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Robert Gates' Memoir A Bombshell; Successes And Failures Examined On 50th Anniversary Of War On Poverty; Stocks See Mixed Rating Amongst Possible Recovery In Labor Market; Interview With Rep. Eliot Engel of New York; White House Presser Coverage

Aired January 08, 2014 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Memoirs from former Cabinet officials certainly nothing new, but what is sort of unique about the upcoming book from the former defense secretary, Robert Gates, is that it's coming out while this president is still in office and it doesn't necessarily paint an all-that-flattering picture.

He said, among other things: "With Obama, however, I joined a new, inexperienced president, determined to change course and equally determined from day one to win reelection."

And then there's this on the similarities between the two presidents he served under, Barack Obama and George W. Bush -- quote -- "Both, I believe, detested Congress and resented having to deal with it, including members of their own party. They were neither particularly liked nor feared."

Gates also took aim at Congress, saying, and I'm quoting once again, "Congress is best viewed from a distance, the farther the better, because up close, it is truly ugly."

Here is the House speaker, John Boehner, and his reaction to the book.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Listen, he's entitled to his comments under the First Amendment, just like anyone else is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Some of Gates' comments in the book are already being used as potential fodder for 2016, with unkind words about Hillary Clinton being used already by the Republican National Committee.

I'm joined by our chief political analyst, Gloria Borger.

So, some pretty tough stuff there.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

BLITZER: But how is it going to play out specifically, as far as 2016 is concerned, if it will? BORGER: Well, first of all, I think it doesn't help Hillary Clinton. I mean, the point that he made in the book, Wolf, on 2016 was that in a conversation the president was having with Hillary Clinton, they both kind of admitted to each other that, in fact, they both -- she had opposed the surge in Iraq because she was running against Barack Obama in the Iowa caucuses.

And they were engaged in a presidential race, and she had supported the war in Iraq. And that was giving her trouble with her Democratic base. He said he was surprised and dismayed.

I can understand the dismayed part. The surprised part, I don't really get, because nobody was surprised by that. I think as a member of the military, clearly, he would be dismayed that politics would enter this -- into this kind of a discussion. But that's the world in which we live.

As far as President Obama, I do think it has an impact. He leveled a charge against the president, which is that a commander in chief did not really believe in his own mission. And that is the surge in Afghanistan. And I think that's a pretty tough charge, even though he goes on to say that the president was courageous in his decision on Osama bin Laden, and that he agreed with the president on most of his major policy decisions.

BLITZER: He was tough on the president and Hillary Clinton, to a certain degree, much less so, but on Joe Biden, oh, my God.

BORGER: Yes.

BLITZER: He said this. I will put it up on the screen. He said, "He has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades." That's...

BORGER: Yes.

BLITZER: ... the former secretary of defense speaking about the current vice president of the United States.

BORGER: Right.

Now, I think that Joe Biden thought he had a pretty good relationship with Secretary Gates. They were on different sides of the issue. And I think, given the fact that Joe Biden, foreign policy is his calling card, Wolf -- you know this, former chairman of the committee, and long involved in foreign policy. I think this is a blow to him.

However, if he chooses to run for president, he's going to run in the Democratic Party. The fact that he was on differing sides from Bob Gates, for example, on the surge in Afghanistan might not hurt him in a Democratic primary. But, if I were Biden, I wouldn't feel great about this. And I guarantee you, one day, Wolf, Joe Biden is probably going to write his own book.

BLITZER: Yes.

BORGER: So we will see what he says about Gates.

BLITZER: After he leaves office.

Were you surprised that Gates wrote this book and attacked a sitting president, a sitting vice president?

BORGER: Yes, I think I was.

I was surprised that he did it while the president was still in office. The president did award him the Medal of Freedom, after all. I think when you talk to people who are defending Bob Gates in this, they say that he did it because he felt he could have an impact, that what he was really upset about as a member of the military and a leader of the Department of Defense was that he believed this was a White House staff that belittled the military, that was suspicious of the military, that talked down to military leaders.

