'Meet the Press' transcript for Nov. 16, 2008

MR. BROKAW:  Let's move to American politics if we can.  Andrea Mitchell was the first to report last week that Senator Hillary Clinton was having conversations with Barack Obama, the job of secretary of state was on the table.  If not offered, at least there were talks around it.  What more do we know about that offer now and when can we expect some resolution?  They can't let it just dribble out there forevermore.

MS. MITCHELL:  No, they can't.  But their, their first priority has to be the economic side before they get this whole national security team together. There are serious conversations on both sides.  They met, which in itself is interesting.  You have to believe that he would not have invited her to Chicago, she would not have gone if it wasn't a high level of interest on both sides in this.  There are some problems.  What do you do with Bill Clinton? He would then not be--you know, he could not be the global ambassador on the world stage as, as openly as he has been, and would he then have to disclose the contributors, finally, to his library and foundation, who involve many foreign figures, we, we understand, yet to be identified?  And the ethics rules, the questionnaire that the new--the president-elect's team have put out, have questions that would be very hard for Bill Clinton to answer.  So that's obvious impediment, but it's--from what I'm being told, one that they believe they could bridge.  If this comes together, if this negotiation works, he would have her then out of politics in the 2010 and conceivably the 2012 election round.  But certainly in 2010.  She'd close down her PAC.  She would be in a contained space, if you will, and she would have this world stage, where she is blocked in the Senate.  She does not have health care; she made a bid for a subcommittee on health care and was pushed back hard by Senate leadership and by Teddy Kennedy, who said, "Excuse me, I'm still around. That's my agenda." Max Baucus, you know, the Senate Finance Chairman, launched a healthcare initiative the day after the election.  So she has no real options for leadership.  See does not have seniority in the Senate.  She needs a play--a place to be an active person.

MR. BROKAW:  And by the way, I heard very directly this week that Senator Kennedy, it's going to be full speed ahead on health care.

MS. MITCHELL:  Absolutely.

MR. BROKAW:  A number of people are saying we've got to defer it for a year. That is not his attitude at all.  He wants to go back to the Senate as soon as the lame duck session begins and start it.

Let's talk some more politics if we can.  Valerie Jarrett, who is very, very close to Barack and Michelle Obama, who was named this past week as the senior adviser in the White House.  There had been speculation that she would replace Barack Obama in the United States Senate.  Now there's a lot of speculation on Jesse Jackson Jr., a congressman from Chicago.  Are we about to see a whole new generation of young African-American politicians?  And what does that say to Jesse Jackson Sr.?

MR. SMILEY:  First of all, to Andrea's point about Hillary Clinton, I'm just laughing at the number of senators, even though they're in the majority, who are trying to get out of the U.S. Senate.  Kerry, Hillary, everybody wants out of the Senate for some reason, which I can't figure out.

That's said, to your point.  We--I'm part--Jesse Jr.--Jesse Jr. and I, Congressman Jackson, are the same age roughly.  We are part of the same generation.  We are the hope of Dr. King's dream; we are the hope of his father's generation.  So I think that African-Americans who, shall we say, are more chronologically gifted, who've experienced more, celebrate the fact that we now are becoming a nation that is more and more every day a country as good as its promise.  And so I don't think that the older generation takes offense to this.  They celebrate this Obama moment; they celebrate the fact that there may be another African-American in the Senate.  I do know, to the point you raised earlier, Tom, that as of today, given that Mr. Obama's resignation from the Senate is effective today, now there is no longer an African-American in the Senate.  For all the celebration about a black man in the White House, there is no African-American in the U.S. Senate.  That needs to be addressed. That's part of the pressure, I think, that the governor of Illinois, Blagojevich, has right now, to put an African-American in that seat, which is why Congressman Jackson's name keeps coming up.  That said, he's not the only African-American, indeed not the only person, obviously, on that list.  I think it's a foregone conclusion--not a foregone conclusion, rather, not a foregone conclusion that Jesse Jackson gets that particular seat.  The ultimate question is whether or not the person they give the seat for can hold on to that seat.  Can you run and win statewide?  And that's what they have to be considering.  And ultimately, it's not so much about Mr. Obama's politics now as it is about the governor's politics as well, but can you hold on to that seat?  I think that's ultimately what they need to be concerned about, not a particular person, but keeping that seat beyond two years from now when that seat comes up.

