ABC "This Week with George Stephanopoulos"-Transcript

Interview

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning, everyone. The Bush administration announced tough new sanctions against Iran this week, and that's where we begin this morning with our headliner, Senator John McCain. Welcome back to "This Week," sir.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ): Thank you, George.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: I know you support the new sanctions. We've also seen a stepping up of the rhetoric both from President Bush and out on the campaign trail, and there seems to be a real dividing line between the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates on this issue. Last week, Senator John Biden was on this program. He said it's folly to even discuss military action. Take a look.

SEN. JOE BIDEN (D-DE): (From videotape.) If anybody thinks you're going to be able to stop Iran because you're going to invade them or you're going to instigate an air war with them, they're crazy. All that will do was solidify every single Iranian to be united in their opposition to us and to the West.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Does he have a point?

SEN. MCCAIN: I think he has a point in that you ought to be very careful about what kind of rhetoric you use and what kind of threats you make, because if you make threats, you have to make sure that you carry them out. But having said that, I think that you saw a activity on the part of the Israelis vis-a-vis a facility in Syria not too long ago, where according to published reports there might have been some North Korean involvement in a some kind of nuclear facility. We cannot allow the Iranians to have nuclear weapons because they are dedicated to the extinction of the state of Israel. They are exporting explosive devices into Iraq as we speak that are killing Americans. They are obviously on the path of developing those nuclear weapons, and so I applaud what was being done.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: You mentioned that Israeli strike against Syria. Every military expert I've talked to said the Iranians have learned the lessons of the Osirak bombing, of perhaps the Syrian bombing, they've dispersed their facilities. You're not going to be able to take it out with a single strike like that, and it's going to take troops, and one of Senator Biden's points is we simply don't have those troops.

SEN. MCCAIN: Well, look, I'm not going to discuss tactics that could be used, but I would say from my knowledge of warfare and this situation, you don't have to take out all the facilities, okay, and I don't want to say anything more about it because I think one of the most effective things you can do is not telegraph your punches. But what my friend Senator Biden didn't address and others haven't, do you think that there's not going to be nuclear proliferation in the region if the Iranians acquire nuclear weapons? Do you think the Saudis aren't? Do you think that every other nation in the region isn't? This is the most unstable part of the world right now. The Iranians have dedicated themselves to a certain proposition, and that is the extinction of the state of Israel. They continue to foment unrest and terrorism in the region. They support terrorist organizations, so this is a major challenge for Americans.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: It is a decision, a challenge for the next president almost certainly. Mayor Giuliani said he can guarantee that Iran would not get a nuclear weapon on his watch. Can you make the same guarantee?

SEN. MCCAIN: I can say that we cannot allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, but I do believe that to start talking about specifics -- a bombardment or something like that -- I think would be a terrible mistake. In January of 1981, Ronald Reagan was sworn in on that day as president of the United States. On that day, the hostages came home from Tehran. Now, it's not exactly comparable, but the Iranians would know, when I'm president they're facing somebody who's not going to let them have it, but I'm not going to make a lot of empty threats that I can't carry out.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: What will President Putin of Russia know if you're president? We don't know what job he's going to be holding by that time. It could be president again. But this week, he was out talking about the U.S. sanctions against Iran. He likened the United States to a mad man with a knife. It is clear he is trying to counter U.S. efforts around the world. He has not been helpful on Iran. How would you counter him as president?

SEN. MCCAIN: Of course, I have warned about Mr. Putin long ago, and I saw his behavior and I saw his repression in Chechnya and I saw his consolidation of power, and his acquaintances and his advisers are all these old KGB apparatchiks. One of the things I would do is I wouldn't invite him to the G8. I would treat him -- start treating him for what he is -- a person who is trying to revert the old Russian Empire, a person who is basically depriving Russian people of any opportunity of democratic process, of a opposition that is viable, and even to the point where there are now assassinations taking place, and at best he is blocking the investigations of those assassinations. So what I would I start treating him is as what he is -- a totalitarian dictator who is bent on consolidation of power and countering the United States' best efforts in many areas of the world, including Iran.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: You also said that you would continue the missile defense system that President Bush is hoping to put in Czechoslovakia. This week, president --

SEN. MCCAIN: And Poland.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Sure, Poland. This week, President Putin said that will be like the Cuban Missile Crisis all over again.

SEN. MCCAIN: Again, that just shows the aberrational behavior in the rhetoric that he displays and the rhetoric that he uses. And apparently, he is intent on making the United Nations Security Council basically toothless. That's why we're going to have to go outside the United Nations Security Council, for example, with Iran. I applaud what the administration did, but we should get the European nations to do the same thing.

Right now, major European financial institutions are giving lines of credit to the Iranians. Their economy is not great because they've got a lousy government, and I think that if we could get more allies involved, I think it could have an impact. What I'm trying to say is before we continue to talk about the military option, before we really seriously say we're going to use it, then we ought to explore all these other options to try to dissuade them or bring enough influence on them that they would see that it's not in their interest. But at the end of the day, they will destabilize the entire region if they have a nuclear weapon.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me turn to the campaign trail. And your campaign this week put out a memo. Actually it was leaked I think, but I don't think you are all that unhappy that it was leaked, about Mayor Giuliani. And it seemed like the one of the first times you've taken him on, or your campaign has taken him on directly. One of the things that your campaign manager, Rick Davis, wrote on this is he talked about the prospect that social conservatives will pull away from the party because of Rudy Giuliani's pro-choice position. He wrote, Rudy Giuliani puts the Republican coalition of social and economic conservatives at risk and his nomination would have devastating results for our party. Do you believe that?

