Return to Transcripts main page
Parker Spitzer
Interview With Senator Lindsey Graham; Interview with Senator Richard Durbin
Aired December 03, 2010 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KATHLEEN PARKER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, I'm Kathleen Parker.
ELIOT SPITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Eliot Spitzer. Welcome to the program. Coming up, a stunning proposal by Lindsey Graham, a leading Republican senator. He says we should be in Afghanistan forever. I mean, forever. Send our military men over there and never bring them home. You're not going to believe it when we talk to him.
PARKER: You can always count on a South Carolinian to be provocative.
Plus we have a grim jobs market. It turns bleaker. Does any party have any ideas of bringing jobs into this country? We'll ask top Democratic Senator Dick Durbin.
SPITZER: I'd tell you, I'm not optimistic. It is two quagmires we're facing, Kathleen. Afghanistan first, it is an ugly picture of corruption running rampant. Karzai taking money from everybody, but the good news, the president went over there to visit the troops, always a good thing to do.
On the other hand, we have already been fighting this war longer than any war in American history. David said we're going it be there at least until 2014. The regime we're propping up is as corrupt as anything the world has seen or known.
Al Qaeda left to go to Pakistan. I don't know why we're there. The American people need answers on what's going on over there and what the strategy is.
And then, Kathleen, on the job front, I just got to say, the unemployment number today up to 9.8 percent. It's even worse when you look at what's going on in our economy. Things are grim, indeed, at every level. Not a pretty picture.
PARKER: The jobs report would suggest maybe there was something to the timing of President Obama's trip to Afghanistan? I don't know. Well, I know that some of our guests are going to disagree with this and you will maybe publicly disagree, but I know you think this is true.
You know, it seems to be the fact that the president ain't there. There's no there there. I mean, the Republicans said that all along. People who did support him initially are now pulling away. Even Paul Krugman had an editorial in "The New York Times" today saying he seems going out of his way to prove to the people who put him in office that they made an embarrassing --
SPITZER: Well, I have been critical of the administration across a range of areas. On the other hand, I can't sit here and let you say he hasn't been here. This economy was in a death spiral when he came in.
PARKER: Just a communication problem.
SPITZER: No, no, no. I just grade him on substance, but we are stabilized. The patient is in the recovery room, but not getting better quickly enough and merely being in the recovery room is not enough.
PARKER: Look, I take no pleasure. I take no pleasure. I want the president to succeed. He is our president. If he fails, we all fail.
But, you know, the guy has got to lead. There's something missing here and part of recovery, it's not just the nuts and bolts of job creation. It's the spirit, it's the optimism, it's all of that.
SPITZER: None of it, however, confronts the reality in a global economy with technology where it is the jobs have been flowing overseas for 10, 15, 20 years and that crisis is one we have not confronted.
PARKER: There's no politician in America who gives a better stump speech than you.
SPITZER: All right, Kathleen. Now let's switch back to the first quagmire we talked about, Afghanistan, our headliner tonight. A radical new plan for that troubled situation.
Joining us from Washington, South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham who has visited Afghanistan about a dozen times and has been deeply involved in the conversations about Afghanistan. Senator, thank you for joining us.
SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM, (R) SOUTH CAROLINA: Glad to be with you.
SPITZER: You know, Senator, obviously with the president shooting over to Afghanistan today, a number of people are saying, why now? You have the tax debate going on. You have the deficit commission coming out. Job numbers that are quite frankly abysmal.
This is his third trip overseas. What do you make of the timing? Is this the right moment for him to do what we believe he should do, which is lead the troops but why today?
GRAHAM: Well, I think it's good that he went today. I'm for the president going to Afghanistan and Iraq as much as possible. Why today, because we're about eight days away from the report by General Petraeus evaluating the current strategy. We need to push the Karzai government to do more. We need to reassure the Karzai government that we're not leaving in 2011. I'm very pleased by the statement by the president that we're going to stay with it and transition in 2014 when the Afghans will be in the lead.
So now is the critical time in Afghan politics and security re- evaluation for the president to be on the ground, thank the troops during the holiday season and get a firsthand understanding of what's going on from General Petraeus. So I support him going now.
PARKER: What do you imagine, what do you envision that that strategy reappraisal will look like? Do you hint of what --
GRAHAM: Well, I do believe there are places in Afghanistan, Kathleen, that have become more secure because of the 30,000 additional troops that we could actually begin to withdraw some troops next summer.
But we're going to need a substantial U.S. presence for a long time to come because the fight is a long way from being over, but we should all be focusing on the 2014 date of giving the Afghan security forces a chance to develop and mature and let them get into lead, then, so the enemy doesn't think we're leaving in 2011.
One thing I put on the table is under the right circumstances it would make sense to me, Kathleen, for America to have an air base in the north and south of Afghanistan for in perpetuity because that way Afghan security forces would always have American air power to combat any effort of the Taliban to come back and have some special forces units assigned to those air bases to make sure Afghanistan never goes back into chaos. I'd like to see that on the table.
