‘Meet the Press’ transcript for June 3, 2007

MR. MURPHY:  Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...will that sell with the American people?  Or will the Republicans pounce on it, saying, “Tax, tax, tax, that’s all they want to do?”

MR. MURPHY:  Well, let me think...

MR. RUSSERT:  Or will health care, will health care...

MR. MURPHY:  Pounce, pounce.  I think Shrum’s wrong, by the way.  That was the kickoff speech.  Pounce, pounce, pounce, attack, attack, attack.  And we’ll have a Romney-like free enterprise plan that we think we can compete with.  The minute this race gets beyond the primaries, when the Democrats get out of the cheap applause on Bush business, then the big wheel’s going to turn to “What are they for?” And then we Republicans, if we nominate a good candidate, we’re back in the race.

MR. RUSSERT:  Has the war in Iraq hampered, hindered, hurt the Republicans’ image on national security issues?

MR. MURPHY:  Yes.  Absolutely.  Nixon’s spinning in his grave.  We used to be the very competent guys that run wars.  Now I—my view is, our magnificent military and the Bush administration won the war, the Iraqi people have lost the politics and the peace, and now we’ve got to figure out a way to protect American interests and move on.  Very big...

MR. RUSSERT:  You’re blaming the Iraqi people?

MR. MURPHY:  Yeah!  I think it’s the truth.

MR. SHRUM:  I mean, they don’t keep the troops there.

MR. MURPHY:  No, but the troops are there for security so they can grow up and have a democracy, and that’s what they’re horrible at.

MR. CARVILLE:  Are we—but, Mike, are we surprised that we found Iraqis when we went there?

MR. MURPHY:  The war is...(unintelligible)...they light up.

MR. CARVILLE:  Were we shocked when we found Iraqis when we went to Iraq?  We didn’t know there were going to be Iraqi people there?

MR. MURPHY:  No, no.

MR. SHRUM:  Some of them don’t like us occupying their country.

MR. CARVILLE:  They’re intelligent.

MR. MURPHY:  Well, yeah, but we didn’t feed them the democracy, and that they’re having trouble.

MS. MATALIN:  Well, what all Americans do not like is Democrats saying or anybody in this country saying, even those who are anti-war, do not like when Democratic leaders say, “This war is lost.” We are determined people.  We cannot believe that this enemy that stones women and sends 12-year-olds out to behead innocents are people that are better than us.

MR. SHRUM:  Mary, we’re going to stay and stay and stay and stay.

MR. CARVILLE:  Correct.

MR. SHRUM:  And when is it going to, when is it...

MS. MATALIN:  You’re going to stay on Iraq.

MR. SHRUM:  Give me some indication...

MS. MATALIN:  What is your...

MR. SHRUM:  Give me some indication of when persisting in a failed policy is going to yield success.

MS. MATALIN:  Give me some indication of what your foreign policy positions against this 21^st century enemy, what is the Democratic plan?

MR. SHRUM:  Mine would be, mine would be a lot closer to the current secretary of defense who said we got to draw down the troops next year...

MR. CARVILLE:  Right.

MR. SHRUM:  ...to send a very clear message to the Iraqis that they have to get their act together, they have to make the government work.

MS. MATALIN:  That is the bottom rock!

MR. SHRUM:  I’d go one step further and I’d withdraw.

MR. MURPHY:  That’s going to happen, so then what do you guys run on?  You got nothing left.  It’s back to our national security system.

MR. SHRUM:  I don’t think it is going to happen.  I think keeping 100,000 troops there is not going to make Americans happy.

MR. RUSSERT:  1968, both Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic candidate, Richard Nixon, the Republican candidate, had plans to end the war in Vietnam.  Will we see that in 2008?

MS. MATALIN:  This—I know we all politically want to make this about Iraq, and it is important and it is an overlay and it did play into the ‘06 defeat. Although we were—lost because of corruption and spending.  But we, I want to go—the country wants to go—if we won Iraq tomorrow or we lost Iraq tomorrow, if we pulled out of—whatever the plan is, then what?  What is the day after? What is the day after for the region?  What is the day after for Eurabia? What is the day after for these al-Qaeda ideologies, and they’re acting on, and this extremism is present in every continent on the globe.  What happens the day after?  They want to stay in Iraq because they think it’s a winner for them.  The country wants to talk about the day after.

