<i>FTN</i> Transcript - Dec. 17

Bob Schieffer, CBS
News Chief Washington Correspondent: Today on Face The Nation, how will George Bush govern? We'll ask Vice President-elect Dick Cheney.

President-elect Bush has picked General Colin Powell to be secretary of state. Who's next? Will he move to the middle or veer right? We'll check in with his right-hand man, Dick Cheney.

Then we'll talk with the Senate minority whip, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, on how Mr. Bush will deal with Congress, Tom Friedman of The New York Times on the foreign policy challenges ahead, and Professor Stephen Carter of Yale on how to bridge the partisan divide.

Gloria Borger will be here, and I'll have a final word on the middle ground. But, first, Dick Cheney on Face The Nation.

And joining us now in our Washington studio, Vice President-elect Dick Cheney. Mr. Vice President-elect, welcome. It occurs to me that you are about to become what all vice presidents try to be, want to be, but never are, and that is a real force in the administration with a real job. It seems to me that, from what I've seen so far, that you're going to be the chief operating officer of this administration, with George Bush as sort of a chairman of the board. Is that a fair way to put it?

Vice President-elect Dick Cheney: If he is chairman of the board, he's also the chief executive officer, without question. What he asked me to do when he asked me to sign on, he made clear at the time, both publicly and privately, he wasn't picking me because he was worried about carrying Wyoming with its three electoral votes. We carried Wyoming just fine. He really wanted me to help become part of the team, to help govern. And he has kept his word. There is no contract between us; there really can't be.

But he has been very good at asking me to get heavily involved in the work of the administration-to-be, to take charge of the transition. And it's been a great experience for me. He is a great boss. He gives you an objective and then turns you loose on it, holds you accountable for your performance. I think it will make him a very effective executive.

And he's also reached out, now, to Colin Powell and got, I think, the best man in America for that particular job.

Schieffer: Well, let me ask you. I mean, you obviously are going to have to spend a lot of time up on Capitol Hill with this 50-50 Senate, because you'll need to be there to break the tie on votes. But will you continue to play an active role in this administration, as you have throughout the transition?

Cheney: Oh, I think so. But, again, there isn't a contract. There's no real job description for the vice president. And I didn't sit down and say, well, you know, if ask me to be vice president, I want to do the following 14 things. He just said, "Dick, you'll have a very significant role." I said, "Great, let's go for it."

So, I'm sure that as we go forwrd, he'll rely on me when it makes sense to do so, but he's going to have a lot of other very good people in this administration. And they'll all - it'll be a team.

Gloria Borger, U.S. News & World Report: Mr. Vice President-elect, conservatives are watching you very closely. They're looking for signals that this administration is not going to desert them on issues like tax cuts, partial-birth abortion, anti-abortion rights. What would you say to conservatives right now about that?

Cheney: Well, look at me. If anybody, I was castigated all during the course of the campaign, because he's a conservative.

Borger: Well, the campaign is over now. OK, so, what would you say to them?

Cheney: The campaign's over with. And, in fact, as President-elect Bush has made very clear, he ran on a particular platform that was very carefully developed. It's his program, it's his agenda, and we have no intention at all of backing off of it. It's why we got elected.

So we're going to aggressively pursue tax changes, tax reform, tax cuts, because it's important to do so, partly for economic reasons, partly because we have this growing surplus and some of it ought to be returned. We're going to pursue education reform and Social Security and Medicare reform, because those are important national priorities and need to be addressed.

The suggestion that somehow, because this was a close election, we should fundamentally change our beliefs, I just think is silly. These are not radical positions. These are good, solid proposals to address important national issues, and we'll continue to pursue them.

Schieffer: But let me just tell you about something that the Democratic leader in the Senate, Tom Daschle, said this morning. You're talking about going forward with this - I assume what you're saying here is you're going forward with this enormous tax cut that George Bush proposed during the campaign. Tom Daschle said this morning, "I can't think of anything that would divide this nation more than you pushing that tax cut at that size."

