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American Morning

Interview With Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott

Aired July 10, 2002 - 08:31   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Congressional leaders had one of their regular breakfast meetings with the president this morning. Among those attending was Senate minority leader Trent Lott. He joins us now from outside the White House.

Thanks for joining us. Good to see you again.

SEN. TENT LOTT (R-MS), MINORITY LEADER: Good morning, Paula. I enjoyed seeing you when you were in Washington last month.

ZAHN: That's right, when we did our road show there. Well, we are back, and I want you to address some of the concerns that were expressed in some pretty harsh editorials this morning about the president's speech.

"The Wall Street Journal" writing that "Coming so long after the Enron scandal first broke and amid election season, the speech was widely and accurately described as an exercise in defensive politics. And "The Washington Post" this morning says "The real test of Mr. Bush's speech was what he said about changing the rules that drive business behavior, and when he said was limited.

There is a feeling that perhaps the president should have given the speech two months ago. Is that fair?

LOTT: Well, as a matter of fact, the president asked the Congress to act in this area back in March. I actually introduced some legislation with senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson in this area as far back as February 8th. So there's been an effort to do more in this accounting area and dealing with some of the violations of the law that occurred.

Keep in mind, a lot of what has happened probably involved improper conduct or violation of existing laws, and we've been trying to decide exactly how to proceed. The House acted back in April. Finally, the Senate discovered this issue about two weeks ago and said, gee whiz, maybe we need to do more.

As a matter of fact, there's more agreement than disagreement between the House and Senate and the president as to what we should do. The House made progress. The Sarbanes bill has, I think, some improvements over the House bill. The president has recommended stiffer criminal punishments than is in either bill. I think we're moving forward in a bipartisan way of doing things that will be helpful without doing damage. And if we'll stop trying to figure out who gets the blame and playing the blame game, and actually get to work on getting some things done, I think we can help in restoring confidence in the corporate world and move forward in trying to encourage economic growth. There's a delicate balance there when the president of the United States makes that kind of a statement.

He needs to be tough. He needs to make some specific recommendations, which he did. But he also has got to make sure that it's not done in such a way that throws a permanent damper on the economy.

ZAHN: But, senator, what do you say to the people who heard this speech, and they say the president does not have the moral authority to fight corporate malfeasance. You know what "the New York Times" wrote this morning, and they essentially say he has to come clean and talk about stock trades at Harken Energy. Do you think, perhaps, the president should admit that even though the SEC proved that nothing was wrong there, and they didn't launch a huge investigation, that perhaps what happened there wasn't up to par with the standards he's promoting now?

LOTT: Well, first of all, you know, what that's what you expect from "The New York Times." Did you think "The New York Times" was going to write a nice glowing editorial?

ZAHN: "The Wall Street Journal's" wasn't to positive either.

LOTT: Let me respond to your question here. The president, you know, went up there to New York. He made a strong statement. He made specific recommendations. What more would they propose he to do? If they've got some suggestions, let's hear it.

Some people have said, for instance, well, Mr. Pitt should resign. What is it that he did or didn't do that would suggest that he should resign? I don't really know him that well or what he did or didn't do, but to make just a, you know, charge like that without any basis for justification for it -- I don't know the history on the Harken oil issue. I'm sure the president has been and will be forthcoming on that, and I don't believe that there -- certainly, there's not a problem in terms of he's been able to show moral leadership in trying to get actions to resolve this current problem.

ZAHN: But haven't the Democrats made it clear that's exactly where they're going?

LOTT: That they're trying to get...

ZAHN: Even -- you had Ari Fleischer, the president's spokesman, saying this is nothing but an old political story that's being dredged up. I mean, clearly, there's got to be some feeling of vulnerability there, no?

LOTT: No. This is the silly season. We are in political part of the year. Having said that, there is the strong likelihood that we can get together and pass some legislation, bipartisan, that will be signed by the president, and will help address some of the obvious loopholes or problems in the law, with regard to these accounting principles and how people are punished when they act inappropriately, or illegally in some instances.

ZAHN: Let us know when you know where the president's going on Senator Sarbanes bill. Have they indicate the which part they will support and which part they might not?

LOTT: The president this morning did discuss the whole issue, but he also talked specifically about the Sarbanes bill. He says those have indicated that he has, you know, big opposition, or does not support most of the Sarbanes bill is just not accurate.

There is a concern about making sure that when we created this board of separate oversight board in the accounting area, that it doesn't cause, you know, delays and direct conflicts with what the SEC should also be doing. I think we can work through that. I think we need the independent oversight board, and I think we need an aggressive SEC simultaneously, but we don't want to set it up in such a way that they wind up tripping over each other and neither one of them winds up doing a good job.

That's the only example of where we need to maybe take a look at it. And then, in addition to that, the president wants to strengthen some of the criminal penalties, and I understand there are a number of senators that are working toward doing that, perhaps even Senator Hatch and Senator Biden, in a bipartisan effort will offer an amendment that will add some of the president's recommendations to the Sarbanes bill.

