“Winning is everything,” Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) told ABC “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos this morning.
Emanuel has led the Dem “culture of corruption” message, aimed at Republicans, as the chairman of the House political operation, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
But last week the Dems lost the House race to replace a man who figured in the culture of corruption theme, now imprisoned former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.), who took bribes from lobbyists.
Here’s how Emanuel explained the special California election, won by a former House member Brian Bilbray, who will be returning to Washington.
“Now, let’s take a look at exactly what happened in an overwhelming Republican district. The Republican Party spent $5 million, the most they’ve ever spent, in an overwhelming Republican district and eked out a victory with less than 50 percent of the vote.And the only way Congressman Bilbray did that was by attacking the president of the United States, of his own party, and saying he disagreed with him.”
thisrelease and transcript from ABC News……….
CONGRESMEN TOM REYNOLDS (R-NY) AND RAHM EMANUEL (D-IL) ON ABC NEWS THIS WEEK WITH GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS? SUNDAY, JUNE 11, 2006
In an exclusive interview this morning, Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY), Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, and Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, joined George Stephanopoulos to discuss the 2006 midterms and whether the war in Iraq will have an impact come November.
The interview aired this morning, Sunday, June 11, 2006, on ABC News This Week with George Stephanopoulos.? A rush transcript of the program, which also featured an exclusive interview with L. Paul Bremer, Former U.S. Administrator in Iraq, is below. All excerpts must be attributed to ABC News This Week with George Stephanopoulos.?
When asked if the number of U.S. troop levels in Iraq will hurt House Republicans in November, Rep. Reynolds said: I look at the experts in the Pentagon to run the war But the races are all about local races, on what the number one issue is in that district…I didn’t hear the war as the number one issue in California 50, I heard immigration; close the borders.?
Rep. Emanuel on the same topic: you do leave the fighting to our generals. But Congress has a responsibility to ask questions and oversight. And at every chance — Abu Ghraib; too few troops; soldiers having to literally put together scrap metal for their humvees; parents doing bake sales for Kevlar vestsIraq sovereignty in 2006, and in 2007, how do we make sure America begins its redeployment from Iraq. That’s the strategy we’ve got to have a debate about.?
Rep. Reynolds on the upcoming Midterms: We’re going to win the House as we just win every race local, district by district, from the ground up.
Katherine OHearn is the executive producer of This Week? and George Stephanopoulos is the anchor. The program airs Sundays on the ABC Television Network (check local listings).
-ABC-
JUNE 11, 2006
SPEAKERS: GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, HOST
PAUL BREMER, FORMER U.S. CIVILIAN ADMINISTRATOR IN
IRAQ
THOMAS REYNOLDS, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL REPUBLICAN
CAMPAIGN
COMMITTEE
U.S. REP. RAHM EMANUEL (D-IL)
GROVER NORQUIST, AMERICANS FOR TAX REFORM
GEORGE WILL, ABC NEWS
[*]
STEPHANOPOULOS: This week — the most wanted man in Iraq,
killed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Zarqawi’s death
is a severe blow to al Qaida.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: But will it bring down the violence or bring
more of our troops home? As the president convenes his war cabinet at
Camp David, how will U.S. strategy change? We’ll ask America’s first
ambassador to a free Iraq, Paul Bremer, in a Sunday exclusive.
Then, a special election win for the GOP.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: It’s been a very successful week for Republicans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
U.S. REP. NANCY PELOSI, (D-CA), MINORITY LEADER: Republicans are
trying to use election-year politics to distract people from their
record of failure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: What does it mean for control of Congress? The
campaign chairs square off. Republican Tom Reynolds versus Democrat
Rahm Emanuel. George Will, Donna Brazile and Fareed Zakaria debate
the week’s politics on our roundtable. Plus, conservative activist
Grover Norquist one on one with our own conservative.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILL: In one sentence say why they should think there is a great
difference today between the conservative Republican party and the
liberal Democratic party.
NORQUIST: Taxes.
