Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, who announced that he will be retiring Monday, appeared on the Today Show Tuesday to discuss his retirement.
Frank became engaged in a heated discussion with host Savannah Guthrie over whether his decision to retire was based on him predicting that the would lose his 2012 re-election bid because of new redistricting in Massachusetts.
Frank downplayed the notion that he would lose his re-election bid because of the redistricting.
“I had decided over a year ago that I was going to retire, I’ll be 72 in a couple of months and I didn’t think staying there till I was almost 75 was ideal,” Frank said. “But I then when the Republicans took over the house felt that I should be here to defend financial reform, which the right wing is trying to undermine.”
“When I saw the new district there were two responses, one that I thought I could win. But two, because its 325,000 new people, it would mean almost full time campaigning, including raising a couple of million dollars,” said Frank.
The 16-term congressman noted that his decision had nothing to do with his belief that Democrats would or would not take back control of the House of Representatives in 2012.
Guthrie also questioned Frank about the negative public perception of Congress after the supercommittee failure and recent allegations over insider trading in Congress, and how that makes him feel about his “life’s work,” to which Frank responded, “You exemplify what I think is a change in the tone,” Frank said.
“You’ve managed to ask all negative questions, I understand that’s the media’s current acceptance of it’s role, it didn’t used to be that way. That’s part of the reason for the overall approval, it’s ‘gotcha this and gotcha that, it’s gotcha journalism and gotcha politics,’ and it does lessen our chances to get things done,” Frank added.
