Jim Clyburn

HOOVER: Representative Jim Clyburn, welcome back to Firing Line. 

 

CLYBURN: Thank you so much for having me back.  

 

HOOVER: You’re the majority House Whip, the number three in the House of Representatives, more than twenty five years representing South Carolina’s Sixth District. 

 

CLYBURN: Right.

 

HOOVER: There is a rift it seems to me in the Democratic Party between the old guard and the progressive activists in the base of the Democratic Party. 

it is the old guard that’s in leadership, that is taking a more temperate approach to impeachment. And even though impeachment is the galvanizing, energizing sort of policy choice of the thrust of your caucus. So how are you going to deliver for the Democratic electorate that swept you back into power

 in last November? 

 

CLYBURN: The vast majority of Democratic electorate right now is not in favor of impeachment. So Nancy Pelosi is exactly where the majority of the Democratic vote is. Now there are a significant number of people in our caucus (PAUSE)  who are pro-impeachment. I understand that. You don’t have to be unanimous, but you need to be unified. And we will never be unanimous on this question, but we have not gotten to the point yet where we are unified on the question of impeachment and that’s what Nancy Pelosi is working on. And I’m pleased to help her try to get there. 

 

HOOVER: Earlier this month you actually made a bit of a news saying that you believe that President Trump will eventually be impeached.

 

 

CLYBURN SOT: What Nancy Pelosi is trying to do is and the rest of us in the House of Representatives is to develop a process by which we can efficiently move on this issue, so that when we get to a vote it would be something that she calls ironclad

But it sounds like you think that the president will be impeached or at least proceedings will begin in the house at some point but just not right now. 

 

CLYBURN:  Yes, that is exactly what I feel. 

 

CLYBURN: Oh I remember it very well.

 

CLYBURN: He asked me “or”. And it may be my fault but I did not call him on that.

 He didn’t say “and.” He said it looked as if you think he will be impeached “or” significant investigation will take place to get there. That’s exactly what I think.

 

HOOVER: You believe that an impeachment inquiry is likely to happen.  

  

CLYBURN: Absolutely,

 

HOOVER: Nancy Pelosi had also said look I don’t — I’m going to paraphrase. That she’s not necessarily in favor of impeachment, but she wants to see him in prison. Now do you agree with that?

 

CLYBURN: Yeah I think that, Nancy was sort of um giving the caucus to off her back a little bit. You know I’m not too sure that that’s something I would say. I won’t express what my real feelings are.

 

HOOVER: You don’t want to express your real feelings are?  

 

CLYBURN: I don’t want to express what my feelings are. 

 

HOOVER: So it that a no? You don’t think he should be in prison? 

 

CLYBURN: No that’s not what that is. That’s just something I don’t want to talk about. 

 

HOOVER: You did say that he you thought that he should be indicted for obstruction of justice.

 

CLYBURN: Well he would have been. I think that is very clear from Mueller’s report.  He seems it laid out ten, eleven, maybe

 even twelve instances where obstruction of justice could be considered. He made it very clear in his press conference that they could not get to a point of saying that President Trump was not 

guilty of committing the crime. He says if we could have absolved him here we would have. And the mere fact that they couldn’t have means they could not get to where they want to be.

 

HOOVER: if you believe that then why not pursue impeachment? 

 

CLYBURN: When the time comes maybe that’s what we’ll do. But all I’m saying is maybe we’ll get there. We’re not there yet. And I’ve been saying not there yet for a long long time.

 

HOOVER: Does this move the needle on the impeachment debate.  

 

TRUMP SOT: So somebody called. From a country in. Norway. 

We have information on your own opponent. I think I’d want to hear you want that kind of interference in our elections. It’s not an interference I have information. I think I’d take it.

 

 

CLYBURN: What’s new about that. There’s nothing new about that. We know he would because he has. 

You can always tells what a person will do by what he has done.

 

HOOVER: Do you think that impeachment is the best process to hold the president accountable?

 

CLYBURN: I don’t know about the best. I think it is a process. 

if it’s determined that the president will not respond uh to the results of investigations uh seem to– stonewall everything then that might be what you need to go.

 

HOOVER: But what about accountability at the ballot box.

 

CLYBURN: Well that’s always the best way for the people to do it. But that’s not the only way for Congress to do it.

