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Edwards Announces Run for Presidency; Diplomats Try to Halt North Korea's Weapons Program; Bush to Unveil Economic Plan Next Week

Aired January 04, 2003 - 10:00   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.


CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Welcome to CNN's SATURDAY EDITION, where our journalists have the inside scope on the stories we've covered this week. I'm Candy Crowley.
Check that calendar. A fresh new year ahead of us. But for some Democrats, time is running out to run for president.

REBECCA MACKINNON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Rebecca MacKinnon in Seoul, South Korea. Diplomats in the region are mobilizing into high gear to try and stop North Korea's nuclear weapons development. Meanwhile, Seoul is getting impatient with Washington and is hoping to take the driver's seat in resolving this crisis.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I'm Dana Bash in Crawford, Texas. The president is vacationing here, but he's got North Korea and Iraq on his radar. And next week, he unveils an economic plan.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: I'm Kelli Arena. The nationwide alert for five men wanted for questioning by the FBI while their plans and any terrorism links are unknown.

PATTI DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And I'm Patti Davis here in the U.S. New airport security rules get a thumbs-up from the pros and the passengers, and plans to charge extra for airline food get panned.

All this just ahead, and we'll be listening to the president's weekly radio address at the end of the hour. But first, a check on what's making headlines right now, with a news alert from CNN's headquarters in Atlanta.

(NEWSBREAK)

MACKINNON: Here in South Korea, the reopening of North Korea's nuclear weapons development has ratcheted up tensions, North Korea blaming the United States for the current state of affairs. From North Korea's perspective, if the United States is not talking to Pyongyang, it must be preparing to target that country.

Now, here in Seoul, the understanding of course is that there is no U.S. mobilization to target North Korea. However, there is frustration among the leadership and the people that Washington may be taking too hard a stance toward North Korea. On the street level, we have anti-U.S. demonstrations over the past several weeks, expressing frustration with the United States on the diplomatic policy level. The new incoming president here, Roh Moo Hyun, has been working on a new compromise proposal, which he's hoping to table in the coming days in meetings with Washington and other allies.

So that's where we stand at this point.

CROWLEY: Rebecca, it's Candy Crowley in Washington. Let me ask you about the anti-American sentiment. Do you feel it in the streets? I mean, does it get targeted toward you? Do people talk to you about it? What's that like?

MACKINNON: Well, it is not -- it's not the kind of thing where you go out on the street, people come up to you and start criticizing the United States.

It's really directed more at two things. One is the U.S. military presence here, which especially young people increasingly do not see the point of. They see it more as a burden and do not directly see what benefit they're getting.

The other is a feeling that the United States has been, for too long, just telling the South Korean government what to do. And there's a great feeling of national pride here, and that the United States ought to respect what the South Koreans want to do when it comes to handling North Korea.

Of course, if there were to be a conflict, it's the South Korean civilians that would be pay the heaviest price. And there is a bit of a frustration here on the street that Washington may not be respecting the South Korean government's view quite as much as people would like.

BASH: Rebecca, it's Dana Bash in Crawford. I have a question for you. You know, the administration officials are telling me that while you're hearing this frustration coming from South Korea because they say the administration is taking too hard of a line, that privately they are trying to get the message to South Korea and to really the other countries that they're trying to work with to deal with this problem, that they really aren't taking that hard of a line, that "Don't believe what you're reading in the papers."

That's what one administration official said to me, that that's their message to officials in South Korea.

Are you getting the sense that officials are getting that message through private channels from the administration, that they really aren't taking that hard of a line, that it's kind of not being portrayed accurately?

MACKINNON: Well, I think people are really looking forward to the talks coming up in the coming week. We have South Korean officials on their way to Washington right now, where they'll have more opportunity to talk to U.S. officials, exactly how the situation is going to move forward.

We've got a high-ranking U.S. official, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, coming here next week. And again, there will be very high-level meetings between him and the new incoming, and as well as the outgoing, president, where that message can come across.

But the problem here is that people -- people here are getting a sense that North Korea is not getting the message, that from North Korea's perspective, it appears that the Pyongyang leadership really believes that if the U.S. is not going to talk to them, that the U.S. really is planning to attack.

And so the question is how to make North Korea feel less defensive, because as long as they're feeling threatened and defensive, the chances that they will back down on their nuclear weapons development program is considered fairly slim.

DAVIS: If this is a move by North Korea to get something from the U.S. perhaps, they're threatening their (ph) stance, what is it that North Korea wants from the U.S.?

MACKINNON: Well, what the North Koreans have said they want is a non-aggression treaty. That means they want the United States to sit down and sign a piece of paper basically promising that the United States will not attack North Korea and also declaring that the U.S. recognizes the North Korean government's right to exist.

Now, Washington has said they're not going to do this, because this would be rewarding bad behavior.

So while -- Washington has said they won't negotiate, but they will talk. Exactly where the wiggle room lies at this point is not entirely clear.

BASH: Do you know, Rebecca -- it's Dana again -- the administration is making pretty clear privately that they are intentionally saying that they're not going to go for one-on-one negotiations with North Korea, but they're certainly leaving the door open for perhaps broader talks. They're not ruling out maybe even some kind of talks with both the United States and, let's say, China and Japan and South Korea. And perhaps if North Korea could be there, maybe that's something that they would go for, but they are intentionally telling us that they're not ruling that out.

CROWLEY: Rebecca, Candy Crowley. I wanted to ask you, I saw your show (ph) from the DMZ. And I wanted to add to Dana's, if you'll give us a sense of are there increased tensions there? You know, sometimes it's a pretty routine job. We've been there so long. But now we've got this anti-American feeling in South Korea, and we've got North Korea feeling threatened. What's that feel up there?

MACKINNON: Well, up there when you talk to the U.S. military personnel stationed there who patrol the line of control, who look across at the North Korean soldiers every day, they say nothing has really changed.

The American state of alertness is always very high because they are so close to the other side, but it is no higher than usual. They're still tour groups going through. There are spouse visits in areas very close to the DMZ that would not be allowed if people thought that conflict was really imminent. So it's very much business as usual there. And when you talk to the soldiers, they say, "This is a matter for the diplomats right now. We're waiting for them to let the situation proceed, and no instructions have been given to us to do anything out of ordinary."

BASH: Rebecca, I want to thank you on behalf of all of us for staying up until midnight your time to join us.

And when we come back, we're going to talk more about North Korea and Iraq and the economy, all on the president's agenda, when CNN's SATURDAY EDITION returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My job is to protect the American people and work to create confidence in our economy so that people can find work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: That's the president talking about the triple threat that he's dealing with right now, while vacationing here in Texas. That's Iraq and North Korea and the economy.

You know, it's interesting that the president, while here in Crawford -- he's been here for about nine days, and he really doesn't usually venture out much when he's here. He loves to kind of get away and enjoy kind of the seclusion of his ranch here in Crawford.

But aides always tell us that he's absolutely connected. He gets his briefings every day. The president actually told us this week that he now has a secure videophone so that he can talk to Dick Cheney whenever he wants, and he did that this week.

But what was interesting to me was to see how the president did venture out this week. First, he went to a coffee shop, a local coffee shop, which I want to point out is the only coffee shop in Crawford, Texas. There's only about 700 people here. There's just one blinking light in this town.

But the other thing that he did was he invited reporters onto his ranch. He took them around. He took them on a four-mile hike where he pointed out all of the sights and sounds of the nature that he loves. He showed them where he clears brush, which is what he likes to do all the time.

But what was notable, I thought, was that he knew that he had to get his message out, he know that he had to talk about these major issues like North Korea, like Iraq and the economy, but he did so literally on his own terrain. And so he kind of made sure to get it out there.

ARENA: Dana, talking about getting your message out, it was two weeks or so before we heard anything from the administration on why North Korea was different from Iraq. Why did it take so long?

BASH: You know, it's interesting, Iraq and the economy were two issues that the president and the White House were absolutely prepared for. They had a strategy down, they knew that come January they were going to have to come in and really deal with those issues. North Korea, frankly, took them by surprise.

And over the past couple of weeks -- it happened kind of at a weird time because it was the holiday time. The White House didn't have their daily briefings like they normally do. The president has been away on vacation.

So we did hear over the past couple of weeks from spokesmen, kind of talking to them on the phone and getting statements from them. And then of course we heard from Secretary of State Colin Powell last Sunday. But it took a while for them to get the president out there. A lot of it really had to do with both being surprised and just the timing of it all.

DAVIS: Well, what's the rationale from the president about why Iraq is so much more of a threat than North Korea?

BASH: Well, they're making it really clear, Patti, that Iraq is a place where there's a dictator who has invaded other countries and he's just -- they're sure that he has these weapons of mass destruction and that he is somebody who has to be dealt with by the U.S., because they say there's no one else to deal with Iraq.

With North Korea, there's just -- it's a threat, certainly, but it's a threat more immediately to the neighbors there, like South Korea and Japan. And that the way to deal with North Korea is to work through those neighbors, because it's really a bigger threat to them than it is to the United States.