PARKET: Just to be clear, you're suggesting a permanent U.S. presence in Afghanistan?
GRAHAM: Something we should consider. We have bases all over the world. We got air bases in the UAE, Kuwait, under the right circumstances I think it would really secure the gains we made to have a U.S. presence in Afghanistan.
Two air bases that would be beneficial to the Afghan Security Forces, only if the Afghans want it as a way to make sure this country never goes back into the hands of the Taliban. I think that would be a good way to end the Afghan conflict.
SPITZER: You know, Senator, I hear what you're saying and I'm actually kind of startled by it because my recollection is this war was about al Qaeda and terrorism, not about nation building in Afghanistan.
You're now suggesting a permanent, in perpetuity presence in Afghanistan, perhaps the most corrupt country, a president who takes bags of cash from Iran. What are we doing? Al Qaeda is in Pakistan. Al Qaeda is in Somalia, Yemen. Why are we going to be sending American troops to die, to prop up a corrupt Karzai who's been antithetical to what we believe in?
GRAHAM: Well, my belief is that we're in Afghanistan to protect national security interests of this nation. If you replace Karzai, who do you replace him with? The people to replace him would be the Taliban and the Taliban would open up Afghanistan once again to al Qaeda.
The only reason they're not in large numbers in Afghanistan now is because the troops we have and the Afghan army is getting better so we've literally driven them out. I want to keep them out and I want to secure the gains we've had.
SPITZER: If it sounds to me like what you're doing is creating a permanent presence in Afghanistan somewhat akin to what we have in Korea propping up a corrupt regime when our true enemy al Qaeda has already left and gone to Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. And we're going to be pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into supporting a puppet regime that takes money from other corrupt nations to what end? The enemy is al Qaeda.
GRAHAM: The end is securing U.S. national security interests. I'm glad we have troops in Korea.
SPITZER: But Senator -- but Senator, the objective here, I always thought, was defeat al Qaeda, which is the terrorist group.
GRAHAM: No, no, no.
SPITZER: You're saying that's not the objective?
GRAHAM: The objective for our country is to never be attacked again by Islamic extremists.
SPITZER: You're now suggesting a dedication of resources that I don't think I've heard from anybody suggest we should do in perpetuity with air bases permanently in Afghanistan.
GRAHAM: Well, here's the benefit of it. The people in Pakistan would not have to hedge their bets because they know we're not going to leave. People in Pakistan would never have to worry about the Taliban coming back again and doing business with them.
Iran would know we're not leaving the region. The people in Afghanistan would know they would have U.S. support in perpetuity so they could make good decisions and get off the fence and come our way, not the Taliban's way. They don't want to go back to Taliban life.
It would be a reassuring presence to all of those who have taken up arms in support of us and it would be a devastating statement received by the enemy. I want the enemy to know that Afghanistan is never going to be your hiding place ever again and it would help with Pakistan to let them know America is not going to abandon Afghanistan and the problems we have right now is people are uncertain about what we're going to do.
I want Iran to know with certainty that you're not going to develop a nuclear weapon. No matter what it takes we're not going to let you do that. Until they get that message the world is getting dangerous by the day.
SPITZER: You know, Senator, I think we all share the ambition that you set forth, but I think you are articulating the most dramatic -- you're laying out a nation building strategy that would dedicate our troops and our dollar and our armed forces to Afghanistan and to Pakistan and to all the neighboring countries as you say in perpetuity.
And every foreign policy expert we speak to says the world is growing around us, jobs, intellectual property. We're losing our economic base and we are fighting in a country that is known as the graveyard of empires, falling into the worst, most obvious historical trap. You're saying we're going to be there forever?
GRAHAM: No, I'm suggesting that we have a relationship are the Afghan people that no one's ever had in their history, friends. We're not the Russians. We're in the British Empire. We don't want anything they have. We want to make sure the country never falls back into the hands of extremists to protect ourselves.
SPITZER: Senator?
GRAHAM: I can promise you there are plenty of people in Afghanistan who would welcome a permanent relationship with the United States because we're not the Russians.
PARKER: Well, Senator, let me just ask a simple question, do you think we're winning in Afghanistan?
GRAHAM: I think we're back on the offensive. We're cross -- we're going to play Auburn/South Carolina are going to play, we're on their side of the field because the 30,000 troops.
Eliot, if we hadn't put 30,000 troops in place, I don't think we'd ever have a chance to get back on offense, and the question is, how did the Taliban come back? They don't have organized army. They don't have an air force. They came back because of poor governance and lack of security.
What you call nation building I call an enduring relationship to make sure the Afghan security forces always have the edge against the Taliban and generationally we change governance because if you don't provide better governance, the Taliban takes advantage of it.
So we're on offense now. I think we can win by 2014. We're training the Afghan army and police unlike any time I've seen. So I'm quite encouraged, but the culture of impunity, the culture of corruption is still a big hurdle and we're a long way from turning that around.
