GOP Senator Mitch McConnell joined me this morning:

Audio:

06-14hhs-mcconnell

Transcript:

HH: Joined now by an old friend of show, Senate Leader of the GOP, Mitch McConnell. Leader McConnell, welcome back. Good to have you again.

MM: Hey, Hugh, glad to be with you.

HH: Now most Americans, and certainly Kentucky’s senior senator are familiar with prerace odds at the Kentucky Derby. This year, they were from 9-2 up to 49-1. Where would you put the odds in that context for the $974 billion hard infrastructure proposal from the Gang of 10?

MM: Well, you know, maybe 50-50. Look, both sides would like to get an infrastructure bill. Here are the red lines on our side. We’re not going to reopen the 2017 tax bill. It was the major factor in bringing us the best economy in 50 years as of February, 2020, before the pandemic hit. And we want it to be paid for. And the gas tax produces a certain amount of money every year. That’s declined some because of fuel efficiency and electric cars. To the extent that we want to go above that, it needs to be credibly paid for. And our suggestion is we just flooded the country with an enormous amount of money. States and localities are literally awash in extra money. A lot of that is still in the pipeline. Why don’t we repurpose that, earmark it for infrastructure, which both localities would prefer to spend it on anyway? And that would be a good way to get a pretty robust infrastructure bill on a bipartisan basis without raising taxes.

HH: But any tax raise means red line, means no 60 votes?

MM: Well, they’re going to try, yeah, I mean, if they want it to be bipartisan, it’ll have to be done with 60 votes. And you know, every single Republican voted for the 2017 tax bill. We think it clearly produced the best economy in 50 years. We don’t want to break what isn’t, doesn’t need fixing. And so raising taxes, revisiting the 30 year Trump record tax bill is not a good way to go forward.

HH: Well, if I was laying down a line based on that, Leader, I think it would be like 9-2 or perhaps 20-1. It doesn’t sound good. Let me ask you about what’s going on in Geneva. The JCPOA is trying to be resurrected. Last time, it was approved on a handshake deal in some crazy upside-down vote. Should it be submitted as a treaty to the United States consistent with the Constitution if they are once again dealing with the mullahs?

MM: Well, look, if it had been done by treaty initially, it wouldn’t have been subject to being walked away from by the previous administration. Now I think the previous administration did the right thing in ending the JCPOA, because it was ineffective. It allowed the Iranians to get an enormous amount of cash. It did not require them to restrict all of their collateral activities, for example, supplying all the weapons to Hamas and Hezbollah, and being the principal trouble maker throughout the Middle East. Yeah, if you want to have a binding agreement with a foreign country, according to the Constitution, the way you do that is you’ve got to get the treaty ratified. So that’s why it didn’t stand up. It’s because a new administration came in and decided it wasn’t a good deal, and frankly, they were correct. And I worry about this renewed flirtation with the Iranians, that this administration will make some kind of feckless, unilateral agreement again.

HH: I also worry, Leader, about my tax returns. And I see this morning you are endorsing the probe of the leak of the very wealthy, the super wealthy. But the IRS under President Obama abused the rights of Americans with the patriot group name in their title. Now, it looks like the IRS is doing the same thing. This is illegal. It’s criminal. Is the Senate going to get into it?

MM: Well, I have a feeling the Senate majority may not have much interest in it, but certainly, we do. And you’re right. It’s déjà vu all over again as Yogi Berra would say. Back when Obama was president, the IRS was harassing Tea Party groups. Now, they’re breaking the law. Look, either the IRS leaked this, or there was a hack. And my guess is the IRS, somebody at the IRS leaked this in order to affect the tax debate and remind people that there are some very wealthy Americans. There are some very wealthy Americans. But it’s important to remember we don’t tax wealth. We tax income. Income is what we tax. But in any event, that’s not the point. Our tax returns are, by law, confidential because of just this kind of shenanigans. These people, ought to, whoever did this, ought to be hunted down and thrown into jail.

