Transcripts For WMAR This Week 20100718

the tea party movement. we'll have george will, clarence page, and two former white house insiders. nicolle wallace, and dee dee meyers. and as always, "the sunday funnies." >> south korea has new robots to detect and kill intruders. meanwhile, they have robots along the u.s. bodier that say "hola." good morning. as the economy continues to sputter and violence escalates in afghanistan, vice president joe biden finds himself at the center of the critical policy decisions. he's the point man on iraq as well. he's in charge of managing the federal government's $862 billion stimulus package. that's where we began in the secretary of war suite on the white house grounds. i know some in the white house feel stimulus, health care reform. and the public thinks country is on the wrong track overwhelmingly. are you not getting enough credit? >> look, these are gigantic packages to deal with the gigantic problem we inherited. a lot of people involved don't know what is inside the package. you have, for example, mr. boehner already calling for the reform of what just passed on wall street. we have had meat inspection years ago, they didn't like it. people will look back and say, why shouldn't we have a consumer entity looking at whether or in the you can give someone a mortgage with no documentation, a teaser rate, no downpayment. people don't know that. people don't know a lot of what is going on in the recovery act. understandably. so much has been flowing our way. we're facing good guys that are all about repeal and repeat. repeal what we're going and go back. repeal the incentives for industry to invest in solar energy. we peel the health care bill that allows you to keep your kid on your health care policy. pre-existing conditions cannot deny you health care. this is july. the election is in november. we have to make our case. compared to the alternative, i think we'll get a fair amount of credit by november. i think we'll be fine. >> the reason you're not getting enough credit is because the public doesn't understand e.g. that happened? >> nor could they or should they. before our economic package was in place, 3.7 million jobs lost in the first six months. the last six months of this year, the first six months of this year, we created almost 600,000 private jobs in the private market. that's not enough to make up for the 8 million jobs lost in the recession. but people will start to focus on exactly what we're doing. look, i'm convinced, at least from sitting around my dad's kitchen table and the people i grew up with is when things are really tough economically, and the country is in trouble, they don't expect an answer. they expect to be reassured that we're moving in the right direction. >> but they don't think they are. >> i don't think they know the details of what is going on. for example, the insurance industry spending money to make out the health care bill as a god awful tragedy. now the health care numbers are going up. why? they're figuring out that small businesses are going to get a 30% tax break. there's a lot. i would use health care as an example. it went from a barrage of advertising against it. just like wall street reform. hundreds of millions of dollars spent lobbying against this. it's rational control. that's all it is. a turning around of what the republicans did, what is let wall street run wild. when you say to people, oh, we just went out and had a regular toir reform bill. where i come from, it's like, okay, what does that mean? they don't know what it means yet, understandably. i think it takes time. >> the famous saying in washington. a gaffe is when a politician accidentally tells the truth. robert gibbs experienced that. >> i have never had a gaffe. >> you can't relate. he said that enough seats are in play in the house for the democrats to possibly lose the house. empirically true. how bad will be losses be for democrats? >> i don't think it will be bad at all. i think we're going shock the heck out of everybody. i've been saying this now. when you and i went to north carolina, you followed me on the recovery trip. i said it then. when people take a look at what has happened since we have taken office in november and compare to it the alternative, we're going to be in great shape. here's the deal. robert gibbs said what he believes, what i believe, what the president believes, we're going win the house and senate. we're not going to lose either one of those bodies. this is july. november, and at the time, the most vulnerable time any public official finds himself in is when hay have no opponent. look at harry reid. i got banged around when i said there's a 55% chance he'll win. when he was on the other side of the barrage, he was in trouble. now the last poll is up seven points. i bet he wins. i think the reports of our demise are premature. >> the naacp had a convention. they passed a resolution saying that elements of the tea party are racist. do you think so? >> elements involved with some of the tea party folks expressed racist views. we saw it on television. i wouldn't characterize the tea party adds racist. members, people on the periphery of their things have expressed unfortunate comments. it was all over tv, your network. black congressman walking up the steps of the capitol. i don't