 

HOOVER: Do you worry that the political circus

that could be created by impeachment hearings, not dissimilarly from the 1998 spectacle that the House Republicans created which ultimately helped President Bill Clinton and didn’t result in his conviction in the Senate, is that on your mind as you think through how impeachment could play out politically in terms of President Trump’s re-election?

 

CLYBURN: Believe it or not that’s not what is on my mind. The Nixon process is on my mind. We never got to impeachment with Nixon. Nixon denied everything right up to the day. The public was not for impeachment. It was not until Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of the tape did the country come around and the Congress came around, so much so too the president came around and we didn’t have to go to impeachment. That’s what we’re doing. We’re doing the investigations, you’re going to have hearings. Nobody knows what will come out of these hearings. And if we can have a process that will save the country the divisiveness of impeachment we ought to pursue it. And that’s what we’re trying to do.

 

HOOVER: Getting to some of the issues that you deal with in your caucus, especially in the context of the 2017 Charlottesville Marches one of the things the country witnessed is the intersection of a resurgent white nationalism and racism and neo-Nazism and its confluence with anti-Semitism. And I wonder if you have any reflections on the rise of

 both of those forces in American politics.

 

CLYBURN: Yes I do.

I’ve studied history.  I keep two books at my bedside. One is the Bible, which I read for historical references and the other is McCullough’s book on Truman.

 I studied those two books a lot and I could see that this country was reaching a point where we could find ourselves where we are today. I said before the elections, the last elections, I could see divisions is developing in this country. The so-called turning the clock back. People reacting to the Obama presidency in the same the way they reacted to the Emancipation Proclamation. The same way people reacted to Brown vs. Board of Education. 

So I just felt strongly that this country was going to react to Barack Obama’s presidency the way it has.

 

HOOVER: And then another one of the forces that was imbued

 in Charlottesville was anti-Semitism. 

 

CLYBURN:Absolutely 

 

HOOVER: It was married with this neo-nazism and this racism towards African-Americans. What are your reflections and what do you think about the rise of anti-Semitism especially as it’s come up in the normal course of business and the Congress.

 

CLYBURN: I feel about it the same way I feel about the white supremacists on the on every level.

 

HOOVER: Why is it resurgent?

 

CLYBURN: Well, because this country is moving back into a position that it was back in the late 1920s. Remember this whole stuff, The Ku Klux Klan and all of that, this is like in the 20s with that resurgence. Woodrow Wilson’s presidency laid a foundation for that. And so while that was going on in this country, the same thing was going on over in Europe. And you have the things gone on that you’ve got going on in Europe now. These things don’t happen in isolation. And so I’ve told people Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany, these things I could see them coming. And so it was no surprise to me that we are where we are. if we fail to learn the lessons of our history we’re bound to repeat them. And looks like we have not learned those lessons. And so we are now repeating it. That’s what is strange to me. We’re too intelligent for that. 

 

HOOVER: How do you advocate that members of the caucus talk about the Israeli-Palestinian relationship?

 

CLYBURN: I think ought to talk about it, you know, in a way that we talk about any other aspect of our religion. we are the products of a Judeo Christian society, And then ought to live by, and we have to reconcile some of those things if we are going to function going forward. And so I know that even within my caucus most of us are for a two state resolution. And there are people in the caucus who are not–

 

HOOVER: Who are not, they’re not

 

CLYBURN: –necessarily for a two state resolution.  

 

HOOVER: But that’s new.

 

CLYBURN: That’s new, absolutely. 

 

HOOVER: why?

 

CLYBURN: Well we are but the product of our experiences that’s why my book Blessed Experiences I named it that because I say that all of our experiences have not been pleasant but I’ve considered all of them to be blessings.

 

 HOOVER: I remember that’s also what you said about Ilhan Omar’s experience that she is the product of her experience.

 

CLYBURN: Her experiences, all of us are.

 

HOOVER: Certainly.

 

CLYBURN: You can’t be more than what your experiences allow you to be.  

 

HOOVER: Right.  But you still also can’t support anti-Semitic tropes and racist statements.  

 

CLYBURN: No you can’t, and I don’t.

 

 HOOVER: Along with being twenty five years now serving in the House of Representatives you have become a– almost a kingmaker every four years when Democratic politicians come to South Carolina to try 

 to win your state’s primary. What happened when Bill Clinton called you a bastard.

 

CLYBURN: Nothing happened.

 

HOOVER:  What was that about?

