CNN Crossfire - Transcript

CNN

SHOW: CNN CROSSFIRE 16:30

August 23, 2004 Monday

HEADLINE: New Attacks in Swift Boat Ad War

GUESTS: Frank Olivieri, Curt Weldon, Chaka Fattah

BYLINE: Wolf Blitzer, Tucker Carlson, Paul Begala

BODY:

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CARLSON: Congressman Fattah, welcome.

I'm sure you disagree or are offended by, may not care for, the ads put on the air by Swift Boat Veterans For Truth. But I imagine you have enough respect for the principle of free speech that you understand they have a right to air those ads. They have a right to say what they think. They have a right express their opinions.

Isn't it, therefore, pretty over the top, maybe even disgusting, for the Kerry campaign to try and use the federal government to pull those ads off the air?

REP. CHAKA FATTAH (D), PENNSYLVANIA: Look, I think everybody has got a right to speak.

CARLSON: Amen.

FATTAH: Let me just-elections are about voters speaking. And they're going to be able to make a choice.

And, Tucker, if you think they're going to be fooled into voting for somebody who disappeared for five or more months in Alabama in national service, National Guard service, or his vice president, who took five deferments, over the guy who has got five medals, a Silver, Bronze, three Purple Hearts...

CARLSON: OK.

FATTAH: If they're looking for someone who has a military record...

CARLSON: Well, you may be right.

FATTAH: ... the Bush/Cheney ticket has none, zero, zip.

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: You may be right that Bush and Cheney are evil and cowards.

(CROSSTALK)

FATTAH: You don't even have to be swift enough to be on a swift boat to figure this out.

CARLSON: But, Congressman, you're glossing right over my question, which is, shouldn't the people have the right to hear all sides? This is a side not coming from Bush and Cheney, but from men who are genuine heroes, some of whom served in prison camp spent, who won-who spent more than four months in Vietnam. They have a right to say what they think. The Kerry campaign is trying to pull their ad off the air. Will you denounce that as authoritarian?

FATTAH: It's not going to be possible to fool the American people.

First of all, every Republican commentator keeps saying four months, as if Kerry served only four months. He served two terms. Four months is just the one term where he volunteered for the most difficult, more dangerous job

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: Why is he trying to take the ad off the air? That's the bottom line. OK, he's a hero. Bush is a coward. But shouldn't the ad run?

(CROSSTALK)

FATTAH: So you don't want the truth to come out. He served two terms in Vietnam.

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: I do want the truth to-that's the point I'm making.

FATTAH: Four months is just when he volunteered to take on one of the more dangerous missions.

But when Colin Powell wrote in his autobiography that he was angry about the sons of the powerful avoiding service in Vietnam by going into the National Guard, he was talking about George W. Bush.

CARLSON: That's why he went to work for him.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: Thoughtful Republicans, of which you're one, but some of your fellow thoughtful Republicans have criticized these ads.

John Warner, the former Naval secretary, chairman of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, has denounced them. Senator John McCain has denounced them. And now a leading veteran on President Bush's own campaign has denounced them.

State Representative Terry Musser from Wisconsin told "The Washington Post": "I think it's un-American to be attacking someone's service record, period. The president has an opportunity here to stand up and demand that the attacks be stopped."

Now, when even the president's own supporters and advisers on veterans issues are saying this, why don't-why doesn't the president just have the guts to stand up and say he'll denounced them?

REP. CURT WELDON ®, PENNSYLVANIA: In America, we do have the right to freedom of speech, which is what John Kerry advocates.

(CROSSTALK)

WELDON: And here you have

(CROSSTALK)

WELDON: Here you have a case where 243 swift boat veterans came out and signed a letter saying John Kerry has been wrong in portraying himself the way he has.

Nobody else brought this on. He brought it on himself; 17 of 23 officers in the swift boats, 17 of 23, are in those ads against him. Only two are defending John Kerry. Why can't they speak? This is America, free speech.

(CROSSTALK)

WELDON: Why can't they speak? Why is John Kerry going to FEC, going to the Federal Election Commission to get those-why is he asking bookstores to take off the book written by John O'Neill, a decorated Vietnam veteran?

