Question: There’s two things happening right now, one being the appointment of Gates as Secretary of Defense, and the second being the Baker Commission which is going to release its report fairly eminently and is already appearing to leak possible conclusions, including a basic direction of trying to engage with Syria and Iran to solve the problems in Iraq. What’s your perspective on that kind of an approach, and how would you push the direction you’d want to see forward, given that we’re in the minority?

Congressman Blunt: Well, I’d like to see the Baker Commission Report before I start trying to speculate on how they arrive and whatever conclusions they might arrive at, but I do believe that we have to constantly be reevaluating both our strategy, our tactics, and our goals in the war on these Islamic totalitarians. If it’s in Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever it is, are the goals we’ve set still achievable? Are they realistic? Do they meet the new circumstances, and whatever those new circumstances are, and constantly have those under evaluation to know if we’re achieving what want to achieve or if there’s reason to believe what we’d hope to achieve may have to be adjusted some. I think that’s what the Baker-Hamilton Commission may very well come back, with ideas about how we do that. I’m not sure you can have successful engagement with Syria or Iran, either one, under the current circumstances. I’d have to wait until they made that proposal, if they did, and see how they, after months of study, came to that conclusion. That would not be my initial belief as the way to solve this problem. I think, eventually, the Iraqis have to be willing to accept responsibility for their own future. There’s only so much we can do about that, and we need to constantly be evaluating their commitment to their future as well as our commitment to the war on Islamic totalitarianism.

Question: Going back to that point you just made about the war on terror in Iraq and to your earlier point about defining the Democrats inside the beltway versus the views of the constituents, what are some defining issues on votes in the next two years, on security and on terrorism, that would paint the anti-Pelosi Democrats in that kind of light?

Congressman Blunt: On security and on terrorism, looking at the way we deal with terrorists when they’re captured, when we have information that was achieved from those terrorists, how we bring them to trial, a vote that the House led on last fall. But also, what do we do about finding out what the terrorists are planning, what they’re talking about, what they’re finding out. We haven’t seen any real alternatives from the Democrats that make sense in that area. Now, southwest Missouri, where I’m from, is a pretty conservative area; we’re very, very unlikely to see the Federal government needlessly intrude into our lives. I didn’t run into a handful of people in the last year who thought, for instance, that if we knew that somebody in the United States was talking to a known terrorist in another country, that we shouldn’t make every effort at that moment to try to find out what they were talking about. Certainly the Democrats have not supported, except the ones in competitive races, the legislation that would allow us to do that. We need to have more of those kinds of votes: on national security issues, on tax issues, on things that really work to provide all kinds of opportunity for Americans as well as secure freedom for Americans. You know that first budget, the budget that comes up next year, 2010, where our tax cuts are temporarily extended through 2010, that’s within the budget window. We need to be absolutely sure by the time that budget debate’s over, that everybody in Ched Edwards’ district knows how he feels about the death tax after 2010, that everybody in Heath Schuler’s district knows how he feels about what should be the highest rate for small business folks after 2010, that everybody that has gone home and said one thing is put in a position by our whip team day after day, to really truly identify what they’re for, and if they can’t be with the Democratic leadership, then the Democrats fail, and that’s okay with us too. There are two alternatives there, either of which are helpful to us re-securing the majority for the future and letting our ideas prevail in the future.

Question: Just off of your comments about security, I just read today in the media that John Conyers is going to be working very hard to basically dismantle a lot of The Patriot Act, our ability to listen to terrorists and so forth, because a lot of his constituency is in Dearborn. That’s a great concern to them, so he said he was going to do the best he could to actually deliver on what their concerns are. How are you going to prevent that from happening because we need those capabilities to protect us.

Congressman Blunt:Well, there are two things we need to do to prevent that from happening. One is, again, work with the Republican members to know how far they can go and how far they can’t go in the districts they represent so that the Democrats are forced to make a choice. The second thing is to work with those Democrats that are either truly in the middle or just happen to be caught in the middle and to do what we can to secure their votes so that these things continue. Not only is the right thing for the country for these kinds of government actions that have truly defended the country in a significant way since 9/11 be allowed to continue, they ought to be under constant review; we ought to try to make them work better all the time, not to accept the status quo, but to try to improve what needs to be done to defend the country. At the same time, we need to be sure we’re putting maximum pressure on Democrats who have suggested they’re for these kinds of actions to defend the country; to be sure they vote that way. That’s going to take a lot strategic thought as well as a good stuff. I have the good fortune of having a good staff that really has the confidence in the members as I believe Mr. Cantor and I do and to move forward that way.

Question: Other than No Child Left Behind, looking back over the last six years, can you identify anything else that the Republican leadership should have done differently than they did?

Congressman Blunt: You know, I’m sure I could; that is a big question. I think that probably the most significant thing where the Republican leadership in the House distanced themselves from the both the President and the Senate was immigration. Not just the immigration bill we had last year, but the immigration strategy we had this year. I think we did find, what we did with that, was prove the effectiveness the House has in helping drive the agenda. One of the reasons that list might not be overwhelmingly long is that the House, to a great extent, has driven a lot of the agenda in the right direction, a direction that has produced a strong economy, a direction that’s helped defend the country. We need to be looking now how we could’ve done that even better, how we can refine that strategy even more, how can the House, that I think has much more capacity has to set the tone that the Senate does, be out there agreeing when the White House when it’s appropriate and fighting with the White House when it’s not to move the country in the right direction. Again, one of our most successful challenges was totally changing the debate in the country from the idea of some comprehensive solution to an understanding that the House position of securing the border and enforcing the law first was the right position and has to be done, and done effectively, before you can move on to the other areas of this so-called comprehensive solution.

Congressman Blunt: Thank you for your time today. Thank you for what you do, even when we disagree, which, in truth, is not really all that often in terms of what we all think is best for the country. The purpose you serve is tremendously important today and particularly important over the next twenty-four months as we work hard so that twenty-four months from now conservative ideas and conservative values have once again reached the point that they’re dominating not just the discussion of the country every day but also the work of the Congress every day, and that only happens if we get back the majority, so thank you all.