Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

In State of the Union, President Bush Covers a Lot of Ground

Aired January 30, 2002 - 07:06   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: Up front this morning, we move on to the president and how he rallies the nation last night in the State of the Union address. Officially, it was his first State of the Union address.

In just over 45 minutes, President Bush covered a lot of ground. The war against terrorism dominated, but he made some time, too, for homeland security, economic security and a call to action for all Americans.

Here's Kate Snow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Speaker, the president of the United States.

KATE SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From his first words, a clear message.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our nation is at war. Our economy is in recession. And the civilized world faces unprecedented dangers. Yet the state of our union has never been stronger.

SNOW: Most of the speech was focused not on the past, but the future of a war on terror, sprinkled with references to universal values.

BUSH: America will always stand firm for the non-negotiable demands of human dignity.

SNOW: Far from ending in Afghanistan, Mr. Bush said the war is only beginning. Tens of thousands of trained terrorists are still at large. Recalling another war, the president called nations sponsoring terror an axis of evil, singling out North Korea, Iran, Iraq.

BUSH: Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true nature.

SNOW: America, he said, cannot stop short.

BUSH: If we stop now, leaving terror camps intact and terror states unchecked, our sense of security would be false and temporary. SNOW: United in war, the president asked Congress to come together on the domestic front.

BUSH: We must act first and foremost not as Republicans, not as Democrats, but as Americans.

SNOW: A thought echoed later in a Democratic response.

REP. DICK GEPHARDT (D-MO), MAJORITY LEADER: We need to find a way to respect each other and trust each other and work together to solve the long-term challenges America faces.

SNOW: But in the fine points were differences. Mr. Bush urged Congress to pass his budget, a Republican energy bill, HMO reform. When he said last summer's tax cuts should be made permanent, Democrats sat on their hands.

(on camera): As for Enron, the political hot topic of the moment, the name never came up. But there was a veiled reference. President Bush talked about the need to safeguard 401K plans and hold corporate America accountable to its employees and shareholders.

Kate Snow, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: And the big question at this hour, how did President Bush do? Mr. Bush was greeted warmly as he entered the House chamber last night. Did the commander-in-chief deliver a command performance?

Well, people responding to our CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll seemed to think so. Seventy-four percent said they had a very positive reaction to the president's speech, with 20 percent somewhat positive and only five percent with a negative reaction.

Joining us now from Washington for his reaction to this speech, one of our regular contributors, Cliff May, former RNC communications director and now president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy.

It's good to see you.

CLIFF MAY, FORMER RNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Good to see you, Paula.

ZAHN: Now what does it mean that you're going it alone here, Cliff May? Bob Beckel, who was supposed to spar with you this morning, hasn't showed up yet. Do you think it's that new "Washington Post"/ABC poll that shows that the president is outpolling Democrats two to one on a whole range of issues? MAY: Bob is a very partisan guy. I'm afraid he went out for a few drinks after that speech and probably hasn't quite recovered.

ZAHN: Let's see if he can defend himself before the end of the segment.

MAY: OK.

ZAHN: We're told he is en route.

It is interesting to note that the president did not mention Osama bin Laden directly last night, but he singled out North Korea, Iran and Iraq in his speech. Let's listen to that small portion of the speech right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: States like these and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world by seeking weapons of mass destruction. These regimes pose a grave and growing danger.

I will not wait on events while dangers gather. I will not stand by as peril draws closer and closer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: The president didn't come up with a lot of specifics along this front, but what is he setting the stage for?

MAY: He's setting the stage for what I think I've been arguing for on this program, and that's why it was very encouraging for me to hear. He was setting the stage for a comprehensive and ultimately decisive war against terrorism. He's saying this war has only just begun. Afghanistan is phase one. There are going go to be other phases. We are going to go after the terrorists and also the nations that harbor them. We're not going to wait and simply punish terrorism after the fact. We're going to preempt and prevent terrorism before they attack and before they kill Americans.

That's very bold. That's, frankly, very hawkish. I'm very glad to see it. He's saying we're going to defend democratic societies around the world and defeat our enemies and he is saying that he wants that to be bipartisan. I think Dick Gephardt said that should be bipartisan. But it's going to cause some upset among some Democrats, some on the left who don't want that kind of war against terrorism.

