
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
C-SPAN’S “NEWSMAKERS”
Guest: Steny Hoyer, House Majority Leader
Reporters: Susan
Davis, Tory Newmyer
-
Moderator: C-SPAN
Tape Date: Friday, March 20, 2009
AIR DATE/TIME: Sunday March 22, 2009, 10:00 AM and 6:00 PM at 10 AM and 6 PM on
C-SPAN
Please use with attribution to C-SPAN’s
“Newsmakers”….*
*
NOTE: C-SPAN should appear in all-caps because it
is an acronym for Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network
Please contact Howard Mortman, C-SPAN's Director of
Communications at
202-626-6527 or hmortman@c-span.org for questions
© NCSC
Copyrighted material: use with attribution only
C-SPAN/NEWSMAKERS
Host: Greta Brawner
Guest: Steny Hoyer, House Majority Leader
Reporters: Susan Davis, Tory Newmyer
GRETA
BRAWNER, NEWSMAKERS, CSPAN: Joining us
from Capitol Hill for this week’s Newsmakers is Majority Leader Steny
Hoyer. I want to welcome him to the
program. And here in the studio helping
us with questioning this morning is Susan Davis, Political Reporter with the
Wall Street Journal and Tory Newmyer, Congressional Reporter with Roll Call.
Mr. Hoyer, if
I could begin first with the Washington Post editorial this morning, entitled
Washington Gone Wild, saying – referring to the vote yesterday – excuse me –
Thursday on these AIG bonuses, saying that lawmakers, Democratic leaders are
not leading; rather they are pandering on this issue. What’s your reaction?
STENY HOYER,
HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: Well I think
what you saw is Congress representing and reflecting the deep anger and even
outrage that the American public feels when they see people who they invested a
lot of money in keeping afloat, AIG in this instance, receiving very large
bonuses enabled, obviously, by taxpayer money.
Clearly that was not the intent of the taxpayers’ money. The taxpayers’ money was to try to help a
very ailing enterprise, in part brought down by its own irresponsibility and
try to prop it up and make it more successful so that it doesn’t drag down the
other sectors of the economy, which obviously it has done and we want to try to
stop that from happening further.
So I think
that what you saw in the Congress was a reaction to the outrage that the public
was feeling and they wanted an expression, a very strong expression that their
money was not to be used to pay high bonuses, or in this case retention
benefits. Clearly I think there’s a
feeling there’s a responsibility by people who brought AIG very low to now take
the steps to bring it back and that they shouldn’t be getting very high bonuses
to accomplish that objective.
Having said
that, what the Washington Post editorial really reflected was that we have to
look at all the ramifications of that action as it relates to our efforts to
attain the objective, which is stabilization and bringing back AIG and other
financial institutions to a point where they are stable, where financial
institutions are making loans and where the economy is coming back. So I think both actions were understandable
and I think we’re going to look at this carefully over the coming days.
SUSAN DAVIS,
POLITICAL REPORTER, WALL STREET JOURNAL:
But Mr. Leader, I’d like to ask you how confident you are about this
bill becoming law. Obviously the House
passed it on Thursday with overwhelming margins. Senate Majority Leader Reid said he’d like to get this bill done
before the April recess, but we’ve seen a cooler reception from the White House
and in particular the President who, on Thursday night said he just thought
that people were, quote, scrambling to try and find ways to get back at
them. Does this bill have the full
support of the White House?
HOYER: I think what the President said the other
day was that he was angry. He
understood the public’s anger and disappointment at the actions taken by AIG
and others who are giving large bonuses after receiving substantial sums,
billions of dollars from the taxpayers of this country. I think he was accurate in reflecting that
anger. But he also said that we ought
not to act out of anger. After all, the
objective we’re seeking is to try to stabilize these institutions, get them
doing what they need to do so that the economy can get back on track, that we
start creating jobs, not losing jobs, start making loans, not freezing credit,
so that I think there’s going to be I think in the coming days an effort
hopefully to accomplish both objectives, that is the stabilization that we need
and the realization on behalf of these institutions that giving large bonuses
in the face of failure is not appropriate and that taxpayers won’t stand for
it.
So I know Mr.
