CNN American Morning Transcript

CNN American Morning Transcript
September 30, 2003 Tuesday

HEADLINE: White House Says It Will Cooperate With Justice Department's Probe

GUESTS: Rep. Richard Gephardt

BYLINE: Bill Hemmer

HIGHLIGHT:
Gephardt explains why he's calling for an investigation of the White House in connection with the leaking of the name of a CIA agent. He also discusses some issues in the 2004 presidential campaign.

BODY:
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The White House says it will cooperate with the Justice Department's probe into the leak of a CIA agent's identity. But congressional Democrats say that's not enough. They're demanding an independent investigation. The chorus of critics includes Democratic presidential candidate Dick Gephardt, also the congressman from Missouri, his first job, anyway.

Good morning.

Nice to see you.

REP. DICK GEPHARDT (D-MO), MINORITY LEADER: Good to see you.

HEMMER: You're calling for an investigation of the White House. Why the White House right now?

GEPHARDT: Well, because there's an indication that the leak came out of the White House. We've got to get to the bottom of this. The president came to office saying he was going to return integrity to the White House, that there was going to be accountability, that there would never be questions like this raised about his White House. It is incumbent upon him to ask his people to come out and say whatever they know and to cooperate fully with the investigation.

HEMMER: If you listen to the words that were spoken yesterday by Joe Wilson, he says it wasn't Karl Rove, although he mentioned his name weeks back in a speech in Seattle. Bob Novak yesterday on "Crossfire" said he was the one who called the CIA and they gave him the name.

Shouldn't the CIA be the one where the target of the investigation is aimed, not the White House, right now?

GEPHARDT: Well, this is the problem. Nobody knows what happened. There's a lot of rumors, half facts flying around. You need a competent investigation and I think administrations, both Democratic and Republican, have not been trusted to investigate themselves. So we need some kind of investigation.

But the president needs to start this by getting all of his people to fully cooperate and to get the investigation going. We need to get to the bottom of this.

HEMMER: I mentioned Bob Novak on "Crossfire," part of what he said yesterday in explaining this story.

Here's Novak.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT NOVAK, "CHICAGO SUN-TIMES"/CO-HOST, CNN'S CROSSFIRE: Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. In July, I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson's report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction. Another senior official told me the same thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: Bob Novak says he doesn't give up sources. Does this investigation go anywhere knowing that?

GEPHARDT: I think it does. If the people who talked to Novak know who they are, and I'm sure they do, then they will have to come forward and say what they said. Look, it doesn't matter whether they called him. If they responded to a question by offering information, they were revealing the identity of a CIA officer. That probably is a violation of the law. So we need to get the facts on the table. The administration is going to have to come forward with the information and that's what needs to happen. The president needs to get them to do it.

HEMMER: Let's move on to the campaign, quickly. You've been quite critical in the past three days of Howard Dean and his vision of Medicare.

What's wrong with the way he sees that program?

GEPHARDT: Well, we just have a fundamental disagreement about the program. He has said on a number of occasions that it's a very bad program. He said it's the worst federal program ever. He said that it's the worst thing that ever happened.

I just disagree with that. I think Medicare is a great program. He cooperated, agreed with the Republicans when I was leading the fight to stop the big $270 billion cut in 1995. He was agreeing with the Republicans. So his, both his rhetoric and his past actions have been a lot like the Republicans and we need someone to go up against Bush who will fight against big cuts and privatization of Medicare.

HEMMER: Polling in New Hampshire shows Howard Dean at 30 percent. It shows Dick Gephardt at six percent. Have your numbers changed since you started being quite critical of Howard Dean?

GEPHARDT: No. I don't pay attention to all these numbers. You get polls every day from somewhere. I'm doing great in Iowa. I'm going to win in Iowa. I'm going to win in the other early states. I'm going to win this nomination. I'm the best equipped to beat George Bush. If you're going to beat George Bush, you've got to beat him in the Midwest. That's where I'm strong. We're going to win California and New York. You've got to win in the heartland, in the industrial states.

HEMMER: What do you think of Wesley Clark?

GEPHARDT: I think he's a good candidate. We've got to see, you know, what his positions are, what his ideas are. He's got to do what we all have to do, we've got to go out to Iowa and New Hampshire and sit in living rooms and talk to people and be sized up by people. It's a tough test, and it's a good test. And I'm sure that we'll see where we are a few months later.

HEMMER: Next time when you come back we'll talk about the $87 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan.

GEPHARDT: You bet.

HEMMER: Fair deal?

GEPHARDT: Fair deal.

HEMMER: Dick Gephardt, thanks.

GEPHARDT: Thank you.

Content and programming Copyright 2003 Cable News Network Transcribed under license by FDCH e-Media, Inc.