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CNN Talkback Live

What Did White House Know Before September 11?

Aired May 17, 2002 - 15:00   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 PRESS, GUEST HOST: Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to "TALKBACK LIVE". I'm Bill Press here again today for Arthel Neville. She will be back on Monday. The big question today, same as it was yesterday: What did the Bush administration know before September 11 about the possibility of an al Qaeda attack? And, more importantly perhaps, what did it do with that information?

Yes, those questions keep bouncing around today. And we want to hear from all of you on this one. I know you want to sound off on it, too. So give us a call, please, at 1-800-310-4CNN. Or you can drop us an e-mail at talkback@cnn.com.

Now here's a look at everything else we are going to be covering on our free-for-all Friday. Here we go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D), NEW YORK: I am simply here today on the floor of this hallowed chamber to seek answers to the questions being asked by my constituents. Questions raised by one of our newspapers in New York with the headline "Bush knew". The president knew what?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the way some of the people have jumped on this issue has obviously been political.

PRESS (voice-over): Sparks are still flying over pre-9/11 hijack warnings. Is it just because, as president Bush says, the sniff of politics is in the air?

The GOP cashes in on a popular president. $150 a pop at this photo can be yours. But because it was snapped September 11, is selling it in bad taste?

Jimmy Carter and Fidel Castro. Was the former historic trip to Cuba a fool's journey or the first important step toward change? All of that and more on today's Friday free-for-all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRESS: And it's really a free-for-all today, because we have four very outspoken radio talk show hosts from all across the country. My job, to try to ride herd on these four lots of luck to be. So let's start by introducing you to the panel. We start out with a nationally syndicated radio talk show host. A man who is far to the right, but never right on the issues, Hugh Hewitt

HUGH HEWITT, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Hi, Bill.

PRESS: I say that because he's a good friend. He also writes a weekly column for worldnetdaily.com. Hugh, thanks for joining us.

HEWITT: Thank you.

PRESS: Up in New York, Lisa Evers. Lisa Evers hosts her own radio talk show on WQHT FM -- Lisa, thank you for being there.

LISA EVERS, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: My pleasure.

PRESS: And Alan Nathan, another friend from Washington. A man who is right smack dab in the middle. He's a radio talk show host for Radio America. It's Battle Nation -- is that the name of the show, Alan -- right?

ALAN NATHAN, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Battle Line -- guy, you've been on it twice.

PRESS: Battle Line -- I'm sorry. Alan, good to see you. Thanks for joining us.

NATHAN: Thanks for having me.

PRESS: And our other panelist, Bob Guccione Jr., who is editor and publisher of "Gear" magazine. He's also the oldest son of "Penthouse" publisher, Bob Guccione Sr. But we will not hold that against him.

BOB GUCCIONE, JR., EDITOR AND PUBLISHER, "GEAR": Well thank you.

PRESS: All right. Ladies and gentlemen, let's start out with the big question. What did the president know, when did he know it, did he know enough that he should have taken more action or is this all politics? We want to get into that, but let's start out by listening. This morning in the rose garden, when he was honoring members of the air force, President Bush for the first time spoke out about all this firestorm. Here's what president Bush had to say this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The American people know this about me, and my national security team and my administration. Had I known that the enemy was going to use airplanes to kill on that fateful morning, I would have done everything in my power to protect the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRESS: OK. That's President Bush this morning. So I want to start out by asking Hugh and then Lisa the same question. Hugh, we know the president was briefed on August 6th about possible hijackings by the al Qaeda network of American Airlines. Did the president -- knowing what he knew, did the president do enough?

HEWITT: He did everything every responsible president has done before him, which was to assess and act on information. Bill, I want to say at the outset, yesterday was the most disgraceful day in the history of American journalism. And when Howard Fineman went on Chris Matthew's show last night and said that the president of the United States could reasonably be assumed to have known that attack was coming, he entered the annals of perhaps the most infamous (UNINTELLIGIBLE) absolutely outrageous speculation that I have seen. I'm glad you haven't done that, Bill, but I want to begin at the outset by saying that American media disgraced itself yesterday.

