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American Morning

President Bush Addresses Mayors Conference, Pushes Faith-Based Services

Aired June 25, 2001 - 11:33   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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush is on the road today. He's speaking to the nation's mayors, in Detroit, Michigan. He's focusing today on the link between religion and social service, something that he has talked about quite a bit before.

Let's get the latest now from our senior White House correspondent, John King, who is going to be on the road with the president -- John.

JOHN KING, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Leon, I'm here at the White House, Major Garrett traveling with the president today. Mr. Bush, as you mentioned, is in Detroit at this hour. He's the first Republican president to address the U.S. Conference of Mayors gathering since Richard Nixon.

A very important item on the president's agenda today is remember he promised during the campaign and in his early weeks in office the so-called faith-based initiative. This would allow religious organizations -- church groups and other faith-based organizations -- to compete for federal money that goes into programs that deliver social services, say like drug and alcohol treatment.

Mr. Bush says this is the best way to get money in the hands of the people who can best provide such services, but it's proven to be very controversial in the Congress. From the left, criticism that this proposal would blur the lines between church and state -- from the right, some concerns from those very religious organizations that taking this money would subject them to way too many federal regulations and paperwork burdens. This has been tied up in the Congress because of those concerns, the president today trying to revive support for this legislation, trying to get it through the House in the weeks ahead.

He will promise some new strict accountability standards, promise to put in that legislation strict controls on just how that money is spent and how those organizations must account for it. Mr. Bush say it will be kept away from any proselytizing, any overtly religious activity, and he will also promise to include in the legislation a so- called opt-out provision, that meaning if you enrolled in such a program and then felt uncomfortable, felt it was overly religious, you opt out of that program and be guaranteed a seat in another program not faith based. So the president today is speaking to the mayors, a largely Democratic group, trying to rally support for one of his signature initiatives that at the moment is stalled in the Congress -- Leon.

HARRIS: Thanks much, John King, at the White House.

President Bush's plan for so-called faith-based initiatives is just one of the items on his agenda this morning.

Let's talk right now with our analyst Bill Schneider. He's in our Washington bureau. He's got a look at all this.

Bill, good morning.

Good morning, Leon.

HARRIS: What do you make of the reemergence of this issue at this particular time?

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think the White House is a little bit embarrassed that the initiative was allowed to die in Congress. The chairman of the crucial committee, the Judiciary Committee, Jim Sensenbrenner, who's a Republican, told the White House it's really dead, it's not going anymore. This was one of the five or six major programs that the president put at the top of his agenda, and he's not going to allow it to die.

HARRIS: Is it dying because of the lack of momentum inside or outside of the White House?

SCHNEIDER: It's dying, in part, because it was drafted very vaguely. As John King just explained, there were a lot of things left undefined, about where do you draw the line between church and state, could people opt out of the program, accountability requirements for religious organizations that get government money -- will they be held to the same standards as other governmental contractors. All these were left undefined, and it created a lot of nervousness, not just among civil libertarians, but among civil rights groups, and even among Christian conservatives, which fear that if they accept federal governmental money, they would be subject to federal government restrictions.

So there are a lot of people taking shots at this, and there really was no coalition in support of it. The White House, with the president's speech today to the conference of mayors -- a group Republicans don't usually appeal to -- is trying to revive -- or create for of the first time, really -- a coalition to support this legislation.

HARRIS: That's an interesting point that you make. As a matter of fact, I think I saw a note that said the last Republican president to talk to the mayors was Richard Nixon. Why is this particular tact the choice method this time around?

SCHNEIDER: Because a lot of civil rights group want that money. They carry out a major part of the social mission in this country, dealing with the elderly, the homeless, the disadvantaged, and therefore they would love to have that federal money, to continue their mission as long as the money is given to them with some pretty clear restraints on how they could not use it for the religious purposes.

A key endorsement: The White House is going to release today a letter from Rosa Parks, the civil rights pioneer who refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 and started the whole civil rights movement in this country as a mass movement. She is going to endorse the president's idea that the federal government should support faith-based social services, and that could really break the log jam and get a lot of civil rights groups to support this.

HARRIS: You may be right about that. It's a very significant name in that community.

Let's talk about one other issue as well -- speaking of missions -- the White House is stepping up the profile of its mission in the Middle East, which is a bit a change from what we saw at the beginning, in the early days of this administration. What do you make of what's going on with all that?

SCHNEIDER: I make it of it that the White House is learning the lesson that every administration learns. Unless the United States acts, nothing really will happen. I think the initial impulse of this administration is after Bill Clinton got so deeply involved in the Middle East -- remember in the last few weeks of his administration he was pressuring both sides to come together, trying to hammer out a peace deal at the last second, and it didn't work -- the idea was if Clinton couldn't make it happen with all his credibility and experience in the Middle East, there's very little George Bush can do, and he didn't want to put his reputation and the commitment of the United States on the line there.

But now, with the situation becoming more and more tragic, the White House has sent the CIA Director, George Tenet, who, very quietly and cautiously, has been able to craft a tentative, but so far pretty effective, cease-fire deal -- not a peace agreement, but simply a cease-fire deal -- in the Middle East. What that really shows is that unless the United States gets involved, the situation will unravel, and it will not be in the United States' interest to let that happen.

HARRIS: Senior political analyst Bill Schneider, we thank you very much, as usual, for your analysis.

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