And it's clearly something that aggravated him, that annoyed him, and that I think he didn't speak forthrightly about at the time. And I think he felt the need for some reason to do it. It's a very conflicted view, however, because he says, I respect the president, I admire the president, the president and Joe Biden are men of integrity.

On the other hand, I think he felt obliged to say, look, this is what I believe and this is what occurred. I believe he should have waited until the president left office.

BLITZER: And Hillary Clinton's memoir, her book is coming out later this year or around the time of the midterm elections, we're told.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Let's -- I would be shocked if she attacks the president and the vice president along the lines of the Bob Gates attack.

BORGER: But you know what? In the excerpts we have seen, he said at one point that Hillary and Leon Panetta, who was then head of the CIA, Hillary secretary of state, agreed with him about the way the president's staff treated leaders of the military. So we will have to see.

BLITZER: We will see what Hillary Clinton writes in her book. I suspect she is not going to be as blunt, as brutally candid, shall we say, as Bob Gates was.

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: I think she has some politics in her future. That may be the reason.

BLITZER: We will see. All right, thanks very much.

BORGER: Sure.

BLITZER: It was 50 years ago today that President Lyndon Johnson declared a war on poverty, the result, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, food stamps, a lot more. Some say though it hasn't been enough.

Poverty still affects tens of millions of Americans; 50 million Americans are on food stamps right now.

Dana Bash is joining us.

Dana, what are seen as some of the successes and failures of this war on poverty?

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, like anything, it depends on who you ask.

There is sort of unanimous consensus, however, that the fight is not over. The war is not over. Even the White House put out a report today which showed the decline in poverty, certainly, since the time of LBJ, but the fact that it is still a very, very dismal situation out there.

What has been most fascinating, Wolf, today, though, is that across the Capitol, you're hearing so many people mark the anniversary, and many of those are Republicans. Republicans are actually trying to use this anniversary to make the case that the sort of big government ideals, all of them that LBJ pushed for and that did get put into place, didn't work.

Here's one example, Congressman Steve Southerland, who had a press conference earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. STEVE SOUTHERLAND (R), FLORIDA: Work is not a penalty. I believe that work is a blessing. And I think that so many times we have individuals who are second, third and fourth generation in poverty or government recipients of moneys and therefore they have never seen it.

And so I think, from a compassionate, caring standpoint of saying, you know, what we have to introduce the blessing of work to people who have never seen it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: He is somebody who led the fight against the current food stamp program, at least as it now stands, in the farm bill, which infuriated Democrats, because he said then and he said again today that he and other Republicans really want to reform it, have more of a work requirement in there.

So you really are seeing, as you and I talked about yesterday around the president's remarks, a very clear show of the difference in philosophy between Republicans and Democrats. Of course, I should say, Democrats marked the anniversary today as well. House Democrats even watched portions of LBJ's famous speech inside their caucus meeting.

BLITZER: And we're already seeing, and I assume we will hear and see a lot more of this in the president's State of the Union address at the end of this month before a joint session of Congress, Dana.

We're already seeing the president talk more about these issues, poverty, unemployment benefits, raising minimum wage, the disparity between the rich and the poor. I assume that's going to be a major theme this year.

BASH: Oh, absolutely.

Income inequality is the major theme that Democrats want to push. It is why Democrats in the Senate came out of the gate and pushed this -- the legislation to extend long-term unemployment or emergency unemployment benefits. That's why you saw the president speak about that yesterday. He's going to have another initiative that he's going to unveil tomorrow.

Democrats and the White House, they believe that this is something that can add to the president's legacy. And, of course, it is still a problem. One thing that I should note, though, what the Senate did yesterday, and the president applauded, which is to take a first step to extend those long-term unemployment benefits, Wolf, just before coming on the air, two of those key Republicans who voted with Democrats, Rob Portman and Kelly Ayotte, told our Ted Barrett that they absolutely need offsets, budget cuts elsewhere in order to vote yes to finally approve that.

And it doesn't look like there are really serious talks in earnest to do that. It makes that seriously in jeopardy, just to get out of the Senate, never mind the House.

BLITZER: Well, once it passed that additional hurdle yesterday, that procedural hurdle with 60 votes necessary, they got the 60 votes, will they need that 60-vote hurdle once again to overcome that or do they simply need 51? Because there are 55 Democrats, 53 plus two independents, already on board.