SEN. MCCAIN: I think it is hard for me to accept the fact that we would nominate someone who has fundamental disagreements with one or more --

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: But he's saying he'll break the party apart -- devastating results for your party.

SEN. MCCAIN: No, I'm hoping that whoever is the nominee of our party that we will support that nominee, but it's hard for me to imagine that someone who holds the views on some of these issues and a record of it would be at the end of the day the nominee of the party.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Except that he's -- a lot of you have thought that for a long time, yet he continues to lead in all the national polls. How do you explain that?

SEN. MCCAIN: I think because he is deservedly a popular individual whose performance after 9/11 was very excellent and he rallied the country. I think as people began to examine the candidate's positions, but most of all their ability to lead this nation in the transcended challenge against radical Islamic extremism. I have a consistent, conservative, reliable record, and polls today show that I am most likely to be able to beat Senator Clinton in a head-to-head match-up.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to get to that. But you mentioned that Mayor Giuliani's performance after 9/11 was excellent, yet in the same memo, Rick Davis writes that Rudy Giuliani will get swift-boated. New York firemen, police officers, and relatives of the victims of 9/11 are laying the groundwork to swift-boat Rudy Giuliani in relation to his performance on 9/11. They raised questions about whether he put the command center in the right place, whether the firefighters had the right communications, equipment, whether the clean-up after the 9/11 was adequate. Do you share those concerns?

SEN. MCCAIN: I have no idea whether that he will be or not. That's a memo that was obviously leaked, but the fact is I have no idea. I have continued to praise Mayor Giuliani's performance fallowing 9/11. I went to the World Series with him when the Diamondbacks beat the New York Yankees, which was a great experience, so we're great friends.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: So you have no quarrels with his performance after 9/11.

SEN. MCCAIN: Everything I saw, it's fine.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: The basic point of this memo is that you can -- you are a more effective candidate in the general election than Hillary Clinton. Of course, Mayor Giuliani disputes that. This morning -- in this morning's "New York Times," Barack Obama takes off on Hillary Clinton saying she hasn't been fully truthful in her positions on Iraq, on Iran, on Social Security. Is Obama right?

SEN. MCCAIN: I don't know. I know this, that I know and respect Senator Clinton, and will have a respectful debate, and it's not going to be anything but about the fact that she's a liberal Democrat, I'm a conservative Republican. We disagree on Iraq. When it was clear we're going to stay there, Senator Clinton voted to not fund the troops in Iraq. On healthcare, she believes in mandates and a very large government proposal. On taxes, obviously we have a different position there. I think there are fundamental differences in positions, and I think the American people will be well served by a respectful debate, which ventilates the issues rather than taking shots back and forth at each other. And spending -- spending is a big issue. I talked about --

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Especially on the Woodstock Museum.

SEN. MCCAIN: Yes. But see, it's symptomatic that she and many other members of Congress don't understand that Americans are sick of this kind of spending, they're sick and tired of it, and if we're going to fix Medicare, we're going to fix Social Security, we'd better clean up our act on this wasteful spending which has corrupted people. That's why we have former members of Congress in federal prison. It's got to stop. And unfortunately, Senator Clinton has adopted this earmarking pork-barrel practice which I think Americans reject as resoundingly as reflected by our approval ratings in polls.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: This week we also saw increased concern about the Attorney General-designate Michael Mukasey. He was asked whether or not he thought water-boarding was torture. He said he wasn't sure. That's a similar position to Mayor Giuliani who said the same thing this week. You fundamentally disagree.

SEN. MCCAIN: Anyone who says they don't know if water-boarding is torture or not has no experience in the conduct of warfare, in national security. This is a fundamental about America. It isn't about an interrogation technique. It isn't about whether someone is really harmed or not. It's about what kind of a nation we are. We are a nation that takes a moral high ground. If we engage in a practice that was invented in the Spanish Inquisition, was used by Pol Pot in Cambodia in that great genocide, is now being used on Buddhist monks in Burma, and we're going to be the same as that? How do we keep the moral high ground in the world? I would never use that and find some other practices.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: You obviously feel strongly about this. Will Mr. Mukasey have to say clearly that he believes water-boarding is torture in order to get your vote for attorney general?

SEN. MCCAIN: I can't be that absolute, but I want to know his answer. I want to know his answer. Obviously you judge a candidate for office or nominee for office on their entire record, but this is a very important issue for me.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, let's talk about your campaign. You have had a bit of come back in recent months. You still have trouble with money -- about three and a half million dollars cash on hand. Do you have enough to compete in both Iowa and New Hampshire? And what do you say to Republicans who are concerned -- they're worried that you're going to have to take public financing, and if you do that, even if you get the nomination, you're going to be handicapped for that long period between February, likely, and the conventions in August?

SEN. MCCAIN: Well, first of all, we won't have the same problem that Bob Dole had. That's what we look at. Because there will be a strong party involvement, other individual involvement as far as state and local parties and national parties if we do that -- but we haven't made the decision yet. I have never won a campaign on money. I almost did -- obviously, won in 2000 -- we were outspent 10, 15, 20 to one. The nature of campaigning in South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Iowa, as you know, is the town hall meetings, the interface of retail politics. Thank God. It's good for America, but it's also very good for my campaign. And I see increasing enthusiasm, I see increasing support, and I think we are going to do very well, and whatever we do, I think we'll have enough money to be competitive.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator McCain, thank you very much.

SEN. MCCAIN: Thanks, George.

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