Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 148-010
Date: Tuesday, October 10, 1972 at 8:52 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Byrnes, John W.
Recording device: Camp David Study Table
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/148-010

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:01] Hello?
[0:04] Congressman Burns, sir.
[0:05] Could we hear, please?
[0:08] Hello?
[0:08] Yes, sir, Mr. President.
[0:10] Well, I just wanted to thank you for a great job you did today.
[0:12] Oh, my goodness.
[0:13] That was a hell of a vote.
[0:15] It was.
[0:16] Everything turned out great.
[0:17] Right.
[0:17] I'm as pleased as you are.
[0:18] I'm going to have in the senators, you know, the Republican senators at least, Thursday morning at 9 o'clock.
[0:28] And, you know...
[0:29] I put their feet to the fire.
[0:30] Huh?
[0:31] I'd put their feet to the fire.
[0:33] Oh, I will.
[0:34] Now, will you have any guidance as to what we ought to do?
[0:39] Tell them you'll let us know, and I'll have them there at 9 o'clock and work them over and tell them that this is a matter of... that the people that are going to be in that conference, they better damn well stand up.
[0:51] Oh, hell, well, you know...
[0:57] I think we'll put the heat on them, too, you know, as far as just accepting anything that doesn't have one.
[1:04] I see.
[1:05] You know.
[1:05] Yeah, you can do that, can't you?
[1:07] Well, we'll tell them what the hell.
[1:08] In conference, even if they don't do anything, it's going to be in conference.
[1:12] Yeah.
[1:13] See?
[1:14] Yeah, I see.
[1:14] So what the Republicans can do, sure, they're going to have a battle from the Democrats.
[1:19] Sure.
[1:20] But at least strengthen the hand of those, and even if they lose.
[1:24] They've got to put up a good Republican front so that in conference, on the House side, we can just lay a tomb and say, hell no, we're not going to take it without it.
[1:36] Right.
[1:37] Good.
[1:37] But if they get a very poor support on the Republican side, then we're kind of put behind an eight ball in the conference to insist that...
[1:45] Right.
[1:47] Right.
[1:47] We're going to have to have this ceiling in there.
[1:50] But Roth is pushing hard over there.
[1:51] He ought to be able to get 35, 40 votes, I think.
[1:54] Well, the big thing is really the size of the vote.
[1:59] I think they're probably going to have more trouble than we had in some respects.
[2:02] Yes.
[2:03] But the big thing is to just get a substantial vote so that we can go to the Madden conference.
[2:11] Right, right.
[2:13] I got the message.
[2:14] And we'll let it cool a day, and then 9 o'clock Thursday morning, I'll put their feet to the fire.
[2:19] Yeah.
[2:19] Okay.
[2:20] Okay.
[2:21] All right.
[2:21] Thank you.
[2:22] Yeah, not at all.
[2:23] Thank you.