Read the complete transcript.
MR. BROKAW: I thought I would begin by sharing with our audience and with you as well a Gallup and USA Today poll taken the day after the election, "Does this describe your reaction to Barack Obama being elected president?" Sixty-seven percent of the people said they were proud, 67 percent said they were optimistic, 59 percent said they were excited. Those are very high numbers. How do you hold on to that in the face of this deteriorating economy and all the uncertainty that's still ahead of us, Congressman?
REP. CLYBURN: Well, I think the first thing we have to do is respond to the American people with a economic recovery package that will restore jobs, that will, once again, stand up our infrastructure: roads, bridges, water, sewage. I think we have to respond by saying to the children we are going to have a state children's health insurance program. I think we need to respond with a stem cell program, stem cell research. I think that the campaign told us a whole lot about what's on the minds of the American people, and I think that you keep that excitement by responding immediately to that. And I think that's why the president-elect made it very clear in his first press conference that he wants an economic recovery package and he would like to have it right now. And I would hope that the leadership of the Congress and the White House can get together on such a package in the near future.
MR. BROKAW: We want to get to the specifics in just a moment.
Senator Martinez, what about the Republican Party and keeping its place prominent after this pretty resounding defeat?
SEN. MEL MARTINEZ (R-FL): Well, the first thing we have to do is to celebrate the moment. And I think I agree with the sentiment of so many of those people in the polls, this is a historic moment. It's one that I thought Senator McCain properly recognized in his very gracious concession speech. And so we need to keep that kind of spirit of pulling together and finding common ground. However, I think the important thing for this new administration and for the leadership in Congress to do is to find the common ground agenda items. You know, when you look back to Florida, we have a lot of problems in the state of Florida. Unemployment parallels the national average, in some counties it's 10 percent, which is dramatically high. Find ways in which we can put people back to work and we can get our economy running again. Look for that checklist of things where there can be common ground, stay away from those items where, frankly, there'll be division and there'll be rancor and there'll be acrimony. So look for the common ground, and I think that'll be a prescription for us getting some things done.
MR. BROKAW: OK, we want to get to those specific things that may divide you more than unite you. But let's hear, first of all, from President-elect Obama, his first radio address in this new position yesterday, because he kind of laid out a general agenda of what he'd like to achieve.
[...]MR. BROKAW: He did not specifically mention a stimulus program. There's a good deal of talk about that on Capitol Hill when you come back into session.
Would you be in favor of $100 billion stimulus program at this point, Senator Martinez?
SEN. MARTINEZ: I think it needs to depend on the specifics that might be included in that program, but I think some sort of stimulus is appropriate. I, I would love to see it focused on, on home ownership, on, on getting back to the basics of what got us into this financial crisis in the first place, which is displaced homeowners, continuing rising foreclosures, things of that nature. We need to focus it on creating job opportunities for American families that are today out of work and extending unemployment benefits and things of that nature that I think, frankly, are appropriate. But we need to see what's in the package before we can just sign on. And I hope, frankly, part of this bipartisan spirit will be to be consulted in how we get to the package, inclusive in how we get to the decisions so that we can move forward in a united way, in a bipartisan way.
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