we were hyper focused on bringing down the cost of health care, of making sure that we do something about cleaning up the dysfunction in washington, d. C. And that we play a part in bringing peoples wages up. We all ran on that going into 2018. Whether you are a brandnew member of Congress Running for the first time or somebody who is running for the fourth or 10th term. Democrats all ran on that. We have delivered on our end of the bargain. Mitch mcconnell, who has called himself i cannot imagine taking pride in this, calling himself the grim reaper. Taking pride in killing meaningful legislation. The call to action for americans is lets ask Mitch Mcconnell to act on the meaningful pieces of legislation that would bring about real change. I cannot be more serious about that. I am not trying to be hyper partisan about this. The democrats who serve in the swing districts. I can tell you that we worked very hard to work in a bipartisan fashion. The vast majority of the 400 plus bills. 275, were passed in a bipartisan fashion. Turn to josh from the National Journal, he is a politics editor. I know you want to focus on breadandbutter issues, but a lot of voters care about impeachment. According to a new poll it is showing that impeachment in the swing districts is not all that popular. I know youre district is next to iowa. A poll from the Des Moines Register showed only 30 of voters support impeachment and that state has three swing district democrats in the top races in 2020. How worried are you that you you have how worried are that impeachment will be a real liability come november . Rep. Bustos everybody who cast the vote for the articles of impeachment did it in a very somber and serious way. We read the articles of impeachment thoroughly and we have followed the report that came out of the Intelligence Committee and the judiciary. Everybody went into this with no sense of glee or joy. We cast the votes we did because in whatved to our core the Founding Fathers set out to make sure that we accomplished. Whether you are a senator or a house member. You wouldws have to not be paying attention at all if you did not know that we impeach the president of the United States and now these articles will be sent over to the senate. I am telling you that people are not obsessed about this. Nearly everye weekend when you are not in congress, like these freshmen do week after week and listen more than you talk and take what you have learned and go back out to washington dc and make sure you understand those issues and that you are supporting people. We have done that with these big bills that i talked about. A brandnew freshman member from california who is focused on what is called a swamp rat, this great big ugly no offense to the animals but these things are ugly he brings this giant stuffed swamp rat to hearings to tell people this is a local issue that i am going to address. They are ruining crops for local farmers. Or people like Joe Cunningham out of South Carolina , a freshman in the trump district who is focusing on offshore drilling. He is getting real results on that. Remainingk with the time we have left about impeachment. I will keep getting back to our freshmen are doing what it takes to be successful. They will have the resources to make sure they can tell people back home what they have accomplished and what they will accomplish when they are reelected. Money than ever in the history of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in an off year. We finished the year raising 125 million. Onlinelion of which came , through letters that people sent in, and averaged just 17. Raisedreshmen numbers 91 million members raised 91 million last year. As much as we dislike money in politics you have to have the resources to tell voters what we have done and what we will do. We will be wellprepared into november of 2020. It does seem like there have been two approaches by freshman democrats. Some have been making the argument for impeachment at town hall and in the media, really persuading voters headon. A lot of the members are avoiding it talking about local issues. Which approach is better . She has a National Security background and is an expert on middle east policy. Shews that this issue knows this issue inside and out. The other freshmen have backgrounds in the military and Public Service as well as the department of justice. We have an amazing freshman class and whatever approach they take i can tell you they are doing that through their background that they bring to congress or what the residence at home want them to talk about. I think it is worth mentioning that someone like her, i campaigned with her when she was running for the first time, she had one of the most unique programs that i have ever seen as far as finding out what was on peoples minds. For anyones running, who knows midwestern winters especially michigan, she used her background in the cia along with being a candidate and instead of calling it boots on the ground she called it snow boots on the ground. Her volunteers would knock on doors and rather than hand a piece of literature saying vote for me they would say, what is on your mind . If she becomes your member of congress what do you want her to focus on . She could go down to the precinct and know that the potholes in one precinct and National Security in another. Maybe health care a couple of miles down the road. She brings that special expertise on the middle east and she also knows what it means to stay hyper local. Host turning back to natalie andrews. Natalie as we watch the democratic primary, which candidates are you watching that would help front liners . We have seen an endorsement for joe biden, it seems that several of the front liners are talking about Pete Buttigieg or joe biden. Who are you watching . Who would