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CNN Novak, Hunt & Shields

Interview With Nancy Pelosi

Aired February 16, 2002 - 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.
ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: I'm Robert Novak. Al Hunt and I will question the second-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives.

AL HUNT, CO-HOST: She is Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi of California, the House minority whip.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HUNT (voice-over): After years of frustration and failure, a campaign finance reform neared final passage. The House Republican leadership was defeated as the Democratic minority easily won enough GOP votes to pass the Shays-Meehan bill.

REP. RICHARD NEAL (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Mr. Speaker, I would suggest now, take down the "for sale" sign that hangs over this wonderful old house and pass Shays-Meehan.

HUNT: On the next day, the House Republican leadership, for the third time, passed an economic stimulus bill and sent it to a hostile reception in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

REP. RICHARD ARMEY (R-TX), HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: Finally, after having done nothing, the other body sends us a paltry, paltry, stingy, shortsighted, self-serving, insensitive 13 weeks unemployment compensation extension. Do you want to stand up with pride and say, "Mr. and Mrs. America, we tried to put you back to work"?

HUNT: In charge of mobilizing the Democratic vote was Nancy Pelosi, who a week earlier, at age 61, was sworn in as party whip. She's a native of Baltimore, where her father, Thomas D'Alesandro, and her brother, Thomas Jr., both served as mayor.

Married to a San Francisco businessman, she chaired the state Democratic Party in the early '80s, and in 1987 was elected to Congress. Her election this year as whip makes her the highest- ranking woman in congressional history.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HUNT: Madam Whip, campaign finance reform, the "New York Times" wrote that in your first mano-a-mano test you hammered the hammer, GOP Whip Tom DeLay. Quick prediction: Do you think George W. Bush will sign that bill? REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE MINORITY WHIP: I think the president will sign the bill. It had strong bipartisan support. Again, as I said, it's our valentine to America, to tell the American people they are important, that their voices will be heard, that they can have faith in government. I think that the bill passed because the American people wanted it to pass. And as Congress heard their voices, so, too, will the president.

HUNT: Well, I think you would agree you were certainly helped by the Enron scandal. Opponents, however, claim that this wouldn't have changed a thing in Enron and what it will do is decrease the role of parties and increase the influence of special interest groups like Enron. Is that true?

PELOSI: Well, no question -- and no pun intended -- Enron gave energy to our effort. Two weeks ago, on Thursday, when we had our whip meeting, we just decided to leave the meeting, discontinue our conversation, and go to the floor and get enough names to sign the discharge petition. Two weeks from that day, we had the votes on the floor to pass campaign finance reform. No question that the calls that members were receiving mentioned Enron over and over again.

The fact, though, is is that this will change how big money -- big special interest money influences Washington, D.C. We have drained the swamp.

HUNT: One of the principal causes for the rising cost of campaigns is expensive television time. Yet, even though you voted the other way, the House bowed to the pressure of the powerful broadcast lobby and overwhelmingly voted not to require these government-granted licensees to offer the lowest possible cost for political campaigns. Isn't that still the major problem of soaring campaign costs?

PELOSI: Well, just because there are soaring campaign costs doesn't mean that members of Congress should be indebting themselves for huge soft money contributions.

You know, I go way back in all of this; I was a party chair, and I would do nothing to hurt the ability of parties to reach out, register voters, get them to the polls, educate them about the issues. And they are not hurt under this bill.

But the law that I have been complying with on the federal level since the '70s, when I was chair of the party in California, says that federal candidates are not supposed to be raising corporate money. And somehow or other, in the last decade or two, there has been this addiction that has occurred to large contributions for a federal purpose that is counter to the spirit of the law.

So whether campaigns cost a lot or not is not the issue. The issue is, we are supposed to be raising that money according to the law, with full disclosure, that the American people have a right to.

NOVAK: Madam Whip, the authoritative Capitol Hill newspaper "Roll Call," in reporting a mistake that was made in the drafting of the bill Tuesday night, said it was caused by the lawyers for the liberal special interest group Common Cause were drafting your bill.

Now I have heard Democrats for years attacking Republicans for letting special interest lawyers draft their legislation. Are you saying it's OK for a liberal outside lawyer from a special interest group to draft your legislation?

