CNBC The News With Brian Williams
Title: THE NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS (19:00)
Date: 10/6/03
Location: Unknown
CNBC/Dow Jones
HEADLINE: THE NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS for October 6, 2003, CNBC
GUESTS: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gray Davis, Ed Rollins, Bhagavan Antle
BYLINE: Brian Williams, Tom Brokaw, Campbell Brown, Craig Crawford, John Seigenthaler, Jim Cummins, Carl Rochelle, Martin Fletcher, Julie Chin
BODY: BRIAN WILLIAMS, ANCHOR: Tonight on THE NEWS, just hours to go before Californians go to the polls, the recall race appears to be tightening, and the accusations are flying. The latest live from Los Angeles.
And just what are the candidates saying?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER ®, CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I'm the first one to acknowledge that I make mistakes.
GOV. GRAY DAVIS (D), CALIFORNIA: I am responding to what I believe could be a crime.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: How damaging are the late allegations for Arnold Schwarzenegger? And what they mean for a governor fighting hard to hold onto his job. We'll hear from both men.
And one of the biggest names in Las Vegas entertainment fighting for his life still tonight. Now questions of what went wrong, along with reminders these are still wild animals.
THE NEWS this Monday night from Los Angeles begins now.
ANNOUNCER: From NBC News, this is THE NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS on CNBC, reporting tonight from Los Angeles.
WILLIAMS: Good evening.
The time until this recall election here in California can now safely be measured in hours. By this time tomorrow, by all predictions, polling places will be jammed with voters in a race that has divided this state. But there is not a single reliable prediction that any two experts can agree on tonight that tells us exactly how this is going to come out.
For all the talk of the 135 candidates for governor, including a pornographer, a comedian, one each that we know of, this has come down, really, to a question of big-name candidates and big-money candidates as well.
There is a huge question about how successfully this state can go about the business of deciding its own future direction, and this time the whole world is watching.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WILLIAMS (voice-over): In a state of 33 million people, a big question here today was, how do they pull off a successful election? L.A. County alone has more registered voters than all but nine states. When you're the largest county in the nation, it means doing some things differently.
(on camera): "The Los Angeles Times" recently figured out there are more polling places in this county alone than there are Holiday Inn Express locations nationwide. They long ago ran out of high school gyms to vote in here. Now they use private homes, stores, even this U-Haul dealership in Pasadena will be a polling place tomorrow.
(voice-over): A huge number of votes are already in. The registrar in L.A. County walked us through the piles received so far.
CONNY MCCORMACK, LOS ANGELES COUNTY REGISTRAR OF VOTERS: This represents about 150,000 absentee ballots that have been voted by the voters out of 479,000 that were cast. So you can see the voters are turning them back in.
WILLIAMS: California promotes early and absentee voting, and even that has become controversial. Many of the 2 million votes already in were cast before the recent charges against Schwarzenegger.
Governor Gray Davis is on to this.
DAVIS: I have some advice to people who may have misgivings about having voted for Mr. Schwarzenegger. You could make amends by getting two people, recruiting two people to go to the polls and vote no on the recall.
WILLIAMS: Since nothing about this race is normal, all of the major candidates find themselves in a strange position. Governor Gray Davis today begging voters to vote no against the recall, behind him, Cruz Bustamante, whose slogan is, No to the recall but yes to Bustamante.
LT. GOV. CRUZ BUSTAMANTE (D), CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Are we going to elect someone who has been abusing women in our state?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No!
WILLIAMS: It's more complicated for the main challenger, Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's asking voters to recall the governor and vote for him, despite allegations of behavior toward women that would be a crime in some states. His wife is helping along those lines.
MARIA SHRIVER, ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER'S WIFE: As I say to our kids, who said this morning, Do you think Daddy's going to win or lose? What do you think's going to happen? I said, No matter what happens, in this race, your father has done an extraordinary thing.
WILLIAMS: Schwarzenegger regards the so-called groping issue as a distraction and continues to pepper his stump speeches with references to his big-screen accomplishments.
SCHWARZENEGGER: Gray Davis has terminated opportunities, and now it's time we terminate Gray Davis.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WILLIAMS: One day to go in this state that has proven over and over again, especially in this election, anything can happen.
And again, Arnold Schwarzenegger continues to battle these allegations that he groped or sexually harassed, in the words of some, several women. The number of women claiming they were touched inappropriately by Arnold Schwarzenegger grew to 15 in all over the weekend.
Schwarzenegger sat down with Tom Brokaw yesterday to answer questions about his personal behavior.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, first of all, I'm the first one to acknowledge when I make mistakes. But there's a lot of other stuff that's being thrown at me that's not true. They're coming out ofyou know, and it makes you become aware of the fact that this is what, you know campaigning and dirty campaigning is all about. Gray Davis is running a dirty campaign. This is all part of it. It's like, you know, he always was known for that.
TOM BROKAW, NBC NEWS: A lot of these women have made very specific accusations about grabbing them sexually and making lewd suggestions. You've described it as playful and rowdy, and the kind of mischief that you engaged in when you were a younger man. But based on their descriptions, in many states, what you did would be criminal, it would be a sexual assault of some kind.
SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, first of all, a lot of it is made-up stories. I have never grabbed anyone and pulled up their shirt and grabbed their breasts and stuff like that. This is not me. So there's a lot of this stuff going on, and there's a lot of stories...
BROKAW: You deny all the stories about grabbing?
SCHWARZENEGGER: None at all. But I'm just saying, this is not me.
BROKAW: You said, All of that was going on when I was not considering a career in politics, and it was at a time when women were treated differently in politics. It's a much more sensitive subject now. But is that an excuse for that kind of behavior, in your judgment?
SCHWARZENEGGER: No. I'm not making any excuses. Don't misunderstand me, Tom. There is no excuse here. I say straightforward that there were some times that I made mistakes. I regret it.
BROKAW: Governor Davis is saying today that you have an obligation to answer specifically the charges that have been made against you by 15 women now. You either have to call those women and their families liars, or give specific responses to the charges that they've made. Are you prepared to do that?
SCHWARZENEGGER: Governor Davis owes the people of California an apology for what he has done to this state. He owes them an explanation. He should talk to the people of California, because what he has done to this state is terrible.
BROKAW: But you're not going to be any more specific about these charges in terms of your denials?
SCHWARZENEGGER: As soon as the campaign is over, I willI can get into all of those kind of specifics and find out what is really going on. But right now I'm just really occupied with the campaign, and I want to be able to reach out to as many people as possible.
And now on Tuesday, it is up to the people. And I feel relaxed about that. Because whatever the people decide, that's what I believe in.
2003 FDCHe-Media, Inc. and CNBC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This transcript is provided AS IS. FDCHe-Media, Inc. and CNBC makes no warranties of any kind concerning the accuracy of this transcript or its fitness for any particular purpose. No license is granted to the user of this material other than for personal research. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.