PRESS: OK. We'll give Howard Fineman a chance to respond at some point.

Lisa, same question to you. Given the information that the president received, did he do enough to protect the American people?

EVERS: Bill, I think to put the focus on President Bush and to turn this into a political blame game is really missing the point. There was evidence going back as far as 1999, a National Defense Council report talking about the idea of suicide hijackers using planes as weapons and using them for intended targets like the Pentagon and other key American landmarks. What we really should be focusing on is the massive failure of American intelligence of the CIA, of the FBI to not follow through on these threats, to not follow through on information and to not act on information that they had from one of the people who was convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Ramsey Youssef (ph), who indicated that this was in their plans.

PRESS: OK, good. I will take point that the focus should not be entirely on President Bush. And let me pose this next question to Alan and to Bob Guccione. Which is, let's talk about what Lisa talked about. There was a 1999 report about the possibility of flying jets into the Pentagon, the White House and the CIA headquarters. There were reports as early as 1996 from the Philippines that the al Qaeda was planning on flying jets into American landmarks. There was a report that the French had that they were thinking of flights jets into the Eiffel Tower.

There was a memo written by FBI agent in Phoenix last July that said all these Middle Eastern men in this country are suddenly taking flying lessons and maybe thinking of hijacking planes -- what that's all about. In July -- in August, rather, Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested in Minnesota. He wanted to take flying lessons so he could learn to fly a 747, but he didn't care whether or not he knew how to land it. Obviously he had had something else in mind.

Add to that this memo that the president was given, the briefing the president was given in August. So the question now, with all of those dots, Alan, is: Shouldn't somebody have connected those dots?

NATHAN: We would have had a better opportunity to connect the dots had the FBI folks in Arizona been able to coordinate with the FBI folks in Minnesota. The folks in Arizona... PRESS: Why couldn't they? What is stopping the FBI from talking to the FBI? Pick up the phone -- hello?

NATHAN: Good point. Yes, yes -- yes, that's the whole problem. Which is why I have a problem with Tenet -- not Tenet -- I'm sorry, Mueller -- FBI Director Mueller. He was on record as saying, Look I wish my team could have been more aggressive. But even if they had been, there's no way it would have done any good because these particular students had nothing to do with 9-11.

How did he know that? Did he take Telepathy 101 at Clairvoyance U.? Give me a break. If these folks had been able to coordinate with the folks in Minnesota, wouldn't there have been an elevated caliber of investigation? Wouldn't there have been a more rapid-fire exchange of information? And isn't it possible to assert, with some credibility, that had that taken place, more would have known than we do now?

PRESS: Bob Guccione, was this a mass of intelligence failure or a failure to act on intelligence?

GUCCIONE: It was both. It was both. And, Bill, you are absolutely right. All of these dots -- there's just too many dots not to connect some of them. And I think the problem is that we as a people are pretty arrogant and thought we were invulnerable. But in fact we elect the government to protect us and they are not even communicating. And clearly there was just too much information before September 11th that should have put us on a heightened state of alert.

And I understand with Condoleezza Rice, when she says that, you know, you can't panic everybody and can't close down the FAA. But we could have done a hell of a lot better job of making sure there weren't box cutters on half a dozen planes. Because they were on more planes than flew into the buildings.

PRESS: I know you all want to jump in again. And I invite you to any time. But, first, let's get a comment here from our audience. This is Zack (ph) from Alabama. Zack (ph), what do you think about all of this.

ZACK (ph): I think it could have been prevented possibly if they had connected all of the dots and also if the Bush administration had remained engaged in the Middle East. They may have had more information, so that's a possibility that it could have been prevented. I hate to say that. And I know that a lot of people are denying it, but it's a possibility that it could have been prevented.

(CROSSTALK)

PRESS: One at a time. Hugh, I'll call on you first -- one at a time.

HEWITT: For 60 years people have been saying FDR could have prevented Pearl Harbor. It's crackpot stuff. It's tinfoil hat stuff. And the most outrageous thing is, everyone out there in that audience, of those of you who have served in the intelligence community raise your hand, because I have.