 

CLYBURN: Well it was because he thought I’d put my thumb on the scales a little bit

 when his wife lost the South Carolina primary to Barack Obama. But I told everybody back then and I’ll repeat it: Barack Obama won the South Carolina primary the night that he won the Iowa caucus. That was something that foretold what was going to happen in South Carolina.

 

HOOVER: Is it because he became viable in that moment.

 

CLYBURN: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. He was running a great campaign.

 There was something about him that was very attractive to people. 

This was long before Iowa. So I could tell the way people interacted with him that if he were to do well in Iowa he was going to do well in South Carolina, but he won Iowa.

 

HOOVER: So what did you say back to Bill Clinton?

 

CLYBURN:  Well I told him I hated that he felt that way. But we yelled at each other too such an extent it was 2:30 in the morning. It woke my wife up. 

 

HOOVER: It was a truly heated exchange. 

 

CLYBURN: Yes. Yes, absolutely. It was. He called me back two weeks later and apologized. And I accepted it. 

 

HOOVER: Meanwhile Jim Clyburn’s famous — world famous fish fry is a moment where all the Democratic candidates in the 2020 race make their case to South Carolina primary voters. 

There is word on the street that you’re not going to endorse a 2020 candidate but that your sympathies are with Joe Biden. Is that true?

 

CLYBURN: Well Joe and I are friends. Tim Ryan and I are friends. I’m also friends with Cory Booker. I’m co-sponsoring legislation with Bernie Sanders. I’m working on legislation with Elizabeth Warren.

 

 HOOVER: Elizabeth Warren legislation on forgiving student debt. 

 

CLYBURN: Absolutely. And so I have these relationships with a lot of people. But Joe Biden 

I’ve known Joe a long long time. I don’t walk away from that relationship because I bring somebody else into my space. 

 

HOOVER: Why do you think that Joe Biden is so far and ahead above everybody else in the polls, even in South Carolina? 

 

CLYBURN: I think people forget that Joe Biden had a long relationship with J. Strom Thurmond the long serving United States senator from South Carolina and the Republican. He had the same kind of relationship with Fritz  hollings, is the guy that went up to Delaware talked to him and got him to stay in the United States Senate, when his wife– his first wife and daughter were killed in an automobile accident. Now,  both of those people had Joe Biden deliver a eulogy at their funerals.  At their requests. That’s the kind of relationship he’s had with South Carolinians for a long long time. And so that explains it.

 

HOOVER: But does Joe Biden’s support from Strom Thurmond help him with Democratic African-American voters in South Carolina?

 

CLYBURN:  No but with Fritz hollings, and and maybe Jim Clyburn. 

 

HOOVER: of course when you’ve been in politics as long as Joe Biden has, certainly there are going to be, as we’ve discussed issues that come and go and that seems maybe progressive at the time or acceptable at the time and are less acceptable as time goes by. Another one of these is his support in the mid 70s. He was against sending white children to majority black schools in Delaware. And he called the desegregation plan racist. 

 

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Does his position on busing stand the test of time.

 

CLYBURN: Well this may surprise you, but bussing was a very contentious issue. My wife and I had the first serious disagreement over the question of busing. I thought that busing, that plan put too much burden on the students. And I spoke out against that. My wife that evening took me to the woodshed 

and she reminded me of the fact that when she was a student in Berkeley County South Carolina, she walked two and a half miles to school in the mornings and two and a half miles back home every afternoon. And the white kids had buses and they didn’t. And she told me on that occasion they were not against bussing then, and you bet not be against bussing now. Well I realized that my experiences were different from hers. And so that– those experiences dictated how I felt. Now Joe Biden you have to ask him what his experiences were and why he felt the way he did. I don’t know what Joe’s experiences were what was going on in Delaware. But I know what was going on in South Carolina and what was going on in South Carolina. I thought it was unfair. But my wife set me straight.

 

HOOVER: From that moment in American history, how do you think about reparations now.

 

CLYBURN: I say to people that the big mistake all of us make with reparations is monetizing it.  

The moment you say reparations, people start thinking money. Reparations, the root word of which is repair, it means to repair what may be a fault. You can repair it by funding,

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 targeting resources into these communities. you can repair it by funding historical black colleges and universities that bring these young people off the sea islands 

and set them straight for success. We could make a very comprehensive reparations approach and not spend all our time arguing about the money, because you would never be able to monetize this in any fair way. So my thing is let’s make the repairs that are necessary. And let’s put forth programs that are going to repair 

the fault that are developed by the slavery.