believe, the president doesn't believe that the tea party is a racist organization. don't believe that. very conservative. very different views on government and a whole lot of thimgs. it's not a racist organization. >> one of the big things is the economy. nonfinancial institutions are sitting on $1.8 trillion in cash that could be spent expanding, creating jobs. a lot of members of the business community is saying that the reason it's not being spent is because the business administration is convinced that the obama administration is anti-business. why do you think they're not spending that money? >> three months ago, the business leaders were in the white house saying, you're going to be surprised on the upside how many people we're going to be hiring. a couple of things have happened. they didn't anticipate the potential collapse of the european economy. the so-called "euro zone." that put the brakes on a lot of things. i think the uncertainty they had has been unsettled by the passage of the reforms. they didn't know which way they were going to go, how much was going happen. i think there's increased certainty now that the major reform is law. it's passed. they're going to know how to deal with it. you see cyberlization in the euro zone. i think that will help. i think you're going to see them beginning to move. >> you said that the stimulus is working. you said in the past week, 3 million jobs being created by the stimulus so far. since the stimulus passed, more than 3 million jobs have been lost. before you took office, 3 million jobs were lost. was the stimulus too small? >> a lot of people argued at the time it was too small. >> a lot of people in your administration. >> yeah some in our administration. there is a reality. in order to get what we got passed, we had to get republican votes. we found three, three, and finally got it passed. there's the reality of whether or not the republicans are willing to play. whether or not they're just about repeal and repeat the old policies or if they're really wanting to do something. >> if you didn't have the legislative reality, it would have been bigger? >> i think so. what we offered was slightly bigger than that. the recovery package, everybody's talking about it, it's over. we're spending more this summer, i'm calling it the summer of recovery. we have two, three times more highway projects going. significant in broadband. high-speed rail. wind energy. where will the new jobs come from? that's what we're laying the foundation for. this is a hard slog, man. and it's counterintuitive to say that someone in delaware who lost their jobs, by the way, we saved or created 3 million jobs and we lost 3 million. over 3million people now working would be out of work but for this. there's an overwhelming consens consensus. we're not losing jobs. we're creating jobs. the argument's gone from are we losing jobs or creating them and creating them fast enough. >> turns to afghanistan. a quote from jonathan alter's new book. at the con solution on of an interview, biden was adamant. in july of 2011, you'll see a whole of of people moving out. he turned and said, bet on it. did you say that to jon alter? what did you mean? >> i did. if you read two or three paragraphs above it, he made a good point. a lot in the military felt they outmaneuvered the president to make july 2011 meaningless. not true. everybody signed on the a beginning of a transition. >> what is a whole lot of people moving? >> we're going to have over 100,000 people there. >> more. >> well i'm just talking americans. there will be a draw skrndown of forces as we transition. 34 districts in afghanistan. the plan is, as we train up the afghanis, we'll begin in august, say, you have this province, we no longer need our forces in that area. there will be a transition. i was responding to the idea that the president had been outmaneuvered. i didn't so much mean numbers. there will be a transition. >> let's talk about the present in afghanistan. marjah did not go as well as hoped. ka kandahar has been delayed. how is the new way forward? where are we in that? losing, treading water? where are we? >> it's too early to make a judgment. we don't have all the troops in the so-called "surge" in place yet. >> we're losing a lot of troops. >> unfortunately, everyone knew that in these summer months, when they can infiltrate from pakistan under the cover of foliage and the rest that is open that there would be more deaths. that's been the pattern. now we're engaging them more. we believe that the policy that the military signed on to, put together initially, signed on to, is, in fact, going to work. let me define work. we're making considerable progress against al qaeda, our primary target. we're taking out significant numbers of the leadership in al qaeda. and we're in the process of training up afghani forces to put them in a position to deal with their own insurgents. there's real attempt and a policy of trying figure out how to reconcile those many the taliban who are doing it for the pay into the government of afghanistan. all this is just beginning. and we knew it's going to be a tough slog. it's much too premature to make a judgment until the military says we should look ate, which is in kes. >> a recent incident with the commanding general, now the excommanding general. i