HOUSE Republican Leader John Boehner

Washington, Sep 26, 2008 - In a report tonight on Fox News’ Special Report with Brit Hume, Chief Washington Correspondent Jim Angle exposed House Democrats’ false claims that a “deal” was made with House Republicans on an economic rescue package.  House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) made clear that Democrats who were attempting to claim a “deal” were doing so with the sole purpose of attempting to deny Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) from playing a constructive role in putting together a bipartisan package that puts the interest of taxpayers first.  Full video and transcript of the report follow:

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BRIT HUME:  To listen to Democratic Leaders and the coverage in much of the media, you might have thought a deal was all done yesterday until John McCain came to town and blew the whole thing up with the help of House Republicans. But is that really what happened?  Chief Washington Correspondent Jim Angle reports.

JIM ANGLE:  No sooner had John McCain announced he was coming back to Washington to work on a bailout, but Democrats started saying no need, they were getting close to a deal without him.

FINANCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN BARNEY FRANK (D-MA):  I was pretty confident we were close to getting a deal until they decided to airdrop John McCain into this.

ANGLE:  The next morning, House Republican Leader John Boehner issued a statement just before 11:00 a.m. saying House Republicans had not agreed to any deal.  “As I told our conference this morning,” he wrote, “there is no bipartisan deal at this time.  There may be a deal among some Democrats but House Republicans are not a part of it.”  Nevertheless, a short time later, Democratic negotiators were once again proclaiming a deal was all but done.

SENATE BANKING COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN CHRIS DODD (D-CT):  We have reached a fundamental agreement on a set of principles.

ANGLE:  In fact, Barney Frank suggested there wasn’t even enough disagreement to require a meeting later in the day at the White House.

FRANK:  Yes, we are on track, I believe, to pass this.  The market should be calmed down.  I’m glad that we’ll be able to go and tell them that there really isn’t that much of a deadline to bring but I’m always glad to get to go to the White House.

ANGLE:  Prompting Boehner to issue another statement at 2:16 saying there was some progress but emphasizing “House Republicans have not agreed to any plan at this point.”  So, by the time John McCain and Barack Obama arrived at the White House at 3:44, it should have been clear to all that House Republicans had not embraced anything.  Senator Richard Shelby, the first person to leave that White House meeting told Fox today that the idea a deal had been struck was a fantasy.

SENATOR RICHARD SHELBY (R-AL):  Some people reached a deal among themselves but they forgot about, apparently, several hundred House members and probably several dozen Senators.

ANGLE:  And John Boehner says he repeatedly told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and everyone else about the objections, so no one should have been surprised, and he argues that all the talk of a deal was simply intended to make it look like a deal had been done before John McCain arrived.

BOEHNER:   We saw this uptick in the Banking Committee Chairmen on the House side and the Senate side, both Democrats, in this rush to kind of get some deal.

ANGLE:  An effort he charges to avoid any appearance that McCain’s efforts were helpful.  In fact, after the White House, Democrats went even further, blaming McCain for the failure to reach a deal.

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID (R-NV):  The insertion of Presidential politics has not been helpful.  It’s been harmful.

SENATOR CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY):  We need the President to respectfully tell Senator McCain to get out of town.  He’s not helping.  He is harming.

ANGLE:  And Republicans are saying there was good reason to be skeptical about the deal, as they noted Democrats had buried what amounts to an earmark in the payback from the bailout.

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC):  20 percent of the money that should go to retire debt that will be created to solve this problem winds up in the housing organization called ACORN that is an absolute ill-run enterprise.

ANGLE:  ACORN is a long-time advocacy group with whom Obama was once associated.  Recently, though, ACORN workers in two states have pleaded guilty to election fraud, an unlikely recipient of federal largess.  Finally Brit, Democrats took more shots at McCain late today with Barney Frank saying now that McCain is safely in Mississippi, we can get back to work.  No objections were expressed about Obama’s role.  Brit?

BRIT:  Jim.