CNN Newsroom: Interview with Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI)
Interview
"So, first of all, Jim, you were talking to the woman that everybody said was crazy when I told people that Donald Trump could and then would win Michigan in 2015, 2016. Polls are, you know, a snapshot in time. I didn't believe them. Everybody believed the polls and they didn't believe me.
So, we're a year out. It's -- I think it's going to be close. Michigan is not a blue state. We are a purple state. I take this election next year very seriously, but I just laugh at these polls because I've been right. I have good gut instinct and I've been right and a lot of polls have been wrong.
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Donald Trump is Teflon. I've told everybody we need to take him very seriously. He has a talent for understanding people's fear and anxieties. He's not good. You know, he's trying to make electric vehicles a wedge issue right now. Now, Donald Trump said that trade -- he heard trade was an issue for a lot of workers in 2015 and 2016. And Democrats did a terrible job of talking about trade. I will take him head on the subject of electric vehicles.
We are competing in a global marketplace. He says there'll be 100 percent built in China. Other countries are at more than 50 percent of the vehicles being bought, our electric vehicles. I'm going to make them -- make sure I do everything to make sure they're built here in America with good paying union worker jobs. He doesn't -- he talks a good game. Our job is going to be able to -- we're going to have to educate voters on words versus action.
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Look, he has made it clear he is standing with the workers. I think he made it clear before he made the decision to come and be on the picket line. It will reaffirm his support for the workers. I've been very clear he should not intervene in this strike. He does not belong at the negotiating table itself. I think he's got an important role to play in making sure that we are doing the right policy things to help in this transition, that people are hearing what each other are saying.
I think all of us don't want this to be a long strike because people are being reminded how important the auto industry is to the American economy and we're still the backbone. One in eight jobs are related to it. So, I think it will reinforce again with the workers, the president stands with them. But at the table itself, I don't -- I think this -- we need to -- to me, there are too many people doing Biden versus Trump.
It's not about the politics of the presidential election. It's a distraction right now. It's really about the workers and the issues that they are raising and talking about.
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I'd like to see the president's senior staff get out of the White House and spend more time on the ground. I think, you know, the problem -- I think the president's gut is as good as it gets. You know how long I've known President Biden. He does understand the worker. He doesn't need to be told how they're feeling.
And unfortunately, we live in a world that there are really people that would like to do people physical harm, and he has to be protected to a certain amount. But Joe Biden knows how people feel. Sometimes -- I wish other people would spend some time, and I say this to the media too, come be in these union halls with me, not just because there's a strike right now, but all the time to hear what working men and women really are feeling and thinking.
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So never say never. I believe in hope can spring eternal, but I do believe that there is a small group of Republicans that are going to shut this government down at anything they can do to get it to happen. I think Eric Graves, who's a colleague that I respect, described it very well today, that it's like an arsonist who's burnt down a home or a building, then saying that they want to go in and try to save it. We don't have separate appropriation bills because the same group of
people won't allow them even to be considered. We keep killing the rules to even consider individual appropriation bills. I believe it's irresponsible. It's not a way to run our government. It threatens so many aspects, starting with our national security. I will do anything I can to keep the government open, but I will not vote for a bill that satisfies this small group of people and would do serious damage, permanent damage, to everything from our national security, to the air traffic controllers, to the TSA, the food we eat, our health care, et cetera. We're going to have to see what the week brings.
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So, it depends what they do. If we were to do a simple continuing resolution, which, by the way, Senator Mitch McConnell and Republicans in the Senate also support, there would still be time to do it. You get something done. It goes to rules. You get enough votes to pass it out of rules. It goes to the floor. It really depends what Kevin McCarthy decides. If we shut the government down, it is, unfortunately, squarely on Speaker McCarthy and his small group of Republicans that seek to do, I think, unacceptable damage to our country.
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I don't know. I'm not a member of the Republican caucus. Kevin McCarthy doesn't talk to me about this. I think it's very complicated. He has a lot of moderate Republicans in his caucus that are now voicing their frustration and their anger and I think the Republican caucus is going to have a very unpleasant week as they deal with their -- they're killing each other.
I mean, they're self-destructing within their own caucus. But unfortunately, it's the American people that pay the price as you're in this circle of frowning (ph) squad.
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I don't know. You know, I'm not old, but I am seasoned. I've seen a lot of things happen in our nation's capital. I think we're in for a lot of drama that's really unnecessary because this country has a lot of problems facing it right now and we should be working together to address those problems, not watching this theater that we simply do not need right now in this country's history.
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Thanks, Jim.
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