wondered, since you were one of the people mentioned disparagingly. i know he called you to apologize. >> he did. >> what was your reaction. >> i didn't take it personally at all. compared to what happens in politics, that was a piece of cake. i wasn't the clou. i was the guy that was, in fact, their problem, they thought. i agree with the policy that the president put in place. i was asked to, and i did on my own, survey, i think, six four-star generals. every one said he had to go. the president made the right decision. he changed the personalities but not the policy. put the strongest guy in the u.s. military in place. i think it was the absolute necessary thing to do. president didn't take it personally. i didn't. i met with mcchrystal. the president did. he was apologetic. he knew they went way beyond. we also knew that if a sergeant or lieutenant did that, no one could say. >> why did they think of you like hat? >> because i had been someone who offered a plan that was different in degree. but, you know, again, i -- some day i'll be able to lay out exactly what the plan i offered was. it would be inappropriate to do that. it was so close to the plan that ended up being put in place. i was very challenging to some of the assertion made. if you notice, we have an insurgency plan along the spine of the country. we're in the engaged in nation building. the original discussion was about that. we have a date where we're going go hook and see whether it's working. we have a timetable for transition. to conclude, when -- when general petraeus was picked and the day in the office, it was the day we were supposed to go downstairs in the situation room, they call it, to discuss the overall policy. everyone's there. i said, david, there is no daylight between your position and mine. and he said, i know that. will you tell people that? >> let's go to iraq. this is your first interview since returning. there's a tremendous stalemate there. just this week in washington, the foreign minister pleaded for more u.s. engagement. we believe there's a role to be played in the process. you once advocated for a three-way partition in iraq. you were not confident that the government was strong to having a strong government. >> the iraqi people would rally behind a strong government. will look out for their interests is fund mentally flawed. lit not happen in anybody's lifetime here, including the pages. >> sit possible you were right? >> i don't want to debate history here. i never called for partition. i called for a central government with considerable autonomy. >> three regions. >> well, it was to allow them more autonomy. like curdistan. like anbar province. there's 325-plus members of what they call their core, their parliament. no one part one more than 99 seats. they're in negotiations to figure out how to allocate the power within the government. in other words, share power. it's about just that. and it's under way. it's going to happen. there will be a central government with control of its foreign policy. with control of the military. you will see that there are going to be cig can't amounts of autonomy in each of the areas that exists. the constitution there calls for that. it took the dutch six months to form a parliament the time before last. it took the folks in the netherlands 280-some days. so, this is their first crack at democracy. politics has broken out. not war. we're moving in that direction. >> and the combat mission ends at the end of august. can that happen? >> there is a transition government. a government in place that is working. iraqi security is being provided by iraqis. we'll have 50,000 troops there. we'll have brought home 95,000. there's though one in the military that thinks there's any reason we cannot do that. i don't have a doubt in my mind that we'll be able to meet the commitment. lit not affect the physical stability of iraq. >> you spoke to the leader of southern sudan recently. >> i did. >> and the referendum whether they can break way from sudan. there's a lot of concern that the election will be riddled with fraud. >> a valid concern. >> there is waning interest in the region. will you pledge that the u.s. will make sure that war doesn't break out? >> we're doing everything in our power to make sure that the election on referendum is viewed as legitimate and fair. that's why weave been pushing. it must be viewed as credible. to keep that country, that region from deteriorating. the last thing we need is another failed state in the region. i'm hopeful. we're on it full time. i believe that we'll be able to -- they'll be able to pull off, with our help, and the u.n.'s help, they've be able to pull off a credible election. >> what is the larger strategy to combat islamic terrorism, or islamic fascism as some people call it. it pops up everywhere. what is the larger vision? how does the u.s. come fwhat? >> to larger vision is to appeal to the moderate states. the second piece is in those areas which the radicals can feed on and breed off of is to try to hem stabilize those governments. not alone. but with the rest of the world. and part of that is building strong countries around them. as well as inside. it's a long-term deal. i think we're making progress. and president obama -- i got asked the other day, well, you ran for president, you