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Lou Dobbs Tonight
Bush Attempts to Rescue Immigration Package; Outsourcing Focus of Capitol Hill Testimony
Aired June 12, 2007 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LOU DOBBS, HOST: Tonight, President Bush ignores the will of the people, goes to Capitol Hill to try to rescue his amnesty legislation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We've got to convince the American people that this bill is the best way to enforce our border.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOBBS: Who needs convincing? Will the American people accept the president's ideas?
Slate.com's Mickey Kaus and Vanderbilt University's Professor Carol Swain among our guests.
Alarming testimony today on Capitol Hill about the export of American jobs to cheap overseas labor markets and the devastating impact on our middle class.
We'll have that special report.
All of that, a great deal more, the day's news, straight ahead here tonight.
ANNOUNCER: This is LOU DOBBS TONIGHT, news, debate and opinion for Tuesday, June 12th.
Live from New York, Lou Dobbs.
DOBBS: Good evening, everybody.
President Bush today made a rare trip to Capitol Hill. They're trying to save his so-called grand compromise on comprehensive immigration reform, or amnesty.
After meeting with Republican senators, President Bush declared, "Now is the time to get it done." But many Republican senators remain bitterly opposed to any legislation that would give amnesty from anywhere to 12 to 20 million illegal aliens. One leading Republican, senator Jeff Sessions, simply told the president to "back off".
Dana Bash reports from Capitol Hill -- Dana. DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Lou, the president spent his hour with Republicans asking them not to give up on immigration reform on this particular bill. And according to several Republican senators in this meeting, the president did something he's accused of not doing here for years on Capitol Hill, and that is he listened. He listened to senators' ideas, to their complaints and their concerns about this divisive issue.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BASH (voice over): It was a short motorcade right to the Capitol for a tall order. The president hoping to convince skeptical fellow Republicans to rescue his top domestic priority which many GOP senators oppose -- immigration reform.
BUSH: Some members in there believe that we need to move a comprehensive bill. Some don't. I understand that. It's a highly emotional issue.
BASH: And it was that kind of conciliatory tone, not his vintage swagger, the president used with Republicans behind closed doors, reporting to several senators in the meeting, telling them off the bat he came to listen to Republican concerns about immigration, not twist arms.
SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON (R), TEXAS: He took a lot of questions and he listened, and I thought that was very important, because he was beginning to get the feel for the concerns that have been raised.
BASH: GOP senators told the president about the pummeling they're getting from constituents who just don't trust the government to make good on the immigration bill's promise to secure the border.
Georgia's two Republican senators asked Mr. Bush to show conservatives he's committed to border security by paying for it now.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), MINORITY LEADER: A number of our members have suggested that the president actually send up a supplemental request, an appropriations supplemental request for border security, much like he does for the Iraq war.
BASH: A key challenge for the president is convincing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring immigration back to the Senate floor.
BUSH: I would hope that the Senate majority leader has that same sense of a desire to move the product as I do.
BASH: Reid tried to turn the tables on the president.
SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MAJORITY LEADER: We've done our job. It's not a question of Democrats doing anything. It's a question of Republicans supporting their own president.
(END VIDEOTAPE) BASH: The question is whether the president was simply too late or too politically weakened to win back fellow Republicans who oppose him on this immigration bill. Most senators said that they really didn't think he'd change many Republican minds. But the authors of this compromise say they hope at the very least what the president did is buy them some time and convince Republicans, for now, at least, not to give up on this bill -- Lou.
DOBBS: This president, Dana, saying that he wants to convince the American people this is a good bill, doesn't even remotely approximate his bravado earlier when he said that he'll see you at the bill signing.
BASH: You're exactly right. And you know, that is not an accident, Lou.
I just bumped into a Republican senator right before coming on this show who said that the White House got the message that that bravado, both when he was abroad and a couple of weeks ago, when he made a speech, basically making clear that he thought opponents of immigration were fearmongering, that that really didn't help his cause here on Capitol Hill.
That, we're told, was a big reason why he came here to Capitol Hill and he had that kind of conciliatory tone that he had in private and in public.
DOBBS: Thank you very much, Dana.
Dana Bash from Capitol Hill.
The president's trip over to Capitol Hill illustrating the president's growing political weakness. President Bush appears to have run out of the political capital he once promised to spend, even among members of his own party. Many Republicans are simply furious with the president for saying last month that opponents of illegal alien amnesty "don't want to do what's right for America."
Ed Henry has our report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED HENRY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The menu for the president's lunch in the Senate was simple comfort food -- grilled cod with some chicken, stuffed peppers and green beans on the side. But it doesn't take a restaurant critic to see that many Republicans are just not biting.
BUSH: It's going to take a lot of hard work, a lot of effort.
