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CNN Novak, Hunt & Shields

Interview With House Speaker Dennis Hastert

Aired June 22, 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.
MARK SHIELDS, CO-HOST: I'm Mark Shields. Robert Novak and I will question the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: He is Republican Dennis Hastert of Illinois.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NOVAK (voice-over): The scene was set for the next partisan battle in the House this coming week when the House Energy and Commerce Committee moved toward approving a Republican-sponsored bill to cover 80 percent of all prescription drug costs. The committee voted along party lines to reject a more generous Democratic proposal.

REP. WILLIAM THOMAS (R-CA), WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: When you have a choice between a reasonable program that has a chance of becoming law and a pie-in-the-sky $800 billion political proposal just to say we were better than you, that the chance to actually put a prescription drug program into law for our seniors -- why?

NOVAK: The committee's top Democrat, Congressman John Dingell of Michigan, said, quote, "The Republican bill is not a drug benefit at all. It is mostly a series of payments to insurance companies," end quote.

Dennis Hastert, a former high school history teacher and wrestling coach, entered politics at age 38 with his election to the Illinois legislature in 1980. Six years later, he was elected to Congress. In 1999, he was the surprise choice to succeed Newt Gingrich as speaker, his first elected party leadership position.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOVAK: Mr. Speaker, what is your response to Congressman Dingell that your plan for prescription drugs is just a payoff to the drug companies?

REP. DENNIS HASTERT (R-IL), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Well, actually, I think Mr. Dingell last night -- they went until 8:00 morning and passed it out of conference committee, almost the identical bill that we passed out of Ways and Means. It's a good bill. It covers about, we think, 90 percent of seniors. And what it does is people who have to make the choice to put food on the table or rent for their homes or drugs, or pharmaceuticals, it gives them the ability to get drugs. And those poorest people, 44 percent of them will be covered by this without any cost at all.

NOVAK: But this is -- this is so far different, Mr. Speaker, than the Democratic bill coming through the Senate. Do you really have any hopes that you're going to end up with something that will help seniors buy drugs when you have this tremendous conflict between the Democrats in the Senate and the Republicans in the House?

HASTERT: Well, you know, the Senate has a bill that costs almost $1 trillion. You know, ours is a reasonable bill. It's $350 billion over 10 years.

First of all, you know, the Senate didn't pass the budget. They couldn't pass that bill if it was on a golden platter, because they don't have the rules to be able to pass it. We passed a budget. We have laid it out. We have a program, and we have a bill that works. And I think that's what the American people want. They want production, not politics, out of this.

SHIELDS: Mr. Speaker, you, as Speaker, can call the schedule of the floor of the House of Representatives, what's taken up and what isn't taken up. We went through a campaign in 2000...

HASTERT: Sometimes.

SHIELDS: Well, virtually all the time, but -- but -- we went through a campaign in 2000, everybody was for prescription drugs, Republicans, Democrats, presidential candidates, members of Congress. The last time the Congress took this up was June 28 of 2000. Now we take it up June 25 or 26, 2002. There's not much time left. You've got a full legislative plate. Isn't this -- can't skeptics say Denny Hastert doesn't really want to pass prescription drugs, he knows it's going to die?

HASTERT: The House has passed it twice. Nobody else has passed it. We will have this bill ready to go. We will have a conference report with the Senate that they can pass a bill. And we hope to have a policy that the American people can use. That's the important thing.

SHIELDS: The Republican Party had a big fund-raiser here in Washington this week, raised $30 million. Every time that labor unions contribute six-figure soft money checks to the Democrats, Republicans accuse the Democrats of carrying labor's water. At that big fund-raiser, historic fund-raiser, most of the big contributors of $250,000 or more are drug companies. Doesn't that make me a little skeptical that the Republicans are really going to be tough when it comes (UNINTELLIGIBLE) favor of seniors at the expense of drug companies?

HASTERT: Well, Mark, I think less than 10 percent of the contributions were from drug companies, and it was over across the spectrum of people who basically support Republicans. The truth is that in the -- in the Democrat bill of $800 billion, the drug companies are set to get a lot more money. There's no control over prices. There's no competition. Our bill does have control and competition. And in essence, the drug companies will end up getting less money out of our legislation than they will out of the generosity of the Democrats, because most of that money goes to drug companies unfettered.