be best at the top of the ticket to help the front liners also win . You sit theree of and as i sit here in new york city today in an empty room staring at a camera, none of us know what is going to happen. I know that democrats will be united with whoever the nominee is. We know that we cannot be divided when we come out of the convention, that we have to be supportive of whoever the nominee is. It is worth noting that donald trump is literally the best candidate recruiter i have ever seen. Look at the people who made a decision to run for congress for the first time that they have run for any office back in 2018. The amazing candidates that we have going into 2020. He is the best fundraiser we have ever had. You dont and an off year with 125 million that we raised and the small dollar donations aggregate 17 without folks being motivated. I am confident that we will come together and support whoever the nominee is. People running for reelection for the first time, the people who are running for congress and hoping to be our colleagues in the Democratic Caucus will have the resources to get their messaging out. They will have people on the ground to help knock doors and make phone calls, to build up the grassroots enthusiasm. I feel good going into november of 2020. Bernie sanders is leading the polls in iowa and new hampshire. He calls himself a socialist democrat. Would you welcome him to campaign for frontline members in swing districts if he was the democratic nominee . Rep. Bustos that would be up to each of the freshman members as to if they want to invite Bernie Sanders, joe biden or Amy Klobuchar. Making a decision to endorse joe , also out of iowa. Abby and dave are across the mississippi river. This is very he is endorsing Pete Buttigieg. Whoever they want to invite in, that is their call. I am not a micromanager. I never was in my previous professions. That is up to them. We do not have to be overly prescriptive with these freshman members. The vast knowledge that they bring to this job, to congress because of their past professions, just the success that they have had with one year of governing experience under them, i will leave that take them to make that decision and trust their judgment. Which democratic surrogates would you welcome into districts that trump won comfortably . Who is a democrat that can win over those trump voters . Rep. Bustos i am not going to be endorsing the democratic primary in illinois on march 17. I am looking forward to seeing who comes out of that. Our primary season and caucus season will begin in about three weeks. There are so many unknowns right now. Congress weterm in had joe biden as a guest speaker. This was very early in an off year and he talked about how Many Political lifetimes we were away from the next election. I dont know who the nominee is and i dont think any of us do at this point. We will be ready for whoever it is. About health care and other domestic issues. Stockstark market market and record low unemployment, how do democrats run against that . Rep. Bustos i think the fact that we have record low unemployment should be celebrated. That is a great thing. Mineu go to districts like where a family of four makes less than 50,000 and you do things like supermarket saturday , virtually every saturday that i am home i go to Grocery Stores all over my Congressional District, sometimes in towns of 1200 people and sometimes in towns of 3000 people. All over my Congressional District. These Grocery Stores are all of six aisles wide. To make eye contact with people. If they are not rushed i tell them who i am and that i will be flying back to washington and i want to know what they want me to know. I can go all the way back to when i was first elected in 2012 and tell you that the stories have not changed a lot. It is mostly about health care. Economy, howo the many people have to work more than one job to make ends meet . I made a decision to ask the question in a poll in my Congressional District last september and i found out that overall one in six people in my Congressional District worked two or more jobs. I share that with you that while unemployment is low i think the followup question is, how many people have benefits, health benefits, will have a pension or a retirement benefit . That gets to the real story of how families are doing. I hear story after story about how People Struggle to pay their another thing i do is where i job shadow people all over my district. Inill do my 99th one here the next several weeks. I am looking forward to the hundredth. I will do something awesome. Let me tell you about a home care nurse from illinois who is married to a gentleman who works fulltime. I like to ask the question of what people do for fun. The reason i ask that question is because it gets to peoples disposable income. It is not an impolite way to say, do you have extra money at the end of your pay period . This home care nurse thought about it for a second and she and her husband have two young kids. Cableid that we have television. My followup question was that is what you do for fun . She said that they watch Disney Channel and movies together. I said, you do not go to the theaters . She said that by the time they buy soda and popcorn they cannot afford that. It is family after family like hers that cannot afford to go to disney world, the best they can do is afford the Disney Channel. That is the kind of story that we have to understand. While we should celebrate low how are families doing to support their families . Natalie congresswoman, i wanted to ask you with the 2020 candidates talking about things like medicare for all, these are things that i think max rose has joked, he is a frontline are from staten island, he wants to walk around wearing a shirt that socialist. Ot a how should front