Face the Nation transcripts December 1, 2013: Menendez, Corker, Walker

(CBS News) Below is a transcript of "Face the Nation" on December 1, 2013, hosted by CBS News' Bob Schieffer. Guests include: Sens. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., Bob Corker, R-Tenn., Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, William Kristol, Bill Daley, Peter Baker, A Scott. Berg, and Doris Kearns Goodwin.

[*] DICKERSON: Good morning again and happy holidays. There are two breaking stories this morning.

First, a Metro North commuter train derailed in New York City. So far four people have died and more than 60 are injured, some of them critically. No word yet on what caused the derailment.

Also today, the Obama administration says dramatic progress has been made to the healthcare.gov website. To talk about that and last week's agreement to halt Iran's nuclear weapons program in exchange for some loosening of the economic sanctions, I'm joined by the two top senators on the Foreign Relations Committee. Democrat Chairman Bob Menendez of New Jersey joins us from New York and the ranking Republican, Bob Corker of Tennessee, joins us from Chattanooga.

Good morning to both of you.

Senator Menendez, I want to start with you. The administration says healthcare.gov is doing better. They've met their goals. Do you have confidence that that's the case?

MENENDEZ: Well, the announcement today that response rates are under a second; error rates are under 1 percent; 90 percent of the time the system's stable; it can handle 50,000 users, 800,000 visits a day -- if that's the case, then that's good news.

Because what this really is about is the technology challenges. But I think what we've lost sight of is that the underlying program itself, the product of the health insurance that Americans will be able to access, is critically important.

So this is the equivalent of having a great item that you want to buy in a store but not being able to get through the front door. It sounds like the front door has been opened successfully now, and hopefully we're going to have Americans get access to that health care they desperately need.

DICKERSON: Senator Corker, you know something about construction. The front door is fixed, but there are other issues here in the system. There was a delay before the Thanksgiving holiday from the White House on the small-business portion of the Affordable Care Act. There have been other issues. The insurance industry says there are delays getting good information from the website, which means you won't actually be able to get a plan if those errors continue.

So where is your confidence on this getting back on some kind of a track?

CORKER: Well, look, there are thousands of entities around the country that easily could have set this up with $600 million in three years. But, look, for all that -- we all get calls from incredibly distressed citizens who have had their policies canceled and yet are unable to enroll in a new plan.

So I do hope that the efficacy of this is much better today and will improve. But at the end of the day, while there will be a few winners, most Americans are going to find a less dynamic health system. They're going to find that the cost of the health care that they -- they're able to purchase is going to be a lot higher. And they're also going to realize that their choices are for less -- far less.

And so, for our country, you are going to have continued downward pressure on employment. You're going to have upward pressure on deficits. And so I still think the foundations of this plan have some of the same kinds of problems that the rollout has had, but they're fundamental, very hard to overcome. And unfortunately, as people enroll, I think there's going to be a lot of negative surprises as to what they're able to enroll in.

DICKERSON: So repeal it, Senator Corker?

CORKER: Well, look, I -- this is one of those things, when you try to fix one piece, it affects another piece. For instance, the president's move, which, you know, I'm glad he was trying to fix the promise that he made regarding people being able to stay on their plans. If that's the case, then you have this situation where potentially a death spiral ends up occurring and you end up having increasing costs for those people who do in fact enroll in the new system.

So I don't know how you fix the many fundamental problems of this program. I'm a strong supporter of dynamic marketplace exchanges. I do think we need to equalize the tax code so that, if you buy it individually, you get the same benefits that you do through a company, where it's tax free.

So I think there are things that need to be done and I think there are some elements that could be built upon. But, generally speaking, the fundamentals of this, to me, are -- were done in a way, a chaotic way, much like we're seeing the rollout.

It was done in a way that, really, there wasn't a vision at the end. It was just an amalgamation of legislation that didn't have a central focus. And so I don't know how you fix it. I'll be honest. I don't know how you fix a program that was put together in this manner, with only one side of the aisle, and taking the shortcuts that were taken to put it in place.

DICKERSON: Senator Menendez, before we move on to Iran, I just want to ask you one question. You used to be charged with helping get Democratic senators elected or re-elected. So give us your political take, quickly, on how much of a weight the whole health care rollout and its difficulty will be on Democratic senators trying to get re- elected or trying to win office in 2014?

MENENDEZ: Well, look, I think, when we get to the period of time at the end of the year, similar to the Massachusetts plan when it was rolled out, enrollment figures weren't great at the beginning; everybody waited towards the end. And that was a success.

