Face the Nation transcripts July 28, 2013: Rogers, Udall, and the latest from Egypt

(CBS News) Below is a transcript of "Face the Nation" on July 28, 2013, hosted by CBS News' Bob Schieffer. Guests include: CBS News' Clarissa Ward and Seth Doane, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., David Gergen, Michael Gerson, Dee Dee Myers, Bob Nightengale and Bill Rhoden.

SCHIEFFER: And good morning, again. It has been a horrendous weekend in Egypt; violent confrontations between the Egyptian military and supporters of former president Mohammed Morsi have left at least 72 dead and hundreds wounded. Secretary of State John Kerry issued a statement saying, "this is a pivotal moment for Egypt," and called for Egypt's leaders to, "act immediately to help their country take a step back from the brink." Our CBS news correspondent Clarissa Ward is in Cairo with the latest. Clarissa, what's -- what is the latest?

CLARISSA WARD, CBS NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bob. Well, tensions here are sky high after those clashes on Friday night and Saturday morning that left scores dead. Egypt's interior minister in a press conference said that Egyptian security forces were only armed with tear gas and that they would never fire live ammunition upon their fellow Egyptians, but that simply doesn't jell, Bob, with what we saw for ourselves when we visited a field hospital, where Morsi supporters were taking their dead and their wounded. We counted 39 dead bodies. And doctors there told us that almost all of them had died from bullet wounds to the head, to the neck and also to the heart. This violence is really just fueling the sense of persecution among Morsi supporters and, of course, on Friday, they received the news that Egyptian authorities are now officially investigating Morsi on charges of espionage and also on charges of collaboration with the militant Palestinian group Hamas.

SCHIEFFER: Clarissa, where do you see this going now?

WARD: Well, Bob, the real fear here is of this pending military action to try to dismantle the protest camp, where thousands of Morsi supporters have been staked out since he was deposed earlier this month. Egypt's interior minister said that this is legally required, that residents in the area have complained that the camp is causing too many disruptions, but the protesters who we spoke to, who are living in that camp, told us they are willing to face down tanks and even to die in order to protect their rights and to continue to call for their Morsi to be reinstated. So many people worry that this is really setting the scene for possibly a very bloody confrontation.

SCHIEFFER: OK, well, thank you so much, Clarissa, and be careful now. And joining us now the House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers. He is in Detroit. Mr. Chairman, if this thing gets any worse, and if it blows, I mean, it could set off turmoil all across this region. Is there anything we could be or should be doing right now, in your view?

ROGERS: Well, I think, obviously, we need to play an important role to try to calm the violence that's growing there. We need to be able to, I think, use American influence so that we can make a very clear distinction between the Muslim Brotherhood, who is using democracy to take away women's rights, to take away religious freedom. And what we hope happens is the secular political movement has an opportunity to take root, which is exactly which didn't happen, and there was, candidly, no U.S. influence used there and the secular folks who caused the whole uprising to begin with said, hey, wait a minute; Morsi was very active in taking away our rights, using an election to do it. And so we've got to sort that out. We've got to try to calm things down. And for Americans at home who are saying, well, why should we be interested, 5 percent of the world's oil every single day goes through the Suez Canal, about 8 percent of the world trade. So if this spills over and they lose control of Egypt, it will have real economic impacts for us at home, and, clearly, it's to the benefit of the entire region and world and the United States' interest to have a calm and a sustained, I think, democracy grow in Egypt.

SCHIEFFER: This has sort of overshadowed the civil war that continues to rage in Syria. Is there anything to be hopeful about there in that situation?

ROGERS: We are certainly planning for our best-worst option at this point. Again, here's another case where almost two years go by, no U.S. real stepping up to our allies' call to get involved-- and I'm not talking about boots on the ground, just strong U.S. leadership and bringing special capabilities to this particular problem. But now you've got terrorist groups who are fighting even amongst themselves as they see that this thing is deteriorating in Syria badly. You have Iran using this as a proxy fight. The Russians are still there; Hezbollah, the terrorist organization. You have Iraq now, the Al Qaeda in Iraq now saying it's not just Al Qaeda in Iraq, it's Al Qaeda in the Levant. And it's playing out in this cauldron called Syria and it's putting pressure on all our regional allies there, the Arab League. I have to tell you, Bob, you could not draw up a worse scenario to try to solve than what we're seeing unfold in Syria, and the growing threat from these terrorist groups, who now seem to think that there is real hope for a safe haven in Syria when Assad falls.

SCHIEFFER: Let's talk a little bit about this controversy that continues to build about the National Security Agency and its efforts to put off a terrorist attack on this country, to stave off one. You saw in the House last week, the House almost voted to severely rein in what the National Security Agency is doing, claiming they are invading the privacy of Americans, because they keep this large store of telephone numbers here in this country, which they say they need to have so when they intercept calls from terrorists and other countries, they can check it against this list of phone numbers they have. Have they harmed the privacy or have they invaded our privacy, in your view, Mr. Chairman?

