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CNN Crossfire

Did Condit Accomplish Anything in Televised Interviews?

Aired August 24, 2001 - 19:30   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.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. GARY CONDIT (D), CALIFORNIA: I've been married 34 years. I have not been a perfect man. I have made mistakes in my life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BILL PRESS, CO-HOST: Tonight, in two televised interviews, Gary Condit goes public, but did he go far enough?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT (D-MO), MINORITY LEADER: I think not being candid and straightforward was disturbing and wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Live from Washington, CROSSFIRE. On the left, Bill Press; on the right, Tucker Carlson. In the CROSSFIRE: former Republican Congressman Bob Dornan of California; and in New York, Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel.

PRESS: Good evening. Welcome to CROSSFIRE. The reviews are in, and if Gary Condit were a Broadway Show, he'd be shutting down after one performance.

First on ABC News with Connie Chung and later on KOVR-TV in Sacramento, Condit spoke out last night about his connection with Chandra Levy. He denied he had anything to do with her disappearance, denied he'd lied to her parents or the police, but, citing his and her family's right to privacy, refused to acknowledge an affair with Levy and made no apologies.

Connie Chung came in for criticism for asking about nothing but sex. But Condit got the most brickbats of all. Even House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt said that the California Congressman's lack of candor -- quote -- was "disturbing and wrong." Does that cook Condit's political goose? Or did he say everything his constituents wanted to hear -- Tucker?

TUCKER CARLSON, CO-HOST: Congressman Rangel, thanks for joining us. Now, Gary Condit really stunk it up last night. He was inarticulate, he was dissembling, he was indirect. That really was one of the worst performances ever in television, wouldn't you agree? REP. CHARLES RANGEL (D), NEW YORK: Who are you asking?

CARLSON: I'm asking you, Congressman. That was just an appalling performance that Gary Condit put on, wasn't it?

RANGEL: It was bad TV, but I don't know who advised him to do it. Bit I don't see whether it has anything to do with his status as a member of Congress.

PRESS: Let me ask you, former Congressman Bob Dornan. I mean, so 23 million Americans are disappointed today because 23 million Americans tuned in to hear him talk about sex, and he wouldn't do it. Isn't that pretty sick?

ROBERT DORNAN (R), FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: Bill, next month is the 214th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution. In it, Article I, which is about to legislature, comes first. Section 5, it says the House has the obligation to maintain its own honor. And the House has the power to discipline this guy, because everybody agrees, from Dick Armey to Dick Gephardt, he is hurting the image of the House. Both parties, the whole institution. The senators even feel that. The guy has got to resign on the anniversary of his 12th year, because remember, another corrupt congressman, Tony Coelho, preceded him. And so next month he served 12 years...

PRESS: Not quite to the point, but...

CARLSON: Congressman, let's talk for a minute about this new consensus about Gary Condit that apparently is forming. I want you to listen to your leader, Congressman Dick Gephardt. Here's what he said today about Gary Condit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEPHARDT: I'm disappointed. I think the most important thing in life, and certainly politics, is credibility. And I think, you know, if you want to be credible, you've got to be straightforward. And I think that was damaged. And I'm sorry about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Now, the pile-on has begun, but it's kind of unfair, isn't it? I mean, we didn't learn anything new about Gary Condit in that interview last night. And yet, finally Dick Gephardt is saying Gary Condit did something wrong. What's going on here? Is it just that Condit got so unpopular Gephardt felt he could say that?

RANGEL: I think that Dick Gephardt had a much closer relationship to Gary Condit than I did. And it seems to me that he can say that he is disappointed, because he did not believe that Condit was straightforward. I remember that Gephardt, reportedly, had said that he had a private discussion on this very same subject with Gary Condit.

But the truth of the matter is that you just don't kick people out of the Congress because you don't like them, or because you feel uncomfortable with them, or that you think that they have dishonored it. We have a mechanism. We have the Ethics Committee. I'm certain that our leader is saying that this should be something that maybe should be investigated in the Ethics Committee.

The truth of the matter is, what we should be talking about is the disappearance of Chandra Levy. And you don't do that talking about whether he had sex or not, or whether he's going to get reelected. You do that by bringing him before the grand jury. That's how you investigate crime. It's the grand jury. That's how you do it.