WILL: That’s it?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: And as always, the Sunday Funnies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAY LENO, HOST, “THE TONIGHT SHOW”: Here’s something I learned
today. You know what the last thing that went through Zarqawi’s mind
was? A 500-pound bomb.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning, everyone. The killing of Abu
Musab al Zarqawi and the appointment of a full Iraqi cabinet last
Thursday combined for the best news out of Iraq in months. But the
question on everyone’s mind this week, will that good news lead to
real change in Iraq and a real chance that American troops can come
home soon? And that’s our big question for our headliner, the man who
ran the U.S. effort in Iraq for more than a year, Ambassador Paul
Bremer. Welcome back to “This Week.”
BREMER: Thanks. Nice to be with you.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So President Bush calls it a severe blow to al
Qaida, clearly a big morale boost for the Iraqi government. But how
big an operational blow is the killing of al Zarqawi?
BREMER: You know, if you look at terrorism and terrorist groups
over the last 20, 25 years I’ve been working on them, three things
happen when the top guy is taken out. First, there is a very
important symbolic effect. Terrorists are cult-type organizations.
This matters not just in Iraq but also in the world, because,
effectively, he’s the number one, was the number one operative in al
Qaida. Bin Laden and his guys are hiding in a cave somewhere.
Secondly, this will increase internal tensions inside al Qaida,
because it seems that one of his colleagues informed on him. And
terrorist groups are secretive to the point of paranoia, and this sets
off very big tensions inside the group, and we’ve seen — and that’s
the third effect. When that happens, the operational effectiveness of
the group, at least in the short run, tends to be deteriorated. Those
are good things.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yet al Qaida in Iraq is already this morning
promising major new attacks, as you would expect them to do, and we
have seen these turning points or potential turning points in Iraq
before. It was on your watch in December 2003 that Saddam Hussein was
captured. Let’s take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BREMER: Ladies and gentlemen, we got him. Iraq’s future, your
future has never been more full of hope.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: You wrote in your book, “My Year in Iraq,” that
at the time you thought that would be a tipping point. But since
then, more than 2,000 Americans have been killed, ten times as many
Iraqis. What went wrong, and what can the U.S. military and the Iraqi
government now learn from those mistakes?
BREMER: Well, I think what has to — what has happened here is
the insurgency has obviously proven more resilient than we thought it
would be. This was a good week in Iraq, not just Zarqawi’s death but
the filling out of the cabinet, and I think even more importantly the
statements by Prime Minister al Maliki and his new team.
Al Maliki said very clearly, first, we’ve got to defeat the
insurgency. Secondly, we’ve got to abolish the militia, which are
basically the Shia militia. And thirdly, he said we have to start a
process of reconciliation so we can rebuild this country.
And I was very encouraged by the statements by the ministers of
defense and interior, both of whom I know. Both of whom said, one a
Sunni and one a Shia, we are going to work for all Iraqis. And I
think what needs to happen now, what we need to do, what I hope will
happen in these meetings in the next 48 hours in Camp David is, we
need to design an effective military strategy to defeat the
insurgency.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And, but that also has a political component.
You wrote in your book about how after Saddam was captured, you tried
to reach out to the insurgents. Ambassador Khalilzad is saying this
week that he hopes to have a new effort there as well. What
specifically can be done?
BREMER: Well, I don’t know what kind of contacts Ambassador
Khalilzad has had now with the insurgency, but clearly we had
contacts. They actually contacted us after Saddam’s capture to
express interest in trying to find a way forward. The U.N. had
contacts at that time. I don’t know if they’re involved now.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But how come there was no follow-through?
BREMER: Well, the insurgents were not able to deliver anything.
This is always a problem in an insurgency. You don’t know who you’re
talking to. There was, at that time, certainly no central direction
of the insurgency, so you have a question of, who can I talk to who
can actually deliver reconciliation?
BREMER: In the end, you’ve got people here, George, a small hard
core, who are never going to be reconciled. They’re going to have to
be dealt with. They’re going to have to be defeated militarily, as
Prime Minister al-Maliki made very clear on Thursday.
And we need to figure out the best way to help them do that.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yet at one level, Zarqawi already seems to have
succeeded because one of his main goals was to spark sectarian
violence, spark a civil war.