ROGERS: I don't believe they have. And here's the problem. So you have this collision of really bad ideas and federal government overreach when it comes to the IRS and this new data hub that they're trying to bring all your sensitive personal information on one side of the federal government, and I have real strong concerns about that as well. This is very, very different. Remember, this came about after 9/11, when we found out afterward that terrorists that we knew about overseas had called somebody who was a terrorist, but living in the United States or staying in the United States. He ended up being the person that got on an airplane and flew into the side of the Pentagon. We said that gap, that hole that we don't have the ability to say, who is that's person talking to in the United States, we need to fill it. Here's what they did they said-- the intelligence community-- let's take these phone numbers-- these are records the phone company already has and it's a billing record, just to-from, no names, no addresses, and let's just hold them in a place, have very strict requirements that it has to have a counterterrorism nexus to even put a phone number in so we could determine who is this terrorist overseas talking to. Again, even if they put the number in, Bob, when the number comes out, there's no name or no address to it. And that's why there's zero privacy violations on this in its entire length of the program and 54 disrupted terrorist plots. It's overseen by the court, by the legislature and the executive branch. No other program has this much scrutiny with very little information. There's more information in a phone book than there is in this particular big pile of phone numbers that we used to close the gap -- we, the intelligence services -- close the gap that we saw didn't allow us to catch someone from 9/11.

SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you this, Mr. Chairman, what would happen if they stopped doing this, if they stopped collecting these phone numbers and storing them there, where they can check them against these terrorist calls? What, in your view, would happen?

ROGERS: Well, we are going miss something, and exactly what happened on 9/11. What happened on 9/11 is a known terrorist safe house calls in to the United States to talk to a terrorist who is living amongst us. We'll miss that. We will miss that connection between what's happening here and overseas. And remember, terrorists now use the same communication systems in America that we do. So there's -- they're intermingled with us, which makes it incredibly, incredibly difficult. What you're doing is taking away the one tool that we know will allow us to -- a nexus between a foreign terrorist overseas talking to somebody in the United States. That's how they stopped a bombing in New York from three people with bombs in backpacks from getting on the subway system. It has -- has saved real lives. I mean, real folks have come home with their legs. Real folks have not been -- had their lives taken when they're commuting to work because of this program. That's why I get really nervous -- but I understand why people are nervous, Bob. It's -- all of these bad ideas have collided, and this was the first opportunity, at least in the House, for people to express their anger about all of this other information that's being collected.

SCHIEFFER: Do you think...

ROGERS: I think we have to separate them and understand the difference.

SCHIEFFER: Do you think that even members of Congress know what they're voting on when they vote on this? Because I have heard from some members of Congress -- I've been told they have asked members of the intelligence community to show them the dossier they've collected on them. They want to hear the tape recordings they have. And as I understand it, they don't have anything of that nature.

ROGERS: You know, that was what was so frustrating to me, and I knew it was going to be a close vote. The day before the vote, people were asking, "Well, how many of the numbers have recordings attached to them?" Well, the answer is zero. If you have to ask that the day before the vote, I knew I was in an education problem here. There are no recordings of phone calls. There are no dossiers. They do not record your e-mails. None of that was happening, none of it -- I mean, zero. And what was happening is they were conflating all of these other problems with this particular problem. And it was concerning. And again, this wasn't about modifying it. This wasn't about fixing it. They were willing to turn it off. And I think that was a dangerous way to do it. I think, with a little thought here, we can even add more privacy than is already there. And at the end of the day, if Americans understood that these phone numbers are not being called; they're not being monitored; they're not being surveilled; there's no spying on Americans, I think they'll feel much, much better about it.

SCHIEFFER: All right.

ROGERS: And again, that's a pretty impressive record, zero privacy violations, 54 terrorist attacks that saved real American lives and our allies as well. That's -- that's real success in this...

(CROSSTALK)

SCHIEFFER: All right, Mr. Chairman. Well, thank you so much.

ROGERS: Thanks, Bob.

SCHIEFFER: We're going to get the other side of this now from Mark Udall, who is the senator from Colorado. You just heard what he said, Senator. Fifty-six terror plots here and abroad have been thwarted by the NASA (sic) program. So what's wrong with it, then, if it's managed to stop 56 terrorist attacks? That sounds like a pretty good record.

