"Face the Nation" transcript for May 20: McConnell, Warner, Graham

(CBS News) Below is a rush transcript of "Face the Nation" on May 20, 2012, hosted by CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer. Guests include Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, Senators Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Mark Warner (D-VA). A roundtable on foreign policy includes Thomas Friedman and CBS News' Clarissa Ward. A political discussion with CBS News' John Dickerson and Norah O'Donnell round out the show.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Today on FACE THE NATION, it was a week when you couldn't believe your ears. First, it was House Speaker John Boehner.

JOHN BOEHNER: I'll again insist on my simple principle of cuts and reforms greater than the debt limit increase.

BOB SCHIEFFER: When he said that last year, Congress tied itself in such a knot that America's credit rating was downgraded, not to mention Congress's approval rating which hit a new low and now he wants to fight the same battle? Was he kidding?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: This is no joke right here.

BOB SCHIEFFER: The President and congressional leaders huddled over hoagies, but had no answers. So we'll ask three key senators--Republican leader Mitch McConnell, Virginia's Mark Warner, and South Carolina's Lindsey Graham. Does this mean we're headed toward another of those nasty stop-everything political standoffs in an election year?

And did you hear what Mitt Romney said about the comeback of the auto industry? Vice president Biden sure did.

JOE BIDEN: I'm-- I'm going to quote him, he said, quote, "I'll take a lot of credit for the fact that the industry's come back." Whoa.

(Crowd applauding)

JOE BIDEN: I'll-- and by the way, I'll take a lot of credit for a man having landed on the moon-

(Crowd laughter)

JOE BIDEN: --because all the while I was-- all the while I was in school, I-- I rooted for it.

BOB SCHIEFFER: On another subject, Romney admitted he doesn't always remember his exact words, but he said, you can still take them to the bank.

MITT ROMNEY: I'm not familiar precisely with exactly what I said but I stand by what I said whatever it was.

BOB SCHIEFFER: All that, plus the latest from the NATO Summit; analysis from Tom Friedman of the New York Times; CBS News correspondent Clarissa Ward, just back from Afghanistan; White House correspondent Norah O'Donnell; and police director John Dickerson.

You don't get just the straight stuff here. You get it all--

MITT ROMNEY: Warm and gooey. Get the rest.

BOB SCHIEFFER: --because this is FACE THE NATION.

ANNOUNCER: From CBS News in Washington, FACE THE NATION with Bob Schieffer.

BOB SCHIEFFER: And good morning again, and welcome to FACE THE NATION.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, is with us this morning from Louisville. Welcome, Senator. I want to start out with this statement by Speaker Boehner because last summer, when Congress got itself all tangled up over extending the debt ceiling and the country was headed toward default, financial securities were-- got their ratings downgraded, you were one of the key players, as it were, who helped structure a compromise that kept all that from happening. Were you surprised when Speaker Boehner said now he's ready to repeat that same fight and-- and go through this whole thing again?

SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL (Republican Leader/R-Kentucky): Well, let-- let's make sure we got it exactly right what happened. What the speaker and I both said last year was that if the President's going to ask us to raise the debt ceiling, we shouldn't treat it like a motherhood resolution that passes on a voice vote. We ought to try to engage and try to see if we can do something about deficit and debt and so we did. And even no though the agreement ultimately reached was a lot less than I had hoped for and I know a lot less than the Speaker had hoped for, we did agree to reduce two point trillion-- 2.1 trillion dollars in discretionary spending over ten years. Why do we need to use the request of any President to discuss the deficit and debt? Look, we have a debt now bigger than our economy. That alone makes us look a lot like Greece. We've had the-- the-- the lowest labor participation rate in thirty years. We've had thirty-nine straight months of unemployment above eight percent. The country's in a lot of trouble. We have a President who just this weekend at Camp David was advocating a position to the left of the European Central Bank which has been resisting doing an American-type stimulus to solve their problems, and yet the President is arguing that the Europeans should replicate policies that clearly haven't worked here. What the speaker was saying I entirely agree with. If the President is going to ask us to raise the debt ceiling and he-- he will early next year-- we do need to have another serious discussion about trying to do something significant--

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well--

SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL: --about the deficit and the debt. Yeah.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, Speaker Boehner seemed to suggest that he wanted to do it before the election, and I don't think anybody thinks that that's necessary to-- to raise the debt limit before-- before early next year. But he seemed to suggest that he wanted to do it now. And I take your point of what you just said, but let me just--

SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL: Yeah.

BOB SCHIEFFER: --read you, here's what the Wall Street Journal said last year-- in fact, I read this quote to you on FACE THE NATION, the morning before you finally worked out the compromise. The Wall Street Journal said then, "The debt-limit hobbits should also realize that at this point, the Washington fracas they are prolonging isn't helping their cause. Republicans are not looking like adults to whom voters can entrust the government." Aren't you just setting yourself up for the same kind of situation again?

SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL: Let-- let me tell you what isn't adult behavior? You know, how the Democrats raised the debt ceiling in the previous Congress? They airdropped it into Obamacare. Nobody got to vote on it. That's how seriously they take the debt ceiling. Our view is a request of any President to raise the debt ceiling is a serious matter because it underscores the way we have been engaged in excessive spending and borrowing, particularly over the last three and a half years. It is the perfect time, Bob, the perfect time to engage in a discussion about doing something serious about deficit and debt. We could not get this President to do anything serious about entitlement reform, for example, the single biggest threat to future generations, not-- nothing of consequences. My three appointees to the Bowles-Simpson com- Commission voted for it. One of my appointees to the Joint Select Committee later in the year offered our friends on the other side new revenue. That's not something that we lightly offer. We got nothing in return. About the long-term debt problem facing this country, and we all know that it's on the entitlement side. So at some point here, this President needs to become the adult because the speaker and I have been the adults in the room arguing that we ought to do something about the nation's most serious long-term problem.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well-- well, talk to me about the timing here. Are you talking about you'd like to do this, have this argument over whether or not to raise the debt limit before the election or are you willing to let that go until after the election?

SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL: Well, the timing will be determined by the President. They-- they determine when to request of us that we raise the debt ceiling. We assume that will happen at the end of the year or, early next year.

BOB SCHIEFFER: So-- so, you're not going to do anything until-- until the President brings this up on-- on this particular.

SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL: Look, without presidential leadership, nothing is-- can be accomplished. We didn't have presidential leadership last year. It's pretty clear the President's not going to lead on this any time soon. Unless he engages, you know, we don't control the entire government. We control the House of Representatives only. We'd like to do something about the nation's biggest problem, spending and debt, which is, of course, the reason for this economic melees and this high unemployment. And whenever the President is willing to engage, we're ready to go.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you then, let's talk about something else, whatever the case on all of that. The cuts that you, the Republicans, the Democrats, and the White House agreed on last year will go into effect at the end of this year. It's hundred-- 1.2 trillion dollars across the board cuts to spending. Are those cuts going to stand, or is Congress going to change-- change that situation? What happens?

SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL: I don't-- yeah, I don't think we ought to cut a penny less than we're pledged to cut. I'm perfectly open to a discussion about how we arrange that-- those reductions. But we promised the American people we were going to get 2.1 trillion dollars over ten years in discretionary spending reductions, and we need to do that. We can have a discussion about how you allocate those. I happen to be among those who think it's much too tough on the Defense Department. Defense of the nation is our single biggest responsibility at the federal level of government in this country. But I don't think we ought to cut a penny less than we promised the American people last year we would.

BOB SCHIEFFER: So, I mean, because Speaker Boehner and-- and House Republicans, as you know, just passed a defense bill that actually raises defense spendings. On the one hand, he's talking about, you know, we've got to cut spending, but on the other hand, they vote to-- to raise defense spending. So you would-- you would go along with that in some fashion? In other words, you don't mind rearranging the cuts, but you're going to make sure that in the end, the cuts that you voted for stay as they are. Is that right?

SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL: Yeah, that-- that's correct. What the House did was to reconfigure the spending reductions so that it was less impactful on the nation's defense, which is, of course, the most important responsibility of the federal government.

BOB SCHIEFFER: All right, well, Mister Leader, we want to thank you for being with us this morning and for-- for answering questions. That's why we ask you here and you're pretty good about-- about answering them.

I want to turn now to Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia. He's on the Budget Committee and down in Columbia, South Carolina; Senator Lindsey Graham. Senator Warner, first to you, what went through your mind when you heard Speaker Boehner say what he said this week?

SENATOR MARK WARNER (Budget Committee/D-Virginia): It felt like Groundhog's Day. You know we saw what happened when the speaker last year played, in effect, debt ceiling roulette. He almost blew up the whole economy and the notion with fiscal turmoil going on in Europe right now that he would try to say we're going to draw this bright line again, and kind of my way or the highway approach. I think it's incredibly irresponsible. You know, the fact is I agree with Senator McConnell. We've got to take on this debt issue. We've got to recognize sixteen trillion dollars in debt, four and half billion dollars a day we add to it. But it's going to take a balanced plan, it's going to take a plan like Simpson-Bowles, like our "Gang of Six" plan, that has revenues, that has entitlement reform and this notion that it's going to be all done on one side of the balance sheet with spending cuts only, there's no responsible person out there that has looked at this problem that doesn't say you've got to do both.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Senator Graham, what would you respond to that? How would you respond to that?

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM (Budget Committee/R-South Carolina): Well, I would say that most Americans believe that we're (INDISTINCT) in debt that their children's future is at risk, and if we're going to raise the debt ceiling we already borrow forty cents of every dollar. For every dollar that we borrow in the future we ought to cut the government by an equivalent dollar is not radical. There's something we should have been doing a long time ago. And there's not a snowball's chance in hell that we're going to get out of debt, reform entitlements and control spending without presidential leadership.

