Transcript for Sept. 24

MR. CLINTON: I think we’re doing better. I think, I think every Democrat I know—first, we have nine Iraq war veterans running for House seats. We’ve got President Reagan’s former Navy secretary running a great race in the Senate in Virginia. And every Democrat I know—now, I just heard Amy Klobuchar, a candidate in Minnesota, a prosecutor, speak, and they say something like this: “We face a serious threat to our security from terrorism. The question is not whether we meet it, but how. I do not agree with a lot of decisions made in Iraq,” and then the candidate says whatever they say. “I believe that we have made a mistake not intensifying our efforts in Afghanistan to stabilize a moderate pro-American democracy, to fight—to hunt bin Laden and al-Zawahiri. We made a terrible mistake favoring big tax cuts instead of implementing the 9/11 Commission’s homeland security recommendations. And if we really want to be more secure, we need to have a more vigorous effort to get this country independent of foreign oil. So I will fight for the security of America, and don’t believe them when they say, ‘If we don’t agree with everything they’ve done in Iraq, we can’t be trusted.’” That is, once you say that, once you lay that predicate, then I think our differences on everything from energy to the economy to the deficit to the minimum wage to you name it will carry the Democrats to a substantial victory.

But what they were able to do in 2002 was a great shell game. I mean, you’ve got to give Karl Rove political credit. I mean, they were against the Homeland Security bill for eight and a half months, then they decided they were for it. Then they decided—because they couldn’t make any votes on us, because we’d been supportive of them in Afghanistan, in the weapons inspections in Iraq—so they said, “We’ll just take all the job rights away from 170,000 federal employees, and then when they don’t support this bill, we’ll say, ‘If you’re not for this bill just the way we wrote it, you obviously don’t want to protect America from terror.’” And it was, you know, a lot of people bought it, but I think it’s because we didn’t effectively address it.

In other words, Mr. Rove, and you know, the, the Republican leaders now, and his predecessors too, Mr. DeLay, all those guys, they’re in business to beat us. They believe in what they’re doing. And our job is to tell the American people that we, too, want to protect their security. And we have different ideas about how to do it, and then to trust the people to decide. But if you leave people with the impression that your disagreement with the president’s Iraq policy is not part of a broader campaign against terror, then you get in trouble. I think if we do it this time—and I think we will—we’ll do fine.

MR. RUSSERT: You said that you weren’t sure that if Hillary Clinton, Senator Clinton, ran for president, she’d win. I’m curious why you said that. And if she does run, are you, are your family ready for an intense, perhaps even negative campaign?

MR. CLINTON: Well, first of all, my gut is that she would win. When I said that, I said that in a way of being humble. It is, it is the same way when I ran for president in ‘92, I wasn’t at all sure I’d win. And then I, I wanted to make the point that number one, I don’t know if she’s going to, number two I’m not going to talk to her about it until after we get this election out of the way. And number three, I don’t think you run for president because you know for sure you can win, because no one knows that. It’s totally unpredictable. That’s all I meant. Actually, my instinct is that she’d do quite well.

But I always say that to make two points. One is we shouldn’t be talking about it or thinking about it now, and two is if by whatever means she wound up being president, I think she would be a superb president. I’d be very amazed if she weren’t just great. But I don’t know if she’s going to run, I—and I don’t want to talk to her about it, and I don’t want her thinking about it until we get this election out of the way.

MR. RUSSERT: Would you be ready for an intense negative campaign again?

MR. CLINTON: Well, if she decides to do it someday, then I will be fully supportive, and happy to do whatever I can. And like I said, I’m really proud of her. I think she’s been a great senator, and I, you know, whatever she wants to do I’m for. But I think, you know, people will always ask that, because especially in the last 25 years, our campaigns have gotten increasingly more negative with, really, it corresponds with the rise of the political right, the extreme right, among the Republicans and the greater complicity in the press and such things. But I think—I’m not sure the American people don’t want us to do better this time.

Very interesting. In this election, it’s the first time since ‘92 where I go to these big political rallies. Everybody’s cheering, you know, like they do at political rallies. But then all of a sudden, when I talk, it gets quiet as a church. And it’s because people know this is a time where we’ve got these challenges, they know nobody’s got all the answers and they really want to think and talk. I think there’s a real yearning for somebody just to go through and explain things.

So I’m not so sure that the kind of personally negative campaigns we’ve seen a lot of in the past would be all that effective. But I think an issue attack is always effective if you don’t answer it. That’s why we got to deal with the security deal.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. President, we thank you, as always, for sharing your views.

MR. CLINTON: Thank you, Tim.

MR. RUSSERT: Coming next, an increasing Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, the war on terror and the hunt for Osama bin Laden. We’ll talk to the president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai. Coming up next right here on MEET THE PRESS.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: The president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, after this brief station break.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. President, welcome back to MEET THE PRESS. Americans read every day something about Afghanistan. Here’s an editorial in The New York Times. “Losing Afghanistan.” More than 2,000 people have been killed this year; a close friend of yours, a governor of a large province, blown up. Is your country in a chaotic state?

PRES. HAMID KARZAI: No. It has difficulties, but it is not in the chaotic state. I believe all of us, the Afghans and the international community, after the initial success that we had in throwing out terrorism and the Taliban and their foreign sponsors in less than a month and a half in 2001, and then the subsequent tremendous success in the fulfillment of all the objectives set for us by the world agreement, expectations went very high, in Afghanistan, especially, where the Afghan people felt that the world is here now. With a lot of help, we will rebuild the country in, in, in less than the time that we expect to be. The world also saw a lot of Afghan successes—the constitution, the presidential elections, the parliament arriving, democratic institutions, freedom of the press, welcomed by the Afghan people of the international community—all of that made us forget one thing, that while we had thrown terrorism away from Afghanistan, we had really not gone after their sources, their training grounds, where they were paid money, where they were given motivation, and that they were still there. And we’re now paying for that.

MR. RUSSERT: As you well know, in July, NATO came to Afghanistan. This is what the NATO commander said that he “has set a six-month deadline to reverse a Taliban insurgency terrorizing southern Afghanistan.”

PRES. KARZAI: Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT: “British Army Lieutenant General David Richards said ... 70 percent” [of Afghans] “won’t declare their loyalty until they ‘see which side will win. They can’t wait forever. We’ve got to show them we will win.’” suggesting people are sitting on the sidelines.

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