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CNN Novak, Hunt & Shields

McCain Discusses the Fate of Campaign Finance Reform

Aired July 14, 2001 - 17:30   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.
ANNOUNCER: From Washington: EVANS, NOVAK, HUNT & SHIELDS. Now, Robert Novak and Mark Shields.

ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: I'm Robert Novak.

Mark Shields and I will question the nation's leading advocate of campaign finance reform.

MARK SHIELDS, CO-HOST: He is Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHIELDS (voice-over): Senator McCain's long struggle for campaign finance reform neared a successful conclusion Thursday with a close vote coming up in the U.S. House of Representatives. But the leadership of the two parties could not agree on procedure, and 19 House Republicans defied their party leadership to join every House Democrat but one to defeat the procedural rule, thus sidetracking the issue for the time being.

Each side blamed the other for the defeat.

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT (D-MO), MINORITY LEADER: All through this, what they've done constantly is tried to construct a process which will cause the defeat of the bill rather than a fair process that would give both sides a fair chance to see if they could pass their bill.

REP. DICK ARMEY (R-TX), MAJORITY LEADER: Had the coalition of Shays, Gephardt, Daschle and McCain been better legislators and less obsessed with politics, they might have been able to construct a legislative victory.

SHIELDS: John McCain, in his 15th year as a U.S. senator, following four years in the U.S. House, has taken campaign finance reform as his signature issue in the Senate and in his 2000 presidential campaign that saw him defeat George W. Bush in seven primary states.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SHIELDS: Senator John McCain, welcome. You've said time and again, all you wanted was an up or down vote in the U.S. Senate. On Thursday, it looked like you had a chance for an up or down vote in the U.S. House. If you had the vote the reformers did, why didn't you go ahead in spite of the procedural roadblocks laid down by the House leadership?

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Because with a 14-vote amendment requirement, there was a possibility that we would have lost support using that procedure.

But more importantly than that is that we were assured that we would have an up or down vote on Shays-Meehan and an up or down vote on Ney before that, which was a perfectly fair procedure to pursue. So it wasn't fair, it wasn't what we were told would be allowed. I mean, it's no more complicated than that.

And, clearly, the 14-vote on an amendment, which is a manager's package, which has never in history -- we tried to do some research in the last 24 hours -- never in history has there been a 14-vote requirement on an amendment on a manager's package. And we thought that we ought deserve the fair, comparable votes between the two proposals.

SHIELDS: One House Republican, who's sympathetic to campaign finance reform, told me afterwards that he was angry because he thought that Dick Gephardt, the House Democratic leader, had been a phony, that he was just using this issue politically. Do you agree with him?

MCCAIN: The one thing I've tried to do throughout this debate is not question anybody's motives. I think if you get into that, we quickly get personal and wounds are opened that are hard to heal.

I believe that those who are opposed to campaign finance reform have legitimate concerns and legitimate opposition, and those who are in favor of it. I'm not questioning anybody's motives. I do know that Dick Gephardt worked very, very hard for this bill, and my dealings with him have been very straightforward.

SHIELDS: Where do you go from here, you reformers? I mean, what's the game plan?

MCCAIN: I think things will cool down. Look, I know Denny Hastert, he's a very decent guy. There was a deal cut yesterday, as we all know, that would have basically been agreed to, Gephardt just wanted to see the amendment, and we could have moved forward. That was blocked by Armey and DeLay.

I think cooler heads are going to prevail. I think we'll get a vote. And we always have the discharge petition route, which the Blue Dog Democrats are prepared to pursue, and they're the ones that did the discharge petition the first time around in 1998.

So I just hope we'll be able to sit down and cool down over the weekend, sit down and work out something that's agreeable so we get a vote on Ney and a vote on Shays-Meehan. NOVAK: Senator McCain, speaking of cooling down, in the heat of battle after this vote in the House, you referred to your Republican colleagues in the House as "scoundrels." Now that the heat of the battle has cooled, would you like to withdraw that characterization?

MCCAIN: Again, I said this is the last refuge of scoundrels. I was talking about the procedure that was being used, and I laughed when I did it. I use humor all the time when I'm involved in politics and in political issues. I've repeated time after time, as I just did, I respect their motives, I respect their characters, and this is simply a difference on an issue.