UDALL: Good morning, Bob. I want to just start out by saying that Chairman Rogers and I both share a total focus on protecting the American people. There are a lot of bad guys in the world. I was in Washington, D.C. on 9/11. I know what that felt like. I know people who lost loved ones on that day. We're going to do everything in our means to prevent that from happening in the future. Chairman Rogers is right. The PRISM program -- that is the program that surveils foreign terrorists -- has been very successful. What I want to reform is the bulk data collection program under the Patriot Act, Section 215. The NSA is literally collecting every phone record of every American every day. And, look, the content of those phone calls is not available, but I think knowing when I call somebody from where I call somebody and for how long I call somebody is a violation of your privacy. There are apps that you can get on your smart phone or your smart tablet or your computer, Bob, that can take that phone data and give a pretty good impression of what you do during your daily activities. To me, that is a violation of Americans' privacy. The other point I would make is that, when we collect, in bulk, all of these records of Americans' phone calls, we're not necessarily being any more effective in protecting the country, and we're sweeping up; we're vacuuming up innocent Americans' phone records. Let's restrict that to terrorists or spies. And my bill, which I want to push as hard as I possibly can, would limit the ways in which the intelligence community accesses average Americans', innocent Americans', phone records. That's the way to go forward. That's the way in which to protect not just our people but the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is the biggest, baddest weapon we have.

SCHIEFFER: Senator, let me just ask you this question. So the government has the ability to do this, but there's no suggestion that they are doing it, willy-nilly. In other words, I mean, you know, we give the police the right to carry guns. But that doesn't mean they're going to run around and shoot up the town, every policeman. We have laws and all that sort of thing. So the fact that they would have this ability, there's nothing to suggest that they are doing this. And there seem to be a lot of safeguards to prevent them from doing that.

UDALL: There are some safeguards, Bob. There are not enough safeguards. Why not, when you need to corroborate the data that you're generating in the PRISM program -- that's the program that Chairman Rogers is describing that's been successful. I support it. But if you need Americans' phone records, then go to the FISA court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, and get a warrant to generate access to those business records. If you look at Section 215 of the Patriot Act, if you define it broadly, which this administration has done, you can collect people's medical records, their financial records, their credit card records. You name it; anything is on the table. That's one of the reasons that the author of the Patriot Act, Jim Sensenbrenner, Chairman Sensenbrenner in the House, has called for a throttling back of this section that allows for this metadata collection, Bob. We don't need to do this to have -- to fight an effective war against terrorism. We're violating Americans' privacy. It's time to change the way in which this law is applied.

SCHIEFFER: Have you -- do you have any evidence that the government has abused this notion -- in other words, that they have gone in and gotten somebody's telephone records just -- just to have them or just to check it out or for political reasons or for some reason or another? Or are you just saying this is what could happen?

UDALL: There's certainly -- the dynamic of what could happen, Bob, literally, the NSA -- and, look, there are patriots there everywhere you look. The people in the NSA are working very hard to protect us. But right now, they're literally collecting every phone record of every American and holding that in a database. I'd much rather have that data held by the phone companies. If we need to get access to it, the FISA court can issue a warrant. That's how the police operate. That's how the FBI operate. That's how we've operated in America in the past. We don't need the NSA to be collecting in bulk all of these records of innocent Americans. It's not effective. I would argue that it comes close to being unconstitutional. And there's a better way to do this. So that's why it's important to have this debate. We're having it in the Congress. Moderates, liberals, conservatives, all are sharing concern about the reach of the NSA's bulk collection program. Let's change it. Let's reform it. Let's narrow it.

SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, Senator, it's very good to have you this morning. This is a very complicated story, and I think, maybe, we've shed a little light on it this morning. We're going to hear a lot more about it in the future. Thank you so much for being with us. And we'll be back in one minute.

SCHIEFFER: The demilitarized zone, the modern-day border between North and South Korea came to be as a result of an armistice signed by the North Koreans and the United Nations. Close to 3 million civilians and soldiers were killed in the Korean War, including nearly 37,000 American soldiers. On Saturday President Barack Obama spoke at an event at the Korean War Memorial here in Washington.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Korea was a victory. When 50 million South Koreans...

(APPLAUSE)

... live in freedom, a vibrant democracy, one of the world's most dynamic economies, in stark contrast to the repression and poverty of the North, that is a victory, and that is your legacy.

SCHIEFFER: The North Koreans are also marking the 60th anniversary in a very different way. In a rare departure from policy, they allowed foreign reporters into the country. CBS News correspondent Seth Doane was one of them, and he sent back this report.

SETH DOANE, CBS NEWS CORRESPONDENT: The images of North Korea ingrained in our minds are no easier to comprehend in person. This weekend's military parade rolled down the streets of Pyongyang, a place known as the Showcase City. The masses assembled seemed to understand their role in the spectacle. (on camera): Even standing in the middle of this, it's hard to give you a sense for just the sheer size, the scale of the celebration. It's difficult to describe the enthusiasm.

(voice-over): After all, this is the country of food shortages, human right abuse allegations, and grinding poverty, not exactly issues you put on parade. I stood to the side of the crowd and tried to smile or make eye contact, looking for a hint of the human connection. But North Korea is a place where a visit only prompts more questions. The media was carted around in buses. It was almost like being on a ride at Disneyland. We were able to see, but not to grasp. So we just drove by. When we could talk with people, we could not control conversation. Our government-assigned minders did. They noted down names of everyone we interviewed.

