Transcript for April 2

SEN. McCAIN: Well, the proposal that we have is clearly a very, very tough road to earn citizenship. And most Americans, when you explain to them it requires learn English, back taxes, pay a $2,000 dollar fine, six years working before eligibility, before obtaining a green card, and then as much as five years before obtaining citizenship, they favor that. Particularly when you ask—when, when you say what do you do?  How can you send 11 million people back to the country they came from?  You’ve got three options: the status quo, which everybody agrees is unacceptable; let them earn citizenship, and I mean earn it; or third of all round them up and send them back. What—so those are your—really the three options. And I think that it’s very important that we handle this issue with sensitivity and humanity. Those thousands of young people, half a million young people you saw demonstrating in Los Angeles were as passionate as they are because they don’t want their parents sent back. Some people have been here 15, 16 and 17 years, Tim, and 97 percent of them are working. But our first priority is to fix our borders. Is to fix our borders...

MR. RUSSERT: There’s going to be Senate...

SEN. McCAIN: ...but it has to be comprehensive. Go ahead.

MR. RUSSERT: There’s going to be a big vote in the Senate. You need at least 18 Republican senators to join with you. Straight talk: Has the president shown the necessary leadership on this issue for you to win your battle?

SEN. McCAIN: First of all, I don’t know if we have the votes. Second of all, I’ve been very pleased with the president’s comments in Mexico and about this issue. He has said earned citizenship, he has come out in favor of a guest worker program. He has highlighted the, the urgency of this issue to America. Eleven million people living in the shadows in this nation. Would I like to see him lead more?  Sure, I—but I, I applaud his leadership and I applaud the work that he’s done, and nobody knows more about this issue in Washington than President Bush, having been governor of the state of Texas.

MR. RUSSERT: It’s been interesting for political observers to watch the relationship between you and George W. Bush. In 2000 you said the campaign that he ran against you was not honorable. In 2004 this was the scene stop after stop on the campaign trail, hugs and yes, kisses all around. McCain and Bush, buddy-buddy.

“Blunt truth never lasts long. John McCain, for example, has become a born-again Bushophile, and that was the end of him has an honest, independent voice.” And that has been a whole series of commentary this last couple of weeks. E.J. Dionne and The Washington Post has this: “A maverick no more.” The Washington Times, conservative paper, “Senator John McCain, who has consistently opposed President Bush’s tax cuts, recently voted to extend some of them, a move conservatives say is a political flip-flop intended to further his White House ambitions. ... When Mr. Bush’s $1.35 trillion dollar tax-cut bill ... came up for a final vote in May 2001, Mr. McCain was one of two Senate Republicans to vote, ‘No.’ ‘I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who need tax relief,’ he said at the time.” Now, record deficits, and John McCain says, “I’m for the Bush tax cut.”

SEN. McCAIN: Well, first of all, I’ve got to—I’ll go back to your initial statement. I didn’t say that President Bush ran a dishonorable campaign. I said that things were done that were wrong. I don’t believe they were done by President Bush. I met with Pres—then-Governor Bush three months after I dropped out of the race, and we met, and I supported and campaigned for him in the year 2000. Not 2004, 2000. And I supported him in his foreign and other policy matters as president of the United States, and I’m proud to do so. I disagreed with him on several issues. I still do. But in 2004, I believed that the transcending issue of that campaign was who was best equipped to fight the war on terror...

MR. RUSSERT: And you said—In March of 2000--March of 2000...

SEN. McCAIN: ...and that’s why I was glad. So I did not change my position in support of President Bush. Yes.

MR. RUSSERT: ...March 2004, I asked you if you believed that George Bush ran an honorable campaign and you said, “I cannot say that.”

SEN. McCAIN: Quote, “Ran an honorable campaign.” I put those things behind me. I don’t look back in anger. I don’t think the American people expect me to look back in anger. Things are said and done in political campaigns which are pretty, which are pretty tough. And they are—and campaigns are tough in America, and they should be. But my support for him was announced three months after the primary was over in the year 2000.

MR. RUSSERT: But you’re now voting for the tax cut which you had not voted for. You came out and said we should teach intelligent design in classes as well as evolution. Jerry Falwell, Jerry Falwell, you’re now giving the commencement address at Liberty University in May. This is what you said about Jerry Falwell in February of 2000. Let’s watch.

