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American Morning

Details Emerge Regarding Jeffords Departure

Aired May 25, 2001 - 09:07   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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Now, let's move a little closer to home, this morning's political follow-up. New details are emerging about Senator Jim Jeffords' decision to leave the Republican Party. His move will shift Senate control to the Democrats. We're getting more details on how two Democratic senators helped convince Jeffords to jump ship.

CNN congressional correspondent Kate Snow joins us with more on this still developing story -- Kate.

KATE SNOW, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Miles, everyone taking a look back now and it's coming -- becoming clear that the top Democrat, Tom Daschle, and his No. 2, Senator Harry Reid from Nevada, were intimately involved in trying to convince Senator Jeffords to leave the Republican Party. This was all happening behind closed doors over a period, we're told, of months, but most intensely over the last several weeks.

And those two senators are still very tight-lipped about this. I asked Senator Reid, yesterday, about the details of it. He said, look, I'm not going to talk about any of these private conversations. But he did acknowledge that it was a very tough decision for Senator Jeffords.

Now, it was Harry Reid who offered Senator Jeffords a position on the Environment Committee and that will make him effectively, once the transition happens, the chairman of the Environment Committee. That, according to aides, was a critical part of these negotiations. One Republican senator telling CNN that Senator Jeffords all along wanted a position on the Environment Committee. He has deep concerns about the environment and he wasn't given that position. He didn't get a chair -- a seat, rather, on the Environment Committee so that's why this was so key.

Another reason that Senator Jeffords was not happy, according to this other Republican senator, he was unhappy with the White House because he felt that he was being passed over and not being dealt with on education issues, even though he is the chair, of course right now, of the Education Committee.

Now, Senator Olympia Snowe, who's a moderate Republican from Maine, found out on Monday night about Senator Jeffords and about the intensity of the talks that were going on between he and the Democrats and said she tried to convince him not to leave the party. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. OLYMPIA SNOW (R), MAINE: I asked him what exactly had transpired. And it was obviously the things that happened at the White House, you know the Teacher of the Year, judgeships and so on. And then, of course, in the education bill and not being included in the kinds of decisions that he thought he should have been included on when it came to being a chairman. So it was all of that, you know, and probably more along the way. I just wish that we had realized the extent to which he felt alienated and isolated so that we could have helped.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: Senator Snowe says she told the White House about all of this but it took a couple of days to get the gears in motion. It took a couple of days before Senator Jeffords was invited to meet with Dick Cheney, the vice president, and then with President Bush. And by then, Jeffords' mind was simply made up.

Back to you, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right. CNN's Kate Snow, live, on Capitol Hill.

We're going to hear from one of the people who helped nudge Senator Jeffords away from the Republican Party as we look at some live pictures of the president leaving the White House for the weekend. Democratic Senator Harry Reid of Nevada will join us shortly to talk about Jeffords defection -- Daryn.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, as we see those pictures of President George W. Bush, he is headed to Annapolis, Maryland. He's going to be addressing the Naval Academy -- the graduating midshipmen. We should have parts of those comments for you a little bit later. And from there, the president goes on to Camp David.

Speaking of the president, the Bush administration is downplaying the impact of Jeffords defection.

Let's check in now with our CNN senior White House correspondent John King.

John, good morning.

JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Daryn.

Downplaying the impact, perhaps, but still working furiously behind the scenes here to recalibrate the president's sales pitch. White House officials insisting the agenda won't change. The president will stick to the agenda he outlined in the campaign and that he has in his early months as president. But they understand a much more difficult fight ahead now as they try to deal with a Senate soon to be controlled by the Democrats.

The president spoke with the soon-to-be Majority Leader Tom Daschle yesterday afternoon. Both sides describing that as a cordial conversation. But here at the White House, Senator Daschle known as someone who smiles in public and is very soft spoken, but as we've seen in the last week or so in the tax cut debate, someone who's also not afraid to wade into a partisan fight. So the White House knowing many more tough battles ahead as it now has to deal with one chamber of the Congress controlled by Democrats.

Now there's a lot of finger pointing about how could Senator Jeffords have left the party? How could the president not have stopped him from doing so? Here at the White House, though, they are rejecting that criticism. Many moderates on Capitol Hill saying the president has governed much more from a conservative perspective than he outlined during the campaign.

Earlier today on CNN, Mary Matalin, a top aide to the president and the vice president, said any perception that this president is not reaching out, not only to moderate Republicans but also to Democrats, is just not true.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARY MATALIN, COUNSELOR TO VICE PRESIDENT: If the suggestion is that there's something intemperate or immoderate about our approach, I would just remind the senator and all those who are making those accusations that yesterday, while the press was all focused on this, also occurring was the biggest tax cut in two decades and the most sweeping education reform since 1965.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Still, even as the White House touts those early successes as evidence of bipartisanship, they know a much tougher fight ahead now. Judicial nominations in question because the Democrats will run the Senate. Much of the president's Energy plan favored by Republicans who chaired those Senate committees now has to go through committees chaired by the Democrats. So it's a new day in Washington. Across the town, a new day of studying strategy here at the White House -- Daryn.

KAGAN: John, as we mentioned, it's a day when the president is headed to the U.S. Naval Academy to give the graduating -- to give the commencement speech to the graduating midshipmen. Any idea what the president has to say to the graduating midshipmen? If he plans to make news today?

KING: We are told this will be a relatively low-key speech. The president saluting the members of the graduating class of the Naval Academy for their service. The White House had thought a few weeks back that perhaps this would be a major address. There is a top-to- bottom review of Pentagon spending and priorities under way. The White House had thought, for a brief time, that review might be done by now but Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says he needs a few more weeks, if not a few more months. So no major news today as the president delivers that commencement address at the Naval Academy.

KAGAN: John King at the White House. John, 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