Speaker Ryan's hope for common ground with Dems
New Speaker of the House Paul Ryan tells Scott Pelley he thinks he will be able to find common ground with the Democrats on critical issues like tax policy, infrastructure and funding the government. Two weeks after his election, the Wisconsin Republican invited Pelley to his hometown of Janesville to talk politics, policy and family for the next edition of 60 Minutes, Sunday, Nov. 15 at 7:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. PT.
An excerpt of the interview was broadcast Thursday on the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley. Text of the excerpt is below:
Ryan: I think you can walk and chew gum at the same time...you can oppose the president on some issue that you fundamentally disagree with, but also work with the other party on issues you do agree with. That's what I've been doing. Look, if we can find common ground, we can on highways, we will on funding the government, hopefully we can on tax policy. Those are three things that will produce certainty in this economy in the next few months. Let's do that.
Pelley: There was a time on Capitol Hill when the other guy had a bad idea. And now on Capitol Hill the other guy's a bad guy.
Ryan: Yeah, I think that's right.
Pelley: How do you heal that animosity? It's your job.
Ryan: Leadership by the example is the way I look at it. I do have friends on the other side of the aisle. I have shown...that we can negotiate and compromise without compromising principle, that people who had different ideas aren't bad people, they just have different ideas. Somewhere in this we got into impugning people's character and motives if we didn't like their ideas. We got to get back to just debating ideas and not impugning people's motives and character.