SPITZER: Well, look, I hear you, but I could not disagree more fundamentally that this is of all the places in the world where we want to dedicate in perpetuity our troops, our dollars and our effort, but I want to go across the border to Pakistan -- GRAHAM: Can I ask you one thing? This has been a fun debate. Do you think al Qaeda would have ever planned the attacks of 9/11 if we had two air bases in Afghanistan after the Russians left?
SPITZER: We will never know to answer to that, but I can tell you this. The way to go after al Qaeda is not by putting military bases in Afghanistan. Use the counterinsurgency and anti-terrorism intelligence and operations that we can use to go after al Qaeda.
As you have said, Senator, it's now in Pakistan and in Yemen and Somalia that's where we go after them. What would you suggest we do with respect to Pakistan, which you said was the base from which they were supporting these terrorist attacks?
GRAHAM: What I would do for Pakistan is I will continue to support them militarily, give them aid, but I would put benchmarks and conditions. I would push them hard to get better into the fight along the border and help us, destroy sanctuaries that exist in Pakistan.
I would try to convince the Pakistani government and military that the extremist on their side of the border is a bigger threat to them than India.
PARKER: All right, Senator Lindsey Graham, thank you so much for being with us. We hope you'll come back and talk to us --
GRAHAM: It's a good discussion.
PARKER: OK, we'll be right back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the things that baffles me about Barack Obama is he just seems -- he's such a downer. This is -- he has no -- I would say not as a Democrat -- if I were a Democrat, this man seems to have no confidence in his own policy, no ability to offer an inspiring vision. He's basically muddle along and maybe things will got so better, my opponents are so unreasonable and it's depressing to be around him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PARKER: Another day, another economic reality check. Unemployment climbed to 9.8 percent. It is grim out there.
SPITZER: Indeed, Kathleen, it is. Real unemployment is worse. The crisis is persistent and debilitative. The burning question tonight is, what are we as a country going to go about it?
PARKER: And joining us tonight for a frank discussion of real options we have David Frum, who is the editor in chief of frummforum.com and was a speechwriter, special assistant to George W. Bush and we have veteran Democratic strategist Bob Shrum. Let me just stop here and pause a minute and say we are so happy to have the Frum and Shrum show that we're thinking of creating a whole new segment just for you guys.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We write dueling columns on theweek.com.
PARKER: OK, so the topic is jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs. The question is for both of you starting with you, David. Where are we going it get some jobs?
DAVID FRUM, CONSERVATIVE COLUMNIST: One of the lessons of 2010 is to rediscover the power of monetary policy. The Federal Reserve stop expanding the money supply in April of 2010 and that is exactly when the recovery stopped.
We have been going backwards from April of 2010 until now. They're, again, giving the economy monetary fuel. That is the thing that gets you out of cycles. That is the thing that is going to do it now. We're going to need, I'm sorry to say, a lot more of it. The inflation fears that are fanned are so misplaced.
SPITZER: David, look, I think many of us who believe you need fiscal policy, monetary policy, on the monetary side with interest rates at zero, how much more can they do?
FRUM: You print more -- this is Milton Friedman's famous -- in the end, helicopter theory. You can announce there's going it be inflation because one of the things you have to do, one of the things you most have to do is the fundamental problems, consumers have so much debt.
They're crushed under this debt. They can't start spending again until they're debt free. Inflation is a tax on creditors and it is a way to say, everybody is going to have a debt reduction and everyone who holds cash is going to contribute 3 percent, 4 percent of their cash and everybody who owes cash is going to gain a 3 percent or 4 percent benefit per year.
We'll do that until the debt levels are down. That's how you get out of these terrible, terrible prolonged interests.
SPITZER: Not to make this an economic - but did you think the QE2 idea of the fed basically printing enough money to buy back bonds and T-bills, was that a good idea?
FRUM: That was indispensable and may end up having to do it again.
PARKER: It's not enough basically.
SPITZER: You are sounding kind of like a Democrat.
BOB SHRUM, VETERAN DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: But David is sort of fair about this and analytical about it. Milton Friedman who I debated once was certainly not a Democrat and certainly not a progressive, but he was right about the uses of monetary policy. They call it quantitative easing. What it means is you go out. You print money and create more liquidity in the economy and hopefully create more economic activity.
The Europeans criticized us for this two weeks ago. Now, they've started to do it. The Republicans provided Bob Corker, a senator from Tennessee and a couple others a kind of incoherent criticism saying we believe in sound money.
What I think they really believe in is stalling the economy as a road back to the White House.
SPITZER: That is the question I want to ask because the Republicans have said no more fiscal policy meaning no more spending by government as legislated by Congress. They have attacked QE2, this easing of the monetary policy. You're talking about saying enough, enough, enough. The Republican Party seems to be saying take away the levers of potential job creation.
SHRUM: But Ben Bernanke is not going to listen to the Republicans on this, number one. The Republicans have a somewhat contradictory policy in the sense that they're demanding the extension of these tax cuts.