MCCAIN: If you feel that, because of my quip, that I need to apologize, sure, of course.

NOVAK: Sir, you are reported as having crossed the Capital, going over to the House side -- unprecedented for a senator to lobby that openly in the House of Representatives -- to hector the Republican members of the House into voting against their leadership. Was that an accurate description in the press on Friday morning?

MCCAIN: What happened was that I saw that there was an unfair procedure being employed in direct contravention to what we had been assured of. And I felt that it was important that this rule be brought down, because I thought that we deserved a fair and open ventilation of it.

I read in the paper this morning that Bill Bradley, back in '85 and '86 on behalf of the tax bill, went over to the Senate side.

NOVAK: It is unusual thought, isn't it?

MCCAIN: Oh, of course it's unusual, but I have good friends over there. I feel no compunction about talking with them about an issue I've been working on for many, many years.

NOVAK: There was one point where I understand that Speaker Hastert had agreed to an up or down vote if there was permission for one, and then, as you say, Dick Gephardt said, "Well, I want to take a look at it." Wasn't that the golden moment? If you really wanted an up or down vote, if you really had the votes, that he should have said, "OK, let's just have a vote now."

MCCAIN: Sure. Well, except that -- I mean, you know better than I do, you ought to be able to look at an amendment before it's voted on. I mean, after all, that is foolish. You owe it to your constituents to look at an amendment before it's voted on, much less the issue. And, clearly, Gephardt stated unequivocally all he wanted to do was look at it. He was not opposed to the agreement.

Then, as I understand it, the speaker met with other Republicans and then that's when it was scuttled. That's my understanding of the sequence of events.

SHIELDS: Senator McCain, in the summer of 2000 over 150 Republican candidates had requests into McCain headquarters. MCCAIN: Yes.

SHIELDS: You were the 911 number for the Republicans in trouble in the year 2000. You were the one-man rescue squad -- 55 House Republicans that you campaigned for. And I turn to you today and ask you, don't you feel a little bit betrayed when so many of them did a Dixie on you, just went South when they had a chance to support you?

(LAUGHTER)

MCCAIN: I'm disappointed in some, of course. But, look, the worst thing I can do and will not do is threaten retaliation, get angry about it. I campaigned for them. I believed that they were supporting campaign finance reform. Obviously, they can vote for however they feel they want to vote. I will respect how they vote.

SHIELDS: All right. On that very subject, in Roll Call the following quote was attributed to a House GOP leadership staffer: Quote, "The McCain-Feingold bill is the biggest single detriment we face in trying to keep control of the House. But the irony is that we may have to send the biggest proponent of that bill out for sunflowers. That's not a great situation," end quote.

(LAUGHTER)

SHIELDS: I'm asking you, is John McCain going to be ready in 2002 to answer the bell when Republicans are sitting there looking for Democrats, independents and reformer votes?

MCCAIN: I believe the Republican Party majorities in both Houses are the best thing for this country. And I will continue to do what I can to maintain those and do what I can to support this president and work with him on a broad variety of issues which I am already doing.

NOVAK: All right. Senator McCain, you then don't agree with Speaker Hastert's various characterizations, his characterizations you would blame the House members or were threatening the House members. But just put simply, the House Republican freshman who you voted for and...

MCCAIN: Campaigned for, yes.

NOVAK: ... campaigned for, I'm sorry, and then now have voted against you, would you campaign for -- the toughest race for a House member is a reelection race. Would you campaign for him again?

MCCAIN: I think it would depend on the circumstances and priorities and everything, but I would do everything I can to see that we maintain our majorities, as I said. I mean, obviously, it's...

NOVAK: Was that a yes or a no?

MCCAIN: I would be very supportive of them, obviously depending on their overall record as well as on this issue.

But let me just say -- I mean, I probably shouldn't say this, but there was one freshman that I campaigned for who has been very critical of me and has publicly been criticizing me. You know, I'm not sure what the point is.

NOVAK: Who's that?

MCCAIN: I don't feel that like...

NOVAK: Michigan? Mike Rogers?

MCCAIN: Yes. I mean, I don't understand the point; I haven't been critical of him, but he's been critical of me.

