'Meet the Press' transcript for August 3, 2008

MR. BROKAW: Let's, let's talk about energy for a moment, if we can, because there have been several developments this past week that are important. A bipartisan coalition of 10 senators...

SEN. KERRY: Yes.

MR. BROKAW: ...five Democrats, five Republicans--want to expand offshore drilling and they want to end a tax credit on oil companies. Senator Obama, in the past, has often said that he's opposed to offshore drilling. And, in fact, we have some comment from you as well. You said, "Selling off our nation's coastlines to the oil and gas companies won't make a dent in gas prices. If you started drilling tomorrow, you wouldn't even see a drop of oil until 2017. This is a fraud policy and a false choice." Now, having said that, here's what Senator Obama had to say over the weekend: "My interest is in making sure that we've got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices. ... If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage--I don't want to be so rigid that we can't get something done." I can already hear the bloggers saying, "Flip-flop." Here's a guy who just...

SEN. KERRY: Sure.

MR. BROKAW: ...a couple of months ago said, "No way we're going to do this," now he's opened the possibility of it again. Two weeks ago on this program Vice President Al Gore, who's the godfather in the Democratic Party of energy policies, said, "No way should we drill offshore."

SEN. KERRY: I agree with Al Gore, and I don't want to. But, but Barack Obama...

MR. BROKAW: You, you--so you don't agree with Senator Obama?

SEN. KERRY: Well, I don't agree--here's, here's what I think his position is demonstrating. He still believes we should not drill offshore.

MR. BROKAW: But he's prepared to do it if necessary.

SEN. KERRY: He has not changed--what he's prepared to do, Tom, is break America's gridlock by honoring a bipartisan effort if that is the only way to move us towards alternative and renewable fuels and, and, and an energy policy that's comprehensive. I think what you see in the response on this drilling is really the difference in how they might govern. Barack Obama doesn't want to drill offshore, doesn't believe it's the thing to do. There's a very--there's a four-state carefully circumscribed proposal in that, that, in that initiative that, that could conceivably allow some drilling. He doesn't want to do that. But if that's what gets us to the energy independence and to the other efforts, I think Joe Lieberman actually supports--now, he didn't support drilling. He's changed and moves in that direction. But here's the bottom line. Guess what? John McCain, out of hand, just rejected that proposal, telling The Wall Street Journal that it would result in raising taxes on the oil companies, on Exxon. ExxonMobil made $12 billion last quarter alone. No American corporation has ever made that much money in history, and John McCain wants to protect them.

MR. BROKAW: Let's give Senator Lieberman...

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Look...

MR. BROKAW: ...a chance to respond to that.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Yeah.

MR. BROKAW: In fact, that's what Senator McCain said, he didn't want to have a rollback of those taxes.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Yeah.

MR. BROKAW: Those taxes were originally designed to create jobs.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Look...

MR. BROKAW: In fact, ExxonMobil did make $11.68...

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Right. Which...

MR. BROKAW: ...billion.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Which is outrageous. But look, here, here's the point: The question is offshore drilling. We've got a crisis here. We're not only sending more than $700 billion a year to the Middle East and other places that don't like us very much every time we go to the pump, people are hurting, $4 a gallon gas, $4 a gallon-plus home heating oil coming. John McCain sees the crisis. And watch the reaction of McCain and Obama here, and it'll tell you what kind of president they, they might be. And it tells you why McCain's experience gives him judgment and strength of decision that we need in a president. John McCain says we need alternative energy. Yes, we're moving toward a low hydrocarbon future. But John McCain says we need to drill offshore. That's American oil, we need to bring it into the market to help lower gas prices and make us energy independent. Barack Obama says, this weekend, maybe, and, and, if, but. He did not endorse--he did not come out with a strong decision, Obama, and say, "I'm for offshore drilling." And I predict to you he'll find reasons not to be for it if this comes to a vote in the Senate.

SEN. KERRY: Are you for it now? Have you changed?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: I am for it...

SEN. KERRY: You've changed.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: ...because of the crisis. That's...

SEN. KERRY: You're now for it.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: ...absolutely right, because of the facts.

I want to take a minute from a personal perspective...

MR. BROKAW: Are you--you're--and you're not for it, Senator Kerry, under any circumstances.

SEN. KERRY: It is an absolutely fraudulent offering to America.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: It, it is not.

SEN. KERRY: Drilling--let me tell you why. We only...

SEN. LIEBERMAN: My buddy here is filibustering this morning.

SEN. KERRY: We only have, we only have 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. Sixty-five percent of the oil comes from the Mideast. The problem with global climate change is oil. The problem for our security is our dependency on oil.

MR. BROKAW: So what you're saying...

SEN. KERRY: If we go out and drill more oil, even temporarily, when it doesn't come to the pump for about seven years, you're not dealing with the real crisis, which is moving America's innovation...

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Well...

SEN. KERRY: ...and creativity, the creation of new fuel.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: ...here, here's the difference. Here, here's the difference. Senator Obama, Senator Kerry say no to offshore drilling, no to nuclear power and...

SEN. KERRY: No, I don't say no to nuclear power.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: OK, hold on. Senator Obama certainly does. John McCain says we got to have all of the above. In the short term, we need to drill for American oil where we can find it and get it safely. That's offshore. Secondly, John McCain has presented--and we need nuclear power. Secondly, John McCain has presented the most bold alternative energy--wind, solar, electric car, hydrogen car--proposals that are around today.

I want to say just a word about the, the racial question here. And I, I speak personally. In the first place, the McCain campaign is, to use Barack Obama's words, raising the question is he a risky guy? But it has nothing to do with his name or his skin color. It has to do with his lack of experience and bad judgment, his unreadiness to be president. When you use the expressions that Senator Obama did three times this week, you're making a personal insult to John McCain.

