MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript

Interview

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: (From videotape.) The Iranians have a strategic choice to make. They can come clean with the international community about the scope of their nuclear activities and fully accept the long-standing offer to suspend their enrichment program and come to the table and negotiate, or they can continue on a path of isolation that is not in the best interest of the Iranian people.

MR. MATTHEWS: Welcome back to "Hardball." That was, of course, President Bush today, still demanding that Iran disclose the full extent of its nuclear activities despite the big National Intelligence Estimate that came in yesterday that Iran had halted its weapons program back four years ago, in 2003.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is a Democratic presidential candidate right now. He's also served as Energy secretary of the United States, as ambassador to the U.N., as a U.S. congressman. He's now the governor in his second term from New Mexico.

You're an amazing guy.

GOV. RICHARDSON: (Laughs.) Well, thank you, Chris.

MR. MATTHEWS: So how come you're only 3 percent nationally right now?

GOV. RICHARDSON: Well, no, but in Iowa and New Hampshire I'm in double digits. I'm moving. You know, nationally --

MR. MATTHEWS: Is this an upside-down race where the people who have the least claim on the presidency get the best numbers? I mean, they've got you, Dodd, Biden, all with the resumes, at the bottom. And Obama -- what was he, a state senator three weeks ago? Look at him. Huckabee's never been to Washington. What's going on?

GOV. RICHARDSON: Well, my point is that this race shouldn't be based on political pedigree and who has the most money and who's the most glamorous. It should be who can change this country and who has experience.

The voters in Iowa and New Hampshire -- and you know that those are the states that propel you --

MR. MATTHEWS: Sure.

GOV. RICHARDSON: -- I'm moving up slowly. The dynamic there is different than it is nationally. I feel good, Chris. I've got momentum. I can feel it. I can feel it when I go into those homes in Iowa and New Hampshire.

MR. MATTHEWS: Okay, talk to me about the voter of Iowa. Do they care about the Iraq war being in a rut? And, yes, it's calm right now, but nobody says we're getting out of there as far as the eye can see. We're going to take casualties a little bit sometimes, a lot later, for as long as we can imagine.

Does anybody fear that this president still wants to take us to some kind of confrontation with Iran by demanding that they show what they don't have? I mean, we're putting the same kind of demands on them now we did with Saddam before the war.

GOV. RICHARDSON: Well, I want to just say something. The Iowa voter is the most informed that I've ever seen.

MR. MATTHEWS: Are they an anti-war crowd?

GOV. RICHARDSON: Generally, yeah. I mean, they're not necessarily anti-war. They know that this war is not working. They've been worried about what we're going to do in Iran. And I think this NIE report shows that the president has been pursuing an aggressive policy at a time when his advisors are -- he should have known about this finding. I'm baffled, and I'm baffled with his reaction. I think this is a time for diplomacy.

MR. MATTHEWS: Okay, you're president of the United States right now, Governor, and you just get the NIE report that says, despite everything that was said by the fear-mongers, four years ago they stopped their weapons program. What would you do? Would you call Ahmadinejad and say, "Let's talk. Maybe we've got a basis for talking now. We've been miscommunicating here."

GOV. RICHARDSON: Yes, I would talk to the Iranians. I don't know if it'd be Ahmadinejad. I would pursue the secretary of State going to their moderate elements, moderate clerics, moderate civilian leaders there, and I would say, "Look, you're not pursuing nuclear weapons; that's good. But you are pursuing uranium enrichment. What we will do in the West is assure you of civilian nuclear power. We'll give you the expertise to develop it. We'll assure you" --

MR. MATTHEWS: So same deal as -- "We're going to give you something like the deal we gave to North Korea, but with no nuclear."

GOV. RICHARDSON: That's right.

MR. MATTHEWS: An alternative energy source.

GOV. RICHARDSON: Alternative energy source. "We'll give you assured customers," because right now, Chris, with this report, the president is trying to pursue sanctions against Iran. In the U.N. Security Council, China and Russia, now that this report has come out, they're not going to go for sanctions.

MR. MATTHEWS: Why would Iran, that has all the oil in the world, be going nuclear for energy needs?

