Host Christiane Amanpour hosted radical author Heather McGhee, author of The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, on Monday’s Amanpour & Co., which originates on CNN International and airs later on PBS.
They discussed the last-minute maneuver that kept the government temporarily open (and would soon cost Republican Congressman Kevin McCarthy (CA) his role as speaker of the House). There was no daylight between the left-wing McGhee and the journalist Amanpour as they lamented the existence of duly elected fiscally conservative Republicans.
McGhee, who was treated by Amanpour as a political expert, was asked about the dodged shutdown, she decried the idea of spending limits, even as the national debt ballooned to $33 trillion. With Amanpour's approval, her guest bewailed any not toward fiscal discipline.
McGhee: ….the kind of concessions that the Republican Party, the far-right of their Republican Party wanted, were disastrous, absolutely unacceptable, the kinds of things no American family wants to see….we have a battle going on for the heart of the Republican Party between traditional Republicans, who are the majority still to this day of the party, and the far-right conservatives. And the kind of agenda that the far-right Republicans want to see is out of step with their own constituents, is out of step with the majority of the Republican Party….
McGhee later offered a liberal laundry list of things the “more multiracial younger electorate” wanted other people to pay for.
McGhee: ….because these far-right legislatures represent an older, whiter, more conservative minority of the population, and they are seeing an overwhelming shift in the country to a more multiracial younger electorate that wants basic things out of the government that have not been able to be achieved, like universal child care, truly guaranteed affordable health care, the kinds of -- student debt cancellation that, you know, was, you know, is able to survive a Supreme Court case. These are the kinds of -- this agenda, this sort of agenda to address basic human needs, to address inequality and climate change has been stalled by a shrinking radical minority….
Amanpour again teed up McGhee for a left-handed swing, by bashing black Republican presidential candidate, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina for having the gall to criticize LBJ’s big-spending “Great Society” that resulted in government-induced helplessness among the black community.
Amanpour: Heather McGhee, you can imagine members of the LBJ cohort, I mean, really struck back at that and just listed all the things that that did, including and especially for underprivileged and black families. So, can you break down what Tim Scott was saying? And your response, obviously.
McGhee accused Scott of appeasing white conservatives by becoming their kind of black person, as if he had no agency of his own. The guest actually made a major concession to Scott’s worldview, though she dismissed it as a mere “kernel of truth.”
McGhee: It was an astonishing moment. It was insulting. First of all, so many black families did not survive slavery, right? Did not survive discrimination and lynching and we did not thrive economically under the racist regime that was the majority of our country's history. What he's saying though is a very small -- sort of there's a kernel of truth in the idea that the way that the welfare benefits of the War on Poverty were administered, punished families that had a male in the household. And that little piece, he's taken on to mean that government has no business in trying to help impoverished families, white, black, or brown, and he's also doing a very conservative trope, the kind of conservative trope that gets a black man like him to be supported by Republicans….
Amanpour didn’t challenge McGhee’s offensive comment.
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A transcript is available, click “expand” to read:
Amanpour & Co.
10/3/23
1:48:50 a.m.AMANPOUR: So, can I just ask you, it appears that, you know, the government sort of dodged a bullet or the country dodged a bullet by not shutting down
immediately. But it's kicked down the can -- the can is being kicked down the road. What can you say about this and do you think it's a satisfactory
at least interim deal or agreement?
MCGHEE: Well, first of all, we should never have gotten to this place in the first place where the Republican speaker and the president last year --
earlier in the year negotiated a two-year vision for what the spending levels and resources of the public should be. And we walked away from that.
The Republicans walked away from that.
And the kind of concessions that the Republican Party, the far-right of their Republican Party wanted were disastrous, absolutely unacceptable, the
kinds of things no American family wants to see. And 80 percent cut to the federal funds for public education, 80 percent, that's some 200,000
classroom educators losing their jobs, 80,000 preschool slots, right? This is not what the American people want. And so, there was no way that
Democrats were going to give on those far-right extreme anti-government positions.
And so, we were facing a shutdown that seemed to both party and all commentators to be almost inevitable. But then the good things happened,
which is that Speaker McCarthy recognized that he can't keep negotiating with hostage takers and he had to look to the Democratic Party to forge a
compromise. And it is a good compromise. It's one that keeps the government open, keeps people receiving their payments, keeps the planes in the sky,
keeps our full faith in credit strong.
And 45 days is a very short amount of time, as you said, Christiane. At the same time, we can't keep having this kind of brinkmanship by what is a tiny
minority of the House far-right Republican caucus seeking to impose its undemocratic will on the United States Congress.
AMANPOUR: So, at this point, let me just say, somewhat similar to what you've said, what President Biden said about the spending bill. You know,
reminding Americans that it should never have come to this.
JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: Quite frankly, I'm sick and tired. I'm sick and tired of the brinkmanship. And so are the American people. I've been doing
this -- you all point out to me a lot a long time. I've never quite seen a Republican Congress or any Congress act like this.
AMANPOUR: So, I want you to break down for, you know, certainly our international viewers who watch this, because some of it, as I said,
involves spending on foreign policies goals like aid to Ukraine. But a Pew poll in September shows that public trust in the American government is
near an all-time low, that, you know, we know. But they also they say kind of a pox on both your houses. But is it Republicans against Democrats or is
it more Republicans against Republicans?
MCGHEE: Well, for sure, we have a battle going on for the heart of the Republican Party between traditional Republicans, who are the majority
still to this day of the party, and the far-right conservatives. And the kind of agenda that the far-right Republicans want to see is out of step
with their own constituents, is out of step with the majority of the Republican Party. And then, of course, remember, the majority of Americans
do not belong to the Republican Party.