And I think in the end the president is going to have to compromise on the extension of the tax cuts putting it together with extended unemployment compensation, but because you can't afford to body slam the economy right now by putting a tax increase on millions and millions of people.
PARKER: Bob, you're a - as a former Democratic strategist, current, too.
SHRUM: I just teach at NYU, now. I don't do this professionally.
PARKER: You know, you have said that Democrats should quit beating up on Barack Obama and I'm sure you read Paul Krugman's column today. He said the president seems to be doing everything he can to convince the people who put him in office that they made an embarrassing decision.
SHRUM: Well, you know, I think Paul Krugman has a Nobel Prize in economics, but not in politics and his critic of the president for example on the stimulus has a certain element of truth in it. The stimulus should have been bigger. It couldn't have been bigger. It was the biggest possible stimulus you could pass. The last line of his column today, Democrats need to look elsewhere for leadership, is a recipe for suicide.
Look, I've been in campaigns that have done well. I've been in campaigns that have fallen short or in the case of Gore, a campaign that I believe was basically stolen from the guy who won. When you're doing well you're all geniuses, and all of the people around Barack Obama were geniuses in 2008. When things are tough, people think you're second raters. I think things are going to get better. I think we're driving toward a narrative in 2012 where the president will say, I made tough decisions, we're on the right path. America's coming back.
FRUM: The problem with President Obama is throughout the battles of the past two years, he always wavered. He seemed weak. He didn't stake out the aggressive position we wanted and then he negotiated from strength.
He negotiated from weakness, gave up initially and I think he created the space for the Tea Party embracing Wall Street rather than fighting against it and so he became the status quo and that was the critical give that has doomed his first two years.
PARKER: What can he do?
SHRUM: I think the president -- the state of the union message is going to be very important. He has to step back, talk about this narrative, where we've come in the last two years, where he wants to go the next two years.
You know, every time this guy's back has been against the wall as it was in the campaign. He steps up and he does an extraordinary job. He is going to inspire the country. I go back to a fundamental point. It was a lot easier for Franklin Roosevelt to inspire the country in 1936 when the economy was on the up.
It was a lot easier for Ronald Reagan to inspire the country in 1984 when it was no longer at 33 percent approval when the economy was on the up. You can't write speeches that make people feel better when they don't have a job.
SPITZER: What is he going to put in as an economic program to begin that turnaround?
SHRUM: He may propose to do some things I think Republicans are going to resist him. The first thing is they can do no harm. They're going to have to deal with the Bush tax cuts, combine them with Senate unemployment compensation, extending some of the other tax cuts.
Secondly, the fed is going to have to do its part. I think that's going to continue to happen. Thirdly, we haven't talked about it, but in terms of deficit reduction commission, he's going to have to come up with a program for long-term deficit reduction that doesn't make the choice of beginning deep cuts too soon next fall which could undo this recovery.
SPITZER: I agree with you, but here's the problem. The tax cuts are really not cuts. That is continuation of current rates. That's not going to change anything. The feds has been dumping money in as it should. The deficit is counter-stimulative so --
SHRUM: I think the fed doing this is gradually improving the situation. I think if you had a tax increase right now on this, especially on the middle class, who tend to consume, you cut off unemployment compensation, this economy would be in terrible shape.
SPITZER: I don't think it's going to have a net bump --
SHRUM: It's getting better. I don't think you can take today's numbers and jump off the cliff.
FRUM: Here's one of the great ironies. We're doing -- take the long view, two things through the cycle. We are seeing a historic turn in the behavior of Americans, saving more and reducing debt.
And the second thing we're doing is putting government, state and local government through a shrinkage. When you look at these job numbers you're seeing the private sectors growing and government is shrinking not by that much --
SPITZER: The private sector is stagnant. Government is shrinkable. We created 1.2 million new private sector jobs.
FRUM: We look back on this in five years, we'll see all the human suffering and the loss of homes, jobs, that will be horrific and it was preventable and tragic.
We're going to see this was a moment when the country did begin to shift to that -- respond to that aging the population by saving more by having a smaller sector, especially the state sector which has been -- the state and local level has grown so out of control under Democratic governors --
SPITZER: Wait, wait, Republican governors --
PARKER: We have to wrap. I'm sorry we have to wrap. Frum and Shrum. Thank you so much for joining us.
SPITZER: Still to come, a senator who made what looks to me like a courageous vote. Stick around to meet him. We'll be right back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We hear about the social tolerance value of diversity, but in fact, I think at some level being around people who are different from us and have different skills actually makes us smarter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PARKER: We have the perfect guest for our best ideas segment today. If you think we're wrong, listen to the title of his new book "Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation."
SPITZER: And you can't listen to any politician or economist these days tell you about the future without saying innovation is the key to getting our economy and our nation back on track. So it's a pleasure to have Steven Johnson here to tell us how we're going to do it. PARKER: All right, Steven, you say that ideas aren't a single thing but emerge from a chaotic environment. Give us an example.