So what Boehner proposed about raising the debt ceiling is just a start. I am not going to vote to raise the debt ceiling until you show me we're serious about getting out of debt and the Gang of Six, Bowles-Simpson, hats off. If I were President Obama or Candidate Romney, I would tell the public we're going to take Bowles-Simpson. That will be our road map for the future. If you'd like to change it you'll have a chance. But we're going to take that up. We're going to control federal spending. We're going to flatten the tax code and get new revenue by eliminating deductions and we're going to have entitlement reform and it's going to take a presidential leader to make that happen.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Senator Warner, you're-- are part of that so-called "Gang of Six," some people call it a gang of eight, that have been looking for some way out of this thing. What do you-- do you think there's still any chance that you all could come up with something that-- that--

SENATOR MARK WARNER: Absolutely, Bob. I mean, we're actually up to forty-five senators. Lindsey has been suggesting and helpful as well. And we have over hundred members of the House. I think, you know, we know that it's going require reform of the tax code that's going to generate additional revenue. It's going to require changing our entitlement programs so there will be a Medicare and Social Security forty, fifty years from now. It's going to require putting some defense spending cuts on the table as-- as Simpson-Bowles laid out. And we're still at work at this. And what we're going to need and whether this moment comes in the lame-duck session or the first quarter of next year, it's going to require all of us kind of shoulder to the wheel and being willing to kind of take off our Democrat and Republican hats and put our country first.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Do you think anything could actually happen before the election, Senator Graham? Honestly.

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM: Oh, not really. The President-- no, I really don't, Bob. The President's last three budgets have gotten zero votes and our Democratic colleagues haven't-- haven't voted for a budget since April 2009. So I don't see a breakthrough. But in the lame-duck, we'll have an opportunity to take the "Gang of Six" idea, Simpson-Bowles, but for the campaign itself I think both candidates for President should be asked, would you take Simpson-Bowles as a road map to fiscal sanity and pledge to try to implement parts of it and bring it to the Congress for a vote. I-- I-- I would love to hear both of them say, yes. You know President Obama has had three and a half years to change things. He had two years with super Democratic majorities. And they did basically nothing but run up the debt. So I don't see much happening.

BOB SCHIEFFER: What about that, Senator Warner?

SENATOR MARK WARNER: Well, I think it would be great but we've already seen President Obama came out when the "Gang of Six" laid out their ideas and he said, yeah. He went on TV and said he'd support them. That probably cost us some votes amongst Republicans in the House. What we-- what I'm concerned about is Mitt Romney's position which during the Republican presidential nominating process, well, he said he wouldn't even take a deal that had ten dollars in cuts for one dollar in new revenues. Reaffirming that position drives us right into the fiscal ditch.

BOB SCHIEFFER: You know, Dan Balz had an interesting piece--

SENATOR MARK WARNER: Mm-Hm.

BOB SCHIEFFER: --in The Washington Post this morning, where he said there are a lot of big issues on the table but he said the biggest issue is not being addressed and that is simply this--can Washington actually govern it? I think it's a very fair question and a pertinent question. What's gone wrong, Senator Warner?

SENATOR MARK WARNER: Well, I do think this issue around debt and deficit has become a proxy for whether our institutions can still function. Because we're not going to get to any other issue until we can in effect figure out what our balance sheet looks like, what's our long-term tax code is going to look like; what's our entitlement program is going to look like. And I think that there is a real sense amongst most members we got to get it fixed. And I think there is actually a lot of common ground. There is no institutional support though in Washington for people to do the right thing. As a matter of fact, all of the interest groups are very much opposed because it's going to mean changes to the tax code, it's going to mean changes in the entitlement programs. And we need to make it to safer, particularly for some of the folks who have been there a long time to step up and put country first.

BOB SCHIEFFER: I would guess you would agree with most of that, Senator Graham, but how did we get to that point? How did we get to where we are right now?

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM: Well, we had a new President in 2008 that ran on hope and change, and he had a real opportunity for two years with super Democratic majorities to do what Mark said, control federal spending, reform the tax code, and do something about entitlements, and here we are in this election, nothing's happened but more debt, more spending and out-of-control entitlement spending.

Here's what I would say is good news, Republicans have crossed the Rubicon on revenue. We don't have enough money in Washington. We're historically low in terms of revenue collected, but nobody wants to increase taxes. What Mark and the-- and the Simpson-Bowles Committee did, said flatten the tax code, get rid of all deductions but two, take most of the money to buy down rate so we'll have an entrepreneurial economy and put some of the money on debt. Republicans have said in the past all the money from eliminating the deduction must go to reducing taxes. Now, there is a group of us that say that if you take four billion dollars away from ethanol producers, because that's unfair, put a billion dollars on the debt and three billion to lower taxes, that's something that will lead to a breakthrough. And I hope Governor Romney will embrace the concept of reducing deductions and exemptions and putting some of the money on the debt as well as lowering rates. That would be a breakthrough for our party.

BOB SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, I'm going to take a break here. We'll come back and talk about this a little more when we come back.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

BOB SCHIEFFER: And we're back now with more from Senators Graham and Warner. Senator Warner, you heard Lindsey Graham just now talking about some of the things Republicans think they could do. What do you think has to happen here?

