Fox News Network Hannity & Colmes Transcript

December 30, 2003 Tuesday

HEADLINE: Gephardt Sounds Off on the Issues

GUESTS: Richard Gephardt

BYLINE: Monica Crowley, Alan Colmes

BODY:
(NEWSBREAK)

CROWLEY: Welcome back to HANNITY & COLMES. I'm Monica Crowley, in tonight for Sean Hannity.

Coming up, will Michael Jackson's first TV interview since his arrest be his legal undoing? Our expert panel looks at the pros and the cons.

But first earlier today, Alan got the chance to speak with presidential hopeful Congressman Dick Gephardt.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COLMES: Congressman Gephardt, thank you very much for being with us.

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT (D-MO), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Great to be with you.

COLMES: Is Howard Dean the person to beat right now?

GEPHARDT: Well, he's run a good campaign. He's got some good results in a lot of different areas.

But I think I'm going to defeat him. I think I'm going to be the Democratic nominee. I'm going to win in Iowa and the other early states you need to do well in. And I think I have the best chance to beat George Bush, and that's the goal here.

COLMES: What's the strategy to get ahead of Dean in the polls right now?

GEPHARDT: Well, you know, the polls are not truly instructive. I know we all look at them, and there's a lot of them. But the truth is, the people make this decision, and they start in Iowa.

And I have tremendous faith in the people in Iowa. I've been out there, as the other candidates have, over the last months, and I've got a great campaign.

I think it's tight in the polls right now between Dean and me, but I think I'm going to prevail. And then I think I can defeat him in the other early states that come thereafter.

And, again, I think a lot of people out in the country as Democrats are looking for not only who has the most experience, who has the boldest and best ideas, but who has the best chance of beating George Bush.

COLMES: Do you agree with John Kerry that Howard Dean cannot beat George W. Bush?

GEPHARDT: I think I have a better chance by a lot of beating George Bush than Howard Dean or a lot of the other candidates.

If you're going to beat Bush-if you look at the electoral map, we're going to win in California and New York. We're going to win in a few other coastal states.

The key to the election is the Midwest; it's the heartland of the country. That's where I'm from. I'm the only candidate from that part of the country, and that's where my union support is from.

Those are Reagan Democrats in many cases, and their support for me is grassroots, heartfelt support. And I think I can get them to vote for me in states like Michigan and Missouri and Illinois and Pennsylvania.

COLMES: Are you the only candidate...

GEPHARDT: That's where we have to beat George Bush.

COLMES: Are you the only candidate who can beat George W. Bush?

GEPHARDT: I think I have the best chance to do it. Look, you never know what the conditions are going to be when the election comes. There's no way to know that. So you can paint a lot of different scenarios.

I just know one thing-I really believe I have the best chance to beat George Bush. I think the Republicans think that. I think the White House thinks that. And so, we can't let them down. We've got to give them the best candidate.

COLMES: What if you don't win in Iowa? Is that the end of the campaign for you?

GEPHARDT: Well, again, there are a lot of different scenarios, and it's a hypothetical question. It's hard to really answer.

I've got to get a good result; there's no two ways about that. You know, what if we tie? What is I'm one point ahead, on point behind? I mean, again, there are a lot of scenarios.

I've got to do well. I've got to compete well there. I've got to get a good result so that we can translate that result into the other early states and get the result that we need.

This is a lot like the football or baseball playoffs. You've got to start doing well, and you've got to keep doing well.

COLMES: You also need, clearly, fundraising. You've set a goal of $20 million. You need about probably $15 million. You needed $3 million in the last quarter. Where are you on that?

In 1988, you won Iowa, did well in New Hampshire, but then you had to suspend operations, because you didn't have the money. How do we know that wouldn't happen again for you this time?

GEPHARDT: Well, we've done a lot better this time than we did in '88.

To give you the analogy, in '88, at the end of 1987, right about now in this cycle, I had no money in the bank. I had raised a total of $5 million in the whole year, and we literally ran the campaign on the matching money in Iowa, New Hampshire, and then South Dakota. And I ran out of money after South Dakota, and I couldn't go on.

This time, we're going to raise in the neighborhood of $18 million, $20 million. With the match we'll be up in the lower 20s.

That's a heck of a lot more than I had in '88. It's enough to run in all the early states, and we believe it's enough to run this campaign. We've been very frugal with the money that we've raised. We've probably been better at saving the money than any campaign, so we're going to have sufficient funds to run a winning campaign.

COLMES: How are you a different candidate than you were in 1988? How is Dick Gephardt different?

GEPHARDT: Well, I think experience counts. I really do. It's not the only thing, and you have to use your experience to do better in the future and to have bold ideas for the future.

But I have both used my experience in politics and my experience as a public servant to try to be a better candidate. And I think that experience counts far lot.

We're in a world of terrorism. And I really don't think people are going to leave the horse that they're on, the president of the United States, to go to a new president if they don't feel confident that that new person has good experience, steady hands, to deal with all the problems we have to deal with in this world.

And therefore, I think the experience factor is going to be a real asset when we get into the end of this campaign.

COLMES: Union support helps you in Iowa, probably less of a factor in New Hampshire. One of the things that helps in New England, has certainly helped Howard Dean, is his anti-war stance.

You've been for the war. You supported the ability for the president to go to war in Iraq, and you voted for the $87 billion.

Is that something that could hurt you, going forward past Iowa, and isn't that what's propelled Howard Dean to the front of the pack at this point?

GEPHARDT: Well, I don't know the answer to that.

And I've said from the beginning that on questions of fighting against terrorism, trying to keep our people safe, you can't play politics with it. I just will not do that.

I'm going to do what I think is the right thing to do to keep our people safe. That's what I've tried to do from the beginning.