They have the same right to speak that Michael Moore has to speak. You're not talking about Michael Moore's distortions. They have the same right to speak that every other group-Al Franken has the right to distort. Why don't those honorable veterans have a right to speak? I'm defending them. Let them say what they want.

(CROSSTALK)

WELDON: The American people make their own choice.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: Now, Congressman, I appreciate that. It had absolutely nothing to do with the question I asked you.

(CROSSTALK)

WELDON: It has everything to do with it. You asked me. Freedom of speech. It's freedom of speech.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: I didn't ask you about freedom of speech. Nobody is contesting anybody's freedom of speech here.

WELDON: John Kerry is.

CARLSON: Yes, he is.

BEGALA: The question is, why has President Bush failed to show the guts to either endorse these charges, as you seem to, and say, yes, by God, John Kerry is a liar, he wasn't a hero?

WELDON: He's done more than John Kerry.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: Or repudiate them, the way John McCain

(CROSSTALK)

WELDON: John Kerry had Michael Moore sitting in the gallery at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. John Kerry had Michael Moore in the audience.

(CROSSTALK)

WELDON: George Bush denounced the ads yesterday.

BEGALA: No, he didn't.

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: I think Bob Dole did make an interesting point that has nothing to do with the presidential race, doesn't have anything to do with George W. Bush vs. John Kerry.

It has to do with the beef fellow veterans have with John Kerry. They believe-and I think probably correctly-that he insulted them when he got back from Vietnam and called them war criminals. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't. That's what they think. And isn't that, A, a fair point of view? And don't you think, B, having read what John Kerry did say about them, that he ought to apologize and just end it?

FATTAH: The American people are not going to be fooled on this Election Day. Millions have lost their health care.

(CROSSTALK)

FATTAH: Have lost their jobs. They're not going to be confused.

Now, if Bush wants to take advice about how to win a presidential race from Bob Dole, then you know what the result of that is going to be. Now, every-for the last 40 years, the Republicans have rolled out Bob Dole to attack some Democrat. And he's a good attack person for the Republican Party.

(CROSSTALK)

FATTAH: But it has nothing to do with these two candidates. This election is about the future of the people who live in our country. We have almost 1,000 young people who have lost their lives in Iraq. You don't want to talk about that. You want to talk about some distraction.

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: Yes, I do want to talk

(CROSSTALK)

FATTAH: Listen, we have got a group of people who say they're fiscal conservatives, but have bankrupted the country. Pete Peterson writes in his book a $10 trillion change

(CROSSTALK)

FATTAH: I'm sorry. You don't want to talk about real issues. Let me talk about Bob Dole.

(CROSSTALK)

FATTAH: Bob Dole will get a chance to cast one vote.

CARLSON: OK.

FATTAH: And he-Bush is going to have the same result in this election that Bob Dole had in his.

CARLSON: Bush is evil.

(CROSSTALK)

FATTAH: At the end of the day, the American people are going to choose hope over fear.

BEGALA: Congressman Weldon, the AFL-CIO says the new rules that the Bush administration is putting in place today on overtime will cost residents of your state. The Pennsylvania residents, 238,000 of them, will lose their overtime pay because of what President Bush has put on the books. Isn't that outrageous?

WELDON: Hogwash. I'm a Republican who works with labor and proudly carries the endorsement...

BEGALA: So you think they're lying?

WELDON: Let me finish.

Carries the endorsement of most major labor unions. Chuck Canterbury, the current head of the FOP, said in April...

BEGALA: The Fraternal Order of Police.

WELDON: ... that this was the biggest win for public safety officers in the history of his organization. That includes firefighters, paramedics and police.

This is not about distortion by John Sweeney, AFL-CIO. It's not about trying to scare workers. I support workers. I voted against Clinton's NAFTA, which cost us a ton of jobs. I stood up and did the right thing. And I'm telling you right now, this overtime issue is a red herring. This is about what Tucker said. It's about clarifying the way that we treat people under a 1949...

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: ... 238,000 Pennsylvanians out of their overtime.

WELDON: You're using a think tank that caters to the left. Get real.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: I think think tanks sometimes think a lot better than

(CROSSTALK)

WELDON: The fact is, I wouldn't vote for it if I thought it was going to be anti-labor. It was a good move.

