McConnell on Fox News Channel’s ‘Special Report with Bret Baier’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) joined Bret Baier on Fox News Channel’s ‘Special Report with Bret Baier’ tonight. See below for highlights or click here to watch the full interview.
On Today’s White House Meeting on Infrastructure:
“No staff in there, just the six of us. The vice president was there. We had a very cordial meeting for about an hour and a half and discussed an issue upon which there is a great chance we could get a bipartisan outcome. And that’s infrastructure. I did make clear to the President that we're not willing to go back and raise taxes, that is undo the 2017 comprehensive tax reform bill, which brought us the best economy in a long time as of February of 2020. I think they know that. That seemed to me to be accepted. So, we need to discuss how big a bill and how we're going to pay for it. But not by raising taxes.
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“I think the amount ought to be defined by the scope and we may have some differences about how you define infrastructure. We think traditional infrastructure-- roads, bridges, ports, water lines, broadband-- are things we can agree on. To the extent that they start getting off in rather exotic definitions of what amounts to infrastructure, we could have a problem. But, I think the take away from the meeting, Bret, is that I think both sides would like to get an outcome.”
On the Democrats’ Partisan Effort to Take Over Our Elections:
“What their bill is about is a partisan takeover of how we conduct elections in this country. It passed on a totally partisan basis in the House. The last time we passed a major election reform bill 20 years ago, Chris Dodd and I did it. It was passed with 90 votes. So, this has nothing whatsoever to do with anything other than a Democratic takeover.
“Let me give you an example-- number one, it would take the Federal Election Commission, which is currently 3 to 3 to provide neither side from taking advantage of the other and turn it into 3 to 2 with the President getting to appoint the tie breaker. So, the Democrats would be in charge of enforcing the rules. Terrible, terrible idea. Nothing bipartisan about that. Secondly, they want to take public money and provide it to politicians to run their campaign so that public money is used to pay for attack ads, buttons and bumper stickers and actually whether individual voters support the candidate or not their tax dollars would be going to support them.”
On the Biden Administration’s Economic Mismanagement:
“I had a lot of meetings last week with businesses of all sizes, including people running hospitals. The single biggest complaint they had is they can't get people to come back to work. Bret, I know you have reported on your network that a number of states are saying to the federal government we don't want your plus-up on top of unemployment insurance any longer because it's clearly a drag on getting people to come back to work. It makes sense. If you are making more money staying at home, you will choose to stay at home.
“Secondly, Larry Summers, the Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton and President Obama’s head of the Council of Economic Advisers predicted back in January rampant inflation. If we pass the rescue plan and flood the country with money, that's exactly what's happening. So every single business person I talked to-- regardless of size, rampant inflation and difficulty in getting people back-to-work.”
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