And I didn't just listen to George Bush. I went out to the CIA, I listened to a lot of other people who weren't connected with the administration, who had a similar viewpoint that thought that Saddam Hussein had weapons or components of weapons that they were worried about. So, that's what I based my vote on.

And once our troops are there, we got to support them. I'm just not built in a way that I can walk away from the people that we've sent over there that are dodging bullets for us.

And I want to send the right message to the people in Iraq, that Saddam Hussein is over and that we're going to stick with this until we get it left in a better place.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: We will have more with Alan's interview with Congressman Dick Gephardt in just a minute.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPTCOLMES: Welcome back to HANNITY & COLMES. I'm Alan Colmes.

Coming up next, is Michael Jackson trying to paint himself as a victim to gain support in the public arena? Our panel will debate it.

We now continue with more of my interview with Dick Gephardt.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COLMES: Why is President Bush the worst president of the last five, the ones you've worked with? You've made that statement of late. You've called him the worst president that you've worked with in your years in Congress. Why is that?

GEPHARDT: Well, a number of reasons.

First of all, I think that he has really, through affirmative acts, messed up a very good economy that he inherited from the Clinton administration.

What is most frustrating to me is that after we went to great lengths to get the economy straightened out, after 12 years of high and rising deficits-we helped create 22 million jobs in seven years-the president comes along and just kind of squanders all of that achievement through three consecutive tax cuts, most of which was aimed at the wealthiest Americans.

Now, you'd think that in the face of war, in the face of all these homeland security needs, that any president would at least try to modify our courts so that we didn't wind up bankrupting the country.

He just is inflexible. He's rigid. He will not change course. He just forges ahead, even though conditions have completely changed. I think that is a miserable failure. And the American people are paying mightily for those failures now.

COLMES: You've used that phrase, "a miserable failure." You've called him a miserable failure. In fact you have a web site, AMiserableFailure.com.

You understand that some people could perceive that as negative campaigning and a personal attack, as opposed to an attack on policies when you call the president a miserable failure?

GEPHARDT: Well, it is a comment on his policies. I'm really saying that his policies have failed and, therefore, his leadership is a miserable failure because of the bad results that are happening from his lack of leadership.

We've got 43 million people in this country that have no health insurance coverage. And we've had more lose their coverage since he's been president.

He's unwound lots of important environmental regulations to keep the air safe, to keep the water safe in the country.

He's not doing anything to lead the American people of the world to get a better global trading system, so that we get conditions and standards to be coming up in these other countries.

He's cut his own Leave No Child behind education program, which he billed as the way to solve the education-so we're being led in all the wrong directions.

COLMES: Congressman, why, then, is he doing so well, even against an unnamed Democrat. The unnamed Democrat gets only about 41 percent as of now. Nobody against Bush beats him in any poll that's been taken.

Why, then, if all you're saying is true, are the American people not responding to that?

GEPHARDT: Well, polls go up and down. Conditions quickly change. People change their mind a little bit on the margins.

It wasn't many months ago that I think they put all of us against George Bush, and many of us were almost tied with him. His favorable rating was way down.

Since that time, we've had a little uptick in the economy, even though no jobs have been created. And we caught Saddam Hussein. So, maybe people look a little more kindly on some of the things that he's been doing.

This thing's got a long way to go. This president, in the end, will be judged on the results that he either achieves or doesn't achieve at the time of the election.

And I'm convinced that he's not doing a good job, and I think we can do much better. And I think the American people will agree with that when we get down to the election in November of next year.

COLMES: We have a few moments left.

Speaking of another moral issue, when asked about same-sex marriage, you said, we can't have a constitutional amendment, as George Bush wants, every time and keep changing the constitution.

Yet didn't you want just that, a constitutional amendment, back in the '80s when you were anti-abortion? You wanted an amendment at that point? What changed you on that particular issue, which many regard as a moral issue?

GEPHARDT: Well, I grew up in a Baptist background. I had certain teachings when I was young about questions like abortion, and I brought those into my public life.

But as time went on, my views changed and evolved, because I listened to people. I listened to women. I listened to members of my own family.

And I came to a different conclusion. I decided that it was not correct to change the law from Roe v. Wade, that this should be a matter of choice, difficult choice, but choice for families and for women.

And so, I informed my constituents that this was my view, and that's the way I voted.

Alan, same sex marriage, I think gay marriage is not the right approach. I think if states do allow civil unions, if that's the view they come to, that we ought to conform our federal laws so that people are treated equally.

I just don't think marriage is an answer, or something that really is a religious concept and not appropriate for this situation.

COLMES: Congressman, if Howard Dean continues to lead and gets the nod, and comes to you and says, "I would like you, Dick Gephardt, to be my vice president," would you consider that?

GEPHARDT: Well, that's a hypothetical that's not going to happen. I'm going to win this nomination. And I'm going to beat George Bush.

But I'll say this, and I've said it many times before. The object here is to beat George Bush, to bring new leadership in this country. I think I'm going to be the candidate. I think I'm going to do that.

But if for some reason I'm not, I'll support whoever the people, the Democrats out there, nominate to be president of the United States.

COLMES: And if for some reason you're not, would you under any circumstances accept a second spot on the ticket?

GEPHARDT: That's not going to happen. I'm going to get the first spot. But I want to win and I want to beat George Bush, and I think I'm the best candidate to do that.

COLMES: So you wouldn't even...

GEPHARDT: I have the best chance to do that.

COLMES: ... consider the possibility that if the worst happens and you're not the nominee, you wouldn't consider No. 2?

GEPHARDT: As Harry Truman used to say, "I don't answer iffy questions."

COLMES: I didn't ask him a fourth time, by the way.

More of that interview on the radio tonight on Fox News Live with Alan Colmes.

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