The only people hurting by this bill are the trial lawyers, who lose $2 billion a year in the lawsuits...

BEGALA: Trial lawyers don't get overtime, Congressman.

(CROSSTALK)

WELDON: In the lawsuits that they file on behalf of workers not knowing who's covered and who is covered under overtime benefits. That's the only group that loses, the trial lawyers.

And, of course, we know that John Edwards is the leader of the trial lawyers in America and is totally owned by the trial lawyers.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: A trial lawyer conspiracy on overtime.

OK, Congressman Weldon, Congressman Fattah, keep your seats for just a moment.

And next, we'll come back. And in the "Rapid Fire," we'll ask about the influential Republican congressman who has recently broken with President Bush about the war in Iraq.

And should the CIA be broken up? Wolf Blitzer has reaction to that controversial proposal right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

Coming up at the top of the hour, breaking up is hard to do. Learn what the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee wants to do with the CIA and listen to what the critics of his plan have in mind. They're angry.

Amber Frey back on the stand in the murder trial of Scott Peterson. For the first time, the defense gets to ask her questions. We'll have a live report.

And overtime. New rules are now in place that tell us just who can earn it and just who can't. Will you be one of the winners or one of the losers?

Those stories, much more, only minutes away on "WOLF BLITZER REPORTS."

Now back to CROSSFIRE.

CARLSON: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE.

It's time for "Rapid Fire," where the questions are as sweaty and determined as Rocky Balboa running up the steps behind us here at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, if a question can be sweaty and determined.

With us today, two members of Congress from the state of Pennsylvania, Democrat Chaka Fattah and Republican Curt Weldon.

BEGALA: Congressman Weldon, your colleague Doug Bereuter of Nebraska, a veteran, influential voice on foreign affairs, a Republican who supported the war, now says it was a mistake. Does that hurt the president's chances?

WELDON: Doug resigned his position. He's out of office. I guess he can say what he wants. I still respect Doug, but he's wrong. You would say Zell Miller is wrong, too, who abandoned the president as a senator from Georgia and is now openly supporting George Bush.

CARLSON: Congressman Fattah, contrast Congressman Bereuter's position that the war was a mistake with John Kerry's position. John Kerry said the other day, knowing what he knows now, no weapons of mass destruction, few ties to terrorists, alienating the Islamic world, he would still support the war in Iraq. Who is crazier?

FATTAH: The American people always get it right. They hear John Kerry when he said, I would have voted for the authorization, because I believe a president should have that authorization.

(CROSSTALK)

FATTAH: But that I would not have conducted any war, like this commander in chief.

CARLSON: Oh. Pretend war.

FATTAH: He sent troops over without body armor, without armored Humvees. This commander in chief that somebody wants to argue is fit to be reelected, he wasn't really elected the first time.

CARLSON: Oh.

FATTAH: OK? But he hasn't in any way conducted this war in some way that somebody should be proud of.

CARLSON: You should overthrow him, then, if he's illegitimate. You should start a revolution.

BEGALA: Congressman Weldon, if it's fair for veterans groups to attack Senator Kerry's record-and they have a perfect right to do so-wouldn't it also be fair for Democrats to run ads about how President Bush read "My Pet Goat" to second graders for several minutes while America was under attack on 9/11?

WELDON: Well, the Democrats are touting Michael Moore and had him at the showcase at the convention. I would compare Michael Moore to a second grader reading something in a school.

(CROSSTALK)

(BELL RINGING)

WELDON: The Democrats touted Michael Moore.

BEGALA: The president of the United States-we were under attack and for seven minutes, he read "My Pet Goat."

(CROSSTALK)

WELDON: The president of the United States did the right thing. John Kerry sat for 40 minutes and said-and they're his own words-that he was captivated and couldn't move. For 40 minutes, he sat in the Senate room.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: ... president of the United States.

CARLSON: Congressman Curt Weldon, Congressman Chaka Fattah, thanks a lot. We appreciate it.

FATTAH: Bush is going to lose Pennsylvania.

(CROSSTALK)

WELDON: Go, Bush! Go, Bush!

CARLSON: All right, well, could something as simple as a cheese steak decide the presidential campaign? We think so. And we'll hear from an expert next.

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