 

HOOVER: Do you think that’s going to have to be the starting pitch of every 2020 candidate on the Democratic side when it comes to reparations. At least demonstrating and standing for an exploration of how to commit a repair.

 

CLYBURN: I think they should, I think they should. I don’t know if they– they are doing it. I remember two candidates the moment it came up. They started talking about money. And that 

is where you just reach a point of no return. You devolve into a discussion that you can’t dig out of. 

 

HOOVER: In nineteen ninety two you were first on this program with William F. Buckley Jr. and debated him about whether African-Americans should be aligned with the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. Let’s take a look.

 

BUCKLEY CLIP:

 

HOOVER: what strikes me about the argument is that it’s not that different from the argument Donald Trump is making to African-Americans as well. He’s saying this economy is growing, people’s wages are growing, This is an argument for African-Americans to support Republicans. Why are they wrong?

 

CLYBURN: Well he’s dead wrong. Why is the gap getting wider. Why is the wealth gap getting wider every day. Why is the education gap getting wider every day. While he is talking about the economy that works for Wall Street. There are devastating for Main Street. He just passed a 1.5 trillion dollar Tax cut. That 85 percent of the benefit which go to the upper 1 percent. And I just found myself paying four times as much taxes as I paid last year under this new tax bill.  And I’ve run across school teachers who were telling me for the first time they had to pay taxes. Come on. the president is way off base on these policies– he hasn’t told the truth about anything else. I wouldn’t expect him to tell the truth about these policies.

 

HOOVER: How about His argument that the first step Act which was a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill which he signed. Donald Trump argues that that is going to help African-American communities and Hispanic communities as well. Do you think the first step act is a good piece of policy?

 

CLYBURN: A good first step. But if you stop with the first step and don’t take second step third step, you ain’t walking. 

 

HOOVER: So are you giving the president credit. 

 

CLYBURN: I’ll give him credit for first step. Absolutely. I would love to give him it for a second step and third step. Absolutely. 

 

HOOVER:Do you see the value in infusing competition into education in order to allow families the ability to choose 

where to send their children to school if their children are stuck in a failing school.

 

CLYBURN: You fix the failing school. You don’t, gut the school, take resources out of their district and say you’re fixing the school. Now you’re talking to a former public school teacher, who taught in a low income school. And I know that the dreams and aspirations of these young people who come out of homes where

 

they don’t get breakfast in the morning, who come to school two hours after mom and dad have gone off to work. 

 

HOOVER: But why haven’t we been able to fix the failing schools sufficiently–

 

CLYBURN: You could fix that if you would be honest about what the problem is.

 

HOOVER: Which is what?

 

CLYBURN: The problem is we do not undergird this system, the communities, that give rise 

to the schools.

 

 

HOOVER: You have been a community leader. You participate in a bowling league. You participate in a lot of organizations that are not governmental

organizations. Their community organizations. And I wonder you know how much of the solution for fixing communities is direct government assistance to communities vs. the building up of these mediating institutions in our communities like the bowling leagues like the Boys and Girls Clubs like the Girl Scouts.

 

CLYBURN: A whole lot of it, you do a much more effective job teaching children if you teach from their experiences. And so that is where we get this thing all wrong. If we spend more time dealing with these communities we will get a much better product out of these schools. 

 

HOOVER: You’ve talked about striving for equity rather than equality.

 

CLYBURN: Yes.

 

HOOVER: What do you mean by that? 

 

CLYBURN: I have three daughters. They think differently. I deal with them differently. 

 

HOOVER: So how does that apply to public policy?

 

CLYBURN: Because public policy is built to treat communities according to their needs. Treat people according to their needs, not equally. If I give you the same thing I give this under achieving child who is poor and don’t have the background giving you all the same thing that’s equal. But your needs are not the same. 

 

HOOVER: I wonder if at what point you will choose to endorse a candidate into the 2020 race.

 

CLYBURN: I don’t know.

 

HOOVER:  Will it be before the Democratic nomination? Before the DNC convention? 

 

CLYBURN: Oh by that time you’ll have a nominee, I won’t have to.

 

HOOVER: Will it be before the South Carolina race? before the South Carolina primary?

 

CLYBURN: If I do with it’ll be before the primary,

 

HOOVER: Representative Clyburn thank you very much for coming.

 

CLYBURN: Thank you very much for having me.