GOV. RICHARDSON: Because I believe they feel that they need diversity. And there are some elements in Iran that I do believe want to develop a nuclear capacity, nuclear weapons capacity. But I think the moderates have basically slowed this down. And our policy, our saber-rattling policy, has been based on the hope that they are developing nuclear weapons. And this, our intelligence agencies, 16 agencies, saying that they're developing enriched uranium -- now, you know, the reality there is that that is permitted under the Nonproliferation Treaty.

MR. MATTHEWS: Okay, here's what the president said the other day about how we were trying to play Mr. Nice Guy with Iran until they brought in Ahmadinejad, and now that's what's changed. Let's take a look. He said we were doing the soft sell up until 2005. Let's watch.

PRESIDENT BUSH: You might remember that I have consistently said that we will be at the table with the EU-3 if Iran would verifiably suspend their program. And the offer still stands. What changed was the change of leadership in Iran. We had a diplomatic track going. And Ahmadinejad came along and took a different tone. My hope is that, you know, the Iranian regime takes a look at their policies and changes their policies back to where we were prior to the election of Ahmadinejad, which was a hopeful period.

MR. MATTHEWS: "A hopeful period," "We're on a diplomatic course." For four years we were calling them the axis of evil. We were calling the government evil and he's saying -- is that inaccurate, what he just said? I think it is. Do you think that was inaccurate, what he just said?

GOV. RICHARDSON: It is inaccurate, because the report says that by the year 2003 that they'd suspended their nuclear weapons program, that they were enriching uranium. And what that report also said, the intelligence report, is that in the judgment of our intelligence agencies, Iran would respond to a carrot-and-stick policy. That means diplomacy.

This is the time to seek an unconditional dialogue with Iran. It'd be tough. Now, I wouldn't go to Ahmadinejad. I would go to more moderate elements. I would bring the Europeans, I would bring the United Nations and say, "Let's make a deal on two issues: One, on nuclear weapons; no nuclear weapons, but a civilian capacity." There is another element. We want them to stop fomenting terrorist elements in Iraq. I mean, that is a second issue. These are --

MR. MATTHEWS: What about -- well, do you think, based upon your knowledge of foreign policy, do you really think Ahmadinejad is really calling the shots over there? People tell me it's Khamenei at the top, the top guy.

GOV. RICHARDSON: I don't think Ahmadinejad is calling the shots. In fact, I think he's been discredited. He is a hardline element; there's no question about it.

MR. MATTHEWS: Oh, yeah.

GOV. RICHARDSON: But this is why it's important to open a dialogue, to kind of give the Ahmadinejads a push aside so we can negotiate with more moderate elements. This is a --

MR. MATTHEWS: You know, every time you guys talk like this, Hillary Clinton says you want to talk to a Holocaust denier.

GOV. RICHARDSON: Well --

MR. MATTHEWS: I mean, she puts the attack dog out, Wolfson, to go after you guys and say you want to sell out to the enemy, to Hitler.

GOV. RICHARDSON: Well, she was wrong to vote for that Iranian resolution. So was the entire Senate. Why bring something like that up? I think if we're going to get out of Iraq, and we should, you've got to involve Iran --

MR. MATTHEWS: So you want to be her running mate.

GOV. RICHARDSON: No, I don't want to be her running mate.

MR. MATTHEWS: Because you're tough on her tonight, but you're usually pretty supportive of Hillary.

GOV. RICHARDSON: Well, I just simply said at one debate that we should not be negative, that we should not attack each other's characters and --

MR. MATTHEWS: But that offends people like me when people say that. (Laughs.)

GOV. RICHARDSON: Because you're a newsman. You want a fight.

MR. MATTHEWS: (Laughs.)

GOV. RICHARDSON: But we want to win the election. And what I simply am saying, Chris, the American people want us to be positive. The American people want us to propose solutions, not throw mud at each other. Certainly the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire are doing that.

MR. MATTHEWS: Well, you'd be a great diplomat. You seem to understand the business, and you keep bringing them back alive. You went and buried the guy the other day. That was very nice of you to go to that.

GOV. RICHARDSON: Thank you. Thank you very much.

MR. MATTHEWS: You care about people. I will give you that. And I'd like to give you 10 more points in the polls.

GOV. RICHARDSON: I know I'm a good diplomat, but I'll be a good president. You watch. I'm going to win this thing. You watch.

MR. MATTHEWS: This is one of the nice guys in politics right here. Bill Richardson, we wish you well.

Source