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CNN Crossfire
Can Janet Reno Beat Jeb Bush to Become the Next Governor of Florida?
Aired September 04, 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)
JANET RENO, CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR OF FLORIDA: I am running for governor. Today we opened the campaign account, filed the papers with the secretary of state and will now move forward to raise money and to build a campaign organization.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: She's running, but can she run away from her past from Waco? With Elian Gonzalez? With Bill Clinton? Tonight: Can Janet Reno beat Jeb Bush and become the next governor of Florida?
ANNOUNCER: Live from Washington, it's CROSSFIRE. On the left, Bill Press. On the right, Robert Novak. In the CROSSFIRE.
In Miami, Florida, democratic Congressman Peter Deutsch and Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
BILL PRESS, CO-HOST: Good evening. Welcome to CROSSFIRE. It's official. Janet Reno is running for governor of Florida. After traveling around the state for four months is a red pickup truck rounding up potential supporters, she filed official papers today allowing her to form a campaign committee and start raising campaign money. It was said by Reno: "It's either one of the best things I've ever done or one of the dumbest."
If she wins the Democratic primary -- a good bet -- Reno faces a tough battle against incumbent Governor Jeb Bush, whom Democrats are eager to topple after last year's election troubles. But Reno will also face tough questions about her own actions at the Justice Department, including the fatal fire at Waco and the long struggle over Elian Gonzalez.
That's enough to make even some Democrats nervous. And so it's showdown in the Sunshine State. Can Janet Reno beat Jeb Bush or is she his dream opponent? Bob Novak.
NOVAK: Congressman Peter Deutsch, haven't you Florida Democrats just about managed to pull defeat from the jaws of possible victory by naming a candidate with very high ID and very high negatives? The worst kind of person to run against an incumbent. REP. PETER DEUTSCH (D), FLORIDA: Well, you know, Bob, the Democratic party is still a democratic party. So we actually have six candidates running for governor, all of whom of which are very qualified, all who I believe can beat Governor Jeb Bush. And so -- you know what? Right now they're running. Obviously she's a favorite in the Democratic primary, but I think the election is about the future of Florida and the four years of the Bush administration and there's a lot to run on right now.
PRESS: Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, isn't it true that the reason you guys are already out there protesting Janet Reno as a candidate is because she's a woman, she's so popular and she's so independent that she's the last person you want to have to run against?
REP. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN (R), FLORIDA: She is the dream candidate for us, because she's the poster child for liberal politics. She's the -- one of those individuals who loves to raise taxes. She is a person who wants bigger government, and she's running against a governor who has been very popular. The only people who say Jeb Bush is vulnerable is the liberal press.
He's improved Florida schools, he's brought down crime, he's given more local accountability. He's been a wonderful governor for the state of Florida. He's been great for the environment. All across the board, every topic that you select, Jeb Bush has been the winner. And Janet Reno thinks that she faces a Florida -- the Florida that she faced when she was a state attorney. It is not a liberal state. It is a very moderate to conservative state.
NOVAK: Congressman Deutsch, you can talk a lot about six candidates, but you know and I know that in the new Florida primary, you don't have to get 51 percent of the vote, no run off. She is way ahead of everybody else in the primary.
And you know and I know also, that she lost the presidency for Al Gore because she ruined Gore with the Cuban-American vote when anything as close as Florida -- which decided the presidential election -- let's just take a look on the screen at her storm troopers pulling Elian Gonzalez on Holy Weekend out of his family's home, sending him back to the Cuban dictatorship. Isn't this just an insuperable burden for you to overcome?
DEUTSCH: First of all, Bob, you keep referring to the Clinton administration as if it's the evil empire. You know, there's a lot of Americans who remember the Clinton-Gore era as basically good times in America. The less than one year of the Bush administration really has set this country back probably a decade, if not more.
You know, there are a lot of people who disagreed with what Janet Reno did with Elian Gonzalez in Florida, but you know what? Most of those people probably wouldn't vote for her anyway. And I tell you there's a lot of really good things you can say about Janet Reno, one of which is no one is going to buy her, no one is going to control her. And I would actually disagree probably with everything that my colleague and good friend Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said. You know what? Not many people in Florida -- I think less than the majority -- think the education system in Florida is heading in the right direction. I mean, we are going to have a revenue-generated conference in eight days in Florida that the governor is trying to scam right now, (CROSSTALK) appointed a political person for the first time in the history of the state.
ROS-LEHTINEN: Wait a minute.
DEUTSCH: The front page of the "Miami Herald" today had an expose say on the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) program 25,000 kids in Florida that half of them haven't seen a doctor this year. Three-fourths of them haven't seen a dentist this year. 115 dollars per kid.
NOVAK: Give her a chance to respond, Peter.