ZAHN: I heard a number of defense analysts after the speech saying they believe that a preemptive strike on Iraq could come some time as early as by the end of the year. Do you think it's going to happen that quickly?

MAY: I don't think we know. I think it's certainly possible. I think we don't want Saddam Hussein to know when we're going to move against him. But I think it's very telling that President Bush talked about Iraq. He also talked about Iran. I was recently in Israel with Jack Kemp and Frank Lautenberg, the two chairmen of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. The Israeli think that as bad as Saddam Hussein is, Iran is a greater danger, further along the road to developing weapons of mass destruction and supporting terrorism. And North Korea is also, that's not been on the radar screen, but they are supplying weapons to terrorists, as well. They're breaking their treaty obligations. So it's not clear. I think that President Bush wants to be able to surprise the bad guys and so I don't think we are going to know until it happens. What Bush was saying I think last night was get ready, be prepared, we are going to have to do a lot more fighting, militarily, through covert services and in other ways.

ZAHN: One of the things the president did not confront directly last night was the issue of Enron, although he did make a reference to what the consequences of the company's collapse are. Was that a mistake? We had Jeff Greenfield on the air suggesting that would have been a pretty smart thing to do, to confront it directly.

MAY: I don't know, I think that would have been a risky thing to do. I think he took on the issue. He talked about reforms that are necessary in terms of accounting, in terms of protecting pensions and that sort of thing. I'm not sure he wanted to feed into Enron, which some Democrats, not all, but some are trying to make into a partisan scandal rather than a scandal about some business practices in this company and some of the other companies they were dealing with.

ZAHN: Let's talk about this as a partisan scandal, because the "Wall Street Journal" is reporting that just hours before the president delivered his State of the Union address last night, Democrats were actually circulating a memo that called for the party to exploit the Enron scandal to hurt the president.

MAY: Yes, I think that's a mistake and I understand the impulse, but I really do think it's a mistake. President Bush last night talked about bipartisanship and I think the country is in a mood where it doesn't want to see a lot of partisan bickering and quarreling and people trying to get advantage.

And look, Paula, right now by all historical precedents the Democrats have a very good chance to do well in November. Normally the party out of power in an off year like this, they will gain seats. That would mean that they would keep the Senate and they could take back the House. It's not sure they will.

There's a couple of things that mitigate against that. One is Bush's popularity, if he can convey it to other Republicans. Two, during times of national crisis, war, homeland security, when those things are high on people's agendas, they tend to look more towards the Republicans.

But third, if the Democrats try too hard, if they seem to be too partisan, if they are out there trying to snipe, I think they'll pay a price with the voters. I think they'd be better off hanging back a little bit and saying look, on this -- as Gephardt did last night and as Lieberman has been doing -- we are with the president on the war. We want to get the economy going.

If they're too ambitious, particularly the party hacks, the party professionals, I think they, that may be a big mistake. And a memo like that, definitely a big mistake.

ZAHN: I've got 10 seconds left for you. Terry McAuliffe, the head of the DNC, comes on later this morning. It has been widely reported he had a $100,000 investment that turned into an $18 million windfall from this company called Global Crossings that filed for bankruptcy. Any thoughts on that -- and I've just got about 10 seconds for you.

MAY: Well, that's another reason why it's going to be a mistake if the Democrats go with a really partisan agenda, because people like Terry McAuliffe are also going to be vulnerable. He is a big shot. He knows a lot of big shots. He turns $100,000 in investment into an $18 million success. It's not a good idea and yet he is as partisan a bulldog as any there is. It's going to be hard for him to reign himself in.

ZAHN: Well, I know you miss Bob Beckel dearly, Cliff.

MAY: I do.

ZAHN: We'll get the two of you back together again soon.

MAY: I do. But I get a word in edgewise when he's not here.

ZAHN: All right, Cliff May, thanks so much.

MAY: Thank you. Thanks, Paula.

ZAHN: And Jack, once again, Terry McAuliffe, the head of the RNC, is on in our next hour. He is saying, of course, he was just an investor, had nothing to do with the running of the company, it was a simple stock trade.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Also, just in the interests of letting our viewers know that we are going to approach the State of the Union from all sides, we expect the Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle to join us on AMERICAN MORNING live a bit later.

