Facts For All
Vote Smart provides free, unbiased, in-depth information about current officials, candidates, issues, legislation, and voting. Non-partisan and nonprofit since 1988.
/static/images/general/favicon-new-branding/apple-touch-icon.png
Vote Smart
CNN CROSSFIRE 16:30 April 19, 2004 Monday

Copyright 2004 Cable News Network

All Rights Reserved

CNN

SHOW: CNN CROSSFIRE 16:30

April 19, 2004 Monday

HEADLINE: CROSSFIRE in Las Vegas; Interview With Wayne Newton

GUESTS: Wayne Newton, J.D. Hayworth, Oscar Goodman

BYLINE: Tucker Carlson, Paul Begala

HIGHLIGHT:

Will George Bush or John Kerry be the big winner in the swing state of Nevada? Wayne Newton discusses the upcoming presidential election.

BODY:

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: CROSSFIRE. On the left, James Carville and Paul Begala; on the right, Robert Novak and Tucker Carlson.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. J.D. HAYWORTH ®, ARIZONA: ... everybody back down to Scottsdale real soon to spend a lot of their own money there.

GOODMAN: Particularly after 9/11.

You know, the country was in such doldrums, as well we should have been. We needed a place like Las Vegas, where people can put their cares and woes away, come out here, have a great time, have an experience where they don't really have to worry about going to the cusp or whatever. As long as it's legal, we welcome it here.

And you can-as you said, what goes on here stays here. It's a great motto. We believe in freedom. It is the freest city in the free world. It's the greatest. And people should have a good time here. Go home if you want to have a bad time.

(LAUGHTER)

BEGALA: But, Congressman, I want to ask you about-here in the mayor's city-it's probably the same in Scottsdale-I notice gasoline prices out of control. In Las Vegas, they're paying $2.25 a gallon for gasoline, which brings us to the news of the day.

Bob Woodward has got a new book out about President Bush leading us into war in Iraq. And he writes this. Let me read you what Woodward reports: "Prince Bandar"-that is the ambassador from Saudi Arabia-"wanted President Bush to know that the Saudis hope to fine- tune oil prices to prime the economy in 2004. What was key, Bandar understood, were the economic conditions before a presidential election."

That's what Woodward writes, that our president is allowing the Saudis to jack up the price of oil now, rip us off for the summer driving season, so long as he cuts them just before the election to help President Bush. Isn't that an outrage?

HAYWORTH: No, I think what's an outrage is really interesting, the gamble John Kerry is taking that the American people will develop instant amnesia, when John Kerry has called for an extra half-dollar tax per gallon on gasoline.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

HAYWORTH: That jacks up prices here in Vegas up to $2.75.

BEGALA: I understand.

HAYWORTH: And so talk all you want. We'll get a book of the month thing. It's the bash book of the month club. We had Dick Clarke last month. Now it's Bob Woodward.

I'm sure, Paul, you're going to pen something else before this election comes along that will bash everything.

(CROSSTALK)

HAYWORTH: But the fact is, let me speak for myself. I wrote Prince Bandar back when he had the temerity to compare the terrorists to freedom fighters in our American revolution. And I said he was dead wrong.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: Good for you. What I'm asking you is, why isn't President Bush standing up to him, instead of cutting corrupt deals to manipulate the gas prices?

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

HAYWORTH: Because-because

(CROSSTALK)

HAYWORTH: I don't believe-I don't believe-if you want to know corrupt deals, I'd refer you to a previous administration. This president is guts up. And he is not going to sacrifice American security for any short-term gain.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: And you're not troubled by Bush cutting a secret deal with the Saudi Arabians on gas prices?

HAYWORTH: You know, I admire Bob Woodward. He's a tremendously creative writer.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

CARLSON: Now, Mr. Mayor, you've just-you've heard the allegations that Paul just leveled. You've heard a lot from others in your

(CROSSTALK)

GOODMAN: Right. And I find them impossible.

CARLSON: Of course you do.

I want you to comment on another example of your party having gone completely insane. And that is the

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

GOODMAN: I'm not partisan.

CARLSON: I'm talking about the Democratic Party in the state of Nevada finished its convention...

