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American Morning

Interview With Wesley Clark

Aired September 17, 2003 - 07:11   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.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Retired Army General Wesley Clark is talking about his vision for the future. America, he says, is hungry for dialogue and looking for leadership. Well, he sure sounds like a presidential candidate.
I spoke with him just a few minutes ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: So, General Clark, are you announcing today that you are running for the Democratic nomination for president?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (D), PRESIDENTAL CANDIDATE: Yes, I am.

O'BRIEN: Well, wonderful. Congratulations. We're glad to hear that.

CLARK: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: You've never been elected to anything. Some people might say, boy, that's ambitious to make your first elected position presidency of the United States. Do you think it is?

CLARK: It is ambitious, but it's also extraordinary times, and this is what my expertise, my leadership experience, my whole career has pointed and prepared me for as opposed to, let's say, a state official or something. I've had a lot of diplomatic experience. I've done a lot of work with security policy. I think I'm the best person to look at the future of this country and keep us safe.

O'BRIEN: Earlier in the week when we were talking, we spoke pretty extensively about your experience -- your wide experience in the military, but there are many people who say this election will be won or lost on potentially domestic issues. So, when you talk about the economy, when you talk about health care, when you talk about the rising costs of prescription drugs, these are all areas that you have zero experience in. How do you market yourself to the voting public when have you no experience in these issues?

CLARK: Well, first of all, I've got the same experience that everybody else does in the voting public. I mean, I have to have prescriptions, and we worry about the cost of medicine. We worry about members of our family who are unemployed. We worry about education and the military. I had a whole range of quality-of-life and personnel issues, including housing and education and health care for our people. So, I'm very much aware of those issues and how they affect people. I've been out of the military three years. I've looked at these issues. And I taught economics at West Point. I worked in the Office of Management and Budget. I remember when many of these programs were being developed back in the mid-'70s. And so, I've got some background in this. You'd be surprised.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk a little bit about your military experience.

CLARK: OK.

O'BRIEN: You have been described as -- and I'm quoting here -- "aggressive, abrasive, disliked, mistrusted." Those are quotes from your fellow officers. Are they accurate?

CLARK: Well, there are a lot of quotes from fellow officers that are the opposite on that. I think what you have to understand about the armed forces, it is a -- it's a competitive bureaucracy. People enter it at the bottom and they come out at the top. There's a lot of gossip. There are some sharp elbows in there.

But I think my record stands on its own merits. And if you look at what I've done, the contributions that I've made, it's a very solid record, and I'm very proud of it.

O'BRIEN: As you have said, you're new to the Democratic Party, and I'm quoting what you said: "I don't even remember" -- when you're talking about who you voted for in the past. Is that accurate?

CLARK: It is accurate, because I have tried to vote every election on absentee ballot. But I think we all understand what happens to absentee ballots after the Florida recount of 2000.

And I recall, for example, one election, I was in Germany. I'd sent for the absentee ballot. Our battalion was on maneuvers. I guess the absentee ballot must have arrived back in the battalion in arrear. I showed up after three weeks in the field. We got our mail. The election was two and a half weeks over, and there was the ballot. And that happened at least once, and I seem to recall it happening several times.

So, that's what happens to service members when they're trying to do their duty as citizens, and at the same time serving abroad, or even here in the United States.

O'BRIEN: There are many folks who say with all of the decision- making that went into this final announcement that we're going to get this morning, it's too late, that your campaign needs money, that your campaign needs structure, and frankly, you've hindered your own campaign by waiting so long. Do you think that's fair?

CLARK: I mean, there are going to be a lot of judges. We'll have to judge by the results.

Here's the way I saw it. There was a lot of pressure building and a tremendous amount of momentum coming from the draft movement and many other people across the country. And this took awhile to develop, and I also wanted the candidates, who were the professionals in this business, who have spent their lives working for their moment to have their chance. It was a tough decision for my family and me to make to transition out of a business career, after transitioning out of military, and go into something else that we'd never done before, especially when neither one of us have grown up in elective politics in any way.

So, this was a tough decision. But I think the timing is good. We'll just have to see.

O'BRIEN: I want to take a moment and talk about the impact on your family. When you were here earlier in the week, you were talking about your wife, Gert (ph), and sort of the discussions that had to go into the decision-making. Are you comfortable and is she comfortable with the fact that your lives now are going to be open books?

CLARK: Well, I think we're as comfortable as anybody could be in the circumstances.

O'BRIEN: How is she holding up? I mean, is she 100 percent behind this decision?

CLARK: She's doing great. She's doing great.

O'BRIEN: Good. Well, thanks for joining us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: That is retired Army General Wesley Clark joining us this morning to talk.