MR. SHRUM:  No, I want to leave Iraq.  Let me just make it clear.  I’d be happy to have this election in 2008 on health care and a whole set of other issues.

MR. RUSSERT:  We’re not going to settle Iraq this morning, but I think there’s one thing in Mr. Shrum’s book you all agree on as strategists, consultants, advisers.  And here it is:  If victory has 100 fathers, it also brings forth 100 advisers.

Thank you, Chairman Shrum.  Quotations from Chairman—any disagreement on that?

MR. MURPHY:  Absolutely not.  That is true.

MR. CARVILLE:  No, no, no.

MR. RUSSERT:  One, one more, one more observation.  Mary Matalin, you can help me on this.  This is Mr. Shrum.  In 1984, he says, “On a trip to Austin, Texas, I met the [Lloyd] Doggett campaign manager, who looked and sounded like a Gothic character out of the pages of ‘All the King’s Men.’ His swagger, his shaved head, his stories and aphorisms spilling out in hyperkinetic, sometimes profane geyser of heavily accented phrases and half-sentences.  I had never encountered anyone in politics like this.” This is...

MS. MATALIN:  That’s my man.  That’s my man.

MR. SHRUM:  And my friend.

MR. RUSSERT:  You’re talking about Mr. Carville?

MR. SHRUM:  Yes, yeah.

MR. RUSSERT:  Now, Mr. Carville, in the book it says that you gave Mr. Shrum some advice, that you were a bachelor, and that you shared this maxim for finding a date in a bar.  “Go ugly early.”

MR. CARVILLE:  Well, I don’t deny I said that, but you know what, I did pretty good later.  I, I, I didn’t, I didn’t do too bad.

MR. MURPHY:  That’s what I was going to say, you did very well later.

MR. CARVILLE:  Yeah, I did very well later.  But I, I was, I was, I was 49 before I got married.

MR. RUSSERT:  Well, explain it.  What does it mean?

MS. MATALIN:  Yeah, what does that mean?

MR. CARVILLE:  If you can’t understand—it’s one of those things if you can’t understand it, I can’t explain it either.  But it was a, it was—but I was—I did, I did pretty well...

MS. MATALIN:  Necessity is the mother of invention for this one.

MR. RUSSERT:  In the interest of full disclosure, our viewers should know that Mr. Carville debates my son on a sports show on XM radio, but it does not stop me from asking him questions on a morning like this.  So James Carville, Mary Matalin, Mike Murphy, Bob Shrum, thank you all.

MR. SHRUM:  Thank you.

MR. RUSSERT:  And we’re going to talk more to Bob Shrum about James Carville’s early life in our next session on the Internet.  You can see our MEET THE PRESS Take Two Web extra on our Web site this afternoon, mtp.msnbc.com.  Mike Murphy, Mary Matalin will join it as well.  Thanks very much, we’ll be right back.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT:  That’s all for today.  We’ll be back next week at a special early time, 8 AM Eastern, before the French Open.  Our special guest, former Secretary of State Colin Powell.  An exclusive interview right here, next Sunday, 8 AM with former general and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

If it’s Sunday, it’s MEET THE PRESS.

MORE FROM MEET THE PRESS

Meet the Press Section Front

Sunday's Meet the Press guest list Nov. 22: Senate roundtable, Brinker, Snyderman Nov. 15: Clinton, Duncan, Gingrich, Sharpton Nov. 8: Casey, Barbour, Rendell, roundtable, Brokaw Nov. 1: Tim Geithner, David Plouffe, roundtable Oct. 25: Cornyn, Schumer, Burnett, Sorkin, roundtable Oct. 18: Jarrett, Dodd, Kyl, Shriver, Podesta Oct. 11: Levin, Graham, McCaffrey, Myers, roundtable Oct. 4: Ambassador Susan Rice, roundtable Sept. 27: Bill Clinton, Paterson, Kyl, Webb Meet the Press Section Front   Add Meet the Press headlines to your news reader: