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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Battle for Fallujah May Be Days Away; Elizabeth Edwards Diagnosed With Breast Cancer
Aired November 04, 2004 - 22:00 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.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
Here is an uncomfortable truth and a journalistic lesson. You can't resist looking at a car wreck on the freeway and we can't resist talking about a car wreck in a news program. That in a sentence is why much of the post election coverage these last two days has been about the Democrats and where they are and what they must do.
But the larger story is, of course, about the Republicans and what they want to do. It is their field now, healthy majorities in the Congress, a president with a decisive win. What will they do with that? We won't forego our love of the car wreck tonight but we won't ignore the car that sailed smoothly by either.
And so the whip begins at the White House where the president today was driving that car in his first post election news conference, our Senior White House Correspondent John King with us, John, a headline.
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president says he expects a bit of turnover heading into the second term but he said he also expects to be very busy and he says he believes the Congress should listen to him because he has, in his words, political capital.
BROWN: John, thank you. We'll get to you at the top tonight.
Iraq looms large in the post election landscape, the battle of Fallujah perhaps just days away, CNN's Karl Penhaul with us tonight, Karl, a headline.
KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: U.S. Marines are training hard for urban warfare as their commanders warn that the fight for Fallujah could get dirty very quickly -- Aaron.
BROWN: Karl, thank you.
Life often finds ways of putting everything in perspective, including politics, something John Edwards and his wife Elizabeth know very well tonight, CNN's Elizabeth Cohen with the story and the headline.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Every year more than 200,000 American women are diagnosed with breast cancer. This week Elizabeth Edwards became one of them -- Aaron. BROWN: Elizabeth, thank you. We'll get to you and the rest in a little bit.
Also on the program tonight, the conflict in the Middle East and Yasser Arafat's failing health, its impact a challenge to the country, lots of countries.
And 25 years after an American nightmare in Iran, a look back at the hostage crisis there.
And, as always, we'll end the hour with morning papers from around the country and around -- well, the country, all that and more in the hour ahead.
We begin tonight with the president who in 77 days will deliver his second inaugural address. A lot can happen, of course, in 77 days with Iraq and the Middle East and an ailing Supreme Court justice all factored in. We'll get to all these things tonight, the point being that events have a way of driving presidential agendas. Just look at the last four years.
But, for now, it is about goals set, majorities won and legacies to write and so we begin at the White House and our Senior White House Correspondent John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice-over): Energized to say the least and voicing confidence the election results give him both the mandate and the muscle to push difficult issues through Congress.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Let me put it to you this way. I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.
KING: The president talked optimistically of post election goodwill but his major second term initiatives will trigger bruising debates with Democrats. Keeping a promise to slice the deficit will force spending cuts in popular programs.
His Social Security proposal includes private investment accounts for younger Americans. Pushing for a flatter tax system that is revenue neutral, meaning no hidden tax increase and includes incentives for home buying and charitable giving.
BUSH: The people made it clear what they wanted, now let's work together.
KING: Confident but careful taking questions for nearly 40 minutes, Mr. Bush sidestepped several pressing issues that will test the post election mood, whether more troops are needed in Iraq, what the war will cost next year, the goals of an imminent offensive against Iraqi insurgents and what qualities he will look for if Chief Justice William Rehnquist retires.
BUSH: Well, there's no vacancy for the Supreme Court and I will deal with a vacancy when there is one.
KING: On the world stage, Mr. Bush says he shares Prime Minister Tony Blair's goal of trying to revive the Middle East peace process and he talked of trying to move past strains with other leaders caused by the Iraq War.
BUSH: Whatever our past disagreements we share a common enemy.
KING: Mr. Bush called the campaign exhausting but marvelous and he reflected on an Oval Office chat with his father Wednesday morning shortly before Democrat John Kerry conceded the election.
BUSH: It wasn't clear at that point in time, so I never got to see him face-to-face to watch his, I guess, pride in his tired eyes as his son got a second term.
KING: Off to Camp David for a long weekend of rest, the first lady's birthday celebration and, Mr. Bush says, thoughts about inevitable cabinet and senior staff changes. Aides suggest the turnover will be significant but gradual.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: Mr. Bush met this morning with his existing cabinet. He knows not all of them will be there come January, February and beyond but he told them to get busy for the second term agenda and, as for his own level of enthusiasm on the way out of the room, Aaron, he saw his chief speechwriter, pulled him aside and said, "Hey, let's get together soon. I've got some ideas about the inaugural address" -- Aaron.
BROWN: There was talk in Washington today that John Ashcroft, the attorney general, likely to be the first to go in a couple weeks perhaps. Would you anticipate -- is it a makeover or is it moving known faces to different jobs or both?
KING: I think six months from now, eight months from now will be a significant makeover but I think it will be quite gradual because they don't want chaos and most people are very loyal to this president. Ashcroft's aides later in the day started sending out word, "Hey, he liked the election results. His health is fine. He might want to stay a while."
Many have thought Secretary of State Powell would go. His aides are saying not right away. He sees a few things just ahead that he would very much like to deal with.
Here's one to keep an eye on, the National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. If the president says stay she will. There's talk of maybe moving here to the State Department or somewhere else in the government but she's also told several close friends she wouldn't mind going back to California and doing it quite soon.
BROWN: John, thank you, John King at the White House tonight.
Instinct, if nothing else, tells us it will be Iraq more than anything else that defines the president. If four years from now Iraq is stable, if Americans are no longer dying, if it looks more like let's say Jordan and less like Vietnam, history will likely be kind to Mr. Bush.
Getting there, we all understand, will not be easy. It will be lethal and getting there is set to begin in a matter of days with the expected American-led assault on Fallujah, so from there tonight, CNN's Karl Penhaul.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey doc, make sure you hang out behind me a little bit so I can give you some cover.
PENHAUL (voice-over): Getting ready to storm out of the desert and into an urban jungle. An assault on Fallujah promises to be a close quarters street fight. Marine infantrymen and tanks will have to work in harmony against rebel fighters in buildings and hidden allies.
SGT. MICHAEL CHAMBERS, U.S. MARINES: That's what's kind of scary. You're rolling right by thinking it's secured and then they pop up off that rooftop behind you and then here comes the RPG.
PENHAUL: Remote-controlled explosives and suicide car bombs are likely to be major threats.
(on camera): The history books recall how some of the world's most powerful armies became bogged down in urban guerrilla warfare, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) City, Vietnam, Mogadishu, Somalia, Grozny, Chechnya.
CPT. TOM TENNENT, U.S. MARINES: Urban warfare is a dirty business. The defender initially has the advantage because he knows the terrain much better than the attacker. If the defender is able to use his defense to his advantage, the attacker will be slowed and will have to reorient his offense.
PENHAUL: When the Marines roll in, insurgent gunmen could be lurking in any window or doorway. Armored vehicles and tanks will become magnets for attack.
SGT. JOSE DUCASSE, U.S. MARINES: We're going to be looking for, you know, RPG-5 from the rooftops and intersections and stuff like that and make sure we don't hit any tank mine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Charge three.
PENHAUL: Mortar crews run through drills. Inside the city they could, if needed, lob charges over buildings or onto rooftops to destroy concealed insurgent positions.
This explosives team is measuring out detonation cord. Depending on how they tie the knot they can blow out doors and race in to clear potential insurgent hideouts. Intelligence suggests Fallujah's defenders may have rigged buildings with homemade bombs. LANCE CPL. WILLIAM SABIN, U.S. MARINES: Will it cause us to maybe slow down our attack a little bit because we have to take into account all these kind of obstacles for our booby traps, yes, but will it cause us to not be able to complete the mission, absolutely not.
PENHAUL: U.S. commanders say the keys to victory in Fallujah are moving fast and coordinating their weapons on the ground and in the air, a battlefield where Marine and machine works as one.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PENHAUL: Talking to other U.S. commanders we were also talking about what the key to success in Fallujah is going to be. They said another key element is to have a plan to make sure that U.S. Marine casualties can be evacuated from the battlefield quickly so that that doesn't slow the advance. The commanders are not only planning for casualties, they say that they do expect casualties. They think that the fight for Fallujah could be very bloody -- Aaron.
BROWN: I just wonder, excuse me, this may be a little off the wall but one of the things from the beginning literally of the war, the Iraqis opposing the Americans at least have decided is you can't beat them, so don't stand and have these big battles with them if you can avoid them. In the end, the insurgents will lose Fallujah. Why would they even fight for it?
PENHAUL: There are indications that the insurgents think they may even be able to win Fallujah. There are indications that they've been digging in. These are reports from U.S. military intelligence, reports that they've laid booby traps across the city.