(on camera): What are you asking her? No, no, no I'm just curious, what are you asking?

(voice-over): The determination of this country intent to build its nuclear program was showcased on stage in a different capacity. The Aryong (ph) mass games is a choreographed acrobatic event that is not about the individual shining, but instead the collective accomplishment. What looked like pixels in a bulletin board was tens of thousands of people holding multicolored cards to create different images. This country, famous for holding ultimate control of its people, took control of its visitors. One of our government-assigned minders asked me, "seeing is believing, right?" My answer, not necessarily in North Korea.

SCHIEFFER: Seth Doane reporting from Pyongyang, North Korea. Seth as you prepare to leave after this extraordinary opportunity you had in this trip, what do you make the main takeaway -- what's the one thing you're always going to remember about this trip?

DOANE: Well, Bob, for me I would say it's a great deal of frustration. You come to a place to try to understand it more, but in many ways here in North Korea, you just have more and more questions. There have been really interesting kind of side conversations, those types of conversations that you would never be able to have on camera. And that's maybe where I've learned most. I spoke way 30-year-old guy today and asked him if he'd ever been on the internet and he said to me, "no." And he -- I said, no e- mail?" And he said, "no, I don't know anyone outside of North Korea -- the DPRK -- why would I need Internet?" I said, "do your parents have a car?" He said, "no. We don't need a car." I mean, you look at this just complete isolation here and it starts to make sense as to how folks could be so drawn by this Kim Jong-un.

SCHIEFFER: Seth Doane, thank you very much. And we'll be back in a moment.

SCHIEFFER: What can be said about the Anthony Weiner story that hasn't been said before? Actually, several things. One, it is not funny. It is sickening. Two, it is important. The mayor of New York is not only the most powerful municipal post in America, but because New York is so big and is the media capital of the world, the mayor of New York occupies a bully pulpit, second in bullyishness only to that of the White House. The rest of us may not like it, but what the mayor of New York says matters far beyond the New York City limits. Which is why someone with Anthony Weiner's problems has no business there and should leave the race. Anthony Weiner is not an entertaining kook, he is a new-age flasher who has traded the traditional raincoat that can be opened to show his wares for a digital camera that enables him to expose himself for the world, a dubious technological achievement. Why would anyone put themselves and their loved ones through something like this? I wouldn't pretend to know, but a friend of a friend said, in today's world there are those who value power above dignity. That's probably right. But even in politics, I want to believe they are still a minority.

SCHIEFFER: Some stations are leaving us now, but for most of you we'll be right back with our political panel, including Dee Dee Myers, Michael Gerson, and David Gergen. Plus, a discussion of steroid scandal in Major League Baseball. Stay with us.

SCHIEFFER: Welcome back to "Face the Nation." Joining us now to do some analysis of the news -- and, boy, have we got some news to analyze - Dee Dee Myers, the former press secretary to Bill Clinton. She's now a contributor to Vanity Fair. David Gergen, served with both presidents Reagan and Clinton, now at Harvard. And Michael Gerson, who used to be a speechwriter in the George W. Bush White House, now a columnist for the Washington Post. I just put it on the table, I'm going to say two words, Anthony Weiner.

DEE DEE MYERS, VANITY FAIR: Well, he may still (inaudible) the race but his campaign is over, obviously. It's not going to go anywhere. And the reasons are so multiple. One is, it's just the sheer shocking nature of some of the stuff that he's done. But, two, voters are -- we found out are willing to forgive people as long as -- as long as the person is genuinely sorry and tries to change. Anthony Weiner's played voters for fools. He got into a mayor's race, very high-profile race, knowing that the problems that got him into trouble in the first place still existed and yet he told the story to voters that that wasn't true. And I think that's ultimately why voters...

SCHIEFFER: It's kind of interesting, it's like you get one epiphany in politics. You can move from the right to the left or left to the right, but you can't go from the left to the right and then back to the left.

MYERS: You can't go and say, oh, I forgot to tell you that I wasn't -- I'm not really better, but I want to be mayor anyway. I mean, it's just the voters have had it. And it's just - it's a shocking scandal that has turned the mayor's race into a bit of a circus.

SCHIEFFER: Is this some kind of a comment on the state of our politics today, David, That, you know, a lot of serious people just don't want to fool with running for public office anymore. And so we're left with people like this more and more who are running. I'm not saying there aren't some good people who run for office now, but it seems like we're getting more and more of this sort of...