Cheney: Well, it's fascinating to watch, Bob. I've been around town, I guess off and on, for 32 years. And you've got a new team coming to town, and sort of everybody inside the Beltway gets in a tizzy, and starts throwing up smokescreens and trying to hoo-rah the new team coming to town. We're being told that, gee, we're going to have to work with the Democrats to get anything passed. Well, that's not news to me. In 32 years in this town, there has never been a Republican proposal passed without Democratic votes. We've got the best line-up now in the Congress we've ever had in my career in Washington.

And this notion that somehow a tax cut is divisive I just don't think is the case. We've got a $4.6 trillion anticipated surplus. We've got a tax cut proposed $1.3 trillion over the course of the next 10 years. We've got an economy that'slowing down where we could conceivably get into a recession down the road where tax cuts will be important. And it's not just cuts. It's also tax reform. So I think this is a very good program, a very sound program. My guess is we can in fact get it passed and that it won't be divisive.

Schieffer: OK, Let me just make sure I understand what you're saying here. You're saying you're still going to push the tax cut that George Bush pushed during the campaign. But there have been other people who have said maybe it would be a little easier to take that step by step. You're not going for the step by step, or are you?

Cheney: On Monday, tomorrow, President-elect Bush will be in town. He will meet with the Congressional leadership, both parties, and I'm sure these will be some of the items discussed. We haven't made a final absolute decision of exactly what that bill will look like now. But we know what the proposal is. I'm sure we'll want to listen to what the leadership has to say, especially on our side, in terms of what they think the best way to proceed is. But that's our program, and we're going to aggressively pursue it.

Borger: Mr. Cheney, with all due respect, the Democrats are saying that this administration cannot proceed as the Reagan administration did, for example, with a large tax bill, because you don't have the mandate that a Ronald Reagan had. And it's not going to be good enough, they say, to cherry pick one or two Democrats here and there and get them to sign on to whatever tax bill you have.

What they are asking for, in a lot of areas, not only taxes, but say campaign finance, education, is to sit down with Republicans in advance and actually write legislation together. Would you be willing to do that?

Cheney: Well, again we've got our proposals. We'll work closely with members on both sides of the aisle. I'm sure we'll enter into negotiations and discussions as we already have.

Borger: So the answer is no, then?

Cheney: No, but basically I think what you'll find in the way President-elect Bush likes to operate is that he is prepared to work on putting together coalitions to pass legislation.

What he is not willing to do is compromise on principle. And there is a fine line between on the one hand compromising on principle and on the other hand making adjustments needed to build coalitions.

Schieffer: Let me ask you ...

Cheney: But there is no reason in the world, and I simply don't buy the notion, that somehow we come to office now as a, quote, "weakened president." I look back at this notion that somehow there's a link between how close your margin is and how effective you can be. People say, well, it's a close margin, it's going to be an ineffective administration.

The most dangerous and unsuccessful administrations, in my experience, were the ones with the biggest margins: Richard Nixon led to Watergate, yndon Johnson and Vietnam. Sometimes the presidents with the closest margins have turned out to be the most effective.

So there is a lot of conventional wisdom being spread around town now, and demands by Democrats for power-sharing with Republicans, but the fact of the matter is we have a new administration. We have what will turn out, I'm sure, to be a very effective president. And we've got a good program, and we're going to pursue it.

Schieffer: Let me talk to you about just a couple of specifics. For example, many of the conservatives in your party are saying that the person who heads up Health and Human Services, that cabinet position, must be a pro-choice person. Will there be - pro-life. Will there be a litmus test on that?

Cheney: There are no litmus tests, but President-elect Bush and I are both committed to the pro-life position. We've always made that very clear. We emphasized during the campaign that we want to work to build coalitions, reach across the divide on this issue to find areas where we can get something done to reduce the total incidents of abortion. We'll pick good people in these Cabinet departments. We don't have litmus tests.

Schieffer: It sounds to me that you're saying that's likely, that you likely will put a person who is pro-life in HHS?

Cheney: We don't have a litmus test.

Borger: Let me ask you about campaign finance reform. It is something that John McCain has talked about. He says that he's got 60 votes for it right now in the Senate. If that bill passes, that McCain-Feingold bill, would George W. Bush veto it?