And that seems to have a dynamic all its own right now.
BREMER: Yes, but if you look at the question of these militia —
that’s true; Zarqawi made it very clear two years ago to his
followers.
He said several things. He said we need to kill as many Shia as
possible to start a sectarian war. We need to go after the police and
the army, as they did again yesterday with two attacks on Iraqi
police.
That has not actually affected recruitment. This last week
alone, over 4,000 Iraqis finished training and became new Iraqi
policemen. They continue to come and volunteer.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yet the real powers in the military, in the
police, are those militias.
BREMER: No, I think that’s not right. The army, the Iraqi army
is not plagued by the same degree of infiltration of militias as the
police. It’s largely a problem of the police.
And I think al-Maliki is right. They need to be abolished. You
need to take away the reason. The reason the Shia are relying on
those militia is because the coalition and the Iraqi forces, so far,
have not been able to provide them with security.
The reason the economy hasn’t been rebuilt as well as it should
have been is because these insurgents are able to continue to attack
power lines and pipelines.
So at the heart, the fundamental problem is defeating the
insurgency. And we need a military campaign strategy to do that. And
I hope that’s what comes out of these next few days.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But the insurgents are basically aligning
themselves with other Sunnis against the Shiite militias. The war has
a very different character now.
BREMER: The war, yes, it does. But if you can deal with the
insurgency as the heart of the problem, you can take away the excuse
of the Shia taking affairs into their own hands.
You can give the new government an opportunity to build, not just
reconciliation but rebuild the country. So we have to keep focused on
the point that we must have a strategy for victory against the
insurgents, as the president has said several times since Thursday.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And as the president is meeting with his war
Cabinet on Monday and Tuesday at Camp David to talk about the strategy
going forward.
Are you going to attend the meetings?
BREMER: No, I’m not.
STEPHANOPOULOS: If you were there, what advice would you give
the president and his war Cabinet at this moment?
BREMER: Well, you know, I don’t — I’m very reluctant, as
someone who is no longer in government, to advise the president in
public. But I think the key challenge that the coalition and the
Iraqis have now is to come up with a campaign plan, a military
campaign plan.
And I don’t know whether that requires more troops or different
kinds of troops. This, I don’t know.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, that’s what I wanted to ask you about
because you’ve been firm that you think there should be no deadlines
at all for withdrawal of troops.
BREMER: Absolutely.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But is this a moment that perhaps more troops
actually could make a difference if the key is defeating the
insurgency, as you say?
BREMER: Quite possibly. The prime minister, in his statement on
Thursday, talked about securing Baghdad.
And it seems to me, just as a political matter, it’s important to
be able to secure the capital. Six million Iraqis live there out of,
say, 27 million, so a quarter of the population lives there.
It’s a multisectarian city. It’s got Sunnis and Shia. And there
is some symbolic use in being able to say, we can control a capital.
So perhaps you start with the capital. Maybe not. All I know is
it is very important to have a strategy that says, here is how we
intend, in a period of time, to defeat the insurgency.
There should be no deadlines on the time we bring troops home. I
think that’s a mistake. That only encourages the terrorists to
continue their fighting.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But to be clear, the White House has said that
draw-downs are not on the table at Camp David.
You think they should at least consider putting more troops in,
temporarily, in Baghdad.
BREMER: I don’t want to be driven into a question of whether
there should be more troops there. I think it’s the wrong question,
George. I think the question is what’s the strategy to defeat the
insurgency and then the consequence of that…
STEPHANOPOULOS: The number of troops is key to that strategy,
isn’t it?
BREMER: It may be more. It may not be more. It may be
different kinds of troops; it may be redeploying them to different
areas.
If you start to focus on Baghdad, maybe you bring the same troops
out from other parts of the country and put them in Baghdad.
That, it seems to me, is a question for the president’s military
advisers. The president — the question for the president is, what
does it take to win the war?
STEPHANOPOULOS: And bottom line, for you, is the strategy should
be secure Baghdad first.
