Transcript for February 26

MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask about Iraq because it affects California in a very big way. These are the numbers of Californians lost in the war: killed, 242; wounded, 1,857. You now have 20,000 Californians serving in Iraq, 4,000 of them, National Guard and reserves. Are you concerned that the National Guard in your state is being depleted by the war?

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER: Sure, it has an effect. And let me tell you something. It really—it kills me every time when I hear that one of our officers or someone from the military or National Guard dies over there. It is terrible. And, you know, I got this morning, for instance, terrible news that Gregory John Bailey, one of our CHPs, died last night—yesterday because he was run over by a drunk driver and while he was ticketing another driver. And when you hear news like that, it is terrible. And, of course, in this case, my thoughts and prayers go out to his family and to his friends. You know, it’s always—those are the terrible moments when you’re—when you’re governor. When you get this kind of information, you put the flag at half-mast, and you go to some of the funerals and so on.

MR. RUSSERT: But you said in your speech the other night to the Republican Convention, ‘We are one huge storm, one big earthquake away from disaster.’ And I was thinking about that as I was reading the Oakland Tribune, and they said this: “Fewer than half of the California National Guard’s battalions are combat-ready because they are stretched thin by foreign deployments and because troops are quitting faster than they are being replaced. Some high-ranking Guard officers question whether these units can respond effectively to floods, fires, earthquakes, riots, terrorist attacks in California. Troops are increasingly quitting the Guard. California has a 22 percent attrition rate, which it concedes is ‘alarming.’ At the same time, fewer recruits are enlisting. California missed every recruitment and retention standard set for it by the Pentagon during the last federal—last year.” Are you concerned that the Guard is not going to be ready for the floods, for the earthquake because of the shrinking numbers?

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER: I am not concerned about that. I am concerned that we are not acting fast enough to rebuild our levees. Because our levee system is 100 years old, and we have levees that were built 100 years ago by farmers. We don’t even know what they were built of. I think that they’re unsafe. They’re worse and worse conditions than the ones in New Orleans. And I think it is irresponsible for us not to act quickly, and this is why I declared an emergency and also asked the federal government and federal disaster to declare federal disaster in order to get the money as quickly as possible, in order to make the legislators respond as quickly as possible. Because there’s thousands of people that are vulnerable. Thousands of homes and the farms and everything like this. We could have a worse disaster than New Orleans. So I’m concerned about that, that we’re not really doing enough to protect the people. Because that’s our ultimate job.

Now, when it comes to the National Guard, I think that we have to just do everything possible. Remember it’s war time. People feel more reluctant to join because they don’t want to be sent over, maybe, to Iraq. So it is a difficult moment, but I think it’s something that is doable, and we always just have to work together on this.

MR. RUSSERT: The Washington Post today has a headline, “Governor’s Challenge Cuts the National Guard Funds,” that they’re going to challenge President Bush in your meetings here in Washington about cutting National Guard funds. Will you be joining your fellow governors in challenging the president?

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER: Oh, absolutely. I mean, there’s a lot of things that we’ll be talking about to the president when I meet him, you know, if it is getting more money for California, getting more money for state—for the incarceration of undocumented immigrants, if it is talking to him about getting more border patrol and making our borders safe. And all of those kinds of issues, we’re going to, you know—that’s why we’re here. That’s why we have the governor’s conference, to talk to each other, to help each other, but also to talk to the president and to the fellow government to get this help. Because I think it’s still inexcusable that California gets only 79 cents for every dollar we pay in taxes, in federal taxes. We have to fight for that, we need more money, if it’s in health care and education, border patrol, if it isn’t—any of those issues, you know, that’s what we’re here to do, to fight for those things.

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