MSNBC: Politics on Ice on Up w/ Steve Kornacki

The following interview originally aired on MSNBC on February 2, 2014. If you have difficulty viewing the video, click here.

TRANSCRIPT

MSNBC Host Steve Kornacki: How this all came up has to do with the Winter Olypmics, which are set to start next week in Sochi, Russia. And hockey obviously will be one of the marquee events with the best players in the world competing for the glory of their nations. Some of those Olympic events will be airing right here on MSNBC. So we figured as a way of wetting your appetite, we’d try to combine hockey with politics. And who better to help us with that than Congressman Mike Quigley of Illinois. He represents a Chicago based seat, the seat the Rahm Emmanuel used to hold, and he sits on the Appropriations Committee. But more importantly, he is also the co-chairman of the Congressional Hockey Caucus. Yes there is a Congressional Hockey Caucus, John Kerry used to play in their games. Anthony Weiner, too, actually. Recently, Congressman Quigley was nice enough to take me out on the ice at the LeFrak Center at Lakeside. That is an outdoor rink at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. I think I held my own, but I better let you be the judge of it.

Kornacki: Ok, here we go. Now we’re moving. I feel like I should have brought a helmet.

Quigley: You’re not going to learn if you don’t make mistakes. Nice smooth motion. Like you’re going to run, you want to have that same burst. We formed the Hockey Caucus, the Congressional Hockey Caucus, to advance the game, and for me, principally, that means providing greater access to the sport for all kids. Arthur Ash said something that struck me when I thought about hockey. He said tennis shouldn’t be a country club sport. Kids in the inner city should be able to play. Men and women who have come back from Afghanistan or Iraq with Purple Hearts, legs missing, arms missing, the USA Warriors. Those folks use hockey as a therapy, as fun, as exercise. We play them in a game once a year. We try to advance the issues and causes that they’re facing.

Kornacki: Why is it so hard to work with House Republicans today?

Quigley: I think the rank-and-file, it’s not. We were meeting with the No Labels folks, and you know, Charlie Dent, and we had meetings all during the shutdown with the bipartisan working groups. I think there were solutions there, there was a willingness. I just think that the Tea Party skewed things to the right. I talked to Tea Party folks before the shutdown, and I said “What’s the Speaker going to do?” And they disdainfully said “It’s not up to him.” So he said on national TV, he’s not the leader, he just follows what people want. Well if it’s just a majority vote, then he ought to go with the rank-and-file.

Kornacki: Last year we have all the stats about what an unproductive year it was for Congress. What would make 2014 any different? Do you think anything will?

Quigley: It just depends how far Speaker Boehner will take what he said at the end of the year, when he pushed back on the Tea Party and said “We passed this budget bill with Representative Ryan’s help because it was the right thing to do.” Okay, if that’s the case, let’s pass an omnibus. Let’s get back to regular order. I’m an appropriator, let’s appropriate. Let’s have some relevance here.

Kornacki: By the way, I’m…the speed is like…

Quigley: We’re picking up speed.It is all time on ice.

Kornacki: I feel like I should challenge you to a race here.

Quigley:When I tore my hamstring off…

Kornacki:I fell the way you told me to fall.

Kornacki: Congressman Quigley is not just a sportsman, but a really good sport.