I look at New Jersey and I think it's a replication of what's out there for the nation. You know, 73,000 young people are on their parents' insurance because of the new law. You know, 1.5 million women in New Jersey are getting additional health care benefits as it relates to their personal health. Senior citizens have saved $470 million in prescription drug benefits; 3.5 million New Jerseyans no longer face some lifetime arbitrary cap when they have a major illness.

So if that's a replica of what is happening across the country, I think that senators are going to be in a great position to say, "You know, look, we are doing dramatic changes that help you be able to meet the challenges for your family of health care and eliminate some of the greatest evils that existed under the previous system where you could have a preexisting condition and be denied health care; you could be born at birth with a disability and be denied health care; you could have a major illness and face that lifetime cap and now suddenly lose everything you ever worked for." These are the advantages of the program no one speaks about.

MENENDEZ: Well, I think that what bothered me was a statement made by Jay Carney that those of us who have been advocates of prospective sanctions, sanctions that would take place six months later, after this time period of negotiations, would be had and would be there to be enforced if the deal fell through and would in essence be stayed if there was a deal.

That's suggesting that that thought was somehow marching us off to war was way over the top. Because, as one of the architects of the sanctions regime we've had on Iran, this is exactly the process that has brought Iran to the negotiating table.

And so while we have heard naysayers in the past say, no, we shouldn't pursue those sanctions, it seems to me that prospectively looking for sanctions that are invoked six months from the date of enactment -- they give the president certain waivers -- therefore creates the flexibility for diplomacy, also sends a message to Iran, as it has throughout this process, that there is a consequence if you don't strike a successful deal and puts us in a position of having the insurance to have additional sanctions go into effect at that time, and at the same time gives the administration the flexibility to negotiate.

So I think that's a very responsible position.

DICKERSON: Senator Corker, I want to ask you about this interim arrangement and agreement. The administration, Secretary of State Kerry says, look, this halts the Iranian program, and if the Iranians don't keep their commitments, the sanctions come back and maybe even some harder ones or stiffer ones. So what's not to like in the agreement?

CORKER: Well, I think it's really difficult. And I want to say this is felt in a very strong, bipartisan way. It's very difficult to understand that, at the height of our leverage -- we had six -- we have six countries negotiating and the world behind us, we negotiated a deal of this nature with not a single centrifuge being dismantled, all of them spinning in perpetuity for the next six months.

And I think that it's hard to see how you get to a place that meets the standard that we would want to meet at the end. And so I'm very concerned, especially with this interim deal, how we get to a place where Iran is not enriching constantly or where they're right on the verge, always, of being able to break out and create a nuclear weapon.

I have strong concerns about the proliferation that's going to occur in the area as people see this rogue nation being dealt with in this manner and basically us validating them over the next six months.

So, again, I know Senator Menendez and I both will be working to try to figure out some way of ensuring that we get to the appropriate end game. And it will be up to Senator Reid to decide whether we have that opportunity on the floor over the next two or three weeks or whether he's going to continue to block for the administration so that that doesn't occur.

But I do hope, this is something Senator Menendez has done an outstanding job on, I give him credit, he and Senator Kirk, we have put ourselves, our nation, in this place. And I think that Congress has played a very constructive role and can, if allowed over the next several months, I hope we'll be able to.

DICKERSON: So, Senator Menendez, let me ask you that question, what constructive role can Congress play here? The White House seems like it doesn't even want any piece of legislation even if it didn't kick in for six months, they don't want that. What is leader Reid going to do? What is the next move?

MENENDEZ: Well, look, I think creating a sanctions regime that is an insurance policy and also creates leverage for us is incredibly important. I'm concerned about some elements of the text that people haven't focused on.

For example, already in that text as it relates to what is defined as a comprehensive solution, there is some suggestion that we are going to define what a mutually agreeable enrichment program is.

So we've already ceded a way from U.N. Security Council resolutions that say no enrichment.

Secondly there is the ability to extend this interim agreement and to deal with the U.N. Security Council resolutions. Well, unless you're going to deal them away, I don't know what there is to deal. The Security Council resolutions call for ceasing enrichment.

And, lastly, there is a provision here that envisions in a comprehensive solution a sunset clause that would say that after a period of time, which is not defined, that the Iranians would be treated as any non-nuclear weapons state. That means that they could, after that period of time, enrich uranium without any consequence and without any limitations. They could seek plutonium track without any limitations. Those are real concerns. So defining both what the end state is as well as having sanctions regime that is ready to go should the deal not fall through.

Now I hope the deal can be successful. Obviously diplomacy is something we want to see work. But we need to be ready to move forward.