Moving forward now on the State of the Union address, expectations, of course, running high for that speech last night. And according to most of the stuff I read in the papers today, the president did not disappoint.

How is it playing this morning with his fellow Republicans? Well, we can probably guess the answer, but let's find out from one of the leaders in Washington.

Joining us from Capitol Hill is Speaker of the House of Representatives' Dennis Hastert.

Mr. Speaker, nice to have you with us. Thank you.

REP. DENNIS HASTERT (R-IL), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Thank you. Great to be with you this morning.

CAFFERTY: A scale of one to 10, how'd he do?

HASTERT: I think he did an 8 1/2. CAFFERTY: That's pretty high marks. Let me play a piece of tape here concerning some specifics about this ongoing war on terrorism, and we can all listen together and then I'd like your reaction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction while starving its citizens. Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom. Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAFFERTY: Well, in conjunction with this, a "Washington Post"/ABC News poll on what the United States should do vis-a-vis Saddam Hussein and Iraq, here are the results on the question, "Should the United States take military action against Iraq to force Hussein, Saddam Hussein, from power?" Seventy-one percent of the people who responded to that poll said yes.

My question to you is what does this mean specifically? Where do we go now? What sort of an agenda lies ahead? And if necessary, are you willing to see the country do some of these things alone and perhaps without the members of this coalition that we've had so far for the war in Afghanistan?

HASTERT: Well, I think the president gave those three countries a fair warning. That's exactly -- he's a man of his word. He follows through on what he says and I think they should have a warning, because there can be some mitigating time that they may change.

But I think the three things that we need to do and that the president laid out last night is first of all make sure that our armed services, our men and women who put their lives in harm's way every day to protect this country, that they have the equipment and the training and the wherewithal to make sure that they can do the job. And that's why we have a defense budget that is going to cover those needs. We need to be prepared if we have to act in any one of those situations.

The second thing that the president talked about was the terrorism. You know, there was 19 or 20 people that came into this country to wreak havoc on September 11. All of those were trained in al Qaeda camps and, you know, we think that there was up to 100,000 people trained in al Qaeda camps. There's, many of them are spread around the world today, some of them with missions. We need to be prepared to stop those people. That's why the internal security that we're talking about is so important.

And finally, you know, in order to pay for this, we're going to be in somewhat of a deficit. If you set those two issues aside, we wouldn't be. But we need to get this country going again and he talked in detail about a stimulus package that I think is very, very important. You talked about the politics of this time. I think the American people want us to get something done and that's what we're exactly about.

CAFFERTY: You know, the Democrats would suggest you could pay for some of this stuff by rolling back part of these tax cuts. And it's been suggested by people like Senator Kennedy.

HASTERT: Well, I understand that. But, you know, I taught economics for 16 years. Almost all theories of economics, and I think in reality, says that we're, when you're in a recession, you don't want to raise taxes, and that's exactly what he'd do.

CAFFERTY: All right, let me ask you about Enron and then the bigger context of perhaps what happened on Wall Street yesterday. The president alluded to the need to change some of the accounting rules, protect pension plans. Here's another poll question indicating that barely over half think the administration has acted properly so far.

Yesterday, Wall Street turned a big thumbs down on some of the uncertainty that's been created by the Enron situation.

Should the president have been more specific in addressing the Enron situation per se and at what point should the administration perhaps take a more active role in acknowledging what's going on there and perhaps, you know, being a little more forthcoming about their dealings with these people back when it was formulating this energy policy?

HASTERT: Well, I think, first of all, the first, the last part of what you just said, I think the president and the White House have dealt with a lot of people -- consumers, producers. And, you know, that was, that's, you've got to do that. You've got to know what the situation was.

The problem with Enron is transparency. They did some bad business practices. They kept them from their employees. They kept those, their situation, their economic situation away from investors and people lost money.

That shouldn't happen and we need to treat this as a business issue. We need to treat it as a security issue for employees and people who are vested and people who have pensions and we need to pass the legislation that makes sure that this doesn't happen again.

CAFFERTY: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate you getting up at an early hour and spending a few minutes with us here on AMERICAN MORNING. Thank you for your time.

HASTERT: My pleasure. Thank you.

CAFFERTY: All right, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com