know. you're vice president. i said, we got the order right. even if i had been a great president and got elected, it would have taken me four years to do what he did in one month. the muslim world, and the moderate muslim world no longer thinks it's us or them. the most important one we're finishing up right now, god willing, is iraq. imagine iraq as a stable country in that part of the world. a positive sif outcome. >> thanks for spning your time with us. >> thank you, jake. our "roundtable" is next. then later, "the sunday funnies." bristol palin and levi johnston announced their engagement. sarah palin says she can't wait to start shooting. ♪ [ man ] if it was simply about money, every bank loan would be a guarantee of success. at ge capital, loaning money is the start of the relationship, not the end. i work with polaris every day. at ge capital, we succeed only when they do. whoo! awesome! yes! we've got to get you out of the office more often. ♪ my turn to drive. ♪ first is 4g, but plays nice with 3g as well. first has an 8-megapixel hd camera and can stream live video to the web. first has an hdmi out. ♪ first shares wi-fi with 8 devices at once. first is not stephen furst, who played flounder in animal house. first has a kickstand for watching video. what will you do first with evo, the first 4g phone? only from sprint, the now network. deaf, hard-of-hearing and people with speech disabilities access www.sprintrelay.com. coming up next, "the roundtable" and "the sunday funnies." the palin family bomb shell. >> bristol and levi johnston are not only back together, they're getting married. >> i came home from work and there was rose petals in the shape of heart on my bed. he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. >> we have a statement out. they say, bristol, at 19, is mow a young adult. we rob vousobviously want what for our children. bristol and levi, not one of the topics we will not be discussing this morning. george will, nicolle wallace, and dee dee myers.rning. george, the vice president said we're not engaging in nation building in afghanistan. if you look at the cover of this week's "newsweek" are we doing nation building in afghanistan or not? >> we are. it's what counterinsurgency is as defined by david petraeus. it's to proe toekt the people, make them loyal. invetting the government, in effect. that's nation-building. the policy in afghanistan is much more ambitious than the bush policy. the vice president said we're making progress against al qaeda, which is our primary target. we're taking out significant number of leadership? al qaeda. as you established three weeks ago, you asked leon panetta, how many al qaeda do you think are in afghanistan? he said, 50 to 100, maybe less. >> one thing i found interesting. toward the end of the interview when he was talking about how great it would be to have iraq this shining example of democracy in the middle of the middle east. does that resonate? >> imagine that. these are the kinds of arguments you make when public support starts to wane. as the commander in chief, and obama gets decent marks in his capacity as commander in chief. republicans are encouraged that general petraeus is headed to afghanistan. where i think this will get complicated, is when he starts talking about timetables. when they promise to pull troops out. it deflates the morale of the military. when they hear them talk out of both sides of their mouth, it's difficult. >> let's talk about the timetable. the first time, the vice president saying when he told jon alter, a lot of troops leaving in 2011, he said it could be as few as 2,000. >> we're hearing the rollbacks in the rhetoric as far as how much of a pullout we're going have next year. as the administration has said again and again, it's only the beginning of the draw down that they're shooting for. the president says it's contingent on conditions. nevertheless, any effort you make to build internal security and krunify that country is -- general petraeus is trying ah valiantly to organize that. that's nation building. i agree with george. the problem for obama is his own base remembers that this was the good war we were not supposed to get bogged down in. and he's become more ambitious in his goals. >> and dee dee, in july 2011, only 2,000 troops leave afghanistan, i can't imagine that liberals and progressives are going to be happy about that? >> right. the president went through a process of thinking through the strategy in afghanistan. he spent hours and hours and hours on it. he came close to where general petraeus was. he sold to it congress by pairing wit a deadline. i thought it was interesting to hear the vice president talk about it as the beginning of transition. when the time comes, if the administration continues to try to finesse that, which they have been doing, think you'll see angry liberals. we have already seen it. people signed on the this plan on the notion it would be a specific period of time, in the a long period sof time, that we wouldn't with there for ten years, 20 years, nation building. and i think the language is leaving wiggle room. >> something tell us vice president said. you and i talked about. you disagree with his assertion that the wall street reform will that the president will sign this wednesday will end uncertainty among big business. >> the vice president was responding to your point about all this mountain of cash that businesses have that they're not spending because to invest is to make a wager on the future and they're uncertain about the future. the vice president referred to the reform bill as another one of our gigantic packages. 