ABC This Week - Transcript
ABC News Transcripts
SHOW: THIS WEEK
HEADLINE: HEADLINERS SENATORS EDWARD KENNEDY AND JOHN MCCAIN
BODY:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS
(Off Camera) In the headlines this morning, three more Americans have been killed in Iraq. In the first incident the Army says that two soldiers driving through the northern City of Mosul were shot. Witness say that attackers slit the Americans' throats when their car was stopped in traffic. A third was killed by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad. And here in Washington, the US Senate will meet in a rare Sunday session to debate the Medicare prescription drug bill that passed the House in a three-hour cliffhanger Saturday morning. That brings us to our first guest, Senator Edward Kennedy, who's promised to filibuster the Medicare legislation and Senator John McCain, who is already filibustering the energy bill. Today's headliners.
SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN, REPUBLICAN, ARIZONA
This legislation is very timely because if we pass it, Thanksgiving will come early for the Washington special interests. The American public will be presented with an enormous turkey stuffed with their tax dollars.
SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY,
DEMOCRAT, MASSACHUSETTS
Make no mistake about it, it's incredibly beneficial to the HMOs, incredibly profitable to the drug companies, and a raw deal for the seniors in this country.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
And Senator Kennedy and Senator McCain join us now. Good morning. Senator Kennedy, let me begin with you. You vowed to filibuster this Medicare legislation and last night, Senator Bill Frist, the Senate Majority Leader, took to the Senate floor to implore you not to. I want to show you that and get you to respond.
SENATOR BILL FRIST, SENATE MAJORITY LEADER
I would implore the senior Senator from Massachusetts to listen to his own words of November 5th this year, when he said senior citizens want help and want it now. They don't want a partisan deadlock. And I think he was right then and I believe he is wrong now.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Right then, wrong now.
SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY
Well, first of all, we passed a good prescription drug bill. Beyond this, Medicare works. All our senior citizens understand it. They believe in it and they trust in it. The failure in 1965 when we passed Medicare that provided the doctor's fees and hospitalizations that we didn't include a prescription drug program. That is what is necessary. That is what we need now. That is what passed the United States Senate 76-0. What is now coming before the Senate now is basically hijacking the Medicare program. They want to replace it. They want to undermine it and they want to privatize it. We worked too long to put the Medicare program into place and we're not going to just let the special interests ride over this.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Let me stop you there. Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat, has said that the Democrats got 75 percent of what they wanted. When you talk about privatization, I assume you're talking about this premium support plan which is, doesn't start until 2010, it's limited to six years, it's limited to six metropolitan areas. How will that destroy Medicare?
SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY
The fact is the House of Representatives just passed a program that didn't really deal with the prescription drugs but that changed Medicare. Medicare works now. All we need to do is add the prescription drug program to it. Why do we have to find out about premium support? All we know on that is if we pay the drug companies and the HMOs more, they will provide health insurance and leave the sickest and the most elderly people in the Medicare system. It's cherry picking, everyone understands. Let me just finally say, the private insurance companies never dealt with the problems of our elderly prior to the time we passed Medicare. We passed Medicare in order to help our seniors. Now the Republicans want to give the insurance industry the seniors back, so they can have the healthiest senior citizens and the youngest senior citizens, and dump the sickest into Medicare, which is going to be skyrocketing premiums and ultimately the breakdown. Make no mistake about it, the people that are supporting this premium support of the Republican program by and large are against Medicare. That's what the bottom line is.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) It sounds like you're determined to go through with the filibuster. Are you gonna join the filibuster?
SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN
I will join it, but ... I come from a different, exact opposite point from Ted. He wants to make it bigger. I want to make it better. Over the next 75 years, Social Security a Medicare have an $18 trillion unfunded mandate. This new entitlement program latched to one that is going to fail, is going to go bankrupt. There is no expert you can find who'll come on this program that won't tell you that Medicare's gonna go bankrupt under its present system. It's gonna add another $8 trillion in unfunded mandates that we're laying on our kids. Now, 75 years from now, Ted will probably still be around but I won't. At least, many fear that. But, in fact, it seems like he's already been around for 75 years. But the fact is ...
SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY
What did I do to you anyway, this morning?
SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN
But the fact is, I appreciate Ted's spirited defense in what he believes in, and I certainly understand the viewpoint. But my viewpoint is, here we are, a nation with a half a trillion dollar deficit coming up, multi-trillion dollar deficits, growth of government 12.5 percent last year. What's ever happened to my party's fiscal discipline?
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) I want to ask you that exact question. Tom Delay, the Majority Leader in the House, your own fellow Senator Jon Kyle, both fiscal conservatives, both have signed on to this bill.
SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN
I don't know. I don't know why we continue to want to support an energy bill that was a 25, a $25 billion tax break for special interests. Wasn't a policy change. It was just, you know, my colleagues get annoyed at me for complaining about pork barrel projects. This was -almost entirely a huge pork barrel project, just layer upon layer in order to buy votes. But I think that we, somehow, we as Republicans, the party that went for the balance, supported the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. And remember the old lockbox, we were gonna take your Social Security and put it in a lockbox. Somehow we've lost our way and we are laying a terrible burden on the next generation of Americans in the form of these deficits.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Senator Kennedy, some argue that it's great politics, that this is gonna give President Bush going into next year's election a prescription drug benefit. Because it does look like your filibuster is likely to fail and that this will make him almost bulletproof in next year's election.
SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY
Before we get there, I had indicated to the Majority Leader that we wouldn't have any attempt at filibuster if they gave a fair vote to the House of Representatives. In the House of Representatives, with this program that's supposed to be so good, why did they have to effectively abuse the rules? Why did they have to coerce their members? Why did they have to use all -all the gymnastics with the House rules in order to have a very narrow victory? This was Florida all over again. Republicans played fast and loose with the -votes in Florida. They did with the House of Representatives. And if this is such a wonderful, wonderful program, why not have the free and open debate? We took five years to get the Medicare program. Why are we debating this Saturday and Sunday and insisting on Monday that we have final action on it?
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Let me stop you there. Arm twisting happens all the time and what the Republicans will say it that, yes, they did leave the vote open for three hours, but all the House rules say is that you must have a minimum of 15 minutes to vote.
SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY
The fact, they refused to recognize individuals that wanted to switch their -votes on this. I mean, that was understood by the people on the floor. Why not just have a fair, open vote on the House of Representatives? We'll have a fair, quick vote on the Senate of the United States. But there was no question that there was the abuse of the rules. And they played fast and loose with the rules. They have in the House of Representatives on this issue, that is supposedly so supportive, and supposedly bipartisan, and rammed through by the Republican leadership.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Senator McCain, a new vote in the House?
SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN
Look, I just hope, the Republicans had better hope that the Democrats never regain the majority. Let me go back to Medicare. Whether prescription drugs ...
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Wait, follow up on that a little bit.
SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN
Well, because there is clearly a situation where the majority rule is such that it's very difficult, if not impossible, for the minority party to have an impact on the process. It's dramatically changed since I was there a number of years ago. I went to a briefing on this prescription drug program. After 20 minutes of briefing, I knew it was going to be very difficult to explain to my constituents in Sun City, Arizona. Why didn't we just give low-income seniors a card and say, you need prescription drugs, go buy them? Instead, we have done a lot of things that Ted agrees with, some that I agree with, but we have almost failed address the fundamental problems and that is that seniors are going to bed tonight and choosing between eating and the prescription drugs they need.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) But won't this start to solve that?
SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY
No. The answer is no. You're going to lose 7 million that are on Medicaid today that now are now being covered by the states with the Medicaid program that are gonna lose it with this bill. You're gonna have millions that currently have adequate retirement programs that are gonna be dropped with this bill. And you're going to see the premiums and the amount that are gonna be expended by seniors, you're going to find their premiums are gonna go up through the roof. And you're gonna begin the dismantling of Medicare. That is, a bad bill is not better than no bill at all. We should have no bill at all. Go back to the drawing board. What's the rush? Why not spend a few weeks and try and get this right?
SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN
In the late '80s, we passed a thing called catastrophic. And the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee got -hit over the head with a sign by an old lady, an elderly citizen, may I say, senior citizen, and they repealed it. It's gonna happen over time because a lot of it doesn't kick in.
SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY
This isn't the end of it. This is going on next election. It's going on in the Presidential election. It'll go on, Representatives, Congressional, this is, no matter what the vote is, if we get to the vote next week, this is just the beginning on it because this is too high powered. It's gonna adversely affect our seniors too much and it won't, this won't be the end.
SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN
We should have reformed Medicare. This was our chance of reform and it's not.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) And that's the last word on this subject because there was another step forward in the Presidential race this week. The Republican National Committee will start to air, today in Iowa, the first ad of the Presidential campaign. I want to show it to both of you and get you to respond.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, UNITED STATES
It would take one vial, one canister, one crate, slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. Our war against terror is a contest of will in which perseverance is power. Some have said, we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Senator McCain, Democrats just said that goes right to the line of questioning their patriotism. In fact, this morning, Senator Daschle said the ad should be pulled.
SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN
I think that the President is portraying the President's leadership that he's displayed since September 11th, which I support. I don't, I think that's a very legitimate statement to be made in the upcoming Presidential election.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Senator Kennedy?
SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY
Well, this is an attempt to stifle dissent. And dissent is a basic part of what our whole society is about, and part of the values about why we fight to defend it overseas. We are basically, in this ad, saying if you're questioning this policy, you're against the war on terrorism. And let me finish. That's wrong. Secondly, have the stories going on this morning were they're using the FBI to look into demonstrations, in order to find out who is demonstrating, getting into their background. That reminds me to the old Nixon times and the enemies' list. And we've seen these extraordinary lengths that the leadership has gone to virtually attack members of the Congress and Senate that question the Administration's policy in Iraq. And that, I think, is a fundamental flaw of this Administration. It is absolutely outrageous in terms of what this country is about. How can we be fighting abroad to defend our freedoms and diminishing those freedoms here at home?
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Senator McCain, you're smiling.
SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN
Look, I must have seen a different commercial. The fact is, the President of the United States is going to run for re-election, to a large degree, on his record of trying to secure America from the threat of terrorism. I think that's a very legitimate reason for him to do so. And I don't see that any more or any less.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) We're just about out of time. And, as you know, all week long we've been commemorating the events of 40 years ago when President Kennedy was shot. Before we go, Senator McCain, do you have a final thought on that?
SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN
It changed the world. Sitting next to Ted, it's hard for me to make any meaningful comment except to say that America changed. And the fact that today we remember that great tragedy all over America and all over the world is significant of the greatness that young President who left us way too early.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Senator Kennedy.
SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY
Well, out of respect for my friend here, well, we had a quiet ceremony yesterday with Caroline out at Arlington. It was very touching. And a mass up at Holy Trinity, the old chapel, the oldest Catholic chapel, I think, in Washington, historically. A place where my brother used to go. And late last night, here at St. Matthew's, that wonderful cathedral just filled. And it was interesting, so many of the people that were in there were people that were younger than 40 years old. And I think they have a sense about what this country could be and about his sense of idealism and about public service, wanting to make a difference in terms of the nation. And that was certainly inspiring.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) We all share that. Senator Kennedy, Senator McCain, thank you very much. We'll be right back with a debate on gay marriage.