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Arianna Huffington Making Charges Against Schwarzenegger

Aired August 14, 2003 - 14:01   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.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Arianna Huffington is making some charges against Arnold Schwarzenegger in California's recall election. Huffington, a political commentator, is one of the other 134 candidates.
CNN's Bob Franken has a live report now from Los Angeles.

Give us the scoop, Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, I like the term "other." There is a large group of others, and there is even a pecking order among the others. Of course, the principal group being Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Cruz Bustamante, and of course Governor Gray Davis. And on the list of others, you include Arianna Huffington, who of course is quite common, because of the fact that she has been involved in celebrity politics when she came to California and celebrity politics when she was in Washington, then married to ex-Congressman Michael Huffington.

At any rate, she's holding a news conference today. What she wants to talk about is the connection she believes there is between President Bush, who of course is in the state today, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Being connected with President Bush in this Democratic state is not always considered a good thing. And a connection she wants to make with the Enron corporation, a connection she wants to make between all of that and the power crisis which gripped California in times past.

Of course, all of these issues intertwine in California. But of course Arianna Huffington is also going to have to fend off reporter questions now about her tax returns. It has been disclosed that in the last couple of years, this multimillionaire person, who has a 7,000 square foot house in Brentwood, paid no federal taxes, paid $771 to the state of California in taxes over the last couple of years. That she attributes to business losses. She is a columnist and has a variety of other interests that she says, at least for tax purposes, lost money. That is bound to be what is going to dominate some of the questioning that comes up. Of course, she, as I said, is a celebrity personality, somebody who has decided that she will tie her campaign to another who is sometimes called a gadfly, Peter Cameo (ph) of the Green Party. They have decided that they will campaign together. If at the end, one has a really overwhelming lead over the other, the other says he or she will drop out. Don't bet on that being Arianna.

PHILLIPS: Bobby, you tend to wonder, too. You're seeing so many, I guess, skeletons coming out of the closet, as you will, but you know, there are more than 100 candidates. It seems like, you just start to wonder, what about all these other folks? Will we start out finding out all types of interesting pieces of gossip on various people, or do you think it's going to stay here with sort of the celebrity stuff?

FRANKEN: Well, let's face it. Some of them, we've already found out all that there is to know. I mean, we have a porn movie star in there. There's not really much more we can find out about her.

PHILLIPS: She's revealed it all.

FRANKEN: One would certainly hope.

We have Larry Flynt, the publisher of "Hustler" magazine. He is probably immune from scandal. And you have a variety of people, who to put it bluntly, nobody much cares about. And then you have this tier of candidates who are considered at least in the ballgame, so to speak. Arianna Huffington is one of them. They're not finding scandal about her. They're just finding out information about her. There, of course, is a full-court press to find out information about the very top runners.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is being investigated by just about everybody, to say nothing of the Democratic Party, which would like to try and avoid the recall if possible.

But when you get into a political campaign, you're fair game in the minds of many people. There are others who believe that it's gone too far. But Arianna Huffington is now facing what is the real strain of a political campaign. We will have to see if she continues to maintain her sense of humor about it.

PHILLIPS: Our Bob Franken. A lot of us maintaining our sense of humor right now through this election, possible election. All right, we'll bring it to you as soon as it happens. Bob, thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired August 14, 2003 - 14:01   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Arianna Huffington is making some charges against Arnold Schwarzenegger in California's recall election. Huffington, a political commentator, is one of the other 134 candidates.
CNN's Bob Franken has a live report now from Los Angeles.

Give us the scoop, Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, I like the term "other." There is a large group of others, and there is even a pecking order among the others. Of course, the principal group being Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Cruz Bustamante, and of course Governor Gray Davis. And on the list of others, you include Arianna Huffington, who of course is quite common, because of the fact that she has been involved in celebrity politics when she came to California and celebrity politics when she was in Washington, then married to ex-Congressman Michael Huffington.

At any rate, she's holding a news conference today. What she wants to talk about is the connection she believes there is between President Bush, who of course is in the state today, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Being connected with President Bush in this Democratic state is not always considered a good thing. And a connection she wants to make with the Enron corporation, a connection she wants to make between all of that and the power crisis which gripped California in times past.

Of course, all of these issues intertwine in California. But of course Arianna Huffington is also going to have to fend off reporter questions now about her tax returns. It has been disclosed that in the last couple of years, this multimillionaire person, who has a 7,000 square foot house in Brentwood, paid no federal taxes, paid $771 to the state of California in taxes over the last couple of years. That she attributes to business losses. She is a columnist and has a variety of other interests that she says, at least for tax purposes, lost money. That is bound to be what is going to dominate some of the questioning that comes up. Of course, she, as I said, is a celebrity personality, somebody who has decided that she will tie her campaign to another who is sometimes called a gadfly, Peter Cameo (ph) of the Green Party. They have decided that they will campaign together. If at the end, one has a really overwhelming lead over the other, the other says he or she will drop out. Don't bet on that being Arianna.

PHILLIPS: Bobby, you tend to wonder, too. You're seeing so many, I guess, skeletons coming out of the closet, as you will, but you know, there are more than 100 candidates. It seems like, you just start to wonder, what about all these other folks? Will we start out finding out all types of interesting pieces of gossip on various people, or do you think it's going to stay here with sort of the celebrity stuff?

FRANKEN: Well, let's face it. Some of them, we've already found out all that there is to know. I mean, we have a porn movie star in there. There's not really much more we can find out about her.

PHILLIPS: She's revealed it all.

FRANKEN: One would certainly hope.

We have Larry Flynt, the publisher of "Hustler" magazine. He is probably immune from scandal. And you have a variety of people, who to put it bluntly, nobody much cares about. And then you have this tier of candidates who are considered at least in the ballgame, so to speak. Arianna Huffington is one of them. They're not finding scandal about her. They're just finding out information about her. There, of course, is a full-court press to find out information about the very top runners.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is being investigated by just about everybody, to say nothing of the Democratic Party, which would like to try and avoid the recall if possible.

But when you get into a political campaign, you're fair game in the minds of many people. There are others who believe that it's gone too far. But Arianna Huffington is now facing what is the real strain of a political campaign. We will have to see if she continues to maintain her sense of humor about it.

PHILLIPS: Our Bob Franken. A lot of us maintaining our sense of humor right now through this election, possible election. All right, we'll bring it to you as soon as it happens. Bob, thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com