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Interview With Tom DeLay
Aired October 22, 2003 - 15:03 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.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Changing subjects now. A short while ago I spoke with Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas. I started by asking him about the debate over money for rebuilding Iraq. President Bush has threatened to veto the final measure if it includes loans in addition to grants. I asked the congressman if the veto threat is the right thing for the White House to do.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. TOM DELAY (R-TX), MAJORITY LEADER: Absolutely. The White House has a part to play in all of this, and the White House is trying to run this war on terror. And we ought to give them every opportunity to do so.
I think the conferees for both the House and the Senate will work this out and will be able to bring a bill to the floor sometime next week.
WOODRUFF: Let me read you something that your Republican colleague in the Senate, Lindsey Graham, said. He said, "You need to look at what's going on here. There have been leadership models in the past that have ignored the will of both bodies at their peril."
Is the president, perhaps, ignoring the will of both bodies here?
DELAY: Not at all. We know how important this is, and if you destabilize Iraq at the very time when you need to be stabilizing it and bringing a new country forward, a new democracy forward, so that we can get our troops out of the Middle East, you cannot do it through a loan process. It's sort of like swimming out to a drowning person and handing them a 16-pound bowling ball.
You have to have stability. You have to have an economy that can sustain democracy. And to put this money in the form of a loan undermines that entire process.
WOODRUFF: I want to ask you about the government sponsored Web site that you and others are putting out there to talk about, to put information out there about post-war Iraq. Why is that necessary?
DELAY: Well, we think it's very necessary, because we've had over 90 members of Congress go to Iraq, be on the ground, talking to the military. They're bringing back all kinds of news that there's great progress being made. And it's being filtered.
And so we feel like that by creating the Web site Freedom.gov, you can see unfiltered information, success stories, personal accounts as to what's going on. Even video. It's sort of like you could say that our information is straight from the horse's mouth, Judy. And that members of Congress are seeing things differently on the ground than what you might see over your television set.
WOODRUFF: Let me describe to you what some Democrats in the House are saying. They're saying that, while you may say it's unfiltered, that, for example, you don't include the names of the Democratic members of Congress who've traveled to Iraq, that there are only Republican names on there. What do you say about that?
DELAY: Oh, we'd be glad to include the Democrat members of Congress. We opened it up to the entire House. So if Democrats want to submit their articles, if they want to submit what they saw, if they want to submit videos, we'd be glad to put it on Freedom.gov.
WOODRUFF: Is it your opinion that the press is just ignoring part of the story in Iraq?
DELAY: No, but there is a phenomenon here that bad news makes good news. And we feel that good news makes news also. And there's a lot of good news that's going unreported.
We're not criticizing the media. We just know that the phenomenon that we're seeing right now is that there's a lot of good news on about schools, about hospitals, about people's lives. The markets are open. Farmers are farming and harvesting. There's just a lot of good news that is not getting through. And we're just using another outlet so the people can see what's really going on in Baghdad and in Iraq.
WOODRUFF: One domestic question about Texas, your home state. Congressional redistricting. Your Texas colleague in the House, Congressman Martin Frost, has said -- and I'm going to read his quote. He said, "No matter how many times" you, Tom DeLay, quote, "repeat the lie that your proposal benefits minorities, it actually makes a simple trade-off, gaining seven GOP votes in the House by sacrificing the voting rights of millions of Hispanic and black Texans."
What do you say?
DELAY: Well, if you take a real look at the map that was drawn by the state legislature and mandated by the Constitution of the United States, you will see, as compares to the situation now, there are six Hispanics in the Texas delegation now. There's opportunity to have eight by the redistricting map.
There are two African-Americans in the Texas congressional delegation now. There's an opportunity to have three African- Americans.
I don't know how you can say that that is diminishing minority voting rights.
(END VIDEOTAPE) WOODRUFF: House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. A small correction. That statement I read from Democratic Congressman Martin Frost of Texas was a statement from the Congressman's staff, not from the Congressman himself.