DICKERSON: Senator Corker, is it a red line for you? You talked about the standards of any ultimate deal. Is enrichment of any kind by Iran, is that something everybody should stay focused on? That any deal that includes that is a non-starter for you, because, of course, the Iranians say that they expect to be able to keep enriching?

CORKER: Yes, so to me that's a baseline that the U.N. Security Council has agreed to, I think, six times, certainly this administration negotiated that in 2010. So they negotiated that in 2010. So as long as they can enrich, it seems to me that we are violating the very standards that we set in place in the first place.

So, yes, I think enrichment, for a country especially like Iran, that has shown to have secret programs, as have been seen to be a rogue nation, their ability to enrich really throws into disarray, if you will, all the other agreements that we're negotiating around the world with Vietnam, with South Korea, with other countries that have played by the rules, in some cases.

So I think it throws the proliferation issue in to disarray also. So, yes, to me that is something that cannot exist.

But, look, we don't even address their ballistic testing issues. There's so many issues in this next six months that are not addressed. As a matter of fact, some people have said Iran may wish to cheat over the next six months, I see no way that they're going to want to cheat.

This is a total victory from their standpoint. I think they're going to be good actors over the next six months because they see an administration who led this negotiation, an administration that has already given tilt to allowing them do the things that the world community through the U.N. Security Council has already said they cannot do.

So I'm very discouraged and I hope we're able to have a better end game than it looks like we're going to have now. And I think Congress can help us get there.

CORKER: Thank you.

MENENDEZ: Thank you.

DICKERSON: We'll be back in one minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DICKERSON: Joining me now is Wisconsin Governor Republican Scott Walker. He has written a new book, "Unintimidated: A Governor's Story and a Nation's Challenge." He joins us now from Madison.

Hello, Governor, I want to start with the theme -- overarching theme of this book and your argument which is that what you've been able to do in Wisconsin should be a model for Republicans across the nation and in Washington.

So let's think about that with respect to health care. You fought the president's health care law in the courts. You also declared that you didn't want any additional Medicaid money from that.

But once it was passed you said it's the law and you put some of your citizens in to the federal exchange. Is that the model for Republicans that -- now that the law is passed, work within it and not try these efforts to continue to repeal it?

WALKER: Oh, I think long-term a much better option for us here in Wisconsin and across the country is to replace it with something better, market-driven, just as Senator Corker talked about before.

But for us, we didn't take the Medicaid expansion. We didn't do a state exchange. We have now put everyone -- we'll be putting everyone as of the second quarter of this coming year, everyone living in poverty will be covered for the first time in our state's history, and everyone living above it will be transitioned to the marketplace.

But we actually have fewer people on Medicaid than we did before this program, and fewer people living directly on government dependencies. So that's what we're doing in the time being.

But I think long-term it's not the status quo, we can't go back to the status quo. What we need to do is go to a market-driven position where the tax incentives are the same whether you buy it through your employer, whether you buy it individually, or whether you do what most people I think would intend to do, and that is buy it through a health savings account.

DICKERSON: You talk about that market-driven approach. In Washington the Republicans went home to Thanksgiving, and you also said that the Republicans should not just say no to the president. So Republicans in Washington went home for Thanksgiving with a 40-page booklet about how they could exploit the problems the president is having with his health care program.

Good politics maybe, but you seem to be saying that Republicans need to offer an alternative. Is that right?

WALKER: I do. And I think overall one of the things I wrote about in this book is austerity is not the answer, reform is. What Americans are hungry for, and I think the reason why I won in a state where the few months later the president of the United States carried that state by the same margin or about the same margin, just over seven percentage points, was because in both cases those undecided, persuadable voters more than anything want leadership.

They want people to stand up and boldly tell them what they're going to do and then go out and do it. In our case I think there is a much better market-driven solution, whether it comes from health care, entitlement reforms, or other areas, we just have to be -- have the courage to stand up and do it.

And we're doing it in the states, and that's where Republicans are the most successful today.

DICKERSON: When you talk about in your book the sour politics of austerity, are you talking about your cousins in Washington, the Republicans running things here?

WALKER: Well, you know, I talk about the difference between Republicans in Washington and Republicans in the states. And one of the key differences is we talk about things that are relevant and optimistic.

We talk about fixing schools, balancing budgets, getting the economy going again. We don't talk about sequesters and fiscal cliffs and debt ceilings. Those are things a handful of people in politics pay attention to.

What Americans want are people with the courage to stand up and fight for them, not fight against each other, fight for the hard- working tax-payers. And in America there are 30 Republican governors doing exactly that just as we speak.

