Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

President Concerned About Economy; INS Chief to Speak Before Congress

Aired March 19, 2002 - 12:02   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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The Fed meets today. It will announce its positions on interest rates in about 13 minutes time. Certainly, the White House watching this quite closely. To Major Garrett right now. He joins us from the front lawn. And the president was talking about this just yesterday. Major, good afternoon to you.

MAJOR GARRETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Bill. You know, the White House will be watching what the Fed says. And it may indicate and join the course of those saying, well, the economy is in a full-blown recovery.

But President Bush has been anything if not a political contrarian on the state of the U.S. economy. You might recall that when he -- even before he took office, he said the economy was in a downturn. The Clinton administration, outgoing at that time, said the president was being alarmist. Well, now that the economy appears to be in recovery, the president is not willing to say so publicly. And there is a consistent threat here politically in both pronouncements.

The president doesn't want to give voters any sense that he is indifferent or unaware of their underlying suffering even as the economy appears to recover. He addressed that today at a meeting here in Washington of small business owners, many of them women. The president said he was not ready personally to declare the recession over.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm not a numbers cruncher. I'm not one of these bean counters. But I don't believe the economy is strong enough to say that we've recovered. I worry about the fact there are too many people in our country still looking for work. And if people who want to work can't find work...

(APPLAUSE)

... and if people who want to work can't find work, we have got to keep -- we have got to keep moving on the subject of economic security and economic recovery.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GARRETT: When the president talks about moving on those topics, he continues to talk about moving on various tax cuts. He has proposed some today dealing with small businesses. And also, Bill, the president wants to make sure that he's completely consistent with where most voters are. And even though economists say the economy appears to be recovering, Gallup polls conducted for our network indicate that a vast majority of Americans are still not sure the economy is in a full-blown recovery. Senior political advisers to the president say stay with them, don't get out ahead of the public on this, and you will be safe -- Bill.

HEMMER: Major, on another topic, listening to Ari Fleischer last hour, the INS came up once again, this whole plan to divide the agency into two separate entities. What's happening there, Major?

GARRETT: Well, the White House has long endorsed the concept that President Bush did when he was a candidate for the presidency of separating the enforcement side of the Immigration and Naturalization Service from the customer service side. And there is a proposal now before the president to merge the border control part of the INS and the customs service, basically putting those two agencies, one that's in charge with the law enforcement side of border control, the other in charge of the commercial side of border control together.

So they're actually working off the same list, working off the same bureaucracy, trying to do the very same things, which is to minimize the inward flow of people who would do harm to the United States, but maximize the flow of immigrants and commerce into the country. The president hasn't made a decision on this yet, but it was brought up today at a homeland security meeting. The White House is very much interested in it, and the president has at least endorsed the idea conceptually not only as a candidate, but also as a president -- Bill.

HEMMER: All right. Major, thanks. Major Garrett live at the White House there.

As Major was talking about the INS, more news now. The head of that organization expected to face some tough questions today on Capitol Hill. In fact, you will be there in a couple of hours time. James Zigler going to appear before a House subcommittee examining INS visa approvals for two of the hijackers. CNN broke this story last week, when the approval letters arrived at a Florida flight school six months after the attacks.

Mark Potter back in Miami now watching this story for us. Mark, good afternoon again.

MARK POTTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Bill. Well, that event you were just talking about seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of the INS. Now everyone seems to be looking at the INS. The president and the attorney general have expressed grave concerns and the need to restructure the INS. Congress has looked at it. The media has been all over it. The public is concerned. And so, everyone wants to figure out what happened with those visa applications notices, and what can be done to prevent it. Toward that end, a congressional subcommittee on the House side will hold hearings today to look at how these visa application notices went to Huffman Aviation. These were notices on behalf of Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al Shehhi, who were trained at Huffman Aviation in Venice, Florida about a year before the September 11 attacks. The notices that their visas -- their student visa applications had been approved arrived just last week, six months to the day after they died in that attack.

The subcommittee of the House will try to figure out how this occurred. And toward that end, it will hear from Rudi Dekkers, the president of Huffman Aviation. As you said, it will also hear from a James Zigler, the commissioner of the INS. Also speaking will be a representative of a company, computer contracting company that works now at the INS trying to clear up this huge backlog of cases that is bedeviling the INS and that the INS blames on the events of last week -- Bill.

HEMMER: Now, Mark, you've spoken with Rudi Dekkers. We hope to talk to him live coming up here within 30 minutes time. What has he said in terms of ideas? Does he have any after this experience that he has gone through?

POTTER: Well, he does have a number of ideas. He says that they need to make the rules more clear. He says he didn't really know what all the rules were.

He also has some ideas in terms of -- in other areas in terms of pilots reporting at all times where they are in the air. That doesn't happen at all times. He's very concerned about that. He was visited yesterday by investigators from the inspector general's office of the justice department and they asked him questions about how the INS worked, how the procedures worked. And it's expected that he will be talking about that also before the subcommittee today.

He also wants to make the point that he believes he did everything right. These two men came to his company before it was known that they were involved in terrorist organizations. And a couple of months after they arrived, his company, Huffman Aviation, filed a request with the government for student visas. It took a year for those applications to be processed, and another year, actually nine months about, for them -- for the notice to be delivered to his company. And, of course, his argument is that clearly needs to be speeded up.

HEMMER: And as you point out, I'm sure he has many opinions on this matter. Thank you, Mark. Mark Potter broke this story last week here on CNN.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com