I have worked at the Department of Justice; I worked in the White House. And you cannot make these jumps, these leaps of faith. It's outrageous. It's a slander on men and women who are protecting your rear ends every single day and doing an excellent job of it, including, for example, here in L.A. preventing the millennium bombing two years ago.

(CROSSTALK)

GUCCIONE: I want to jump in. We have prevented several more attacks since September 11th here in New York City. I happen to know some law enforcement people here who we quote in our magazine recently. We have prevented -- at least twice we prevented bombs going off on the bridges. We have uncovered other security risks here because we have been communicating since September 11th. We have been doing the job we probably should have done a lot better before September 11th.

PRESS: All right. But...

(CROSSTALK)

PRESS: ... if I may ask you to just hold because we do have to take one of those breaks that we are all familiar with. We're going to take it right now. And when we come back, we're going to raise the question of politics and hear from the vice president. Is this all just about Democrats playing politics? Our free-for-all Friday on TALKBACK LIVE continues -- stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Basically, what I want to say to my Democratic friends in the Congress is that they need to be very cautious not to seek political advantage by making incendiary suggestions as were made by some today that the White House had advanced information that would have prevented the tragic attacks of 9-11. Such commentary is thoroughly irresponsible and totally unworthy of national leaders in a time of war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRESS: And, of course, that was Vice President Dick Cheney, who was speaking at a Republican fund-raiser in New York City last night. This is our free-for-all Friday. Before we get back to our panel, I just want to welcome all the students here from Robert E. Lee High School in Montgomery, Alabama -- all right.

(APPLAUSE)

PRESS: And they came all the way to see our panelists: Hugh Hewitt, Lisa Evers, Alan Nathan and Bob Guccione. All members of the radio talk show host community. So Lisa, you heard what the vice president said. Is it irresponsible to ask a question whether we should have done more than we did?

EVERS: No. I don't think it's irresponsible to ask that question at all. I think it's important that we look at everything that happened. And I just wanted to quickly make two points to piggyback on what some of the other guests have said. And that is that this is not just a failure of communication within the FBI. It was also a failure of communication between the FBI and local law enforcement.

When tragedy strikes an American city, we dial 911. We don't dial Washington and look for help from the FBI. When you can have someone like Mohamed Atta, one of the hijackers who is on the FBI's 10 most wanted list as a terrorist, get on to a plane as he did in Boston that morning of September 11th using his real name, without being stopped, somehow the information is not getting to where it needs to be. We can stop every platinum-selling, Grammy-winning rapper in baggy jeans and subject them to full-body searches, but we can't track down these terrorists. Something is very, very wrong with that system.

(APPLAUSE)

EVERS: And if...

PRESS: Well, Bob Guccione, Ari Fleischer said today that Democrats are just playing politics with this issue. They are just using for an issue to use in an election year. I think maybe Hugh Hewitt said something like that earlier -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

GUCCIONE: No, I agree completely. This is not a political football. It's a very appropriate question to be asking; a very appropriate course to take. We have got to learn where we failed and where we didn't do things we were expected to do so that we can shore up the next time.

(CROSSTALK)

PRESS: OK, go ahead.

HEWITT: Bob, you are wrong. Joe Lieberman said yesterday it was wrong to assess this against the president. What Tom Daschle and Hillary Clinton did yesterday was cross the line. They implied, they went over that line and said that the president had not done what he could have done. Suggesting he had knowledge is what Fineman did last night on "Hard Ball." It's outrageous political grandstanding, and that's why thousands of people have gone to the www.nrsc.org, that's the National Republican Senatorial Committee, to sign petitions to contribute. They have outraged middle America (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in a way that has never happened.

(CROSSTALK)

PRESS: One at a time. We know the rules have got to be one at a time. You know that as well as I -- Alan, your turn.

NATHAN: Bill, look, you have been on my show. You know I'm passionately supportive of this president and the way he's waged the war. And I do believe that there's some partisan politics going on when it comes to the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) of this president. But at the same time, people of goodwill can speak out against some errors executed by this administration without being perceived as un- American. It is simply simplistic to accept otherwise.