DICKERSON: Many of those 30 Republican governors and you have the benefit of having legislature that is all rowing in the same direction, mostly, it's all Republican. So, in Washington that's not the case, famously. And it has got everybody here stuck a little bit.

So how do you transfer the Wisconsin model, everybody is on the same team, to Washington, where they're not and that causes a lot of gridlock?

WALKER: Well, you know, historically a lot of the talk, the conventional wisdom in Washington was that divided government was somehow good because it would be checks and balances.

I think most of us across this country have seen divided government just leads to more fighting and bickering and gridlock. In Wisconsin and in many other battleground states in the Midwest, in 2010 we focused on our economic and fiscal crises, laid out a clear plan.

And then voters in my state, and many other in my surrounding states, gave Republicans not only the governor's office but the majorities in the state assembly and the state senate or similar measures in the legislature.

And I think that's the case. In 2014 Republicans need to lay out an optimistic measure to regain the United States Senate, and then two years later after that, the House and the Senate are controlled by Republicans, then a Republican nominee needs to make that ultimate case to give the party a chance to show what we can do, just like we've done successfully in state after state all across this great country.

WALKER: Well, no, I mean, I think it is. I mean, if there are instances where that can work whether one party is in control or it's split government out there. But I think in the end what people want to hear is whether it's Democrat or Republican want they to hear a clear plan of how they'll move forward.

I think the more people look at the mess in Washington, they'll realize that divided government does not work, that gridlock, the fighting for the sake of fighting is not working. If you look at states -- I mean look across America, since last year's convention I pointed out at the convention speech and just about every month since then that the unemployment rate in states led by Republican governors is almost consistently 1 percent lower, 1 percent better than in states led by Democrat governors, that's a real choice.

But can look at the difference between the failures in Illinois, for example, versus the benefits of what's happening in a state like Wisconsin.

You compare Texas to California, Virginia to Maryland, there's example after example out there where people can see the real difference. And those are the sorts of things we talk about in our book called "Unintimidated."

DICKERSON: One of the -- you are getting heralded for your focus. And so I want to ask you about that in a political context, which is you say that in your book you say you were focused on the fiscal issues, but when it comes to social issues, let's not be obsessed about it.

WALKER: I mean, yeah. I'm not backing away from my positions. As you said, I'm proudly pro-life, but for me the reason I was elected in 2010, the reason I was elected again in 2012, the reason I hope I'll be eventually elected yet again in 2014 like other governors across the country, is because we focused obsessively on helping fix the economy and the private sector and helping put in place a balanced budget that can sustain us at both the state and local level. I think people want us to do that. It's not just politically popular, it's what people elect us to do.

I got to the point in the 2010 election where I was so focused on fixing our economic and fiscal crisis, John, you could have asked me in a forum what my mother's maiden name was, and I'd say it's Fitch, and every Fitch I know cares about my plan to get the economy going again and to keep our balanced budget.

DICKERSON: What do the Fitches say, governor, about you running for president? WALKER: Well, I mean, it's flattering. And they're not talking about it because of some great speech I've given, they've talked about it because we've taken real action and real reforms. And I think I'm -- I'm not the only one out there, you look at governors across the country, whether it's Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, John Kasich, Suzanna Martinez, Nicky Haley, Mary Fallin, there are people talking about each of them as well.

Why? Because in each and every one of those states, and many others like them, there are leaders in the Republican Party who are chief executives in the states getting big, bold things done. And I think that's what people are hungry for, not only in the states, but they're hungry for it across the country.

DICKERSON: All right, last question, governor, are you running?

WALKER: I'm running for governor. I'll make that announcement officially in 2014. And we'll see what happens after that.

Ultimately, my decision will be made not just by myself and my family but I've got to look at my state. My state has gone through a lot the last couple of years. And there's a part of me that would just like to stay focused on helping the state move forward.

So, we'll see what the future holds. But for now, I'm focused on being governor.

DICKERSON: All right, Governor Scott Walker, thanks so much for being with us.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DICKERSON: There's a lot more "Face the Nation" ahead, including analysis from our panel and a conversation with the authors of three new presidential biographies: Doris Kearns Goodwin is the author of "The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and the Golden Age of Journalism,: Scott Berg is the author of "Wilson" and Peter Baker is the author of "Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney In the White House."

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DICKERSON: Some of our stations are leaving us now. But for most of you we'll be right back with a lot more of "Face the Nation." Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DICKERSON: Welcome back to "Face the Nation." For some analysis we're joined by former Obama White House chief of staff now CBS News contributor Bill Daley and Bill Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard Bill Daley, I'm going to start with you, this news from the website, it's doing better--

I'll start with you. This news from the website it's doing better. Is the White House and administration back on the good road here?

