From Monday night’s Fox News All-Stars.
On the fact that Monday’s All-Star Panel had four members as happens when the news is big:
Absolutely. All of America trembles when they see a fourth. If there is a fifth, it’s the apocalypse.
On whether there was a significant risk of default in the final days before the debt ceiling agreement was reached:
Once Boehner had control of his House, it was a done deal.
On whether Jay Carney or Mitch McConnell is right on the question of whether this committee would raise taxes:
Well, McConnell and Carney are both right. In theory, which is Carney, it can do anything it wants. It can propose … a tax on green cheese. It can propose anything. But what McConnell is saying is it’s not going to happen because I appoint three guys or women on the committee. Boehner appoints three. … And these six, there’s no way in hell we’re going to allow any of them to be anybody other than a fundamentalist on taxes. So it’s not going to happen. …
I’m not one of those who thinks that it [the super committee] has no chance of delivering something that could actually pass in the House and the Senate. It could do real tax reform, which ought to be good for the left and the right. Reagan did it. And at least some structural entitlement reform, unlike what we have in the Medicare stuff now, which is just squeezing doctors and hospitals. Change the retirement age slightly. Something like that. I think it’s possible. …
Which is why I hope that the six appointees on either side will at least be open to tax reform which allows some raising of revenues but something that would be like the ‘86 tax reform that would benefit growth and fairness.
On Americans’ anger over the debt ceiling brinksmanship in Washington:
Well, America was taken into the sausage factory, and it’s pretty ugly. I don’t think it’s going to have any impact — [in] a week or two or a month or certainly not on Election Day in 2012 — exactly how we got to the debt limit increase today. I think what they will remember is the lack of leadership by the president.
On whether the debt ceiling fight will have a significant impact on the 2012 elections:
You don’t win or lose elections — or run elections — on process. You run — and you win and you lose them — on substance. And the substance is debt. And who put it on the table? Tea Party Republicans, the conservatives. At the State of the Union address, the president didn’t even have the word “debt” until almost an hour into his speech. Right now it’s the first word out of almost everyone’s mouth. It will be on the table, and the fact that Obama’s has increased it by $4 trillion is going to be a major issue. And the fact that Democrats have at every turn attempted to restrain the cutting, to restrain the attempt to put a hold on spending — all of that … that will be remembered.