BASH: They will need the 60 votes in order to end debate and move on to the final vote.

And at this point, if, in fact, those offsets don't appear somewhere, if, in fact, there continues to be not real serious negotiations on how to find about $6.5 billion in cuts elsewhere in the budget, according to, again, just in the last hour, those key Republicans, Rob Portman and Kelly Ayotte, they cannot vote for this bill to finalize in the Senate or to be the Republican 59th and 60th vote that will be needed, as you mentioned, in order to make this happen in the Senate.

BLITZER: All right. Thanks, Dana. Thanks. We will continue to watch, lots at stake here.

So what's up on Wall Street? Information now being released by the Federal Reserve within minutes. We're going to see what that is. We're tracking new job data, and all of this affecting the stock market.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Stocks are seeing mixed rating, with what strength there is tied to what is seen as a recovery on the labor market.

Christine Romans is joining us from New York right now with a closer look.

What are you seeing over there, Christine?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You know, these little pieces of data keep coming in, Wolf, saying that the end of the year, hiring really started to pick up. You have got this ADP report. This is a private sector payroll company. They cut the checks, so they kind of see what's going on out there.

And they say 238,000 private sector jobs were created in December. That would be the most, Wolf, of all year. You saw small businesses, companies, with less than, fewer than 50 workers hired more than 150,000 net new jobs in the month. That's good news, construction, best month for job growth in something like four or five years.

So that's -- actually, more than that, since 2006. So you're seeing these signs, Wolf, that the job market is getting better. We're going to know what the government report is for sure on Friday. But I'm going to tell you, that government report expected to show maybe 200,000 jobs created.

But Deutsche Bank just revised its estimates. Deutsche Bank economists think the unemployment probably rate fell to 6.8 percent at the end of last year, fell to 6.8. That's showing some strength in the job market we haven't seen in a very long time.

Even as this debate rages about to how to pay for an extension of those long-term unemployment benefits, for the long-term unemployed, nothing has changed. For the recently unemployed, the market is getting a little bit better. We're also going to hear more from the Federal Reserve about its last meeting in December and what they were thinking about that so-called taper.

That's why markets, I think, are mixed, Wolf, because they're waiting for the big jobs report Friday. And they want to know what Ben Bernanke and crew were talking about in December before they place any big bets today.

BLITZER: We will see you 8:30 a.m. Eastern Friday morning with the official jobs number for December really, as in what revisions there may have been for the months before that.

ROMANS: Yes.

BLITZER: I know you will be watching as closely as anyone. Thanks, Christine.

BLITZER: Dennis Rodman says he's no ambassador. Up next, what does he hope to accomplish during his controversial visits to North Korea?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: The White House press secretary, Jay Carney, getting ready to walk into the Briefing Room. There, you are seeing live pictures.

Within the in next few seconds or so, he will be going in there, answering reporters' questions. I assume there will be a whole bunch of questions about this new memoir, this new book that the former Defense Secretary Robert Gates has just written. Excerpts have already been released, causing quite a stir out there, some serious allegations against the president, especially against the vice president.

Earlier, we saw some video of the president and the vice president having lunch over at the White House. They let some videographers, some photographers in there to show our viewers that the luncheon that was going on between the president and the vice president. I assume the press secretary will be asked a whole bunch of questions. We will get some official response from the White House.

We are going to be monitoring that briefing and we will go there once it becomes interesting. Very often at the top of the briefing, he has some announcements to make. But we will monitor it and of course fill you in on what the White House has to say, the reaction to this new book from Robert Gates.

In the meantime, North Korea, Dennis Rodman says he is not there for politics, but can he actually use his relationship with the leader there, Kim Jong-un, and open up an important door?

Joining us now, Democratic Congressman Eliot Engel of New York. He's a key member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Congressman, thanks very much for coming in.

You have said some horrible things about Dennis Rodman, saying that his going there to celebrate the birthday, if you will, of Kim Jong-un would be sort of like someone going to Nazi Germany in the '30s and celebrating Hitler's birthday.