CROWLEY: You know, Dana, it strikes me -- a couple things strike me. One is that it took them two weeks to kind of get their act together on this, and it's a fairly simple explanation, which the president tried to get at, which is, well, they're both threats, but we're dealing with them differently because it's a different situation, which is a fairly simple thing to get out there.

Do you think they suffer from the lack of Karen Hughes, who I think maybe brought the outside world in and said, you got to get out there and do that?

BASH: You know, Candy, that's a good point. I mean, you know this White House and this president really better than most because you covered him for so long on the campaign. But that is a really good point. I mean, that might be a possibility, no question about it.

Now, it seems as though she is definitely -- she's not working at the White House, not on the White House payroll, but from what we're told she certainly is still connected, no question about it.

But it was -- part of it I really do believe had to do with just the fact that they were caught off guard by it and the holiday time just made it kind of weird for them. The president was not out. He hadn't -- before this week, I don't think he had taken questions from reporters in, like, three weeks. So the timing of it was a little bit bizarre for them.

ARENA: Dana, I'm going to turn the page here on the economy, and we are expecting an economic stimulus package twice the size of what was originally expected. You already have Democrats out there beating the drum, very familiar drum, that these are tax cuts for the rich.

What is the administration's stance? How will it respond? Were they ready for the immediate, you know, resistance from the Democratic Party and so early?

BASH: Oh yeah, they were definitely ready for it, there's no question about it, because the Democrats tried to hit the president and the Republicans on the economy during the midterm elections.

Other factors weighed into that, and it made it kind of, that message, on the Democrats' part, kind of muddled. This time, it's not the Republicans and Congress on the ballot, it's the president himself. So they are absolutely prepared to combat that message.

They're going to roll out -- in addition to the president's speech which he'll give next week in Chicago, they're going to roll out a whole kind of operation to sell his plan and to make clear that they believe that this is going to help everybody, it's not just going to help the wealthy, like the Democrats say. They're going to have all kinds of government studies, I'm told, to back up their claims.

So there's no question about it, they knew it was coming, they're ready for it, and they think they can beat it. And they really think that they have to because the president remembers what happens to his father, where he was really focused on Iraq and the economy...

DAVIS: Exactly. The White House must realize though that they do have a vulnerability on the economy somewhat, as you're saying.

BASH: Oh yeah, no question about it. You know, the president made clear this week a couple of times that the economy is strong and they keep saying the economy is resilient. But it's a weird recovery. It's not completely recovering at all.

So they certainly feel a vulnerability, and that is why they had planned, starting this month, in January, to come back and to really hit the economy hard, to talk about it constantly, to come up with this plan and let the American people know that they are working on it, they got it covered.

Because the president remembers what happened to his father, and that is that he was focused on Iraq and the economy was really suffering, the country was in a recession and Americans didn't feel like his father cared. And he's going to make sure he doesn't let that happen.

CROWLEY: And if it strikes you as strange that they're already thinking about the election, I hate to tell you, stranger still, we already pretty much already know what the Democratic race is shaping up to be. Two more guys in the ring this week. We'll talk about that when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D), NORTH CAROLINA: I run for president to be champion -- to be a champion for the same people I fought for all my life, regular folks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CROWLEY: Senator John Edwards, Democrat of North Carolina, pitching his candidacy to regular folks.

Welcome back to CNN's SATURDAY EDITION.

Edwards, a regular millionaire trial lawyer, is just the latest Democrat to step down a path he hopes will lead to an exhausting and, by the way, fabulously expensive marathon to the White House.

I have to tell you a quick story. This clearly is going to be Edward's campaign theme: "I'm a regular guy. I'm not a politician. I've only been in office four years. And I want regular-guy voters."

Gephardt this week also, through a weird way, through fax, we found out obviously is going to establish is exploratory committee. I called up and said, "Well, you know, we want to the congressman, you know, because now he's going to do this." They said, "Well, gee, we can't do it." And I said, "Well, look, you know, we really need to get him near a camera." And they said, "Well, you know home with his daughters and a friend of theirs in the car with his wife and the golden retriever and he's driving to South Carolina to visit relatives." I thought, "OK, now there's a regular guy."

(LAUGHTER)

He's having one of those normal kind of, you know, holiday weekends.

But we did get both Edwards officially, Gephardt, neither one of whom are a surprise. But you know, for junkies like me, a great week.

DAVIS: Candy, you talk about money here. Who's got the money advantage right now? It's obviously important.

CROWLEY: Well, the money advantage right now, just dollar for dollar, goes to John Kerry, who is from Massachusetts, liberal from Massachusetts, basically because he didn't have a race when he ran for Senate. So he pilled -- had a stockpile.

But Joe Lieberman, you really have to give the advantage to in the long haul. He would be the first Jewish president, were he to be elected. He has tapped in to a number of fund raisers for the vice president. He can use that again. He's been in politics for a while. And so he's got a really nice golden Rolodex.

DAVIS: But I have to ask you, what is it with Al Gore apparently only telling Lieberman on his Blackberry, his hand-held Blackberry, that he was not going to run? What is that about?

CROWLEY: Also a true story. I called up, before Al Gore got out of the race, to talk to people who know Lieberman. I said, "Now, do you expect that you'll hear first from Al Gore," because that would be natural, because Lieberman said, "Oh, I'm not going to run if Al Gore runs." So you would think he would call and say, "OK, Joe, go at it."

And I said, "So he'll be calling Lieberman, do you suspect?" And this guy said, "Who knows what Al Gore is going to do?"

(LAUGHTER)

I mean, I think, Dana, you were still up on the Hill at the time. There were a lot of people that put in calls to Gore afterwards and he never returned the calls. He's taking private life really seriously.

(LAUGHTER)

BASH: He sure is. And you know, that's a typical, I think, Al Gore story. He loves technology.

(LAUGHTER)

That Blackberry was on his belt the entire time, even during the 2000 election.

But you know, Candy, one thing that I've been thinking about is -- you mention a lot of senators that want to be president, and another senator that is thinking about it and may well jump into the race very, very soon is Senator Tom Daschle.

And you know, he's the head, the leader in the Democratic Party in the Senate. Can you imagine what it's going to be like?

And he says, by the way, we think that he's not going to -- if he does run, he's not going to step down as leader right away.

Can you imagine what it's going to be like in one of those caucuses with Senator Daschle leading and Senator Kerry there, Senator Lieberman, Senator Edwards? They all want to be president. How are they going to get things done? It's going to be amazing.

CROWLEY: Kelli and I were just laughing about it, saying you could sort of see this caucus with them going, "No, I want to make the first speech." "No, no I'll make the first speech."

It is a question, though. I mean, Bob Dole obviously ran as the -- when he was majority leader. But he stepped down after the -- a little before the convention actually. Now, part of his was political. He needed to bee seen as an outside-Washington guy and get rid of the suit and the coat and the tie. Daschle can't do it forever. First of all, because you can't do the job, and second of all, eventually you don't want to look like an insider.

ARENA: So basically, you have to be a regular guy who's an expert on terrorism, who can save the economy.

CROWLEY: With, you know, appeal and a lot of money. And there you've got it.

Look, you know, and part of the problem with the Edwards thing that's come up is, here's a guy who literally was a trial lawyer and very successful. He's got -- we joked about it, a regular millionaire. But the fact of the matter is, he has very modest roots. His father worked in a textile mill. His mother had various jobs.

ARENA: This is a page from -- I mean, this is a page from President Bush. I mean, this is all we heard, right? "I'm a regular guy. Trust me."

DAVIS: "I'm not an insider." Right.

ARENA: "I'm not a Washington insider. You need somebody..."

CROWLEY: But it was pre-9/11. And this is post-9/11. And that's the big question. Do the Democrats want a fresh face, which Edwards is -- smart guy, articulate, all of those things -- but only been in politics for four years.

Do you want a fresh face or an old hand, like Daschle or like Lieberman or like Kerry or even like Howard Dean, who has been governor of Vermont? I think, post-9/11, it changes how people look at foreign policy credentials.

ARENA: Well, what is the scoop on Daschle? Is it a yes, or is it a no?

CROWLEY: You know, Dana has been covering this as well. Leaning heavily yes, but I have yet to get a "OK, he's in."

What about you, Dana?

BASH: Yes, I mean, that's exactly what I'm hearing too, Candy, that he's very close. He had a meeting this past week with some of his -- about a dozen of his senior advisers, both kind of his kitchen cabinet from outside of the Senate and his senior staffers, and they talked long and hard about it.

And really, Al Gore not running changed the dynamic for Tom Daschle, no question about it, and it really left an open field for everybody. But it really, it seemed, just talked to his folks, to change his attitude toward this.