This president, for instance, while granted -- you know on August 6th he had no way of knowing that the report he was given could have led to 9-11. At the same time, I'm curious, why is it after 9-11 he didn't bother mentioning this August 6th report? I don't think anybody would have held it against him.

PRESS: OK. We have a call here from Joan (ph) in Florida. Radio talk show hosts love telephone calls. Here's our first caller for the day -- hi, Joan, thanks for joining us.

JOAN (ph): Hi. Thank you. I want to say we are witnessing again a disgusting display of political irresponsibility by the Democrats based on unsubstantiated accusations. Now where did this rumor start and to what purpose to accuse any American, and certainly not the president of our country, not to act to prevent 9-11 is an abomination. And I think everyone should speak out against it and particularly the news media ought to find out the facts and stop starting this controversy.

PRESS: OK, Joan. Thank you for the call. I'll turn that into a question. I don't know, Bob, I think it's your turn. But what Joan is -- I mean the facts are that there was the FBI memo in Phoenix. The facts are there was the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui and some warnings about that. The facts are there was this briefing on August the sixth.

We found out today that there was a battle plan to go against Osama bin Laden, which had been approved and was on the desk of Condi Rice on the morning of September 11th. Is asking the question, "Why wasn't more done given what we know," is that just unpatriotic? I mean is that just patriotic ranting -- I mean political ranting? I'm sorry.

GUCCIONE: I think it's patriotic. I don't think it's unpatriotic. I go back to saying what I said earlier. It's totally appropriate to find out what went wrong. And we can't just wave a flag and say, you know, George Bush has done a fine job, don't ask embarrassing or difficult questions. I also -- I was the one to say, by the way, I don't believe Bush or the administration was so cynical as to allow it to happen. I think it's a failure of reading the information in the intelligence we did, the little we had correctly.

I don't think anybody let it happen. Pearl Harbor may have happened with the full knowledge of the president; this I don't believe happened with his knowledge. And I think they are being a bit disingenuous when they say we didn't know specifically this could happen on that day. Of course they couldn't have. But I think they knew more than they have let on since until now that they do know, and more could be done.

PRESS: Here in the audience, let's give Dan a shot. Dan, do you think it's right to ask these questions or over the line?

DAN: I certainly do. I think it's very important that we get these things aired out and understood by the public.

PRESS: OK. Real quick, Stan, fair to ask the question?

STAN: The question being?

PRESS: What did the president know and when did he know it?

STAN: I don't think that's the issue. I think the question is how do we learn to fight this new enemy?

PRESS: OK. Let's move on. We're also going to talk when we come back, we're going to stay with this topic here about what the president knew, when did he know it, should we have done more? Stay with us for another segment. And show you some of the results of an opinion poll taken on this issue last night by CNN and "USA Today."

It's our Friday free-for-all. Stay with us. We'll be right back on TALKBACK LIVE.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PRESS: And this is TALKBACK LIVE, our Friday free-for-all. The issue still right now is those pre-9/11 terror warnings. While CNN and "USA Today" were out on the phones last night asking folks what they thought about all this, the first question was, "Do you have a less favorable opinion of President Bush after all of this issue has come out?" And let's look at the results. Thirty-two percent of those said a less favorable of opinion Bush only. Sixty-six percent said, "No." So the president's poll ratings stay up there pretty high.

The next question, "Should President Bush have talked about the warnings before now?" Sixty-eight percent of those surveyed said yes he should have. Less than a third say no. Hugh Hewitt, why did the White House wait eight months before telling us that there was some warning even if it was a very general warning?

HEWITT: Bill, that's kind of a loaded question, but I'll answer it. The fact is, in the "Wall Street Journal" today it talked about there was one warning, not warnings. And no one remembered it having been given it was so general in the context of otherwise daily briefing.

Now, Bill, what I want to focus on going back is that people are confusing bunches of different comments. A series of comments. A series of comments made by Tom Daschle, Hillary Clinton and Howard Fineman led people to believe that the president knew an attack was coming on September 11th against the towers using airplanes. That is what is outrageous. That is what is irresponsible. And that's why the Democrats are getting such blowback, because they are imputing to the president an inaction in the fate of a specific morning that killed 3,000 Americans.