CARLSON: But wait a second, Congressman. We weren't even addressing whether or not Condit ought to leave Congress -- be kicked out though, of course, we'll talk about that later. But the question is, why did Dick Gephardt wait this long to beat up on Gary Condit in public? Why didn't he do that three months ago? Why didn't he do that after his conversation with Condit?

RANGEL: I'm saying, I am confident that the leader is not speaking as the leader as to what the House of Representatives should be doing with Gary Condit. He's talking about his personal relationship with him. He's had private discussions with him, and the leader's position with him is just a relationship between Gephardt and Condit.

You know. I preceded a guy named Adam Clayton Powell. He was by far not the most popular guy in the House of Representatives, and when they felt uncomfortable with him, they just kicked him out. They didn't swear him in. It was immoral, illegal and unconstitutional. So if...

(CROSSTALK)

DORNAN: No, he got elected again but he never showed up.

RANGEL: Well, he didn't show up as much as his constituents wanted him to. But he did show up.

(LAUGHTER)

DORNAN: Hey, Charlie, we both served during the Korean War. When I was in pilot training, you were in combat in Vietnam. I wouldn't want this guy flying on my wing and you wouldn't want him in a foxhole with you. He's dishonorable. Cut him loose the way I helped cut loose Packwood, Hinson, Bowman, Gingrich, Livingston -- at least Livingston had the honor to resign, which maintained his honor.

RANGEL: I'm so pleased that you had haven't lost your imagination, Bob. You always come back, man. You're terrific, but that's quite a stretch.

DORNAN: Stretch -- these are all dishonorable people!

PRESS: Let me come back to this.

RANGEL: Except for Livingston, because he resigned. PRESS: Bob Dornan, let me come back to this interview last night, if I can, because, look, I will admit I was disappointed with Gary Condit. He didn't have to go into details, but I thought he should have just been honest with the American people, admitted that he'd had an affair with this woman, and then moved on.

RANGEL: Why should he have? Why should he? Why were your disappointed? Because didn't you get the tidbits of the sexual relationship? Why he should have pleased you?

PRESS: No, I didn't want any -- I didn't want any tidbits, Charlie Rangel, and he didn't have to please me. I think he had to please his constituents. I was disappointed because I think he had one chance to redeem himself, and he did not take advantage it.

RANGEL: Redeem himself with whom?

PRESS: If I can...

(CROSSTALK)

PRESS: With his constituents!.

RANGEL: But you're not one of his constituents.

PRESS: No, but I have a good sense, as a former California Democratic chairman, Charlie, of what the constituents in his district wanted to hear, and I think they wanted to hear him say, "I did wrong and I apologize for it." That's all. That's all. I think he should have said that.

RANGEL: I know one thing. I was so fed up with people telling me when are you people going to get rid Adam Clayton Powell? They didn't live in my district, my city, my state. I knew what they were trying to say, but I would ask them, who is your Congressperson? Half of them never knew.

PRESS: OK, let me get a question in to Bob Dornan here, if I can.

(LAUGHTER)

PRESS: Who's on the CROSSFIRE tonight? I want to come back to this fact, OK? As I said, I think he should have said more than he did, but I want you to listen to the Levys' attorney, Billy Martin, Monday night on this network, speaking to Wolf Blitzer. He could not put it more clearly. Here's Billy Martin. Please listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILLY MARTIN, LEVY FAMILY ATTORNEY: I spoke with Dr. Levy and Mrs. Levy today. They just want to hear information that could lead to information on Chandra's whereabouts or what happened to her. They don't really want to hear anything about the relationship. They don't want to know how he felt about Chandra, they don't want to know how Chandra felt about him. Those are issues that they'd like to put behind them. All they really want is their daughter back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRESS: Now, if you take him literally, Gary Condit did exactly what their attorney said he ought to do. Correct?

DORNAN: But on the second interview that he taped at CBS in Modesto, the Levys, through this great lawyer, here, intervened and said: "We want him to admit that he had a relationship with her." But you know what he said about that Dr. Levy? That his job was to console a man whose daughter he'd been having his way with. They want to know what her mental state was at the end of it, because she told the aunt she loved him.

PRESS: Wait a minute. Three days later, last night on "Nightline" Billy Martin said, "Oh, that's not what I meant." But I'm saying, on Monday night, you've got to admit, on that interview he said, "We don't want to hear about the relationship. We don't want to hear about his feelings for their daughter." He could not have put it more plainly, so didn't he...