2,300-page legislation. someone said there are three unintended consequences on every page. there are anonymous rule makings yet to come. it's bound to spread uncertainty and what we had when the new deal came to a grinding halt. capital went on strike paralyzed by uncertainty. >> but the public is saying, what will the government to 'do to protect us? it came after several decades of fewer and fewer regulations. less and less oversight. how many pages of oversight would you like? the regulations have not been written yet. the regulations for the day-to-day operations of all this. you're going to see some kind of consumer advocacy that wasn't there before. >> talk to people in finance and they say we got into the crisis because the housing market became overheated. that's one of the most regulated markets. fitness is one of the most heavy regulated industries. we increased the political involvement. >> i had a broerk try to get me to sign on to an interest-only mortgage. it's been written out of existeexis existen existence. >> democrats admit the regulations will do nothing to protect us from a similar collapse. >> that's note true. it won't completely prevent but most people think it will help prevent another one. and create additional tools should another crisis occur. you can't fight in the last war. regulating the last collapse is short-sided. people said a lot of the same things after the last round of big regulation after the '29 collapse. they under the out not be true. i think george is right in the short term as we go from the legislative to regulatory phase. it will be a couple of years of writing the details. that will be a tough time. the markets didn't go crazy on thursday and friday, i think that's encouraging. they went crazy to the response that there was lower than expected profits on wall street. >> people in the white house think that people would be paying attention to the fact that this is a big accomplishment. for a president to achieve this, health care reform, the stimulus package, the president deserves credit. the that true, do you think? >> yeah, i think it's amazing how much he's been able to do, whether you agree or disagree with the content of the packages. the administration and president are not getting much credit. 9.5. you still have millions of people -- we lost 7 million jobs in the last couple of years. we have gone from losing 750,000 jobs a month in the spring of last year to creating somewhere around 100,000 private sector jobs a month now. that's a huge turn around. but unemployment is still 9.5. >> cam paining across the country in what it calls recovery summer. they say we really need another similar lus because the first two did not bring us a recovery. >> i appreciate the proper latin. i want to show a couple of numbers in terms of polling numbers for the president that are not positive. the results of a new abc news-"washington post" poll. last month, 50% approved of the handling of the economy. this month, 43%. a seven-point drop in a month. as unemployment has gone up, up, up, the president's approval has gone down, down, down. if you look at the poll on the public's confidence in different groups handle the economy. obama, 43%. democrats in congress, 32%. republicans in congress, 26%. >> okay. hang on the that 26 and look at this number. 51% of the same voters in that poll want republicans to take control of congress. they don't even trust us and they want us to take control of congress. that's how desperately they want to stop obama's agenda. i think it's noble. i think it's noble to defend obama-care. it's ignited a disdain for the expansion of the federal government. it's not just among tea partiers. the abc-post poll has the former coalition calling themselves independents. >> the country is not saying we like republicans. they're saying we don't like the current agenda. the republicans are standing there. >> we have a public in the midst of high unemployment that wants less spending. that was not predicted by this administration. it was counter to what liberals normally call for. counter to what worked for fdr. we can talk about the great depression, george. but the fact is that i think if unemployment weren't so bad, people would feel better about obama care and the stimulus packages. as long as unemployment is up, the mick will not appreciate how the president handles the economy. >> before the 36th election and after the '36 election in which roosevelt carried 46 of 48 states, democrats wanted him to be more conservative. 