'Meet the Press' transcript for May 24, 2009

MR. GREGORY:  Right.  But--wait, but Speaker Gingrich, you make the point about how Vice President Cheney felt personally, personal fear.  And isn't President Obama's argument that fear as a basis of national security policy is not sustainable over time?  How do you come up with a sustainable legal framework, a sustainable national security policy?

REP. GINGRICH:  We, we...

MR. GREGORY:  Don't we elect leaders to transcend fear for lasting policies?

REP. GINGRICH:  Look, we sustained the Cold War against the Soviet Empire for 44 years because our national leadership came together and said to the country there are sufficiently great dangers to America to sustain our power worldwide.  I mean, we sustained against the Soviet Empire worldwide for 44 years.  Now, that requires us to have a--I think the first level of debate's simple:  How much should you worry about something truly terrible happening to America?  I belong to the wing that believes we live in an age when very few people using very dangerous weapons can cause incalculable damage, and I think we should take very strong steps to make sure that doesn't happen.

MR. GREGORY:  All right.

Senator Durbin, let me ask you this.  You've heard criticism from the right of President Obama.  There's also criticism from the left, and that is there is very little distinction between President Obama's approach to fighting terrorists and President Bush's approach, and there are numerous examples: military commission are still in place, targeted killings are going on, the issuing of state secrets, the detention of war criminals in a kind of middle ground who can't be released, who can't be tried.  The president is also for that.  Is there a difference between the two?

SEN. DURBIN:  First, let me tell you that America cowering in fear is not going to be a strong nation.  I disagree with Mr. Gingrich.  We can understand the threat, we can deal with it rationally, we can be strong and we will be safe with President Obama.  But this notion that fear is going to guide us is what brought us to the notion of weapons of mass destruction and this war in Iraq and all that it has cost us.  You know, Vice President Cheney said the other day without hesitation, "I'd do everything all over again." He hasn't learned any lesson from history.

Now, as far as President Obama's approach at the National Archives, he made it clear and he was open to the American people, and this is what he said:  there will be military commissions, but these are going to be commissions that are going to follow our constitutional values.  We're going to basically say that we're not going to have hearsay that has to be rebutted by a defendant.  We're going to allow for the right of counsel.  We're going to have the basic approaches under the law that the Supreme Court is going to demand this.

MR. GREGORY:  But do you, do you see that correlation between President Bush's approach and President Obama?

SEN. DURBIN:  I would say they'll both have military commissions, and we've had them back to the time of George Washington.  But the approach of President Obama is one that is closer to our Constitution and our rule of law.  And just consider this, in seven years in Guantanamo there were exactly three who were convicted by military commissions, and those were thrown out by the Supreme Court.  The--President Obama has learned from that lesson of history.  He's going to make sure that any military commission, military tribunal in the future is one that can be sustained by the courts.

MR. GREGORY:  Let me move on to the controversial issue of the House speaker currently, and that's Nancy Pelosi, and the fact that she accused the CIA of misleading Congress with regard to briefings about the Bush administration's so-called enhanced interrogation techniques.

Speaker Gingrich, you have said that Speaker Pelosi has disqualified herself from the office that she holds, and you wrote this this week about what may be motivating her:  "Why would Speaker Pelosi," you wrote, "escalate the small skirmish she found herself in over the 2002 briefing into a full-scale war with the CIA?  Perhaps it's because if America knew that Speaker Pelosi consented, fully informed and without complaint, to waterboarding back in '02, it would reveal the current liberal bloodlust over interrogations for what it is:  The Left's attempt to hunt down and purge its political opponents.  ... If Pelosi believed that waterboarding was justified in '02...then a policy of selectively using enhanced interrogation techniques in carefully circumscribed ways in order to prevent future attacks--in other words, the Bush Administration policy--is vindicated."

Senator Durbin, first to you.  Do you think that policy is vindicated?

SEN. DURBIN:  Well, I can just tell you this.  When it comes to this attack on Speaker Pelosi, there are those on the right who will do everything they can to divert attention from the real issue of the threat of terrorism, the interrogation techniques that have been used in the past and whether or not we can be stronger in the future.  They want to...

MR. GREGORY:  Do you believe that Speaker Pelosi consented to those techniques?