(CROSSTALK)

PRESS: Let me ask you this. Put it this way. Didn't he in fact give Gary Condit a big enough window to drive a Mack truck through, and he did.

DORNAN: No, to drive a weasel through. A greasy little weasel would get through that. He didn't want to hear about -- the parents don't want to hear about knotted neckties or how often they did "the nasty," to quote rappers. They do want him to say -- of course, I know the father hated it, I've got three daughters and seven granddaughters. When he said, "I didn't' love her," I could feel the sword in the father's heart. I had my way with her, I didn't love her. And by the way, can I console you, doctor? And you know what a train ticket cost to California? 1,600 bucks. I just walked through Union Station. He lied about that train thing.

CARLSON: We've got Bob Dornan quoting rappers. The world moves on. Congressman Rangel, there were a lot of appalling parts of the interview last night with Connie Chung, but I think we would all agree the worst was when Connie Chung asked Gary Condit: "Did you have an affair with this flight attendant, Anne Marie Smith?" And he said no. OK, he wants to deny it, fine. Then, he cast aspersions on her as a person, he accused her of bringing the story to public attention for financial gain, which it turns out is a lie.

Isn't this totally out of bounds attack? This is just this basic Clintonian defense, I didn't do it, and by the way those are accusing me are evil.

RANGEL: It was a lousy interview. Gary Condit did not do himself any good at all. But I get back to the question -- and I'm sorry to have interrupted Bill Press's -- what business is it of anybody's what his relationship was or is today with any of these people? If you want to know who should be asking the questions, it should be the police department. They are the ones that should be the Justice Department and if they don't get the answers -- you know, what happens on TV...

CARLSON: But we are not talking about that, we are talking about him accusing, him attacking this woman, who has done nothing wrong. Nobody has any evidence she has done anything wrong. She just had an affair with him. He is saying that she is motivated by greed? That's outrageous!

RANGEL: So, if poor judgment is a criteria for kicking someone out of Congress, you couldn't get a quorum.

CARLSON: No, but it's not poor judgment, it's meanness, it's a savage attack on a woman.

DORNAN: Oh, Charlie, you know that's not true! Come on. You sound like Susan Estrich and our former colleague...

RANGEL: What am I saying?

DORNAN: ... Geraldine Ferraro.

RANGEL: Because -- because...

DORNAN: Everybody doesn't do it, Charlie! You don't do it, I don't do it.

RANGEL: I'm not saying -- do what? You don't know whether he had a relationship with the woman, Bob, it's so unfair.

(CROSSTALK)

DORNAN: Charlie, how many of your staffers gave you a $500 Tag Hauer watch? How many staffers? He also...

RANGEL: You are jumping...

(CROSSTALK)

RANGEL: You don't know any of these things to be factual, about the airline hostess -- just because he maligned her publicly doesn't mean that she has any status and truth of what she is saying. I'm saying all of these things is entertaining, it's show business, it gets viewers, everyone was watching, they want to hear something sexy.

But what has this got to do as to whether or not it is going to help us find this missing lady, or whether or not he was connected with it in any way?

DORNAN: Because of her emotional state. All he had to say was, yes, I had an affair, but...

(CROSSTALK)

RANGEL: That would have resolved the problem.

(CROSSTALK)

DORNAN: ... I want names, dates, I want positions, I want to know what you did with her. That would have ended it right there.

(CROSSTALK)

RANGEL: First of all, it is none of our business and it wouldn't be the end of it. It should have been the beginning of it. I mean, whether he had sex or not has nothing to do with her missing.

CARLSON: This, and speaking of the end, we have come to the end of the first segment of CROSSFIRE. There is much more to come, we will be right back after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. Less than 24 hours since Gary Condit's debut on ABC, and the reviews are in: Two thumbs down, at least. Even Dick Gephardt panned the performance. But is the storm passing? Can Gary Condit shake off the odor of scandal and win reelection 14 months from now? By next November, will the entire saga look like a massive case of media overkill? Stranger things have happened.

In the meantime, the fallout continues, and we debate it tonight with two savvy, seasoned practitioners of politics: Congressman Charles Rangel, Democrat of New York, and former Representative Bob Dornan of California -- Bill.

