WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell was interviewed on CNN’s ‘State of The Union’ earlier today. The following are excerpts from the program: On His Position On The START Treaty: “I've decided that I cannot support the treaty. I think the verification provisions are inadequate and I do worry about the missile defense implications of it. The McCain amendment yesterday regarding missile defense was defeated, and I know the administration actually sent a letter up yesterday, indicating they're committed to missile defense. But an equally important question is how do the Russians view missile defense and how do our European allies view missile defense? And I’m concerned about it. I think if they'd taken more time with this—rushing it right before Christmas, it strikes me as trying to jam us. I think if they'd taken more time—I know the members of the Foreign Relations Committee spent a lot of time on this but the rest of us haven't—and so all of a sudden we're once again trying to rush things right here before Christmas Eve. I think that was not the best way to get the support of people like me.” On Timing Of The Vote: “It will be up to the majority to determine that, my assumption is we're doing it now because they intend to try to get us to vote on it before Christmas. It's not clear yet whether that will happen.” On Defeating The 2,000 Page, Trillion Dollar Omnibus: “The public is sick and tired of doing business that way. So we decided to defeat it. I think we’ve got to quit doing business that way, if we're going to listen to the American people and the message they sent us on November 2nd, we quit doing that.” On Ending The Tax Debate For Two Years: “What we have done by ending the tax debate for two years, we know what taxes are going to do for the next two years, is that we will not allow the Democrats to link tax cuts and spending cuts. Back in '95 and '96, when we would send packages to President Clinton that had a combination of tax reduction and spending reduction, our good friends on the other side would say, oh, they're taking food out of the mouths of babes in order to give tax relief to people who don't deserve it. We've ended the tax debate for two years, going to concentrate, we're going to now on reducing spending and debt and I hope the president will join us in reducing both spending and debt.” On Repealing The Democrat Health Care Bill: “I'm hoping we will receive from the House of Representatives a full repeal of ObamaCare. It will be hard to get that through the Senate, but we will be working to try to get a vote on that, and hope that among those who have had maybe second thoughts in the Senate, including the 23 Democrats who are up for re-election in '12, there will be some openness to revisiting what I think was the single worst piece of legislation in my time in the Senate.” On Working With The President: “I think we demonstrated on the tax package there is some business we can do. And if the president's willing to come and adopt positions that frankly I and my members hold anyway, why would we say no? … As I said, we weren't sent here to do nothing and if the administration believes they need to go in a different direction, and it mirrors the things that I and my members believe is good for the country we're going to do it. And this was a good example of that.” On Entitlement Reform: “Entitlement reform can only be done on a bipartisan basis. It can't be done one party only. We have enormous unfunded liabilities, Medicare, Social Security. I would love to sit down with the administration and see if we can do something to make certain that we leave behind the same kind of country for our children and grandchildren that our parents left behind for us.”
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