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CNN Sunday Morning

Bush Appeals to Congress

Aired August 25, 2002 - 09:02   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANDERSON COOPER, ANCHOR, CNN SUNDAY MORNING: Moving on to news at home, President Bush and members of Congress are still away from Washington. But Mr. Bush is making campaign stops and appeals directed at Congress. Now, at issue, homeland security. We're going to get more from CNN White House correspondent Kelly Wallace. She joins us from Crawford, Texas, near the president's ranch.
Good morning, Kelly. How's it going?

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Anderson, to you.

Well, you know the president. He wants Congress to enact his proposal to create this new cabinet department, the Department of Homeland Security. The stumbling block is the president wants the government to have the authority to hire, fire and transfer employees around the agency.

Democrats, though, object to that saying these employees then would end up not having the same labor rights as other federal workers. Well the president, you can say, is trying to increase the pressure on lawmakers.

We saw him in New Mexico, yesterday, doing some campaigning for Republican candidates hoping to help them in November. But he is all making a clear that he will not negotiate when it comes to this proposal. He said this new agency needs extra power because he says the agency will be charged with protecting the country from future acts of terrorism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But let me tell you something. What I am not going to do is accept a bill that tries to macro-manage the process, tells the us who to hire, where to move them, how to do it. I warn the Senate. And Pete, I'm not warning Pete, because he understands what I'm talking about. He knows who I'm talking about.

There are senators who are more worried about the special interests in Washington than they are about protecting the people. They're more interested in their turf than they are about homeland security and they need to give me a good bill.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: And the president, when he's talking about Pete, he's talking about New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici, a Republican, who strong supports the president's proposal

Now, the president expected to enjoy some downtime on his ranch today and tomorrow. Looking ahead to this week, though, on Tuesday he will be hosting the Saudi ambassador to the United States Prince Bandar at his ranch. A key item on the agenda, likely to be Iraq. Anderson, as you know, the Saudis have made it very clear they will not be allowing the U.S. to stage any invasion of Iraq from Saudi soil -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right. Kelly Wallace, at Crawford, Texas. Thanks very much.

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