And he's certainly leaning that way. This weekend he's in South Dakota, talking to advisers, which they say is a key part of his decision-making process. But one thing that one of his advisers said to me is that his wife, Linda Daschle, who we had heard over the past year had been really kind of down on him running for president, one of his advisers said to me, "Nope, she's gung-ho, she's very enthusiastic, as is the whole family." So we'll see if she has influence there.

CROWLEY: You know, I think, just sort of to put a period on that, I think the big question has always been, for me, is Daschle himself gung-ho? I always thought this time around for Tom Daschle it would be up or out, that the Senate is kind of done for him. And I just think he's one of those guys that, if you covered him or know him and have heard him talk, that you wonder whether the fire in the belly is there. That's, I think, that's the big question in Washington.

BASH: I agree with that.

ARENA: Dana, I want to thank you for joining us from Crawford, Texas. And from politics to homeland security and fresh concern about people sneaking into the United States. We'll talk about the death sentence imposed yesterday on the killer of Danielle van Dam. We'll discuss airline security and airline food. Plus, a news alert. All just ahead on CNN's SATURDAY EDITION.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID HARRIS, FORMER CANADIAN INTELLIGENCE OFFICER: We know that when we're in the realm of illicit transportation, smuggling, we're dealing with a dark miasma often of confusion, some of it by design.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: David Harris, former Canadian intelligence officer, talking about the mystery surrounding the nationwide FBI search for people who may have sneaked into the country over the holidays.

Welcome back to CNN's SATURDAY EDITION.

Even the pictures of the five men turned out to be a muddled message. We were told first that the pictures were -- they were pretty sure that those were the pictures but not the names, they weren't sure about the names.

And so we heard from this man in Pakistan who said, "Hey, that's my picture, but that's not my name, and I've never been to the United States." Well, after some further investigation, it did become obvious that he had acquired a fake British passport and had made his way to the UAE, only to be turned around and sent back to Pakistan.

And this whole investigation started, of course -- the result of an investigation into a ring that provided fake passports and visas, a Canadian investigation. So...

CROWLEY: So it's clearly big business. So, you know, what made these -- a lot of people come into the U.S. with illegal papers, correct?

ARENA: Right.

CROWLEY: So what made these guys stand out? Was this profiling? Was this...

ARENA: Well, the man that they had in custody, a man by the name John Handani (ph), who was in custody in Canada and was this alleged leader of this smuggling ring, said that these five men were urgent, they had a sense of urgency about them and needing to get to the United States by a date certain, that being Christmas Eve, December 24th. And so he relayed that information to investigators.

And of course you had the January 1st celebration in New York. They were thought to have come in over the Eastern border of the United States right above New York state. You had this person in custody saying, "Well, these five out of any others seemed to be really intent on getting in by a certain time."

And so they didn't -- they weren't sure what they were dealing with. The FBI is still not sure what it's dealing with.

DAVIS: That's my question. Should we be worried? As a citizen out there, should I still be looking for these guys?

ARENA: I think the answer from officials is yes. I mean, they want to know as much as they can. I mean, they're interested in getting this guy in Pakistan and Mohammed Ashgar (ph) and talking to him and saying, "Well, what do you know? We need as much information as we can get." And from any of the other individuals, why did they want to come to the United States? What was the purpose? What's their business here? Is it traditional criminal activity? Is it possible terrorist activity? They don't know.

But at this point in the game, they can't take any guesses. Because let's say, for example, as one official said to me, hypothetically, they have information on these guys, they don't put their pictures out on the web, something happens. And then the uproar afterwards, saying, "My God, you had these pictures, you had information, you should've let the public know, somebody could've seen them." So that...

CROWLEY: Yes, they're darned if they do and darned if they don't.

ARENA: Right. This is an investigation in progress, and usually we are not privy to seeing an investigation in progress. But theses days, everything is being laid out in the open if there's any risk at all.

DAVIS: Kelli, the search under way for another missing person, this time not a terrorist, a pregnant woman, an eight-month pregnant woman, Lacey Peterson (ph) in Modesto.

Is her husband a suspect in that? ARENA: You know, they're not officially claiming anyone a suspect at this point. But it is very interesting that he was -- you know, at first they came out and said he's not a suspect, and then all of a sudden, as Candy and I were talking about earlier, he's all of a sudden -- they're saying, "Well, you know, he supposedly went fishing for the day, had a ticket that said that he went to the marina." Now they're saying, Well, if there's anybody who can corroborate that evidence for us, we'd like to hear from you.

But again, I mean, this is someone who just vanished Christmas Eve, walking her dog...

DAVIS: That is so frightening.

CROWLEY: It really is, it really is.

ARENA: Oh God. Twenty-seven years old. I mean, just gone. And it brings to mind, of course -- I mean, you know, we think of all the other missing persons cases, and another one culminated. This week, Danielle van Dam's -- you know, the convicted murderer in that, Mr. Westerfield, sentenced to death.

We heard from Danielle's mother, very emotional speech. I mean, Mr. Westerfield declined to say anything, but I think we even have a little bit of what she had to say, if we can listen to her. She was on Larry King last night, as a matter of fact. Let's hear.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRENDA VAN DAM, MOTHER OF DANIELLE VAN DAM: ... maybe possible made them realize that I am a wonderful mother, I adore my children, and I would do absolutely anything possible if I could get her back.

And I think that it was -- Damon and I being there every day was -- we were there for Danielle. I mean, the state was there for the state. The prosecuting attorneys, the defense attorneys were there for Westerfield. And I felt that Danielle needed to be represented every day in the courtroom.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: Of course she said in the courtroom, in talking to David Westerfield, she said, you know, "I do not recommend any mercy for you because you showed no mercy to my daughter."

ARENA: And it was just, you know, was this newsbreaking? No. You know, did we all -- you know, they had recommended that he be sentenced to death. It was fully expected. But it was an emotional drama in that courtroom.

CROWLEY: And I think part of, you know -- I mean, I told you earlier that I just thought part of that -- I just wanted to say since there's no news here, I wish the courts would say, "OK, no TVs," because it was so wrenching to watch it.

But she touched on something in that Larry King thing, which was she was under double pressures, because not only was her daughter dead, but there were questions about her motherhood. So you've already got that horrible guilt about, "I should have saved this child," and then to get piled on in the public. That woman had the worst of every possible world.

DAVIS: Absolutely.

ARENA: Right. And you know, just getting back full circle to our original discussion on terrorism and, you know, I mean, if you're not worried about your kids and you know where they -- we're certainly entering this year with just about as much anxiety as we did going out. You know, still on a state of high alert, elevated level of caution, and many, you know, of the al Qaeda leadership still at large. Really not much of a momentum building on this war on terror.

DAVIS: Well, from the manhunts to the security of air travel, more on that as CNN's SATURDAY EDITION continues.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT JOHNSON, TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION: Security is no longer a spectator sport. You can't sit on the sidelines, show up at the airport late and go on auto-pilot, thinking this is going to be just a hunky-dory experience.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DAVIS: Robert Johnson of the Transportation Security Administration reminding us that security is not cheap or easy.

Welcome back to CNN's SATURDAY EDITION.

The new rules are in place. Many of us traveled over the holidays, and the official and informal reports are in, and they are good. There were dire predictions out there that this was going to be a chaotic Christmas at the airports.

I was at the airports both traveling for the holiday and there at New Years covering the story. There were more screeners standing around to screen bags than there were passengers.

So that could have been the factor.

ARENA: But, Patti, right, is that, is that really a factor? I mean, they picked the New Year's weekend. I mean, if they had picked, God forbid, the holiday, Christmas weekend, you would have had...

DAVIS: Right. Yes, absolutely.

ARENA: But you had fewer passengers. I mean, is this really a test?

DAVIS: Absolutely, fewer passengers. Not a real test. This weekend they're saying may be a true test, because you have people returning from Christmas, you have people coming back from their New Year's holiday. You may see it. But it's looking pretty good. They did it. And you've got to hand it to the TSA, after all of the criticism they took, that they pulled it off.

ARENA: Did you hear a lot of grumbling from passengers about the fact that there were people riffling through their luggage?

DAVIS: Yeah, surprisingly not. And although you see reports about how they're going to be opening a lot of luggage, and in fact I reported that -- in case, that's true. But they're really not going to open that many pieces of luggage. And people in fact were saying, "We're glad they're doing this. They can do whatever they want to do just to make us safe."

Some suggestions from the Transportation Security Administration: Don't lock your bag. In fact, I have the lock. It's still a plastic lock that they are giving passengers in the next couple of weeks to put it on your bag instead of your lock that they will break if they have to get into your luggage. Use this instead. They can snip it. They can go inside if you're not right there. They can check out what's inside your luggage. And then they'll put a blue lock on it and a piece of paper inside your luggage that says, "Hey, we were in your luggage. If you have a problem with that, something broken and something missing, call this 800 number, and in fact, we'll deal with this."

CROWLEY: They put in one of those little operator number 33...

(LAUGHTER)

... you know, searched your bag.