HENRY: That means convincing 15 senators to change their votes in order to move the immigration reform bill forward, a task that may be insurmountable for a president whose clout is shrinking fast and facing the reality that the 2008 campaign will soon dwarf his agenda.
MICHAEL CHERTOFF, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: It's going to get progressively harder. In an election year it's very difficult to move legislation, let alone complicated legislation.
HENRY: So Republicans are trying to grill Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for cutting short the debate.
JOHN FEEHERY, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST : It's like a chef. It's like "Hell's Kitchen." You've got to -- you've got to get all the soup right. It wasn't ready, and Senator Reid really prematurely served it.
HENRY: Thirty-eight Democrats voted for the president's immigration bill, while only seven Republicans supported Mr. Bush.
REID: What this all boils down to is the Republicans do not support their own president's bill.
HENRY: How to turn that around is a question vexing the president's inner circle so much, a White House that always insists it does not govern based upon polls is -- well, citing polls to make its case.
TONY SNOW, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: And if you take a look again at the key provisions in this bill and you simply ask the public opinion polling question, do you support it or not, you get very high public approval for them. So we think that there really is a strong base of support here.
HENRY: Oh, really?
SEN. JEFF SESSIONS (R), ALABAMA: The president is wrong to push this piece of legislation so hard after we've demonstrated the flaws that are in it. He needs to back off.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HENRY: "Back off," those are tough words from a very conservative Republican senator. And it gives you an idea of the uphill battle the president now has -- Lou.
DOBBS: Ed, the question has to be asked, who is advising this president? We have seen this president expend political capital on failed initiative after failed initiative, whether you go back to Social Security or now this comprehensive -- the man is saying everyone is opposed to him, doesn't know what's right for America. Everyone who's opposed to him -- he's saying you've got to convince the American people that he's right.
Is there anyone there advising this president to restrain himself?
HENRY: No. I mean, I think when you ask who's advising him, it's clear, two words -- Karl Rove. I mean, that's the chief architect, and the president is stuck with him because he helped him win two elections.
And despite the criticism, despite the public outcry from various people, the president is sticking with the agenda that he's laid out. It's the agenda that Karl Rove has laid out. And despite the criticism, he's dug in.
And that's why people are jumping on him, even in his own party. You're seeing now people like Jeff Sessions right there pointing out that they're frustrated, and the president, though, is still dug in -- Lou.
DOBBS: Thank you very much.
Ed Henry from the White House.
And our poll question tonight: Do you believe that on the issue of comprehensive immigration reform legislation President Bush should, as Senator Jeff Sessions has put it, simply back off? Yes or no?
Cast your vote at loudobbs.com. We'll have the results here later.
Also later, slate.com's Mickey Kaus and Vanderbilt University Professor Carol Swain join me to discuss the president's gamble on illegal immigration.
Four of the country's top radio talk show hosts will also be joining us here tonight.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill today also focused on the rising chaos in Iraq. A top U.S. military commander, Lieutenant General Martin Dempsey, delivered a blunt assessment of the capabilities of the Iraq security forces. U.S. officials say the Iraqi army and police must improve significantly before the United States can begin large-scale troop withdrawals.
Jamie McIntyre reports from the Pentagon.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Lieutenant General Martin Dempsey is the latest American commander to report to Congress that Iraqi security forces, while improving, are not yet ready to take over from the U.S.
LT. GEN. MARTIN DEMPSEY, U.S. ARMY: Iraqi army and police units do not have tactical staying power or sufficient capability to surge at forces locally.
MCINTYRE: After spending $19 billion over four years to train 348,000 Iraqi forces, neither the 154,000 military troops, nor the 194,000 police are in position to take control. And Congress is looking into why.
REP. TODD AKIN (R), MISSOURI: One thing this investigation has demonstrated is that transitioning security responsibility simply for the sake of transitioning will not stabilize Iraq. In fact, it may slow progress down.
MCINTYRE: One of the biggest problems is that some of the units, the police in particular, are riddled with corruption and sectarian sympathizers.
DEMPSEY: Police forces in the region are notably corrupt. And they get that way because, as we say, they live at the point of corruption.
MCINTYRE: Another problem is a lack of qualified leaders, majors, colonels and generals, who so far have mostly come from the old Iraqi army. It is, Dempsey says, a mixed picture.
DEMPSEY: There will times when this boulder rolls back. It's probably -- it's probably rolling back a bit right now in Baghdad. But I don't think it's going to roll over us, and I think -- I think we're going to be OK.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE: After three years in Iraq, General Dempsey is taking on a new assignment, but he argues there has been some progress during his time there, and he insists that outside of Baghdad, where things are calmer, the police and the army are actually performing pretty well -- Lou.