PELOSI: I don't know what the "Roll Call" article was. I hear what you're saying that they reported, but believe or not I don't believe everything I read in the paper.

But I do know that this bill has been drafted by members of Congress, who've all been working on it for at least seven or eight years. We've had regular meetings and offices in the Capitol with members trying to see what the impact would be of certain proposals that were put forth, and trying to see where we could get a sufficient number of votes to achieve our goal, to clean up Washington, D.C., to drain the swamp that is political fund-raising in the Capitol.

NOVAK: Ms. Pelosi, as we said in the beginning of the program, right after -- the next day after you passed campaign finance reform, for the third time the Republicans pushed through an economic stimulus bill while again you had most Democrats voting in lockstep against tax cuts. Aren't you worried going into an election that you have amassed this tremendous voting record of all your members voting against tax cuts, or does it matter, since most of them are from safe districts anyway?

PELOSI: Well, members of the Democratic Party in Congress certainly support the American people putting the lowest taxes that we need them to pay.

The fact is that when we're talking about a stimulus package it's supposed to meet three bipartisanly established criteria -- by the way bipartisan. It's supposed to be large enough to have an impact, it has to be fast enough to have an impact, and it should not do damage to our long-term stability of our economy. The Republican stimulus package fails on all three fronts, and even after all we have heard from Enron and the rest, they still, in their stimulus package, have a revocation of -- repeal of the alternative minimum tax. Again, high end, high end, high end.

Certainly we support tax cuts that would stimulate business, stimulate the economy, put money into the hand of the consumer so that they can have the discretion to spend or to save, but not to just go to the high end and give rebates to the high end on top of a $1.3 trillion tax cut that does do damage to the long-term stability of our economy.

HUNT: Congresswoman, you Democratic leaders have been very critical of the Bush budget, saying it doesn't fund needed health and education measures. Robert Reischauer, the famous Democratic economist, the head of the Urban Institute, says the only way you can do that is if you make the current tax cut that has taken effect, make them permanent, even index them, but hold off on all the later tax cuts that are supposed to take effect in three or four years, primarily for the wealthy, to see if they're affordable. Can you go along with that?

PELOSI: I think that that's a proposal that deserves consideration. I think that we have to subject everything that we are doing in terms of our economy to the harshest scrutiny, in light of September 11. It certainly has changed a lot.

HUNT: So you just agree with Dick Gephardt that any action on future tax cuts ought to be taken off the table?

PELOSI: I think that we ought to subject what we are doing to scrutiny. What is the impact on Social Security, for example? What is the impact on investments in education and infrastructure which are very dynamic, that is they produce jobs and they produce money to our treasury almost immediately?

There's no initiative that you can name that is more dynamic than educating the American people. That brings money into the treasury and into the economy.

So I think that we, after -- post-September 11, the president has said the world has changed, our country has changed; well let's subject those to scrutiny, and maybe they should stay there. But they should not be ignored.

NOVAK: I just want to reiterate Al's question -- it's, kind of, a yes-or-no question, because on this program about a month ago, Dick Gephardt your reader said we shouldn't and he used the word "relitigate" the tax issue. So that is off the table for now. Agree or disagree with that?

PELOSI: Well, I think that what he -- from a practical standpoint, the president is not going to go along with changing his tax cut, and so I think from a practical standpoint our leader, Mr. Gephardt, was correct, which is let's work on getting something done rather than having an elementary discussion about something that may not see the light of day.

NOVAK: Madam, we have quick question before we have to take a break. The president is off to China, the world's most populous country. You've been very critical of human rights in China. Do you think he is making a mistake to go there and negotiate with the leaders of this important government?

PELOSI: Absolutely not. I would encourage the president of our country to visit every country to establish dialogue, to engage. I hope that when he goes there that he -- my understanding that high on his list on his agenda is to talk about stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, something that we have been trying to get China to do for a very long time, in which they have not honored -- over and over again they have not honored their own commitment. And I hope that he will mention the importance of human rights which continue to be abused, and particularly mention Ju Wen Le (ph), Wong Kai (ph) and Zong Zi Lee (ph), who've been arrested for presenting their political views freely in China.