Cheney: Well, at this stage what we've said, and what President-elect Bush has said, is that he supports campaign finance reform, if it is a good bill, and if it includes such things as paycheck protection, for example. McCain-Feingold at present doesn't include paycheck protection.

Borger: So, what if they added it in?

Cheney: Well, that's a speculative question. We're happy to work with the Congress on campaign finance reform. I think the interesting issue this year is that it's not just a question of campaign finance reform. I think after the Florida recount process, there is going to be great interest in complete election reform, that people are going to want to sit down and look at the whole spectrum of how we select our presidents, a part of which is finance.

Borger: So, he would veto, though, McCain-Feingold as it is?

Cheney: I have said, we're eager to work with Senator McCain and anybody else who's interested to put together an acceptable piece of legislation.

Schieffer: Let's talk about some of that conventional wisdom you mentioned. The conventional wisdom is that George Bush is going to put some Democrats in the Cabinet. How many, and is that likely?

Cheney: Well, we're looking to create a Cabinet that'll be able to carry out resident-elect Bush's policies, that will be consistent, in terms of our basic philosophy and views, but also is broadly diverse, that represents the diversity, in terms of the broad spectrum of the Republican Party. And - excuse me, I expect we'll also include a Democrat or two along the way.

So, it's going to be a Cabinet that I think people will be very comfortable with, and that all Americans should be able to look at and say that they are, in fact, represented.

Schieffer: The Washington Post, in a piece this morning, posed an interesting question. They said somewhere along the way, will there be a place where you will say to Democrats - in an effort to bring people together, to work together - where you will say to them, you've had a better idea on this than we do, and we might take your position on this. Can you think of any issue that might arise like that?

Cheney: Well, I think we'll find - John Breaux, for example, somebody who did superior work in the whole area of Medicare reform, chaired a commission that did a lot of - put in a lot of good effort in figuring out how to do that.

John's already been to Austin to meet with President-elect Bush. And some of the things that we advocated during the course of the campaign actually came out of the Breaux with respect to Medicare reform.

So, we're not at all averse to taking a good idea, wherever it comes from, and making it a part of our proposals.

Borger: John Breaux has said he's willing to work with you in the administration as somebody in the Senate, but he won't join the Cabinet. There seems to be a lot of bitterness on part of a lot of Democrats. Are you having a difficult time getting Democrats to serve in the Cabinet that you've asked, or to serve in top levels in this administration?

Cheney: No.

Borger: Not at all?

Cheney: No.

Borger: So there's ...

Schieffer: And there'll be one or two, I think you said.

Cheney: I would expect that there will be - clearly be a Democrat, I think, within the Cabinet.

Borger: Just one?

Cheney: Well, I'm - you know, again, wait until we announce them, and you'll be able to count. One, two, three ...

Schieffer: Dick Cheney, we have to stop - we have to stop it right there. We hope you'll come back many times during the next four years.

Cheney: I'll be happy to. Always enjoy it.

Schieffer: When we come back, a little roundtable on all of this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Schieffer: And with us now to talk about some of issues facing the new Bush administration, the Senate Minority Whip, Harry Reid, the number two Democrat in the Senate; Tom Friedman of The New York Times; and from New Haven, Connecticut, Stephen Carter of Yale University.

Well, Senator Reid, it seemed to me we got a little insight into the thinking of the coming administraton in that interview with Dick Cheney, but I must say, I didn't see much give there. I didn't see much that Democrats can say, oh, I'm glad he said that.

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.): Well, Bob, I think it's a more outsight than insight. It appears to me that on any issue that we feel is important and we've worked on it for the last four years, we haven't gotten much support in this interview from Cheney, the vice president-elect.

There's so many things that we need to do for this country, and we Democrats - we're not here to fight. We want to get things done. We have, especially the last two years, basically gotten nothing done. We want to accomplish something, and I think the number one thing we want to start off with is to make sure there is power-sharing.

Cheney is in denial like the rest of the Republicans, that the Senate is something other than equal. We have 50 Democrats, 50 Republicans and whether you use the fuzzy math of the campaign or MIT math, 50 and 50 is equal, and we're going to have equal - we're going to have committees in the Senate that are going to have the same number of Democrats as Republicans, same funding, same staffing. And if you use a man like Alan Simpson, who says, certainly there should be equal members on the committee, and he went on to say he believes that the chairmanship should alternate every year.