SENATOR MARK WARNER: Well, I do think we need presidential leadership, and I think President Obama has provided that. He laid out a plan that took four trillion dollars off of the-- the debt amount. It was, I think, a balanced approach. It probably won't be the exact framework. I actually do think the Simpson-Bowles or "Gang of Six" framework is closer to and he has endorsed the "Gang of Six" efforts. But it's going to take all of us shoulder to the wheel. That includes folks outside of Washington as well. I mean they-- we need voters to demand this or fire us all because this is our first responsibility. We're going to need the business community in this fight as well. Too often the business community in-- in the last debt debacle kind of sat out that debate. We need them shoulder to the wheel as well because nothing would be more devastating to the economic recovery and to any business than to have an interest rate spike that would come about if the rest of the world said, hey, we're not sure America's going to get its fiscal act together.

BOB SCHIEFFER: What do you think about what happened at the G-8 when you had all these economic leaders of the world meeting up there at Camp David, Senator Graham. Because up until now, they pretty much stressed austerity as the way out of this debt--

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM: Right.

BOB SCHIEFFER: --crisis that is sweeping across Europe, but yesterday, they seemed to shift a little bit and said maybe the way out of this is more jobs, creating more jobs. And-- and basically talked about more-- more spending, which is what President Obama has been more or less suggesting. You think they took a good step here or how do you think that's going to-- what the impact of that is going to be?

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM: Well, I think the European economies are doomed if they keep down-- going down the road of higher taxes on people who try to create jobs and more federal spending in Europe. I think they need to do what Mark and the "Gang of Six" have tried to do-- control spending. We're at twenty-five percent of our GDP in spending. We need to be at eighteen percent. But take the tax code and flatten it, do away with all these deductions and exemptions and lower rates. Europe can't achieve growth because the governments over there are too large and they're trying to increase taxes and be austere. What they need to do is do what we're trying to do is flatten their tax codes so more jobs can be created, control government spending, and work on their entitlement programs that are out of control.

In America, we got to tell the American people that Bob Schieffer, Lindsey Graham, and Mark Warner need to pay the full cost of the Medicare premiums. We need to tell younger workers you got to work past sixty-five or we're going to lose our nation. We got to adjust the age on Medicare and Social Security. And we've got the means-tested benefits. And if Europe doesn't do that they're going to go down the tubes. And if they keep trying to have growth of jobs by growing government they're never going to get the job growth they need. They need to change their tax system to make it more entrepreneurial and so do we.

SENATOR MARK WARNER: Well, what I would simply say is while I agree with Lindsey, we need a plan, it's going to have to reform our tax code and reform our entitlement programs. You can't cut and tax your way own. You've got to have a growing economy. And candidly that's what I have been really concerned with at least the Ryan and Romney budget plans. They would take the domestic part of our federal spending, which is now about sixteen percent, and cut it down to less than five percent over a period of time. I don't know any nation in the world that can compete in the twenty-first century if they spend less than five percent of their dollars educating their workforce, building their infrastructure, and creating the research and development that's going to create intellectual capital. There's no other country in the world that would have that kind of plan.

BOB SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, I want to thank both of you. And I'll be back in a moment with some thoughts of my own about some real accomplishments in Washington this week.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

BOB SCHIEFFER: Commentary clearly labeled I don't want to goat carried away here, but two amazing things happened this week. Congress actually did something; second, and perhaps even more unbelievable, political consultants came up with a series of ads so nasty that politicians on both sides denounced them as too dirty, even for today's campaigns. The news from the Capitol was that on a bipartisan vote, the House extended the life of the Export-Import Bank. The institution that arranges financing for countries that want to buy U.S. products. A no-brainer in times gone by, but a bipartisan vote on anything is so unusual these days The Washington Post put it on the front page.

The other stunner. The New York Times reported Thursday that a billionaire named Joe Ricketts, the founder of TD Ameritrade, had commissioned a series of racially charged campaign ads tying Barack Obama to the incendiary black power minister Jeremiah Wright, in a way, the strategists wrote, that John McCain would never let us do in 2008. The news caused a huge bipartisan uproar, and in a matter of hours, the potential bankroller withdrew his support saying it wasn't his style, and Mitt Romney, who is usually very cautious about commenting on any unanticipated event, strongly repudiated the whole idea and said he wanted no part of it. Well, good for them. Too soon to know if this signals a trend toward cleaner campaigns it probably doesn't. But in this era of anything goes, it's good to know at least a few things still don't.

Back in a minute.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

BOB SCHIEFFER: Some of our stations are leaving us now but for most of you, we'll be back with page two and a foreign policy discussion with Senator Graham, Tom Friedman of the New York Times, and our own CBS News foreign correspondent Clarissa Ward. Stay with us.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, welcome back. President Obama this morning is hosting world leaders from over fifty countries for this year's NATO summit. The top issue on their agenda out in Chicago is Afghanistan. To talk about all that and some of the other foreign policy issues, our friend, Tom Friedman, columnist for the New York Times; correspondent Clarissa Ward, who spends most of her time in the Middle East but is here with us today in Washington, she's just back from Afghanistan; Senator Graham, of course, is on the Armed Services Committee and rejoins us from South Carolina.