liners talk about these issues as regardless of who is at the top of the ticket, the expanding health care and these types of issues that will be something that is much talked about this year . Should front liners differentiate themselves, how did they navigate talking about health care in a way that resonates in their districts . As. Bustos we are united democrats knowing the importance of health care. Affordable health care and Accessible Health care. Before coming to congress, i worked in health care. I worked in health care for 10 years. Before, during, and after the Affordable Care act. Before the Affordable Care act, since that was a little while ago, i think it is worth pointing out, we as a nation were on an unsustainable path. The cost of health care there it was nothing from a price perspective that was going higher than health care other than higher education. We know the problem with Student Loan Debt and that is another conversation to be had. President obama, Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats did something about it. They passed the Affordable Care act. I was working in health care when that happened. I was still working in health care when that rolled out. I dont think anyone would say that was rolled out smoothly. It was a botched rollout. Once those issues were fixed or corrected in many cases, what was the end result . 22 million additional americans who were insured. President trump is elected. The Trump Administration and House Republicans do everything they can to wipe out the Affordable Care act. It was a huge motivation going into the 2018 election for so many of these people who ran. Out of springfield, illinois who i predict will win in november of 2020, she lost by the equivalent of two votes, she saw the republicans celebrating on the house lawn. Having a son who was given last rites twice she was motivated. However our members talk about health care or whether you are a candidate it is about making sure that families have access to Affordable Health care. There are all kinds of ideas out there. We have passed one momentous piece of legislation within the past several weeks that addresses the cost of health care. We will continue to stay very hyper focused on the affordability of health care for americans all over the country. Spent a lot of money on Jeff Van Drews behalf, he is now a republican. Did you do anything to persuade him to stay in the Democratic Party and how surprised were you that he decided after less than a year in congress to leave the Democratic Party and become a republican . Rep. Bustos there is a little back story for him. He is out of new jersey. I dont want to call names but troublethat he was in as far as winning reelection in the democratic primary. Voted against the articles of impeachment and he knew that was not popular. Orther you are a democrat Republican People want you to be straight with them. How could a guy with a voting record that was 70 against the Trump Administration now sit next to President Trump and bow your undying loyalty i dont have much use for that kind of politics. I can tell you that we are at play in that district and we will see if he even gets out of the republican primary. We will play aggressively in that district. Own state you have another democrat, dan lipinski who has alienated a lot of the liberal base and the party. Is it the policy to support dan lipinski and help him get reelected in his primary in march . Rep. Bustos it is the policy of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Congressional Campaign Committee. Our number one goal is to make sure we hang on to this majority. We support our members of the twocratic caucus and number the goal is not only to hang onto the majority but do what we can to grow the majority. All of the decisions that we make out of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are through that lens. We have talked a lot about and in 2018stricts they voted for a democrat. What have you seen that shows that those districts will switch back to trump and what have you seen that shows that democrats have a firm hold on that district. That district . I think some republicans, or whatever the political affiliation was, when they went into that 2016 election, they went into that with a lot of the background i talked to you about where the wages have not gone up , where they cannot afford and when donald trump made that statement at an audience close to the 2016 election and asked what they had to lose, i believe he was addressing that at an africanamerican audience. That resonated with people in many of these 30 districts. Boothent into the voting and they thought they were just going to try this guy and see where it ended up. Icall them trump triers and believe they just wanted to try something different. The way he has shaken things up is not a way that can make us proud on the world stage and our reputation on the world stage and the lack of candor with what is going on, whether it is the president t or how the describes so many different views that he has, i am being kind when i say the lack of candor with the american public. They see four years later that they want to be proud of who is in the white house. They want the person to serve as a role model to their children and grandchildren. I think they are going to go in the booth and see the democrats running for the house as people who understand them and are fighting for them. They are going to see whoever the nominee is as somebody who is going to understand the struggles that so many families have an address the issues they talk about at the end of the workday. In a district like mine the people who shower after work, theluecollar workers workers who build combines at john deere. Or in my district they build heavy earth moving equipment at caterpillar. I