Cantor: GOP has chance to show it can govern
Former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor spoke to CNN’s Jake Tapper about what signals Republicans are looking for from President Obama following the midterm elections.
Full Interview: THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.JAKE TAPPER, CNN: Joining me now is former House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, who, of course, lost a bruising Republican primary race earlier this year. Congressman Cantor joins us now. Congressman, Republicans have the Senate, everything from the White House this morning sounds conciliatory. We’re expecting to hear from the president any minute. Is there anything he can say that will signal to you and your fellow Republicans that he’s genuinely willing to work with Republicans?
REP. ERIC CANTOR (R-VA), FORMER HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: Jake, I think that what the public really needs to hear from the president is he is committed to working with Capitol Hill, working with the Republicans, and that he’s not going to demonstrate his my way or the highway way of operating that’s been in the past. I think the big signal to Republicans in Washington is going to be whether this president is going to execute his executive order on the issue of immigration that has been so widely reported.
If the present White House – –
TAPPER: If he does that, if he does that, sir, does that just poison the well for the rest of the two years, or can that be something that Republicans don’t like, object to, but work with him on other things?
CANTOR: I think that that is the big signal. Again, if he’s serious about setting aside this I’ve got a phone and a pen attitude, and working with members of Congress, I think that that would be a big step forward for the president. And likewise, I think that we have to see on the Hill, as Leader McConnell just said, that there is a lot of undone business, and if you can see the Congress, House and Senate work together to get some of that done rather than to kick the can, that would also be helpful and a signal to the White House.
TAPPER: Are you at all concerned that Republicans now controlling the House, now controlling the Senate, will overreach at all, take actions that alienate voters that Republicans need to keep the majorities and win the White House in 2016? Specifically, issues that might have to do with women voters, issues that might have to do with Latino voters?
CANTOR: Well, I mean, Jake, listen. I was there and I know that my former colleagues, as well as the leadership overwhelmingly want to get some work done for the people of this country. And often there are some things, or small groups of people, that are able to thwart what it is the overwhelming majority of the conference in the House, and the Caucus, and the Senate, as well as leadership wants to get done.
I think with the expanding majorities in the House now, that John Boehner, Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, and the leadership team have the tools necessary to try and execute on an agenda that we put in place a while ago, and that is an agenda that speaks to the working middle class of the country. It says we’re going to help you through our conservative solutions, make it so that we can see a brighter future.
TAPPER: So, in other words, Speaker Boehner has had difficulty in the past wrangling a majority and that has hemmed him in, hemmed in his ability to cut deals with President Obama, to do things that you and other House leaders wanted to do, and this expanded majority, I think it’s the biggest majority since Truman or maybe Coolidge, even. That expanded majority gives Speaker Boehner more breathing room to be more moderate, to work with President Obama?
CANTOR: I would think that the expanded majority and the experience that the leadership team has been through over the last several years. I don’t think there is a member of leadership, or most of the House members, who would say shutting down the government, attempting to or getting near default on the debt, or any of those kind of things are helpful in terms of the Republicans’ ability to garner the confidence of the country on how to lead.
And there’s no question that people are going to be eyeing 2016, and whether the Republicans can once again gain a national majority through the Electorate College to win the White House ,which is obviously where you can really be implementing the policies and changing the direction of the country. I think there’s a recognition of that amongst my former colleagues, and leadership, and the rest that hopefully we’re going to see a very productive relationship between the two houses and the White House.
TAPPER: Were you surprised at all at how strong that red wave was as it crashed across the country from Maine to the West? I mean, I know that you were bullish on Republicans’ chances, but did you see Republicans winning in Maryland and Illinois?
CANTOR: Well, you know, I know I spent some time recently in Chicago, and I know that the Rauner campaign was doing a great job at outreach to nontraditional constituencies to win, and obviously the state of that state is in some dire need of assistance, and so I do think that that can respond that. But nationally, there is quite anxiety out there, a frustration with the way things are.
I do think that when you see this Congress and the Republicans focusing on the goals that they want to achieve, that it should include this sense of decline that the middle class has had, and how are we going to address that? How do you address the wage gap? And, really, I think there are some great proposals that have been put out there on the part of the House and the Senate that can respond to that, to working families. How do we go and make it so that tuition doesn’t continue to skyrocket, how do we make it so that healthcare and the rest(ph) are more affordable?
TAPPER: You’re referring when you talk about the Rauner campaign, the Governor-elect Rauner, the Republican Bruce Rauner in Illinois. You refer to him reaching out to non-traditional groups. He reached out to African-Americans. Governor Scott, Rick Scott in Florida, also reached out to African-Americans, to Latinos, but there are still a lot of people in your party, sir, in Washington, D.C. who are worried that this is just a sugar high, that Republicans have this control for the next two years, but the demographics are going to be a real problem in 2016 when, presumably, Republicans are facing off against probably Hillary Clinton. Let’s be honest.
Are you worried about that? Do Republicans have two years to try to fix that demographic problem, to reach out as Scott in Florida and Rauner did in Illinois?
CANTOR: Sure, I’m worried about it, and I think we have a lot to learn from those two examples that you site. I think most will say that midterm elections is a much smaller turnout. It tends to be much more homogenous than the diversity of the turnout in the presidential years. I think everyone recognizes that, as well as the party’s needs to expand it’s appeal. And that’s where I think trying to get some things done, making sure that the operations of government from the legislative branch in Congress are addressed, so that Republicans can once again be seen as the party that can govern. And then, how is it that we see the process going forward through the primary and the rest, that the party puts forward an agenda, and a platform, that can appeal to working middle class of this country that has been so, in a way, felt that they have been left out of what’s going on in terms of upward mobility. And I think that should be the ultimate focus.
TAPPER: The tone I’m hearing from you, sir, correct me if I’m wrong, seems to be this is an opportunity for Republicans, but this is not a mandate. The Republicans have a chance now to show the American people that they can govern, but nobody should overreach. Am I hearing you correctly?
CANTOR: I mean, Leader McConnell talked about Obamacare. Listen, President Obama is still in office. He’s not going to repeal Obamacare. So, yes, there’ll be an attempt and I think a lot of members of the Senate never were forced to vote on Obamacare. So maybe the bill is brought up for that purpose, but I don’t think that many are going to say that they can go in and leverage, and try and get a repeal of Obamacare. It’s sort of been there, done that.
And, you know, likewise, there are other things that need to take place, but I do think Republicans can do a lot of things, whether it’s in the area of energy production, pipeline construction, whether it is in a medical device tax repeal on Obamacare. These kinds of things that may not be the big items, but certainly can begin to build the confidence that the Republican party can actually govern. I do think those are kinds of things that you’re going to see take place early on.
TAPPER: All right. Former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia. Always a pleasure talking to you. Thanks for joining us.
CANTOR: Thank you.