host: let me conclude. please stop asking newt if we will run for president. i will ask you, i just want to ask you, what you're thinking of as a time line? guest: i think we have a tentative target to run. if we decide. we will announce in april. i agree with mit romney who said, let's not rush into debates before september. let's not get all involved in tangled up in campaigning for campaigning sake. we have a lot to do as americans and lots of time between now and iowa caucus when really starts the dance in 2012. :

there's no possibility that i would ever go to debate and have chris matthews asking questions. i watched the debate and it was an embarrassment because they were so hostile and so left

wing that every question they asked of the republicans was designed to embarrass and divide, and every question they asked the democrats was designed to look good. host: would you do it with a moderator? guest: with a time keeper. lincoln and douglas debated seven times for three hours and they had a time keeper. that's all they had. and i would feel very comfortable, i'm not saying if -- if we got to that point. people like mitch daniels, sara palin, mike huckabee, governor romney, i would feel very comfortable having an agreement to behave like adults and observe the time, and just figure out what the topics ought to be and actually have a dialogue not a debate. how are we going to solve our country's problems? and i would be glad to do it at the reagan libebri but without the kind of micky mouse questions asked by hostile news media. >>

host: if you're a candidate would you participate? guest: i would see what the terms were. but i would not participate if it was a hostile reporter asking gotcha questions with an absurd time limit. host: thank you for joining us. back tomorrow morning with c-span's washington journal. washington journal gets under way every day at 7:00 p a.m. eastern time. again knut gingrich's latest book called valley forge. thanks for being with us on this sunday. enjoy the rest of your weekend. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> up next, "newsmakers" with congressman james clyburn. then portions of this week's ethics inquiry of new york congressman charles rangel. and later, a senate hearing on passenger screenings and searches. >> thanks for having me. >> and here to help with questioning, >> good to see you. congratulations as to on your election as number third.

what is that job going to be? are you going to have an office? staff, what does it entail? and what does it say about the way democrats are going to approach the leadership of this new minority status? >> we'll have an office. we'll have staff. and we'll be checking on a portfolio that's a little different than some we've had in the past. i've spent this campaign season in different congressional districts. i heard a lot, i learned a lot. i campaigned in parts of the country i never campaigned in before. and so when we came back here in the minority, it would have been very simple as everybody said, everybody just step back one step. you've been chair so go back to being chair. steny has been whip, he'll go back to being whip and pelosi will go back to being leader. and that was not attractive to

me. i thought that things that i'd learned out there could be put to great use in our leadership discussions if we were to bring another chair to the table. because i do believe that we're in a different political environment and we have a caucus that's a little bit different from the republican conference. they've got 42 african americans, 21, 22 latino americans. we have dems pro-trade blue dogs that are not all that much for trade. all of this diversity i thought i had learned a lot about. and i really could bring discussions to that table and could take them away from the table into our constituency in a way that would limit me if i were chair of the caucus.

i do believe that anyone can get 380 college students who can follow him to jail can connect emotionally with people and i think i can bring that to this new job in a way i did not any other way. >> did you find the idea of suggestion of stepping back to caucus chair insulting or in any way demeaning? >> no more than pelosi stepping back to leader or hoyer stepping back to whip. no. in fact, whip what was unattractive was pushing others

away from the table. because if everybody stepped back he as vice chair would have to step away. that's what i was uncomfortable with. it had nothing to do with me. it had to do with keeping diversity at that table. and that's very, very important to me. and i think it's important to our caucus. >> have either one of you not be at the table, in other words? >> in my poib, yes. with hoyer there, how about larsen? no. i thought we made a very good team. this is a team that got us into the majority four years ago. we had some head winds out there this time that none of us could do anything about. i learned in politics 101 that if you've got 10% unemployment, no matter what else you do, that's the curtain that you cannot breakthrough. and that's what we had here. now, we did the right things. i think this president arrested

the hemorrhaging that was taking place in this economy. he stopped the job losses. and we have been creating jobs. for the last 10 months we've grown around 1.2 million new jobs in the private sector. we're going in the right direction. but we're traveling at 15, to miles an hour and people think we're doing better traveling at 60 miles an hour. we've got to speed up this recovery. we're on the right track, on the right road. we just aren't going fast enough for most of the american people and that's what we've got to do. >> let me ask you about a topic that has been on a lot of minds lately. the trial of congressman rangel. i want to know, do you think the process has been fair to him from what you've seen? has he gotten a fair ethics trial? >> he never said that the process was unfair in its totality. this has gone on for two years. he said that the process on the

particular day that he showed up last week and did not have an attorney, he wanted them to postpone. he thought it was unfair to proceed in that session without an attorney. and that's what he said. but i believe that charlie would agree with you that for the past two years that things have gone along relatively fairly. but he wanted them to suspend until he could bring an attorney. and that's what he tried to fight as being unfair. >> do you believe he has been treated fairly by the committee? >> he has never told me up until that day. he still hasn't told me that he thought he was being treated unfairly. he and i have discussed this. we have not talked about this since they returned their verdict, if i might use that phrase. but everything we talked about going up to that point -- and i

think people miss the step in this process back before we went out of here on break for the elections, rangel agreed that those violations did take place. he did not want anybody to consider them to be willful. and the prosecutor said he found nothing in self-each riching about it nor did he find anything about it to be deliberate but it was slopieness and unintended actions taken that violated the ethics rules. so if we deal with intent here, and we've got those kinds of comments coming from the prosecutor, then i think that you will have to say that all of this was unintentional on his part and he didn't dispute the fact that it took place.

but what was required for the statement to be accepted did not take place. >> are those mitigating factors, in your opinion? >> always. >> lack of intent, lack of financial gain? >> absolutely. if he were doing any of this with any personal gain, i would say, hey, this is bad news. but the prosecutor said no personal gain out of this. and i think that people who i've seen some of the stuff that they've said, i think they're being very, very unfair. the fact of the matter is that some people do not pay as close attention to theirday to day stuff as other people do. i do pretty closely because, you know, this is our first elective office. from -- isn't my first elected office. so i know a little bit about day to day management so i do think a little bit different

from a lot of legislature that is i know. >> two followup questions though. o don't you think someone who is the ways and means chairman ought to operate at a higher level of scrutiny? many americans look at this and say, wait a minute. you're in charge of the american tax code, you ought to know what's happening in your own world. that's question number one. question two, in your conversations with the caucus, whatever the ethics committee decides, will you make an argument that mitigating factors shou be made here? >> i'm not going to make that argument at all unless i'm asked to. charlie hasn't asked me to make any statement on his behalf. and i don't know if anything is going to happen within the caucus. and if it were to happen within the caucus, i would be glided by the emotions i feel at the moment. and if i have a feeling that something needs to be said, i will say it. i think most people know that i will do that. but i've not been asked to say anything. >> and on the question of

whether the ways and means committee chairman ought to -- >> well -- >> monitor this stuff much more closely. >> should they be held to a higher standard? >> sure. no question about it and he were held to a higher standard. if he were not chair for the ways and means, i think a lot of this would have been different. but even with all that taken into account, the prosecutor still said nothing intentional, a whole lot of slopieness in his personal stuff. no one said he was ever sloppy on the people's business. it was his personal stuff. and a lot of people, i remember people say you can always tell the painter's house because that's usually the house that needs a paint job. and these things happen. a lot of people forego their personal stuff and stay very focused on making sure they protect the public. and i've never seen anything that charlie has ever done that

shows that he did not protect the public. he just did not take care of the personal affairs. >> you have a lot of members coming back this week who will not be coming back next year. you have a lot of folks who just barely won. you saw a caucus where the speaker saw more opposition than she is used to. you made the argument that you equated the health care bill to the civil rights act and it sounded you were saying ultimately there are things that you codo that are worth the price you pay. i know you believe the health care bill is a civil right. can you talk a little bit about how you view what you did over the last two years as legislation and the price that was paid by some of the members and the value of that whether it was worth it? >> well, i've never said that it was a civil right. i have equated it to the civil

rights. i said it is a fundamental right. so i will not debate whether it is a civil right. i do believe it is a fundamental right. now, when you pass a patient's bill of rights, that's a good thing. not discriminate against people because of preexisting conditions, not discriminate because people get sick, not discriminating against people because they turn 21, not discriminate against people because they've reached a limit on their benefits. that's the good thing. when you pass the credit card holders bill of rights, that's a good thing. when you pass a consumer protection agency so that people will not have to go out and hire lawyers when they feel they've not been done, treated fairly by the financial institutions, you build that into the process for them to be able to take care of themselves. these things were good things. and i do believe that they were -- they will change things. it's what people said they

wanted. and so we do pay for that. i believe that passing the civil rights act of 64 was a great thing. the voting rights act 0665, a ral good thing. the fair housing market of 68. but how many people lost their seats? the democrats lost their way in the south because linden johnson said at the time he signed the bill he knew that the democrats would pay a big price for passing the voting rights act. now, nobody looking back on that now would say that's a bad thing to do. nobody looking back on medicare would say it's a bad thing to do. so you go from 64, 65, 68, you get four big bills like that, and people lost seats because of it. you can go back to social security. a lot of people lost their seats because they voted for social security. but people look back now and say that was a good thing.

and so i have been amazed at the number of members who have come back and said i came here for this. yes, i may have lost my seat, because i voted for the health bill, but that's what i came here for. and i believe those people should be honored and i do. i have been really pleased. i was really sweating talking to some of these people. i've been out there campaigning with them. and when i saw their attitudes, i was extremely heartened by it. now, remember, some of them barely won, a lot of our people barely lost. we've done the calculations. 250,000 votes in total, somebody losing by 300 votes here, 1200 votes here, 1400 votes here. it all comes to less than

250,000 votes that we lost the house by. so just like a lot of people barely won, a lot of people barely lost. a lot of these people will stay on the field and i garbt you that if we can speed up this recovery from 25 miles an hour to 55 miles an hour, and to keep going in the private sector as we have been going, we will have the wind at our backs two years from now and i can tell you a lot of these people will be back. >> rematch city is what we're looking for. >> absolutely. or country. >> a lot of these narrowly defeated democrats run again. >> absolutely. and they'll be out there running again. these people knew they would pay a price. a lot of them thought they would still win with it and i think they would have but for the unemployment rate they would have. and i tell you, if we go

forward when you've got people on the other side saying what we want to do is make sure this president doesn't get a second term, well, what you ought to be making sure of is that people get back to work. and we passed the kind of laws that will get people back on their jobs, get people back in their homes. that is what we ought to be about. and we ought to leave the politics out of this until the election season 18 months down the road. but that's not going to happen. i think the american people are going to see this and say, hey, this ain't what i elected this person for. and i think a lot of these people will be back. >> i just want to ask you, as far as some of these people, alan boyd of florida said that nancy pelosi was the face of the defeat. and i want to ask you about recruiting with someone who had 65 million dollars in ads spent featuring her. she actually said 75 million spent against me. i think it was actually 75

million spent against the candidates. but featuring her on ads. how do you go back to these members d say i want you to run again and we've got the same leader who became, asalen boyd said, the face of defeat? >> well you do it in large measure the way i've been suggesting, and that is that we expand our approach to things. as we begin to connect with the american people. >> look, we lost the senior vote by 20 points. we in our health care bill extend it had life of medicare by 14 years so how do you extend the life of medicare by 14 years and lose the senior vote by 20 points? i'll tell you how. they never understood that's what we did. how do you pass the education bill that we passed for students, pell grants,

investment in universities. another increase of 2.55 billion when you bring in hispanic serving institutions and minority serving institutions? and most of these people didn't know we had done that. we passed a stimulus bill. we put a 30 amendment there in the agriculture section of that bill so they can have those communities have 10% of that money focused on communities 20% more of the population been beneath the poverty level. i've talked to people all over this country who did not realize we had done that. so what i'm saying is we did not do a good job of telling people what we had done. >> whose fault is that? >> i'm taking blame for that. i'm going to say it's anybody's fault but our own. >> you, the president, the speaker? >> i think there's enough for all of us to share in this. we thought if we did, as the president said you do something

big, you do something good, you go on. but we should have spent a little more time telling people exactly what was in the health care bill, exactly what's in it for them, exactly what they're going to benefit from. look, we doubled the number of community health centers. you know how many people we took out of the emergency rooms putting into community health centers with this bill? that's why we had 123 billion dollar deficit reduction in the first ten years and 1.2 trillion in the second ten years. because we're pulling people out of these very expensive health care delivery systems and putting them into community health centerses. i'm not sure if we did a good job of explaining to people that we did that. >> to your point and jonathan's question then. going forward does minority leader pelosi need to take on a lower profile and have a different voice to the message? >> i think that we ought to play on each other's strengths.

>> so what is her strength versus others? >> well, i think that she is a very focused organizer, she is a prolivic fund raiser, she knows politics as good as anybody i've ever been around in my life. she's a great tactician. and so i think that what she does for our caucus, nobody else in this caucus can do. i really believe that. >> that sounds of more of a behind the scenes type role. >> well, she is our spokesperson. she is the minority leader. she was there four years ago in front of the camera, she will be there again. all i'm saying is i want to be there with her in a much more proactive role than i've been in the past. i do believe, as i said earlier, i've demonstrated throughout the years that i have an ability to connect with people on an emotional level,

and so people, i've got letters from people and phone calls saying we would like to see you out more in our communities. we think that you make a connection that others in the caucus cannot make. and i'm talking about other people that sit at the table. i don't believe that john larsen can connect in the area of south carolina that i can. >> do you believe that will be part of your new port foleyo? >> absolutely. the creativity of mine, i plan to try to look at ways of doing that in other legislation because i think that these communities that i represent many of them got left out of the recovery act after the so-called new deal. i want to make sure these communities don't get left out this time. and i've been in communities this year in the state of california, for instance, i

really thought i was in south carolina. there's as much farming and rural stuff over there that i have in my community. i can relate to these people. i know what it is to go out and work side by side with a migrant. i used to run the south carolina commission of farm workers so i know what that is. and so these experiences i'm going to put to work i think in a much more effective way than i have in the past. i've been a little bit too much inside the beltway in the last few years. >> let's talk about tax cuts briefly. they have to be extended unless there's some fem prayer resolution. the president -- temporary resolution. the number three in e senate among democrats charles shumer who is going to take on an expansive role said why don't we compromise. do you agree that would be a good figure to compromise?

is there a compromise figure you would agree to? how are house democrats going to come down on this question? >> i would hope the house democrats come to where i am. we should have a middle income tax cuts, $250,000 or less. that means that every taxpayer gets a tax cut. i think that's part of where things went awry. i remember watching tv one morning, someone was talking about why should a person who makes $250,000 get a tax cut? the guy who makes $255,000 will get a tax cut on the first 250,000. they'll only see an increase on the 5,000. so that's where we lost that discussion. so this is a middle income tax cut across the board. >> don't budge off of where this is? >> i'm not going to budge. >> the speaker and soon minority leader doesn't want the caucus to budge either.

does she? >> i don't think so. i think that we're together on that. now, you know, the house is a different animal than the senate. >> as you learned. >> yes. and so -- >> painfully. >> painfully so. and the senate will do what it the can do and we'll look at whether or not we can have some negotiations and some kind of, i don't know, ping pong activity or some kind of -- >> is it essential this be resolveduring the lame duck? >> i really hope so. >> noy that. is it essential? >> well, i don't know that it's essential or not. i tell you what, some people would say that if it doesn't get solved then there's got to be a deficit reduction taking place, which is also a good thing. so there is a bright side no matter what you do. i want to see middle income people get a tax cut. >> one last question here. >> i want to ask you about what

the senate, what kind of animal the senate is. but your colleagues in the senate on the republican side from south carolina, they're wrestling with an earmark ban over there. there are now republican ban in the house and there are no other mocrats in south carolina. are you going to be the force for south carolina now unmitigatedly? and what's the argument for earmarks? for pet projects back home? >> well, we keep calling them pet projects. there's a big issue in south carolina now. we need -- in charleston harbor. i put an earmark in there to deepen, to do the study that you need to do in order to deepen the charles ton harbor. now, that's not my pet project. i want to deepen the jones town harbor. it will be a big job. it needs to go down to 37 f