NOVAK: Mr. Speaker, the way this government works, we have to raise the debt limit in order to have the government keep functioning, send out Social Security checks. The White House wants a straight bill raising the debt limit. The Senate, with a bipartisan vote -- a few courageous Democrats plus the Republicans -- passed a debt limit. But your leadership has buried the debt limit inside the supplemental emergency appropriations bill. Why don't you just pass it straight, like the Senate did, and get this out of the way?

HASTERT: Well, you know I would, Bob, but we don't have the votes to do that right now. And you know, I think the best way for us is to move it in the supplemental. That's how we had planned to do it. We had planned early on to do it that way. Some would like to make politics out of the -- out of the debt ceiling. We will not let the federal government default on debt. It will not happen. But we'll get it done when we can get it done.

You know, one of the things you have to understand, and I think you'll agree with, I don't bring things to the floor until we have the votes to pass it. And when we have the votes to pass it, we'll get it done. But I'm not going to play politics with the debt ceiling.

NOVAK: Well, let me -- let me raise a problem there, sir...

HASTERT: Sure.

NOVAK: ... and that is that if the supplemental appropriations bill is too heavy, it's got too much spending, as it certainly does on the Senate side -- the president would like to veto it, but if you put the debt ceiling in there, he can't veto it, can he?

HASTERT: Well, you know, first of all, we won't pass a bill that's too heavy. We haven't. We've stuck with the president's recommendation. We've stuck with the budget that we passed in the first place, and that was $27 -- it was $27.1 billion. We adhered to that, and we won't let ourselves get in a conference, which some people want to do, or some type of a negotiated area with debt ceiling and extra spending. We will stick to the budget we passed.

SHIELDS: Mr. Speaker, the new Department of Homeland Security, OK, one-tenth the size of Health and Human Services budget, but 170,000 employees, already five undersecretaries, 16 assistant secretaries, one commandant of the Coast Guard -- I mean, aren't we talking about some sort of a monster bureaucracy that's going to break the bank?

HASTERT: Look -- we need to find a way to best protect the American people against terrorism and establish homeland defense. I think the problem with the situation that we had with Gov. Ridge at the head of this quasi-group with a lot of detailees to run, it really didn't have any clout. It was the same problem the drug czar has and has had for years -- doesn't control Justice or doesn't control Treasury, doesn't control the armed services. If you're going to have somebody that is responsible for homeland defense, you have to have the ability to control your own destiny or control your own people.

That's why we need to establish a different way of doing this. Now, I think that there's some economies of scale on this thing. I think you can start to brush away some of the middlemen. And that's why we put this through the regimen that we're doing it. We're going through committees of jurisdiction to make recommendations and to have a select group, basically a leadership ad hoc select committee then sort through and put the pieces together again.

SHIELDS: Does putting the pieces together, Mr. Speaker, include the Coast Guard, which rescues capsized recreational boaters; the Department of Agriculture, which goes after the boll weevil; that -- FEMA, which takes care of floods and disasters? Does that fit under Homeland Security?

HASTERT: Well, you have to look at Coast Guard that protects our shores, and it's the first line of defense on our coasts, where the terrorists come in. You also have to look at the Department of Agriculture that can protect against viruses and other things that may be brought in. So in some cases, you may have to split the baby, and we will do that if we have to.

SHIELDS: We have to take a break.

But when we come back, we'll ask Speaker Dennis Hastert if President Bush should finally pull the trigger on his unused veto pistol.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NOVAK: Speaker Hastert, as you're well aware, a lot of members of your conference in the House are critical of the president on his education bill, on signing the campaign finance bill, which was supposed to be Armageddon, you said, on singing the farm subsidy bill, on not drawing a straight line on appropriations. Do you share that criticism?

HASTERT: Well, you know, one of the things on appropriation bills -- and we haven't gotten any appropriation bills -- the bill that we passed out of the House on the supplemental was exactly what the president asked for.

So you know, on our bills that we passed out -- and we, you know, go to conference, have a lot of say -- we haven't gone over the line...