GOODMAN: Nevada.

CARLSON: Nevada.

(LAUGHTER)

CARLSON: ... here yesterday.

And they called for at that convention the impeachment of the president of the United States. Don't you think that a party in the state of fever like yours, really deep into insane conspiracy theories, can't win in November?

GOODMAN: Oh, no, I think we're going to win.

I think that the Democrats will definitely carry the state.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

GOODMAN: We have a-we've got a very issue, that we are having a real problem with the good president. And I would never say anything about the office of the president, but this president came out and he made promises to Nevada about Yucca Mountain. That's a nuclear waste dump which is 90 miles away from the city of Las Vegas.

And this administration has not taken care of the issue as far as the transportation, the safety of the transportation of nuclear waste.

CARLSON: Well, wait.

(CROSSTALK)

GOODMAN: No, seriously. So we have to-we have to-we have to really vote for a Democrat, because Kerry has taken the position that he would not be supportive of a high-level nuclear waste dump here. That dump was planned many, many years ago.

CARLSON: It would be interesting to

(CROSSTALK)

GOODMAN: Before Las Vegas became the kind of city that we are right now. We're a major metropolitan area. And we have 1.6 million people

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: I would love to see where Senator Kerry would actually put the nuclear waste. But my question is, should the president be impeached? Do you agree with your party that he ought to be impeached?

GOODMAN: No. No, he should not be impeached, no. That's a

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: Do you tell your fellow Democrats that here in Nevada?

GOODMAN: I would certainly-I would certainly tell anybody that. He has deserved nothing that I know of which would deserve impeachment. You vote against him if you don't like what he did. That's the way the process should work.

BEGALA: Well, let me show you another reason, because I don't like what he's doing, another revelation about the president's relationship with the Saudis.

This is deeply troubling, particularly to a patriotic American like you, who has spoken against Saudi Arabia, which is a medieval dictatorship that hates Israel. Many of their people hate America. And it turns out that our vice president brought the-Prince Bandar, Saudi prince, into his office and show him secret battle plans that said nonforeign, which is a classification which means you can't show it to any foreigner, and, in fact, according to Woodward, informed this Arab prince about our war plans before the secretary of state himself even knew.

Now, that is an outrage, isn't it?

HAYWORTH: Well, it were true, sure. But the problem is, Condoleezza Rice and everybody else said, no, that didn't happen that way.

BEGALA: They didn't deny that. Dick Myers was on Wolf Blitzer's show yesterday, the chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff. Wolf Blitzer interviewed him and he said, yes, I think he got that right. That's how it happened.

That's what General Myers said.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BEGALA: I think it's an outrage that a foreigner is being shown our secrets at all.

HAYWORTH: So basically, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, jack Kennedy shouldn't have had dinner with David Ormsby-Gore and talked about any response the United States would make to the Soviet Union.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: I think there's a great difference between Great Britain and Saudi Arabia.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: Britain is a democracy. And Saudi Arabia is an anti- woman, anti-Israel

(CROSSTALK)

HAYWORTH: You know, this is interesting. I don't know if you can have it both ways in terms of multilateralism...

CARLSON: Exactly.

HAYWORTH: ... when you talk about, oh, let's wait and let's sacrifice our American security to the folks at the U.N. All I know is I take my oath of office to the Constitution of the United States

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: And not to Prince Bandar. Not to Prince Bandar and the Saudi princes.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: That's right.

(APPLAUSE)

CARLSON: Mr. Mayor, you're seeing right here, I think, sort of a preview of the way the Democrats are going to conduct their campaign.

John Kerry, whatever his personal charms may be, none are on display.

(LAUGHTER)

CARLSON: He's sour. He's sanctimonious. Hold on. He's the least charming-it's true. In person, I think he's pretty charming. In public, he's the least charming person in America. He's not a Vegas kind of man.

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

CARLSON: And I'm wondering-and I'm wondering-I'm wondering, what advice would you give to him to make him more sort of more Vegas, much more optimistic, more appealing? Because he's not appealing. What would you

(CROSSTALK)

GOODMAN: A bigger nose?