have an agricultural centric district. We have over 900 family farms and 90,000 labor households. These are people that want somebody that will understand them. I think we are going to have some success in the race for the white house and among house members who are running for reelection for the first time and who are running to join us in the house Democratic Caucus. Lets talk about the week ahead. The two articles of impeachment that will be delivered to the in the i realize you are house and not the senate, but what are you hearing in terms of a senate trial . Host rep. Bustos i am hearing what you are hearing. You have Susan Collins laying out questions that i hope she will follow up on. Senator Lisa Murkowski coming from her mitt romney a few questions. Obviously democrats will need republicans to Work Together to make sure there can be a fair process. Something that i find very interesting and worth noting. When we are elected to serve in congress we all take the oath of office and swear allegiance to the constitution. The senators who will be the jurors in this have to take oath, an oath of impartiality. Mitch mcconnell has publicly said he is in lockstep with the white house and is in sync with the white house every single day. We all know what it means to be a juror, those of us who have ever served on a jury duty, you know that you can never sit down with a defense attorney or sit at the table with a defense and to be in sync with them. I find it interesting to see the senators who are taking an oath of impartiality to see how they deliver on this. In the end all we want as americans is for this to be a fair process. Host representative cheri bustos joining us from new york. She is the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Thank you for being with us. We continue the discussion. We talk about Speaker Pelosi. Three weeks until the articles were handed to the u. S. Senate. Why is a delay a mistake . It gives us a staring match between nancy pelosi and Mitch Mcconnell. I think nancy pelosi thought she had more leverage than she did. She was facing dissension in her own ranks. Spoke critically of the delay and a lot of senators on the democratic side were getting restless. She looks like she is going to fold next weekend the articles will be sent to the Senate Without getting anything out of it. There is still the trial to go. Pelosi did not win in the first match with mcconnell. When will the senate trial begin . It depends on when the boat is. We think the vote will be on tuesday. We anticipate the senate trial to get rolling the next day. Talks to aides who say that this will cancel therobably mlk recess for all of the senators. They will probably they will be in on saturday. Mitch mcconnell wants to get this done quickly so we expect them to start rolling in the senate will be in next saturday with opening arguments. We are bumping into the upcoming iowa caucuses. You have two front running senators like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar who are going to be in the senate and not in iowa at the most important time in the campaign. I think that joe biden and Pete Buttigieg get a bit of a boost because they will be in iowa and campaigning across the country while the other senators have to be in washington. Joe biden may be able to use his experience and publicity in the trial. I think if you are joe biden you have to like being in iowa without your top contenders running against you. Follow your work. To both of you, thank you for joining us. Right now we are in a zone in between. Part of this is because the constitution is more specific about impeachment than it is about other things. It does not say everything. Whenaves questions as to these articles of impeachment will be presented and how all of that has worked out. In the past it has gone quickly. With the clinton trial it went so quickly the senate was not even in session when the articles were sent over. This is something for the leaders of the two halves to wrangle with each other about. I am not sure i would use the word leverage but i do think it is a tactic that the speaker is using. Historyd ritchie on the of Senate Impeachment trials. Watch tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on q and a. We have the votes. Once the impeachment trial has begun to pass a resolution essentially the same, very similar to the 100zero vote in the clinton trial. Under the rules from the clinton impeachment trial house managers and the president s lawyers had 12 hours to present their cases. Senators were asked questions for up to 16 hours before debating and voting on whether to dismiss the case or to call witnesses. Presentedvidence was senators deliberated behind closed doors leading to a final vote on each article of impeachment. We have different definitions of a fair trial. A fair trial means that all the relevant facts come out and witnesses and documents are part of that trial. Who ever heard of a trial without fitness witnesses and documents . If you are afraid of what will come out, if you want to cover it up even in something as weighty and serious as impeachment you say no witnesses and no documents. , witnesses and documents fair trial, no witnesses and no documents, cover up. Of president hment trump, follow the process on cspan leading to a senate trial. Live unfiltered coverage on cspan. On demand at cspan. Org impeachment. Listen on the free cspan radio app. Look back atake a the impeachment of president bill clinton with a journalist who covered the impeachment for the National Journal. She is now a National Political correspondent for the hill newspaper. We will show you portions of the u. S. Senate trial that took place over five weeks in january and february. President clinton was tried on two articles of impeachment and acquitted of both