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CNN Live Today

Between Now and Tomorrow, Bush Will See an Awful Lot of California

Aired August 23, 2002 - 12:05   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Moving on between now and midday tomorrow, President Bush will see an awful lot of California, and he will raise an awful lot of money for that state's Republican candidate for governor. He might also face a few pointed questions about the candidate's business career. That is nothing compared to the protests that greeted him yesterday in Oregon.
CNN's Suzanne Malveaux is watching events from afar. In this case, she is at the White House.

Good afternoon, Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Suzanne.

The president is expected to be in California within a couple of hours. This is all a part of his domestic agenda toward taking his message to the American people. But not everyone is happy with what they are hearing. Just yesterday in Portland, Oregon, several hundred protesters gathered outside of the hotel where President Bush was attending a Republican fund-raiser, most of them objecting to Bush's forest protection initiative that it was announced earlier in the day, that would ease restrictions for logging in national forests to provide a thinning of trees and underbrush to protect them from wildfires.

Some were also protesting the administration's policy in Iraq, the possibility of a military strike against Saddam Hussein. Now the situation became rather tense when riot police ordered protesters to move on, and then fired pepper spray into the crowd. Five protesters were arrested. It should also be noted, however, that there were dozen and dozens of Bush supporters who lined along the president's route.

Now as you know, the president will be in California later today. He is going to making three stops. This is a key state for Republicans, of course, who are trying to take over the Senate, as well as maintain the House, but also for a possible run, a re-election run, for President Bush in 2004.

Now his first stop is going to be stops in California. That's where he is expected to raise some $3 million for the embattled Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon. Now it was in July that Simon's company was fined nearly $80 million for alleged corporate fraudulent business dealings, business corporate dealings. The president was asked about this, and he said that the candidate assured him that he is innocent of the charges, and that will be proven in the appellant court.

COOPER: All right, Suzanne, thanks very much, reporting from the White House.

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