Globe interview with John Kerry
On December 10, 2003, the Globe editorial board interviewed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, US Senator from Massachusetts. The following is a complete transcript of the interview.
QF = Female Questioner(s)
QM = Male Questioner(s)
A = Senator John Kerry
QF: Just in case you were wondering, mostly members of the editorial board here (inaudible).
A: (inaudible).
QF: And also members of the news side, who are looking for a scoop. So those are the two constituencies to satisfy here. We'd like to ask you briefly to sort of crystallize for us the case for John Kerry, and then, you know, we'll (inaudible) the questions, OK?
A: Great. Great. Well, thank you. First of all, thank you for the happy birthday wishes. I guess there's no group of people in the country who know me better than most of you in this room. Some of you have been writing about me since I was 27 years old. So this is an interesting journey here. And I'm glad to be here today. I hope that in the days and weeks ahead I can earn the endorsement of the Boston Globe. I want it. And I think it'll make a difference. I can't tell you that I wouldn't have hoped to be here in a different place in the race at this moment, rather than being behind and fighting back, but those of you who know me know that I am, number one, a fighter. And I can recognize a fight and I'm a good closer. And I'm going to provide a fight, so fasten your seatbelts and hang in there, because this race is not over. I believe I'm doing well in Iowa, and I think we're going to grow in New Hampshire. I think people are starting to really pay attention, and I think they're looking to see who can be President of the United States. This is a bigger judgment than in some ways we've yet focused on as a country, and I think that's beginning now. I've learned a lot. I've listened a lot. I think I'm a better candidate today than I was when I began. And I think, you know, there's a certain breaking out of the Senate and Washington that sometimes takes longer or is tougher than you think. But I've met a lot of people who've taught me a lot about what is really important and what we need to be fighting for in the country right now. And I think there are significant differences between us in this field. I believe I am ready to be President of the United States. And I believe I have a vision for this country that is clear, that is documented by 35 years of consistent fighting for values and for specific goals and programs that make a difference in the lives of fellow Americans. And that consistency, I think, is very important as you think about who ought to be president. And I'll just tell you very quickly the three biggest reasons and issues. Number one, we're at war. It is a very dangerous and complex world. If 9-11 has taught us anything and if George Bush has taught us anything, it is that this is not the moment for on-the-job training in the conduct of foreign affairs, international security affairs, and military affairs of our country. I think this is the most inept, reckless, arrogant, ideological foreign policy in modern history. And I have laid out a very specific set of alternatives, about how we renew an era of alliances; renew faith in multilateralism, where there is strength, not weakness; and how we really fight a war on terror effectively. I can lead this country. I can beat George Bush. I can stand up to what will be withering attacks on patriotism and security. And I can do that. Secondly, this is the most unfair moment I've ever seen in my public life in terms of the workplace in America and the lives of Americans. There is the most significant feeding frenzy in modern times of special, powerful, monied interests in America, to the exclusion of the average American. Whether it's the energy bill and 50 billion bucks to the oil and gas industry, or the Medicare bill and the drug industry, or countless other areas. Walkbacks on Clear Air, Clean Water, you name it. I think above all the candidates in this field I've demonstrated a willingness to take risks and to stand up and fight against those interests. And whether it was standing up to Ronald Reagan or Oliver North or Noriega, or John McCain and I to the auto industry on emissions, any host of things. Stopping the drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. I've lead those battles. I know what we have to do. And finally, I think there are a set of choices in the country on a broad array of issues where George Bush is leading our country in a radically wrong direction. And I intend to turn it around and renew people's faith in politics and in the possibilities of us making better choices for the future of our children. That's why I'm running for president, and that's why I'd like to earn your support. And I'd be happy to answer any questions on any subject at all.
QF: You know, you mentioned Noriega a second ago, and I think for a lot of us here who do know you for many years, maybe even in your own mind, you're still the, you know, Vietnam War protesting, Noriega chasing, Iran-Contra exposing, you know, maverick kind of fighter (inaudible). And yet, in this political campaign, you're sort of the establishment old fogey. (laughter). (inaudible) and so on. (laughter). How did that happen?
A: It's very simple. I mean, it's --
QF: Or is it even a bad thing, you know?
A: Well, it depends how it gets positioned at this point. Like to some degree people haven't, as I said, completely (inaudible). But look, the war took place. I mean, let's just be honest with each other. It was a very divisive issue. It clouded the capacity for a serious discussion of American foreign policy. It became yes or no, and no was not a policy. No is not a policy. But that precluded -- I mean, at that point my campaign was moving very strongly. I think most of you know that. And it just
BOB: So Senator, all of that has occurred, like it or not. And so let's just transpose this a little bit and move the inauguration date to tomorrow and you're now in office and, as commander in chief, responsible for our position in Iraq. What would you do tomorrow to take us to where you think we should be?
A: Well, the first thing I would do is rescind this absolutely absurd, insulting, arrogant, even stupid memorandum prohibiting other countries from doing construction in Iraq. That is the most unconstructive, inept message with respect to American foreign policy in the wake of what has gone on that you could dream of. They ought to fire Wolfowitz over that. And frankly I would call for Rumsfeld's resignation anyway. Going to war the way they went to war, knowing you're going to win -- not an American or anyone in the world had doubt we would win -- to not have a plan to adequately deal with winning the peace went against every bit of advice and wisdom they were given. So I would rescind that, because the message to every country in the world that we want now to have them come in and participate and share our risk and burden is, I mean, it's just the opposite. It's exactly -- it's damaging. Secondly, I spent a lot of time before the vote looking at this issue. I went up to the United Nations at the request of some friends. And I met with the entire Security Council in a room just like this at a table like this. I spent two hours with them. (inaudible), just me and the Security Council, asking them questions. The French ambassador, "Is there a time when President Chirac would be ready to come on board? What do we need to do to move the French people to a place where they understand the stakes? Are you prepared to spend money? Do you believe we might have to use force in order to disarm Saddam Hussein? At what point would you be ready to do that?" I went through that with all of them. And I left there convinced that the U.N. was prepared to be deadly serious about this. Kofi Annan is a friend of mine. I've talked to him many times, most recently in the last weeks. I know the U.N. is prepared to play a role if properly brought to the table. But that's the art of diplomacy, for which this administration either doesn't care at all or has no skill whatsoever. I talked with a friend of mine who was in Paris the other day who was meeting with President Chirac at length, exploring some ideas, and the clear conclusion was that there is a place where the president is prepared to be involved and even perhaps put troops on the ground. Now, you know, the President of the United States ought to be personally pursuing real diplomacy that brings other nations to the table. You can't do that if you're not willing to share true risk -- true burden -- true authority over the reconstruction and true authority over the governmental transformation. And doing those two is the precursor, it's the condition precedent to being able to get other troops on the ground, begin to reduce the burden on America. These people were so inept they actually went to the U.N. and asked for a resolution that called us the occupying power. Our diplomats labeled us the occupying power. It's shocking. It's the last thing we should want to be. So I would move as rapidly as possible to rejoin the community of nations. I don't believe it's done just by Iraq. And I've said many times it's my intention, within weeks of being elected president, I would like to go to the U.N. I'd like to stand at that podium where President Kennedy and others initiated great efforts for our nation. And I want to literally lay out how the United States of America rejoins the community of nations. And it begins by addressing AIDS in Africa and the rest of the world correctly. It begins by joining in bilateral negotiations with North Korea to deal not just with nuclear issues but with the entire (inaudible) agenda of the armistice. And the larger issues of the peninsula, reunification, troop deployment. I would immediately take us back to the table on global warming, and there I'm the only candidate running who has attended the Rio conference, the Buenos Aires conference, the Kyoto conference, and the Hague conference. I've negotiated with the Chinese and other countries. I know what's needed to bring them to the table. There is a formula by which we could bring the less developed countries in. I would immediately raise proliferation to the highest level of international concern. And that means fully funding Nunn-Lugar. That means paying attention to the loose nuclear materials and fissionable materials of Russia, buying them all. And it means most of all engaging in a very aggressive upfront effort with respect to peace in the Middle East. I believe there's a vision of that peace. I think we can reach it. And that is a critical component of winning the war on terror in the long run. So there's a large agenda that, if we approached it correctly, I guarantee you the world is willing. It's not that the world hates America or Americans. The world hates this administration and their arrogance. And they're ready to embrace an America that's prepared to embrace the world, and we need to do it.