Certainly what U.S. Marine commanders believe is that the insurgents want to cause what they're calling a mass casualty attack and so that even if the insurgents do die, die perhaps in the name of their religion, that they will take a great quantity of U.S. Marines with them. They'll grab the headlines for that and gain some notoriety and fame in their own communities for doing just that -- Aaron.
BROWN: Karl, thank you and be careful when this thing begins we expect in a couple of days. We shall see.
Iraq isn't the only security issue that confronts the president as he looks toward the next four years and history not nearly.
Here's our National Security Correspondent David Ensor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With U.S. forces preparing an assault on Fallujah and other Sunni insurgency strongholds and with Iraqi elections scheduled for January, President Bush's toughest immediate effort, Iraq, appears to have some new momentum after his election victory.
RICHARD FALKERATH, FMR. WHITE HOUSE AIDE: It helps the morale of the administration and the troops and it may help them with the international partners who need to contribute to that effort in various ways.
ENSOR: For his part, the president made clear he will reach out to other nations whether they agreed with the Iraq War or not, asking for much more help building democracy in Iraq.
BUSH: And I understand that in certain capitals in certain countries those decisions were not popular.
ENSOR: But critics say in a second term, the greatest challenge for Mr. Bush may be to repair the damage to America's credibility over the last few years caused mostly by the war in Iraq.
JESSICA MATHEWS, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT: Confidence in our leadership was replaced by resentment and bafflement about what we -- our intentions were and even fear of what we would do next. The question is does the president recognize that? If he does, he'll take steps to fix it. If he doesn't, I think we're in deep trouble.
ENSOR: Even before the month is over, the administration must grapple too with how to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
FALKERATH: We have to lead but we have to recognize in this case as much as almost any other we need to lead a multilateral coalition to stop that country from acquiring these weapons.
ENSOR: And, again, events may drive the agenda. The likely end of Yasser Arafat's leadership may oblige Mr. Bush to wade further into the Middle East conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
MATHEWS: If that happens, it is of overwhelming importance for the United States to seize that opportunity and make progress happen.
ENSOR (on camera): On top of all that there's the need to challenge North Korea on nuclear weapons and concerns about a more autocratic Russia. Historically, presidents tend to focus more time on foreign policy than domestic matters in a second term. Mr. Bush made clear in his news conference he wants to try to do both.
David Ensor, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: As David mentioned the health of Yasser Arafat very much an issue for the president and for the future of the Middle East. There were reports today that Mr. Arafat had died.
A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority told CNN that he is still alive, though they now concede he is gravely ill. He had been receiving treatment for a blood disorder at a military hospital outside Paris since last week. The cause of his illness is still not clear.
The car wreck we mentioned at the top of the program is still smoldering some. It's fair to say it will be a while before the rubbernecking stops and the finger pointing along with it but some Democrats are also looking ahead, taking stock of what must come next.
That piece of the story from CNN's Ed Henry.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Democrats feel gloomy about the election but they don't have time to mope.
DONNA BRAZILE, FMR. AL GORE CAMPAIGN MANAGER: The Democrats should not be wary, should not mourn their -- mourn this loss too long because we have a lot of work to do in the days ahead.
HENRY: For starters, they need new messengers after Senate Leader's Tom Daschle's defeat. His successor will be Harry Reid of Nevada but he's soft spoken and is unlikely to be the face of the party.
Senior Democrats expect Senator John Kerry will continue to prod President Bush on Iraq and the economy. Though John Edwards is retiring, his name is popping up as a possible chairman of the Democratic Party.
SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D), NORTH CAROLINA: But the battle for you and the hardworking Americans who built this country rages on.
HENRY: There are new faces, Barack Obama set to become only the fifth African American ever to serve in the Senate; Ken Salazar, the Democrat's first Hispanic Senator in 30 years; and, don't forget, Senator Hillary Clinton, though some believe she may be too polarizing.
STU ROTHENBERG, POLITICAL ANALYST: This is a party that needs to speak to the entire country, the south, the Midwest, moderates and it's not clear that Senator Clinton yet can do that.
HENRY: Kerry's defeat is reopening the perennial debate over whether the party should move to the left or right. There's also the question of how hard to fight the president. Some want to block his agenda. Others disagree.
Jack Valenti was a top adviser to Lyndon Johnson. He thinks Democrats need to follow the model of previous Democratic leaders, like LBJ, who cooperated with President Eisenhower.
JACK VALENTI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Instead of colliding with him, they worked with him and because I think that they believed, they believe that if they could show the country they could work with Eisenhower that they would lay claims to leadership four years hence.
HENRY (on camera): Jack Valenti says Democrats proved in the late '50s they were not wild-eyed zealots and had the credibility to govern which helped them win the White House in 1960.
Ed Henry, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: So, we've laid the groundwork for both parties, the Democrats and Republicans.
Coming up next, we'll take a look at where Republicans want to go.
Then later still, Jeff Greenfield defines the issues that have come to define the Democratic Party.
And we'll talk with Democratic activists about where they need to go.
And later still, Elizabeth Edwards, the diagnosis and treatments for breast cancer, all that coming up. We take a break first.
From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: President Bush had barely time to savor his victory when he was hit today with a caution flag and it came from someone in his own party. Republican Senator Arlen Specter warned the president he should be very careful when nominating a justice to the Supreme Court. Senator Specter, who could be the next chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says he's concerned about a potential fight with Democrats over abortion.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (R), PENNSYLVANIA: I don't want to prejudge what the president's going to do but the president is well aware of what happened when a number of his nominees were sent up with a filibuster and the president has said he's not going to impose a litmus test. He faced that issue squarely in the third debate and I would not expect the president to -- I would expect the president to be mindful of the considerations which I've mentioned.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Later, Senator Specter appeared to back away some from his comments. In a statement he said he expects to work well with the president in the judicial nomination process.
The president talked about political capital earned today, capital he intends to spend but exactly how? We know the what in some respects, Social Security reform, tax simplification to name a couple of issues but the how is far from clear. The president will not lack for help wanted or not. Those who helped him earn his win have plenty of ideas of their own.
One of those people is Grover Norquist, considered one of the top strategists in the conservative moment and has been for a while. And, from Seattle tonight the Reverend Ken Hutcherson who, among other things, organized a march in Washington, D.C. to help get out the Christian vote. We're glad to have them both with us.
Reverend, let me start with you. We understand gay marriage, so we know you want a constitutional amendment on that. What beyond that do the values people want from this president?
REV. KEN HUTCHERSON, ANTIOCH BIBLE CHURCH: Well, I think it's pretty simple, Aaron, and that is that this country is based off of religious principles. It's based off of Christian principles. It's based off of Judeo-Christian principles and we want the president to know that we are a force to deal with. The sleeping giant has awakened and that we vote and we proved that last Tuesday.
BROWN: Well, we got that part.
HUTCHERSON: That our views are good.
BROWN: Just set the gay marriage amendment aside because we all get that. Tell me specifically what issue you want the president -- do you want him to put up a constitutional amendment to end abortion?
HUTCHERSON: That is a fight that will probably come later. Our main point now is to make sure that Christians are standing for a traditional marriage, one man, one woman, and we want to get that changed in the Constitution because everyone knows that you can't do it state by state and any politician that says you ought to do it state by state is just taking the easy way out because every time a state votes on it, a judge comes along and says it's unconstitutional.
BROWN: We'll come back to that.
Mr. Norquist, you have a long list of things that you very clearly want. When the president talks about Social Security reform, privatizing Social Security, would you be willing to accept $2 trillion worth of debt to pay for the transition?
GROVER NORQUIST, PRESIDENT, AMERICANS FOR TAX REFORM: Right now Social Security has a $14 trillion unfunded liability. The transition cost of $2 trillion is a lot less than the cost of doing nothing.
BROWN: Well...
NORQUIST: So, that's yes.
BROWN: OK. But that assumes that there's only one choice privatizing or not privatizing. I'm assuming actually there may be other ways to deal with Social Security other than the one the president proposes, so you're embracing both, is that right, the idea of the debt, a considerable amount of debt I think you'd agree and the privatization part of it?
NORQUIST: If you're going to move towards partial personalization or privatization, there's a transition cost and it's estimated at about $2 trillion. The alternative is to take $14 trillion in tax increases or budget cuts. That's not an acceptable alternative, so that's why I think Congress is going to go in the same direction as the president. BROWN: The president talks about tax simplification on the campaign. He really never said what that meant. Do you -- would you be more comfortable in a country where we tax consumption more than we tax income at the federal level?