And let me point out again, Bob, on this business of the letters that I wrote, I hope we could -- I'm sorry we don't put that letter up on the screen. I said, look, we campaigned together for campaign finance reform, I hope we would be able to maintain that commitment. I have a stack of letters this thick from House members writing letters to me, asking me to support various proposals, issues and pieces of legislation.

NOVAK: Let's put it up on the screen: "I remember our personal conversations" -- this is a letter of you from June 20 -- "about our shared passion for reform. We both promised to lead the fight to make meaningful campaign finance reform law. I urge you to keep up that commitment to reform in the coming weeks as we will finally have the opportunity to see campaign finance reform become a reality."

MCCAIN: Is there any threat in there?

NOVAK: I would think -- you don't think that's a threat at all?

MCCAIN: Of course not, of course not. I'm asking them to do what we campaigned together on. And if you look at the press clips of the quotes during those campaign appearances, in most of those campaign appearances there was mutual commitment to campaign finance reform.

NOVAK: We have to take a break. And when we come back, we'll talk more about John McCain's current positions and his future in politics.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SHIELDS: Senator John McCain, during your campaign for president, you said time and again, the reason we don't have patients' bill of rights legislation is "my party" -- the Republicans -- "are dominated by the insurance companies. The other party" -- the Democrats -- "are dominated by the trial lawyers."

Yet you and Senator Edwards and Senator Kennedy got that past the Senate. Did you overstate the influence of K Street?

MCCAIN: No. In fact, when you look at the lobbying that was mounted, I think it was pretty clear that they're still very influential. And it's been five years that it took to get this bill up, and we have a long way to go to get it through the House, as you know, and to get the president to sign it.

But I also want to make one additional comment. We want a bill the president will sign. I will do everything in my power to try to satisfy the president's concerns, and I think we can do that to a large degree in a conference.

SHIELDS: The last time you had dinner with President George W. Bush, was June 4, I believe.

MCCAIN: Yes.

SHIELDS: Have you had any meetings or conversations since?

MCCAIN: I've had conversations with the president. And again, both of us have reiterated our desire, among other things, to work together on a patients' bill of rights. The president is committed to that, and I respect that commitment.

NOVAK: Senator McCain, on May 24, Senator James Jeffords of Vermont went to his home state and announced he was leaving the Republican Party. One memorable quote, he said, "Given the changing nature of the national party, it has become a struggle for our leaders to deal with me and for me to deal with them," end quote.

Now, I know you're not talking about leaving the party, but isn't that true?

MCCAIN: And I'm denying it.

NOVAK: Yes. But isn't that true of you, too? It's become a struggle for the leaders of the Republican Party to deal with you and for you to deal with them?

MCCAIN: Well, I hope not. I believe that we are working together on a wide variety of issues, from the issue of eliminating waste pork-barrel spending to missile defense to reorganizing defense to Social Security reform -- a long list of issues that we are working together on.

NOVAK: Senator Jeffords talked about the party changing. But I was looking at your voting record as measured by various rating agencies -- the American Conservative Union, Americans for Democratic Action. Unquestionably, year by year for the last couple of years your votes were less conservative and more liberal. Are you changing? Philosophically, are you less of a conservative today than you were two years ago?

MCCAIN: No. In fact, I campaigned on the issues that I have been pursuing since I returned to the Senate.

Also, if you look at some of those ratings, a lot of them are based -- the scoring is based on -- guess what? -- campaign finance reform. The conservatives that say, I would view those as an anti- conservative vote, and the liberals, the opposite. So I think when you take out campaign finance reform, I think you find that my voting record has changed very little. SHIELDS: Senator McCain, recently you said the next major challenge is to help every American get health insurance, after patients' bill of rights. Given the darkening picture on the budget and the amazing shrinking surplus, is that even remotely realistic?

MCCAIN: I think it is, but I think the approach is incremental. For example, I think it's very strong bipartisan support for expanding the CHIP program, Children's Health Insurance Program, so that every child in America gets health care. I think that a prescription drug program for seniors is strongly supported in concept by the president and liberals and conservatives. I think we can work together on that.