BOB: (inaudible) broadened the horizon quite a bit here. I just want to hear you finish your answer to the question about how Iraq (inaudible) put back together (inaudible).
A: I think that, Bob, what you have to do is have a precursor election of some kind to find the people who can put it together. You can't do that, I think, under an American umbrella. Any government selected by or through the approval of America will never be a government with legitimacy, in my judgment. So once you get the U.N. involved, at that point you can set up a structure, frankly modeled not too far away from what we did in Afghanistan with Hamid Karzai. Where you could begin then to form your constitution, set a date for the transferal of authority. And the beauty of getting the other nations -- you know, the precedent -- the prerequisite to getting other nations to share the risk is to get them to share the reconstruction and government transformation. Once you've done that, you could keep the security component under American leadership. And once you've got other countries participating in the security component, and you can make it more secure in a more diversified way, that's how you could rapidly transform the police and military of Iraq for a transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis, so that you get out with a stable state. Now I don't embrace the government -- you know, sort of this silly immediate goal of this administration of a democracy like America, the way they were talking. That's going to take years. Our goal should be a more immediate, stabilized, transformational Iraq that doesn't present a problem with respect to the Middle East and instability. Imagine the alternative. Imagine failure. Imagine Saddam Hussein back in the palace, the mujahideen, the Ba'athists back in control. That is such a clearly unacceptable specter that success looms even larger as an urgency for our country. And given how large it looms as an urgency for our country, why in God's name are we not doing what a president should do, which is put you in the position of greatest strength from which to be able to be successful? Obviously it's not proceeding alone. So these guys are just defying common sense, any, you know, sort of -- mind you, also, as -- I feel this very strongly, as a former troop, that, you know, the job of the commander in chief is to also not say, "Bring 'em on," and tempt our soldiers to be killed. It is rather to make certain that our soldiers are at the minimal risk of being killed. And the way you put them at the minimal risk of being killed is to get the target off of them. And the only way to get the target off of them is minimize the sense of American occupation. So that's what I would do immediately. I know it is there to be done. It can be done.
QM: Can you clarify one point? You said that if you had been president, you said it pretty categorically, we would not have been at war in Iraq.
A: Yeah. What I --
QM: Does that mean that Saddam Hussein would still be the leader of Iraq if you had been president?
A: No. What I'm saying is we wouldn't have been at war in Iraq the way we went to war. If I had gone to war, it would have been making real the promises of this president. And making real the op-ed that I wrote in the New York Times in September. I think it was -- somewhere in the middle of September I wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, and if you don't mind I'll sort of quote the beginning of it. I said, "The United States of America should never go to war because it wants to. We should only go to war because we have to." And you don't have to until you've exhausted the remedies available to you. And when you go to war, you have to do the utmost possible to build the consent and legitimacy of the governed for what you're doing. And I say that because I remember what it was like to fight in a war where we lost the consent and lost the legitimacy, as we are now doing in Iraq. So the key was to exhaust the inspection process. At the time the president went, I said, "We should be pursuing further diplomacy." And I know. I talked to Kofi Annan. You guys wrote about this. You know, I talked to people at the U.N. on that weekend, including Kofi Annan. There were still possibilities. It was our administration that said, "The time for diplomacy is over." It was our administration that started a war on its own schedule. Not because the threat had suddenly loomed so much larger or because we absolutely needed to, but because they wanted to. And that was completely contrary to the sort of parameters that I laid out.
QF: You seem confident the U.N. can be brought back into the mix now, but I'm just wondering if it hasn't gotten too far gone even for that. I mean, Alan, you were -- what was it that --
ALAN: Broke the story in the Times today (inaudible) been the case for a while that Kofi Annan is saying that the U.N. is not going to be able to go back any time soon because of the security issue.
QF: I mean, as long as the building --
ALAN: The guys who blew up the U.N. (inaudible) they were doing it politically. That's what they wanted. They wanted (inaudible).
A: I think in fairness, Alan, that he is saying that because he knows there is no chance the administration is going to change the policy and create the kind of climate within which you could begin to do it. If you worked adequately with the U.N., you could create a force structure on the side which began to create the security that then brings the U.N. in. I mean, you can create a series of steps here, you know. I don't accept -- I've talked to him in the last month, I know there are possibilities of how you could begin to structure this. You could create a U.N. special representative who takes the place of Paul Bremer. You could create a U.N. permissiveness with a sidebar NATO and/or other coalition, much like Kosovo and Bosnia, where they sort of report to the U.N., but the U.N. itself isn't there, but you've created the umbrella of participation.
QM: The underlying problem, before you get, you know, U.N. involvement either in construction of an Iraqi government or in rebuilding (inaudible) security (inaudible) and that's going to go on for a while. The U.N. doesn't have the forces or the will, as far as I can tell, to do that.
A: No, the U.N. itself doesn't. But the U.N. would be willing to embrace a, as I say, an umbrella situation, where you could get the other countries who are prepared to put it in. But Jacques Chirac's interest in this initially was sort of France's place in the equation and money, contracts. We never played that card. You know, and think about sort of the irony of the United States of America, the big person on the block, conducting its foreign policy so ineptly that we allow France, Germany, Russia, Mexico, and Chile to isolate us rather than us showing the patience to at least perhaps only wind up isolating France, and in my judgment I don't think we would have done that. So, you know, we had many different ways of providing security if the U.N. were prepared to come in. That equation can be worked out.
QM: Can I (inaudible) go backwards a step to the French involvement when (inaudible) like a year (inaudible), but originally Chirac had made a speech -- you probably remember -- to French armed forces saying, "You should be prepared under (inaudible)." And then it changed, and that happened because of Schroder making the anti-American statements (inaudible) he was involved in a campaign, and that shifted everything. And I think you're quite right that we never should have let it come to that. But I spoke to the French ambassador after (inaudible) and he said that he) was sent to the White House, and he talked to Hadley, and he said, "Look, we prefer that you not go not go back and ask for a certain resolution. We carefully negotiated 1491 so we could agree to disagree about the legal meaning of it, and you can go on and have the war and we can say we disagree that you have the authority, you say you do. You won't affect the legitimacy of the war or the authority of the Security Council. We'll be happy with that. We can live with that. We can come to terms with that." And he was told, "Very interesting. We'll pass it on, but we have to do it. (inaudible) is recommending we should (inaudible) Tony Blair (inaudible). If you were in Bush's situation at the time, how would you have handled (inaudible)?