Don't let your panelists get away with talking about, oh we need to make a general inquiry over this. People have accused the president of standing back and letting Americans get killed, and that's outrageous.

PRESS: Hugh, if I can jump in, I'm not letting the panel get away with anything. I don't think on the panel or anybody else I have heard has accused the president of knowing that planes were going to crash into the World Trade Center and do nothing.

HEWITT: Howard Fineman did it last night on "Hardball."

PRESS: We're talking about this panel, Hugh. And I think the question is, it was a warning that there was a possible hijacking by the al Qaeda network.

HEWITT: Bill, the CIA gave Bill Clinton a specific warning about attacks on the Pentagon and on the White House. These warnings have been around for more than two and a half years. They have to be assessed in the context of a huge amount of threats -- 500 a day -- according to the "Wall Street Journal" today -- that have to be assessed by the United States intelligence communities. This is a silly subject.

(CROSSTALK)

PRESS: I want to ask you, Lisa. Hugh says this is a silly subject. Let me ask you this: What if Al Gore were in the White House today, 9-11 had happened on his watch, and we found out that all of this stuff was known beforehand, no matter how general it was. What do you think Republicans today would be saying about Al Gore?

EVERS: Well I think you would see a similar type of scenario taking place. But I just wanted to add to what Hugh said, and that is that this story unfortunately is getting distilled into people thinking that President Bush new beforehand the very specific nature of this attack, when the evidence is quite contrary to that. I think we have to recognize that the failure of the intelligence breakdowns began in the 90s, right after that 1993 attack, and especially as one of those involved in the 1993 bombing, Ramsey Youssef (ph), came to trial.

We heard stories about boxes, crates full of tapes that had been made, but nobody knew what they were saying because they didn't know how to translate them. There were all sorts of intelligence shortcomings that should have been investigated, that should have been followed through by the Clinton administration as well.

But I think to just simply blame President Bush at this point is really not fair. And, honestly, it's not going to make us a safer country.

PRESS: I want to repeat, I have heard nobody specifically blame President Bush. I think people are asking questions, the panelists are, about the entire range of government agencies. Alisa is here from North Carolina in our studio audience.

Hi. Alisa. You are the expert.

ALISA: Hi.

One thing I would just ask is that, what would we as a country have done proactively to know that the terrorists were willing to give up everything for what they believe? They gave up their lives for their cause. What would we hold over them? I don't think anything. Nobody could do anything proactive.

(CROSSTALK)

PRESS: Alan, why don't you tackle that?

NATHAN: Actually, Bill, as we recall from the Osama bin Laden videotape, most of the hijackers didn't even know they were going to die.

I don't genuinely buy into this myth that all these terrorists are willing to die. The truth is, most of them are willing to have their youth die. Most of them wish to hang around.

PRESS: OK, on that point...

(CROSSTALK)

EVERS: Bill, may I respond to her...

PRESS: I'll tell you what. On that point, we are going to call a time out, because we are going to move away from this topic, on which there is some disagreement. We're going to move to another topic on which there will be complete agreement, I'm sure. Is it OK for the Republican Party to sell that picture of President Bush for 150 bucks?

Friday "Free-For-All" TALKBACK, more coming. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PRESS: Yes, we're back at TALKBACK LIVE.

Disgraceful, inexplicable, sacrilegious, those are just a few of the words that are used by critics of a Republican fund-raising tactic that may be backfiring.

You probably know about this. The GOP is taking heat for using this photograph, a photograph taken of President Bush on board Air Force One on September 11. And it's offered to supporters who contribute $150 or more to the Republican National Committee, which is calling it Bush's defining moment.

One Democratic official says that using that picture -- there are the three pictures that you get for 150 bucks -- the critic, again, says that using that picture of 9/11 is, at best, in very poor taste. Republicans say it's just a photograph of the president doing his job.

We know that our panelists are going to want to sound off on this, Hugh Hewitt, Lisa Evers, Alan Nathan, and Bob Guccione, but first a couple of comments here from our audience in Atlanta.