DAVID GERGEN, HARVARD: Well, in American politics - you have got to love it these days - we started out the program with cybersecurity and now we're talking about a cyber creep. And it's, you know, it's a weird deal that we have this. I -- as you were talking it, I was reminded of Scott Fitzgerald once said that, you know, there are no second chances in American life. And it turned out not to be true. There are second chances, but there are no third chances. And I think that's why he's toast. But what I was really pleased about was you elevated the conversation about what does New York need? After all, this is the biggest city by far in the United States, and over the last 20 years, it had two very strong mayors with Giuliani and Bloomberg. And they turned that city around. It was going the way of Detroit not long ago. And now it's a thriving city. And to have a clown like this running. He just ought to pull out for the sake of the city but also for the sake of his wife, who is a classy woman.

SCHIEFFER: And you know, the rest of us may not like it, and sometimes those that don't live in New York, we become irritated with New York because they think they're the center of the universe, but in a sense, it is the second most powerful office in the land, in many ways, because it's in the media capital. As we have found out, you may not like Mayor Bloomberg, you may love him, but what Mayor Bloomberg says people take note of far beyond the city limits of New York.

MICHAEL GERSON, WASHINGTON POST: No, I agree with that. Americans are generally pretty forgiving about sex and politics. There are examples that you can, you know, talk about. And adultery is not necessarily disqualifying as we saw with Franklin Roosevelt or other things. But when you have sex plus compulsion, sex plus misogyny, like we see in San Diego, Americans should be concerned about these things. It doesn't mean you're judgmental to show some judgment when it comes to the examples of public officials set, but also their ability to lead. this is a case -- this is a scandal -- a future scandal waiting to happen in the case of New York. And it would seriously undermine his ability to govern. If he has a serious addiction, like a pain killer addiction, the answer to that -- no doctor would recommend a campaign for mayor. You have to take that seriously. And he's not taking it seriously.

SCHIEFFER: Yeah, I mean, you know, if we're dealing with someone that had an alcohol problem, they went off to rehab, and then they came back from rehab and they started drinking again, we would recognize they had a problem and somebody would begin an intervention process or something like that. Instead, they seem to be rethinking their political strategy.

MYERS: Well, the-- and the one person who won't -- doesn't see or recognize the problem is Anthony Weiner. He says, I don't have a problem. I don't have an addiction. An so it's - you know, intervention might be the appropriate step, but the voters are saying you've got a problem and our intervention is going to be to make sure you don't get elected. The other thing, back to Michael's point, was the voters are willing to -- sometimes you have to exercise judgment and they are willing to forgive certain things, but you have to be qualified, right? And Anthony Weiner wasn't particularly qualified to be mayor. He has never run anything bigger than a 16-person congressional office. And he didn't do that particularly well. He's a rhetoritician and not a manager. And a big city like New York requires really strong management skills as we saw in the current and previous mayor.

SCHIEFFER: Dee Dee, you were Bill Clinton's press secretary, let me ask you about this just from the standpoint of politics, people are talking about Weiner's wife, Huma as -- Hillary Clinton was her mentor, She was a very close aide to her and now some say she's taking a page from Hillary Clinton's book to stand by your man. My sense of it from just a politics point of view, she's doing Hillary Clinton no favors whatsoever if Hillary Clinton is planning to run for president herself, bringing this all up again and reminding people of it is not helping her mentor.

MYERS: Look, this isn't a story that anybody, particularly the Clintons, are happy to see splashed over the front pages and all over the news relentlessly. And I think they, as much as anyone, would like to see this go away. And so, you know, if they could choose they would certainly have Weiner get out of the race and Huma to get on with her life. It's very painful for the Clintons, because they are very close to Huma. She is a confidante of Mrs. Clinton's and of President Clinton's. And, you know, it's not a comparable situation in a lot of ways to what I think Hillary Clinton went through.

SCHIEFFER: All of a sudden we're talking about the economy again. The president is going out to make these speeches about jobs and all of that. And, apparently, is going to sort of de-emphasize deficit reduction now and move back towards jobs, David. What do you make of this?

GERGEN: Well, I think he's trying to set himself up for the fight that's coming this fall. We're beginning to realize the dimensions of this, how messy it's going to be, once congress get back here in September and they have a conflict over not only extending the annual budget, but also over the debt ceiling. And you're going to see -- it's going to be extremely messy. I think the chances of getting resolutions are small. But tax reform is on the table, spending cuts are on the table. Sequester is on the table. And, you know, frankly, I think the president is right to get back to it. What I objected to in his speech was him saying Washington has taken its eye off the ball. He said that repeatedly in the last few days. He has the biggest spotlight in Washington. As president, he's the one who can set the agenda. You know, the president speaks on something, we talk about it. Right? We -- we're followers in that sense. And so I don't think Washington - I think he took his eye off the ball. I'm glad he's getting back to it. He didn't have much fresh to say, but he's lining up his forces and that's smart.

GERSON: I actually thought the speech was very good on the analysis side. The president is a good commentator on the economy

MYERS: Right.

