On Sunday, Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) spoke to CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" about the Republicans' proposed budget and President Biden's mental acuity during his presidency.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00It's now to discuss Democratic Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina.
00:04Congressman, always good to have you on.
00:05So you heard Treasury Secretary Besant just trying to defend the Republican House member's spending bill.
00:12What's your reaction?
00:16Well, thank you very much for having me, Jake.
00:18You know, this spending bill is terrible, and I think the American people know that.
00:25There is nothing wrong with us bringing the government in balance, but there is a problem when that balance comes on the back of working men and women, and that's what is happening here.
00:40When you put forth a budget asking for top lines just in energy commerce long being somewhere around $860 million cut, that's a problem, because that's where Medicaid is, that's where Medicare is, that's where people get most of their medicine from.
01:00That is a bad deal.
01:02And so I think that when President Trump indicated that we ought to be raising taxes on the wealthy, he got our attention, but then he retreated from that almost immediately.
01:19And so what we see happening in that committee is that those people on the other side, those Republicans who refuse to go along, they want more cuts.
01:29Some of them would like to see the elimination of Medicaid, and they want to see the privatization of Social Security and Medicare.
01:40And so that is what we are faced with, and Democrats are almost on the side of the American people on that.
01:46So one of the key components Republicans are pushing in this legislation is adding work requirements for able-bodied recipients of Medicaid.
01:54According to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll, most Americans support that, 62%.
01:59What do you think?
02:03Most Americans do support that, and most Democrats support that, and then we do have that in many states.
02:10We have left that kind of thing up to the states, and it's been improved time and time again.
02:15And so every time people get into this discussion, you have folks talking about people getting something for nothing.
02:24Well, let me tell you something.
02:25Medicaid.
02:27The bulk of Medicaid is not necessarily people who are unemployed, people who are disabled, people who need nursing home care.
02:39The bulk of Medicaid is in nursing home care.
02:41So what happens to those nursing homes when you take all this money out of Medicaid?
02:46So this is not about working men and women.
02:49This is about this country showing what kind of country you are and taking care of senior citizens, our parents and our grandparents, who are in need of nursing home care.
03:00That's what's in Medicaid.
03:03Let's turn to the debate going on within the Democratic Party right now.
03:06On Friday night, Axios obtained the audio from then-President Biden's interview with former Special Counsel Robert Herr, who was investigating Biden's mishandling of classified documents.
03:17In that audio tape, you hear President Biden rambling, unable to keep a train of thought, getting dates wrong.
03:25Let's run a little clip of that.
03:27Let's run a little clip of that.
03:57In that interview, he's asked about the 2017-2018 period, and he says during that period, his son Beau was either deployed or dying.
04:05But Beau was deployed in 2008-2009, and he died tragically in May 2015.
04:10Needless to say, even supporters of the president have heard these tapes and been alarmed by it.
04:16What was your response to them?
04:17Did you see much of that when you had meetings and interactions with President Biden during his term?
04:26No, I didn't.
04:28You know, the fact of the matter is, I saw Biden often, but not as often as people seem to think.
04:34I saw him, I talked to him on the telephone very often, and I never saw anything that I thought was outside of the ordinary.
04:44I watched my dad reach the age of 80, and I saw him slow down.
04:53He couldn't do the same things he did at 50 or 60, but it didn't bother his mental capacity at all.
05:00And then my father died from prostate cancer.
05:03So I never saw anything I thought was unusual.
05:08Did he talk as swiftly as he used to talk?
05:13No, he didn't.
05:14Did he walk as swiftly?
05:16No, he didn't.
05:18But that is to be expected.
05:19Those of us who reach that age, as I have, we don't walk as often as fast as we used to.
05:28And I may talk as fast as I used to, but we down here in the South don't talk all that fast anyway.
05:33Well, with all due respect, sir, having interviewed you quite often, I don't think there's any comparison between how sharp you are and your ability to talk and answer questions and get dates right, etc.,
05:48and what we've seen from President Biden, both in that audio, but also throughout 2023, 2024, especially on the debate stage.
05:58Do you think that Joe Biden really would have been able to perform as president all the way through January 20, 29, when he would have been when he would be 86?
06:09Yes, I thought that back then.
06:14I still think that, but I don't know that.
06:19When people ask me, did I know this or did I know the other?
06:22And the fact of the matter is, no, I didn't.
06:25And that's, you make my point here.
06:27So it's not all about age.
06:30I've seen people develop Alzheimer's when they're in their 30s and 40s.
06:37So it's not about age.
06:38It's about the ability to do the job.
06:41And I never saw anything that allowed me to think that Joe Biden was not able to do the job.
06:49Just that simple.
06:50The debate didn't make you concerned about whether or not he could do the job?
06:56Absolutely it did.
06:58I never saw any of that.
07:00I didn't see the tapes from her interview.
07:02And I watched that debate, and you and I talked about it.
07:08And, yes, I was concerned.
07:10Now, the question is, is this a condition or is this an incident?
07:15And I have had incidents when I was looking for my glasses and had them on.
07:21So you have these kinds of incidents, and that's the question is.
07:25And then, remember, a lot of us were a bit concerned about his schedule in the run-up to the debate.
07:32He took two overseas trips, came back, and started preparing for that debate.
07:38And I called it at the time preparation overload, because they were cramming into a four- or five-day period the preparation for the debate after taking two overseas trips, which I thought was taxing in and of itself.
07:52And so these kinds of concerns are out there, but none of us thought that there was anything here that created any suspicions of any prolonged condition.
08:04Do you think, and this is my last question on this, do you think that your party's incredibly low standing with the American people in polling has anything to do with the impression that many people in your party,
08:18especially in the White House, and especially President Biden and his family and inner circle, hid his actual dysfunction, his non-functioning abilities from the American people?
08:31Not only hid them from the American people, but hid them from you and Cabinet officials and donors and even other people in the White House?
08:39Do you think that the low polling has anything to do with that?
08:45Well, it very well could have.
08:47I haven't looked at the numbers behind the numbers to come into any conclusion as to what exactly is going on here.
08:56I do know that on yesterday I spent a pretty full day starting out with the commencement of a Converse College up in Spartanburg, finished last night at a sneaker party for a Head Start fundraiser.
09:10And I talked to people, talked to students, and people still feel that Joe Biden has had the capacity to do the work that needed to be done.
09:24They still feel that Joe Biden was a good president, and I do as well.
09:30And so, but these people are also concerned, and they look back at those tapes, they remember the debate, and they are concerned as to whether or not that was, in fact, just an incident or whether that was a condition that was being kept from people.
09:46I have no way of knowing which one is true.
09:50Congressman James Claiborne, the dean of the South Carolina delegation, thank you so much for being with us today.
09:54We appreciate it.