Look, we're not really going to know -- I mean, we're going to know whether it's a hassle but we don't really know if it's effective until we go a long time without anything happening or until they thwart, right?

I mean, this is right now. The only thing they've proven is it wasn't the hassle on this light weekend that they thought it would be, right?

DAVIS: That's right. And I guess, yes, right, you won't see the results of this, because there will be hopefully no bombs on airplanes.

And this was put into place not necessarily because of September 11, 2001, what happened, because it wasn't a bomb that brought those planes down. But Lockerbie, 1988, Pan Am 103, a bomb in luggage did bring that plane down. And advocates of airline security have been just pushing for this for a long time, to get this in place.

One thing though, theft is definitely a question on passengers' minds. What are we going to do even if this lock is snipped and another lock is put on, what if something is missing from your bag, what do you do? TSA talking about putting in place perhaps videotaping in those baggage handling rooms where the screeners are doing their jobs there. That way you can find out, you can go back and say, "OK, yeah, it was that guy that stole something from my bag."

But TSA saying that they'll deal with theft or things broken in your luggage on a case-by-case basis. But you would think it would be kind of hard for a passenger to prove that something was taken from their bag.

CROWLEY: A new year in travel.

More stories of our week when CNN's SATURDAY EDITION comes back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DAVIS: We all grumble about air travel, the lines, the delays, the lost luggage and, of course, the food.

Now people fed up with the puny bags of pretzels have something else to whine about. America West next week planning to start charging passengers for meals on some flights. Three bucks for a little snack box, 10 bucks for a chicken kiev dinner.

(LAUGHTER)

Would you pay?

ARENA: Patti, OK, is this going to be like the movie theater? Now that they're offering food, you know, for a price, does that mean I can't bring my own food now on the airplane, on the flight?

DAVIS: No, you can still definitely still bring your own food. And in America West's defense here, they didn't serve food. They're like a Southwest Airlines, you get peanuts. And so this is something passengers who...

CROWLEY: It's a step up for them.

DAVIS: It's a step up for them.

(LAUGHTER)

Passengers starving on some of these flights. And not only America West and Southwest, but on these full service carriers, they are no longer offering food. Northwest, in fact, thinking about doing this themselves. They're studying it right now.

But that brought to my mind the fact that the full-service carriers after the September 11th terror attacks really hurting, going to lose almost $10 billion this year, trying to raise revenue any way they can.

This is not only -- this is not the only perk that they have cut or that they're thinking about cutting. Also you have to pay for paper tickets. You've got to -- new restrictions on non-refundable tickets. You know, lots of restrictions. Baggage, for instance, Northwest and American Airlines charge you know for any bag that weighs more than 50 pounds.

ARENA: It used to be 75 or something around there.

DAVIS: Seventy or so.

ARENA: OK.

CROWLEY: Does all of this hold true for first-class travel, or is that a special little division of itself?

DAVIS: Well, the airlines in fact are trying to close up some of those loopholes. Some of those passengers were allowed to get away with things like carrying heavier bags on board. No longer allowed to do that.

ARENA: And your frequent flier miles, big restrictions there, like you use them or lose them by certain dates and not getting as many.

DAVIS: Airlines, yes, want to be very careful though. These are there best customers. They're going to keep offering those frequent flier miles. But if you buy the cheap tickets, you're going to get less miles. If you buy the more elite tickets, you're going to get more miles -- first class, the business class.

So they're really trying to still encourage that loyalty. They need customers. They're losing a lot of money, and they want to keep these passengers on board and coming back to their airlines.

The problem, though, some people say is they're chasing away their best customers.

ARENA: Right, right.

DAVIS: They're getting rid of all of these perks. What is up with airlines?

ARENA: Well, we have to fly, but OK, we're running out of time and I have to -- the big stunner this week was that they had an illegal immigrant working at the White House.

(LAUGHTER)

This was a guy...

CROWLEY: I'm with you. And he was apparently harmless. I mean, they're charging him with something, right...

ARENA: But they said -- it's just that he tried to come into the country again using false documents. But Salvador Gonzales apparently back in 2000, December of 2000, seen here with former President Bill Clinton.

(LAUGHTER) DAVIS: Looks like a cardboard cut-out to me.

ARENA: He had been told -- he had been asked to leave -- he had been asked to leave the country and didn't back in December 2000. Got himself a new identity and then went to work for HDO, which is a company that supplies workers to the White House. And he basically set up tents for functions and was right there on the White House grounds.

Secret Service said he never posed a threat. You know, was just a guy looking for a job.

CROWLEY: Right, fine. However, I would just like to say that it takes to get your first White House pass, a six-month background check...

ARENA: Right, for press.

CROWLEY: ... which used to include -- and for others. I mean, it took a long time for like someone in the Clinton White House to get their passes. But I mean, which used to include -- and I got mine a long time ago so I haven't done it -- but it used to include asking your neighbors if you do drugs.

ARENA: Right.

CROWLEY: You know, do you have late night parties? Anything suspicious going on at your house? And then like, illegal aliens working at the White House.

ARENA: Taking his picture. And apparently he was traveling with his pictures when he was arrested, when he came into the country.

DAVIS: Not posing a threat? I mean, he's standing right next to President Clinton and Vice President Cheney.

ARENA: And Secret Service, I mean, while they were not pleased, you know, did come out and say officially that there's no information or evidence to suggest that he ever posed a threat. He was a guy looking for a job like a lot of others. But...

CROWLEY: He posed -- he himself meant no one any harm. But the fact of the matter is, we've got pictures of him standing next to Bill Clinton. So to say that he didn't pose as threat...

ARENA: But again, OK, let's all (inaudible), you know, with pre- 9/11 and obviously a lot has changed since then...

CROWLEY: Well, it took six months to get my White House pass pre-9/11.

(LAUGHTER)

ARENA: And she's still angry about it.

(LAUGHTER) DAVIS: Well, how did they even find out about this guy?

ARENA: Well, he tried to get in again. He tried to get into the country using fake documents. I mean, he's been in and out several times. You know, he's changed his identity a few times.

But you know, I mean, look, there are a lot of -- I mean, the INS has a long way to go, by it's own admission, in terms of reform and especially protecting its borders. I mean, you know, you have the Mexican border and obviously you have the Canadian border, which we know all too well, of course, with the five guys that they're still looking for, are still posing a great deal of problems.

Well, anyway, that is our SATURDAY EDITION. Thanks to my colleagues. And thanks to you for watching. We'll see you next week.

Coming up, a news alert and CNN's People in the News, focusing this week on Alanis Morrissette and Margaret Cho.

But first, the president's weekly address.

(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)

BUSH: Good morning.

One year ago this month, our country set a bold new course in public education. With the No Child Left Behind Act, America began a promising era in our public schools -- an era of local control, high standards, and accountability that will produce better results for America's students.

Under the new law, key choices about education spending will be made at the local level by parents and teachers and principals who know the children best. Government cannot and must not try to run the nation's schools from Washington, D.C.

Yet the federal government has an important role. We are providing far more money than ever before to help states and local school districts -- more than $22 billion in this school year alone.

Over the last two years, we have increased federal spending by 40 percent, and in return we are insisting that schools use that money wisely. States must set new and higher goals for every student to ensure that students are learning the basics and reading and math.

The law also requires that school regularly test students, share the results with parents, and show how the results in each school compare with others. My budget provides more than enough money for states to test every student every year in grades three through eight. Testing is the only way to know which students are learning and which students need extra help so we can give them help before they fall further behind.

For parents with children in persistently failing schools, the law provides hopeful options. Those parents can choose to send their children to better public schools or receive funding to pay for after- school tutoring or other academic help. No parent will have to settle year after year for schools that do not teach and will not change. Instead of getting excuses, parents will now get choices.

Across America, states and school districts are working hard to implement these reforms. They're developing accountability plans and beginning innovative tutoring programs. The path to real reform and better results is not easy but it is essential.

The priorities of last year's reforms will also be reflected in the budget I will submit to Congress this year. Too many students in lower-income families fall behind early, resulting in a terrible gap in test scores between these students and their more fortunate peers.

To help close this achievement gap, I will ask Congress to approve an additional $1 billion, a total of $12.3 billion, for the Title I program in the 2004 budget. This would be the highest funding level ever for Title I, which serves our neediest students.

Our reforms will not be complete until every child in America has an equal chance to succeed in school and rise in the world. For every child, education begins with strong reading schools. With the Reading First program, we have set a national goal: to make sure that every child in America is reading by the third grade.

To move toward that goal, I will request more than $1.1 billion for federal reading programs in next year's budget, an increase of $75 million over last year's budget request. This investment will go only to support programs with proven results in teaching children to read.

The No Child Left Behind Act was a victory of bipartisan cooperation. By this law, we affirmed our basic faith in the wisdom of parents and communities and our fundamental belief in the promise of every child.

The work of reform is well begun, and we are determined to continue that effort until every school in America is a place of learning and achievement.

Thank you for listening.

