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Al Gore Speaks Out on War in Afghanistan

Aired July 01, 2002 - 11:17   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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And that will be it. He is leaving the political stage, the highest ranking African-American Republican in Congress, actually the only African-American in Congress. Why is he going and what does it mean for the Republican Party?

Let's bring in our Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider in Los Angeles this morning -- Bill, your other home base, good morning.

BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning, Daryn.

KAGAN: Listening to J.C. Watts bring out the traditional, I need to spend more time with my family, you know, quality time. I hate to sound cynical but have heard it before. Why is he really leaving, do you think?

SCHNEIDER: Well, we have heard that before but start with the fact that he has five kids, two of whom are just entering adolescence. That can take an awful lot of time.

KAGAN: Yes but you know, Bill, he's had five kids from the time that he entered Congress, so it's kind of like all right, what else isn't working for him there?

Everything I read said that he threatened, he had threatened almost yearly, annually that, you know, he's unsatisfied with how he's been able to rise up through the congressional leadership of the Republican Party and he's kind of done whatever he's been able to do, time to go.

SCHNEIDER: Well, he is the fourth-ranking leader in the Republican Party. He's had conflicts with other Republican leaders. Some of them have complained, anonymously I should add, in the press about the fact that they believe he's been pouting and whining about his inability to rise, that he did not serve, wasn't picked to serve on the committee that would supervise the creation of the Homeland Defense Department that President Bush talked about.

He's known to be unhappy, and this is a traditional kind of congressional issue, with the cancellation of the Crusader artillery gun program because that was to have been assembled in his district and, therefore, he complained bitterly about that. So, these are kind of typical congressional complaints. KAGAN: And with these tight times in Congress, when you count up the seats, the Republicans can not afford to let that seat go, so who do they turn to now?

SCHNEIDER: Well, there's a man named Tom Cole in the district who had dinner with J.C. Watts recently. He was the -- he is the former Oklahoma Secretary of State, was a Republican Party official. Obviously, though, if it's an open seat as the jargon goes, meaning no incumbent is running for reelection, it's always a little bit riskier than if you have an incumbent, a popular incumbent like J.C. Watts in that seat. So, Republicans are going to have to put some resources and some attention into defending that seat.

KAGAN: And what about J.C. Watts? Do you think this is the last we have heard of him?

SCHNEIDER: No.

KAGAN: I can't imagine that.

SCHNEIDER: I don't imagine it either because first of all -

KAGAN: He's too promising, too bright, too much of a leader.

SCHNEIDER: And the only African-American Republican in all of Congress. That's why, one reason why he was show cased. He's a football hero. He has a good legislative record. I think he may have political plans down the road. Oklahoma is a very strong Republican state. There are lots of, maybe lots of opportunities in a race for governor, senator, perhaps an administration position somewhere along the way, so I think we'll be hearing from him for a long time and he said so in his remarks today. He said he expects to continue to make a contribution, just not as a Congressman.

KAGAN: Well as we move on in the world of politics, someone who we appeared to have been hearing from yet again, but we're not really sure how, is former Vice President Al Gore. He's starting to make rumblings, buying a house in his home state of Tennessee, holding Democratic fund-raisers and coming out swinging a little bit and criticizing President Bush on the economy and actually on the war.

SCHNEIDER: That's right. That was a big surprise. Al Gore came out and said that he thought the administration was not handling the war well. He said, "we don't have Osama bin Laden." He doesn't think that we have enough of a troop commitment. There is the quote. "They haven't gotten Osama bin Laden. They've refused to allow enough international troops to enter Afghanistan to make sure the country doesn't slide back under the control of these warlords."

Well, that's a direct hit at the Bush Administration's conduct of the war. Very few Democrats have done that. It looks like Gore is trying to assume that role. It's a question, why is he doing that?

I mean President Bush's conduct of the war has been generally above partisanship, although in the very next sentence, Al Gore went on to say that some on the Bush team, here it is, have allowed, "he's allowed his political team to use this war as a political wedge issue to score political points and divide this nation."

Now personally, I think that's an overstatement. It refers probably to the fact that Bush's political strategist, Carl Rove, who is in the White House, did make a speech back in January to the Republican National Committee in which he talked about the war as being a Republican issue.

That offended a lot of Democrats. They called him on it, and I think that the White House has decided not to pursue that path of trying to use the war as a political issue. Nevertheless, the statement was made. Now, it appears that Al Gore is trying to use the war as a political issue. That seems to me to be odd.

KAGAN: And that might be a sticky move. Yes. So let's just cut to it, Bill. Is he or isn't he, as in running again?

SCHNEIDER: I think he is seriously considering it.

KAGAN: Really.

SCHNEIDER: His wife wants him to.

KAGAN: Really, even more surprising.

SCHNEIDER: His daughter has said she wants him to. They both say they want him to. There are a lot of Democrats who are saying "Oh, my God, not another race by Al Gore after he blew it in 2000." But he has a base out there.

My own view is this. Al Gore looks better if George Bush looks worse, because then you have an awful lot of people who said, we made a mistake in 2000. We really should have elected Al Gore and we want to correct that mistake. I don't think there's a big constituency in the country saying that right now, but it's over two years before the 2004 election.

KAGAN: Yes, that's true. A lot of time to think about will he or won't he. Bill Schneider in L.A., thanks for joining us, getting up early, appreciate it.

SCHNEIDER: Sure. OK.

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