BREMER: No, I don’t say that necessarily. I say that’s what the
prime minister has proposed on Thursday. It sounds like a logical
place to start.
You could also start in the provinces where you have the most
unrest, in Al Anbar in the West, for example, or Diyala, where Zarqawi
was killed, or Salaheddin somewhere to the north.
There are different ways you could approach it. All I’m saying
is there should be a strategy fro victory here.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And let’s see what the president decides on
Monday and Tuesday.
BREMER: Right.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. Ambassador, thanks very much.
BREMER: Nice to be with you again.
STEPHANOPOULOS: The debate over control of Congress is next with
Tom Reynolds and Rahm Emanuel.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And later, two conservative heavyweights square
off.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILL: Isn’t it the case that 12 years after the great Republican
takeover, they have discovered the almost erotic joy of spending other
people’s money?
NORQUIST: This is a deep, deep problem.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FORMER U.S. REP. TOM DELAY, (R-TX) It is not the principled
partisan, however obnoxious he may seem to his opponents, who degrades
our public debate, but the preening, self-styled statesman who
elevates compromise to a first principle.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: That was a defiant Tom DeLay in his farewell
address to Congress on Thursday. And it came on top of Tuesday’s GOP
win in the special election to replace convicted Congressman Duke
Cunningham, which may be the best test yet of whether the Republicans
can keep control of Congress come November. Here to debate that
question, the campaign committee chairmen, Republican Tom Reynolds,
and from Chicago, Democrat Rahm Emanuel.
And Congressman Reynolds, let me begin with you. Mr. DeLay also
told USA Today this week the Republicans will lose control of the
House unless they get tough. And he said Republican house members are
plagued by panic, depression and “woe is me”-ism. Is he right?
REYNOLDS: Well, that’s Tom DeLay expressing himself. He’s now a
former Congressman. I listen to him as I do other great members of
Congress that have come and gone. But we’re focused on local
elections to make sure that we win every seat, seat by seat, build
them from the ground up.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And you won an election this week. And
Congressman Emanuel, The Hill newspaper reported that your former
leader, Dick Gephardt, told a private meeting of investment bankers
that he didn’t think Democrats could win back the House. And it is
true you lost that race on Tuesday. You had a lobbyist running in a
district where a Congressman was convicted of taking bribes from a
lobbyist. If you can’t win there, where can you win?
EMANUEL: Well, George, first of all, you know, there’s no silver
medal for second place. Winning is everything. And Tom won, and I
believe that what they really did was avoid a disaster.
Now, let’s take a look at exactly what happened in an
overwhelming Republican district. The Republican Party spent $5
million, the most they’ve ever spent, in an overwhelming Republican
district and eked out a victory with less than 50 percent of the vote.
And the only way Congressman Bilbray did that was by attacking the
president of the United States, of his own party, and saying he
disagreed with him.
EMANUEL: And that will not be a luxury that any Republican
running for Congress who have co-authorized the president’s agenda to
the tune of — 92 percent of the time, they have rubber-stamped his
agenda on energy, Social Security, on Medicare, on Iraq and on the $3
trillion of additional deficit.
STEPHANOPOULOS: There you go…
That debt…
STEPHANOPOULOS: Congressman Reynolds, he’s lashing, President
Bush, to the House Republicans. It is true that Mr. Bilbray attacked
the president’s immigration plan. Does that mean it’s dead?
REYNOLDS: Well, politics is local. It was a House campaign, as
a contrast between the number one issue in that district, which was
immigration.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Which was?
REYNOLDS: Which was immigration. And it was between two local
personalities. And quite frankly, Miss Busby was a B candidate. And
Bilbray won by having his message driven across.
I also saw that it appeared to me that Busby got no more than
what Kerry got in that district. And as ends up, we got a win.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Congressman Emanuel, Congressman Reynolds says
all politics is local. But Democrats are hoping to make an issue out
of Iraq and believe that Iraq is a real anchor on the president.
The Republicans are going to come forward with a resolution in
the House this week. And I want to show it to our viewers. I
obtained a copy of it.
