FNC Fox News Sunday-Transcript

Transcript: Sens. Allen, Reed on 'FOX News Sunday'

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CHRIS WALLACE, HOST: Republicans are working to make national security the key campaign issue this year, but will the strategy work with voters? We turn for answers to Senators George Allen, Republican of Virginia, and Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode island.

Senators, welcome to "FOX News Sunday" and thanks so much for braving the wintry weather to get in here today. I know it wasn't easy for either of you.

ALLEN: The Farmer's Almanac was correct. This full moon is a snow moon.

WALLACE: Thank you for that, Senator. I want to begin, Senator Allen, with something that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said this week. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: You know, contrary to Franklin Roosevelt — "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" — this crowd is "All we've got is fear and we're going to keep playing the fear cord."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Senator Allen, when President Bush trumpets a foiled terrorist plot from four years ago, when Vice President Cheney talks about the current debate over the NSA wiretaps as a campaign issue, are Republicans playing the fear card?

ALLEN: Well, I believe that Republicans — and I would hope all Americans recognize that we're in the midst of a war on terror and that we ought to be united.

And we're going to need to do a lot of things to win this war on terror — one, persevere, but also support our military, make sure that we get the right intelligence, make sure in the midst of this war, insofar as the NSA wiretaps, that the president and our intelligence individuals, if they seize a computer, that they get certain phone numbers off of it.

Why not intercept those terrorists or surveil those terrorists' communications? It seems very logical to me that they ought to be able to do so. It's fine to look into all this, but to not play partisan games with it. And also, support our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq as they try to stand up a free and just society.

WALLACE: Senator Allen, let's talk about the NSA wiretap program. A number of senators, including a number of conservative Republicans, are concerned about the assertion of executive authority. Do you favor putting any checks on the president?

ALLEN: Of course I do. The Constitution doesn't get thrown out just because you're at war. You don't suspend the writ of habeas corpus. Some of the aspects of the Patriot Act and the improvements in it, of course, have independent judicial review.

However, this is not just legislators. This has been adjudicated in the courts, in the Hamdi case, where when Congress authorized the use of military force, this very sort of interception of terrorist or surveilling terrorists or intercepting their communications was part of the use of military force.

It is ludicrous to think that you would need to have a warrant before you try to get intelligence or intercept or determine, detect, what the terrorists may be doing.

WALLACE: So you think the president already has this authority. There's no need for any additional legislation.

ALLEN: I think the way I look at it — if you want to look at it as a lawyer, the authorization of the use of military force — this makes sense. You don't get a warrant before you attack a building that has terrorists in it. This is not a civil litigation issue.

This is an issue of war, and I think the president does have that when Congress authorized the use of military force, and the Supreme Court in the Hamdi case a few years ago so stated.

WALLACE: Senator Allen?

ALLEN: Checks and balances are appropriate, and Senator Reed has mentioned several different aspects of it, but the reality is I think if it was actually put to vote in the Senate, I think they'd say yes, the president ought to be doing this.

I think it is part of waging a war against terrorists, terrorists who have hit us in our own homeland. And so I think that if somebody wants to clarify it, they can clarify it, but I don't think the president and nor the National Security Agency should back down one bit in trying to detect...

WALLACE: Let me ask you both, gentlemen, about another aspect of this. The president has expressed outrage over the leak of the NSA program, but in court documents this week, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who indicted former vice presidential Chief of Staff Scooter Libby for perjury, alleged the following. Take a look.

"Mr. Libby testified that he was authorized to disclose information about the NIE to the press by his superiors."

Now, we're talking here, gentlemen, about the National Intelligence Estimate which to the best of our knowledge at that time was classified.

WALLACE: Senator Allen?

ALLEN: The prosecutor here, Mr. Fitzgerald, seems to me to be a very articulate, professional prosecutor. And I think the facts will lead wherever they lead, and I think he will prosecute as appropriate.

WALLACE: Well, there doesn't seem to be any legal issue here. The issue seems to be more of kind of a political issue as to how you feel about the possibility that the vice president, because he would seem to be the obvious superior who was authorizing Scooter Libby, was telling him to release information which as far as we know was at that point still classified.

ALLEN: I don't think anybody should be releasing classified information, period, whether in the Congress, executive branch or some underling in some bureaucracy.

WALLACE: Senator Allen, whatever the reason, I'd like you to take a look at some numbers from the latest FOX News Opinion Dynamics poll that's coming up here.

Forty-two percent of those surveyed say that it would be better for the country if Democrats win control of Congress in November. Thirty-four percent choose the Republicans. How do you explain that big edge for the other guys?

ALLEN: It's hard to explain. It's very hard to explain. I think that they'll look at individual races and individual candidates. I think that people are going to see the Republicans do stand strong for national security, making sure that our troops, as Senator Reed said, have the equipment and the armaments for their safety when protecting our freedom.

We do need energy independence, and we do need more development of oil and natural gas in this country. Republicans, for the most part, want development on the North Slope of Alaska. Democrats, for the most part, are opposed to it.

We want to improve education for young people. This is a bipartisan effort. I'm working with Senator Lieberman, Senator Ensign and others to upgrade our engineering and science education in this country.

A big difference is taxes. Republicans want to keep taxes low. Democrats want to increase taxes. The tax cuts that we passed have actually spurred economic growth. Four and a half million new jobs have been created in the private sector. Raising taxes will make this country less competitive with less opportunity for people to get good- paying jobs.

And the other issue is values. And I think Republicans stand with most people thinking we need fiscal sanity. Personally, I think the president ought to be accorded the power I had as governor of the line-item veto to knock out non-essential spending.

And as far as Congress is concerned, I find it absolutely absurd the full-time legislature can't get their appropriations bills done on time, and I think we ought to have a penalty and hold up salaries and paychecks after October 1st if the appropriations bills are not passed.

And finally, judges is a big values issue, and the Democrats generally have tried to obstruct judges who understand their role is to apply the law, not invent it.

WALLACE: Thank you both.

ALLEN: Thank you.

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