CNN News From CNN - Transcript

HEADLINE: Kerry vs. Edwards

GUESTS: Chaka Fattah, Gregory Meeks

BYLINE: Wolf Blitzer, Barbara Starr

HIGHLIGHT:
Interview With Congressman Chaka Fattah, Congressman Greg Meeks.; U.S. to send assessment team to Haiti.

BODY:

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: BLITZER: You're looking at live pictures of the AFL-CIO headquarters here in Washington D.C. Within minutes, President John Sweeney will make the official announcement, the AFL-CIO formally endorsing John Kerry in his bid for the presidency. That's coming up. We'll have live coverage.

In the meantime, let's talk a little bit about all of this with two guests. Two guests representing two different Democratic presidential candidates.

Congressman Greg Meeks of New York is a John Kerry supporter. He's joining us. And Congressman Chaka Fattah is a supporter of John Edwards. He's joining us as well.

Thanks, congressmen, for joining us.

Congressman Fattah, how disappointed are you that John Kerry is going to get this endorsement as opposed to John Edwards, since Edwards in recent days has been making a major point of the fact that he would have voted against NAFTA had he been in the Congress?

REP. CHAKA FATTAH (D), PENNSYLVANIA: Look, I think either of these candidates could rightfully make a claim to seek the support of working families. We're going to do well as we go forward. But the AFL-CIO has to make its own judgments. And we respect that.

There's been attempts in the past, however, to have a coordination, whether it was Lieberman or Clark or Dean. But the truth of the matter is that, Edwards has run a-at a steady pace. He closes strong. And I think that as we go forward into Super Tuesday, you're going to see that the public understands that this is a unique candidate.

This is a person with the combination of both passion and purpose that really energizes Democrats. So we respect that this is John Kerry's day in terms of endorsements. He's got the lion's share of endorsements. We're looking for the lion's share of votes on Election Day.

BLITZER: All right. What about that, Congressman Meeks? What's wrong with the assessment we just heard from Congressman Fattah?

REP. GREGORY MEEKS (D), NEW YORK: Well, not only that John Kerry has the lion's share of endorsements. As of right now, he has the lion's share of delegates.

You look at the contest and you can see that-and again, I think I should-Chaka was correct. We have two good men here. And Edwards has a great future. And it shows the greatness of the Democratic Party.

But, you know, Edwards would almost have to get 60 percent of all of the remaining delegates. John Kerry, in fact, has won. You know, not finished second or third or fourth; he's won in all but two states and all over the country. He's one to the North, the West, the South and the East. And so he's just showing that he's able to bring everyone together.

He has the kind of experience that is necessary to beat George Bush. Not only domestically, but talking about his national security experience. I mean, that is tremendously important, and I think that that's what's resonating with the public. And that's why he's finishing first in every primary, with the exception of two.

BLITZER: Well, let me pick that up with Congressman Fattah. By our accounting here at CNN, Kerry now has 613 committed delegates; Howard Dean 202; John Edwards 192. 2,161, as you well know, needed in Boston at the Democratic Convention in order to get the presidential nomination. It is a tough road ahead for John Edwards.

FATTAH: Well, look, I think we can both agree that the nominee of our party will have the first name of John. I don't think anything else is clear yet. You've got to play all nine innings of the game.

The fact that we're somewhere, you know, where 17 states have voted, we have a nation in which there are 50 states. And I don't think you want to have this matter be closed without the people of Greg Meeks' great state of New York voting, or the people in California and Ohio. They act as if somehow 17 states equates to the nation having made a decision. I think short (UNINTELLIGIBLE) millions of Democratic voters.

BLITZER: All right. Let me read e-mail to both of you congressmen, and we'll give you an opportunity to respond to some of our viewers.

Marvin in Arizona has this, Congressman Meeks, for you: "Why does Kerry keep hammering on Bush about the job outsourcing when it was the Clinton administration that got NAFTA passed?"

MEEKS: Well, when you look at the Clinton administration and NAFTA, clearly under the Clinton administration we created more jobs in America than we had. Unemployment was at its lowest all time. So it has to be something that Bush is doing subsequent to Bill Clinton that has caused all the jobs to leave America.