(END AUDIOTAPE)

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




Halt North Korea's Weapons Program; Bush to Unveil Economic Plan Next Week>


Aired January 4, 2003 - 10:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Welcome to CNN's SATURDAY EDITION, where our journalists have the inside scope on the stories we've covered this week. I'm Candy Crowley.
Check that calendar. A fresh new year ahead of us. But for some Democrats, time is running out to run for president.

REBECCA MACKINNON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Rebecca MacKinnon in Seoul, South Korea. Diplomats in the region are mobilizing into high gear to try and stop North Korea's nuclear weapons development. Meanwhile, Seoul is getting impatient with Washington and is hoping to take the driver's seat in resolving this crisis.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I'm Dana Bash in Crawford, Texas. The president is vacationing here, but he's got North Korea and Iraq on his radar. And next week, he unveils an economic plan.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: I'm Kelli Arena. The nationwide alert for five men wanted for questioning by the FBI while their plans and any terrorism links are unknown.

PATTI DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And I'm Patti Davis here in the U.S. New airport security rules get a thumbs-up from the pros and the passengers, and plans to charge extra for airline food get panned.

All this just ahead, and we'll be listening to the president's weekly radio address at the end of the hour. But first, a check on what's making headlines right now, with a news alert from CNN's headquarters in Atlanta.

(NEWSBREAK)

MACKINNON: Here in South Korea, the reopening of North Korea's nuclear weapons development has ratcheted up tensions, North Korea blaming the United States for the current state of affairs. From North Korea's perspective, if the United States is not talking to Pyongyang, it must be preparing to target that country.

Now, here in Seoul, the understanding of course is that there is no U.S. mobilization to target North Korea. However, there is frustration among the leadership and the people that Washington may be taking too hard a stance toward North Korea. On the street level, we have anti-U.S. demonstrations over the past several weeks, expressing frustration with the United States on the diplomatic policy level. The new incoming president here, Roh Moo Hyun, has been working on a new compromise proposal, which he's hoping to table in the coming days in meetings with Washington and other allies.

So that's where we stand at this point.

CROWLEY: Rebecca, it's Candy Crowley in Washington. Let me ask you about the anti-American sentiment. Do you feel it in the streets? I mean, does it get targeted toward you? Do people talk to you about it? What's that like?

MACKINNON: Well, it is not -- it's not the kind of thing where you go out on the street, people come up to you and start criticizing the United States.

It's really directed more at two things. One is the U.S. military presence here, which especially young people increasingly do not see the point of. They see it more as a burden and do not directly see what benefit they're getting.

The other is a feeling that the United States has been, for too long, just telling the South Korean government what to do. And there's a great feeling of national pride here, and that the United States ought to respect what the South Koreans want to do when it comes to handling North Korea.

Of course, if there were to be a conflict, it's the South Korean civilians that would be pay the heaviest price. And there is a bit of a frustration here on the street that Washington may not be respecting the South Korean government's view quite as much as people would like.

BASH: Rebecca, it's Dana Bash in Crawford. I have a question for you. You know, the administration officials are telling me that while you're hearing this frustration coming from South Korea because they say the administration is taking too hard of a line, that privately they are trying to get the message to South Korea and to really the other countries that they're trying to work with to deal with this problem, that they really aren't taking that hard of a line, that "Don't believe what you're reading in the papers."

That's what one administration official said to me, that that's their message to officials in South Korea.

Are you getting the sense that officials are getting that message through private channels from the administration, that they really aren't taking that hard of a line, that it's kind of not being portrayed accurately?

MACKINNON: Well, I think people are really looking forward to the talks coming up in the coming week. We have South Korean officials on their way to Washington right now, where they'll have more opportunity to talk to U.S. officials, exactly how the situation is going to move forward.

We've got a high-ranking U.S. official, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, coming here next week. And again, there will be very high-level meetings between him and the new incoming, and as well as the outgoing, president, where that message can come across.

But the problem here is that people -- people here are getting a sense that North Korea is not getting the message, that from North Korea's perspective, it appears that the Pyongyang leadership really believes that if the U.S. is not going to talk to them, that the U.S. really is planning to attack.

And so the question is how to make North Korea feel less defensive, because as long as they're feeling threatened and defensive, the chances that they will back down on their nuclear weapons development program is considered fairly slim.

DAVIS: If this is a move by North Korea to get something from the U.S. perhaps, they're threatening their (ph) stance, what is it that North Korea wants from the U.S.?

MACKINNON: Well, what the North Koreans have said they want is a non-aggression treaty. That means they want the United States to sit down and sign a piece of paper basically promising that the United States will not attack North Korea and also declaring that the U.S. recognizes the North Korean government's right to exist.

Now, Washington has said they're not going to do this, because this would be rewarding bad behavior.

So while -- Washington has said they won't negotiate, but they will talk. Exactly where the wiggle room lies at this point is not entirely clear.

BASH: Do you know, Rebecca -- it's Dana again -- the administration is making pretty clear privately that they are intentionally saying that they're not going to go for one-on-one negotiations with North Korea, but they're certainly leaving the door open for perhaps broader talks. They're not ruling out maybe even some kind of talks with both the United States and, let's say, China and Japan and South Korea. And perhaps if North Korea could be there, maybe that's something that they would go for, but they are intentionally telling us that they're not ruling that out.

CROWLEY: Rebecca, Candy Crowley. I wanted to ask you, I saw your show (ph) from the DMZ. And I wanted to add to Dana's, if you'll give us a sense of are there increased tensions there? You know, sometimes it's a pretty routine job. We've been there so long. But now we've got this anti-American feeling in South Korea, and we've got North Korea feeling threatened. What's that feel up there?

MACKINNON: Well, up there when you talk to the U.S. military personnel stationed there who patrol the line of control, who look across at the North Korean soldiers every day, they say nothing has really changed.

The American state of alertness is always very high because they are so close to the other side, but it is no higher than usual. They're still tour groups going through. There are spouse visits in areas very close to the DMZ that would not be allowed if people thought that conflict was really imminent. So it's very much business as usual there. And when you talk to the soldiers, they say, "This is a matter for the diplomats right now. We're waiting for them to let the situation proceed, and no instructions have been given to us to do anything out of ordinary."

BASH: Rebecca, I want to thank you on behalf of all of us for staying up until midnight your time to join us.

And when we come back, we're going to talk more about North Korea and Iraq and the economy, all on the president's agenda, when CNN's SATURDAY EDITION returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My job is to protect the American people and work to create confidence in our economy so that people can find work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: That's the president talking about the triple threat that he's dealing with right now, while vacationing here in Texas. That's Iraq and North Korea and the economy.

You know, it's interesting that the president, while here in Crawford -- he's been here for about nine days, and he really doesn't usually venture out much when he's here. He loves to kind of get away and enjoy kind of the seclusion of his ranch here in Crawford.

But aides always tell us that he's absolutely connected. He gets his briefings every day. The president actually told us this week that he now has a secure videophone so that he can talk to Dick Cheney whenever he wants, and he did that this week.

But what was interesting to me was to see how the president did venture out this week. First, he went to a coffee shop, a local coffee shop, which I want to point out is the only coffee shop in Crawford, Texas. There's only about 700 people here. There's just one blinking light in this town.

But the other thing that he did was he invited reporters onto his ranch. He took them around. He took them on a four-mile hike where he pointed out all of the sights and sounds of the nature that he loves. He showed them where he clears brush, which is what he likes to do all the time.

But what was notable, I thought, was that he knew that he had to get his message out, he know that he had to talk about these major issues like North Korea, like Iraq and the economy, but he did so literally on his own terrain. And so he kind of made sure to get it out there.

ARENA: Dana, talking about getting your message out, it was two weeks or so before we heard anything from the administration on why North Korea was different from Iraq. Why did it take so long?

BASH: You know, it's interesting, Iraq and the economy were two issues that the president and the White House were absolutely prepared for. They had a strategy down, they knew that come January they were going to have to come in and really deal with those issues. North Korea, frankly, took them by surprise.

And over the past couple of weeks -- it happened kind of at a weird time because it was the holiday time. The White House didn't have their daily briefings like they normally do. The president has been away on vacation.

So we did hear over the past couple of weeks from spokesmen, kind of talking to them on the phone and getting statements from them. And then of course we heard from Secretary of State Colin Powell last Sunday. But it took a while for them to get the president out there. A lot of it really had to do with both being surprised and just the timing of it all.

DAVIS: Well, what's the rationale from the president about why Iraq is so much more of a threat than North Korea?

BASH: Well, they're making it really clear, Patti, that Iraq is a place where there's a dictator who has invaded other countries and he's just -- they're sure that he has these weapons of mass destruction and that he is somebody who has to be dealt with by the U.S., because they say there's no one else to deal with Iraq.

With North Korea, there's just -- it's a threat, certainly, but it's a threat more immediately to the neighbors there, like South Korea and Japan. And that the way to deal with North Korea is to work through those neighbors, because it's really a bigger threat to them than it is to the United States.

