CNN Lou Dobbs Tonight - Transcript

LOU DOBBS TONIGHT 06:00 PM Eastern Standard Time March 25, 2004 Thursday
Copyright 2004 Cable News Network
All Rights Reserved
CNNFN

SHOW: LOU DOBBS TONIGHT 06:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

March 25, 2004 Thursday

HEADLINE: LOU DOBBS TONIGHT; CNNfn

GUESTS: Nancy Pelosi, William Archey

BYLINE: Lou Dobbs, Casey Wian, Julian Manyon, Jamie McIntyre, Kelly Wallace, Kitty Pilgrim, Suzanne Malveaux, Christine Romans, Bill Tucker, David Grange

BODY:

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LOU DOBBS, CNNfn ANCHOR, LOU DOBBS TONIGHT (voice-over): Tonight, President Bush focuses on the economy and defends his record on the war on terror.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I will use every resource, every asset, every power of this government to protect the American people.

DOBBS: Senator Kerry promises to restore trust in the White House.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I, as president, will tell you the truth and never take this nation to war on false information.

DOBBS: Tonight, I talk with House Minority Leader Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Leader Pelosi, thanks for being with us.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), MINORITY LEADER: Thank you.

DOBBS: We have a new budget. It is a huge budget. Your reaction?

PELOSI: Well, I'm very disappointed in the Republican budget. You know, our budget should be a statement of the national values, so we come together in a bipartisan way to have a blueprint for economic growth to create jobs, to educate our children, to expand access to health care, to provide for our national defense.

Instead, we have a budget put forth by the Republicans that is not values based, that is not physically sound, and it should not have any support. It is hard to see where the budget hawks went, deficit hawks went in the Republican Party, because this has a historic budget and historic deficit of over $550 billion in just this year alone.

DOBBS: A staggering deficit and indeed even with the exigencies of the war on terror, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, that is a huge deficit by any measure.

However, the Democratic alternative, Congresswoman, according to critics of it at least, put forth $5 billion less than the Republican plan for the No Child Left Behind program, which has been one of the principal criticisms.

PELOSI: Not true.

DOBBS: OK.

PELOSI: The fact is, is that in areas that relate to a blueprint for the future, of investing in our children's education, as I mentioned, job growth, protecting our homeland, the Republican budget is seriously deficient.

It's hard to see a set of values that says it's better to give tax cuts to people making over $1 million a year than to invest in the No Child Left Behind legislation. They cut $9 billion in their budget out of the No Child Left Behind bill. There are cuts in the CHIP program, the Children's Health Insurance Program. And in Medicaid, we'll add 1.6 million people in our country to the list of those who are uninsured, bringing it over to 44 million people, when we should be reducing that number.

And when it comes to homeland security, the Republicans in the House were even over $580 million less than President Bush's budget, which was seriously deficient. The Democrats put $5.85 billion more than the Republicans into the bill in order to restore the cuts to police and fire and all those services so important to protecting our homeland.

DOBBS: Speaking of the homeland, let's turn to the 9/11 Commission, the furor that has been created by Richard Clarke, the former head of counterterrorism for the Bush administration. There seems to be some considerable contradiction between Richard Clarke now with a new book and appearing before the commission talking about the lack of urgency before the-before September 11, obviously, on the part of the Bush administration, and what he was saying only about 14, 15 months ago.

Do you think that seriously undermines his credibility?

PELOSI: No, I do not.

I just think it speaks to the character assassination of the Bush administration for anyone who dares to disagree with them. I was one of the co-chairs of the joint inquiry, House-Senate joint inquiry on 9/11. And the testimony that Richard Clarke gave at that time, it was very consistent with what he is saying now, and that was public testimony. So it's on the record.

This is a person who is-I don't have any idea what his political party is. He's a consummate professional in national security matters, very respected, and I think that people should listen to what he says.

DOBBS: Listening to what is said before that commission, Congresswoman, the statements, that go back over 11, 12 years, in which both parties, both administrations, that is the Bush administration and the Clinton administration, there seems to be plenty of culpability on the part of the national security apparatus, if you will, of this government over that period of time, irrespective of party. What are we going to take away from this commission in your best judgment?

PELOSI: Well, as one who was an author of the original legislation to create an independent commission. What I hope we will take away from it is lessons learned as to how to avoid such a tragedy in the future, how we dealt with it immediately and how we go forward to prevent it from happening again.

The families of 9/11 deserve answers that American people expect protection and this independent commission should produce that. I think it would be very important, though, as we seek the truth, wherever that takes us, that the national security adviser will testify in public before the commission and I think that if that doesn't happen we won't have a complete public record of how we got to where we were on 9/11 or where we're going from here.

DOBBS: Thank you very much. Congresswoman Pelosi for being here. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi.

END