I, I know John McCain. I've been with him for 20 years, private and public. This man does not have a bigoted bone in his body. His wife and he adopted a baby from Bangladesh, who, who they love. It's just wrong for Senator Obama to have done that. It was right for the campaign to call him on it. Let me just add a final word, Tom. In 2000, Al Gore gave me the extraordinary honor of being the first Jewish-American to run for national office, and Al Gore said he had confidence in the American people that they would judge me based on my record, not on my religion. And I urge Barack Obama to have the same faith in the American people that they will judge him on his record, or lack of record, certainly not on his name or his race.

MR. BROKAW: All right. We want to move on if we can. Among other things, Senator McCain has been very adamant about never raising taxes under any circumstances. That prompted this headline in the op-ed page of The Wall Street Journal from the commentator Daniel Henninger. He said, "Is John McCain stupid? Is John McCain losing it? He said on national television that to solve Social Security `everything's on the table,' which of course means raising payroll taxes. On July 7 ... he said: `Senator Obama will raise your taxes. I won't.'" Daniel Henninger concludes, "This isn't a flip-flop. It's a sex-change operation."

SEN. LIEBERMAN: First, let me say that John remains all male. There's no question about that. Secondly, he, he's, he's as smart, curious and intellectually alert as possible. That's why he loves these town hall meetings. That's why he keeps challenging Barack Obama to come and do a town hall meeting with him, but Obama says, "No." He wants to stand side by side in real confidence with Obama and have a good discussion.

MR. BROKAW: But if everything's on the table...

SEN. KERRY: Can I...

MR. BROKAW: ...for Social Security reform, that does include a raising of payroll taxes, does it not?

SEN. KERRY: Absolutely.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Look, there's two main reasons why I'm for John McCain.

SEN. KERRY: Now, don't dump the question.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: No, no. I'm going to come to it. You gave such a preface to your earlier comments, buddy.

SEN. KERRY: Well, I have to, Joe, because...

SEN. LIEBERMAN: OK, let me--here--there are two main reasons why I'm for John McCain. One is that he's ready to be commander and chief and to deal with our problems at home and abroad. Secondly, we've got a big problem here in Washington that we have to solve before we get to solve Social Security, health care, jobs, gas crisis, environment, everything else. It's partisanship. And John McCain certainly, as compared to Barack Obama, has a record--he's a restless reformer. He fights the status quo. He reaches across party lines to get things done. That's why he's been one of the most productive senators in recent years. Senator Obama, with all respect, has no major legislative accomplishments.

SEN. KERRY: Joe, Joe.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: What I'm saying is...

SEN. KERRY: Again...

SEN. LIEBERMAN: ...we need to fix Social Security so it's there for the next generation.

MR. BROKAW: And that may include, and that may include an increase in payroll taxes.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: John McCain has said very clearly he doesn't want to raise any taxes, but he's also said, because he's a great negotiator, "I want to sit down with everybody the way Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill did in the '80s, and we're going to solve this problem." Just like we're going to make progress on health care and the energy crisis and climate change by breaking through the partisan gridlock. He's going to demand that we start to act not like Democrats or Republicans, but like Americans. That's what the people want us to do.

SEN. KERRY: Can I...

MR. BROKAW: Let's move on, let's move on, if we can, to foreign policy, to Iraq, because this past week President Bush talked about the possibility of drawing down troops, and he's going to shorten the tours from 15 months to 12 months in Iraq.

Senator Kerry, why is it so hard for Democrats to say the surge worked? It made a lot of this possible.

SEN. KERRY: Well, components of the surge made a difference. I'm just going to answer two things very quickly. First of all, and this is important, he just said that Barack Obama hasn't passed any major piece of legislature. He just passed the most landmark, comprehensive ethics reform in the United States Senate. It's now the law.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Excuse me...

SEN. KERRY: So it's just in effect. And secondly...

SEN. LIEBERMAN: ...that was Susan Collins, me...

SEN. KERRY: He...

SEN. LIEBERMAN: ...and Dianne Feinstein and John McCain.

SEN. KERRY: ...Barack Obama led the fight on the Democratic side on that. Secondly, secondly, the reason the gas effort is so fraudulent, Tom, is that the oil companies have 68 million acres currently, leases, available to them now, 40 million of them offshore, and they're not drilling there. Ninety-five percent of the Alaska oil shelf is open for drilling today, they're not drilling. It's a fraudulent issue.

Now, let me come to Iraq.

MR. BROKAW: But, nonetheless, Senator Obama may endorse the idea of offshore drilling.

SEN. KERRY: No, he doesn't personally, but if it takes a compromise to get America together...

SEN. LIEBERMAN: That's what I said.

SEN. KERRY: ...he's going to have to compromise.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: He, he really hasn't endorsed it.

SEN. KERRY: Well, anybody's going to have--he's not--he doesn't believe that that's the right course for America. He believes alternative energy is.

But let me come back to Iraq. On the surge, Joe and John McCain have both alleged that the surge created the "Anbar awakening." It did not. The Anbar awakening began in 2005 and 2006. One of the local leaders in a tribe in Anbar province, a fellow named Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi put together some 32 sheiks who came together. They organized what was called the Anbar Salvation Council. They then went out and took on al-Qaeda, and our military personnel adjusted with that at the time. The fact is that the Ramadi construction conference took place, and the administration didn't get a troop in there till after they'd made the political decision to become involved with the Americans. The surge added to that. If you add American troops to the equation, American troops can always provide some measure of security.

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