GERSON: When he talks about globalization, technology, and the effects on middle-class earnings over time. The problem is that the proposals just didn't seem equal to the problems. What he talks about is not particularly creative, not innovative. He doesn't use policy to put the congress on the defensive and force them to act. So I -- and then he ends up with the assessment of blame as you're saying, and it looks small. It looks inconsequential, and it makes people wonder we're going to have eight weeks of this message? That's really not sustainable.

GERGEN: I wonder what - you know, he's trying to pivot, but he's pivoting away dealing with today's problems and saying here's the long-term, the 25, 30-year agenda. Well, that's fine, but what are we going to do about tax reform this year? What are we going to do about the debt ceiling this year? What are we going to do with the Keystone pipeline this year? I'm surprised he's not dealing with the here and now. That would give it more punch.

SCHIEFFER: And again, I'm showing my age, which is not difficult to do anymore, but I, you know, I can remember the days when the two sides were far apart and they tried to figure out some way to talk to each other about it. Now what we do is one side just goes out and makes a bunch of speeches. And the Republicans have been making speeches all summer here. It just seems like we're in, as you say, more of the same. I don't see anything getting resolved.

GERSON: Well, we're in a positioning stage. Both sides are kind of setting up what they will - what their red lines are, what they want to fight about. We don't know at the end here. Republicans could - are perfectly capable of doing foolish things like fighting to defund Obamacare, and losing a lot of ground and possibly the House of Representatives in a hopeless fight.

SCHIEFFER: Can they do that, Michael?

GERSON: No. It's not going to happen. It's a fight over a completely unrealistic goal in this context. You know, Senator Burr called it the dumbest thing he's ever heard. And it is. There are some people in the Republican Party, though - but they're on a pretty good path for the 2014 election - but there are some people that view this kind of politically self-destructive behavior as a sign of purity. And, you know, they're arguing that the Republicans should have this fight. The president could overreach as well, trying to get rid of the sequester, for example. I think most Americans don't view the sequester as a daily problem. The president could overreach. I think whoever overreaches in this debate is likely to be punished in this process.

MYERS: Yeah and I think what the president needs to do is - as David said -- he's sort of setting the stage for this argument that's coming at the end of the September and into October between end of the fiscal year and the debt ceiling. But he need -- they're doing sort of eight weeks of filling in the blanks around the speech he gave last week, right, answering some of the questions that I think you raised which is what are the policy prescriptions? So I don't think -- they didn't do all of that on Wednesday. That's to be -- you know, more to come in the future and they need to do that. And they need to build the case for why investing in the future makes sense. It's not just about 20 or 30 years down the road, it's about getting the economy back track, an economy that lasts, one that will work for the middle class. And I think what we saw in the interview in the "New York Times" today is what the president really believes, which is that rising inequality is the biggest threat to the economy and to the American way of life out there. And the side that figures out first how to talk about that and how to own some of the solutions to that is going to win the argument.

SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you about the other issue that came up last week, and that was immigration. Do any of you think that there is going to be any kind of a immigration bill at the end of the year? Michael?

GERSON: I think it's an uphill battle. If you look at the Senate vote, 70 percent of Republican senators voted against immigration reform. That's actually a higher percentage than last time around. The base of the party is resistant. But it's a two-sided argument. There are tech interests in the Republican Party that very much want to see reform. There are -- the leaders of the Republican Party in the House some day want to have the White House back. They understand the political dynamics here. And so I think, genuinely, members are going into the August recess to see if this opposition is going to gather and build or whether it's going to fizzle. The hope of reform here is that enough Republicans will say, I'm going to have to vote no, but I know that we, kind of, need to do this, and I'm going to cut Boehner some slack to do what needs to be done. I'm not sure whether that will prevail, but it's possible.

SCHIEFFER: But, you know, John Boehner will not say what his own position is on a path to citizenship for the 11 million people here.

GERGEN: I think that's because he doesn't have control of his own caucus and he wants to see what the temperature is, as people go back home and they come back. Bob, I'm not ready to write off immigration yet, because I think the Republican Party, as Michael says, has positioned itself well for 2014. It's putting itself in a pretty horrible position for 2016, the next general presidential election. If you alienate Hispanics, as they're doing, you pass all these abortion bills and all the, kind of, ultrasound tests, which sound barbaric to most women. If you -- if you refuse to go along with student loan, you know, debt and trying to get the interest rates down for students, you have alienated the very base of people you need if you're going to win the election the next time around, the general election. So I think there are enough Republicans that are beginning to understand, you know, we can get through 2014, but if we ever want the White House back, we need to start chipping away at that coalition that Barack Obama has built up.

MYERS: But you have a safe, you know, chunk of the House, House Republicans...

GERGEN: Right.

