FACE THE NATION

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FACE THE NATION

Sunday, August 1, 2004

GUESTS: Senator JOHN KERRY, (D-MA) Democratic Presidential Candidate Senator JOHN EDWARDS, (D-NC) Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate NINA EASTON The Boston Globe MICHAEL DUFFY Time Magazine

MODERATOR: BOB SCHIEFFER - CBS News

This is a rush transcript provided for the information and convenience of the press. Accuracy is not guaranteed.

In case of doubt, please check with FACE THE NATION - CBS NEWS 202-457-4481

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Face the Nation (CBS News) - Sunday, August 1, 2004

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BOB SCHIEFFER, host:

Today on FACE THE NATION, the boys on the bus. We'll talk to John Kerry and John Edwards as the campaigns hit the road.

The Democrats are off and riding after their convention but so is President Bush. Suddenly, buses are the vehicles of choice. President Bush and his caravan rolled across the industrial heartland this weekend crisscrossing the same territory as John Kerry and his bus brigade. We caught up with Kerry and Edwards in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. You'll hear what they had to say about the 9/11 report, the economy, the war and their faith.

Then we'll have a political roundtable with Kerry biographer Nina Easton of The Boston Globe and Mike Duffy of Time magazine, and I'll have a final word on how this campaign stacks up against the last one. But first, Kerry and Edwards on FACE THE NATION.

Announcer: FACE THE NATION with CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer. And now, from CBS News in Washington, Bob Schieffer.

SCHIEFFER: And good morning again.

Well, if anybody believes that campaigns start on Labor Day and people don't really start paying attention to politics until after the World Series, well, maybe they used to but that was then and this is now. The polls are telling us that more people than ever are paying attention, and President Bush and John Kerry are doing their very best this weekend to get their attention. Both campaigns hit the road through the heartland yesterday, and they got big crowds which was the first thing we asked John Kerry and John Edwards about when we talked to them in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

Gentlemen, welcome. You seem to be drawing some pretty good crowds here.

Senator JOHN KERRY (Democratic Presidential Candidate): We're very excited about it. We had 25,000 people at 9:00 last night in Harrisburg and an unbelievable crowd here in Greensburg in the rain. We're thrilled.

SCHIEFFER: Well, let's get right to it. Senator Kerry, you endorsed the 9-11 Commission report in toto. Now some Democrats are saying, `Maybe we ought to step back for a minute.' They're questioning one of the main recommendations and that is to put this intelligence chief in the White House.

Sen. KERRY: No, I believe it belongs there, and I'm very comfortable with that decision. In fact, it is there today, and one of the reasons you have a problem is that you haven't known what the right hand is doing vs. the left hand. If you're going to really lead a war on terror, I think it's critical to have the kind of direct accountability of the president. I think the American people want that.

SCHIEFFER: So you're not worried that it might taint...

Sen. KERRY: I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why I'm not because, number one, you have a tremendous ability for oversight from the Congress itself in a renewed, strengthened oversight structure that the committee itself, the commission, has put together. That's number one.

Number two, there's also a civil liberties rights oversight structure that they recommend. I think between the two, you have adequate ability to be able to have the oversight. If I'm

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commander in chief, the president of the United States responsible for the safety and security

of the country, I want the ability to hold somebody accountability directly within the White

House. And I think the American people want the ability to know that they have that

accountability with the president.

SCHIEFFER: You made your speech at the convention. You had some criticisms of the administration. The president wasted no time in coming back with his version of things and basically what he said is, `Look, his idea of fixing the economy is just to raise taxes.' He said, `That's all he's got on his mind, raising taxes.'

Sen. KERRY: Well, you know, it's really interesting. This administration has had a problem with truth for some period of time. The Washington Post wrote an article in the front page about a month ago where they said very straightforwardly that this has been the most negative campaign in history by the Republicans and that they are making false charges. Now here's the fact. John Edwards and I provide a tax cut to 98 percent of Americans. Ninety-nine percent of American businesses will get a tax cut under our economic plan. All we're doing is rolling back the tax cut for the wealthiest Americans who earn more than $200,000 a year, and that's what President Bush is trying to protect.

John and I believe the middle class deserves a champion, the middle class deserves a break. And we're determined to give them a real break with health-care reform, with lower premiums, with help sending their kids to college, with help on the child-care tax credit which we raised. We help families, and they want help and need it.

SCHIEFFER: Let me ask...

Senator JOHN EDWARDS (Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate): Can I just add one thing to that?

SCHIEFFER: Yes.

Sen. EDWARDS: And on top of that, we're going to get rid of tax breaks for American companies that are outsourcing American jobs, and instead give tax breaks to American companies that are keeping jobs here in America, and I know that's very important to people who are out there struggling.

SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you this, Senator Edwards. It appears that the White House strategy is going to be to picture you as a pretty boy, a lightweight. Does that bother you?

Sen. EDWARDS: No, it doesn't bother me. I think that first of all I have shown through my 51 years of life a toughness and a fight. From the time I was very young, you know, growing up when I was very young in the mill village, working in the mill myself when I was young to help pay my way through college, I spent almost two decades fighting a against teams of lawyers in courtrooms on behalf of kids and families. I fought the same fights in the Senate. No, no, I'm ready for this fight.

