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'Meet the Press' transcript for Nov. 30, 2008
Broadcast videos, highlights |
 Netcast Nov. 30: Exclusive! First Lady Laura Bush talks about a cause dear to her heart: the lives of women in Afghanistan. She'll be joined by that nation's ambassador to the U.S., Said Jawad, to discuss the future of war-torn Afghanistan. Plus, businessman and author Ted Turner talks about his new book "Call Me Ted", the economy, foreign policy and his outlook on life. |
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MR. TURNER: Absolutely. They should have done it a long time ago. We did after the war with Vietnam and Vietnam fought a shooting war with us and we lost and we still have normalized relations with them. I mean, I don't think there's any, any hatred at all, and we killed three million Vietnamese during that war.
MR. BROKAW: Do you think 10 years from now we'll be off carbon-based fuels in this country?
MR. TURNER: I sure hope so. It's possible, but it's going to require--and that's, that's where the jobs could come from. It will create millions of jobs. And we don't just need solar panels and windmills and geothermal installations, we also need a new grid. It's going to cost about $1 trillion. But we need a new grid anyway that goes from coast to coast and border to border. So we can move the solar power from the Southwest where the best place to put solar panels are, out in the deserts of New Mexico, Arizona, Southern California and southern Nevada, and carry it--bring that electricity with a new digital grid all the way to New York. And then out on the Great Plains is the best place for wind. So we have to have a new grid, too, to move--to move this power from where it originates to where it's used.
MR. BROKAW: There's a very poignant part of "Call Me Ted," your book, toward the end when there's a discussion of faith and Christianity. Your former wife, Jane Fonda, discovered faith and became an active Christian. But your good friend Jimmy Carter also talked about it, and I'd like to share with our viewers what he had to say in your book.
"We have been distressed"--talking about Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter--"in the past when Ted has said things like `Christians are losers.' He knows I'm a Christian and he knows I'm not a loser, but he says things in the heat of the moment and often underestimates the permanence of what he says."
Did Jimmy Carter talk to you about becoming a better Christian?
MR. TURNER: Yes.
MR. BROKAW: You were in an early stage in your life, as you once said to me, kind of a hellfire and brimstone guy. You went...
MR. TURNER: I was. I went to a very religious school that had evangelists come periodically and I was saved, I don't know, six or seven times, including once at Billy Graham's Crusade.
MR. BROKAW: And how do you feel about it now at the age of 70?
MR. TURNER: I still pray when my friends are ill. I make the prayers fairly short because I don't want to load up the wires, there's a lot of messages going, I'm sure.
MR. BROKAW: Well, you said something else that I thought was very Turner-like when that came up. You were talking about praying for your friends, and one of your other friends said, "Ted, I thought you were an agnostic, didn't believe in God," and here's what you said. "I think God will let me in heaven; he may not let me sit on the 50 yard line, but I think I can get into the end zone."
MR. TURNER: I think that's true.
MR. BROKAW: And here's what Jane Fonda has...
MR. TURNER: Because, you know, I give a lot of money to those less fortunate than myself and that's one of the tenets of all religions. You know, the wealthy should help those less fortunate than themselves.
MR. BROKAW: And here's what...
MR. TURNER: Alms for the poor, right?
MR. BROKAW: Here's what your friend and former wife, Jane Fonda, had to say: "He believes that there's a God but he can't allow himself to have that become an event or an experiential revelation because that opens you up to everything and he can't truly open his soul to the Holy Spirit, or whatever you want to call it."
Does she have your number there?
MR. TURNER: Well, the very fact that we got divorced, obviously, means we disagreed about some things. And you know, I talk to her every week and I'm very fond of Fonda. But I don't agree with her about everything.
MR. BROKAW: Ted, I know how much you love the land. You've got a lot of it and I know how much you love the anthems to the land. This is a special edition of MEET THE PRESS. We've never done this before, but could you sing one verse of "Home on the Range" for us?
MR. TURNER: (Singing) Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam and the deer and the antelope play, where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day.
MR. BROKAW: Ted Turner. The name of the book is "Call Me Ted." And I'm pleased to do that, Ted.
MR. TURNER: Thank you, Tom.
MR. BROKAW: Thanks for being here.
MR. TURNER: My pleasure.
MR. BROKAW: And to read an excerpt of Ted's book, go to our Web site at mtp.msnbc.com.
Coming up next, our MEET THE PRESS minute. Eleanor Roosevelt and her impressions of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev from 51 years ago.
(Announcements)
MR. BROKAW: We're back. In our MEET THE PRESS minute, 51 years ago, former first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, appeared right here on MEET THE PRESS.
(Videotape, October 20, 1957)
MR. NED BROOKS: And welcome once again to MEET THE PRESS. Our guest is Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose world travels recently took her to Russia. Mrs. Roosevelt spent about 27 days in the Soviet Union. In the course of her visit, she was granted a privilege seldom given to foreign visitors, a three-hour interview with the communist leader Nikita Khrushchev. Mrs. Roosevelt went to Russia as a reporter. Mrs. Craig:
MS. MAY CRAIG: Mrs. Roosevelt, you have been quoted as describing Khrushchev as being cordial, simple, outspoken. How can you think that any communist, particularly a top official, can be simple?
MS. ROOSEVELT: Why, I meant when I said that, of course, that in his manner and in his way of receiving you, he was simple. I don't mean he's simple-minded, if that's what you think.
I saw him under, probably, the best auspices. Most of the people who see him see him at big parties where much drinking is going on, and I'd been told beforehand he's an impossible person, vulgar, drinking, disagreeable. He was none of those things.
MS. CRAIG: You were also quoted as saying you found him very likeable, though you disagreed with his views. How could you like anybody who's done what he did in supporting murders?
MS. ROOSEVELT: I did not mean that I found him likeable. I said he was the type of person, at least I meant to say, that could be likeable. Now, lots of people can be likeable who fundamentally you don't like.
He was a perfectly pleasant, agreeable person. Now, we differed on so many things that at one point I thought he was ready to throw me out.
MR. RICHARD CLURMAN: What is your feeling about the possibility of peaceful co-existence with the Soviet Union? Can America and Russia peacefully co-exist?
MS. ROOSEVELT: At the present moment, I think it will take some time. I--we're living in a time when everything is changing. I think that we have to consider that there may be changes there and there may be some changes here. I would not say that as they are today there would be any basis for co-existence. We can live in the same world, of course, but co-operatively, it would be difficult.
There's no use in belittling your rival. There's no use in putting your head in the sand and saying, "I don't want to know." It's much better to know because what we have to prove to the neutral world or the world that is judging between us all the time, is that with freedom, we can actually do more for the lives of people than they can do with their system. And that's the important challenge. That's what we have to meet. It can't be met just with guns.
(End videotape)
MR. BROKAW: Eleanor Roosevelt, another first lady with keen insights into the world.
That's all for today. We'll be back next week with an exclusive interview with President-elect Barack Obama. That's next Sunday right here on MEET THE PRESS. Because if it is Sunday, it's MEET THE PRESS.
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