Schieffer: Well, you seem to - let me just go through this one by one. He does not seem to be backing off the tax cut that George Bush talked about in the campaign. Is there any possibility that something like that can be enacted?

Reid: No. We want tax reform. We want to do something about the marriage penalty. We want to do away with all 64 penalties in the tax code. We want to do something about inheritance tax; that needs to be changed. We want to do something with specific tax cuts, like helping parents put their kids through college.

But some massive tax cut that helps the wealthiest people in this country, we think the middle class needs help first, and then we'll see if we can help the wealthy.

Schieffer: So, you're saying that's not going to happen. He also seemed to be saying that George Bush would not agree to the campaign finance reform bill that John McCain has come up with. John McCain has said he has 60 votes, which is the number you need to cut off a filibuster and vote on something. Does John McCain have 60 votes to pass his bill?

Reid: I think the last few years we've learned a couple of things, but the one thing that we've learned in the Senate, don't mess with McCain. McCain's going to bring that up. No one can stop him, and he has 60 votes. The question is whether we have enough to override a veto. We've heard here from Cheney, they're going to veto that. Well, the American people, with what they've been through, I don't think they want a veto of a campaign finance bill.

Schieffer: I'm not sure he sid he'd veto, but he certainly seemed to be leaning that way. Let's go to Stephen Carter, the historian up at Yale. Mr. Carter, you heard Cheney make - and I thought it was a rather good point - he said sometimes it's not so much the people that win with the small majority that make the big mistakes, but those that win with the big majority. He cited Richard Nixon; he cited Lyndon Johnson. Is that a valid point?

Prof. Stephen Carter, Yale University: Well, it's hard to predict. One could look at 1876 and say, well, gee, Rutherford B. Hayes, winning as a minority president, wasn't very successful - but one could look at 1800, the first minority president Thomas Jefferson, the election went to the House. His selections were rather unpopular, but he was a popular president. In 1804, he wins by a landslide.

Schieffer: Well, but should George Bush assume he has a mandate here, and that he should push these programs that he talked about in the campaign?

Carter: Well, I think that the big mistake would be to try to measure what the administration should or shouldn't do by what happened over the last 40 or 50 days that we've had, because a lot of the problems that faced America before we had all this litigation, all these recounts, are still facing us today.

So the question, it seems to me, is not so much mandate versus non-mandate; the question is, the ability to articulate a vision of America that will get people on board, that will get people excited, in a way, I think, that they were really not excited very much during the campaign.

Schieffer: Let me talk to Tom Friedman, the foreign affairs columnist of The New York Times. Yesterday, the big news, of course not unexpected, Colin Powell named to be secretary of state. What do you think about that?

Tom Friedman, New York Times: Well, Bob, my basic reaction to that appointment is, I sure hope Colin Powell is right about everything. Because what really was striking during that introductory press conference today is that, ain't going to be nobody around to contradict or question him. He so clearly towered over George W. Bush in his grasp of the issues.

The reporters addressed all their foreign policy questions either to Mr. Powell, or Mr. Bush allowed Mr. Powell to answer all of them. And I think, my concern here, because, on the one hand, I was really struck by Powell's grasp of the issues. It was a masterly performance. But if he isn't right about everything, there isn't going to be an internal check and balance there, from yesterday's performance. That's for sure.

Schieffer: I agree with you on one thing. Colin Powell is one of the great communicators of this communications age. So what you're saying is you better get a good strong secretary of defense to be in there to give you another point of view?

Friedman: I think that's critically important. I think the other thing that struck e, Bob, from the press conference is - because I covered the first Bush administration's foreign policy. What's changed in these eight years?

Well, the biggest thing that's changed was when Colin Powell was last there, and George Bush, Jr.'s father was last there, was that they were managing the strength of Russia - the Soviet Union - the strength of China, and the strength of Japan. The big challenge eight years later is going to be managing the weakness of Russia, the weakness of China, and the weakness of Japan. And how you make that psychological adjustment to go from managing strength to weakness is going to be very interesting to watch.

