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.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is a national story. Every one of those 3 or 4,000 people in the World Trade Center and in that area, had family members all over the country. And the same thing here at Pentagon. The numbers are smaller but every one of them, family all over the United States.
We did hear the manager at that shoe factory in Wisconsin tell Jeff Flock it's time to go to war, it's time to declare war and do something. And our Jonathan Karl, congressional correspondent at Capitol. Jonathan, members of Congress are talking about a resolution of unity and support but they are looking beyond that, aren't they?
JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. As a matter of fact, you do hear many senior members of Congress sounding very much like that manager wanting a formal declaration of war. That unlikely to happen any time soon.
But right now as we speak, there are top members of Congress from both parties, both houses, working on a declaration authorizing the president to use force. I have read a working draft of that resolution. I can tell you that it contains two provisions that authorize the president to use force.
I'd like to read you both of the sections. One authorizes the president to use "all necessary and appropriate force against all who planned, authorized, committed and aided these acts," these acts of terror.
Then it contains something that is very controversial. It is subsection B of this legislation. Again, this is just a working draft that is being banged out between the White House and members of Congress. That subsection B authorizes the use of force "to deter and prevent future acts of terrorism." Many concerned up here are concerned that that is too much of a blank check giving the White House authority to take military actions against activities that haven't even happened yet.
That is why these negotiations are ongoing. Members of Congress hope that they can get something on the floor in both the House and Senate tomorrow, authorizing the use of force. But there is a question of prerogative. What is the authority of Congress? What is the authority of the White House?
One person involved in these negotiations told me, "This is not a Democrat versus Republican issue, but this is really a question of the authority between the executive branch of government and the legislative branch." Of course, there's Congress that has the power to declare war. They don't want to cede that power over to the White House.
Meanwhile, a couple of other things to bring you up to speed on up here on Capitol Hill, Judy. One is that the top members of Congress, the leadership including the speaker of the House, the ranking Democrats and also the Senate leader Tom Daschle and Trent Lott have gone to the Pentagon to review the damage first-hand at the Pentagon and to get a briefing on the situation there.
And of course, also Congress working, speeding ahead towards a bill that would give money to aid in these relief efforts. Right now, that number at $20 billion. They're hoping to finalize that. But the $20 billion figure we are told by people on both sides up here, and you've heard it from the Pentagon, is simply a downpayment. They believe that's just a first step to the actual costs of going through this repair of rebuilding, of working on steps to make sure this doesn't happen again will be much more than $20 billion. But Congress is working very quickly on that.
That may be voted on tonight or tomorrow.
WOODRUFF: And John, just to be clear, that $20 billion would not include any beefing of security, any stepping up of military, of our military to take whatever steps the President and military leadership decide to take?
KARL: Yes, that $20 billion is really a question of getting this mess cleaned up, of getting the aids in New York, of getting the money needed to rebuild the Pentagon. But of course, you get to the other questions, questions of security, of beefing up military force. That's a whole another question. And again, that's why the Pentagon and members up here are saying the $20 billion figure is just a tip of the iceberg. This could end up costing much, much more.
WOODRUFF: And John, we heard at the White House when one of the reporters or several of them asked White House spokesman Ari Fleischer about concern that this additional money might cause the budget in the budget fight that we've seen, the spending, to dip into the so-called Social Security, Medicare trust funds. Ari Fleischer, unflinching in his answer. He said national security is going to come first.
KARL: Oh, absolutely. And that is, you will not Democrats up here and even Democratic leaders, at least, that would disagree with that. This is, again, either a national emergency or maybe even an act of war that we're looking at here, a time of war. Members of Congress, that whole debate, it seems so big, Judy, just a few days ago...
WOODRUFF: Right.
KARL: ...about whether or not we'd dip into the Social Security surplus, that debate pretty much gone. It's been overwhelmed by events. WOODRUFF: And Jonathan, again, just to stress, you're not seeing partisan divides over this. I mean, you're -- is there any sort of outline, though, Jonathan, to the disagreement you're seeing over the language in that declaration on the use of force?
KARL: Well, we have some sound I think if we have, we can play, so you can hear directly from congressional leaders what they're saying about this. One, the first one I want to play for you, we do have it on ready. It's from Congressman Dick Gephardt, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives. Here's what he said specifically about that legislation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP RICHARD GEPHARDT (D), MISSOURI: The President has powers and present law to deal with what's in front of us. If the President wants and seeks additional authority or a restatement of present authority that's appropriate, we are quite willing to do that. We want to give him the tools that he needs and his administration needs to deal with this problem.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: So there you have from the top Democrat in the House of Representatives saying that he will do whatever necessary to give the President the authority to respond to these acts, but there are concerns.
And just shortly after Dick Gephardt came out and said that, we heard in a joint press conference between Trent Lott and Tom Daschle. By the way, a press conference then followed an extraordinary lunch. All 100 members of the United States Senate sat down for lunch together today to talk about these issues, to talk about the money issue and about this resolution authorizing the use of force.
The leaders came to cameras after that and were asked, well, what about concerns that this would give too much authority, a blank check to President to use military action wherever he sees fit? And Trent Lott said that there were some concerns about -- among members about the division of authority between the White House and the legislative branch of government. And then Tom Daschle had this to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN TOM DASCHLE (D), MAJORITY LEADER: The resolution following the Pearl Harbor invasion was a very clear statement of intent with regard to the President's authority and with regard to Congress' intentions. That is exactly our hope, to provide a clear statement of authority.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN: And actually, Tom Daschle went on to remind everybody that Congress is a co-equal branch of government. And there was concern among members, bipartisan concern of not ceding that authority, all that authority regarding making war to the White House. But as you can see, really, this is not a question of partisan disagreements up here, at least not right now -- Judy.
WOODRUFF: All right, Jonathan Karl at the Capitol. And we'll just quickly reiterate, a moment ago at the White House, Ari Fleischer saying out of 125 military actions undertaken by the United States, he said only five of them involved formal declarations of war.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
|
![[CNN.com]](http://i.cnn.net/cnn/images/newsnet/cnnlogo.gray.gif){kind=small}
TOP STORIES![[SI.com]](http://i.cnn.net/cnn/images/main/si.logo.gif){kind=logo}
SPORTS
All Scoreboards
![[CNN Money]](http://i.cnn.net/cnn/images/main/fn.logo.newsnet.gif){kind=logo}
(