jim clyburn is a democrat from south carolina. he is also the assistant democratic leader and part of the deficit supercommittee. thank you for joining me this afternoon. >> thank you so much for having me, craig. >> the plan that the president unveiled last night was it what you were expecting? did he go big or safe? >> i think it's pretty big. he went beyond what i expected. but for the $447 billion, he seems to have tossed a lot of that into the laps of those of us who sit on the joint select committee. but we had already begun to think beyond the $1.5 trillion that we were instructed to come back with. so getting up to near $2 trillion wouldn't be all that uncomfortable for us because most of us on the committee wanted to go big anyway. >> how are you going to do it? how are you going to find that additional money? it sounds like you guys are going to aim even higher than that? >> yes. we're instructed to do $1.5 trillion. if we don't do $1.5 trillion, then sequestration takes place to the tune of $2.2 trillion. none of us wan

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congressman jim clyburn.ou guys. >> we're staying away. >> tavis smiley still here. >> there's really nothing going on. >> nothing going on. >> nothing for you to do. >> only 74 days left before we're supposed to come up with a plan, right? >> with anthony weiner's seat coming up, you folks sitting on that closely. problems when the president's approval rating at 30%, 18% independent. what's going to happen in that race? >> the democrats will win at the end of the day. but you're right, this is a tough race, you have a special election, turnout is key, which means you need energy. and right now, you know, when you look at the race, it's going to be a challenge to get some of the democrats out. but at the end of the day, i think they're going to be done. >> how do you explain this? it's fascinating. we've had a lot of back and forth between republicans and democrats. the president seeing their numbers go down. ugliness, real ugliness over the debt ceiling raising. if you look at these special elections and the

congressman jim clyburn -- assistant leader clyburn, vice chairman becerra, and ranking member of the budget committee, part of our delegation to the table. congressman chris van hollen. we wish them well. we send them to the table with the highest expectations, with the best good will and without drawing any lines in the sand. we are looking forward to the president's speech tomorrow night, but we continue our own initiative on job creation. we think it's about getting back to basics, about the a, b, c's, leader hoyer, i'll get it right yet, steny. >> madam speaker, majority leader sounds ok to me. >> the basic as the a, b, c,'s a, make it in american. mr. hoyer will elaborate on that, but it's very important for us to stop the erosion of our industrial manufacturing and our technological base. it's important to our entrepreneurial spirit, development of our small businesses, and to again to have it important not only economically but our national security that we are self-reliant. we have the tools of production to defend the american people. building america's infrastructure is ver

jim clyburn needs to be sure that our analytic systems are really hitting on all cylinders in order to give those organizations what they need. that does not mean it is clandestinely required. open source is a great example of what we need to be able to do to leverage. social media, there is a whole new universe of information available. i think what the intelligence community has to do is make sure that that universe of information that is relevant is made available to janet napolitano and others. >> you mentioned the fbi and vhs -- dhs, there has been much written and talked about the tensions inherent in that relationship. is it working better? if there is a threat against bridges and tunnels, who is responsible and accountable for passing that to ray kelly, who is a commissioner in new york. >> a lot depends on where it is required. requires that information. it will immediately be disseminated. the cia has done a great job making sure that information is made available. it goes out and will be made available on fbi systems. it will be immediately available in new york. that is fro

jim clyburn, to discuss and researcher and how we growth that and grow jobs in america. >> thank you, whip. for those of you who have visited charleston, south carolina, in recent years," you probably have seen a magnificent new bridge. it is a talking point up and down the east coast. that bridge was made possible by a state infrastructure bank. the money is gathered by that bank and was leverage to secure a loan. it is a man of isn't structured, but in addition to getting rid -- it is a magnificent structure, but in addition to getting rid of a toll bridge, we were able to heighten this man and widen the alleys so now megaships can come into charleston and create jobs ad itum. that concept should be employed at the federal level, creating a natural -- a national infrastructure bank, to be able to leverage moneys into the private sector and allow us to build roads and bridges, and i would hope it would be infrastructure brought about for water and sewage programs as well. those are pretty big ticket items, but there are other infrastructure projects that we ought to be pursuing that

. >> host: when it comes to congress and the deficit commission, jim clyburn has an op-ed in the paper calling for compromise within the commission itself. where do you see that going? >> guest: the commission i'm sure your listeners know is the super committee under the budget control act otherwise known as the deal. and there's 12 of them and equal numbers from each party and they are supposed to arrive at a number -- a specified number and an amount of cuts by thanksgiving. i think that they as a group are actually potentially capable of compromising. that's a pretty good group. even those who have fixed positions and party leadership posts and veterans are kind of reasonable, the question is will their leadership and a -- a combination of their leadership and their rank-and-file actually free them to come to some kind of agreement. there's just so much tension over so many issues that the prospect of they mean actually being permitted to reach an agreement -- my sense is if they could -- they're really on their own it might happen but they're not on their own. they're under the thu