Sen. KERRY: John and I are talking about a positive vision for the country. We're not labeling people. We're trying to talk about how we're going to provide health care. Four million Americans have lost their health care, Bob. People are desperate because of the cost of health care. We have a plan, we have a plan to lower the cost of health care for Americans. We have a a plan to revitalize manufacturing in America, to create high technology, new jobs that pay more than the jobs that we're losing overseas. These are the things that Americans care about. That's what we're going to talk about.

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SCHIEFFER: You said in your speech at the convention, you made some very specific policy

criticisms, but it seemed to me that the underlying message was you were saying, `You just

can't trust these people.' Is that what you were saying? Do you think this administration is

lying to the American people?

Sen. KERRY: We have lost credibility in the world, Bob.

SCHIEFFER: Would you go so far as to say they're liars?

Sen. KERRY: I've never used that word, and I don't like--that's not what I'm trying to do. What I'm trying to do is offer an alternative that restores America's credibility. Everybody knows that just saying there are weapons of mass destruction didn't make it so. Just saying you can fight a war on the cheap didn't make it so. Ignoring the advice of generals as to how many troops we needed didn't make our troops safer who were there. I will and I can fight a more effective war on terror that makes America safer. I will be a commander in chief who uses the lessons of war personally in order to be able to do what our troops need to be protected and what our country needs to be defended.

SCHIEFFER: You were very critical on the war but yet your own plans for the war, it seems to me, have been a little vague.

Sen. KERRY: Not vague at all, Bob.

SCHIEFFER: I mean, for example, we know that you say we need to put our alliances together again, but you know it's kind of like that old joke about the coach hollering off to the team on the field, `Give the ball to Leroy,' and finally the guys say, `Look, Coach, Leroy doesn't want the ball.'

Sen. KERRY: Yeah.

SCHIEFFER: It's one thing to say put the alliances together, but we don't seem to be able to find anybody to be in this alliance.

Sen. KERRY: The problem is that this administration has lost credibility. They've pushed countries away. They've never offered a true sharing of the kind of responsibility and decision-making that is necessary to bring people to the table, and I think what you need is a fresh start. I don't think there's a leader in the world who will tell you that there--or even an American senator or congressman who's traveled abroad who doesn't understand what's happened to America in the world today. We've lost respect. We've lost influence, and I think that a fresh start changes the equation, particularly changes it, Bob, for leaders in other countries who have great difficulty right now associating themselves with our policy and with the United States because of the way this administration has burned those bridges. I know that I can do a better job of providing a rationale for those countries to understand their stake in the outcome, and I believe we can put together a very different kind of alliance.

SCHIEFFER: Talking about a new start...

Sen. EDWARDS: Can I just add one thing to that very briefly?

SCHIEFFER: Sure.

Sen. EDWARDS: I was at NATO not long ago and I'm convinced myself that with John as president and with the kind of work that I know he can do, we can actually get NATO involved in the securing of Iraq. I also believe that with him as president, we can make sure

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that other countries in the region--and this is critical, Iran, Syria--are not interfering with

trying to establish a democratic Iraq, and bring other countries like France and Germany and

Russia to the reconstruction efforts so the Iraq economy can get off the ground and we can

get some debt forgiveness.

SCHIEFFER: Yesterday, Vice President Cheney said there were only four senators who voted to authorize military action in Iraq and then voted against funding it, and there were--and he said you two are two of the four.

Sen. EDWARDS: We believe that the president needed the authority to deal with Saddam Hussein and that him being gone is a very good thing. Both of us believe that. We did not know that the president would not do--use his authority the way he should use it, that he wouldn't do the work to set up an international coalition, that he wouldn't have a plan--who could have ever predicted he'd have no plan--no serious plan to win the peace? And it was important for us--we had been out talking about this from the very beginning--the president wasn't doing the things necessary, putting our troops at risk, putting American taxpayers' dollars into a sinking hole, and it was important for us when this vote came, Bob, we had-this was up or down, yes or no. Do you believe we should give this president whatever he's asking for and he'll come back next year and ask for the same thing? It was important for us to say no this policy is not working. What we believe needs to be done is we need to change course.

SCHIEFFER: Do you envision having to send more troops to Iraq?

Sen. KERRY: No, no.

SCHIEFFER: Is it possible you'd have to do that?

Sen. KERRY: I don't envision it. I believe that my leadership and my plan to approach these countries--and I'm not negotiating it publicly, Bob. I'll tell you. I know what I want to do. I know what I believe can be achieved. And I have colleagues of mine in the Senate who have come back from various trips who have related to me what they believe is possible. I think a fresh start for America, a new president with new credibility, has the capacity to bring people to the table who are not there today, and if we pursue a very different foreign policy, not just with respect to Iraq but with respect to North Korea, AIDS, Africa, with respect to less developed countries, global warming, nuclear proliferation in Russia and other countries, if we demonstrate an America that has a foreign policy that is smarter, more engaged and more respectful of the world, we're going to bring people to our side...

SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you one question...

Sen. KERRY: ...and we will avoid having to put--we're not only not going to put additional troops there, that's the way to bring our troops home.

SCHIEFFER: You...

Sen. KERRY: And that's what I want to do.

SCHIEFFER: On a totally different subject, you said in your speech that you don't wear your religion on your sleeve. Were you saying that President Bush has crossed some kind of line and put his religion into the political world?

Sen. KERRY: I believe the administration on occasion has unabashedly done so. Look at the way they made--I'm for faith-based intervention in the lives of our communities. I support--

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