A: I would have taken the time to be patient. I think Tony Blair would have been willing to do that. I think that, you know, we were using (inaudible) -- I mean, first of all they built up the troops excessively rapidly. And telegraphed, and started shifting their own rationale for why and how they might go, until we pinned Colin Powell down at the Foreign Relations Committee that the only rationale for going was weapons of mass destruction. But the message they sent in that process created a disinterest in other countries. It augmented the opposition internationally. And they in a sense, you know, created their own cauldron, which came back to haunt them. I would have been perfectly prepared to go through the summer. I mean, these silly arguments that were made -- "Oh God, we can't wait through the summer, it gets hot and we can't keep the troops there." Well, for God's sakes, what do you think they did? Kept them there (inaudible) through the summer. This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You should have shown the patience -- what you should have done is had a good Security Council meeting at which your ambassador was instructed, "Trim down the French ambassador publicly." "Mr. Ambassador, what do you need? How many inspections will it take? Do you think we can do this in a month, or two months? If we've done it in a month or two months and Saddam Hussein is still not complying, are you prepared to enforce the resolutions of the United Nations?" You know, a few public Security Council meetings like that, folks, and the world is writing, "What's the matter with France, blah blah blah." Then you begin to shift the whole dynamic. Instead the administration played it every which way possible to pull it onto themselves. I mean, that's why I was calling it inept. It was genuinely inept. The art of diplomacy is to get from here to there in the interests of your country. These guys went, you know, like this, and wound up over here, not in the interests of our country. So look, I'm not Pollyannaish about what happens in the world in these interests. But I know enough about it, and I've been involved long enough in it, to understand the body language of the people I'm meeting with and what the realities are. They were prepared to enforce the United Nations resolutions when push came to shove. And we never let it come to that point. We just went off and did our deal. Now same thing in the Middle East, (inaudible). You know, I was over in the Middle East two years ago, or a little -- about a year and half. After September 11th. And I met at length with President Mubarak, whom I've known for about 15 years now. And we have a pretty good relationship. We had a pretty honest discussion for a couple of hours. At the end of which he was saying things to me about what he was willing to do for the peace process, because I had punched him pretty hard on what was in the Egyptian press about Israel and what they were saying. And he said, "Come on out. You come with me. We'll go out and meet with the press right now. I'll stand up and I'll say (inaudible)," you know. I said, "Mr. President, I can't do that. I'm a Senator. I'm not allowed to negotiate with you," you know, da-da da-da. But I knew where he was -- he could have been (inaudible). That was -- I met with King Abdullah. I met with Crown Prince Abdullah. All of them were ready after September 11th to try to move the process forward, because they felt the extraordinary moment. Because of what had happened with September 11th, their own fragility of their governments, their exposure internationally. And they knew suddenly for the first time it was actually in their interest to try to have progress and move to quiet things down. We didn't even have General Zinni there. Every, every leader I met said to me, "Senator, where is General Zinni? Why isn't there a Special Envoy here?" We completely -- even our own ambassadors, and I read all the cables, were cabling home, "Get us General Zinni. We need a Special Envoy here. This is the opportunity." This administration turned its back on it. They turned their back on North Korea. Today the world is more dangerous because we don't have the television cameras, we don't have the inspectors. The rods are out. They may or may not have five or six nuclear warheads. But we're not safe, as safe as we were at the moment Bill Perry and Bill Clinton left where it was. So, you know, I think there's an enormous opportunity in this race. President Bush went to the Rose Garden three weeks ago and said, "The central issue of this campaign is preemption, terror, security." Now who do you think is better positioned to advance that nationally in this race? I think that, you know, I think somebody without any military or international experience would be eviscerated by these guys. Karl Rove is already running ads in New Hampshire about patriotism and the Democratic Party and questioning about terror. And you know, I mean, I've got the former commandant in the Marine Corps, General Steve Cheney, from Parris Island supporting me down in South Caroline, together with the minority leader of the House, the minority leader of the Senate, the president pro tem of the Senate. You know, major leaders who are prepared (inaudible). I think that's a very significant issue in this race, and I think our party is going to be at a serious deficit if we have a nominee who cannot convince America that we know how to make America safe.
QM: (inaudible) said that proliferation (inaudible) the highest (inaudible). For all that you and the other candidates have said about (inaudible), recall that (inaudible) arms proliferation to the highest level (inaudible). Did you consider that reckless at the time?
A: I think that's very --
QM: (inaudible) consider Clinton's support of U.S. arms proliferation reckless at the time?
A: Yeah, I think we've been the world's largest arms seller, and I've criticized it for a long period of time. We are the world's number one largest arms seller.
QM: Would you (inaudible)?
A: I can't (inaudible) -- yeah, as a matter of fact, in 1998, when the inspectors got kicked out of Iraq, John McCain and Chuck Hagel and I argued publicly that we should have gone to the U.N. then, and that was a moment to have shown strength with respect to the enforcement of the proliferation issue. Yes, I did.
QM: (inaudible) that's Iraq, but (inaudible) --
A: Well, no, that's proliferation. No, this was proliferation. That was the proliferation issue. It was precisely on the proliferation issue. That that was the purpose of the inspectors, was to disarm them because of the threat of the weapons of mass destruction. And at the time, if I can remind you, we'd spent seven and a half years destroying weapons of mass destruction in Iraq which we found in greater numbers than our CIA had told us. In other words, the CIA underestimated where we were. And also underestimated how far down the road Saddam Hussein was in the development of nuclear weapons. So when the inspectors came out for Operation Desert Fox or whatever it was, when he bombed Iraq for four days, we in fact knew the job was unfinished. We knew he had weapons, and we knew he had more than we thought he had. And that's where the wall came down in '98, folks. Then we found intelligence that says, "Here's what's here. Here's what we know he's doing." So I did criticize (inaudible) then. And I also have long been an advocate of buying the loose nuclear materials (inaudible) out of Russia. And I've long criticized anybody who hasn't funded Nunn-Lugar. QM: OK, (inaudible) --
A: I don't think I specifically -- no, I don't think I specifically mentioned the (inaudible).
QM: But, you know, what (inaudible)?
A: It depends to what particular country (inaudible). I'd have to look at the sales specifically. Some yes, some no, probably.
SCOTT: (inaudible) other weapons of mass destruction question. (inaudible) Hillary and Bill Clinton, they seemed to think they really were there when their administration left. Other people seem to think (inaudible) generated out of whole cloth. You went and talked to a lot of people (inaudible). What do you think has happened there? Were they destroyed? Were they moved? Will there ever be anything found?