ZAHN: We're going to have to leave it there, but it's certainly something we're going to follow very closely.

LOTT: I know you will.

ZAHN: Senator Lott, it's always good to see you.

LOTT: Thanks, Paula.

ZAHN: Thank you very much for dropping by, letting us drag you out of that breakfast meeting with the president. Appreciate your time.

LOTT: OK.

ZAHN: Joining us right now is CNN senior analyst Jeff Greenfield.

Good morning.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: Hi.

ZAHN: Lots of stuff to read and analyze this morning about the president's speech. Let's talk a little bit about some of the issues I addressed with Senator Lott. He's calling it silly season now, with the Democrats running this very potent and some would say offensive add on the president's moral authority. How vulnerable is the president right now?

GREENFIELD: I think the Republican Party is vulnerable for a particular reason. We can put the president aside for a second. There's a kind of instinctive feeling that voters have about both parties, even though the blinds are blurred. People are always suspicious about Democrats, or want to be sure that Democrats are tough on crime, tough on foreign enemies, won't give the store away, in terms of our tax money.

When it comes to Republicans, the instinctive, visceral question that voters have, is are you too much in bed with fat cats? Even when the president's popularity and job approval ratings are high, as they still are. That's the one area he's always been relatively weak on. So a story about corporate malfeasance, fat cats growing rich at ordinary people's expense is always a vulnerability for the Republican party, and it's a potential problem.

ZAHN: What is the president's particular vulnerability right now?

GREENFIELD: This goes to what the president's great strength has been from the time he entered the national scene, which is people like him. They think he's a straight shooter. It's probably why he's in the White House now instead of Al Gore, you know, if we revisit that campaign.

He's a Texan. Maybe he's not the most glib person in the world. Maybe he doesn't -- his vocabulary isn't fancy, but he's an honorable guy, and he talks about moral clarity and an end to moral relativism. So that's why this Harken Energy issue is potentially -- we have to emphasize that -- potentially a problem, because if people come to believe that their fundamental belief about the president is somehow wrong, if he's not who they thought he was, if he played fast and loose with the rules somehow, if he took advantage of the fact that he was at the time the son of the president of the United States, that really would undermine him.

ZAHN: But from the president's point of view, he said, come on, when the reporters just question after question the other day was about this, said, look, you looked into this during my gubernatorial campaign, you looked at this during the presidential campaign. What is it that he has to do to stop this thing in its tracks?

GREENFIELD: There's two things about that. First of all, I wonder if this sounds familiar if you flip the roles going back to what the Democrats complained about, oh, you're digging up Whitewater, that happened back in the '70s, it was all investigated. Even the special prosecutor found nothing, but you know, his political adversaries spent years saying that something is wrong here. So the fact that it was vetted once before is no relevant.

I think the other big thing is it looks very different when the Nasdaq is at 1,300 or 1,400 than at 5,000.

When Teddy Roosevelt 100 years ago went after the corporate bigshots, one of the reasons it was so potent is lots of people were hurting -- coal miners, people working in sweat shops, farmers. Up until a few years ago, nobody minded if all these guys were getting rich. Nobody even minded if they were playing with the books, because...

ZAHN: Because they were getting rich at the same time.

GREENFIELD: The secretaries at Microsoft were becoming millionaires. So who cared how big the houses were? When people are feeling that their retirement is in jeopardy, their jobs are in jeopardy, when there's been a loss of confidence in general in how things are going in this country, which the recent polls are showing. The right track question, is the country on the right track? Only 45 percent now say yes, and that's not just the markets. That's the Catholic Church. That's the kind of questions about the war on terrorism. We haven't gotten Osama yet.

But when people are feeling that their own lives are in jeopardy, their own financial health, they tend to take a much harder view at other people playing around. And I don't think -- I think that's just the way it is.

ZAHN: Which explains why this comes -- in November will be the most potent election issue, no doubt, right?

GREENFIELD: You want to make a prediction about November. I don't know, maybe the potent issue in November will be if the baseball players go out on strike, there will be a national revolution.

ZAHN: And you'll go on strike if they go on strike, right?

GREENFIELD: I'm never coming back to baseball if they go out again, and that's said from a -- but much more seriously, you're right. If people feel that they are on uncertain economic ground, that is one of the worst possible things for the party in power to go into an election with.

ZAHN: Sure.

So if I read between the lines, you must have been pretty ticked off about the All-Star Game last night?

GREENFIELD: You know what? It's been going -- why they couldn't have blown a whistle and said, all right, I'll tell you, for this one game, let the guys who started the game come back again, it doesn't matter.

ZAHN: Let Jeff Greenfield come in here. Let him play.

GREENFIELD: Let's not get ridiculous, but you know, let them play it out. So bring back Barry, let him hit another home run. I mean, it's an All-Star Game.

ZAHN: I'm in your camp.

Thanks, Jeff.

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