PRESS: Bob Dornan, we forget there are two people in that interview last night. There was Gary Condit we have been punching around, there was also Connie Chung. I don't think it's fair to do -- let Gary Condit be the only punching bag. Let's look at Connie Chung's performance, you a former media pro, same station as I was in Los Angeles.

Connie Chung has 30 minutes only with Gary Condit. There is a missing woman, as Charlie Rangel just reminds us, Connie Chung spends 25 at least out of 30 minutes trying to get him to admit that he had an affair. I mean, wasn't that just a huge "gotcha" game on her part, and didn't she prove what's wrong with the media in this thing that all they are interested about is the sex?

DORNAN: Well, obviously, she prepared for this as much as he did. What we will never know until she is interviewed -- and she was interviewed by one of our competitors in all of this talk radio performances on cable -- she will be interviewed, and I would like to ask her what were the follow-up questions you had prepared that you never got to ask because he wouldn't simply say, yes, it was a romance?

PRESS: No, but then why didn't you -- why wouldn't you ask her this: Why did you spend so much time asking the same question over and over and over again when it was obvious five minutes in that he was going to answer it? Wasn't she obsessed with getting him to say he had sex with Chandra Levy?

DORNAN: I think because she was so shocked -- I was -- that he didn't say, yes, I had an affair, in italics. And she wouldn't have followed up with any crummy questions. She was so shocked that she tried to rephrase it five or six different ways -- and remember, the Levys didn't see it until three hours later. But what does the father think and the mother, that he is saying my job was to console father, and then he says, you notice my family is intact -- or he says my family is intact, but yours isn't, and then he asks you...

PRESS: Oh, my God, that's not fair, that's not fair. He also said that what he suffered with his family is nothing compared to what Levys suffered, so let's be fair out that.

DORNAN: I should hope so, but in the next interview on CBS, he asked you, me, Tucker and everybody in the news media -- not the tabloids that have these crazy stories on the cover -- we are all supposed to apologize to him. He has crushed himself with his bizarre, weird silence.

CARLSON: An apology is not on the way. Congressman Rangel, you mentioned the police -- as you know, they are not big Gary Condit fans, and there is a reason for that. I want to read a quote from Terrance Gainer, who is the assistant D.C. police chief, talking about Condit's assertion made from beginning that Chandra Levy perhaps was grabbed by a serial killer in the Dupont Circle area.

He says, Chief Gainer says: "I think it's disingenuous, it's unfair to throw a red herring like that and spread fear that there is a stalker in the Dupont Circle area." Unfair, because in fact there isn't a serial killer here, there is no evidence that anybody has been murdered by a serial killer in the Dupont Circle. Isn't this outrageous? Whipping up the public into a frenzy over something that doesn't exist, simply?

RANGEL: Yeah, and I think it's outrageous for the police chief to becoming such a television personality. I don't want to sound like a broken record, but it would seem to me that this investigation should be taking place in a grand jury, not in front of television cameras. And so, if you want to find out who was most outrageous in the interview, I don't see how this helps the family at all.

CARLSON: You said that about the grand jury, but why should it even get to that? I mean, if Gary Condit had just been straightforward with the police from the beginning, there would be no reason to haul him before a grand jury. I mean, isn't that a pretty simple expectation?

RANGEL: Who sets the standard of what is straightforward? The guy, you know...

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: The police asked questions and he didn't answer them.

RANGEL: Well, he doesn't have to answer questions that you ask. I don't have to...

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: ... questions that police asked when they are conducting a missing persons investigation. He's a member of Congress, is that too high a bar?

(CROSSTALK)

RANGEL: But the police chief is running around saying he is not a suspect, he is not a suspect. And so if he is not a suspect he doesn't have to answer any further questions. What is this all about? You know, this all about television and newspaper stories, and magazines stories.

PRESS: Bob, I want to point out, as you know, because you live nearby here, there was a woman by the name of Joyce Chiang, who was an intern from California. Lived four blocks from Chandra Levy, missing, still don't know what happened to her. They found her body. Another woman by the name of Christine Merzian (ph), another intern, also from California, lived in the same area.

DORNAN: Howard Berman's intern.

PRESS: No, Joyce Chiang was Howard Berman's intern.

DORNAN: And look how he handed that. Within days he was on the FBI and on the case.

