‘Meet the Press’ transcript for July 8, 2007

SEN. HAGEL:  Well, I was responding to a question in that interview, “What can the Congress do, what can the American people do if the president says ‘I don’t care’ or ‘I won’t listen’ and ‘I’m the president, I’m the decider, I’m the commander in chief’?” So I was responding, said, “Well, no, there are things we can do.” I talked about appropriations.  We control appropriations. Lot of things.  In the end, I said, “There’s always impeachment if there were articles drawn up that focused on him breaking the law or some clearly defined constitutional violation of the, of the, of our Constitution.” Where that goes, I, I, I don’t know.  I don’t see any effort to do that today.  But what I was doing there, David, was just responding to a question.

MR. GREGORY:  But you don’t see greater momentum toward impeachment now?

SEN. HAGEL:  Well, you can’t just arbitrarily impeach a president.  There has to be a grounds for impeachment.  There have to be articles of impeachment drawn up based on did the president obstruct or lie or violate something in the Constitution?  It’s clear.

MR. GREGORY:  Right.  And to, to be clear, you would oppose that?

SEN. HAGEL:  Well, certainly, I don’t see anything today.  I’ve just said that I think the president believes in what he’s doing.  I think he believes that, that this is the right course of action.  I happen to disagree with him.

MR. GREGORY:  All right.  But if he holds on, you also said, then you see him moving into a different area, where he’s actually not leveling with the, the public.

SEN. HAGEL:  No, I didn’t say that.  No, I didn’t say that at all.  I said, I talked about strategy.

MR. GREGORY:  Yes.

SEN. HAGEL:  I said, if, if they don’t make changes in the next 90 days, then, then the Congress will make some changes, then we will have to see where we are, and then you could see the parallels with Johnson holding on and holding on and holding on and just keep the same kind of strategy.  But we’ll see.  You know that the national security adviser for the president, Stephen Hadley, has been on the Hill.  He’s been talking to a number of people.  I spent an hour with him two weeks ago.  He was up on the Hill to talk to members about where we go from here, where we, some of us, think we should go from here.  Well, that’s healthy, that’s good.  I appreciate that.  But that has to be connected with a reality of some changes.

MR. GREGORY:  Right.  Let, let’s talk bout where Chuck Hagel goes from here politically.  You’re a proud Republican and have been for years.  You’ve also expressed some displeasure with the, the current state of the Republican Party.  And I’d like to take you through a chronology of some statements you’ve made about your political future that have raised eyebrows among a lot of people.  Back in February, on this program, your conversation with Tim Russert about your political future went like this.  Let’s watch.

(Videotape, February 18, 2007)

MR. TIM RUSSERT:  You said last month you would decide this month whether you were going to run for president in 2008.  Will you?

SEN. HAGEL:  I’ll make a decision within a couple of weeks.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY:  And then—that was February—then in March, you called reporters to the University of Nebraska for a press conference with a great sense of urgency.  Your decision there, though, in terms of running for president, was not for now.  This is how The New York Times described it. “Hagel said that he would not enter the 2008 presidential race for the time being, at least.  Mr. Hagel did not extinguish the prospect of jumping into the Republican contest later this year.  Aides said Mr. Hagel had no intention of seeking the presidential nomination as an independent or third party candidate.”

Now fast forward to May of this year, and this headline in the Omaha World-Herald:  “Hagel dines with Bloomberg,” the mayor of New York, a good dinner on the menu, but also perhaps conversation of independent politics.  We know Mayor Bloomberg is exploring the possibility of an independent run for the president.

And then you spoke to CBS, to CBS News, in May, also in May.  You were asked, “Could you see a ticket that had Mayor Bloomberg and Chuck Hagel on the same ticket?” Your response, “It’s a great country to think about—a New York boy and a Nebraska boy to be teamed up leading this nation.” So where is Chuck Hagel?  Do you want to run for president?