BILL DALEY, CBS NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I think it's obviously I'm sure there's a lot of relief at the White House. They know that they got a very deep hole to come out of. Obviously if the success that they are predicting is going to begin by virtue of the website being up and running better is fulfilled and then grows off of that they have taken the enormous step to begin to come back.

You know, this is a game of sports analogy here would be it's singles and doubles, there are no triples or home runs to begin to change this equation. So I think this is a very solid double. But it's a long game. And they've got a lot of hits to be made by them in a positive way.

KRISTOL: Yeah, they do. But I think, to be fair, Republicans have benefited mostly from the substance of Obamacare. I mean, what's the big issue been for the last three or four weeks that Republicans have been hammering and a lot of individuals have been hammering? If you want -- "If you like your plan, you can keep it. If you like your doctor, you can keep it." That doesn't change.

The website could work perfectly and 5 million people have lost their plans or are being shoved into inferior plans (inaudible). So I think that problem -- I mean, the website in that respect is a bit of distraction. We'll see how well it's been fixed. I think it's a good example of why you don't want government to do these things.

I think, if the private sector -- if a bunch of private companies were competing, as they are, which I think Aetna and Cigna and those guys -- they would pay a price if the website crashed and people would go to another company. That doesn't happen with the government, which is why government shouldn't run big chunks of our economy like health care.

And Republicans do need a -- they have some positive alternatives, but they need to highlight them more and, I think, need to advance them more. I think Paul Ryan will introduce a pretty big set of Republican alternatives -- not one giant bill, but let's adjust Medicare, Medicaid, the individual market, the corporate market. And I think he'll -- he'll introduce something, probably right after the new year, or at least lay out the principles of it, so people can say with more comfort and, I think, more truth that Republicans do have a positive reform agenda in health care. DICKERSON: Bill Daley, you write in The Washington Post today about how difficult it is to manage in the federal government. So talk about that. Is this just a management problem that it's just hard to do stuff in the federal government?

DALEY: Well, it is very difficult to do such a major, complex thing for the federal government, a project like this. And there's plenty of examples, and we cite them in the op-ed piece, of the federal government trying to do major technological changes to systems and the difficulties of that.

So I think there is very much a problem of management in the federal government. This is a Democrat-Republican project -- problem. This administration did put forward a bill to the Congress on procurement reform. It's not sexy; it's not dramatic, but those are the sort of things, if you run a government and you manage it, that have to be done.

And the private sector has made enormous strides. Federal government is way behind, even state and local agencies.

DICKERSON: Now, what they say, on Bill Kristol's side, is that, when you hire a president who has never run anything, this is what happens. What's your response?

DALEY: No, look, I think no one -- anyone who thinks that the president is equivalent to a CEO, who could just make changes, really doesn't understand how the federal government works.

You have a system that's been built over years that any president, Democrat or Republican -- and I'm sure there's plenty of Republican presidents who were frustrated by the difficulties of moving major projects forward. Forgetting the legislative process, I'm just talking about the management of 'em. Because it's not sexy; it's not attractive. The Congress really doesn't pay attention to it except to try to make political points.

And -- and I think, at some point, a president and the Congress has got to take some of these issues more seriously than they do.

DICKERSON: Bill Kristol, Governor Scott Walker says, you know, the next president on the Republican side should be a governor because they make decisions; they have executive experience. With the health care example before us, is that -- is he right? Should senators just need not apply?

KRISTOL: No, I think the next Republican nominee will be the person who has the best agenda for the country going forward. I think having been a successful Republican governor, especially perhaps in a state that has voted for President Obama so it's not as easy to be a successful Republican governor in that kind of state, will be a huge credential.

But being a successful governor is a credential; it's not a -- it's not the reason people ultimately vote for you. Think of the governors who have become president, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush. They all had national agendas, Reagan obviously the conservative agenda, Clinton the New Democrat agenda, George W. Bush compassionate conservatism. They spent a lot of time thinking about what does the country need; what does nation need?

And I think the Republican governors -- Scott Walker's running for re-election now. I think he will be re-elected. But they'll need to pivot and say "This is my national agenda," not just "I was a good governor in this particular state."

DALEY: Again, some people have forgotten that the last Republican nominee was a former governor. So it's not a panacea.

KRISTOL: It's not the...

(CROSSTALK)

DICKERSON: Let me now pivot to Iran. The administration says -- you are very critical of the administration. You say they've essentially thrown away a core objective of U.S. policy.

They say, but your alternative is war, I mean, that you're -- the path you're advocating is inevitably a march to war with Iran.

KRISTOL: Well, the administration itself used to say that all options are on the table. What does that mean except for the threat of military force?