A: I think any of those three are possible, Scott. Any of the three you just mentioned are very possible. But all I can say is what I just said. When Ambassador Butler left the country, we had an unfinished list of known, declared weapons that we hadn't destroyed. And we had been destroying chemical and biological weapons. So I mean, you take the logic. Is Saddam Hussein, who lobbed 36 missiles into Israel, started a war with Iran, invaded Kuwait, lit the oil wells on fire, tried to assassinate a President of the United States, declared his interest in getting nuclear weapons, who was last left on the road to getting them, when inspectors came out is he suddenly going to quit? Now, that's not a rationale to go to war, and I said that in my speech in the Florida Senate. I said, "None of that is a rationale. It is a rationale to be prepared if you cannot have adequate compliance with the disarmament, which is what we require." So again, I think, you know, I did a show with Chris Matthews down at The Citadel, I can't remember, it was in the fall sometime. And when we went into The Citadel, three quarters -- excuse me, three quarters -- the entire cadet corps, Chris Matthews inflames them and says, "How many of you think we ought to go into Iraq right now?" Every one of them stood up on their chairs and do whatever that chant is they do at The Citadel. Chris and I thought we were going to be attacked on the stage. (laughter). I'm scared still. And at the end of it, I argued with these kids for 45 minutes, 50 minutes, and I used my experience in Vietnam, you know. I said, "Look, I've sat where you sit. I know what it means to want to go kill the enemy and be gung-ho. But don't you think you'd be better off if we first tried to inspect and see where the weapons are and find out and get other countries to be with us? Wouldn't you like to have some French soldiers and German soldiers and other people behind you?" At the end, Chris took a vote. Three quarters of them stood up and said, "We should go through the inspections and we should complete the inspections (inaudible)." So throughout this process, you know, I've tried to be as clear as I could as how you do it. Now, it's not as simple as saying, "No, I'm against it." Or "I'm for it." Saying there's a right way to do something in a complicated foreign policy issue is tough. Now I, you know, I don't want to be the one to just flip the topic here if you want to talk about it more, but I really would like to say to you that I think that here at home the stunningly sort of radical ideological agenda of this administration is also making life more dangerous and difficult for our citizens.
QF: Well, OK, I'm going to bring that question because --
A: Sure.
QF: -- that's just where I wanted to go. You know, you talked earlier about your ability to beat George Bush, and yet the Bush administration has done such a masterful job of both using fear as a weapon, or as a tool, political tool, and appealing to self-interest on the part of many Americans, while at the same time, you know, sort of using, we'd say, the Trojan horse. You know, whether it's Medicare or the energy bill or a tax cut or something, you know, that satisfies constituencies but, you know, is the method by which they achieve this radical (inaudible) agenda. How do you get through that? It seems like they have a (inaudible) curtain.
A: About a month ago -- I'm not a big poll guy, but a few months ago I was -- maybe a month and a half ago, in most of the polls that were running, without the publicity that Clark and Dean had had, I was consistently running at the top of who could beat Bush. I was about four points off Bush and I think I was the strongest candidate. All the data I've seen shows that my story beats Bush more easily than anybody else's. The question is, will I get it out there? The question is, will I have a chance to? Now obviously, in the state of publicity of the last month and a half or so, you know, it's harder. And I know I've got an uphill fight. But what I'm counting on is this, that people are really starting to pay attention now, and the intensity of the focus on the race grows now. You know, how do you break through? You break through when you have the nomination and you have the ability to go one-on-one with George Bush. The irony of American politics is that there's this brief moment in our country where you actually have two parties, where you actually have an opposition party. And the dilemma for us is (inaudible) the Republicans, when you had Bob Dole, Lamar Alexander, and all those guys running around. You know, and they were frustrated by Clinton. But once you get a nominee -- and this is what you have to visualize. Nominee gets nominated. Who's going to be able to really articulate clearly these choices? I think that my principal opponent in New Hampshire begins with an enormous deficit with respect to that, both on security as well as on the sort of which position is which position. And there I think it's very significant. Where he's been -- let me just finish this. Where he's been consistent, he's said he wants to get rid of the whole tax cut. Now I think that's bad economic policy. I think it's bad social policy. Parenthetically, it happens to be bad politics. The most important thing is economics and social. It means that next summer the Democrats are going to be saying, "For all you middle class families out there who have one kid or two kids or three kids, we're taking away your child tax credit." It means that for every American who pays income taxes they lose the 10% bracket on the first part of their income; they're paying at 15% immediately. It means the Democratic Party is going to be out there saying to America, "Here we come again! Get married in America? We're going to tax you." Because it reinstates the marriage penalty. Now Clinton taught us something. We can balance the budget and we can be fiscally responsible without taking it out of the hides of the middle class. And that's my position. And the people who helped me form it are the same people who helped bring us the Clinton economics, you know, Gene Sperling, Roger Altman, Alan Blinder from the Fed Reserve, Bob Reichower(sp?). These are all the people who have sat with me and we've crunched the numbers. I pledge to cut the deficit in half in four years. But I want to leave enough money to invest in education and in health care, infrastructure, and so forth. And the way I do that is I roll back the tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, where you have the least negative impact on lifestyle. But let me tell you, there's a family up in New Hampshire, in Barrington, New Hampshire, Ted Walsh and Maya Gloss(sp?). She's a teacher and he's a state employee. They've got one kid, and the way it works out for them they'd pay about 2500 bucks of additional taxes. They can't afford it. I can give you countless other people in the same situation who'd have 3000 bucks more in taxes. Tuitions have gone up 18% in the last year, 20% the year before, they're going up 8% this year. Health care costs up 19, 20%, whatever. Tell me the middle class American family whose income has gone up 5%, let alone 45, 50, 60% as all the other costs have? I think it's a disastrous economic policy, particularly given the amount of stimulus that's already in the economy now, to come back and crunch the middle class that way. So I think there are big differences between us on this. And I think when you measure it in the end, that's the way you break through. Little common sense.
Q: OK. (inaudible) question now. You are the nominee (inaudible) for your nominee. And you don't have to (inaudible) distinguish --
A: Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were talking about now. I apologize.
Q: And you've got him one on one, OK.
A: How do you break through? Talking common sense to the American people about the real choices in front of them, and I think that the things I've done in my life help position me to break through. It's why, you know, when I went to Tennessee or Alabama and drew big crowds, and I was very well received. Because I'm a former prosecutor. I led the fight to put 100,000 cops on the streets of America. Bush is cutting them. People understand that. Because I fought for firefighters, firefighters are supporting me across the country. They have a special connection to Americans about homeland security. They're not being helped today. Because veterans are being cut off and veterans' hospitals across the country. I'm a veteran. I've fought for 35 years for Agent Orange, for post-Vietnam stress syndrome, for VA hospitals, for extensions to the G.I. Bill. This administration has turned its back on veterans. You know, like it or not, I've been a hunter, a gun owner. I don't hunt with an AK-47. I can talk about assault weapons bans but I don't pander to the NRA. I've never asked them for their endorsement and I don't want it. I think I can go out and talk common sense to America. People care about their jobs, their wages, their retirement, their health care, their education for their kids, drinking clean water, you know, breathing clean air, and that's the way you appeal to America. And I think the things I've done in my lifetime that show my connection to those fights are precisely why those people in those states in the South and elsewhere signed on to my campaign. You know that the Lieutenant Governor of New Mexico has endorsed me. The Speaker of New Mexico has endorsed me. You know, I have more legislators endorsed me and supporting me in Iowa than Dean and Gephardt put together, three times as many as Dean, twice as many as Gephardt. Why? Why do those institutional players do that? Because they believe I can beat George Bush. Because they want to run on a ticket with me. And because they believe that I speak for sort of the uniting part of our party.
