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American Morning

Interview With Representative Roy Blunt

Aired October 22, 2003 - 08:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Eighty-four House Republicans joined Democrats in a non-binding vote which urged acceptance of the Senate's version of the bill. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says the defections show a genuine split in the GOP. Are some members walking away from the Bush administration, as Representative Pelosi puts it?
House Majority Whip Roy Blunt joins us this morning from Washington, D.C.

Good morning to you, sir. Nice to see you. Thanks for joining us.

REP. ROY BLUNT (R), MISSOURI: Good morning, Soledad. How are you?

O'BRIEN: I'm well. Thank you.

Do you agree with what Congresswoman Pelosi had to say?

BLUNT: Well, I didn't hear all of what you were saying there, but I think the key is the House will continue to stand by the president. The vote yesterday was a handful of different things including the loan issue and it was, of course, just a motion to instruct. It was the loans, it was more money for veteran spending, it was more money for combat pay, it was a broad range of things. And so, why ask our members, who have already taken this vote twice in the bill and then on the motion to recommit on the bill itself after the Senate had voted for loans -- our members have stood firm with the president; we intend to continue to do that.

O'BRIEN: Explain to me, why a non-binding vote and what exactly is the significance and the value of a vote if it's not binding.

BLUNT: Well, I don't think there is much significance to it, to tell you the truth. And it's what we call a motion to instruct; it's to give some instruction to the conferees. Often we decide that those aren't, frankly, worth the fight.

We ask our members to do lots of hard things which we're going to be doing soon on Medicare and an energy bill and the final version of this supplemental. They had voted twice on this loan issue and made their position clear. This motion to instruct had the loan issue in it but it also had a handful of other things that our members were for, so they didn't want to go home on a vote that didn't matter and explain why they voted for less money for combat pay in a combat zone or didn't vote for more money for veterans. It was a broad range of things and really, truly a long wish list of what everybody would like to do if there was all the money in the world to do it with.

And so, we said to our members, "Do what you want to on this." Our Appropriations chairman stood up and said, "We're going to stick with the president on the loan issue in the conference." There are many things in this carefully crafted cute motion to recommit that may be enticing to members. Our chairman said, Bill Young, "I'm going to vote against it. I encourage you to, but, frankly, this is a political vote. Do what you want to do," and that's what our members did.

O'BRIEN: In your answer you're saying it doesn't have any value whatsoever. So give me your rationale for why...

BLUNT: It has no bearing at all on this issue where we'll stick with the president. This conference will come out with grants not loans and we'll follow up with the president's desire to keep Iraq moving toward freedom.

O'BRIEN: Forgive me for interrupting you but clarify for me: Do you then that this is the way to provide cover for some folks whose constituents might disagree with the grant versus loan issue? Some analysts have suggested that.

BLUNT: Well, again, Soledad, that was one of about six things in this very appealing crafted meaningless motion to instruct. So I think we had 18 people that had voted for loans instead of grants. We had other people during the course of the week that had voted for more pay in a combat zone. You add all those people up together who had voted for some part of this during the week and that's about 84, which is the number of members that said, "On a motion that doesn't matter, why would I vote against this particular piece of this?"

But again, only 18 of our members had voted for loans not grants and they probably repeated that vote in their minds on this very broad-based on motion to instruct.

O'BRIEN: Weigh in for me on the president's threat to veto the measure. We heard just moments ago from Jonathan Karl that a supporter of the president said, I think the word was "stunningly stupid" was how he called it. What do you think of that threat to veto?

BLUNT: Oh, I don't think so at all. You know, occasionally you hear the president criticized for not having vetoed anything yet or not having vetoed enough.

The president feels strongly on this issue. When we got to this conference, the House conferees, the president and I believe the majority of the Senate conferees will agree that we don't need to repeat the mistakes of World War I, we need to repeat the positive things we did after World War II, which is help restore those that we have defeated to a greater way of life than they had before.

O'BRIEN: Congressman Roy Blunt, thanks for joining us this morning.