NORQUIST: I think we're trying to look towards where you don't double and triple tax savings, which is what we do now. When you earn a dollar we tax it. When you save it we tax it. When the corporate, if it's put inside a corporation it's taxed again. When it comes out as a dividend it's taxed again. If you're stupid enough to die, excuse me, they tax it again, take half. So, we want to reduce that to where you tax income one time and move it towards a single rate.
BROWN: Do you think a single rate is fair?
NORQUIST: Absolutely. It is what is most fair is to treat everybody the same. It's how we do it in everything else in life.
BROWN: So, this history we've had of a progressive tax system, you think it's fundamentally unfair that people making $10,000 should pay at the same tax rate as someone making $10 million?
NORQUIST: People who work on Saturday should not pay a penalty for that.
BROWN: The answer to the question is?
NORQUIST: Yes.
BROWN: The answer to the question is yes.
Reverend Hutcherson, let's end this with you. I want to try and understand your issues beyond gay marriage. I'm not sure that I do yet.
HUTCHERSON: OK.
BROWN: You want prayer in schools. Just run some by me here. Do you want prayer in school, yes or no?
HUTCHERSON: Well, we would love to have prayer back in school but not force it on anyone.
BROWN: But you'd like a constitutional amendment there, is that right?
HUTCHERSON: Well, we're not looking for constitutional amendments on anything except, you know same-sex marriage. Aaron, the biggest problem we're having is that Christians are the only people that take discrimination.
I know what discrimination was as an African American. I didn't take it then. I'm not going to take it as a Christian and what we're doing is we're waking up and saying Christians have just as much a constitutional right to put their views in politics as anyone else and we're ready for a fight. That's it. I mean we're not going to take it.
BROWN: Well, you're pretty good at that and I think you've flexed your muscles pretty well the other night. It's good to see you again. It's been awhile.
HUTCHERSON: Thank you.
BROWN: Mr. Norquist, good to have you with us tonight.
NORQUIST: Good to see you.
BROWN: Come back as this agenda unfolds. We'll see how it plays out.
Still to come, we'll talk to some people whose goal is to color the electoral map a little more blue next time around. We'll look at the Democrats next, take a break first.
Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Defeat, as unpleasant as it is, can be a better teacher than victory. We say that to our Democratic friends tonight who must be in need of some cheering up.
In politics you are just one good issue, one good candidate, one good election away from vindication. That said the landscape for the Democratic Party doesn't look so hot tonight and in some important respects has not for a while.
Here's our Senior Analyst Jeff Greenfield.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: We're America and America always moves forward.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): For Democrats this is all too familiar, another election, another concession and not just the White House, four seats lost in the Senate, an increased Republican majority of the House and a new round of who or what's to blame.
(on camera): If this sounds familiar, it should, and unlike the loss four years ago which many Democrats blamed on hanging chads or the Supreme Court, this loss is part of a pattern that goes back decades, a pattern that has pushed the once dominant American political party into more and more of a corner.
(voice-over): Go back to November, 1964, a landslide triumph for President Johnson, massive Democratic majorities in Congress followed by a parade of great society laws that marked the high water mark of the modern Democratic Party.
LYNDON JOHNSON, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Their cause must be our cause too.
GREENFIELD: But the political clouds were already gathering. When he signed the first civil rights law, Lyndon Johnson said, "I fear we've lost the South for a generation." In fact, the migration of southern whites away from the Democratic Party had already begun.
By 1968, the Vietnam War, civil rights and a cultural divide split the party asunder. In the next campaign, George McGovern lost 49 states. The Watergate scandal helped elect Jimmy Carter in 1976 but Iranian hostages, an oil shock and an inflation-recession duo brought Ronald Reagan in 1980 and with him Reagan Democrats, working class whites who were abandoning Democrats on everything from patriotism to taxes.
It took a charismatic southerner, Bill Clinton, to break the GOP's electoral lock on the White House in 1992 but two years later came another seismic shock. Republicans took both houses of Congress for the first time since the early 1950s. And, save for a brief Senate interruption, they have not let go since.
Part of the problem is geographic. The South is now a massive GOP fire wall, and after Tuesday, only four of the 26 Southern Senate seats will be held by Democrats. There's also the more fundamental question of message. The followers of Howard Dean may take this loss as proof that they were right all along, that the party needed to rally its base, as the Republicans did, rather than seek out voters in the middle.
Others will say, no, Bill Clinton showed the way to victory, challenge Democratic orthodoxy and win back the defectors.
(on camera): Now, some Democrats optimistic about the long term. They see a steady increase in minority voters, a more secular, more socially moderate America, a steady increase in working women as portents of a long-term revival.
But as they sift through the rubble of this election, they'll admit that those portents are kind of hard to find.
Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: So where does the party go? Where did it go wrong?
We're joined from Harrisburg by the governor of Pennsylvania, Ed Rendell, in Chicago tonight, congressman Rahm Emanuel, a former aide to President Clinton, and, in Portland Oregon, Oregon's former secretary of state, Phil Kiesling.
Good to have all of you.
Governor, I think you rank in this group, so I'll let you go.
GOV. ED RENDELL (D), PENNSYLVANIA: I don't know about that.
BROWN: Let you go first here.
We have talked a lot about values. And I suspect we'll talk some more about values, but let me suggest something here, that your party, as I watched it, seem more self-conscious about what it was than self- confident in what it was.
RENDELL: I agree with that.
I think we've got to go back about feeling good about what we are. And we're the party of values that apply to working families and the most vulnerable Americans. And there is more to values than just abortion and gays. There are values about taking care of each other, providing health care for children. I mean, what kind of country are we where we've got 45 million people without health care and we're giving billionaires tax breaks?
Those are values I think that the American people will understand if we'll just deliver that message, as you said, confidently and proud of who we are and proud of our heritage.
BROWN: So, Congressman, if you agree with that, is that saying that the messenger was wrong or the message was ill-formed, or both?
REP. RAHM EMANUEL (D), ILLINOIS: Well, let me -- well, yes.
Let's take a lesson of the two presidential candidates that were in Jeff's piece and say, what did they do successfully? Both Jimmy Carter and President Bill Clinton were comfortable both with faith and values and talked in that, No. 1. And therefore, for voters, they could understand when they talked about, as Ed just did, the notion of tax cuts for the wealthy and lack of health care for 45 million working Americans.
A whole segment of the population were open to hearing what we had to say on Social Security, education, health care and the environment, if they knew that we also shared and respected people of faith, rather than disdain them.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: I'm sorry. Somehow, when you guys say it, I think a lot of people think you're being phony about it.
EMANUEL: No. Well, well, first of all, I don't think part of what Bill Clinton talked about when he talked about the new covenant, nobody thought it was phony.
They thought that it was the sincerity of a person who was deeply spiritual and knew the Bible and was committed to his faith and worked in his own church. And that was true also of President Carter. Second thing, we have today -- and I think you have to extrapolate this -- both of those gentleman were governors and they had traversed and navigated the troubled waters of race in the South and were capable of building coalitions.
Today, we have that between secular and religious people. It's cultural issues. And we need a politician and a leader who's has also been used to navigating troubled and divided waters and putting together coalitions of people who don't normally sit around the table. You do that and you can build a national party.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: I'm sorry.
Let me go out West and bring Phil into this.
There was a moment -- I forget if it was in the second or third debate -- when Senator Kerry was asked about Social Security reform and he basically said, reform? What reform? It's fine, no problem. And I just thought, where are the big ideas, the grand ideas in the Democratic Party? How can you guys cede all the grand ideas to the other side?
PHIL KIESLING, FORMER OREGON SECRETARY OF STATE: Yes. I think Kerry blew it on that.
My message to Democrats, you have got to stop pandering to seniors. Social Security and especially Medicare are fiscal Ponzi schemes. The biggest tax most working people pay is to fund the programs. We of course give the same benefits to billionaires as the poor seniors. Good intentions, but if you're under 40, more people believe in UFOs than believe these programs will exist when they retire.
Democrats need to speak truth about power about this issue. They appeal to the better side of seniors. But they also need to tell young voters that we recognize what's going on here, forge a new deal between the generations, as it were, and do something that's fair and sustainable. Social Security and Medicare are not. And, boy, the more we waste time pretending these aren't problems -- and that's what happened in this race -- the worst the solution is going to become. There's a great opportunity here if Democrats seize it.
Look at younger voters. Younger voters went for Kerry by 10 points. Seniors have abandoned the Democrats. In fact, for the last 10 years, they've voted for a Republican for Congress and of course they voted for George Bush this time.
BROWN: Let me try to touch you all one more time before we go.
Governor, do you have in mind the messengers out there who can deliver this? Who's going to deliver the Democratic message over the next four years?
RENDELL: Well, I don't think that's clear.