DOBBS: Jamie, thank you.
Jamie McIntyre from the Pentagon.
Insurgents in Iraq have killed another of our troops. A soldier died in the hospital after being wounded in a roadside bomb explosion earlier this month.
Thirty-one of your troops have been killed so far in June, 3,510 of our troops since the beginning of the war killed. 25,950 of our troops wounded, 11,667 of them seriously.
American casualties in Iraq have risen sharply since the so- called surge strategy began now four months ago. One of the sharpest increase has been in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad. Insurgents moved in to Diyala province when U.S. reinforcements arrived in other parts of Iraq.
Coming up here next, violence and civil war spreading across the Middle East. Is the region on the brink of full-scale war?
We'll have that special report.
And Mexico appealing to the United States for help in its battle to defeat the drug cartels. Is it too late? What form should U.S. help take?
We'll have that story.
And three National Guardsmen ordered to protect our border with Mexico face charges of, you guessed it, human smuggling.
We'll have that live report and a great deal more straight ahead.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: Mexico's president, Felipe Calderon, is asking the United States government for money and military assistance to help fight his escalating war against violent Mexican drug cartels. So far this year, more than a thousand Mexican citizens have been killed in drug violence in Mexico, and some of that violence has entered the United States.
Casey Wian has our report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The governments of the United States and Mexico are quietly discussing an increase in U.S. military aid to fight Mexico's warring drug cartels.
ALBERTO GONZALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Obviously there are challenges that continue to exist in Mexico, just like there are challenges that exist in the United States. We both have to work together, quite frankly, in order to successfully deal with the drug problem that exists.
WIAN: In the past, the two nations have blamed each other for the drug wars, with the U.S. accusing Mexico of failing to control narcoterrorists and Mexico accusing the U.S. of doing little to fight drug use and weapons trafficking. But now that Mexican president Felipe Calderon has deployed 24,000 federal troops to fight the drug cartels, the White House is preparing to open its checkbook.
ARMAND PRESCHARD-SVERDRUP, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: The Bush administration is looking to provide as much support as possible to a president that is showing incredible boldness in going after the cartels. It's a step forward.
WIAN: Since 2000, the United States has spent $343 million on military and law enforcement aid to Mexico. Contrast that to Colombia, which has received $4.4 billion from U.S. taxpayers to fight drug trafficking, or about 13 times what Mexico has received. That gap may soon narrow.
This week, a House committee approved a 25 percent reduction in military aid to Colombia. And Congressman Sylvestre Reyes is sponsoring a bill that would increase U.S. funding for Mexico's drug war by $170 million a year.
For now, no one's talk about deploying U.S. troops to Mexico. Instead, the aid would be limited to improve technology, equipment and training to help Mexico's army and judicial system better battle the violent drug cartels.
Now, those plans are likely to face opposition on both sides of the border, from Mexicans opposed to U.S. military interference, and from Americans angry at Mexico's continued exportation of poverty to the United States -- Lou. DOBBS: It is remarkable, though, to see that disparity between what is being spent by the United States government in fighting the drug wars in Colombia and Mexico, because Mexico is, as you have reported frequently, the principal source of heroin, methamphetamines, cocaine and marijuana into this country.
It's a bizarre imbalance.
WIAN: It certainly is. Mexico ranks number 12 on the amount of military assistance sent to other countries around the world from the United States. A lot of folks say it's time to help the Mexican military get control of the drug cartel situation there.
DOBBS: The export of poverty and the impoverished through the illegal aliens, you know, one could make the argument that is -- nearly 15 percent of Mexico's population has entered the United States illegally, that we're $50 billion in trade deficit each year with Mexico, $25 billion in remittances from illegal aliens and principally in the United States.
Back to Mexico, it is inconceivable that the United States cannot design a foreign policy and an economic assistance package, if you will, and incentives for Mexico, to reduce both illegal immigration, to curtail the drug traffic into the United States from Mexico, and to support a president. Felipe Calderon deserves great credit for what he's had the courage to do, taking on the drug cartels of Mexico.
WIAN: And it's clear the United States is paying for those failures, Lou, in the violence that's spilling across the border.
DOBBS: Amazing.
Thank you very much.
Casey Wian from Los Angeles.
Three Texas National Guardsmen assigned to help protect our borders today face charges of smuggling illegal aliens across that border. The three were on active duty backing up border patrol efforts along our southern border when they were arrested.
Ed Lavandera has our report from Dallas -- Ed.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Lou.
This incident stems back to last week. What happened was that one of these guardsmen -- his name is Jose Rodrigo Torres -- was found about 30 miles north of the Border Patrol checkpoint, which is already 30 miles north of Laredo. Was pulled over by Border Patrol agents last week driving a white van.