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







Aired September 17, 2003 - 07:11   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Retired Army General Wesley Clark is talking about his vision for the future. America, he says, is hungry for dialogue and looking for leadership. Well, he sure sounds like a presidential candidate.
I spoke with him just a few minutes ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: So, General Clark, are you announcing today that you are running for the Democratic nomination for president?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (D), PRESIDENTAL CANDIDATE: Yes, I am.

O'BRIEN: Well, wonderful. Congratulations. We're glad to hear that.

CLARK: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: You've never been elected to anything. Some people might say, boy, that's ambitious to make your first elected position presidency of the United States. Do you think it is?

CLARK: It is ambitious, but it's also extraordinary times, and this is what my expertise, my leadership experience, my whole career has pointed and prepared me for as opposed to, let's say, a state official or something. I've had a lot of diplomatic experience. I've done a lot of work with security policy. I think I'm the best person to look at the future of this country and keep us safe.

O'BRIEN: Earlier in the week when we were talking, we spoke pretty extensively about your experience -- your wide experience in the military, but there are many people who say this election will be won or lost on potentially domestic issues. So, when you talk about the economy, when you talk about health care, when you talk about the rising costs of prescription drugs, these are all areas that you have zero experience in. How do you market yourself to the voting public when have you no experience in these issues?

CLARK: Well, first of all, I've got the same experience that everybody else does in the voting public. I mean, I have to have prescriptions, and we worry about the cost of medicine. We worry about members of our family who are unemployed. We worry about education and the military. I had a whole range of quality-of-life and personnel issues, including housing and education and health care for our people. So, I'm very much aware of those issues and how they affect people. I've been out of the military three years. I've looked at these issues. And I taught economics at West Point. I worked in the Office of Management and Budget. I remember when many of these programs were being developed back in the mid-'70s. And so, I've got some background in this. You'd be surprised.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk a little bit about your military experience.

CLARK: OK.

O'BRIEN: You have been described as -- and I'm quoting here -- "aggressive, abrasive, disliked, mistrusted." Those are quotes from your fellow officers. Are they accurate?

CLARK: Well, there are a lot of quotes from fellow officers that are the opposite on that. I think what you have to understand about the armed forces, it is a -- it's a competitive bureaucracy. People enter it at the bottom and they come out at the top. There's a lot of gossip. There are some sharp elbows in there.

But I think my record stands on its own merits. And if you look at what I've done, the contributions that I've made, it's a very solid record, and I'm very proud of it.

O'BRIEN: As you have said, you're new to the Democratic Party, and I'm quoting what you said: "I don't even remember" -- when you're talking about who you voted for in the past. Is that accurate?

CLARK: It is accurate, because I have tried to vote every election on absentee ballot. But I think we all understand what happens to absentee ballots after the Florida recount of 2000.

And I recall, for example, one election, I was in Germany. I'd sent for the absentee ballot. Our battalion was on maneuvers. I guess the absentee ballot must have arrived back in the battalion in arrear. I showed up after three weeks in the field. We got our mail. The election was two and a half weeks over, and there was the ballot. And that happened at least once, and I seem to recall it happening several times.

So, that's what happens to service members when they're trying to do their duty as citizens, and at the same time serving abroad, or even here in the United States.

O'BRIEN: There are many folks who say with all of the decision- making that went into this final announcement that we're going to get this morning, it's too late, that your campaign needs money, that your campaign needs structure, and frankly, you've hindered your own campaign by waiting so long. Do you think that's fair?

CLARK: I mean, there are going to be a lot of judges. We'll have to judge by the results.

Here's the way I saw it. There was a lot of pressure building and a tremendous amount of momentum coming from the draft movement and many other people across the country. And this took awhile to develop, and I also wanted the candidates, who were the professionals in this business, who have spent their lives working for their moment to have their chance. It was a tough decision for my family and me to make to transition out of a business career, after transitioning out of military, and go into something else that we'd never done before, especially when neither one of us have grown up in elective politics in any way.

So, this was a tough decision. But I think the timing is good. We'll just have to see.

O'BRIEN: I want to take a moment and talk about the impact on your family. When you were here earlier in the week, you were talking about your wife, Gert (ph), and sort of the discussions that had to go into the decision-making. Are you comfortable and is she comfortable with the fact that your lives now are going to be open books?

CLARK: Well, I think we're as comfortable as anybody could be in the circumstances.

O'BRIEN: How is she holding up? I mean, is she 100 percent behind this decision?

CLARK: She's doing great. She's doing great.

O'BRIEN: Good. Well, thanks for joining us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: That is retired Army General Wesley Clark joining us this morning to talk.

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