It calls the mission in Iraq — it supported the mission in Iraq
and it and calls it essential to U.S. security and goes on to say that
“The struggle to create a sovereign, free and united Iraq will require
continued resolve by the United States as it moves forward toward
achievement of that goal.”
The majority leader, John Boehner says he hopes to embarrass
Democrats by forcing them to voting against this resolution.
Will Democrats vote against this or vote to support the mission?
EMANUEL: Well, George, you know, this is interesting. You say
what Congressman Boehner says. You know, what the Republicans should
do — and I’m going to give them a little advice — one good casualty
in this war on terror would be partisanship and “try to embarrass”
people.
What we should be doing is not dividing Americans but bringing
them together in our mission. That’s what our troops want.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So will you vote for the resolution?
EMANUEL: Well, I’m going to see what the resolution — but I’ll
tell you what the debate the Democrats are going to have, is we have
now spent 3 1/2 years, $480 billion, 2,500 American lives, 18,000
wounded. And this Republican Congress sat and watched, refused to ask
questions in the past.
When we were told this was a short war, it became a long war.
When they said it was going to be a quick war in the sense of
traditional, it became an insurgency.
There was no preparation, vis-a-vis Kevlar vests, humvees, too
few troops. We want the questions our constituents are asking. And
we want the answers.
And this Congress, the Republican Congress, refused to have its
duties of oversight and accountability and they, rather than root out
corruption and incompetence, protected it.
And we’re going to demand that they stop cutting and running from
their duties of accountability and oversight. And that’s what we’re
going to talk about.
And I’ll look at that resolution, but we will have a good debate
about what happened to our responsibilities of accountability and
oversight when that — when the Republican Congress, rather than try
to protect America and say, we want to know, like we have in every
war, where Congress asks questions, this Congress did not ask those
questions. And America is paying the price of that.
STEPHANOPOULOS: What’s the answer, Congressman Reynolds?
REYNOLDS: I look forward to this debate. We support our troops.
I think it’s a great debate. I look forward to having members of
Congress in both parties. But quite frankly, I haven’t seen a clear
opinion from the House Democrats on this issue or most issues.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But if there’s still 130,000…
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: I’ll bring you in in one second.
If there’s still 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq come November, won’t
that hurt House Republicans?
REYNOLDS: George, I look at the experts in the Pentagon to run
the war and the president to outline, as commander in chief, where we
are to the American people on the war.
I look at Congress’ responsibility to make sure that our men and
women are the best trained and have the best equipment to fight this
war.
But the races are all about local races, on what the number one
issue is in that district. In Buffalo, New York, it’s jobs and taxes.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Iraq’s not going to hurt House Republicans,
you’re convinced?
REYNOLDS: I say that they are local races that are contrasts
between local personalities and local districts. I didn’t hear the
war as the number one issue in California 50, I heard immigration;
close the borders.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. Emanuel?
EMANUEL: Well, two things. One is the war is a big issue out
there, as is the privatization of Social Security, as is the issue of
skyrocketing energy prices and our subsidies to big oil companies
rather than figuring out alternatives.
And on the issue of immigration, there is also a big issue. For
six years, the Republicans have literally sat and watched while not
doing anything, allowing, like, in 2003, there were only four
workplace inspections and convictions in all of America.
And this problem didn’t just come in one year. It’s been
festering and the Republican Congress hasn’t done anything.
(CROSSTALK)
EMANUEL: Let me just say one thing. What Tom just said on the
war, yes, you do leave the fighting to our generals. But Congress has
a responsibility to ask questions and oversight.
And at every chance — Abu Ghraib; too few troops; soldiers
having to literally put together scrap metal for their humvees;
parents doing bake sales for Kevlar vests.
Congress didn’t ask the questions. And what we have to do going
forward and what the debate will be is: what is the strategy for
success?