STEVEN JOHNSON, AUTHOR, "WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM": One great example is where we are tonight in New York City. Cities have an incredible track record for generating innovation, right?
And whether it's creative innovation, economic innovation, even sometimes the bad kind of innovation, the financial innovation that got us into trouble, if you thought that being creative and being innovative was all about being in a quiet template of space --
PARKER: I tried that.
JOHNSON: - being away from the crowds, then cities would be terrible at it. It would be the rural areas generating good ideas and cities would be bad at generating good ideas. Good ideas and innovation come out of the clash and overlap and to mingling and collaboration that come together when people share space.
The birth of the personal computer. So much of that came out of hobbyists and amateurs working in garages. There was a group in silicon valley called the home grew computing club, a rag tag bunch of, some scholars and academics and scientists, but a bunch of hippies from the late 6 '60s, early '70s in San Francisco and would share ideas about the new technology.
PARKER: You say the enlightenment came from the coffee house.
JOHNSON: The coffee house was crucial because it was a place where people who had different backgrounds and hobbies and passions would get together and have long, improvisational conversations.
Ben Franklin used to hang out at this cocktail coffeehouse near St. Paul's and sit there for five hours with his friends. So it's partially because that space wasn't so -- it wasn't an academic lecture, it wasn't so structured, but it wasn't sitting alone in your study trying to think deep thoughts.
PARKER: You said it is where ideas could have sex.
JOHNSON: Exactly. They have to kind of reproduce and get connected to other ideas.
SPITZER: All right, so your book goes beyond saying since we have Starbucks we're going to have more ideas and be a more innovative economy. What is the equivalent in today's world of the coffee house? Where do ideas mingle, create that environment so there will be the next rapid generation of innovation?
JOHNSON: I think the web is a great model for this. We've seen the greatest kind of pace of innovation in terms of, you know, the number of amazing new products that have come out. It really happened on the web in the last 10 or 15 years. Just as cities have been a driver of innovation, so is the Web.
The question is why?
SPITZER: Right.
JOHNSON: And I think the cheap answer is: people are innovating on the Web because there's a promise of being the next Mark Zuckerberg and having $5 billion. And sure, that concentrates the mind and people are incentivized by the money.
But I think it's also the very architecture of the Web is designed to let people build on top of other people's ideas. The Web, itself, is built on top of the Internet.
PARKER: Right.
JOHNSON: And people can build on top of the Web and they don't have to ask for permission.
PARKER: You also talked about creating -- you studied different environments, including not just the Web, but even coral reefs, trying to find out how diverse life evolves and how we -- is there a way to duplicate that so we can create jobs in America? Let's just get right to it.
(LAUGHTER)
JOHNSON: Well, I mean, part of it is recognizing the innovation power of diversity, itself. So, there's a wonderful study by (INAUDIBLE) who's at Stanford Business School who looked at unusually innovative people in the workforce and entrepreneurs and compared their social networks to people who are less innovative.
What he found was people who are unusually innovative had a much more diverse social network in terms of the professions, the friends and acquaintances, their professions were different from their own. And Roy's (ph) argument and is very much the argument of this book is that it's by having conversations with people who -- you know, you're an advertising person but you talk to this architect and over at lunch, you think, there's something about the way you're dealing with your clients and your architecture practice, it's useful in what I do at work.
And so, we hear a lot about the kind of social tolerance value of diversity, but in fact, I think in some level, being around people who are different from us, have different skills actually makes us smarter.
SPITZER: One other issue you addressed in here was this sort of belief we have that all innovation comes from the private sector.
JOHNSON: Right.
SPITZER: And you don't think that's correct.
JOHNSON: I think the private sector is a great driver of innovation. But that's -- it intends the fault assumption that it is the only driver of innovation. And I tried to do a big king of survey at the end of the book where I looked at innovations across the board and try to figure out how many of them came out of either government- funded research or academic research versus the private sector. And depending on how you measure it, they're either equal or actually kind of non-profit sector actually out-innovates the private sector.
And that's because, when you're in the private sector, while you do have financial rewards, you also have a desire to kind of keep your inventions secret and not allow people to build on it or connect to it because you'll give it away. And in open environments, people are free to build, and borrow, and remix in new ways. And so, that makes up for the fact that they don't have economic rewards.
PARKER: OK. Well, this is so interesting. A very bad is that we have to end it.
(LAUGHTER)
PARKER: Thank you so much for being with us.
JOHNSON: Thank you for having me.
PARKER: The book is "Where Good Ideas Come From." Steven Johnson -- thanks again for being here with us.
Next: the latest on the "don't ask, don't tell" debate. It's not over yet. Don't go away and we will be right back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SPITZER: How do we get the financial services sector to play a more aggressive role in what we need done here?
SEN. DICK DURBIN (D), ILLINOIS: I'd like to see more arm- twisting out of the White House. I'll be honest with you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PARKER: The president's deficit commission today narrowly missed the 14 votes needed to force a congressional vote on the plan. Eleven members of the bipartisan commission voted for the proposal to cut the deficit including, our next guest.
