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CNN Live At Daybreak

Book Critical of President Hits Bookstores Tomorrow

Aired January 12, 2004 - 05:06   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.


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The Democratic presidential candidates are talking about the nation's enormous budget deficit, too. At $374 billion, it is the largest deficit in U.S. history and it's expected to jump to more than half a trillion dollars during this fiscal year alone. Many, including former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, blame the president's tax cuts. O'Neill says the president rejected his advice not to cut taxes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL O'NEILL, FORMER TREASURY SECRETARY: It was not just about not wanting the tax cut. It was about how to use the nation's resources to improve the condition of our society. And I thought the weight of working on Social Security and fundamental tax reform was a lot more important than a tax reduction that was grounded in...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you think it was irresponsible?

O'NEILL: Well, it's for sure not what I would have done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Well, it gets a little nastier. O'Neill isn't just criticizing the president's budget deficit or decisions, rather. He also takes on the president's decision to go to war in Iraq. It's all in a book critical of the president that hits bookstores tomorrow.

Our White House correspondent Dana Bash takes a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's been little more than a year since Paul O'Neill was fired from the Bush cabinet and the former treasury secretary, in a new book by journalist Ron Suskind, is offering blunt assessments of his old boss's policies and style, recounting Mr. Bush in high level cabinet meetings not as focused or engaged, but as a "blind man in a room full of deaf people....I wondered from the first if the president didn't know the questions to ask," O'Neill says in the book, "or if he did know and just not want to know the answers."

Not so, says the president's long time friend and commerce secretary.

DON EVANS, COMMERCE SECRETARY: I know how he conducts these meetings and he is -- drives the meetings, tough questions. He likes dissent. BASH: Perhaps the most raw nerve O'Neill hit, joining Democrats questioning the case for war with Iraq. "In the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would characterize as evidence of weapons of mass destruction," he told "Time" magazine. O'Neill says the quest to oust Saddam Hussein started day one of the administration. "From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out and change Iraq into a new country," he said.

Senior Bush officials say although O'Neill sat on the National Security Council, he was not privy to all intelligence assessments. Top aides say regime change in Iraq had been U.S. policy since 1998 and maintained going to war was always the last resort.

O'Neill was outspoken in a White House known for speaking with one voice. His tenure was rocky, traveling abroad as corporate scandals broke at home and criticizing GOP tax proposals as "show business."

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D-CT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He was right. This administration has taken us into the largest fiscal deficit in our history.

BASH (on camera): O'Neill said his old friend Dick Cheney, who brought him into the White House, was the one who showed him the door. As for any wrath he might face from Bush loyalists, he said, "I'm an old guy and I'm rich and there's nothing they can do to hurt me."

Dana Bash, CNN, Crawford, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: So there you go.

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 January 12, 2004 - 05:06   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The Democratic presidential candidates are talking about the nation's enormous budget deficit, too. At $374 billion, it is the largest deficit in U.S. history and it's expected to jump to more than half a trillion dollars during this fiscal year alone. Many, including former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, blame the president's tax cuts. O'Neill says the president rejected his advice not to cut taxes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL O'NEILL, FORMER TREASURY SECRETARY: It was not just about not wanting the tax cut. It was about how to use the nation's resources to improve the condition of our society. And I thought the weight of working on Social Security and fundamental tax reform was a lot more important than a tax reduction that was grounded in...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you think it was irresponsible?

O'NEILL: Well, it's for sure not what I would have done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Well, it gets a little nastier. O'Neill isn't just criticizing the president's budget deficit or decisions, rather. He also takes on the president's decision to go to war in Iraq. It's all in a book critical of the president that hits bookstores tomorrow.

Our White House correspondent Dana Bash takes a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's been little more than a year since Paul O'Neill was fired from the Bush cabinet and the former treasury secretary, in a new book by journalist Ron Suskind, is offering blunt assessments of his old boss's policies and style, recounting Mr. Bush in high level cabinet meetings not as focused or engaged, but as a "blind man in a room full of deaf people....I wondered from the first if the president didn't know the questions to ask," O'Neill says in the book, "or if he did know and just not want to know the answers."

Not so, says the president's long time friend and commerce secretary.

DON EVANS, COMMERCE SECRETARY: I know how he conducts these meetings and he is -- drives the meetings, tough questions. He likes dissent. BASH: Perhaps the most raw nerve O'Neill hit, joining Democrats questioning the case for war with Iraq. "In the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would characterize as evidence of weapons of mass destruction," he told "Time" magazine. O'Neill says the quest to oust Saddam Hussein started day one of the administration. "From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out and change Iraq into a new country," he said.

Senior Bush officials say although O'Neill sat on the National Security Council, he was not privy to all intelligence assessments. Top aides say regime change in Iraq had been U.S. policy since 1998 and maintained going to war was always the last resort.

O'Neill was outspoken in a White House known for speaking with one voice. His tenure was rocky, traveling abroad as corporate scandals broke at home and criticizing GOP tax proposals as "show business."

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D-CT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He was right. This administration has taken us into the largest fiscal deficit in our history.

BASH (on camera): O'Neill said his old friend Dick Cheney, who brought him into the White House, was the one who showed him the door. As for any wrath he might face from Bush loyalists, he said, "I'm an old guy and I'm rich and there's nothing they can do to hurt me."

Dana Bash, CNN, Crawford, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: So there you go.

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