SEN. HAGEL:  Well, I’ll make that decision in the next couple of months, and I, I need to make that decision as to my political future.  I’ve got to decide whether I want to ask the people of Nebraska to consider giving me a third term in the Senate.  I also have said, and said this when I first ran for the Senate after I got elected in 1996, that 12 years, two terms, may be enough. And that’s another option.  And then, if there might be a place for me along the presidential road somewhere, to try to have some influence and change the course of this country, then I’ll look at that.  But that decision needed to be made soon, and I’ll make it soon.

MR. GREGORY:  Were you to run, would you run as a Republican or as an independent?

SEN. HAGEL:  Well, I have no intention of changing parties.  And that doesn’t mean, by the way, that I don’t think an independent does not have some renewed possibilities next year to be president.

MR. GREGORY:  Are you ruling that out, running as an independent?

SEN. HAGEL:  For right now I am, and what the world looks like next year, I don’t know.  But I have no plans to change parties or run for president as an independent.

MR. GREGORY:  But you’re leaving both of those options open.

SEN. HAGEL:  Well, I think...

MR. GREGORY:  Both running and running as an independent.

SEN. HAGEL:  I think anybody in this business, but anybody in life, and I’ve learned this in 60 years, David, that you try to keep as many options open for yourself in life for yourself as you can.  And you try to be in a, a position where you’ve got some opportunities.  I can’t say today what the world looks like in a year.  I don’t know what, what this is going to—the political world in America’ll look like in six or seven months.

MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.

SEN. HAGEL:  But right now, I have no plans to change parties, I have no plans to seek the presidency as an independent candidate.

MR. GREGORY:  What, what are you waiting for?  Because you’ve been looking at this for some time.  What dynamic in the race or in events in the world are you waiting to see before making that decision?

SEN. HAGEL:  Well, two things.  One, I do think some of us who hold real jobs now have some responsibility to focus on those jobs.  I think this presidential race got started absurdly too early.  And the media and others are concentrated on Bill Clinton walking in a parade with Hillary and will Bill overshadow Hillary.  I think the country would like to know a little more about how Hillary, and the media would ask her the questions about how she would get us out of Iraq and some of these other questions.  My friend John McCain, the media has just written him off because he didn’t raise as much money.  John McCain is one of the most qualified candidates ever to come along to be president of the United States.  Now, that’s a sad, sad commentary on our system when the focus is on who can raise the most money, not who is best qualified, who has the best solutions for the future of our country.  I wasn’t going to put myself in that situation early on.  I think someone should be paying attention to Iraq, should be paying attention to entitlements, to immigration reform, some of the things that we should be focused on.  Now, I understand the political realities.  I can’t change those.  But what I do control in this business, which is very little, I’ll, I’ll keep that control. And so that—that’s essentially why I make the decisions I do.

MR. GREGORY:  You raised Senator McCain.

SEN. HAGEL:  Yes.

MR. GREGORY:  You were obviously a stalwart supporter of his back in 2000. Do you still support him for the presidency?

SEN. HAGEL:  Well, I haven’t thrown my support behind any—anyone yet.  If I’m not a candidate, then I may, I don’t know.  We’ll, we’ll see.  But we’ve got many, many very good candidates, by the way, in both parties.  You look at Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, two of the most experienced, qualified people to ever come along.  Unfortunately, they’re not—at least according to the polls—not getting much traction.  This is all about money and parades and so on.  Well, that, that really debases the system.  It’s not in the interest of our country.

MR. GREGORY:  And, and part of why you think the country is ready for an independent candidate.

SEN. HAGEL:  Well, I think that there’s a possibility that America—and look at the polls.  Look at how lowly regarded Congress, both parties, the president, is in any poll in job approval ratings.  Look at the question in your poll, by the way, The Wall Street Journal/NBC poll two weeks ago:  Right way, wrong way, is America going in the right direction or the wrong direction?  Eighteen percent, historic low, said America’s going in the right direction.  That means America’s lost confidence in both parties and its leadership.  Would there be room for a third party or an independent candidate?  And there’s a difference—that, that’s different, by the way, and—as you know.  I don’t know, maybe so.  The question there always is how do you get to 270 electoral votes?

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