MYERS: ... who have absolutely no interest in, or incentive, to meet anybody in the middle on any of those issues, right? So, you know, what do you do if you're Boehner? You're stuck. I mean, he's not leading because he can't lead. He cannot control the caucus. He can't move anything further. He can't even take a position.

GERSON: I think he led, a little bit, in his rejection of Representative King this week, in his very intemperate, disturbing...

MYERS: That was pretty low-hanging fruit.

(LAUGHTER)

GERSON: Right, it was...

SCHIEFFER: Remind us of what King said.

GERSON: King said some very problematic things about young immigrants, illegal immigrants transporting marijuana and...

MYERS: He said, "For every valedictorian, there's a 100 130- pound immigrant kids who have calves the size of cantaloupes from running 75-pound packages of marijuana over the border.

GERSON: Right, but Boehner, I think, strongly rejected that, in a quasi-Sister Soulja moment, and interestingly did it at a strategic group. He went to a group of Hispanic evangelicals, OK, which is the group that helped re-elect George Bush in 2004, is the most gettable group for Republicans. So it showed some strategic understanding of how the Republican coalition has to look in the future.

GERGEN: I agree with that. John Boehner is looking a little bit like Barack Obama. Both of them come across as very good men who don't have as much power as they need to get anything done.

(LAUGHTER)

SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you all -- we talked a lot at the top of the program about this NSA program. The House almost really reined in the National Security Agency in its ability, which it says it has to have, to fight terrorism. Is this an issue that cuts with the American people or is it something that doesn't -- people think, well, I'm not sure how that affects me?

MYERS: I think it's evolving. And I don't think we know the answer to that yet. What was so interesting about that vote was that it was -- it wasn't a partisan vote. It wasn't an ideological vote. It was the left and the right coming together, and nobody thought that was going to get 205 votes a week before, and it almost passed.

SCHIEFFER: Do you think people knew what they were voting on, David?

GERGEN: I'm not sure they knew what they were voting on, but I think the American public is shifting against this surveillance state. And I just have to tell you this, Bob. I sympathized with Senator Udall when he was on the program earlier. Because my -- you and I have been around this town long enough to say, look, the government can do many good things and it can collect information, but you know and I know -- I worked for Richard Nixon -- there are going to be people who are going to come along who are going to abuse the system, who are going to seize that information and use it to go after people. And the safeguards have to be very tough. And, frankly, if you abuse the system, you ought to go to jail.

SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, that's very -- a very interesting discussion this morning. I wish we could talk some more. But we'll be back in a minute to talk about baseball and steroids.

SCHIEFFER: Well, the nation was rocked again this week by another disclosure in Major League Baseball. One of the big stars, Ryan Braun, was suspended, basically, for the rest of the season because of steroid use. We have two of the nation's top sports writers. Bob Nightengale of USA Today is with us, and Bill Rhoden of the New York Times. Bob, what is the latest news on this? Are we going to see more major league ball players suspended?

NIGHTENGALE: We are, Bob. It's going to happen some time in the next 10 days to two weeks, even, maybe, at the end of this week we could see as many as 12 to 15 players get suspended. We'll see how many guys appeal.

SCHIEFFER: Who -- is there any talk about who -- who is under scrutiny? Who do we think might be the people that might be affected here?

NIGHTENGALE: Well, the big guy, of course, is Alex Rodriguez, the highest-paid player in sports history, $275 million. And he could be facing at least a 100-game suspension, maybe 150, even talk of a lifetime ban. And the others are guys in pennant races, guys like Nelson Cruz of the Texas Rangers, Bartolo Colon of the Oakland As and Johnny Peralta of the Detroit Tigers.

SCHIEFFER: Bill, what do you make of this? What do you make of the timing of Ryan Braun? Why the -- you know, we had been told there were going to be a lot of names that were going to come out, and then, all of a sudden, it was just his name. What -- what's going on?

RHODEN: You know, I've got to tell you, I'm, kind of, disgusted by this whole process. It's like -- to me, it's like a show process. Baseball continues to try to take itself off the hook by doing this thing piece by piece, beating on people. First they were making Barry Bonds the face of steroids, you know, and then who was going to be the guy to save baseball? Alex Rodriguez. You know, Braun -- you know, he falls on his sword. They're out of the pennant race. He's hurt. OK, he's going to lose $3 million, but I think he's going to get, what, $127 million over the length of the contract. So, to me, I just think that, if Alex Rodriguez, who has been demonized, if he wants to do us all a favor, I hope he fights. I hope he fights this because I think there's this whole investigation with this bogus clinic, I think is borderline; I think it's a witch- hunt. And I know a lot of fans may not care about steroids, per se, but I think we all care about due process. And this is trampling on due process.

SCHIEFFER: Well, Bob, you -- you talked to Rodriguez. You're one of the few reporters who have interviewed him at any -- at length recently. What's his state of mind?