Schieffer: Gloria, you have covered all of these people, as we all have. What did you make of Dick Cheney's performance this morning?

Borger: I think Dick Cheney made it very clear, as Senator Reid was saying, that there ain't going to be no power-sharing in the United States Senate. He said the notion that we should fundamentally change our beliefs is silly. And, so, if I were Tom DeLay sitting out there now watching this show, I would say, "OK, Dick Cheney is on board, because we have our agenda. We are going to push our agenda."

But, you know, there's also a game that goes on here, as you well know, and that is that you propose everything, fully expecting that you're not going to get everything. So the Bush administration could be talking about proposing the trillion-dollar tax cut, and maybe coming out with marriage penalty or estate taxes.

Schieffer: Everybody has a starting position, yes.

Borger: Exactly.

Schieffer: Now, Cheney told you something on the way out that I thought was quite interesting.

Borger: It was sort of interesting. Denny Hastert, the speaker of the House, has offered him an office on the House side. Of course, as president of the Senate, he has an office on the Senate side. He said he may take him up on it, and take an office on the House side of the Capitol.

Borger: How will that strike senators, Senator Reid?

Reid: Well, Bob, you know, listening to Colin Powell, as I have for the last many years, I think Bush is going to have a problem. I think we're going to have a shadow president, and that shadow is going to be General Colin Powell. He is going to overshadow this administration. He is a powerful man, and I think we should look to have him have an office in the Senate ...

(LAUGHTER)

Reid: ... one in the House.

Schieffer: What about that, Stephen Carter? What do you foresee, and at this particular point in history, what do you see as the great challenge for George Bush in this administration?

Carter: Well, I there are two important challenges that are facing him. It's important to remember that, well before this election for the last several years, there has been a sense of a lot of rootlessness in America, a sense oa kind of overweening materialism, with people worried about whether government has just become a provider of things to people, and where the citizenship has been the consumption of what government gives.

And it's vitally important, I think, for Bush to try to give us a vision of
government that's something more than just giving out goodies to various people. That's very important to rebuilding a citizenship. That's one.

The second thing I'm obliged to say - we haven't mentioned it yet; it may seem a small point, but I think it's a vital one - is, at some point early on in the administration, preferably before it begins, it's important for the president-elect to say that we are going to get to the bottom of exactly what went on in Florida.

I'm speaking here about the sense of a lot of black Americans of whether there were things that happened that made it more difficult to vote, not as some sort of conspiracy, but as the sort of problem we ought to try to avoid in the future. That kind of talk from the president-elect, I think, would go a long way toward healing some of the pain that a lot of black Americans are feeling at this time.

Schieffer: I'm very sorry, but we have to conclude right there. Thanks to all of you. I'll be back with a final word in just a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Schieffer: Finally today, after George Bush spoke to the country Wednesday night, I remarked on television that it was the kind of speech that those of us who have followed his career remember him making before the campaign.

I always thought Bush was a better candidate than his campaign allowed him to be, and he got off to a terrible start. An inexperienced staff terrified he would commit some kind of gaffe walled him off from the press, and to some extent from the public, as John McCain was rolling through New Hampshire, playing the press like a banjo. And why not?

When McCain rolled right over Bush, the Bush campaign reeled down and right. Suddenly there was Bush at Bob Jones University in South Carolina, emphasizing themes he had hardly given lip service as governor. Yes, Bush won South Carolina in a dirty fight, but the mudbath probably cost him Michigan the next week, and may have cost him Michigan and some other key states such as Pennsylvania in the general election. Independents were alienated by the right turn into South Carolina, and Bush spent the rest of the year trying to steer back to the middle.

By Wednesday night, he was clearly back in the middle, but already the my-way-or-no-way crowd is trying to force him back to the right. If he is able to resist and isolate them, he will find a middle ground occupied by friends, allies, and, if I may so, most of the American people. It won't be easy, but only from there and with them can he hope to get anything done.

That's our broadcast. Thanks for watching. See you next week here on Face The Nation.

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