Maria is here from San Diego, California.

Maria, what do you think?

MARIA: I believe if the American people want to pay for the photos, I think it's their right and it's their privilege to do so.

PRESS: All right, there's Maria sounding on with some approval here.

It is Kimberly.

Hi, Kimberly.

KIMBERLY: I believe that the money that is raised from 9/11 should go toward the victims of 9/11 or a certain cause. I don't think the Republican Party should be making money off anything to do with 9/11.

(APPLAUSE)

PRESS: And, Kimberly, OK.

Well, Bob Guccione, we haven't heard from you in a while. Bob, what do you think about selling this photo? No big deal or is it in bad taste?

GUCCIONE: Well, first of all, I want to see if, after yesterday's news, it's still going for $150. It's like a stock. Are you going up or down?

PRESS: Yes, it may be worth more now. Who knows?

GUCCIONE: Yes. For one side, it may be worth more.

I have to say, I think it's an irrelevant issue. And here is where I do believe it's being politicized. And I'm sort of embarrassed by my side, the Democrats. I think it's a silly issue for us to be complaining about. Every president uses photographs of themselves. It's probably no more than coincidence it was actually this one. I see nothing wrong with it, nothing offensive with it being that date.

He was the president the day before, the day after. He's still president. It's not inappropriate, in my mind. I think what is sad is that we have gone back to partisanship, where right after September 11, we had such a useful time of bipartisanship.

(CROSSTALK)

PRESS: Wait. You knew it was going to get back to partisanship sooner or later.

GUCCIONE: I know, but it actually was useful for a while to have it be that we were served. The public was served by our public servants.

(CROSSTALK)

PRESS: Let me play devil's advocate here with you, Hewitt.

You might have seen the cartoon in yesterday's "USA Today" by Mike Schmitt (ph), which showed two pictures of the White House. One picture of the White House had a sign in front that said "Sleepover in the Lincoln Bedroom." There was a sign. The next one had a sign in front of the White House that said "9/11 photos of George Bush, buy here."

What's the difference? Aren't they both selling the White House?

HEWITT: No, they are very, very, very different, Bill. And you know that.

We are at war. There are certain times in a presidency that come forward to emblemize everything that you are standing for -- FDR, for example, addressing Congress on the day after Pearl Harbor, or, abroad, Winston Churchill flashing the V for victory.

This is a great picture because it sums up the president's courage, his discipline, his reaction. And for Terry McAuliffe, who basically wholesaled the Lincoln Bedroom, or helped to wholesale it through the Clinton years, to complain is to complain that the American people appreciate this president.

And the funny irony of this is, of course, thousands of people are calling the Republican National Committee donating who have never donated before, not because they had been in the market for a picture, but because they want to support this president and they want to strike back at the bitter partisan politics of Clinton holdovers and nakedly ambitious senators in the Democratic Party.

(CROSSTALK)

EVERS: Bill, it doesn't...

PRESS: Go ahead, Lisa, quickly.

EVERS: To me it doesn't seem like that big a deal. What would really bother me was if they were trying to sell sleepovers at Dick Cheney's undisclosed location. Now, that would be something to get upset about.

PRESS: Hey, Lisa, don't give them any ideas, OK?

NATHAN: They're going to act on it.

PRESS: Here's Michael on the phone from California.

Hey, Michael. Thanks for joining TALKBACK LIVE.

CALLER: Hello.

PRESS: What's up?

CALLER: First of all, I just wanted to say that I don't think it's despicable for Republicans to sell photographs to raise money. But what is despicable is for Republicans to not be accepting blame for what happened on September 11, not wanting to be finding out the answers to these questions that the media are trying to bring to the public. That is despicable.

I don't think anybody has a problem with Republicans raising money, but I think they do have a problem with them not accepting responsibility for what happened on that day that he's now profiting from.

(CROSSTALK)

NATHAN: Bill, can I get in on this?

PRESS: Michael, last word.

Sorry, Alan. You are first up when we come back, OK?