So, it is an internal feud but it is also a deeper problem because it goes not just to Republican versus -- far-right Republican versus Democrat, but
just democracy versus stalemate and crisis. And that's what we've not just in this brinkmanship over the house speaker, right, he had to take 15 votes
and we've seen as sort of a punishment for the deal averting the shutdown, one of the leaders of the freedom caucus, the far-right caucus, saying that
they want to recall, do a vote of basically of no confidence to Speak McCarthy. So, that's going to put his speakership in danger.
But all across the Congress, the ways in which this new Republican Party has normalized things like the filibuster and secret holds so that we have
effectively a super majority requirement to do the normal business of Congress. And if you think about the long sort of history, why is this
happening, right? This is fundamentally, Christiane, about the things that I write about in my book, "The Sum of Us," which is that we ran a contest
about whether a multiracial democracy can truly thrive in America.
AMANPOUR: Right.
MCGHEE: Because these far-right legislatures represent an older, whiter more conservative minority of the population, and they are seeing an
overwhelming shift in the country to a more multiracial younger electorate that wants basic things out of the government that have not been able to be
achieved, like universal child care, truly guaranteed affordable health care, the kinds of -- student debt cancellation that, you know, was -- you
know, is able to survive a Supreme Court case. These are the kinds of -- this agenda, this sort of agenda to address basic human needs, to address
inequality and climate change has been stalled by a shrinking radical minority. And so, these rules and procedures that make it harder for the
government to function are ultimately about that deeper contest.
AMANPOUR: So, I just want to read some of these very, very important cuts that will affect actual people. You referred to some of what has been
averted. But some of the cuts on the table would reduce federal spending on nutritional assistance for poor mothers with young children, on housing
subsidies, on home heating assistance, on climate programs, and as you mentioned, education and medical research.
So, you also mentioned a multiracial country. And I wonder what you made of the last Republican debate and South Carolina senator, Tim Scott,
essentially taking on, LBJ's civil rights and all the things that came in that -- in those years to try to combat the history of -- you know, of
racism in the U.S. This is what he said.
SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC), U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Black families survived slavery. We survived poll taxes and literacy tests. We
survived discrimination being woven into the laws of our country. What was hard to survive was Johnson's great society where they decided to put
money, where they decided to take the black father out of the household to get a check in the mail and you can now measure that in unemployment, in
crime, in devastation.
AMANPOUR: Heather McGhee, you can imagine members of the LBJ cohort, I mean, really struck back at that and just listed all the things that that
did, including and especially for underprivileged and black families. So, can you break down what Tim Scott was saying? And your response, obviously.
MCGHEE: It's really -- it was an astonishing moment. It was insulting. First of all, so many black families did not survive slavery, right? Did
not survive discrimination and lynching and we did not thrive economically under the racist regime that was the majority of our country's history.
What he's saying though is a very small -- sort of there's a kernel of truth in the idea that the way that the welfare benefits of the war on
poverty were administered, punished families that had a male in the household. And that little piece, he's taken on to mean that government has
no business in trying to help impoverish families, white, black or brown, and he's also doing a very conservative trope, the kind of conservative
trope that gets a black man like him to be supported by Republicans, which is the idea that the kind of poverty that we see across America and also in
black communities is the fault of poor families themselves, is the fault of poor choices instead of the terrible choices that are forced upon families.
AMANPOUR: Right.
MCGHEE: The vast majority of whom have working adults that are paid too little often by very profitable corporations to be able to feed their
families reliably. So, this is an important part of the conservative politics to have somebody from a community of color saying the kind of
ultimately victim blaming and racist things that go -- you know, pass as truth in that party, but it has very little historical evidence and
fundamentally is being used by conservatives to ignore systemic racism
AMANPOUR: Can I just go back to the idea of, you know, people want their programs. And some programs have been very successful and they don't like
to see government shutdowns. Although, they also don't like the politicians. But let's look at a government program that does seem to be
working. Of course, the Affordable Care Act, Obama Care.
So, in 2010, Democrats said that it would control government Medicare spending, which was, you know, huge and "The New York Times" has recently
run this graph that we're going to put up which shows that Medicare spending has indeed been mostly flat since the health care bill passed.
Almost $4 trillion saved over what was projected.
So, I mean, that's a huge example of what actually is promised and what is delivered and what's good for everybody who signed up to this. And yet, it
just doesn't seem -- you know, these stories, government gets all -- or the politicians aren't able to properly tell these stories.
MCGHEE: I think that's a really good point. To great frustration, right? Whether it is the enormous successes of the Affordable Care Act, which has
kept young adults on their family's health insurance until they are 26, which has brought down costs dramatically. A long-held campaign promise of
Democrats to be able to allow Medicare to negotiate with Big Pharma to be able to have reasonable drug prices. We pay more for drugs than anybody
else in the world, right? All of these things are things that Americans in bipartisan majorities really, really want and support.
And yet, there hasn't been enough of a media narrative about the way that government can deliver and the successes. Instead, we have things like, you
know, you saw at the Republican debate stage, where it's blaming government and blaming poor families for any of the ills in society. The child tax
credit.
AMANPOUR: Right.
MCGHEE: Cut child poverty in half. And yet, there wasn't enough of a movement to keep it as a permanent thing. And so, we've now seen child
poverty increasing.
AMANPOUR: Yes. It's really sad that. Heather McGhee, thank you so much, indeed, for joining us.