NOVAK: We have to take a break, and when we come back we'll ask Nancy Pelosi about terrorism and politics.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNT: Congresswoman Pelosi, you are the vice chairwoman of the House Committee on Intelligence, and on this program several months ago, you suggested that the early evidence indicated that Osama bin Laden probably was complicit in the anthrax letters sent to Tom Daschle and others. Let's listen to what you said then.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PELOSI: I suspect that there is some linkage between September 11 and the anthrax scare that we're going through now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: We know a lot more now than we did then. Do you still believe there's some linkage, or do you think it's more likely that these anthrax letters came from some sort of right-wing domestic group?

PELOSI: Well, when I said that they were connected, I don't know if you want to draw the inference I said that Osama bin Laden was involved, but that certainly those unsympathetic to our country were.

If your question is, "Do I think now that it may be more from a domestic standpoint?" I just don't know. At that time, what we were hearing at the intelligence level at which I serve was that it was possible that there was a link. Now, of course, the investigation is a much broader one.

I still suspect that they are not disconnected.

HUNT: Tom Daschle, as you know, has been the target of some vicious attacks from outside groups, including an ad linking him to Saddam Hussein. Some Democrats say the White House has encouraged that, and, at least, they haven't repudiated those charges. Is this just politics? Is this OK?

PELOSI: I think that it has been a practice of the Republicans to try to undermine any Democratic spokespersons who is effective. And Tom Daschle is effective. So what they want to do is discredit him in the public view, I mean, I think that that is clear.

HUNT: Including the White House? You think the White House is doing that?

PELOSI: I don't know if the White House is, but I do know that what I see on a daily basis in Congress is that is the case, and certainly we have heard rhetoric from the White House that would reinforce that negative message from the Congress.

NOVAK: Madam Whip, committees of both the House and the Senate have been very busy investigating the Enron scandal. And so far, there's no smoking gun connecting the scandal to the Bush administration or to Congress, either Republicans or Democrats. Do you think now we can say pretty safely this is very bad business scandal, but it's not a political scandal?

PELOSI: Oh, I don't think so. I think we have to wait to see the facts. We can't say anything until we know what the facts are.

But the facts -- some of the facts that we know are these: We know that Enron gave a huge amount of money, over $6 million over a period of time, to elected officials. We know that they participated in writing the energy policy for our country; that they had a tremendous access to stave off disclosure and regulations of the businesses that they were doing; that they participated in naming members to the FERC, the Federal Energy Regulation Commission which oversees Enron. And so, the list goes on and on. And at the same time, the management of the company ripped off the employees there, ripping them off of their jobs and of their retirement, of their 401(k)s.

So I think that the public sees that with access, they got opportunity and they had an impact. Whether there is a crime connected there remains to be seen, but I think that we cannot dispose of the issue until we have the facts.

NOVAK: Just to take one of the arguments on the list, Madam Whip, the question of the participation alleged by Enron of picking the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Henry Waxman, your top investigator, when he was asked on another program about that, he said he read it in the papers.

I have found no indication of any testimony before any congressional committee that the Enron people were able to affect that appointment, just speculation in the papers. Is that your information, too, speculation in the newspapers?

PELOSI: Well, I think beyond that, of course, we have a very vested interest in what happens here in terms of California. We watched the practices, the braggadocio of the Enron officials as they went about their business of shaping how they would be regulated. And it was a matter of very immediate concern to the people of California who were being gouged by Enron and where we were getting no recourse from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

And so their braggadocio about, "Do it this way or you leave," or the well known member to be of the commission that they favored who then became the chairman, and it doesn't mean that he might not be a fine person, it just means that they had a role in it.

HUNT: Let me ask you a couple quick political questions. Your scandal-ridden colleague Gary Condit is running for reelection and faces a tough primary next month. First you endorsed him, then you seemed to back away. California Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer have endorsed Dennis Cardoza in that race. You now have the same sort of standing that they have, as a House leader. Who are you supporting in the 18th Congressional District in California?

PELOSI: Well, I believe it's up to the people of that district to make that decision. Last March I endorsed Gary Condit, when I endorsed all the members of the California Democratic delegation as we were preparing for our reapportionment. So yes, I endorsed him last March.

In light of the events that have ensued, and that there is a primary now, my position is that it's up to the district, especially under the circumstance, up to the people of their district to do that. But everybody makes their own decision about how they approach this.

