INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

 

C-SPAN’S “NEWSMAKERS”

 

Guest:  Steny Hoyer, House Majority Leader

 

Reporters:  Susan Davis, Tory Newmyer

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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

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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