STEPHANOPOULOS: But there is a debate also, excuse me…
EMANUEL: Iraq sovereignty in 2006, and in 2007, how do we make
sure America begins its redeployment from Iraq. That’s the strategy
we’ve got to have a debate about.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But there is a debate also in the Democratic
caucus about Iraq. And this week, you saw Congressman John Murtha,
the leading advocate in the House for withdrawing American troops
completely this year, announce that he was going to challenge
Congressman Steny Hoyer, the Democratic whip, for the position of
majority leader if Democrats take control. Are you going to support
him?
EMANUEL: George, my colleagues ask me to do one thing, which is
make sure that in 2006 there is a majority, and that there will be a
majority leader to lead a majority, and I’m going to focus on my job.
That is my responsibility.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So do you think it was a bad idea for
Congressman Murtha — first of all, tell me if you’re going to support
him. But secondly, was it a bad idea for him to challenge Congressman
Hoyer at this time?
EMANUEL: George, you know the House well enough, and you know
the institution. How I’m going to vote and what I’m going to do is,
I’m going to tell the individual member. I’m not going to do it here
on TV. Second is, it would be — I would be remiss in my
responsibilities, as Tom would be in his responsibilities. We’re
chairs of the committees for election.
We’re 100 percent, 24/7 always focused on that, and that’s what
I’m going to focus on. I’m not going to get into any discussion of
what happens after November. Every day I’m going to wake up as I do
— sometimes I don’t even go to sleep, just focus on what we’ve got to
do to win the election and turn this country away from its wageless
recovery and endless occupation in Iraq, and make sure that we don’t
have a Congress that merely rubber-stamps the policy of the president.
But actually has a new direction out there.
What’s that?
STEPHANOPOULOS: It sounds like you think this is a distraction
from Congressman Murtha?
EMANUEL: No, what I think and what I believe is I have a
responsibility that 202 Democrats asked me to take on, and I’m going
to focus on it. I’m not talking about with distraction or nothing.
I’m going to build that majority, and then we can have a lot of
contests out there. I’m going to focus on what I’m supposed to do.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You have a similar job, Congressman Reynolds,
and this week, there was a big vote in the Senate on the
constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. It lost. It didn’t
pass in the Senate. Didn’t even come up for a vote. But the day
after, your leader, Majority Leader John Boehner, came out and said
this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
U.S. REP. JOHN BOEHNER, (R-OH), MAJORITY LEADER: Listen, this is
the United States Congress. We have members who are very passionate
about the issue of gay marriage, that marriage ought to be the union
of a man and a woman, and there’s going to be a debate and vote here
in the House, period. Regardless of the consequences.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: What are the consequences? Do you think that
vote is going to help your members?
REYNOLDS: I think it’s just another vote in Congress. Some
people will support it. Some will not. (INAUDIBLE) American people.
STEPHANOPOULOS: What will you do?
REYNOLDS: I’ll support it.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You’re going to support the constitutional
amendment. All the senators from the Northeast voted against it.
They seem to think it’s going to hurt them up there. You don’t?
REYNOLDS: I look at each race as an individual matter between
the candidates of the district, and all politics being local, I’m
already on record.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Congressman Emanuel?
EMANUEL: Well, first of all, I will oppose it, and I again say
to the Republican Party we should be finding opportunities to deal
with the challenges — immediate challenges facing the American people
that also bring us together. There is a lot of divisions out there.
There’s a lot of important issues.
But what we should do is figure out how to raise people’s
incomes, how to ensure that we have lower prescription drug prices,
how to protect Americans by voting for our 9-11 Commission, how to
ensure that we don’t subsidize big oil companies with $15 billion of
hard-earned taxpayer money and find alternative energy sources, how to
restore the cuts to college education, how to put our budget back in
balance with pay-go rules.
Those are the priorities the American people want to have. They
want to bring us together to do that. I always wish the Republican
Party would stop trying to figure out how to unify their party and
figure out how to unify this country.
STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s the Democratic plan and his final answer.
What’s your final word?
REYNOLDS: Well, he wants more taxes and bigger government.
We’re going to win the House as we just win every race local, district
by district, from the ground up.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Congressman Reynolds, Congressman Emanuel, thank
you both very much.
EMANUEL: Thank you.
