In an interview with House Speaker Paul Ryan for 60 Minutes, CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley scolded the congressman for criticizing President Obama’s unconstitutional executive action on illegal immigration: “On your first day as speaker you said you were going to wipe the slate clean. And then in your very first news conference you said the President has, quote, ‘Proven himself untrustworthy on immigration.’ That’s not wiping the slate clean, that’s blowing chalk dust in the President's face.”
Ryan hit back: “...he tried to go around Congress and write the law unilaterally, violating the separation of powers. And I think just on that particular issue he has proven that he doesn't want to work with Congress, but work around Congress on, and that’s just not how laws are written.”
The brief exchange from the upcoming interview was aired as a preview on Friday’s CBS This Morning. During another preview clip aired on Thursday’s Evening News, Pelley lectured: “There was a time on Capitol Hill when the other guy had a bad idea and now on Capitol Hill the other guy's a bad guy....How do you heel that animosity? It's your job now.”
Ryan replied:
Yeah, I think that's right....Leadership by example is the way I look at it. I do have friends on the other side of the aisle. I have shown we can negotiate and compromise without compromising principle, that people with different ideas aren't bad people. They just have different ideas. Somewhere in this, we got into impugning people's character and motives if we didn't like their ideas. We've got to get back to just debating ideas and not impugning people's motives and character.
Here is a transcript of Pelley’s exchange with Ryan aired on the November 13 This Morning:
7:09 AM ET
GAYLE KING: House Speaker Paul Ryan believes this morning it would be wrong to dismiss political outsiders like Donald Trump and Ben Carson in the race for the White House. Ryan tells his home-state paper The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, quote, “I think it’s just such an unpredictable time that you can’t bank on conventional wisdom.”
The new speaker opened up to Scott Pelley for Sunday’s 60 minutes on where things stand between him and President Obama.
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Ryan’s Mission; Speaker Discusses Congress & Obama With 60 Minutes]
SCOTT PELLEY: Have you spoken to the President?
REP. PAUL RYAN [SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE]: Yeah, a number of times.
PELLEY: Since you became speaker?
RYAN: Uh-huh.
PELLEY: And the substance of those conversations has been what?
RYAN: Varied on a number of different issues and much of it discussed about things we can get working together on, things that we have to get done by the end of the year. And just, you know, courtesy issues. We talk about having teenager daughters, too.
PELLEY: But you found a man you can work with?
RYAN: Sure. Yeah, look, this is the job. Absolutely. He’s the President of United States, he’s my president, too.
PELLEY: It hasn’t – the job hasn't been getting done these last several years.
RYAN: I agree with that, but nevertheless this government does have to work.
PELLEY: On your first day as speaker you said you were going to wipe the slate clean. And then in your very first news conference you said the President has, quote, “Proven himself untrustworthy on immigration.” That’s not wiping the slate clean, that’s blowing chalk dust in the President's face.
RYAN: Well, I think wiping the slate clean was about wiping the slate clean in Congress and getting Congress, the House, functioning again. On this particular issue, he tried to go around Congress and write the law unilaterally, violating the separation of powers. And I think just on that particular issue he has proven that he doesn't want to work with Congress, but work around Congress on, and that’s just not how laws are written.
NORAH O’DONNELL: And you can watch 60 Minutes, right, Gayle? On Sunday to see Speaker Ryan on his home turf in Wisconsin. You’ll learn about his plans for Social Security and the tax code. That’s Sunday, here on CBS.