Liddy in his testimony last week or this – earlier this week said that he had
asked the executives who had received bonuses to return them, at least
half. And in fact he indicated that
some of those executives had already volunteered not just half, but all. I think that’s the appropriate action for
them to take and I would hope that all would take that position. After all, we’re in very tough times and we
need to cinch our belts and we need to help one another and not profiteer at a
time of great stress.
DAVIS: But are you confident that this particular
bill is going to become law?
HOYER: Well I don’t – when you say am I confident
that this will become law, clearly the Senate and the House have reacted
similarly, and that is to reflect legislative action which is going to, in
effect, negate these bonuses, which clearly were not intended and should not be
intended in the process of stabilizing these institutions – these businesses.
Now am I
confident it’s going to become law?
We’ll have to see. I’m not going
to express confidence or lack of confidence.
I am confident that the – if it’s not turned around voluntarily that
there will be continued action by the Congress.
TORY NEWMYER,
CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, ROLL CALL:
There’s analysts both on Wall Street and off Wall Street have expressed
some concern that if members of Congress continue to beat up essentially on
these firms they’re going to be a lot less likely to take TARP money, those
that have already taken money are going to be in a rush to try to pay it back
and that’s going to limit their ability to get credit flowing back in the
market and essentially the whole – the whole point of the bailout in the first
place. Are you concerned at all about
an overreach here?
HOYER: I think there’s a – there’s a concern. I think that’s a legitimate concern and I
think that has to be taken into consideration.
Again, I would stress that it seems to me that both the banks, AIG and
others who have gotten in real trouble, in no small part because of
irresponsibility and trying to avoid the responsibility for the risks that were
undertaken, in my opinion, irresponsibly and in an unchecked manner under the
previous administration. I think the
regulatory regime was very lax.
Congress bears some responsibility as well, but the fact is that we
still need to accomplish the objective that was originally stated and that is
stabilizing these institutions and allow them to participate in bringing our
economy back.
I think those
ought to be the primary objectives and when you posit the question that Wall
Street or financial firms, banks, AIG are concerned whether they can accomplish
that objective without giving these large retention bonuses, frankly I think
they ought to be able to do that. I
think people frankly ought to have some patriotism, ought to have concern for
the 300 million people, a large number of whom are taxpayers in this country
who are saying look, we’re prepared, through their representatives, to assist,
but we don’t want to be taken advantage of by your getting large salary
increases, large severance pay and large bonuses. You ought to do this because you got us in this trick bag or
others got us in this trick bag; we all need to pull together to get us out of
this trick bag.
I think
that’s the position of the American people.
I think it’s the position of the Congress and the administration. I think that’s what the President was
talking about and I would hope that we could move forward consistent with the
objective, in terms of not only our public policy, but the actions of those
private sector firms that we’ve helped.
DAVIS: Mr. Leader, one of the more prominent
figures this week in the debate, particularly when you talk about the AIG flap,
was Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner.
Now the President has defended his Treasury Secretary and says he has
his full support. A handful of
Republican congressmen have called on him to resign. Do you in your role, do you have full faith in Mr. Geitner as a steward
of – over the financial rescue.
HOYER: I think Secretary Geitner is very, very
competent. I think he understands the
issues here. I’m sure that he is saying
to himself at this point in time that he should have acted more forcefully with
the institutions involved, with AIG in particular, and said to them look, this
is bad policy. You ought not to pursue
it. You may have the legal authority to
do it, but the reaction if you do it is going to be very severe, as has
happened, and it may have adverse consequences on your ability to succeed and
therefore for the country to succeed in its objective of stabilizing AIG,
bringing it back to a place where it doesn’t pose a risk to the entire economy.
So I’m sure
that Secretary Geitner is of the opinion that in this instance he didn’t act
quickly enough or forcefully enough. I
think probably the Congress shares that view.
But whether or not Secretary Geitner ought to resign or not, I think
that’s not the issue. The issue is we
have to go from here and make sure that we all understand and that we’re in
this together and we ought not to have the institutions we’ve helped
profiteering, if you will, or being given extra added bonuses, not based upon
success, but in the face of failure in trying to, again, stabilize and bring
their institutions back. I think that’s
the real question here.
Secretary
Geitner clearly has a lot of ability.
As long as he has the President’s confidence he ought to stay, but very
frankly, we ought to act and go forward in a different way and communicate more
forcefully and more specifically as to what we think is appropriate, given the
large sums of money that these institutions have received from the public.