QM: Senator --
ELLEN: (inaudible) question (inaudible) --
A: (inaudible).
ELLEN: -- a more personal question. With regards to (inaudible), and for many people that's a life-changing experience. And I'd be curious to know how that's affected the way you think about your life, your work, (inaudible).
A: That's an interesting question. I appreciate the question. That's interesting because -- I was thinking about it because it's just about this month a year ago that I was diagnosed. The reason I'm hesitating is -- I'm sorry, but I lost my mom three weeks before that. The cancer, frankly, was -- it's strange. I think it's a reflection of the experience that I went through in Vietnam, that I didn't feel particularly threatened. That I felt, "I'm going to conquer this." And it's why I had a confidence that I could run for president, even trying to do it. Now, in honesty, you know, I remember sitting there through Christmas, you know, (inaudible) through the Internet, trying to, you know, read -- get some books and figure out every alternative that there was and think through what it meant to me and what my options were with respect to it. And it took a lot of energy. It took a lot of time. And I had the operation on February 12th. The doctors told me to take six weeks completely down and off, and I couldn't. It cost me some energy for some months, I think. But attitudinally, Ellen, which is really what your question is about, I've always said that those of us who came back from Vietnam, we sort of have this saying that "Every day is extra." And I think there's always been a feeling in me that that's a very liberating experience, that, you know, because of Vietnam, you kind of feel, "Hey, let the chips fall where they may. Speak your mind, say what you have to do, go out and do it." And in fact when we screwed around in Vietnam, which we often did, and then were tempting, you know, getting in trouble for one reason or another, we always used to look at each other and say, "Well, what the hell can they do to us? Send us to Vietnam?" And there was a great sort of, you know, kind of everything's going to be OK deal. So that's how I sort of responded to it. I just had a sense of confidence. "I'm going to get through this. I'm going to be OK. It's going to work out." And it did. You know, the margins were clean, the pathology came back well. I just had my most recent PSA test, you know, a couple weeks ago, and it came back non-detectable. So I'm where I want to be. But I'll tell you what it did do for me. I'll tell you what it really did for me. You know, I had the best health care -- I mean, you know, I woke up in Johns Hopkins Hospital, surrounded, on a ward with Dr. Patrick Walsh, who's one of the best in the world, specialized ward where they deal with it. And you know, it just impressed on me how lucky I was to have the best health care in the world, and how many people just don't get it or don't have it. You'd be amazed at the number of people who call me up now and ask me, "I've just been diagnosed with prostate cancer. What do I do? What are the options?" Robert DeNiro just had his operation, and he and I were talking before and so on about what the options were and others. I've met people at campaign events who come and say, "You know, I'm -- you know, I got this problem (inaudible). What do I do? Et cetera." And it really reminds you why it's so critical for every single American to have the same health care that senators and congressmen get. And I'm committed to doing that in this campaign. And I think I've laid out a plan, if I could say to everybody, "You know, we're always bragging on our own deals when we're running for office." But Time magazine said that my health care plan, particularly the component that lowers costs for all Americans, is best new big idea of this whole campaign. Because what I do is I create a federal fund and I cut a deal with the businesses that cover 163 million Americans. I say, "If you will agree to pass on the savings to your employees, and if you will agree to have a health wellness plan, so that you teach your employees about early screening for cancer, early detection for diabetes, all these things, nutrition, et cetera, that's all you have to do, the federal government is going to pay 75% of the cost of every catastrophic case in your health pool. That means you're no longer going to be charged in your premiums for the most expensive cases in the system, which means all premiums go down a minimum of $1000. And for you, as you negotiate with -- I don't know if you're self-insured here or if you negotiate outside, but either way, whoever underwrites it, your contribution for employees goes down." So American businesses become more competitive and we actually get into one pool at the federal level, where all the catastrophic cases, begin to be able to manage health care more effectively. Those cases represent four tenths of 1% of all the claims in the system, but they equal 20% of all the costs. So it's a way of really grabbing hold of health care costs. And when I combine that with the early detection, Teddy Kennedy will tell you, with early detection we can cut diabetes expenses by 50%. We spend 100 billion a year on diabetes. We cut it to 50 billion a year. That's $50 billion savings. Why? Because you avoid dialysis, you avoid amputations, and the most traumatic hospital care. So if you added technology to the system, so people walk into a doctor's office with their own smart card with their whole health record, right on their own card, give it, set, boom. You don't have to have a clipboard and a piece of paper and so forth. Today you go to a bank, you draw bank money out, it's one penny per transaction. You go to a hospital, pull a hospital record, it's $15, 25 per transaction. So we could reduce $350 billion of current overhead down to who knows what. We can make health care less expensive and more available.
QM: How do you cover the 40 million uninsured?
A: They come in in the following way. I get to 97% of all Americans covered within three years. And I am pledged to look at the other 3% at the end of three years and say, "Now, who are they? Are they young people who just won't buy in? Are they people who move around and you can't find?" But what I do is I work a swap with the states. I take over Medicaid children from the states, so that every child in America is covered, day one, automatically. They go into a day care center, they're covered. They go into a doctor's office, they're covered. They go into school, they're covered. We enroll children, which states hate to do and don't do well. The swap with the states is that they agree, in exchange for getting rid of this albatross that they hate, they agree to cover families up to 300% of poverty and individuals up to 200% of poverty. That gets you up to about $46,000 of income, which really begins to push into the cost of health care for people. I give a 50% tax credit to businesses, small business, to be able to buy in, and I allow any business in America to literally shift over and buy into the exact same health care plan that senators and congressmen give themselves. So you have added competition in the system. The beauty of my plan is, the reason I can pass my plan, unlike any other health care plan, is that there's no government mandate. There's no new government bureaucracy. I don't make an enemy of the insurance companies, so you have Harry and Louise all over again, because they get paid. The difference is we use the marketplace and incentives to create behavior that's irresistible. I mean, if I come to you and I say to you, "If you have your employees have a wellness plan and you'll give them the savings I give you, I'll pay 75% of every catastrophic case you're currently paying for," you're going to take it. I haven't met an employer in America who doesn't say, "I'll grab it." Likewise with the states. If I say, "I'll swap with you. I'll take Medicaid children. You cover the individual families. It's a net plus of $5 billion to you. You want the deal?" They'd grab it. Because they hate doing Medicaid and they want the money. So it works. And the result is we actually begin to reduce the cost of health care in America and be more competitive.
SCOTT: (inaudible) Al Gore (inaudible). Now are you angry that he -- you saw what he did. Does that (inaudible)? (inaudible) than that?
A: Scott, I'm truly way beyond -- I'm 60 today. I'm way beyond that. (laughter). You know, you only get -- those things kind of slide off. I'm not worried about it. I really was serious the other night. I was surprised. I expected if he was going to do anything he'd do it for Joe, because Joe held out for him and was so loyal to him and so forth. I'm not worried about it. I don't think -- I'll tell you, when I was in New Hampshire yesterday, first thing out of my mouth to people was, you know, "This race is going to be decided by you, not by endorsements and other people," and they all started to applaud. And they said, "You bet. That's it." Very independent-minded people. People don't want to be told by somebody, and you know. Does it have some impact? Yeah, probably. I can't measure it, Scott, I don't know. But again, I believe in my candidacy. And what's interesting is Al Gore said in his endorsement, "I'm endorsing him because alone among the major candidates he made the right judgment on the war." So yesterday I asked, "Well, which judgment?" Because the judgment he made on the war at the same time we made a judgment on the war was the same judgment. And nobody in New Hampshire really knows that today. Nobody in the country really knows that today. Howard Dean supported a resolution that gave authority to the president to go to war and said that he thought they had weapons of mass destruction. Now we can give you the tick-tock of the whole series of statements. I think the American people are owed leadership, not flopping around when it's convenient, but that stands up for our security and is consistent.
