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American Morning

Interview of Representative Dennis Hastert

Aired December 05, 2001 - 08:20   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: Let's go now straight to White House where we are joined by House Speaker Dennis Hastert. He is just out of the weekly congressional leadership breakfast with President Bush -- good morning, Mr. Speaker -- delighted to have you with us this morning.

REP. DENNIS HASTERT (R-IL), HOUSE SPEAKER: Good morning. Thank you.

ZAHN: First of all, sir, before we get into the specifics of what you and the president addressed this morning, did he have any reaction to the deaths of the two U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan today and the JDAM attack that went awry?

HASTERT: We didn't discuss that.

ZAHN: Do you have any reaction for us?

(CROSSTALK)

HASTERT: Well, we're -- you know, our sympathy goes out to those families and those victims' families. But it's something that we just don't know that much about yet.

ZAHN: And what specifically did the president talk about with you this morning.

HASTERT: Well, we basically got a briefing on Afghanistan and how the war is going in general -- some of the political aspects of it. We talked about some of the political responsibilities that we have in the Middle East, and how that is developing. We talked a great deal about how we're going to finish up the next 10 days or so, so that Congress can leave Washington -- that we can get our work done.

We have four appropriation bills that we need to finish -- two of those, education, which is Labor HHS, and defense, a very important bill. So they're all important, but those are very large bills. And the other thing is a stimulus package that we want to get done.

ZAHN: Will you get that done before you go out on break?

HASTERT: It's certainly our intent to do that. We're going to work here all weekend to make sure that we have some quality time to put those pieces together.

ZAHN: If you say it's your intent to do that, you must feel an enormous amount of pressure right now from the American public to get that job done.

HASTERT: Well, it's...

ZAHN: It wouldn't look too good for all of you guys to go back to your home districts, would it, and not have that done?

HASTERT: Well, there are three reasons we need to get this done. First of all, we have a lot of folks that have been impacted since 9/11, have lost their jobs, are laid off. We need to make sure that they have the health care and the unemployment resources there to take care of themselves and give them the properties -- the proper safety net.

The second thing we've got to do is there are so many American families, almost every working American family has some type of safety net: a pension, a 401K. We need to put confidence back into the stock markets, and we need to pass a stimulus package that will do that.

The third thing is we've lost 700,000 jobs since the shrinkage of the economy after September 11. We need to do some things to create jobs, and those types of stimulus.

So we need to create jobs, put confidence back in the stock market and help those who have been displaced. And that's a big order to fill, and we're going to try and do it.

ZAHN: Speaker Hastert, you also said the president brought you all up to date on the campaign in Afghanistan. In an interview that will air later tonight on ABC, President Bush told Barbara Walters -- quote, "that strikes will be incredibly important, and there may be a need to use military troops elsewhere." He went on to say, "And I just want the American people to know that we are keeping all options on the table."

Did President Bush hold out the prospect of attacking other countries in the broadening war on terrorism?

HASTERT: That was not discussed this morning. However, he said a long time ago, when we got into this, that we will go into countries that harbor terrorists -- that had -- that don't cooperate with United States. And you know, we lost thousands of people on September 11. We don't want that to happen again. The reason we're in Afghanistan today is because the Taliban gave an area for Osama bin Laden to work. And if he goes to other countries, we'll have to follow suit in pursuit of him. That is a goal.

And the 60 countries where the al Qaeda has terrorist cells, we're working in cooperation with those countries. We're trying to take those cells apart, but the security of the American people, and free people around the world, are our focus and the most important thing here, and we're going to do what we have to do it to make sure that that security is there.

ZAHN: Iraq is one of those countries that we were told is the subject of a heated debate within the administration about whether to eventually attack or not? What's your own personal view on that?

HASTERT: My personal view is that we need to have some assurances that Iraq isn't creating weapons of mass destruction or biological weapons that can be used here in the United States, and for some way that we need to be able to stop that from happening.

ZAHN: But as you know, there are members in the administration that say we already know he is developing those weapons.

HASTERT: Well, then we need to make sure to get in there to be able to check. But that's a problem, and we'll try to take every avenue possible to solve that, whether it's diplomatically or other areas.

ZAHN: Speaker Hastert, thanks for spending some of your busy morning with us this morning -- delighted to have some of your time.

HASTERT: Thank you. It's my pleasure.

ZAHN: And love to have you back before you go out on break to see if you were able to accomplish that very ambitious list of things that you want to get done before you all go home for the holidays.

HASTERT: Great. Thank you very much.

ZAHN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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