I don't reject the fact that Hillary Clinton, for example, couldn't become that messenger. I think you've seen an evolution of her as a political personality and also as a leader. I think people evolve in their careers, so it's hard to say. Could John Edwards deliver that message? He's a populist, but he also has Southern roots and I think he's a person of faith. So I think we have a lot of potential messengers on the horizon. You know, there are people like Byron Dorgan. We got killed in the presidential election in North Dakota and I forget -- Rahm, what percentage did Byron Dorgan win by? Sixty percent, I think.
EMANUEL: A healthy amount.
RENDELL: A healthy amount. So there are people out there who can do that.
BROWN: Congressman, the last word. Did you think all this hand- wringing over the last couple of days about the Democratic Party is overdone or are your problems as deep as many of us seem to think they are?
EMANUEL: They're deep and fundamental. I don't think it's overdone.
What I'm most pleased about is, in past elections, we kind of said, well, we have got to move to the center. We have got to move to the left. That's not the issue here. We have a fundamental problem that's been developing over a period of time, as Jeff's piece pointed out. And it's going to take some time to figure out and point us in the right direction. And the problem we've done -- and that's just life -- is, we focus -- your other question was, well, who are going to be your spokesmen? How are you going to handle the next election?
This issue here is a fundamental and deeper issue about what the party is, what we stand for as a reform party, that sees government as an affirmative thing in people's lives that can help them solve their problems. And that is a bigger problem than just the next election and the next spokesmen for the party.
BROWN: For those of us who love watching it all, it's going to be, honestly, truthfully, fascinating to watch as you define yourselves again.
Thanks for joining us tonight. We appreciate it.
Still to come on the program, from the White House and the race there to a race for the cure, the news Elizabeth Edwards got today. We'll update you there.
And morning papers are still to come, because this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The president in his news conference today said there is more to life than politics. You don't have to tell that to John and Elizabeth Edwards. Mrs. Edwards revealed today she's been diagnosed with breast cancer. She went from her husband's concession in Boston yesterday straight to a hospital in Boston to have a biopsy.
Not a lot of detail to report tonight, but what we can comes from CNN's medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She found out on the campaign trail. She felt the lump, and it was cancer. We don't know enough about the details of Elizabeth Edwards' case to know what her future holds. Will she have the lump removed, or a full mastectomy? Will she need radiation and chemotherapy, or just radiation?
But we do know this, breast cancer is far from the death sentence it used to be. In fact, when breast cancer is caught early, 98 percent of the women survive. There are two million breast cancer survivors in the United States.
DR. CARL DORSI, DIRECTOR OF BREAST IMAGING, EMORY UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: We are very well armed in seeking to control and hopefully prevent breast cancer. Every day, there are new discoveries coming out.
COHEN: Treatments include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and hormones, depending upon the type of tumor.
DORSI: Breast cancer is not just one disease. We know that it's a very variable disease, and maybe even different within one tumor itself.
COHEN: To catch breast cancer early, doctors urge self-exams every month and doctor exams every year. And women over 40 should have annual mammograms.
(on camera): But these tests are no guarantee. Even with them, women will still get breast cancer. And when they're diagnosed, many will ask themselves, why me?
(voice-over): There are certain things that make a woman more likely to get breast cancer. If she's over 50, has a family history of the disease, if she's overweight or has more than two alcoholic drinks a day.
But, usually, breast cancer is random. There's no explanation. Most women have no known risk factors, only reassurances that breast cancer is usually treatable.
Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Ahead on the program tonight, a wakeup call by Islamic fundamentalists that came 25 years ago today in Iran. We hear from a hostage who was there.
And insights -- well, come on, insights, from the rooster? We'll just do morning papers, as we always do.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: For a quarter of a century now, 25 years, we've been dealing with Islamic extremism. Hindsight being perfect, it's easy to look back now and see it all so clearly, the attack on the USS Cole, the embassy bombings in Africa, Khobar Towers, the Marine barracks in Beirut, now all pieces of the same insane puzzle, a puzzle that began to form 25 years ago in a place of great American influence and little American understanding, the seizure of the American embassy in Iran, the 400-day hostage drama, the beginning of a war we have only recently begun to fight.
Here's CNN's Andrea Koppel.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was just another morning in November 1979. Street demonstrations in Tehran were nothing new. After all, the students leading them had taken down the shah only months earlier.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was a march going past the embassy on its way to, we thought, on its way to another demonstration. What we did not know is that the plan was to actually attack the embassy. Our security was essentially was almost nonexistent.
KOPPEL: So nonexistent, in fact, that, within minutes, the students were inside. So was then 36-year-old diplomat John Limbert.
JOHN LIMBERT, U.S. DIPLOMAT: We started destroying documents. We made sure that everyone was safe. We distributed gas masks.
KOPPEL: Within hours, the young followers of Ayatollah Khomeini were in complete control of the embassy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it was Iran standing up to one of the world's great powers, the country that had supported the shah, that had dominated Iran as an external power for a long period of time.
KOPPEL: Dominated as far back as 1953, when the U.S. engineered a coup of a popular prime minister and installed the shah. Still, no one expected the siege to last.
LIMBERT: I had a ticket in my pocket, an airline ticket for Saudi Arabia to go visit my family. And it was for the following Friday. And I thought -- my first thought, well, I'm going to have interesting stories to tell my family when I get there.
KOPPEL: It would take 444 days to negotiate an end to the hostage crisis. Limbert wrote letters home to pass the time, trying unsuccessfully to communicate to his family in code.
LIMBERT: I think they took it to all the most sophisticated code-breakers that we have and apparently no one ever figured out what it was.
RONALD REAGAN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I, Ronald Reagan, do solemnly swear. KOPPEL: On January 21, 1981, only hours after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president, replacing Jimmy Carter, a plane carrying the hostages touched down in Germany.
LIMBERT: I looked out the window and there were a lot of people there. And I turned and I asked someone, what's going on? Is something -- you know, is something important happening? Because I had not made the connection, and I did not know just how big a story this was.
KOPPEL: Welcomed home as heroes, Limbert and his colleagues were finally free. Limbert is not bitter, but still wants an apology from the Iranians.
LIMBERT: I would like to see them do what the Iranians call eat some sugar, what we call eating some crow.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: Okeydokey, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. We will go around the world today, but we'll start with the -- well, that is around the world.
We'll start with "The International Herald Tribune," published in Paris. "Bush Sets Agenda, Touting His Capital." There's a very cool picture on the front page of the Cabinet meeting. "Arafat's Condition Deteriorates Dramatically," the major national and international stories of the day.
"The Washington Times." "Team Likely to Be Named Nationals." That's the new baseball team. Baseball officials expected to make the announcement within two weeks, according to "The Washington Times." And down here, "Bush Victory Infuriates World Press." Huh.
Well, I didn't believe that at first, and then I saw today's "Daily Mirror." "How Can 59,054,087 People Be So Dumb?" is the headline in "The Daily Mirror," a British paper, apparently a paper that is not that fond of the president. That's my take as an experienced professional journalist.
"The Detroit News."
Man, that is an amazing headline, isn't it?
Down here, OK? "Obesity Pushes Up the Cost of Flights." This is a mind-boggling statistic. The fact that we're overweight costs airlines -- I don't mean me personally or, for that matter, you personally -- the fact that we as a country are overweight costs the airlines $275 million. Yikes.
"The Philadelphia Inquirer." You can barely see this, OK? "Specter, His Abortion Remarks Puts Panel Leadership At Risk." So he was all set to be the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and then he spouted off. That's a lesson to you out there? Don't tell the truth. It will get you in trouble.
"The Times Herald Record." "There Will Be Changes. Who Could Be In, Who Could Be Out." Rudy Giuliani is talked about a lot as a possibility for either attorney general or maybe Homeland Security.
"The Rocky Mountain News" out in Denver, Colorado. Boy, we're glad we're getting these West Coast papers, well, Mountain Zone, anyway. "United Digs Deep." Airline problems there. And it looks like a grocery strike coming.
The weather, by the way -- I know you're wondering -- in Chicago tomorrow, "optimistic," as are we.
We'll wrap it up in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The indefatigable Bill Hemmer with a look ahead at tomorrow's "AMERICAN MORNING."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Aaron, tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," who stays and who goes in the president's second term of office, an in-depth look at the Cabinet shuffle. The attorney general, John Ashcroft, possibly the first leave, but what then? What about the big names in line for a plum assignment? We'll have a look at that in depth tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. Eastern time. Hope to see you then -- Aaron.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Bill, thank you.
Good to have you all with us tonight. We'll wrap -- tomorrow is Friday, right? We'll wrap up the week. This is one of those strange weeks. We'll see you tomorrow.
