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The video can be found here and the transcript is below.  

Capehart: Congresswoman, welcome back to The Sunday Show. Just, before we talk about why you’re really here, your reaction to Congressman Matt Gaetz saying he’s going to follow through on his threat to try to remove the Speaker? 

DelBene: Well, he’s been talking about this kind of constantly this entire Congress, so I guess that’s not surprising. It kind of adds to the chaos and dysfunction we’ve seen from the Republican Caucus this Congress. Folks want to see us govern, and unfortunately this is the Republican Party—chaos, dysfunction, and dissent. So that’s unfortunate because we have got a lot of work to do. 

Capehart: Right and the reason why Congressman Gaetz is threatening the Speaker now, saying he’s going to follow through on his threat, is because a clean continuing resolution was put on the floor, one, and two, it passed with Democratic votes. Now that this threat looks like he is going to follow through, will Democrats—will you—vote to knock down that Motion to Vacate to help Speaker McCarthy hang on to that gavel? 

 DelBene: Well, first, we’re going to see what happens in this upcoming session and see what he files. But we want to govern. We have important things we have to get done. We have to fund the government. We may not be shut down today, but we have to make sure that the government is funded for the whole fiscal year. We’re not there yet. There is a ton of work to do. We’re behind, and we’re behind because of Republican dysfunction. So, we want to understand what it is going to take to make sure folks are governing, and frankly, we need strong leadership. That’s a big part of my job is to make sure we have strong leadership, because I think Hakeem Jefferies would be a great Speaker. 

Capehart: In reading up on the machinations—the dramatic machinations—of yesterday, this question came up to a member of the Democratic minority where the question was: would you vote—would Democrats vote—to save McCarthy and the person was quoted saying “yeah, we would have to extract a thousand pounds of flesh.” What would you want to see from Speaker McCarthy in order for Democrats to even consider helping him in the mess that he is in? 

DelBene: Well, we want to govern, and we haven’t seen any ability for Republicans to govern, so what’s going to take place so that we can govern? So that we don’t go through the games that we just went through where we ended up on the brink of a shutdown and finally did what we could have done months ago? We could have passed a continuing resolution many, many weeks ago to make sure that we could continue to negotiate. But frankly, the fiscal year always starts on October 1st. It turns out it does every year. And so, we should have been passing appropriations bills in a bipartisan way a long, long time ago. So, the key is, we need leadership that understands that the only way that we get anything done is in a bipartisan way through the House and the Senate—we have to get bills through the House and the Senate to get it to the President’s desk—and so what’s going to happen to make sure that we have that leadership? 

Capehart: I am going to get you to react to something that OMB Director Shalanda Young just said in the previous segment when I asked if the White House and the President, now in this in this 45/47-day period, would be more involved in trying to get these bills passed. The Director, I think rightly, said “what’s there to talk about? The toplines were already agreed to early in the summer in a law.” Is that the right stance, and is that the stance Democrats will take? What is there to talk about if the topline figures are a matter of law? 

DelBene: There was a deal. There was a deal that Speaker McCarthy negotiated with President Biden, that we voted on in Congress, and just a few days after that deal was put in place, Speaker McCarthy backed off. So, the only way we’re going to get things done is to have leaders who keep their word and who are working together in a collaborative way. That’s—again—get things done, it has to be bipartisan. There is no way we’re going to get anything done. So, we have an opportunity in the House, working with the Senate, to put together funding bills to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year, it’s got to be bipartisan. So, I think it’s on Congress right now, but in particular, on House Republicans because they’ve been the ones who have been blocking everything so far. 

Capehart: In the minute that we have left, I’m going to come back to where we started this conversation and that is Congressman Gaetz saying he is going to follow through on his threat to try and remove this Speaker. Since you’re all in town, have there been any emails or conversations about the Democratic Caucus meeting to have a conversation about what to do once this happens—once a Motion to Vacate is filed? 

DelBene: We are going to go back into session Monday evening, so there will be meetings called no-doubt, as we look at what the legislative business will be for the week. We meet regularly anyway. So I am sure we will have a discussion around this, and what we need to do to make sure the government is funded and that we don’t end up on the brink again in the future. But, in the end we’re going to hold fast—that’s why we’re not shut down today, because we did hold fast. We need to make sure that Republicans are doing their part. Unfortunately, they haven’t been, they’ve been dysfunctional, and I worry that we’re going to see more dysfunction here in the coming weeks.