But explain what you meant by that.

REP. ELIOT ENGEL (D), NEW YORK: Well, first of all, look, Kim Jong-un is a brutal dictator.

He inherited his presidency from his father, who received it from his father. People in North Korea are dying or are being imprisoned, are being starved. It's one of the most repressive regimes on earth. They have illegal nuclear weapons.

So, for Dennis Rodman to go there and call this dictator, this thug his friend and bring a basketball and make as if everything is just hunky-dory, I think it's just a disgrace. And when you consider that we have an American citizen, Mr. Kenneth Bae, who has been imprisoned there for no reason whatsoever, I just think that it's basically giving him this stamp of approval, and he doesn't deserve the stamp of approval.

It was -- I said it was akin to having lunch with Adolf Hitler, because I think that Mr. Kim is looking to sanitize himself, and Dennis Rodman is really being duped. And it's just something that needs to be dealt with, needs to be criticized, because we don't want to aid and abet a brutal regime that has blood dripping from their hands.

BLITZER: I know that the Obama administration, the State Department says that it has nothing to do with this visit from Dennis Rodman and other former NBA players to North Korea, that this is not an official U.S. visit or anything along those lines.

But, as far as you know, and you are a key member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, did the administration actually go out and urge Dennis Rodman not to go to North Korea, or did they just stay on the sidelines and let him do whatever he wants?

ENGEL: Well, I'm not aware of any conversation that the administration has or has not had with Dennis Rodman.

But I think it's just common sense. Unless Dennis Rodman can bring Mr. Bae back to the United States, I will have changed my opinion about this. But since this doesn't seem to be the case -- in fact, Dennis Rodman yesterday was talking about Mr. Bae as if he has had committed some kind of a crime or something, which we know for sure is not the case.

And I think it's outrageous that an American citizen is sort of becoming part of the gulag there, and we have this sanitizing of the brutal regime of Mr. Kim. So, I don't -- I am not aware of any conversations that were had. I don't think they were had.

And, frankly, I think this is just a ridiculous thing, when Dennis Rodman calls this dictator his friend and sings happy birthday to him on his 31st birthday. Frankly, Dennis Rodman should be ashamed of himself.

BLITZER: Eliot Engel not mincing any words at all.

Congressman, thanks very much for joining us.

ENGEL: Thank you.

BLITZER: We will take a quick break. More news right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president greatly appreciates Secretary Gates' service to the president's administration and to the country.

And Secretary Gates was part of a team here that helped bring about an end to the Iraq War, that helped decide upon and implement a far superior and improved policy in Afghanistan that was much more clear in its objectives and that had as part of that policy an end to a war, which was a clear policy objective of the president's and which we are implementing now. So, when it comes to the internal interagency process, the president expects it to be robust and he expects to hear competing points of view from every member of his national security team. A lot of you wrote about it or talked about at the time that the president picked a team of rivals.

And when you pick a team of rivals, you do so in part because you expect competing points of view and competing opinions. And that's very much what the president expects in foreign and domestic policy. And that's what he gets, and he is grateful for it.

QUESTION: Real quickly on the NSA meetings over here the next couple days, what's the purpose of those? Is the president informing these people who are coming to them what he's planning to do, or is he still collecting information from them?

CARNEY: He's still in the process of deliberating over the review group's report and hearing from others on the issues that were raised in the review group's report, because, remember, the president's overall review includes not just the review group, but the PCLOB and others involved in assessing how we gather our intelligence and what reforms we might make to the process.

So, he is at that stage still where he's listening and discussing with a variety of stakeholders these issues and appreciates very much the opinions and counsel he is getting on these matters.

QUESTION: Did the comments in the book about Vice President Biden prompt the White House decision to let photographers into the lunch today?

(LAUGHTER)

CARNEY: No.

As you know, the president and vice president have a standing weekly lunch. When the vice president is in town, he attends virtually all of the meetings that the president holds, especially on national security matters.

And, as you know, because we discussed this a lot at the end of last year, we have been committed to looking for ways to provide greater access for photographers to the White House and the president in that, providing a photo opportunity today as part of that commitment, fulfilling that commitment.