When they looked inside that van, they found 24 illegal immigrants. Authorities there began questioning that National Guardsman.
As they continued to ask him questions, they discovered cell phone text messages that pointed and hinted to perhaps a greater smuggling operation. And because of that, three National Guard soldiers were arrested and charged with conspiring to transport illegal aliens.
They are in the federal custody now with the U.S. Marshals, being held on $75,000 bond. Being held in Laredo.
They're expected to make a court appearance next week. They have not pled guilty or not guilty. We haven't heard anything from them at this point today.
But in a criminal complaint filed in federal court, federal authorities say that these three soldiers communicated over cell phone text messages, planning out elaborate pickups in Laredo and then transporting illegal immigrants to San Antonio, charging some of these immigrants anywhere between $1,500 and $2,000.
It is quite disturbing, the details, but secretary -- Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says today that this is a question of training and these National Guardsmen, 6,000 in total that are along the southern border, and preparing them better for the vast amounts of money that many people may be throwing their way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHERTOFF: It's a matter of character and training. When people are bribed, the sums of money are usually very, very large, and it's not realistic to match the corrupt bribe giver in terms of salary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAVANDERA: And Lou, as I mentioned, those three National Guard soldiers are in custody in Laredo right now, being held on $75,000 bond -- Lou.
DOBBS: Ed, that is a bizarre equivalence that the secretary of Department of Homeland Security contrived. It's not realistic to match salaries to the size of bribes.
You know, there are times, Ed, I don't even know what to say when some of our public officials say. To me, that's utterly incomprehensible.
Ed, it's a shame. I presume that we'll be hearing a great deal more about this.
Ed, thanks very much.
Ed Lavandera, reporting from Dallas.
A reminder now to vote in our poll.
The question is: Do you believe that on the issue of so-called comprehensive immigration reform legislation, that President Bush should, as Senator Jeff Sessions put it, simply back off? Yes or no?
Cast your vote at loudobbs.com. We'll have the results here later.
Time now for some of your thoughts.
On the Mexican president's request for U.S. funding to fight drugs in Mexico, Chuck in Minnesota, "Hey, Lou, if Calderon wants us to give him money to help him fight the drug problem, should we ask him for money to support his share of illegal aliens until we can find and deport them?"
And on the Genarlow Wilson case, the young Georgia man who's serving a 10-year prison sentence for a consensual sexual encounter that he had as a teenager, William in Washington said, "Lou, if anyone should spend another day in jail in the Genarlow Wilson teen sex case, it should be the overzealous prosecuting attorney who destroyed this young man's life in the first place."
And Linda in Georgia, "As a Georgia resident and taxpayer, I believe the prosecution and incarceration of Mr. Wilson is not only unfair, but also a misuse of Georgia tax revenue."
We'll have more of your thoughts coming up here later.
Up next, Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, violence breaking out throughout the Middle East. Is this destabilization? The outlook for bringing violence under control in the Middle East looks bleak.
We'll have a report on the future.
And the workers who care for America's sick and infirm are dealt a blow by the Supreme Court. Who is running this country?
We'll have that report.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: The Supreme Court has dealt a devastating blow to American workers. Two weeks ago, the high court limited workers' rights to file pay discrimination claims. Now the court ruling that employers are not required to pay the federal minimum wage or overtime to home health care workers.
Lisa Sylvester has our report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Helen Miller has been a home care worker for 20 years. She is deeply disturbed by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. It upholds a Department of Labor regulation that excludes some one million workers who provide home care to the elderly and disabled from receiving overtime or the federal minimum wage.
HELEN MILLER, SEIU LOCAL 880: We live in America. The richest country in the world. And people can't work and make minimum wage. To me, that is very sad.
SYLVESTER: The case originated in Long Island, New York. The woman who brought the lawsuit, Evelyn Koch (ph), is frail and unable to take care of yourself. Koch sometimes worked 24-hour days tending to other but rarely was paid overtime by her agency. A Labor Department's interpretation of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1974 excludes babysitters and companions for the elderly for minimum wage and overtime standards.
Justice Stephen Breyer wrote, "Courts should defer to the department's rule."
The Bush administration and the industry argue higher wages could make it more difficult for the elderly and sick to afford care at home.
WILLIAM DOMBI, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR HOME CARE AND HOSPICE: Potentially the consequences are billions of dollars of past wages that might be owing to workers, which would have put most of the home health agencies that could have been affected by that out of business.
SYLVESTER: Home care workers are earn on average only $12,000 a year but can easily top 60 to 70-hour work weeks, according to the National Women's Law Center.
