House Majority Whip James Clyburn on budget negotiations and final weeks of term

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• Judy Woodruff:

  The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis wrapped up two years of its work today with a vote to adopt several recommendations aimed at improving management of future pandemics.

  For more on that and lawmakers' year-end priorities, I spoke just a short time ago with the third-ranking Democrat in the House, Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina.

  Congressman Clyburn, thank you very much for joining us.

  Remind us what the mission of this select subcommittee was. And what are your main findings about the early management of this crisis?

• Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC):

  Well, thank you very much for having me.

  You may recall COVID-19 visited our shores back in 2020. And when our nation began to respond, our response was inadequate for many reasons. Some is that we were not prepared for this pandemic. But, in the process of getting prepared, Congress went to work, appropriating monies to do things that needed to be done to keep businesses open, try to keep schools open, try to get people vaccinated.

  But, first, you had to get them tested. And so we were really behind the eight ball and rushed a lot of money out there to do that. In the midst of all of that, Speaker Nancy Pelosi decided that there needed to be some oversight of all of this.

  And so she created this subcommittee. We went to work. And we adopted three words as our watchwords, efficiency, whether or not this money was being spent efficiently, whether or not it's being spent effectively, and well not it's being spent equitably.

  Now, this committee was created without a single Republican vote, but our job was to oversee the spending of the money. And I think we did a pretty good job.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And the Republicans, as you know, are saying that the committee should have also focused on the Biden administration, because, of course, the pandemic has included — has continued right through the first couple of years of this administration.

  What about that?

• Rep. James Clyburn:

  We did focus on the Biden administration.

  And we commended the Biden administration for cleaning up the misinformation that was left over from the old, former administration, should I call it.

  We remember what happened back then. President Trump decided that it would all be over in a week or two, started out saying two or three people from China, started coming out with all kinds of cures that did not exist and denying the science.

  Then our investigation determined that there were a lot of people in his administration that were overruling the activities of the scientists, putting their politics above the betterment of the people.

  And that's part of what were doing. And if you look at the Rescue Act, which was signed by President Biden within six weeks of taking office, and the Rescue Act got shots in people's arms, got schools reopened, got people back to work.

  And we still are trying to recover. And we are doing a much better job because we let the scientists do their work.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And Republicans are now saying, when they take over the majority in January, that they are going to do their own investigation of the way the Biden administration handled this pandemic.

  How concerned are you about that?

• Rep. James Clyburn:

  Not at all. Not at all.

  We did look into the Biden administration. And, once again, throughout all of this, even today, in trying to issue our report, they're still hearkening back to China and what relationships may have been between this country and China.

  That was not our job. Our job was to look at the money that's going out, whether or not it was being used efficiently, effectively, and equitably, and we saw in instance after instance.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Several other things I want to ask you about, Whip Clyburn.

  With the change in the majority in January coming, Democrats have voted on their leadership in the next Congress. You are the only one of the senior members of the Democratic Caucus who's staying on. Speaker Pelosi and others have stepped down.

  Why did you decide that you should stay on?

• Rep. James Clyburn:

  Many reasons.

  The Congressional Black Caucus made it very clear to me that the South needed to be at the table. I'm the only Southerner at the table. And I would remind people that I'm the only one in leadership that was ever denied by law to even get to Congress in the first place. I was 52 years old before the Civil — the Voting Rights Act was kicked into place to allow me to go.

  And at 52 years old — and I'm very pleased that things that have worked in such a way that now, at the age of 52, Hakeem Jeffries is becoming the leader of our party. A lot of us paid some significant sacrifices to get to this point, I among them.

  And so I have said to people who keep raising that issue, I didn't get to the leadership table at the same time that they did, so why should I be expected to leave?

• Judy Woodruff:

  Why do you think the South is less represented in the Democratic Party or less represented in the Democratic leadership?

• Rep. James Clyburn:

  Because we have allowed these laws to exist.

  My parents — I remember when my parents voted for the first time. I remember that because laws did not allow them to vote. And we all know what has been the law of the land. In South Carolina, where I live, when I was growing up, African Americans were the majority in the state, but zero in elective office. Why? Because we allowed these laws to exist.

  Some of the things we're seeing now, these new laws that are coming off the books now, that the Voting Rights Act has been undercut by this Supreme Court, you now see some of these laws coming back into place.

• Judy Woodruff:

  I do want to ask you about the presidential primary calendar.

  As you know, President Biden has recommended that South Carolina go first, that Iowa will be taken out of the early running, that it be South Carolina, Nevada, Georgia, Michigan. We're hearing now from not just Republicans, but from Democrats, who are saying Democrats may be making a mistake by cutting out a state like Iowa.

  While, yes, it's primarily white, it's also rural, at a time when Democrats need to connect with rural Americans in the heart of the country.

• Rep. James Clyburn:

  Well, I would say to them, South Carolina is rural. More than half of my congressional district is rural. More than half of African Americans who live in this country live in the South.

  So, what reflects the Democratic Party more, South Carolina or Iowa, New Hampshire or Georgia? Come on now.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Representative James Clyburn, who is the Democratic Party whip in the House of Representatives, thank you very much.

• Rep. James Clyburn:

  Thank you.