ROS-LEHTINEN: Wait a minute. To call Janet Reno an independent person is laughable. She stonewalled every investigation that our government reform committee tried to do. It is not by chance that 120 participants in the Clinton-Gore campaign finance scandal either pleaded the fifth -- meant they didn't want to testify -- or fled the country, and Janet Reno did something nothing.
She carried the baggage of the Clinton-Gore campaign for the whole eight years of the administration. She stonewalled at every chance she had, and she's going to come here and she's going to say she's independent? Clinton owes a lot to Janet Reno. We hope Bill Clinton comes to campaign for her.
DEUTSCH: You can say a lot of bad things about Janet Reno, Ileana, but one thing you can say about her: This is a woman who is unbought and unbossed. You know that and I know that.
ROS-LEHTINEN: Tell Bill Clinton.
NOVAK: I think we can argue that...
ROS-LEHTINEN: That's laughable. Where was the investigation on Al...? Even the FBI...
DEUTSCH: I have a lot more trust in Janet Reno than the chairman of the committee you're citing, Dan Burton. And I love Dan.
ROS-LEHTINEN: How about the FBI director who told her...
(CROSSTALK)
ROS-LEHTINEN: How about the FBI director who told her appoint a special prosecutor?
NOVAK: Time out.
ROS-LEHTINEN: She refused. How about her hand-picked individuals who told her appoint a special prosecutor and she refused.
NOVAK: Wait. We are going to try to get in here a little bit. Congressman Deutsch, I just want to talk a little practical politics with you, the disaster that you're heading for. The most recent poll was taken just a few -- few weeks ago at the end of July. The Mason- Dixon poll shows Jeb Bush with 54 percent of the vote, Janet Reno with 39 percent.
But you don't have to look at polls. I want you to listen to Tom Fiedler, the executive editor of the "Miami Herald." I think you will agree he is one of the most astute political journalists in Florida. I want you to know what Tom said about Janet Reno on CNN this morning. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM FIEDLER, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, "THE MIAMI HERALD": The fact of the matter is, given her high name recognition and the fact that she has a lot of baggage among all voters, she -- in fact, her negatives outweigh her positives. It's going to take something to cause her to really close that gap. It's going to be uphill for her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOVAK: I'd like to know from you as a practical politician, Mr. Deutsch, how you do close that gap when everybody knows her and most people don't like her. More people dislike her than like her. How do you get around that?
DEUTSCH: One thing I like about politics is elections end up deciding. We don't have to look very far back. We can look at Clinton's first election against Jeb Bush's father, where basically no one wanted to run against George Bush because his polling numbers were 95 percent favorable.
NOVAK: He had no name ID.
DEUTSCH: You know, his polling numbers were 95 percent favorable. You know, the thing about politics is when people hear candidates, understand these are two people. And it's not just Janet Reno, it's the six Democratic candidates -- all of them -- have a much different vision of Florida's future and on the same issues that Ileana talked about: on education, on the environment, on health care for our seniors, on what type of state we're going to be for the future. And the truth is Al Gore won Florida. We have two Democratic U.S. senators. Florida, if anything, is trending Democratic. So a Democrat is going to have an advantage in this election no matter who that Democrat is.
PRESS: Congresswoman, let me start where Bob did in terms of the Elian Gonzalez thing, which I'm sure you believe is going to be a big negative for Janet Reno. But look at what she did. First of all, she stood up to a group of people who were breaking the law. She had the guts to enforce the law and she reunited a kid with his father.
ROS-LEHTINEN: That's one way of looking at it.
PRESS: What's wrong about that? ROS-LEHTINEN: Let's look at it another way. She was negotiating with the families, supposedly in good faith, while at the same time she was planning a raid on their home that was totally unnecessary. Whether you agree that he should have gone back or not, what is true is that there was another way of handling that situation, and that raid was totally uncalled for and she was negotiating in ill faith when at the same time she was planning a raid. And that's the same sense of bad judgment that she showed with the Branch Davidian case. I'm no fan of those Branch Davidians, but she showed rash judgment by rushing in there and causing the deaths of dozens of individuals.
PRESS: Let me stick -- we'll get to that later. Let me stick to Elian Gonzalez for a second and suggest -- by the way, I watched that same interview that Bob did this morning, with Tom Fiedler from the "Miami Herald" -- and listen to him -- his words, not mine -- on why that issue isn't going to be -- the Elian Gonzalez not so important after all. Here again is Tom Fiedler.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FIEDLER: The Elian Gonzalez case really is only a voting kind of issue to Cuban-Americans, maybe 75,80 percent of them. And about that same percentage would be typical Republican voter anyway, so I don't really think that the Elian Gonzalez case will play a major central issue. It will be on the periphery and give people a chance to attack her, but that's not going to be decisive for her.