NANCY DUFF CAMPBELL, NATIONAL WOMEN'S LAW CENTER: They are in people's homes, they're lifting people out of their beds. They're cleaning bed pans. They're dealing with many frail individuals who sometimes don't even understand why the health care worker is there.
SYLVESTER: Labor unions, the AARP and women's groups summed it up as yet another loss for workers who are among the least paid.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SYLVESTER: A dozen states require companies employing home care workers to pay the state minimum wage and overtime. Advocacy groups are also turning their attention to Congress. Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling was based on federal statute, if Congress chooses, lawmakers can always change the law. Lou?
DOBBS: And that seems to be really the central question here, doesn't it, Lisa. Why in the world haven't these advocacy groups been working with Congress trying to get this law changed and, of course, there's the issue the Department of Labor represents just about everybody but labor. So one understands their frustration there. But at least legislatively taking some initiative.
SYLVESTER: The advocacy groups have been trying to change the law. They now have Democrats in office in charge on Capitol Hill. So they have more of a sympathetic ear. Senator Kennedy, in particular, is looking to see if he can move legislation on this front, Lou.
DOBBS: OK. Thank you very much. Good for Senator Kennedy. In this case. Lisa Sylvester, thank you very much. Careers in science, technology, engineering and math, they are jobs of the future, but perhaps not for American workers. The House Science and Technology Committee today started a series of hearings on the impact of the offshoring and outsourcing of American jobs. Bill Tucker reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's no longer just call center jobs on the line. Committee members heard a sobering assessment of who's vulnerable now.
ALAN BLINDER, CENTER FOR ECONOMIC POLICY STUDIES: It would be nice to say that only low-skilled jobs are vulnerable and high-skill jobs will remain in America. We may have believed that once but it doesn't appear to be the case.
TUCKER: Blinder's observations came on the heals of opening comments by Chairman Gordon who noted that a recent study by the University of Texas found that only nine percent of the global telecom research and design facilities announced last year were located in the united states. The need to create incentives to study science and technology was emphasized.
MARTIN BAILY, PETER G. PETERSON INST.: There's a certain amount that can be done with funding on that area. If we provide scholarships, I think more people will go to graduate school in science and technology.
TUCKER: Yet not a word was heard about making sure there are jobs for those students when they graduate. And nothing was heard about the latest issue of "Business Week" magazine which reports disturbing flaws in our economic calculations. Those flaws have result in the government overstating economic growth, understating economic slowdowns and perhaps overestimating by as much as 40 percent the reported gains in manufacturing since 2003. But the committee was warned by the former director of research at IBM.
RALPH GOMORY, ALFRED P. SLOAN FOUNDATION: When U.S. companies build semiconductor plants in Asia rather than the U.S., that's a shift in productive capability. And neither economic theory, nor common sense, asserts that that shift is automatically good for the United States.
TUCKER: Although such a move is clearly beneficial for the company.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TUCKER: And perhaps the most interesting warning where the committee members are concerned, anyway, was the observation that, Lou, people who hold the next jobs considered to be at risk are white collar, they're educated and politically active.
DOBBS: Well, it has taken Congress. It has taken a lot of people in the national media a long time to understand the empirical, factual case in front of them as to what's happening to working people in this country. And let's hope that something can be done in terms of public policy at long last before it's too late. Bill, thank you very much.
Bill Tucker.
Coming up here next, President Bush went to Capitol Hill today trying to convince his own party to support his so-called comprehensive immigration reform legislation. We'll be discussing that issue.
And our panel of leading radio talk show hosts will be here to talk presidential politics. Oh yes. We'll talk a little bit about the president's -- the Bush push for amnesty. Stay with us. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: Joining me now on the political battle over the president's so-called grand compromise or comprehensive immigration reform, Carol Swain, she is the editor of "Debating Immigration" a very important book on the issue, professor at Vanderbilt University. And joining us as well, Mickey Kaus, from slate.com. Good to have you with us here Mickey from the West Coast.
We appreciate it. Well, the president today said, we've got to convince the American people this bill is the best way to move forward. What's your reaction to the president saying that?
CAROL SWAIN, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: Well, he's a real optimist. I just think the American people are too smart to be persuaded by the president's words on this. They have common sense and that is not a good bill.
DOBBS: Do you agree, Mickey?
MICKEY KAUS, SLATE.COM: I agree. I think it's a little late for him to say trust me, don't worry, I won't sign a bad bill. He's completely broken with large swaths of his own party and a lot of Democrats who don't like the bill either. And I don't think anyone trusts Bush to do the right thing anymore.
DOBBS: I'm struck with this, "We've got to convince the American people".
SWAIN: He thinks the American people are fools.
DOBBS: Do you think that's what it is?
SWAIN: Why would he think he could convince them after he's lied to them again and again and again?