HUNT: Let me ask you one more. As you know, in Michigan, Congressman John Dingell and Congresswoman Lynn Rivers have been thrown in the same district. Your PAC contributed to Congresswoman Rivers. Are you now going to give the same amount to Mr. Dingell, especially considering how much he helped you in the campaign finance reform bill?

PELOSI: My support of Congresswoman Rivers stems from the fact that we want more women in Congress, and those we have we want to stay, that I helped her, as I help many others have leverage in the reapportionment which preceded their being thrown into the same district.

One of the criteria that my committee, my PAC uses is need. So if there is need for Mr. Dingell and he makes a request, we will certainly consider it.

NOVAK: One quick question, Ms. Pelosi, before we take another break, and that is the question of your first speech after you were formally sworn in as whip was on abortion. Your predecessor, Congressman Dave Bonior of Michigan, had a courageous pro-life record during his long congressional career. Does that mean now that we can expect the Democratic Party in Congress to stress the abortion issue more than previously?

PELOSI: I don't think that I made a speech on abortion. I made a speech on freedom of choice; choose to have the baby, choose not to have the baby. It was about reproductive freedom. And the generation that I'm in and that we're in, gentlemen, we hardly ever would use that word. So I didn't make a speech on that.

But my views on a woman's right to choose are well known, and I carry them with me to the leadership. But it doesn't change the position of the Democrats. It is an individual decision that each member makes about where he or she is on it. Predominantly, the Democrats support a woman's right to choose, but not everyone in our caucus does, and we're always respectful of their views on it, because this is a very personal decision. But we do wish that it wouldn't be politicized.

NOVAK: We have to take another break, and when we come back we'll have "The Big Question" for Nancy Pelosi.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NOVAK: "The Big Question" for House Democratic Whip Nancy Pelosi.

Madam Whip, there's been a lot of speculation that the House Democratic leader, Dick Gephardt, will resign from Congress to run for president at the end of next year, whether he is speaker or majority leader. Do you think that'll be fair to resign halfway through a session after he has been the leader of the party?

PELOSI: Dick Gephardt has been a tremendous leader to our party. He is highly regarded. No one has worked harder for the Democrats in the House to help us regain control of it.

And, of course, I have a conflict of interest. I want him to stay in the House and be our speaker and lead us into this decade. But he has earned the right to make his own decision on that.

HUNT: Congresswoman Pelosi, the political community here in Washington is eagerly awaiting a hot new documentary, "Journeys with George": behind the scenes look at George W. Bush, produced by a journalist, your daughter, Alexandra Pelosi. What's this going to tell us about George Bush?

PELOSI: Well, my daughter, Alexandra, says it's a Rorschach test -- people will see what they see. And she's a professional in her own right. She doesn't comment on my work and I don't comment on hers. But since it's in the public domain, I guess, everyone just has to see the movie and -- the documentary, and draw their own conclusions.

HUNT: We'll look forward to seeing it.

Nancy Pelosi, thank you for being with us.

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNT: Bob, she back-pedalled a little bit, but Nancy Pelosi really, really did take issue with Dick Gephardt's contention that the tax cuts can't be on the table, because she is right: There's no way you can do what they want to do, unless you get rid of some of those tax cuts for the very wealthy scheduled to take effect in years from now.

NOVAK: Well, I think she does provide a more liberal image than Dick Gephardt. And I thought -- she says it's not (UNINTELLIGIBLE), but I thought the fact that she did talk about abortion, which she calls pro-choice, as her first speech, indicates she's a lot different from the pro-life Dave Bonior.

HUNT: Nancy Pelosi has made some missteps. I think she made a mistake in endorsing Gary Condit, and I think she made a mistake in giving money to Lynn Rivers, who's running against John Dingell in the primary. But she's going to learn and she is going to be an incredibly effective and attractive spokesman for the Democratic Party.

NOVAK: She also feels, though, that Enron is a big political, as well as a business scandal, and she -- I asked her specifically what evidence she has about the administration borrowing to Enron on picking the head of FERC; again, she didn't give it. I think she read it in the papers, like Mr. Waxman.

I'm Robert Novak.

HUNT: And I'm Al Hunt.

Coming up at 7:00 p.m. on "CAPITAL GANG," campaign finance reform clears a big hurdle, and executive finger-pointing continues at the Enron hearings.

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

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