NEWMYER: There was a lot of finger-pointing that went
on this week, particularly in regards to what’s been called the AIG loophole,
this provision in the stimulus package that allowed AIG executives to get these
bonuses. Senator Dodd was saying it was
Treasury that’s putting pressure on him to do it; Treasury was saying it was
Dodd. House Republicans made the point
that House Democratic leadership has some responsibility to bear here because
they signed on a conference report and rushed it through the house in a manner
that they said didn’t allow anyone really a reasonable amount of time to read
it.
Speaker
Pelosi on Thursday said this is the Senate.
This was Senate and White House language; talk to them. Will you accept some responsibility for the
– if not the authorship of that provision, signing off on that and the conference
report?
HOYER: Well, I didn’t get to the conference report
according to Chairman Rangel in the language that was sent from the Senate as
to items that needed to be discussed.
So from Chairman Rangel’s standpoint, it was not House conferees that dropped
this language. Be that as it may, you
ask will I accept some responsibility.
Clearly we should have had language in there that made it much clearer
that we didn’t expect bonuses to result from additional sums being paid.
So to that
extent, yes, however I would say the House has passed very, very specific
language as it relates to people who have gotten TARP money or federal reserve
money in the – in the TARP bill that we passed and sent to the Senate, which is
still in the Senate. So from the House’s
standpoint, Chairman Frank reported out in the Financial Services Committee and
we passed on the floor of the House and sent to the Senate legislation
specifically addressing this issue. So
from a – from a House standpoint, we’ve addressed this issue. I would hope the Senate would take that bill
up and pass it.
DAVIS: Mr. Leader, I’d like to switch gears a
little bit and ask you about the budget.
Obviously there’s ongoing negotiations between the White House and
Congressional leaders to use budget rules to fast-track things like healthcare
reform and energy reform. What are the
status of these negotiations and do you think that this is the best way to get
those policy measures done?
HOYER: Well I think that obviously the budget is,
we think, one of the most honest budgets to have been sent down by a President
in many years, in that it anticipates the costs that we know we’re going to
incur and addresses those costs. We
also think it sets forth clearly the President’s priorities, as he expressed them
in his speech to the Congress just a few weeks ago. And healthcare, of course, is a major objective of the
President’s and of the Democratic Congress and I think of the country.
Clearly we
have 45 million plus, 47 million people uninsured in this country. Healthcare costs are rising rapidly. Premiums on individuals and business rising
at a rate substantially above the cost of living inflator and as a result of
that, if we don’t deal with healthcare, making it universally accessible to our
people and bringing the cost down, we don’t have a sustainable system over the
long term.
The budget
reflects that priority and your question in the discussions that we are having
in getting a budget past, certainly one of the considerations is what is called
reconciliation, which simply means that budget policy is reconciled with the
bills that come after the budget. We
certainly are discussing that. It does
have an effect of trying to make sure that by a majority vote that policies
that are agreed upon to implement the budget can be affected. That’s being discussed and has not been
decided upon, but it is being discussed.
DAVIS: On the – continuing on the budget though,
there’s been a significant number of members of your caucus, notably the Blue
Dogs and New Democrats, fiscally conservative Democrats who have raised many
questions on a variety of issues on the budget.
HOYER: Yes.
DAVIS: In terms of just the ability to pass this
bill, where are you on that?
HOYER: Well, of course raising many questions about
a budget, as you understand and as you know, of course, is not unusual. Particularly it’s not unusual with respect
to a bill, the budget proposals of the President which are as comprehensive as
this President’s budget proposals are.
The Blue Dogs have raised a number of issues. The Blue Dogs are very concerned, as I am, with making sure that
we have a glad path to bringing the deficit substantially down as a percentage
of GDP.
Unfortunately,
this administration and this Congress has inherited from the previous
administration an extraordinarily bad economy, an extraordinarily large deficit
and an extraordinarily bad picture going forward, where this administration in
– where the Bush administration, the past administration inherited a $5.6
trillion projected surplus, this administration has inherited a projected
centrillion plus projected deficit and an economy that was failing, jobs that
were hemorrhaging, revenues that were being lost. As a result, the budget is controversial and tough because the problems
that we have to solve in this budget are of a magnitude that we haven’t seen
before, so that the Blue Dogs have raised those issues. Others have raised those issues. Investments in education, investments in
energy independence, which the President has also made priorities, are
priorities for the Congress. All of
those will have to be addressed in the budget.
