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CNN Live At Daybreak

What's Happening in D.C. Today?

Aired July 19, 2002 - 06:08   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.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Joining me now on the telephone is our Washington deputy bureau chief, Steve Redisch. He is going to give us an update on what they are working on up there in Washington. He plans to do this with us every morning -- good to talk to you again, Steve.

STEVE REDISCH, CNN WASHINGTON DEPUTY BUREAU CHIEF: Good morning, Catherine.

CALLAWAY: Yes, we've got a lot going on today. It's been a busy day already. It's going to be a busy day for President Bush today. What a schedule he has.

REDISCH: He's going to leave in a few hours to go Upstate New York to Fort Drum, where he will address families of troops who are over in Afghanistan fighting right now. And I believe they are going to try and figure out a way where he can also address some of the troops who are assigned to Fort Drum, through either a satellite linkup or on the telephone.

CALLAWAY: And you know, those in the know in Washington certainly are well aware that we're just about six weeks away from the one-year anniversary of 9/11. Homeland security, do you know where we want to be? Have they accomplished what they wanted to accomplish? Surely, they are thinking of that today.

REDISCH: The House itself is going to start its process -- or actually get to a benchmark in its process of creating a Homeland Security Department. This special-select committee headed by Dick Armey, the outgoing majority leader, is going to mark up its bill, and try and create the department basically in President Bush's vision, although there are some power grabs that are out there. One of the congressmen, Don Young from Alaska who heads up the Transportation Committee is very, very leery of giving up the Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the Homeland Security Department.

So there is some horse trading and turf battles that are going on, and Dick Armey is going to try and sort most of those out today.

CALLAWAY: That should be interesting to see how that all plays out. Certainly corporate responsibility on the minds of members of Congress there, on the minds of a lot of Americans who are watching the wacky things going on on Wall Street these days. What's going on there with the latest movement on congressional activity on corporate responsibility?

REDISCH: Today, both sides of the Congress, the House and the Senate, will take their versions of accounting reform and try and meld them into one bill that satisfies both sides and get it passed and get it to the president's desk before the recess, which is the end of the next week. However, the Security and Exchange Commission chairman, Harvey Pitt, appears at the National Press Club this morning and is sure to be taking a lot of questions about corporate responsibility and the Bush administration's response to it.

CALLAWAY: Do you know if that's going to be signed before break?

REDISCH: I think -- I don't know if it's going to be signed before break, but it certainly will get to the president's desk before break. And President Bush has pretty much said, or his spokespeople have said, that he'll sign whatever Congress gets to him.

CALLAWAY: Oh, all right. You know, Steve, certainly you guys have to be talking about James Traficant up there. We've seen the House do something that hasn't been done in a long time, expelling a member of the House of Representatives with certainly some dramatic testimony we have heard this week.

REDISCH: The expulsion probably won't happen until sometime next week, maybe late next week. But what the House Ethics Committee did yesterday was recommend the punishment for Traficant, which is expulsion. And next week, the maverick Ohio Democrat-turned- Republican is going to face his peers in the House and have some time to lay out his case for staying in Congress, or at least his case, which should be fairly entertaining in and of itself. And that will happen sometime next week.

CALLAWAY: Oh, you Washington guys are putting it so mildly. Entertaining, yes, it will be. Dramatic I am sure, if it's...

REDISCH: To say the least.

CALLAWAY: ... if it's anything what it was this week. Thank you very much, Steve -- have a great day. I know it's going to be a busy one for you.

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