SPITZER: Joining us on "Constitution Avenue" segment tonight is the second most powerful man in the Senate, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the assistant majority leader.
Senator, thank you for joining us.
DURBIN: Good to be with you, Eliot.
SPITZER: Thank you.
Senator, now, explain to the public -- you voted for this deficit commission proposal, but simultaneously said you would vote against it if it were actually brought to the floor of the United States Senate -- explain what might appear to be an inconsistency and what your objective is in doing that.
DURBIN: I don't think there was a single person voting for it that didn't take exception to some of the provisions. Now, imagine, this is a plan for a budget for the next 10 years. There were a lot of ideas in there. Some of those I embrace, and many of those I object.
But I thought it was a vote, as I said at the hearing this morning, on a motion to proceed to balance the budget, or at least to bring it closer to balance. And I wanted to be on record, yes. I think that liberals and conservatives and Democrats and Republicans and independents really need to accept the obvious, we cannot continue to borrow 40 cents out of every dollar we spend.
PARKER: Now, that this plan didn't pass though -- you say you voted for it in order to make your statement that you're interested in having this conversation.
DURBIN: That's right.
PARKER: Do you feel that those who voted against it are not interested in that conversation?
DURBIN: They'll have to explain their own motives for voting no, but I understand it. And many of them were heartfelt. I had some of my friends on the Democratic side, good liberal friends, conservative, progressive friends, you know, like Jan Schakowsky, whom I really value as a close friend, who just saw it differently and thought this did not go far enough in the direction she wanted it to go.
But having said that, though, if you're serious about the budget deficit, we got to roll up our sleeves and come to the table, both sides, if we're ever going to achieve anything.
SPITZER: You know, the irony here and I should preface this by saying I think what you did is not only admirable and courageous, but it's important right.
The irony, though, is we're at the same time that you've struggled to come up with a plan to cut about $4 trillion over a decade. We're about to put back in place and extend some tax cuts -- the impact of which will be to take away that $4 trillion of revenue. So, another alternative would have been for the president just to say, you know what, we can't afford this tax cut right now, it hasn't worked as a matter of economic policy, we balance the books that way.
Why should that not be the way we move forward?
DURBIN: Eliot, of course, is we're in a perilous position with this economy. Today's report on unemployment shows that the rate's gone up. We're not out of the woods yet.
And one of the things I insisted on in this deficit commission, is that before we hit the deficit brake, we're going to wait until January of 2013, because I don't -- I'm not sure we're going to be out of the woods very quickly. I want to make certain that we put enough stimulus in this economy to start creating jobs to help small businesses so that people start earning wages and paying taxes rather than calling for government services.
SPITZER: You referenced before the perilous condition of our economy and you're right, with the unemployment number moving certainly in the wrong direction, today -- the indicators are not good at all. It seems we're almost at the end of our rope. Interest rates are down to zero. The Republican majority soon in the House is opposed to any more fiscal stimulus.
What levers are going to be left to really push this economy forward? How are we going to begin to get that job engine roaring again?
DURBIN: Well, one thing, Eliot, is the small business credit bill, which the president signed into law. I don't believe that's really engaged yet. That has the potential to infuse up to $300 billion in loans to small businesses across the United States of America. That could be a catalyst that will be very, very positive.
SPITZER: How do we get the financial services sector to play a more aggressive role in what we need done here?
DURBIN: I'd like to see a little more-arm twisting out of the White House. I'll be honest with you. When you consider what we did with the bailout funds, the TARP funds, and what it did to save financial institutions, which in their perfidy, made some of the most horrible mistakes in the history of the American economy. And then they turned around, awarded one another bonuses and cut off the credit spigot for businesses across America. The businesses in this country as well as these financial institutions, as we know, have been profitable, are sitting on a lot of cash and reserves. If they would start investing back in this economy, which I think they should, the president ought to urge them to, it could have a positive impact.
PARKER: Paul Krugman today wrote a stinging column about the president. And I'd read a quote to you. "Mr. Obama seems, almost seems as if he's trying systemically to disappoint his once-fervent supporters, to convince the people who put him where he is that they made an embarrassing mistake."
What is your reaction to that kind of criticism of the president?
DURBIN: I understand it, because I hear from the left in our Democratic Party that they want the president to be more confrontational. I understand their sentiment. I feel that many times, myself.
But I also know this president has to step back and look at the overall picture. He has to look at this economy and realize how fragile it is, how important it is for us to create jobs and to invigorate business. And many times, that means making concessions with the Republicans who still have an important voice in this process and will have bigger voice come January. And I know that frustrates our base, and frustrates Mr. Krugman, who I respect very much.
PARKER: Senator, I want to shift gears for a minute to Afghanistan. I guess you're familiar with your colleague, Senator Lindsey Graham, is proposing building two air bases in Afghanistan and keeping our troops there in perpetuity, he said today, on our show actually.