Until then, good night for all of us.
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 November 4, 2004 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
Here is an uncomfortable truth and a journalistic lesson. You can't resist looking at a car wreck on the freeway and we can't resist talking about a car wreck in a news program. That in a sentence is why much of the post election coverage these last two days has been about the Democrats and where they are and what they must do.
But the larger story is, of course, about the Republicans and what they want to do. It is their field now, healthy majorities in the Congress, a president with a decisive win. What will they do with that? We won't forego our love of the car wreck tonight but we won't ignore the car that sailed smoothly by either.
And so the whip begins at the White House where the president today was driving that car in his first post election news conference, our Senior White House Correspondent John King with us, John, a headline.
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president says he expects a bit of turnover heading into the second term but he said he also expects to be very busy and he says he believes the Congress should listen to him because he has, in his words, political capital.
BROWN: John, thank you. We'll get to you at the top tonight.
Iraq looms large in the post election landscape, the battle of Fallujah perhaps just days away, CNN's Karl Penhaul with us tonight, Karl, a headline.
KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: U.S. Marines are training hard for urban warfare as their commanders warn that the fight for Fallujah could get dirty very quickly -- Aaron.
BROWN: Karl, thank you.
Life often finds ways of putting everything in perspective, including politics, something John Edwards and his wife Elizabeth know very well tonight, CNN's Elizabeth Cohen with the story and the headline.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Every year more than 200,000 American women are diagnosed with breast cancer. This week Elizabeth Edwards became one of them -- Aaron. BROWN: Elizabeth, thank you. We'll get to you and the rest in a little bit.
Also on the program tonight, the conflict in the Middle East and Yasser Arafat's failing health, its impact a challenge to the country, lots of countries.
And 25 years after an American nightmare in Iran, a look back at the hostage crisis there.
And, as always, we'll end the hour with morning papers from around the country and around -- well, the country, all that and more in the hour ahead.
We begin tonight with the president who in 77 days will deliver his second inaugural address. A lot can happen, of course, in 77 days with Iraq and the Middle East and an ailing Supreme Court justice all factored in. We'll get to all these things tonight, the point being that events have a way of driving presidential agendas. Just look at the last four years.
But, for now, it is about goals set, majorities won and legacies to write and so we begin at the White House and our Senior White House Correspondent John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice-over): Energized to say the least and voicing confidence the election results give him both the mandate and the muscle to push difficult issues through Congress.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Let me put it to you this way. I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.
KING: The president talked optimistically of post election goodwill but his major second term initiatives will trigger bruising debates with Democrats. Keeping a promise to slice the deficit will force spending cuts in popular programs.
His Social Security proposal includes private investment accounts for younger Americans. Pushing for a flatter tax system that is revenue neutral, meaning no hidden tax increase and includes incentives for home buying and charitable giving.
BUSH: The people made it clear what they wanted, now let's work together.
KING: Confident but careful taking questions for nearly 40 minutes, Mr. Bush sidestepped several pressing issues that will test the post election mood, whether more troops are needed in Iraq, what the war will cost next year, the goals of an imminent offensive against Iraqi insurgents and what qualities he will look for if Chief Justice William Rehnquist retires.
BUSH: Well, there's no vacancy for the Supreme Court and I will deal with a vacancy when there is one.
KING: On the world stage, Mr. Bush says he shares Prime Minister Tony Blair's goal of trying to revive the Middle East peace process and he talked of trying to move past strains with other leaders caused by the Iraq War.
BUSH: Whatever our past disagreements we share a common enemy.
KING: Mr. Bush called the campaign exhausting but marvelous and he reflected on an Oval Office chat with his father Wednesday morning shortly before Democrat John Kerry conceded the election.
BUSH: It wasn't clear at that point in time, so I never got to see him face-to-face to watch his, I guess, pride in his tired eyes as his son got a second term.
KING: Off to Camp David for a long weekend of rest, the first lady's birthday celebration and, Mr. Bush says, thoughts about inevitable cabinet and senior staff changes. Aides suggest the turnover will be significant but gradual.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: Mr. Bush met this morning with his existing cabinet. He knows not all of them will be there come January, February and beyond but he told them to get busy for the second term agenda and, as for his own level of enthusiasm on the way out of the room, Aaron, he saw his chief speechwriter, pulled him aside and said, "Hey, let's get together soon. I've got some ideas about the inaugural address" -- Aaron.
BROWN: There was talk in Washington today that John Ashcroft, the attorney general, likely to be the first to go in a couple weeks perhaps. Would you anticipate -- is it a makeover or is it moving known faces to different jobs or both?
KING: I think six months from now, eight months from now will be a significant makeover but I think it will be quite gradual because they don't want chaos and most people are very loyal to this president. Ashcroft's aides later in the day started sending out word, "Hey, he liked the election results. His health is fine. He might want to stay a while."
Many have thought Secretary of State Powell would go. His aides are saying not right away. He sees a few things just ahead that he would very much like to deal with.
Here's one to keep an eye on, the National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. If the president says stay she will. There's talk of maybe moving here to the State Department or somewhere else in the government but she's also told several close friends she wouldn't mind going back to California and doing it quite soon.
BROWN: John, thank you, John King at the White House tonight.
Instinct, if nothing else, tells us it will be Iraq more than anything else that defines the president. If four years from now Iraq is stable, if Americans are no longer dying, if it looks more like let's say Jordan and less like Vietnam, history will likely be kind to Mr. Bush.
Getting there, we all understand, will not be easy. It will be lethal and getting there is set to begin in a matter of days with the expected American-led assault on Fallujah, so from there tonight, CNN's Karl Penhaul.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey doc, make sure you hang out behind me a little bit so I can give you some cover.
PENHAUL (voice-over): Getting ready to storm out of the desert and into an urban jungle. An assault on Fallujah promises to be a close quarters street fight. Marine infantrymen and tanks will have to work in harmony against rebel fighters in buildings and hidden allies.
SGT. MICHAEL CHAMBERS, U.S. MARINES: That's what's kind of scary. You're rolling right by thinking it's secured and then they pop up off that rooftop behind you and then here comes the RPG.
PENHAUL: Remote-controlled explosives and suicide car bombs are likely to be major threats.
(on camera): The history books recall how some of the world's most powerful armies became bogged down in urban guerrilla warfare, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) City, Vietnam, Mogadishu, Somalia, Grozny, Chechnya.
CPT. TOM TENNENT, U.S. MARINES: Urban warfare is a dirty business. The defender initially has the advantage because he knows the terrain much better than the attacker. If the defender is able to use his defense to his advantage, the attacker will be slowed and will have to reorient his offense.
PENHAUL: When the Marines roll in, insurgent gunmen could be lurking in any window or doorway. Armored vehicles and tanks will become magnets for attack.
SGT. JOSE DUCASSE, U.S. MARINES: We're going to be looking for, you know, RPG-5 from the rooftops and intersections and stuff like that and make sure we don't hit any tank mine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Charge three.
PENHAUL: Mortar crews run through drills. Inside the city they could, if needed, lob charges over buildings or onto rooftops to destroy concealed insurgent positions.
This explosives team is measuring out detonation cord. Depending on how they tie the knot they can blow out doors and race in to clear potential insurgent hideouts. Intelligence suggests Fallujah's defenders may have rigged buildings with homemade bombs. LANCE CPL. WILLIAM SABIN, U.S. MARINES: Will it cause us to maybe slow down our attack a little bit because we have to take into account all these kind of obstacles for our booby traps, yes, but will it cause us to not be able to complete the mission, absolutely not.
PENHAUL: U.S. commanders say the keys to victory in Fallujah are moving fast and coordinating their weapons on the ground and in the air, a battlefield where Marine and machine works as one.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PENHAUL: Talking to other U.S. commanders we were also talking about what the key to success in Fallujah is going to be. They said another key element is to have a plan to make sure that U.S. Marine casualties can be evacuated from the battlefield quickly so that that doesn't slow the advance. The commanders are not only planning for casualties, they say that they do expect casualties. They think that the fight for Fallujah could be very bloody -- Aaron.
BROWN: I just wonder, excuse me, this may be a little off the wall but one of the things from the beginning literally of the war, the Iraqis opposing the Americans at least have decided is you can't beat them, so don't stand and have these big battles with them if you can avoid them. In the end, the insurgents will lose Fallujah. Why would they even fight for it?
PENHAUL: There are indications that the insurgents think they may even be able to win Fallujah. There are indications that they've been digging in. These are reports from U.S. military intelligence, reports that they've laid booby traps across the city.