I think you're going to see an incremental approach to an -- and we conservatives want tax deductions for health insurance for lower- income Americans. So I think there's a lot of things we can do to try to make sure that every American has health care without going to the so-called "Hillarycare," universal health care concept.

SHIELDS: But given the Bush tax cut, which you opposed, and the worsening picture in federal balance, is that realistic? I mean...

MCCAIN: I don't think all of these programs need to be hugely expensive. I think expanding, or just making sure all eligible children are in the CHIP program. I think this business of making generic drugs more available by preventing the drug companies from engaging this obscene practice of paying a generic drug company not to manufacture the drug that they're eligible to; those kinds of things, I think. You can do a lot without having to have an expensive massive program.

But your question about whether we're going to have enough money for defense, Medicare and Social Security, I think is a huge challenge. And we're already seeing the defense budget trimmed from what I believed we had committed to because of the budget constraints.

NOVAK: Senator McCain, quickly before we take a break, you had two amendments before the Appropriations Committee in the Senate, two very laudable amendments, I think. An extra $841 million for defense...

MCCAIN: Which I had offsets for.

NOVAK: Which you have offsets for. You only got 15 additional senators besides yourself. Then you had a vote to take out the Vulcan Monument in Alabama, a piece of egregious pork-barrel spending. You only got 11 senators besides yourself; you didn't even get the senators who supported for president.

Question, are you losing influence in the Senate when you can't even get people to vote on laudable amendments?

MCCAIN: Bob, I have fought these pork-barrel projects time after time after time, and I always only get a handful of votes because we know what the system is. The system is that if you vote against my project, then I'm going to cut out your project. I mean, we all know that. For the last 15 years I've proposed amendments to cut out pork- barrel projects and lost every time. And I want the American people to know, at least my citizens of Arizona, at least I'm on record is not a proving of a -- it's now $3.5 million for that statue of Vulcan. And there's statues all over America that need to be refurbished and not necessarily of Greek gods.

NOVAK: We have to take a break...

MCCAIN: And Roman gods...

(LAUGHTER)

NOVAK: It's not our religion anyway.

(LAUGHTER)

NOVAK: We have to take another break. And when we come back, we'll have "The Big Question" for John McCain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NOVAK: "The Big Question" for Senator John McCain: Senator, based on his record so far, will you support George W. Bush for reelection in 2004?

MCCAIN: Yes, yes. And I think that you're going to see his numbers come up as the effects of the education bill and other things that he's done are made aware to the American people.

SHIELDS: Do you feel -- you, John McCain, feel more comfortable with Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle than you do with Dick Armey and Don Nickles?

MCCAIN: They all are friends, all are people that I need to work with. And you showed Barry Goldwater's picture up there earlier. Barry Goldwater was one who believed you could have relationships on all sides of the aisle, with Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians and budgetarians.

SHIELD: John McCain, thank you very much for being with us.

Robert Novak and I will be back in a moment with a comment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NOVAK: Mark, John McCain said he was only kidding when he referred to his House Republican colleagues as "scoundrels." He said if they took it badly, however, he would apologize. This was a kinder, gentler John McCain talking to us than he was during this heated battle on Thursday.

SHIELDS: During this heated battle on Thursday, John McCain was the field general in charge of the reform troops in the U.S. House of Representatives. He made very clear though, Bob, John McCain's not going away on this issue and neither is the issue of campaign finance reform.

NOVAK: Mark, John McCain is a very popular figure in America, but when he only gets 15 additional senators to support a very laudable amendment for increased defense spending, I think that is an indication, contrary to what he says, that he is losing influence in the U.S. Senate.

SHIELDS: Losing influence in the U.S. Senate? Look at this, Bob: Two major accomplishments in the U.S. Senate this year -- patients' bill of rights and campaign finance reform. Co-author of both, John McCain. Those are some apples, believe me.

I'm Mark Shields.

NOVAK: I'm Robert Novak.

SHIELDS: Coming up in one-half hour on "RELIABLE SOURCES," are the media helping or hurting in the investigation to find Chandra Levy?

And at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, is it curtains for campaign finance reform; President Bush takes to the road; and an interview with NAACP President Kweisi Mfume.

NOVAK: That's all for now. Thanks for joining us.

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