KAUS: I have one explanation for this mystery of why he's persisting on what Howard Fineman of "Newsweek" called a suicide mission, which is if the whole purpose is to convince Latinos that he's their champion, then he has to go down fighting. Even if he goes down, he has to keep up the pressure to show that he's pro-Latino.
SWAIN: He's definitely going down.
DOBBS: At this rate it is arguable that the Democratic Senate and this president last year on comprehensive immigration reform, went down a path in passing that legislation, they sent their colleagues, Republican colleagues in the House to defeat by a significant margin. Is there any reason in the world that you can think of that Republicans would be tolerating the nonsense that's emanating from the White House at this point?
KAUS: No, they wouldn't. We have a willful president who wants to do this and a business establishment that really wants it. I saw an interesting article by a conservative saying the establishment is still pushing for this bill.
DOBBS: Oh, absolutely. The establishment is pushing hard, socioethnic interest groups are pushing hard for this bill. But isn't there somewhere in Washington, wouldn't you think, at least a cadre of people that say, we really need you here to kind of represent all Americans and not the special interests, not just corporate America but maybe 300 million Americans?
SWAIN: I mean, I guess we're waiting for those people to -- you're the leader.
DOBBS: Don't put it on me. But I'm saying -- somebody talk to this president. Do you know, we have not seen a fiscal impact statement. We've not seen a social impact, we haven't seen an environmental impact statement.
SWAIN: I don't think he would know comprehensive immigration reform if he saw it. Because the bill that's before Congress is not comprehensive. It's not comprehensive immigration reform. So I'm not sure why this president would put so much emphasis on this bill.
KAUS: It's sort of what we saw in Social Security. He kept pushing and pushing and then when he lost, he pushed some more. There is so much for show in Washington, kabuki, it's called, where you try to impress the lobbyist who gave you money by seeming to be for the bill when you really know it's going down.
And there may be some of that going on.
SWAIN: So he's going down with the ship?
KAUS: His ship is over in 18 months.
DOBBS: The struggle for me is to understand why we would not see this president can say "comprehensive immigration reform" time after time, but there's been nothing comprehensive about the legislative process. There's been nothing comprehensive in understanding the impact and consequence of the legislation they have in front of them. There's been nothing comprehensive in understanding why this Congress, this president failed to enforce existing immigration laws and to secure that border. KAUS: And it's not that he has to convince the American people. He thinks if he does it quickly, he can bamboozle the American people.
SWAIN: Right.
KAUS: If there was any lengthy process of debate, as even William Kristol said, the more it's debated, the more it looks like a terrible bill. The opponents of the bill have the better argument.
DOBBS: I appreciate you both being here. Let me ask you in conclusion, do you think this president is strong enough to resurrect this legislation?
SWAIN: No, I'm waiting for the next president to take it on as an issue.
KAUS: I don't think so. But only because the founding fathers made it very hard to pass a law.
SWAIN: Right.
DOBBS: Thank God for somebody's wisdom even if it was just 200 years ago.
KAUS: It's one of the times when it comes in handy.
DOBBS: Absolutely, as it often does. We thank you very much, Carol Swain, thank you. Mickey Kaus, thank you.
KAUS: Thank you.
SWAIN: Thanks, Lou.
DOBBS: Appreciate it. Coming up here next, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales escapes a Senate no confidence vote but do they have confidence. Our radio roundtable joins us. More on that and a great deal more.
The $54 million pantsuit law case going to court. You've got to just be very impressed with the legal system of the United States of America. We'll have that story and more. Stay with us. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: Opening arguments today in Washington. The trial of the judge who's suing his dry cleaners for $54 million because they misplaced his pants. Judge Roy Pearson originally suing for $65 million because his dry cleaners misplaced those suit pants. Pearson says he should be compensated for his pain and suffering. But this judge also insists the dry cleaners committed fraud and misled customers with signs promising same-day service and satisfaction guaranteed.
In point of fact, the pants were found. Pearson refused to pick them up, they say. The dry cleaners has tried to settle the case several times, offering Pearson $12,000. This thing went to trial, if I may say, the judge who permitted the judge to pursue this trial has got to be out of his cotton-picking mind.
Coming up at the top of the hour, THE SITUATION ROOM with Wolf Blitzer. Wolf, what do you got?
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Thanks very much, Lou. We're following several stories including this. Could Sudan, yes, Sudan, become a secret weapon in the U.S.-led war in Iraq. We're going to take a closer look at how this African nation possibly could become Washington's eyes and ears into the insurgency.
And the head of the FBI is getting flak over a multimillion dollar jet. One senator saying it's the director's private taxi. He wants the meter stopped right now.