Certainly what U.S. Marine commanders believe is that the insurgents want to cause what they're calling a mass casualty attack and so that even if the insurgents do die, die perhaps in the name of their religion, that they will take a great quantity of U.S. Marines with them. They'll grab the headlines for that and gain some notoriety and fame in their own communities for doing just that -- Aaron.
BROWN: Karl, thank you and be careful when this thing begins we expect in a couple of days. We shall see.
Iraq isn't the only security issue that confronts the president as he looks toward the next four years and history not nearly.
Here's our National Security Correspondent David Ensor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With U.S. forces preparing an assault on Fallujah and other Sunni insurgency strongholds and with Iraqi elections scheduled for January, President Bush's toughest immediate effort, Iraq, appears to have some new momentum after his election victory.
RICHARD FALKERATH, FMR. WHITE HOUSE AIDE: It helps the morale of the administration and the troops and it may help them with the international partners who need to contribute to that effort in various ways.
ENSOR: For his part, the president made clear he will reach out to other nations whether they agreed with the Iraq War or not, asking for much more help building democracy in Iraq.
BUSH: And I understand that in certain capitals in certain countries those decisions were not popular.
ENSOR: But critics say in a second term, the greatest challenge for Mr. Bush may be to repair the damage to America's credibility over the last few years caused mostly by the war in Iraq.
JESSICA MATHEWS, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT: Confidence in our leadership was replaced by resentment and bafflement about what we -- our intentions were and even fear of what we would do next. The question is does the president recognize that? If he does, he'll take steps to fix it. If he doesn't, I think we're in deep trouble.
ENSOR: Even before the month is over, the administration must grapple too with how to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
FALKERATH: We have to lead but we have to recognize in this case as much as almost any other we need to lead a multilateral coalition to stop that country from acquiring these weapons.
ENSOR: And, again, events may drive the agenda. The likely end of Yasser Arafat's leadership may oblige Mr. Bush to wade further into the Middle East conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
MATHEWS: If that happens, it is of overwhelming importance for the United States to seize that opportunity and make progress happen.
ENSOR (on camera): On top of all that there's the need to challenge North Korea on nuclear weapons and concerns about a more autocratic Russia. Historically, presidents tend to focus more time on foreign policy than domestic matters in a second term. Mr. Bush made clear in his news conference he wants to try to do both.
David Ensor, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: As David mentioned the health of Yasser Arafat very much an issue for the president and for the future of the Middle East. There were reports today that Mr. Arafat had died.
A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority told CNN that he is still alive, though they now concede he is gravely ill. He had been receiving treatment for a blood disorder at a military hospital outside Paris since last week. The cause of his illness is still not clear.
The car wreck we mentioned at the top of the program is still smoldering some. It's fair to say it will be a while before the rubbernecking stops and the finger pointing along with it but some Democrats are also looking ahead, taking stock of what must come next.
That piece of the story from CNN's Ed Henry.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Democrats feel gloomy about the election but they don't have time to mope.
DONNA BRAZILE, FMR. AL GORE CAMPAIGN MANAGER: The Democrats should not be wary, should not mourn their -- mourn this loss too long because we have a lot of work to do in the days ahead.
HENRY: For starters, they need new messengers after Senate Leader's Tom Daschle's defeat. His successor will be Harry Reid of Nevada but he's soft spoken and is unlikely to be the face of the party.
Senior Democrats expect Senator John Kerry will continue to prod President Bush on Iraq and the economy. Though John Edwards is retiring, his name is popping up as a possible chairman of the Democratic Party.
SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D), NORTH CAROLINA: But the battle for you and the hardworking Americans who built this country rages on.
HENRY: There are new faces, Barack Obama set to become only the fifth African American ever to serve in the Senate; Ken Salazar, the Democrat's first Hispanic Senator in 30 years; and, don't forget, Senator Hillary Clinton, though some believe she may be too polarizing.
STU ROTHENBERG, POLITICAL ANALYST: This is a party that needs to speak to the entire country, the south, the Midwest, moderates and it's not clear that Senator Clinton yet can do that.
HENRY: Kerry's defeat is reopening the perennial debate over whether the party should move to the left or right. There's also the question of how hard to fight the president. Some want to block his agenda. Others disagree.
Jack Valenti was a top adviser to Lyndon Johnson. He thinks Democrats need to follow the model of previous Democratic leaders, like LBJ, who cooperated with President Eisenhower.
JACK VALENTI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Instead of colliding with him, they worked with him and because I think that they believed, they believe that if they could show the country they could work with Eisenhower that they would lay claims to leadership four years hence.
HENRY (on camera): Jack Valenti says Democrats proved in the late '50s they were not wild-eyed zealots and had the credibility to govern which helped them win the White House in 1960.
Ed Henry, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: So, we've laid the groundwork for both parties, the Democrats and Republicans.
Coming up next, we'll take a look at where Republicans want to go.
Then later still, Jeff Greenfield defines the issues that have come to define the Democratic Party.
And we'll talk with Democratic activists about where they need to go.
And later still, Elizabeth Edwards, the diagnosis and treatments for breast cancer, all that coming up. We take a break first.
From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: President Bush had barely time to savor his victory when he was hit today with a caution flag and it came from someone in his own party. Republican Senator Arlen Specter warned the president he should be very careful when nominating a justice to the Supreme Court. Senator Specter, who could be the next chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says he's concerned about a potential fight with Democrats over abortion.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (R), PENNSYLVANIA: I don't want to prejudge what the president's going to do but the president is well aware of what happened when a number of his nominees were sent up with a filibuster and the president has said he's not going to impose a litmus test. He faced that issue squarely in the third debate and I would not expect the president to -- I would expect the president to be mindful of the considerations which I've mentioned.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Later, Senator Specter appeared to back away some from his comments. In a statement he said he expects to work well with the president in the judicial nomination process.
The president talked about political capital earned today, capital he intends to spend but exactly how? We know the what in some respects, Social Security reform, tax simplification to name a couple of issues but the how is far from clear. The president will not lack for help wanted or not. Those who helped him earn his win have plenty of ideas of their own.
One of those people is Grover Norquist, considered one of the top strategists in the conservative moment and has been for a while. And, from Seattle tonight the Reverend Ken Hutcherson who, among other things, organized a march in Washington, D.C. to help get out the Christian vote. We're glad to have them both with us.
Reverend, let me start with you. We understand gay marriage, so we know you want a constitutional amendment on that. What beyond that do the values people want from this president?
REV. KEN HUTCHERSON, ANTIOCH BIBLE CHURCH: Well, I think it's pretty simple, Aaron, and that is that this country is based off of religious principles. It's based off of Christian principles. It's based off of Judeo-Christian principles and we want the president to know that we are a force to deal with. The sleeping giant has awakened and that we vote and we proved that last Tuesday.
BROWN: Well, we got that part.
HUTCHERSON: That our views are good.
BROWN: Just set the gay marriage amendment aside because we all get that. Tell me specifically what issue you want the president -- do you want him to put up a constitutional amendment to end abortion?
HUTCHERSON: That is a fight that will probably come later. Our main point now is to make sure that Christians are standing for a traditional marriage, one man, one woman, and we want to get that changed in the Constitution because everyone knows that you can't do it state by state and any politician that says you ought to do it state by state is just taking the easy way out because every time a state votes on it, a judge comes along and says it's unconstitutional.
BROWN: We'll come back to that.
Mr. Norquist, you have a long list of things that you very clearly want. When the president talks about Social Security reform, privatizing Social Security, would you be willing to accept $2 trillion worth of debt to pay for the transition?
GROVER NORQUIST, PRESIDENT, AMERICANS FOR TAX REFORM: Right now Social Security has a $14 trillion unfunded liability. The transition cost of $2 trillion is a lot less than the cost of doing nothing.
BROWN: Well...
NORQUIST: So, that's yes.
BROWN: OK. But that assumes that there's only one choice privatizing or not privatizing. I'm assuming actually there may be other ways to deal with Social Security other than the one the president proposes, so you're embracing both, is that right, the idea of the debt, a considerable amount of debt I think you'd agree and the privatization part of it?
NORQUIST: If you're going to move towards partial personalization or privatization, there's a transition cost and it's estimated at about $2 trillion. The alternative is to take $14 trillion in tax increases or budget cuts. That's not an acceptable alternative, so that's why I think Congress is going to go in the same direction as the president. BROWN: The president talks about tax simplification on the campaign. He really never said what that meant. Do you -- would you be more comfortable in a country where we tax consumption more than we tax income at the federal level?
NORQUIST: I think we're trying to look towards where you don't double and triple tax savings, which is what we do now. When you earn a dollar we tax it. When you save it we tax it. When the corporate, if it's put inside a corporation it's taxed again. When it comes out as a dividend it's taxed again. If you're stupid enough to die, excuse me, they tax it again, take half. So, we want to reduce that to where you tax income one time and move it towards a single rate.