QM: But what you're saying there is that the confusion is that people supported Dean because they think he a position that he --
END OF SIDE 1
A: -- it's a difficult (inaudible), but I think that as you and others, and as people think about who should be president, I think straight talk to the American people is important. I think taking a position and standing with it is important. Now I've never changed on Medicare. I've never changed on 70 year old retirement for Social Security. I've never changed on guns and assault weapons and the NRA. I've never changed on trade. I've never changed on the Confederate flag. These are a remarkable series of very large issues to be moving to different positions on in the midst of a presidential campaign. And the question is, does it say something about straight talk or character? Well, you know, then that's a fair question, I think.
BOB: It seems to me (inaudible) you are the one who doesn't (inaudible) reputation of being (inaudible).
A: Because -- and I understand that. And I live with it. And may go to my grave with it, who knows. But the fact is that that's because I laid out the difficulties of this road. I was the one senator who stood up and said, here's how you do it, but here's what you got to be careful of. And a couple of my opponents smartly and quickly said, "Oh, is Kerry being ambivalent about this?" Well, it wasn't ambivalence. It was clarity of how you do it right. And I can give you every single one of those speeches, which were unambiguous about what we ought to do and how we do it. But unfortunately, you know, in a world of yes and no and you're for or against, that's sometimes difficult to convey, Bob. I think that my position is absolutely clear and consistent. I said to the president, "Mr. President, let's do this right." I wanted to stand up to Saddam Hussein. That goes back to what I said in '98 (inaudible). I said the president totally should have stood up at that point in time. But I wanted to do it right. And I'm convinced that if you did it right you could have held Saddam Hussein accountable without having had this unilateral invasion.
QM: Can I change the subject?
A: Sure.
QM: You mentioned real quick (inaudible) supporting the middle class. (inaudible) just trying to figure out (inaudible) what the impact was of the tax cut (inaudible) the middle class (inaudible) found out that the third quintile, the middle quintile of incomes has an income that starts at (inaudible). The middle class is (inaudible) 40% of the population that had an income under (inaudible). Where is that (inaudible).
A: In my refundable tax -- I wanted to give them a refundable tax credit. And I fought for them hard when I opposed the Bush tax cut. I was the one who lead the fight for the payroll tax rebate, which was going to be refundable. In fact, I absolutely pointed out the fact that 20 million Americans got no tax (inaudible) at all from George Bush because they don't earn enough money to be able to pay income taxes. Which is why I wanted to reduce the payroll (inaudible) being fair. George Bush, again, didn't tell the truth to the American people when he said, "I'm giving a tax cut to every American." What he should have said is, "I'm giving a tax cut to every American who pays the income tax." Most Americans pay their tax through the payroll tax. It's the most regressive tax in America and it's the way most Americans pay their taxes, and that's where I argued we ought to be giving the tax cut for them and give it back to them, Bob. That's one of the reasons why I'm fighting to hold on to the 10% or to raise the (inaudible) and to make work pay more in America, which is the great -- well, going back to what we were talking about earlier, this is the most unfair moment in the workplace that I've seen in my lifetime. We're now reaching one of the longest periods without raising the minimum range. Workers' rights have been rolled back. People are being flipped off of defined benefit health care into defined contribution. Wages are not increasing at a rate that keeps up with the cost of living in America. Family after family are struggling harder and harder to make ends meet. And yet George Bush is on a bender to continue to give more and more money to the people at the top end. It's the most obscene thing I've ever seen. This morning I spoke at Northeastern about the mutual fund thing, and I mean, it all comes out of the creative greed of this administration. It begins with their tax plan. It extends over into the way they hand out contracts. It extends into the lack of enforcement at the SEC, the lack of appointing people at the SEC to be the enforcers. The rewards they give to a WorldCom. WorldCom used to have $122 million of contracts from the government before it proved it was untrustworthy. Since it has proven it's untrustworthy, WorldCom has now had a 600% increase in government contracts. They're up to $600 million, because this administration rewards people who bust people's savings and break the law. It's the most disgraceful message you could possibly send. And it pervades, you know. And what I tried to say in the speech today is, you know, there are countless numbers of terrific CEOs, countless numbers of great businesses in America. They all get a black eye from these people. But we've got to fight for a fair workplace in this nation. And I think there's a great unanswered question -- and I don't have all the answers to it, I really don't. I know it's a question that leadership ought to ask and we ought to begin to sort of use the bully pulpit of the presidency to talk about, which is quality of life in America. I mean, people are working 24/7 in our country. What happened to weekends? What happens to raising kids? How do we empower parents to have a little more time? How do we start to raise what people are earning? You know, 15 years ago, a chief executive in America earned 12 times what the employees earned, on average, in a company. Today it's 538 times what the employees earn. You see Tyco goes to Bermuda. All it did was pay $27,000 to buy an address in Bermuda, and by virtue of that address, it took $400 million off the tax rolls of this country. You realize (inaudible). You're picking it up. We've gone from $200 billion of offshore assets 15 years ago to $5 trillion of offshore assets today. And I began this effort when I was chairman of the (inaudible) Terrorism Committee looking in the Cayman Islands at these (inaudible) companies with fax machines. And I wrote the money laundering laws. It took me ten years to pass the money laundering laws, and the only reason we finally got it passed was because of 9-11. The Republicans couldn't resist it in the face of 9-11. And it's now in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. But this is disgraceful, you know. Enron had 672 offshore entities, or something like that, 6-800, I can't remember what it is. Halliburton has some extraordinary number of them. Now, some are legitimate multi-lateral corporations doing real business, but as a prosecutor, I'll tell you, we know how to tell the difference between a sham transaction and an economic one, and this administration doesn't even try.
QM: What are the first things you'd do for education, preschool (inaudible)?