HH: I agree with you, Mr. Leader. Now I want to, this takes a little bit of a long intro for the audience, Senator, but I want to make it. We are waiting later today for the Supreme Court. They might rule in Cedar Point Nursery, which is about uncompensated takings. I’m hoping they rule today in Fulton V. City of Philadelphia, which is a religious freedom case. Next year, they’re going to decide the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association Vs. Corlett. That’s a 2nd Amendment case. Dobbs V. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which is an abortion case. Possibly the Harvard Admission case, which I hope they take. All of these cases, those five, and there are many others, I’m looking forward to. We need clarity for, and we’ve needed clarity forever on long unsettled areas of Constitutional law. It’s been five years since the terrible day, February 13th, that Justice Scalia died. But on the same day, you took the most significant decision in Con Law since Brown V. Board, which is a good decision, and Roe V. Wade, which was an awful decision, when you said the American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president. Had you not done so, it’s my view that President Trump would not have been elected, and we wouldn’t have Justice Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. Now you occasionally get heat from the right among the more populist people, and some of the folks in my business. Does it just chaff you that they do not bring up that the Court and the Constitution would be in quicksand up to its neck if you had not taken the position you did five years ago, and we did not have the Court that we do today where we’re looking forward and not in fear at a series of decisions this year and next?

MM: Well, look, you can’t be the Republican Leader of the Senate and not take a few slings and arrows. But I do think the issue that you raise is the single most consequential thing I’ve done in my time as majority leader of the Senate. I preserved the Scalia vacancy for the Gorsuch appointment. The Brett Kavanaugh appointment was certainly challenging and controversial, and of course, we had very little time left when Justice Ginsburg passed away, and that took a good deal of priority and, I think, skill to get Amy Coney Barrett through. And I think we’ll find out what a difference it makes to the American people to have Supreme Court justices, and for that matter, 54 new Circuit judges who believe in the quaint notion that maybe the job of a judge is to actually follow the law.

HH: The 6th Circuit, Judge Thapar, one of your friends, and I think, believe, you sponsored his nomination, they came down with a great decision on the unconstitutionality of race-based punishments or benefits. And I, that’s a 6th Circuit decision. I don’t know is the Court will take that up, but you’re right. We’re getting great decisions from the Circuits. We’re also now about to get nominees from Joe Biden, and that’s fine. That’s what presidents do. They nominate. Do you expect Senator Manchin to be with the Republicans on the nominees who might be more radical than is outside the norm? I mean, we had some pretty conservative originalists. I don’t mind them having some pretty liberal living Constitution enthusiasts. But there are some radicals out there that I just don’t think are, have the temperament for the bench. Do you think Senator Manchin would join, or Senator Sinema, for that matter?

MM: I don’t know. You know, Manchin voted against Barrett, and also Sinema voted against Barrett, and they are Democrats. I do respect them both for their important decision to save the Senate by not eliminating the filibuster. That’s an extraordinarily important institutional part of the Senate. I admire that greatly. How they’re going to vote on judges, I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

HH: I’ll come back to that in a second. But while we’re on the filibuster, is it just Senators Manchin and Sinema? For some reason, the press can find them. They can never find Maggie Hassan. They can never find Rafael Warnock. They can never find Mark Kelly or Cortez-Masto, the four Democrats who are in danger. They can’t find them to ask them about the filibuster or D.C. statehood, or any of the other wacky ideas like expanding and packing the Supreme Court. Have you talked to them? Are they actually in favor of the filibuster? Or are they just hiding?

MM: Well, I think most of them have chosen not to say. And my guess is Schumer with a 50-50 Senate will not try this unless he’s got all of his ducks in a row. So we may never find out what those other senators actually feel about this important rule, which is the essence of the Senate. I mean, that is the essence of the Senate, the legislative filibuster. It requires us to have a 60 vote majority to do things. That’s been the way the Senate’s been for quite a long time. We never, you know, President Trump wanted me to get rid of it, and I said politely no, we’re not going to do that. The institution of the Senate is too important for either side to take a short-term advantage by blowing it up.

HH: Let me ask you, if you regain the majority in 2022 for the Republicans, and there’s a very good chance of that happening, and I’ll come back to the individual races in a second, would the rule that you applied in 2016 to the Scalia vacancy apply in 2024 to any vacancy that occurred then?

MM: Well, I think in the middle of a presidential election, if you have a Senate of the opposite party of the president, you have to go back to the 1880s to find the last time a vacancy was filled. So I think it’s highly unlikely. In fact, no, I don’t think either party if it controlled, if it were different from the president, would confirm a Supreme Court nominee in the middle of an election. What was different in 2020 was we were of the same party as the president.