ROS-LEHTINEN: I agree with that. I don't think it's going to be decisive, but what I think that it shows -- electorally I think it's a wash. Those individuals in my community were not going to vote for Janet Reno because we know her for the liberal politician that she always has been.
But what it shows is a bad sense of judgment. Why not wait it out? There was a hearing slated in the courts a few days later. There was no need for that action, just as there was no need for doing the things that she's done in stonewalling investigations. It shows a pattern of bad judgment, and I think that she's going to be running against a governor who has shown a pattern of good judgment, whether it's education, health care, seniors. Jeb Bush has no baggage. He's been positive for Florida.
NOVAK: Let me take up what the Congresswoman says is a pattern of bad judgment. She started off with one of the most horrific examples of the misuse of police power. I was at a police academy in Florida -- in Jacksonville, Florida, a couple weeks ago and they talked about that -- Waco -- as one of the worst examples of police power. And she took blame for it. Look at those pictures. You're going to see those pictures, Mr. Deutsch, in this campaign a lot. How in the world can you run somebody for office who has that much blood on her hands?
DEUTSCH: Bob, you know what? I will not even a attempt to defend the Elian Gonzalez issue. But the Waco thing, I think she did the right thing...
NOVAK: The right thing?
DEUTSCH: She did the right thing under trying circumstances. If you go fact by fact -- and I don't think there are going to be too many people in Florida who are going to feel differently than I could. I mean, she has made some tough decisions. She made at least one wrong decision, I believe, but you know what? Over a career -- the longest-serving attorney general in the history of the United States -- and Ileana can say it as much as she wants about stonewalling. That's not the fact. Chairman Burton is not stonewalling.
ROS-LEHTINEN: Wait.
NOVAK: We're going to take a break. We will be back in a minute, Ileana. When we come back, we will revisit whether Janet Reno was really an independent operator.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's honest, she's right to the point and she doesn't mess around with anybody.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the name power is in favor of Jeb Bush.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was too supportive of Bill Clinton, and I have real problems with Bill Clinton.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I like Janet Reno. Besides, after Jeb Bush and his brother, the president can't count votes I don't have very much confidence in him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEB BUSH, GOVERNOR OF Florida: I'm pleased to enter into -- that she's entered the race, ending a lot of speculation. I'm anxious to hear the views and positions that these candidates will take.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOVAK: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. It's official. Janet Reno is running for governor of Florida, and Republicans couldn't be happier with her as the opponent for Republic Governor Jeb Bush. Sometimes politicians regret getting what they wished for, but Bill Clinton's attorney general versus George W. Bush's brother would be the race of the year in 2002.
We are talking to two Florida members of Congress, Democrat Peter Deutsch, who likes Ms. Reno but has not yet endorsed her for the nomination, and Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen who is all for Governor Jeb Bush. Bill Press.
PRESS: Congresswoman, I've got to tell you, in the eight years she was attorney general, Janet Reno drove me absolutely crazy, and a lot of other people in this town, because she was owned by nobody and was so damned independent. You say she's not, but listen.
ROS-LEHTINEN: That's unbelievable.
PRESS: Wait a minute. Let me just give you the facts. She appointed seven independent counsels to investigate her boss's administration -- the Clinton administration -- every time the White House said yes, she said no, she said yes and every time Republicans in Congress said yes, she said no. Isn't that just the kind of independent streak that voters are looking for?
ROS-LEHTINEN: What a distortion. I tell you what they were looking for. When the FBI director -- a real, independent source of information -- asked the attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor and she said no.
PRESS: She said no. Yeah.
ROS-LEHTINEN: That's because she is carrying the baggage of Bill Clinton. When the two heads of the special task forces also tell her the merits of this case warrant a special prosecutor, she said no. What that means is the investigation is controlled by her. I want the viewers to understand that when you refuse to appoint a special prosecutor, that means that Janet Reno oversees the investigation, meaning she whitewashes it.
PRESS: No, what that -- if I may. If I may, what that means is, as the attorney general said, she looked at the facts and said the facts did not merit it. Why don't you then explain how, when the president and the White House who appointed her attorney general, asked her seven different times not to name an independent counsel and yet she did it anyway. Don't you have to admit that that shows she's one tough old bird?
ROS-LEHTINEN: No. She's a person who really carried the baggage for Bill Clinton for eight years.
PRESS: Oh, Congresswoman.
ROS-LEHTINEN: I hope that Bill Clinton comes here to campaign for her, because he certainly owes her his tenure in office. Let's invite him in. But what the facts of the case are is that all Janet Reno is saying is that she's the anti-Bush. But what record does she have to run on? What we have is a governor in the state of Florida who has improved Florida's educational system, who has improved health care.