Now, if the administration wants to say military force is out of the question, then they are going to make the kind of deal they just made. But if the administration is serious about the possibility that we really need to stop the nuclear program, allowing them to continue enrichment, to continue to have the centrifuges, to continue to have the Arak heavy-water plant, that's not serious about stopping the Iranian nuclear program.

President Rouhani gloated to the Financial Times yesterday that he's 100 percent confident that they're not giving up their nuclear program.

DALEY: First of all, we have to remember it was this president who got these tough sanctions, and he brought the world together to have the U.N. implement them. And he has said, and so has John Kerry, that military action is not off the table.

Now, everyone hopes to avoid that, and there's a process here. And let's see where, if anywhere, it ends up in six months. And I think, to not go down this path or to try to stumble it at this point only leads to one conclusion. And maybe some people want that. I don't think most people do.

No question, this president understands what a problem Iran is to the world, what it has been to the United States, and understands that they will not end up with nuclear weapons. And the president has said it. DICKERSON: But the president had a tough time selling his policy in Syria to members of his own party in Congress. What chance does he have on this?

DALEY: Well, I think he's got a pretty good chance. Because I think most people do want to see this six-month process, see if it works. And the rest of the world wants it. We are not alone in this thing. And that's an important factor also.

DICKERSON: Last word?

KRISTOL: Giving up the sanctions without getting anything serious in return is a huge mistake. It's going to be very hard to put those back into place in six months or nine months or 12 months. You already see French automakers today announce they're ready to go back into Iran on January 1st. So I think that's very problematic.

And secondly, we negotiated -- in 2009, the Obama administration negotiated with the United Arab Emirates a landmark deal. They gave up the right, the prospect of enrichment. That was considered a great blow against nuclear proliferation, where they were going to have a nuclear program but no enrichment.

To give way on enrichment, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt -- they're all saying, hey, are you kidding? Iran gets to enrich and we don't? I think all barriers are off then to nuclear programs around the Middle East and elsewhere.

DICKERSON: Wonderful. Thanks very much, Bill Kristol and Bill Daley. We'll be back in one minute with our authors panel.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DICKERSON: Now we turn to the authors of three new books about past presidents. Doris Kearns Goodwin is author of "The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and the Golden Age of Journalism."

Scott Berg is the author of a new biography of the president who followed those two men, Woodrow Wilson. And New York Times reporter Peter Baker, who has written "Days of Fire" is here -- "Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House."

Thank you all for joining us.

Doris, I want to start with you. I have a feeling that every president after Teddy Roosevelt curses hum for coming up with the idea of the bully pulpit, this idea that, if you just speak excellently, that everybody will come to your point of view. And even FDR, somebody else you've written about, said that you could never go faster than the country.

So which is it? Is it the bully pulpit or have to, kind of, go along with where the country already is?

GOODWIN: It's probably both. I mean, I think what Roosevelt understood in his time was that he needed both his own speeches and his great command of language, you know, "Speak softly and carry a big stick." The "square deal" was exactly where the country wanted to be at that time. He wasn't moving faster than the country, but he was moving faster than the Republican majority in the Congress wanted him to move.

But he also understood that you can't be your own bully pulpit; you need the press. And he had the most remarkable set of relationships with the press. He had them in during his barber hour, you know, when the guy's trying to shave him and he's running around. He had them in there when he was doing his mail at the end of the day.

And he was colorful, so they loved to follow him. So there are a lot of reasons why it worked for him. But I think it has been diminished in modern time. Because then you've got the speech in full in the newspaper. Up to FDR, you have his radio thing; everybody is listening, 80 percent of the people. Even JFK up to Reagan, they're only watching the speech. Now you've got your own network; you may be watching cable; you may be hearing the pundits criticize the speech before it's even begun. We're distracted; breaking news comes in.

So it has been diminished over time. And they probably do curse him.

(LAUGHTER)

DICKERSON: And there have probably been 10 Twitter responses to what you've just said now in real time.

(LAUGHTER)

DICKERSON: Scott Berg, I want to talk to you about Wilson. He said that the presidency -- that a president is at liberty to be as big a man as he can be. But then, when he was in office, he had some trouble with Senate Republicans, not unlike this president. And he called them -- what did -- "a little group of willful men."

So talk about that tension, bigness to the office but also constrained?

BERG: Yes, and I would say he entered office building on what T.R. had put there. He really picked up that ball and ran with it, came in with a very aggressive, progressive agenda and also really took press relations to a new level by being the first president to hold press conferences, rather regularly, in fact.