SEN. DURBIN:  No, I don't.  I think what--if you look at the record, and here's what it is, she was briefed in September of 2002.  She was told that some of these techniques, as I understand it, could be viewed as legal.  She wasn't told, as Time magazine has reported, that waterboarding had already been used 83 times.  All of those--Mr. Goss, Senator Graham, Senator Rockefeller, all the others who were involved in this don't agree with the conclusion that there was a complete and accurate briefing as to what had occurred up to that point when it came to waterboarding.

MR. GREGORY:  You, you speak often to this president.  Is President Obama behind Nancy Pelosi?

SEN. DURBIN:  I can tell you this.  He said publicly that he supports Speaker Pelosi, and I do as well.  She is a great leader, she is a person who is going to help the president bring us out of this economic crisis, deal with the issues of healthcare and energy that the American people really want us to focus on.

MR. GREGORY:  Are you concerned about the damage to morale at the CIA?

SEN. DURBIN:  I can tell you that with Leon Panetta there, they have an excellent leader.  It is a new day.  He's going to stand up for approaches at that agency which will help keep America safe.  And I think that most of those who work at the intelligence agencies realize we value them.  They're important allies in our war on terror.

MR. GREGORY:  Speaker Gingrich, some on the left have said for you to attack Speaker Pelosi this way is nothing but political payback.

REP. GINGRICH:  Well, let me say, first of all, I agree with Leon Panetta. Leon Panetta, the day after her statement, sent a message to every employee at the CIA, said, "We did brief accurately in 2002.  We do report legally.  It would be illegal to do what she's said, and we do not break the law." He came back the following Monday and said this kind of political attack on the CIA--he didn't name her by name, obviously, but he said these kind of political attacks on the CIA are damaging to morale and politicians should remember we are fighting two active wars and have a worldwide terrorist threat we're engaged with.  Now, I just think that that's a pretty firm statement of what was wrong with, with her press conference.  I think all she's got to do is go to the floor of the House and apologize.  She ought to say she, she exaggerated, that what she said was not true about the CIA.  And again, there are two different fights here.  What, what she did or didn't learn in 2002, a House ethics investigation can determine.  The question of what she said about the CIA that Thursday is flatly false and dishonest, and she ought to apologize to the country on the floor of the House and to the CIA for having said it.

MR. GREGORY:  Because she was critical of the CIA?

SEN. DURBIN:  I just wanted to--Mr. Gregory...

REP. GINGRICH:  No, because she, she said flatly they lie all the time to the Congress, which is, which is A, illegal; B, not true; and C, just a reminder, I mean, if you want people to risk their lives to defend America, it'd be nice to occasionally support them rather than smear them.

MR. GREGORY:  Senator:

SEN. DURBIN:  I just say that I'm afraid Mr. Gingrich is suffering from a little political amnesia here.  He's forgotten that in year 2007 that he criticized the National Intelligence Estimate relative to the capability of Iran to develop nuclear weapons and said that, if I can remember the quote correctly, I'm looking down here, that what they did damaged our national security and misled the American people.  Mr. Gingrich, would you like to make an apology to our intelligence agencies for what you said in 2007?

REP. GINGRICH:  I said, I, I said that particular report was intellectually dishonest.  It was a public, nonclassified report, and we were debating it.  I can also...

SEN. DURBIN:  Do you apologize?  Do you apologize?

REP. GINGRICH:  I can also--I said it was intellectually dishonest.

SEN. DURBIN:  Do you apologize?

REP. GINGRICH:  I didn't--I've never said the CIA lied to the Congress, which would be a--illegal, would be a felony.

SEN. DURBIN:  Well, what do you say about Republican Congressman Hoekstra, who did, in fact, say that the intelligence community had lied and misled the American people when it came to the killing of an individual in Peru?

REP. GINGRICH:  There, there's a...

SEN. DURBIN:  Should he apologize?

REP. GINGRICH:  Chairman Hoekstra, as he was at the time, was engaged in a specific incident.  The inspector general of the CIA actually did the right job.  The investigative board of the CIA did the right job.  It was a specific case.  They reported that it was wrong and the CIA actually insisted on telling Congress the truth.  And if you checked with Chairman Hoekstra, he'll tell you he agrees with me on this particular issue.

MR. GREGORY:  I, I just have a couple of minutes left and I want to get to a couple of more topics.  One is the Supreme Court and a vacancy that will be filled by President Obama.