DURBIN: Well, I greatly respect Lindsey. We see the world in some issues in different terms. And when it comes to the United States' presence in Afghanistan, it's a very expensive commitment. It cost $1 million per year for every soldier on the ground. It costs us $40 for every gallon of fuel that is used at Afghanistan.
We are a nation that is very sensitive to our own debt and deficit, and very sensitive to the fact that a lot of the money that we're pumping in to Afghanistan is being diverted sadly into the hands of corrupt officials who are turning it around and using it for bullets to shoot at American troops.
PARKER: OK. One last question, Senator, before we let you go. Is it true you kill rats with your bare hands?
(LAUGHTER)
DURBIN: No, that's not true. But it is true I happen to live in one of those glamorous townhouses on Capitol Hill with Senator Schumer of New York and George Miller of California and, yes, we were invaded by rats and, yes, I set the traps.
PARKER: OK. Senator Dick Durbin, thank you so much for being here.
DURBIN: Thank you, too.
PARKER: Still ahead, if you could give anyone a slap on the wrist, who would it be? Our political party will tell us who they'd censure -- coming right up. Stay with us.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KURT LODER, REASON.COM: Are we not at all happy that there's gridlock in Washington? When there's gridlock, they can't do as much. The guys like --
CARA SANTA MARIA, NEUROSCIENTIST: Why is that a good thing?
LODER: It's a good thing -- as we've seen for the last two years, instead of getting stuff rammed down your throat, somebody should stand up and say no.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: Time for "Our Political Party," where we invite a wide range of people to hear what they've got to say about what's going on. Let's meet tonight's guests: Justin Gimelstob, a former tennis pro who's now a commentator on Tennis Channel and hero of mine for his great comeback to the U.S. Open.
And Kurt Loder, who is the former "Rolling Stone," MTV icon, who co-wrote Tina Turner's autobiography, currently reviewing movies for Reason.com.
PARKER: And we have over here Cara Santa Maria, who is neuroscientist, specializing in bird songs, who also sings jazz to herself.
We have Maz Jobrani, who is a comedian, who helped start the "Axis of Evil" comedy hour.
All right. Welcome, everybody. Thanks for coming.
(CROSSTALK)
SPITZER: All right. I want to find out what neuroscience is all about.
Anyway, today, after being hammered here and abroad, President Obama sought refuge in the one place he can get a hero's welcome, he turned up in Afghanistan. Actually, let's take some footage and see what it looked like when the president visited with our troops. Let's take a look.
(VIDEO CLIP)
SPITZER: Wait a minute. All right, I'm sorry. This is just a bad joke. That was when LeBron James went back to Cleveland. But I guess he kind of showed them when he scored 38 points. They won by some huge margin.
All right. Good to know, of course, the president got a huge ovation, as he should, and any president will and should from the troops. There's some actual footage of it.
All right. But what was up with the president's trip? Was he just running away from the bad news here? What do you think?
JUSTIN GIMELSTOB, FORMER TENNIS PRO: Well, unlike LeBron it's nice the president understands loyalty. And while the physical presence in Afghanistan is decreasing, it's nice that the soldiers know they have tremendous support from the president.
LODER: It's good ice to see him taking ownership of America's longest war.
(CROSSTALK)
SPITZER: Our longest war almost because of him at this point. I mean, he's the one who continued it when there was some fair debate about that.
PARKER: All right. Back in Washington --
SPITZER: Oh, come on, please. Do we have to?
(LAUGHTER)
PARKER: The tax cut fights, the START Treaty -- it's clear that the Republicans can still stonewall. Democrats seem to be in a mode of appeasement. You know, what's going on here? Do you have any special -- you come from different backgrounds. Do you have special recommendations?
LODER: Are we not all happy there's gridlock in Washington? When there's gridlock, they can't do as much. The guys like
SANTA MARIA: Why is that a good thing?
(LAUGHTER)
LODER: It's a good thing -- as we see for the last two years, instead of getting stuff rammed down your throat, somebody should say, no, that's the same when the Republicans --
SANTA MARIA: You're a libertarian, so no government is good government. I'd like to see progress.
LODER: But is it progress when they're just, you know, jamming bills down people's throats and don't even read them?
MAZ JOBRANI, IRANIAN-AMERICAN COMEDIAN: They have to learn to compromise. That's the thing. I wonder if any -- are these people married? Like, I'm married, you learn to compromise, you know? You want to see "Tron," she wants to see "Burlesque." You go see "Burlesque."
(LAUGHTER)
SPITZER: You know, I'm in different perspective. Maybe it's time for the president to be tougher and not compromise, draw some lines in the sands and say, you know what -- Afghanistan, I don't think we should still be there, when it comes to tax policy I'm going to defend the middle class, we're not going to give tax cuts to those who are extraordinarily wealthy. I would like to see a firmer, bolder, more assertive, determined president who stands for principle and doesn't always feel compelled to put the first card on the table to cave.
(CROSSTALK)
JOBRANI: Well, it's not just the president though.
SANTA MARIA: It's the whole party.