He was blessed with a Democratic Congress when he arrived, which diminished with each congressional election, such that they were beginning to filibuster in ways that the Congress had not filibustered before. It became a rather regular practice on behalf of the Senate, in fact.

And Wilson then stepped in. And, actually, he was our only Ph.D. president. He was a professor of history and jurisprudence. And he came in and gave a little lesson in -- in congressional law. And basically, he introduced the notion of cloture, after giving that willful -- that speech about "a little group of willful men."

And he -- four days after his second inaugural, we introduced cloture to senatorial debate, congressional debate.

GOODWIN: I like the "we." You see he's living back in that time.

(LAUGHTER)

BERG: You know, don't we?

GOODWIN: Of course we do.

BERG: I meant we Americans.

GOODWIN: No, no, I'm teasing you. I...

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

GOODWIN: ... the same thing.

DICKERSON: Peter Baker, we have both lived in the day where presidents don't have such good relations with the press. I like this notion of that. But in your book, you were talking about the constraints on the presidency.

President Bush said, at the end of his time in office, that one of the things that struck him was "how little authority I have."

How is that the case? This is a president who launched two wars. I mean, he did a lot of things in office.

BAKER: He did manage to do a lot of things in office. Look, he's talking to an aide who asked him at the very end, as you say, of his presidency, "What surprised you about being president?" And he says "how little authority I have."

And I think it's actually a sentiment that a lot of his predecessors and even one of his successors might share, this frustration that you can't actually do everything you want to do or that we as a public think you ought to do.

We have built up the presidency. We have talked about the imperial presidency so much. We do it here on this program, all throughout the media, in which we focus so much on one man. But he's one part of the system. And in fact, you know, there's so many things a president cannot do and finds himself frustrated to do.

Congress is one thing. President Bush had his frustrations with Congress. Even though he had a Republican Congress for much of the time, he didn't always get his way. The bureaucracy is another. President Bush gives his second-term inaugural address, driven in part from Woodrow Wilson's idealism about spreading democracy around the world, and finds himself frustrated in the second term by his own conflicting priorities and a bureaucracy at the State Department that doesn't really buy in to his program.

DICKERSON: Doris, I want to talk to you about these two presidents, Roosevelt and Taft. One, kind of, had it; one didn't. What -- what was the missing piece and why did Roosevelt, who picked Taft, miss it?

GOODWIN: It's so interesting. You would have thought that he would have seen that Taft, who he adored -- he thought Taft had a better personality than he did. He said "I envy somebody with his likability. People take a longer time to like me."

What he had not seen was that Taft didn't like politics. You cannot be president if you don't love it. Teddy said he loved it every moment of every day. He couldn't wait to be in the center of action. In fact, his daughter Alice said he wanted to be the bride at the wedding and the corpse at the funeral and the baby at the baptism.

(LAUGHTER)

So all of the frustration that our modern presidents have -- he would say, "Why? I love the presidency." And Taft didn't like political fighting. He didn't like to give speeches. He was a -- he liked to be a deliberative person. He wanted to be on the court. And he eventually gets on the Supreme Court. It's a very different temperament. That's what everybody said about FDR. It's always a matter of temperament.

DICKERSON: Scott, temperament question. You mentioned that President Wilson was our one Ph.D. president. Well, now, if you want to knock down a candidate, you call them an academic.

(LAUGHTER)

You suggest that they are detached. So how did this man from the world of academia learn to use power? Where did that come from?

But he also brought all this intelligence to bear. And I think -- I think the country was looking for a new kind of leader in that moment. And I think they were looking for, sort of, the anti-T.R., in some ways, the anti-bluster, somebody who spoke straight to the people and did it in a very calm, reasoned way.

He also -- his intelligence actually proved to be a very good weapon for him. He really elevated the conversation in this country. And for one brief, shining moment...

(LAUGHTER)

... there was dialogue in this conversation -- in this country at a very high -- very level. DICKERSON: Peter, there's something about the fifth year of presidencies, it seems. And this president is having some issues. George W. Bush had them.

Was there a moment where, leaving aside the approval ratings and all of that, where George Bush, who was not known to be reflective or looking back, nevertheless learned something in his second term and took command of the office in a different way?

Was there a moment where that was true?

BAKER: I think he does. Yeah, I think, in fact, the irony, of course, is you get to be a better president in your second term, but by that point, the problems have so accumulated; the baggage has so grown that your ability to transcend that is even more limited.