MR. BROKAW:  Tom, how important is it for Barack Obama to have prominent Republicans, if not in Cabinet postings in the administration, in the family of Obama, as he goes forward?

MR. FRIEDMAN:  You know, Tom, I think that's important.  Obviously, having a woman secretary of state would be important.  But I'd step back and say what are the unique conditions right now that actually should affect the actual job qualifications of the next secretary of state?  And for me, I'd want a bankruptcy specialist because I think the next secretary of state's biggest job is going to be managing weakness, not, not strength.  Managing the weakness of Russia, managing the weakness of China.  I might go back to George Bush Sr., Brent Scowcroft.  "Hey, guys, what was it like to manage the collapse of the Soviet Union?" Because I think the biggest problem in the next couple years, given this financial crisis, is going to be managing the weakness of some of the big players in the world, not their strength.

MS. KAY:  I love the fact that the secretary of state has now become "Madam Secretary of State" almost by default; that you have this title that's been put in front of it.

One of the things that interested me about the whole floating of the Hillary argument and whether she's going to be offered this job, not--and we don't know whether she's been offered this job or not--is why did they do it like this?  Having had this flawless campaign almost, in terms of discipline and management for two years, what, what does it gain them by putting Hillary Clinton's name out there as even a possibility in this public way?  Because if she's not now offered the job, you have a lot of her supporters who have got very excited in the last couple of days about the idea of "Madam Secretary." And I, I'm not quite sure how politically this advantages them, because they, they've slightly boxed themselves into a corner where they have to offer it to her now.

MS. MITCHELL:  Well, let me just say that they were not eager to put it out. This was not floated as a, as a trial balloon.  And her own people rigorously refused to even comment on it, refused to even confirm that she was in Chicago for the meeting.  So that's not the way it did come out.  It was something that, that evolved over the course of about 10 days of reporting.

But that said, it shows a certain largeness of spirit.  The "Team of Rivals," our colleague and friend Doris Kearns Goodwin, he certainly has said repeatedly during the campaign and since that he believes in this notion.  He has John McCain coming tomorrow to Chicago.  That is a very important step, they say, that he sees John McCain as his colleague and partner on a number of issues--climate change and others--in the Senate.  You almost see John McCain potentially emerging as more of a partner than Mitch McConnell, right now the Senate Republican leader, with Barack Obama.  He really believes in this. There are others who have been mentioned--Chuck Hagel and we, we know Bob Gates at defense, and other Republicans, his good friend Dick Lugar, who has not been persuaded to come to the State Department so far.  So he really sees this in a very bipartisan way, in the true spirit of that.  And that's the approach that Obama and his advisers believe he has to, he has to take to solve these problems.

MR. BROKAW:  Briefly, do you think the future of the Republican Party is much more in the hands of Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana...

MS. MITCHELL:  Absolutely.

MR. BROKAW:  ...and Tim Pawlenty, the governor of Minnesota, than it is the people in the Senate in Washington?

MS. MITCHELL:  I do, and I think it's more in their hands, frankly, than Sarah Palin's, from her performance at the Republican Governors in Miami.  She was not substantive; they were.  They brought things to the table.  And these problem-solving issues, as our, you know, friend David Broder has often mentioned, they come up in the statehouses.  These are the laboratories.  It's so rare--it's not been since John F.  Kennedy that we've had a president-elect from the Senate.

MR. SMILEY:  But Jindal or--Jindal or Pawlenty, with all due respect, though, can't advance this party if they do not learn how to play on a larger stage in the most multicultural...

MS. MITCHELL:  Absolutely.

MR. SMILEY:  ...multiracial, multiethnic America ever--women, youth.  They've got to learn to play on a larger stage, and they haven't shown they can do that as yet.

MR. BROKAW:  All right, thank you all very much.

We'll be right back.

(Announcements)

MR. BROKAW:  A personal note, if you will.  Last Thursday, my mother, Jean Conley Brokaw, turned 91.  She was born in 1917.  She survived the '20s, the darkest days of the Great Depression, World War II, took us through the '50s, the '60s.  She was there for the millennium, and she's still going strong. And as she keeps going strong, she keeps me going strong because I have learned so much from her.  Happy birthday, Grandma Jean.

That's all for today.  Green Is Universal all this week on NBC.  Watch for special reports on the environment.  We'll be back next week because, if it's Sunday, it's MEET THE PRESS.

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