CARLSON: Really? You think that would work?

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

GOODMAN: No, in all sincerity, I had the privilege of meeting the senator when he came here to visit about two months ago. And he's a very nice guy and a regular guy, very interested in our community here, looked around. He had visited here when he was in the service and said that he has a great deal of affection for Las Vegas.

But the truth of the matter is, he doesn't portray...

CARLSON: He's a little tightly wound, isn't he?

GOODMAN: Doesn't convey the niceness that you see when you're with him in person when he's doing things publicly. And he has to learn how to be a little bit like myself, laid-back and maybe have a drink or two, who knows.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

BEGALA: Congressman, same thing, a different critique of President Bush. You were a professional broadcaster. You are as articulate a Republican as there is in this country. I love when you come on our show, because you're so good at what you do. It must have broken your heart to watch our president asked a simple question of what he's learned from his mistakes and sit there like Ralph Kramden. That must have broken your heart.

(LAUGHTER)

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

HAYWORTH: You know what I thought was fascinating?

First of all, two things here, two things here. Paul, I think this is truly a storied day, because it sounds like you're endorsing me for president, which I think is just amazing.

(LAUGHTER)

HAYWORTH: But, secondly here, the fact is, I think the press conference said a heck of a lot more about the state of the fourth estate or broadcasting, the fifth estate, in terms of this-how do you feel about this. Rather than who, what, when, where, why and how, it came down to the press corps talking amongst itself: How do you feel? What mistakes have you made? How do you feel on all these issues?

What we should do is deal with facts. And, quite frankly, had I been giving the president advice, I would have said go directly to the American people and talk directly to them, utilizing broadcast equipment and then come out for a press conference.

(CROSSTALK)

HAYWORTH: But he decided to do it that way.

(CROSSTALK)

HAYWORTH: And I still think there's something that says it may not be really very sweeping, high-flown rhetoric, but he speaks truth to power. He says what he means and he means what he says.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

BEGALA: Congressman Hayworth, as Tucker said at the top of the show, our homeland security director, Secretary Tom Ridge, is in Las Vegas today. It's no secret that terrorists would love to attack a place like Las Vegas. I wonder if you still feel proud that you voted to cut $3.5 billion in homeland security aid for first-responders that the mayor said he needs help with?

HAYWORTH: I didn't vote to cut aid. What I voted to do was to make sure that the quibbles of collective bargaining would not get in the way of national security, both at the federal, state and the local levels. And the fact is, we have to make sure we have money both for our troops in the field and for our first-responders. And we're going to make sure it's there.

CARLSON: Mr. Mayor...

GOODMAN: Yes.

CARLSON: ... when you-the Democratic Party of Nevada had its recent convention here, the keynote speaker was Bill Richardson, who is not from Nevada. He's from a state called New Mexico, which is not the same state. It's kind of pathetic they had to import someone from another state. Why weren't you the addressing...

GOODMAN: Well, I was.

CARLSON: As the keynote.

GOODMAN: Because I was down in San Diego on vacation.

HAYWORTH: Oh.

GOODMAN: No, just kidding.

(LAUGHTER)

GOODMAN: Just kidding.

But I want to talk about something serious, this historically. I think we're the safest city in the world. I think Las Vegas is as safe as they come. Each one of these hotel and casinos, they have their own miniature police force, as well as our metropolitan police department.

BEGALA: Is Washington giving you the aid you need?

GOODMAN: No, absolutely not. That's something the Conference Of Mayors is dedicated to getting on. And that is the first-responders that are the cities, our police officers, the cities. We're the ones who have to address an event, God forbid that it takes place. And we're the last ones to get the money. It comes from the feds. It goes to the state. It goes to the county and then down to us.

(BELL RINGING)

GOODMAN: And by the time it gets to us, we don't have it.

CARLSON: OK, well, that's an entirely different show. And, unfortunately, we are out of time. I'd like ask you more questions about where all the money goes here in Nevada.

(LAUGHTER)

CARLSON: But thank you very much, Mayor Goodman.

Congressman J.D. Hayworth, thank you very much.

HAYWORTH: Thank you very much.

END