18% wanted to increase spending. >> they were enjoying social security. >> ronald reagan found himself with low approval ratings. >> his numbers track with obama closely. he did the opposite. crafted an agenda that apooep peeled to the political center. obama seems only interested in expanding government and increasing its roll in people's lives. i think lit is have the opposite imt pact that reagan's did. >> the naacp had its convention. hay passed a resolution, not yet released to the public, that condemns racism among the tea party movement. here's ben jealous. they have called congressmen the n-word, the f-word. we have seen them carry racist signing. and when ever that happens, the membership tries to shirk responsibility. if the tea part wants to be respected, they have to act in a responsible way. >> clarn, why did they get so much time? was this an important priority to them? >> rightly or wrongly, they're voicing the sentiments of some. we can debate. it's a he said, he said dispute. a year ago, we were talking about is the naacp still relevant when you have a black president? now they're on page one. this is probably the most talked about issue of the week. they're diametrically opposed to the tea party. it's been played out on talk shows. we're doing a good job of it. >> precisely. there's thog like name-calling to enable to naacp to make a desperate lunge for its vanished relevance. a he said, he said. it's a he said and four television cameras monitoring that event say it didn't happen. >> a lot of noise. >> a top radio host has offered $100,000 to anyone that can prove it happened. >> look at the science. the statements that have been made. look at the blatant racial insensitivities. some of it on don't sides. the fact of matter is we do have the modern version of what you and i remember as white backlash in the '60s. the hard hats after the civil rights revolution. they said it's more than just race. same thing now. we're talking about deficits and big spending and all. there's a backlash against obama's election. that, some people say, looks racist. >> what the vice president said was that he didn't think the tea party movement was racist but that there were racist elements of it. i think anybody that watches the parades and sees the photographs can say there are individuals that are part of the movement that say thing that are racist. in fact, martin and mekler said, like all mooufvements, the tea party as its fringe. as patriots, we'll continue to condemn the fringe. that is an acknowledgment that they, too, see racism in some of these events. >> and a very important one. i toent understand why this is difficult. forget about the leadership of the tea party movement. any member of the powerful promising and very relevant movement should stand up and condemn anything that you wouldn't want to see your children participate in. i can't imagine any parent in america would approve of any of the racist science at any rally. i think this is easy. not about the laider trip. waiting for the leaders of the movement. forget about that. any individual at rally where any sign or insinuation of racism appears should condemn it. litting on strengthen the movement and make them more relevant. zwli dwrae with everything but one. there is a role for leaders. it's an easy thing to say what you just said. the members should do it. but so should the leaders. it's an op ed piece in politico. there are elements, not the core elements. i don't think the movement is raisist. the racist elements should be repudiated. it seems like a mo brainer. >> the tea party like any other movement wants to win over the moderates. if they're an embarrassment to theow conservatives they break up their own coalition. >> there seems to be people that said the on lex election of oba seemed we reached a post racial america. >> i expect we'll be post racial when we are post racism. this, was, i think, an awakens of conservatives that were rather shocked by obama's election, for not just race. the philosophical swing was big as well. >> we only have 30 seconds. cothe tea party leaders i just read their op eds. do they have a point that we demand people to condemn isms? >> i don't recall, i may be wrong. i don't recall a clam more from bush's critics. >> one think that "the roundtable" will weigh in on, aaron sorkin buying the rights to john edwards' story. a and we teamed up with politifact. of one financial company that grew stronger through the crisis. when some lost their way, this company led the way. by protecting clients and turning uncertainty into confidence. what if that story were true? it is. ♪ and now, "in memoriam." >> if you can't make the tough decisions, you can't be the boss. >> she's had all kinds of different books, and you know, comic form. and you can. ♪ >> this week, the pentagon released the names of 19 soldiers and marines killed in afghanistan. ♪ >> we'll be right back. and the cars are whipping by, and all you can do is take a snapshot of the way the road looked 5 minutes ago, how would you know when to cross the road? 9 out of 10 organizations still make decisions this way every day... using out-of-date information. the organizations that are most competitive are going to be the ones that can make sense of what they learn as fast they learn it. that's what i'm working on. i'm an ibmer. let's build a smarter planet. hi, how are you doing?ne. hi, evelyn. i know it's been a difficult time since your mom passed away. yeah. i miss her a lot, but i'm okay. wow. that was fast. this is the check i've been waiting for. mom had a guaranteed acceptance life insurance policy through the colonial penn program, and this will really help with the cost of her final expenses. is it affordable? 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