BROWN: Do you think a single rate is fair?
NORQUIST: Absolutely. It is what is most fair is to treat everybody the same. It's how we do it in everything else in life.
BROWN: So, this history we've had of a progressive tax system, you think it's fundamentally unfair that people making $10,000 should pay at the same tax rate as someone making $10 million?
NORQUIST: People who work on Saturday should not pay a penalty for that.
BROWN: The answer to the question is?
NORQUIST: Yes.
BROWN: The answer to the question is yes.
Reverend Hutcherson, let's end this with you. I want to try and understand your issues beyond gay marriage. I'm not sure that I do yet.
HUTCHERSON: OK.
BROWN: You want prayer in schools. Just run some by me here. Do you want prayer in school, yes or no?
HUTCHERSON: Well, we would love to have prayer back in school but not force it on anyone.
BROWN: But you'd like a constitutional amendment there, is that right?
HUTCHERSON: Well, we're not looking for constitutional amendments on anything except, you know same-sex marriage. Aaron, the biggest problem we're having is that Christians are the only people that take discrimination.
I know what discrimination was as an African American. I didn't take it then. I'm not going to take it as a Christian and what we're doing is we're waking up and saying Christians have just as much a constitutional right to put their views in politics as anyone else and we're ready for a fight. That's it. I mean we're not going to take it.
BROWN: Well, you're pretty good at that and I think you've flexed your muscles pretty well the other night. It's good to see you again. It's been awhile.
HUTCHERSON: Thank you.
BROWN: Mr. Norquist, good to have you with us tonight.
NORQUIST: Good to see you.
BROWN: Come back as this agenda unfolds. We'll see how it plays out.
Still to come, we'll talk to some people whose goal is to color the electoral map a little more blue next time around. We'll look at the Democrats next, take a break first.
Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Defeat, as unpleasant as it is, can be a better teacher than victory. We say that to our Democratic friends tonight who must be in need of some cheering up.
In politics you are just one good issue, one good candidate, one good election away from vindication. That said the landscape for the Democratic Party doesn't look so hot tonight and in some important respects has not for a while.
Here's our Senior Analyst Jeff Greenfield.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: We're America and America always moves forward.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): For Democrats this is all too familiar, another election, another concession and not just the White House, four seats lost in the Senate, an increased Republican majority of the House and a new round of who or what's to blame.
(on camera): If this sounds familiar, it should, and unlike the loss four years ago which many Democrats blamed on hanging chads or the Supreme Court, this loss is part of a pattern that goes back decades, a pattern that has pushed the once dominant American political party into more and more of a corner.
(voice-over): Go back to November, 1964, a landslide triumph for President Johnson, massive Democratic majorities in Congress followed by a parade of great society laws that marked the high water mark of the modern Democratic Party.
LYNDON JOHNSON, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Their cause must be our cause too.
GREENFIELD: But the political clouds were already gathering. When he signed the first civil rights law, Lyndon Johnson said, "I fear we've lost the South for a generation." In fact, the migration of southern whites away from the Democratic Party had already begun.
By 1968, the Vietnam War, civil rights and a cultural divide split the party asunder. In the next campaign, George McGovern lost 49 states. The Watergate scandal helped elect Jimmy Carter in 1976 but Iranian hostages, an oil shock and an inflation-recession duo brought Ronald Reagan in 1980 and with him Reagan Democrats, working class whites who were abandoning Democrats on everything from patriotism to taxes.
It took a charismatic southerner, Bill Clinton, to break the GOP's electoral lock on the White House in 1992 but two years later came another seismic shock. Republicans took both houses of Congress for the first time since the early 1950s. And, save for a brief Senate interruption, they have not let go since.
Part of the problem is geographic. The South is now a massive GOP fire wall, and after Tuesday, only four of the 26 Southern Senate seats will be held by Democrats. There's also the more fundamental question of message. The followers of Howard Dean may take this loss as proof that they were right all along, that the party needed to rally its base, as the Republicans did, rather than seek out voters in the middle.
Others will say, no, Bill Clinton showed the way to victory, challenge Democratic orthodoxy and win back the defectors.
(on camera): Now, some Democrats optimistic about the long term. They see a steady increase in minority voters, a more secular, more socially moderate America, a steady increase in working women as portents of a long-term revival.
But as they sift through the rubble of this election, they'll admit that those portents are kind of hard to find.
Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: So where does the party go? Where did it go wrong?
We're joined from Harrisburg by the governor of Pennsylvania, Ed Rendell, in Chicago tonight, congressman Rahm Emanuel, a former aide to President Clinton, and, in Portland Oregon, Oregon's former secretary of state, Phil Kiesling.
Good to have all of you.
Governor, I think you rank in this group, so I'll let you go.
GOV. ED RENDELL (D), PENNSYLVANIA: I don't know about that.
BROWN: Let you go first here.
We have talked a lot about values. And I suspect we'll talk some more about values, but let me suggest something here, that your party, as I watched it, seem more self-conscious about what it was than self- confident in what it was.
RENDELL: I agree with that.
I think we've got to go back about feeling good about what we are. And we're the party of values that apply to working families and the most vulnerable Americans. And there is more to values than just abortion and gays. There are values about taking care of each other, providing health care for children. I mean, what kind of country are we where we've got 45 million people without health care and we're giving billionaires tax breaks?
Those are values I think that the American people will understand if we'll just deliver that message, as you said, confidently and proud of who we are and proud of our heritage.
BROWN: So, Congressman, if you agree with that, is that saying that the messenger was wrong or the message was ill-formed, or both?
REP. RAHM EMANUEL (D), ILLINOIS: Well, let me -- well, yes.
Let's take a lesson of the two presidential candidates that were in Jeff's piece and say, what did they do successfully? Both Jimmy Carter and President Bill Clinton were comfortable both with faith and values and talked in that, No. 1. And therefore, for voters, they could understand when they talked about, as Ed just did, the notion of tax cuts for the wealthy and lack of health care for 45 million working Americans.
A whole segment of the population were open to hearing what we had to say on Social Security, education, health care and the environment, if they knew that we also shared and respected people of faith, rather than disdain them.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: I'm sorry. Somehow, when you guys say it, I think a lot of people think you're being phony about it.
EMANUEL: No. Well, well, first of all, I don't think part of what Bill Clinton talked about when he talked about the new covenant, nobody thought it was phony.
They thought that it was the sincerity of a person who was deeply spiritual and knew the Bible and was committed to his faith and worked in his own church. And that was true also of President Carter. Second thing, we have today -- and I think you have to extrapolate this -- both of those gentleman were governors and they had traversed and navigated the troubled waters of race in the South and were capable of building coalitions.
Today, we have that between secular and religious people. It's cultural issues. And we need a politician and a leader who's has also been used to navigating troubled and divided waters and putting together coalitions of people who don't normally sit around the table. You do that and you can build a national party.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: I'm sorry.
Let me go out West and bring Phil into this.
There was a moment -- I forget if it was in the second or third debate -- when Senator Kerry was asked about Social Security reform and he basically said, reform? What reform? It's fine, no problem. And I just thought, where are the big ideas, the grand ideas in the Democratic Party? How can you guys cede all the grand ideas to the other side?
PHIL KIESLING, FORMER OREGON SECRETARY OF STATE: Yes. I think Kerry blew it on that.
My message to Democrats, you have got to stop pandering to seniors. Social Security and especially Medicare are fiscal Ponzi schemes. The biggest tax most working people pay is to fund the programs. We of course give the same benefits to billionaires as the poor seniors. Good intentions, but if you're under 40, more people believe in UFOs than believe these programs will exist when they retire.
Democrats need to speak truth about power about this issue. They appeal to the better side of seniors. But they also need to tell young voters that we recognize what's going on here, forge a new deal between the generations, as it were, and do something that's fair and sustainable. Social Security and Medicare are not. And, boy, the more we waste time pretending these aren't problems -- and that's what happened in this race -- the worst the solution is going to become. There's a great opportunity here if Democrats seize it.
Look at younger voters. Younger voters went for Kerry by 10 points. Seniors have abandoned the Democrats. In fact, for the last 10 years, they've voted for a Republican for Congress and of course they voted for George Bush this time.
BROWN: Let me try to touch you all one more time before we go.
Governor, do you have in mind the messengers out there who can deliver this? Who's going to deliver the Democratic message over the next four years?
RENDELL: Well, I don't think that's clear.
