'Meet the Press' transcript for April 20, 2008

MR. AXELROD:  I think she had—I think she was a—had a very strong performance the other night.  I, I’ll give her that.  We’ve had 20 some-odd debates and you know, everybody’s had good nights and bad nights, and she, I think, did—I think that she did well.  I just want to go back to something Geoff said, though.  He said, “Our events were positive; we’re talking about solutions.” Yesterday in Pennsylvania, Senator Clinton said that Senator Obama’s health care plan would leave 15 million Americans in the cold.

MR. GARIN:  In response to your negative ad.

MR. AXELROD:  Just a second.  Just a second.  “Just leave them in the cold.” She knows that that’s not true.  The Washington Post broke that there—you couldn’t find a person who wouldn’t be able to get health care who wants it under the Obama plan.  So she repeated something that she’s been told isn’t true, and she, she did anyway.  And this is the reason why in the, in the Post poll a couple of weeks ago, almost 60 percent of the people polled said that they didn’t find her honest and trustworthy in, in a general election sample. That’s going to be a problem going forward.  That’s not the way to launch a general election campaign.

And by the way, we’re not—we—our negative view is not of Hillary Clinton, our negative view is of the politics of Washington.  It’s broken, it has to be fixed, and you can’t do that when you wink and nod at the very practices that are essentially corrupting the system and making it difficult to get anything done.

MR. GARIN:  Well, all I can say is that Senator Clinton is the person who voted against the Bush-Cheney energy bill.  Senator Obama has taken close to $2 million over his political career from corporations, PACs and lobbyists. Do you feel he’s been corrupted by that?

MR. AXELROD:  The—well, first of all, that’s what’s in your negative ad that you didn’t know about in Philadelphia.  Secondly, what he has said—he has—he’s been very forthright about this, Geoff.  He’s never—he said that he’s taken PAC money and money—contributions from lobbyists in the past.  But he said he’s running for president of the United States, this is a big problem for the country, we have to draw the line in the sand and I’m proud that we have 1.3 million contributors.  The average donation is $96.  I think that—we’re, we’re changing politics from the grass roots up, and that’s how we’re going to change Washington.

MR. GARIN:  Well, Senator Clinton really wants to change the, the economy. She wants to change what’s going on in the world.  She’s offering a, a, positive solution.  She’s got the—I think she’s got the leadership to...

MR. AXELROD:  She, she...

MR. GARIN:  ...turn solutions into real action.

MR. AXELROD:  She has...

MR. GARIN:  And the idea that you have to wait to, to, to have the special interests go away before we can begin to tackle the economy or before we can begin to fix our, our standing in the world, it, it doesn’t make sense.

MR. AXELROD:  She...

MR. GARIN:  She is out there talking about the changes our country needs, how to fix our economy, how to fix a broken health care system.  She is all about keeping the promise of America for whom that...

MR. AXELROD:  Geoff...

MR. GARIN:  ...for, for people to whom that promise was broken.

MR. AXELROD:  ...here’s the problem.  We’ve been—here’s the problem.  We’ve been talking about fixing the broken health care system for two decades. We’ve been talking about this energy problem for three decades.  We don’t get it done because Washington responds to the oil companies and to the health care interests and not to the needs of the country and the American people. So to detach the two and say we’re going to continue to advance ideas and let them die in the graveyard that Washington has become does not solve anyone’s problem.

MR. GARIN:  Yeah, but the thing is to stand up to the special interests when the time comes to do that.  That’s why Senator Clinton voted against the Bush-Cheney energy bill.  Senator Obama voted for it.

MR. AXELROD:  And...

MR. GARIN:  And just to go back on health care, real quickly, your attack ad makes this false claim that Hillary’s going to—is going to garnish people’s wages.  It’s not true.  She is...

MR. AXELROD:  She said that.

MR. GARIN:  It is...

MR. AXELROD:  She said it, Geoff.

MR. GARIN:  David, David, this is all about if health care is not affordable, it’s not going to—people aren’t going to be required to get it.  Those, those are the facts.

MR. AXELROD:  No, that’s not true.

MR. GARIN:  Paul, Paul Krugman’s column has been—and all the economic analyses have been clear on...

MR. AXELROD:  Geoff...

MR. GARIN:  ...this, that it’s going to—that her plan will cost less, about $1700 less to insure each new person.  So, David...

MR. AXELROD:  Geoff, that’s not true.  She sat on a program like this on a Sunday, and she said, “I will, I will garnish people’s wages if they don’t sign up for this health care plan.” That’s, that’s what she said.  Her and—her mandate is a mandate on people to buy health insurance.  And if you don’t...

MR. GARIN:  Like yours on children.

MR. AXELROD:  ...and he—and if you don’t, she will garnish your wages. That—there’s a respectable debate to be had about this.

MR. GARIN:  Right.

MR. AXELROD:  But let’s be honest about what we’re proposing here.

MR. GARIN:  Right.  But the full story on Senator Clinton’s health plan, if you want to be honest, is she has extraordinary cost controls that aren’t, aren’t in your plan.

MR. AXELROD:  That’s not true.  They’re, they’re almost identical.

MR. GARIN:  Well, well, we’ll let the health care people litigate this.

MORE FROM MEET THE PRESS

Meet the Press Section Front

Sunday's Meet the Press guest list Nov. 29: Rick Warren, Bill & Melinda Gates 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 Meet the Press Section Front   Add Meet the Press headlines to your news reader: