CNN Crossfire - Transcript

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SHOW: CNN CROSSFIRE 16:30

March 11, 2004 Thursday

HEADLINE: Presidential Campaign Going Negative?

GUESTS: Jerrold Nadler, John Ensign

BYLINE: Wolf Blitzer, Tucker Carlson, Paul Begala

HIGHLIGHT:
Are both parties going in a negative direction as the presidential campaign kicks into high gear?

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
CARLSON: So, to recap, Bush attacks Kerry on his record.

(APPLAUSE)

CARLSON: Kerry attacks Bush and all Republicans as crooked liars. Do you see the distinction? One is legitimate. The other is ludicrous.

REP. JERROLD NADLER (D), NEW YORK: I see a-no, I see a distinction certainly between paid political ads designed to be seen by millions of people and an offhand comment when he probably didn't realize the mike was on, No. 1, that he's not saying that in his political ads.

But second of all, you know, President Bush in 2000, during the campaign, he was, again in an unguarded moment-he didn't realize his mike was on-he called Adam Clymer, a respected reporter for "The New York Times," a major-league-and I can't say the next word.

CARLSON: Oh, go ahead.

(LAUGHTER)

NADLER: It's a slang word for a posterior part of the human anatomy.

(LAUGHTER)

ENSIGN: And also the symbol of your party. Sorry.

CARLSON: But he didn't call all "New York Times" reporters that. That's the point.

(CROSSTALK)

NADLER: He called a major "New York Times" reporter-but let me say this.

CARLSON: Major-league "New York Times" reporter.

NADLER: Well, he called him a major league-yes.

CARLSON: All right.

NADLER: But, you know, I think unguarded comments like that, to a couple of people, when you don't realize the mike is on, I mean, I think there's a lot of truth, by the way, to what Kerry said.

BEGALA: Amen.

NADLER: There's a lot of truth to what he said.

(APPLAUSE)

NADLER: When you talk about-when you talk about the fact that the Bush administration obviously deliberately lied to this country about the intelligence we were getting going into Iraq...

ENSIGN: That's outrageous.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: And leaked the name of a CIA agent to the public.

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: Speaking of lies

(CROSSTALK)

ENSIGN: That is outrageous. That is outrageous. This is absolutely outrageous.

(CROSSTALK)

ENSIGN: That is-it is outrageous to make accusations like that that are unfounded accusations, calling them crooks, calling them liars.

NADLER: Unless they're truthful.

ENSIGN: It isn't truthful.

The intelligence-let's just talk intelligence, for instance. The Intelligence Committee, both parties, Intelligence Committee were completely briefed. I'm on the Armed Services Committee. We were briefed on all of the intelligence. Every intelligence agency in the world thought, including your boss, President Clinton when he was in office-for years and years and years, we thought Saddam Hussein had these weapons of mass destruction.

There was no question in anybody's mind across the world. That's what he said. That is what he said to the American people, that the best consensus of that intelligence...

(CROSSTALK)

ENSIGN: And so he did not lie to the American people. And that is wrong.

BEGALA: Yes, he did, when he said it was an urgent threat, a unique threat, an imminent threat. Those were false.

NADLER: An imminent mushroom cloud threat.

BEGALA: Those were false. He was not a threat to us. We know that now. As a matter of fact, he was no threat to America.

(CROSSTALK)

(APPLAUSE)

ENSIGN: He did not say-he did not say it was an imminent threat.

BEGALA: His aides did. The White House said it was an imminent threat.

ENSIGN: He did not say it was an imminent threat.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: He said it was urgent.

ENSIGN: It was.

BEGALA: What's the difference between urgent and imminent? He said it was a mortal threat.

(CROSSTALK)

ENSIGN: It is a threat to the United States. Would you rather wait for another 9/11 to happen?

BEGALA: He had nothing to do with 9/11, Senator.

(APPLAUSE)

BEGALA: That's the big myth. That's the big falsehood.

(CROSSTALK)

ENSIGN: But the point of using 9/11 in that context is this, is that 9/11 happened because we waited to act. We had attack after attack after attack. We did nothing.

BEGALA: After George Bush was told that al Qaeda had a plan to hijack airplanes, he did nothing. That's true.

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: Excuse me.

We're almost out of time. I just want to ask you a quick question. Do you think anybody's going to get elected calling people names like liar and un-American and unpatriotic, like the Democrats have done?

NADLER: I hope-I certainly-and the Republicans have also done.

I certainly hope that the issues will be debated. And the issues should be, I'd like to know why the...

CARLSON: But shouldn't he stop calling the president a liar, then?

NADLER: ... why the president is stiff-arming the 9/11 Commission that would look into what he knew before 9/11 and trying to put conditions on his going there. That tells us something.

(APPLAUSE)

BEGALA: We're going to tell you. We're going to come back to this topic of 9/11 after the break.

President Bush, of course, is determined to make that tragic day a centerpiece of his partisan campaign. Next, shouldn't the loss of so many be better off not used in a campaign as a cheap prop?

And, right after the break, Wolf Blitzer has the latest on today's deadly terror attacks in Spain.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington.

Coming up at the top of the hour, terror on the Madrid commuter line, almost 200 people dead, more than 1,000 injured, from a series of nearly simultaneous bomb blasts. We'll take you live to the scene and show you what experts say about the possibility similar attacks right here in the U.S.

Startling new information on Saddam Hussein's two notorious sons and their attempt to escape Iraq before being tracked down by U.S. forces.

Plus, inside information on the hunt for Osama bin Laden and much more in my conversation with the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Porter Goss.
Those stories, much more only minutes away on "WOLF BLITZER REPORTS."

Now back to CROSSFIRE.

BEGALA: Thank you, Wolf, from here at CROSSFIRE.

President Bush promised, of course, he would not politicize the tragedy of 9/11, but in the first days of his campaign, his campaign commercials showed images of the tragedy. This afternoon, he sandwiched a stop at a 9/11 memorial in between a political forum and a political fund-raiser.

So, should 9/11 be off limits for politicians?

In the CROSSFIRE, U.S. Senator John Ensign, a Republican from Nevada, along with Democratic Congressman Jerry Nadler, whose district, of course, includes the site of the World Trade Center bombing.

CARLSON: Congressman Nadler, I'm sure you've seen the 9/11 ad in dispute here. It's not offensive. Democrats are screaming about it, that he's politicizing 9/11.

Let me show you why Democrats are so mad. This is our latest poll in the CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll, asked people, which guy does a better job on terrorism? Bush creams John Kerry 60 percent to 33 percent. You know as well as I do, Democrats are terrified of this number right here and that's why they're complaining about the ad.

NADLER: Well, I think the Republican Party for the last 25 years has had the advantage politically in terms of warfare, basically, the war on terrorism, the war against the Cold War and so forth. I think that's continuing right now. And that's clearly a major problem for the Democratic Party.

I think it's perfectly legitimate for Bush to debate what he did before and after 9/11, what he did after 9/11 and so forth. It's perfectly legitimate for the Democrats to say, it was wrong or inadequate or whatever.

What's not legitimate is to use images of 9/11 not to illustrate a point about what he's doing or has done, but to make an emotional appeal, which is what that ad does, an emotional appeal based on the tragedy of 9/11. The victims were victimized as Americans, not as Republicans, not as supporters of Bush. The attack was on the United States, not on Bush.

And that's what's wrong with that ad. Now, if Bush wants to run ads about, I did this, I attacked Afghanistan, I did that, fair game, legitimate comment. But those ads are not.

(APPLAUSE)

BEGALA: Senator Ensign, in fact, good people, reasonable people can disagree about the appropriateness, the tastefulness. I don't approve of it. I'm sure you do.

But nobody can dispute that the president broke his word. He promised us. Let me read you the words of our president, who many of us foolishly believed to be true when he said them. He said-quote-"I have no ambition whatsoever to use this 9/11 attacks as a political issue."

Now, as an American, I feel like I've been lied to. But, as a strategist, what was he going to do, run on the jobless economy and the endless occupation? He had to do something, right?

(APPLAUSE)

BEGALA: I mean...

ENSIGN: Paul, first of all, it's a chronology.

If you look at the ad, it's a simple chronology of what happened during his presidency, and that he talks about the steady leadership that he has shown during times of change. This is exactly what the ad-it's very fair. It just shows kind of the things that happened during his presidency.

BEGALA: Sir, but he did promise that. He did promise not to use it.

(CROSSTALK)

ENSIGN: That's not politicizing 9/11. That's not politicizing...

BEGALA: To put it in a political ad? What would be?

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: If it's not over the top to show a dead body dragged out of a building in a political ad, what would be?

ENSIGN: This is not showing a dead body dragged out of a building.

This is showing a brief image of 9/11. I mean, it's a casket draped in a flag. It's a brief image. It's part of the history of when George Bush, his first four years in the White House.

It showed a very turbulent time. And then it shows how-what a strong, steady leader he was during this time. And I think that's a legitimate point. It's-whether FDR was-during World War II, he was strong, steady leadership during that time. And he used that during his reelection.

It is something that happens-when things happen in a major proportion when you're in office that you're responsible for, whether we're running for reelection, Republican or Democrat, it is fair to talk about what happens while you are in office and then talk about how you handled it.

(APPLAUSE)

CARLSON: I mean, that isn't-it's sort of hard to argue with that, isn't it, Congressman Nadler?

And it seems to me that people we know have politicized 9/11 are those Democrats who've use the outrage of some families, a small percentage of the 9/11 victims' families, who have leveraged their anger for political gain.

(CROSSTALK)

NADLER: I don't think the families have leveraged their anger for political gain.

CARLSON: No, no, I think Democratic operatives have leveraged their anger for political gain. And I wish they'd knock it off, don't you?

(CROSSTALK)

NADLER: No, Democrats have objected, along with many of the families, to the use of the images of 9/11 for political game, in the way that I said, for an emotional thing.

And I think the president would have more sympathy, frankly, from Democrats, from families using images of 9/11 -- and, by the way, FDR never used news reel of Pearl Harbor for political gain. But they would have a lot more

(CROSSTALK)

(APPLAUSE)

CARLSON: Actually, FDR refused to go to the convention in 1944. He was on a military base, because was running a war.

NADLER: They would have-they would have a lot more sympathy if the president would were not refusing to fund medical services for the first-responders who come have down with respiratory ailments as a result of their work on the pile after 9/11.

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: Hey, why should the president-I think that New York state paying for its own first-responders, can it not? Isn't that sort of a state issue?

NADLER: No, no.

(CROSSTALK)

ENSIGN: ... $20 billion to New York City.

NADLER: We haven't gotten the $20 billion.

ENSIGN: It's all there.

(CROSSTALK)

NADLER: No, first of all, many of those first-responders are not from New York City. They're from all over the country.

Many of them-the majority of them at this point, because of a lack of proper work by the federal agencies, have come down and give-in using proper protective gear when they were working on the pile, a majority of first-responders have come down with respiratory ailments. We can't get the funding for monitoring them and giving them medical services.

The president and-the president, we now know-not the president, the White House-the White House, we now know, directed the EPA to lie to the people of New York about the condition of the environment after 9/11, so the people were being poisoned.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: That's going to have to be-I'm sorry, Congressman Nadler.

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: The man is poisoning people and lying. OK.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: Congressman Jerry Nadler, thank you very much. And, Senator John Ensign from Nevada, appreciate both of you being here.

ENSIGN: Thank you.

BEGALA: Thank you for that debate.

Well, the old saying in the bar was, hey, what's your sign? Well, we'll show you what happened when the Bush-Cheney campaign allowed us to create our own signs for the campaign. You won't want to miss it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(APPLAUSE)

BEGALA: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE.

Well, among the many interesting things you can find on the Bush- Cheney campaign's Web site is a little device that allows you to create your own sign for the Bush/Cheney '04 posters.

Now, I took the opportunity to go on there myself, Tucker, and make one: "Bush and Cheney: Fighting for Their Jobs, Not Yours."

(LAUGHTER)

BEGALA: I think that would be a good slogan for them.

(APPLAUSE)

CARLSON: You know, that's-that's pretty clever. And I suppose

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: I'm not surprised.

I got right to it. I sum up the difference, I think, in only four words: "Bush-Cheney '04: Not At All French."

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

CARLSON: That is true. There is nothing French about these guys. And if that appeals to you, vote for them.

(LAUGHTER)

CARLSON: It appeals to me.

BEGALA: From the left, I am Paul Begala, not at all French. That's it for CROSSFIRE.

CARLSON: And from the right, I'm Tucker Carlson, even less French.

Join us again tomorrow for yet more CROSSFIRE.

"WOLF BLITZER REPORTS" starts right now. Have a great night.

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