Senator Graham, before we get into all of that, I want to ask you first about something that is, you know, just happened last night, I guess. Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng arrived in New York, where he is going to attend law school. We all know this dramatic story of how he escaped house arrest, wound up at the American embassy, and then finally got back. What do you make of this? I just want to get your reaction, what do you think this means?

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM (Armed Services Committee): Well, one, I'm glad he was out of China, but I think what this is an opportunity for the American government and people to reengage China about their human rights records. This guy had a dramatic escape from a hospital. His family has been treated like dirt for years because he objects to forced sterilization, forced abortions by the Chinese government. We have an intricate, very close relationship with China economically. It has drowned out our moral voice and this opportunity exists through this brave man to raise our moral voice and tell China we want to do business with you but you better change your behavior because you're an outlier in the world based on what Mr. Chen is objecting to.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Yeah. You know, Tom, this all happened when the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, was in China. It seemed to me that as difficult as it was, that the Chinese were probably as anxious as we were to try to figure something out here. Am I wrong about that?

TOM FRIEDMAN (New York Times): Yeah, you know, what really comes through in the story, Bob, is-- is how much the Chinese wanted to play this down, not make a symbolic issue about it. I think there are a couple of things going on there. One is they've got their own internal turmoil at a very high level with this leader from out west, Bo Xilai, who has been found in deep-- knee deep in corruption and his wife potentially implicated in a murder. I think we're seeing something else going on, too, the fact that the Chinese didn't even want the information released for a while early on in this crisis, I think tells you something about the massive spread of microblogging in China and the fear of the leadership that this would create a nationalist, populist firestorm and constrict their room for maneuvers. You got a lot of new factors now at play in this relationship.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Clarissa, you-- we're also proud of you when you managed to sneak into Syria when things there were at their worst. You just got in there under cover. You reported from the scene when other people were reporting from across the border and other places. And it-- it was just remarkable, a remarkable series of reports.

CLARISSA WARD (CBS News Foreign Correspondent): Thank you.

BOB SCHIEFFER: But, since then, you know, under the old, what have you done for us lately--

CLARISSA WARD: Mm-Hm.

BOB SCHIEFFER: --since then, you've-- you're just back from Afghanistan.

CLARISSA WARD: Mm-Hm.

BOB SCHIEFFER: That's the topic number one in Chicago where all these leaders are meeting with President Obama. What is the state of Afghanistan right now? What did you find when you were there?

CLARISSA WARD (CBS News Foreign Correspondent): Well, obviously, it's a very complex picture. But there's certainly a very real concern for many people living there about this set deadline for a troop withdrawal. And I spoke with one very important and interesting Pakistani writer, Ahmed Rashid, who argued, quite persuasively, I think, that it is absolutely essential for some type of a peace agreement already to be in place between the Taliban and the Karzai government before we can really pull back those forces. Because if those forces pull back and we're plunged into a civil war, the Karzai's fledgling security forces have absolutely no chance of-- of winning any kind of a victory in a battle between the Taliban and Karzai's government. So it is important to engage the Taliban. And certainly I also met recently in Pakistan with members of the Taliban and there is a sense that possibly certain factions of the older generation are growing more politically savvy. They understand that they can't go in and make a complete grab for power that this will have to be some kind of a unity government. There has to be some kind of a sharing agreement otherwise, the aid stops, and-- and they don't want to be international pariahs in the way that they were in the 1990s. But of course the question then is to what extent is the Taliban a homogenous group, and how can we trust them.

BOB SCHIEFFER: So are we set up for this to end the right way, Senator Graham?

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM: Yes, possibly. The strategic partnership agreement where we commit to have a counterterrorism por-- force past 2014 closes the deal, in my view, on the Taliban's aspirations to come back militarily. The Afghan security forces are getting better. They're better trained. They're better equipped. Two years ago, for every Afghan soldier in the south, around Kandahar, there were two Americans. Today there are two Afghans for every one American. Focus on building the army and the police, let the Taliban know that we will have a force past 2014. The British agreed to stay today past 2014. My view is with about three or four airbases, twenty thousand troops left behind past 2014, with American airpower and Special Forces units, the Afghan Army will always win a fight with the Taliban. And if you want the Taliban to reconcile and accept the constitution and stop killing women in soccer stadiums, you got to bel-- they have to believe that you can beat them militarily and I think we're on track to be able do that.

BOB SCHIEFFER: You think so, Tom?