And the widow of a poisoned ex KGB agent speaking out. We'll have Marina Litvinienko's interview about what happened to her husband. All that, Lou, coming up right here in THE SITUATION ROOM.
DOBBS: Wolf, thank you very much. Joining me now, three of the country's best radio talk show hosts. In Los Angeles, Doug McIntyre of KABC.
DOUG MCINTYRE, KABC RADIO: Hey, Lou.
DOBBS: How are you, partner.
MCINTYRE: Good.
DOBBS: In Raleigh, North Carolina, Warren Ballentine of Syndication One. Good to have you with us tonight.
WARREN BALLENTINE, SYNDICATION ONE: Hey, Lou, glad to be here.
DOBBS: And in New York with me, Laura Flanders of Air America. Good to have you here.
LAURA FLANDERS, AIR AMERICA: Glad to be here.
DOBBS: Well, let's start with Doug McIntyre, I've got to turn to you first. The president says we just cannot have anything but his comprehensive immigration reform. He's got to convince Americans of that fact.
MCINTYRE: Well, it's a comprehensive con job is what it is. And it has been all along. It's real simple, Lou, the president has no credibility and the Senate has no credibility -- you go back to August 4th, 1977 when President James Earl Carter, of all people on a white paper on immigration predicted everything that would happen in the intervening years that has happened.
And they're still trying to sell us this bill of goods and we're simply not buying it. We want the government to prove that we can have reasonable security of our borders, ports and harbors, northern and southern border and once they demonstrate that, then we'll be happy to have a discussion on the legitimate needs of industry and the pathway to citizenship.
But -- really what this is, they're trying to legislate Jaime Crow Laws where there'll be a legalized form of Jim Crow for the 21st century. It's outrageous.
You were shaking your head and nodding.
FLANDERS: Well, both. I like the Jaime Crow thing. He's right. What this was sort of an attempt to trade contract indentured workers the corporations want and they're going to come back for that for an agreement to criminalize families, separate families and militarize our border even more.
Is it a sort of undermining of human rights and workers' rights for everybody? Absolutely, I'm glad it's gone. And I'm angry at the spin that tells us that this bill would have been better than nothing. I think nothing's better than this bill.
DOBBS: Well, it's pretty disgusting but that's exactly what Senator Edward Kennedy and President George W. Bush have said to us and did so, Warren, with straight faces, can you imagine?
BALLENTINE: This is nothing more than Tony Soprano. President Bush told us in Europe, hey, I'll see you at the signing of the immigration bill. This is a joke, Lou. This is absolutely ludicrous what's going on in America today. When you think about this, when you really, really think about it, why is one certain group getting individual privileges that others aren't getting? The Italians aren't coming here like this, the Polish aren't, the Irish aren't the Haitians, oh my God, they can't even get over here. We're supposed to open our doors for anybody that's Hispanic? This is ridiculous.
FLANDERS: The point is we're supposed to have labor law that applies to everybody. We're supposed to have an equal legal system. Not some special system for a certain class of workers. We're supposed to have employers that have to get workers by fiddling with wages and benefits and an education system that will provide us the work force we need. This is a way to avoid all of that and it doesn't just do harm to the immigrants it does harm to all of us.
BALLENTINE: Hey Laura, you know what? My audience is very upset about this. Because it's destroying the middle class. They're taking construction jobs, they're taking trucking jobs.
FLANDERS: Let's force the contractors to increase wages. It would be good for the middle class instead of bringing in this indentured class of workers who are going to drop the wage floor. That's what they're about.
MCINTYRE: This was the prime directive. You have to remember that when the corporatist who saw George W. Bush win the second term as governor of Texas and said how would you like to be president? They asked him to do things, cut taxes and get us cheap labor to make the Free Trade of the Americas work and NAFTA and GATT work by lowering the standard of wages for the working class in this country to level out that speed bump at the Rio Grande. Whatever else we wanted to do, they didn't care about. Terry Schiavo, knock yourselves out on the stuff like that. But this is a full frontal assault on the sovereignty of America.
BALLENTINE: That's right.
MCINTYRE: And it has to be killed if the country is to survive.
FLANDERS: It's not the sovereignty, it's the human rights, it's the Constitution.
BALLENTINE: "We, the people!"
DOBBS: Those human rights don't exist if this nation doesn't have sovereignty.
BALLENTINE: Exactly.
DOBBS: Because it is this nation that makes these human rights ...
BALLENTINE: I want to ...
DOBBS: Let me say something.
BALLENTINE: I want to point two things out, you guys. I want to put two things out here. First thing I want to put out here is they're estimating 12 million. I think it's more like 30 million. And I'm guaranteeing you this, if this amnesty, because that's what it is, amnesty. If it's allowed, by 2025, your kids, my grandkids and everybody else is going to have to learn how to speak Spanish.
