KING: When Democrats give up control of the House next year, South Carolina's James Clyburn, currently the majority whip, will remain number three in the party's leadership. In a break with precedent, he will hold a newly created position, assistant Democratic leader. Congressman Clyburn joins us from Capitol Hill.

Sir, it's good to see you. I want to start with a story that's developing today and that is the proposed ethics punishment against your friend and long-time colleague, Charlie Rangel. He has been found guilty on 11 of 12 ethics violations. And the recommendation from the committee to the full House is that he should be censured. Is that an appropriate penalty or should he resign?

REP JAMES CLYBURN (D), SOUTH CAROLINA: Well, I have not talked to Charlie about that. I just read those comments -- those reports coming across the wires. And quite frankly, I am really trying to internalize this and I would rather not make any public comments about it at this moment.

KING: He has complained that he has been treated unfairly by the committee. Do you see any evidence of that?

CLYBURN: Well, I don't know about that. I saw his comments a couple days ago. I think it had to do with the process on the day he showed up without counsel as to whether or not they should go forward. I don't know about that. This has gone on for a couple of years, now. And I do believe that it would serve no useful purpose for me to pass any judgment on that.

KING: All right, let's move on to your new challenge in your new position. There have been a number of people in the party, we had Congressman, Peter DeFazio, a long-time colleague and a friend of yours, on the program, last night, who had said, you know what, we just suffered a pretty historic drubing, here. The Republicans won 61 net seats in the House and yet, we are putting forward the exact same leadership team led by Nancy Pelosi. You're a member of that team, sir, so maybe it is foolish for me to even ask the question. But, do you understand the critics who say how can we suffer such a drubing and then say, let's stay with the same team.

CLYBURN: Well, I certainly understand that. And a lot of criticism may be ordered and it should be received by all of us. I don't mind being critiqued, but I do believe that we should be honest with ourselves when we talk about what really contributed to all of this. I've never seen it anywhere when the experts did not say that when you are the incumbent and you are facing 10 percent unemployment, those headwinds created from that are pretty significant and very hard to overcome. And so, I don't care who may be at the helm. If you've got that kind of unemployment, it's a problem and you are going to become a poster child. And so, I can understand that, but let's look at the leadership team that got us through four years into the majority, the four years ago, after being out in the wilderness for 12 years. That was this team. And so, I would say, if we did it before, we can do it again.

KING: Well, let me ask you first a question looking back at the campaign and then a question looking forward to your new responsibility. Looking back a little bit, many of your colleagues have said, you know, for all the people saying it is Nancy Pelosi's fault, maybe they should look down the road, look up Pennsylvania many Democrats complaining that in some of his policy choices before the election and then in the way the White House acted during the campaign that the president put his own interests ahead of the party's interests. Do you buy that?

CLYBURN: No, I don't buy that at all. The president was dealt a pretty tough hand. And people say it is time for us to accept responsibility and stop blaming the past. Well, the fact of the matter is, we did stop the hemorrhage of 1,000 jobs a month. We did start creating jobs, at one point 1.2 million jobs created in the last 10 months. What we need to do is create four or five million jobs a year and everybody would be happy. The fact of the matter is, we have a gradual improvement recovery taking place. It is just not fast enough for me, so it is certainly not fast enough for many of my constituents but we are moving in the right direction and hopefully, we will see things coming out of the White House and out of this Congress that will speed that up.

I would hope that the new majority in the House of Representatives will work with this president and help us get this country moving again and stop all this foolishness about saying that your first order of business is to make sure that this man does not get reelected. That's not going to do anybody any good. What we need to do is think what's best for the country and forget about the politics until next election season.

KING: One of the big changes in the next Congress when the Republicans take the majority is that they will have in their caucus in their conference for the first time in seven years African-American memberships on the house side. Two members, African-Americans elected.

One of them was with us the other night on a program. And in a conversation about whether he would join the professional Tim Scott, whether he would join the Professional Black Caucus, he was quite critical of the priorities of the Congressional Black Caucus. To, Scott, he says he is undecided. He also was quite critical of the priorities of the Congressional Black Caucus. I want you to listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know that the inner cities of America s are not receiving the type of assistance it needs because it cannot come from the government. If we are going to see an opportunity, we need to promote entrepreneurship. That is a private sector response to challenges in the economy. If we want to see the inner cities and communities where I grew up prospering, then we're going to have to focus attention allowing for private and public schools to compete in communities. I don't hear that being addressed in the CBC.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Does Mr. Scott have a point?

CLYBURN: I don't think so. I did not see my service as representing the inner city.

KING: Forgive me. I don't think he just meant you. I His point was that the Congressional Black Caucus is a group, in his view ,was too urban focused, too government spending focused, not enough community empowered focused.

CLYBURN: Well, that's exactly what I thought when I went into the caucus and that's why I'm not going to the caucus. I'm not going to stand outside and criticize. I go in there, I sit around that table and I make the case for the communities that I represent. And I would say to Tim Scott, a very fine young man. I know him very well. He and my daughter are great friends. I would say, please, come into the caucus. Help make the case for rural South Carolina. I would love to have some company there to help so that they would know that it comes in a bipartisan way.

So I would expect the hand of friendship to him and I hope he would join the caucus. I don't agree with everybody in the caucus all the times. We have very spirited discussions in the Congressional Black Caucus. So this notion that all of us think the same way is just not true. We are not monolithic by any means. We have rural communities and interests being discussed in that caucus as well as urban. And so I would say to him, come join us, help us move the country in a way it should go. I think he will find the service there very stimulating and very helpful.

KING: Congressman Clyburn, thanks for your time.

CLYBURN: Thank you so much for having me.