My thought
is, though, that the budget will be a broad document, speaking to the general
objectives without adopting the specific ways and means to achieve those
objectives. So I think we can create
consensus on the budget. The budget’s
going to be marked up this coming week and I will bring it to the floor the
week following; the week of the 30th.
NEWMYER: Mr. Hoyer, you’ve seen some pushback from
your members on the particulars of the budget.
More broadly, there’s also been some pushback against the White House
just about the ambition and the scope of what the President is trying to
accomplish this year. A lot of people
are saying we’ve got an economy in crisis; let’s focus on that, getting people
back to work, not worry about climate change, remaking our healthcare system
and some of these other huge ticket items that the President is trying to
tackle.
Do you think
Congress can handle everything that the President is hoping to send to you guys
this year?
HOYER: I think the – I think the Congress can and I
hope the Congress will. After all, when
you mention the two – all three of the items the President has focused on,
healthcare, energy independence and education, all of them have a direct
relationship on our economy, so that just dealing with the economy as if it is
separate and apart from the costs of healthcare, which are about 18 percent of
our entire GDP, our gross national product; to consider that the costs of
energy and the failure to have energy independence is not a part of that
solution or to consider that educating our young people so they can be
competitive in a global marketplace and contribute to growing our economy as
the years go by, these are all matters that are interrelated. And what the President wants to do is to
deal with them on a broad basis, so that our economy not only can temporarily
recover, but have long term growth and success in creating jobs and economic
opportunity for our people.
So that I
think to the question, Tory, is that certainly we can handle it. We can handle it if we work together, in
concert with the administration, work across the aisle, understand that we face
an economic crisis of a magnitude not seen before by any of us in the Congress
and by almost every American, some were alive during the Great Depression; most
were not, that we have to act in a bold way to resuscitate, to bring back, to
reinvigorate our economy in multiple ways.
So I
certainly hope that we can. I do – I
think we can and I hope we will.
DAVIS: Mr. Leader, on March 31 there’s going to be
a special election in New York’s 20th House District. It was the seat vacated by New York – now New York Senator
Kirsten Gillibrand. And in a lot of
ways this election is being cast as an early referendum on the $787 billion
economic stimulus package that was passed, largely on a party line vote. The Republican candidate, Jim Tedesco
opposes the stimulus. The Democratic
candidate, Scott Murphy supports the stimulus.
Do you think that this election is a bellwether on what the political
impact’s going to be over the stimulus package?
HOYER: Well, first of all, Susan, as you know, this
is a very Republican district. Kirsten
Gillibrand and now Senator Gillibrand made it a Democratic district and in fact
got 62 percent of the vote in the last election. Having said that, I don’t think this is a referendum per se on
the recovery package, although clearly, as you point out, with the two
candidates having different positions, if I were a New Yorker I would certainly
vote for Scott Murphy. That doesn’t
shock you because he’s the Democrat and I’m the Democratic leader.
But the
reason I would vote for Scott Murphy is because the recovery package is
critically important to the citizens of New York. It’s critically important to the teachers of New York and the
students of New York, critically important to the Police and Fire and Public
Safety of New Yorkers, critically important to creating jobs in creating
infrastructure, roads, bridges, repair, sewer systems other infrastructure
needs of the state of New York and of the city of New York. And if you talk to Governor Paterson, as
I’ve talked to Governor O’Malley in my own state, whether you talk to
Republican legislators or Democratic legislators they will tell you it is – was
a critical bill in stabilizing their states and trying to help them not lose
jobs, lay off people at a time of great economic stress for the states as well
as it is for the country.
So from that
standpoint, I would think the people of Scott Murphy’s district would be very
inclined to vote for him, based upon support for a program that I think was
critically necessary to try to bring our economy back, create jobs, save jobs,
invest in future growth of our economy.
And very frankly, the polling data that we’ve received lately show that
while there was a significant gap between an incumbent, long-time politician,
leader in the State Assembly, now the gap has essentially disappeared, the race
is even and I fully expect on March 31st for Scott Murphy to be elected to
replace Congresswoman, now Senator Gillibrand.
NEWMYER: Mr. Hoyer, as you know, there’s a lot of
interest here in Washington about getting the city a voting member of Congress.
HOYER: Yes.