When we come back -- last word on that topic -- we're going to jump to Jimmy Carter, coming back today from his trip to Cuba. Was that trip worth it or did he just help out Fidel Castro?

TALKBACK LIVE, "Free-For-All Friday" -- coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PRESS: TALKBACK LIVE, "Free-for-All Friday."

It's a big day for us and it's a big day for Jimmy Carter. He's on his way home from Cuba. He left Havana today after spending much of the week down there, holding talks with Fidel Castro, meeting also with Cuban dissidents. And he came away from Cuba calling for greater cooperation between the United States and Cuba. He said he plans to put a special report together and send it off to the Bush administration.

So, let's go back to our panel, Hugh Hewitt, Lisa Evers, Alan Nation -- Nathan, I'm sorry -- and Bob Guccione.

Alan, I promised you to start off. Here's a double-header. Should Jimmy Carter have gone to Cuba? Did he accomplish anything while he was there?

NATHAN: I never thought I would be so happy to see this guy come back home, so he wouldn't do any more damage.

(LAUGHTER) NATHAN: Look, the guy did some amazing things. And he also did some things amazingly stupid.

First of all, it was wonderful to look at a former president address all of Cuba nationwide, telling them of the beauty of democracy, freedom, how Cuba needs to step up to the plate and change their record on human rights.

But then he turns around and he allows for this myth of equivalency, the idea of recognizing how, in the United States, we too have our problems. In our country, we have a democratic republic. We have a structure which allows us to voice our objections against things that we think need to be improved. You don't have that in Cuba. And, for the president to have allowed this myth of equivalency I think is inexcusable.

PRESS: But one thing, Lisa, that he did say also is, we have had sanctions against Cuba for 40 some years. The United States and Israel are the only two countries in the world that abide by those sanctions. Everybody else is trading down in Cuba. And President Carter suggested it's time that we try something else and get rid of the sanctions.

EVERS: Well, Bill, that's hardly a unique call for action. I mean, that has been made for many years by various segments in our country.

PRESS: Well, was it right or wrong?

EVERS: Well, I think that what was wrong was that, whatever he did accomplish, or whatever progress he feels he made, or whatever advances he made will be completely overshadowed by the propaganda value of Fidel Castro being able to plaster photos all over Cuba of him being there with a former American president.

It would have been a much different type of image if Jimmy Carter had gone in there with church groups, with nonprofit organizations and brought in the food and medical supplies that the people, the average Cuban -- who doesn't have access to good wines and fresh fish like Fidel Castro does, the people who are there starving, the pregnant women who can't get the medical care that they need, the old people who are dying early because they didn't have adequate medical attention -- if he had gone in there with humanitarian resources, I would have looked at it in a very different way.

And I have been to Cuba, so I know what the conditions are like there.

PRESS: I have been to Cuba, too.

Let's talk to Bob here from Pennsylvania before we go to our other two panelists.

Bob, what do you think about the president's trip?

BOB: Well, I think it was an important trip. But I liken it to Nixon's visit to China. China has remained a dictatorship, and yet we are trading with them -- Mexico the same way, Russia. This is a beginning. It is not the end. And there has to be a change in our policy because it's not rational. They are no longer a threat. They don't have Russia on their side, so we should move ahead and look at it realistically.

PRESS: What about that? Hugh Hewitt, what about that? We trade with China. We trade with Vietnam. We trade with North Korea. Why not Cuba?

HEWITT: Fidel Castro is a thug, Bill. He's murdered tens of thousands of his political opponents, murdered them.

Now, what your audience participant just said may be true. That's a decision for the White House to make. I love President Carter when he's got a hammer in his hand. But I thought it was asking too much of the Cuban people to have to put up with a speech by him. He might have said something about releasing political prisoners. He might have said something about allowing Elian to visit the United States. He might have done a lot of good things, but he chose not to.

He gave credibility to a man -- I repeat -- who has murdered tens of thousands of people.

PRESS: Now, I'm not here to defend Jimmy Carter, but I am in his home state of Georgia.