(Videotape, February 28, 2000):

SEN. McCAIN: Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: “Agents of intolerance.” And you were asked about that speech and you said this: “I must not and will not retract anything that I said in that speech at Virginia Beach. It was carefully crafted. It was carefully thought out.” Based on that, do you believe that Jerry Falwell is still an agent of intolerance?

SEN. McCAIN: I would like to first respond to several comments that you made as a predicate. First of all, on the tax cuts. I do not believe in tax increases. Now, it was a gimmick that was—that the tax cuts were temporary and then had to be made permanent. The tax cuts are now there and voting to revoke them would have been to—not to extend them would have meant a tax increase. I’ve never voted for a tax increase in my life.

MR. RUSSERT: Well, that’s important. But it would, it would, it would mean that...

SEN. McCAIN: But it’s be very important that I finish saying what I think.

MR. RUSSERT: But, let me just, for the record, it would have gone back to tax rates.

SEN. McCAIN: Yes.

MR. RUSSERT: That you had supported.

SEN. McCAIN: Yes. But the economy had adjusted, the tax cuts were there, and if it would have been—and that’s the way it was designed. It would’ve been tantamount to a tax increase. And that’s, and that’s a fact. And I’ve never voted for a tax increase in my life with the exception of...

MR. RUSSERT: So there’s no politics?

SEN. McCAIN: ...supporting a tax. No. I do things because I think they’re right. I mean, and obviously you—if people are free to judge however they want to. As regards to Reverend Falwell, which is the major thrust of your comments, I met with Reverend Falwell, he came to see me in Washington. We, we agreed to disagree on certain issues and we agreed to move forward. I believe that speaking at Liberty University is no different from speaking at the New College or Ohio State University, all of which I’m speaking—I speak at a lot of colleges and universities. I’m pleased to have the opportunity to do so, to talk to young Americans and talk to them about the obligations and the privileges of freedom.

MR. RUSSERT: But Senator, when you were on here in 2000, I asked you about Jerry Falwell, and this is what you said.

(Videotape, March 5, 2000):

SEN. McCAIN: Governor Bush swung far to the right and sought out the base support of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. That’s—those aren’t the ideas that I think are good for the Republican Party.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Do you think that Jerry Falwell’s ideas are now good for the Republican Party?

SEN. McCAIN: I believe that the Christ—quote, “Christian right,” has a major role to play in the Republican Party. One reason is, is because they’re so active, and their, and their followers are. And I believe they have a right to be a part of our party. I don’t have to agree with everything they stand for, nor do I have to agree with everything that’s on the liberal side of the Republican Party. If we have to agree on every issue, we’re not a Republican Party. I believe in open and honest debate. Was I unhappy in, in, in the year 2000 that I lost the primary and there were some attacks on me that I thought was unfair?  Of course. Do I—should I get over it?  Should I serve—can I serve the people of Arizona best by looking back in anger or moving forward?

MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe that Jerry Falwell is still an agent of intolerance?

SEN. McCAIN: No, I don’t. I think that Jerry Falwell can explain to you his views on this program when you have him on.

MR. RUSSERT: After September 11^th, let me show you what...

SEN. McCAIN: Go ahead. Yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: ...Reverend Falwell had to say. “What we saw on [September 11^th], as terrible as it is, could be miniscule if, in fact, God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve. ... I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle ... I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’”

SEN. McCAIN: You’ll have to...

MR. RUSSERT: Are you embracing that?

SEN. McCAIN: I am speaking at the, at the graduation of his, his university. I’m not embracing all of the tenets that are expressed at the new college in New York City, nor other liberal universities and institutions that I have spoke at. For example, I don’t agree with the Ivy League colleges barring recruiters—military recruiters from their campuses, but I still speak there.

MR. RUSSERT: Are you concerned that people are going to say, “I see. John McCain tried ‘straight talk express,’ ‘maverick,’ it didn’t work in 2000, so now in 2008 he’s going to become a conventional, typical politician, reaching out to people that he called agents of intolerance, voting for tax cuts he opposed, to make himself more appealing to the hard-core Republican base.”

SEN. McCAIN: I think most people will judge my record exactly for what it is, where I take positions that I stand, that I stand for and I believe in. Whether it be climate change, whether it be torture, or whether it be a number of other issues with which I am—immigration. I, I don’t think that my position on immigration is exactly pleasing to the far right base. I will continue to take positions that I believe in and I stand for. And I recognize that a lot of my credibility is based on that, and I think most Americans will judge me by my entire record.

MR. RUSSERT: When do you make the decision whether to run for president?

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