JOBRANI: -- it's also the Democrats of Congress who need to step up and go, all right, we're going to stick to our guns and --
(CROSSTALK) SANTA MARIA: I mean, they really do.
LODER: They've had two years of doing that. What happened?
(CROSSTALK)
GIMELSTOB: Trust and compromise are the cornerstone. But there's nothing tougher than finding consensus.
SANTA MARIA: My real question is, when the left is constantly trying to compromise and the right is constantly stonewalling, what you see is that meeting in the middle gets pushed farther and farther and farther to the right.
SPITZER: They moved the goalpost, and you know what -- the left and those who are even in the center need a lesson in negotiating strategy. Anyway, look, we'll be right back with more of "Our Political Party."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PARKER: Welcome back. We got time for just one more question.
Yesterday, Congressman Charlie Rangel was censured. The first one to be censured in 27 years, whom would you like to censure?
LODER: I'd like to see him shut the door. I mean, censure means nothing. Somebody says, you've been bad, that's all. It's the only thing that happens.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Doesn't happen that often.
(CROSSTALK)
SPITZER: Let's put him aside. Who else in the world do you think deserves --
GIMELSTOB: Any athlete that speaks in the third person.
(CROSSTALK)
JOBRANI: I go after Ann Coulter because she said that Muslims should be profiled at the airport.
PARKER: I am on your side.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I like your profile. Do that again.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: Muslims should be profiled at the airport. The fact is, she said that was her solution to the TSA problem. And the fact is, first of all, if you're going to try to blow something up, you're not going to dress up in Muslim garb and try and get through, number one. And number two, we've already had a lot of people that didn't fit the profile that would try to do stuff -- Jihad Jane and all the others.
So, I heard that and I thought, jeez.
SPITZER: The darkest moments in our nation's history come from that sort of thing.
SANTA MARIA: I'd like to see John Shimkus censured. If we're actually talking about somebody who's in Congress. And here, it's not about an ethics violation, it's about ignorance to a position that you're in and it really scares me that this man -- and I'm bringing up a completely different point here -- wants to head an energy committee when he is citing Genesis as to why global warming is not going to affect us in this country.
SPITZER: I think it maybe the case that virtually all the incoming Republican members of Congress have disavowed a belief in global warming.
SANTA MARIA: This is (INAUDIBLE) science. This is what scares me. I don't think -- this is a false debate. I don't think it's always fair to give equal footing to a religious opinion versus a science opinion on the science topic.
PARKER: You didn't know about on the eighth day, let there be no global warming?
(LAUGHTER)
GIMELSTOB: You're not going it be flying back to L.A. privately, are you? Are you driving back in a Prius? How are you getting back? You have your offsets, right?
SANTA MARIA: You know, it really does. I mean, it just bothers me when somebody wants to be in that situation and isn't willing to look at the actual evidence.
LODER: Global warming industry is collapsing of its own accord.
SANTA MARIA: The industry?
LODER: Yes.
SPITZER: Here we disagree. There is scientific agreement this is a real problem.
LODER: Among scientists who are funded by --
(CROSSTALK)
SPITZER: We had on our program a couple weeks ago, one of the big greatest doubters, one of the scientists who had been a doubter who's now come around and said, no, it's a real problem -- the only question is how you begin to confront him.
LODER: Who was he?
SPITZER: Bjorn Lomborg --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bjorn Lomborg --
(CROSSTALK)
LODER: His idea is a little more nuanced. And I said, if there is a problem, it is happening, it's not necessary the end of the world right now. There are better things we can d o.
PARKER: Maz, what's the funny Muslim position on this?
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: Take the attention off the Muslims, whatever you want to -- it wasn't us. It wasn't us.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: One thing you can't blame us for.
SPITZER: The U.S. feels that way, too, sometimes.
PARKER: OK. Maz Jobrani, Kurt Loder, Cara Santa Maria, and Justin Gimelstob -- thank you for being here. Great party. Come back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks.
PARKER: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWSBREAK)
SPITZER: Tonight's "Postscript," paper yellows with age. But a 200-year-old copy of the "Star Spangled Banner" looks in darn good shape. It sold at auction today at Christie's in New York for more than $500,000.
PARKER: Well, that's a lot of moolah for a song nobody knows how to sing. Still, the sheet music is only one of 11 first editions of Francis Scott Key's patriotic tune. The story goes he wrote it after watching the British attack Fort McHenry in Baltimore during the war of 14 -- I mean, sorry, 1812.
SPITZER: Bone up on our history, too.
So, he actually saw the rockets' red glare and the bombs bursting in air. I don't know you, about you, Kathleen, it still gives me goose bumps when I'm at a football game or baseball game and we hear that national anthem and people stand up.
PARKER: Hand over heart, right?
SPITZER: Hand over heart. People start singing along.
(THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER)
PARKER: Thank you, Francis Scott Key, and thank you, Marine Corps Band and thank you for watching.
SPITZER: Good night from New York. "LARRY KING LIVE" starts right now.