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 October 22, 2003 - 15:03 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Changing subjects now. A short while ago I spoke with Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas. I started by asking him about the debate over money for rebuilding Iraq. President Bush has threatened to veto the final measure if it includes loans in addition to grants. I asked the congressman if the veto threat is the right thing for the White House to do.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. TOM DELAY (R-TX), MAJORITY LEADER: Absolutely. The White House has a part to play in all of this, and the White House is trying to run this war on terror. And we ought to give them every opportunity to do so.
I think the conferees for both the House and the Senate will work this out and will be able to bring a bill to the floor sometime next week.
WOODRUFF: Let me read you something that your Republican colleague in the Senate, Lindsey Graham, said. He said, "You need to look at what's going on here. There have been leadership models in the past that have ignored the will of both bodies at their peril."
Is the president, perhaps, ignoring the will of both bodies here?
DELAY: Not at all. We know how important this is, and if you destabilize Iraq at the very time when you need to be stabilizing it and bringing a new country forward, a new democracy forward, so that we can get our troops out of the Middle East, you cannot do it through a loan process. It's sort of like swimming out to a drowning person and handing them a 16-pound bowling ball.
You have to have stability. You have to have an economy that can sustain democracy. And to put this money in the form of a loan undermines that entire process.
WOODRUFF: I want to ask you about the government sponsored Web site that you and others are putting out there to talk about, to put information out there about post-war Iraq. Why is that necessary?
DELAY: Well, we think it's very necessary, because we've had over 90 members of Congress go to Iraq, be on the ground, talking to the military. They're bringing back all kinds of news that there's great progress being made. And it's being filtered.
And so we feel like that by creating the Web site Freedom.gov, you can see unfiltered information, success stories, personal accounts as to what's going on. Even video. It's sort of like you could say that our information is straight from the horse's mouth, Judy. And that members of Congress are seeing things differently on the ground than what you might see over your television set.
WOODRUFF: Let me describe to you what some Democrats in the House are saying. They're saying that, while you may say it's unfiltered, that, for example, you don't include the names of the Democratic members of Congress who've traveled to Iraq, that there are only Republican names on there. What do you say about that?
DELAY: Oh, we'd be glad to include the Democrat members of Congress. We opened it up to the entire House. So if Democrats want to submit their articles, if they want to submit what they saw, if they want to submit videos, we'd be glad to put it on Freedom.gov.
WOODRUFF: Is it your opinion that the press is just ignoring part of the story in Iraq?
DELAY: No, but there is a phenomenon here that bad news makes good news. And we feel that good news makes news also. And there's a lot of good news that's going unreported.
We're not criticizing the media. We just know that the phenomenon that we're seeing right now is that there's a lot of good news on about schools, about hospitals, about people's lives. The markets are open. Farmers are farming and harvesting. There's just a lot of good news that is not getting through. And we're just using another outlet so the people can see what's really going on in Baghdad and in Iraq.
WOODRUFF: One domestic question about Texas, your home state. Congressional redistricting. Your Texas colleague in the House, Congressman Martin Frost, has said -- and I'm going to read his quote. He said, "No matter how many times" you, Tom DeLay, quote, "repeat the lie that your proposal benefits minorities, it actually makes a simple trade-off, gaining seven GOP votes in the House by sacrificing the voting rights of millions of Hispanic and black Texans."
What do you say?
DELAY: Well, if you take a real look at the map that was drawn by the state legislature and mandated by the Constitution of the United States, you will see, as compares to the situation now, there are six Hispanics in the Texas delegation now. There's opportunity to have eight by the redistricting map.
There are two African-Americans in the Texas congressional delegation now. There's an opportunity to have three African- Americans.
I don't know how you can say that that is diminishing minority voting rights.
(END VIDEOTAPE) WOODRUFF: House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. A small correction. That statement I read from Democratic Congressman Martin Frost of Texas was a statement from the Congressman's staff, not from the Congressman himself.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