NIGHTENGALE: Well, he's going to fight it. You know, Bill mentioned, he wants to fight this thing. But his thing is, "Hey, if I get suspended for 150 games, I better fight it, because that will be two straight years off. I'm coming back to baseball at the age of 39. I got no chance. I've got a hard enough time coming back right now after a seven-month layoff with the hip surgery."

RHODEN: But I think, in his case -- I mean, yes, all that, but I think that Alex, who, you know, has always, kind of, been this, sort of, vanilla kind of person, I think he could actually be, sort of, a Curt Floodish-kind of person in another way, I mean, in terms of fighting. You know, the Players Association used to be the strongest association of all of them. And I think that what Marvin Miller always used to always say is that, you know, once you give in a little bit, you know, then it's -- they're going to take a bigger chunk and a bigger chunk, using this whole steroids issue as a cover. And I think that the Players Association, led by a guy like -- they have to make their stand now.

SCHIEFFER: But isn't it important to get steroids out of baseball and to get this problem behind us? We...

RHODEN: It's not going to happen, Bob.

SCHIEFFER: What do you mean?

RHODEN: It's not going to happen. There's always going to be some type of performance-enhancing something, whether it's amphetamines in that generation. In this generation, it's -- and, you know, (inaudible) having everybody do it. You're always going to have this percentage of people doing it. As we speak now, there's some chemist -- there's some chemist thinking of a whole next generation of things. So I see what you're saying about is it important to level the playing field? Yes, but what baseball does, they've got it backwards. What they do is that they take the -- the -- the drug dealers and they try to get the drug dealers to name the users.

SCHIEFFER: But, you know, Bill, I've got to tell you -- I mean, I've played baseball, and I had a sore arm for a long time. And if somebody had told me I could have taken one of these drugs and it would have made my arm OK...

RHODEN: You would have done it.

SCHIEFFER: I probably would have done it, no matter what the doctors were telling me, because my heroes were doing it, you know. And the role model is so important, it seems to me, that I just don't think you can do enough to get rid of this stuff.

NIGHTENGALE: The great -- you know, the great Bob Gibson, the Hall of Famer -- we asked him that question yesterday. He goes, "Thank God it wasn't around when I pitched. I don't know what I would have done."

(LAUGHTER)

He says, "So I'm not going to, you know, throw these guys under the bus because I just don't know." The difference now, Bill, with the union is that the players are very upset by this. Max Scherzer, the player rep, went on and about Ryan Braun, saying this guy should be out of baseball; he should have his contract voided. This is the first time the players themselves are coming out...

SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you this. Do you guys see any sense that some of the players now have a whole different attitude about this? Because some people tell me that a lot of them say, "Look, I'm not doing it. If somebody else is going to do it, he might get my job, and I want to get these people out of baseball."

RHODEN: I mean, that's -- that's what they're saying. I mean, I do hear that, but I'm -- I'm -- I'm just wondering. Now, I'm really wondering how true that is if you poll everybody-- and, again, I get back to this thing, if you really want to find out, you know, what baseball -- I guess I don't like the fact that baseball is taking this piecemeal. I want to find -- I want to have something like a truth and reconciliation hearing. I want to find out who did what when. And I think what you do, when you have that kind of hearing, it's going to go all the way up to the top, from the commissioner to executive, people who knew this stuff was going on but, because the turnstiles were whirling and business was good, they turned a blind eye. I'd like to find out once and for all how vast and deep this actually was. And you're never going to see that because too many people would be implicated.

SCHIEFFER: Bob, you said in the beginning you thought we were going to see some more. Do you think sooner rather than later? You said maybe in the next 10 days?

NIGHTENGALE: Yes. I mean, there are -- the investigation is about complete, and this is a Hall of Fame week, and they certainly want to wait after this weekend. And we're going to start seeing guys go down. And they're going to meet with the union and say, "This is what we have, and all your players, and this is what we recommend for suspensions." There will be a minimum of 50 games for every single person. Now we'll see who wants to fight it.

SCHIEFFER: What's your best estimate of how many people are going to be affected?

NIGHTENGALE: I'd say 12 or 15 Major Leaguers, and I think, maybe, you know, there could be a few dozen Minor League players. And since they're not protected by the union, they could be, you know, suspended for 100 games or something like this. So we're going to see a big fallout from this biogenesis.

SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, listen, I want to thank both of you. I think this is a very serious problem. I'm glad you were here to talk about it. And we'll be back in a minute.

SCHIEFFER: Well, that's it for us today. I'll be with you all next week on the CBS Evening News, so I'll see you there. But before we go, we note the passing of former Louisiana Congresswoman Lindy Boggs, who came to Washington as Congressman Hale Boggs' wife in 1941, succeeded him when he died. She became a champion of women's and Civil Rights, was later ambassador to the Vatican. She was also the mother of our friend Cokie Roberts of ABC. Lindy Boggs, 97.