TOM FRIEDMAN: Well, I, you know, I-- I have a slightly different do-- view than Senator Graham, which he knows, you know, I believed from the beginning we had four choices in Afghanistan, Bob, lose early, lose late, lose big, or lose small. And, you know, my hope was that we would lose small and early. I have felt from the beginning of this whole surge that the surge of President Obama could work if three things happened. Karzai became a different man, Pakistan became a different country, and President Obama succeeded in doing in Afghanistan precisely what he said he wasn't doing, nation-building in Afghanistan. So, you know, whenever I hear people saying it's a training problem, I always ask myself, who is training the Taliban? Training Afghans to shoot, to fight, that always just has a real dissidence in my ear, you know, I think people fight when they have a will, you know, and-- and it's not just about the way, and I think there are a lot of Afghans that don't want to fight for a corrupt government, all right. That's one problem, and the other problem is Pakistan, which has been playing a double game. They're giving sanctuary to the Taliban, at the same time, you know, being our ally on the other side. Until Pakistan stops looking at Afghanistan as strategic depth against India and start understanding that a strategic depth is its public schools, the quality of its government I don't see how any of this has a happy ending.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Clarissa?

CLARISSA WARD: I'm inclined to agree, absolutely, with Tom. I mean, Pakistan has to confront its very real internal economic and political problems, and until that starts to happen, it's impossible to see how there can be any kind of lasting peace in Afghanistan.

BOB SCHIEFFER: So is what happens in Afghanistan, Senator Graham, we went there because it posed, we're told-- a threat to our security, and in fact I think it did. Does it still pose a threat to our sec-- security, and has what we have done there in the time we have spent there made us any safer?

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM: Well, what makes us safe is that killing bin Laden that helps. What makes us safe is providing capacity to will, and I like Tom Friedman, and your reporter is one of the bravest on the planet but I couldn't disagree more. The Afghan people reject the Taliban in large numbers. Their military and police forces are getting better in the eyes of the Afghan people. The Taliban are never going to give up the fight until they believe they will lose. Pakistan needs to believe that we're not leaving Afghanistan and the Taliban can't come back. They're betting on the Taliban coming back. You can't lose a little bit in Afghanistan. Either you win or you lose, and my belief is if we'll stick to it and follow General Allen's plan--who I trust better than anybody on this show or anywhere in the world-- that we're going to leave Afghanistan, but we'll have a military force left behind that will allow us to defeat the Taliban in perpetuity. And you're dead right about the Karzai government. It's corrupt to the core, but here's what you don't get. I've been there about a dozen times. There's a generation of Afghans who want a better country, who are going to be less corrupt, and they're going to come to power one day but you'll never have a transition of corruption to good governance without security. So these young people are risking their lives and dying in droves to change Afghanistan. If we stick with them, there will be a brighter future in Afghanistan, and we cannot leave Afghanistan without our national security being affected one way or the other. What happens in Afghanistan will follow this country for decades. I applaud the President for his strategic partnership agreement. NATO needs to fund the army. NATO nations needs (sic) to commit past 2014. If we'll do that we will get this right.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Let's talk about another real problem and that's something you know a lot about, Clarissa; because you've spent so much time there, and that is Syria. Where are we right now? There's a, quote, "cease-fire in place" but there's no cease-fire.

CLARISSA WARD: Absolutely. There's no cease-fire. None of the points of Kofi Annan's peace plan have been met. There are still tanks and troops in civilian areas. People are not able to protest without being fired on as we saw in Aleppo. Students coming out to protest were met with bullets instead. So there's a very real sense that this peace plan is not going according to plan and the question is what-- at what point does the international community call this plan a failure? And if they do call it a failure what's the next step, because unfortunately what's happening in the interim, while there's this kind of inertia, is you're seeing extremists, non-state actors who are stepping in to capitalize on the political chaos in this-- the country. And I speak with these opposition activists every day and they're up in arms about it. They say, of course we have nothing to do with these bombings and-- and we're horrified that they're happening and they're giving our movement a bad name. But they're certainly not in any position to put a stop to them, either.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Tom, what is the next step?

TOM FRIEDMAN: Well, we're seeing, Bob, you know, from thirty thousand feet. We're-- we're seeing the breakdown of a-- of a hundred-year-old order, basically, in this region. Sunni-led Iraq has been reversed now, it's at Shia-led Iraq. Alawite-led Syria, that's being reversed to-- to bring the Sunni majority and a Christian-led Lebanon, it's all part of a-- a broad arc of basically an old order crumbling. And, you know, the reason Iraq, has-- you know, a one in ten chance today of some kind of decent outcome, it's for-- I-- I would say two reasons. One is that you did have a upsurge of Iraqis there who really wanted to claim the future, but the other is we were there. We were there as a midwife.

We took Iraq from Saddam toward Jefferson without getting stuck in Khomeini, okay. Now, there is going to be no midwife in Syria. So, you're going see the same kind of sectarian volcano erupt with no midwife. I-- the United States isn't going to do it, Europe isn't going to do it. So, look, all we can do, I think, is identify the decent actors, hold them to high principles, try to push them in the right direction, work with the Russians. The game is over. Do we intervene it? Syrians have decided they want to take this guy out, all right. We've got to identify the-- the better angels in that group, try to align with them, and tilt them in the right direction. We can't do it alone. We shouldn't do it alone but I don't see any other option.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Senator Graham, is there anything we can do here?