You know, under Bill Clinton, we were doing very well economically. We had a surplus budget. It is Bush economics that has caused us to have all of the jobs that are leaving now and have this deficit economy that we're currently under. And I think that's the key question.

If you talk about Clinton, you talk about prosperity. You talk about Bush, you're talking about deficits. That's what the difference is. And John Kerry can help us bring us back to prosperity and surplus budgets.

BLITZER: All right. Here's an e-mail for you, Congressman Fattah. This is from Marty in North Carolina.

"I would like for you to review John Edwards' voting record on trade. I find it very opportunistic that Edwards used 'I was in against NAFTA' in his Wisconsin ads when he was not even in the Senate at that time."

I guess the question Marty's asking, what evidence is there that he really against NAFTA when it came up during the Clinton administration?

FATTAH: Well, look, I don't want to get into too much of a review, other than to say this: is that some of the three million people who are jobless today voted for George Bush. Some of the people and the millions who lost their homes and the highest rate of mortgage foreclosures in our country voted for Bush.

Some of these young people who have been sent over to Iraq, they voted for George Bush. People need to be very careful as we go through this voting process not to get hung up on nuances between John Edwards and John Kerry.

The Bush administration has had a net loss of three million jobs. When you heard the Justice Department official talk about the Enron indictments, talking about people cooking the books, we have $500 billion in deficits, where this nation had a surplus four years ago.

So the Democratic Party is united. We have two great candidates. I'm supporting John Edwards. And Congressman Meeks may be absolutely right that, at the end of the day, John Kerry's the guy. But we as a party want to change the presidency.

BLITZER: All right. I want to take a quick break. But a quick question to both of you, because I want to continue on this conversation.

First to you, Congressman Fattah. Is it time for Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton to formally drop out of this race?

FATTAH: Look, my guy's doing well with the shape of the race, as it is. I don't want anything to change.

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FATTAH: Well, I think it's a clear contradiction. This administration says it wants to promote democracy. But in Haiti, we've been willing to do absolutely nothing to make sure that the democratic elected government there can really stabilize the situation.

I'm happy to see that the French government has positioned some 4,000 troops in the arena and have offered apparently to the government in Haiti to go in and provide some peacekeeping. The United States has failed miserably to do anything constructive in Haiti for more than a decade. And I just think that we should-it's clear we had the situation in Liberia, where we really-you know, we kind of sent a boat up the river, but we didn't really do much to deal with the situation.

I guess if there was oil there, or, you know, if somebody said that there was a terrorist hanging around in Haiti somewhere, we would be willing to rush in. But other than that, we're not going to do anything.

BLITZER: Congressman Meeks, Haiti's only a 90-minute flight from Miami-from Florida-southern Florida. There are enormous potential U.S. interests, especially if Haitians begin to get on rafts and boats and try to come to the United States. What do you make of this late development?

MEEKS: Yes. Congressman Fattah is right on the money. I sit on the Haiti Taskforce for the Congressional Black Caucus. And the Congressional Black Caucus, as early as this morning, has sent a letter to President Bush saying that President Bush should officially involve the Congressional Black Caucus in getting down in and trying to help out.

Because there has been-you know, we are supposed to be-we are the largest democracy on the planet. We should be promoting democracy. And for a long time, it seemed as though our policy had been as if it was OK to have a violent or military overthrow of a democratically elected government.

Now, that's not to say that everybody likes everything that President Aristide has done, et cetera. But we're talking about building an institution of democracy, and we have that kind of responsibility.

So I should hope that the president does, you know, more than what we did in Liberia, but try to make sure that we do for the Haitian people. When you look at what's happening to the people there, that we make a difference, and that he should-you know, we've asked the members of the Congressional Black Caucus to get us involved in a number of things previously that we thought that we could help.

Unfortunately, the president has had a deaf ear on that. And we hope that he will open up and listen and we can work collectively together to really now focus on having democracy. Because you talk about our third border, well Haiti's part of that third border. And it's important that we promote and help with the democracy just 90 miles off our shore.

BLITZER: All right. Congressman Meeks, thanks very much.

Congressman Fattah, thank you very much for sticking around.

END