So, Bob Guccione, let me ask you. President Carter, despite what Hugh just said, he was on national television in Cuba, unedited, live, with Fidel Castro sitting in the front row. And he said: "You may not know this, but there's a referendum going around in this country to have free elections in Cuba, to change the whole system. I support that. And I think all the Cuban people should support that."

Doesn't Jimmy Carter get credit for anything?

GUCCIONE: Fantastic. Yes, fantastic. I thought the Carter trip was a fantastic trip, 100 percent wonderful, humanitarian thing to do.

I see no damage possible that can come out of talking to the other side, having conversations with Cuba. It is ridiculous that we don't trade with them. They are no threat to us. And, as for trading with a thug, let's not throw too many stones. We trade with half the thugs in the world.

NATHAN: There's a difference, though. There's a difference.

GUCCIONE: You want me to list them alphabetically, I will.

(CROSSTALK)

NATHAN: Bill Press, there is a difference.

PRESS: There is a difference because...

NATHAN: There is a difference.

(CROSSTALK)

PRESS: OK, ladies and gentlemen, there's a difference because we are we are 90 minutes -- because Florida -- Cuba, rather, is 90 minutes off the coast of Florida.

But now, when we come back, this is why we pay you the big bucks, panelists, why you get big bucks on talk radio. It's to talk about the important subject of the day. Yes, pizza is fattening. Did you know that?

Find out more when you come back -- TALKBACK LIVE.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PRESS: It's TALKBACK LIVE, "Free-For-All Friday."

Well, we have been working up to this issue. You are not going to believe it, but the word is out. Pizza is fattening. I hate to be the one to tell you. This startling revelation comes from the Center for Science in the Public Interest. God knows how much they spent on this report.

But they found out that Americans order three billion pizzas a year. There are more than 60,000 pizzerias in the United States. And people spend -- we spend up to $30 billion a year on pizza. Now, get this. Eating one slice of Domino's pepperoni pizza is the equivalent of eating a McDonald's Egg McMuffin. And just one slice of Pizza Hut stuffed-crust meat-lover's pizza equals a McDonald's quarter-pounder.

Now, here's the problem, folks, and the problem for our panel. You would never eat two or three quarter pounders, but everybody eats two or three slices of pizza.

So, Hugh Hewitt, is it time to ban pizza? What's your take on this here?

HEWITT: Bill, the very best pizza in the world is made at Sunrise Pizza in Warren, Ohio. I personally believe it's responsible for saving the lives of thousands. And if this study were true, I would have been dead a long time ago. So, I'm rejecting it.

(LAUGHTER)

PRESS: Shameless plug.

Lisa, can you eat just one slice?

EVERS: No. That's why I don't even eat one slice, because, once you start, you can't stop.

And I have to disagree with Hugh yet again, unfortunately. The best pizza is at Patsy's in East Harlem in New York City.

PRESS: Actually, you are all wrong. The best pizza is Al's Pizza on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C.

So, Al, what's the solution to this -- Alan, rather? Maybe -- should we have warnings on our pizza boxes that pizza can be dangerous to your health?

NATHAN: No, dangerous to your taste buds. You are going to love it. Look, eat as much pizza as you want, but just follow it up with a big bowl of Fiber One cereal and it's all the out of the way.

(LAUGHTER)

PRESS: Bob Guccione, I'm sure this is going to be on the cover of your next magazine. What's your solution to the pizza wars?

GUCCIONE: Well, first of all, this report just came out, right?

PRESS: This just came out, yes.

GUCCIONE: I want to know when Bush knew it and how much he knew.

(LAUGHTER)

GUCCIONE: Because this should have come out earlier.

PRESS: The question is: How much pizza does Bush eat on the weekend at Camp David? He is heading to Camp David just this weekend.

Hey, members of the panel -- God love you all -- Hugh Hewitt, Lisa Evers, Alan Nathan, and Bob Guccione, thanks so much for joining us. And I'll look forward to being on your talk radio show next. OK? Thank you.

And a thanks to all the members of our studio audience here for joining us again on this "Free-for-All Friday." Give yourselves a big round of applause.

(APPLAUSE)

PRESS: That's it for today, folks.

Don't forget, Arthel Neville will be back on Monday. Be sure to tune in.

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