CROWLEY: You know, Dana, it strikes me -- a couple things strike me. One is that it took them two weeks to kind of get their act together on this, and it's a fairly simple explanation, which the president tried to get at, which is, well, they're both threats, but we're dealing with them differently because it's a different situation, which is a fairly simple thing to get out there.

Do you think they suffer from the lack of Karen Hughes, who I think maybe brought the outside world in and said, you got to get out there and do that?

BASH: You know, Candy, that's a good point. I mean, you know this White House and this president really better than most because you covered him for so long on the campaign. But that is a really good point. I mean, that might be a possibility, no question about it.

Now, it seems as though she is definitely -- she's not working at the White House, not on the White House payroll, but from what we're told she certainly is still connected, no question about it.

But it was -- part of it I really do believe had to do with just the fact that they were caught off guard by it and the holiday time just made it kind of weird for them. The president was not out. He hadn't -- before this week, I don't think he had taken questions from reporters in, like, three weeks. So the timing of it was a little bit bizarre for them.

ARENA: Dana, I'm going to turn the page here on the economy, and we are expecting an economic stimulus package twice the size of what was originally expected. You already have Democrats out there beating the drum, very familiar drum, that these are tax cuts for the rich.

What is the administration's stance? How will it respond? Were they ready for the immediate, you know, resistance from the Democratic Party and so early?

BASH: Oh yeah, they were definitely ready for it, there's no question about it, because the Democrats tried to hit the president and the Republicans on the economy during the midterm elections.

Other factors weighed into that, and it made it kind of, that message, on the Democrats' part, kind of muddled. This time, it's not the Republicans and Congress on the ballot, it's the president himself. So they are absolutely prepared to combat that message.

They're going to roll out -- in addition to the president's speech which he'll give next week in Chicago, they're going to roll out a whole kind of operation to sell his plan and to make clear that they believe that this is going to help everybody, it's not just going to help the wealthy, like the Democrats say. They're going to have all kinds of government studies, I'm told, to back up their claims.

So there's no question about it, they knew it was coming, they're ready for it, and they think they can beat it. And they really think that they have to because the president remembers what happens to his father, where he was really focused on Iraq and the economy...

DAVIS: Exactly. The White House must realize though that they do have a vulnerability on the economy somewhat, as you're saying.

BASH: Oh yeah, no question about it. You know, the president made clear this week a couple of times that the economy is strong and they keep saying the economy is resilient. But it's a weird recovery. It's not completely recovering at all.

So they certainly feel a vulnerability, and that is why they had planned, starting this month, in January, to come back and to really hit the economy hard, to talk about it constantly, to come up with this plan and let the American people know that they are working on it, they got it covered.

Because the president remembers what happened to his father, and that is that he was focused on Iraq and the economy was really suffering, the country was in a recession and Americans didn't feel like his father cared. And he's going to make sure he doesn't let that happen.

CROWLEY: And if it strikes you as strange that they're already thinking about the election, I hate to tell you, stranger still, we already pretty much already know what the Democratic race is shaping up to be. Two more guys in the ring this week. We'll talk about that when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D), NORTH CAROLINA: I run for president to be champion -- to be a champion for the same people I fought for all my life, regular folks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CROWLEY: Senator John Edwards, Democrat of North Carolina, pitching his candidacy to regular folks.

Welcome back to CNN's SATURDAY EDITION.

Edwards, a regular millionaire trial lawyer, is just the latest Democrat to step down a path he hopes will lead to an exhausting and, by the way, fabulously expensive marathon to the White House.

I have to tell you a quick story. This clearly is going to be Edward's campaign theme: "I'm a regular guy. I'm not a politician. I've only been in office four years. And I want regular-guy voters."

Gephardt this week also, through a weird way, through fax, we found out obviously is going to establish is exploratory committee. I called up and said, "Well, you know, we want to the congressman, you know, because now he's going to do this." They said, "Well, gee, we can't do it." And I said, "Well, look, you know, we really need to get him near a camera." And they said, "Well, you know home with his daughters and a friend of theirs in the car with his wife and the golden retriever and he's driving to South Carolina to visit relatives." I thought, "OK, now there's a regular guy."

(LAUGHTER)

He's having one of those normal kind of, you know, holiday weekends.

But we did get both Edwards officially, Gephardt, neither one of whom are a surprise. But you know, for junkies like me, a great week.

DAVIS: Candy, you talk about money here. Who's got the money advantage right now? It's obviously important.

CROWLEY: Well, the money advantage right now, just dollar for dollar, goes to John Kerry, who is from Massachusetts, liberal from Massachusetts, basically because he didn't have a race when he ran for Senate. So he pilled -- had a stockpile.

But Joe Lieberman, you really have to give the advantage to in the long haul. He would be the first Jewish president, were he to be elected. He has tapped in to a number of fund raisers for the vice president. He can use that again. He's been in politics for a while. And so he's got a really nice golden Rolodex.

DAVIS: But I have to ask you, what is it with Al Gore apparently only telling Lieberman on his Blackberry, his hand-held Blackberry, that he was not going to run? What is that about?

CROWLEY: Also a true story. I called up, before Al Gore got out of the race, to talk to people who know Lieberman. I said, "Now, do you expect that you'll hear first from Al Gore," because that would be natural, because Lieberman said, "Oh, I'm not going to run if Al Gore runs." So you would think he would call and say, "OK, Joe, go at it."

And I said, "So he'll be calling Lieberman, do you suspect?" And this guy said, "Who knows what Al Gore is going to do?"

(LAUGHTER)

I mean, I think, Dana, you were still up on the Hill at the time. There were a lot of people that put in calls to Gore afterwards and he never returned the calls. He's taking private life really seriously.

(LAUGHTER)

BASH: He sure is. And you know, that's a typical, I think, Al Gore story. He loves technology.

(LAUGHTER)

That Blackberry was on his belt the entire time, even during the 2000 election.

But you know, Candy, one thing that I've been thinking about is -- you mention a lot of senators that want to be president, and another senator that is thinking about it and may well jump into the race very, very soon is Senator Tom Daschle.

And you know, he's the head, the leader in the Democratic Party in the Senate. Can you imagine what it's going to be like?

And he says, by the way, we think that he's not going to -- if he does run, he's not going to step down as leader right away.

Can you imagine what it's going to be like in one of those caucuses with Senator Daschle leading and Senator Kerry there, Senator Lieberman, Senator Edwards? They all want to be president. How are they going to get things done? It's going to be amazing.

CROWLEY: Kelli and I were just laughing about it, saying you could sort of see this caucus with them going, "No, I want to make the first speech." "No, no I'll make the first speech."

It is a question, though. I mean, Bob Dole obviously ran as the -- when he was majority leader. But he stepped down after the -- a little before the convention actually. Now, part of his was political. He needed to bee seen as an outside-Washington guy and get rid of the suit and the coat and the tie. Daschle can't do it forever. First of all, because you can't do the job, and second of all, eventually you don't want to look like an insider.

ARENA: So basically, you have to be a regular guy who's an expert on terrorism, who can save the economy.

CROWLEY: With, you know, appeal and a lot of money. And there you've got it.

Look, you know, and part of the problem with the Edwards thing that's come up is, here's a guy who literally was a trial lawyer and very successful. He's got -- we joked about it, a regular millionaire. But the fact of the matter is, he has very modest roots. His father worked in a textile mill. His mother had various jobs.

ARENA: This is a page from -- I mean, this is a page from President Bush. I mean, this is all we heard, right? "I'm a regular guy. Trust me."

DAVIS: "I'm not an insider." Right.

ARENA: "I'm not a Washington insider. You need somebody..."

CROWLEY: But it was pre-9/11. And this is post-9/11. And that's the big question. Do the Democrats want a fresh face, which Edwards is -- smart guy, articulate, all of those things -- but only been in politics for four years.

Do you want a fresh face or an old hand, like Daschle or like Lieberman or like Kerry or even like Howard Dean, who has been governor of Vermont? I think, post-9/11, it changes how people look at foreign policy credentials.

ARENA: Well, what is the scoop on Daschle? Is it a yes, or is it a no?

CROWLEY: You know, Dana has been covering this as well. Leaning heavily yes, but I have yet to get a "OK, he's in."

What about you, Dana?

BASH: Yes, I mean, that's exactly what I'm hearing too, Candy, that he's very close. He had a meeting this past week with some of his -- about a dozen of his senior advisers, both kind of his kitchen cabinet from outside of the Senate and his senior staffers, and they talked long and hard about it.

And really, Al Gore not running changed the dynamic for Tom Daschle, no question about it, and it really left an open field for everybody. But it really, it seemed, just talked to his folks, to change his attitude toward this.

And he's certainly leaning that way. This weekend he's in South Dakota, talking to advisers, which they say is a key part of his decision-making process. But one thing that one of his advisers said to me is that his wife, Linda Daschle, who we had heard over the past year had been really kind of down on him running for president, one of his advisers said to me, "Nope, she's gung-ho, she's very enthusiastic, as is the whole family." So we'll see if she has influence there.

CROWLEY: You know, I think, just sort of to put a period on that, I think the big question has always been, for me, is Daschle himself gung-ho? I always thought this time around for Tom Daschle it would be up or out, that the Senate is kind of done for him. And I just think he's one of those guys that, if you covered him or know him and have heard him talk, that you wonder whether the fire in the belly is there. That's, I think, that's the big question in Washington.

BASH: I agree with that.

ARENA: Dana, I want to thank you for joining us from Crawford, Texas. And from politics to homeland security and fresh concern about people sneaking into the United States. We'll talk about the death sentence imposed yesterday on the killer of Danielle van Dam. We'll discuss airline security and airline food. Plus, a news alert. All just ahead on CNN's SATURDAY EDITION.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID HARRIS, FORMER CANADIAN INTELLIGENCE OFFICER: We know that when we're in the realm of illicit transportation, smuggling, we're dealing with a dark miasma often of confusion, some of it by design.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: David Harris, former Canadian intelligence officer, talking about the mystery surrounding the nationwide FBI search for people who may have sneaked into the country over the holidays.

Welcome back to CNN's SATURDAY EDITION.

Even the pictures of the five men turned out to be a muddled message. We were told first that the pictures were -- they were pretty sure that those were the pictures but not the names, they weren't sure about the names.

And so we heard from this man in Pakistan who said, "Hey, that's my picture, but that's not my name, and I've never been to the United States." Well, after some further investigation, it did become obvious that he had acquired a fake British passport and had made his way to the UAE, only to be turned around and sent back to Pakistan.

And this whole investigation started, of course -- the result of an investigation into a ring that provided fake passports and visas, a Canadian investigation. So...

CROWLEY: So it's clearly big business. So, you know, what made these -- a lot of people come into the U.S. with illegal papers, correct?

ARENA: Right.

CROWLEY: So what made these guys stand out? Was this profiling? Was this...

ARENA: Well, the man that they had in custody, a man by the name John Handani (ph), who was in custody in Canada and was this alleged leader of this smuggling ring, said that these five men were urgent, they had a sense of urgency about them and needing to get to the United States by a date certain, that being Christmas Eve, December 24th. And so he relayed that information to investigators.

And of course you had the January 1st celebration in New York. They were thought to have come in over the Eastern border of the United States right above New York state. You had this person in custody saying, "Well, these five out of any others seemed to be really intent on getting in by a certain time."

And so they didn't -- they weren't sure what they were dealing with. The FBI is still not sure what it's dealing with.

DAVIS: That's my question. Should we be worried? As a citizen out there, should I still be looking for these guys?

ARENA: I think the answer from officials is yes. I mean, they want to know as much as they can. I mean, they're interested in getting this guy in Pakistan and Mohammed Ashgar (ph) and talking to him and saying, "Well, what do you know? We need as much information as we can get." And from any of the other individuals, why did they want to come to the United States? What was the purpose? What's their business here? Is it traditional criminal activity? Is it possible terrorist activity? They don't know.

But at this point in the game, they can't take any guesses. Because let's say, for example, as one official said to me, hypothetically, they have information on these guys, they don't put their pictures out on the web, something happens. And then the uproar afterwards, saying, "My God, you had these pictures, you had information, you should've let the public know, somebody could've seen them." So that...

CROWLEY: Yes, they're darned if they do and darned if they don't.

ARENA: Right. This is an investigation in progress, and usually we are not privy to seeing an investigation in progress. But theses days, everything is being laid out in the open if there's any risk at all.

DAVIS: Kelli, the search under way for another missing person, this time not a terrorist, a pregnant woman, an eight-month pregnant woman, Lacey Peterson (ph) in Modesto.

Is her husband a suspect in that? ARENA: You know, they're not officially claiming anyone a suspect at this point. But it is very interesting that he was -- you know, at first they came out and said he's not a suspect, and then all of a sudden, as Candy and I were talking about earlier, he's all of a sudden -- they're saying, "Well, you know, he supposedly went fishing for the day, had a ticket that said that he went to the marina." Now they're saying, Well, if there's anybody who can corroborate that evidence for us, we'd like to hear from you.

But again, I mean, this is someone who just vanished Christmas Eve, walking her dog...

DAVIS: That is so frightening.

CROWLEY: It really is, it really is.

ARENA: Oh God. Twenty-seven years old. I mean, just gone. And it brings to mind, of course -- I mean, you know, we think of all the other missing persons cases, and another one culminated. This week, Danielle van Dam's -- you know, the convicted murderer in that, Mr. Westerfield, sentenced to death.

We heard from Danielle's mother, very emotional speech. I mean, Mr. Westerfield declined to say anything, but I think we even have a little bit of what she had to say, if we can listen to her. She was on Larry King last night, as a matter of fact. Let's hear.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRENDA VAN DAM, MOTHER OF DANIELLE VAN DAM: ... maybe possible made them realize that I am a wonderful mother, I adore my children, and I would do absolutely anything possible if I could get her back.

And I think that it was -- Damon and I being there every day was -- we were there for Danielle. I mean, the state was there for the state. The prosecuting attorneys, the defense attorneys were there for Westerfield. And I felt that Danielle needed to be represented every day in the courtroom.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: Of course she said in the courtroom, in talking to David Westerfield, she said, you know, "I do not recommend any mercy for you because you showed no mercy to my daughter."

ARENA: And it was just, you know, was this newsbreaking? No. You know, did we all -- you know, they had recommended that he be sentenced to death. It was fully expected. But it was an emotional drama in that courtroom.

CROWLEY: And I think part of, you know -- I mean, I told you earlier that I just thought part of that -- I just wanted to say since there's no news here, I wish the courts would say, "OK, no TVs," because it was so wrenching to watch it.

But she touched on something in that Larry King thing, which was she was under double pressures, because not only was her daughter dead, but there were questions about her motherhood. So you've already got that horrible guilt about, "I should have saved this child," and then to get piled on in the public. That woman had the worst of every possible world.

DAVIS: Absolutely.

ARENA: Right. And you know, just getting back full circle to our original discussion on terrorism and, you know, I mean, if you're not worried about your kids and you know where they -- we're certainly entering this year with just about as much anxiety as we did going out. You know, still on a state of high alert, elevated level of caution, and many, you know, of the al Qaeda leadership still at large. Really not much of a momentum building on this war on terror.

DAVIS: Well, from the manhunts to the security of air travel, more on that as CNN's SATURDAY EDITION continues.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT JOHNSON, TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION: Security is no longer a spectator sport. You can't sit on the sidelines, show up at the airport late and go on auto-pilot, thinking this is going to be just a hunky-dory experience.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DAVIS: Robert Johnson of the Transportation Security Administration reminding us that security is not cheap or easy.

Welcome back to CNN's SATURDAY EDITION.

The new rules are in place. Many of us traveled over the holidays, and the official and informal reports are in, and they are good. There were dire predictions out there that this was going to be a chaotic Christmas at the airports.

I was at the airports both traveling for the holiday and there at New Years covering the story. There were more screeners standing around to screen bags than there were passengers.

So that could have been the factor.

ARENA: But, Patti, right, is that, is that really a factor? I mean, they picked the New Year's weekend. I mean, if they had picked, God forbid, the holiday, Christmas weekend, you would have had...

DAVIS: Right. Yes, absolutely.

ARENA: But you had fewer passengers. I mean, is this really a test?

DAVIS: Absolutely, fewer passengers. Not a real test. This weekend they're saying may be a true test, because you have people returning from Christmas, you have people coming back from their New Year's holiday. You may see it. But it's looking pretty good. They did it. And you've got to hand it to the TSA, after all of the criticism they took, that they pulled it off.

ARENA: Did you hear a lot of grumbling from passengers about the fact that there were people riffling through their luggage?

DAVIS: Yeah, surprisingly not. And although you see reports about how they're going to be opening a lot of luggage, and in fact I reported that -- in case, that's true. But they're really not going to open that many pieces of luggage. And people in fact were saying, "We're glad they're doing this. They can do whatever they want to do just to make us safe."

Some suggestions from the Transportation Security Administration: Don't lock your bag. In fact, I have the lock. It's still a plastic lock that they are giving passengers in the next couple of weeks to put it on your bag instead of your lock that they will break if they have to get into your luggage. Use this instead. They can snip it. They can go inside if you're not right there. They can check out what's inside your luggage. And then they'll put a blue lock on it and a piece of paper inside your luggage that says, "Hey, we were in your luggage. If you have a problem with that, something broken and something missing, call this 800 number, and in fact, we'll deal with this."

CROWLEY: They put in one of those little operator number 33...

(LAUGHTER)

... you know, searched your bag.

Look, we're not really going to know -- I mean, we're going to know whether it's a hassle but we don't really know if it's effective until we go a long time without anything happening or until they thwart, right?

I mean, this is right now. The only thing they've proven is it wasn't the hassle on this light weekend that they thought it would be, right?

DAVIS: That's right. And I guess, yes, right, you won't see the results of this, because there will be hopefully no bombs on airplanes.

And this was put into place not necessarily because of September 11, 2001, what happened, because it wasn't a bomb that brought those planes down. But Lockerbie, 1988, Pan Am 103, a bomb in luggage did bring that plane down. And advocates of airline security have been just pushing for this for a long time, to get this in place.

One thing though, theft is definitely a question on passengers' minds. What are we going to do even if this lock is snipped and another lock is put on, what if something is missing from your bag, what do you do? TSA talking about putting in place perhaps videotaping in those baggage handling rooms where the screeners are doing their jobs there. That way you can find out, you can go back and say, "OK, yeah, it was that guy that stole something from my bag."

But TSA saying that they'll deal with theft or things broken in your luggage on a case-by-case basis. But you would think it would be kind of hard for a passenger to prove that something was taken from their bag.

CROWLEY: A new year in travel.

More stories of our week when CNN's SATURDAY EDITION comes back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DAVIS: We all grumble about air travel, the lines, the delays, the lost luggage and, of course, the food.

Now people fed up with the puny bags of pretzels have something else to whine about. America West next week planning to start charging passengers for meals on some flights. Three bucks for a little snack box, 10 bucks for a chicken kiev dinner.

(LAUGHTER)

Would you pay?

ARENA: Patti, OK, is this going to be like the movie theater? Now that they're offering food, you know, for a price, does that mean I can't bring my own food now on the airplane, on the flight?

DAVIS: No, you can still definitely still bring your own food. And in America West's defense here, they didn't serve food. They're like a Southwest Airlines, you get peanuts. And so this is something passengers who...

CROWLEY: It's a step up for them.

DAVIS: It's a step up for them.

(LAUGHTER)

Passengers starving on some of these flights. And not only America West and Southwest, but on these full service carriers, they are no longer offering food. Northwest, in fact, thinking about doing this themselves. They're studying it right now.

But that brought to my mind the fact that the full-service carriers after the September 11th terror attacks really hurting, going to lose almost $10 billion this year, trying to raise revenue any way they can.

This is not only -- this is not the only perk that they have cut or that they're thinking about cutting. Also you have to pay for paper tickets. You've got to -- new restrictions on non-refundable tickets. You know, lots of restrictions. Baggage, for instance, Northwest and American Airlines charge you know for any bag that weighs more than 50 pounds.

ARENA: It used to be 75 or something around there.

DAVIS: Seventy or so.

ARENA: OK.

CROWLEY: Does all of this hold true for first-class travel, or is that a special little division of itself?

DAVIS: Well, the airlines in fact are trying to close up some of those loopholes. Some of those passengers were allowed to get away with things like carrying heavier bags on board. No longer allowed to do that.

ARENA: And your frequent flier miles, big restrictions there, like you use them or lose them by certain dates and not getting as many.

DAVIS: Airlines, yes, want to be very careful though. These are there best customers. They're going to keep offering those frequent flier miles. But if you buy the cheap tickets, you're going to get less miles. If you buy the more elite tickets, you're going to get more miles -- first class, the business class.

So they're really trying to still encourage that loyalty. They need customers. They're losing a lot of money, and they want to keep these passengers on board and coming back to their airlines.

The problem, though, some people say is they're chasing away their best customers.

ARENA: Right, right.

DAVIS: They're getting rid of all of these perks. What is up with airlines?

ARENA: Well, we have to fly, but OK, we're running out of time and I have to -- the big stunner this week was that they had an illegal immigrant working at the White House.

(LAUGHTER)

This was a guy...

CROWLEY: I'm with you. And he was apparently harmless. I mean, they're charging him with something, right...

ARENA: But they said -- it's just that he tried to come into the country again using false documents. But Salvador Gonzales apparently back in 2000, December of 2000, seen here with former President Bill Clinton.

(LAUGHTER) DAVIS: Looks like a cardboard cut-out to me.

ARENA: He had been told -- he had been asked to leave -- he had been asked to leave the country and didn't back in December 2000. Got himself a new identity and then went to work for HDO, which is a company that supplies workers to the White House. And he basically set up tents for functions and was right there on the White House grounds.

Secret Service said he never posed a threat. You know, was just a guy looking for a job.

CROWLEY: Right, fine. However, I would just like to say that it takes to get your first White House pass, a six-month background check...

ARENA: Right, for press.

CROWLEY: ... which used to include -- and for others. I mean, it took a long time for like someone in the Clinton White House to get their passes. But I mean, which used to include -- and I got mine a long time ago so I haven't done it -- but it used to include asking your neighbors if you do drugs.

ARENA: Right.

CROWLEY: You know, do you have late night parties? Anything suspicious going on at your house? And then like, illegal aliens working at the White House.

ARENA: Taking his picture. And apparently he was traveling with his pictures when he was arrested, when he came into the country.

DAVIS: Not posing a threat? I mean, he's standing right next to President Clinton and Vice President Cheney.

ARENA: And Secret Service, I mean, while they were not pleased, you know, did come out and say officially that there's no information or evidence to suggest that he ever posed a threat. He was a guy looking for a job like a lot of others. But...

CROWLEY: He posed -- he himself meant no one any harm. But the fact of the matter is, we've got pictures of him standing next to Bill Clinton. So to say that he didn't pose as threat...

ARENA: But again, OK, let's all (inaudible), you know, with pre- 9/11 and obviously a lot has changed since then...

CROWLEY: Well, it took six months to get my White House pass pre-9/11.

(LAUGHTER)

ARENA: And she's still angry about it.

(LAUGHTER) DAVIS: Well, how did they even find out about this guy?

ARENA: Well, he tried to get in again. He tried to get into the country using fake documents. I mean, he's been in and out several times. You know, he's changed his identity a few times.

But you know, I mean, look, there are a lot of -- I mean, the INS has a long way to go, by it's own admission, in terms of reform and especially protecting its borders. I mean, you know, you have the Mexican border and obviously you have the Canadian border, which we know all too well, of course, with the five guys that they're still looking for, are still posing a great deal of problems.

Well, anyway, that is our SATURDAY EDITION. Thanks to my colleagues. And thanks to you for watching. We'll see you next week.

Coming up, a news alert and CNN's People in the News, focusing this week on Alanis Morrissette and Margaret Cho.

But first, the president's weekly address.

(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)

BUSH: Good morning.

One year ago this month, our country set a bold new course in public education. With the No Child Left Behind Act, America began a promising era in our public schools -- an era of local control, high standards, and accountability that will produce better results for America's students.

Under the new law, key choices about education spending will be made at the local level by parents and teachers and principals who know the children best. Government cannot and must not try to run the nation's schools from Washington, D.C.

Yet the federal government has an important role. We are providing far more money than ever before to help states and local school districts -- more than $22 billion in this school year alone.

Over the last two years, we have increased federal spending by 40 percent, and in return we are insisting that schools use that money wisely. States must set new and higher goals for every student to ensure that students are learning the basics and reading and math.

The law also requires that school regularly test students, share the results with parents, and show how the results in each school compare with others. My budget provides more than enough money for states to test every student every year in grades three through eight. Testing is the only way to know which students are learning and which students need extra help so we can give them help before they fall further behind.

For parents with children in persistently failing schools, the law provides hopeful options. Those parents can choose to send their children to better public schools or receive funding to pay for after- school tutoring or other academic help. No parent will have to settle year after year for schools that do not teach and will not change. Instead of getting excuses, parents will now get choices.

Across America, states and school districts are working hard to implement these reforms. They're developing accountability plans and beginning innovative tutoring programs. The path to real reform and better results is not easy but it is essential.

The priorities of last year's reforms will also be reflected in the budget I will submit to Congress this year. Too many students in lower-income families fall behind early, resulting in a terrible gap in test scores between these students and their more fortunate peers.

To help close this achievement gap, I will ask Congress to approve an additional $1 billion, a total of $12.3 billion, for the Title I program in the 2004 budget. This would be the highest funding level ever for Title I, which serves our neediest students.

Our reforms will not be complete until every child in America has an equal chance to succeed in school and rise in the world. For every child, education begins with strong reading schools. With the Reading First program, we have set a national goal: to make sure that every child in America is reading by the third grade.

To move toward that goal, I will request more than $1.1 billion for federal reading programs in next year's budget, an increase of $75 million over last year's budget request. This investment will go only to support programs with proven results in teaching children to read.

The No Child Left Behind Act was a victory of bipartisan cooperation. By this law, we affirmed our basic faith in the wisdom of parents and communities and our fundamental belief in the promise of every child.

The work of reform is well begun, and we are determined to continue that effort until every school in America is a place of learning and achievement.

Thank you for listening.

(END AUDIOTAPE)

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Halt North Korea's Weapons Program; Bush to Unveil Economic Plan Next Week>