A: I introduced legislation in 1996 for early childhood education. We actually passed a piece of it, and we got the paltry sum of about $20 million. Couple years ago, the Bush administration just cut it. It was last year. To raise (inaudible) passion about it, and I'm committed to being the president who creates a 0-8 early childhood program in America. And the reason it's 0-8 is that 0-3 is sort of the most important brain development years, 3-5 are the most important socialization skill years, and 5-8 are the most important cognitive learning years. The experts say if you get a kid who's had adequate input all through those years, you've got a person who will learn for the rest of their life. And so in fact Teresa helped start two programs in Pennsylvania, a couple schools, where the hold-back rate was 25% in grades 1-4, in each grade, for a whole year. By putting this program in place, they reduced the hold-back rate to 1% of children being held back. So I think the great cause for America is to invest in our kids. Rather than put 50,000 bucks a year into jail cells for them, put 10,000 bucks a year into Head Start, early start, (inaudible) start, you know, all those programs we know work. And this president has abandoned them all. So here is my agenda for education. Number one, I want to create an education trust fund in America, so schools know that No Child Left Behind, Head Start are going to be funded, and we will fund special needs education. My budget gets to the full funding of special needs education within the first term, full funding, up to the 40%. In addition, I want to change No Child Left Behind in three specific categories. One, I want to change the (inaudible) the early progress standard measurement today, because what it does is it categorizes in a way that just forces whole schools into failure. It's very demoralizing. Secondly, I want to keep standards (inaudible). Unlike Howard Dean, who says we're going to throw it out, I want to keep standards. We've been marching down the road of improving our schools. Massachusetts has done pretty well, other places. But I want to do it smart. The second thing I want to do is change the Highly Qualified Teacher certification (inaudible). We're taking teachers who've taught 15 or 20 years out of the field who are really qualified, brilliant teachers in many cases, and we're requiring them to go back and get recertified. It's insulting. And it's really beaten up morale in schools. We ought to have enough discretionary ability to have principals and others determine who kind of gets grandfathered in and who doesn't and raise the morale and attract people into teaching. And the third thing we need to change is the testing, sort of one size fits all testing standard, so that we have testing but we're allowing other measurements at the same time and we're not teaching to the testing. I met a social studies teacher last night, as a matter of fact, in New Hampshire, who was telling me that because of the focus on math and science in the early testing, social studies is being wiped out. And the kids aren't learning what they ought to be learning in a whole field which isn't yet tested and isn't even planned to be tested. I think they're going to add -- or it's English, math, and they're going to add science in a few years. But whole categories get pushed aside. And teachers should not be teaching so that on page 58 or on page 200, you know. I think we can fix those, and that's what I want to do.
QF: So you wouldn't have a national curriculum (inaudible)?
A: I wouldn't have a national curriculum. You know, I'd have some national goals. I mean, it's a priority for the country to have kids who can be good citizens. And I think the bully pulpit of the presidency is particularly geared to putting out a big carrot. I don't want the federal government to be taking it over or doing it. I don't (inaudible). But we need, you know, we're way (inaudible) the $127 billion of unmet school construction needs in the country. This president has completely walked away from those. They don't do construction, because there's the ideological resistance to any kind of (inaudible). It's the local community's responsibility. Well, local communities don't have the tax base, so what are you going to do?
BOB: (inaudible). How do you deal with the (inaudible)?
A: Principals have to make decisions, Bob, and they do, about moving teachers out. And I'm for empowering principals. I wrote the section of the bill that's on principal enhancement, that helps encourage people to learn the skills of being principals in the modern age. And I think you have to hold principals accountable.
QM: (inaudible).
A: Listen, I've gone into plenty of blue ribbon public schools. And probably because I wanted to know why they were a blue ribbon school, in Lynn or Framingham, wherever. And it's really interesting. You can go to the (inaudible) school on one street, five blocks away from the Driscoll School, and one school is failing and the other is great. And I'll tell you, the first thing you find in any school that's great is a terrific principal. And the next thing you find is that that principal negotiated out his or her own deals with the school board, with the union, and everybody, and they move out any teacher they want. Now I'm for empowering schools to be able to do that. I once said that you ought to almost let any public school be able to be a charter school within the public school system, i.e. empower them, get them out from under the bureaucracy, give the principal authority, let them soar. And our job ought to be to help put best practices in front of them so they can pick and choose which best practices they want to make real. I suggested to Clinton one day -- we were together a couple years ago and I -- little longer than that now, you know, about a year out from when he was leaving office. I said, "You know, you really ought to go around the country and make part of your legacy a national assessment of education. And go into every state and meet with -- take one day and meet with principals, meet with teachers, meet with the school people, so do an assessment of each state's schools and what's working and what isn't. And then let everybody kind of see that in a significant way, sort of where are they making progress, where they're not, and how we could do it more effectively, et cetera." I still believe very deeply that all the charter school diversions, all the voucher diversions, all of those things undermine the fundamental challenge to our country, which is 90% of America's children go to school in public schools (inaudible). The public schools.
QM: (inaudible) the church schools (inaudible)?
A: I chartered the system, I've supported some charter schools. You know that. And I've supported charter schools as a way of developing best practices. But in the end, what are we facing with charter schools today? Charter schools are saying, "We need help with facilities." And they're scrounging around trying to get built. You know, what we're going to be ultimately -- and we've found a lot of deficits in some of the charter schools. So you can't build enough charter schools fast enough, Scott. Nor are there enough seats at the table for vouchers fast enough to cope with a whole generation's problem of 90% of America's children going to school in public schools --
QM: Does that mean (inaudible) at all?
A: No, it doesn't mean you shouldn't build them at all. Again, I'm for building some of them to develop best practices and to provide an alternative challenge. But the reality is the place where America's children go to school is in the public schools, and if you're going to do what we need to do for America in terms of citizenship and skilled labor force and so forth, you have to raise up the whole public school system as a whole, and that's where the primary focus ought to be.
QM: (inaudible), you had the version of the energy bill that had nothing about (inaudible). Can you talk about (inaudible)? How do you (inaudible) something like that (inaudible)?
A: Well, it wasn't for lack of my trying, but we lost the amendment. I mean, we tried. And the automobile industry fought back, and some unions fought back. But nevertheless we tried. Here's how I believe you do it. First of all, the greatest power of the presidency, I mean, apart from commander in chief and head of state and veto pen and budget, is the bully pulpit. The president gets to decide every day what America talks about. Where you go, what you highlight, what you choose to focus shapes the discussion of this nation. And I believe that if that power were used properly to excite people's imagination about science and technology, to create a reasonable race to alternatives with proper economic incentives, tax credits -- in my bill with John McCain we offered I think it was a $3000 tax credit per automobile. Yeah (inaudible). I mean, think about that. 3000 bucks per automobile would have covered the cost of transformation, would have covered the cost of the person of buying -- the increased cost of the car. Well, all the experts told us the costs at maximum were only about 1200 bucks or 1000 bucks or something. But the power of the presidency is to sell that kind of idea. The power of the presidency is to hold that kind of objective hostage to other things that congressmen and senators want and need, because you've got the veto pen and the power of the budget. And I watched Clinton get things the Republicans didn't want to get him, because he held out. I watched Newt Gingrich shut down the government of the United States, if you recall. It's been an issue in this campaign, because Howard Dean supported the $270 billion cut. Newt Gingrich wanted to cut it. We didn't. The government was shut down. Ultimately they backed off and we won, and we saved Medicare, properly. So I think that, you know, that power properly used is the way you move. Now on Kyoto, a number of years ago I put together the first ever sustainable development conference in Asia. I went to Jim Wolfensohn at the World Bank. I had heard that in the north of Vietnam they were going to build this big new power plant using high sulfured coal from south China. And so I said, "Oh God, you know, disaster. They're going to make this place just like Shanghai or Bangkok, where you wear a mask and you can't breathe." And I saw it as an opportunity to sell to the Asian community this whole concept of sustainability. So we did this. The World Bank put together this conference, which we worked with them on. We had all the donor countries come, the Japanese, the Australians, the British, the Chinese, the French, et cetera, and we showed them how they could use new, state of the art technology in order to build the plant but not be ruinous in doing so. Now we have a stake in this, because that air goes up, it contributes to global warming, it also comes down in the form of mercury and carbon dioxide, it pollutes our lakes. 44% of the river bodies and lakes and streams in the United States of America are unfishable and unswimmable. In 28 states in America, parents cannot take their kids out fishing and eat the fish they catch. So we have a stake in this. And the way you bring people to the table is to show the less developed countries how it is not a Western conspiracy against their development. To in fact embrace standards that we could help them embrace, that avoid making the mistakes that we made from the Industrial Revolution on. And in fact China, it's really interesting. My wife hosted the Chinese delegation two weeks ago. They are about to build 400 million units of housing in the next ten years. And they're going to make it all sustainable. (inaudible). And China has moved to a new emissions policy on their automobiles. They've moved to unleaded gas. They're bringing emissions standards in. They're beginning to accept that if we have done this in the context of the global warming treaty, we could have given them credit for the things they're already doing that would have fit within the confines of the treaty. And so that's leadership. That's what we have to do, is go out and market to people the common interest and the way we could do technology transfer, technical assistance, give them credits, and begin the move to a better place. We're 25% of the world's global warming pollution. We are. And we're the world's biggest scofflaw, and because we are, Russia has now said they're not signing on. So we've actually shown leadership to move in the wrong direction. And that's what we have to change.
