Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Saturday Morning News

Bush to Undergo Colonoscopy

Aired June 29, 2002 - 08:01   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Now back to our top story, the president's colonoscopy. It should take less than an hour for the procedure, which is being done at Camp David. While he is under sedation, the vice president will become commander-in-chief. With the details on that, we turn to CNN's Suzanne Malveaux, who is standing by at the White House. How does it all go down, Suzanne?

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kyra. Well, the president is at Camp David this morning under the care of its physicians and a back-up medical team. Now, we have been told that for national security reasons, we will not be told exactly when the president becomes incapacitated and transfers his power to Cheney, but we have been told that all of this will not take anymore than, say, three or four hours.

The vice president did arrive here at the White House just before 7:00. We're told that he'll have briefings on national security, homeland defense and intelligence. It was just yesterday that President Bush left the White House with the first lady saying that this was simply a wartime precaution. He called the procedure simply routine. He even joked that Cheney would not be president for long.

Now, here's how it's going to work. The president will be sedated intravenously by a drug Apropofol (ph). This is a drug that takes effect rather quickly and can be regulated depending on the president's discomfort. Now, the president will invoke Section III to the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, officially transferring his power to the vice president. He will do that by signing and sending a letter. That letter will be faxed to the speaker of the House and president pro tem of the Senate. That will be the official transfer.

Now, the procedure, we're told, it's going to take anywhere from, say, 30 to 60 minutes. If they find any polyps, they will be removed. And then afterward, when the procedure is done and the president is feeling up to it, he will go ahead and sign a second letter and send it to congressional leaders that will be officially indicating that he has resumed power.

Now, Kyra, I have to say we would be remiss not to tell you that next week is the president's birthday, he'll be turning 56. His doctors say that he is in excellent health. This will be the third time, however, that he'll undergo this procedure. He underwent it two other times where they did discover benign polyps that were removed. But doctors simply say that it's a routine examination, and that they recommended that he do this every several years.

And the president, we understand, is very anxious to actually have it all over with and actually go running or exercising this afternoon -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Understandably. Suzanne Malveaux from the White House, thank you.

Well, we're going to take a closer look now at the political implications of a presidential power transfer. For that, we turn again to our senior political analyst, Bill Schneider. Bill, hello.

BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.

PHILLIPS: All right, we talked a little bit about this procedure being very routine, but we're in a very different type of time period right now. I mean, we're at war. So let's talk about why the president is sort of being overcautious here.

SCHNEIDER: He's being overcautious because he doesn't want to indicate that there is any period of time, even if it's a matter of 30 or 60 minutes, when there is no official leader of the United States. If anything tragic, unexpected should happen, any attack on the United States, someone is in charge. And that's the acting president under the 25th Amendment, Dick Cheney, who will formally be vested with the powers of the presidency while the president is unable to function.

PHILLIPS: Now, we know that Dick Cheney has had heart problems. So, let's look at worst case scenario. Something does happen. You have got Dick Cheney; something may happen there. Let's kind of go to the next level, I guess we should say.

SCHNEIDER: Well, the next in line to the presidency are the people getting the message from the president this morning, and that is the speaker of the House, that's Dennis Hastert. He is third in line to the presidency. And then the president pro tempore of the Senate, and that's Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia. They would be the next ones to take over. The Constitution provides for a long line of succession in case of a president or the vice president's disability.

PHILLIPS: All right. I know last hour we talked a little about the history of the 25th Amendment. Just for folks who are tuning in, getting up now this morning, let's talk about what prompted that back in the '60s, Bill.

SCHNEIDER: The Kennedy assassination is what prompted it. In 1963, suddenly a lot of people realized that the vice president, Lyndon Johnson, became president. There was no provision at that time for a vice president. Many times in American history, we have had no vice president. Every time a vice president has become president, Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman. In the past, there was no vice president at all. In case of the president's disability, there would be a problem. And President Lyndon Johnson had a history of heart problems. So the lawmakers decided this was a time to try to take care of that, and they wrote this amendment with very specific procedures for what would happen in the case of a president's being unable to serve. In this case, the president is in charge of certifying that he is unable to serve for a period, and then he sends a letter saying I'm able to resume my duties. But the 25th Amendment in Section IV even has procedures for declaring the president unable to serve in case, in the judgment of Congress, he is really not fit to serve even though he doesn't transmit that message.

PHILLIPS: Bill Schneider, thanks, Bill.

We're going to get more details now on colonoscopies. More than two million Americans undergo them each year, because doctors say it cuts the risk of colon cancer by 90 percent. Doctors routinely recommend the procedure for people over the age of 50. CNN's medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us once again to talk more about the screening that the president will undergo today.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

PHILLIPS: SOP, standard operating procedure. Right?

COHEN: Absolutely. This is routine. As you said, millions of people get this. The president's getting it because a few years ago, when doctors gave him a colonoscopy, they found some polyps and they removed them. And they were benign polyps which lots of people have, but they can be pre-cancerous, and that's why he's having them a little bit more often than someone who if they looked at the colon it was a clean colon.

So the procedure today will take about 30 to 60 minutes. Let's take a look at exactly what the doctors do. And don't worry, we won't get too, too graphic.

The first thing that they'll do is they'll give the president intravenously a pain medication and a sedative. That's almost always given when they do this kind of procedure. He'll be out of it. The extent to which he'll be out of it really depends on him. Some people I've talked to are awake through the procedure. They're relaxed and sedated, but they are aware of what's going on. Other people sleep through the whole thing and don't remember anything.

What they do is they pass a thin, flexible scope with a small light and as camera inside the colon to see what it looks like, and they look for those polyps. And if they'll find any polyps, they'll remove them on the spot.

The president's heart rate, breathing rate and blood pressure will be monitored. Here you see someone who is undergoing a colonoscopy, and again, millions of these are done every year.

The risks are tiny. It is possible that when this is done, and you can see this -- that's actually the inside of a colon, believe it or not. The camera is inside the person, and the image is projected up on a TV screen so that the doctors could see it. The risks are tiny. The doctor could nick the inside of the wall causing some bleeding, but doesn't usually happen. If they are to remove a polyp, while they're removing it, there could be some bleeding, but again, that hardly ever happens.

PHILLIPS: All right. This will be done at Camp David, not at a hospital.

COHEN: It sounds weird, doesn't it?

PHILLIPS: It does sound weird.

COHEN: It does sound weird. And the reason why is that Camp David has a medical facility right there. I mean, we don't know exactly what they have there and what they don't, but you don't need a whole heck of a lot in order to do a colonoscopy. This isn't something that requires a hospital, for example. People have them in doctor's offices every day.

So what they're going to do is bring all that equipment into Camp David. It's not unusual for it to be done not in a hospital, and in fact, that's usually par for the course. You can just bring the equipment right there.

PHILLIPS: All right. Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much.

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