Senator Durbin, when?  Will it come this week?

SEN. DURBIN:  I think it is going to come this week.

MR. GREGORY:  You think as early as Tuesday?

SEN. DURBIN:  Well, I, I've been told it's likely to come this week, but I don't know which day.

MR. GREGORY:  The, the--I spoke to a White House official this week who said it'll be clear what the president wants to accomplish when you see the nominee.  Can you interpret that?  What is it that the president wants to accomplish with this first nomination?

SEN. DURBIN:  I think the president's made it clear.  Understand, this is a man who, who's spent his life studying the law and the Constitution and teaching it.  He understands it.  I would, I would hate to go through that interview on constitutional issues with our president, because he knows a lot more about the Constitution than many people who serve as judges today.  And I think he's going to look for a person who understands the law, someone of high integrity and, as he said, someone who's in touch with the real world in terms of the real impact of constitutional decisions.

MR. GREGORY:  And I want to pick up on that point because, Speaker Gingrich, one of the things that then Senator Obama said in 2005 when he was opposing the nomination of John Roberts as chief justice, that when it comes to the 5 percent of difficult cases, he says, "In those difficult cases, the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge's heart." Does that trouble you?

REP. GINGRICH:  It doesn't trouble me, but I think this will be--this decision will be the test of his Notre Dame speech.  He said at Notre Dame we should come together.  He said we should try to find common ground.  Is he, in fact, going to nominate a moderate this week, or is he going to nominate somebody who in their judgments and in their rulings has proven to be radical? I think this will be one of the most important definitional moments of this administration, and we'll find out whether he meant the Notre Dame speech or whether it was just a nice speech on the way to a very radical administration. I don't know yet.  I'm, I'm looking forward to seeing who he nominates.  And I think it will tell us a great deal about this president and about this administration's future.

MR. GREGORY:  Let me ask you about the future of the Republican Party and the ongoing debate about who's the leader of the party.  Vice President Cheney said when it came to Colin Powell he didn't even consider him a Republican any longer.  Well, Secretary Powell--General Powell responded this week.  He said this:  "Rush Limbaugh says," effectively to me, "`Get out of the Republican Party.' Dick Cheney says, `He's already out.' I may be out of their version of the Republican Party, but there's another version of the Republican Party waiting to emerge once again." Do you think Colin Powell is part of that Republican Party?

REP. GINGRICH:  Absolutely.

MR. GREGORY:  You think Dick Cheney was wrong?

REP. GINGRICH:  Yeah.  I, I don't want to pick a fight with Dick Cheney, but I think, I think the fact is the Republican Party has to be a broad party that appeals across the country and that does so--I mean, we have the governor of Vermont, we have the governor of Rhode Island.  These, these are not states that are traditional Southern, right wing states.  The--to be a national party you have to have a big enough tent that you inevitably have fights inside the tent.  Ronald Reagan understood that.  And Reagan always used to say--and as you know, my wife Callista and I did--recently did a movie on Reagan.  And, and, and Reagan always used to say, "My fellow Republicans and those independents and Democrats who are looking for a better future." He consciously wanted the broadest possible coalition.  That's how he carried 49 states in 1984.  I think Republicans are going to be very foolish if they run around deciding that they're going to see how much they can purge us down to the smallest possible base.

MR. GREGORY:  When you were last here, I asked you if you were considering a run in 2012, you said probably not.

REP. GINGRICH:  Right.

MR. GREGORY:  Are you, are you thinking that through a little bit differently now?

REP. GINGRICH:  I'll, I'll be glad to accept an invitation in early 2011 to have that conversation, but I'm not...

MR. GREGORY:  So you're thinking about it?

REP. GINGRICH:  ...I'm not going to think about it till 2011.

MR. GREGORY:  All right, we're going to save the date.  Speaker Gingrich, thank you very much.

REP. GINGRICH:  Good to be here.

MR. GREGORY:  Senator Durbin, thank you as well.

SEN. DURBIN:  Thank you, too.

MR. GREGORY:  And coming next, a look inside the Obama/Cheney debate from this past week and a look ahead at the issues that will top the political conversation in the coming weeks:  a Supreme Court nominee, healthcare reform, the economy and energy.  Insights and analysis from our political roundtable: Rich Lowry, Michele Norris, Gene Robinson and Chuck Todd, only on MEET THE PRESS.

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