STEPHANOPOULOS: The roundtable is next with George Will, Donna
Brazile and Fareed Zakaria. And later, the Sunday Funnies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONAN O’BRIEN, HOST, “LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O’BRIEN”: According
to the military — this is true — they got al Zarqawi while he was
hiding in his safe house. Yeah, as a result, it’s been renamed the
not-so-safe house.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROUNDTABLE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Our voice this week, Grover Norquist.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEPHANOPOULOS (voice over): For almost 20 years, he’s been the
number one networker in the conservative movement. And when President
Bush took office, he won unparalleled access to the White House.
But has his movement lost its way? Norquist goes one-on-one with
George Will.
WILL: You said your aim was to cut in half the size of
government relative to the size of the economy. That’s not going so
well.
NORQUIST: We were doing very well from 1994 up until 2000.
WILL: Until Republicans took the White House back?
NORQUIST: Yes, actually. And I think there are a couple of
challenges. One when you have Republican House, Senate and president,
they think that the other guys are keeping an eye on things. At least
when Clinton was in the White House, the Republicans would not let
Clinton have his spending. Clinton would not let the Republicans have
their favorite spending. And you had a Mexican standoff, where people
kept an eye on each other. They’re not policing spending as they need
to in D.C.
WILL: Under this administration, the last six years, the number
of registered lobbyists in Washington has doubled. Why have lobbyists
sprouted like dandelions under a conservative regime in Washington?
NORQUIST: Because spending has gone up too much. If you put a
cake, birthday cake under the sink, you will get cockroaches, OK, and
there’s no point in saying, well, we’ll build walls against the
cockroaches or we’ll make the cockroaches fill out paperwork and tell
us what they’re doing, OK? Remove the cake from under the sink.
WILL: You’re not calling lobbyists cockroaches?
NORQUIST: No, I’m drawing an analogy here.
(LAUGHTER)
WILL: You’ve called the conservative movement the “leave us
alone” coalition. People want the government to go away. But there’s
this enormous social conservative group that wants to change the laws
on marriage and on abortion and prayer in schools and display of
religious symbols. That doesn’t sound like leaving people alone. Is
this a fundamental incompatibility in the movement?
NORQUIST: No, but people do look at the traditional values wing
of the party or part of the party and say they must be wanting to
impose their values on the rest of society. They must be like the
environmentalists that want to make everybody separate the green glass
from the brown glass on Thursdays. Or make your toilets too small to
flush or make your cars too small to have people in.
Actually, if you look at the voting patterns of the traditional
values conservatives, Republicans, what they want, it’s a parents’
rights movement. They want to practice their faith. They want to
raise their kids. If you ask them do they think other people should
do x, y or z, they do. Do they vote on that issue when they vote for
candidates? Actually, they don’t.
WILL: Looking ahead two more years to 2008, probably fair to say
the front-runner for the Republican nomination is John McCain, who you
have accused of Caesarism in his approach to leadership, and called
him completely unstable.
NORQUIST: What McCain has done is flip-flopped on the gun issue,
on the tax issue. Used to be a Reagan Republican on taxes. He’s
voted against every one of President Bush’s tax cuts. He voted for
the first one before he voted against it, but he’s voted against all
of them.
He’s flip-flopped back and forth. Not because of where the
American people are, but because of where the cameras are. And the
challenge there as an elected official who is — the photo tropism of
going to the cameras is very damaging from a conservative perspective
because that’s unlikely to lead to conservative governance.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
STEPHANOPOULOS: For more of this debate, check out voices plus.
Just go to abcnews.com and click on This Week. And now, the Sunday
Funnies.
(SUNDAY FUNNIES
STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s our show for today. But before we go, a
note of appreciation for Robert Byrd.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ROBERT BYRD (D) WEST VIRGINIA: Oh, to be 70 again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Tomorrow he becomes the longest-serving senator
in U.S. history, 17,327 days. That’s more than 47 years and more than
half his life. Congratulations, Senator Byrd.
And thanks to all of you for sharing part of your Sunday with us.
ABC will be airing World Cup soccer in our time slot next week, but
we’ll be back on June 25. See you then.
END
