Transcript for Aug. 20

SEN. McCAIN: I don’t know what, what decision they’ve made. All I know is that, look, Joe Lieberman is, is a close friend of mine and I would not campaign against him. I’ll just be very—I’ll straight talk.

MR. GREGORY: Would you like to see him win?

SEN. McCAIN: Well, I wouldn’t be disappointed, but I am a Republican and I support the nominees of my party.

MR. GREGORY: You think he’s right for the country?

SEN. McCAIN: I don’t know him at all. I know that Joe Lieberman is a great...

MR. GREGORY: I—do you mean—do you—is—do you think Senator Lieberman is right for the country?

SEN. McCAIN: I think he’s a great American.

MR. GREGORY: Let me turn to the issue of the NSA domestic surveillance program, and a ruling this past Friday from a district court in—a district court judge, I should say, in Detroit, effectively saying that this is an unconstitutional program and comparing at one point the, the president to a king, saying there are no hereditary kings in America and there’s no powers granted to him by the Constitution. Do you agree or disagree with that ruling?

SEN. McCAIN: I disagree with both the rhetoric and the reasoning, and so do most constitutional scholars. It’s a very much of an overreach. Look, I think that, you know, Senator Specter and others have had questions about the broad aspects of this surveillance programs, but nobody believes that we shouldn’t have these, and to just declare all of them to, to be eliminated or unconstitutional I think is a drastic overreach. We need to have surveillance, we all know that, from the events of, that just took place a few day ago in London. So I disagree with it. I think that that ruling will be stayed. Do we have to make sure that there’s not an executive branch overreach and that rights of citizens are not violated? Of course, and that’s why we have hearings in, in the Congress and I think we’ll continue to discuss that. But this decision I think will be rejected.

MR. GREGORY: But do you think the law should be changed?

SEN. McCAIN: I, I, I think that we ought to probably look at Senator Specter’s agreement that he made with the administration as far as more careful circumspection of the, of the programs. But overall we need to be able to listen to people’s phone calls who want to do bad things to the—America and the world. I mean, it’s that simple.

MR. GREGORY: If you were president of the United States, would you believe that you had the inherent right to order this kind of surveillance?

SEN. McCAIN: I would believe it, but I, frankly, I would also sit down with the leaders in Congress and say, “Look, here’s what we can agree on. We need more than FISA right now, and the court, going to court for each one. And now let’s, let’s come to an agreement.” I think that we have got the outlines of that agreement between Senator Specter and most members of the judiciary committee and the administration.

MR. GREGORY: Let me turn to Iran, you mentioned Iran’s role in southern Iraq. Also, of course, negotiations ongoing to try to get the Iranians to back away from what this government believes is a nuclear program. Just today, the Iranians have said in advance of the deadline of August 31^st to reply to the international community, they will not suspend enrichment. They appear to be moving forward on a nuclear program. Your reaction.

SEN. McCAIN: My reaction is, it’s not surprising, but it lends incredible importance to August 31^st when the Security Council convenes to enact sanctions on, on the Iranian government. And that has got to be only the first step, but sanctions have to be imposed, they are in blatant violation of treaties, and they—these, these sanctions must be imposed.

MR. GREGORY: Are we, are we on a course toward military confrontation with Iran?

SEN. McCAIN: I’m not sure. I hope that that option would be obviously the very last option, and it would be a very difficult one, to say the least. But to rule it out completely under any circumstances when the Iranians have declared their dedication to the extinction of the state of Israel, certainly this is a very serious challenge. Some argue, as you know, that the reason why the Hezbollah attacks on Israel were encouraged by the Iranians was to divert attention from their nuclear program. I think there’s some credence to that.

MR. GREGORY: The president was forceful this week in saying that the Iranians should stop support of terror in Lebanon and in Iraq. He’s made similar threats over the past weeks and months, and Iran remains defiant.  What do you do?

SEN. McCAIN: Well, I think that sanctions is the first step, and let’s hope that they take effect, and let’s hope that the Iranians will cease all of these activities. I’m very doubtful, but we have to go through a step-by-step process.

MR. GREGORY: Speaking about Lebanon, just yesterday there was a commando raid by the Israelis deep into Lebanon. The United Nations and the Siniora government of Lebanon called this “a naked violation of the cease-fire resolution.” Do you see it that way?

SEN. McCAIN: No, I do not. The United Nations has taken on the responsibility not only to impose a cease-fire in southern Lebanon, but they also promised that they would prevent a re-supply of Hezbollah in the region.

This is clearly, they have not been able to do that. This was an effort to

re-supply Hezbollah with weapons in order to attack the state of Israel. If

we in the United States had someone on our northern border who was being resupplied who had just attacked us, I think the American people would expect us to take preventive action. And we’ve got to get this force stood up. And I would like to express my deep concern that the French apparently are not going to inject the number of troops that would be necessary to lead this 15,000-person peacekeeping force. So far they’re saying they would only about 200. It’s very disappointing.

MR. GREGORY: Do you think the international peacekeeping force will have the teeth to actually disarm Hezbollah?

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