PRESS: Let me ask my question. And there are other cases of missing women here in the District of Columbia. This is a police force that didn't get around to looking at Rock Creek Park for 12 weeks, that has still never searched the dumps or the landfills around this area, that never looked at Chandra Levy's computer records for 12 weeks.

And you believe them when they say there is no possible link between these other women? Why wouldn't that be first place they would look?

DORNAN: Well, I wonder if they went to Union Station, because the one piece of new information that jumped out, and even it had a phony twinge to it, he said Chandra told me she would probably take the train and she said that would take four days.

He is more than twice her age. He doesn't know it takes four days? So, if he had told the police that she was talking about the train, they would have been down to Union Station talking to ticket takers, talking to the whole train setup. But maybe he didn't tell them that. Only the police are building up a dossier.

PRESS: You keep saying that Gary Condit has to do their job. Why didn't they check her computer on day one? Why didn't they know she had been on the computer with Amtrak? Why weren't they at Union Station and why are they so dismissive of the fact that there could be a stalker and a killer in this city?

DORNAN: Charlie and I work together very well, Bill, on the whole narcotics war in this country. We were never happy with DEA, the FBI the...

(CROSSTALK)

DORNAN: ... we always wanted more. Maybe the police and the FBI, I know, is building a dossier on this guy, taking down every word from both those interviews yesterday, and interview in "People" and the one coming up in "Vanity Fair." And he is going to go before a grand jury. Then Dick Gephardt can use all those Clinton words like it is wrong, it is disappointing, it is disturbing, and he will be gone on the 12th anniversary of his swearing in.

CARLSON: And, Congressman Rangel,in the 30 seconds we have left, should he be gone? Should he run again in 2002?

RANGEL: That is a question for his constituents, the Democratic Party that we have there. But thank God that Bob Dornan hasn't lost his anger. DORNAN: And the same back you. You are still foist in my book, Charlie, I love you.

CARLSON: But do you think he should? I mean, if you were his best friend and you were...

(CROSSTALK)

RANGEL: ... do you mean I think he should. If he could run and win, you bet your life he should! He may have a Democratic primary. There may be candidates coming out as well. He may be dead meat. That determination is not going to be made by CROSSFIRE. It is going to be made in Modesto, California.

DORNAN: Charlie, you don't want this guy in a foxhole with you. His daughter Katie is the exact age of Chandra Levy. What would he have done if his daughter went missing? He would have beat the crap out of the guy that took her innocence away from her.

RANGEL: Another story at another time.

PRESS: Exactly. Another show, another time for that. Tonight that is it though. Charlie Rangel thanks again for joining us from New York. Bob Dornan always good to have you back on CROSSFIRE. Gary Condit saga is not over because Tucker and I come back with closing comments coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Bill, I had a horrifying flashback last night watching Gary Condit. Here he gets up there, he doesn't apologize. He refers to pain in his marriage and mistakes he has made. He brags about himself and then he attack his former girlfriend and impugns her mother. Does that sound like someone we know? PRESS: See, you are making the same mistake everybody else is. They are calling that performance Clintonesque. That is an insult to Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton, in the end, admitted that he had sex with Monica Lewinsky and that it was wrong, and he asked forgiveness. If Gary Condit had done that last night he would be in better shape today.

CARLSON: Bill, he didn't learn anything. You are leaving a few steps out, Bill. A selective memory...

PRESS: No, no, he denied it in the beginning, you are right, but at the end he admitted it.

CARLSON: He was on his way out of office, basically.

PRESS: Who, Clinton?

CARLSON: Clinton. That was the last -- he had to do that.

PRESS: Get out of here. It wasn't close, Tucker.

CARLSON: Bill, I think you have erased this whole chapter of American history from your brain.

PRESS: He was impeached by those bozo Republicans in the House. The Senate did not throw him out.

CARLSON: He was forced under oath to admit that. They had to wrench it out with a pair of players. I hope it doesn't come to that with Gary Condit.

PRESS: You are reinventing history, Tucker.

CARLSON: I watched it! I was here! I lived here! It was appalling.

PRESS: From the left, I am Bill Press, Good night for CROSSFIRE. Have a great weekend.

CARLSON: And from the right I am Tucker Carlson. Join us again Monday night for another edition of CROSSFIRE.

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