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American Morning
Representative Norton Disagrees with White House Cancellation of Christmas Tours
Aired November 26, 2001 - 09:50 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Yet, at the same time, the president is telling Americans to go about their lives as normal, shop and travel as usual. Is the president and the administration sending mixed messages?
Let's turn to the D.C. delegate to the House of Representatives, Eleanor Holmes. She thinks so. She is in the nation's capitol this morning.
Welcome back, thanks for joining us this morning.
ELENOR HOLMES NORTON (D), WASHINGTON, D.C. DELEGATE: Thank you. Good morning.
ZAHN: Good morning. You, no doubt, have heard the administration's argument, that these are "extraordinary times" and by removing the amount of traffic through the White House, you can actually move some of those security guards to other potential and vulnerable terrorist targets. Why is this wrong?
NORTON: You know, you don't have to cancel Christmas, even in war time. We've never done it before. You -- you do you that only if you do knee-jerks security. The president is stepping on his own messages. Out there with a wonderful ad saying "travel, go to all your public places, don't give into terrorism." In his own house, he can't figure out how to do the security.
I can -- we can help him out. You could say to people, "come to Washington. You won't find it exactly as you found it last year." If you go to the White House Visitor's Center, leave your social security number. We can check you out just as we check out everybody who goes in the White House, and draw from a lottery and maybe you will get to go in.
The -- Congress is helping the president out a lot. Because you can't get a tour of the Congress either. And you can't go to the lighting of the White House Christmas Tree.
That's -- that's exactly the kind of message you don't want to send at Christmas during war time. You want to sit down, figure out how to do it, without saying to folks, look, Christmas is canceled this year, come back next year.
ZAHN: Yeah, but at the time time, you acknowledge the fact that these are vulnerable targets, don't you?
NORTON: Very vulnerable targets. Look I represent this city. I'm the last person that wants to put the White House Complex, the Congress or 600,000 residents in any danger. But we are getting to the point where we are barricading the city, making it ugly -- unnecessarily. Because we are not thinking through how to do security in the 21st century, in war time.
We don't have to do it the way we would have done it in 19th century. And I submit that this is exactly what we would have done if this was 1901. Well, this is -- this is 2001 and what we -- this is, this is the 21st century, and what we can do, it seems to me, is figure out ways to do this. I've indicated one way. I don't think you should say to everyone, come into the White House. I don't think you should put on a whole mess of guards. I think you should do something very simple. We can check out people's social security numbers very easily and let them come in the White House.
ZAHN: Do you have any reason...Sorry to cut you off here, because we're going-- we're going to run into a commercial break here. Do you have any reason to believe your lobbying will make a difference?
NORTON: Well, I do. Because I picked up the phone and called the White House. I said, look, if we were to have a meeting with elected officials and our business community here in the district, would you send representatives so we can begin to talk about how to do security while -- while protecting the White House and keeping the city open?
And the White House official, a high level official to whom I spoke, said, you know, that sounds reasonable to me. So, I think we are getting somewhere. I think we're also getting somewhere because there have been reports in the paper that say that they are considering whether or not they should use social security numbers in order to get -- let people in.
(CROSSTALK)
They are considering letting people in to see the White -- the Christmas tree lighting. I mean, if we don't speak up about these things, then the security people will be the only ones at the table. We've got to maintain an open society, even in war time. We have done that during every other war. We are brilliantly winning this war. We can maintain an open society today as well.
ZAHN: Well, we're going to stay in touch with you and see what transpires as a result of your lobbying efforts here. Representative Norton we've got to leave it there, because a commercial break is going to cut us right off. Thank you for joining us this morning.
NORTON: My pleasure.
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