HH: Correct.

MM: And that’s why we went ahead with it.

HH: That’s why I think people who are angst about Justice Breyer stepping down right now are just nuts. If he retired next year after the abortion case, I just don’t see him retiring with Dobbs and the 2nd Amendment on the docket, and possibly affirmative action. Now let me ask you about the key thing, Leader, about the 2023 term. Again, if you were back as the Senate Republican Leader, and I hope you are, and a Democrat retires at the end of 2023, and there are 18 months, that would be the Anthony Kennedy precedent. Would they get a fair shot at a hearing, not a radical, but a normal mainstream liberal?

MM: Well, we’d have to wait and see what happens. You mentioned Justice Breyer. I do want to give him a shout-out, though, because he joined what Justice Ginsburg said in 2019 that nine is the right number for the Supreme Court. And I admire him for that. I think even the liberal justices on the Supreme Court have made it clear that court packing is a terrible idea.

HH: 100% agree. Now President Biden will be advancing many very liberal judicial nominees at the district court level. Democratic senators from their states, when there were two Democrats, blocked many fine judicial nominees, especially in my old state of California, but all across the country. Wherever there were two Democrats, they blocked district court nominees. Will Senator Schumer and his caucus adopt the same deference that you demonstrated towards Democratic senators during your tenure when it comes to Biden nominees in states with two Republican senators for the district court, Senator McConnell?

MM: Well, my understanding is that Dick Durbin, who is now the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is going to honor the blue slip for district judges. So as you suggest, what that means is in a state where you have one or two Republican senators, they’d have to sign off. They may not be able to choose the nominee, but would have to sign off it. And my understanding is that the new chairman of Judiciary is going to continue that.

HH: That’s good news. Now I want to turn to politics, Leader. Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are the four states in which Republicans have to defend open seats. The NRSC, Chairman Scott, has told me he will not get involved in primaries. But will your political action committee, in which you have a decisive role, the Senate Leadership Fund, get involved, because I am very afraid of outliers getting the nomination and losing, for example, in Missouri. I think we have some unelectable Republicans who want nominations, and they just cannot get the nomination or we’re going to lose easily defended seats. Will the Leadership Fund be involved?

MM: Yeah, if necessary. I mean, you’re recalling the same period I am, 2010 and 2012 when we nominated four or five candidates by being passive in primaries that simply could not appeal to a general election audience. There’s no question that in order to win, you have to, in most states that are going to determine who’s in the majority next time, you have to appeal to a general election audience. And some of the candidates who filed in these primaries clearly aren’t. I’ll be keeping an eye on that. Hopefully, we won’t have to intervene. But if we do, we will.

HH: All right, I’m glad to hear that. Last question, Leader McConnell. Last week when David Bossie was on with me, I referred to he and Chief Justice Roberts and you as the triumvirate of 1st Amendment because of Citizens United. It’s because of your long battle to keep the 1st Amendment applicable to political speech, that we got to Citizens United. It’s because Bossie brought it, and Roberts ruled the right way that we have free speech in the United States. I am concerned about the Presidential Debate Commission. And some of those people might be your friends. Bossie and I want it delegitimized, because they screw Republicans. What do you think about the networks generally and the Presidential Debate Commission specifically in Republican senatorial, primary debates, in Senate debates, in presidential debates?

MM: Well, no one makes the candidates participate. And I think at the presidential level, where the commission operates, if the Republican nominee feels he’s not being fairly treated, he doesn’t have to choose to debate through the rules of the Presidential Debating Commission. So it’s a voluntary decision on the part of the two candidates for president as to whether or not they participate. So you’ve got the option not to do that, giving you some leverage. And if it shapes up in 2024 that the Republican nominee feels like he’s not getting a fair deal, he can say we’re not going to do it this way.

HH: Or it could be reformed. Do you think it can be fixed?

MM: Well, it’s a voluntary association. The two candidates basically decide to participate though this group that sets the rules. And I think the best way to change the rules is to say look, I’m not going to participate under these set of circumstances.

HH: Well said. Leader McConnell, thank you for your time. Great to talk to gain. Continue, I hope that you stop new taxes. That is not the Republican way. I’m pretty sure you will. Thank you, Leader.

MM: Thanks, Hugh. Bye bye.

End of interview.