(CROSSTALK)

HASTERT: I mean, there's a real disagreement on campaign finance reform, and I'll stick to my guns on that. I think that that legislation will be the demise of party politics, and you'll put a lot of emphasis and a lot of money in special interests, and they'll be deciding who goes out, who gets out, how to turn the vote out, instead of state parties turning vote out and getting people involved in the political process. NOVAK: Well, do you think, sir, that -- 1 1/2 years into his presidency, it's time for President Bush to use the veto pistol to veto some of the...

HASTERT: Yes, I urged him to veto the campaign finance reform. Obviously, I was on the other side of that issue. He said, basically, "Pass a bill, and I'll sign it." We just disagree on that. The farm bill was a bill that I -- you know, I thought was a pretty good bill when it came out of the House. It was a good bill when it came out of the House. And you know, the farmland phenomenon in the Senate -- everybody in the Senate represents farmers, and that thing got out of whack.

What I think the real problem with that bill is, is we ended up subsidizing farmers, where we really need to build the market so that we have -- can sell our commodities at a decent price and...

(CROSSTALK)

HASTERT: ... commodity. So you know, I had a disagreement there, but he signed the bill. He thought it was a good bill, or a bill that he would tolerate. He signed it.

NOVAK: Just on general principles, would you like to see him veto a bill?

HASTERT: You know, we have to give him a bill -- basically, a bill, if you're going to do it on an appropriation bill, that, you know, is out of step. And, you know, it has to get through the House before it's out of step. So you know, it's kind of a, you know, a problem.

SHIELDS: Mr. Speaker, on that very issue, the terrorist insurance legislation -- the president has said unequivocally that unless there's a provision in there that exempts insurance companies from punitive damages, he's going to veto it. It passed the Senate 84-14 without the president's provision. No veto statement. Is there a danger of being the -- like, the boy who cried wolf, that he's going to use it and then never use that veto?

HASTERT: Well, we'll see how that bill comes out. In the House, we passed it with limitations on liability, and I think it's important, because if that's the reinsurance, the government actually picks up the reinsurance on insurance, so we can build buildings and not be devastated if there's a terrorist attack.

The fact is, people are limited from building buildings or doing things today because they can't get insurance on their buildings. So how do you solve that problem? Well, the federal government has to be -- the reinsurance value, a body of last resort.

But we don't think that the trial lawyers should be able to come back over against the federal government with deep pockets and just be able to play havoc on this.

So we have drawn the line, and I think the president stands with us, and we won't pass a bill that has the deep pockets provision in it.

SHIELDS: This week, you had to pull down the trade bill in the House and reschedule it. Hasn't the president's own inconsistent and contradictory policy in opposing steel tariffs and finding that farm bill with the swollen subsidies made it a lot tougher to be the advocate of free trade, that this administration continues to use (ph)?

(CROSSTALK)

HASTERT: Well, I think just the opposite, Mark. Because the president hasn't had the ability to go out and make the accommodations of the deals across the water, he dealt fairly with the European Union and other groups, that he's had to resolve those types of legislation. He needs the ability, the TPA, the trade policy, that he can go out and negotiate as any other country can negotiate, and get an agreement that's solid.

That's why it's important to pass that bill. We pulled that down because, as you know, I won't bring a bill to the floor unless I know we have the votes for it. That was the first bill the last time we passed it, and we needed to get to go to conference, and we'll throw all the emphasis behind it to get it done.

But we weren't ready to move it yet.

NOVAK: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the trade bill, Mr. Speaker, that your counterpart on the Democratic side, Congressman Gephardt, had some harsh words to say, and let's listen to them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DICK GEPHARDT (D-MO), MINORITY LEADER: This is the end of democracy in the House. And we're going to fight this with everything we have. We can all disagree on trade, but we all ought to be able to agree that the House ought to work its will, that everybody ought to have a say, and that we ought to have a normal, reasonable process.

I mean, if this stands, then we're losing democracy in the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOVAK: I missed that story. This is the end of democracy in America?

HASTERT: Rather like Armageddon.

NOVAK: What did you think of that?

HASTERT: I thought that was a little -- you know, this is a motion to go to conference with the House and the Senate, two bodies with two different majorities. And if you can't -- you know, democracy is getting together, sorting out the problems, and going to compromise. So I think the minority leader was a little over agitated. It's not the -- you know, he must have had some bad bean soup that day.