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM: Yeah. We can do a lot. We can back up the idea that Assad's got to go. We need to tell the U.N. your plan is not working, come up with a better plan. We can help arm the rebels. We can make it a better fair fight. We don't need to do this unilaterally. But what's going on in Syria is the same thing that went on in Tunisia, Egypt and China, Iraq and Afghanistan. Young people are now experiencing the ability to talk to themselves. They're sick and tired of living in countries that are corrupt to the core, and the Arab Spring has many forms to it, and the question for us, what is the Arab Spring? And what-- what role should we play in it? Every country is different, but I would like to see more involvement in terms of safe haven for the rebel forces; a stronger effort to arm them militarily; and to try to find out a working relationship with the Syrians. It's a very complicated environment but if you break Assad off, and you get him out of power, it's the biggest blow to Iran in twenty-five years, a call to General Mattis. The Iranians are watching us. If we leave Afghanistan like we did Iraq and it begins to fall apart, why should they think we'll do anything to their nuclear program? If we can't take Assad down after we said we would, they're going to think we're not really serious about them. So the Iranians are watching us, Bob, and if I were the President of the United States I would put a full court press on to make sure Assad goes sooner rather than later.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, let me talk to Tom because you mentioned the Arab Spring, and I know you're just back from Cairo. Give me your thoughts on what Senator Graham just said.

TOM FRIEDMAN: Well, back from actually Lebanon and-- and-- and Jordan and the UAE but, yeah, I-- I-- I certainly think that what-- what you're seeing today, Bob, in the Arab Spring and-- and Senator Graham alluded to it and I think at its core is what he said. It is an upsurge of Arab youth, seeing how everyone else is living in the world and understanding how far behind they were and it was like a volcanic eruption. But here's what we see I think a year and a half later. That eruption was enough to blow the lid open but not off. So in Egypt the lid is still there. The army, part of the old regime is still there. Into that opening came the most organized political party, the Muslim Brotherhood and that's what you're seeing now play out in Egypt. The struggle between those democratic youth aspiring for a different future and this very old political movement. Now, what's missing in the Middle East that Europe had, Europe had a model, the European Union. And everyone wanted to get in the European and it was a huge magnet for them to do the right things. In the Middle East, the model you have is Islam, okay? That's the model that's-- that's pulling them the other way. We need to be in there I think to the extent we can, with money, resources, and example, at least, of trying to nurture them toward a different model.

BOB SCHIEFFER: All right. Well our time is up. Clarissa, thank you so much. Where are you going next?

CLARISSA WARD: Probably to Lebanon if the fighting continues there. It's trickling over from Syria now, so.

BOB SCHIEFFER: All right. We'll await your report and we'll be back in one minute with some politics.

(ANNOUNCMENTS)

BOB SCHIEFFER: With so much news going on on so many fronts we've almost neglected the-- the campaign news. So joining us now are our CBS News political pros, Norah O'Donnell, our White House correspondent; John Dickerson, our political director. What's been happening out there, John?

JOHN DICKERSON (CBS News Political Director): Well, we've had all of these squalls, you know, momentary stories that have flared up in the campaign race but it's still a race between a President dragged down by a weak economy and a challenger who's got some trouble with his favorability ratings. Mitt Romney is not beloved by the electorate but that's been changing a little bit. You know, the Obama campaign has been working for months to lock in this impression of Mitt Romney. And it hasn't exactly been working. They've been on-- their view is in a weak economy, where people are inclined to turn against a President they don't think is doing a good job on the economy, they need to make Romney objectionable. But if you look at Romney's favorability ratings, according to Gallup and some other polls in well, in February thirty-nine percent had an unfavorable view of him--excuse me--thirty-nine percent had a favorable view, forty-nine percent unfavorable. That number now is fifty percent have a favorable view, forty-one percent unfavorable. So things are going better for Romney. Why? Rick Santorum dropped out of the race. Romney's numbers have been steadily increasing. Now, this is despite all the attacks by the Obama campaign. So what's happened now is Mitt Romney is kind of seen as the okay alternative or starting to be seen as that and the Obama team has to make that stop.

BOB SCHIEFFER: So what's happening over at the White House?

NORAH O'DONNELL (CBS News Chief White House Correspondent): Well, I think that's why you saw this first scrimmage, really, where the Obama team launched the offensive to define and discredit Mitt Romney to portray him as an empty suit-- suit when it comes to being a-- a businessman, why they went after his record, not as a job creator but as a job destroyer. I'm told they're going to continue this assault. They're going to double down on this assault with new ads. They barely spent any money on this one ad, but they got a lot of play from everybody else. They were able to generate the discussion. This-- this is if the Obama team cannot succeed in painting Mitt Romney as an empty suit, then they will lose this election because they want to use it to distract from this whole record about Obama as President.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Wasn't it amazing, I mean, I thought it fairly amazing this whole idea of this campaign that one of the consultants came up with to try to re-plow this business and tie President Obama more to Jeremiah Wright, and-- and-- and they said right upfront in the presentation they made to do it in a way that John McCain wouldn't let us to do. I mean this thing was really shaping up as even too nasty for-- for today's politics. Romney had said, no, thank you. I want no part of it.