NEWMYER: You pulled the bill from the floor because
you – there was the NRA had some concerns.
They wanted their – they wanted their gun amendment attached.
HOYER: Yes.
NEWMYER: Have you made any progress on this? Is there any possibility that you see of
getting a clean bill that doesn’t have that gun amendment to the floor?
HOYER: I think there’s a possibility of getting a
bill passed and sent to the President.
Now when you say clean, you mean without the gun amendment attached or
some variation of legislation dealing with guns incorporated in that bill. We’re in discussions, as I think you know,
with the city. Congresswoman Eleanor
Holmes Norton, who represents the city, but can’t vote in the Congress of the
United States, representing 600,000 American citizens, who if they lived across
the river in Virginia or across the bridges or roads into Maryland could in
fact have a voting representative and we think they should have a voting
representative.
But we’re
working on trying to resolve the differences on the issue of gun control, which
the Supreme Court dealt with in the District of Columbia and the Republicans
have been focused on and others have been focused on since. We passed, as you know, an amendment last
year – a bill last year which dealt with similar language and it was passed
pretty handily through the House of Representatives and the Senate took no
action on it, so that we understand that there is significant support for the
Senate amendment in the House of Representatives and we’re working to get the
objective achieved. And that objective
is enfranchising 600,000 citizens of this country who, unlike the capitol of
any other democracy in the world, have a representative who cannot vote in the
national parliament.
We think that
situation is wrong. It is morally
wrong, politically wrong and it can’t be defended, in my opinion, in this, the
greatest democracy on the face of the earth that prides itself on being a
beacon of democracy. We cannot be a
very bright beacon unless we give to Eleanor Holmes Norton or the
representative elected by the people of the District of Columbia full voting
rights in the House of Representatives.
NEWMYER: The support for …
HOYER: But we’re working very hard on that.
NEWMYER: The support for the Senate amendment is not
just in the House; it’s also among a lot of local officials, including Mayor
Fenty, who said this week, just do it.
We’ve – essentially; I’m paraphrasing, obviously. We’ve been waiting for this long
enough. We’ll take it however you can
get it and we – I mean he is reflecting an understanding that the NRA has no
reason to back down. They’re not going
to back down, so just put the bill on the floor. Let the – let the amendment go through and let’s get on with
it. And why not do that?
HOYER: Yes.
I’ve had extensive discussions with Mayor Fenty, extensive discussions
with Vince Gray, the Chairman of the Council, talked to Councilman Jack Evans
the other night and I’ve certainly in constant communications and discussions
Eleanor Holmes Norton, Representative of the District of Columbia. The Speaker and I are both committed to
having this bill become law. I think
the President wants to sign this bill and when I said that I think we’re making
some progress, I think Mayor Fenty certainly is – his comments reflected the
fact that we want to move forward and get this bill done. And I think his comments are reflective of
that.
DAVIS: On the – on the Employee Free Choice Act,
also known as the so-called card-check bill …
HOYER: Right.
DAVIS: It seems that – it sounds like the
Congressional strategy for this is to let the Senate go first before the House
goes. Is that the strategy that you’re
committed to?
HOYER: The realization that the House passed this
bill and passed it very handily and sent it to the Senate and then the Senate
took no action on it in the last Congress, as a result, in discussions with
Senator Reid and Senator Durbin, the Speaker and I have both agreed that the
Senate – we agreed with the Senate that they would go first and deal with this
bill because we’ve already passed it.
Now we haven’t passed it in this Congress, but we’ve already passed it,
expressed our opinion. Very frankly, it
will pass in the House, but we want to see what the Senate does with it and
what specific amendments or changes that they affect.
And so we’ll
wait on the Senate to act on this and I hope they act earlier rather than
later. We want to pass this bill. We think it gives to employees the right to
organize and to choose the way that they’re going to select their
representative, either by signature or by secret ballot. Contrary to the – some folks who are in
opposition to the bill, this does not preclude a secret ballot. In fact, if the employees choose to have a
secret ballot, that choice is available to them.
DAVIS: I’m interested in what you said about how
you’re confident the House can pass it, because the Senate passed it, but a
number of the senators that voted for it the first time are now wavering or
balking, southern right-to-work states.
Do you feel that members of your caucus, particularly more conservative
members, members from southern right-to-work states, you’re completely
confident that the House has the votes to pass this?