The facts of it is -- and this isn't to be racist at all. But the fact of it is this, Americans are having 2.5 kids and they are having five kids a household.
DOBBS: I've got good news for you. My kids, four of them all speak in various ability, but mostly very well, Spanish. So I'm not worried about that. But what I am worried about is people in this government don't even know what they're talking about. They don't know whether it's 12 million or 20 million.
BALLENTINE: That's right, Lou.
DOBBS: They have no idea the fiscal impact of the legislation they're putting out there. But does it strike anyone else as ironic that Senator Ted Kennedy, who was one of the principal architects of the '65 immigration law we're paying for the consequences now, which was -- we put aside under a civil rights initiative by President Kennedy, national origin quotas because some deem that to be racist?
Those national origin quotas have been brought back by the Hispanic socioethnic-centric groups. Today the largest number of people coming into this country are from Mexico and they are from Central America and they're the ones who have rolled it back to their benefit and to their advantage, those national origins. They are flouting the intent of the 1965 immigration bill. FLANDERS: It's like 53 percent over 47 percent and sometimes you get the impression from the debate there were no other immigrants except for Latino and Hispanic emigrants. But Democrats are divided on this stuff. And that's good debate. I think this debate is going to come back.
DOBBS: I think it's a lousy debate, Doug. But do you know why? I don't hear a debate. No one's talking about the facts.
MCINTYRE: That's right. This is the problem, it takes you down into cul-de-sacs of rhetorical gymnastics like who is a bigger racist and who is an uber nationalist.
BALLENTINE: It's all about votes. It's all about votes.
MCINTYRE: It's what we talked about in the debate. Nations have immigration policy for the benefit of the nation, not for the benefit of the immigrant. We want the immigrants to do well because it makes the nation stronger. But nations have policies on who they let in for the benefit of the greater good of society. And once again it's all about individuals and not about the greater good.
FLANDERS: I think the debate with respect to the greater good is just beginning. It's a conversation about workers' rights. We need to have one class of workers who are equal in their protection under the law, who abide by the law, who are treated as equal citizens by employers and by the corporations. That's a big struggle, big conversation we've had in this country before about civil rights and we've got to have it again.
BALLENTINE: The biggest problem here to me, I'm saying this not only as a talk show host. I'm also an attorney. I'm a gate keeper. I protect rights. All the time -- my record speaks for itself. The biggest problem for me that nobody wants to come out and say, it's all about votes. The Democrats want to seem like they're the heroes because they want to get the votes if they're allowed amnesty. George Bush is doing the same thing. This is just all about getting political position for a new group of voters.
MCINTYRE: Warren, I disagree to this extent. I believe for the Democrats it's about votes. But for the Republicans, I think that's a dodge. I think for the Republicans it's about the corporatist multinational agenda about leveling out the income disparity between Central America and North America.
BALLENTINE: That plays into it but I guarantee you it's about votes, too ...
DOBBS: Laura Flanders gets the last word.
FLANDERS: Immigrants come to this country with a dream of what this country really is. It's about making this country true to that dream which allows possibility and equal rights and constitutional protections for all.
DOBBS: You mean legal immigrants, right? FLANDERS: I do.
DOBBS: I thought so.
All right. Laura Flanders good to have you. Warren, good to have you. Doug, as always, appreciate it.
BALLENTINE: Thank you, Lou.
MCINTYRE: Thank you, Lou.
DOBBS: Thank you all three.
Coming up next, the results of our poll, more of your thoughts, stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: The results of our poll tonight, 97 percent of you say you believe on the issue of comprehensive immigration reform legislation, President Bush should, as Senator Jeff Sessions put it, simply back off. Let's take a look at a few more of your thoughts. We're receiving thousands of e-mails a day about the so-called comprehensive immigration legislation that failed.
Sanford in Tennessee. "Lou, my heartfelt thanks. You stood up for American citizens and workers and allowed us to win against seemingly impossible odds."
Sandy in Texas. "Hey, Lou. Senator Sessions was the hero. Give him a public thank you from America. He fought like a tiger. I put him right up there with Lou Dobbs."
Dennis in Texas. "Lou, thank you for your pivotal role in helping defeat the immigration bill. Remind your viewers to thank their senators who stood up to stop this monster."
There is a reminder and a very important one and you're right, Jeff Sessions, a hero in this confrontation in the Senate.
We love hearing from you. Send us your thoughts at loudobbs.com. We thank you for being with us tonight. Please join us here tomorrow when I'll be joined by Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza. We'll debate the so-called failed grand compromise. For all of us here, thank you for watching.
Good night from New York. THE SITUATION ROOM begins now with Wolf Blitzer. Wolf?
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