PRESS: We've heard that.
ROS-LEHTINEN: And that is the record. Just to merely say, I am against Jeb Bush is nothing to run on. Janet Reno is a ...
PRESS: Can I just jump in?
(CROSSTALK) ROS-LEHTINEN: ...of the old school who will raise taxes and who is owned by Bill Clinton and showed it for eight years.
DEUTSCH: You know what? Bill, I think you're right on point. You know, the facts and some of the issues that Ileana herself pointed out, point out the independence of Janet Reno. None of those special prosecutors would have been appointed. I'm sure there are many days when Bill Clinton seriously regrets having ever appointed her.
PRESS Let's talk about the election.
NOVAK: Peter, wait a minute. We're running out of time and I have got a couple questions I want to ask you. I don't know what you were doing in the last several years, but Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee, who was the counsel in the Watergate investigation, a guy who wanted to run a bipartisan investigation of the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) campaign scandals, he became -- he tried to cooperate with the attorney general.
She refused him any information. She stonewalled. She was absolutely a tool of the White House. She came to the conclusion she was a sham attorney general. Are you aware of her deplorable conduct in refusing to cooperate at all with the Senate investigators?
DEUTSCH: Bob, you know what? I think ultimately the people of Florida are going to have the opportunity to decide that, and I think in a sense the American people have already decided about her independence. But let me talk about what the election is going to be about. It's about Florida's future, about the future of my children and grand children. And as much as Ileana says he's done a great job, schools in my county are more crowded than they were. Teachers are not getting paid...
NOVAK: You're repeating yourself, Peter.
DEUTSCH: The "Miami Herald" today had a scandal on the front page which the governor has said is his premiere issue, that it's going to solve the force to care problem. Seniors in terms of medication -- Palm Beach County, where they have four Republican county commissioners -- they sent out a notice to every taxpayer in Palm Beach County accusing the Republican governor -- unprecedented -- raising taxes. So a lot of terrible things are happening in Florida right now and the future you envision is totally different than all the Democrats.
NOVAK: I want you to hear a response from the governor, please.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: Right now the organizing principle of the Democratic party is, you know, the anti-Jeb. People are going say, you know, OK, I got it. You don't think Governor Bush is doing a good job. We got that clear. Now what's in your heart? What's in your mind? Where do you stand? And when that happens I think it will be fun to watch.
(END VIDEO CLIP) NOVAK: Won't that be fun to watch when you get away from your mantra and your talking points and just bashing Jeb Bush and you have to say, my God, Janet Reno governor of Florida, what does she stand for?
DEUTSCH: She stands for better quality schools, smaller class size, concern about the environment, sensitivity to our seniors. You know, I mean, there are a lot of things. Jeb Bush has changed many things in the state of Florida, many things for the negative in real people's lives. You know, you didn't want to hear when I was talking about the revenue generating conference, which is a big deal. Eight days from now, the revenue generating conference...
NOVAK: We're out of time, though.
DEUTSCH: Which is going to create a special session in the legislature. The governor doesn't want it. He appointed a political person for the first time in the history of the state.
PRESS: All right, Congressman, that's got to be the last word. I have a feeling that we will be visiting with both you again to talk about the race in Florida and give you another chance to make those points that you want to get in right now but we are out of time.
Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, good to have you back on CROSSFIRE. Same with you, Congressman Peter Deutsch. Bob Novak and I, neither one of us live in Florida. We have got a lot to say about the Florida race coming up in closing comments.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PRESS: Bob, I think you're forgetting two things about Florida. No. 1, Al Gore won Florida. If Gore can win Florida, so can Janet Reno. No. 1. And No. 2, this is Democrats first chance to get back at Jeb Bush for stealing that election for his brother. I'm telling you Janet Reno has got it.
NOVAK: You forget two things. Al Gore lost Florida...
(CROSSTALK)
May I please? Al Gore lost Florida, as is shown by all of the newspaper reviews of the ballots. He lost it, lost it, lost it. Get over it.
And the second thing is Janet Reno is no Al Gore. Al Gore fooled a few of the northern Florida conservatives. Janet Reno will fool nobody. She is a disaster.
I would tell you this: They have a very strong candidate in Pete Peterson, ex-POW, ex-congressman, but the Democratic stupidity and lack of leadership goes with Janet Reno.
PRESS: Janet Reno has integrity. She has got independence and she's got honesty. What Jeb Bush lacks she's got.
NOVAK: She was in Bill Clinton's pocket and you ought to admit it.
PRESS: Good for her. From the left, I'm Bill Press. Good night from CROSSFIRE.
NOVAK: From the right, I'm Robert Novak. Join us again next time for another edition of CROSSFIRE.
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