HOYER: I’m confident that we can pass the bill,
yes.
BRAWNER: And, Congressman Hoyer, that does it for
us. We’re out of time. We want to thank you for being on
Newsmakers.
HOYER: Thank you very much. Always good to be with you.
BRAWNER: Thank you, Congressman.
NEWMYER: Thanks.
BRAWNER: And, Susan Davis, just let me – let me start
with you. What did you hear as far as
this bill that was voted on Thursday on the AIG bonuses? It goes to the Senate next. Put it in context for us. What’d you hear from the Majority Leader?
DAVIS: What I thought he said that was interesting
is he almost seemed to say that Congress was – had to act and it had to act
quickly to encapsulate sort of the public outrage and anger over what was going
on with these bonuses, but when we asked if he was committed to whether this
bill would become law, he said I you know I can’t say what’s – will or will not
happen.
So it does
sound like the Congress had to act and in many ways the House does reflect
public opinion and they are – this is what they’re supposed to do. But it seems like how this ends up is much
more complicated than what happened yesterday on the House floor.
BRAWNER: Tory Newmyer?
NEWMYER: It seems like there is some real concern
about effectively undoing the work that they did back in September to get this
– to get the bailout through in the first place, which was a hugely heavy lift
for both chambers and they don’t want to scare these people away from this
program. They know that the stability
of the financial markets is reliant on getting these firms that – to
participate and if you continue to bash them that there’s a possibility that
they’re going to be less inclined or are going to pay the money back faster
than they – than they should and it’s going to hurt the market. So I think he – they’re – he’s – you heard
some effort to reconcile the political necessity to act quickly and register
the popular anger with these bonuses with the longer term governing need to
make sure that the program works.
BRAWNER: Tory, you asked about finger-pointing that’s
been going up on Capitol Hill this week.
Are you both finding that the economic situations, as they – as they pop
up, are throwing not only Democrats off their message, but Republicans too?
NEWMYER: Absolutely.
I think everyone was running scared this week and trying to – oh, this
was a tough vote for Republicans in the House.
It split the Republican Conference down the middle and it actually split
the leadership. Boehner voted – Boehner
voted against it and – the Minority Leader, and his deputy, Eric Cantor, voted
for it. So they – I mean they – it’s
you know they understand that the public’s very angry. They don’t – they didn’t think that this was
the right response, but they understood that this was also a political vote and
it was a – was a tough vote.
DAVIS: I think part of the problem that you – that
Democrats in Washington are having and the White House is having is that
there’s almost a sense among the American people like they need a villain in a
lot of this. And the problem that both
Democrats in Congress and the White House saw this week is that some of the
villains that were emerging were their own guys; was Timothy Geitner, fair or
unfair, sort of became a flashpoint for someone who was responsible for
this. Senator Chris Dodd, the senator –
the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, over what his role was in getting
language into the bill that – involving these bonuses.
And I think
what the Obama administration and what Congress is trying – repeatedly trying
to do is say we didn’t create this problem.
This has been a long-established problem. But if the villains continue to be cast as Democrats or people in
the current administration, they have a public opinion problem and they don’t
want that to be the case. And the thing
that I thought was interesting is when Liddy was testifying this past week
before Congress, it was funny to see congressman on both sides say you know
we’re not – we’re not blaming you for this.
Sort of they treated him very kindly and the unintentional, even fair or
not fair, the unintentional consequence to that is that people are being cast
as villains in ways that are not politically helpful for the Obama
administration right now.
BRAWNER: Sue Davis, you wrote a story this week about
what’s next for the President. He is
going out and doing a media blitz of sorts.
What are we going to see from him this week coming up?
DAVIS: I mean I think Obama is – we saw it the last
time when public opinion started to get angry about the stimulus and he went on
the road and he did town hall meetings and he tries to sell it to the public
cause that’s what he does best. He’s
good on the campaign trail. He’s good
relating to everyday people. So he did
two town hall meetings this past week.
He appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He’s going to be interviewed for 60 Minutes and he’s going to do
his second primetime news conference next week you know opening himself up to a
lot of these questions that Americans have had.
BRAWNER: All right, Susan Davis, Political Reporter
with the Wall Street Journal, and Tory Newmyer, Congressional Reporter with
Roll Call, thank you both. Appreciate
it.
DAVIS: Thank you.
NEWMYER: Good to see you.
END