Transcript: 'Meet the Press' (2-17-13)

Full transcript. Excerpt below:

DAVID GREGORY:

And a good Sunday morning, the White House and congressional Republicans are now at odds on two fronts, the battle over the nomination of Chuck Hagel for defense secretary, it's now been delayed for another week that vote. And the $85 billion of automatic spending cuts which are scheduled to take effect in two weeks' time if no agreement is reached.


We've got it all covered this morning and we want to start with the view from the White House. In Washington, the job of the White House chief of staff is known as the most powerful post in town. And there's a new man occupying that feat of power and he is here with us this morning on Meet the Press, his first appearance. But who is he? How did he get here?

Well, Denis McDonough grew up one of 11 kids, qualification enough, in a small town in Minnesota. He was a high school football star. He cut his teeth in politics working in the House for Congressman Lee Hamilton and in the Senate for Majority Leader Tom Daschle and later for Barack Obama. When the freshman senator decided to make a run for the White House in 2008, he tapped McDonough to be his foreign policy advisor for the campaign.

And once president, Obama appointed him to the National Security Council and later him his deputy national security advisor. As the president noted when he announced him as his pick to replace Jack Lew, McDonough has been involved in every major foreign policy decision including the call to get Osama bin Laden.