I don't reject the fact that Hillary Clinton, for example, couldn't become that messenger. I think you've seen an evolution of her as a political personality and also as a leader. I think people evolve in their careers, so it's hard to say. Could John Edwards deliver that message? He's a populist, but he also has Southern roots and I think he's a person of faith. So I think we have a lot of potential messengers on the horizon. You know, there are people like Byron Dorgan. We got killed in the presidential election in North Dakota and I forget -- Rahm, what percentage did Byron Dorgan win by? Sixty percent, I think.
EMANUEL: A healthy amount.
RENDELL: A healthy amount. So there are people out there who can do that.
BROWN: Congressman, the last word. Did you think all this hand- wringing over the last couple of days about the Democratic Party is overdone or are your problems as deep as many of us seem to think they are?
EMANUEL: They're deep and fundamental. I don't think it's overdone.
What I'm most pleased about is, in past elections, we kind of said, well, we have got to move to the center. We have got to move to the left. That's not the issue here. We have a fundamental problem that's been developing over a period of time, as Jeff's piece pointed out. And it's going to take some time to figure out and point us in the right direction. And the problem we've done -- and that's just life -- is, we focus -- your other question was, well, who are going to be your spokesmen? How are you going to handle the next election?
This issue here is a fundamental and deeper issue about what the party is, what we stand for as a reform party, that sees government as an affirmative thing in people's lives that can help them solve their problems. And that is a bigger problem than just the next election and the next spokesmen for the party.
BROWN: For those of us who love watching it all, it's going to be, honestly, truthfully, fascinating to watch as you define yourselves again.
Thanks for joining us tonight. We appreciate it.
Still to come on the program, from the White House and the race there to a race for the cure, the news Elizabeth Edwards got today. We'll update you there.
And morning papers are still to come, because this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The president in his news conference today said there is more to life than politics. You don't have to tell that to John and Elizabeth Edwards. Mrs. Edwards revealed today she's been diagnosed with breast cancer. She went from her husband's concession in Boston yesterday straight to a hospital in Boston to have a biopsy.
Not a lot of detail to report tonight, but what we can comes from CNN's medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She found out on the campaign trail. She felt the lump, and it was cancer. We don't know enough about the details of Elizabeth Edwards' case to know what her future holds. Will she have the lump removed, or a full mastectomy? Will she need radiation and chemotherapy, or just radiation?
But we do know this, breast cancer is far from the death sentence it used to be. In fact, when breast cancer is caught early, 98 percent of the women survive. There are two million breast cancer survivors in the United States.
DR. CARL DORSI, DIRECTOR OF BREAST IMAGING, EMORY UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: We are very well armed in seeking to control and hopefully prevent breast cancer. Every day, there are new discoveries coming out.
COHEN: Treatments include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and hormones, depending upon the type of tumor.
DORSI: Breast cancer is not just one disease. We know that it's a very variable disease, and maybe even different within one tumor itself.
COHEN: To catch breast cancer early, doctors urge self-exams every month and doctor exams every year. And women over 40 should have annual mammograms.
(on camera): But these tests are no guarantee. Even with them, women will still get breast cancer. And when they're diagnosed, many will ask themselves, why me?
(voice-over): There are certain things that make a woman more likely to get breast cancer. If she's over 50, has a family history of the disease, if she's overweight or has more than two alcoholic drinks a day.
But, usually, breast cancer is random. There's no explanation. Most women have no known risk factors, only reassurances that breast cancer is usually treatable.
Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Ahead on the program tonight, a wakeup call by Islamic fundamentalists that came 25 years ago today in Iran. We hear from a hostage who was there.
And insights -- well, come on, insights, from the rooster? We'll just do morning papers, as we always do.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: For a quarter of a century now, 25 years, we've been dealing with Islamic extremism. Hindsight being perfect, it's easy to look back now and see it all so clearly, the attack on the USS Cole, the embassy bombings in Africa, Khobar Towers, the Marine barracks in Beirut, now all pieces of the same insane puzzle, a puzzle that began to form 25 years ago in a place of great American influence and little American understanding, the seizure of the American embassy in Iran, the 400-day hostage drama, the beginning of a war we have only recently begun to fight.
Here's CNN's Andrea Koppel.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was just another morning in November 1979. Street demonstrations in Tehran were nothing new. After all, the students leading them had taken down the shah only months earlier.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was a march going past the embassy on its way to, we thought, on its way to another demonstration. What we did not know is that the plan was to actually attack the embassy. Our security was essentially was almost nonexistent.
KOPPEL: So nonexistent, in fact, that, within minutes, the students were inside. So was then 36-year-old diplomat John Limbert.
JOHN LIMBERT, U.S. DIPLOMAT: We started destroying documents. We made sure that everyone was safe. We distributed gas masks.
KOPPEL: Within hours, the young followers of Ayatollah Khomeini were in complete control of the embassy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it was Iran standing up to one of the world's great powers, the country that had supported the shah, that had dominated Iran as an external power for a long period of time.
KOPPEL: Dominated as far back as 1953, when the U.S. engineered a coup of a popular prime minister and installed the shah. Still, no one expected the siege to last.
LIMBERT: I had a ticket in my pocket, an airline ticket for Saudi Arabia to go visit my family. And it was for the following Friday. And I thought -- my first thought, well, I'm going to have interesting stories to tell my family when I get there.
KOPPEL: It would take 444 days to negotiate an end to the hostage crisis. Limbert wrote letters home to pass the time, trying unsuccessfully to communicate to his family in code.
LIMBERT: I think they took it to all the most sophisticated code-breakers that we have and apparently no one ever figured out what it was.
RONALD REAGAN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I, Ronald Reagan, do solemnly swear. KOPPEL: On January 21, 1981, only hours after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president, replacing Jimmy Carter, a plane carrying the hostages touched down in Germany.
LIMBERT: I looked out the window and there were a lot of people there. And I turned and I asked someone, what's going on? Is something -- you know, is something important happening? Because I had not made the connection, and I did not know just how big a story this was.
KOPPEL: Welcomed home as heroes, Limbert and his colleagues were finally free. Limbert is not bitter, but still wants an apology from the Iranians.
LIMBERT: I would like to see them do what the Iranians call eat some sugar, what we call eating some crow.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: Okeydokey, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. We will go around the world today, but we'll start with the -- well, that is around the world.
We'll start with "The International Herald Tribune," published in Paris. "Bush Sets Agenda, Touting His Capital." There's a very cool picture on the front page of the Cabinet meeting. "Arafat's Condition Deteriorates Dramatically," the major national and international stories of the day.
"The Washington Times." "Team Likely to Be Named Nationals." That's the new baseball team. Baseball officials expected to make the announcement within two weeks, according to "The Washington Times." And down here, "Bush Victory Infuriates World Press." Huh.
Well, I didn't believe that at first, and then I saw today's "Daily Mirror." "How Can 59,054,087 People Be So Dumb?" is the headline in "The Daily Mirror," a British paper, apparently a paper that is not that fond of the president. That's my take as an experienced professional journalist.
"The Detroit News."
Man, that is an amazing headline, isn't it?
Down here, OK? "Obesity Pushes Up the Cost of Flights." This is a mind-boggling statistic. The fact that we're overweight costs airlines -- I don't mean me personally or, for that matter, you personally -- the fact that we as a country are overweight costs the airlines $275 million. Yikes.
"The Philadelphia Inquirer." You can barely see this, OK? "Specter, His Abortion Remarks Puts Panel Leadership At Risk." So he was all set to be the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and then he spouted off. That's a lesson to you out there? Don't tell the truth. It will get you in trouble.
"The Times Herald Record." "There Will Be Changes. Who Could Be In, Who Could Be Out." Rudy Giuliani is talked about a lot as a possibility for either attorney general or maybe Homeland Security.
"The Rocky Mountain News" out in Denver, Colorado. Boy, we're glad we're getting these West Coast papers, well, Mountain Zone, anyway. "United Digs Deep." Airline problems there. And it looks like a grocery strike coming.
The weather, by the way -- I know you're wondering -- in Chicago tomorrow, "optimistic," as are we.
We'll wrap it up in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The indefatigable Bill Hemmer with a look ahead at tomorrow's "AMERICAN MORNING."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Aaron, tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," who stays and who goes in the president's second term of office, an in-depth look at the Cabinet shuffle. The attorney general, John Ashcroft, possibly the first leave, but what then? What about the big names in line for a plum assignment? We'll have a look at that in depth tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. Eastern time. Hope to see you then -- Aaron.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Bill, thank you.
Good to have you all with us tonight. We'll wrap -- tomorrow is Friday, right? We'll wrap up the week. This is one of those strange weeks. We'll see you tomorrow.
Until then, good night for all of us.
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