But, you know, I think, by the time he looks at Iraq in the face, at the end of 2006 and early 2007, he realizes this war has gone badly; it hasn't gone the way he wants. And he basically throws away three years of -- of policy to go a different direction, against all the popular wisdom, up against the Democrats in Congress who have just taken over the midterms, against his own Joint Chiefs of Staff. And he said, "I'm going to send more troops and try to salvage the situation" -- very daring, one of the most bold decisions a president has made in modern times. And I think that's a function of his comfort in office, his growing confidence after six years, despite all of the travails and the problems and the mistakes.

DICKERSON: I'd like to ask a final question to all of you. The presidential campaign season never seems to stop. So what, of the men you've studied, is one attribute that you would say, here is something they took into office that we might look for in these current people who are running and find out if they've got it because it might help in the job they're going to go take?

GOODWIN: I think what Teddy Roosevelt did so well was he went out on a train, a whistle-stop train, during his presidency, year after year, month after month. He stopped at village stations. He talked to the people. He learned to talk in their language.

He said, "My Harvard friends think I talk too folksy and I'm, kind of, homely in my language, but I know I'm reaching the people emotionally."

Get out of the White House, even as president, and forgetting the campaign, be on the road as much as you can, talking to people.

BERG: I think Wilson felt very much the same. Wilson said, "We are not put in this world to sit still and know. We are put in it to act." And he came in and, from day one, had this very aggressive, progressive agenda. And he just bullied it through, as much as he could, largely, again, using his powers of oratory.

BAKER: Yeah, I think -- I think President Bush's strength, in some ways, obviously -- your greatest strength is sometimes your weakness, but his greatest strength is he knew himself; he felt comfortable in his own skin. He didn't second-guess a lot. He didn't spend his time agonizing over decisions. He made decisions and moved on, again, sometimes to a fault. You know, I think a little second- guessing is probably a healthy thing in a presidency. But he -- he did not spend his time, like LBJ often did at night, you know, just tormented by the decisions that he had had to make, difficult as they might have been and sometimes, you know, for better or for worse.

DICKERSON: All three of you write about a strong president and a close friend they had. I mean, you had Colonel House; you have Taft. What was it about those friendships, Doris, starting with you, and then the big break? All three of them had breaks with their closest. Let's talk about that quickly.

GOODWIN: Well, Taft and Roosevelt had been friends for decades, actually, and they both saw themselves as young reformers. And he bring him in as the central person in his Cabinet. When Teddy is on trips around the country or in these whistle-stop tours, he's leaving everything to Taft. He says, "Don't worry, Taft is sitting on the lid," which of course then inspired huge cartoons of Taft sitting on the lid."

(LAUGHTER)

But then Teddy needed to get back into office again. The progressives felt Taft had become too conservative. When that rupture came, what I understood then, it was much more emotional than I thought, and heartbreaking, until they finally get together at the end. I was so happy that they finally saw each other...

(LAUGHTER)

... before Teddy died.

BERG (?): That last dinner.

(LAUGHTER)

DICKERSON: Well, when Taft handed the keys over to Wilson, to the White House, he said "This is the loneliest police in the world." So I think there is this instinct to have a friend, you know, even if it's a dog. As some presidents have said, that's what you need to get in the White House.

And he had great, great fights with two or three of the closest people in his life over the years, going back to his professorial days at Princeton. He had a very close friend who succeeded him as the president of Princeton and they had a rift. So it was with Colonel House, with Joseph Tumulty, who was his leading guy in the White House.

So, yeah, it was inevitable with Wilson.

DICKERSON: Peter, you try and get at the mystery of the relationship between Bush and Cheney, much discussed. What's the upshot of that?

BAKER: Well, I think the upshot is that we, of course, oversimplify this relationship. It's complicated. It's not the easy "Saturday Night Live" cartoon figure, although that's a very fun sketch about the puppet-master and the puppet. In fact -- except that Cheney had power it was because Bush authorized him to, enabled him, wanted him to, leaned on him in the beginning. But that began to change drastically over time, much more, I think than most of us realize.

So over the eight years they're moving further and further apart on policy, foreign policy, domestic policy, economic policy. By the end they are really on the opposite sides of almost every major decision coming before them. Until -- it finishes with this rather dramatic break over Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff, who wants -- he wants him pardoned and Bush refuses.

And it's really a much more Shakespearean tale I think than people had imagined it would turn out to be.

DICKERSON: OK. Peter Baker, Scott Berg, Doris Kearns Goodwin, we're near the holidays, all of these make -- they don't make stocking stuffers because they're just enormous. They make good door stops but buy the door stops for your family.

(LAUGHTER)

GOODWIN: Fair enough.

DICKERSON: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DICKERSON: Thank you for joining us today. Bob will be back next week. We hope you will join us then. From all of us at FACE THE NATION, happy holidays.

END