JOHN DICKERSON: Right. I mean, the campaign is basically try and do character assassination and make it look like a natural death with their opponents and this is a case where the character assassination came out right into the open. These-- there was no relationship here between Romney and this group that was noodling this idea. But what used to happen when you were a candidate was that people who gave you money, had a lot of money to put in the party, they'd give you their crazy ideas at a fund-raiser and you'd smile and then you'd move on. Well, now they have ten million dollars and they can put it on the air, and this was just too hot for Romney. They distanced themselves which was a signal not only to this group not to run these ads, but also to any other Republican because while this is something that is believed by certain members of the Republican Party, that those members of the Republican Party have gathered around Mitt Romney. He doesn't need to worry about them, but it turns off those moderate voters in the middle who see this as having nothing to do with the economy. Who see it as character assassination, who see it as race baiting, and Romney doesn't want to mess with that.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Norah, the White House is really going after Governor Romney on this whole business of being from Bain capital. What's that all about? Is that going to work?

NORAH O'DONNELL: Well, I think it's-- it's-- it remains to be seen how Mitt Romney responds. I mean he did not respond very heavily this week. I- they're going to continue these ads. They're going to use different companies, not just the steel company that was of news in the last week. Mitt Romney, I know, called this character assassination. But the Obama team wants to show that this is more of a self-inflicted wound, that Romney is-- is taking credit for creating jobs but actually what the business did was invest in companies that created jobs and then there were also some failures. So I think there's-- you know, this is going to be part of what they're going to do. I think they were surprised to find this week those poll numbers that-- that John mentioned where Romney's favorability ratings have gone back up. Romney's fund-raising numbers were extremely strong this past month. So, it's going to be a very tight race.

JOHN DICKERSON: This is also-- this is a message not only to make Romney's number one pitch, I'm a business guy, to make that a liability for him, but it's also for the President to argue, look, in this time of scarcity, in this time where we're going to make huge choices, I've got your back. He doesn't have your back. And Joe Biden was-- was in the eastern part of Ohio this week, making the same kind of pitch, saying he's not one of us, arguing that-- that Biden is a-- is a middle-class Joe from his humble roots and that he understands. And that's what this ad is also showing. If you look at this ad which, as Norah said, didn't run in many places, it's got all blue-collar men in it. This is a group the President hasn't done well with. But it's also a group that-- and Democrats in general haven't done well with but it's also a group that Mitt Romney is going to have trouble with and the pitch to them is-- also here they're trying to organize voters and get them to come to the polls. That's where we are in this race and this is a pitch to those union workers saying, hey, the Democrats have your back and this businessman doesn't.

NORAH O'DONNELL: Yeah, I mean, I've been saying this, you know, the economy presumably and his business record should be his pitching arm, right. And essentially the President wants to sideline him for the rest of the season and tear that apart.

JOHN DICKERSON: When we see from the first ad Romney put out this week, very positive--

NORAH O'DONNELL (voice overlapping): Yeah.

JOHN DICKERSON: --and it's mist-- on Mister Fix It. On my first day in office, I'm going to reform the tax code and we'll get rid of the Obama health care plan, I'm going--

NORAH O'DONNELL (voice overlapping): Keystone Pipeline.

JOHN DICKERSON: --I'm going to approve the Keystone Pipeline. It's all going to happen lickety-split. What's interesting is, two of those things require-- will probably require Democratic votes. And in this town, I'm not sure that's going to happen.

BOB SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, thanks to both of you.

Stay here because I want you to see our FACE THE NATION Flashback, when we come back.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

BOB SCHIEFFER: Thirty-six years ago, America was in the midst of another presidential campaign.

PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: I don't want to miss you.

WOMAN: Yeah.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Democrat Jimmy Carter was challenging our first unelected President, Republican Gerald Ford. So FACE THE NATION brought in a real heavyweight to talk politics, Muhammad Ali, and that is our FACE THE NATION Flashback.

MAN: A spontaneous and unrehearsed news interview on FACE THE NATION.

MUHAMMAD ALI: I said, "I told you I was the greatest, not the smartest."

BOB SCHIEFFER: The heavyweight champion of the world didn't offer many political insights but when asked who he favored, he may have set a record for candor.

MUHAMMAD ALI: I don't know nothing about politics, nor do I want people watching this show to be influenced by my feelings because I don't know nothing about it, but the only administration is that I really have liked is Ford's adminis-- Ford's administration for the simple fact immediately after beating George Foreman, I was invited to the White House and met him and his daughter.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, good reason or not, it was a memorable broadcast. Because to this day, Ali remains one of the very few to appear on this broadcast who admitted upfront not to know enough about something to be taken seriously. Our FACE THE NATION Flashback.

We will be back.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well that's it for us today. We want to thank you for joining us. Be sure to be here next week for FACE THE NATION.

ANNOUNCER: This broadcast was produced by CBS News which is solely responsible for the selection of today's guests and topics.