NOVAK: Mr. Speaker, this week we've seen further violence in the Middle East, Palestinian terrorists, suicide bombers, as well as the Israeli tanks moving in further and occupying the West Bank.

Is it fair to conclude right now that the House Republican conference has unconditional support for Prime Minister Sharon and anything he does?

HASTERT: I don't think anything he does, and there's different opinions. There is a spectrum of opinions. I think pretty solidly we believe that we shouldn't reward terror, and if there is going to be a Palestinian state established, it needs to be somebody who can govern. And I don't think there's evidence that the -- Sharon has done a -- Arafat has been able to do that.

We also need that somebody can take responsibility. And if you're going to govern, to have a state, that you don't support terrorism, that you don't support people that aren't honest. And we haven't -- we need to go a ways before we see that established.

And I think we don't want to establish something that rewards terrorism. And I think certainly the Israeli people should have the protections that they can live side by side with a people or neighbor or state, if that's what it's going to be, and not be constantly bombarded by terrorists.

SHIELDS: We have to take a break, but when we come back, Robert Novak and I will have "The Big Question" for Speaker Dennis Hastert.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SHIELDS: Speaker Dennis Hastert, "The Big Question."

If you're making a highlight film of the U.S. Congress over the past 50 years, it would feature the great debate in 1991 over entering the Persian Gulf War, where Congress very thoughtfully, seriously voted the equivalent of a declaration of war after President George Bush asked for it.

We're talking about 200,000 Americans, U.S. military says, to invade Iraq. Doesn't this Congress and the House and the Senate owe the American people and the nation a full, free debate on just exactly what our mission is?

HASTERT: Well, you know, first of all, I asked the president when this thing first happened to come up before the Congress and lay out the problem and ask for the ability to put things together. And we did that. And we've had a debate, pretty solid debate, on all the issues that we've taken.

This is a unique situation. It's not only a situation in Afghanistan and fighting 68 country -- or fighting al Qaeda that's located in 68 different countries around the world, but also terrorism here at home. So it's been a unique situation. We've had good bipartisan support with the president in doing those things to fight that terrorism. And I think that there has been a solid debate. What are going to debate when there is -- it's very difficult, and you're not debating the Japanese in 1941 or the Germans or, you know, the Iraqis in that year.

NOVAK: We're just about out of time, but Mr. Speaker, I just want to ask you quickly, do you -- are you saying that you could -- that the president could attack without getting a resolution through the House?

HASTERT: I think if we go against Iraq -- and there is no plan presented, I think. The president has not consulted with anybody, and I don't think we're ready to do that yet. And I may be misspoken, but from my point of view, when the time comes, I think there will be consultation to do it.

NOVAK: Speaker Dennis Hastert, thank you very much.

HASTERT: My pleasure, great to be with you.

NOVAK: Mark Shields and I will be back with a comment after these messages.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SHIELDS: Bob, Speaker Dennis Hastert is a Bush loyalist, but I don't think -- the best face he tried to put on it, there's no question he wants President George W. Bush to finally use that veto.

NOVAK: I think he has a problem, Mark, with this burying the debt ceiling increase into the appropriations bill. It means he can't be -- the president can't veto that appropriations bill, and it might just be bigger than the president wants.

SHIELDS: I'll say this, on the question of Iraq and 200,000 American troops necessary to invade that country, he didn't call for the full, free debate we had in 1991, but for consultation. I think that's a mistake.

NOVAK: You know, I think Dennis Hastert is the least pompous, self-important speaker I have seen in Congress. He kind of brushed off Gephardt with a light touch. But it's a tough job in this very partisan Washington we're in today.

SHIELDS: Did you ever meet Tip O'Neill?

NOVAK: I'm Robert Novak.

SHIELDS: I'm Mark Shields.

NOVAK: Coming up at 7:00 p.m. Eastern on "CAPITAL GANG," the latest on the crisis in the Middle East, business ethics, the Martha Stewart stock sell-off allegations, and the departure of Jesse Ventura.

SHIELDS: Thank you for joining us.

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