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American Morning

President Bush to Push for Bigger Pentagon Budget

Aired August 29, 2001 - 11:06   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: You mentioned President Bush. He is about to press for a bigger budget at the Pentagon. He will find a receptive audience in San Antonio today. The timing, though, of this speech is kind of tricky here, considering the budget landscape is about as firm as quicksand.

Our senior White House correspondent John King joins us from the American Legion convention. He is in San Antonio this morning -- John, good morning.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Daryn.

In a conference hall just a few feet away, in just a few minutes, we expect the president to address the American Legion. Yes, he will talk about his defense spending priorities -- but White House officials saying, most of all, they view this speech as a table- setter, if you will, for the fall congressional session -- this the last legislative session of the president's first year in office.

He will outline his top priorities here. They are an education bill, defense spending, his so-called faith-based initiative and also a patients' bill of rights that is acceptable to the White House. But as you noted, as the president presses for his priorities, the big fight will be over whether there is enough money to spend, not only for the president's agenda, but for the competing agendas of Republicans and Democrats in Congress as well -- the administration obviously concerned about the new economic numbers out today.

And that is really the crunch point in this debate -- the administration very optimistic, predicting the economy will grow at the rate of 3.2 percent next year -- one of the things the president had hoped would trigger that rebound: those tax cut checks you were just speaking about with about Peter Viles -- the administration, we're told already now administration economists a bit worried with this downward revision of the gross domestic product, the second consecutive month consumer confidence has dropped -- the administration getting a bit worried that the economy is not bouncing back as quickly as they had hoped.

That could become a problem as the president tries to get Congress to constrain spending, but also to enact his agenda -- Daryn.

KAGAN: John, fill us in on a little bit of trivia here on Air Force One. I understand the plane serving as Air Force One has some plans in its future.

KING: That's right. The president today is flying a Boeing 707. It is the last Boeing 707. That's a plane almost 30 years old now, the last one that served as Air Force One. The first president it carried was Richard Nixon. It has carried, now that President Bush flew it today, seven U.S. presidents, including his father. President Reagan was the president who used this particular plane most.

It has some key moments in history. It flew President Nixon home after he resigned in disgrace. It flew Ronald Reagan home after he left after two terms in office. It also carried Jimmy Carter, then a former president at the time, over to Germany, when the 52 American hostages were released from Iran -- so this a plane that has participated in many historic moments. It has flown more than one million miles, we are told, under the designation Air Force One. That means when it is carrying the president.

President Bush will fly it for the last time today -- then a brief retirement ceremony. It will become a museum piece at the Reagan Presidential Library in California.

KAGAN: It looks like they are going to have to dry it off after flying through the soggy weather in San Antonio this morning.

John King in San Antonio, thank you.

And, of course, we'll be seeing some of those remarks from President Bush a little bit later on.

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