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CNN Live Today

Karen Hughes Leaving Bush Administration

Aired April 23, 2002 - 11:20   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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: One of the president's close advisers is leaving the Bush administration.

CNN's senior White House correspondent John King joins us with more on that.

Hello, John, once again.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Leon.

Karen Hughes is her name. She is the president's counselor by official title here at the White House. By all accounts, the most trusted adviser to this president. Karen Hughes has been at George W. Bush's side dated back to his early day campaigning, and then serving at the governor of Texas.

Here at the White House, Karen Hughes has hand in every major policy announcement, every major presidential speech. Just last week, you will remember, the president gave a speech at the Virginia Military Institute, talking about an update on the war on terrorism.

Karen Hughes stayed home one day to write that speech, and then came to see the president to discuss it.

She is leaving, she says, to go back to Texas. She will stay through the summer. She will go back to Texas with her 15-year-old son. She says time for her, her husband and her son to go back to friends and family in Texas, but she does also say that she will continue to serve as an adviser to the president, the details of that still being worked out.

She says she does not expect to be on the government payroll as an official government employee here at the White House, but she will continue to help with speeches and communications policy, continue to speak out publicly supporting this president.

Remarkable about this, though, is that she's the first member of the president's inner circle, and certainly perhaps the most important member, but the first member of this president's inner circle to move on. Usually, at about the one-year mark, you get some turnover in senior administration official jobs. It has been well past that here in the Bush White House. You see the president there making a joke. She often jokes that she is the only aid around here who can finish his sentences, and she says the president's joke back to her was that she was by his side when the motorcade was just one car long -- Leon.

HARRIS: Real quickly, John, you noted that usually about this point, you start seeing some movement like this. Any more to expect any day soon here, or any month soon?

KING: There is some palace intrigue about whether Karen will be replaced. Again, her title is counselor to the president. Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser is senior adviser to the president. We are told by some inside the white house and some Republicans close to this White House that Karl Rove does not believe Karen should be replaced as counselor. Karen Hughes herself says she does not her deputy Dan Bartlett, would be elevated to that job, but he did get just a few months back the title of communications director, part of a transition most saw coming.

Karen has said for sometime she wanted to return home to Texas. The question now is, whether there will be any other shuffling within the White House staff. This is a president who has a fiercely loyal staff. He is fiercely loyal to him. Don't expect when Karen Hughes leaves here in the end of the summer she will disappear. You will just see her more from Austin, Texas than you do from Washington, D.C.

HARRIS: Yes, no doubt, no doubt at all.

John King at the White House, thanks very much. Talk with you later on.

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