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CNN Saturday Morning News
A Discussion of President Bush's Up Coming Agenda
Aired May 24, 2003 - 08:01 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.
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Bush is spending the holiday weekend at his ranch in Texas and CNN's Chris Burns joins us live from Crawford to tick off a few items on the president's agenda -- a busy weekend, Chris?
CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Andrea, not today. It's a down day, a quiet day at the ranch for President Bush. He's had a busy week. He will be returning tomorrow back to Washington for Memorial Day ceremonies on Monday. He wrapped up a meeting yesterday with Koizumi, the Japanese prime minister, during which they did speak about North Korea. They both threatened tougher measures against North Korea, unspecified measures if North Korea escalates in this nuclear weapons crisis.
But dominating the talk during the news, the short news conference with the president and Mr. Koizumi was the issue of the Middle East. The president expressing his satisfaction, calling it progress that the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, accepted the road map and will submit it to his cabinet tomorrow, on Sunday, for approval. The president also looking ahead to the next step, talking about a possible summit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm exploring the opportunities as to whether or not I should meet with Prime Minister Abu Mazen as well as Prime Minister Sharon. If a meeting advances progress toward two states living side by side in peace, I will strongly consider such a meeting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNS: Now, of course, the White House is holding off on committing to that summit, waiting to see if the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, will actually begin to reign in the mil -- the Palestinian militants who have been staging a wave of suicide attacks and also whether the Israelis will start lifting the restrictions on the Palestinians. So we'll have to see how that comes out. But there could be that summit in the next couple of weeks.
Let's take a look a little bit at the performance of the president now. He's gotten his tax package passed and there is an overall approval rating of the president in the latest CNN/"Time" poll of 63 percent. But take a look at the major issues now on terrorism, Iraq and world affairs. He's doing quite well, 72 percent, 69 percent, 59 percent. Keep in mind there's a plus or minus three percent error rating there. But also take a look at some other issues that come home to Americans that could be very, very important in the election campaign next year, taxes, education, the Middle East and North Korea also. Only about 50 percent of Americans in that poll say that the president is doing a good job. And look at some other issues. On the environment, unemployment and the budget deficit, he has less than 50 percent support on that.
So it could be an uphill battle in this reelection campaign. A lot of issues he has to deal with -- back to you, Andrea.
KOPPEL: Chris, we know that tomorrow Prime Minister Sharon is supposed to be submitting the road map to his cabinet for approval. How confident is the White House that the approval will come?
BURNS: Well, there appears to be quite a bit of optimism if you speak to senior administration officials. They are quite optimistic that even, there could even be this summit coming up ahead. And so that indicates that there is quite a bit of optimism that now that Ariel Sharon has personally accepted this road map after, of course, there was that message by the White House yesterday saying that they will address the security concerns of Israel in carrying out that road map, that there does appear to be quite a bit of optimism that the Israeli cabinet will approve it tomorrow -- Andrea.
KOPPEL: Chris Burns in Crawford, Texas, thank you very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired May 24, 2003 - 08:01 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Bush is spending the holiday weekend at his ranch in Texas and CNN's Chris Burns joins us live from Crawford to tick off a few items on the president's agenda -- a busy weekend, Chris?
CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Andrea, not today. It's a down day, a quiet day at the ranch for President Bush. He's had a busy week. He will be returning tomorrow back to Washington for Memorial Day ceremonies on Monday. He wrapped up a meeting yesterday with Koizumi, the Japanese prime minister, during which they did speak about North Korea. They both threatened tougher measures against North Korea, unspecified measures if North Korea escalates in this nuclear weapons crisis.
But dominating the talk during the news, the short news conference with the president and Mr. Koizumi was the issue of the Middle East. The president expressing his satisfaction, calling it progress that the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, accepted the road map and will submit it to his cabinet tomorrow, on Sunday, for approval. The president also looking ahead to the next step, talking about a possible summit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm exploring the opportunities as to whether or not I should meet with Prime Minister Abu Mazen as well as Prime Minister Sharon. If a meeting advances progress toward two states living side by side in peace, I will strongly consider such a meeting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNS: Now, of course, the White House is holding off on committing to that summit, waiting to see if the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, will actually begin to reign in the mil -- the Palestinian militants who have been staging a wave of suicide attacks and also whether the Israelis will start lifting the restrictions on the Palestinians. So we'll have to see how that comes out. But there could be that summit in the next couple of weeks.
Let's take a look a little bit at the performance of the president now. He's gotten his tax package passed and there is an overall approval rating of the president in the latest CNN/"Time" poll of 63 percent. But take a look at the major issues now on terrorism, Iraq and world affairs. He's doing quite well, 72 percent, 69 percent, 59 percent. Keep in mind there's a plus or minus three percent error rating there. But also take a look at some other issues that come home to Americans that could be very, very important in the election campaign next year, taxes, education, the Middle East and North Korea also. Only about 50 percent of Americans in that poll say that the president is doing a good job. And look at some other issues. On the environment, unemployment and the budget deficit, he has less than 50 percent support on that.
So it could be an uphill battle in this reelection campaign. A lot of issues he has to deal with -- back to you, Andrea.
KOPPEL: Chris, we know that tomorrow Prime Minister Sharon is supposed to be submitting the road map to his cabinet for approval. How confident is the White House that the approval will come?
BURNS: Well, there appears to be quite a bit of optimism if you speak to senior administration officials. They are quite optimistic that even, there could even be this summit coming up ahead. And so that indicates that there is quite a bit of optimism that now that Ariel Sharon has personally accepted this road map after, of course, there was that message by the White House yesterday saying that they will address the security concerns of Israel in carrying out that road map, that there does appear to be quite a bit of optimism that the Israeli cabinet will approve it tomorrow -- Andrea.
KOPPEL: Chris Burns in Crawford, Texas, thank you very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