BLUNT: You bet.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired October 22, 2003 - 08:32   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Eighty-four House Republicans joined Democrats in a non-binding vote which urged acceptance of the Senate's version of the bill. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says the defections show a genuine split in the GOP. Are some members walking away from the Bush administration, as Representative Pelosi puts it?
House Majority Whip Roy Blunt joins us this morning from Washington, D.C.

Good morning to you, sir. Nice to see you. Thanks for joining us.

REP. ROY BLUNT (R), MISSOURI: Good morning, Soledad. How are you?

O'BRIEN: I'm well. Thank you.

Do you agree with what Congresswoman Pelosi had to say?

BLUNT: Well, I didn't hear all of what you were saying there, but I think the key is the House will continue to stand by the president. The vote yesterday was a handful of different things including the loan issue and it was, of course, just a motion to instruct. It was the loans, it was more money for veteran spending, it was more money for combat pay, it was a broad range of things. And so, why ask our members, who have already taken this vote twice in the bill and then on the motion to recommit on the bill itself after the Senate had voted for loans -- our members have stood firm with the president; we intend to continue to do that.

O'BRIEN: Explain to me, why a non-binding vote and what exactly is the significance and the value of a vote if it's not binding.

BLUNT: Well, I don't think there is much significance to it, to tell you the truth. And it's what we call a motion to instruct; it's to give some instruction to the conferees. Often we decide that those aren't, frankly, worth the fight.

We ask our members to do lots of hard things which we're going to be doing soon on Medicare and an energy bill and the final version of this supplemental. They had voted twice on this loan issue and made their position clear. This motion to instruct had the loan issue in it but it also had a handful of other things that our members were for, so they didn't want to go home on a vote that didn't matter and explain why they voted for less money for combat pay in a combat zone or didn't vote for more money for veterans. It was a broad range of things and really, truly a long wish list of what everybody would like to do if there was all the money in the world to do it with.

And so, we said to our members, "Do what you want to on this." Our Appropriations chairman stood up and said, "We're going to stick with the president on the loan issue in the conference." There are many things in this carefully crafted cute motion to recommit that may be enticing to members. Our chairman said, Bill Young, "I'm going to vote against it. I encourage you to, but, frankly, this is a political vote. Do what you want to do," and that's what our members did.

O'BRIEN: In your answer you're saying it doesn't have any value whatsoever. So give me your rationale for why...

BLUNT: It has no bearing at all on this issue where we'll stick with the president. This conference will come out with grants not loans and we'll follow up with the president's desire to keep Iraq moving toward freedom.

O'BRIEN: Forgive me for interrupting you but clarify for me: Do you then that this is the way to provide cover for some folks whose constituents might disagree with the grant versus loan issue? Some analysts have suggested that.

BLUNT: Well, again, Soledad, that was one of about six things in this very appealing crafted meaningless motion to instruct. So I think we had 18 people that had voted for loans instead of grants. We had other people during the course of the week that had voted for more pay in a combat zone. You add all those people up together who had voted for some part of this during the week and that's about 84, which is the number of members that said, "On a motion that doesn't matter, why would I vote against this particular piece of this?"

But again, only 18 of our members had voted for loans not grants and they probably repeated that vote in their minds on this very broad-based on motion to instruct.

O'BRIEN: Weigh in for me on the president's threat to veto the measure. We heard just moments ago from Jonathan Karl that a supporter of the president said, I think the word was "stunningly stupid" was how he called it. What do you think of that threat to veto?

BLUNT: Oh, I don't think so at all. You know, occasionally you hear the president criticized for not having vetoed anything yet or not having vetoed enough.

The president feels strongly on this issue. When we got to this conference, the House conferees, the president and I believe the majority of the Senate conferees will agree that we don't need to repeat the mistakes of World War I, we need to repeat the positive things we did after World War II, which is help restore those that we have defeated to a greater way of life than they had before.

O'BRIEN: Congressman Roy Blunt, thanks for joining us this morning.

BLUNT: You bet.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com