QM: One last question.
A: I'm fine. I'm here as long as you want to -- (overlapping conversations, inaudible). (laughter). I'm here until I'm 61! (laughter).
QM: (inaudible). (laughter).
A: God, I was (inaudible) cake out the other day. I was in San Francisco and they brought this great big cake out and, you know, I wasn't thinking, and I sort of leaned over to blow, and when I came back (laughter) covered in icing. (inaudible).
QM: Let me go back to a couple questions I didn't ask you (inaudible). You are, because of your long experience, and all those experiences, you are a master of many details, which we've been talking about this afternoon. Ultimately you'd be running against the guy who majors in, what, personality and symbolism and ideology and fairly simply stated notions. And apparently the American public responds to all of that. So how do you convince the American public that a master of details is better for them than this (inaudible)?
A: That's a great question (inaudible). It's a great question. So what I want to do is (inaudible) think it over. Yes, I do know who you are. (laughter). I think Patrick would tell you that on the stump, I mean, I've given stump speeches for a long time. And if I get into the end of the campaign, invariably I've always gotten sort of more focused and sharper and I understand what works and what doesn't. And you know, also, if you go back to the nine debates I had with (inaudible), nine one hour televised debates, I spoke in very simple, straightforward terms about what was at stake and what isn't. I'm here with an editorial board, with a very, you know, smart group of people who know these issues inside out and backwards. This is a different language. But I do know how to simplify and suggest that, for instance, that we shouldn't be building firehouses in Baghdad when we're closing them in the United States. People get it. There shouldn't be, you know, no one's going to write any law that permits pollution in exchange for campaign contributions in my administration. I mean, I can make things very simple and very direct, as one will have to with George Bush. I also have a sense of how to debate the guy. I mean, I think that Al Gore did it the wrong way. I think you have to pay the presidency great respect. I think you have to show deference. But you definitely don't want to try to do sort of, quote, "more knowledgeable," you just want to paint a very clear picture of what's at stake, of what his choice means to a real person in America, what my choice would mean. If he wants to defend giving tax cuts to people earning more than $300,000 a year while I'm saying that I could give health care to every American that they can afford, that's a simple proposition that everybody in the country can understand.
SCOTT: Would you say (inaudible)?
A: When he asked me the question, he asked me the question, Scott, of dealing with George Bush. Obviously, I'd have the hurdle of winning the nomination. Nobody understands that better than me.
SCOTT: (inaudible)?
A: Scott, we haven't had a real debate. We don't have debates. We have one minute answer forums. And you don't even have a chance to rejoin and come back and have a discussion. There's no (inaudible) that has allowed itself to have a genuine debate in this race. I challenged Governor Dean to have a debate out in Iowa at the time that he said, "I wish John Kerry would say to my face the things that he's saying elsewhere." I said, "Fine, let's go do it. Come to my face, we'll talk about it." He refused. So we haven't been able to have that kind of a debate. You know, I'd love to, anywhere, anytime, let's have the debate about the future of our country. We're running for President of the United States of America, and we may well go into these elections without a genuine debate in which we have been able to show the differences and have that discussion. Now, that's just the nature of the beast. I'm not complaining about it, but it is difficult.
QF: Would you prefer if --
A: And you say, you know, (inaudible). Look, the war was a very divisive issue. No was a very simple message. But not the real message. If you follow what I've just said, (inaudible). Now that's what happened. No was simple. Yes, but here's how you do it is not simple. But yes, here's how you do it is more honest and frankly more direct about what it takes to be President of the United States. Now I knew when I voted for that exactly what some of the difficulties might be as a consequence. But I did what I thought I ought to do as if I was president. I ought to be able to defend that as if I were president. If I were president, I would have wanted to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. And I would have wanted the stick of knowing that there was a consequence to his not responding. And that's how I voted. And if that vote winds up costing me it, listen, life is too short. I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to get stuck, I assure you.
QF: Oh, I was just going to say, there are eight candidates right now, but three of them are -- marginal (laughter). Would this be an easier race if there were five, or would that just mean you would have a minute and a half to respond (inaudible)?
A: Well, I think you clearly -- I mean, it's not for me to ask or suggest that anybody doesn't have a right to do it. But the answer is yes. If you had an hour and a half and five people and you had a different format, clearly you could begin to get at some of these differences more effectively. But we still have a couple more debates coming up. I think they're, quote, "debates," forums. I think there's one in New Hampshire at WMUR, I know there's one in Iowa, and so there's still a little more opportunity. Plus, look, in Iowa, you know, I got a close race out there, folks. I have a very strong organization on the ground in Iowa. And we're in the mix out there. The public polls never tell you who's going to the caucuses. And the caucuses are, you know, a reflection of hard work on the ground. On Sunday in Iowa I'm going to do something unprecedented in Iowa. I'm having a live, unscripted, unedited, televised town hall. And we've invited people to join in on simultaneous webcast. We've hired an independent firm to find 50 people who are genuinely undecided. We're not packing the audience. We're not creating it. And we're going to invite people to join and watch and, you know, see if I can persuade undecided voters to join. And I think there's a lot of room, you know, there's still a distance here. It's 48 days or 47 days, whatever, until New Hampshire, and there's some time. And as the intensity of the focus comes on. My message is tight and sharp and clear, the way it ought to be.
QM: (inaudible) Iowa (inaudible) you come in in those brackets but (inaudible), what comes after that? Because you have (inaudible) in the last several weeks. You've only been to one of the February 3rd states (inaudible).
A: Yeah, we're going back there.
QM: In terms of --
A: We're heading back there, (inaudible).
QM: Yeah. In terms of creating momentum in those states, do you think (inaudible)?
A: I think the greatest momentum comes out of the early parts, frankly. But leaving that aside, I will be back in those states. I'm going to New Mexico, I'm going down to South Carolina at some point. We're going to continue to reach out. But you know, I think we'll just make those judgments as we kind of get there, see sort of what the feel is. I can't predict. And I promised everybody around me I wouldn't do any punditry.
(laughter)
